Noise

Slow burn: The Clientele lights ‘Bonfires on the Hearth’

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THE CLIENTELE
Bonfires on the Hearth
(Merge)

By Kimberly Chun

“Charmed, I’m sure,” you wanna mutter humbly as the guitar vamps enter sparkling and B-3 commences humming on “I Wonder Who We Are,” the opening track of the Clientele’s latest, Bonfires on the Hearth. Less purple-shaded and melancholy than 2003’s The Violet Hour (Merge), less hard-cornered and haunted than 2005’s Strange Geometry, and further embellished with sitar drone and autumnal brass, Bonfires shows the London band still tucked into its distinct universe, a nook of ‘60s-wracked pop that’s nostalgic but never truly derivative. It’s mood music that finds its strength in softness.

Sonic Reducer Overage: Prefuse 73, Mates of State, and more

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The way to prep yourself for more rain — go out a lot.

Mates of State
The once-SF based Kori Gardner and Jason Hummel Re-Arrange themselves and land at two different SF spots in one fell swoop. With the Red Wine Boys and John Hodgman. Sun/31, 8 p.m., $25 advance. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. (415) 820-9669. Also Mon/1, 8 p.m., $20. Cafe du Nord, 2170 Market, S.F. (415) 861-5016.

By Kimberly Chun

The way to prep yourself for more rain — go out a lot.

Mates of State
The once-SF based Kori Gardner and Jason Hummel Re-Arrange themselves and land at two different SF spots in one fell swoop. With the Red Wine Boys and John Hodgman. Sun/31, 8 p.m., $25 advance. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. (415) 820-9669. Also Mon/1, 8 p.m., $20. Cafe du Nord, 2170 Market, S.F. (415) 861-5016.

Oh Captain, My Captain
The Portland, Ore., indie-rock it sweetly past the point of no return. With the Burning of Rome and the Aimless Never Miss. Sun/31, 9 p.m., $6. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. (415) 923-0923.

Nevermint (Grand Lake) from Bob Thayer on Vimeo.

Grand Lake
Oakland is for lovers — and these lake-lubber indies, playing this SF Indie Fest date. With Two Sheds, Fake Your Own Death, and kuma/koshka. Tues/2, 8:30 p.m., $10. Thee Parkside, 1600 17th St., SF. (415) 503-0393.

Nite Trax: Tiger & Woods

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Marke B. goes on about recent dance tracks he loves. See the previous Nite Trax here.

Edit nation is still in full effect, with some amazing laptop Special Extended Disco Versions being put out by the likes of Wolf + Lamb, Tensnake, Soul Clap, and our very own Golden Goose — taking those old, warped, uncanny soul classics into new territory with contempo-technological effects for the post-minimal nightlife set. Turn on the red light.

 

This one by Tiger & Woods, oddly titled “Gin Nation” (a swipe at England somehow, where the stunning 1982 original of this song was extremely popular?), is on everyone’s radar lately. T&G claim they are “shrouded in mystery!” — oh so trendy right now as the underground balks against Internet instant access to retain some allure, and get back that white label feeling (sans vinyl of course.) The echoey build and chopped verses add smoothly up to a fantastic climax. If anything’s coming out of these “closer edits,” it’s an exciting reconstruction of traditional song (and traditional techno) structures ….

Here’s the original, “Music and Lights” from one of my childhood faves, Imagination (big ups Leee John). See the Top of the Pops appearance with equally stunniing outfits here.

Gonna mixtape you up in my love

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Damn straight. Photo via tapedeck.org

Mixtapes were the bomb, right? They represented dedication; time spent crouching by your boombox, starting and stopping and racing for the ‘record’ button when that song came on the radio (early piracy?). The order of songs, the meaning of songs… remember when you’d even record sweet nothings in between tracks for that special someone?

The last mixtape in my possession was made for me by one of my best friends (shout out to you, A cup!) when we were 15 years old, to bring on my exchange student summer in Mexico. It contained the following classics:

1. “The Bad Touch” (the ‘Discovery Channel’ song) by the Bloodhound Gang
2. “I Get Around” by Tupac Shakur
3. “Thug Passion” by Tupac Shakur
4. “Ojos Asi” by Shakira
5. “Bye Bye Bye” by N*SYNC

Equal parts gangster, pervert, Latinphile and vapid teenybopper; I must have listened to it hundreds of times. It was perversely enjoyable trying to translate Bloodhound Gang lyrics to my host mom the day she let me play the tape in her minivan. That mix was me, analog.

And it so it is with a certain fondness I look forward to the San Francisco Mixtape Society’s second quarterly tape exchange. Come with a tape full of memories, leave with someone else’s, down a few, partake in raffles with prizes from Matador Records and, of course, enjoy the sweet, sweet melodies of cut and pasted audio pleasure. Fyi, the theme of the afternoon is “Cities vs. Towns.” It’s enough to make you toss your Ipod and realize- with an unpleasant start- that your car no longer has a tape deck. Oh, fickle technology!

SF Mixtape Society get-together
Sun/31 4-6 p.m., free
The Make-Out Room
3225 22nd St., SF
(415) 647-2888
www.sfmixtapesociety.com

Strange sounds: “Trimpin” hits the Red Vic

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This is what genius is made of. Toy monkeys, Bunsen burners, turkey basters, wooden shoes, a 10,000 volt neon transformer, water. Or at least, this is the shape of inspired thought in “Trimpin: The Sound of Invention,” a film playing this weekend at the Red Vic Movie House whose focus is on a sound sculptor creating fantastic sculptures of instruments that are actually played by intricately tuned computer programs.


“Trimpin: The Sound of Invention” playing this weekend at the Red Vic Movie House

Never heard of Trimpin? Maybe you’ve caught a glimpse of the German born artist’s installation at Seattle’s Experience Music Project, ‘If VI was IX.’ It’s creation is followed in the movie; a self-tuning stack of 700 guitars piled 50 feet high, programmed to play songs from Scottish ballads to punk rock- even a genre created by Trimpin that he calls “kingk rock.” The instruments soar from the museum’s floor like some stirring auditory tornado that is its own conductor, creating an enveloping sound experience for its audience. Filmmakers have done us a great service by documenting the development and implementation of ‘If VI was IX’- it is not every artist that has the cranial space to conceive of such a project.

Trimpin is a difficult artist to categorize, but “The Sound of Invention” tries to cover all the bases. He is shown in his capacities as a composer, a mechanical/computer engineer, a lover of auditory pleasures, a savant. He makes sound art from unlikely sources- see my list that begins this post- and uses them for all ranges of musical forms, from the known to the previously unimagined. This is the first time the world has gotten such a close look at the man- Trimpin has never sought representation by a dealer or gallery, and up to the release of the movie, had never recorded the soundtracks created by his brainchildren commercially.

But hey, here they are, all tied up with a neat cinematic bow- sounds like… a great flick.

“Trimpin: The Sound of Invention”
Fri/29 7:15, 9:15 (through Sun/31), $6-9
Red Vic Movie House
1727 Haight, SF
(415) 668-3994
www.redvicmoviehouse.com

Live Shots: Phoenix at the Fillmore, 01/26/2010

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Text and photos by Ariel Soto

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I remember the first time I heard the music of the amazing French band Phoenix (http://www.wearephoenix.com/). I was in college and some kid in my Spanish class gave me a copy of their first album, “United,” and I sat in my tiny closet-sized, pink wallpapered room and played it over and over again. When I find music I like, I play it ad nauseam, driving everyone around me crazy. That album also became the background to many a make-out session with my now fiance in that teeny pink room. Today when I listen to Phoenix’s music, it’s like downing a huge glass of sweet nostalgia.

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Last night they performed at the Fillmore. The show was packed with lip-syncing Phoenix devotees, who bounced up and down to each intoxicating piece with syncopated perfection, which was actually kind of frightening when the floor began to bounce with them (eeek!). The band, which just released a new album last year titled Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, was contagiously energized and fantastic throughout the whole set, as they disappeared and reappeared from inside clouds of smoke and a wildly colorful light show. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one reminiscing during the concert because Phoenix’s music is the perfect medium for making fond memories.

Party Radar: Andy Butler, Prefuse 73, Poleng closing

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So much goodness (and a little sad — see: Poleng Closing Party) out there in SF partyland. So, so much — in fact it’s like a creative explosion. Besides umpteen parties for Haiti this week, a great OK Hole, some soulful Anane, and a bit of wobble from DJ Krush, here’s a few more parties you may enjoy …

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Hercules and Love Affair (Andy Butler DJ set)

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Butler in Butt mag

We could be mad at Hercules and Love Affair founder Andy Butler for stealing our precious DJ Jason Kendig away to tour the world (and, yes, have a love affair). But the deep-disco-reminiscent music’s just so good! He and Jason will rock Vessel on Wednesday with Honey Soundsystem’s Pee Play and BT Magnum.

Hercules and Love Affair DJ set
Wed/27, 10 p.m., $10
Vessel
85 Compton, SF
www.vesselsf.com

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Last Call: Poleng Closing Party — Haiti Relief

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Sake One helps bid adieu

Oh man, one of the cutest spaces in the city is succumbing to the recession — but in style, donating all the proceeds of its final party to Oxfam for Haiti. We had some good times … Join Bay hip-hop and funk heavyweights Sake One and J-Boogie, Mr. E, Vinroc, Proof, Hakobo, King Most, Prince Aries, Haylow, Cutso, DJ Mel, Ant One, Green Tea, Shred One, Andy C, Chicken Skratch, Umami, Green B, BT Magnum, and Binaca! to bid farewell …

Last Call: Poleng Closing party
Fri/29, 9pm, sliding scale donation $5-10
Poleng Lounge
1751 Fulton, SF
all proceeds go towards Haiti earthquake relief
via www.oxfam.org

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Prefuse 73

Lush and chunky east Coast beats (I totally stole that description from someone else’s YouTube comments because it works) from the sexy Guillermo Scott Herren — no, not Gil Scott-Heron — at Slim’s. He’ll be joined by future-dub amazeball Gaslamp Killer for extra wow factor. This is the one to smoke up and get down too …

Prefuse 73
Tue/2, 8 pm, $20
Slim’s
333 11th Street, SF
www.slims-sf.com

Snap Sounds: Beach House

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By Amber Schadewald

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BEACH HOUSE

Teen Dream

(Sub Pop)

Romantic and eloquently sewn, the latest release from Beach House is sure to make you swoon. Teen Dream reminisces of a lonely dance floor, surrounded by glowing lanterns, slight piano, sliding guitar and soft lavender scents. Victoria Legrand’s vocals burn with grace and pair flawlessly with simple tambourine and lingering electronics for an album that deserves a full listen.

Snap Sounds: The Crêpes

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By Johnny Ray Huston. View the previous Snap Sound here.

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THE CRÊPES

What Else?

(Information)

Balearic goes cuddlecore, as a member of Studio crafts acoustic music gentle enough for Sarah Records lovers. Sounds like the Field Mice on vitamins in the sunshine.

The CrÊpes, “What Else?”

Snap Sounds: Washed Out

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By Johnny Ray Huston. See the previous Snap Sound here.

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WASHED OUT

Life of Leisure

(Mexican Summer)

Forget Neon Indian, and hold the verdict on Memory Tapes — here’s the valedictorian of the chillwave, glo-fi, hypnagogic pop brigade. Ignore the blog backlash, because "Hold Out" is too gorgeous for the movies, and "Feel It All Around" is 10cc’s "I’m Not in Love" for the 21st century.

Washed Out, “Feel It All Around”

Sonic Reducer Overage: Phoenix, White Buffalo, Dizzy Balloon, and more

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Thought this week was a wash-out? There’s still time to look in and dry off here.



White Buffalo

You catch some stately musings at a solo acoustic performance by the West Coast singer-songwriter. With Joe Firstman. Sat/23, 9:30 p.m., $10-$12. Café du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. (415) 861-5016.

Dizzy Balloon
Is this fivesome the most radio-ready local indie pop combo to bust out lately? With Forrest Day, Ghost and the City, and AB and the Sea. Sat/23, 8:30 p.m., $15-$18. Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. (415) 522-0333.

Hypno5e
The Montpellier, France, metallists oversee the “Metal as Art” tour. With Revocation, Binary Code, and Name. Sat/23, 8 p.m. Metro, 630 Third St., Oakl. (510) 763-1146.

Snap Sounds: Cobra Killer

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By Johnny Ray Huston

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COBRA KILLER

Uppers and Downers

(Monika)

German funny girls together outrageously. Pole dance music nonpareil. Weird and witty samples, Chinese food fixations, and cameos by Jon Spencer and Thurston Moore. Electroclash can kiss their wine-soaked asses — check the YouTube recording studio vids.

A children’s treasury of Party Effects vids

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By Marke B.

This week in my Super Ego clubs column, I write about “East Bay acid thugz” crew Party Effects, and its attempts to revive “true electro” — as well as crash your iPhone. But it’s its hyperdimensional party store aesthetic that really grabs me, as demonstrated in some of the vids below. The PFX online party — at www.partyeffects.biz on Fri/22 — should see some more absolutely stunning uses of, yes, party effects.

Sarah Palin, “meat” Moby

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Gotta love mega-vegetarian Moby’s take on a choice niblet from Sarah Palin’s recent memoir (does the presidential hopeful always swipe lame T-shirt slogans for her writings – frightening!). Here it is from his blog:

“ok, so sarah palin is releasing a book. and it’s filled with some insightful, thoughtful gems, like: ‘here’s my philosophy on being a carnivore: If God had not intended for us to eat animals, how come He made them out of meat?’ -sarah palin.

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“well, mrs. palin, let’s look a bit more closely at what you’ve written. you believe that god intended for us to eat animals because they’re made out of meat. ahem. i mean, i’m not a professional logician, but i can see that the extension of your logic might lead you to some places with which you might be uncomfortable. bear with me, ok?

“your logic sort of stands as:

“1 meat is good (due to the fact that you like it)

“2 animals are made out of meat (which is obvious, as meat is the stuff that surrounds their bones)

“3 thus eating animals is good (and divinely sanctioned).

“the problem, of course, being that other things are also made out of meat. like, well, people. and doggies and kitties. and cute little human babies. so if we follow your logic, mrs palin, you are actually suggesting that god intended for us to eat humans and dogs and cats and human babies, as these things are all technically made out of meat. i’m not even being swiftian, i’m just exposing sarah palin’s thoughts to some simple logic. which might be problematic, as she is also the person who once talked about looking out her window and seeing vladimir putin staring back (although he’s technically 8,000 miles away, unless he’s recently moved to kamchatka). or perhaps they do things differently in the palin household, who knows. perhaps she really does think that we’re intended to eat humans and kittens and babies, as god did make them (aka-us, in some cases) out of meat. i meah, let’s be clear, she’s a crazy sociopath, so anything is possible.

“-moby”

Fly zone: SF’s Petracovich lifts off

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PETRACOVICH
Crepusculo
(Red Buttons)

By Kimberly Chun

At moments sounding like the next girl wonder to score an iTunes hit by way of One Tree Hill, at others resembling a girlish Ray Davies wandering west of the Village Green, Jessica Peters Malmberg of the Bay-based Petracovich is something of a local treasure –underappreciated, unpeggable, undeniably talented. Here, the vocalist and multi-instrumentalist toys with a more acoustic yet full-bodied sound than that found on her last, more electronics-riddled full-length, We Are Wyoming (Red Buttons, 2005). She’s surrounded by a nimbus of glistening piano notes and banjo plucks on “Mocking Bird” and bathed in stately brass, spunky vibes, and earthy cello on “I’ll Return as Waterbird.” Yes, fowl dart through Crepusculo as if they were racing to escape a Neko Case petting zoo. Rest assured, Malmberg keeps matters from growing too precious: there’s even hints of grit and bassy backbone to tunes like the orchestral indie-folk “Sleep It Off/Lie Down.”

Test Slideshow

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Is Sade the new Lil Wayne?

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Curiouser and curiouser … Two years ago every rhymer and her father’s indie rockstar wannabe mother was spouting vanilla skrilla all over LIl Wayne’s “A Milli.” And now, no sooner that a month after the leak of Sade’s exquisitely amazing new joint (yes, that Sade – and I’m certainly not alone in this opinion, plus just listen) a milli rappers seem to be taking a shine. Not all the flows hold up, of course, and Ghostface’s is just plain grafted on. But it’s nice to hear some heretofore unknown regional talent like Leech of Gran Rapids or Detroit’s righteous flowlogic get in the game. Here’s a little rundown so you can be the judge…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbZetvD5gSQ&feature=player_embedded

Kool Keith’s holiday tip: Eat like a 98-year-old

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Tired of stressing on the visiting family, appropriating food without asking during the holidays? Dig these words of wisdom from truth-teller Kool Keith — on how to stay cool when it comes to the fridge food.

Party Radar: Bootie moves to Mezzanine this month

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Hear ye, hear ye: Biweekly monster mashup party Bootie’s usual home, DNA Lounge, is closed for the month of January as part of a settlement with the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, which sited it for supposed “lewd behavior.” Ugh.

But the mashup must go on, temporarily at Mezzanine this month, with DJs A+D and Jay-R, plus a special Future Universal room this Saturday, with Sarah Delush, Mario Muse, Kidhack, and Interrobang, who wins DJ name of the year already.

In other delicious mashup news — is Christina Aguilera-meets-Julian Casablancas masterwork “A Stroke of Genius” really the song of the decade? You betcha, Freelance Hellraiser.

Stabs and jabs: Hawnay Troof peels back another layer

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While you were dozing, longtime Bay maven, XBXRX frontman, and KIT drummer Vice Cooler has been busy evolving. This fall’s Daggers at the Moon both cuts to the bone, taking a stab at a kind of ruthless “troof,” and takes the music to more complicated places than before. This time out, the man was assisted by co-producer and mixer Greg Saunier of Deerhoof — he also called in contributions from friends and artists like High Places’ Mary Pearson, Grouper’s Liz Harris, Erase Errata’s Jenny Hoyston, Evangelista’s Carla Bozulich, and the Melvins’ David Scott Stone. All of which makes for a rich, collaborative brew. It’s the most hip-hop — and experimental — release by the one-man band to date.

Richard Youngs slips out ‘Under Stellar Stream’

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Richard Youngs is a shaman of sorts — of the neodruid variety. With Under Stellar Stream, his latest solo collection of compositions, the English artist compels listeners to stop and pay heed to the small moments, the cycles of life, and the minimal music of repetition. His voice also sounds like it’s gained new strength: it’s clarion-like on numbers like the beautifully spacious “Cluster to a Star.” I keep returning to the second track, augmented with sparse bass and slowly ascending and unfolding organ: “All day Monday and Tuesday, the fuel of day, the fuel of day. All day Monday and Tuesday, the machine of time, the machine of time,” he intones, effectively conjuring the sacred lodged in the everyday.

Espers: high-maintenance psych rock that hopes to hang in there and be of use to humans

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Espers sailed through the Independent not long ago, spreading their ecstatic breed of folk rock tither and fro. I spoke to Meg Baird before the date, while she was getting ready for a show in the band’s hometown of Philadelphia.

SFBG: How did you approach this new album, III (Drag City)? Were you working with any particular narrative or set of images?

Meg Baird: We didn’t have anything that concrete as far as unified images go. We did kind of talk and get a sense of different places it would be coming from, especially in relationship to II. And we had a big hodgepodge of common ground where we thought it might come from.

We thought about things like new world colonialism, things being above ground instead of underground, something that would be a good counterpoint to the dense underworld of II. Something had landed, in comparison to the space place that II generated. Exuberance, weird Christianization.

Just a common sense of images or feelings. We tend to just write when we write. It’s really loose, more of a guide, so it feels like there’s a sense to everything. Not so that it’s a hard and fast rule — it’s just a way to talk about things.

SFBG: One also gets a sense that there’s a narrative there?

MB: We’re really not that narrative. Again it’s just trying to find a common ground of images. I think even with thinking of things like ships, boats, The Heart of Darkness. It’s so big. It just makes a little more fun when we can come up with a palette of common things. It’s really about tone and sounds — the imagistic stuff is a fluffy way to talk about it. It’s always about tone and feel.

SFBG: So “Trollslända” is not about trolls?

MB: That’s actually a Swedish word for dragonfly. Helena [Espvall], the cellist in the band, is Swedish. We like to have a Swedish language nod in every record.

SFBG: How does Espers write songs?

MB: It’s very ensemble-based, that’s for sure. Which makes it a little tense. I think we have a slightly tense presence on the live front because things are pretty worked out and rehearsed but we’re kind of not sure how it’s going to work at any moment. Especially because the band’s not leader-based. It doesn’t have that dynamic to the band, even if someone is playing a lead part for us. It’s never gone that way for us in a live setting.

SFBG: What was the weirdest show ever for Espers?

MB: Something really weird happened at a beautiful show — formerly the HockHocking Festival in Nelsonville, Ohio. We were invited to play by Michael Hurley — it was a beautiful outdoor festival and somehow people got in a fight right by the stage. It was only happening on my side of the stage — I found it really upsetting that this throw-down fight was happening, especially since it was such an intense environment.

SFBG: Espers are paranormal creatures — is that something you folks believe in?

MB: It’s cool that that’s in there. The name is pretty simple — it’s a reference to a book that Greg [Weeks] had, a book thinking about intellectualism as a form of social deviancy. There was a chapter on a cult in North Carolina — they didn’t use their names. They just referred to themselves as espers.

SFBG: Members of Espers have worked with other performers like Vetiver and Vashti Bunyan — what brings you back together after those other projects?

MB: Wow, it would be hard to describe exactly, which is probably why we like it. There’s something there in the dynamic that we don’t get anywhere else. I don’t know. Now that we know each other so well, it’s just a known quality that there’s a dynamic coming only from the group. It definitely feels like a real collaboration, not just, there’s a leader and here’s a song and back it up. I guess that’s why we like it. It’s always going to be bigger than ourselves — you’re putting a lot into it, but it’s going to be more than the one thing you’re doing.

SFBG: The album art is so beautiful — what’s the story behind it?

MB: Oh, yeah, we’re so pleased with album art. That came from the goofy concepts I was telling you about in the beginning, when we were just getting a feel for the record. Brook [Sietinsons] had this book on a woman artist, Xavier Schipani — it seemed to jive with some of the things we were talking about. She did a new drawing based on ideas we were throwing around.

SFBG: It’s about community-building?

MB: I think it would be a little more cynical than that. It’s about colonialism, too. It’s not all good. Of course, when people were there they had to build community and all those things — we’re just looking at it in a realistic and nonromantic way.

I might be more interested in it because of my interest in early American music. That comes from a family connection. My family is all from Appalachia, from way back — that’s part of the reason why I got interested in folk music.

SFBG: If Espers could be a tree, what would it be?

MB: Probably something very, very high maintenance. Hopefully one that will live… long. That hung in there for a while and maybe had some use to humanity with shade or fruit or something useful rather than pure ornamentation.

2K Top 10: Erik Morse’s best IDM/ home-listening/ lounge-chair electronica of the noughties

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Continuing our Decade on Music coverage, here’s ambi-eared Guardian writer Erik Morse’s list, “in no particular order…”

1. Christian Fennesz, Endless Summer (Mego, 2001)
The paradigm of Mego’s electroacoustic “sound”, Fennesz’s ode to breezy, oceanic pop is a 21st century masterpiece rivaling the work of Brian Wilson, Eno and Kevin Shields. Tracks deftly alternate from pixilated seascapes to reverbed vistas. While the sheets of static and rhythmic glitches invite close listening throughout much of Endless Summer, it is Fennesz’s unique attention to acoustic melody that elevates this album toward a kind of blissful simplicity and an echelon all its own. An utterly indescribable musical experience.

Stand-out tracks: “Caecilia”, “Shisheido”

2. Raymond Scott, Manhattan Research Inc. (Basta, 2000)
The compilation release of the decade, Basta’s two CD treasure chest of Raymond Scott’s jerry-rigged exotica provides hours of bleeps, squiggles and zoinks. Collected from his upstate New York studio work in the 50s and 60s, tracks include radio-jingles, one-off experiments and the cosmic sounds of home-built instruments. In his sonic genius, Scott anticipated every seminal electronic artist of the last fifty years, from Kraftwerk to DJ Spooky to Aphex Twin.

Stand-out tracks: “Cindy Electronium”, “Don’t Beat Your Wife Every Night”

3. Gas, Pop (Mille Plateaux, 2000)
One of many monikers of Cologne musician and label founder, Wolfgang Voigt, Gas represented the vanguard of German ambient at the turn of the century. The final release in a series that included albums Gas, Zauberberg and Konigforst, Pop takes its titular namesake as its ultimate objective, delivering heartaching loops and Voigt’s omnipresent kkickdrum in an atmosphere as haunting as the Schwarzwald of Deutschland. Pop would also serve as an inspiration for Voigt’s massively successful Pop Ambient series.

Stand-out tracks: “Track 7”

4. Child’s View, Funfair (Bubble Core, 2000)
Drum and bass DJ Nobukazu Takemura might very well be the true heir of exotica savants, Raymond Scott and Danny Elfman. Child’s View, one of his side-projects, takes the Japanese musician’s love of heavily processed beats and glitches and combines them with calliope, vibraphone and other carnivalesque tones. Funfair sounds futuristic and retro, digital and phonographic, a testament to Takemura’s mastery of both cutting edge electronica and traditional pop.

Stand-out tracks: “The Cradle of Light” “Assi Que Dodo”

5. Philip Jeck, Stoke (Touch, 2002)
Plunderphonic turntablist extraordinaire Philip Jeck takes Dansette soundscaping to its most extreme in Stoke. Using warped and broken vinyl as his base material, Jeck spins obsolescent straw into gold. Rather than emphasizing rhythmic scratching and beat, Jeck improvises with tactile textures, swirling phases and haunting voices, then edits the results into concise five minute études.

Stand-out tracks: “Lambing”, “Below”, “Close”

SCENE: Lazer Sword zaps the boom-blap

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By Michael Krimper. From SC ENE: The Guardian Guide to Nightlife and Glamour, on stands in the Guardian now!

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Lazer Sword photo by Beryl Fine

San Francisco-bred electronic duo, Lazer Sword, has a secret weapon. Bryant Rutledge (a.k.a. Low Limit) and Antaeus Roy (a.k.a. Lando Kal) have developed a musically enhanced dehydration gun that zaps the sweat out of dance crowds like a soul-sonic Super Soaker. There’s no escaping it. Inside investigators report that this weapon emerged mysteriously from a Mission District apartment building in 2006, conceived from a reactive mixture of 1980s sci-fi psychedelia and a futuristic bass-rattling force unanticipated by even the most forward-thinking predictions of the oncoming 2010s. It’s manufactured out of grime-ridden computer technology and 8-bit video game parts, designed with the stuttering ferocity of electro-house synthetics and drum machines, and blessed by the hustlers and gangstas of swagger rap. Welcome to Lazer Sword’s boom blap.

And just like one of those vintage sci-fi films, Rutledge and Roy seem to be on their way to world domination. The duo just returned from their second European tour, slaying dance floors from London, England, to Bialystok, Poland. “Crowds overseas are pretty open to electronic music in general,” says Rutledge, “but I get the feeling that two guys jamming on their midi controllers making weird rap beats mixed with dolphin noises and Hanna Barbera samples is a little different and new for them.” Unabashed, Lazer Sword welcomes the challenge of converting unknowing club fiends, wallflowers, and beat heads alike to their leftfield, electro hip-hop bounce. “There’s always an awesome feeling when the crowd doesn’t know what to expect at first,” Roy weighs in, “then over time, cats are dripping in sweat and falling over themselves.”