Lovecraft-inspired music is nothing new, and it is usually subtler than this. But there’s clearly some love on display here. You can listen to their similarly-themed “Children of Dagon” at their Myspace. And I really like the revival bit, which works both with the message and the 1930′s HPL at home frame. Though the idea of Howard, having transitioned from his earlier fallen patrician attitudes to his New Deal-era quasi-socialism, listening to a southern fried revival is a little jarring.
On the other hand, while the study is stocked with modern Cthuliana, having a bunch of odd art and idols is not inaccurate in spirit. HPL did indeed collect and enumerate in his letters various artifacts and weird art in his possession, virtually all gifts from more financially stable friends. These items included some sort of two Maya or Mexican “eikons,” an African flint tool, an Egyptian ushabti funerary figure, a carved wooden Balinese monkey sculpture, a Japanese idol, a Chinese vase, and an Asian bird statue carved from black horn that Lovecraft dubbed the “Bird of Space.”
(Apologies for the cheesy youtube. I was unable to find the song streaming online anywhere.)
Matt Berry has released 2 albums. Opium (2005) and Witchazel (2009). He laces vintage gilden threads into the polyester of his albums. (Did I really just type that?) I usually describe his music as “woodland fantasy prog-rock”. Matt’s music is really really good. Those who haven’t heard it yet may be expecting humour, however, Matt’s natural ability to seep hilarity as a person and as an actor is separate from his musical endeavors. Although I do feel his whimsy is definately present in the musical arrangements. Matt plays organ, piano, synthesiser, guitar, bass, and some percussion. But of course, let’s not forget that voice. The Pheasant is my favourite song on Witchazel. A 9 minute epic that takes you on a very satisfying journey, much like a 5 course meal. I was lucky enough to see it performed live in London in a small venue in Hoxton. Definately a blast!
*Cough* Embarrassing “fan” photo here. I chatted with him after the show. I was drunk. We took a few cell phone shots. He looked like that in all of them. Epic.
The Whitest Boy Alive performing to a street full of Berliners through a shop window. Indie world tour hounds, I’m still waiting for them to come back round our way. Category wise? I don’t know they are funky, jazzy, poppy and whimsical. Groove to that shit.
Instant new nostalgia. Crocodiles I Wanna Kill has been analysed ad nauseum for the threads that it pulls from other very well known fabrics. But this is done knowingly and expertly so. It’s as if the memories and good feelings that our favourite music ingrains in us is coming out again to play in this song. The first thing you’ll get a whiff of is The Crystals, followed by Jesus and Mary Chain, then you’ll keep inhaling until you’re so high from the fumes that you’re immediately reverted back into a 15 year old. I love this song, and I love this band.
But this is virtually a ‘classic’ at this point coming out in 2009. They just announced their new single Sleep Forever to release on July 5th. I love the indie music scene. It’s a prolific work horse from hades.
The track above is from The Magnetic Fields 1999 triple album “69 Love Songs.” As I’ve not heard the rest of the album, and I can’t write any more about the band, the album or the track. I honestly don’t know enough about any of them. I will aim to correct this oversight soonish.
No, the reason I’m writing a post called “I Don’t Believe in the Sun” is because of an excellent comic written and drawn by Lem for a project called “How Fucking Romantic” which is a group effort to illustrating each of the sixty-nine songs on 69 Love Songs.
The first page of Lem’s comic is below, and clicking on the image will take you to the rest of the six page minicomic. The intention behind the strip is to listen to the song and to read the comic as the music plays. Think of this as the comic equivalent of a music video.
The sun arrived in Blighty last weekend and it is now running away as fast as it bloody well can because many many Brits like to remove as much clothing as they can get away with when the temperature rises above twenty-five. I believe that this is some sort of crude Pagan ritual to steal precious sunlight.
However, the sun shining, however briefly, signals the start of summer, and this is time for happier and more upbeat sounding music to be fed constantly into my ears. There isn’t much in the way of suitable industrial ambient noise for this season. This is a season for twangy folk and jazzy beats.
My good friends, band Cock and Swan (Johnny Goss and Ola Hungerford), are my go to reserve tank of general technology cliff notes.
Johnny created this simple robot drummer to assist them during their shows because they are only two people and each play about 50 different instruments. Sometimes you need a little helping hand. While Johnny’s prowess for playing drums (he sets a ¾ full glass of iced cola purely for sound alteration on his kit) is not to be missed, I am besotted with the concept of this little assistant he’s developed. Here’s a simple example video of the robot baterista below:
How Does it Work?
What Johnny’s done is taken a power amplifier (basically like a PA system) and plugged some speakers in. Instead of the speakers pushing air with their paper cones, he’s cut the paper cones off and built a cylinder that comes off of the center of the speaker where the coil is.
In sheer defiance of the World Wide Web Consortium's will, Ectomo was designed using a non-web-standard font. Luckily, it is included in the excellent font pack released by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, which can be freely downloaded in Mac and PC formats here. Ectomo should still look fine without it, though.
