Valley Of The Giants

Valley Of The Giants is a post rock group that's released only one album. Although, this is not a typical post rock release. It contains long spoken word tracks, ambient made with violins, soft vocals, and even extremely epic climaxes too. All the songs on the self titled album go different places and personally, I think each song explores all types of post rock; first, second, and third generation. There's parts that are melancholic and others that are bright. This album doesn't stick to one single mood throughout and I think that's what attracts me to it so much.

Well, enjoy.

The Band's Website.

Morton Feldman

"My music sometimes seems mysterious. Part of the mystery comes from the fact that I wait, receptively, then I welcome, I accept... Listen, there are two kinds of people: the type that is only interested in what they understand, and the type that wants at all costs the hermetic mystery, enigmas. The first gets bored when they don't understand, the second is bored when they do understand. Me, I accept poetry, the inexplicable. Things are born in this waiting." 

- Morton Feldman

Morton Feldman is one of my favorite classical artists. Most of his work is very minimal and creates a certain atmosphere of mystery, curiosity, and darkness. This piece is about an hour long in full. Every time I listen to it the music takes me places; somewhere new each time.

Enjoy.

Albums To Look Forward To

I've made a list of albums coming out this year to look forward to, so here it is.


Heavy Rocks, Attention Please - Boris (June 20)
Deconstruction, Ghost - The Devin Townsend Project (June 20)
Deltron Event II - Deltron 3030
Air Museum - Mountains (May 10)
Amenra - Mass V
Ascension - Jesu (May 10)
You Can Leave But You'll Never Make It Home Again - Dakota Suite

Portishead (No album name or date yet)
Aphex Twin (Rumors)
Queens Of The Stone age
Tom Waits
Mastodon
Marilyn Manson
Steven Wilson/Mikael Akerfeldt
The Mars Volta
Hymns Of Oblivion - William Basinski
Thin Black Duke - Oxbow


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If you have any recommendations or know of any upcoming albums that sound interesting to you, tell me!

So I like having these types of posts where I'm not just reviewing, but asking a question. Mine for right now is - what song or album means something personal to you? You don't have to explain why, but I'm curious.

For me it's "Bottle Dreams" by Eyedea. Eyedea, also known as Michael Larsen (RIP), was a conscious rapper who's lyrics go from philosophical to hitting home. I've mentioned him a few times here on my blog, but I'll just straight up say he's my favorite rapper. In this song he tells the story of a talented woman who was sexually abused by her father and she ends up giving up on everything she was good at and kills herself. I knew a girl who I used to be closed to who went through similar things, so every time this song plays I think of her.

I know that's a little extreme, but it is what it is. Here's the song:

Lyrics here.

In terms of album, I'd go for Sunset Mission by Bohren & Der Club Of Gore, which is a very dark jazz album that I used to play every night for about a year about two years ago. The reason it was personal to me? I really don't know, but I feel some strange certain connection listening to it that I can't explain here.

Addicts and Drunks by Ghosts and Vodka

Ghosts and Vodka was a math rock band that only had three releases, but all of them are essential listening for the genre; mostly the album Addicts and Drunks. This record goes from soothing guitar rhythms, dynamic time signatures, and crazy finger tapping. Of course all the instrumentation on this is great, but I feel the guitars to be what I love most in here. There's tons of nice grooves and lay back sounds, but then it falls back into the tradition of spastic madness on other songs. Check this out if you don't know much about math rock. It's a good introduction album.

So I got the new Atmosphere album and have to say it's worth the purchase. Slug, the rapper behind the group, is a conscious rapper and I have to say this is his most mature album to date. This moves exactly onto what the albums title suggests, "The Family Sign." An album album what many people go through having families and I find this to also be his most accessible to people.

Now when people come up to you and say that rap is all about smoking crack and beating bitches, you tell them about this guy and rappers like him. Prove those idiots wrong.

Here's a song from his new album. Sort of funny video. Enjoy!

We all listen to music when we're in an angry or bad mood, so my question to you is what as in genre and which artists are you generally listening to in those moods? You don't have to answer my question, but I'm interested in what you have to say.

If I want to just relax to something because I'm stressed out I usually go for some ambient (ex. Stars Of The Lid) or modern classical (ex. Peter Broderick, Dustin O'Halloran). Now if I'm just really pissed off and I want to listen to some pissed off music I go for noise rock like Big Black, Jesus Lizard, Shellac, and Lightning Bolt. Below is a song that I think is a pretty nice pissed off song.

The Calcination Of Scout Niblett by Scout Niblett

First of all - How can you turn down an album with a cover like that? There's something strangely appealing to me seeing the woman behind the project smiling and waving at whoever is taking the picture while holding some flame thrower thing-a-ma-jig. You already know this album has to be pretty interesting with an album cover like that.

The Calcination Of Scout Niblett is a minimally charged album that goes from beautiful vocals, fuzzy guitar riffs, and drumming all created by Scout Niblett. Yes, she makes all the music herself. In this album she really shows off the noise rock influences from Sonic Youth, Mudhoney, and even some grunge artists like Nirvana.

What I love about this album so much is that it seems calm and you can still hear the folk side of her from previous albums, but then she comes in with these random bursts of intense energy out of nowhere. There's allot of parts on this album I didn't expect and I love surprises.

Ascension by Jesu

Justin Broadrick will release his third album under the band, "Jesu" on May 10. If you aren't familiar of Jesu or Broadrick's other projects (Goflesh, Final, & Pale Sketcher) then you should definitely check him out. Jesu is post-metal band that also mixes in heavy droning and shoegaze vocals. It's hard to describe, but in my best words I can say that it's the only type of loud as fuck metal i know of that can also be relaxing.

You can listen to two songs off the album and/or pre-order it here. Anyhow, here's a song off his album, "Conquerer". Enjoy!

Blueprint

Blueprint is an underground conscious rapper off of TheRealRhymeSayers label. He just dropped a new album entitled, "Adventures in Counter-Culture". I've given it one listen so far and I'll give it a few more listens before having a final decision on how I feel about it, but right now I'm digging the lyrics, but the beats not so much. Personally, his best album is still "1998" and the past few EP's he's dropped lately.


If you're interested in the hip hop scene that's not about gucci and sounds like complete shit, then this is for you. 


I'll also mention that Atmosphere and Grieves, two other underground rappers, are also planning on releasing new albums this year, so keep your eyes on them too. 


Edit: Did I forget to mention that Tyler The Creator is also dropping his next album, "Goblin" next month on the tenth? I'm pretty sure it'll be my favorite rap album of the year. If you don't know about Odd Future you should definitely look them up. 

Jandek

Jandek is a project by a man with no name, or may I say an artist who won't reveal his name. He's an outsider artist who's made over thirty five albums now which consist of weird folkiness and avant trash from the psychedelic gardens of a schizophrenic's mind. Allot of the albums consist of him playing in out of tune guitars singing with his ghost-like vocals and random drum banging. It's nowhere near easy listening music or pleasent, but that's the exciting thing about it. This is music made to bring an uncomfortable feeling to the listener.

The man behind Jandek says himself that he really doesn't know what he's doing, so everything he creates is more of a vision. All the songs are recorded in a lo-fi manner so the music feels like it's coming from a garage or echoing out from a dark tunnel, which fits perfect with the style of the music. One minute he goes from being completely melodic and the next he brings in a noisy electric guitar over completely strange lyrics.

Allot of people kind of just say, "Well, I could make this type of music. Hand me an acoustic guitar and I'll sing some creepy shit over the microphone". The thing is that you probably wouldn't be able to match his level of creepiness. I really feel like this guy knows how to turn something that others would sound ugly and trashy into something beautiful or disturbing.

There's only a few times he's actually played live. The first time I think was about eight years ago. He's been making music for more than twenty years, so you can guess that he's not someone that likes to be seen much. When listening to his music, you would guess that he probably isn't that type of social person. There's allot of his albums that I could call some of the most depressing albums I've ever heard (Put My Dream On This Planet for example), so I'm guessing he's got some forms of issues.

If you're looking for something really strange keeps the neighbors away, then this is teh perfect music for you. This is the soundtrack to a madman in the corner of a small white room of a mental hospital.

Recommended albums to start with: Chair Beside A Window, Glad To Get Away, Modern Dances (Really strange), and Graven Image.

Richard Skelton

Richard Skelton is an amazing artist who combines ambient and modern classical music together with the specialty of beautiful drone pieces too. I'm surprised how little of listeners he really has, because this guy is sure talented. He creates vivid soundscapes and takes you to a place when you listen to his music that goes where you haven't gone before.

Go pick up his album "Landings". If you're looking for similar artists I recommend Kreng, Nils Frahm, *AR, and Ólafur Arnalds.

Short review.

Waterworld by Leak Bros


Chris Palko and Tame One collaborate to make an album about smoking PCP that's not only disturbing, but easily one of the best rap albums I've ever heard. The album is produced by many well known and praised artists like El-P and RJD2. If you're a fan of conscious rap, this is definitely for you.

Monmyth by Fin Fang Foom

Monomyth released back in '09 as FFF's third album. The other two releases weren't really anything too spectacular and there's a six year gap between this and the second album, so I'm guessing this is where they decided to try and develop an album that would drive people nuts. Quite frankly, this album does that to me - in a good way.

Fin Fang Foom is a post rock band that features vocals, which is something not that typical in the genre. This album is melodic in some ways, but still has this amazing progressive heaviness throughout that sucks you in. The song, "Lonely Waves" is an amazing example of this where you can hear both sides of the album in one. 

There's nothing I can really say negatively about this album and I think it's an underrated masterpiece that more people should look at. Post rock essential? Maybe. It's definitely worth the listen though. 

Sepulcros De Miel by Omar Rodriguez Lopez Quartet

You might know Omar Rodriguez Lopez from The Mars Volta. He's released tons of solo records over the past few years and I find this one to be one of my favorites of his. It's a nice psychedilic jam-fest of intense drumming, crazy guitar solos and smooth bass lines.

The album's only flaws are that it has an intro and outro, which always seem kind of annoying to me. Although, I can't complain much sense Lopez put this album out for free. The album starts off with this strange electronic noise and moves into a nice relaxing jam that progresses into a heavier notion that keeps you nodding the whole time to the song.

Later on the album it goes into these really expiremental guitar drones and strange sounds, then kicks into more groves and back into heavy jamming. There's many parts of this album that say to me this is allot like something you'd see out of most psychedlic bands from the 70's, but I think it's the droning and soundscapes that Omar makes in this album that makes this album so much more unique.

Of course some people might not be turned on by how the album goes back in forth from calm to intense, but I find that to make this album a more exciting acid trip. Not only is this an album for any mood you're in, but it's an album you could just put on a repeat a few times and not get old from a single part of it.

Edit: this album isn't free anymore, but it's at a really low price of only five bucks. You can buy the album below.

http://omardigital.rodriguezlopezproductions.com/album/sepulcros-de-miel

10 Most Ridiculous Black Metal Music Videos

Before I do another review in the near future I feel the need to post this. I laughed my ass off.

Favorite Rapper?

Who's your favorite rapper?

Mine would be Eyedea (RIP)