Here’s Wolfie’s latest, and I think greatest episode of his radio show, Strange Ways in 4D, yet. He played a ton of new music, much of which was new to me as well, and his radio presence was dynamic and funny. I got turned on to a few bands I’d never heard from this episode, and for me that’s a rarity. Listen to it.

96kbps MP3 – About 1 Hour long

And check out my show tomorrow night at 8 on WVVY – the stream is working again now, so I’ll be interacting live on twitter, facebook, and other avenues.

brainwaves from ZF FILMS on Vimeo.

@brainwashedcom – (as in brainwashed.com – home of the brainwaves festival) one of my all time favorite music news sources, touching upon the darker side of my listening soul, has joined the land of twitter. I attented Brainwaves in 08 and was deeply thrilled to finally see some of my old favorites: Peter Christopherson, Meat Beat Manifesto, Matmos, and Stars of the Lid. I was also introduced to some musicians such as Marissa Nadler, Glenn Jones (who I met there and learned he’d had his album worked on by one of my childhood friends and classmates, Anthony Esposito), Boduf Songs, His Name Is Alive and many others that enticed me. Brainwashed has always been at the forefront of musical discovery, finding and helping bring success to those bands that eventually grew to relative stardom (Antony, Amanda Palmer, Devendra Banhart, and on and on) but often being overlooked by the powers that they inspire.

Brainwashed deserves credit for pulling culture out of the cracks and feeding it to many who desperately need it, and while that occasionally comes with a low dosage of condescension, their reviews and headlines are usually surprisingly optimistic and pleasant, rarely crucifying their subjects. For a counter-culture online publication with a dedicated base of rabid, often darkly dressed fans, that’s quite impressive.

The bottom line is: if you want to be a step ahead of the music scene, pay attention to brainwashed. Listen to their podcasts. I too have been guilty of ignoring them from time to time, and for that I always kick myself. On their site, they are currently wondering what they’re going to do with twitter. If you’re listening, brainwashed: keep us informed. Remind us when you update, tell us when there are brainwashed bands playing shows, tell us when the DVD is coming, let us know whenever you see Gary Wilson covering himself with baby powder. Tell us pretty much anything, we’ll listen.

By the way, I must show pride, I got this shirt at Brainwavesfest2008 and I am in love. Thanks kranky.

Okay, I don’t know if anyone who reads my posts will care about this aside from me, but I was excited yesterday when, on a whim, I decided to hunt for news about one of my favorite musicians, discovered back in 1995 when Trent Reznor was pimping him on Nothing Records, Kevin McMahon, aka Prick, aka Lucky Pierre, aka Fear of Blue, aka a million other pseudonyms (really Kevin, you need to stick to a name if you want to sell records) is still making music! He has a new song, that I won’t post here for the sake of keeping myself from potential trouble with the man, I’ll only say that it’s good, despite being extremely different.

For the uninitiated, Prick was sort of a one hit wonder with “Animal” back when “Closer” was the talk of the town, but the radio loving public failed to realize that the man behind the music was incredibly talented and diverse. Well, perhaps not failed to realize, but failed to care. His reclusiveness and general disgust with record labels didn’t win him any popularity contests either, but he continued to make music. He takes a notoriously long time between releases, but, and this is what I love: he dares to do something completely different every time.

To me, the most exciting musicians are those who refuse to conform to a style. Granted, there are those that do who I dearly love, and there is something to be said for getting a nice little package full of something you expect and are comforted by, but surprises are fun too, and I like to be challenged and blindsided by the music I listen to.

This is where Kevin McMahon comes in. He drops bombs of unpredictability not just with every album he releases, but every song within these albums. And he manages to do so while writing some of the most catchy, poppy songs I’ve ever heard. He is truly masterful, and I only wish he would come out of hiding more often, and maybe drop some of the Pseudonyms: the really big fans will listen to and love everything you release, Kevin. You don’t need to call it by different names, and you confuse our MP3 players in doing so!

Anyway, enough ranting. I found the man, and this website devoted to his music, and wanted to trumpet it to the world, or at least the world that has found this website. I also want to have something here to remind myself to keep checking in with the man behind some of my favorite songs.

A snippet from the recent interview to whet whistles:

The reason I haven’t pursued a recording contract after the Interscope/Nothing deal is mainly to assure myself the freedom that was jeopardized by entering into that experience. Record labels want/demand that you remain in the style of the previous release and give your fans what they “expect”. I don’t agree with that. I know there is a method to their marketing madness, but I’m more interested in songs as an expression of changing perspective or spontaneous fun rather than the same old soda with a different bubble… Even though many fans are lost along the way, I believe those who stay are in for a richer and more interesting experience.

Read the rest here.

(Art by Roger Von Golling – if anyone has a site link for him please comment, he’s awesome too)

Wolfie is 13 and goes to the Public Charter School on Martha’s Vineyard (oh hey, that’s him right there on the front page), and he does a rockin radio show on WVVY on Wednesdays at 1 PM for an hour. I’ve been recording his episodes, you can check out past ones in the Radio section. Today I had a scare, thinking the station was going to be down, but I slyly found a stream and was able to get it recorded. Here it is. 128kbps MP3 this time:

Wolfie – Strange Ways in 4D March 25th 2009

These two nightmarish images were created for a 2 disc mix cd a few years back. There was no real reason for the mix except that I wanted to make one (usually the incentive is something like “impress a girl!” or “make my friends like this music by force!”) I tossed this together with a theme, as one might be able to tell from the artwork: Piano music. Not exclusively pianos, but every song on both discs featured a piano in some form or another. I know, that’s not hard to pull off, but I thought it was a nice effort. A lot of the music turned out to be spooky and weird, so I put together the spookiest, weirdest covers I could think of.

The cover to Nurse With Wound’s “Thunder Perfect Mind” had been stuck in my head, and the “Sharps” cover (top image) took heavy influence from that image. I compiled these elements in Photoshop and took used my wacom tablet to draw the “branches” gripping her hands, growing as her seat, and so on.

The other (bottom image) was derived, I believe, from some sort of nightmare I’d had a few nights prior. The shiny blurry bits that seem to fly toward the front of the image and fade behind the kid playing piano are actually CDs. My CD collection had been damaged in a recent beach-sand accident and one day I decided to dig through them and pull out all the ones that weren’t worth saving, systematically snapping them in half and throwing them in a trash can. Rather than throw them out, I thought, on this hot autumn day in Savannah, it might be interesting to solder them together into a collage. I took out a soldering iron and found that when I held 2 CDs next to each other and punched through them with the hot iron, they stuck together almost immediately. Awesome! I proceeded to make a canvas out of CDs, with the intent of later sticking on a bunch of different colored ones in a way that made an image. I snapped some pictures, one of which was used for this image, and then put the thing against my wall. Unfortunately, it proved too fragile when returning home from work the next day, closing the door behind me caused it to crumble apart before my eyes. Oh well. They ended up in the dumpster moments later. Such is life. At least they made it into SOME sort of artwork.

This Twitter experiment is already yielding me some fruit, I slacked off preparing my show last night (uh, cuz I was setting up PJ at Che’s Lounge with his own twitter). So, since I have very little music selected, I was flying by the seat of my pants. However, my sudden influx of new listeners (thanks in part to twitter itself) blasted me with a barrage of eclectic requests. I couldn’t fill all of them, but I did my best to try, and during the show I got followed by another 5 or 6 people, and turned a few people on to making accounts themselves. This is my second day using the thing, my first day REALLY using it. It’s pretty incredible. Anyway, I took advantage of the requests and did my best to fill the gaps with my own selections. I also played that Clark EP, split up over the course of the show.

So anyway, the tracklist is as follows:

1. Clark – Growls Garden
2. Animal Collective – Banshee Beat
3. Fever Ray – Keep the Streets Empty for Me (by request for Brian)
4. Clark – The Magnet Mine
5. Flight of the Conchords – The Most Beautiful Girl in the Room (Sort of by request for Paul)
6. Sufjan Stevens – The Dress Looks Nice On You (by request for deckhands)
7. Boards of Canada – Oscar See Through Red Eye
8. Justice – Dance
9. Patrick Wolf – Get Lost
10. Zeigeist – The Lake
11. Clark – Seaweed
12. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Young Adult Friction
13. Clark – Gonk Roughage
14. Tim Exile – Don’t Think We’re One
15. Bonnie Prince Billy – I Won’t Ask Again (by request for “humanity” from PJ at Che’s)
16. Dodos – Chickens
17. The Mountain Goats – So Desperate
18. Bob Dylan – Not Dark Yet (by request from My Mom)
19. Akron/Family – Dylan Pt. 2
20. Billy Idol – White Wedding (by request from Chrysal)
21. Clark – Distant Father Torch
22. Clark – Farewell Mining Town
23. Antony and the Johnsons – Kiss My Name
24. Metric – Help I’m Alive (by request from Katherine via Facebook)
25. Plaid – TAK 5

Note that I linked all those who made requests (or something resembling a request). I will try to do that from now on if I’m doing the Twitter thing, although if I have a lot of new music I might be less likely to take requests.

Oh and without further ado: Here’s the link to the episode for download/stream (64 kbps mp3 – i know i know, it’s recorded from the stream)

Wolfie – Strange Ways in 4D – 03-18-09

No time to go into more detail now, but here’s Wolfie’s latest radio show. I haven’t even had time to listen to it yet myself. Enjoy.

I’ve always liked Clark, ever since he was known as “Chris Clark” and releasing tracks that the naysayers were writing off as sub-aphex slag. I saw huge gems in Clarence Park and I eagerly anticipated his next release, which, for many years I was certain would never arrive. When it finally did, it was met with a mixture of excitement and disappointment. The thrill of the new bleeps and blops and scrapes and grinds and that deep, echoey bass that feels like it’s surrounding you, they were all present, but the depth of melody felt lacking. The EPs and LPs kept coming and with each one, that newfound excitement returned, but there have always been tracks that left me aching for something more, while others blew my mind entirely.

Turning Dragon, despite lacking for a softer, quieter side, felt like a solid fix to this problem: he had finally created an album that just tore my ass up with every track. Yes!

Here, Clark is trying something new: vocals, and I feel like it works for him. The title track is an absolutely amazing piece of work, with echoes of “Wicked Life” from the Throttle Clarence EP, it is rare that a song can start strong and then just continue to get stronger and stronger, but this one does. The repeated vocal line, well, honestly it doesn’t add much, but it’s not taking anything away, and it makes it feel like a song, rather than just another electronic track from just another electronic musician. It manages to have the epic powerhouse feel of the best-ever nine inch nails songs but without the angsty teenage livejournal drivel of Reznor’s lyrics.

The Magnet Mine takes a while to find its stride but it has moments of greatness, and the spazzy, high-pitched intro eventually settles into a groove that is captivating.

Seaweed feels designed to disorient, I can picture Clark sitting at a synth with his hand on the volume knob, watching someone in a tiny white room listening to the track, feeling the groove and bobbing their head, and just when the test subject gets comfortable with the beat, he turns the knob, sending blasts of noise into the chamber and upsetting the mood, sending the subject into fits of terror and confusion. It’s an interesting accomplishment, but not one I’m certain I can consistently tolerate.

Gonk Roughage brings back the vocals, this time playing with another style: the chopped up hip-hop spoken word. The song is driven and it makes heads bob, and as usual, Clark throws in so many maddeningly variable effects that it never kills your attention span, but it’s not as visceral and moving as Growls Garden.

“Distant Father Torch” is the second highlight of this record, feeling like the dance club sequel (or prequel) to “Cremation Drones.” If “drones” was the sound of being locked in a coffin and pushed into the flames, this is the funeral service in the giant menacing church, tall stained glass windows towering above, the sound of the organ fuzzing in and fuzzing out, building the tension as you walk toward the open casket for that look inside.

The EP ends on the usual Clark note, with the ambient, droney number “Farewell Mining Town.” The track itself is gorgeous, but the predictability left me a bit cold: it’s like the twist on an M. Night Shyamalan movie, you don’t know exactly what it will be, but you know it will be there. Clark puts himself on par with any track from Belong with this ambient piece, but I am dying for him to do something like this with a more melody oriented side, something I can hum, not just be numbed by.

I won’t call it a disappointment by any means. As usual, I found myself driving around and being blown away by the sounds I heard, but the title track built a tower that could not be climbed by the rest of the EP. However, if that song is any indication of what’s to come, there’s a lot more to look forward to from Clark.

Listen to a sample of the title track at Warp Records

This is Tim Exile, whose new album “Listening Tree” is coming out on Warp Records soon, doing a live Mashup of Obama’s inauguration speech, when it aired internationally. His album is one of the most impressive things I’ve heard so far this year, combining a sort of 80s Depeche Mode synth-pop with the experimention of a Reaktor guru playing with electronic noise making tools. I love people who are classically trained and just decide to make crazy noises. Richard Devine is another one of these types of guys (with a cool website to boot).

For those who are unaware, there is a little coffee house on Martha’s Vineyard with a beautiful aesthetic and some great music on many evenings. I’ve also been filling up (the owner) PJ’s iPod on a regular basis since last summer, so the daily tunes are often directly from my head. I’m sitting in here right now, it’s freshly painted with new art from the new barista, Angel, on the walls, and it’s a cozy, great place to be.

In fact, I designed a large portion of my website here, sitting on the couch in the corner, occasionally showing whoever was around the progress and looking for suggestions on what to change and what to keep. The place is Che’s Lounge, and it’s off Main street in Vineyard Haven, on Martha’s Vineyard, down a little alley just before the bookstore. Stop in and have a coffee and hang out, if you’re around. Their website is currently unfinished but it features a documentary, Colin’s poster artwork, and so on. I may get around to doing some concert reviews on here in the future.