true widow kicked of their first european tour last thursday, and we got to see them yesterday at the 4ad club in Diksmuide. unfamiliar with the band before, it was a very nice surprise: a tight mix of stoner-doom sounds, with plenty of refences to the slowcore and shoegaze-area, early Codeine in particular.
they’re around for two more weeks, with plenty of shows in the uk, belgium/netherlands/germany. highly recommended.
and if you can’t see them live: the new record As High As the Highest Heavens and From the Center to the Circumference of the Earth turned out to be excellent to listen to early in the morning, but i can easily imagine listening to it for the rest of the day.
MORC ZINE
“ In fact, we have a new song called “The Apostate” and there’s a lot of kind of repetitive chanting in the song. For some reason I was doing this and I started saying her name over and over and now she’s become a part of the song. I’m singing “Lady Gaga” in the song, over and over (laughs). In a way, I’m invoking her demon spirit, praying for her to come down and fuck the demon brother inside me that is singing the song.
Michael Gira in Village voice
i still think it will be an amazing track
i still think it will be an amazing track
180°
from:
arab strap: first big weekend
to:
arab strap: fucking little bastards
hard to think of two songs that are so completely different, yet so related to eachother.
In the Twin Peaks scene where Leland dances with his daughter Laura’s portrait, the glass in her frame was not intended to break. Ray Wise accidentally broke it while they were shooting, he cut his hands and started bleeding, but he continued on with the scene and made it a part of it. This is the prop with Ray’s blood still intact.
2010 in concerts
as i mentioned before, i’m not to keen on making an end of year list - i tend to forget things, or haven’t heard a lot of records i should have heard. so not a ‘real’ 2010-list, but i’m safe about these things:
favorite live show:
liturgy (incubate festival, little devil, tilburg)
encredibly ferocious, adventurous and athmospheric set, making me look forward to their upcoming album on thrill jockey, and their show on roadburn 2011. what swans could have been like if they grew up listening to drones and black metal.
to give an idea: this video was shot a few days earlier, during the same tour.
other shows i enjoyed from start to finish (in chronological order)
beautiful band (bunker, brussel + kinky star, gent)
om (grand mix, tourcoing)
pillars and tongues (clos des milliardaires, brussel)
the doozer (kraak festival, netwerk, aalst)
hellvete (slachthuis, gent)
eyehategod (minus one, gent)
tomoko sauvage (les ateliers claus, brussel)
liars (botanique, brussel)
richard youngs (pauluskerk, tilburg)
drekka, vollmar, elephant micah and annelies monseré (bluesanct fest, rachels cafe, bloomington)
holy sons (the bishop, bloomington)
trembling bells and alasdair roberts (le guess who festival, utrecht)
swans (ab, brussel)
show that should have been stopped by one of the promotors, or the audience
bügsküll (villa drashhoek, gent)
best albums
ask me in 2014, ok?
One year after Rowland S Howard passed away
‘Sometimes people are ready to go because they have been sick for a long time, but Rowland really wanted to live. Things were going well for him outside his health and he wanted to take advantage of that, and he was very disappointed that he wasn’t well enough to do so’
Mick Harvey
The best proof that Rowland S Howard was doing well - outside his health - is probably the album Pop Crimes, that came out in 2009 in Australia, but we had to wait to hear it untill this year.
Howard doesn’t sound like the angry young man from The Birthday Party anymore (fortunately), but Pop Crimes was definately one of the best records we got to hear in 2010. the tone of his guitar was not as piercing anymore, but his melodies still were.
A Girl called Jonny is an awkward opening track, not in the least because of the contribution of Jonnine Standish, the singer of HTRK, a band with whom Howard was working the past couple of years. The result sounds a traditional pop song, being it one with an unusual sarcastic tone - a tone that stays there throughout the entire record, the track Wayward man probably being the best example. Though Howard’s version of Talk Talk’s Life’s what you make it, guarantees a unique listening experience as well.
a personal favorite is ‘Avé Maria’, unusually quiet, and the part that starts around the 2’40 mark alone is worth picking up this album.
Pop Crimes could have been the best comeback-album in years, unfortunately, it was Howard’s goodbye album.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
in the early 2000’s, the christmas holidays were something to look out for, because the portland-based duo The Iditarod made a ‘yuletide’-album every year. in 2000 and 2001, that was a self-released cdr, in 2002 a collaboration with sharron kraus, and in 2003, yuletide was their testament, a 2cd set compiling rare material.
at morc hq, we have a particular soft spot for the cdr that carin wagner and jeffrey alexander made in 2001. it’s a great mix of songs sung by carin, the more experimental stuff by jeffrey, and perfect string arrangements by matt everett and margie wienk (of fern knight).
the track you can here in this post is Winter’s spell, probably the key track on this album.
why the beautiful band should win a bunch of mia’s
this week, the nominees for the mia’s, the belgian grammy’s were announced. stromae, k’s choice, flip kowlier: blah blah. you know they’ll end up winning.
however, at today’s event at the kinky star, we got to see a belgian band that should have been nominated as best group, best rock/alternative and best live act. the beautiful band.
unfortunately, they haven’t gotten a single nomination, because there was just no way that the televoters could have denied them the victory. why?
- right after they did their debut performance, they got raving reviews. even here on the morczine (remember?)
- a young band like BB could use the attention better than the triggerfingers, k’s choices and flippen kowliers of this world.
- they’re the ultimate belgian band: members speak dutch, french, or english. some of them are actually from abroad (though el-g wasent there at tonight’s show)
- beautiful band has gotten more ‘mature’ over the past year, but still have their unique sound, with plenty of references to this famous group called XXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX (sorry, you should read the previous review, it would be unfair to make the velvet underground reference again!), but sound a lot sloppier, and they use heavier hooks.
- lots of people that run labels were at the show. the last time that many a&r people showed up for an unsigned belgian band, must have been deus. (who won many mia’s after that!)
- someone said he could hear post-rock influences/references. as you see, though everyone likes the beautiful band, they can cause some controversy, like any awardwinner should do.
- they don’t play encores. they’re in charge.
- did i mention they somewhat sound like a sloppy version of the velvet underground? (oops)
i plan to go and see a lot more beautiful band shows.
Holy Sons - Payoff (via GnosticDevice)
amazing track from the new holy sons record (yes, that’s emil, the drummer of grails/om)
the album ‘survivalist tales’ pretty much goes on where the diptych ‘criminals return/drifter’s sympathy’ left off - delicious, well arranged slightly psychedelic poptunes with a druggy 70s-vibe to them.
more wahwah and harmonies on this album than on any toher holy sons record, and definately among my favorite holy sons output. fully recommended.
a new boduf songs album, a new video: I Am Going Away And I Am Never Coming Back is a rather classic boduf songs-track, but using the slightly more abrassive electrical sound as heard on last years european tour. excellent.
