Live Review: Exitmusic, The Black Cat, 3/26/12

Guest live review written by Alex Shem.

Transcendental, momentous, ephemeral—these are just words.  We can look them up in the Oxford English Dictionary and get definitions, but these will just grasp at the true form of the music.  They will not capture the joie de vivre found only in live shows.  From Exitmusic’s EP, I thought I knew what I was listening to, but I was wrong.

Exitmusic opened with driving bass lines and a primal beat that drove a stake straight through my soul (I am glad I forgot my earplugs!).   What the EP lacked, the live show provided.  Aleska Palladino’s vocals rung with a raw intensity and the booming drums shook the entire room.  The music filled my entire body and refused to let go—much like the panopticon of life in modern society.  Rather than trap me, however, the sound envelops my soul and I couldn’t help but find my entire body moving along.

Each song ended leaving me speechless.  What was once there, what filled my spirit with joyful ecstasy, left as soon as it came.  Grasping at the memory only provided me with suffering.  I learned to lose myself completely in the music—the moment.

When their set ended, I found a few beads of sweat dripping down my brow and sideburns.  I was entirely focused on the music and didn’t even notice myself dancing along.  My sweat dried up walking outside, but I never hope my memory will.

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Album Review: Exitmusic - From Silence

Guest review written by Alex Shemon


It is only possible to make something new in the absence of limiting restrictions.  It would only make sense that Exitmusic would release their new album in 2012 (their EP was released in October of last year—close enough to 2012 for me), a year that has so far been defined by a kind of lawlessness.  Rather than decompose in the chaos and absurdity of existence, Exitmusic has created something transcendental—an ageless EP that defies all creativity-suffocating genre forms.

Exitmusic takes the generation-defining electronic elements from The Age of Adz and weaves them flawlessly inside the transcendental moments from Sigur Rós' most beautiful albums.  They merge the "weirdness" of Björk's Icelandic pedigree with the "druggy" and ethereal moments of early Portishead.  All of this is done within only four songs.