Artist of the Day: Moving Mountains

Two weeks ago tomorrow, I lost my grandmother. The moment I knew, I picked up Pneuma again, and began to listen; it was a wordless, unrelated connection that affected me on a level deeper than skin, or even consciousness. Moving Mountains' debut album is deeply musical, thoughtful, and powerful. They draw the name of the album from the Greek work pnévma, meaning "breath," but commonly translated as "breath of life." The sounds that appear on the album are fluid, light, and move lightly, like exhaling steam in the winter; the emotional side, however, is more like a sigh, that you release heavily from your chest. Pneuma burdens you, and creates a weight from nowhere that stays with you for a while after you stop listening. The tracks make you think, about sadness at first, but level out to a broader plane, and eventually, even existence itself comes under speculation. It takes an inspired mind to write an album that causes you to think so much, and absolutely deserves the belated critical acclaim it received. The music is wonderful, studio tuned to perfection, and the time and the effort spent on refining it more than deals justice to the message original band members Gregory Dunn and Nicholas Pizzolato were trying to send: one of fleeting love, loss, and somehow, acceptance. I know my grandmother isn't coming back. But I know that, like this album, all things end, sometimes on a low note, sometimes on better terms. Pneuma is one of the things that makes me able to move on - if an album this depressing can end with "Hallelujah," I can acquiesce to the impermanence of life. It's the final and hardest step of moving on, but we all can, and we all do, with time.

You can find Moving Mountains' newer music on their own site, and their older material on their Bandcamp page.

Free Music February: Take One Car

As the second month of an exciting year draws to a close, we want to offer up what we can find in terms of free. With everything becoming more expensive, the term draws the eye more and more every day. Thus, our Free Music February experiment continues.

The latest addition we have for you is Take One Car, a New York band who came out with a chart-topping album precisely one year ago. The band labels their sound as "Rock or something," which doesn't really define the genre-mixing with justice, but is essentially applicable - elements of heavy post-rock are there, but with both traditional rock influences (which is where Tyler Irish's astonishingly good vocals come from) and much darker post-metal roots as well, melding to form It's Going To Be A Nice Day, which both Casey and I thought was impressionable enough to appear on our year's end lists. On top of the band's fantastic second album, both their first album and live recordings will also be included in Free Music February, due to the band's generosity in celebrating the one-year release of Nice Day. It is an excellent offer for an even better album, absolutely worth a minute of your time.

You can find all of Take One Car's discography on their Bandcamp page, free for the next week only.

Artist Of The Day: The Album Leaf

The Album Leaf has come a long way, especially for a one-man project. Jimmy LaValle works endlessly to sample and mix and find just what kinds of sounds he wants to premiere on his next big thing. His latest endeavors include an EP that I didn't get to cover last year, but wanted to talk about; Forward/Return represents The Album Leaf's progression incredibly well. "Descent" beautifully captures how effortless he can layer mellow sounds in order to get melodies reminiscent of his work as far back as In A Safe Place, while "Images" paints a different picture, something slightly out of what LaValle's produced before, but nonetheless smooth and flowing like the rest of his material.

Album Review: Owel - Owel

Album Rating: B+

Where to begin with Owel is difficult. It usually is - post-rock and its close likenesses need an individualizing concept in order to keep themselves afloat, new, and apart from the rest of the industry. However, the band takes it a step further by introducing a different instrumentation and allowing the natural flow of a different sound take its own effect in the songs. Thus, when they produce something like their self-titled, the violin, cello and keys in addition to a traditional setup creates something altogether separate. Owel utilizes these sounds, as well as a strong control over song flow, in order to maximize an emotional effect in the listener and build up to big moments to make them even larger.

Album Review: Lights & Motion - Reanimation

Album Rating: A

From fledgling startup Aerials to Deep Elm signed project Lights & Motion, Christoffer Franzén has been through a lot trying to release his music to the public. However, there's a certain satisfaction in having discovered the project when he was releasing demo tracks on his SoundCloud, and helping nurture and provide attention for the guy until he was finally noticed. And being noticed allowed Franzén to focus his sound and perfect exactly what he wanted to perfect, because L&M's debut is stunningly spectacular. Reanimation is the ultimate cinematic post-rock record, combining beautiful layers, powerful and meaningful melodic lines, and an ethereal feel that drives home the statement Lights & Motion has to offer: "I'm here, and I'm a musical force to contend with."

Artist Of The Day: Scraps of Tape

Rarely has a band ever stuck to their sound as well as Scraps Of Tape. While the math-rock / post-rock band has added a larger emphasis on vocals in their more recent releases as well as producing higher-quality audio, the feel of each of their albums has been essentially the same. The core of the band's success is creating melodies to funky time signatures that attract the listener's ear and carry some emotional meaning with it; with four releases filling their repertoire, their most recent effort Resident Flux adds vocals to the already-proven formula and simply adds another dynamic layer to the intricate audio. The result is slightly easier for new listeners to relate to, but stays true to the band's original style.

RECOMMENDED ALBUM

This Is A Copy Is This A Copy (2007)
This record is a really fantastic record. The sound quality was increased from the debut tenfold, it features heavily emotional tracks that border on post-metal, and really marks a point of musical maturity for the band. They hit everything exactly right, "Death As It Should Be" introducing the album in an incredible way, the entirety of the album has powerful swells and depressingly moody dives, and it closes with a 10-minute emotional rollercoaster of a track, "Why Marcus Oh Why." The entire record is incredible and definitely warrants picking up and looking at.

You can look up the band's recent news and records on their website, and all of their records are on Spotify to stream for free!

Artist Of The Day: Mogwai

On MuzikDizcovery, one might hear of Mogwai just a bit too much. However, our job is to keep you, the reader, informed on recent music news, and if there's anything Mogwai has been in the past couple months, "active" is most certainly a good word to use. The band released a compilation of remixes; A Wrenched, Virile Lore was commissioned by the band themselves from other artists such as post-punk project The Soft Moon, space-rock band Zombi, and drone's Tim Hecker. The album was fairly well received, and definitely helped bring new, altered sounds of the famous post-rock band into different genres. I particularly enjoyed Hecker's rendition of "Rano Pano," with drone being something I'm not particularly used to, while the Soft Moon cover of "San Pedro" wasn't really a far cry from the original track, so it was much enjoyed as well.

However, it's the new EP that will bring a lot of attention to the band in late 2012 / early 2013. According to Clash Music, Les Revenants is an EP that Mogwai was commissioned to "construct a soundtrack to French series 'Les Revenants'." The EP consists of four tracks, most of which are fairly low-action, similar to the Earth Division EP the band put out last year. "Wizard Motor" attracts interest being fairly upbeat; "Soup" is a bass-heavy, one-minute interlude; "The Huts" is a haunting piano-and-drum centered piece; and "This Messiah Needs Watching" features an organ laying down melancholy chords while a xylophone rings out a melody, echoic and depressing. Sounds on par with what we'd expect from the band. This EP will be seeing a physical release sometime next month, but it has received its digital release already, so keep an eye out for it.

Visit their site here to keep up with further updates.

Artist of the Day: Goonies Never Say Die

It's hard to forget the first time you listen to a really memorable album; something that strikes something deep inside you, that makes you really think about the music, and how it applies to you. Although we haven't really heard any studio news from them in a little while, I wanted to feature Goonies Never Say Die because their last album was huge, and I know something equally as large is coming up from them within the next year or so.

Jukebox: Athletics - III

This song is on my playlists constantly, and I can't get it out of my head. It might be that it's from one of the best releases from this year, but I think it's something more than that. Our nature drives us towards things that feel appropriate for the time, and place - god only knows that we play Christmas music six weeks before December, but why is that? Because it makes us feel warm and fuzzy and nostalgic, which contrasts the massive piles of snow or drenching rain of the wintertime. Perhaps one of the reasons I can't stop listening to "III" is because, well, it's a song that fits the mood. It's powerful, it's emotional, and the lyrics line up fantastically with the season.

Artist of the Day: El Ten Eleven

As you gear up for a hectic day of astonishingly good deals and busy-bee activity, remember to step back and take a breath. Black Friday is a busy day for many of us in the States, but if we get too caught up in bargain-hunting, we let a part of our imperialistic selves take control and forget the humanizing aspect of living - empathy, reflection, self-examination. Tough as it is, we all do it at some point, and to be honest, I find it much easier to think about while I'm listening to some great music. That's where El Ten Eleven comes in. They'll fit just about any situation too, they're lively enough to play in the early morning to get you awake, atmospheric enough to keep you thinking about their music, and they're wholly emotional, so that you can have all the thinking time you need while you go about your day.

Album Review: Gifts From Enola - A Healthy Fear

Album Rating: B+

The Mylene Sheath knows exactly what they're doing when they sign bands. They look for eclectic, interesting artists that could strike it big in their genre - and it turns out that they usually do, thanks to masterful production and promotion, as well as incredible musical talent from the artists themselves. Gifts From Enola is certainly no exception, having been on the label for over 3 years, and now having released 3 albums with Mylene. The newest record is something of a shift for the band, but looking at their history, it seems as though their sound isn't ever truly solidified, and they always look to improve or change their music in a way that their listeners don't expect. A Healthy Fear brings a degree of dissonance and tonal experimentation that works in an inspiring way that sets Gifts From Enola apart from the rest of the world of music.

Jukebox: Chemtrail - Poison Bag

About six months ago, I released a spotlight on Chemtrail's newest EP, Sounds Like Ghosts, raving about their technique, and how evocative they can be with B-side cuts that sound unrefined in a genre that harps over refinement. There's one song that stuck with me since then, though. "Poison Bag" might be the song of the year in my book; it has everything the post-rock genre has to offer, and more. It's a window into Chemtrail's creative process, a sad story told on a rainy day, a metaphor for passing beyond life, a retrospective of regret - you name it, the song applies. It's just that good.

The song opens with this riff on clean guitar that is played with vibrant clarity, but is pushed down by a hovering riff by another guitar that steals the spotlight, one that'll come back to haunt the listener in choruses to come. The clean guitar is persistent, and plays throughout, forming the backdrop for the melody. Eerie wails echo overhead as the drums push the melody through the verse, aggressing towards the end of each as the hovering distortion comes back as a phantom again and again, growing each time it's played. The bridge is a calm respite, an eye in the storm; there's plenty of tension, but it's not being acted upon, quite yet. However, as post-rock usually does, it begins to expand outwards, more and more, building up after the bridge, until a pre-chorus before the outro re-introduces the distorted riff once again, and a feeling of heavy oppression push the song through an ending that is so powerful that it numbs all emotional centers; as the distorted riff grows, more elements and layers are brought in, and the outro brings on an intense wave of sound, filled with guitar-centered nuances that make it something beyond simply a song. It's a message of power, and of sadness. And it does an excellent job of communicating that message.

If you haven't already picked this EP up, you can do so for free on Chemtrail's bandcamp.

Artist of the Day: The American Dollar

We saw a release from our friends The American Dollar a bit earlier on in 2012. And Awake In The City was a fantastic album; I had nothing but high praise for it. The new release has a lot going for it too, though; it's a remix of the prior release, with some added tracks and additional flare (or lack thereof). Not in a bad way, though, because the band decided to go about each track a different way, with a heavy focus on ambient. The result is...well, it's pretty cool. We haven't really heard from these guys in a while, since they've been on tour and have had things in the works, and getting this from them out of the blue was pretty cool. Comparing the remix of "Faces in the Haze" with the original was really neat, with commonly shared musical themes between, but an incredibly obvious split in how the themes were presented; Awake In The City tends to be a little more driving, while Ambient Three rises up from the mists, and becomes an overwhelming force without the listener even really noticing until the end of the track. If you liked Awake In The City, but want something a little more laid back and relaxed, Ambient Three is definitely the way to go.

Check it out on their bandcamp for free here.

Artist of the Day: Beware of Safety

Our good friends over at the Mylene Sheath released Beware of Safety's most recent full-length effort. And I reviewed it, it was fantastic; it even made my top ten of last year. But after listening to it, I was curious - what happened in the history of the band that led up to the 2011 release Leaves / Scars? So I delved (not very deep, because everything's on Bandcamp). Their first EP, It Is Curtains, is an insightful look into their past. It features a much more laid back, rough-cut charm to the band's post-rock/post-metal approach; while it's not as stereo-quality, it does carry the emphasis of the band's core mechanic, and does it well, so it's not hard to see just where the band is coming from.

Meanwhile, dogs is the first release Beware of Safety has had on the Mylene Sheath, and it's the record that BoS really started refining their hybrid sound; the line between post-rock and post-metal are much more blurred, and in this sense, there's some of each going on at all times; there's always some intensity building, even when everything quiets, you can sense conflict, pressure, tension. And finally, Leaves / Scars, the culmination of the band's years of effort, showcase the best and brightest from the band, which you can read about in further detail in my review. It was their most fantastic thing to date (without a lot to choose from, but a lot of quality to consider to make up for quantity), and there are sure to be exciting things coming from Beware of Safety, so I'll keep you posted. But you should keep an eye out too, and watch for the next big thing.

Meanwhile, if you need something to tide you over until then, here's a link to Beware of Safety's Bandcamp page.

Artist Of The Day - Bywater

I think that any time a band can be called unique is something of an accomplishment. More often than not, comparisons can be made between bands, which is never a bad thing so long as there's something that separates one from the other. With Bywater, we have a two-piece band that has crafted a sound that is very familiar, blending atmospheric and post-rock with a fair amount of technicality and experimentation, and put just enough of a spin on it to render comparisons impossible. Sure, at times you can hear a little Circa Survive in the guitars, maybe Moving Mountains, as well, but to say to anyone that they sound like either of those bands would be a complete misrepresentation. Suffice it to say, Bywater is a breath of fresh air in the post-rock community. The instrumentation pulls you in and then crushes you with slowed down, heavy hitting breakdowns, and both vocalist/guitarist Mike Ventimiglia and drummer Bob Wulff give their all on every track.

Album Review: Caspian - Waking Season

Album Rating: A+

It's been three years since Tertia, and while it's not an extended period of time, Caspian's back. One might even say, vigorously. While the recordings they did earlier this year, Live at Old South Church were something to hype fans up, it was truly nothing to the point that the new album brings. Waking Season is just...something else entirely. From start to finish, it's a different experience. Caspian did some rethinking with a lot of their instrument tones and everything sounds in place. Everything feels right. Waking Season feels like the ultimate post-rock record; all layers mesh together like a woven quilt, aligning every important aspect of music, beauty, and life.

Album Retrospective: The Album Leaf - In A Safe Place

Album Rating: A

I featured The Album Leaf as Muzik Dizcovery's artist of the day about a month back. However, when talking about my favorite album from them, which is In A Safe Place if the title didn't already give it away, there was more to say about the entire record than I could have possibly listed out in the short article featuring the band. So, I decided to take a look back at the first couple of times I listened to this record, and really draw from both the album itself, as well as the nostalgia I have for it and what it's taken me through, in order to convey why I think this is a really fantastic album, and why it rests so very dear to my heart. In short, In A Safe Place has actually put me in a safe place, giving me a place to retreat from a messy divorce, extended periods of depression, and generally, anything outside that makes me feel out of control.

Artist Of The Day: 65daysofstatic

Since their early days, 65daysofstatic have been working on the perfection of their sound. Sampling, recording live sounds, mixing in tracks from movies or vintage instruments or synthesizers, it really never stays the same with the recently explosive English band. If you listen to their music in chronological order, maybe not even the entire albums, but just a few different songs, you should take note of how the band decides to build musical tension in each song, and what instruments and sounds they indicate are important. The wide variety of sounds and different aural textures 65 works with are the most interesting part of their music, because it's always fresh and new and intensely creative.

Artist of the Day: The Album Leaf

A favorite ambient / post-rock band of mine, The Album Leaf has calmed down since their string of releases in the early half of the 2000's. However, there's a lot to love about the band, even with only a single full-length released in the past six years. Similar to sitting in the park to watch the sunrise and waiting for the rest of the world to awaken around you, the formerly-solo project of Jimmy LaValle features music that lays in the background, at times, but can be instantly recognizable if you simply listen, for a moment.

Artist Spotlight: Aerials

I know I've covered the band before, but Aerials just keeps popping up with more and more material. Christoffer Franzén is Aerials, a one man post-rock project based in Gothenburg, Sweden, and he tends to be fairly back and forth with his releases, as well as his release dates, doing a lot of promotional free streams for limited periods of time, which really helps him garner a lot of interest in the band. The latest song he's put up is called "Reanimation," a very cinematic, heavenly sounding track that combines the brightest and best tracks of the post-rock world into a song that puts the listener in the clouds, floating alongside their fluffy white majesty, looking down over reflective lakes and lush, green mountains. It's a beautiful place that only Aerials can truly bring you to, and Franzén does it perfectly.

Keep an eye out for new Aerials songs on his SoundCloud, as well as his Facebook for song and album news! You can also find much of Aerials' previous work on the SoundCloud page, so take a look at that too, since it's all free streaming.