Vetiver Tight Knit

On Vetiver’s fourth full-length, frontman Andy Cabic continues his obsession with early-’70s folk rock and West Coast psychedelia. These tunes waft like summer breezes rolling in off the San Francisco Bay—Cabic’s lazy tenor intoning soft and lonely over scads of tasteful finger-picking and jazzy percussion. This makes Tight Knit real easy on the ears, particularly the gorgeous opener, “Rolling Sea,” and “Everyday,” which sounds like the best song Mojave 3 never wrote. But almost as often, Tight Knit feels too pleased with itself, too comfortable in its own soft skin. Whether it’s white-boy funk or Espers-esque folk dirges, the record’s second half fails to make much of an impression. What’s easy to listen to can be just as easy to forget.

Filippo Moscatello Pagliaccio

Now that Berlin-based Italian producer Filippo Moscatello has returned to his techno and house roots on Pagliaccio, gone are the days of his electro-focused DJ Naughty guise. But his nostalgia offers mixed results. While the bright horn accent on “Furio” is an easy nod to Moscatello’s Italo-disco past, the retro flourish doesn’t quite deserve the attention it receives on this fairly lackluster track. On the other hand, “Slave to the Dub” gracefully crafts an understated but satisfying song by pulling from a forgotten cast of alternately shimmering, croaking, and whirring ’90s keyboard synths. The jack-in-the-box intro of “Kleinmond” provides a sweetly innocent counterpoint to the subdued low-end richness of the track’s underbelly.

Factozoid!! Circlesquare!

All the weird facts you never knew you wanted ?to know about Circlesquare‘s Jeremy Shaw.

Circlesquare is a brainiac!
“My main obsession right now is MRI and CT brain-imaging scans of people under the influence of mind-altering drugs, or representations of the effects of cumulative use. I’m working on a bunch of visual art that uses them as source material so I have been going great lengths to find them, which is quite difficult if you aren’t a neuroscientist or neuroscience student.”

Circlesquare hates the prime minister!
“Unfortunately, after the U.S. finally stands up and votes a forward-thinking president into office, Canada is actually under the most right-wing government in memory, compete with massive cuts to arts and culture funding and statements [from Prime Minister Stephen Harper] like, ‘The average Canadian doesn’t care about art.’”

Circlesquare loves David Lynch and Harold and Maude!
“Lynch always creates an underlying tension. It could be through sound design or unnerving images that are never really referred to or resolved, but there is always a bit of unease with everything he does. The ability to create a tension that might not ever climax is a really amazing thing. Harold and Maude includes nearly everything that I value in life and art: it’s dark without being sinister, sly and funny without being smarmy or negative, incredibly stylish and it’s a reminder to remember what it is to be full of wonder. It has very bleak moments and a somewhat bizarre, morose tone at times, yet at the end of it all, it’s bittersweet and optimistic. Plus it has an all-Cat Stevens soundtrack, which is incredible.”

Circlesquare moved to Berlin but still loves Vancouver!
“Vancouver pros: sushi and coffee. Cons: rain and no nightlife. Berlin pros: nightlife and techno. Cons: never-ending nightlife and the single-bar-looping deep-house revival…. I’m doing a project about the 1986 Vancouver Expo, so that’s become an imposed obsession of sorts. I scour eBay daily, looking for random ephemera from it and have had days digging through the Vancouver archives.”

Circlesquare is named after a Christian kids’ show from the ’70s!
“I barely remember the show [Circle Square] but for the theme song, and the way they’d sing their address for people wanting to send letters. It was on on Sunday mornings when there was nothing else on TV. It had these puppets mixed with real kid actors. I didn’t really realize that it was Christian at the time, even though I was going to church in those days. I have no idea why I missed this point. I definitely found it somewhat creepy, yet continued to watch. It was like a Sunday school show for kids who didn’t go to Sunday school, but [set] on a ranch… with puppets.”

Cazals What of Our Future

One might expect a more schizophrenic offering from a band that rolls with Daft Punk, Pete Doherty, and Kanye West, but Kitsune’s new sweethearts Cazals play it straight on their guitar-driven debut full-length, What of Our Future. The London five-piece balances retro-pop melodies reminiscent of XTC with DJ-minded fist-pump breakaways and a gritty garage edge. “To Cut a Long Story Short” is a classic dance-punk number, with vocals that relax from a rough grain into something approaching Elvis Costello. “Comfortable Silence” is darker, featuring opaque synths, high-pitched xylophone, computerized back-up vocals, and bass so low as to be almost inaudible. While these and other tracks stand on their own, they’re especially ripe for remixing.

What You Talkin’ Bout, Willits? Part 9

Guitarist and electronic musician Christopher Willits continues his monthly series from SoundArts studio. In this episode, he gives us a rundown of Ableton’s fabulous and just-beta’d Live 8 Looper effect, then gives a preview of the very exciting Max for Live.

Tune in once a month as Christopher shows us some of the ways he produces his own music, as well as the many cool things you can do with recording software. According to Christopher, “I simply want to excite people’s imaginations and creative processes so they can more easily create the sounds and music and art they love.”

Rafael Toral Space Elements, Vol. 1

Known mostly for his innovative guitar compositions in the ’90s that turned MBV squeals to liquid and foreshadowed the atmospheric electronic work of acts like Pole and Oval, Portuguese-born Rafael Toral has, over the years, moved toward a curatorial role amongst avant-garde experimenters. Recorded for his Space Program series, Space Elements, Vol. 1 finds Toral shaping tracks around a guest contributors’ chosen instrument; “I.I,” for instance, erects a moaning ambient passage behind cellist Rute Praça’s atonal wails. Recalling free-jazz structures, the record’s seven tracks investigate the space between sounds, exploring the role of silence in music. But it favors high concept over melody (or “songs,” even), and Space Elements is far more interesting than it is listenable.

Buraka Som Sistema “Kalemba (Wegue Wegue) (Hot Chip Remix)”

What happens when the boys from Hot Chip get their hands on a track from kuduro DJ/production team Buraka Som Sistema? This rowdy, bouncing remix that combines techno rhythms with Latin sensibilities and should please fans of both groups.

The original version of “Kalemba (Wegue Wegue) appears on BSS’ debut full-length, Black Diamond, out April 7.

Buraka Som Sistema – Kalemba – (Wegue Wegue) Hot Chip Remix

Inbox: Fujiya & Miyagi

Sure, we’re always curious to know about an artist’s upcoming release, most recent tour, or arsenal of analog gear, but XLR8R‘s also got a curiosity for quirk. Thus, each week, we email a different artist and find out what makes them tick, in the studio and in life. Brighton, U.K.-based four-piece Fujiya & Miyagi released Lightbulbs in 2008. Today, bandmember David Best talks bad shows in London, great shows in Dublin, Morgan Freeman, and gout.

What are you listening to right now?

David Best: At this very second, I’m listening to Screamin’ Jay Hawkins singing “I Hear Voices.” Other than that, I’ve been listening to the Sensational Alex Harvey Band a lot, especially the LPs Framed and Next.

What’s the weirdest story you ever heard about yourself?

That my name was Eric, which was my grandfather’s name. Not really a great story, I admit.

What band did you want to be in when you were 15?

I wanted to be in Dinosaur Jr. I’ve just got a new guitar, which is the J Mascis Jazzmaster. Maybe nothing much has changed from when I was 15. I even had my hair like him and couldn’t see where the ball was when I played football. That was the main reason I stopped playing.

Worst live show experience?

There [have] been quite a few that have gone wrong, with equipment packing up and things like that. One at Cargo in London a few years back springs to mind, where everything just stopped and we stood there like idiots. The bad ones always tend to be in London, for some reason. Sometimes you think you played badly and people liked it and sometimes you think you played well and people are indifferent. So I now just judge a show on the crowd reaction.

Favorite city to play in?

My favorite city is New York, but the best place to play is Dublin, without a shadow of a doubt.

What do you do to calm yourself down?

I imagine that Morgan Freeman is stroking my hair and telling me not to worry.

What is your favorite thing you own?

A few years ago, I started collecting old soul singles, so probably one of them. Maybe Chuck Wilder’s “The Clown.”

Name one item of clothing you can’t live without.

I’m not that into clothes, really. I think of them as a necessity and purely functional, like walking or going to sleep. We used to all wear tracksuit tops, but I’m not that into them anymore. I’ve got a nice white Sergio Tacchini one.

Which is more frightening: spiders, the dark, food additives, crowded places.

I’m not that keen on crowded places, so it’s quite lucky I’m in this group, rather than a more popular one.

What did you always get in trouble for when you were little?

I was a very good boy. I can’t remember anything really bad. I rode my BMX over the flowerbed once and got a smack, which I still think was an overreaction.

What other artist would you most like to work with?

MF Doom.

What’s the last thing you read?

I just finished a book on Roxy Music by Michael Bracewell. It’s more about how they came together rather than an album-by-album type of biography. I’m also 74 pages into Ulysses by James Joyce. He had a way with words.

Complete this sentence: In the future…

Everything will only be slightly different than it is now.

Stupidest thing you’ve done in the last 12 months?

I got gout, which didn’t make me feel like the cleverest fellow around.

What’s next?

We have been making up new songs, which is quite exciting for us. We think we’ve gone as far as we can with the sound we have had on the last two records and now it is time for something different. Other than that, we are heading back to the States in a couple of weeks, and then some shows in France. I like the French.

MP3: “Dishwasher”

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