Colleen Preps Album

Cécile Schott (a.k.a. Colleen) is no stranger to the eerie side of ambient music. Since 2001, the Parisian producer has been crafting a unique collage of moody music, integrating dark and heavily effected samples from her record collection into her work, as seen on her 2003 debut Everyone Alive Wants Answers. Four years later, Colleen has stayed in touch with the darkness, but her newest darling, Les Ondes Silencieuses (Leaf), is no treated sound collage–it’s all about 17th century acoustic instrumentation.

Obsessed with the viol (a rare 17th-century instrument bowed like a cello, but fretted like a guitar with seven strings), Colleen found someone to custom-make the instrument, inspiring her to step out of her Acid Pro box.

Les Ondes Silencieuses is an unadorned piece of classical bliss–functioning on the tone of the instrument rather than layers of complicated melody. While tracks like “This Place In Time” levitate between open space and the thick resonance of the viol, layered pieces like “Blue Sands” use the same sampling techniques of her past, but with sole emphasis on the viol itself (hitting it with mallets, finger-picking, etc). The result is nothing short of creepy bliss.

Les Ondes Silencieuses is out June 19, 2007 on Leaf.

Tracklisting
1. This Place In Time
2. Le Labyrinthe
3. Sun Against My Eyes
4. Les Ones Silencieuses
5. Blue Sands
6. Echoes and Coral
7. Sea of Tranquility
8. Past the Long Black land
9. Le Bateau

Yellow Arrow on DC’s Punk Monuments

Any visitor to the nation’s capital knows there are plenty of walking tours to be taken, spiraling around monuments, museums, and the eight million buildings that make up just the Department of the Treasury. But the tours given by Yellow Arrow, a tech-savvy group of psycho-geographers, tell a much different story. Yellow Arrow’s mission is to have the people of DC tell their own histories; they’ve marked a series of super-personal sites with yellow arrow cut-outs, each of which corresponds to a phone number. When passers-by text that number, a personal message about that site is transmitted back to the user’s phone. The group’s latest project, Capitol of Punk, is a text tour featuring sites chosen by Fugazi, The Make Up’s Ian Svenonius, and tons of other scene makers. Trek through famous DC punk spots like Wilson Center, Georgetown, Madam’s Organ, and the old 9:30 Club while the keepers of the city’s hardcore past expound on the legends and lore that happened there. And you don’t even have to be in the area to take the tour. Yellow Arrow also offers a video tour online, so you can download the maps and text messages from afar. Here are a few key spots to chat about next time Ian MacKaye sends you a text.

Madam’s Organ
It’s now a blues bar up the street that boasts visits from Barbara and Jenna Bush, but in its heyday, Madam’s Organ (2318 18th Street NW in the Adams Morgan neighborhood) was a music and art co-op where Ian’s Mackaye’s first band, Teen Idles, played their first show opening for Bad Brains. You can still find the Crooked Beat record store in the basement.

d.c. space
See that Starbucks on the corner of 7th and E Streets? It once housed d.c. space, one of the scene’s homegrown art galleries run primarily by Cynthia Connoly, who had a particularly DIY stance on booking shows. She’d rather give the tiny room to unknowns who’d draw 30 people than bump them if Nirvana or Hole needed a last-minute gig. Something to sip on.

Old 9:30 Club
The new 9:30 Club still deserves plenty of props, but the old space at 930 F Street NW was the rat-infested ground zero for harDCore. In fact, according to Joe Lally of Fugazi, rats and other nastiness seem to factor into just about every story about the place, aside from Minor Threat’s “sell-out” reunion show, where they pelted the crowd with coins.

Download: Dntel “Dumb Luck”

It’s been six years since Jimmy Tamborello (a.k.a. Dntel), released his acclaimed debut, Life is Full of Possibilities, and now we can all breathe again. On Dumb Luck, Tamborello follows the quintessential indie electro-pop blueprint he’s become known for. Between his lush melodies and an arsenal of guest appearances (from Fog to Conor Oberst), this album will have Sub Pop affiliates on their knees–and you’re next.

Download this song as an MP3, or preview a week’s worth of tracks at the XLR8R Podcast. Subscribe using iTunes or with an RSS reader of your choice.

Radicalfashion Odori

It’s obvious from the self-explanatory “Opening” from Japan’s Radicalfashion that Odori is no ordinary album. The worlds of classical, minimal electronic, and experimental music collide as Kobe, Japan resident Hirohito Ihara creates chaotic, melodic bliss. “Suna” is drenched with dreamy pianos and reverb while, on the opposite end, “Shunpoudoh” kicks off with minimal beats and chopped vocals, hitting you with strong synth riffs and spaced-out clamor that would cause sheep to boogie. Out of this world in all of the right ways.

Repeat Repeat Squints

On “Flip Flop,” the first track on Repeat Repeat’s album of gleefully off-kilter beats and loop-driven minimalism, a male voice pops in over the watery synths and squelchy beats to occasionally deliver a nonchalant “uh huh.” Humorous dashes like these are the highlight of this album, which is a showcase of Dave Congreve’s and Mark Rutherford’s acid house roots. The two take their work seriously, delivering slick, sick tracks, but they never get buried beneath their own bombast. The album’s accessibility borders on pop, but ultimately the two steer clear of radio-style catchiness-a wise choice.

Dntel “Dumb Luck”

It’s been six years since Jimmy Tamborello (a.k.a. Dntel), released his acclaimed debut, Life is Full of Possibilities, and now we can all breathe again. On Dumb Luck, Tamborello follows the quintessential indie electro-pop blueprint he’s become known for. Between his lush melodies and an arsenal of guest appearances (from Fog to Conor Oberst), this album will have Sub Pop affiliates on their knees–and you’re next.

Dntel – Dumb Luck

Jay Tripwire Gemini Soul

If you’re a house fan, you’re plenty familiar with Vancouverite Jay Tripwire already; over his decade-long career as a DJ and producer, he’s landed on a number of high-profile comps. Nevertheless, this is his first album, a predictably house-y effort with strong jazz and psychedelic streaks. The disc sounds like the work of a mature producer who knows his game, and “Body to Body,” which sets a confident tone as it comes early in the disc, is deep, groovy, and sexy. Likewise, “English Bay” includes Herbie Hancock-style keyboards, while “The Evil That Men Do” overlays spacey effects against a clicking, popping beat. A few tracks fall flat, like the smooth jazz-y “Sagittarius,” but overall Gemini Soul is solid enough to make it worth the 10-year wait.

E-40 Presents His High School with $12,000

Let no one tell you differently–both Too $hort and E-40 were total band-geeks. During their time at Vallejo, California’s Hogan High, both of the East Bay rap legends were proud members of the band. 40 was pissed when someone vandalized the school over a year ago, mutilating a majority of the champion-band’s equipment.

On April 11, the Hogan High drum line performed for a packed room of alumni and students and E-40 presented the band with a $12,000 check for the school’s losses.

E-40 states:

“If I didn’t have my start in the drum line, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Music is real for me. I want people to know that it’s cool to be in the band because there is a shortage of musicians nowadays. Music stimulates the mind, and it’s therapeutic and healing. People need to realize the importance of music programs in public schools–I played in the band growing up, Too $hort played, and Dallas Austin did too.”

Though the East Bay isn’t always associated with humanitarian efforts and a lack of violence, 40’s act displays the communal spirit that’s still found in the area.

Michoacan: Catch the Fever

From his mile-a-minute chatter, you’d never know Fernando Miranda Rios is fighting a fever. Rios is high on Cubase VST plug-ins, rave memories, and the tracks he makes as Michoacan–and there’s some cold medicine in the mix too.

A native of East Palo Alto, CA, Rios got his start making hip-hop tapes with his brother, but a fateful disco encounter changed all that. “I heard Space, the ‘Magic Fly’ record, and it was very hip-hop to me!” he recalls. “It was very stripped down, very basic.” That French electronic novelty from 1977 paved the way for Rios’ summer of rave. “I didn’t even know this [scene] existed. I loved disco and old grooves. Music was my thing since I was young. So when I found house music, techno, whatever, I just got captivated! I still make rap music with my brother, but this was about 1994, and raves were tight! We’d go to parties Friday, Saturday, even Sunday.”

As a nod to his parents’ background, Rios adopted the Mexican state of Michoacan as his nom de wax, and started building a home studio piece-by-piece. Like mad home-brew studio predecessors from Lee Perry to Giorgio Moroder, Rios subscribes to the theory that if it fits in a track, it goes in–be it a new sound effect or his own singing voice. “I do everything on my MPC 2000XL and my computers,” he explains. “I can spend hours dropping in plug-ins and it sounds like I bought 10 new synthesizers.”

Listening to records like 2005’s “2 Bullets (Disaster)” on Grayhound, it’s easy to see why Rios is pumped to spend all day experimenting in the studio. Over a stealthy programmed groove, Rios croons a disco-punk chorus (even backed by obligatory cowbells) that gives way to soothing synth chimes. On more recent releases, like the Play Your Part EP and “Basshead,” the mix becomes even more eclectic, with new wave and computerized textures bumping against rock vocals, all smoothed out by an insistent disco-house pulse.

It all bodes well for the day Michoacan settles in with a label and concocts the epic LP that right now bumps only in his head. “I like waking up at eight with a cup of coffee, go in the studio, stay in there ’til midnight,” says Rios frantically. “I just get a bass sound, a dope kick going, and start experimenting. I don’t want to get stuck in a certain sound; I change it up. I want to sing more, make fuller songs. I want to have live musicians, make indie-rock-psychedelic-spaced-out shit.”

Don’t expect Rios to stop the torrent of 12″ records, though, as a fast response time is the only way to keep up with his caffeine-fueled production. “Right now”m living beat to beat. My dream is to be a producer with people, bands, artists, just myself. My thing is the studio, that’s where I feel really comfortable.”

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