Single Review – Review Bastard

Conveyor – Maine

I’m so sad, I don’t have much time for the blog. Many thing happened in the past three weeks that took almost all of my time, not to mention works and thesis. I believe our contributor friends are doing pretty busy either. I’m so sorry for those sent me their music, I will try to post them one by one. Now, let’s give something a listen today.

Maine is a B-Side of new 7″ vinyl from Conveyor, Mane. Don’t get confused, their A-Side contain one track titled Mane, and the other side contain a different track titled Maine. The band kinda reminds me of Architecture in Helsinki, you can listen to the tracks at the end of this post.

Conveyor is a brilliant rookie, I bet you will have the same assumption after listening to their tracks below. Mane is something that prepared pretty well, it has decent song structure and a neat sound, while Maine is more like one antique material that you will find in three or four album releases (while these guys don’t have any). Listen to the intro section of Maine, a long and layered whimsical chimes that tickling our ears trying to build an ambience, but suddenly when we think the track is going to be full on ambient, an accoustic guitar kicking in, along with two layered vocal and unique sounds that will make you happy. Oh this song’s definitely going to be one of best releases of 2012.

The Mane 7″ is available for pre-order from Gold Robot Records here and is pressed on limited to 500 white wax. The 7″ will be their first official release, and their EP will follow later this year. Remarkable music, we shall give them a warm welcome. Enjoy!

Connect with Conveyor Facebook | Website | Bandcamp | Soundcloud

Dirty Projectors – The Gun Has No Trigger

First of all, that title are catchy. Yes I did clicking the play button on their track from my Soundloud stream just because the title are catchy. I was wondering about the lyrics, I thought it would be very depressing, something about a guy who have problem telling something to someone. Another romance cliche, with emo style. But then, I was wrong. The Gun Has No Trigger might be part of the upcoming album, Swing Lo Magellan.

Dave Longstreth, the singer, gifted with this remarkable voice and he is singing the whole song nicely. My thought about the guy with a romantical problem was right actually, yet how they are represent the story are beyond my expectation. The Gun Has No Trigger is an amazing track, the band doing great job writing this song. It was written in a Dylan style, and we all know that Dylan never fails anyone. I find myself overwhelmed, caught by classic romance through a band like Fastball. A looping beat with some beautiful harmonies in the backgroud and a soul vibe from Dave’s vocal. Dave singing reminds me of Tony Scalzo, that’s why I mentioning Fastball at the first place.

Dirty Projectors wil reaching their first decade in music next year, they already giving us awesome musics since released their first vinyl in 2003. For those didn’t know about Dirty Projectors before, you should start looking for their musics from now on. Their 2010 project with Bjork would be a good start, Mount Wittenberg Orca, it was released in a digital copy only and I’m sure you will easily find it on the net. Dave is a hars guy sometimes, if you remember his words on Zappa and Classic Rock, but then it’s all true that he is a great songwriter. Well, people has their own way on expressing their thoughts. Enjoy!

Of Montreal – Feminine Effects

The fifth Record Store Day is coming this year with Iggy Pop as their Official Ambassador, some artist start promoting their special release for the occasion, Of Montreal is one of them. On the third week of April, Of Montreal will release this track on a 7″ split with Deerhoof, the 7″ titled A Filthy Fifth.

The track actually recorded on 2008, been performed few times on Of Montreal’s gigs and its raw material already hitting YouTube. Feminine Effects is another balads that has been predicted to make a hit later that day, I myself waiting too long for this track to be released on their album, untill couple days ago. On March 16th, Of Montreal was kind enough to give us another listen to this track. You can also listen via a SoundCloud player below. It’s a beutiful song, with a smooth guitar sweeps that will make your hearth smile. Enjoy!

Connect with Of Montreal SoundCloud | Website | MySpace | Facebook

Sharon Van Etten – Life Of His Own

Her name is Sharon Van Etten, an American singer-songwriter based in Brooklyn, New York. Sharon started her music career on 2009 when she released her first album Because I Was In Love, singles like For You and Much More Than That played around the world after Pitchfork giving her a rating of 7.7. Her debut album also received very warm welcome and positive reviews from many music critics. People love her voice, while her songwriting skills are blowing everyone’s mind. Her music considered as an echoes of folk tradition with powerful vocal harmonies.

After some tours and promotions, she return to studio and recorded new materials, as a result she provide the music enthusiast with her second album titled Epic on 2010. Even though the whole album received some negative reviews here and there, the sophomore’s hit single Love More has been covered in concert by high profile artists such as Bon Iver and The National.

Last month, on February 7th, Sharon released her third album called Tramp. The album produced by Aaron Dessner of The National, her another Brooklyn musician friend. Sharon also featuring some Brooklyn-based musician like Bryce Dessner (The National), Francis Condon (Beirut), and another talented female singer-guitarist Jenn Wasner from Wye Oak duo. Have no chance to listen to the whole album yet, but I saw this single back and forth on my SoundCloud feed.

The single title is Life Of His Own. This song is an expression of a desire for relationship, where both parties maintain their own individual lives, friends, and passions, while still in love for each other. This is an accoustic version of the track and can be found at the B-Side of her recent single from Tramp album, Leonard. You might find Sharon’s voice is going deeper on this one, sung with slow guitar excerpt along with smooth violin sound in the background. You can listen to the track on the SoundCloud player below. Enjoy!

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Hip Hatchet – Sing Me A Reprise

Back to 2010, many music blogs told us about someone who sing and write songs like Leonard Cohen. They are talking about Philippe Bronchtein, the man known as Hip Hatchet. His debut album Men Who Share My Name gain many good reviews back in 2010, its pure folk that hit music critics on their first thought. While the deepness of Hatchet’s lyrics simply told us about life and all its hardship. Moreover, Bronchtein playing folk on its basic shape, a simple accoustic guitar and a depth of his vocal.

Sing Me a Reprise is part of his upcoming album, Joy and Better Days. Sing Me a Reprise reperesent Bronchtein typical on lyrical writing, a powerful line with a deep senses. The track also well played, slow playing music so we can go deep into every single word on it. I bet the whole album will sound like this one, which definitely will be a good thing.

So, this is a proof that my previous thought was wrong. There are so many talented male musician floating these days, I just didn’t browse much. I recommend Hip Hatchet for your March playlist, and looking forward to his upcoming release that will come to us in a couple of months. Meanwhile, have a listen to this precious matter. Enjoy!

Connect with Hip Hatchet Bandcamp | MySpace

Nite Jewel – In The Dark

Series of female musician I’ve reviewed before this seems likely turn me into specific genre-oriented or just simply a fanboy of a certain “things” in music. Well I’m not. What happening here are how I find difficult not to see a good music without brought by majority. The fact is there are less male musician surfacing rather than female musician these days. Well, I hope I’m wrong about that. It’s only first quarter of 2012, nobody knows what’s comming, yes?

Anyway, Nite Jewel original name is Ramona Gonzalez. An electro-pop Los Angeles based musician, she writes her own songs since started her musical career in 2008. Today, the singer/songwriter release her second studio album called One Second of Love. The single below, In The Dark, is part of the album. One Second of Love seems like recorded with a decent preparation, it still have “lucid dream” sound on it, yet if we compared this one to her previous releases we’ll have a quite difference on how she represent her music. I’m also including her title-track video above, so you have at least more track to listen to.

The album released today by Secretly Canadian, you may find it on Insound Vinyl for the vinyl, of course, or visiting her eMusic page for its digital release.

Pure Saturday: Lighthouse, Mercusuar Untuk Album Terbaru

5 tahun sudah semenjak Pure Saturday merilis album Time For A Change, Time To Move On, hampir saja Pure Saturday tak menghasilkan sesuatu yang baru. Namun penantian Pure People, sebutan bagi penggemar Pure Saturday, akan karya-karya baru Pure Saturday tak kunjung meredup untuk karya-karya atas band indie legendaris asal kota Bandung tersebut. Akan tetapi penantian para Pure People akan terbayar tampaknya pada tahun 2012 ini. Pure Saturday baru saja merilis single terbaru mereka yang berjudul Lighthouse yang menjadi andalan mereka di album mereka mendatang Grey Album.

Lagu Lighthouse ini diakui oleh Pure Saturday sebagai perkawinan atas sound Genesis dan Pure Saturday. Yudhistira “Udhi” Ardinugraha, drummer Pure Saturday, membuat lagu ini ketika dirinya sedang dikuasai oleh lagu-lagu dari Genesis. Untuk sound Pure Saturday masih seperti biasa, yakni dengan petikan dua gitar merdu yang saling mengisi, perubahan ritme yang tak tertebak, melodi vokal yang langsung menempel di kepala, dan lirik yang kontemplatif. “Lagu ini diibaratkan theme song mau memulai hari. Tujuannya jadi penyemangat,” kata bassis Ade Purnama, yang menulis liriknya.

Sedangkan untuk Grey Album sendiri, gitaris Adhitya “Adhi” Ardinugraha membocorkan bahwa album ini akan menjadi album yang paling pop dari Pure Saturday. Beberapa tahun perjalanan mereka belakangan ini dan yang sempat menyaksikan aksi Pure Saturday akhir-akhir ini, dinilai Adhi akan mengetahui letak dimana perbedaan Grey Album dengan album-album sebelumnya. Akan tetapi Satria Nurbambang alias Iyo sang vokalis menilai album ini tak akan membuat Pure People terhenyak. “Kalau kata saya, auranya seperti album Elora. Misalnya khatam album Utopia, kayaknya tidak (kaget). Tidak bakal mempertanyakan itu,” kata Iyo.

Sudah 18 tahun Pure Saturday berkarya dan telah terjadi banyak perubahan. Baik perubahan dengan dunia musik Indonesia ataupun perubahan dalam tubuh internal Pure Saturday sendiri. 18 tahun bukanlah waktu yang sebentar dan perlu sebuah usaha yang besar untuk menjalankan itu semua. Akan tetapi Pure Saturday tetaplah menjadi Pure Saturday. Sebuah band dengan hasrat yang sama semenjak 1994, hasrat untuk berkarya dan bersenang-senang. Lighthouse menjadi sebuah pembuktian bagaimana Pure Saturday menjalankan hasrat mereka dan sebuah oase bagi kita semua, terutama Pure People yang selalu bersenang-senang bersama Pure Saturday selama 18 tahun ini.

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