Sound Obsession

Tycho Date:  April 20, 2014 Venue:  9:30 Club, Washington, DC I rarely attend good shows on Easter Sunday - apart from the choir at the occasional sugar-fueled church service (admittedly, it's been a while).  This past Sunday I checked out Tycho at the 9:30 Club.  It happened to be 4/20 as well - a day famously dedicated to a different kind of ritual sacrament.  Despite that apparent contradiction, Tycho's mix of pastel colored grooves and heady atmospherics seemed entirely appropriate. Tycho ( Joe Davancens,  Rory O'Connor, Zac Brown, and Scott Hansen) Tycho, real name Scott Hansen, is a San Francisco-based indie-electronica musician and graphic artist who previously worked solo but took on a full band for his latest album Awake .  I had just reviewed Awake and was excited to see how Hansen would perform his latest material with new bandmates Zac Brown and Joe Davancens alternating between guitar, bass, and synthesizer, and R...

Tycho:   Awake Label:  Ghostly International Released:  March 18, 2014 6/10 Tycho is to Boards of Canada what Coldplay is to Radiohead.  After the latter band pioneered an appealing sound, then defiantly veered into "difficult" territory, the former band emerged to fill the new gap - shamelessly emulating the latter band's original pop sensibilities.  This isn't a total indictment however.  Why did Boards of Canada have to alienate fans by following up the infectious Super 8 trip-hop of their classic 1998 album Music Has the Right to Children with that onerous collection of nightmare vignettes Geogaddi in 2002?  Enter a host of unapologetic imitators like Tycho, with albums like 2006's Past is Prologue,  giving hungry fans a generous helping of that classic Boards of Canada sound. Tycho is the alias of San Francisco audiovisual artist Scott Hansen.  As Tycho, Hansen creates instrumental electronic soundscapes as impeccably as he do...

Kraftwerk Date:  April 4, 2014 Venue:  9:30 Club, Washington, DC I couldn't help but grin like an idiot as Afrika Bambaataa's 1982 electro/hip-hop anthem " Planet Rock " came on the system while I had a burger and beer at the bar adjacent to the 9:30 Club a couple weeks back, just moments before catching Kraftwerk's first live performance in DC in nine years.  Of course, the hook and beat of Bambaataa's classic are built on samples from Kraftwerk's 1977 track "Trans Europe Express" and "Numbers" from 1981, respectively.  Kraftwerk's indelible influence on popular music, especially post-punk and new wave, hip-hop, and electronic dance music, can't be overstated.   Kraftwerk (Ralf Hutter and Henning Schmitz) Kraftwerk formed in Dusseldorf, Germany, in 1970 amidst that nascent "krautrock" scene with two classically trained music students at the helm - Ralf Hutter and Florian Schneider.  This was the original o...

St. Vincent Date:  March 1, 2014 Venue:  9:30 Club, Washington, DC Last year St. Vincent, real name Annie Clark, was presented with a Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award in Performing Arts.  The fact that a high brow institution primarily known for housing and showing priceless art and artifacts took a shine to St. Vincent is telling.  There's a sense that St. Vincent is to be observed and admired from behind glass - regarded from afar as a kind of beautiful curiosity.  Her live show last Saturday at the sold out 9:30 Club did little to dispel that impression. St. Vincent isn't the sort of artist I typically follow (unapologetically, aggressively "arty"), but I heard she put on a good show and played a mean guitar.  Frankly, I was really digging her new self-titled album St. Vincent , released last Tuesday, and figured this show would be a great detour from the usual.  It certainly was.  Rocking her new blown-out Einstein hairdo, St...

Russian Circles, KEN mode, Inter Arma Date:  February 18, 2014 Venue:  Rock & Roll Hotel, Washington, DC Following January's blackened-thrash and viking metal onslaught at the 2,000 capacity Fillmore, a couple weeks back I hit another must-see package tour at the more intimate 350 capacity Rock & Roll Hotel -  Russian Circles with KEN mode and Inter Arma.  The evening served as a reminder of the wide spectrum of style and philosophy that exists in the metal scene.  Whereas populist showmen like Amon Amarth and Skeletonwitch relish in the fabricated drama and spectacle of viking lore and the occult, not shy to remind everyone that it's all in good fun, Russian Circles and their tour-mates are dead serious about this shit - it's about the art, man. Russian Circles - Brian Cook and Dave Turncrantz (left to right) Despite all the blog debate, "hipster metal" really is a thing.  Drawing heavily from non-metal genres like post-punk, post-rock,...

Skeletonwitch, Enslaved, Amon Amarth Date:  January 31, 2014 Venue:  The Fillmore, Silver Spring, MD I've learned a few things during my relatively brief time as a metal enthusiast/amateur anthropologist gone native - the opener and support bands are almost always just as awesome as the headliner, and every band worth their salt makes a sincere 200% effort to melt your face.  Absolutely no room for mopey wallflower behold-my-art bullshit.  These bands take pride in perfecting their chops and treating their fans to the most bang for their buck.  As expected, for an affordable $25, such was the case last Friday at The Fillmore in Silver Spring, Maryland, with an awesome package tour featuring Skeletonwitch, Enslaved, and Amon Amarth.         Skeletonwitch - Scott Hedrick, Evan Linger, and Chance Garnette (left to right) Athens, Ohio, blackened-thrash five piece,  animal welfare advocates , and all around good guys (han...

I've said it before and I'll say it again - 2013 was an epic year in music and the finest in recent memory.  Those who know me best won't be surprised by my top pick, but the rest of my list might be unexpected.  In 2013, after years of bashful flirtation, I dove headlong into "metal" without pause or irony.  There was an abundance of excellent metal albums this year - many recorded and produced by an always rock-solid Kurt Ballou (of hardcore punk heroes Converge, and proprietor of GodCity Studio in Salem, Massachusetts).  Otherwise, 2013 continued a trend of "retro" with contemporary artists continuing to referencing the sounds of the 70's, 80's and 90's - even some former heroes from those decades made solid comebacks.  These are my favorite albums of the year.*  Enjoy. . . .                1.  Queens of the Stone Age: ...Like Clockwork (9/10) "Risk nothing, get nothing" claimed   Queens of t...