songs:illinois

Someone was complaining recently about the blandness of the indie rock scene and how music today is somehow more tame and more conservative than in times past. If you’re a blogger and you only look on the surface, read the same couple/type of blogs and only rely on your inbox or your personal cd stash for inspiration you’ll probably come to the same conclusion.

But if you do any searching at all and have both an open ear and diverse taste then you’ll find too much music to ever post on any one blog. On Songs:Illinois I focus on a certain sound. Sometimes it’s hard to describe that sound because it’s not necessarily folk or roots or rock but if I hear it I can deceide pretty quickly whether or not it’ll fit on here.

Liz Payne’s new project is called The Zoo Wheel. Her debut release First Born Grand Days (Lucky Kitchen) is an example of a sound that doesn’t fit on Songs:Illinois but I’m going to write about it anyway. On the two songs below acoustic instrumentation combines with found sounds, beeps and blurps and electronics to creat a swirling smorgosborg of sound that is tough to process in one sitting. This is not easy listening and I’m not sure why I have to be the first to write about it. But if others are bored with the sound of the typical blog I implore you to start your own (or if you have one then abandon the everyday stuff). Explores the atonality and experimentation that does exist in music today. For a start look to the music Ken Vandermark, Fred Lonberg-Holm and Peter Brotzman. Or how `bout any release on Atavistic. Come on guys/gals use whatever slight influence you may have and shake things up a bit (and stop complaining!).

MudSaltCrystalsRocksWater
Jitter and Hit

MP3, Music

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 8th, 2006 at 9:22 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.