This post could be considered a somewhat Trickyrandom02, but since there’s some sort of theme to it I guess I’ll spare that until later.

That’s right… that.

Ah, Winter. I just got off my Mid-Winter Break and you know what comes with that? My favorite part of Winter by far - Snowboarding and with that comes with some sweet Snowboarding videos. A few weeks ago I decided to acquire the new Forum video entitled That because it’s all the rage in Transworld Snowboarding magazine. Besides being hard to mention in a conversation because of its confusing name, it’s got some great footage and also some great music. Plenty of songs worth mentioning, but there was one that really stuck out to me for some reason. The band is Broken Social Scene, and the song is amazing. I guess they’re also Canadian - score 1 for Kris. Thanks to Derek ‘Brak’ McMillan for grabbing it from *undisclosed P2P program* for me while I was on vacation.

The other is from a little video my friend Mike showed me from last year at our local mountain. It’s this band called Alice in Videoland. They’re really weird, you can watch a video of theirs below. They’ve got one of those keytar things, which is beyond nerdy to me. Their entire new(ish) album basically sucks besides the song I’m putting up. I don’t understand how they can make something so awesome and have the entire rest of the album suck. Whatever. For what it’s worth, the video I’m posting is somewhat catchy and tolerable but don’t judge the good song off the video. Also, I think they’re Swedish or something. That would explain the Keytar.

Links:
Forum
Broken Social Scene official site / Myspace
Alice in Videoland official site / Myspace

Tracks:
Broken Social Scene/Self Titled/Major Label Debut (Fast)
Alice in Videoland/Outrageous/Ladykiller

Imagine a world 15 years from now where there is no separation of church and state, where bioterrorism attacks are not uncommon, and the government uses the fear of the terrorist attacks to justify a totalitarian control that they have forced upon the citizens. This is the world that Trent Reznor has created through his upcoming album Year Zero. What started out as an “experiment of noise on a tour bus” has morphed into this epic piece of music that Trent has created.

Unlike his last album, With Teeth, Trent has gone back to his deeper roots to create a less “Mainstream” record that is unlike anything anything that I have heard in a long time. Several songs have been “found” at live shows, along with bits and pieces of this alternate reality that Trent has created. So far, my favorite song is In This Twilight, mixing an industrial beat with melodic vocals, and can be found at the Symphony of Noise website that I have linked below, along with the other tracks.

Links:
Official Site
Myspace
Year Zero Research

Tracks:
NiN/Year Zero

It seems I forgot to post a few of the things I had stored away for the last few weeks. No bother, I’ll do them some other time. Or perhaps I’ll forget about them and not use them at all.

Unrelated bird.

Today though ladies and orcs, I’ve got a nice little album from The Moscow Coup Attempt, a project from a fellow out in Los Angeles name of Derek Whitacre. Insomnia is the name of it, and 6 tracks it has. Also if you grab a copy of the CD, there is a DVD included with plenty of archival footage set to the music of the album - there’s a trailer for it on the site if you want to pop over there and take a look.

It’s a nice album all-in-all, with a spooky little theme to it. Definitely worth checking out if you’re in to the whole downtempo electronic sort of deal. Lots of sneaky little ambient sounds snuck in with secret codes sneaking around being sneaky. I may have made that part up, but I can’t be certain.
Anywho, after listening through it once or twice, I’d have to say my favourite tracks so far would have to be ‘Vultures‘, ‘We Kill Those People‘, and ‘Do You Fear Sleep?‘. The latter by the way is what got me interested in this album; it features some very pretty vocals from Vera Ostrava (The Blue Storm) and swooshy lo-fi backing with some morse code at the end. No idea what the code says.

Links:
Official Site
Moscow Coup Attempt Myspace
‘Insomnia‘ on CDBaby

Tracks:
The Moscow Coup Attempt/Insomnia/Vultures
The Moscow Coup Attempt/Insomnia/Do You Fear Sleep?

“The Matrix” rejects.

Ah, the genius of Porcupine Tree. I can honestly say that I’ve found that the music I hear in my head when I’m walking around really does exist. What’s that you ask? Awesome rock guitar riffage and songwriting with crazy electronic crap going on in the background in the best musical setting I can think of.

Well… Maybe that isn’t the best way to describe it. Suffice to say that British band Porcupine Tree is pretty difficult to categorize. Every song I listen to seems to fall into a slightly different category. I can say “Hey, this sounds a little like Pink Floyd” then all of a sudden it goes to “Well… this sounds like Muse.” So… I’ve given up on trying to do that, because it doesn’t really get me anywhere.

But anyways, these guys are pretty new to me, despite having been around a while. They’re actually coming out with a new album soon, which is pretty exciting; you can hear a little teaser on their MySpace. Check it out if you’re interested.

So the two tunes I picked are pretty radically different… One of them (”Blackest Eyes”) is a fairly straightforward song complete with vocals, but the other (”Tinto Brass”) is a primarily instrumental endeavour with spacey Japanese sprechstimme and a wildly rambling flute soloist. Two different worlds indeed. I’m gonna stop typing now because I’m lazy and you probably would rather listen to Porcupine Tree than read what I’m writing about them.

Tracks:
Porcupine Tree/Stupid Dream/Tinto Brass
Porcupine Tree/In Absentia/Blackest Eyes

Ah, another lovely week as winter is starting to die down– but fear not! For ‘Explosions in the Sky’ is releasing a new album tommorow in the Americas (feb 2nd for the japanese), which is most certainly music for the up-comming spring… summer… er, any season for that matter. Thats right, the same band that was featured on this blog around its begining is back with a bang…. So mind the pun, and be taste the harmonic rainbow (which I find particularly good for driving, studying, or just plain sitting down, and sometimes all at once).

But now for a treat of the breakbeat variety, some goodies you may never of heard of before. Maybe its the sheer disdain you and I share for the hiphop pop that is out in these modern times of ours, er… getting off topic again. Well maybe you know this man: Dan the Automator. He produced several albums, his most famous being the Gorrilaz self titled album. His latest and greatest however is the soundtrack he did for NBA2k7, so i’m going to fling a spin he did straight at yah. Next serving is slightly aged back from the begining of this millenia, but ‘Lovage’ never goes out of style. Either way, I have seasoned your steak with some ice cream, enjoy.

Tracks:
Explosions In the Sky/The Birth And Death Of The Day
Dan the Automator/Bang The Ball
Lovage/Sex (I’m A…)