microphone biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics

try as i might, i've never really been able to get into quasimoto as much as i want to be. i love madlib's other stuff, and i don't think he can put out a bad instrumental track (see all of liberation, where he makes even talib kweli sound like he can rap), but his raps as quasimoto are just a little too abrupt, too stream of consciousness for me. he barely rhymes and his flow is deliberately off-beat, and it's both recognizably good yet hard to enjoy (unless you're stoned, as madlib undoubtedly was when he made the song).

in addition to quasimoto's off-kilter rhyme scheme, madlib plays with his own voice so it sounds like alvin (of & the chipmunks) rapping about smoking blunts and hating cops, which is the ultimate quasimoto aesthetic. madlib provides his own beats, so they're always damn close to perfect, though they occasionally seem ill-matched to quasimoto's subject matter; it feels odd for the violence of his words and delivery to be accompanied by such mellow beats. i've only listened to the unseen, quasimoto's first album, and while i respect it, and hear why it's good, it doesn't have the ease of his other work.

however, one incredibly dope remix of quasimoto's "microphone mathematics" really fleshes out the song and makes it at least twice as accessible and enjoyable. which, ultimately, leads me to forget remember when #2: peanut butter wolf - "microphone mathematics remix". now, this forget remember when isn't as stark as +/- last week; there are several other good songs on the album where this appears, jukebox 45s, peanut butter wolf's compilation of stones throw songs - most appropriately, as he's the label head. "ernie & the top notes feat. raymond winnifield - things could be better" is a great song, as is "breakestra - ghetto soul togetha (part two)," but the "microphone mathematics remix" is the standout track. it has all of the aural spunk and chipper-ness that the original lacks. it's especially interesting, because i think madlib himself produced the remix, leading to an

for your consideration, both are below.

quasimoto - "microphone mathematics" from the unseen. purchase here.

quasimoto - "microphone mathematics remix" from peanut butter wolf's jukebox 45s. get it here.

forget remember when

i just came up with this idea about 75 seconds ago, and i want to try it out. so let me know what you think.

there are lots of bands that aren't very good. and there are even more bands that are occasionally okay. and, every once in a while, there's a band that isn't very good at all, but, for one song, they pull all the right elements together and something just clicks. forget remember when honors these songs, the single gem on an album that is overwhelmingly...okay. the first forget remember when song is "let's build a fire," the title track of +/-'s third album.


+/-, despite having a bitching name, are not very good. let's build a fire, released last year on (also excellently named) absolutely kosher records, is not a very good album. but, damn, the song is great. the way it starts always reminds me of "jaipur," by the mountain goats - the way it opens with a needle drop and hissy aural scratches. but, whereas john darnielle probably used a real LP for "jaipur," i think +/- are just using protools.

but that doesn't take anything away from the quality of the music. in fact, by relying on that effect, +/- give themselves a leg up, providing them with a horn section that creates the mood before being supplanted by the crashing entrance of guitars and drums. +/- is described as an electronic indie band, but there is little electronics in what i've heard. james baluyut, vocalist and primary songwriter, cradles the opening of "let's build a fire" tenderly, the horn melody old-timey and curious, making the listener want to hear more. once the downbeat rings in the rest of the cast, the song loses none of its allure, keeping its slight-swing feeling. the trumpet is featured prominently here, before the sound trickles back down to the end of the song. it ends like it began, with mock-vinyl pops and the velvet sound of a clarinet. "let's build a fire" is a great song.

enjoy: +/- - "let's build a fire" buy the entire album from absolutely kosher here.

ramallah tel aviv

mr. mammoth's love for balkan beat box is well-documented. which is why we're very pleased to present the recently unlocked (thanks to gizmodo) "ramallah tel aviv," the itunes bonus track off nu-med.


"ramallah tel aviv" is a real breath of fresh air in the bbb arsenal. instead of opening with the expected bass rumble and danceable beats, "ramallah tel aviv" employs off-rhythm acoustic chords before bringing in sparse piano and a hip-friendly beat, though the track is overwhelmingly less layered than most bbb offerings. i imagine that this song, sung in hebrew and arabic, is intended more as a deliberate political statement, an attempt to linguistically and rhythmically bridge the israeli-palestinian divide, and was conceived as such, not as a standard balkan beat box song. it takes nearly three minutes for ori kaplan to bring in the sax, relying much more on the aforementioned piano and bongos to carry the song. as a nice change of pace, "ramallah tel aviv" certainly does its job.

balkan beat box - "ramallah tel aviv" (buy nu-med, released on jdub records, here.)

worth spending money on, volume one (and introduction)

worth spending money on is a new series on mr. mammoth. in it, i try to pick out recent (from last week to last year) releases that have taken more than pitchfork's nudging for me to like them. these albums are, in fact, so good, that the artist deserves more than just my dollar when i go see them live, they've earned it for their studio work. which is another way of saying, of course, that merely downloading this album is not enough - you should really buy it.

so, the first album of this series is sound of silver by lcd soundsystem.


i didn't like lcd's first album...i got as far as "daft punk is playing at my house" (the first song) before deciding i didn't like it. but james murphy's new album, sound of silver, is captivating in a way his first disc wasn't. it's not just the allure of "new york i love you but you're bringing me down," the album's closing track, which ignores all dfa mandate against guitars; it's not the snotty "north american scum," which actually sounds like murphy recorded it with a cold; and it's not the hyponotic "all my friends" that draws you in with a solo piano and layers sounds upon sounds. sound of silver is orchestrated as a balance, making hips shake with the ever-present bass, but soothing the mind as well...i keep rereading that sentence, and it sounds so ridiculous, but it's true. the melodies are quirky and calm, the lyrics melancholy and regretful. james murphy has positioned these three elements, the physical (the dance factor), the mental (the soothing factor), and the emotional (the sad factor), in a unique arrangement that privileges none, but values all. sound of silver feels alive at a every track, the three themes reimagined and rebalanced continually. sound of silver maintains its vibrancy by shifting the emphasis between the three, resulting in a textured album that is refreshing and rare.

the first track i heard from sound of silver was "new york i love you but you're bringing me down," and i loved it. where had these guitars come from? the real drums, the rawness in murphy's voice, the guitar SOLO? it was shocking, nearly. murphy's flexibility (about dance music) kinda ends with that track, as all eight others are electronic, but "new york" adds to murphy's mystique and is an enigmatic way to ends the album. the album stars with "get innocuous!,"a red-hot jolt of dance power. instead of evolving intensely, expectedly, or emphatically, "get innocuous!" finds a simple melody, before murphy buries it under thick bass sounds. but we never lose track of that simplicity, anchoring the song, as it does, without being overwhelmed by the physical. murphy's vocals in this song are melodramatic, echoed to the point of sounding like a choir in a tunnel, but are almost nonexistent, entering for only a minute in the middle of the song. "time to get away" continues in the dancy vein, almost lulling the listener into believing this will just be more of the same from lcd. but murphy shifts it up with "north american scum," an anthem where lyrics take the fore. "scum" is as danceable as "innocuous!" and "get away," propelled by a repeated bass line, and could be on it's way to being a dance song, before murphy sings "oh i don't know, i don't know, oh, where to begin/we are north americans. and for those of you who still think we're from england/we're not, no," establishing a lyrical theme and encouraging the listener to think as well as dance. and dance you will, because "scum" has one of murphy's best choruses yet.

so far, on my fifth listen today, the standout track on silver is "someone great," as it has been for the past several days (though not as many listens per day). the opening of the song is gloomy, like having to play inside on a saturday when you're eight. but then the double melody breaks the song open, a xylophone and electronicy beeps competing for attention, lifting the song from sadness. but murphy's lyrics, recited in singsong, spell out a story of loneliness that counters the perkiness of the melody. in this song, the best in an album of standout tracks, lcd soundsystem delivers the goods.

the second half of sound of silver is just as good as the first, bridging the gap with "all my friends," which features the most precise drum sounds since "new york i love you." "friends" actually has the most organic sounds of any song besides "new york," adding to its allure (along with the pelvis-shaking beat). "us v them" is a no wave homage song, reinforced by the omnipresent bass, resplendent with cowbell and backing vocals. i like "watch the tapes," a short (by lcd standards) song that sounds overwhelmingly happy, that opens like punk before bringing in the electronic beats. "watch the tapes" is uptempo, and murphy adds to the positive feeling with all-out singing and "woo-hoo"s for effect. "sound of silver," the title track, is the second to last track, but is, in many ways, the thematic end to the album. like all the previous songs, it's a slow build that integrates both the adding and subtracting of sounds. "sound of silver" is less focused as well, a departure from the strict progressiveness of his other tracks, though just as orchestrated and deliberate. murphy brings in some new sounds, like a marimba, and the beat, though present, is never strong enough alone to make someone dance. it's a relaxing yet enticing end before the straight up rock of "new york i love you," a thematic end to an album that defined its sound, but wasn't limited by it. james murphy's versatility is integral to lcd soundsystem's future, especially after sound of silver. i am very impressed by this album, and am happy to say:

it's worth spending money on.

lcd soundsystem - "someone great"

support independent labels by shopping direct. buy sound of silver here.

amy winehouse gets rehabilitated

everybody loves amy winehouse, and mr. mammoth is no exception. not enough to pay $250 for a ticket to see her in new york, but certainly enough to post five bang-up remixes and re-interpretations of her two singles, "rehab" and "you know i'm no good." i think the skeewiff and desert eagle discs remixes are by far the best, but the ghostface version is solid as well. the hot chip one doesn't really appeal to me, and i'm only including the jay-z/monch rendition for completeness.

hot chip - "rehab"

ghostface killah - "you know i'm no good"

jay-z and pharoahe monch - "rehab"

skeewiff - "you know i'm no good"

desert eagle discs - "rehab"

photo by carrie musgrave. see more of her amy photos here and other work here.

they are the aliens, and they want to make our leaders bouncy and cheerful.

for all the talk lately about the new earth, there's been very few references to aliens, when some might think that this is the best opportunity we've had to find life on other planets. as likely as it is that intelligent life exists elsewhere besides old earth, we don't have to leave our backyards to find aliens. they're just over in fife.

you know the story of the beta band: 4 scots (gordon anderson, robin jones, john maclean, and steve mason) get together, release 3 excellent EPs and one good album (and one or two not so good albums), get popular, become agonizingly unpopular, break up. steve mason (vocals) goes on to found king biscuit time (he had his first full-length black gold released this week), gordon anderson succumbs to mental problems, working through them under the moniker lone pigeon. after releasing at least six albums under that name, anderson reunited with jones and maclean last may to record and release the alienoid starmonica ep under the name the aliens. since then, the aliens have released two other singles, and their first LP, astronomy for dogs, is released in the united states july 19. it is already out in the united kingdom.

i would say that most of astronomy for dogs has leaked by now, just from blogs alone. i have five tracks myself, culled from various sources, and i'm providing links to all of those mp3s below.

the aliens' sound draws heavily on 60s psychedelia and beatles-esque pop, resulting in an appropriately harmonic and layered approach. the first single from astronomy for dogs, "setting sun," is energetic and driven by a strong and sloppy guitar line, bolstered by a slippery organ, darting in and out of the melody. the instrumentation of songs is frequently internally repetitive, relying on the same beats and patterns for all four-or-so minutes of the song, but the differences between each track i've heard so far make up for it.

so, without further ado, here are the five mp3s i've been able to find. the aliens live here.

"setting sun" (i can't remember where i got it)

"rox" (getweirdturnpro) "caravan" (getweirdturnpro)

"only waiting" (good hodgkins) "robot man" (monocrave)

as a bonus (of sorts), i've posted the video for "setting sun" below. i like it.

bang on a can with a stick so it makes a sound

summer in new york: what says it better than a bajillion free concerts?

animal collective is kicking things (read: river to river) off at south street seaport on june 1, which is old news. but i am like hyped 4x for the following day's event, the bang on a can marathon. it will be my second summer in attendance, since it became free, thanks to river to river (read: corporate sponsors), and i am super duper pleased to say that the schedule has FINALLY been announced! last year, i saw amiina, gutbucket, glenn kotche, matmos, and a 100-person tuba army. it was on the front page of the times' art section, which i kept as a sweet memento. anyway, the full schedule is here, and the artists im most psyched about are below, with accompanying mp3s.

whereas last year the marathon only went for 12 or so hours, this year's is supposed to be 26, 26 jam-packed hours of free fucking music. i love new york.

6/2:

bagpipe orchestra 8:00 pm

the books 10:11 pm
"be good to them always" lost and safe

juana molina 2:05 am "rio seco" son

6/3:

dalek 12:08 pm "bricks crumble" abandoned language

yo la tengo 7:07 pm "beanbag chair" i am not afraid of you and i will beat your ass

obviously, there are tons of other bands that i've never heard of, and these are, basically, the most familiar names (to me). there is a bang on a can band, the bang on a can all-stars, who are performing several works, among them thurston moore's "stroking piece #1." there are also many post-classical orchestras (sure, post-classical is a music genre), notably TACTUS, consisting entirely of students at the manhattan school of music. there's an uzbek artist, several percussive ensembles, and a chorus, performing works by composers, both original and canonical. i won't be there for all 26 hours (i'm going to canada partway through), but i'm definitely staying until juana molina plays. i saw her last year at another river to river event, and was really taken aback by her work, which i'm sure has been improved on in the past year.


it doesn't get better than this.

the unbearable closeness of blonde redhead (w/ fields), webster hall, 5/8/07

this past tuesday, new york was swamped by a literal deluge of excellent concerts, from the re-sold on ebay for $500+ amy winehouse and patrick wolf to a solo ben gibbard to the repeat dates of bjork, beirut, and the arcade fire (they don't get a link because i don't like them). but i didn't go to any of these shows. first of all, i definitely don't have 500 bucks lying around for some jackass of a scalper, i don't like death cab, i would've loved to see final fantasy (opening for beirut), but i wasn't too impressed with beirut last summer at mccarren, and, besides, i like blonde redhead more than any of these guys.

so i was off to webster hall. i hadn't been there before, and i was excited to check it out. i arrived a few minutes into the fields set, which, in retrospect, i'm a little disappointed about. an anglo-icelandic quintet, fields layers lush melodies over startling distortion, bringing to mind both the noise aesthetic of the my bloody valentine and a folk sound, driven by frontman nick peill's acoustic strumming. finely textured, fields pairs heavily distorted guitar lines with the husky soprano of thorunn antor, the icelandic keyboardist who shares vocal duties with peill. some fields songs have been floating around, which really define their sound (i especially like "song for the fields"), and their set didn't disappoint. what is really refreshing about fields is the ease with which they blend tight pop rhythms with determined noise patterns, breathing life into the somewhat stifled "shoegaze" genre. except for a fashion faux pas (see below), fields performed an excellent set that clearly pleased others as well as me, because their debut LP, everything last winter, was sold out at the merch table after the show. released earlier this week on atlantic (and from whence the mp3s came), promises to build on their EP of last year, 7 from the village. some of the new tracks are streaming at their myspace, and i've posted "song for the fields" below. i've also tossed in "brittlesticks" from 7 from the village, and i really recommend to everyone to go out and get the new album. here's another picture of fields i took.


i find that a lot of venues, or bands, or both, really aren't aware of the role that light plays in creating the right atmosphere during a performance, but that certainly wasn't the case during this show. the lights during the fields set were really good, but whoever was minding the board during the blonde redhead set really knew their shit. from the timing and connectivity with the music, i would assume that the lighting person travels with blonde redhead, which definitely increases my estimation of them. ive been doing a lot of thinking about how to describe blonde redhead, and haven't really found some satisfactory adjectives. to my ear, blonde redhead's music exists as a paradox. the oeuvre is simple, but the sound is complex; songs sound similar, but each is unique; the aesthetic is apparent, but the performance is layered. i really like blonde redhead, but without any one of their songs standing out as being better than any other. the minimalism of the vocals and melodies are perfectly complemented by the nuanced drums and distorted sounds. blonde redhead songs often operate with a continuously chugging guitar that sounds atmospheric, rather than repetitive. kazu makino and amadeo pace (his twin brother, simone, has drumming duties in the band) share vocals and guitars (makino also plays keyboard) and all three have really fluid onstage chemistry, which is no doubt aided by makino's marriage to the guitar-playing pace. i've posted "23" from their new album of the same name, and "falling man" from 2003's misery is a butterfly. instead of trying to describe blonde redhead's sound any further, i'm going to finish the writeup of this show by posting a number of photos. as i said, the lighting really accentuated blonde redhead's set, and it really spoke deeply to me about their music overall. so, without further ado, blonde redhead.












final words: we got a double encore. it was fucking sweet. the title of the post refers to the way i felt surrounded, nearly encompassed by the bass of the drum machine. at one point in the set, after not speaking at all, makino called a time-out, and asked the crowd if the bass was too high. upon hearing that it was, blonde redhead offered many apologies, and genuinely seemed ashamed. these artists obviously take their work incredibly seriously, which seems to be something special. not only do they clearly gain pleasure from performing, they treat it professionally, no sloppily put together work here. blonde redhead are real artists, and it was really special to see them.

fields - "song for the fields" "brittlesticks" buy everything last winter here.

blonde redhead - "23" "falling man" buy blonde redhead stuff from 4AD here.

break the champagne on the hull of our new ship FREE

i'm taking this post as an opportunity to launch a new mr. mammoth posting line, which all the hotheads and chic queens in milan are vogueing this year: the free music series. i've gone back and added the slabco and daytrotter posts to this collection, and have a few posts planned to give you all the free music you can stand. i had several mammoth-sized epiphanies while riding home on the subway at 2 am last night, so keep your eyes peeled (over the next couple weeks) for new mr. mammoth developments. for now, let me say there's a whole live feist show over at shameless complacency, so skip to your lou and get your mouse on that action.

happy may! (ok, it's a little late)

i try and stay abreast of the goings-ons and this-and-thats of the blogosphere, and i feel like i've been improving lately. this whole blog thing is still (relatively) new to me, as a blogger myself and a reader of them. i've added a couple new ones in the past week or so -- the music slut, auralfitness -- but my favorite one that is still new to me is daytrotter. i've casually mentioned daytrotter before, but i feel it deserves its own post.

first of all, daytrotter is not a blog. daytrotter is a fucking miracle. daytrotter lives in rock island, IL, the probable equivalent of the middle of nowhere. daytrotter invites young bands to come to their studios, en route to or from chicago, generally, and toss off a couple or four songs in their studio, and go merrily on their way. daytrotter has multiple in-house artists (scroll down). daytrotter, in fact, has more illustrators than engineers, writers, label managers, and den mothers put together. daytrotter is beautiful.

daytrotter's promise to the world is simple: two featured bands, eight session songs each week. they took a mobile studio to sxsw, and many of their recent sessions have featured artists who recorded with them there. daytrotter is extraordinarily prescient: they recorded cold war kids before rolling stone spermed all over robbers and cowards (before, in fact, there was a robbers and cowards); harry and the potters, a favorite of todd p, were recorded early last year; they hit up page france long before lullabyes (and before ...and the family telephone); sunset rubdown, oakley hall, annuals, frog eyes, my brightest diamond, of montreal, vietnam, mates of state, eef barzelay, and a number of bands i've never heard of, but probably will by next year, if their previous predictions are anything to go by. rock plaza central dropped by a few weeks ago to record some songs before they earned a mention on music-for.robots this week, the first time i had seen their name in print (or whatever passes for print on the interweb). they have recorded so many good artists that it would be asinine for me to list them all here, so do yourself a favor and check the list (84 bands strong!) here.

daytrotter worked its equestrian way into my heart moments after i read the article (post is too small of a word) on my brightest diamond, (one of) my new favorite artist(s). all of the features are mixes of interview and narrative, written by sean moeller, one-time contributor to cokemachineglow and all-around music commentator, and are engaging and informational, with the only downside being the font size (a little hard on the eyes, guys). moeller's articles are in-depth, well-researched, with beautiful prose, but for a dedicated free-musiker like myself, daytrotter's greatest assets are the 4 songs that each artist records in futureappletree studio, offered to the public as free downloads.

i'm posting four songs from different daytrotter sessions at the end of this post, mostly chosen at random from daytrotter's sizable catalog. two are unreleased (yet), one is wildly different from the studio version, and the last was recorded before the LP it is on was released. the quebecois that make up malajube (to be fair, their website is also in english) played "cristobal,"a track that moeller suggests is the closet the quintet will come to sounding like the hold steady, though this assessment is almost certainly premature, since malajube are only on their second album (and the song is a work-in-progress). eef barzelay, ex-frontman of clem snide, played a new song about breaking up with girls because they don't like frank zappa (certainly justifiable). clem snide are NOT defunct, as was rumored (or, at least, assumed), which is great news for all of those naked lunch fans who love sweet sounding agony. the third song comes from grizzly bear, all hot and bothered from their recent hyperpopularity, who rip through a new version of "little brother," excited for their upcoming stint as feist's openers. the last song by page france, who i've been listening to non-stop while writing this post (probably why they made the "download" cut). their song, "the ruby ring man," opens ...and the family telephone, which is to be released may 8 on suicide squeeze (though i work at a radio station, and have been playing the album for two weeks now), while the version recorded at daytrotter was performed in october last year and is a bit different.

anyway, those are the tracks, and this is daytrotter. at last count, they had nearly 650,000 downloads, so plenty of people already know about them, and now you can too.

and, of course, after you download songs from daytrotter, go see the band live and buy their album. there's no love like giving your hard-earned dollars to a band whose lives are probably much tougher than yours.

malajube - "cristobal." purchase trompe l'oeil from fine french-speaking retailers here.

eef barzelay - "the girls don't care." his debut solo album, bitter honey, can be bought at itunes.

grizzly bear - "little brother," from yellow house, available for purchase here.

page france - "the ruby ring man," from the upcoming ...and the family telephone. find info here.