LONDON HAUNTS

(photo via the decibel tolls)

a month ago i ended up at a hostel in north london. sunday was halloween, which was a wash up except for the purchase of a £40 slice… some guy named robert gave us the number. monday, we smoked spliffs and browsed the tate modern. we ran through the evening rush hour underground and crammed into crowded tube cars to stop ‘home’ before the show. there, we ate £4 chicken burger meals and mixed take away drinks of pineapple juice and gin. ariel pink’s haunted graffiti didn’t go on til 10 so we made the walk from kings cross to islington and chugged from our plastic bottles, a la freshman year of high school.

we saw the venue ahead and turned left to find a gaggle of forty fixed gears chained to the corner bike stands. finished our cigarettes while playing ‘count the fixies at ariel pink’, then headed into the garage. a robust woman at the bar carded all three of us and scowled when she read we were twenty. beers in hand, we pushed our way towards the front and settled for fifteen yards from the stage. we sipped and waited. smoke soon clouded the stage and blue lights cast down to reveal the men’s silhouettes. three songs in, pat turned to me and said, “is this real? …they’re too good.” hands flew up and voices screamed when the guitars of ’round and round’ started in. i lost my mind when that segway-ed into ‘life in la’ and actually stood still in disbelief as ‘for kate i wait’ echoed out just a couple songs later. whoever says lo fi doesn’t translate live hasn’t seen ariel pink’s haunted graffiti.

check out this ’09 vid where he bangs a bohg on stage & still kills the song (my favorite):





MF Doom’s Haunted Graffiti

Recently signed to 4AD, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti are recording a new hi-fi (that’s right, NOT lo-fi) record. In case you missed the promo single “Round and Round” you can nab it here.

Below are a couple of remixes, the first is blitzed by the winding nonsensical graffitis of MF Doom (aka DOOM) and the second is for nostalgic ariel pink enthusiasts:

“Doomsday Dance Blitz”:

“Round and Round” without the record deal:

Dream Boat

Toro Y Moi was included in a quick list about a week back entitled Take-Off. But Toro, alias of promising lo-fi whiz-kid Chaz Bundick, is worthy of a little more than an undersized feature. He’s been steadily gaining hype over the past few weeks as more and more listeners discover his hard to describe brand of dream-pop space-rock.

Toro’s not exactly reinventing the wheel with his recent batch of tracks. His music is reminiscent to many contemporary lo-fi/ambient/electro hybrid acts, like Ariel Pink and Panda Bear. It is more as though Toro is taking a few wheels and building a Penny-farthing bicycle, something that is unusual but still takes you on a ride. As each track progresses, his fuzzy, dreamy audio atmosphere comes into focus as brilliantly arranged pop music. He assembles crisp backbeats to somnolent, plaintive vocal hooks, with instrumentals shifting from song to song . But no number of adjective combinations will accurately put Toro Y Moi’s music into words. This is possibly because of the array of influences that have contributed to his distinctive sound. Perhaps the most endearing quality of Toro’s music is how different it will sound from listen to listen, person to person, depending on how one tries to describe it.

Let’s just hope for an album to come out soon.

Human Nature (Michael Jackson Cover) – Toro Y Moi

Talamak – Toro Y Moi

Causers of This – Toro Y Moi

109 – Toro Y Moi

Easy Maths

Here’s a simple enough equation for ya:

Weird Tapes = Memory Cassette = Memory Tapes

Finally, lo-fi “hybrid” Memory Tapes has put out his 12” singles EP. Dayve Hawk (actual spelling) had more than the usual bit of trouble finally deciding on an alias. Or maybe his multiple projects are simply one brilliant hype ploy. Either way, his track “Bicycle” has been floating dreamily from site to site for more than a week or so, and it’s got just about every reviewer granting glowing praise.

All the approval is well-deserved. At times what you hear can feel repetative, but the song is ultimately patient and mesmeric, adding layer after colorful layer. As you’d expect, “Bicycle” takes you somewhere. You’ll have no idea where you’ve been until the song is over, and you might have a hard time describing what the trip was like, but you‘ll be more than satisfied by the end.

(I am not putting up the other two tracks from the EP. If you like an artist, support ‘em yourself.)

Bicycle – Memory Tapes

Party Trash – Weird Tapes

Home – Weird Tapes

Last One Awake – Memory Cassette

Sleep on the Roof – Memory Cassette