Category: experimental rock

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of their 2010 self-titled EP and their 2012 full-length debut Differance, South Korean trio Jambinai, comprised of   Bongi Kim (haegum — a Korean fiddle-like instrument), Ilwoo Lee (guitar and piri — a Korean flute, made of bamboo) and Eun Young Sim (geomungo, a Korean zither), the trio have developed a rapidly growing national and international reputation for an intense, adventurous, headbanging worthy take on traditional Korean instrumental music. As the story goes, the trio met while studying traditional music at Korea National University of Arts, and they quickly bonded over a desire to present traditional music in a new way, “to communicate with the ordinary person, who doesn’t listen to Korean traditional music,” as the band’s principle composer and writer Ilwoo explains in press notes. Interestingly, Jambinai’s approach eschews several generations of Korean modernists and post-modernists, who Lee notes have based their sound and approach around Western classical music, jazz, jazz fusion to create a prog rock/experimental rock sound.

And while shocking Korean audiences, the trio have also been critically and commercially successful as their full-length Differance was nominated for Best Crossover Album and Best Jazz and Crossover Performance at the 2013 Korean Music Awards, and won Best Crossover Album — and as a result, the band used the album’s success as a springboard for several international tours as a quintet featuring  Jihoon Ok (bass) and Jae Hyuk Choi (drums) that have seen praise from a number of major Western outlets including The Guardian and others.

A Hermitage, the trio’s forthcoming sophomore effort and Bella Union Records debut is slated for a June 17 release, and the album’s latest single “They Keep Silence” is a tense, throbbing and furious song full of angular and stabbing chords paired layers upon layers of feedback and distortion in a composition that consists of downtuned and punishing power chord-heavy sections and brief and quite sections of respite and introspection. Sonically, the song sounds as though it draws from Tool and Ministry  — or simply put it kicks ass, takes names and kicks more ass just to ensure that you got the point. In fact, the song seems to tape into a universal feeling of anger and isolation of people, who are growing both impatient and suspicious of the forces that are controlling and influencing their daily lives.

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Just in time to close out the year, the members of Radiohead announced that last year, they were approached to write a theme song for the latest James Bond film, Spectre. Knowing that the studio and the film’s director went with Sam Smith‘s “Writing On The Wall,” it’s pretty obvious that someone decided that Radiohead’s “Spectre” just wasn’t going to work out — although to be honest, “Spectre” is a gorgeous,moody and dramatic jazz-inspired composition that sounds as though it could have been on Amnesiac or King of Limbs. To my ears, what makes the song so strange is that Radiohead’s theme song as though it could have been part of an art-house film about consumerism, greed, alienation and regret, while capturing the tone and feel of a Bond film.

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Video Review: The Surreal Video for Space’s “Strange World”

Currently comprised of  founding members Tommy Scott (vocals, guitar), Franny Griffiths (keys), along with Phil Hartley (double bass, bass) and Allan Jones (drums), the Liverpool-based quartet Space can trace their origins back to 1993 when […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Charlee Cook, Chance Cook, Will Hicks, and Dom Marcoaldi, the Nashville, TN-based experimental quartet Linear Downfall have developed a reputation for a sound that blends abrasive, almost psychotic noise with gorgeous melodies. And as the band notes, their music is meant to tap into the highs and lows of life and challenges the listener to look inward. After the self-release of three full-length albums, an EP and some rather extensive touring across the US, the band managed to catch the attention of The Flaming Lips, which interestingly enough led to a side project featuring members of the band, that they dubbed Electric Würms.

Last year may have arguably been the most productive and prolific period in the band’s history, as they completed a tour to support their third full-length album Fragmental Hippocampus, released the first Electric Würms album, Musik, die Schwer zu Twerk and released a 5 song EP as the band was busily putting the finishing touches on their forthcoming effort, Sufferland, which is slated for a November 6 release. As the band notes in press notes the new album will be released with a full-length film meant to correspond with the material on the album. In some way, it would seem that the material on the album would be — at least informally — the film’s score. 

With that in mind, Sufferland‘s first single “The Question” is a tense and uneasy song consisting of propulsive, tribal drumming, feedback, electronic squeaks, squawks, bleeps and bloops. twisting and turning organ chords and obscured by the abrasive, and menacing post apocalyptic noise is a trippy, off-kilter sense of melody that makes the song evoke that unsettled feeling you’d have after waking up from a very fucked up dream.


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