Woodhands + Junior Boys

at Cafe Eleven



by
Tara A Skalowski
www.triggerhappytara.com

Pretty Lights

Passing By Behind Your Eyes



I caught a notice for Pretty Lights on tour and having never heard of them before I did a quick google search to check them out. I'm so happy I did, and happier to find that the man behind the lights Derek Vincent also offers the album Passing By Behind Your Eyes as a free download from his site. After scanning just a few tracks I'm hooked. Throbbing bass lines, soul-infused neo-jazz, pounding electro, and a smattering of hip-hop all combine in a sonic alchemy that is sure to get your head bobbing and dance floors everywhere jumping. Pretty Light make pretty noise. Keep it coming Derek!

"Passing By Behind Your Eyes" is the 3rd full length Pretty Lights album released on October 6th 2009.

Find out for yourself at
www.prettylightsmusic.com

- MAX

OWL CITY

Ocean Eyes

By now you can barely turn on MTV or VH1 without catching OWL CITY's "Fireflies" video or hearing clips of it in a TV show segue. And no, it's not 'that guy from Death Cab For Cutie,' though the similarities are eerie on that first single. So indeed, this kid is just EVERYWHERE, and frankly I'm not complaining. "Fireflies" however, is just one gem in a mixed goodie bag of indie-dance-electro tracks that are damn near infectious. I've been catching myself humming them often. There are a couple of sickly poppy tracks that I could forgo (see the singsongy "The Bird and The Worm" or very odd "Dental Care"), but standout favorites like the booming opening track "On The Wing," "Vanilla Twilight," "Meteor Shower," and most of the 12 tracks are consistently sonic with deep waves of bass carrying cascading synths, epic breaks and soaring vocals. His third release and major-label debut album Ocean Eyes is an exceptional bold mix of styles and flawlessly executed.

"Hoot! Hoot!" for OWL CITY!

STAR WARS in concert

Jacksonville Arena
10.29.09

Anthony Daniels clad in an all black tuxedo and metallic gold vest took the stage amidst a sea of lights, lasers, smoke and fire to narrate between the symphonic renditions of the music from STAR WARS featuring key characters (including his own C3PO) and plot moments illustrated by massive video screening filled with synched montages from all 6 films that got my midichlorians all tingly. Presented in two parts with a 20 minute intermission ended with a sustained standing ovation. Simply a must for geeks of all ages.

Below are some photos from the show and the display areas featuring props and costumes from the Lucas Films archives.
















- Max Michaels / Jacksonville FL

Depeche Mode - Tour of the Universe - 09.04.09 - Tampa, FL

A three hour drive that seemed like days. Driving across town from the venue just to find a Starbucks amidst the farmers markets, taco buses, creepy little rundown roadside motels and closed drive in theaters. Scoffing at the $30 "vip" parking in lieu of walking farther to the main gate during the only 15 minutes of rain at the venue all night. Seeing Depeche Mode for the 5th time. Priceless.

While Dave Gahan is still pulling off his signature spins and snake like girations and Martin Gore's outfits are as shiny as ever, for a band with a discography a mile long there was a notable absence of signature songs that people of all ages go to see legendary bands like this for. Specifically staples like People Are People and Everything Counts, though other favorites like Flys On The Windscreen and In Your Room had their moments, Dave's vocals on those powerful, brooding tracks seemed less committed than on previous tours. Perhaps due to recent surgery, or the moist open air venue, or maybe having done them ad nauseam. I Feel You was by far the best track of the night, vocally and visually. Martin stepped up the guitar and head banged like it was a metal show, and stepped back to man the keyboards while Andy Fletcher simply stood there next to the live drummer and additional keyboardist, none of which were introduced, instead Dave introduced Martin three separate times as either Mr. Martin or Mr. Gore. Yes, Dave we get it, he's awesome. And he is, his vocals were as strong as ever and carried every track, especially where Dave fell flat, and as always when he's belting out the soaring piano ballad Somebody.

All in all, despite what seemed like an epic trek through adverse weather, dozen and dozen of State Troopers ganged up on car after car they had pulled over, there really was no better way to kick off the Labor Day weekend then spending a Friday night with Depeche Mode in Tampa, FL.

The Beautiful Deadly Children - The Gospel According to Goth

A Kabaret Grotesque by Bertie Weirdly
Mallard Independent Publishing

Beautiful Deadly Children appear to be a long-lived English goth outfit that never quite made a name for themselves outside of their immediate scene in Birmingham (home of Black Sabbath and Napalm Death!), and what notoriety they gained was mostly for flamboyantly unfortunate taste in costumery. I'm talking troll ears, fake claws, batwing dresses with wings, puffy shirts aplenty, and surely illegal applications of PVC and rubber. Whereas any other band would have given up in the face of such deafening indifference, Beautiful Deadly Children took quite the opposite tack. With a delusional self-belief that rivals that of Half Japanese and Andrew WK (and usually I’d approve of such world-making), BDC decided to concentrate not on honing down the music to a darkling point, but to instead pen a lengthy tome detailing their life and times. The results aren't pretty. I'd rather not do a hatchet job on this book, because the concept behind it is something I'd certainly want one of my favorite bands to do (I think the Kills were talking about doing a photography book), but this is... definitely... not... that. Here's the problem, the writing is pretty pedestrian, it feels like I'm reading an overlong Myspace profile. To make matters worse, it seems that they run out of things to write about halfway through (which is weird, because, y'know they had complete control over the book) so by the end, when they start giving (lengthy) make-up tips, the book drops out of my hand and falls to the floor. The tone is in turns overly precious and desperately clumsy. And the pictures, ehh.... you dare not look. It's just a roly-poly bunch of chancers shoehorned into a dizzying array of inappropriate, unflattering, and faintly ridiculous attire. I don’t care if you hang out at the Factory or the Castle every weekend going back a decade, you’re going to be channeling Ogre from “Revenge of the Nerds” ‘round about page 30. I think it's possible to age with dignity in the gothic scene, but these cats just ain't there baby. May I direct you to the new Horrors album instead?

- Mathew Moyer

Von Iva

Girls on Film
Stickfigure

Fresh from a stint as Zooey Deschanel's backing band in by-the-numbers comedy "Yes Man," all-girl trio Von Iva step out on their own with "Girls on Film (*wink wink* or bad Duran Duran reference?), an album drenched in the bad drugs and worse hangover of Noughties clubland hedonism. Von Iva have stripped down their sound to a blandly modern synth/rhythm affair, redolent of bad DFA or Shiny Toy Guns. Singer Jillian Iva does that pseudo-soulful diva thing, while the instrumental backdrop is pounding four-to-the-floor beats and utterly obvious booming synths. The songs are bland and tentative, the performances feel forced. This just feels like a blatant grab for the lastnightsparty or Cobrasnake demographic. Boooooooooring. That said, stardom is most likely imminent.

- Matthew Moyer

Nachtmahr (PRE-SHOW)

LIVE Saturday 7/18
Edge 17 - Factory

For those craving a great industrial show, your about to get your wish. Nachtmahr, hailing from Austria, are about to hit Jacksonville with their brand of hard-hitting electro that's sure to please rivetheads around town and in the nearby area. Nachtmahr is the side project of one Thomas Rainer who is also one half of the electro/darkwave group L'Ame Immortelle (the latter being a band many electro fans should be familiar with). While L'Ame Immortelle had it's share of heavy moments, Thomas got the idea for Nachtmahr while doing a series of dj shows inspired by the material he was spinning. The music is brutal, harsh, peppered with German voiceover samples and will simply destroy any dance floor. There are some instrumentals on the cd I have (Fuer Frei!) and I assume that is the case with some of the newer releases, that I don't have. If I had to compare them to anyone I would say they share common ground with their German brethren Feindflug and possibly elements of Suicide Commando and Hocico. This is the music that so many of us love, but don't get to hear (or see live) very often without a road trip. So don't whine to anyone that there are no industrial bands coming through our area if you miss this show. You have been warned!

- Craig Harvey


Nachtmahr performs live
Saturday July 18th
at FACTORY @ EDGE 17
1187 Edgewood Ave South
Jacksonville, FL 32205
www.edge17.com
www.FactoryJax.com

Nachtmahr (PRE-SHOW)

LIVE Saturday 7/18
Edge 17 - Factory

For those craving a great industrial show, your about to get your wish. Nachtmahr, hailing from Austria, are about to hit Jacksonville with their brand of hard-hitting electro that's sure to please rivetheads around town and in the nearby area. Nachtmahr is the side project of one Thomas Rainer who is also one half of the electro/darkwave group L'Ame Immortelle (the latter being a band many electro fans should be familiar with). While L'Ame Immortelle had it's share of heavy moments, Thomas got the idea for Nachtmahr while doing a series of dj shows inspired by the material he was spinning. The music is brutal, harsh, peppered with German voiceover samples and will simply destroy any dance floor. There are some instrumentals on the cd I have (Fuer Frei!) and I assume that is the case with some of the newer releases, that I don't have. If I had to compare them to anyone I would say they share common ground with their German brethren Feindflug and possibly elements of Suicide Commando and Hocico. This is the music that so many of us love, but don't get to hear (or see live) very often without a road trip. So don't whine to anyone that there are no industrial bands coming through our area if you miss this show. You have been warned!

- Craig Harvey

Katzenjammer Kabarett

Grand Guignol and Varietes
Projekt

Oh, thank god for this! I was getting so fucking bored of how so many so-called dark cabaret bands were just bleeding the whole shebang dry with bloodless artifice and facile undestanding of the very basic artform; like, “Hey I'll just use this Cabaret 101 piano vamp over and over and over and over and everyone will be shocked by my decadence.” Zzzzzzzzzz. But then comes French quartet Katzenjammer Kabarett (pretentious name that references classic late 19th century comic strip? Yeah, I'll have some of that.), paying some fealty to the cabaret aesthetic but then shaking it up like a cheap snowglobe - cramming in a dizzying array of other influences like postpunk, early British goth, Japanese music, 4AD’s dream experiments, chamber music, disco, Ze Records at its height. And, oh yeah, Siouxsie and the Banshees loom large, particularly in the singer’s lusty, singular vocals. “Grand Guignol” is an invigorating, heady mix, with remarkably assured performances, arrangements and an unerring instinct for fucking with the format.

Art-damaged gothic chamber music, you saved my damn life! What took you so fucking long?

- Matthew Moyer

Blood Money

Blood Brotherhood
Killer Pimp Records

Sometimes even avant-garde classical music doesn't afford the aesthetic freedoms that the truly restless hunger for. To that end, cigar-chompin' composer and academic Ken Ueno has joined up with Tom Worster and Jon Whitney to form Blood Money, a trio that attempts a meditative inversion of the power electronics aesthetic. “Blood Brotherhood” is not a linear or normal song-based record, but it is completely shorn of the tiresome masculine histrionics that permeates much noise music. In its place, with the barest of sonic tools, are songs mostly based around less than a smattering of accidental percussion, a thin lattice of electronic hums, whines and static buzzing, and the tightly simmering vocals of Ueno, delivering through clenched teeth and muted microphone, an otherworldly hybrid of Dionysio D'Arrington, Telepathik Friend, tuvan throat singing, Diamanda Galas and speaking in tongues. Some of the earlier numbers with just the spooky tom of a single drum, mosquito-like keyboard hum and vocals that seem to be attuned to an alien language, unsure of each syllable remind me of a summoning at midnight under the haunted walls of a hundred-years old fortress. Ghost ships pass through a fog-shrouded inlet. Metal snakes shed their skin and consume diamonds. Another time, stretching every syllable to the breaking point, Ueno proclaims a coming release, as the undulating noise pulses drop out, and all that is left is the flickering murmur of a cathedral organ. “Blood Brotherhood” is a bold symbiosis with silence, a joining of irreconcilable opposites for a haunted inner peace.

As an art statement, in conception and execution, “Blood Brotherhood” often hedges close to fucking stunning. Whether you'd want to listen to it repeatedly? Well, let's just say that there are handy pop-psych exams no farther than your internet browser far more qualified to judge that than I.

- Matthew Moyer

Demon Hunter

45 Days DVD
Solid State

I have to admit, I picked this up from the office because I liked the bands logo. I had seen adds for their music and it was metal, so I figured I would give it a whirl. Then I found out they are a christian band. Well, that took off some serious points before I even listened to the music. Yes, folks I don't like christianity, so sue me. However, since I had the dvd's already I went ahead with it. The concert was just "ok". Yes, they had all the right elements (that was basically by-the- book, cookie cutter new wave of American metal sound) to be "heavy" but there was nothing that original about them. Even if they hadn't been a christian band, I would have felt the same. Again, it was just average. The tour documentary of 45 days in the life of Demon Hunter, centers around the band, touring, the fans talking about how the band's music brought them closer to god, Jesus, etc, etc..... If your a fan of these guys, this is your lucky day, but for anyone else, I say pass. There are far better and more original metal bands out there to listen to.

- Craig Harvey

Standeg

Ultrahightechviolet
Artoffact Records

This album is by some of the founding members of Haujobb. Well, they wear their former influences on their sleeve that's for sure. They even do an updated version of the song "Homes and Gardens". That said, there is still some dark, futuristic, industrial/ebm to be found here. Track one, "Replikant" was my favorite. Merging some heavy guitar into this instrumental, along side the synths gave it a very eerie, majestic, almost soundtrack quality. The re-make of "Homes and Gardens" wasn't bad, but I prefer the original. Still, this is better than much of the music this genre has put out as of late.

- Craig Harvey

Delain

April Rain
Sensory Records

The cover to this album was a little misleading to my eyes. This beautiful girl, hair blown back, with her band sihouetted in the background gave the appearance of some type of dance/pop album. Wrong again. Remember folks, you can't judge the music by the cover. Delain is a symphonic metal band with female vocals. The band was founded by ex - Within Temptation keyboardist Martijn Westerholt back in 2002. "April Rain" is their second album. Granted their are several bands of this ilk; Lacuna Coil, Nightwish, Leave's Eyes, Midnattsol etc... Delain definitely shows they have the talent to keep up with their peers. Vocalist Charlotte Wessels has a stunning, beautiful voice and her range is impeccable. The guitars are downtuned for maximum heaviness, and the entire album is slick and well produced. There are also some male vocals by guitarist Ronald Landa who moves from clean to "growling vocals". Thankfully the growling vocals are only on one track. Not that I don't like that style, but their are two many bands of this type who go back and forth between the beautiful female and growling male vocals already. I was definitely impressed and I think you will be as well, especially if you like this type of metal.

- Craig Harvey

Aidan Baker & THISQUIETARMY

A Picture of a Picture
Killer Pimp

So this is what Aidan Baker is up to when he's not creating Foucault-does-doom via the Cure's “Pornography” in Nadja with partner Leah Buckareff. With THISQUIETARMY (aka Eric Quach of Destroyalldreamers) at his side this time around, Baker creates airy, pillowy-soft, self-regenerating ambient bliss. Creating music that makes “Music For Airports” seem downright noodly, Baker and THISQUIETARMY manipulate sparse patches of watery guitar fuzz, cloudbursts of synth, and naturally occurring electronic sinewaves and pulses to create music that seems like microtonal flowers continually bursting to life, before slowly closing again. Closer listens reveal a much more lyrical bent to this music. The sound manipulators are very much in synch, each trying to out-sad the others with the most melancholy innervision, songs build, but so subtly and quietly you might not even notice it. Gigantic compositions and emotions rendered in quiet miniature. For fans of Brian Eno, Lycia, Harmonia.

- Matthew Moyer