Linda's Blog — February 2012 Archive Blogger Profile

When I first moved to Vancouver, I made two promises to myself: I'd finally learn to drive a car and to speak Estonian. Here we are 15 months later and nothing has happened on either front - that is, until now! Hanging out with someone who drives an old, bare bones, manual Japanese pickup who has generously offered to teach me everything he knows plus free use of the truck once I've got a handle on things (keeper??), and recently started teaching myself Eesti keelt. There's a part of me that maybe thinks it's bad idea to rely on basic (read: free) online language courses, but ya gotta start somewhere...

ANYWAY, this brings me to this week's Soundcheque Mondays post: Maria Minerva. Who? I didn't know either until I read Mark Richardson's review in our latest issue of Color 9.6, but she is Estonian and apparently a big thing in Europe. Sounds like Grimes, but I really just like that she's been described elsewhere as 'gloom disco'... Naudi!

 

Maria Minerva
sacred & profane love
(100% silk)


It’s only been a year since her debut appearance on a limited cassette that was quietly released by Not Not Fun, but Maria Minerva has since been making huge leaps and discoveries within in her aesthetic. Since the recent release of her full-length, Cabaret Cixous, the London-via-Estonia producer, still in her early 20s, has recently been slotted alongside the likes of Nite Jewel and Glass Candy, though Minerva eschews the more direct pop stance of her contemporaries in favour of a more abstracted bliss. Her debut, Tallinn At Dawn, was a fairly muted and hazy affair, while Cabaret Cixous expanded on that and nudged it towards the dance floor. This artistic growth hasn’t slowed, as Sacred & Profane Love is so much bolder and confident than anything released previously. The alien disco of tracks like “Another Time & Place” or “Kyrie Eleison” burst out of the headphones and onto some distant interplanetary discotheque. With thumping, low-end bass, her trademark drifting vocals and an array of imaginative, quirky synth squiggles, Sacred & Profane Love tickles the mind as easily as the lower lumbar.
—Mark Richardson, Color 9.6

See you next week! 

What is Soundcheque Mondays anyway? Every week, I'll be posting a music review direct from the pages of Color that deserves another go-around, plus a video from the band so you get to hear the actual music that goes along with it. Win/Win!

Previous entries:

Monday Feb 6, 2012 Soft Moon
Monday Feb 13, 2012 Cloud Nothings
Monday Feb 20, 2012 Nirvana

I'm gonna start this off by saying "WHAT A WEEK"... it's only Monday but I'm already feeling the weight of what's to come in the next couple days. Good thing two elements have come together today to stave off any ill feelings of sitting here looking at a never-ending inbox: it's Kurt Cobain's birthday AND we did a review of the 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Nevermind in our Fall issue. Whoa! Who could have asked for a more perfect Soundcheque Mondays post?! Not me, that's for sure. 

Nirvana
nevermind 20th
anniversary deluxe
edition 
(geffen records)

Ok, everybody knows Nirvana rules, and everyone knows everything there is to know about Nevermind inside and out. BUT, this is the 20th anniversary four-LP box set, and it is really all about records two, three, and four, the first being the original version of the album. Record two introduces listeners to the b-sides - of course songs like "Aneurysm", "Even In His Youth", and "School" are already so well-known it's almost as if they weren't b-sides. Then they throw us some live tracks which brings us over to record three: the boom box rehearsals. The two real jams on here are "Verse Chorus Verse" and "Old Age". Both songs are insanely catchy, and one of them even proves Courtney Love is a liar! How do songs this good not get released? Nirvana's standard for high quality songwriting is completely proven here, and it makes the rest of us look like a bunch of lazy goofs.
—Justin Gradin, Color 9.5

See you next week!

What is Soundcheque Mondays anyway? Every week, I'll be posting a music review direct from the pages of Color that deserves another go-around, plus a video from the band so you get to hear the actual music that goes along with it. Win/Win!

Previous entries:

Monday Feb 6, 2012 Soft Moon
Monday Feb 13, 2012 Cloud Nothings

In case you missed the inaugural Soundcheque Mondays post from last week, might be a good idea to read it here first and then continue with this review! Sorry about getting this up so late, I just rolled back into town from 4 days out of the city and away from anything to do with 'the internet'. Let's keep things loose around here.

By the way, these reviews usually won't have anything to do with my own personal musical tastes, more that they give me a laugh and/or pique my interest enough to go listen to the record. Round two!

 

Cloud Nothings
attack on memory
(vertigo)


Dylan Baldi (who has hair) started Cloud Nothings as a lo-fi, parent's basement, loner project in 2009. Since then he has released a series of 7-inches and tapes before releasing his debut LP in 2011. Attack on Memory was recorded in Chicago by Steve Albini, and thus results in a higher fidelity sound. As well, the band seems to have loosened up, or tightened up, and seem more confident and relaxed in their structures and songwriting. "Stay Useless" sort of sounds like a Pixies song if you were listening to it through the vibrations of someone's skull while they were listening to it on headphones, and that someone was a Julien Casablancas look-a-like. There is also a track on here where Baldi forgot to sing. Unless he meant for it to be instrumental, but why would you not want to sing when you have the voice of a precious little angel? Who really knows these days? Sheesh.
—Bobby Lawn, Color 9.6

See you next week!

OK, I pretty much always have a good laugh whenever I read the Soundcheque reviews we print in the magazine. Plus the music is usually fucken awesome. How are more people not talking about these?? SOOOOO I'm gonna start something up here: Soundcheque Mondays! Every Monday, I'll be posting a music review direct from the pages of Color that deserves another go-around, plus a video from the band so you get to hear the actual music that goes along with it! Win/Win!

Here's the first one (FYI this actually didn't get printed! what! It got cut but I thought it really deserved some credit):

Soft Moon 
total decay EP
(captured tracks)

What does a baby bat say before it goes to bed? Turn on the dark I’m afraid of the light! What is Transylvania? It’s Dracula’s terror-tory. What is Dracula’s position in baseball? Batboy. Why did Dracula go to jail? He robbed a blood-bank. Who did Dracula take on a date? His Ghoul-friend! What did Dracula’s optometrist say to him after an eye exam? You’re blind as a bat! Why did Dracula Jr. get sent home from school? He was coffin too much! What did the angry baby say after breast feeding? “I’m fed up!” After two 7- inches, and one year after their self-titled debut release, The Soft Moon are back once again with the Total Decay EP. The Bay Area’s latest post-punk, goth-industrial influenced band unleashes some dark, brooding, and bleak material here, with a newly charged and focused intensity. More developed than past releases, but if you liked those, then hey, why not like this one too? For best listening results wear neon, hang out with your lil’ sister, and look at pictures of Hawaii. 
—Justin Gradin, Color 9.6

See you next week!

I remember hearing about this documentary years ago, and then came across it awhile ago, but haven't had a chance to watch more then a few minutes of it til last night. Every shot is like a photo you can't take your eyes off, wish I'd taken the time to watch it earlier... If you have an hour and a half, spend it on this.

From Wikipedia: 

Dark Days is a documentary made by Marc Singer, a British filmmaker. The film follows a group of people living in an abandoned section of the New York City underground railway system, more precisely the area of the so called Freedom Tunnel.

When he relocated from London to Manhattan, Marc Singer was struck by the number of homeless people he had seen throughout the city. Singer had befriended many in New York's homeless community and later, after hearing of people living underground in abandoned tunnel systems, he met and became close to a group of people living in The Freedom Tunnel community stretching north from Penn Station past Harlem. After living with them for a number of months, he decided to create a documentary in order to help them financially. Singer had never been a filmmaker before, and saw the production of Dark Days as a means of gaining better accommodation for the residents of the tunnel.

The film's crew consisted of the subjects themselves, who rigged up makeshift lighting and steadicam dollies, and learned to use a 16mm camera with black-and-white Kodak film. The post-production process took years, as financial difficulties created delays, as did Singer's insistence of creative control to protect the tunnel residents.