For the first time since I've been listening to his music, I feel the above description, which can be found on his Bandcamp page, finally suits King Dude's style like a studded leather glove. I don't necessarily mean the last bit - His Dudeness has always been all about holding hands with the Devil. But Fear is the album which finally unlocks the real rock'n'roll in his music.
For those of you unfamiliar with King Dude, his music could be described as dark folk and it's mostly just him, an acoustic guitar, lots of reverb and unsettling lyrics dealing with the occult and feelings best left seeping in some deep corner of the soul. His latest album sees King Dude trade his acoustic guitar for an electric in more than one occasion and there's no denying that this is the loudest and noisiest his music has ever been. The groove factor is also turned way up on Fear and many songs, like Demon Caller Number 9 or Bottomless Pit, will make you feel like doing the boogie in a graveyard at midnight, dancing with witches and skeletons under the pale moon light. Other times, the music is strangely hip and radio-friendly, like on the beautiful and melancholic Never Run, a sentimental ode for the girl that's always there, no matter what. That's no surprise, as King Dude was always really good at conjuring fantastic, imaginary love stories (Barbara Anne from the Burning Daylight album is a great example, a love declaration set in a dark and gothic Wild West). The song which would satisfy the Devil's desire to headbang the most is definitely Fear Is All You Know, a menacing and electrifying piece that opens up the album on a threatening note and which ends up being one of the highlights of Fear and probably one of my favorite songs from His Royal Dudeness entire career. I probably shouldn't forget to mention that his voice is as gorgeous as ever, able to go from bitter rasps to loving whispers and always able to convey emotions and, more often than not, a weird feeling of dread and unease.
Barbara Anne, Lucifer Is the Light of the World, Jesus in the Courtyard and River of Gold will always be my favorite songs from this stellar singer and composer, but I'm happy that Fear has turned out to be such a good album, even though it feels different from his previous work. It goes through many different moods, from menacing to pretty (woah, I forgot to mention Maria, another excellent song from this album) to loving to depressing to eerie, but it manages to be a coherent and entertaining experience and a worthy addition to King Dude's solid discography.
So yeah, William Fitzsimmons might just be my favourite folk singer ever. Sure, Bob Dylan is great, and so are Leonard Cohen, Cat Stevens, Nick Drake or contemporaries like The Tallest Man on Earth, Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens or Iron & Wine. But this guy definitely takes the cake.
William Fitzsimmons has a really interesting backstory. Born in a family with both parents blind, he found himself raised in a home filled with musical instruments. His childhood surroundings were abundant with sounds to replace what eyes could not see. Pianos, guitars, trombones, and even a pipe organ that his blind father built himself, all these things successfully managed to define a truly fascinating man.
So besides doing usual stuff like playing a lot of instruments and being awesome as fuck, William had worked as a mental health therapist, which means he has been surrounded by pacients with mental illnesses for several years. Obviously, that gets to you eventually. That's why his music is soft, emotional, heartfelt, and he usually sings about break-ups, love, cheating, depression and other similar mental states. Nowadays, he says he's “somewhere between a singing therapist and a counselor who writes songs”.
Oh, and he has an awesome beard.
His sophomore release, Goodnight, manages to perfectly blend in all those emotions, creating a personal, sincere atmosphere. I must say William is a great writer, and every single one of you can identify themselves with at least some of these songs. But as I said, some songs are really personal and talk about Will's life, like the song Everything Has Changed. This tune tells the story of...nah, I'd better copy-paste them here so you can get an idea.
“Today I saw my father, standing in the graveyard, looking very somber,
looking for his mom. When he finally found her, said that it was
different, everything is different. Nothing's really changed.
A guide dog had to serve the roll that you would not let the mother of
your children really ever play. The office was a dungeon, where you hid
your fears of what would really happen, if no one ever came. And I
wonder if you blamed yourself for when she left you for closing up the
garage door, and turning on the car. Your father must have lost it; your
sister couldn't help you. Dad, if you were lonely, you had no where to
turn.
Last night I had a dream, I was in the graveyard, looking at my father,
buried in the ground. Swear that I could hear him, tell me he was sorry.
And everything has changed.”
The album splendidly blends in Will's great voice, guitar layers, pianos, adds a bit of banjo and even a tinge of electronica. Absolutely gorgeus. So if you're looking for an album perfectly fit for a lazy Sunday afternoon or a rainy day, this is perfect. Just listen to it.
Adding to this year's GETY awards is yet another band (a duo, actually) I've just come upon (really, less than an hour ago). Hailing from Chile and playing a mind-fuckery of part acoustic/part doom metal, they have taken away all my capacity for writing something intelligible to share with y'all.
So I just want to point you in the general direction, one in which guttural beast-like vocals are put over eccentric acoustic guitars in ways I never thought it was possible, where manly sobbing and paper tearing is right at home and where distortion and solos are rarely heard, but when they appear, well...
That's it. I swear, I am not capable of anything else. Please, just listen to this song.
Well, this has taken me by surprise. Black metal has been fused with many things - death metal, thrash metal, crust, hardcore, j-pop, you name it - but so far no one has had the tremendous cojones of mixing it with old-timey bluegrass music.
Cue Panopticon, a one-man band from Louisville, Kentucky, whose latest album, also called Kentucky, manages to successfully marry atmospheric black metal with old fashioned Americana sensibilities, resulting in a brilliant mash-up that will surprise you with how good it actually is. The album's main focus, believe it or not, are the political and social turmoils related to the coal mining industry in XIXth century Kentucky. A strange and somewhat obscure subject, for sure, but also one that hasn't been explored in black metal, as far as I know, which makes it feel fresh and interesting. There are two main categories of songs on Kentucky:
Long-ass post-black metal songs that run for over 10 minutes, comprised of distant banshee screeches drowning in a sea of fuzzed-out guitar riffs with varied drumming and flutes and keyboards providing beautiful atmospherics.
Acoustic banjo-driven working-man anthems with clean, nasal vocals, which, as far as I'm concerned, are the highlight of this album. Especially Come All Ye Coal Miners, with its energetic banjo melodies and beautiful fiddle and upright bass work.
These two kinds of songs alternate happily on the album without the contrast between them being too jarring. One minute you're listening to harsh black metal, then the next you're dancing on a tree stump to the sweet sounds of old fashioned bluegrass tunes. It's perfect. It's also gimmicky as fuck, but I'm willing to let that slide and enjoy the music. Kentucky is certainly one of 2012's most interesting albums and I can already picture it on my end of the year list. I can also picture the advent of more strange lyrical themes in black metal: firefighter black metal, police man black metal, sewage worker black metal, hot dog vendor black metal and also the urban black metal tag to encompass it all. Can't wait for these!
**Many apologies to our English-speaking audience, but this post would have made no sense if it was written in any other language than Romanian. I needed to do this.
”Mă adresez tinerilor în special, în criză de identitate - fenomen național”, declamă MC Bean cu o voce ușor distorsionată, pe fundalul electro-folcloric frenetic al piesei Balada Românului de pe cel mai nou album semnat Subcarpați, Underground Folclor. Dacă în mod normal aș ignora cu o grimasă asemenea afirmații curajoase, în cazul de față, luându-mă drept etalon, trebuie s-o accept. Pentru că, deși aș prefera să-mi torn clor în ochi decât să urmăresc țărăncuțele obosite care cântă doine de dor printre ulcele și mămăligi stătute de pe Etno, Taraf și ce alte TV-uri se mai îndeletnicesc cu asemenea practici, Subcarpați au reușit să-mi pice cu tronc. Să vă explic.
Reuniți în anul 2010 în formula MC Bean (Șuie Paparude), DJ Limun (cunoscut pentru colaborările cu Specii și Kazi Ploae), Omu Gnom și Mara Panaitescu, Subcarpați și-au asumat misiunea de a prelua folclorul nostru românesc și de a-l readuce în atenția unei generații alienate aproape complet de tradiție. Bean & Co. nu au pierdut deloc timpul și au luat cu asalt underground-ul românesc, lansând un album full-lenght (Subcarpați), un EP (Etnologic) și o compilație cuprinzând diverse colaborări muzicale cu nume sonore de pe scena subterană din țară (Culese din Cartier Vol. 1), promovându-și muzica prin orice tip de social media le pica în mâini și prin numeroase concerte pe tot teritoriul țării.
Subcarpați ar fi putut fi încă un proiect eșuat de a servi muzica populară într-o formă modernă, însă sfinții și sateliții s-au aliniat în mod corespunzător și succesul trupei nu a întârziat să apară. Faima anterioară a lui MC Bean și DJ Limun, talentul lor incontestabil de a combina în mod fericit motivele folclorice cu muzica hip-hop și diverse elemente electro/dub/dubstep/whatever, apetitul tinerilor români pentru muzica electronică și reggae, îndemnul trupei la mândrie națională și la aprecierea și păstrarea valorilor naționale, îndemn adresat unui public frustrat de promovarea obscenă a non-valorilor în România - toate au contribuit în mod decisiv la ascensiunea trupei.
Astfel încât, dacă am avut nevoie de câteva ghionturi și de ceva lobby pentru a deveni fan al albumului lor de debut, Underground Folclor a fost așteptat cu bale, tropăituri din picioare, sms-uri, ochi injectați și share-uri obsesive pe Facebook date oricărei picături de muzică nouă venită din direcția lăutarului de București.
Cu un lineup nou (DJ Limun s-a pierdut în tranziție, nu știu cum sau de ce), Subcarpați s-au întors mai puternici, mai creativi și mai folclorici ca niciodată, iar Underground Folclor este un adevărat tour de force care a făcut ravagii în rândul haiducilor/haiducițelor urbani/e care o ard în Goblin cu apă minerală, așa ca Ramona. ;-)
Având un tracklist de 18 piese mari și late, noul album Subcarpați este o călătorie de la oraș la țară și înapoi care te poartă prin ritmuri îndrăcite de dans, sound-uri futuriste și atmosfere chill (cum se zice la noi în popor). Conceptul născut pe albumul omonim este cizelat cu măiestrie, bucurându-se de o masterizare fără cusur, iar Bean are grijă să introducă referințe subtile la vremurile când era abia la început, cam așa cum fac și eu acum. Meta as fuck!
Albumul este foarte divers, iar cine nu e de acord cu mine este un ou clocit. Intro-ul este unul hipermodern, dominat de sunete și scene urbane, în care sunt debitate IP-uri și parole în timp ce Skype-ul telefonează în neștire. Încet-încet, decorul se preschimbă într-unul rural: șoselele se transformă în ulițe, dealurile și văile iau locul coloanelor de la Gara de Nord, iar elementelor electronice li se adaugă pe nesimțite instrumente tradiționale românești, precum naiul, fluierul, cavalul sau vioara, toate ambalate-n loop și expediate cu acceleratul fix în iPod.
Avem parte de sample-uri vocale desprinse din cântece populare românești și de câteva piese strict instrumentale, de dănțuială prin poiană. Pe celelalte, lirica debordantă a lui Bean atinge subiecte precum imaginea României și modul cum este percepută peste hotare, patriotismul, eterna luptă de a face ceva etern, hibele societății noastre sau, deopotrivă, calitățile poporului român. Pe alte cântece, uită de toate necazurile și, împreună cu flăcăii și fetele de pe zonă, se aruncă-n horă și ne-nvârtim câte-o oră. Cântecul căpriței care bântuie ulițele satului în preajma Anului Nou (și de care mi-e frică și acum) acompaniată de sunetele stridente ale trompetei și tobelor - Ța-ța-ța Căpriță, ța! Obicei din țara mea - este reimaginat într-un imn sălbatic de adus voie bună, chiar când plouă, chiar când tună. Featuring-urile includ piese în colaborare cu Afo, Roman și Georgiana Mănăilă (sper c-am nimerit diacriticele), dar cel mai spectaculos efort comun este cel alături de misticul Chimie (Specii), Om fiind unul din highlight-urile clare ale albumului. În fine, outro-ul oglindește perfect piesa de început, fiind, de această dată, cronica unei migrații de la țară în mirajul orașului, unde perspectiva unui post de paznic promis de un văr capătă proporții magice.
”Simți dubstep-ul?!”, îmi zbiera Alina Pixcupescu în ureche anul trecut, prin august, în timp ce coșmelia din Vama Veche în care Subcarpați își făcea numărul se zguduia din temelii sub asediului bassului. ”Îl simt, frățică!”, i-am răspuns, în timp ce întregul organism îmi bubuia ritmic. Și din această povestioară grozavă vine recomandarea mea finală: vedeți-i pe Subcarpați în carne și oase. Experiența live oferită de MC Bean și gășkarii lui este de un milion de ori mai intensă decât ascultatul albumului în căști. Știu că asta e valabil pentru orice trupă, dar se aplică mai cu seamă când vorbim de Subcarpați și de noul lor album. Au dat-o gravone.
Chester and Marco have gone to the beach to
regain their inspiration,
so for today you’ll have to do with this guest post. At first I wrote a
cookie-cutter review of Current 93’s “An Introduction to Suffering”, but then I
remembered this is gonna get posted on Tzeeeac, so I cut off most of the crap.
This is what was left, specially arranged in list form for you simians.
- Current 93 is the band most often cited
as a major influence by quirky avantgarde/neofolk/2deep4u ensembles.[citation needed]
- They have released over 30 albums. All of
them – with the exception of “Lucifer over London” – have awful covers. All of
them.
- I first learned of Current 93 while I was
looking at some half-naked pics of Maniac (don’t ask). He was no longer the vocalist of Mayhem then, playing in Skitliv instead,
along with Niklas Kvarforth of Shining fame. In one of the pics he sported this
large tattoo on his chest, spelling “Who
will deliver me from myself?” in the curly, classy typeset of a tramp
stamp.
- Upon
further searching, I found out it was a line from “Black Ships Ate the Sky”, by
Current 93. I still feel a hole in my stomach when I recall listening to it for
the first time. The bleak, distorted pulse of the backtrack and the repulsive
voice really put me off at that time.
- Last week I’ve been listening to Kiss the
Anus of a Black Cat’s “AnInterlude
To The Outermost” – a long time
favorite – and it dawned to me
that I should look for more bands in this weird experimental folk vein. Main
influence: Current 93.
- Despite
its name, “An Introduction to Suffering” is not the best choice for those who
haven’t listened to Current 93 before. As I found out only afterwards, it is a
compilation of alternate versions and other previously unreleased stuff.
- It is,
however, a quite nice showcase for the range of their style, from folky tunes
and poem reciting to synthy instrumentals and mad rambling. Some of the songs
ended up on my bedtime playlist. <3 “All the Pretty Little Horses” and
“Judas as Black Moth”.
- After
this pleasant experience, I grew a pair and revisited “Black Ships Ate the Sky”,
this time listening to the full album. I was simply blown away. Heard in this
context, the title track provides a strong and satisfying musical and
conceptual climax.
- The
highlight of the album is “Idumæa”, a christian hymn
present here in 7 versions, each sung by a different guest artist. Other great
tracks are “Sunset (The Death of Thumbelina)”, “Black Ships Were Sinking Into
Idumæa” and “Why Cæsar Is Burning Part II”. Actually I liked all the songs;
they all contribute to the menacing and mystic end-of-the-world feeling of the
album.
- The Tzeeeac tumblr is slowly reaching 93
followers. You can be the final Cæsar. Come and join us.
AND I AM BLACK SHIP
AND I AM BLACK SHIP
AND I MADE THEM ALL RISE
AND I KILL SLEEP WITH PIRATICAL MIRTH
AND BLACK SHIP TIME MAKES ME CRAVE
TO STEAL FACES FROM THE GALAXY
I CRAVE FACES FROM THE GALAXY
I'LL KILL FACES FROM THE GALAXY
Seabear is an Icelandic 7-piece indie-folk group made up of a bunch of guys and girls with unpronounceable names and these guys are seriously one my all-time favorite bands that don't sing about killing prostitutes or whatever. They basically just gather in the main singer's living room with their acoustic guitars and ukuleles and they play lo-fi, mellowed-out, hippie-hippie-shake folk music with soft, whispered vocals. Their lyrical themes mostly revolve around the beach, running around barefoot in the grass, writing poems to your perfect girlfriend and petting small furry animals - and you know what? I love it.
You know what else? Even if you don't like it, you still deserve a warm hug, because we're all under one sky and we should all be nicer to each other.
De multă vreme sunt fascinat de un anume domn din Polonia, pre numele său de scenă Wojnar, care face o muzică foarte plăcută pentru urechile mele, un blend interesant de folk şi ambient. Basically, îs melodii relativ simpluţe la keyboard/chitară, acompaniate de ceva tobe războinice, având pe fundal uneori diverse zgomote de bătălii, săbii încleştându-se, serbări câmpeneşti şi altele, totul asezonat din plin cu vocea marţială, dar totuşi duioasă, a lui Wojnar. Versurile şi titlurile pieselor îs în dulcele grai leş, deci nu prea am idee despre ce cântă, dar oricum, probabil îs legende locale şi povestiri cu tentă mitologică.
Recomand din toată inima, mai ales că se potriveşte atât ca soundtrack pentru vreo activitate mundană precum efectuarea de traduceri la miezul nopţii, cât şi ca full-time listen, pentru că oferă nişte momente extrem de faine celor care îi dedică întreaga lor atenţie. Nu a mai lansat nimic din 2009, dar cele trei demo-uri şi trei albume full-lenght ar trebui să vă satisfacă din plin poftele inumane de ambient şi pagan folk.
