Sticks
March 18th, 2010 r8e8rcom
Hi, I’m lil’ bubba, but my friends call me “sticks”. This is why they call me sticks:
We used to review mp3s, but we dont do that anymore.
mp3 review [HILOTRONS - Happymatic]
January 8th, 2009 Trevor
Have you ever been walking down the street by yourself, and a gaggle of asian school children come bursting out of a doorway on the corner and start chasing you while singing in harmony, the theme song to ‘the facts of life’ tv show?
If this ever happens to you, you should probably be listening to this band on your ipod while it happens. And then you can play it over and over again in slow motion in your mind while you recline on your cot at the psych ward.
Featuring some of the hardest working musicians in Ottawa, HILOTRONS offer a sound that is hard to pinpoint. And it’s pointless to try anyway.Frantic melodies fuelled by driving keys/synths, steady-tight drums, trebly/tremlo’d guitars and rump-roasting bottom ends are the HILOTRONS’ specialty. Taking the “good parts” from funk/soul, new wave, Asian pop and rock traditions, the HILOTRONS create a fresh, striking sound that is sweaty as sin.
Their two albums to date (2003’s HILOTRONS and 2006’s Bella Simone) have earned them a very devoted following across the country and beyond, despite limited touring and distribution. In 2008, the band unleashes Happymatic, a step up both in production and songwriting, and no less sweaty. Look for them this spring and summer as they light up dancefloors beyond the Capital!
music video on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Emergency Street
Iran - Dissolver - Mp3 Review
January 7th, 2009 r8e8rcom
The reasons behind the time between this and the last r8e8r post are not even worth mentioning, and yet I just did mention them. Anyway, suffice to say that incessant requests for new music from friends and acquaintances have sparked my interest in this silly thing yet again. And here we are. Its good to be back.
Iran take ultra catchy pop, and drag it through the detritus of lo-fi noise rock, picking up an ungodly assortment of buzz and blur and scuzz. Imagine a Pavement record on Siltbreeze. Or Sebadoh, if Lou Barlow was a jaded fuck instead of a sappy romantic. Or old Smog covering Skullflower. Or Harry Pussy playing Built To Spill. A beautifully cacophonous mess. - last.fm
What last.fm didn’t tell you was that this is Kyp Malone’s (TV On The Radio) side project, and the track ‘buddy’ is pretty damn amazing. This album is scheduled to be release on Feb 3rd, but you can preorder it here: insound.com
Buddy
Airport 99
Cape Canaveral - Buddy (Reprise)
-mark
Super VGA and free alchohol in williamsburg
September 26th, 2008 Trevor
I have a box of unopened chocolates sitting on my kitchen counter. there is nothing wrong with them, but i just can’t bring myself to eat them. and i don’t want to give them to anyone else either. so i leave them sitting there, waiting for a place in someone’s heart. or someone’s mouth. or stomach.
the following tracks are sort of like these chocolates to me. when i heard these tracks for the first time, i didnt fall immediately in love with them. because they’re smarter than the immediate gratification of puppy infatuation.
they take a bit more time spent with them to appreciate the full aspect. i listen to new music usually like this. play for first 5 secs, FF 30 secs in, play for 5 secs, FF another 30 secs.. repeat. and i do this for each new track of an album to get a feel for it before i dive in and let it play all the way through. sometime i never get past the first 5 secs… sometimes i miss the days when i would buy a new CD at the store, take it home and completely examine the album art and liner notes while blasting my newly acquired music.
For some reason with these Super VGA tracks, i just let them play. because they taste good. like chocolates from montreal with no home.
The only information I could find about this band is that Super VGA is Ryan Wardell, Jeff Waldron and Vic Stafford.
Apparently they have a short documentary video up on vimeo as well about their songwriting process:
http://vimeo.com/923479
If you kids in NYC aren’t doing anything tomorrow night, Brice Woodall + The Positrons are playing a show at Trash Bar in Williamsburg. they go on at 9pm. There is also an open bar from 8-9pm. Not a bad way to start your weekend.
Lukestar - Lake Toba - mp3 review
August 8th, 2008 r8e8rcom
I have once again overlooked r8e8r’s 2nd anniversary. As of this Monday r8e8r became a whopping 2 years old. I think last year I posted a huge year end best-of, unfortunately there’s little chance of that happening this time around. The one cool thing that did happen this year though was the transformation into a real grown up blog, so if you feel so inclined you can hit up the archives (www.r8e8r.com/mp3review/) and reminisce. Maybe next year I’ll be on my game and I’ll plan an event and we can all get wasted and talk shit for a few hours. maybe. In the meantime, have a good weekend and enjoy these Lukestar tracks.
Lukestar are a Norwegian band based in Oslo. Two members of Lukestar used to play in the punk-band The Spectacle and one member currently play in Snöras. Lukestar have become known as one of Norway’s most promising pop bands, recieving enthusiastic reviews both in the media and from the public. I think they are still without a us label, however there is talk of this record being released on Flame Shovel this fall.
white shade
the shade you hide
-mark
Envelopes - Here Comes The Wind - mp3 review
August 8th, 2008 r8e8rcom
‘Sup bitches? Sorry, that was rude…..um…how’s it going? Got a few more rekkids you guys might like so I should have a couple more posts this week. Anybody got anything interesting they wanna talk about, cuz I certainly don’t.
Here Comes The Wind marks Envelopes second full length release. The follow up to their debut, Demons, released 3 year prior. The music on this releases echos the diverse backgrounds of its contributors. With members living variously in Stockholm, Malmo and Paris. This is a record that teases you with cute melodies and playful guitars, but is anything but a guilty pleasure. After only a few listens I’ve found it impossible not to listen to at least once a day. I fucking love this record right now.
Calypso
Seawise
Party
Boat
buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Here-Comes-Wind-Envelopes/dp/B000RPCEU2
-mark
Entire Cities - Deep River - mp3 review
July 16th, 2008 r8e8rcom
Anecdote smanicdote. It may be that my silence is just a feeble attempt to hide my quiet decent into a perpetual alcohol tinged existence. That, or just how boring my life really is. Then, it could just be that I got nothing to say ‘cept how effing cool this band is.
Some of our dedicated readers might be interested to know that ‘Entire Cities’ have never been mentioned on Pitchfork. In fact, you may be hard pressed to find any substantial amount of parenthetical blog-hype about them at all. Which is a shame, really, because they’ve managed to create a sound that is engaging and truly original. Much more so than some of the recent buzz bands garnering wasted attention by simply rehashing retro sounds. The latest self release, Deep River, is a diverse collection of songs ranging from terse floor stompers to gentle building ballads. My favorite track by far has to be ‘Waiting’ with its docile instrumental teasing building into an absolute chaotic emotional explosion. Deep River is one of those rare releases that works as an album with each track shining on its own and making the entire collection that much more endearing.
buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Deep-
-mark
Brice Woodall + the Positrons - video review
July 16th, 2008 TrevorBrice Woodall + the Positrons just released a new album entitled ’sine wave sea’.
“The sine wave is important in physics because it retains its waveshape when added to another sine wave of the same frequency and arbitrary phase. It is the only periodic waveform that has this property. This property leads to its importance in Fourier analysis and makes it acoustically unique.” – wikipedia.org
Whether or not Brice and the Positrons new album is acoustically unique has yet to be determined. Poised to become pitchfork darlings? Who knows, havent seen anything about them on pitchfork yet. nonetheless, this is the first video released from their new album…
-trevor
Abe Vigoda - Skeleton - mp3 review
July 15th, 2008 r8e8rcom
No story, but I will take this time to vent a little. The Brooklyn Social Security Administration office is the worst run office I have ever seen. Whoever came up with queueing system is a fucking idiot and should not be allowed to participate in normal society any longer.
Abe Vigoda is CA based no wave, surf punk, pop, BLAHHHHH band from the Smell scene (No Age, HEALTH). They remind me a bit of what Times New Viking might sound like if their production wasn’t so shitty. But there is still plenty of lo-fi grit on these tracks. The Smell scene gets its name from a dingy club in downtown LA with no liquor license or concessions of any kind, basically just a place to see live bands. Maybe not one of the more accessible groups to come out of that scene, but with a recent 8.3 rating on pitchfork they may be poised to become one of the most successful.
-mark
Culture Reject - Culture Reject - mp3 review
July 14th, 2008 r8e8rcom
A couple of cool things happening on the personal front. First, I just found out I was accepted to play in a pretty cool 200 guitar orchestral performance at the Lincoln Center in August. It’s free too so you should come check it out: http://www.lincolncenter.org/show_events_list.asp?eventcode=-62531. Second, my old school DC buddies are trying to hook up an opening gig for Coldplay, if you get a sec stop by this page and help em make it happen: http://www.coldplayontour.com/wwdc/, our video is the first one on the page (bicycle thieves). Sorry, for the excess self-promo BS, now check out some cool Canadian indie pop.
POP Montreal says: “Michael O’Connell specializes in playing any instrument that makes a noise, and playing all of them masterfully. He uses this considerable skill to shape the artful melodies that accompany his evocative lyrics. This soft, tender music will let him play your heartstrings too.”
There’s a nice mix of genres going on here, dig the soul style horns on Fireflies. The standout track for me is ‘Inside The Cinema’ which is a bit reminiscent of an early Sea And Cake, only much cooler with subtle horn hits and synths.
-mark
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