2024 August 23

Electroclature Volume Twenty-Seven: XXVII

August 23, 2024

Part twenty-seven of an array of CD mixes I made for my wife over a long number of years! Read more about it here!

Obviously a grunge-inspired cover. I’m not completely sure whether it works, but I don’t hate it. The photo is from — because *sarcasm* I am a very affluent person — a Megabus window in the early winter, I believe when I thought taking an eight hour bus ride to Minneapolis was a good idea.

To be fair, it was to see the Guillermo del Toro museum exhibit and I actually do not mind long bus rides but also? To travel to a city I’d never been to.

Anyway. I enjoy the reframing with messy borders. I miss that sort of thing. Also? Apart from the tinge? The actual photo isn’t too doctored — the land looked just as much as a slather of black paint streaks against pure white — so I enjoy that. At least I learned to reduce the tracklist font size. So it goes.

Let’s reframe the conversation to the music! Here are the snowy highlights:

AUSTRA! This was a project that classically trained opera singer Katie Stelmanis enacted after a short number of solo works. I really miss her solo work, but I quite enjoy the electronic nuance married with her vocals.

I know I over-pepper these posts with stories about my live experiences and, yes, this is another one but it’s far more interesting:

I caught them on their initial tour for ‘Feel It Break’, and it took place in one of the odder venues in Chicago. The front of the house? It is not a bar. It’s not a bleak number of concrete slabs. It’s a fucking salon. It’s called Beauty Bar. It’s a surreal experience and, as you walk towards the back it slowly morphs into a tiny club spot with a very low stage. It is extremely intimate, almost unnervingly so, which is exacerbated by being thrust back into the 60s glow of the front’s salon fixtures upon the end of the performance. Good show, still have a fair amount of merch from it hiding somewhere.

PORTLAND CELLO PROJECT! Why yes, yes, another cello-centric band! (I haven’t featured Zoe Keating yet because I assume y’all are aware of her, but I’ll get around to featuring ’em.) I don’t really have much to say about them, actually. They’re trying to create awareness of cellos and what they’re capable of and pushing the cello sound further, and I believe they succeed.

THE WORLD / INFERNO FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY! I love the slow build here that turns into abandon! Also, they have an entire song about Peter Lorre! And it rocks!

A whiteout tracklist! (Artist / Album / Song — links go to a video of the song, if available):

Electroclature Volume Twenty-Six: XXVI

Part twenty-six of an array of CD mixes I made for my wife over a long number of years! Read more about it here!

I love the colors on this cover. I did not doctor or sweeten it apart from some merged blur to heighten a few facets. This photo was taken on the same London trip as XXV but, unlike XXV’s cover, it’s vibrant and is full of natural textures and energy. I guarantee you that my energy level the time I took the photo does not match the results as I snapped it very late at night riding a London bus back to our hotel.

That said? Why’d I double down on the same font as XXV and think that bolding it would improve matters? It does not.

Onto the music. Here are the late-night highlights:

ANNA CALVI! Calvi has it all. She has amazing guitar chops, a stunningly resonant voice, and an extremely vibrant look that perfectly accompanies her dramatic sound.

I saw her via yet another Schubas experience, lucky enough to get in on the ground floor for her US tour for her initial album. The small, narrow venue could hardly contain her talent. It was one thing to hear her virtuoso guitar work. It was another thing to see her do so up-close. Absolutely electrifying.

FIGHT LIKE APES, once again! I love me some filth, and FIGHT LIKE APES always delivers — especially when you have a song named ‘Ice Cream Apple Fuck’. The song goes out with a bang.

(Also? I love the title of the album it’s on: ‘The Body Of Christ And The Legs Of Tina Turner’.)

GATEKEEPER brilliantly crashes everything down in slow motion! Makes you want to sway while debris falls around you.

MELODIUM! Jaunty electro with its perky beats and sweeps and swoops!

Here’s the format for this rollercoaster ride! (Artist / Album / Song — links go to a video of the song, if available):

  1. THE DOUGH ROLLERS / The Dough Rollers / Where Shall I Be
  2. SLEATER-KINNEY / One Beat / Sympathy
  3. PULP / This is Hardcore / Like a Friend
  4. SHRAG / Life! Death! Prizes! / The Habit Creep
  5. CULTS / Cults 7″ / The Curse
  6. CIRCUIT DES YEUX / Ode to Fidelity / Barrel Down
  7. ANNA CALVI / Jezebel / Jezebel
  8. MELODIUM / Hum hum & bla bla / Hellomusic [Ochre]
  9. THE KNIFE + MT. SIMS + PLANNINGTOROCK / Tomorrow, in a Year / Colouring of Pigeons
  10. HAUSCHKA / Foreign Landscapes / Kamogawa
  11. BLOOD WARRIOR / Blood Warrior / Blood Letting
  12. GATEKEEPER / Giza / Storm Column
  13. THE BLACK ANGELS / Passover / Empire
  14. NATHAN OLIVER / Cloud Animals / Icicles for Fingers
  15. FIGHT LIKE APES / The Body Of Christ And The Legs Of Tina Turner / Ice Cream Apple Fuck
  16. BIG EYES / Why Can’t I / Why Can’t I