All Around Sound is Turning Three! - Day 5: We Listen For You

If you've been following All Around Sound with any sort of regular consistency or even just tuned in for last year's blog birthday celebration you might be a little confused. Didn't I already feature We Listen For You as a part of last year's selection? Yes. That much is true. The fact remains that We Listen For You has undergone a rather admirable set of changes and remains so absolutely inspiring and influential to me that it only seemed apt to feature them yet again. Also: I can do whatever the hell I want.

Turning their backs on the first-to-post mentality that governs many a blog and instead focusing on properly taking the time to not only ingest what is coming out but formulate some sort of worthwhile opinion of it, that alone should be enough to earn pretty much everlasting love for We Listen For You. That is, besides the ardent passion by which the two co-founders demonstrate on a fairly daily basis but they also tapped some rather exceptional writers to join their team that's resulted in a far greater scope than the two achieved on their own. Don't get me wrong, I still appreciate and prefer Hank & Zach's contributions to the blogosphere and thoughts on music in general but their embrace of change as a means to better serve the conversation about music they hold so dear is damn endearing. It's also pretty galvanizing. We could all hope to be as engaging, as sincere, as consumed with passion.

So this year, I once again asked Zach to step up to the plate to represent We Listen For You:

In 1963, Lesley Gore broke out with the infectious song, “It’s My Party”, a happy sounding song that if the listener is really paying attention is a dark tune filled with themes of humiliation, seclusion, and the feeling of being an outsider.  With All Around Sound’s birthday I thought the best gift I could give is to stip myself down emotionally and for the first time admit to the ten songs that have or still make me cry.  What’s funny is that while these songs are dark or depressing, the to this date also remain as some of my favorites.  It’s in this the power of music is revealed, good or bad, happy or sad, music can make us feel emotions that are only rivaled by the up and down events of life itself.

Sparklehorse – “Gold Day”

While walking through a bad snow, coming at me in all directions, this song began to play on my iPod.  I stood, frozen, while snow hit my face in all directions.  For some reason I was no longer cold.  All that mattered was this song.

Nick Drake – “Things Behind The Sun”

My favorite song of all time and I get water in the eyes every time it plays without fail.

Sufjan Stevens – “The Predatory Wasp…”

This emotional song was a soundtrack over and over when I had a friend who had recently been diagnosed with cancer.  It became a song that would forever be attached to tragedy and holds more weight because of its powerful emotion/sensitive timing.

Elliott Smith – “2:45”
The last Elliott Smith song I played hours before I learned of Smith’s death.  It is the song I try to avoid more than any other.  Every time I go back to learning of a hero gone forever.

Gene McDaniels – “Another Tear Falls”
Because of this:

Of Montreal – “Montreal”

I would argue that “Montreal” is one of the bleakest and most emotional breakup songs ever written.  Whenever I lose love, this is the song I turn to.

Glen Campbell – “Ghost On A Canvas”

Glen Campbell’s final bow and life summed up in a single song written by Paul Westerberg.  As Campbell is being overtaken by Alzheimer’s, “Ghost On A Canvas” is a heartbreaking yet optimistic song that contemplates the immortality of an artist.

The Fiery Furnaces – “Evergreen”

One of my favorite songs of all time and the only song played live that made my eyes water.  The Fiery Furnaces are my favorite contemporary band and I had seen them around twenty times before attending their New Years Eve 2010 concert.  Even seeing them that many times, they had never played my favorite song “Evergreen”.  With about four mintues left in 2009, The Fiery Furnaces launched into “Evergreen” and I couldn’t believe the serendipity of it all.  The last song of the decade that made me fall in love with music was wrapped up with the one song I desperately wanted to hear live.

Vashti Bunyan – “If I Were”

I really can’t explain why this one touches me.  The song seems to wobble between happy and sad…it’s that shifting emotion that I believe captures how I feel about life and thus wrecks me every time.



Johnny Cash – “Hurt”
It’s tragic and powerful.  I cry almost every time the old footage montage plays in this video:


It’s a reminder that even the biggest of legends fall eventually and more importantly artists can live on through the immortality of what they leave behind.

Alcoholic Faith Mission - "Running With Insanity"

One of the first blogs I ever read, much less with any sort of regularly (read: religiously) was Eardrums - a delightful indiepop blog based out of Norway that tended to focus on music no one much did over here in the states. It was through them that I discovered the Music Alliance Pact a collection of blogs from various countries that would put forward one song a month to represent their country on what turned out to be fantastic eclectic homegrown batches of delectable tunes and through it I found a host of wonderfully blogs to check out (I Guess I'm Floating being one of them, though it took me years to realize this).

When Eardrums dropped out I more or less forgot about the amazing MAP but this week when those awesome fellas at We Listen For You sallied forth to represent the United States, it was once again brought to my attention. While We Listen For You's pick of Houndmouth's "Penitentiary" was an excellent contribution, the track that really knocked me off my feet was Denmark's choice of Alcoholic Faith Mission's "Running With Insanity" from their fourth studio album Ask Me This. 

Dimly aware of Alcoholic Faith Mission's existence from their slot on the Old Flame Records roster it wasn't until the palatable strains of Thorben Seierø Jensen's rousing vocals over an equally earcatching and pleasant accordion in "Running With Insanity" that I was even remotely aware of how special this band is. It was love at first listen. 

And there's certainly plenty to love. Arguably the best track on the new album, "Running With Insanity" has just about anything you could want. A Jackson Pollock of vibrant tonal colors, it shifts gears quickly but always smoothly. A bit of chamber pop goodness one moment, a bristling jam the other, one thing remains constant:  An infectious energy and smile-inducing sense of wonder as the song's textural landscape shifts before you. A highly lovable gem and a perfect display of the awesome making its way out of Scandinavia. A surefire favorite.



(via We Listen For You)

 

The Pass - "Without Warning"

The Pass is one of those bands that will forever be linked, in my memory at least, with We Listen For You. Perhaps because I first discovered them while attending We Listen For You's CMJ showcase or maybe because I then saw them again as the headliners of WLFY's Northside Festival showcase. One thing is clear though: Each time I saw them is pretty high up there with one of the most fun shows I've been to.

The Louisville foursome play the sort of music that everyone with even the slightest pop inklings should take note of. It's catchy, dance-inducing pop rock at its finest. They band are tight and their musical ideas are interesting. All in all, The Pass have certainly managed to earn their  place as one of my favorite live bands but with the release of their sophomore record Melt, they just might steal a slot in my favorite records of the year. At least judging from first single "Without Warning". 

"Without Warning" is a fun track that doesn't trade any musicianship to be so. There's a clarity of ideas that allows of easy consumption but it's by no means basic. It's an upbeat dance-pop jam where every part works toward making it one of catchiest, can't-put-down tracks in The Pass' catalog. If the rest of Melt is anything like "Without Warning" we should all be a little worried because it's all we'll be listening to. 

   Without Warning by The Pass 

Pitstop: Port St. Willow

With the amount of coverage they seem to be getting lately you might ask me why I'd even entertaining the notion of covering Brooklyn's Port St. Willow myself and the answer is pretty much obvious: They're that good. Live, recorded, any which way really. While I became aware of them sometime last year through their tour with The Antlers, it's taken me quite a lot of time to act on the namedrop (I wasn't actually at any of those shows) and it was worth it if only because Port St. Willow's most recent Spike Hill live show was one of the most glorious things.



Have you ever been to a concert where no one clapped? It wasn't because they weren't good but rather because you physically couldn't. Port St. Willow enshrouded you in a tapestry of layered sounds and a rush of raw emotion so much so that the only available option was to stare in awe. It was about three or four songs into their set at We Listen For You's Northside Fest showcase when the band took a small break from their spellbinding when the first bout of raucous applause happened.

Port St. Willow is the project of Nick Principe and on this particular night he was joined by Hip Hatchet's drummer Jake Nussbaum and the results were simply too beautiful for words. The technical precision of Nussbaum's percussion with Principe's stratospheric vocals and immersive textural landscape weaving inspired a scene of total and complete emotional devastation. Brought me to actual tears song after song. Which is exactly what Principle is going for - music that shakes you down to your very foundations and awaken  an emotional wellspring. A feat Port St. Willow achieves not by attempting to force it out but by gently coaxing them out in his subtle mastery of your heartstrings.

Port St. Willow's latest album Holiday is out now, you can hear it as well as buy it (which you totally should) on Bandcamp as well as from other digital retailers.

Sunglasses - "Swim"

One of my favorite blogs of note, We Listen For You, is undergoing a massive overhaul in content delivering solely one well thought out post a day. While that means less actual discoveries at the site a day, it also results in a stronger desire to check out what they do champion. Also, all the tracks they love get place in one easy to read/listen to post. And that's where I found Sunglasses' "Swim": a 7 minute jam of the most epic proportions.

Slowly building out of silence and fuzz, mechanized percussion accompanies the pretty bare vocals at least until instrument after instrument slips in completely without fanfare and just when that threatens to overwhelm, they drop out and start again from scratch. It's a bright, shimmering wave of sound that remains as unexpected as your initial listen. And despite it's labyrinthine sprawl, it coasts rather easily on its catchiness.  It's a track you'll have the hardest thing not listening to because of how much is actually happening inside of it.



(via We Listen For You)

Parlovr - Kook Soul (2012)

Since my discovery of them at We Listen For You's spectacular CMJ showcase to the release of their first new single, Parlovr have been very well within my sights. While their single "You Only Want It 'Cause You're Lonely" was certainly catchy enough to merit my paying attention, it was "Holding On To Something" which the band released as a sort of SXSW teaser that really won me over and had me practically salivating for their new album.

Kook Soul, the Montreal trio's sophomore record and their first under label contract with Dine Alone Records, is certainly not a departure from their rough-and-tumble ragged-edge rock pop but it's more than just the same old song and dance. A series of love songs, the real twist is that they're all filled with a sort of steely but not grim-faced violence that arises from keen self-awareness. No posturing or victim-playing here - the Quebec rabble-rousers offer up an astonishingly indelible set of songs that properly balances truth with pop. Opener "Do You Remember?" and "Just Marriage" have all the balls-to-the-wall energy of their self-titled debut but it's when the glorious strains of "Holding On To Something" where you truly become aware of the band's growth. Tight-knit pieces that feed off each other ravenously, "Holding On To Something" is about a perfect a pop song as the group's ever made: capturing their penchant for anthemic shout-vocals with intensely memorable melodies. "Now That You're Gone" continues with their delightful streak of dancey ear-catching pop tunes with just the barest hint of a retro-rock vibe giving the subtlest hint at a by-gone-era to keep things interesting.

"Married On A Sunday" is where the album trades in its momentum for a bit of a different track - starting with a bit of sing-talk before the track picks up and all the parts come properly together. It's a track you may not like on first or even second listen but which is poised to win you over on album listen after album listen. "You Only Want It 'Cause You're Lonely" also functions as a bit of a cool-down, slowly building up before it's big rock moments (which really aren't that big in comparison to the album's others).

"Bad Faith" functions as the album's sole ballad and to call it that is a bit of a misnomer perhaps - it's a slower more emotion-fueled song yes but it retains that trio's enthusiastic touch that keeps it from slowing things down too much.

Considering the amount of intense busy moments on Kook Soul, you have to regard the thing as a success. Is it perfect? No. But that's not really Parlovr's style anyway. Kook Soul is bold, brash, virtually unapologetic set of colorful pop songs. Some songs are better than others but none are completely unnecessary.  A charming album that gains whole new meaning when you realize it's essentially the thing that kept the band from breaking up. And considering it's dual composition - songwriters Alex Cooper and Louis Jackson essentially wrote their own songs by themselves and they remain relatively untouched by anyone but drummer Jeremy MacCuish- it's a wonder that the thing works as fluidly as it does. At no point can you tell "This is Alex's, now this is Louis'". Each of the songs all fit together in Parlovr's messy way. A solid follow up  all things considered. Here's hoping there will be more to come from the rather young Montreal threesome.

Get a taste of the album with arguable the best song on it, "Holding On To Something":



You can listen to Parlovr's Kook Soul on Spotify.

All Around Sound is Turning Two! - Day 6, Pt. 2: All Around Sound is Two!

After a week-long celebration featuring mixes from Middle Class White Noise, Listen Before You Buy, Eardrums Music, ARMS, and We Listen For You, the actual day of celebration has come. Today, All Around Sound turns two year old. A pretty monumental achievement in my honest opinion. From it's start in 2010 (at the insistence of my good friend/mentor Ryan), All Around Sound has gone through many (subtle) changes though has managed to stay true to its mission statement. All Around Sound is all about the promotion of good music - not necessarily the search for the next big thing but more of a means to educate, share, and enjoy some of the astounding things I come in contact with.

Everything I've blogged about has been for the sake of spreading awareness and sharing my love for the bands and artists I've discovered as I've more or less discovered them and in these crazy two years, I've managed to cover quite a bit. Not bad considering All Around Sound is just me. I've also made some pretty stellar relationships with bands/bloggers/music-lovers of all kinds over the past two years (as can be evidenced by the little playlist tribute they helped me put together). While their playlists have been varied in theme and artists, my own goal for my playlist was simply to recap all the good things I've had the joy of featuring here because, quite frankly, they all still deserve the attention. It's a little retrospective playlist with a focus on some of favorite things to share and hopefully that you'll enjoy.

Thanks to everyone who helped out with this birthday celebration, with providing material for this blog to run, for picking up an instrument, and even for just giving a damn about music. Thank you to people who stumbled upon this site looking for free music who were probably pretty sore when they didn't find it. Thanks to my friends who put up with me chattering about how much work I have to do for the blog and making the occasional effort to read it despite it all being "weird hipster folk shit". And last but not least, thanks to everyone who's even read this thing, I may not know who you are but I appreciate that you come here and hope you continue to do so for as long as this here blog exists. If you haven't done so, feel free to comment or message me about anything you like (or don't like) as I love a good music conversation.

Enjoy!
- Dante

P.S. If you've stuck around for this whole week, THANK YOU! I owe you a high-five either digitally or in person.

All Around Sound is Turning Two! - Day 6 Pt. 1: We Listen For You

Today, March 10th, All Around Sound turns two years old. To celebrate the milestone, I decided to have a week-long birthday extravaganza and asked several blogs/friends/music loves to contribute a little something special in the form of some fantastic playlists.

Ah, We Listen For You. Zach (one half of Team WLFY) has singlehandedly proven that Louisville is a veritable hotbed of musical talent that I for some reason ignored. Acts like The Deloreans, Nerves Junior, and The Pass (which tragically I haven't mentioned nearly enough)  all have his seal of approval. Man's got extensive knowledge of the classics and wields them well. His fiery passion and relentless zeal have pushed me to check out music I might not have otherwise discovered like Best of 2011 album Marissa Nadler or Lambchop's Mr. M. Zach's also one of the only bloggers I have an in-real-life tangible relationship with: putting on one hell of a CMJ showcase and gearing up to put on what's sure to be another great showcase at SXSW. Essentially, the man's got golden ears and shows it by presenting music in a way that makes you stop everything you're doing to give it a listen.

Zach's Contribution:

 I had been a friend with Dante over twitter for months before actually meeting him in person.  Twitter is a weird place where people can change their personalities and edit down their thoughts unlike in real life where you can edit moment to moment.  I met Dante at my showcase at CMJ 2011 on rainy day.  What you should know about throwing a show is that the person hosting, much like a party, can rarely have fun as they are wrapped up in millions of questions and surrounded by worries.  One of my concerns was the turnout for the first band as it was early and the weather was keeping people in bed, nursing their hangovers from the night before.  Dante, a true music fan, showed up before the show started, right at doors open, with a smile on his face.  He engaged with each band and never once went to his phone to check Twitter or take annoying photos every five seconds like a lot of concertgoers.  We had a blast and I knew from that point that Dante was a true music fan with a sense of adventure for musical exploration that I deem necessary for a person to be a great music blogger.  Since then I’ve been an avid reader of All Around Sound and cherish my friendship with Dante, built on common taste in sounds, but solidified by a mutual respect, appreciation, and excitement for music.

For this mix, I decided to mix the cheesy with the emotional.  The cheesy comes in the form of presentation, as I made an acronym out of ALL AROUND SOUND.  The actual tracks come from my take on birthdays.  I see them as days of reflection and introspection.  These fourteen tracks always keep me in a thoughtful trance and if you’re looking for some songs to take you to the center of your brain space, hopefully these will take you there.  Happy Blog Birthday Dante!    

Listen to Zach's mix on Spotify here. Here's the text version:
1) Elliott Smith - "Alameda"
2) Nico - "Little Sister"
3) Marissa Nadler - "Leather Made Shoes"
4) The Magnetic Fields - "Asleep and Dreaming"
5) Sufjan Stevens - "Romulus"
6) Tom Waits - "Ol' 55"
7) Beach House - "Used to Be"
8) Cat Power - "Names"
9) Nick Drake - "Day Is Done"
10) Vashti Bynyan - "Same But Different"
11) Andrew Bird - "Opposite Day"
12) Beirut - "Un Dernier Verre (Pour La Route)"
13) Bert Jansch - "Nottamun Town"
14) Sparklehorse - "Devil's New"

Enjoy! And stay tuned for Pt. 2 later today.

Bro. Stephen - Baptist Girls (2012)

In this age of instant gratification, it's often easy to forgot that a good record takes time to make. No more is this true than in Bro. Stephen's debut album Baptist Girls whom I discovered via We Listen For You. The brainchild of Scott Kirkpatrick, Bro. Stephen's Baptist Girls is a record about 3 years in the making.

Recorded in an old barn on someone's grandfather's farm somewhere in Indiana, the sounds of creaking wood and other space-related sounds give the record an intimacy much like Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago. And yet there's much more to Baptist Girls than barn music. Kirkpatrick offers up a devastatingly gorgeous array of harmony rich tunes that's heart-warming in it's intimacy. A charming closeness and sincerity that's often found in a remarkable few. Kirkpatrick proves a talented songwriter, not necessarily for his lyricism (which deserves come credit as well) but in his ability to craft beautiful moments that set your heart aflutter and raise goosebumps. Baptist Girls is an album lovingly stitched together with moving moments and beguiling sentimentality; one of those rare albums where hearing a single track suddenly turns into repeat listens to the album as a whole.

Bro. Stephen's Baptist Girls while a modest debut, certainly gives more established singer-songwriters a run for their money. Baptists Girls is much more than bare, soul-barring, it's an album full of lush harmonies and overwhelming earnesty - a real treat whose sole issue is that it's over much too soon.


Listen to Bro. Stephen's debut on Bandcamp or Spotify and if you like it, make sure to grab it and support good music.

Watch: Guards - "Do It Again"

Well this is embarrassing. Since witnessing their amazingly lively show at We Listen For You's CMJ showcase, I have mentioned New York City retro pop rock foursome Guards absolutely zero times on this blog. No idea why - they're great. Well here's hoping I can make up for it.

Today, Guards dropped the video for their most recent single "Do It Again" on Spin. The video, directed by Kaylie Schiff, is a modern take on Soul Train that takes place in Los Angeles' Echo Club. Instead of the band performing, there's a mariachi band that is somehow playing "Do It Again" while the members of the band and several others dance their way down the line with some of their best moves. It's fun and features one of the most awesome dancers in a Dracula cape, I've ever seen.

Watch the video for "Do It Again":


(via Listen Before You Buy)

Watch: Nerves Junior - "Swimmer's Ear"

Today Louisville, Kentucky rock outfit Nerves Junior released their second video off debut album As Bright As  Your Night Light for "Swimmer's Ear". The video, directed by Zach of We Listen For You, is just plain awesome. Why? Well for starters it's kind of like a little 4 minute microfilm. It opens with a man (singer/guitarist Cory) waking up in a parking lot with a bandaged hand and spitting out a key with no idea how he got there. He does a bit of Jason Bourne-esque walking around and discovers the bandage on his hand conceals a power switch that makes things get weird and often deadly. The whole video is essentially this demented pseudo-detective story where the man's trying to figure out what's going on and things becoming more and more strange. I won't ruin the ending, because it's freaking amazing but this video is absolutely brilliant. So big ups to Zach at We Listen For You for directing such an awesome video. Don't believe me? Watch it now and be amazed. Seriously.