Secret Message Machine - "Giants, Madmen, and Ghosts" (2008)

Shedding much of the lo-fi aesthetic of past releases, Secret Message Machine’s 4th album sparkles and shines with crisp production, airy vocals, and thoughtful arrangements. Michael Barrett has been releasing music as Secret Message Machine for over five years, while at the same time playing in countless Subjective Collective projects, including Blank Blank. In the first few moments of hearing Barret’s deep vocals, you might be tempted to think: “This sounds like that guy from Smog”, or you could go the way of the Go Triad, saying that the vocals “echo Stephin Merritt (Magnetic Fields) with its organic melancholy tone and reverb”. But I don’t know about all of that. Barrett’s personality (and thus songwriting) is far from the smart-ass, sad clown schitck of Merritt, or the downtrodden slit-your-wrists stylings of Bill Callahan.  “Giants, Madmen, and Ghosts” is a beautiful layered experience, expressing much more complicated thoughts and emtions than just everyone’s old pal melacholia. 

Accompanied by Erik Chaplinsky (Summer Camp Casanova) and Chuck Chambers (Kaliedoscope Death), Barrett’s songs contain the best elements of singer/songwriter indie rock, with no cliches or tired sounds. Each track, although fronted by seemingly forlorn vocals, springs to life with intricately placed layers of bass, acoustic strumming, magical effects and rock guitar coming and going at just the right moments. The songwriting comes off in an extremely natural way, making the transistions from one song to the next easy, smooth, even ghostly—like, hey is this a different song, or a different part of the one before it? This album definitely has flow. Actually it flows so well, I’m always surprised when it’s over. With 11 songs, it clocks in just over 30 mins, proving that there’s never anything wrong with leaving the listener wanting more.  

Highlights include: 

the opener “Insomnia” - busy drums, drone, slide guitar, backwards casio, --”We’re all Guitly! We’re all Crazy!”  so good. 

“Literary Criticism” - mostly acoustic -with some otherworldy effects laden violin playing.

“Ghosts” - haunting vocals, flowing rhythm, casio melody, ghostly.

“Greensboro” - peepy little piano ditty about a donut run. Apparently for Michael, Greensboro and sugar highs go hand in hand. Maybe I need to get with the program and visit Dunkin Donuts. 

There’s not a bad song here.  A must listen for fans of lo-fi, dyi, indie singer/songwriter stuff, in the vein of Sebadoh, Netural Milk Hotel, Summer Camp Casanova and Kaliedoscope Death

Download it here.

Visit Secret Message Machine on myspace, here.

Romancer - Romancer (2008)

I have to start this off by saying that you if you have lived in Greensboro for the past couple of years, love rock music, and haven’t seen Jonathan Moore peform in one of his two bands,Tiger Bear Wolf or Health (r.i.p.), then you have no idea the scope of amazing music this town has to offer.  

I first saw Jon with Tiger Bear Wolf in 2003 - the unlikelypairing of explosive punk ferocity with 70s prog-rock style monster riffs was enough for me to almost run down Lee St. to the nearest tattoo shop and get a TBW heart on my upper arm. Tiger Bear Wolf is still blowing minds in local venues, - not as often as some would like, but see them if you can-- they are not to be missed. Jon, who provides Tiger Bear Wolf with most of the singing, and half of the guitar work - later formed Health, --- a sort of introspective alt-country realization of the Velvet Underground. Group harmonies, epic guitar solos, powerful yet minimal percussion, and on top of it all, Jon’s soulful vocals. 

But enough about the past and onto the present.  

Romancer finds Jon at his most experimental - which isn’t to say this is a weird album—In fact, in his experimenting, he offers up his most abstract and also his most accessible at the same time.  The self-titled album opens and closes with the Fripp/Eno-esque “Wheels Within Wheels”, produced with the almost forgotten technique of recording on reel-to-reel tape then physically cutting it and splicing it together again to produce a geniune tape loop. Creating layers of guitars and keys that echo and delay in the depths of a pulsing ambient drone.  The last thing you’d expect to find inbetween these spacey bookends is the feel good hit of summer (“The World Is Exploding”) - but it’s there—it’s catchy—and it makes me loathe the winter. 

Now, I’m no bible scholar, but  “Moses” seems to be a narrative of Moses, complete with a 3/4 tribal beat and splashed with bursts of horns.  Jon comes off as a deranged preacher, hitting his climax of crazy yelling about blood and snakes. Combining intimate stripped down songs with full blown rockers works really well on this mini-album by multi-instrumentalist riffrocking songsinging Greensboroian.  

Download Romancer’s self-titled album here.  

Hey, it’s really good. 

visit Jon at www.myspace.com/romancergso

SAURUS - The Word Dinosaur Means Terrible Lizard (2008)

 

Picture this:  A band of musicians dressed in labcoats, posing as doctors of some variety, singing about the last two dinosaurs left on earth—an Avimimus and a Deinonychus.   Behind the band there is a projected powerpoint presentation with a variety of fast moving still dino images for each song.  

 

The story SAURUS tells is centered around Evie the Avimimus and the Nameless Evil Deinonychus.   It's a classic tale - the Avimimus is good and pure, the Deinonychus is an evil killing machine.  Naturally, they have to battle to death. Naturally.  Who doesn't want to see two pre-historic beasts battle each other to the death?  It's literally a story older than mankind.

As the legend goes, while each dinosaur laid dormant for hundreds of millions of years they accumulated all the soul power from their respective ancestors.   Kind of like the accumulation of the collective unconscious, only in superpowers—or like that Jet Li movie, "The One".  This powerful attribute means that Evie and the Deinonychus are not just battling eachother for sport, it's world domination they're after. (Naturally).          

As an audience member at a SAURUS show you get to vote by way of cheering for which dinosaur you want to win.   If Evie (the good one) wins, the band plays a dance song about having a good time and well... dancing.   If ,Lord help you, Deinonychus wins, the band plays a slow sludgy metal song with a gloomy marching beat— dooming all of mankind to a life of servitude to the tyrannical evil Deinonychus.    

Now as far as the music goes—it's all over the place.   DEVO? Frank Zappa? They Might Be Giants? Black Sabbath?  It's all here.

  

The album, which tells the entire story of Evie and the Deinonuchus, was released in January 2008 with two covers and two endings—one for each dino.  

Here are some links to videos which include some live footage edited with the powerpoint slides:

"Terrible Claw (Deinonychus's Theme)":

"She's the One (Evie's Theme)":

 

"Fever Dreams"

"I Wish I had a Friend (Children's Story)"

The musicians: 

Daniel Bullard-Bates - lead vocals, guitar, bass, synths

Andy Savoy - guitar, bass, synths, vocals

Bart Trotman - drums, vocals, bass, old casio and yamaha keys

Cameron Wilkin - guitar (at live shows)

Ben Hirsch - bass (at live shows)

Johanna de Graffenreid - powerpoint operator (at live shows)

SAURUS - The Word Dinosaur Means Terrible Lizard (2008):

1. A Brief History of Dinosaurs

2. A Fateful Discovery   (the story begins)

3. Deinonychus Escapes!  (intro)

4. Terrible Claw  (The Deinonychus Theme)

5. Fever Dreams

6. I Wish I had a Friend  (Children's Story)

7. Evie Interlude

8. A Phenomenological Explanation of the Consolidation of Physical and Mental Attributes Across Familial LInes During the Extinction Process   (the Dance Song)

9. Deinonychus's Horrible, Terrible, No Good, Really Bad Day

10. She's the One!  (Evie's Theme)

11. The Battle: Xtreme Dino Showdown   (Choose your winner!)

12. Avimimus Victory Dance   (The Avimimus Wins Song)

13.  (silent track)

14. Deinonychus Death March   (alternate winner: if Deinonychus had won)

Support small-time visionaries and buy the album from CD Baby via this link— only $8

listen to songs, here:

www.myspace.com/saurusrock