Free Music Collection: February 2012

Again it is time to bring our collection of specimens in from the cold, and collectively generate enough heat for them to bloom and cross-pollinate.

If you are a regular to this garden you’ll notice a plot missing. Nada, of Friends With Both Arms, has found herself with a bounty of new opportunity that needs her love and attention. Her presence here will be missed but I know she has nothing but good things on the horizon. Follow her progress or say hello @fwba.

Free Music Collection: February 2012

  • Lay Bac – Shortcuts: Deep cuts, and dancy vibes will cut you right to the core.
  • PORTALS Mixtape #1: Full of so many good jams you’ll wonder if good music super novas really do exist.
  • Beat Culture – Tokyo Dreamer: If beats could be friends, then this album would be full of some of your best. Oh an did I mention there’s enough Beyoncé samples to make you want to put a ring on it.
  • Flights – Anywhere But Where I Am: Sounds so sweet for the winter months. These folk introspections are meant for quiet nights and thoughtful mornings.
  • Magical Mistakes – Special Friends EP: Birthed in a small village in Japan, and drawn together by the power of the internet, this is some of my favorite electronic sounds around.
  • easily suede – Signalling: Drifting in and out of consciousness, these are some experimental sounds that touch the soul.
  • Handbook – Nomadic: The prolific producer is back with another album full of some of the sweetest hip-hop inspired beats this side of the internet equivalent of the Mississippi.

  • IN INDIA: Almost a year old, this meditative psych-soul set seems to have floated by without reaching nearly enough ears (or minds). Thanks for sharing, Tonje.
  • Birkwin Jersey – Old Hands: Graeme Coop’s second release with Absent Fever is another flurry in a very distinct snow globe of electronic.
  • Green & Gold: This is the first entry in a monthly No Fear of Pop column curated by Holly Friedlander Liddicoat of Australian blog East To West. Stream and read up on a number of promising artists from downunder, and leave with them all in a zip.
  • Coma Cinema – Stoned Alone (remastered): Stoned Alone ages well (it was an S&S favorite of 2010 and remains a very dear and isolated listening experience). Matt Cothran decided to remaster the album “with the intention of preserving the lo fidelity that it was recorded under while making it more vibrant”, so Stoned Alone has now literally gotten better with time.
  • Gem Drops Two: 20 forward thinking producers from the west coast beat scene get compiled into “an electric melange of uptempo and downtempo jams, hazy dream melodies, and space station future-flights.” Yes free, but any donations go straight to the American Cancer Society.
  • Zebra Katz – Ima Read EP: Ima Read Ima Read Ima Read, in five trance-inducing varieties.
  • Software – FADER Mix: Joel Ford and Dan Lopatin showcasing all the progressive sounds their label stands for in one long heady flow. Megafortress, OPN, Airbird, etc…

Support music you love. See shows, buy physical releases, show love.

Note: Due to bandcamp’s terms of service artists are required to charge a minimal price after a certain number of free downloads. If that’s the case after our posting you can always stream it and if it moves you, support them with a purchase.

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Time lapse of Yosemite National Park

Let’s be motionless. We’ll take turns blinking, making certain that not one millisecond is spent in darkness.

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The Birth of Medusa

Earlier to today Stadiums & Shrines premiered what you see above—The Birth of Medusa—my inaugural attempt at combining my love of sound, motion, and poetry. It also marks the first (non-live) collaboration with audio researcher and sonic wav manipulator, RxRy as well as, the first film I’ve produced using my own footage. I hope the outcome is as much an experience for you as it was for me during its creation.

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Free Music Collection: January 2012

The undisturbed soil of 2012 awaits; a new light enters frame, bending our horizon with promise. Instruments calibrate, bodies acclimate; we’re lured by the unheard sound. A series of monthly transmissions back home will chronicle our findings, and this here, is the year’s first:

Free Music Collection: January 2012

  • Sean Nicholas Savage – Flamingo: Our favorite Canadian psycho lounge singer finalizes 2011 with his third album. It’s as simple and brilliant as it ever has been.
  • Joseph Stallion – White Lodge EP: This mysterious producer appeared out of nowhere. But with tracks like “How I Won The War” we can hope he stays around.
  • Kwala – Projectionss EP: A beautiful project introduced to me by my buddy Jake at Speaker Snacks. Gentle free flowing beats for down time or uptime. Mostly just good.
  • King Mob – Empathy: A short, but soulful EP from this Denver project. Somehow both electronic and R&B, but most of all, not disappointing in the least.
  • Landon Speers – Spooky Mulder: You don’t know you want it, but you want it. It’s quiet, it’s strange, it’s synthetic, it’s beautiful.
  • INNIT – Vol. 4: A mix featuring some of Japans most interesting electronic producers, from a collective focusing on these artists. Well worth your time.
  • Thrupence – Serenade/Promenade: A beat tape comprised of throw-away sounds made new. And I’m glad they were, cause this is a 30 minute journey I’ve spent a lot of time listening too.
  • Cultus Vibes – Together: A year end compilation of some truly great artists. Brought to you by one of the purest-hearted digital labels around. Feel the warmth, and enjoy the family affair that is this compilation.

  • Lykke Li – The Lost Sessions: Lykke Li gave away some tracks from “The Lost Sessions” She advises to spread it like a kindlly flu filled kiss. Hmm, ew.
  • When You Awake “We All Go Twang” Collaborative Mixtape: Leave it up to me to bring the folk to the FMC! Someone’s gotta. When You Awake is one of my favorite blogs for just that genre: the twangy/acoustic/folk rock stuff. It’s especially fitting for this season. Artists covered everything from Lucinda Williams to Tom Petty to the Magnetic Fields.
  • Old Ugly Christmas Compilation: The Edmonton label put out a Christmas compilation featuring artists and friends performing their favorite Christmas jams, including my personal favorite: Jessica Jalbert performing “Until the World Lets Me Go”. It’s stunning.
  • Gorilla vs. Bear December 2011 Mix: GvsB final mix of the year, and it’s a goodie!
  • RAJA – The October Series, Red: The first first album to be released. It’s chock full of thickly layered old school hip-hop beats and smothered with arbitrary, often hilarious samples. You can hear Madlib and J Dilla influences strong and clear.
  • RAJA – The October Series, Which: The second album from the series. Here RAJA takes a distinct turn into his darker side. The tracks are still layered thick, but the tempo is cut in half and beats are dirty and electronic. Think Salem meets Gold Panda.
  • RAJA – The October Series, Color: The final album of the trio. The tracks wander around a bit, but are mostly stripped down and littered with beautiful piano fills. Falling along the lines of James Blake and Mount Kimbie, the album is an apparent homage to RAJA’s deceased grandmother.

  • Campfires – Slaughter tropes: The pleasant tambourine-backed strum of 60s sun pop in a garage, as heard by the dad sitting in the kitchen.
  • Kwala – Shabang: Jarringly pretty little sequences of pennies dropping, and vocals start/stopping, entire tracks cracked open, disassembled. Self-proclaimed post-brostep soul beats.
  • Sad Souls – Object of Perception: Another glimpse into a microcosm that loops in perfect symmetry and climate; guitar-based, wordless, endless.
  • Friends Records – Friends Records 2011: Nearly two hours of exclusive Baltimore sounds from our friends at Friends. Includes Co La, Future Islands, Dustin Wong, that magnificent imprisoned Flock of Dimes bride, and so many others.
  • Catamaran – Catamaran: Air travel via mood ring. A surreal, full spectrum destination: golden reggaeton, teal flare gun haze, and a well-placed sax finale.
  • NO MODEST BEAR - Sounds of 2011: A splendid year in blog, summed up by the one and only, Oskar.
  • Crash Symbols – Dope Mountain Fuck Vol. 2: A mega-comp of ambitiously scoped, unclassifiably dope, future varieties, 25 total—big time Crash Symbols activity right here.

Support music you love. See shows, buy physical releases, show love.

Note: Due to bandcamp’s terms of service artists are required to charge a minimal price after a certain number of free downloads. If that’s the case after our posting you can always stream it and if it moves you, support them with a purchase.

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Victoria Masters: Music Felt Through the Lens

I believe in a soul; not necessarily in a religious context, but certainly in a spiritual one. Places hold them—people, ideas, events. I believe experiences enter their purest state when souls are communicating, and this happens often within art. Musicians understand this shared energy. And with live performance, they hope to inspire it. There are shows when a room can collectively glow or charge or even gravitate. These are beautiful yet fleeting occurrences, and rarely ever documented truly. But some have a gift…

Through photography, Victoria Masters is able to send you to that suspended realm, whether you were once there before or not. I’d admired her work for some time, as she’s one half of the music blog Stadiums and Shrines, but it wasn’t until I stood next to her at a Julianna Barwick set during SXSW that I fully understood. Looking over at the tiny screen on her camera after each shot, I realized she was capturing not what was in front of us at face value, but the images of our perception. Each time I return to one of her pictures, I don’t simply see a night, I feel it.

The images that opened this piece were selected to represent 2011; in other words S&S has decided to host their annual Year in Photos here, and even more kindly, Victoria was down to chat about her craft, process, and future plans.

Can you tell us a little about your photographic background and how you started shooting shows?

It started with a photojournalism class I took in college. I went to Senegal for a summer abroad program where we documented current events in and around Dakar. It was instantly so inspiring. I was taken in by all the colors and skin tones, and the way the French African culture juxtaposed with poverty. I went on to major in graphic design but never really stopped studying photography. After school I took six months to travel Southeast Asia and shoot. Upon return I participated in some small gallery shows and an international touring exhibit about children living in poverty. When I moved to New York six years ago, I began more classes at the International Center of Photography in Manhattan and have kept taking them since. Somewhere between then and now that background blended with my love for music and living in Brooklyn, and I started shooting shows. Then when S&S entered my life there was good reason to continue.

When I learned that you don’t use Photoshop to alter your images I was utterly amazed, still am. Without giving away any secrets, can you share some of your process?

Yeah there was some concern that people were going to think these were just altered in post which felt untrue to my process. Similar to photojournalism, there’s a story to be told, an emotional connection between subject and audience, we all want to feel that intensity and beauty, and it’s your responsibility to capture it evoking as much emotion and realness as possible. So, well, yea that’s what I try to do—I use some slow shutters, flash delays, and soften edges to get the vision all better realized. I work a lot with the lighting of a space, you really need to adapt to it to feel comfortable.

You’ve developed a very distinct and effective visual language. How do you prepare for a night of shooting and how much of the outcome is a result of simply being in the moment?

I usually bring a bag that has my Canon 7D, a few lenses, vaseline, red lipstick and my hotshoe flash. And I’m usually groaning about how I dont want to be out until 2am on a Tuesday, but once I get there my mood just flips. I start to feel what’s happening and it all just comes together… eventually. Certain venues, crowds, and lighting can really determine how challenging a shoot it will be. I can get frustrated at times and that’s when I just try something totally different, and then pass my screen over to Dave for the smile of approval (I have a scale of reactions to rate from) and carry on.

Do you have any favorite bands to photograph? Any particular qualities you’re inspired by?

Shooting Handsome Furs was my highlight of the year but I think my favorite band to photograph is Twin Sister. We’ve covered them a number of times and I’m always taken by Andrea’s presence, and their lighting is always rad. Second would be Born Gold, for obvious reasons. I like the energetic bands. It can get more tricky when shooting some of these one-person electronic acts, where there isn’t much going on, that’s when I really try to translate more of a sound or mood.

Lastly, what do you see yourself working on in the future? Are you exploring any new avenues your work could travel down?

Seems I am never not starting a new project. There’s this ongoing Portraits project that includes shooting friends in their environments, and I’ll be doing more band press photos this winter. I rarely pass up opportunities, I’m addicted to this whole lifestyle. I’ve also been experimenting in film this year—I shot/edited a live visual projection for a 45 minutes dance performance and a few months back did a music video feature on our roof. We’ll see where video goes…

Thank you Victoria.

Bands pictured from top down: Dirty Beaches, Two Bicycles, Grimes, Big Troubles, Braids, Born Gold, Julian Lynch, Megafortress, RxRy, Pictureplane, Born Gold, Dustin Wong, Handsome Furs, Blue Hawaii, Holy Spirits, WU LYF, Julianna Barwick.

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Think or Smile | Nathaniel Whitcomb © 2011