Project-update post, Part 3- Visual Art.

After a hectic holiday-season, I finally got my Etsy shop back up to date.

There are currently 41 items for sale there... some are made-to-order prints, others are one-of-a-kind originals... all are part of my "5 Icons" series... Which is a project that I'm calling "finished" for the time-being, with the exception of special requests or custom commissions.

Ideally, I would prefer not to have the original versions of the stuff I make prints of in my own possession... So I'm going to try to not start a new series of prints for the shop until I can liquidate some of the one-of-a-kind stuff. (There's a whole lot more original stuff hanging on the walls of my studio that isn't up here because it's not from this series that I'd be MORE than happy to sell/ barter. Email me if you're interested in seeing some additional offerings or if you're looking for something in particular.)




(If you're local to the New Hampshire/ greater-Boston area, please get at me directly before ordering from the Etsy site to see if I can possibly save us both some shipping/ surcharges/ hassle.)

An Unorthodox Album Release...

I have a new album out and available now... in a totally different form and format from how I usually release material.

This one's called "Bernard LeVautour- Vulture From the Vaults {a live dj-set of unreleased rarities and back-catalog cuts}"

A physical, limited-run pressing is available via my Etsy site-

Click here!

A blurb from the liner-notes, to explain a bit about what it is-

"I haven’t quite figured out yet if this is intended to be a CD that’s packaged in an art-print, or an art-print that comes with a CD. So let’s call it, somehow, both. 

The print is a limited-edition digital/ photo-reproduction rendering of a painting called “5-icons,” the only place where all five images from my “Iconography” series appear in the same space.

The album is a single-take live-mix. It’s dirty. It’s messy. It was recorded direct to Type II cassette-tapes on an ancient Tascam 4-track, because that seemed appropriate, as there’s material in this mix that dates back far enough that we were using those things without irony.  Much of the mix is improvised, and I broke a turn-table and plowed my way through a whole slew of other technical issues throughout the mix. 

I wanted to release some sort of compilation of my own unreleased back-catalog cuts and rarities from my musical past, but I wanted to do it in such a way that wouldn’t enshrine or fetishize moments  from the past. Therefore, this mix is often in some ways somewhat irreverent. In terms of mixology, my impulse veered often toward stubbornness- the highest quality, best-known, most successful recordings dropped into this mix tend to be the ones that I made the largest effort to dirty up and in some cases possibly even “ruin” into unlistenable noise, while allowing certain cuts from far more obscure past-projects that most won’t even know I worked on to spin clean, almost undisturbed. 

Basically, this is just a filthy mess that I felt like I needed to get out. For some reason, I feel better now that I did." 

For $15 you get both the limited-edition print, and the disc that's mounted into the back of the frame.
 

Snazzmobb content-teaser.

As I mentioned at the end of the last entry, I do have a third project-installment update coming, about visual-art. Soon.

In the meantime, though, I have a couple more music-related updates to tack onto the last post.

First, my band Snazzmobb now has a sample-track from our forthcoming demo-EP streaming on Youtube!

This song was inspired by a spam-bot that was harassing the band's Twitter account (@Snazzmobb) mercilessly for a while. We got literally HUNDREDS of messages a day for about a month that just read, "Real People; Real Sex!" (followed by a link that we're not quite dumb enough to open.)

Project-updates, part 2.

Music-




I currently have two records and a brand-new live band in the works.



First, the third record from my solo experimental electronic project LeVautourEnsemble is well underway. This one’s called “From the Sketchbook.”

Like the first two (2010’s “…whose wings are a dull reality”, and 2011’s “Machinique Meltdown”, both available for free download [with a whole lot of other neat stuff] on Headhat Records) this one is also a bit of an oddball repurposing of the idea of the “concept-record.” This time around, as the name of the record may imply, I’ve assigned myself the task of navigating a sketchbook where I had been jotting down fragments of transient ideas over the course of several years… and writing songs based on those fragments… even if (or, especially if) I have NO idea what the hell the initial note meant. To throw myself an additional layer of challenge, I’m tracking this record entirely on an ancient Tascam 4-track cassette recorder. (Special thanks to Dan Holmes for loaning me this phenomenally monstrous device).

I’ve nicknamed him “Brutus.” If anyone remembers tracking audio with these things, add about twenty-five years to let Brutus’s physical parts get downright-elderly in electronics-years, and you can begin to imagine how beautifully cantankerous and temperamental he is now. Working with Brutus is much like riding an ornery rodeo-bull; I’m definitely not in charge here. (I’ve always joked that the other members of LeVautourEnsemble’s “Ensemble” are machines and robots… this has never been more true.) By design, this record will sound NOTHING like what I envision it sounding like in my head. (Special thanks for this one are also due to the guy who owns "The Music Connection" in Manchester, NH, for having had the foresight to stock-pile the Type-II cassette-tapes that Brutus requires back when they stopped making them, while everyone else's response when I was trying to track them down was more like "You're looking for what? WHY??")



Some sneak-peak sample of tracks from this record can be heard here-

.. streaming/ download from a recent charity-compilation...

…and here-

Additionally, this album will be the last material I’ll release under the “LeVautourEnsemble” name. My plan is to consider the three records some odd sort of a “trilogy” (maybe even make some sort of limited-edition packaging of them as such available) and retire the moniker. This isn’t to imply that I’m going to stop making this sort of music (who knows), but more that the idea of maintaining false separations between various sorts of solo-content has run its course.



The second record I am working on is a recording of a live-DJ megamix-set of sorts… It’s called “Vulture From The Vaults”… basically, I spin and remix a collection of my back-catalog material from a variety of projects that were never officially released, linked together with improvised live shards of my particular breed of lo-fi indie-electronic music. This is sort of like a bizarro take on a B-sides/ rarities/ out-takes/ greatest (non)hits collection, mashed up with my sort of gadfly take on the “live-mix” records that DJ’s more traditional-style than myself like to release. My plan is to release physical-copies of this disc in such a way that make it very unclear whether it’s more of a CD that comes with a one-of-a-kind piece of artwork, or a piece of art that comes with a free CD… or something in between, or both.



My new live-band is called Snazzmobb.

Expect a crazy-high-energy explosion of indie-dance-rock madness. We’re brand-spanking-new (and dealing with an unforeseen early-lineup restructuring issue at the moment) so we’re not playing out yet, but we will be soon. (I’ve already given my band-mates an ultimatum; if this isn’t going anywhere by early spring I’m heading someplace warmer). In the meantime, follow us on Twitter (@Snazzmobb) and “like” us on Facebook… we’ll be dropping plenty of teaser-content soon enough. Peel your eyes.

Snazzmobb is currently a trio; I'm on bass and vocals, Adhesiveslipper (solo-artist/ Headhat Records boss-man) is on electronic-noise-wizardry and vocals, and Alex Hurschman is on drums and vocals. Think high-energy noisy funk meets post-punk? This will be a fun show, I promise.



(the third installment of this update-series will cover visual-art and odds-and-ends, soon.)

Project-updates, Part 1.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a collected update here of the assortment of projects I currently have in the works. It seems overdue, since I have a lot going on, and only make passing mentions of various parts of these things in assorted places online. Here, then, is a bit of a catalog of my present endeavors, collected conveniently in one spot (though broken up into three entries to pardon your eyes and attention-spans.)


It might go without saying if you keep tabs on my work at all, but as someone who is rather transfixed with various ideas of “intermediality,” the media and format of most of my projects overlap and intersect with each other by design, concept, and necessity. Regardless, I will attempt to structure these updates by artistic-medium as an attempt at SOME semblance of coherency for those who happen to be outside of my head (you).


Writing-

I currently maintain four tiers of shorter-than-book-length content in various stages of the publication-submission process. These tiers are short-fiction, poetry, academic/ scholarly, and mainstream-non-fiction. In all of these tiers I try to maintain a sort of “go-big-or-go-home” submission-strategy… My thought is, why sell content to tiny, accessible outlets with extremely limited readership before you know for sure that the biggest fish in the sea don’t want the work… right? In certain tiers, then, I’ve been joking with friends lately that my current “job” as a writer is collecting rejection-letters from The New Yorker.


In addition, I’m currently working on a somewhat-unorthodox book-project. The piece is (at least tentatively) titled “Frantic Overture in Gray Minor: The Neon Sonata.” It’s not exactly a novel, not really a short-story collection, not quite a combination of the two… yet somehow all of that at once… with some additional intermedial, format-blurring twists thrown in.


My idea with this one, in terms of the goal, is self-publication… partly to help myself try to overcome a knee-jerk distaste for that “scene”… largely by allowing myself to think of that format as an experimental way of bypassing the conventional book-market in order to find unconventional sources of eyeballs for experimental works. In other words, this book is intentionally “unpublishable” by traditional “gate-keeper” publishing-industry channels, but possibly marketable to an entirely different sort of readers. (Of course, I’m well aware that this idea is particularly dicey at the moment, in the recent wake of the “50 Shades” phenomenon demonstrating so aptly WHY the traditional “quality-control” gate-keepers are in place- to keep the masses from hand-selecting complete and utter garbage… But I digress. I would be lying if I claimed that the challenge provided by such dicey-ness doesn’t excite me. I tend to like challenges.) This work is deeply connected to and overlapping with my current musical projects... which I'll talk about next.


…to be continued…

A Pair of Reviews, Part 2: Yeasayer, "Fragrant World."

The new Yeasayer disc, “Fragrant World,” is not technically a sophomore release (it’s actually the band’s third studio-record). However, it faces many of the same fabled pressures of an act’s second album, as it is the follow-up to 2010’s universally-acclaimed “Odd Blood,” which catapulted the group to “It-band” status (recent releases by Animal Collective and The Dirty Projectors, among others, face similar pressure.)

Yeasayer navigates this potentially-tense moment in their career brilliantly with “Fragrant World.” If the record lacks “Odd Blood”’s urgency (which to my ears it definitely does- there’s little if any of “Mondegreen” or “O.N.E.”’s edgy dance-rock here), this is instead a more confident, reflective, mature Yeasayer. Comparatively, this record is almost ‘laid back’… but not in a bad way.

To my ears, the most notable aspect of this album’s interest is the instrumentation. Yeasayer has managed something many musicians might find unthinkable here- somehow, they’ve stripped even more of the ‘organic’ instruments from their mix (I can only locate a couple brief snippets of sound of this disc that I’m entirely confident are made by guitars) while making a record that I would be FAR less comfortable describing as ‘electronic’ than their last. This is not a synth record, this is not an electro record, this is DEFINITELY not a dance or EDM record. This is a well-written psychedelic indie-pop record constructed largely from a palette of ‘What the hell makes THAT noise?’ sounds. 

In my eyes, it’s about time that rock songwriting caught up with hip-hop production in this regard. This is a ‘think outside the box’ record that amazingly manages not to SOUND like one, unless you’re either stubbornly partial to the safety of the box, or you’re paying close attention to the xylophones, pizzicato, noise-swells, glitches, melodica, etcetera that sit in the spaces that guitars might otherwise go. This album should be required-listening for every musician in a guitar-bass-drum cliché-format rock band, to fuel a little thought toward how their songs are put together, and why. 

Oh, and those sub-hits throughout are IMPRESSIVELY low. 

A Pair of Reviews, Part 1: Bloc Party, "Four."

I haven’t reviewed anything here in a while. I think it’s probably overdue. I picked up a couple of highly-anticipated new records this week, so I’ll give you my take on two releases back-to-back.

The first, today, will be the new Bloc Party record, “Four.” I’ll follow that in short order with a completely contrasting spin on the new Yeasayer, “Fragrant World.”

To anyone who kept tabs at all on the hiatus/ feud/ reunion/ recording-process drama leading up to the new Bloc Party disc (played out extensively in the music press, on Twitter, etc.) we have to realize really quickly that we’re in for a bumpy ride with this record when the first thing that comes out of the speakers when you pop it in is ambient, “behind-the-scenes”-ish recording-studio sounds. Uh oh. They’re drawing our attention from the get-go to the notoriously tumultuous recoding-process (and these noises continue intermittently between tracks throughout.) Buckle up.

I’m just going to have right out with it- this is quite possibly one of the most confusing records I’ve ever heard. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t entirely “dislike” it… But the reasons that I kind of “like” it have to do with being a long-term Bloc Party fan sort of witnessing a documentation of an attempt to make a record by four people who are very obviously no longer on the same page musically. I find it more fascinating than listenable, and I have a hunch that most listeners who haven’t followed the ebbs and flows of this band’s career are going to be listening to this one wondering what the hell they just purchased.

We had all heard the rumors that, after each previous release got progressively more electronic (amidst certain mumblings that the rest of the band may not have been thrilled with frontman Kele Okereke’s leadership in this regard) that this record was going to be something of a “return to rock” for the band. I think many of us assumed (for better or worse) that this meant something of a return to the post-punk of “Silent Alarm.” “Four” is most definitely NOT that. In fact, as much as it’s a departure from anything even remotely electronic, it’s somehow an even MORE drastic departure from anything even remotely similar to the band’s sound prior to getting all “dancey.”

In short, this record not only sounds like the band is going through motions… but those “motions” seem to be based on fragmented, disjointed whims. Stylistically, this thing is ALL over the map. Sure, there are chunks of post-punk thrown in, but less Gang of Four and more Sonic Youth/ Refused… mixed haphazardly with shards of things like syncopated jazz with… is that a banjo??, shimmering atmospheric yet uneventful shoe-gaze, and more than a few moments that sound downright… wait for it… heavy metal??? (The album‘s closer, “We’re Not Good People” seems to be pretty much a disingenuously-earnest parody of a thrash-metal song, while the second track, “___” seems to channel Merciful Fate/ King Diamond?) For an apt example of just how extreme this awkward stylistic-mashup gets, cue up “Coliseum.” I hate saying this, because I still love this band, but hearing a British indie band trying to sound like southern-American blues-rock/ groove-metal is just downright cringe-inducing. This is probably all-around one of the worst songs I’ve heard in a while. (I HOPE this track is supposed to be a joke, but if it is, Bloc Party’s taken the “dry” in “dry British humour” to unprecedented extremes.) The tracks on the record that sound most like “Bloc Party” (in ANY of the band’s prior forms) sound fragmentary, unfinished, incomplete… they all seem to either fade out or end abruptly just as they feel like they’re about to turn into something memorable or catchy. (Oddly, the two most fully-realized Bloc Party-esque tracks are the two additional songs on my limited-edition copy, which don’t appear on the regular version of the disc. These ["Mean” and "Leaf Skeleton”] sound like the products of, say, “A[nother] Weekend in the City” era of the band, with an even greater dose of Joy Division influence?)

Here’s my hunch on this one- the crux of the issue here is the role that Kele plays in relation to on songs-of-Bloc-Party-past. If you follow the evolution of Bloc Party’s sound prior to this album, the front man’s solo-record while the band was on hiatus, “The Boxer,” WAS the next Bloc Party record. And it was brilliant.

Comparatively, Kele’s power as a vocalist just doesn’t show up on “Four.” Without hearing “The Boxer,” some listeners might think that during the band’s hiatus the singer had somehow lost the energy in his voice, which has always been one of the band’s trademarks. He never leans into his parts at all, and those parts are leveled FAR lower and less dominantly in the audio-mix than on any prior Bloc Party disc. Content-wise, both tonally and lyrically, Kele’s contributions are far more dark, cynical, and often downright angry than we’ve seen from him prior. Kele sounds very much like he checked out on the creative-process for this album, and I would wager that his contributions to the musical writing-process were far less than on past efforts. Let’s face it; following up “The Boxer,” Kele has quite a bit of possible time left in him as an indie-chameleon golden-child… the other three members of the band? Probably less so. It seems like he threw up his hands and said something along the lines of “Let’s let these kids make the record that they want to make, and I’ll just drop some vocals over the top.” The resulting album is definitely interesting… but extremely problematic.

That being said, I’d love to see what the rest of the band does in the inevitable post-Kele era. I’m hoping for something in line with Bauhaus post-Peter Murphy as Tones on Tail/ Love and Rockets, or Johnny Marr post-Smiths, personally.