#weakcritique

       Revisited Revelation? Or just being high and emo?

      I was driving home from class today and smoking a joint. I decided I was going to start a playlist filled with songs from middle school. Then I thought of Lykke Li’s first album. So I put it on and started to get really feely. I realized this album was way more clever about heartbreak then I had ever bothered to realize. I just remebered 4 songs; I’m Good, I’m Gone, Let It Fall, Tonight, & Little Bit.

The beginning is very personal and I’m not sure if she’s using a little portable keyboard but it sounds simply badass. I have been trying to make music but I just sit and try and produce it out of myself randomly. To be honest I have no patience to write out a song or think out scales, I get restless. But there’s something so inspiring about her ability to make simplicity tasteful. As the second track comes in I wonder why the hell I never listened to the whole album. I admire how thought out everything is how she wants whoever hurt her to think she’s ok, but then she allows herself moments of vulnerability. The tracking is well thought out and fun. How Let It Fall leads into two love songs and then Little Bit. Little Bit is exactly how I feel whenever I find myself daydreaming about someone. While driving I asked myself, “what the fuck is this album called?” because I had forgot (I was high) YOUTH NOVELS! That sealed her genius for me. Because we all want to believe that only in youth you feel this hard or sad for people. I find things to be so fucken scattered, scary, and secular out in the available world of love currently. It’s cutthroat on the playing field, I guess it’s always been. But I also did wake up and start listening to Angel Olsen right away so maybe it’s just that typa day today. 

proper volume: a hard 9

GONE BY THE DAWN IS HERE!!

If all the wrenches to that poor heart of yours could take any type of malleable form I’m sure it’d be Shannon Shaw’s heady vocal chords. You can always count on Shannon and the Clams to have that same swampy doo-wop sound fueled by heartache but never count on them to disappoint you. They’ve perfected the trick of delivering the same style but never the same album. Opening the album with no time wasted she goes straight for the heart with, “I Will Miss the Jasmine” packed with loopy organ riffs and cries similar to those in “The Cult Song”.  Another mention of this, “jasmine” comes out in one of the first singles off the album, “Point of Being Right” explaining the feeling of knowing something is going wrong in a relationship and not paying attention to your intuitions, “you're hiding somethin’ big from me/something I’ve chosen not to see”. Good news, there’s at least one or two songs on the record that don’t take you on a bold introspective love spiral, “The Bog” a spooky tune about witches dancing in the bog with men crawling out of the ground and joining them, I will play it at every Halloween party I attend this year(as should you). Gone by the Dawn is set to be released next friday on September 11th, you can preorder your copy on iTunes, Amazon, and HardlyArt.com enjoy until then.

Honorable Mentions: (other tracks to check): My Man, Corvette, You Let Me Rust, How Long?, Telling Myself.

Proper Volume: 8

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS DRINKS OH MY GOD

It looks like the gods of my subconscious have bestowed a gift only a crazy bitch can dream of THE COLLABORATION OF CATE LE BON AND TIM PRESLEY.  I MEAN WOW; I’d like to believe this is the doings of a higher power, let me take this moment. I’d like to thank (THEE Angel) Marc Bolan and his place on the Rock N Roll Heaven city council.  He turned this dream law into a bill, making this collaboration possible. This is a duo no one would’ve expected, kind of like Will Ferrel and Kevin Hart, except this time, it will succeed. It’s something I never thought I’d get to see or hear and I’m so excited I get to share it with you. Appropriately titled Hermits On Holiday, the albums self-titled opens in a very Le Bon manor soft and consistent then some jacked riffs come in. It isn’t without Eighteen Teenage Revenge Pair that we start hearing Presley’s recognizable touches; his voice and guitar give the song a driving force along with some swirly touches and clapping throughout. I can’t wait or the albums release on August 21st via Birth Records/Heavenly Recordings but these will have to hold me over for now.

TWIN STEPS: the lost interview

   Quick background: Twin Steps are a four piece band from Oakland,CA. Their music can be described as; difficult punk, r&b, romantic shred soul violence (according to their bandcamp tags) (it's a pretty spot on description though). They released one ep on a green 10" colored vinyl with Cola Bruin (SF,Ca) in April of 2012. One 7" record featuring two songs with 1-2-3-4 Go! Records( a kick-ass independent record store/label in Oakland) in August of 2013. There's also one demo on their bandcamp that will dig an earworm all up in your brain with it's unforgettable guitar riff. I was lucky enough to catch them at the smell on February 28th of 2014. I mustered up the courage to introduce myself and thank them for their performance after the set which resulted in this interview. Now see, this is a very important interview to me, I had been recently inspired and decided to start a collective music zine. Twin Steps was the first band that I had ever interviewed and being given this chance was new to me. If i remember correctly Devv's response was,"Yeah that sounds great! We'll be in LA a few days-we can all meet up, grab some tacos and chat with you."

 So, here it is my first ever interview, enjoy!