JANG "Scissor Palace"

Listen to/download Scissor Palace

Recent Phoenix, AZ transplant JANG is one of the most modest musicians I know. I'm not sure if it's due to a bad case of nerves, a self esteem thing, or if he was just raised that way. He's soft spoken, big haired, rather self critical, and in my short time playing in a band with him, he never acted much like a "guitarist" (if you've ever been in a Guitar Center, or know anything at all about rock music, you know the type).

However, if anyone deserves an inflated ego, it's this guy right here. Known to friends/family/Big Brother as Nick Stanifer, he wrote music, played guitar and basically spearheaded the tragically short lived Sacramento glam-prog supergroup known as Order of the Golden Mirror...as well as play on and produce the bombastic aural adventure that is Prism Riot. The fact is, although he doesn't act the least bit like it, JANG may very well be underground experimental rock's next big name.

His latest solo offering, Scissor Palace, certainly does live up to its title. If music can be compared to tangible, physical art, whereas most albums are like paintings or photos, Scissor Palace is like a humongous, wall-spanning mixed-media collage. That's the easiest way to put it. Apparently, these are all bits and pieces of music recorded over the last few years that have been chopped and edited into...well, this. If ever there was an album seemingly designed to be listened to on "shuffle"...

There are 25 tracks here, very few pieces over two minutes in length. To try and describe the album as a whole would be almost futile. There are no genres to fall back on here. This is music for fourth dimensional beings with ADHD. So I'm going to try something new on Informed Conformist and listen to this album track-by-track and try my best to describe what each one brings to mind. Take from it what you will. Oh, and I invite you to listen along!

1. Arrival - Distorted drum fills accompany an angular guitar riff. Sounds like a fanfare. A gong sounds, and we're off.

2. Zeta Reticuli - Driving riff rock gives way to dreamy, bubbly synth and then just kind of ends...

3. Slivery Whine - Programmed drums skitter in some strange meter, while elevator jazz keyboards lay down an alternately soothing synth wash. Then what sounds like a completely random sax/synth melody mixes things up nicely.

4. Drag Them Stones - A 5/8 pattern with some organ and an epic, soaring synth and guitar melody. Then everything kinda freaks out at 38 seconds and ends suddenly (as most of these tracks do).

5. Discordant Prolifics Dustbin - More crazy programmed drums, more soothing keyboard patches, more frantic guitar. Similar to track 3...they may be blood relatives.

6. Altar of Gibraltar - Sounds like an organ and a tape reel having sadomasochistic sex...and then giving birth to a small bundle of cheez-funk.

7. Dig Up Bodies To Sell To Doctors - Aha, our first real "song". Phased out guitar, a cartoon "boing" sound effect and then...a pretty little organ interlude. Drums kick in and everything goes into double time. Sounds like Beethoven on methamphetamine. Song returns and wraps up nicely.

8. I Feel That Mental Breakdown A-Comin' - Scary video game music from the final boss' lair...if performed by a hybrid King Crimson/Frank Zappa supergroup .

9. Mail Order Bride - Grinding, delay soaked programmed drums.

10. Jagged Edges of Shattered Vinyl - Sounds exactly like the title suggests. Intro reminds me a bit of Tom Morello.

11. A Black Cat Throws Salt Over Its Shoulder - A brief drum workout, some tweedling guitar, and then an adorable kitty cat sound. Meow!

12. 28th Dimension - My favorite track. This one's in 7/8, possibly my favorite meter. Sounds like everything is peaceful in the land of the frolicking pixies...until some awful portal to hell opens and a dark shadow castle takes form in the dense, poisonous mist. The pixies warily take note, but continue with their happy party anyway.

13. Thing Of Being - Some of these tracks are hard to describe...this is just one of them. Starts in familiar, frantic territory, but suddenly dissolves into a spacey Eastern groove, reminiscent of The Doors' more psychedelic moments, before it all comes crashing back down on your head.

14. Smoke Break - Another favorite of mine. Out of left field comes a beautiful, layered acoustic melody, accompanied by shakers and bongo drums. Like the title suggests, a breath of fresh air...or a breath of SOMETHING, anyway.

15. Theme For Anvils - A pretty little four-note keyboard melody, reminiscent of the melody to The Symbolick Jews' "I Disappointed My Parents". Not complete plagiarism, but an interesting coincidence.

16. Windfall - More video game music...the intro is straight up Mega Man 2. As usual, this one doesn't sit still for long, and it's over just as you really start to get into it.

17. AYBABTU - Picks up nicely where track 16 ends, and features a really cool warbly piano effect.

18. Who Is Clock Maker? - Clockwork chimes and programmed drums run through some sort of ring modulator setting.

19. Chattering Teeth - This is straight up cowboy music that seems equally inspired by the Wild West as it does 80's pop (I was gonna say equal parts Tortoise and Toto, but it seemed like a stretch). Effective use of mouth harp here, which is an alarmingly underused instrument in modern rock music, if you ask me.

20. Something In My Eye - 8 seconds of cut up babyish vocal samples over a dance-floor beat. Yes.

21. It's Your Funeral, Round Eye - If a gamelan were abducted mid-performance and imprisoned in a floating glass bubble by pixelated aliens from the Space Invaders arcade game, it might sound a little like this.

22. Garbage Man - What sounds like Muzak played over a belching dragon.

23. Twitch of the Panic Nerve - Even more crazy, chopped up sounds...and then what sounds like a UFO revving up for takeoff.

24. Snow Falling On Eyelashes - Equal parts gentle beauty and foreboding darkness, this 3 minute piece sounds like an unused Danny Elfman composition from "Edward Scissorhands", which is really cool. For some reason, reminds me of a snow globe.

25. Soy Bean Rights Activist - The sound of the atoms that make up your brain matter converging together at once and then imploding into nothingness. After 12 seconds, the chaos subsides...and it's over.

So yeah, Scissor Palace is as brilliant as it is completely random. If you weren't compelled to listen along as you read the track-by-track breakdown, I'm not so sure I want to know you. Anyway, this is definitely not the sort of music you'd want to play for your grandmother, unless she did a lot of weird experimental drugs in the early 60's. Grandmothers ARE getting weirder, I suppose...

Personally, I had a great deal of fun listening to JANG's album. It feels a hell of a lot shorter than it really is, probably because it hops around so much and always keeps you guessing. This is definitely one that gets better (and weirder) with each listen, especially if you remember to shuffle the track list. Keep and eye on JANG, friends...and if you do like what you hear, be sure to check out his other albums, they're all refreshingly ambitious. -Matt

Fat Transfer "My Heart, the Cave"

Listen to/download My Heart, the Cave

What if The Residents made a bossa nova record? What if Arto Lindsay were locked in a room with only a tape recorder and a casiotone? Fat Transfer answers these questions and more on her recent bandcamp release, My Heart, the Cave. Drum machines and synths clang and distort against one another in tracks like "Empty Chairs" and "Space", over which a soothing and reassuring voice directs the listener toward the pulsing heart of a woman in love with love.

On both the title track and "The Curse of Sensitivity", this soothing voice is warped (perhaps via Tascam Pitch control) into crooning chipmunks and singing fetuses. What is so striking about the warped voice is it’s ability to transcend its own silliness into something quite heartfelt and endearing upon further listening. What if Bjork released an Alvin and the Chipmunks record?

Seas of synths and lush chords flood songs like "The Boat", and "The Water". These tracks seep even deeper into the psyche thanks to some rather choice samples of what sounds like laughter from a party or a concert, and the sound of running water on the latter. These were actually two of my favorite tracks on the album, leading me to hope that the next album has an aquatic theme.

My Heart, the Cave is an album as enveloping as it is mysterious. I am hard pressed to come up with an album that has transported me to the realm of dreams and fog as effectively as this one has. If you really want to know what it feels like to exist in some one else’s head, I recommend you download this record right away. Why not download her other releases while you’re at it? Weird, intriguing, and more and more rewarding with each listen. -Adam

Denny Denny Breakfast "Glass in Everyone's Tongue"

Listen to/download Glass in Everyone's Tongue

Speaking of music that's nearly impossible to describe...may I present to you Denny Denny Breakfast. Here are the 3 things I know about this guy: his real name is Bob Ladue, he resides in Oakland, and his music is nothing short of mind-blowing.

DDB's newest sonic offering, Glass in Everyone's Tongue, spans so many different genres over the course of even just one song that it makes for a pleasantly disorienting listening experience. Synth basses squelch, programmed drums skitter between headphone channels, and acoustic guitars sparkle through the relative chaos like sunbeams from behind storm clouds.

The most accurate classification I can conjure is "experimental electronic progressive pop", with an emphasis on "progressive". No, not progressive like "prog rock", though there are plenty of twists and turns to be found here. This is progressive in that...well, I've never heard anything like it before. Nothing. Ever.

This is an album that doesn't sit still for more than a minute, yet somehow has a patience and cohesiveness that is usually unheard of in this sort of approach. This album WILL throw you for a loop. Several loops. It is impossible to predict where the music will go next, unless you've listened to the entire thing several times through. Even then, not so much...I'm on my fourth or fifth listen, and I'm still frequently surprised when I hear a short passage I'd completely forgotten about. And unlike many other "indie" bands, where the sum is often far more impressive than the individual parts, it's fairly obvious that Denny/Bob is a very accomplished guitarist and singer...and composer...and producer...and, and, and...

Glass in Everyone's Tongue is certainly a DENSE album, but never feels crowded or claustrophobic. It's a wonder Denny Denny Breakfast is able to pull off so many musical contradictions so well, and that should be a testimony to his brilliant songwriting and arranging.

I really can't recommend this album enough. This is easily one of my favorite albums I've heard in 2010. It's a wonder this guy isn't more well known that he is. This is Album of the Year good, folks. It's only a matter of time before this guy is on the front page of Pitchfork.com (I'd say Rolling Stone, but really, who reads magazines anymore? LOLZERZ). Did I mention this album is FREE? That is both a blessing and an absolute shame.

My ONE complaint about this spectacular album is that I can never again listen to it for the first time. YOU, however, still have the opportunity. Don't squander it. -Matt

The Myonics "Digits"

Buy or listen to Digits

I've been away from this blog for a while. Writing about music is hard. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a fucking liar who probably just wants to get into your pants. It's easy to be suckered in by a fancy writer, I admit. My undergarments have been breached many a time by the alluring words of music journalists. But how do you write about music, really? Analogies and metaphors get thrown around, but it's damn near impossible to accurately describe MUSIC (or most art, really) on a basic, straightforward level that any human can appreciate.

So here's Digits, the newest EP from our Bay Area buddies The Myonics. How the hell do you describe them? What do you call this music anyway? Words fail. You just want to shut your brain off and enjoy it.

Here are a few words that DO spring to mind: Rocking. Fun. Weird. Catchy. Unique. Genuinely-interesting-and-well-written-songs-played-with-ferocity-and-conviction. OK, so that last word might be a bit much to digest. But read it again and again, until you're curious enough to visit The Myonics' Bandcamp page and pay the $1 (mandatory) donation for this 13-minute masterwork. Or, if you're a starving artist/cheapskate/horrible person like me, you can just stream the damned thing for free. Shhh!

The Myonics (at least the members I've met) are all stand up people with the best of intentions who only want to play some awesome music...for you! Why won't you just shut up and listen? WHY, DAMN IT, WHY?!?!? If the $1 fee turns you off, remember that these people are all human beings too, and they all have their own needs. Singer/guitarist/songwriter Jasper Leach desperately needs to raise funds for a bone marrow transplant. Quonnie Kim needs new special shoes for her amputated stump legs. Tom Meagher's grandmother is being held hostage for ransom. Drummer Brian Davy needs a life-saving haircut. Please, your donation CAN make a difference!

In short, Digits is an adventurous, eclectic little EP that deserves your full attention...RIGHT NOW! -Matt

Classics Revisited: The Beach Boys "Pet Sounds"

Pet Sounds is considered one of the best rock records of the pre-mp3 blog era. Some people might venture to say that Pet Sounds would still hold up and wouldn't be instantly forgotten even if it was released in close proximity to the new Best Coast record. After all, Brian Wilson is generally considered "an insane retard that gets high off of eating his own poop, but nevertheless, knows his way around a theremin and Ampex 8-Track" by most reputable critics. Some publications have even gone so far as to dub Pet Sounds the No Pocky for Kitty of the mid '60s. Some might even call Brian Wilson "The Godfather of the Burgeoning Chillwave/Beachslut Movement" mostly because he was all about using jpegs of cool looking (and possibly stoned) animals for the cover of his albums, and seemed to be all about hangin' out and not doin' shit...which I guess was as novel in 1966 as it is now.

In this review I will seek to find out how Pet Sounds holds up to today's cut-throat indie mp3 blog cycle standards. Is "Sloop John B" better than Neon Indian's "Shoulda Taken Acid With You"? Short answer, "No." Long answer, "No" with a "Maybe." Will the psychedelic sounds of Pet Sounds inevitably go the way of turdgaze, Christian dronewave, dark ska, and luxurycore and be dumped into the mass grave with the other dead rock genres? Or will the style transcend the art form with a "perfect sound forever" and be recognized as timeless; like space-country, crazy-cat-lady indie, Christian screamo, and "bands that sound more-or-less exactly like Jesus and Mary Chain"? I will also try to come to some conclusion on whether or not Brian Wilson was the original chill beach slut or the original hatin' ass beach narc. Which I feel is the crux of a lot of rock criticism. And I know there's an answer.

First of all, any of these songs would be hilarious if they were mashed up with Cam'ron or Project Pat or Uffie. I dunno if Girl Talk or the Hood Internet have done this already (I don't think so), but whoever does this will probably live on forever. On a semi-related note, don't you wonder why people play shit that aren't mashups at their party? It's fucking retarded. Sorry for the vitriol.

But yeah, Pet Sounds. What makes it tick? Why is it good or horrible? The most striking mp3 on this album is the stirring anti-death penalty song, "Wouldn't It Be Nice." I think if more people heard this song, violence and death would come to a screeching halt… maybe they'd sentence criminals to "hang out at the beach and smoke purple kush" instead of making them dig their own grave in the hot sun and shit. The second song is boring as hell and doesn't have any cool stuff happening in it. If you're illegally downloading the album, make sure you delete "You Still Believe in Me" and replace it with a better song that won't put you to sleep..."Get In The Ring" by Guns n Roses or "Another Body Murdered" by Faith No More and Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. (from the Judgement Night soundtrack) are both fantastic substitutes that mesh well with the lyrical and musical themes found here on Pet Sounds. "I'm Waiting For The Day" has a heavy Green Album-era Weezer influence to it which is fine if you like that scene. I wonder if Brian Wilson listened to a lot of 2nd wave emo when he was being a recluse and getting high off of eating his own poop?

"Sloop John B" is sorta like the first chillwave song. And if rumors are to be believed, it took 48 different Apple laptops to make that song. I wonder if annoying girls that wore ironic animal shirts in the mid-60s would play this song way too much? "God Only Knows" is probably the most unnerving moment on them album, as it centers around uncomfortable themes of "loss of innocence" and feelings of "being raped by religion," it sorta throws you into a Comte de Lautreamont-esque surreal nightmare. This song is kinda the stylistic forefather to Marilyn Manson's sublime pocket symphony "Cryptorchid" as well as a lot of later-day Swans stuff. Fun fact! Some occult theorists/aura specialists say that you can actually hear Wilson's soul dissolving like a cube of sugar during some of the earlier recordings of "God Only Knows". But whatever. I've only listened to "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" once, and it's one of the better songs about using a primitive time travel device to go into the very recent past to cheat the stock market.

What else? The actual song "Pet Sounds" is an instrumental track. Whenever this song is preformed live, Wilson dedicates it to "all the pets around the world living and dead" and then makes the crowd join him in the chant "Hoof and horn, hoof and horn, all that dies shall be reborn. Corn and grain, corn and grain, all that falls shall rise again" It's kinda silly if you actually start to think about it. "Caroline No" is boring grandpa chillwave at its worst, which (ironically) isn't chill at all. And needless to say, I'm not in the mood to sing the praises about the rest of this dying proto glo-fi brachiosaurus.

Recently it seems there's been a groundswell of people I've ran into that think Smile Smiley or whatever is truly superior record. Mostly because of knee-jerk reasons...like people are sick of saying Pet Sounds is so un-fucking-precedented and - plus! - Smiley has songs about eating a shit ton of vegetables out of boredom and hangin' out with supremely fuckable bald babes! But this sentiment smacks of trying-too-hard music criticism and indie snobbery. Like when you ask someone what their favorite Wire record is, and they instantly reply to you "THE SHITTY ONE THAT NO ONE LIKES! NOT EVEN ME."

I appreciate Pet Sounds the way I appreciate George Washington, King Arthur, the Loch Ness Monster or Winston Churchill. In the way that I don't really appreciate it at all. It's like "I get it. You probably did a lot of cool shit 48 million eons ago when no one blogged about anything. I wouldn't be here without all your sweet beachwave parties you threw for the good of the nation or whatever. You probably met a lot of meaningful people and learned 'the ways of trees' from 'the red man' or whatever. I don't care. You're in my sun."

To the central question was Brian a cool dude or a narc? Well, anyone who hides from society and craps their pants all the time and uses tons of superfluous instruments just to be a jerk-off and waste the money of ancient buzz-kills that were probably pressuring him to pump out a hit on the level of "The Entertainer" or "Spoonman" or whatever song was #1 on iTunes at the time, well, anyone who does all of that rad shit will always be cool in my book. What was chill once will always remain chill, right? Unfortunately, no. Nothing chill ever stays. -Willwave

Julian Buttersweets "Nasty's Fort"

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Sacramento's Julian Buttersweets is a sick and sad individual. And so it only follows that his music is both as sweet as is frightening. Nasty's Fort definitely falls more into the frightening side of the spectrum.

While listening to "The Throat Slicer", it's not hard to envision a maniacal blade-wielding demon singing the words, as fat bass, bongos and harmonium bounce from one speaker to the next, and that's just the beginning. What continues is a series of songs so childish and terrifying its safe to say that Julian Buttersweets has finally lost his mind.

The song "Nasty's Fort" comes next and spreads itself across the listener's psyche, evoking a clearing in the woods, with a Residents-esque voice narrating the sad and alarming life of Nasty and his lonely fort. According to the lyric sheet, "nobody visits Nasty's Fort no more" and it's quite clear why this is the case.

"1-2-3-4" is kind of a children's rhyme punctuated by the canned exclamation of "1, 2, 3, 4" being chanted via Casiotone. It's a brief track that segues into the equally disconcerting "Dear Dr. Juice", a mad carnival of a song. Buttersweets, you bastard, when will your mad nightmare end??

From a slim paragraph of album notes comes the instructions, "Listen to it in complete darkness if at all possible." I couldn't agree more! -Adam

Listen to "The Throat Slicer"

Tristan Corrales "Neo Existentialism"

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Hi, my name is Matt, and I am a Nintendo addict...

It began innocently enough...I received a Game Boy on Christmas Day of 1990, if I recall correctly. Now it's 2010, I'm 25 and I've got a small portable console that can and does play more 8 and 16-bit games than even I can possibly comprehend. Most of my days are spent trembling in anticipation of some new Zelda, Mario or Metroid game, like a junkie waiting for a fix (albeit with more manageable withdrawal symptoms). I can get through my days a little easier though, knowing there are others out there like Tristan Corrales that share the same affliction. I really do wish I could tell you I'm getting clean...I wish I tell you that Tristan is my sponsor. The truth is, he has become more like a supplier.

Mr. Corrales is quite adept at creating a virtual landscape of sound, synesthetically producing colorful visions of pixelated bushes and clouds, mid-level checkpoints and princesses in need of saving. Unlike musical contemporaries such as BitShifter or Pixelh8, Tristan's chiptune grooves aren't trying to re-create any sort of dance floor techno or electro vibe. Each song here is unique unto itself, each track the soundtrack to the level of some twisted, long-forgotten Nintendo game that never got a stateside release.

This is heavily nostalgic, happy, energetic chiptune music that doesn't ape any specific genre. It is quite possible Tristan Corrales scores video games for a living, but if he doesn't he most certainly could land a job...back in the early 90's...hmm. Crap. Where's that Game Genie at? -Matt

Listen to "Stroll in the Park With My Best Friends"