Midwest producer Fancy Mike has a brand new release out this week called Super Fiction, a 12-song collection of beats and compositions created between 2008-2010. My remix/complete re-working of his track “Space Pornography” can be found on this release. If you’re into cinematic beats that will make your head bob, you should go download this FREE release at his bandcamp page.—Bomarr
Brand new video collage/song. Made up entirely of Creative Commons-licensed video. Audio is from an upcoming release, TBA.
Bomarr - "Strugglebus" from Bomarr on Vimeo.
Ok, so Vol. 3 wasn't the last. There may even be a Volume 5 in 2010, but for now, enjoy the brand new installment of the Wild Xmas Series. Featuring Klaus Nomi,The Sonics, Juice Crew,Galaxie 500, Rondo Brothers and more.
As of right now, you can pre-order this limited 7" that my friends at Gold Robot Records are putting out. It features myself, Copy, Meanest Man Contest, and Roman Ruins.
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Artists: Meanest Man Contest, Bomarr, Copy, Roman Ruins
Title: Designed Entropy
Format: 7-inch colored vinyl (brown/orange)
Run: 500
Cover Art: WCM
Release Date: September 15, 2009
Each vinyl record is accompanied by a download code for MP3 files.
The first entry in the Designed Entropy series features exclusive tracks by 4 different artists inspired from a common starting point. As a cohesive unit, this EP explores the relationship between design, structure, and humanity. Suggested reading to accompany the listening experience: "Atlas of Novel Tectonics" by Jesse Reiser.
Tracklist:
A1 : Bomarr - Exchanges Among Systems
A2 : Copy - Karate Eyes
B1 : Meanest Man Contest - Takitani Edit
B2 : Roman Ruins - Plea For Permanence
PRE-ORDER IT HERE.
-Bomarr
Animated macro photography of television pixels, mostly of faces in a sinister style! -Thom Buttery
Brothers Backword will do for the Beastie Boys what the Bourne Ultimatum did for James Bond. Unpretentiously, Brothers Backword are a 21st century update on the classic components of Hip Hop and dance music that made them so lovable in the first place. David Bryant or PASSAGE (Restiform Bodies, Anticon) and Mike Busse (Chronic Future, Modern Art Records partner) rap and sing in legible, irresistible flows. Topical tracks like Special Education, essentially a rapped three minute rendering of the film Notes on a Scandal, wind away from convention far enough to refresh themselves, but swing swiftly back to Earth with syrupy hooks, damaged yet effective verses and downright provocative bridges. Brothers Backword coo and holler like hood rats, with none of the outsider politics or hang ups so common to indie rap. Dave and Mike are the classic "big guy, little guy" combo. Standing 5'7 and 5'11 Brothers Backword set the stage for impressive, tempo melting performances, and their vocal abilities flex to demonstrate the audio equivalent in their recordings.
The "Stupid Intelligent" mix-tape proves the perfect hunting ground for Passage and Busse. They interact with, infect and invade every track, from Mr. Oizo to Talking Heads to Nas. Fearless of studio magic, they add talk box back ups to Shannon and manipulate hooks from beyond your memory. Suitably aggressive and comedic lyrics, weave in and around chopped, meticulously syncopated Christian Bale sound bites. With an EP due out late this summer, Brothers Backword's "Stupid Intelligent" mix tape is a glimpse of what's to come, but in this future I don't know if we can win this war.
I'm honored to premiere this here. These boys have really outdone themselves on this one.
myspace
download link
I started it off with a track some of you may have already heard, Meanest Man Contest's remix of "Night at the Knight School" by Thee More Shallows. It's tough to pick a "comeback post" after having the blog be inactive for a few years now, so I'm going to be playing around with the format a bit and just posting some random stuff I've been enjoying lately. You may love it, you may hate it. Feel free to post feedback, suggestions, etc. Not sure I'll be posting every single day, but go ahead and subscribe to the blog's rss feed to get updated every time I post something new. Hope you enjoy. I've been meaning to start this back up for some time now.
Thursday, February 19,2009
Bodies Rest; Mope Some
Restiform Bodies’ Passage contemplates cynicism on TV Loves You Back.
By Randy Harward
Passage, aka David Bryant, is at a physical, creative and personal crossroads.
Waiting for a light rail car, he wonders how he might save his relationship, forge a “real” career, become financially comfortable, and “find happiness all the while” making music on his own and with his band, Restiform Bodies. He ponders why, after a decade as a musician, the first date of the big tour is at a pizza parlor in Arcata, Calif. “Not that I’m ungrateful,” he says. With all that mental racket, it’s no wonder his music is a pastiche of white noise and Burroughs-esque cut-up sounds, like an analog radio dial spun from end to end of an all-inclusive, frequency modulated band.
On the group’s second album TV Loves You Back, Restiform Bodies—a trio completed by also-solo artists Telephone Jim Jesus (George Chadwick on synths, samples and effects) and Bomarr (Matt Valerio handling beats and percussion)—the group issues a scathingly sensitive indictment of bling culture and the American strip mall, what Bryant calls “network-trash life with a spiritual awareness in a funny, entertaining and genuinely positive way.” Restiform doesn’t really play to the Anticon label’s rep of supplying hip-hop and dance music that bucks their respective familiar characteristics.
On “Pimp Like God,” Restiform repeatedly pulls you in and out of a vintage 1980s new-wave groove and cold hip-hop burn.“Opulent Soul” mines the same decade, specifically something between Depeche Mode’s synth pop and Spandau Ballet’s crooning new romanticism, while also putting Eminem through a Digital Underground sieve and tossing in futuristic static, clicks and breaks. And you might say “Consumer Culture Wave” is hip-hop all the way through, talking about pussy and screwin’ “like you mean it … like you got a reputation to uphold,” but for the somnambulant sing-song rhymes.
Bryant says the Anticon typecasting is hotly debated, “one of those well-trodden areas” in the artist owned-and-operated label’s camp. Most of the acts, like Why?, Subtle, Odd Nosdam, SJ Esau
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and Dosh, have been called “the hip-hop equivalent of post-rock”—the implication being that these artists appropriate hip-hop instrumentation and gear for purposes not originally intended. It’s not necessarily an accurate or fair description. “I do not consider Restiform Bodies to be post hip-hop,” says Bryant, citing Subtle and Themselves as better fits in that they use classic elements of hip-hop to “make great songs” and subvert the sound.
Restiform, he says, is electronic music and “definitely” hip-hop. However, if he has to call it anything, he’d choose “amateur slop or kids’ stuff or bad demos.”
Bryant’s low self-appraisal stems from other things he’s trying to figure out, yet somehow muddles through with some success. He knows the stylistic hopscotch can be considered bad business, but “I can’t sit before a piano and knock out a verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, verse, et cetera, from the same seat.” He admits a lack of skills and embraces his shortcomings. “I’d probably be more successful, but I do cherish that handicap because I find myself in places when writing songs without totally predictable options.”
It’s a suitable method by which to soundtrack “all this cynical material” and in doing so, make “a totally uncynical record.” But Bryant, ever the cynic, says Restiform didn’t even accomplish that much. “People get scared when you try to go about making ‘conscious’ art without cutting cynicism, so it found its way in. It’s one of my biggest regrets, letting the cynicism take over this record.”
03.11.2009 | Author: kristin
I’ve been talking about Matt and Dave for a while now, so here’s the actual interview:
(KR) What inspires your song writing? Where do the concepts come from?
(Dave) Lately I’m writing songs people can connect to with less of an agenda. Things that activate on a human level… love, death, fun. Theme-wise that’s where I’m headed. TV Loves You Back I drew from really image heavy pop culture hilarious shit. I thought it was funny, but I think people took it too seriously
(KR) I HATED music theory and didn’t understand a minute of it… do you guys get into and/or study that type of thing or does this all come naturally?
(Dave/Matt) Neither one of us read music. Sometimes people go to school and develop disdain for something they once loved… unfortunately, it can become a technical educational pursuit.
(KR)Do you love all music or is there some you hate?
(Dave/Matt) Yeah, we like all music. It’s not my intention to isolate anyone ever or to say someone isn’t cool. I don’t play that game…. except for Kenny G.
(KR) Is fashion important in your lives? Favorite designers???
(Dave/Matt) I really like American Apparel. I wear tons of it. I like RVCA, too. Fashion should be visually entertaining… Matt rocks this terrible Christmas sweater sometimes.
(KR) Nice, I love that. You have some Aliases like Passage (Dave), Bomarr (Matt)…. Where do the these nick names come from?
(Dave/Matt) We initially wanted a traditional hip-hop vibe way back when we started making music. Bomarr is Matt’s pseudo last name and Passage is the idea that I was one little literary passage. One phrase of of a larger text.
(KR) Is there anything else you guys are working on at the moment?
(Dave/Matt) We’re working on a project called “TLDR”…Bat rays as well. Matt’s curated the sneakmove “minicomp vol 3″, which are a series of 7 inches that the label has been doing, featuring artists doing 1-minute songs. I’m working with a pop label out of Phoenix called Modern Art Records on a project called Brothers Backword. It’s Myself, Mike Busse and Ryan Breen who’s a part of this band called Back Ted n’ Ted. It’s kinda like Beastie Boys for the twenty first century. And We’re working with the producer from Inner Party System.
