The Parallellograms/The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Split EP

Genre(s) - Indie pop
Origin - UK/USA
Year of release - 2008
Bitrate - 320 kbps
Size - 11.35 MB

I've been having other things on my mind than my blog, excuse me for the lack of updates lately. I'm not sure if that is changing very soon. Watch and pray.

Well I hope everybody knows I love The Pains, only on this here fine EP I have to admit they are being topped by their British splitmates. The Parallellograms play ultra-upbeat, ultra-simple, ultra-childlike but very noisy twee pop, with a rawness of production that would scare the lads of Von or Beherit. Pop the Bubbles is fantastic, gets me ready for summer (if only the weather worked along). As for the Pains, Kurt Cobain's Cardigan sadly is quite a nondescript song and I know they can do better than this. Also of course I prefer their more melodramatic songs.

1. The Parallellograms - 1, 2, 3, go!
2. The Parallellograms - Pop the bubbles
3. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Kurt Cobain's Cardigan
   

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A Beautiful Machine - Solar Winds, White Noise, Antigravity

Genre(s) - Post-spacegaze
Origin - Australia
Year of release - 2000
Bitrate - Various
Size - 70.45 MB

An early, and unfortunately still inexplicably unknown post-rock band, whose music is considered to be built up from space rock and shoegaze elements. The latter are a lot more obvious, I think. The space rock aspect can be most clearly noted in the worked-open structures and spaciousness and universal (non-personal) overtones, but then those feautures are applicable to most regular post-rock bands as well. But common sense tells us not to give a crap about genres, so just give it a listen if you like expansive, mind-bending soundscapes that glow with all the colours of a stellar nebula. A Beautiful Machine will be happy to show you around.

All material by this band can be downloaded officially for free from archive.org, here.

1. Entwine
2. Shining
3. Sometimes
4. Glow
5. The sound of her wings
6. Follow mine
7. Breathe in space
8. Coming up...
9. ...Again
   

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The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Self-titled full-length

Genre(s) - Dreampop
Origin - New York, NY
Year of release - 2009
Bitrate - 320 kbps
Size - 56.98 MB

Though I had kind of decided not to post any albums in the year that they are released anymore, the pull to share this is too strong, the world needs it too bad. With their self-titled debut, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart prove that simple recipes are usually the tastiest. They take the original shoegaze sound, a bit of Belle and Sebastian's melodic style and indie pop sensibility, and some surprising harmonies and synth-additions that strongly remind me of 80s rock. The music manages to be exuberant and sad at the same time, it's trippy and deceptively intense. This Love is Fucking Right! and A Teenager in Love both belong to the more melodic songs and they're quite beautiful, not in the least because of the delightfully fucked-up lyrics. Gentle Sons is an example of the harder tracks, with a very heavy stomping beat and intense psychedelic guitar play. Most of the others are somewhere in between but not less wondrous because of it. I wish I could force you to try it but you'll have to do it on your own accord. Love them forever, like I will.

1. Contender
2. Come saturday
3. Young adult friction
4. This love is fucking right!
5. The tenure itch
6. Stay alive
7. Everything with you
8. A teenager in love
9. Hey Paul
10. Gentle sons
    

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Les Discrets - Les Discrets

Band/artist - Les Discrets
Genre(s) - Post-rock, shoegaze
Origin - France
Album - Les Discrets EP
Year of release - Pas du tout!

"At this time, no release from Les Discrets has been released. A so-called EP seems to have been released in 2007, but the musician himself even doesn't know it! This "EP" you can download on web blogs, portals, p2p clients is a fake, a poor rip of Myspace draft songs that were at time on that page.
The so-called cover is actually a shot from my animated short film that i used as Myspace main picture. Nothing to do with a cover!!
The first release of Les Discrets will be an album that will be recorded from the 1st to 19th June in Drudenhaus Studio in France, and it will be released via Prophecy Productions in Autumn 2009."
- Fursy Teyssier

[This is a repost. As recent, thorough investigation points out (it was on the project's Myspace page), this is not actually an EP but a collection of tracks downloadable from Myspace, making this a very unofficial "release". I personally was just too glad to find this on Soulseek, and subsequently too eager to hear and share this with you to be critical. To be honest, it was me who took the then-official Les Discrets myspace image as a replacing album cover, and since I was the first to publish the non-EP, it kind of got spread around the instawebs as an official cover. I'm not going to take down the post at this news - I hope it will lead a lot of people to consider buying the album when it comes. There's reason to hope so; at the moment, this is the single most often downloaded file in the history of this blog.]

Les Discrets is the platform from which the multi-talented Fursy Teyssier whom you may also know from his contributions to Alcest and Amesoeurs, releases his music, art and animations. The musical side of this project so far consists of just this EP but I've heard a full-length is in the making. Alcest definitely shines through in the music's mood, but this is more minimalist in the softer parts, whereas the louder parts are more typically post-rock in their building up and releasing of audial tension. In fact, Les Discrets is very similar to The American Dollar, not a coincidence because Fursy has cooperated with said band on a number of levels. In all it's quite a beautiful EP, though mostly on the force of the first two tracks. The last three are a bit understated, and I have the feeling Fursy can do even better than this. I consider this a most pleasant appetizer for the coming main course.

You should also check his site where you can watch his wonderful animated short called Tir Nan Og (where have we heard that title before?), an allegory on dying with music from The American Dollar.

1. Corbeaux automne ciel gris
2. Les vieux ne meurent pas
3. Pensées sous les nuages
4. Song for mountains
5. Urban disease (unfinished)
   

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Lycia - The Ghosts of Lycia

No cover art; so here's Mike & Tara with a rake and some maize

Genre(s) - Ethereal/shoegaze/dark ambient
Origin - Arizona, USA
Year of release - Never officially released
Bitrate - 128 kbps
Size - 26.42 MB

Some very early material by that darkest of darkwave bands, Lycia. There's not a lot of information on this "release" but apparently it's a collection of very early demo tracks that were released unofficially... somehow and years later. I can't even recall how it ended up on my computer though I remember, back when I was still shuttling back and forth between uni and my parents' place, dozing off to this in the train regularly, watching the winter scenery drift by as the sun came up. It'll work for you too if you let it. It may be distressing music but it's unobtrusive enough to just fuzz out your brain into a blissful, druggy half-sleep. Of course it's only a short spell of music and its age is abundantly clear - it's more frail and unfocused than any of their official releases (among which, for instance, this one), but Lycia fans absolutely need to hear this. And for the rest it may not seem like the best introduction to the band, but it sure did it for me.

1. From foam (original version)
2. Torment
3. In the wake of nothing
4. This sacred place
5. Dismissal
6. The beginning of the end
7. Decline
8. Blinding white fire
   

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Lycia - A Day in the Stark Corner

Band/artist - Lycia
Genre(s) - Ethereal, shoegaze, dark ambient
Origin - United States of America
Album - A day in the stark corner
Year of release - 1996

You could say that what Paysage d'Hiver is to black metal, Lycia is to the dreamy segment of underground gothic music: they have always been a touch more bleak and distant sounding than their peers. The band is often categorized as ethereal but it's in nothing like Black Tape for a Blue Girl or Dead Can Dance, relying much more on drawn-out electric guitar lines and keyboards over a repetitive drum computer than on acoustic or classical instruments. Mike VanPoortvleets yearning whispers bring a whole different meaning to the lyrics than an 'Angelic Voices' soprano would have done. Though certainly beautiful, Lycia's music is a detached, sedated, sorrowful affair overall, and A Day in the Stark Corner is not an album you listen to for fun. If you can recognize yourself in the eccentricity of sometimes enjoying negative feelings, then don't let this one slip.

1. And through the smoke and nails
2. Pygmallion
3. The body electric
4. Wide open spaces
5. The morning breaks so cold and gray
6. The remnants and the ruins
7. Goddess of the green fields
8. Everything is cold
9. Sorrow is her name
10. Daphne
    

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