the of mirror eye

* The Dead C: Heaven (10.5 mb) | Power (7.0 mb) | Power (acoustic) (3.5 mb)
From Trapdoor Fucking Exit : Siltbreeze Records : SB21

Well, continuing on with our New Zealand odyssey, we’ve got those crazy dudes from Dunedin, The Dead C! The Dead C are a trio consisting of Bruce Russell, Michael Morley and Robbie Yeats who’ve been making their brand of beautiful noise since 1986. And whoo boy, what music it is! I have no idea how, but they’ve managed to create some of the most lo-fi, uncompromising and brutal, improvisational rock music out there. As with a lot of these New Zealand bands, there really isn’t too much information out there about them. But to be honest, it’s really all about the music, isn’t it?

—–+—–

There’s a great video (look here) of them on some New Zealand top of the pops style show!! I can’t quite imagine how this all came about, but I’m sure glad it did.

* The Bats: Other Side Of You (4.5 mb) | Time To Get Ready (6.0 mb) | Ten To One (4.0 mb)
From The Law Of Things : Communion : COMM15

If you can’t tell yet, three posts in, I absolutely adore a ton of music from New Zealand. As I said before, it boggles the mind just how different and consistently great bands from New Zealand are. Formed in 1982, The Bats are a classic indie-pop band from Christchurch. Their music is incredibly catchy and is instrumentally diverse enough that it doesn’t sound like they’re playing the same song over and over.

I actually don’t know too much more about them, but I guess that doesn’t really matter, since their music speaks volumes. This album, their second full length, also features Alastair Galbraith, who I wrote about earlier.

—–+—–

* Alastair Galbraith: Screaming E (5.0 mb) | As In A Blender (3.5 mb) | Starless Road (6.0 mb) | Milk Milo Man (1.5 mb)
From Seely Girn : Feel Good All Over : fgao #14

To continue on with the New Zealand based music, I’ve decided to post some music by this amazing musician, Alastair Galbraith. Mr. Galbraith has been mixing up folk, drones, noise and psychedelia for over twenty years now to wondrous effect.

His palette of sound is unlike any other artist, his main instruments being violin, bagpipes, softly spoken lyrics, organ, and backwards-played guitar. Through much tape manipulation, Galbraith is able to further expand these tones to create a rich, dark aura.

To say Galbraith plays these instruments is to simplify things to the point where it loses meaning, as Galbraith does not strive to get standard, pretty sound out of them. Instead, he bends and stretches his instruments, particularly his violin, finding as much use for a screeched or strained tone as a pure one. (Jim Steed)

It took me awhile to get into this fine fellow, but once I did, I couldn’t stop listening. There’s really something special about the way that he manipulates his sounds.

—–+—–

* Birchville Cat Motel: Skies Crimson Tears (12.0 mb)
* Pumice: Bold-Old (5.0 mb)
* Peter Wright: Another Gate (11.5 mb)
From Need For A Crossing: A New New Zealand Vol. 1 : Xeric : XER 113CD

For the longest time now, I’ve been completely enamored with the New Zealand music scene. It blows my mind that such a small, isolated country can produce so much great music. Everything from the indie pop of Chris Knox and The Bats, the instrumental musings of Roy Montgomery, the noise rock of The Dead C and the inner musings of Omit.

So, I was super duper excited to find this compilation of A New New Zealand, put out by Xeric, a subsidiary of the mighty Table Of The Elements. So, we’ve got the drone rock of Birchville Cat Motel, fractured folk by Pumice and psychedelic drones by Peter Wright. This is, overall an incredible compilation and is highly, highly recommended.

—–+—–

* The Singing Loins: Hauling In The Slack (6.0 mb) | The Gentlemen (7.0 mb) | My Madonna (5.5 mb) | House In The Woods (6.5 mb)
From Live In Belgrade

Almost two years ago (yikes!!) I wrote a little spiel about this band, The Singing Loins (look here), but decided to revisit them since I’ve been listening to them a lot recently. Their music seems to really draw from the sea shanty genre, which is a type of music that I’m not really into, so I’m not quite sure what it is about their music that really brings me in. When I really stop to think about it, I think it’s all about the chutzpah and hubris that they bring to their music. It’s not like they’re the worlds best singers or players, but they don’t really seem to care about that. They simply write songs that are raw, damaged, and straight from the heart.

I have no idea where this release comes from. I happened to stumble upon it one day, but there doesn’t seem to be any info on the interweb about it. It’s obviously a live recording from Belgrade, but beyond that, I have no idea about it. If you’re looking for more of their stuff though, Damaged Goods has a bunch of it (as well as a ton of other stuff you should check out). I’ve included the first four songs of this concert, so I hope you enjoy and like this as much as I do.

—–+—–

* Built To Spill: Velvet Waltz (13.0 mb) : Untrustable / Part 2 (About Someone Else) (15.0 mb)
From Perfect From Now On : Warner Bros Music : 9 46453-2

I remember when this album first came out, I was so totally entrenched in the “indie or die” mindset that I immediately dismissed this album, Perfect From Now On, by Built To Spill. I mean, who cares if they released a number of excellent indie pop albums on a couple of different indie labels, they must’ve sold out if they were able to get signed to Warner Bros. Right?!??! Well, fortunately, I was wrong, and the ravings of the music director at the radio station I was at convinced me to give this album a shot. And I couldn’t believe just how great it was.

Gone were the short, two-three minute indie pop songs, instead there were much longer melodic guitar epics that just blew me away. The songs weren’t pointlessly long and epic though, as they’re driven by main man Doug Martsch’s impeccable sense of melody and song structure. It still sometimes blows my mind that the same label that can sign and release albums by Lindsay Lohan and Ashlee Simpson can also release albums by Built To Spill, but I’ve stopped questioning it and just appreciate the fact that this band is just making music.

—–+—–