Luke Jonhson did a better job than I would have at the explain-y compare-y literature. Check out his article here.

They are fun. I wish I could have seen them live. –Sorry Luke– Their sound reminds me a bit of Shore Leave from Boston MA (a band I LOVED seeing perform live back in my earlier years, sigh).

Enjoy!

Wires Under Tension, a post-rock duo from the Bronx, came to the Printed Matter benefit party at 285 Kent Ave on South 1^st Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and absolutely smashed it.

As much as Wires Under Tension is a verbose how-to-play manual tip for string instruments—their potential effusions when cranked and released— the nom de band also works as a fruitful metaphor.  Christopher Tignor and Theo Metz explore sound’s potential.  Each song evolves into a journey toward an emotional crux: songs build and break, soar and wane.  They shift meditatively, change direction, and pull listeners along with them.  They hook your gut with a melody and tug.

In some ways, these guys remind me of Berg Sans Nipple, but with a sharper edge, a hint of aggression.  But Tignor’s sampling, string play, and work on the keys, coupled with Metz’s hard worn, tight percussion make them completely their own.  The one word that comes to mind when I think of Wires Under Tension is TOGETHERNESS.  It seems like the performers are in each other’s head.

I sort of blew it: I didn’t have the equipment to record any of the show.  Even if I did, I would have been dancing too apoplectically to steady a camera.  SO, anyone who did record a song or two ( I saw about 40 iphones doing this business), let us at Underground Airline know . . . We’ll link to your treasure.

Alas, here are links to some Wires Under Tension videos:

Enjoy these wonderful songs!

Wires Under Tension also has an album for sale. It’s called Light Science.  Check it out here. Get it! Get it!

more fresh london sounds

Whadup world!

A London November sunset at 3:51 pm

According to me there are two things that make underground airline great:

 
1. Painfully erratically updates

Rather than compete with all those cluttered over-hyped noise blogs with 4 posts/hour, trying desperately to blog about something “new” and “hip” before someone else does. fuck that. 

We here at underground airline take our sweet ass time to handpick just the best. Things we really think is worth putting out there. Time and age of discovery is irrelevant. So deal with it. Follow/Subscribe to the blog so you get alerted when we post new things. It’s much nicer than having to check it all the time anyway.  

2. A Mixed bag

Three of us have such diverse styles of what we listen to. While there is certainly some overlap we do tend to venture far out into our own respective fields of taste. So our posts follow no predestined formula. They just evolve as our listening habits do, pulling you in different directions.

For me personally music is all about atmosphere. I want music to surround the room I am in and create a unique experience of a moment. I am big on soundtracks but at the same time music should not simply feature in the background. It should draw out emotions or highlight an emotional context. An active atmospheric soundscape that floods the mind like it floods the room. Ok ill stop with the flamboyant adjectives before I go back to sounding like one of the regular music blogs that i slashed out above.

Enough with the chatter, here are some people I am excited about these days:

Free The Robots

i heard about him once from a Gaslamp Killer interview, similiar sounds:

jupiter

impulse remix

 
Nicolas Jaar 

with him one needs to exercise a little patience to let him get to where he’s going. Then when he gets there he doesn’t stay long enough. Fantastically delicate work. 

Materials

Why Didn’t You Save Me

Jon Hopkins

From the UK provides glitched out cinematic sounds

and his gritty intense nosaj thing remix

Click on Neptune’s video tab to get a sample of what they’re capable of.

I recommend that everyone with the time and the money (only ten dollars!) come out to see Neptune’s home-crafted instruments in action.  Great music and inspiring sculpture.  This is a performance you will never forget– promise.

cd release party!

8pm

@ Union Pool

484 Union Avenue # A  Brooklyn, NY 11211-3440

$10

picture courtesy of Dustin Racioppi

It’s a bright 28th day of October here in New Jersey. The temperature is mild with a minor cut of chill– 50 degrees in the sun. But there is snow in tomorrow’s forecast! Now I’m excited. Abrupt transformation, utter change upon us in what seems like a moment. We never ask for this change, but receive in kind, in time.

In his book Vectors, James Richardson—great poet and aphorist—teaches us something wonderful. “During the hottest months, the sun is moving away from us, during the coldest, coming back.” Sigh . . . yea. And it goes, and it goes.

I was challenged by my long-time friend and musical counterpart— Heliopath—to post my “top 5” on a monthly basis. I love the idea. And here is what’s at the top of the heap in the month of October.

1. Battles – Sundome (album version)     (instrumental)  or (live)
2. Victory at Sea – Animal and the Weather
3. Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings – How Do I Let a Good Man Down?
4. Metal Fingers – Sumac Berries
5. Eleanor Friedberger – Roosevelt Island

courtesy of Small Devices' myspace pg.

An unblemished strength of Small Devices exists in their arrangements.  The drums are clear; keys—in their 80s-ish wind—perform their own bending dance.  Guitarists interview as potential hospitable whips for a deep-coma patient’s awakening.

The space in the song where most other bands would clutter it with a bunch of shit, Small Devices lets each instrument breathe, each note ring and react to hearing itself in the monitor.  They let the hums be hums, lights be light, and cetera be c.

Small Devices might be in it’s earliest germ stage, but they have a microbiologic effect that, in all it’s smallness, coolly breaks away from the reproduction of former models.  Yes, there might be the To Record Water drum-gun of J. Frusciante, the late-night buzz-crawl spaciness of Boards of Canada, the howl of confident guitar feedback.  But, as one band members gibes, “we’re not fucking Blond Redhead, okay?”  And I agree: they are, literally, not Blond Redhead, they’re Small Devices, goddamn it.

It’s rare that a song becomes an apparatus for ethereal travel—when you’re transported, flown somewhere unfamiliar and dropped with the beat as some distant, foreign, conveyor.

In times like these I break out the pen, write on my skin: remember this band; remember Small Devices.

links to websites with songs:

http://www.myspace.com/smalldevices

http://smalldevices.net/

a youtubule  link to a performance of “snowflakes”:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-OwbqPzc0U

Small Devices is a Brooklyn; watch out for a live show near you.

1. The Lonely Forest - Turn Off This Song And Go Outside ["Arrows" 2011]
2. Tune-Yards - Es-So ["W H O K I L L" 2011]
3. The Joy Formidable - The Butterfly’s Last Spell ["It's Just a World Apart" 2011]
4. The Head And The Heart – Lost in my Mind
5. Clams Casino – Motivation (Lil B) ["Clams Casino" 2011]
6. Deerhoof - The Greg Saunier Retaliation ["Almost Xiu Xiu, Almost Deerhoof" 2011]
7. David Bowie – Quicksand ["Hunky Dory" 1971]
8. 8in8 – The Problem with Saints ["Nighty Night" 2011]
9. Radiohead – Lotus Flower ["The King of Limbs" 2011]
10. Gold Panda – Win-san Western ["Companion" 2011]
11. Immortal Technique – Dance with the Devil ["Revolutionary, Vol. 1" 2005]
12. Clams Casino - The World Needs Change (Soulja Boy) ["Clams Casino" 2011]
13. Richard Skelton - Undertow ["Landings" 2010]
14. The Caretaker - Request Dance ["Selected Memories From the Haunted Ballroom" 2006]

Look below and click it!