Our Daily Fix - Tour Singles (2013)

Last Time on Swords o Plenty....

Once you have stood in a crowded room full of your peers in various stages of undress pouring sweat and genuinely being hypnotized by the shear brilliance in front of you....there is no way you can be "on the fence"  I am a soldier ready to do battle for them. Our Daily Fix is my perfect example of this. These guys play like the factory is about to blow at any second....seriously. It's a very organic and honest look at modern math rock today. Sure they salt and pepper with various other genre's but its the tight corners they take and the memorable structures that grant character and heart to their music.  Also to quell any doubting Thomas's that saxophone rips hard.  Sometimes its like a friendly battle between the sax and guitar for awesome riff supremacy. Need an example? Listen to "Two Cats" and check out that dueling riff work at 1:24 straight to the heavens.  You can be sure ill be seeing these gents again in about a week so expect more overly excited screaming from me. 

Stockades - Demo (2012)

Stockades bring the Aussie calculations to the hearts and minds with this delicious demo. I don't remember demo's sounding this good...ever. Screamo style vox with some schizo tap a tap guitars under the influence of some math dance jam? Also theres a saxophone that pops up and makes the chill parts sound that much more jawsome. Problem only TWO SONGS! ok for now you get a pass stockades....for now.

Demo

Snaarj

Alto and tenor saxophones interweave lines in and out of one another while a (dare I use the term)"funky" bass holds down the festivities. The drummer mixes some devilish poly-rhythms while still keeping it delightfully tasteful. Snaarj claims a number of different genre identifiers in their Bio and would like to be tagged as "sax pop" I however feel this doesn't really do them justice. Sure the indie rock spirit is there but these guys seem more progressive rock driven than maybe they'd say. All genre finger pointing aside this is some wonderfully composed music from four friends how clearly love what they do. There seems to be a growing number of bands latching onto this sort of setup and many die by the sword. Snaarj has one song up on their bandcamp from this year (Husky Plus) that seems to sum up in short order what to expect. The live album also shows that there are others to come that are just as excellent. I wait with eager palms outstretched for whats to come.

SNAAAAARRJJ!!

Sweep the Leg Johnny - Going Down Swinging

I'm hoping there are those of you out there that are not super familiar with these guys.  Although if your even slightly schooled in the off time arts you should have at least heard mention. Those that do know, as far as mid to late 90's early 2000's math rock, Sweep the Leg Johnny was an important and impressive musical force. What they are most known for is the inclusion of not just vocals but a vocalist that also plays saxophone. Very cool rhythmic ideas at work but not especially frantic. They do get slow and at times resemble a fairly standard early 90's dissonant indie rock band (not a negative thing) Going Down Swinging was to be there last release in 2002 and a great place to start when checking them out. They seem to be at the height of their style playing very intricate extended rock. This is some excellently crafted and very much a classic Math rock group.


Going Down Swinging (2002)

Colin Stetson - New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges (2011)

This is the most jaw-dropping piece of musical genius I've heard in a long time.

Colin Stetson is an explosive saxophone soloist. And by this I don't mean that he rips sick licks while some funky jazz band lays it down. I mean that Colin Stetson plus one saxophone is all you need for a completely enveloping musical experience.

Colin Stetson uses an array of saxophone tones, screams, hums, vocalizations, key clicks, and magic to create a densely-layered steamroller of sound. For this record, his performance was captured by a total of 24 microphones, allowing each subtle sound to be EQ'd and mixed independently. This gives the record an incredibly rich, full sound with thumping bass and rich throaty highs. The record sounds fuller than most full bands.

Stetson is joined on a few tracks by female vocals, spoken word by Laurie Anderson, and a french horn interlude. The accompaniments are sparse, and the emphasis is really on his otherworldly saxophone performance.

The best part about this record? It is tasteful, intelligent, engaging, and fun. This guy has played sax for everyone (Bon Iver, The National, Tom Waits, The Arcade Fire, G!YBE, etc. etc. etc.) and its awesome that he has stepped out to create such an awesome record on his own.

Fill yr ears with this record HERE.

And in case you need to see to believe, skip to 2:15 below (or watch the whole thing).

Clever Girl - No Drum and Bass in the Jazz Room

The instantly impressive Clever Girl have left a surprisingly large mark considering their on and only release is four tracks deep. Bad news time they are currently defunct. This changes zilch as these four songs are tight as all get out. Jangled mathy guitars and intricate drums with progressive structure. On tap as well is the Saxophone. On paper sounds a bit like our buds "A Troop of Echoes" truthfully however The Troop take their saxophone parts way more seriously and are not so jangly anyway. Carrying onward Clever Girl covers a lot of ground in four songs and youll be begging for more when its over so eat up folks dinner is served.

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Shining - Blackjazz

Norwegian avant prog metal. Yes your right that could make it sound like anything really so here is the skinny. Heavy use of keyboards along side the guitars give it a more approachable nature but still guitars are heavy and everywhere. Vocals are varied and move from hushed creep outs to the typical metal screams. If you want to talk structure as this is progressive metal we are talking about here take out the metal elements and add a mess of horns (sax also crops up in this release) and youve got yourself a damn fine jazz record. I guess it shouldn't be surprising to know then that these gents used to be an acoustic jazz group. Oh and one last thing there's a pretty flipping awesome cover of King Crimsons "21st Century Schizoid Man" that is absolutely crushing.

Blackjazz

A Troop of Echoes

Many rock groups "feature" "odd" instruments from time to time. Horns crop up, violins and piano are among the chosen favorite to spice up a group needing a push into the "interesting" direction. This brings me to the group we have before us, Providence RI 's post-rock crew A Troop of Echoes. They are not in the above mentioned category. Before I go any further let me just say there is an amazing level of instrumentation going on here and things are kept to the 9th degree of propulsive rock n roll. Stripped to just the main guitar, bass and drums this group would fair just fine, now enter saxophone. NOT FEATURING. Dude rips on sax and is right there front and center flying through scales and adding that lead instrument that it was always destined to be. This has been in fairly heavy rotation on my car trips for work.  Highly impressed with this 2010 release and expect more to come from these guys.

Days in Automation