Tipper Stays Active, Releases Deliciously Downtempo “Fathoms” EP
–Written by Kevin Madert
Shortly after the release of Broken Soul Jamboree in 2008, downtempo virtuoso and glitch pioneer Dave Tipper began experiencing various health issues. The issues continued for nearly five years, limiting his production and touring output to a few EPs and a handful of dates during that time. In the summer of 2013, his health grew dire enough to necessitate open heart surgery, news that had many concerned for the future of both Dave and his music.
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For Their Tour Finale, The Glitch Mob Pulls Out All The Stops (Show Review)
–Reviewed by Michael Hogan
My biggest failing as a human being is how cranky I become when I’m tired; I become the most unpleasant person in the world. I’ve been working on it recently, and I’m starting to realize when I need to be put to bed, but I still make stupid choices every now and then. My most recent objectively poor choice was going out right after spending the better part of a week working a festival, not sleeping and overworking myself in near freezing conditions.
Mere hours after my return to DC from Nightmare Festival I was headed Echostage to see The Glitch Mob. I had grabbed a bite to eat, but I hadn’t yet gone home; I was still wearing my mud covered jeans from the rain-soaked final night of Nightmare. This, I reasoned, was one of those situations that begged me to suspend any logic and reason – not to mention the impending crankiness that my friends and unsuspecting strangers would be forced to bear the brunt of.
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Review: Gerard Way’s “Hesitant Alien”
–Written by Kevin Madert
In high school, Gerard Way got me. I was a totally normal kid with totally normal issues, but of course at the time I was the only person who’d ever felt confused, the sole target of all the world’s ire, and the first guy to ever like a girl who didn’t like him back. The singular constant in my whirling dervish of pubescent emotion was music, and Way’s band My Chemical Romance became one of my most frequented therapists. I’d slam my bedroom door, grab my first generation iPod Nano, and let Way’s tortured tones echo atop the distorted crunch of those quintessential mid-2000s emocore riffs, washing my latest crisis away.
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On “This Is Cave Music,” Moon Hooch Tighten Up Without Turning Down (Album Review)
Written by Kevin Madert
Before I bought Moon Hooch’s self-titled debut album, I didn’t know the true meaning of the phrase “replay value.” From late-night drives to early morning runs, parties to study sessions and everything in between, Moon Hooch became my go-to soundtrack for basically everything. It’s for this reason the prospect of a new Moon Hooch LP stirred within me equally feelings of excitement and nervousness. My mental bar for a follow-up full-length was set to an unfair height, and a part of me fretted the trio would let me down by default.
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Album Review: This Will Destroy You – Another Language
–Written by Mike Hogan
I’m constantly amazed by how much can be accomplished with some droning, reverb-y guitar feedback and a simple, repetitive drum beat. It seems like nothing – an album skipping, perhaps – but there can be so much depth and subtlety hidden within the noise, invoking a fresh new mood with only slight adjustments in dynamics. It’s truly a phenomenon to experience when a single non-melodic sound can inspire so much emotion. Years ago, Austin, Texas post-rock band This Will Destroy You took an idea very similar to this one and cemented their place within the hearts of the post-rock community with their debut EP Young Mountain. The first track, “Quiet” encapsulated the prodigious grasp TWDY had on just a single phrase of music, showcasing how such a simplistic structure could be manipulated into a million different emotions – from despondent and melancholy to bright and uplifting, all driven by a largely unchanged drumbeat. It was a brilliant exercise in simplistic minimalism, and it became the hallmark of their sound.
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