Category: Blog

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DJ Highlights

Local Beat preview 10/1/10

Wow, has it really been a month and a half since I posted the last Local Beat preview blog?  With the enormous amounts of schoolwork and two jobs (plus all the amazing local music concerts I have been going to) I have not had much time to give to blogging recently.  I hope you forgive me.

This week on the Local Beat we have a full lineup planned out.

Greg Humphreys is coming on the show for the first hour. It has been a very long time since Greg has been on the show and you might recognize his other bands Hobex and Dillon Fence. However, Greg has been a prolific solo artist as well with two solo albums, one live album, and one duo album with Gibb Droll since 2008. His newest album, Realign Your Mind, is a more studio-recorded album than his last release Trunk Songs. Greg and I will talk about the album and play some tunes which you have not yet heard on WKNC.

Greg is also playing some live shows coming up so be sure to check those out as well:

Songs of Water has released my favorite album of 2010 so far with their output The Sea Has Spoken.  Songs of Water is a eight-piece group out of Greensboro, NC, and their newest release is mostly beautiful, harmonious instrumentals the meld through worldly genres varying anywhere from Celtic, Oriental, Latin, Americana, blues, tribal, flamenco, bluegrass, and everything in between. Rich, deep, and powerful, it’s one of the most kickass local albums I have heard in some time, and I am happy to say they will all be cramming into our small studio to play some live tunes for us. If you are heading to Shakori Hills next week, be sure to check out this group as they play on October 7. Check out the great write-up they got on the Shakori Hills website:

From the woods of North Carolina comes Songs Of Water, an experimental musical fantasia based half in impressionism and half in realism. With a sound both ancient and modern, they dive into an ocean of exotic instruments to create their gorgeously contemplative instrumental vignettes. Utterly beautiful and meticulously presented, they draw deeply from the pool of World music including folk, Celtic, African, Middle Eastern, classical and jazz influences. Founded upon both composition and improvisation, no two performances are exactly alike.

A couple of the fellas and ladies from Minus Sound Research are coming in for the final hour of the show. Minus is an “art exhibition, now in its fifth year, featuring pieces from local North Carolina musicians. The artists will present their creative visions through sculpture, photography, drawings, serigraphy, woodwork and painting.” Some new artists in the exhibition this year include:

The exhibition is running through the entire month of October at the Carrboro Arts Center and will be featuring artwork from participating artists from past and present exhibitions. Including the artwork be sure to check out the live music at the center on October 8 and 9 featuring: Shark Quest, The Kingsbury Manx, The Moaners, North Elementary, Organos, Free Electric State, Americans in France, & Birds and Arrows.

As always the Local Beat starts at 5 p.m. and runs through 8 p.m. every Friday evening on WKNC.  Listen live here and be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and ReverbNation!

Categories
Non-Music News

EOT43 Hillsborough Street Festival 9/28/10

Sounds and interviews from the Live It Up on Hillsborough Street Festival, behind the scenes of recycling, Evan’s viewpoint about Renee Ellmers, flooding rains in the forecast, campus events, a breakdown of the 4-0 start to the football season, cooking Ribollita with Mark, and the WKNC Mailbag.

Listen to episode 43.

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Concert Preview Local Music

LBLB September 30—Luego and Schooner!

Come down to WKNC and Tir Na Nog’s Local Beer Local Band to see LUEGO and SCHOONER! The show is FREE and starts at 10 p.m. Ages 21 and up.

Don’t forget to visit our fancy new Local Beer Local Band Homepage for the Fall schedule for LBLB and to download a FREE MIXTAPE with one song from each artist playing this season.

LUEGO

“I cannot emphasize enough how the sincerity of Phelan’s lyricism makes this album a cut above. If you can appreciate alt-country sounds like Wilco and Blitzen Trapper, you’ll also appreciate Taped-Together Stories.” -Tara Lacey, Performer Magazine

“Ocho thrives on trying more. Influences are a burden. Finally folding them until they’re beneath your tunes rather than simply on top of them—which Luego does on Ocho—is an accomplishment that can’t be understated.”-Grayson Currin, The Independent

And some feedback of our own… “Ocho relies much more heavily on background harmonies and a thicker and deeper sound that is stacked with layer upon layer of grooviness and cool.  The bluesy ruggedness and heartfelt emotion of Phelan’s voice is still present but the album seems to be much more of a family affair and holds a certain friendly attire about it….”

SCHOONER

“…rarely has a sibling relationship created something this harmonious….swooning vintage pop, fuzzy Guided By Voices-ish rock and
woozy Sinatra/Hazlewood-like country for an overall effect that’s equal parts dreamy, deadpan and doomed.” -Rebecca Raber, CMJ

“This is the best, most balanced material by Schooner yet…Sonically, lyrically and structurally, Schooner supplies a perfect mix of apathy and anguish to these songs, and there’s no better conduit for such than the voice of Reid Johnson.-Grayson Currin, The Independent

Tune in this Thursday, September 30 at 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. to hear a full interview with Luego! Schooner might show up too so listen in!! See you on Thursday, friends!

Categories
Music News and Interviews

SoundOff10 Superchunk/Interpol

This week we talk about Superchunk’s move to Warner Bros, Jack White’s new triple decker record, and we review new albums from Superchunk and Interpol.

Listen to episode 10.

Categories
DJ Highlights

Local Beat recap 9/17/10

Because of SPARKcon on September 17 we were limited to only one hour once again for the Local Beat. However, that hour was dedicated to SPARKcon as editor of “The Word” Kestrel Lemen joined us to talk about the giant art festival. As many were, I was extremely overwhelmed by the massiveness of all the different sparks, but Kestrel broke it down one by one for us. Give the interview a listen below:

SPARKcon on the Local Beat 9/17/10

Categories
New Album Review

Arcade Fire brings mature, new sound

88.1 WKNC Pick of the Week 9/24, written by May F. Chung, WKNC deejay

Listening to Arcade Fire is like listening to an opera. There’s a certain element of grandeur of popping in The Suburbs into the CD drive, an anticipation of knowing that whatever fills your ears for the next 63 minutes is something of high caliber. What do you expect from Arcade Fire, the band that has produced the beautifully wistful Funeral in 2004, and three years later, another genre-defying album entitled Neon Bible but tinged with notes of political intensity? You can hear the sweat of their performance. Win Butler, who has possibly the greatest name in indie rock, and his beloved, Régine Chassagne, both of whom form the backbone of the band, explore some of the themes that pervade most of the album, including its namesake.

Being a kid and growing up in the suburbs, then leaving and accomplishing great things before returning and discovering that everything you left behind—all the memories of innocence and heartbreak—has remained, patiently waiting, and as stoic as ever. The reverent nostalgia is evident in the lyric, “Now our lives are changing fast/Hope that something pure can last,” from “We Used to Wait.” Arcade Fire reflects on the neighborhood you grew up in (literally, as the new video for the song invites you to enter the address where you grew up and personalizes the video to your own childhood memories). The Suburbs is, in fact, a maturation of their last two albums. As the group comes to terms with adulthood, they still cannot help but wonder longingly over the days of kids when they used to dance under police disco lights (a reference to Funeral’s “Laika”). “In my dreams we’re still screamin’ and runnin’ through the yard,” croons Butler in the title’s opener. And yet, there’s a sense of cynicism against the new youth raging for an art form they do not understand. In “Rococo,” the group sings, “Let’s go downtown and talk to the modern kids/They will eat right out of your hand using great big words that they don’t understand.” There is no inspiration in experimentation anymore. Everything is contrived, art is vapid and self-emulating. Butler continues to chant “Rococo” as the chorus and mutters, “Oh, my dear God, what is that horrible song?” But the statement itself invokes irony.

“Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)” is easily the best song of the album and neatly ties The Surburbs together. Everything we view as kids is gargantuan, including “Dead shopping malls [that] rise like mountains beyond mountains.” If there’s any showcase of Chassagne’s beautifully hypnotizing voice, it is this song. “Sprawl II” is a component of “Sprawl I (Flatlands),” but both reflect on the same memory of the sprawl, or the home communities of the surburbs where all the houses that line up look the same. For Chassagne, it is a mountain, a childhood reserved for riding bikes and playing in parks. For Butler in “Sprawl I,” it is a flatland, a miserable suffocation of civilized society. Is this the same band that used to crowd all their instruments (including a double bass, xylophone, glockenspiel, French horn, accordion, harp, mandolin and hurdy-gurdy) into the elevator as a delightful experiment? Apparently so. Instead of relying on the success of formula, Arcade Fire strives for a new, vibrant sound on The Suburbs, which serves, if nothing else, as a testament to their own greatness.

88.1 WKNC Pick of the Week is published in every Friday in the print edition of Technician, as well as online at technicianonline.com and wknc.org.
Categories
Weekly Charts

Top 20—WKNC’s Top Albums of the Week 9/12

Each week, the WKNC music directors tally up spins for new releases and submit their top 10s to CMJ.

CMJ Radio 200 from WKNC’s Daytime Rock

Artist Album Label
#1 J. RODDY WALSTON AND THE BUSINESS J. Roddy Walston and the Business Vagrant
#2 THIEVING IRONS The Midnight Hum Seabird
#3 GRASS WIDOW Past Time Kill Rock Stars
#4 CHIEF Modern Rituals Domino
#5 GOLD MOTEL Summer House self-released
#6 FRANKIE ROSE AND THE OUTS Frankie Rose and the Outs Slumberland
#7 TWIN SHADOW Forget Terrible
#8 CEO White Magic Modular
#9 SOMEONE STILL LOVES YOU BORIS YELTSIN Let it Sway Polyvinyl
#10 DARKER MY LOVE Alive as You Are Silver Hornet

CMJ RPM from WKNC’s Afterhours

Artist Album Label
#1 CEO White Magic Modular
#2 TWIN SHADOW Forget Terrible
#3 !!! Strange Weather, Isn’t It? Warp
#4 FOUR TET Angel Echoes (Remix) Domino
#5 BATHS Cerulean Anitcon
#6 BORGORE Borgore Ruined Dubstep [EP]
#7 DREAMEND So I Ate Myself, Bite by Bite Graveface
#8 BLUE SKY BLACK DEATH Third Party Fake Four
#9 CROOKERS Tons of Friends
#10 RUSKO O.M.G.! Mad Decent

Categories
Music News and Interviews

Local Label Denmark Records’ Denmark One Streaming and Available forPurchase Now

New local label Denmark Records, started by UNC-CH graduate and Vinyl Records creator Tripp Gobbel and NCSU graduate Logan Sayles, have just put out their first release, a split seven-inch between electro-soul duo ArnHao and the Flying Lotus-esqu Holygrailers. Entitled Denmark One, you can stream the seven-inch for free here and purchase a copy, including an expanded digital EP, here.

Both acts play Friday at Local 506 alongside Cex, The ExMonkeys, Casual Curious, and The Biters as part of the fifth annual Signalfest.

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DJ Highlights

Banned Books on Mystery Roach: 9/25/2010

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read is an annual American Library Association event observed during the last week of September.  Banned Books Week celebrates free and open access to information and intellectual freedom.  NCSU Libraries celebrates this annual event with Banned Books Soundwave,  a website offering sound clips of excerpts from banned books read by members of the NC State community including faculty, administrators, and students.

Marian Fragola, Director of Program Planning and Outreach for NSCU Libraries, will discuss Banned Books Week and the Banned Books Soundwave project on Mystery Roach.  We’ll also listen to some banned songs and hear a few recordings from the Banned Books Soundwave project.  Should be a fun morning.

Tune in, Saturday 9/25/2010, 8-10am.

Talk to you then.

-La Barba Rossa

Categories
Concert Preview

Signalfest This Weekend in Chapel Hill

Signal, the Southeast Electronic Music Festival, kicked off its fifth year last night with a hip-hop show at Cat’s Cradle featuring Pac Div, Kooley High, King Mez, and others and continues through Sunday in various Chapel Hill and Carborro venues. The festival features a wide array of acts, both national and local, from many different subgenres, including Le Castle Vania, Cex, Sammy Bananas, Tittsworth, The Beast, The ExMonkeys, and WKNC’s own Brooklyn Airlift.

Weekend passes for the fest are available for $40 today at the Ackland Art Museum from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m., Tallula’s starting at 10:00 p.m., and at Vespa on Friday night starting at 10:00 p.m. Individual tickets for each show will be available at the door of the venue the night of the show.

For more information on the festival, including schedules and past acts, check out their website here