This week in my music player #6

This post should have been ready time ago, but I was busy. Or maybe I was just bored of this blog. I am listening to many scattered things right now, but I am not focusing on something particular. It is likely for the more urgent things to do, or for the bad mood. However, there's something curious I want to write about. I listen very few electronic, and what I define electronic is perhaps not even called like this, but recently I am stuck with two songs I casually heard. This is not-rock-at-all, but I can't help replaying and replaying these two things. The first is Right in, from Skrillex, the new promise of techno (I don't know if it's techno, but let's call it like this since I am ignorant). The second is a piece of dubstep (I just discovered a new category of music) called Skyward II di Xilent. There is something strange in these two songs attracting my attention, but I can't figure out what it is.

This week in music player #05

Uff! More than one month without the weekly post. I have been quite busy with this, this and this, but now I am back with a bag full of interesting things. When I travel I usually change temporally the music in the player, especially because I am interested in local sounds. I do not have an album, but a collection of interesting samples from the post-rock world.
The first is an EP called 'The Disclosure' released in 2010 from the German Colaris, which you can listen here. Genuine and very well done post-rock with a touch of cool visual art. I couldn't resist and I already ordered CD+T-shirt+sticker because it's awesome, has a very good price and I want to support the good music.
The Austrian Our Ceasing Voice play a very intense and introspective music, and they have already some releases. I am currently listening the 2011 album 'When the Headline Hit Home', which also has interesting cover art.
I also noticed numerous bands from the interesting Russian post-rock community. I recommen Cosmonaut Day, but if you want to know more about this check this website.
Since I was in London (for the first time ever!), I found this guy called Matt Stevens (supposedly from London) which plays the guitar and all the rest in a one-man-band. I really enjoyed relaxing in the tube with this music. 'Relic' is the name of his recent release.

There is much more, and I am in exploration mode. More will come.

[Natural History Museum - London]

This week in music player #04

Mastodon - The Hunter (Roadrunner-Warner Bros, 2011)

Here we are with the number 4! This is going to be an epic one, because this album is a masterpiece. I first want to say something about what a band is in my opinion. No frontman, no leaders, no founders and new members, but just pieces of a bigger picture. Instruments harmonically connected and evenly contributing to the construction of the sound. I think Mastodon are currently what gives me this kind of feeling. They are committed to the contruction of a very complex and all-involving music. When I listen to them I can't really think about who is doing what (which I always do, being a technic-nerd), but just how it sounds good. And it definitely sounds good. Their sound is changed from 2002's 'Remissions', moving to more prog-like sounds, but still at high quality level and heavy as usual. I personally consider them one of the best expression of metal in all its kinds. 'Crack the Skye' have been in the soundtrack of my year in Berlin, and I can't help associating that album to those times, and then I was waiting to hear this one to see where the guys were going now. 'The Hunter' goes beyond. It gives me the goosebumps since the first notes (like the first three notes of 'Oblivion') and makes me really go mad with the elaborated instrument lines. Some sonorities bear the (heavy) heritage of the previous record, but there are huge surprises inside, like 'Creature Lives', a piece of psychedelic-70s-prog which I thought was a cover of some obscure band of the past. This is a 9/10 with no hesitations. Favourites: Black Tongue, Stargasm and Spectrelight.

Anything else? Yes of course. Have you seen what happened for the rain here? You can get an idea here. And this happened after what we had here. Thanks to the carelessness of our administrators and politicians. In other countries, if there is any risk (risk, even without forecast) they send a message in the pay sheet remembering that as a public employee your help is requested in case of calamities like storms or earthquakes (this really happened).

This week in my music player #03

Machine Head - Unto the Locust (Roadrunner, 2011)

I think that like musicians, a music listener develops a career as well. In my case I begun listening (without being really aware) to the 70's rock my father was into, then in the late 80's I started copying tapes or recording songs from the radio. It was rock, of course, but with the years I have been focusing more and more on angry and aggressive things, sometimes on the technical things, sometimes on the more noisy and brutal music. I think I would have liked this album some years ago, when I was just listening to trash stuff. I was curious, but now my opinion is that this album is somehow "weak" respect to the band's potential. Generally it sounds good, but, according to my tastes, it fails in delivering the kick. It pushes here and there, but it does not give a punch in the ears. I don't know if I really can give the idea. I would save the title track (Locust) and some other passages, but I would not give more than 6/10. The quality of the recording is ok, but I don't think it will be on top of my cd pile.

Ah! The topic of the weekend is Halloween, which for the American half of the family means partying and costuming... Here you go with the bloody toilet!

This week in my music player #02

Meshuggah - Obzen (Nuclear Blast, 2008)

The second part of 'this week in my m.p.' took longer because I had to focus on other verdammte Sachen, but now I'm here. I finally decided for the last (but not really recent) work of Meshuggah: Obzen. Years ago I heard some of their previous works, but I was focused on more frivolous things (like my studies, silly man!). The first listening was not easy, and I was almost dismissing it like "ok, but not enough". Then I thought I was just too anxious of getting to something that would catch my attention from the first listening, and I persevered (which is diabolic, as we all know...). I am proud I did it. I found myself doing something I remember I did the first time in the '90es: I was counting out. I first started tapping oddly on every surface around me while listening to Badmotorfinger (Mannometer! How much I miss those days... P.S., I discovered right now that Soundgarden are back together since more than one year. Are they mad or what?), and those signatures marked definitely my growth. Well, Obzen is filled of such things and is even more powerful than I thought first. What else can I say? Oh yes, my favourites? Combustion is an explosion, Bleed is what I was born for, and Dancers to a Discordant System makes me think I want more... (while I slap on my legs on the final fade... dudubadumdum... dudubadudubadumdum...). This is a 8/10.
I already know what I will listen next week... the glorious Machine Head!!!

And now, some pictures. Lately, guests came to enjoy the sensitive care of my beloved wife. I am talking about M. me Cattleya 3fach hybride, and M. me Cattleya copper queen. Good luck with that (and check the pictures here!).

This week in my music player #01

Born of Osiris - The Discovery (Sumerian Records, 2011)

I casually heard on Radio Rock the powerful "Follow the Sign" of Born of Osiris and I was totally blown away. In no time I was searching for the band and I found even a Wikipedia page about them. Well, after playing a couple of times the songs available on YouTube I decided to buy the album. I must say I am satisfied with the product.
Lately I have been devouring progressive, trash and death metal, but I did not find anything really inspiring. I am sure it is for my late bad mood. Anyway, I think this band is going to give me the vibration (well, it is more like an earthquake) I need to go on.
So, seems the band is classified as "technical death metal" together with Cannibal Corpse, Death, Meshuggah, Nile, Opeth (bands I personally like, but I admit I don't know so much, anyway they are on the 'to hear' list), and if this is the standard I am definitly going to spend more money on this music.
I am impressed by the work. I personally consider this album an excellent mix of technical skills and groove. Favourite songs: Follow the Sign (of course), Shaping the Masterpiece, and The Omniscent. I would give a 7.5/10 for the entire album.
I haven't heard the previous productions, but I am looking forward to do that. Anyway, some of the songs will stay in my player for a long time.

25 years ago, April the 26th 1986, the reactor number 4 in the nuclear power plant "V. I. Lenin" in Cernobyl exploded. November the 8th, 1987, the great majority of Italians voted yes to the three questions in a famous referendum, expressing a clear opposition to the use of nuclear reactors for energetic purposes in Italy.
March the 11th, 2011, after a violent series of earthquakes and for the consequent tsunami, the reactors of some Japanese nuclear power plant became unstable. In some there were explosions, and the nuclear disaster seems inevitable. Within June Italians will be called to vote in another referendum, in order to repel seventy laws introduced by Berlusconi's government for the reintroduction of nuclear power plants in Italy.
What will happen this time?

Let's become sustainable. If not now, when?

[Giganotosaurus carolinii Coria & Salgado, 1995]

Hunger?!

[Hamburg swallowed by the mysterious alien fog, 2010]

How did we get here? An asteroid could hit the planet without people being aware, because the asteroid is not on Facebook. People are starving, but few are caring about them because starving people don't use Twitter. And extinguishing animals won't be noticed because they are not on MySpace. I mean, all these things are cool, but now it is just too much. It's overwhelmingly depressing. Flat asses and pale faces for being all the morning (and probably all the night) online. Please, stop it. Wake up. Look out of the window. You might better do it.