Muscle and Marrow

Episode 186 - Muscle & Marrow (re-run)

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This week on the Talking to Ghosts podcast we are re-running our 2016 interview with the experimental metal band Muscle & Marrow (featuring a new intro and slightly improved audio)! Although this band is no longer active, the duo have a great new pop project called So Sensitive!

Muscle & Marrow were one of our favorite projects and it was an amazing opportunity for us to interview these great folks while they were still living in Portland, OR. 

Talking to Ghosts is recorded and produced by Michael Kurt and Wesley Mueller. Check out our archive page for previously released podcast episodes, or the Reviews page for new reviews!

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Poltergeists: Week of May 30, 2016

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Michael

Melted Cassettes - “Purity & Pain”

New track off the upcoming LP on Cryptic Passage Records. Melted Cassettes is David Turner, Mike Warden and Kit Lamb. Rise from your grave

Noise is a genre that I am becoming increasingly interested in and very much still discovering. Melted Cassettes is a good example of the kind of noise that I can immediately get behind. “Purity & Pain” is a beautifully chaotic song. Admittedly, if the song was only the first 50 seconds over and over again, I would have a hard time listening to it, but it breaks and doubles over on top of itself in a way that keeps the song moving forward with different drum patterns and increasingly more intense vocal parts. It is not often that bands are able to translate this kind of aggression and energy through the recording process. I can’t even imagine what it will be like to see live.

This track is much different from previous Melted Cassettes material available on the Cryptic Passage Records Bandcamp. I really love it. I hope the next album is more along these lines. The old material is also very good but tends to be more ambient and experimental.

I was able to get an update from the band recently. The album, Omega, that “Purity & Pain” will live on is in the mastering phases of production now and is slated to be released later this year on Cryptic Passage Records on CD and Vinyl.

Clipping. - “Work Work (Feat. Cocc Pistol Cree)”

This week, after returning from an event, Wes brought up Clipping., which I hadn’t heard (despite the fact that they have my favorite remix on the Youth Code A Place To Stand EP). I usually leave the rap for Wes to talk about because he has far more experience in the genre, but I am crazy about this album. “Work Work (feat. Cocc Pistol Cree)” takes a minimal, ant-zen-style noise approach to the music while still throwing out hip-hop-inspired beats and Odd Future-esque vocals. This is what I was hoping for when everyone was talking about Death Grips being experimental and super heavy. The use of obscure-sounding samples is something that Clipping. makes sound natural and tolerable over each track on their debut album CLPPNG. I think that it is great that these kinds of influences are spreading into the more popular genres - I mean, this album came out on Sub Pop Records (home of Sleater-Kinney and Iron & Wine…) and has 7 high-quality, equally experimental music videos.     

Clipping. is a LA-based group whose debut EP came out in June of 2014 on Sub Pop. Their Bandcamp page has a ton of cool stuff and I suggest you go and check that out.

Wes

BADBADNOTGOOD- “Time Moves Slow (Feat. Sam Herring)”

This new Badbadnotgood has me feeling some kinda way. If you’re a long time reader, you know I got love for BBNG, and this track exemplifies some of the big reasons that I love this Canadian quartet.The instrumentation is so minimal; the guitar strums occasionally to the right; it registers subtly and soulfully through its light usage, complemented by a warbling electric piano sitting to the left. Front and center we have the bass guitar bumping along to the excellent drumming. The instrumentation creates a wonderful, defeated sort of happiness, and leaves space for the great vocal delivery from Sam Herring (Future Islands). Herring’s performance comes across as painfully honest, and sitting in the space of the subtle instrumentation, it has an emotional power to it that I miss in much of the music I hear.

BADBADNOTGOOD is a jazz and hip-hop inspired quartet from Toronto, Ontario. Their latest release, IV, comes out July 8, 2016.

Muscle and Marrow - “Light”

Muscle and Marrow recently released their new album, Love, and let me tell you, I had a really difficult time deciding which track I wanted to write about. It’s a beautiful album, and I really recommend you listen to the whole thing.

That said, I did have to pick a track, and after much listening, “Light” took the day for me. The track is as beautiful as it is haunting. Kira Clark’s vocal delivery sits atop a soft drone; slow and heavy drums are complemented by the slow strum of the guitar. Most of the time the guitar is soft, punctuating the beginning of a new line. It disappears into the bridge before a heavy attack; as quickly as it hits it’s gone, again working as punctuation for Clark’s excellent vocals. As the final moments of an excellent album, “Light” really hits with a huge emotional force, leaving a lasting impression. If the rest of the album didn’t make you want to listen again, “Light” will.