Travis Scott- Rodeo Review

Travis Scott
Rodeo
Epic Records / Grand Hustle Records

Hip-Hop is a genre that prides itself on its stylistic differentiators. The finest MCs to ever take the mic have been branded on distinct styles both in their word play and the production behind their voices , often acting as an east coast, west coast, mid-west, or dirty south indicator. Hip-Hop has been dominated by an attitude of domestic geography as a defining personality trait since the genre’s inception, but even mainstream hip-hop artists are no longer letting these labels define their work. Hip-hop aesthetic is beginning to blur as artists such as A$AP Rocky are hailing from New York, but rapping with a Houston flow and spitting over cloud rap beats. Insert Houston, Texas native and Kanye West protégé, Travis Scott, who has been producing and rapping for Very G.O.O.D Music and generating massive hype due to the “Days Before Rodeo” mixtape which dropped before his debut album appropriately titled “Rodeo”. Travis Scott has actually been lambasted for his style witch critics claiming there is nothing unique or original about what he does. Scott’s detractors will state that he steals the flows, styles, and techniques of other rappers and uses them himself while bringing nothing new to the table. “Rodeo” should act as a piece of reflection for hip-hop listeners. After hearing “Rodeo”, one would hope Scott’s critics who hold the sentiments listed above will come to terms with the idea that a rapper no longer has to obnoxiously represent his hometown, push a style, or bring something new to the game to create an enjoyable hip-hop record. A rapper can capitalize on what is trending or what sells and still create something worthwhile. And that’s ok.

One of the first things to strike listeners on “Rodeo” should be the extensive list of guest features involved in this project both on the mic and behind the production. This A-list contains the likes of Kanye West, The Weeknd, Chief Keef, Future, 2 Chainz, Juicy J, Justin Bieber, Toro Y Moi, Pharrell, T.I. and others.  What is remarkable is that just about every featured artist blends well in these tracks and tends to match the production well while also bringing in quality word play. Like most Travis Scott releases the lyrics on “Rodeo” are by no means enthralling but they are passable and have the occasional clever moment from the features. Scott seems to focus more on atmosphere and delivery with his verses. On many of these tracks Scott implements a vocal style that uses singing and auto-tune reminiscent of 808s era Kanye or Drake. Scott seems more comfortable using this in demand style and he manages to create some catchy chorus and songs with it. Backed by fantastic production, songs like “3500”, “Pray 4 Love”, and “Maria I’m Drunk” accomplish exactly what they set out to do. Tracks like these capture the fun party mood while others such as “Wasted”, “90210”, and “Nightcrawler” are more laid back hazy ballads with production Scott has no trouble navigating through either. The power of "Rodeo" lies in it’s hooks, choruses, and the ambiance of the production.

For me this record is an enjoyable listen, but it is more about who Travis Scott wants to be and the context of this album in contemporary hip-hop. Major label debuts like “Rodeo” are now more calculated than ever. Testing markets with mixtape, gauging listener interest, and investing in rappers like Travis Scott by backing them with the best production money can buy while stacking releases with proven big names to feature. This is obviously done to prevent a flop release, but I still don’t necessarily think that is a bad thing. This album masks a lot of things Travis Scott doesn’t do well and emphasizes his charisma, vocal braggadocio swagger, and his attention for what is trending. “Rodeo” highlights not only how great Travis Scott can be, but reflects the given point of the hip-hop era in which we are currently living. 

7.5/10 

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TJ Kliebhan

9/14/2015 

Interview-Sam Hillmer of Zs

I had the pleasure of chatting with New York avant-garde musician Sam Hillmer whose most recent album Xe has received plenty of critical acclaim! The Washington D.C. native has played and released albums for some time now under the moniker Zs and with a constantly evolving line-up, the band is always evolving its sound. Read our chat about 285 Kent, DIY venues, Xe, and more below!

TJ Kliebhan: So you’re a New York musician. How has the city influenced you over the years? 

Sam Hillmer: A lot can be said on that subject. New York has a remarkable history in every regard, including that of arts and culture. There is a long history of commitment to excellence, forward vision, and groundbreaking work in every medium.  I came to New York at a time where there wasn’t a sense of “This is where the party is”, it was really only New York’s history that brought me here.  There is a sense that when you’re here, this is where things happen. This is the pavement that the greatest people walked on and now I’m walking on it. I feel a sense of responsibility to learn, honor, and aspire to that history. It’s a humbling city, even though it doesn’t house the most humble people (laughs).

TJ Kliebhan: I know Zs did shows in New York at the now defunct 285 Kent. What do you think that venue meant to the underground New York music scene? 

Sam Hillmer: Well, I have a unique perspective on this. I run a venue in New York City called Trans-Pecos with a partner, Todd P(Patrick), who ran 285 Kent. I was friends with Todd, and Ric Leichtung ofAdHoc, who did most of the booking at 285 Kent. I played the venue a bunch of times.  285 Kent was interesting because it was only partially preoccupied by a real classic notion of the underground. I think what the venue succeeded at doing was being a home for deserving underground music, true counter culture, but at the same time supporting work that was just about to pop off. Ric and Todd consistently found things that were right on the cusp of it, but at the same time they supported bands that needed a home. They didn’t wander too much into the mainstream. So 285 Kent could hold that line of buzz status without crossing into blown up status.  There success at times did lead to some pretty surprising shit happening.  I think Drake did an after party there?!  A$AP Mob did stuff there. 285 Kent was definitely an interesting place.

TJ Kliebhan: Can you explain why DIY venues are important to those who are involved with them, as well as to music scenes as a whole? 

Sam Hillmer: Well, I’m from Washington DC. I was a part of early generations of what the modern DIY scene has come to look like.  I was going to shows at like community centers, and churches, and houses when I was 13 and 14 in DC. Mostly punk shows and punk houses because that was what was big in DC then. I was playing shows at places like The Embassy, so this is what I grew up with.

I moved to New York when I was 18, but New York didn’t really have that scene going on. The entire music scene was concentrated in Manhattan. Outsider aesthetics were found at like half a dozen places. I mean I could count them on one hand. So there were very few places supporting the avant-garde. Music was still very aligned to art and fashion at that time, DIY just wasn’t the attitude that was “in”.

In addition to the outright scarcity of places devoted to supporting our music in New York City during the 90s, the scene that WAS there was EXTREMELY exclusive. You really had to know the right people. Getting a show was impossible. People you’d meet one night would act like they’d never met you the next. I mean there were still good bands making good music at that time, of course John Zorn and William Parker were doing their thing.  But unless you were really down with those folks, things were hard to get started then.

The attitude changed though, thankfully, starting around the late 90s and really in the early 2000s. A lot of people came up from DC, and from all over really, Todd P started doing his thing.  That was important, Todd’s work.  Because what Todd would do was walk through the neighborhoods of Brooklyn and find places that were basically equipped to have shows.  Sometimes they were just rooms and he’d bring in a PA.  Anyhow, he’d get the leadership at these places to allow him to produce shows there.  He was having shows at dive bars, community centers, churches, loft spaces, Mexican restaurants, you name it…  The attitude went from being this kind of rarefied elitism, to “Fuck it lets do the show here and now”. Opening the floodgate like that as far as there being places to play was huge.  It was the combination of folks like John Zorn and William Parker, and also  importantly the No Neck Blues Band, doing this kind of really dialed in shit, and the work of Todd P and other NYC/DIY Pioneers like Secret Project Robot folks, Silent Barn, etc…  that fostered the development of acts like Animal Collective, Gang Gang Dance, of course Zs, but even groups like Battles, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Dirty Projectors really couldn’t have existed without that climate.

I hope that illustrates how a DIY spirit can facilitate things for people, kind of a long convoluted answer, but it’s in there (laughs).

TJ Kliebhan: So if we were to attach an importance to DIY venues is it that they take away exclusivity?

Sam Hillmer: Well not necessarily. I’m just saying this is what happened in New York City specifically at that time. I mean in D.C. the DIY scene did not have that vibe at all. I mean all the social issues I just mentioned having on the New York scene in the 90s – folks acting like they didn’t know you when they did, cronyism, etc.. – that was child’s play compared to D.C.  

D.C. had the most exclusive social landscape I have ever encountered in my life.  People were so guarded about that community, it was insane!   It was kind of like this social form of Calvinism, like, you always got the sense that people suspected you weren’t the real deal some how.  You were always proving yourself – who had the outset records, who was reading the most esoteric shit, who had the most dialed in political opinions – in retrospect, that aspect of things was stifling and stupid.  But there was just an attitude that that was the only way to be down. For better or for worse, these were the people on the scene, so I got on that scene. (Something that is also worth mentioning here is that there was basically a dress code on the scene, the vibe was Mod at that time, and if you weren’t on that vibe to some extent, people didn’t want to hang out with you.  Maybe some of the folks who were there at that time would try to somehow argue otherwise or defend that, but straight up, that was the vibe!) 

Anyhow, I knew musicians who felt very defeated by the whole attitude of the scene at that time and gave up on the scene as a vehicle. I persevered because I saw those cats making records and touring and what not, and I wanted to do that, but also out of this kind of morbid desire to just see if I could do it.  You know?  Like here was this obviously exclusive social group, and I was totally on the outside, and I just wanted to see if I could get in, and I did, and that was actually very important for me.  Because it made me realize that social boundaries are not real boundaries, it’s really just you feeling uncomfortable around a group of people, and just regarding that as very real.  But if you just get past that, basically any social situation is accessible. (Kind of an aside, but that realization has informed every aspect of my work subsequently!

So… OK, right, so that’s why I don’t think DIY should be seen as being synonymous with inclusivity. It can be just the opposite too. I mean there was nothing inclusive about that scene. You can’t extrapolate a broader sense of DIY because of what is happening in one particular scene you know? A certain thing happened at a certain time because of certain people. There are broader themes that DIY embodies but they manifest themselves in different ways in different places. The spirit of urgent and spontaneous expression by any means necessary is the only constant.

TJ Kliebhan: Let's switch gears here to your band, Zs. Do you think Zs creates music that is inaccessible to some degree? Is that something you go for? 

Sam Hillmer: Well, yes and no. The aesthetic is often confrontational, but we don’t try to deliberately alienate people. You can be aesthetically confrontational in a playful way. Like if you do yoga, it gets you into places that are uncomfortable, but the goal is not to hurt you. It is way different if someone is being aggressive toward you. Zs music isn’t angry, or aggressive, or trying to alienate people. It’s more like it is supposed to be exhilarating and challenging, more yogic!  None of those things are inherently inaccessible. You know?  So we want to challenge the listener, definitely, but it’s only inaccessible if you don’t want that challenge. We mean to be inviting and we feel like there is enough there to bring people in. That said, admittedly, people that have no desire to be challenged by a culture product probably will not like it.  I hope that answers your question.

TJ Kliebhan: In the liner notes of your 2012 box set Alex Mincek (former Zs bandmate) commented that “You were either a commercial musician or a classical musician. Sam and I wanted to be something blurry.” Does taking an approach like that naturally lead to creating music that would be difficult to digest then? 

Sam Hillmer: Well, I mean sure. People participate in processes of social identification through their musical choices, and often they are looking for the musical artifacts that expedite those processes.  Like if you’re ‘goth’ or something, it is likely that you will go to certain kinds of shows, and hang out with specific groups of people, etc…  Our intention is to problematize those processes of social and cultural identification. But not in a way that is about frustrating people. It’s more like a new idea.  It is sort of a, “hey what about this other thing?”  You know?  A fresh alternative.  However, I want to be very clear here, it is not that I think social groups organized around aesthetics are stupid or something, to the contrary!  I think they are of the utmost important!  It is essential to every burgeoning weirdo in America that there are communities of Goths and Punks and weird back pack rap cliques and gay club kids and whatever…  I just think that those communities are stronger when their findings are questioned and interrupted from time to time.   

TJKliebhan : I recently went to a Liturgy show at The Empty Bottle in Chicago and met Greg Fox who is an awesome dude and drummer. Talk about how you recruited him into Zs. What has he brought to the group? Are you a fan of his other projects? 

Sam Hillmer: I think all the projects Greg is involved in are great. He’s an amazing guy and an incredible drummer. It’s a privilege to have him in the band. We met at this place called Zebulon in New York City. I was taking a break because Zs just finished the New Slaves phase and I was re-configuring. I had just signed this big contract with Northern Spy. I needed to figure out what I was going to do about the band. I saw Greg at Zebulon and it was very informal. I just got into some conversations and Greg along with Patrick Higgins were the first people that I asked and they agreed and that was it. It was a logical, social, and musical choice. The whole process for forming this incarnation of Zs was very organic.

TJ: Its been well documented that the new record "Xe"was recorded with no overdubs or edits and was a set of live takes. The music all sounds pretty unpredictable, how much of it was composed vs. improvised?

Sam Hillmer: It actually is pretty concrete, much more so than what most think. I understand the music comes across as being loose, but it really is very similar from one performance to the next. It may sound improvised, but it is very calculated. There are parts that are more improvisational or seemingly improvised, but the density gets very specific. It is totally not like anyyyyyything can happen you know? (laughs) We’re not told note for note what to play but it is very clear during the piece what is supposed to be happening.  There is spontaneity and looseness that needs to be manifested for certain ends. So those pieces are basically through composed, there’s just some elasticity in the process of realizing them.

TJ Kliebhan: Wow that is very different from what you can read online. Sites like the Wikipedia page on Xe almost make it sound like you guys just showed up in the studio one day and jammed until you had 5 pieces that you felt were album quality. 

Sam Hillmer: (laughs) And you know what? Nothing, NOTHING, could be further from the truth. The music is so meticulous and worked out. I mean the music was worked out over a period of 18 months between writing, performing, and discussion. I mean we played a version of the material for Xe in 20 something countries across 100 shows before we even set foot in the studio. We were talking about the music after every show. After show 99 you pretty much know what is going to happen on stage. The whole record is a composition and we stick to that composition live. Any time you see the term free jazz associated with us, I don’t really agree. I mean I like free jazz and we certainly are influenced by elements of free jazz, but our music is not free. We have structure and careful planning.

TJ Kliebhan: You incorporate a lot of elements of Drone and repetition on the new album. How do you implement this effectively without ending up with a tedious piece? 

Sam Hillmer: Well, you’re making music and there is this imagined listener that is having the experience of hearing the music. There is a kind of drama when doing something repetitive that develops.  At that point, it can change in a surprising or elusive way, or not, but those decisions articulate something dramatic. Even causing something to become boring is a legit move in a drama. You build and build on a listener’s expectations, and maybe you give them nothing.  In that case, that disappointment and frustration is what’s happening in that drama. But when you change up in a surprising way, that can be very powerful, alarming even. Creating these narrative dramas are engaging to people. This isn’t a process that goes on in a vacuum. You always want to make sure it works as an experience. That is definitely one of the goals of the music.

TJ Kliebhan: Xe has received unanimous praise, as far as I have seen, from outlets that don’t typically cover the style of music you play. Does Xe feel like a bit of a breakthrough for you? 

Sam Hillmer: Well it is kind of cool. Zs has managed to achieve acceptance from outlets that don’t ordinarily concern themselves with the kind of thing we are up to. The project always had a goal of getting this type of music in front of audiences that don’t typically listen to it. I mean yeah it definitely does feel like the doors opened in a way this time around though. I mean across the board it seems like reviews have been very very good.

That said, to be honest with you man, what it brings up for me is, “you have the platform now, what are you gonna do?” I mean we’re very thankful for the gigs we play and the accolades we’ve received. Now I feel in a position to do something even more meaningful and to impact more people. I mean I try to think, “The point of success can’t be success.”  Right?  Like, who is succeeding?  Cuz if that person isn’t deep as hell, who cares if they are successful?  Feel me?  ZS is thinking about what’s next.

TJ Kliebhan: What makes Xe stand out or perhaps have more appealing to a larger audience in your opinion? Did this album feel different from the past records you’ve made? Was the attention expected or did you feel like you had something special here? 

Sam Hillmer: I think there are elements that are more accessible and also stuff that can stand up with our most challenging music aesthetically. I don’t really think it was that though. I think the reason Xe was really successful was the care we put into being able to play that music. Getting out on the road as much as we did, and playing for people in different contexts and settings, got us to a point where we didn’t even have to think about executing rhythms or parts or anything. I mean we were completely dialed in to those pieces.  I feel like that way of getting to a record made the music feel as natural as possible, and I think people responded to that.

TJ Kliebhan: I read an interview with you from 2005 where you said, “Our albums try to provoke reflection within the listener.” Do you have specific ideas in mind vis a vis reflection?  Or is that up to the individual listener? 

Sam Hillmer:  Really I, and I think all the fellas in Zs, just value reflection and think it is an important part of culture. So I thin we try to create situations wherein listeners are motivated to reflect around something challenging, aesthetically, socially, or otherwise… rather than always being taken right to what they want.

TJ Kliebhan: Albums you’ve been enjoying this year? 

Sam Hillmer: I’ve been listening a lot to Tangerine Dream’s Zeit album. Battle Trance has a record through NNA that is really good. 

TJ Kliebhan: Local or up and coming acts we should be aware of? 

Sam Hillmer: VHVL, Michael Beharie, Dai Burger, Tallesen, 75 Dollar Bill, Victoria Keddie, to name a few…  I mean I think every genre has its moments in New York, but right now the electronic community has the attention of everybody. These people are motivated, the artists make dope music, and the fans are packing the venues with energy. Also a lot of dope labels supporting these communities.  And of course check out the homies Greg Fox and Patrick Higgins’ solo stuff and other projects!


Thank you to Sam Hillmer for chatting with me. You should buy "Xe" from Northern Spy here.

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TJ Kliebhan
9/7/2015

Destroyer- Poison Season #CantMissIt

Destoryer
Poison Season
Merge Records

The indie pop sound that dominated the alternative waves of the past decade has undoubtedly cooled off. Making way for artists with more of an R&B flair to them, the scope of indie music has been broadening and changing. Following and conforming to such trends has never been a concern for indie rock collective Destroyer. At the ripe age of forty-two band leader Dan Bejar is still making music on his own terms. In doing everything he can to avoid a predictable sound, Bejar has proved once again that he can create a freshly enjoyable new project. “Poison Season” comes at a time 4 years removed from the group’s most successful work to date, “Kaputt”, which is a bit of a moot point due to the challenge of comparing Destroyer’s work. Like all Bejar releases, “Poison Season” comes with numerous talking points that differentiate itself from previous releases.

From the opening moments of the album Bejar introduces the listener to a world filled with a diverse array of lush and varied instrumentation that remains unrelenting throughout the record. This album feels about as maximal as an indie pop record can be to a gorgeous effect rather than an overproduced one. “Dream Lover” quickly shows Bejar’s willingness to let the horn section run wild as he laments about the harshness of the sun rising. The enchanting string compositions coupled with big horn support regularly take center stage, however, these pieces are also used in subtle fashions as well. The violins and saxophones will blend into the background of the mixing as well for a lingering reminder of their presence.  The album is also filled with delicate piano pieces, wailing electric guitars, and lavish cello pieces. “Sun in the Sky” finds Destroyer creating a slower groove while maintaining a feeling of denseness. On “Poison Season”, Destroyer is constantly shifting themselves everywhere in between these two dynamic ranges giving the album a very diverse almost journey-like feeling with Dan Bejar’s narrative style lyrics guiding the trip.

Lyrically Destroyer usually remains abstract, but that is not the case at all on “Poison Season”. Bejar uses imagery, stark emotion, and relatable experiences to provide the listener with more tangible word-play substance than usual. Bejar’s tribulations of love, anxiety, and drug use are honest and decipherable which cannot be said for all his projects. The album features three separate thematic tracks entitled “Times Square” that bookend as well as divide the record creating the feeling of a pseudo two act play. These short but expansive tracks feel like a microcosm of the album itself which give the listener a piece of foreshadowing to open the record and closure at its fulfillment.

The sheer denseness of this album alone makes for a compelling listen. Varied instrumentation is used purposefully and effectively. It does not feel like the musicians were playing improvisationally or even loosely, rather every note is meticulously placed effectively as part of a much greater sound. “Poison Season” is an exciting piece of chamber pop that has come at a time where the genre is desperately looking for life. This is not going to be a record that will cause any sort of genre revitalization or find itself at the top of year-end lists the way “Kaputt” did in 2011, but “Poison Season” is still worth of high praise as a record that successfully accomplished what it set off to do. Dan Bejar said in a recent interview that he is too old now to be drastically successful or cool. It seems that embracing such an attitude has enabled him to create music that appears goal oriented and remarkably effective on a grand scale.

8/10  

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TJ Kliebhan

8/31/2015 

Stream "Poison Season" via Consequence of Sound here: http://consequenceofsound.net/2015/08/stream-destroyers-new-album-poison-season/

Beach House-Depression Cherry

Beach House
Depression Cherry
Sub Pop

Dream Pop act Beach House have been using a combination of male and female vocals with pop hooks and ethereal backgrounds to delight listeners for four albums now. Their most recent record,

“Bloom” saw the band reach new levels of popularity with a set of songs that showed off brilliant syncopation between its two founding members and the achy longing of songwriter Victoria Legrand. The somber tones were sure to be continued when Beach House announced the title of its forthcoming record, “Depression Cherry.” The newest record from the Maryland duo has its moments of dainty instrumental elegance, but these highlights fail to overcompensate for the downright forgettable nature of the majority of these songs.

The Beach House charm is built on delicate and slow ballads and “Depression Cherry” is full of them. The spacy reverberated guitars that lead the listener through tracks like the opener “Levitation” and “Space Song” are relaxing, but hold a strain of liveliness that keeps the tracks catchy. Where Beach House’s prior records succeed is where “Depression Cherry” fails. Tracks off “Teen Dream” and “Bloom” would take these slow burner tracks and take the listener though different sets of dynamic ranges as tracks would develop while the band’s reverberated pop hooks were given enormous space to shine. Instrumental layers would be applied and the original piece that drew the listener into the track at the beginning would end as an afterthought which faded into the texture of a larger instrumental track. Beach House are masters of creating a seemingly massive space then filling in that space with lavish texture and scintillation. On “Depression Cherry” these opening guitar or synth pieces are left to dangle out at the front of the track for its entirety. A lot of these piece lack the strength to stand on their own and are not even able to be supported by a stronger pop hook or chorus. The vocal layers and harmonies are not as enticing as they were prior and by track five this not only becomes painfully evident, but tracks become downright predictable.

Many of the tracks like “10:37” and “Wildflower” are so slow that they keep the listener in anticipation for a new element that never comes. No added instrumentation or shift in tempo or mood, just continued falsetto from Legrand until the track ends. The songs on “Depression Cherry” lack vision and the subtle variation that made Beach House so successful before. In fact, most of these tracks lack any sort of variation or jaunt at all. The album exists on one setting with no deviation and by the end the album feels like short collection of experiments within one limited sound.

Beach House have given us four reasons to expect more than the average dream pop contained within “Depression Cherry”, making this release a disappointment. The album is not without moments of gorgeous and spacey pop bliss. Where it disappoints is it feels like Beach House creates this environment to exist in without filling in the space. The album is in black and white rather than color which is a travesty for a Beach House record. The lyrical themes may be drastic enough for Beach House to create a more depressing record, but the music does not reflect that in any way. These instrumentals at their core are not dramatically different enough from their earlier work for any type of “new direction” to be a valid excuse.  This leaves the listener with a collection of songs that become indistinguishable and the listener without much of a desire to distinguish the tracks anyway.

5.5/10  

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TJ Kliebhan

8/19/2015 

Chelsea Wolfe- Abyss #CantMissIt

Chelsea Wolfe
Abyss
Sargent House

Although she always describes herself as a folk artist, Chelsea Wolfe has always had much more in common with Black Sabbath than she has Simon & Garfunkel. Wolfe’s music has always pushed the limit on just how gothic folk can be as exemplified with her last record “Pain is Beauty” where Wolfe implemented texture and vocal effects. These techniques which are uncommon to folk music created dark environments and new territory for the genre. Now on her fifth full length; “Abyss”, Chelsea Wolfe has used a wider range of instrumentation and the conscious decision to shed the vocal effects. The new recording techniques bravely challenge and reinvent the Californian singer-songwriter, creating a familiar yet fresh take on what we have come to expect from her.

The idea of an abyss and folk music functioning properly together is hard to imagine. As dark as Wolfe’s folk music has taken us before, Wolfe was looking to achieve, “the feeling of when you’re dreaming, and you briefly wake up, but then fall back asleep into the same dream, diving quickly into your own subconscious.” To achieve this Wolfe utilizes her familiar dark drone soundscapes with huge sludgy guitar riffs, distortion, some excellent drumming from Dylan Fujioka, and viola pieces from Mike Sullivan of Russian Circles. Some of these tracks would not seem out of place on an industrial record like “The Downward Spiral”. Over these harrowing instrumentals Chelsea Wolfe has never sounded more pure or clear because these tracks use minimal or no vocal effects at all. Wolfe’s voice has nothing to hide behind on these tracks and as a result it has never sounded more magnificent. Wolfe pushes herself with different vocal inflections and really shows off her range on tracks such as “Dragged Out”.

On this album Chelsea Wolfe explores many themes such as dreams, sleeping, frailty, and anxiety in both powerful and moaning tones that match the instrumentals perfectly. This album features Wolfe’s best songwriting with harrowing lines such as, “You said you won’t break my heart, unless you do, you said you won’t fall apart, until the end” on Survive. She does a truly excellent job outlining and explaining her malaise which is rooted in debilitating sleep paralysis. The lyrical themes of the album seem like something Wolfe has been inching toward with each release, but the profound honesty and maturity of this collection of tracks show a songwriter comfortable with being honest to the point of vulnerability.

The two monoliths that this album stands on are “Iron Moon” and “After the Fall” which Wolfe released as early singles for the album. The tracks feature ethereal soundscapes, reverb and distortion soaked guitar, and a metallic industrial tone that shifts and crescendos as the songs progress creating tension and drama. At their climaxes, the songs are transitioning from ballad to post-rock mastery. The only track resembling her folk roots is “Crazy Love” which serves as a nice resting point about three fourths of the way through the album before it drags you back into the harrowing depths of Wolfe’s psyche.

In a way this album feels like a risk that paid off for Chelsea Wolfe. She just about completely abandons her folk roots and is largely exploring new territory. The wall of sound and texture is still there at times, but she does not allow herself to be masked behind the sonic explosions, rather she puts her unaffected voice at its forefront. This is also the heaviest we have heard Chelsea Wolfe’s music be yet the tracks still feel about the Wolfe’s feelings, experiences, and the songwriting. On “Abyss” the album’s title seems to juxtapose the music in that everything seems expertly crafted and meticulously calculated to create this dark reflection of her mind. Yet the music is so easy to feel completely consumed by that when you come out the other side you’re not quite sure if you really have escaped. 

8/10
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Tom Kliebhan
8/4/2015

Stream "Abyss" here: http://www.npr.org/2015/07/29/425892446/first-listen-chelsea-wolfe-abyss

Interview-Taylor Williams of OXCROSS

I had the pleasure of chatting with Taylor Williams who is the primary songwriter for an exciting new doom metal band out of Salt Lake City, Utah. OXCROSS' most recent effort "Tree and Stone" is huge record that pummels the listener with vocal layers, heavy riffs, and aggressive melodies for a stunning debut record. Check out the interview below.

TJ: So OXCROSS hails from Salt Lake City Utah. Does coming from such a conservative area influence the music at all?

Taylor: I think so, ever since I was 15 I was playing in hardcore or metal bands and there’s a pretty crazy counter culture that is a direct reflection of how a lot of us were brought up with conservative values that dominate the state as a whole. I’m not sure it affects the music itself. It’s more like it affects our attitude and the way we approach things. It definitely drove me and others to seek out weird music for sure and that led to playing those styles too.

TJ: Do you feel like Salt Lake City can be limiting in terms of the style of music you play compared to other cities?

Taylor: Not at all. For a lot of us it was a small way of rebelling. I was brought up Mormon. My parents are pretty liberal as far as Mormons are concerned, but for me and a lot of our friends, we still looked for ways to rebel. First we were straight edge kids playing hardcore and metal, and then playing heavy music and the alternative scene was next. Salt Lake City is an awesome place to live though. It created this polarizing scene with a lot of artistic people, which is better than ever now. OXCROSS was the easiest band to form and be a part of because of the great people in this city.

TJ: The members of OXCROSS have a lot of different side projects. How did such a talented group of people come together especially with the other projects you guys are involved in?

Taylor: Well, Oxcross is my only band. I’m the only one in the band like that doesn’t have at least two projects. I have known Andy Patterson since high school and he recorded my band Glacial a long time ago and he eventually joined on drums.  We had plans to do another project when I moved back, and so I just asked and he said, “Yeah I’ll drum for you.” Jeff Anderson (guitar) I had known for a while and I called him up after another potential member didn’t work out, and really, I don’t why I didn’t ask him in the first place because he is just the best. I had talked to him and known him from playing shows together as separate bands. He immediately wanted to play with Andy and I. Then we recruited Dave Jones from Dwellers, who brings a great easy going dynamic to the band. He is a great bass player, and just the easiest going guy of all time. It all fell into place really quickly. There’s no real ego.  It’s great. I love the dudes in OXCROSS, couldn’t ask for a better bunch really.

TJ: I want to ask specifically about Andy Patterson who also drums for SubRosa and others.  He is obviously a hugely talented individual. Talk about his influence as it relates to the OXCROSS sound.

Taylor: Andy is a wizard. He drums, he plays guitar, he has his own recording studio, he is a talented producer. He doesn’t play drums super flashy, he plays what needs to be played. A lot of drummers don’t hit with umph. When he hits the drums, we know it man. You feel it. One of my favorite things about playing with him is he punishes his kit. He really knows what he is doing and the whole band feeds off that big drum sound. He is one of the best drummers I have had the pleasure of playing with. Just a solid drummer, musician, and human being. He’s also a stellar recording engineer. He’s in like 5 bands. I’m stoked that he still wants to play in OXCROSS and makes time for it.

TJ: What are the influences for OXCROSS? The reason I ask is because your other bandmates’ projects really sound different from OXCROSS. Black Sleep of Kali uses the screaming vocals and even a bit of thrash influence, SubRosa has the violins and female vocals, Top Dead Celebrity is more bluesy and psychedelic. How do you manage all these different styles?

Taylor: Well I’m mostly the primary songwriter and everyone writes around the songs I usually bring. But even though I may write the bulk of a riff, 90% of the time, no one else is directed what to do, we just figure it out together. Every once in a while, I will have a real specific part for someone to play, but it’s rare. Andy has a saying where he’ll say, “Do your Taylor thing”. I don’t mean to sound like I’m in charge though, because that isn’t really true. I love music. I’m obsessed with music and this is somewhere in between being very heavy but still accessible to me. We all love Goatsnake, Failure, Sabbath, Zeppelin, Quicksand, Fugazi, Drive Like Jehu and all those influences are sort of thrown in a pot and filtered through a heavier sensibility. Jeff and Andy are in Top Dead Celebrity, and they sort of play that AC\DC/Queens of the Stoneage sound, which we all love too. We all love all sorts of music, so no idea is off the table. If we wrote a pop song and thought it sounded good we would probably play it. As long as it’s fun and seems cool. It’s an amalgamation of tons of different influences but mostly that heavy stoner rock metal vibe. I hate that stoner rock term though.

TJ: I’m not a huge fan of that term either.

Taylor: Right? It sounds like the music would be a bunch of hairy guys that do nothing but sit around and get high (laughs). That’s not who we are as a band. Two of us are dads, our drummer plays in five bands and we just all love playing music. It’s just a weird term to me.

TJ: By now doom metal and stoner doom are pretty historic genres that have a lot of bands trying to emulate that Black Sabbath or Sleep style of sound. How do you distinguish yourself in a genre where there are certain expectations to sound a certain way? Is that something that ever crosses your mind?

Taylor: I think there are more bands that are doing this now, but we’re not just about screaming our heads off or trying to play one note super low and loud or doing one note over and over. We try to focus on our songwriting and write a song around a riff. Not a bunch of heavy disparate riffs thrown together to sound heavy. Vocally I try to inject a lot of melody. I do the screamy shouting stuff, but I’ll sing a lot too. I mean, the screaming shreds your throat but I think about the bands I really love and come back to like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Those guys really sing. I think that is what distinguishes us, but I don’t think we really worry about that. If we write something and it feels good we aren’t super concerned about it being different. If it rocks it rocks. Like AC/DC, they do pretty straightforward rock, but it rules, you know? (laughs)

TJ: I think that really comes across on Tree and Stone.

Taylor: Andy and Jeff really pushed me vocally on Tree and Stone. Unfortunately, it also made the songs tough to replicate live because there are so many different vocal tracks going on. Some songs have like 10 vocal tracks. That’s what you do when you make a record though. The live show should be less polished and more raw. It’s more about the human element, not striving for perfection, but more emotion and performance.

TJ: OXCROSS does an excellent job balancing melody with crushing heavy sound? Is that by design or was it more of a naturally developed sound?

Taylor: I think that reflects the type of stuff we like. From Iron Monkey to Neil Young you know? We love some of heaviest bands you can think of, but Neil Young is also one of my all time favorites, there’s a strange spectrum of influences n Oxcross. I think it’s just that kind of weird thing, but we want to be more than a one-dimensional act. Sometimes we want to play loud stuff to bang your head to, and other days we are feeling less pissed off at everything I guess. As long as we’re feeling the music, we’re happy. There isn’t a plan. If it sounds like Iron Monkey, that’s ok, and if it sounds like Fleetwood Mac, that’s cool as well. As long as it’s not a Christie Mcvie song (laughs), she’s the worst.

TJ: The Dual Harmonizing vocal technique is something I really haven’t heard from other metal bands. Its typically something that only is implemented during a chorus but, OXCROSS uses it in verses. What do you try to achieve with that layered vocal style? What does is add that one vocal track cannot? (A good example of this is the opening to the album “A Beginning Without an End”)

Taylor: It’s an extra dimension. It’s like Queen. They used to all sing on all those records and it’s not just Freddy Mercury. In Queen,  every member sings every harmony, to like a ridiculous degree, and that’s part of the reason they are so unique in rock. Its gives music a huge sound. I did a little bit of that  approach with my other band Black Sleep of Kali. But as I mentioned earlier, Andy and Jeff pushed me to do it. It took a lot of work though. Every single vocal is doubled or tripled in some parts. Sometimes I have a two-part harmony, sometimes I try take the root note and harmonize with it two, three or four times. Those vocals were something I we spent a lot of time on. I tried wacky things. I just wanted to try different things till I found something that worked.  Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn’t. For example the first track on the record, A Beginning Without An End, I wanted to  come on right away and make a statement sort of. I wanted to show the band could do big , pretty vocal tracks with a lot of melody, and balance that with a real heavy sound.

TJ: Tree and Stone is over a year old now? Describe what the response has been like to the album?

Taylor: It’s been pretty positive. We did it ourselves, we had a couple smaller labels offer, but we thought in the end, it just seemed easier to do it ourselves. And for a band that doesn’t tour or do a ton of shows we’re happy. We got a lot of traffic from all over the globe. When Crown and Throne graciously put out the tape of Tree and Stone we sold copies in Norway, Finland, and Great Britain in the first week. That was pretty surprising, but really cool. People are still sort of discovering it though which is really cool.

TJ: Next project? What is in store for the future of the band?

Taylor: We’re slowly trying to write a new record. We have about three songs mostly formed. We get together when we can and work on stuff, so hopefully we can get in the studio by the end of the year. It just takes me a while because really, Andy is so busy with SubRosa and the recording studio, that we kind of just get in when we can to record, between everything else he is doing

TJ: What are you going to try and change or improve on from Tree and Stone?

Taylor: I’m always tweaking my gear and my tone, it’s like a constant search for something that almost doesn’t exist.  But, I am super satisfied with my sound right now. So, we’re gonna have a bigger and better sound with the next record for sure.

TJ: What records have you been digging from this year?

Taylor: The new Failure record is amazing. It’s called “The Heart is a Monster”, it seriously rules. The new High on Fire record is great too. Heartless Bastard’s new record is great. The new Kendrick Lamar record is really badass. I also really like the new Goatsnake and Fight Amp records, and I love that last Whores record. So great. That’s what has been in heavy rotation lately.

TJ: Any other local Salt Lake City acts making stuff we should be aware of?

Taylor: Cult Leader is awesome. If you don’t know them check em, they are on Deathwish and get a lot of publicity, but it’s all warranted. Seriously ripping. They almost make me angry when I see them because they are so good. We just played Crucial Fest with The Ditch and the Delta, and from the last time I saw them to now, they have really come into their own. I thought they killed it, and they are touring on and off this summer, so check them out if they are near you. Also, SubRosa of course. They just crush it. 

Check out this awesome record here and consider purchasing.:  https://oxcross.bandcamp.com/

Thanks to Taylor Williams for sitting down and chatting with Have You Heard That New! 

T.J.K. 

7/20/2015