Musical Pairings @ Eating/SF

The New Heaven And The New Earth is the hauntingly beautiful chamber-pop project of Philadelphia songwriter Roger Alejandro Martinez and the production and assistance of classically trained cellist, Jeffrey Russ.  Their debut EP All Saints’ Day was released earlier this week on August 31.  Throughout the EP, Martinez’s vocals float ghost-like through an enchantingly mysterious field of hang-picked guitar, swirling arpeggios and distant strings.   The result is a lush, otherworldly soundscape that is both unsettling and occasionally hopeful, which is mirrored perfectly by Martinez’s eerie lyrics, such as on the track “Santa Muerte”: “And I live in a house where everything is soft / and everything is friendly / and everything is boring / and everything is dying / and I am always sleeping until the happy spectres finally come and wake me.”  On “St. Valentine” guest musician Gabrielle Smith contributes soothing but mournful vocals to a melody of subtle, ringing piano that leads to a sea of menacing strings creating a tensely evocative setting.   All Saints’ Day is available on vinyl and cassette in limited edition individually hand-crafted packages by the always impressive Edible Onion label.  Harpist Darian Scatton who contributed to the album also designed the gorgeous lyric booklet that accompanies the album.  If you haven’t stopped by the Edible Onion site before to check out their own excellent releases (all featuring hand-tailored packaging), now would be the time.

The New Heaven And The New Earth – Simon
The New Heaven And The New Earth – St. Valentine

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The Band in Heaven are  a West Palm Beach, Florida duo that play the type of fuzzed-out shoegaze that sounds like it was doused with a quart of liquid static-electricity before making its way to your stereo.  Put another way, this is dirty, skuzzy rock ‘n roll in the fashion of My Bloody Valentine, Brian Jonestown Massacre, A Place To Bury Strangers, & Black Tambourine.  They’ve just made their first collection of demos available from their bandcamp page, and they are definitely worth at least a few minutes of your time.

The Band In Heaven – A Tunnel Into Your Dreams (demo)
The Band In Heaven – Dreams (Cranberries Cover)

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Grilled scallops and nectarines with corn and tomato salad.  Featuring deliciously seasonal ingredients, the recipe just screams “late summer / early fall” meal.  It has a slightly tropical flair that is perfect for one of those evenings when the air starts getting cool (but not cold), and you are still desperately clutching white-knuckled onto the final days of summer.  And for that reason, it pairs well with the shimmeringly upbeat Florida-based synth pop songwriter Mike Diaz (a.k.a. MillionYoung)‘s Be So True EP.

Be So True unfolds with ambient synths and crisp, bouncing percussion that flow alongside Diaz’s buried vocals on the crystalline album opener “Cynthia.”  The album’s second track “Soft Denial” develops around a twinkling and stuttering melody that will either get you dancing – or at least bobbing your head.  The album’s cornerstone is the dense slinking groove and echoed vocals of the catchy and trance-inducing cut “Mein.”  Combined with the psychedelic synths that comprise the enchantingly galactic tune of “Pilfer” and the glitchy percussion and chopped-up vocal samples that define album closer “Day We Met,” Be So True proves to be a remarkably solid release from start to finish.  Buy it on iTunes.

MillionYoung – Mein
MillionYoung – Local Joke (Neon Indian Cover)

Don’t forget to head back to eating/sf to read Kasey’s musings on this time of year in addition to the grilled scallops & nectarines with corn and tomato salad recipe.

Wise Blood is the moniker of Pittsburgh’s Christopher Laufman.  Using chopped up snippets and brief samples from a host of influences, Laufman weaves together catchy melodies to mix with patchwork beats and his own vocals.  The result is a collection of upbeat and fun-filled cuts that will seriously have you feeling the groove.  Best of all is that this is another free download available from bandcamp.

Wise Blood – B.I.G. E.G.O.
Wise Blood – STRT SRNS

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If you haven’t had the pleasure of making their acquaintance yet, Super Wild Horses are the Melbourne, Australia rock ‘n roll power duo Amy and Hayley.  Their excellent debut album Fifteen consists of twelve roughly-hewn tracks of blistering, snarling post punk filled to the brim with tough-girl swagger and kinetic-charged guitar riffs.  Yet another highly recommended debut from the good folks at Hozac Records.

Super Wild Horses – Golden Town

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The Flips are a Milwaukee-based ladies-only garage rock sextet that use hand-claps, hyper-charged guitar riffs and bright harmonies to craft irresistible hooks a la 1960′s girl groups such as the Shangri-Las and the Ronettes.  Like their predecessors, The Flips lyrically focuses on the heartbreak, confusion and excitement of teenage love.  They have released two 7″s in the past year: the first was released on Bancroft Records on pink vinyl (still available at the time of writing), and their latest which is entiteld “I Just Don’t Know Where I Stand Anymore” (pictured above) on Hozac Records.  Get ‘em before they sell out.

The Flips – I Just Don’t Know Where I Stand Anymore

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I occasionally struggle finding albums that feel like good pairings for Kasey’s salad recipes.  I can’t really explain why that is, but it is true nonetheless.  Still, this one wasn’t quite as difficult as usual.  Kasey is featuring a coddled egg and anchovy salad that prominently highlights fennel and crisp, fresh greens.  It is stylishly rustic, crisp and clean.  And with that in mind, Local Natives‘ debut Gorilla Manor, seems like a perfect pairing for this recipe.  It is a sophisticated and yet exuberant album featuring lush compositions that have a tendency to explode from meditative ballads into full-blown rockers; clattering woodsy percussion; three part harmonies; and bright-eyed, plaintive lyrics that embrace travel and self-exploration.  What’s not to love?

Named after the place where the band wrote most of the songs featured here, Gorrila Manor is an intimate, personal affair.  For example, the track “Airplane” is about keyboardist Kelcy Ayer’s grandfather that he never got to meet: “It sounds like we / would of had a great deal to say / to each other / I bet when I leave / my body for the sky the wait will / be worth it.”   The glimmering and evocative “Sun Hands” ambles steadily along with lyrics about losing someone or something precious: “I’ll endure the night / for the promise of light / . . . / and when I can feel with my sun hands / I promise not to lose her again.”  The track begins as a meditative psych-folk cut before exploding into a fury of howling harmonies, stick percussion and a ferocious guitar riff.  It’s a album that features both depth and intricate song-writing, but without being too polite about it.  It is also one of the year’s best releases so far.  Buy a slab of Local Natives’ brand vinyl over at Insound.

Local Natives – Airplanes

Head back to eating/sf to read Kasey’s recipe for coddled egg and anchovy salad.

Vancouver musician Crystal Dorval records music under the name My Friend Wallis.  On her bandcamp page, she described her music as:  “tropical dream pop-funk.”  Sounds pretty great, right?  It is.  And it is a pretty accurate description of her breezy brand of summery, but understated lo-fi pop.   She is offering a fantastic free EP for download on her bandcamp page titled When The Blue Turned Yellow, and she just released a couple demos for free download.  Check out both releases right away – they are highly recommended, and have been getting a LOT of love in our home.  I’m pretty sure you’ll fall in love too.

My Friend Wallis – Free Day

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I tend to associate certain foods with certain places.  For example, I associate chicken and dumplings with the suburbs.  This may be because it is one of those recipes that my mom used to make for me as a kid back in good-old suburban Beavercreek, Ohio; just as I suspect countless moms have made the recipe for their kids in suburbs all across the country.  But just because it is from the ‘burbs, doesn’t mean it is boring and beyond a little culinary jazzing-up.  In fact, the chicken and scallion dumplings recipe that Kasey is featuring today is definitely a little more “culinary-sheik” than your average chicken and dumplings recipe.  Nonetheless, it still retains the heart and soul of the recipe many of us know and love.  And so I chose Arcade Fire’s latest album, The Suburbs, as my pairing for this recipe, which, according to Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler, ”is neither a love letter to, nor an indictment of, the suburbs – it’s a letter from the suburbs.”

So I feel like I should start out by mentioning that I approached The Suburbs with more than a healthy amount of skepticism.  I almost expected to not like it.  You see, I loved their first album, Funeral.  In fact, it would hardly surprise me if the grooves on my copy have been worn thin from the repeated listens.  But I was relatively disappointed by the follow up, Neon Bible, which I felt was over-hyped and overrated (a solid record to be sure – but hardly the masterpiece some critics made it out to be).  So what about The Suburbs – does it live up to the overwhelmingly positive reviews?  Thankfully, for the most part, it does.  And maybe it is because the band decided to change things up a little bit this time around.  For example, many of the songs are relatively stripped down and subdued compared to their earlier works including the jangly album opener “The Suburbs,” the catchy and straightforward “Modern Man,” and the beautifully understated Neil Young-esque “Suburban War.”  It is the sound of Arcade Fire adapting their sound to the idea that sometimes – just sometimes – less is more.  But that isn’t to say Win, Regina & Co. left those “big boom” moments behind them: “Rococo” is deceptively intricate featuring shimmering background ambiance alongside acoustic strumming before swelling into a fully orchestral melody.  Other tracks like “Ready to Start” and “Month of May” are fuzzy, big electric rockers that call to mind Nebraska-era Bruce Springsteen.  And “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)”, one of the albums biggest surprises, unexpectedly calls to mind bands like Depeche Mode and New Order.  So I’m not willing to go as far as to call this a masterpiece yet.  But, and this is coming from a skeptic, it is a fully satisfying and heavily engaging album by a band whose reputation and hype create expectations that are nearly impossible to live up to.  And yet, somehow they managed to meet those expectations.  Buy a copy directly from the band.

Arcade Fire – Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)

Head back to eating/sf to read Kasey’s recipe for chicken and scallion dumplings.