Music
Top 5: Beats Antique
Music sometimes described as “belly dance” can be immediately off-putting to listeners bred on a steady diet of rock or dance. Fortunately for fans of the unique, San Fransisco’s Beats Antique carry everything you need in their packs: touches of North African Raï, Bedouin melodies and healthy doses of dubstep. Blind Threshold lends itself to breakdance moves more than any other form of old school technique. … read more
Top 5: Baths
When Cerulean came out on Anticon earlier this year, critics were quick to lump the 21-year-old Californian’s debut into the burgeoning (and largely made up) chillwave microgenre. Baths took offense to this—it is easy to see why. Instead of being ostensibly effects-driven and wrapped under a gauze of lo-fi consumer electronics, Cerulean is all beats. Crisp, sparkling, low-end rumbling beats are looped with such complexity that they are easy to lose in the shuffle. … read more
Top 5: Autolux
Being an Autolux fan takes patience. Their first LP, Future Perfect, was an underground staple after its release in 2004. Four years later they finally revealed the Kid A-esque “Audience No. 2” as a single, which served to satisfy my Autolove for a while. After two additional years of delays and more plays than I can count generated on their Myspace player, Transit Transit saw the light of day. … read more
Top 5: Ariel Pink
Ariel Pink is a scary, bat-shit insane homeless man residing in an old abandoned tunnel of reverb. His albums have always been speckled with moments of lucidity and genius, but good portions were just homeless rambling. This time he was given a budget and a producer, who took a cheesecloth and chinois and strained out all of the bad acid vibes. … read more
Top 5: Acid Tiger
What initially strikes me about Acid Tiger is the unity it exudes between different forces in the world of underground rock music. Since Acid Tiger self-proclaims that they play a “progressive rock/punk hybrid” on their Myspace, but sound akin to stoner metal, they linguistically interrupt a current (and unfortunate) punk criteria, which enables them to act as a sort of cultural black hole where all that has or ever been is free game to be mauled by the tiger. … read more
Localized – The Daniel Day Trio, Night Sweats and John-Ross...
If there’s a better way to end a year than with a killer show, SLUG knows it not. We’re fucking slaying it with three amazing local groups for December’s Localized. The talent ranges from the acoustic to the dark neo-new-wave and to the eclectically electric jazz. On December 10, John-Ross Boyce & His Troubles will open the show with Night Sweats and The Daniel Day Trio headlining an end-of-decade show unlike any other. … read more
Top 5 of 2010
To celebrate another year’s end, SLUG handpicked 13 writers to spotlight one of their favorite releases of 2010 in an extended review. Read on for Top 5 lists from SLUG’s contributors and genre-spanning reviews of artists like The Black Keys, Sleigh Bells, Acid Tiger and local artist S.L.F.M. … read more
Napalm Flesh – Re-Issue/Re-Master Chopping list
This week is all CD reviews, in particular CD re-issue and re-master reviews. Every year albums upon albums are re-issued and re-released, some are worth picking up and some aren’t. The reviews of the albums here are more themed around the quality of the re-issue than the quality of the album because if it’s getting released by another label or released again in some form the music doesn’t need to be judged, but is package does. … read more
Spoek Mathambo @ W Lounge
It took a lot to get Mr. Mathambo’s hype-heavy mash up of retro-futurist electronic music filtered through the cultural battlefield of post-apartheid Johannesburg to Salt Lake City. In fact, it took a superfecta of nightlife/fashion promoters to persuade Mathambo and Mshini Wam to make a pit-stop along I-80 to our dusty little spot on the map. … read more
Small Black at Kilby Court 11/12
As a space heater warmed up the Kilby garage, crowd-pleasing local opener The Heavens and the Earth (aka producer Matt McMurray) came onstage behind an impressive array of electronics hooked together with a grippe of colorful cables. As he started playing a whooshing synth pad, I anticipated a set of Tangerine Dream worship. Then he hit the crowd with a beat and got everyone moving. … read more