It Came From Kuchar Dir. Jennifer M. Kroot

[Indiepix; 2009]
By

Styles: documentary
Others: Stingray Sam, Fleshapoids, Thundercrack!

“Not everyone digs underground movies,” proclaims a CBS reporter, suspiciously posed on the staircase of an independent theater toward the beginning of It Came From Kuchar, “but what is underground movies?” His question forms the introduction of a standard “public curiosity” piece, but is legitimate nonetheless: what is an underground film? Can it be defined?

Freelance Whales Weathervanes

[Frenchkiss; 2010]

By

Rating: 3/5

Styles: electro-folk, chamber pop, glitch pop
Others: Sufjan Stevens, The Postal Service, Radical Face

At 35,000 feet, a first real listen of Freelance Whales’ debut LP seems scarily appropriate. The tops of clouds and glimpses of the coastline below act as visual echoes of Judah Dadone’s gentle vocal style, of the intricate orchestration and laptop rhythms the multi-instrumental quintet has to offer throughout Weathervanes. Prevailing winds even affect an airplane as much as they power the device after which Freelance Whales named the album.

More about: Freelance Whales

Links: Freelance Whales - Frenchkiss

Don McKay Dir. Jake Goldberger

[Image Entertainment; 2010]
By

Styles: thriller, dark comedy
Others: Blood Simple, Blue Velvet

Cinematically speaking, small-town America has yet to recover from David Lynch. When Blue Velvet shredded the veil of exurban morality in 1986, it was a revolutionary idea. Now, like all great breakthroughs, the idea that the wholesome exterior of Americana conceals a dark and deadly secret has become the status quo.

After.Life Dir. Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo

[Anchor Bay; 2010]
By

Styles: suspense/thriller
Others: Pâté

Christina Ricci lovers, take note: the 30-going-on-20-year-old actress spends almost half of After.Life wearing nothing but a flimsy red slip, and most of the rest wearing even less. Sure, she’s pale, bruised, and possibly even playing a corpse, but that should only make the film more appetizing for the Tim Burton side of her fanbase (not to mention the Black Snake Moan droolers). Although everyone else will likely be disappointed by this plodding “which character is the crazy one?” thriller, collectors of her screen-caps should go ahead and “save” the film on Netflix now.

Burning Star Core Papercuts Theater

[No Quarter; 2010]

By

Rating: 4/5

Styles: brain blast
Others: C. Spencer Yeh, the SYR series, Jim O’Rourke, Nihilist Assault Group, Carlos Giffoni

Being the figurative thinker I am — if “thinker” is the right word — I like to imagine noise artists’ bodies of work as mythological beasts. Burning Star Core’s discog, then, is best represtented by the gigantic octopus from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

More about: Burning Star Core

Links: Burning Star Core - No Quarter

Guano Padano Guano Padano

[Important ; 2009]

By

Rating: 3/5

Styles: imaginary Westerns, surf, jazzy
Others: Ennio Morricone, Calexico, Friends of Dean Martinez

Led by guitarist/multi-string instrument hot-shot Alessandro Stefana, Guano Padano is an Italian trio rounded out by Danilo Gallo on bass and piano/organ and Zeno De Rossi on drums. On their self-titled debut, these guys naturally do the heavy lifting, but each of the 10 tracks is supplemented with guests who sweeten the pot an awful lot. Beefheart alumnus Gary Lucas adds dobro to “A Country Concept,” while Alessandro Alessandroni, the man responsible for those amazing whistles in Ennio Morricone’s Western soundtracks, pushes air through pursed lips on a few songs.

More about: Guano Padano, Gunao Padano

Links: Guano Padano - Important

Don’t Worry About Me Dir. David Morrissey

[Verve Pictures; 2009]
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Styles: romantic dramedy
Others: Before Sunrise

British actor and director David Morrissey’s Don’t Worry About Me lived a first life as an award-winning play (The Pool – City of Culture?) written and performed by James Brough and Helen Elizabeth. Don’t Worry About Me follows twentysomething David (Brough) on a bus into Liverpool for the painfully misguided purpose of chasing down the previous evening’s one-night stand, Karen.

TMT Cerberus 12 Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction

Features

By ·

Column Type: 
Field Items
TMT Cerberus
Subtitle: 
Field Items

Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction

Date: 
Field Items
Thu, 2010-04-01
Images
Field Items
image/jpeg iconf-c-10-04-cerberus12.jpg

In this ever-expanding musical world, there’s a wealth of 7-inches, cassettes, CD-Rs, and objet d’art being released that, due to their limited quantities and adventurous sonics, go unnoticed by the public at large. TMT Cerberus seeks to document the aesthetic of these home recorders and backyard labels. Email us here.

——

1958-2009

W-H-I-T-E Sunna

[Aagoo / Swill Children; 2010]

By

Rating: 3/5

Styles: astral pop, ambient
Others: Zola Jesus, Beach House, The Flaming Lips

Okay, start sucking on your Roswell-alien-shaped novelty water pipe: Imagine an axis where one pole is labeled ‘Structure’ and the other is labeled ‘Atmosphere,’ and every album ever made can be plotted along those axes according to the way in which the artist responsible negotiates these two categories of musical expression.

More about: W-H-I-T-E

Links: W-H-I-T-E - Aagoo / Swill Children

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