Thursday, January 8, 2015

Winter Music: A Collaboration

Recent snow fall in Baltimore has inspired us to share our favorite albums to spin when the weather is cold and the days are short. Included is a wide array of music ranging from haunting post punk to droning black metal. These are great albums to take a drive down a snow swept highway or just wander into the woods and slowly succumb to hypothermia. Enjoy.

Josh's picks:
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Well…rather than the obvious and painless route of slapping together five Immortal or Darkthrone albums, I scavenged through my discography via nostalgia and identified five patches of black ice that seemed to coincide with the season and my life over two decades. It just happened that I found them on a freezing winter night, they melted to water in the summer, then came back to their remembered forms when the temperatures once again dropped. Not many heavy, electric heaters in my top 5, but rather quiet, contemplative standstill, as winter should be.

The Cure – Faith

I fucking love The Cure. They were my favorite band in college and remain in my top-10 all-time favorites in my mid-30s. Nothing but great albums but I’m partial to the early 80’s, semi-punk, minimalist recordings such as Seventeen Seconds and this. No winds, no blizzards, just piercing, dead air that pains to breathe. One of very few albums, and bands, able to say less with less, and make more of it. Like planet Pluto, a distant outcast, a grey texture, so far away from the sun, echoes restricted inside lonely helmets.

Listen to "Faith" on YouTube

The Cure – Disintegration

The EXACT opposite of Faith. Wintry in atmosphere but not intent, observed indoors through a fireplace filter and cold hands around warm mugs.  A truly beautiful album, unashamed in its celebrations of love and lamentations of severed companionship. Begins sunshine and snow angels, then drifts to nighttime and snowfall against streetlights.

Listen to "Disintegration" on YouTube

Black Moth Super Rainbow – Falling Through A Field

An obvious fall album I haphazardly observe in the dead of January. Supplemental with recreational drug use, but I’ve always enjoyed through a sober lens as an album regarding the innocence of imagination, and the rebellion of playtime in the face of impending chill. As close to cold as you can get without freezing.

Listen to "Falling Through A Field" on YouTube

Kraftwerk – Computer World

Okay, I’m about as far from discussing heavy metal as humanly possible. Strictly keys and broken German-to-English translations, Kraftwerk pioneers of this sound as early as Pong. Computer World is not the quartet’s trademark expression, but their most accessible, a bookmarked chapter in retro (but not dated) electronica. Not much of a winter album, but I listened to it a lot in winter, sooo... Cute nod to Computer Love by Coldplay 20+ years later.  

Listen to "Computer World" on YouTube

Tangerine Dream – Soundtrack To The Keep

Last winter I went on a huge Michael Mann binge. He’s done excellent films (Thief, Man[n]hunter) and shows (Miami Vice) throughout the 80’s, and progressive/electronic group Tangerine Dream provided score for a few, most notably the misunderstood (but riddled) The Keep, an artsy horror film not exactly in touch with a genre or an identity. This soundtrack is really the best part of the movie, the finale being a fantastic redux of the theme from 1980’s animated short The Snowman (music trivia: David Bowie introduced the feature). Very winter.

Listen to "Soundtrack To The Keep" on YouTube

Cranston's picks:
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Winter is a season which evokes images of grey skies, bleak snow blasted landscapes and feelings of isolation, depression and introspection. I was originally going to include mostly post metal albums, but I decided to vary it a little bit, although still within the realm of heavy music. 

Cult of Luna - Somewhere Along The Highway

Cult of Luna have spent their entire career as a tragically overlooked band. I, for example first heard their second record, The Beyond, back in 2003 after reading a blurb in a copy of Terrorizer. It was over my head at that time in my life and I dismissed it like an idiot. However, after revisiting the album in my early 20's, they have become one of my favorite bands. Most fans point to their third album, Salvation, as their masterpiece. I disagree, Somewhere Along The Highway is an enthralling musical journey through one of the pinnacles of the post metal genre. A concept album lyrically based on loneliness, the listener will be enveloped by a combination of ethereal melodies and bludgeoning riffs. Pay special attention to "And With Her Came The Birds", which features a stripped down sound with mostly banjo and whispered vocals.



Alda - Tahoma

Beautiful atmospheric black metal from Washington State. They are part of the "cascadian black metal" scene made famous(?) by Wolves in the Throne Room. My favorite part of this band is that all the members are naturalists and the band carries themselves like a hippy drum circle, in that the music speaks to them and their performances are a ritual. No corpse paint to be found here, just a group of friends paying homage to nature and the wilderness that surrounds them. The cover art is among my favorites of all time.


Tragedy - Vengeance

This album helped shape the direction my musical tastes would go in my adult life. Bleak, crusty hardcore from the crust capital of the world, Portland, Oregon. Featuring a dual vocal assault in the tradition of His Hero Is Gone (three members of Tragedy are former members of this band), churning guitars and galloping drums. Lyrically the band can be summed up as "hey human race, you're actively fucking up. Thanks."



Seraph/The Light (formerly Seraphim) - The Light In The Distance

Impossible to pigeonhole is the best way to describe this record, it has elements of so many different types of music, but does not limit itself to any particular one. Hardcore, post rock, folk, metal, all these genres are at work here. The guitar work on this album is beautiful, a lot of different effects at work. Described by the band's singer as a modern attempt at Dark Side Of The Moon, I believe they have succeeded. My words do not do the record justice, so please listen.



Young And In The Way - I Am Not What I Am

Listen to the opening track through headphones while walking at night, I promise you will develop a paranoia complex. Layers of distorted moans and crys give the impression of ghosts escaping from some otherworldly portal, free to haunt the living. This ambiance eventually gives way to frantic black metal inspired hardcore, pummeling the listener with with the severed head of a pig (this actually happened at one of their shows). Truly dark music to match the darkest days of the year, YAITW are evil personified. If there was ever a band that puritanical christians needed to form a protest against, it's this one.

Listen to "I Am Not What I Am" on bandcamp 

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