Motorpsycho - Heavy Metal Fruit

This is our second new year's gift to you. No, I apologize and correct myself. Motorpsycho's gift to you. Cause every release of these crazy Norsemen is an event. I haven't even listened to it, it gets uploaded while I'm writing this post, so there's no review. But the review should anyway go like this...
THIS IS THE NEW ALBUM BY MOTORPSYCHO!

(Get trippy while downloading...)

MOTOR PSYCHO live in Leuven, BELGIUM 18-10-08 part 3 from bernie van hecke on Vimeo.

Tracker - Blankets, Murder By Death - Finch

As you already know by now, soundtracks hold a special place in this blog. In that spirit we have a special treat for you. Two mini albums, both of which are the musical background of a typically mute medium. "Blankets" and "Finch" are the soundtracks for the respective books (or for Blankets to be exact, the graphic novel). The first one is composed from a band I really don't know anything about. However they present a really nice accompanying setting for reading the book by the one and only Craig Thompson. Which by the way is awesome! I really should write something sometime about this graphic wonder...
"Finch" is the soundtrack of the book with the same title by Jeff Vandermeer. In this case, I have no info about the book, but if you followed the blog you'll know by now our endless admire for Murder By Death. In a few words, "Finch" is the soundtrack MBD should have in their discography and I really hope the get the chance to make a full-length one for a movie (a really haunting one of course). Here are a few words from the band itself, since it doesn't seem proper to do a review for this kind of release.
"It is an instrumental soundtrack to a book called "Finch" by Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror author Jeff Vandermeer. He approached MBD about doing a soundtrack to go with the limited edition of his new book, and we thought it was such a strange idea we had to do it. The book reminds us of Bladerunner- with spore-faced bad guys. Bitchin'. We locked ourselves up in our friends studio (Farm Fresh) in Bloomington, IN for 5 days and wrote and recorded an instrumental album inspired by the book. We have used a lot of crazy techniques that we have never tried before on this record. Our old pianist Vincent Edwards lent his hand(s) at the piano, organs, and Rhodes. Each song is attempting to recreate a scene or mood from the book- the release shows the page numbers in the book that correspond to each track on the CD."

Click here to get both!

Welcome to the 10s...

Happy New Year, ho ho ho and so on. Not very relevant and up-to-date. A little weird writing again here. The 00s are gone (or "The Noughties" as a friend recently told me -or "The Ohs", the "2Ks", "The Zips"... Now that I thing about it we should make a musical evaluation of the decade here...). But back to the point. As I just saw, it has been almost four months since we updated our little corner. Inexcusable really... But I must explain to you the recent situation of your two favorite bloggers in the whole wide world. Well, concisely said, we kinda changed our everyday lives. There was a lot of moving involved, some academic adjustment, long hours, new cities, no internet (always a life changing event!), new people in our lives and suddenly no time. So we unwillingly took a little break. But the time that this blog gets erased, will be the time that "The Man" has taken us down and that's not going to happen soon. So we'll be here, doing our thing whenever we can and at the same time trying to keep "The Man" happy. So I'd like to awaken your interest (if any) and tell you to keep visiting cause we are back. Above you will find our new year's posts. The first one is something that I wanted to post for a couple of months now. Hopefully we will also have a web radio show very soon!
Wish you all a healthy 2010 full of music in the background and lots of luck ('cause as someone told me, it's the only thing you can't control).

* "The Man" (as of 2009-2010): Paranoid dentists with masochistic inclinations. Crazy ass computer scientists with computer-controlled monkeys in their basements...

New podcast section!

One of the changes planned for our blog was the revised podcast section and it's about time we launch it. We know that some of you have had difficulties downloading the shows, sometimes because of the download limits or just because Rapidshare isn't always so nice with everyone...
From now on you have an alternative. The shows are also hosted on two different sites on "Podomatic", where you can STREAM the selected shows we uploaded. There is also a download option. However, we reduced the audio quality on Podomatic for storage reasons. (Don't worry, it's still very listenable!). So, from now on you can listen to the shows directly without waiting times and download limitations.
To sum up, on the right column you will now find 3 links.
The first one is the directory on Rapidshare, just like it used to be.
The second one is our "MAIN" site on Podomatic, where the latest Podcasts will be (for the time being empty). @ allaboutthesun.podomatic.com
The third one is our secondary site on Podomatic, an archive if you will, with some of our old shows. @ whenthelightsgoout.podomatic.com

Storage is not the only reason we divided our shows to "latest" and "older". The radio sets from now on will be a little different. But we'll talk about that when our next hit on the webwaves is imminent. Now go listen to something on the right...

The Calm Blue Sea

I realized last night that I haven't posted a single post rock album since we started, which is a shame since this blog thrives on the melancholy music provides. However, I must admit my recent departure from the post rock genre, since it seemed to be recycling the same ideas and patterns in a very non-creative way. Too many bands, few good songs and fewer (if any) good albums. But once in a while, there comes a record that reminds you that the scene is not dead.
The Calm Blue Sea don't present necessarily something new to the scene, but they have all those elements that one loves about post rock. The melodies, the emotion, the musical structure that progresses to noise. And what a nice noise that is... I also liked the use of the piano in TCBS. It kinda has an introductory role and lets later the guitars take control. The Calm Blue Sea are from Austin Texas, like the post rock heroes Explosions In The Sky. You can hear the resemblance.

Get it here.

Girls

I was lately on a search for a good new album. It has been really difficult to find something new and fresh the last few months. However, "Girls" filled the gap with their album (which is called "Album".....) and even if it isn't the record that will change your life it surely makes an impression. It reminded me for some reason of good ol' Pulp and the whole album has that narcotic feeling I get from My Bloody Valentine. And I must say, the release comes in a timely fashion, just before autumn hits for good and the summer starts to seriously fade away. And Christopher Owens seems to also struggle with that. He sings about girls, summer, about waking up in the afternoon, napping in parks and soaking up sunshine. And I have been there (except maybe napping in parks...), so I like the theme. "Hellhole Ratrace" was praised this summer in the blogosphere (and Pitchfork) as THE epic summer track and maybe it is. It simplistic, nostalgic and bittersweet feeling (and its AWESOME video. Watch it!) makes it an absolute pick for 2009.
Christopher Owens grew up in a cult and escaped when he was 16. And when he tells us in "Lust For Life" that "he's fucked in the head" I believe him. And now he sings about California girls, getting drunk and the sun... It's an interesting concept to listen to...

More Blues Brothers...

Music is art.

At least it's supposed to be, although anyone who hits me over the head with any given power metal or Tokyo Hotel cd will have a strong argument against that.
Anyway, given the concept of music as art is widely accepted by our readers, I wish to build on that ground.

People appreciate music for the most different reasons.
Some feel comforted by its spirit and soul, by the storytelling that fills the void of a world where everyone should be alone with the certainty that there are notions and fine lines that others perceive as well, ultimately challenging the disjointness of the individual from society.
Some people divulge into the orchestrations and finer points of composition of music as an intellectual exercise and greatly enjoy the beauty of the underlying order that harnesses the chaos of a world too complex to understand.
Some, then, enjoy the expressiveness of music for the sheer power of emotion, as a pure means to absorb power and energy to go on fighting their own battles (and yes, I was thinking of Iggy Pop here...).
Others need music as a companion to just blend out thought, to help slow the world down by repeating a known pattern in their head that makes them feel familiar with themselves.
Finally, some people probably just like noise.

To any and all of those people who busy themselves with this artform for any given of these reasons, I have a shocking newsflash: the very same qualities and virtues that make you put your earphones on ever so often can be found in other forms of art, as well.

If you enjoy Bob Dylan for his lyrical style that makes your mind wander, you probably enjoyed reading the Beats a great deal.
If you always find yourself connected to Velvet Underground's excessive elegance, you might seriously like the art of Andy Warhol.
And if Bolero is your music of choice, you already have a movie playing in your head and surely can't help but visiting the theatres every now and then.

Art as a form of expression knows no boundaries and has infinite channels, but the basic common ground we start from is human experience that is common to many people. No matter how distorted it comes out at the end of the processing machine that is the emotional apparatus of each human mind, the ground will be common.
And as we have devoted this blog and a lot of our time to music, we will try to share discoveries from other sources of grandeur with you as well.

As you all have noticed, music and cinematography share a very strong bond (especially within this blog). The bond is not formed only by live videos, but also highly conceptuated music videos by visual artists like Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze or David Fincher. Not to mention Jonas Akerlund, whose work with the Smashing Pumpkins has left deep impressions upon those who know it.
On the other hand, the good Doc's soundtrack special should have made it clear how much music helps movies tell a story and become part of it. There is no western without Ennio Morricone, no Star Wars or Indiana Jones without John Williams and no Fountain without Clint Mansell and Mogwai.

But alas, our time in this life is limited, we can't know it all and neither do we want to, yet the attraction is unquestionably there. Se we resort to the wisdom, knowledge and taste of others as a guide through the vast fields out there.
Personally, I have found myself to be continually impressed by the quality of observation and abundance of background information about the cinematographic side of things presented by a cherished friend and avid follower of our blog. As there has been the fortunate event of the start of his own blog about the things he believes in (I'm still anticipating his full frontal assault on graphic novels), I welcome the opportunity to defer to him in all things cinema and present his blog to all of you, who surely love the moments sitting in the dark room with the newest Tarantino flick starting as much as me.

This also marks the inauguration of our "Recommended" section to the right, which shall slowly be enriched with sources of infinite knowledge and wisdom (fandom?).
So please enjoy, and if you happen to find sth. that absolutely cannot be missed feel free to make us richer for it.