I may have a warrant out on me from the cred police after this admission but until relatively recently I had never listened to Washington DC’s Quix*o*tic. In fact, I discovered the band via hearing a comparison to Twin City band Brute Heart – a comparison that holds water. Like Brute Heart Quix*o*tic played minimalist, female-fronted, avant garde pop. It’s the vocals though that are the most similar – sisters Christina and Mira Billotte use the same kind of flat apathetic singing tone that Brute Heart utilizes (when they aren’t howling). However, despite the vocal affectation – to judge the Billotte sister’s singing as “apathetic” isn’t entirely correct. While the singing style may have roots in the “I don’t give a damn” punk aesthetic (Christina Billotte is/was a DC punk legend by the time she started Quix*o*tic), the lyrics are actually incredibly earnest.

The lyrics are also generally incredibly simple. One of the main criticisms I have heard of Quix*o*tic is that their style is technically unsophisticated (Take this misguided Pitchfork review for instance). The drum pieces, the basslines, the guitar – while each instrument shines from time to time, overall the aesthetic isn’t incredibly complex. In fact every time I put Quix*o*tic on the box, the ghost of every jam band fan I have ever talked pops up in my subconscious to gripe “these guys can’t even play maaan.”

The fact is, Christina Billotte is/was actually a pretty damn good guitarist. And in Quix*o*tic she occasionally shows flashes of that brilliance, though by and large she seems more interested in experimenting with atonal chords than she is in showing off. It’s besides the point anyways. Quix*o*tic’s aesthetic isn’t about blistering riffs and instrumental majesty. In fact, the one element that ties the sound together isn’t instrumental at all – it’s the sister’s vocals. Both Billotte’s have tremendous range, and though they occasionally try not to show it, they are capable of really beautiful singing. The best Quix*o*tic songs I have heard put the instruments in the background and focus entirely on the Billotte’s almost Nina Simone-like purrs. I am talking about tunes like “The Breeze” and “On My Own” here – two songs off of the group’s sophomore effort Mortal Mirror. Both have very little in the way of instruments – just a scattering of drumbeats and the sister’s stunningly velvety vocal tones.

Despite the fact that Quix*o*tic were pretty well received critically (when Sonic Youth invites you to play their curated ATP show its gotta count for something) they only lasted long enough to release two albums before breaking up in 2003. Mira Billotte went on to form NYC group White Magic, Christina moved to California and (as far as I know) isn’t currently performing. Tragically original bassist Brendan Majewski committed suicide in 2011, however 2001 – 2003 bassist Mick Barr currently has a finger in many different projects.

Quix*o*tic may not have lasted for very long but in the space of their five years of existence they did manage to release two excellent records, Night for a Day and Mortal Mirror. I highly recommend you check out either, particularly if you happen to be a fan of locals Brute Heart.

Quix*o*tic – The Breeze

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I don’t know all that much about “pan-Asian cultural collective” Yamantaka // Sonic Titan, though I can tell you that their recent YT//ST LP is fast becoming one of my favorite releases of the new year. The band draws inspiration from a huge variety of international influences (including the new-to-me “Iroquois core”) to form a genre of music they call “Noh Wave.” It sounds like Japanese psychedelia and drone plays a huge part in the sound, as well as vibrant elements of metal, noise, and even folk—altogether reminiscent of the last local Boris show in Minneapolis, which featured a poppier sound than that band is predominantly known for. Boris-clones Yamantaka // Sonic Titan are not, however. Yamantaka // Sonic Titan definitely take their sound into places that are uniquely their own. Listen for yourself below and make up your own mind. Hopefully you will come away, like me, crossing your fingers and hoping the band does a national tour (including the Midwest!).

—Jon Behm

Minneapolis duo Tender Meat specializes in gritty, pulse-pounding electronica that combines a sort of free-jazz mentality with a Nintendo-on-acid aesthetic.  Until recently their only widely available full length recording was a live album recorded at the 2010 Heliotrope Festival entitled Ritz on the Fritz.  Ritz managed to capture the wild, loose energy of Tender Meat’s show while maintaining a degree of audio fidelity that is rare in low-budget live recordings.  And considering how good the band is live, when I heard that their newest effort, a record entitled Ripper’s World, would be a studio recording I approached it with some degree of trepidation.

Thankfully though, Tender Meat sounds every bit as crazy in the studio as they ever did in a live setting.  Ripper’s World flows with kind of cohesion that almost sounds as if the whole thing was recorded in a single take.  And if that is the case, it must have been one furiously manic recording.  Despite actual track breaks (something Ritz lacked) Ripper’s World manages to never lose its momentum.

The tape starts with the crackly-static bomb “Brawler’s Bay,” and goes on to fill the following forty minutes with a sound that is futuristically weird while maintaining a grimy low-tech façade.  The space of that time is crammed with a brilliant kaleidoscope of electronic exotica: field recordings, steam hisses, bizarre sampling, and 8-bit grooves, not to mention a whole lot more.   Standout track “Cockpit Dread” contains a furious collection of rhythms – some electronic, some real drums, that combine for a sound that could melt paint off the walls.  The follow up “Funnel” is no slouch either – it contains an amazing array of electronic noise, all composed around an 8-bit beat that sounds as if it was lifted from Konami’s Ninja Turtles Arcade game (I was actually convinced it was but a lengthy search seems to have proved me wrong).

Another major difference between the new material and Ritz is that in the studio recording, Tender Meat does occasionally give the listener a little space to breathe.   “If I am, I am I am” slows the album’s pace for a gloomy, dread-filled minute before “Jungle Stalker” ratchets the tension back up with a minimalist beat that utilizes pastoral field recordings to put the “jungle” into the “stalk.” “Tetsuo Shima” (named for the Akira anime character) also pulses with an atmospheric groove that is less in-your-face than the sound I have previously come to associate with the band.  Ripper’s World also never shies away from the bizarre – most notably in final track “Zuckerberg Vs. Winklevoss” which contains samples drawn from the infamous Facebook trial case.

While Ritz made me admire Tender Meat for their ability to take the listener on a relentless thrill-ride, the wider range of Ripper’s World makes for a much more dynamic listen.  The live format is excellent for capturing the excitement of non-stop bangers, however the studio has freed Tender Meat to explore a much more interesting spectrum of sounds and textures.  Ripper’s World really shows that not only are Tender Meat masters of the electronic sledgehammer, they are also artists who are capable of fine, nuanced details.

– Jon Behm

You can stream and pick up a copy of Ripper’s World through the Soothing Almonds Collective

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I’ve only gotten hip to RVNG Intl’s FRKWYS series in the last few months (via the ambient synth mega-team #7 and the cosmic collab of #8), but since then I’ve been digging back and finding out how great the series is. While catching up has been fun, it also looks like their future is just as bright. The forthcoming #9, which brings together ambient wanderers Sun Araw and legendary reggae vocalist The Congos. You can hear a snippet of the results below on “Happy Song,” which nicely melds Sun Araw’s broken-down noise with soulful, reggae-tinged vocals. We’re really excited to hear this whole record—keep an eye out for (better late than never, right?) reviews of older installments of the FRKWYS series in the future on Reviler.

Sun Araw, M. Geddes Gengras, & The Congos – Happy Song by RVNG Intl.

—Josh

My introduction to Silky Johnson came via a comparison to my favorite beats producer du jour, Clams Casino, which is a risky way to find out about a new artist. Positively, I sought out this free beat tape from an artist that I ended up liking quite a bit. But on the worrisome end of the spectrum, this mixtape, in my mind, was competing with the amazing Rainforest EP and Instrumentals LP that Clams Casino released last year (the latter comfortably snuggling into my 10 favorite records of 2011).

My disdain with most current rappers has led me head-on into beat tapes, and Silky Johnson’s is one of the most fun tapes I have heard recently. Not as dramatic as Dilla or weird as Madlib, Hater of the Year is a joyous, silky and lush collection of __ jams. Album opener “Fuck the Money” is all arms-in-the-air euphoria, while other tracks range from the slippery groove of “Everything” to the stuttering beat and dark soul samples of “Fast Life.” The thing I like most about Hater of the Year is that it never feels like just a collection of his best beats or a hollow cadaver in search of some thick rhymes. The rich collection of songs stand up by themselves, although I am sure more than a few rappers would love to jump on most of the beats. While there is a lot of pretty standard “rap” beats, there are also songs like “Felicity” that meld clapping beats and lush synth flourishes in the style that makes Clams Casino’s work so appealing.

Many rap beat tapes can sound like they are either just songs scrubbed of vocals or tracks that really need a vocal hook to drive them forward. The best beat tapes are stand-alone efforts that don’t need anything but the music to tell a story. They are the kind of tracks that if, say, Ghostface, Black Thought, or Brother Ali jumped on them, yes, they would sound great, but the rappers would just be icing on the cake. Hater of the Year meets those standards in spades and is a highly enjoyable, fully realized beat tape that will put Silky Johnson on the map. You can stream the tape below. Otherwise, he is giving away the record for free download HERE.

—Josh

I’ve become something of a closeted post-rock fan; pining for the first couple of years when Explosions in the Sky really meant something, trying to avoid the use of the word “crescendo” in casual conversation. Leading a double-life is hard, especially when the genre that turned you into the person you are today has become a clichéd, hollow-out version of its former self. “I don’t want to be that,” I think to myself, “I don’t want to be a cliché of myself.” Nevertheless, when I hear solid post-rock song, I can’t help but bear my soul to the world (or at least to the sliver of Minneapolis’ music community that reads Reviler.)

That’s especially true when the band enlists a couple of members that set down guitars in favor of traditional string or brass instruments. Enter, Group of the Altos. This dodecatet (yeah, that’s right, twelve members) rocks the weeping catharsis like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Sparrows Swarm and Sing, or A Northern Chorus in their prime, with forlorn strings creaking behind an impromptu ensemble of earnest-to-goodness singers. The Milwaukee-based collective, led by Daniel Spack of Collections of Colonies of Bees and Volcano Choir, combines folk storytelling with epic composition, dragon-breath jazz, and frigid minimalism.

Take a listen to the groups sorta-self-titled EP, Altos, below.

—Will Wlizlo (@willwlizlo)

Let’s talk real for a minute. Reviler is really a blog about cats. We just write about music when we’re inspired. In the run-up to our two-year anniversary extravaganza, we asked the four bands playing to share something about their favorite cats.

Presented, without context or explanation, is a recipe for Cat Soup recommended by Food Pyramid.

The Reviler two-year anniversary concert is at the Turf Club on Friday, January 13. Food Pyramid is playing alongside Andrew Broder, Is/Is, and Fire in the Northern Firs. Tickets are $5. More information here.

Let’s talk real for a minute. Reviler is really a blog about cats. We just write about music when we’re inspired. In the run-up to our two-year anniversary extravaganza, we asked the four bands playing to share something about their favorite cats.

We’re very happy to have Fire in the Northern Firs opening for the shindig. Their drummer, Scott Weller, was nice enough to share a story of the badass-est cat that ever was.

Pervis von Chickenface. Have you ever been? Let me paint you a picture. She had the body of a Grecian stuffed-animal goddess, a rattle-trap voice like Marge Simpson, leg fur reminiscent of tapered sweatpants, and an instinct to hunt so fierce and pure that keeping her locked indoors simply wasn’t an option. She sucked at hunting, but that is not the point. Nor did it deter her from trying every single day. One summer evening, even as huge bruised-looking thunderheads filled the sky, Pervis was out on the hunt—an inbound summer storm was of no concern to her. She would have boxed the shit out of every one of those storm clouds had she the reach.

Alas, it was the Storm of Storms that night. Sound and fury, signifying everything. Flooded streets, no electricity for blocks, falling trees, and no sign of Lady von Chickenface after all was said and done. She’d gone on overnight reconnaissance before, but this was different. My housemates and I scoured the neighborhood, leaving no bush unchecked (she loved those damned bushes). We left the front door open for days. Nothing. Absence. We hung fliers throughout the whole Como neighborhood. Nada. After two weeks, I had given up hope. How could she go so long without Fancy Feasts? One didn’t want to think of such things.

But one morning, more than two weeks post-shitstorm, my roommates and I found  ourselves on the porch staring, mouths agape. Pervis von Chickenface coolly strutted down the sidewalk towards the house. She walked up the stairs and went through the open front door—and that was that. When I awoke that morning, I opened my bedroom door to find Pervo looking up at me. She gave me a sassy Marge-voiced greeting. It was like she had never disappeared.

To this day, I have no idea how she managed to get by. I don’t want to know. I do know that her feat of survival solidified her legendary status as Ultimate Badass among those who knew her. She flew by the seat of her tapered sweatpants, and there were never any “fucks” that she gave. Here’s to you, Pervis. (200?-2009)

The Reviler two-year anniversary concert is at the Turf Club on Friday, January 13. Fire in the Northern Firs is playing alongside Food Pyramid, Andrew Broder, and Is/Is. Tickets are $5. More information here.

—narration by Scott Weller, drummer of Fire in the Northern Firs

Let’s talk real for a minute. Reviler is really a blog about cats. We just write about music when we’re inspired. In the run-up to our two-year anniversary extravaganza, we asked the four bands playing to share something about their favorite cats.

Is/Is sent us a photo essay of their two cats, Nuni (the black one) and Thomp Thomp (the short-haired tabby), shortly after they were introduced to each other for the first time. Brace yourself for unstoppable cuteness.

The Reviler two-year anniversary concert is at the Turf Club on Friday, January 13. Is/Is is playing alongside Food Pyramid, Andrew Broder, and Fire in the Northern Firs. Tickets are $5. More information here.

—photo essay by Sarah Rose and Sarah Nienaber

It’s right around the time when new parents start bracing for impact—the terrible twos. Children start throwing hissy fits more frequently, often in public, and with a just-dangerous-enough grasp of rudimentary vocabulary and enthusiastic vocal cords. Well, Reviler is about to turn two years old, too. But instead of throwing a fit, we’re throwing a concert.

We’ve lined up some of our favorite underground local bands to play a beautiful Friday night showcase at the Turf Club on Friday, January 13th. Yep, it’s coming soon. But mark your calendars, because the lineup’s a force to be reckoned with. Psychedelic electro-krautmeisters Food Pyramid are headlining the show. They’re being supported by Andrew Broder, Is/Is, and Fire in the Northern Firs. The whole things goin’ down for the fire-sale price of $5.

Although the critics here at Reviler aren’t afraid to take sacred cows to the woodshed, we promise we’ll be really nice (and happy to see you) next Friday. Here’s a link to the Facebook event page, if you’re into that sort of thing. Thanks for reading!

—Jon, Adam, Josh, and Will

In putting together our Best of Lists, we realized there was some stuff that we really loved that we had never written about over the course of the year. We know we aren’t going to do it all justice, but each staff member at Reviler is going to get together a post giving a little information about some of the stuff that they didn’t write about in 2011 that they wish they had. This is our final installment.

Diamond Mine by King Creosote & Jon Hopkins
This is such a wonderful collection from a highly unlikely collaboration. King Creosote is a Scottish folk singer, the type of middle-aged dude you’d expect to see wasted and blathering in a portside pub. Jon Hopkins is a world-renowned electronic dance musician. For Diamond Mine, Hopkins abandons the big bass for the fragile coo of a melodium; King Creosote does what he does best, which usually involves turning failed relationships into depressing anecdotes. The duo played a spectacularly under-attended set at the 7th St. this summer, working through this album from start to finish.

Raum Zeit by Boyle
Boyle is a sound artist and dronescapist based in La Crosse, Wisconsin, who I first heard about when I was still co-hosting Nowlikephotographs on Radio K. I was drawn to an oddity in our mailbox: a five-disc album called Raum Zeit wrapped in neon-green construction paper, with nearly every song descriptively titled “24 Feb 2010” or some similar construction. It sat on my bookshelf for a month or two, but when I finally started peeling back the layers, I found a lush collection of minimal ambient pieces. I was drawn to the scope and sheer DIYness of the project—and ultimately I ended up putting it on before bed for the next 10 months (still going strong). Boyle updates his Soundcloud page with new audio vignettes often if you like what you hear below.

6Sep2011 by Boyle

Banjo or Freakout by Banjo or Freakout
I’m usually turned off by the wimpy aesthetic of dreampop, but Banjo or Freakout totally captivated me. It’s too bad that this flew under the indie-radar—much of Alessio Natalizia’s songcraft is just as good, if not better, than the Deerhunter/Atlas Sound album everyone’s been frothing over.

Legendary Weapons by Wu-Tang
From what I can tell, crew-album Legendary Weapons was something of a return-to-form for the Killer Bees. Ghostface Killah is especially on his game here, which isn’t too surprising after hearing his more recent album Apollo Kids. As with all Wu-Tang albums, there’s never enough Inspectah Deck, but this one’s got tight production and well-wrought, ever-surprising rhymes.

Wu Tang – Legendary Weapons by Pedestrian.TV

The Gorgon Tongue: Impale Golden Horn by Horseback
There’s been an inexplicable black metal resurgence going on over the past six months, and one of the bands that has been chronically left out of the discussion is Horseback. Like Liturgy, Horseback take an experimental tack to a generally stale genre. Their Gorgon Tongue release was so experimental, it wasn’t even black metal. In fact, it was closer to Brian Eno’s Music For Airports. In short: washed-out, sublime ambient. And this video is transfixing.

50 Words for Snow by Kate Bush
If I could relive the last month of my life, I would write 50 Words for Snow into my Top 10 Albums list. I’m something of a newcomer to the Bush camp, having only ambient awareness of a few singles she released in the ‘80s. One listen to her latest album, though, and I’m a convert—drinking the Kool-Aid and wearing the bubble-wrap armor. For about five years I didn’t seek out very much lyric-based music, because I felt that most of the words just about anyone was singing were vapid dribble. Bush, however, has a grasp on the type of storytelling and use of poetic language that gets me excited about song. My favorite song from the album is “Snowed in at Wheeler Street,” a dramatic piano-driven duet with Elton John. Yeah. I know. Trust me. Listen. Now.

Kate Bush – Snowed in at Wheeler Street by khadunio

Quick Hits: Looking Forward to these things in 2012

The Something Rain by Tindersticks

4evaNaDay by Big K.R.I.T.

The Narrow Garden by Eyvind Kang

Whatever the hell Moon Glyph does next year

—Will Wlizlo

Ask me in six months what I missed from 2011 and I may be able to give you a decent sized list.  As of today though? I am still pretty clueless. It usually takes me awhile to fully comprehend the breadth of what I am missing out on, though its always a safe bet to assume “a lot.” So here’s what I can think of so far that I missed, or perhaps experienced, but never really got around to posting about:

1. The Roots: Undun

This is mostly because the Roots released their eleventh studio album so close to the end of the year.  By the time the “best of lists” were going up I had only listened through it maybe a handful of times.  In retrospect though, I think “The OtherSide” would definitely have made my list of top singles.  And as a whole, Undun would have at least topped my own (mental) list of the year’s top hip hop releases.

The Roots – The OtherSide

2. Tim Hecker: Ravedeath, 1972

This one is still sinking in for me.  Luckily Will did a great job of posting about it already so I don’t feel bad for missing it when it came out.  Not too long ago I turned the lights out, laid on my bed, and listened to Ravedeath in its entirety.  And I have to say that I was intrigued by Hecker’s masterful ambient noise orchestrations.  I look forward to spending more time with it next year. Pretty disappointed I missed Hecker’s show at the Southern Theater this year though.

Tim Hecker:          Site

3. Jon Fahey: Your Past Comes Back to Haunt You: The Fonotone Years (1958–1965)

You can’t really accuse of missing this the first time around, being that I wasn’t alive during Fahey’s Fonotone recording years.  I am guilty, however, of taking awhile to getting around to listening to this year’s collected and reissued boxset.  And though I love what I have heard so far, I have only just scratched the surface of the massive five album collection.  I have a feeling I will be listening to this one well into 2012 and beyond.

4. Case Studies: The World is just a Shape to Fill the Night

Despite every inclination I have that tells me I should think otherwise, I just keep getting more and more into Jesse Lortz’s folk project Case Studies.  Case Studies  perform stripped down folk ballads that often involve Lortz’s woebegone vocals accompanied by the sweetly pretty female harmonies. It’s the oldest trick in the book but in this case it always gets me right in the gut. And while I did post a song from it awhile back, I would like to reiterate that I think The World is just a Shape to Fill the Night is worth a listen.  
Case Studies – The Eagle, or the Serpent by sacredbones

5. Wizards Are Real

Finally caught up with this new local band a week or so ago and I was pretty blown away.  Pedal steel, bass, sax, and drums have never sounded this good together before.  Do yourself a favor and check out these guys soon.

Wizards Are Real – Calamander

6. Danny Brown: XXX

I am still kind of coming to terms with this record but it is growing on me and quickly.  In an age where “rap” seems to mean a bunch of fluffy pap (see: Drake) its refreshing to hear a record as gritty and dark as this one.

Danny Brown:          Site

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