|
 |
Dusted Features
Every Friday, Dusted Magazine publishes a series of music-related lists compiled by our favorite artists. This week: Alexander Tucker and Franz Nicolay.
|
|
|
|
Listed: Alexander Tucker + Franz Nicolay
Alexander Tucker
Alexander Tucker began as vocalist in post-rock hardcore five piece ‘Unhome’ who released one album: A Short History of Houses on Unlabel and a split single with Papa M. Unhome split in late 1999, Tucker went on to tour with Detroit space rockers Fuxa. For many years Tucker had been developing a shambolic approach to acoustic and free-noise electric guitar and began to play solo shows using tape loops, detuned guitar, Dictaphones and field recordings processed through fx pedals. In early 2000 Tucker recorded a solo album of acoustic finger plucking, spooked vocals and a psyche-electronics, which was picked up by Tom Greenwood of Jackie-O-Motherfucker and released under his U-sound archives label. Tucker played as a part of JOMF on their last UK tour. His new album, Old Fog, is out now on ATP Records.
1. Faust - IV
Inventive, genuine experimention with the song form.
2. Bardo Pond - Lapsed
Blissed out tunes hide inside rainbows of heavy pych.
3. Stars of the Lid - The Ballasted Orchestra
Expansive and filmic with a touch of David Lynch.
4.The Penguin Cafe Orchestra - When In Rome...
Have loved them since I was a kid; meloncholic and repeatious with beautiful compositions.
5. The Velvet Underground - The Quine Tapes
All Velvets albums are amazing. I love their blues-stretch-improvisaions on this late live set.
6. V/A - La Jazz Non
A compilation of New Zealand free noise. This is 'real' modern folk. Compiled by Bruce Russell it shows the unique sound spectrums that these Kiwi's have cast their ears towards.
7. Richard Youngs and Neil Cambell - How The Garden Is
These sonic explorers deliver some amazing suburban shamanism on this excellent HP Cycle release.
8. Trad Gras Och Stenar - Djungelnslag(live)
This live record really highlights the unfolding nature of their beautiful blues psych.
9. Terry Riley - Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band All Night Flight
Riley's infinite abyss of loops is always so inspiring to me.
10. Burning Witch7 Pslams or Crippled Lucifer
Sonic doom from Stephen O'Malley's first band The fx soaked 'Sea Hag' is so good.
Franz Nicolay
Franz Nicolay is the mustachioed multi-instrumentalist and man-about-town you've seen with cabaret-punk circus World/Inferno Friendship Society, gypsy-klezmer carnies Guignol, and "world's best bar band" the Hold Steady. He founded Anti-Social Music. He has also been composer-in-residence with the NYU New Music & Dance Ensemble during a residency in Pisa, Italy; written for dancer Diane Carroll and performed with the Ivy Baldwin Dance Company; was co-composer and musical director for Chelsea Bacon's "Breaker: An Aerial Fairy Tale", which combined original songs and incidental music with aerial acrobatics and storytelling; and works as a composer, arranger, and producer. Nicolay has also recorded with bands including Leftover Crack, Erik Peterson/Mischief Brew, and Nanuchka.
1. Mischief Brew - Smash The Windows
Erik Peterson is a Philly punk who's picked up the anarcho-folk torch that Against Me! left behind, playing parks and punk show parking lots on his own and now the squat and house-show circuit with his killer band Mischief Brew. There's a bunch of great bands doing the train-hopping/hobo/basement-show thing now, a few of whom (like Evil Robot Us) are on Erik's excellent Fistolo label (www.fistolo.com)
2. Black Cat, White Cat
My favorite movie and #1 fashion reference, from Yugoslavian director Emir Kusturica, all gypsies, scams, gold teeth, suspenders, huge hats, brass bands, slapstick, and the most beautiful lead actress I've never seen again. And amazing soundtrack from...
3. ...The No Smoking Orchestra
Original gypsy punk. Get Unza Unza Time.
4. Sugar Park Tavern
If you ever get back to New Orleans, or if they do, Sugar Park is the new joint from Stephe Polier who used to run the legendary Brooklyn punk rock haven Sweetwater Tavern. Sweetwater was the only place whose bartenders were two metal guitarists, a high-end car repairman, and a Slayer fanatic who wrote music exclusively in 18th-century Werckmeister tuning (Anti-Social Music's Al Giusto). Sugar Park is Sweetwater but open til seven and with pizza. And more circus punks. 800 France St. Underwater?
5. Emilyn Brodsky (www.emilynbrodsky.com)
A 20-year-old ukulele-playing singer-songwriter from New York who's recently opened for Magnetic Fields, Kimya Dawson, and the Decemberists; and put out a split with Mirah, which basically gives a pretty accurate idea of where she's coming from. Her live shows verge on Tulip Sweet-esque performance art (though no doubt she'd mock the idea), mixing heartbreakingly sincere songs with scathing put-downs of inattentive audiences and revelations of the most personal secrets of friends in the audience. Also fond of spandex.
6. King Gypsy Rocker Massive Parties
The centerpiece of the exploding New York gypsy-punk scene, masterminded by the Luminescent Orchestrii's Sxip Shirey (www.sxipshirey.com). Bands like Romashka, Slavic Soul Party, Guignol, Hungry March Band, and the whole scene that's grown out of the Mehanata Bulgarian Bar.
7. Circus Contraption (www.circuscontraption.com)
Out of Seattle, one of the best of the alternative-circus scene. Their shows are great punk-circus fare but the real secret is the amazing band, which rotates saws, euphoniums, accordions, piccolo trumpets, operatic singers, and culminates with a mighty, full-cast beer-bottle orchestra. Clowns for life.
8. Moondog (www.moondogscorner.de)
The Viking-horned-and-robed, blind, homeless composer raised on a midwestern Indian reservation who landed a Columbia contract for orchestral music from playing in a midtown street corner. A major Anti-Social Music hero, an almost unbelievable story, and like no other music you'll ever hear.
9. Sock garters
A must for the well-dressed man. Fellows, ladies like nice dress socks. Your stained white bullshit is not cutting it. And when you take that important step, remember, dress socks don't come with athletic-grade elastic. Also, ladies in shorts with socks and garters is a hot look.
10. Cowboy Stache Wax
A homemade moustache wax sold at a car dealership in Montana. I've sampled many waxes, and as much as I recommend to Clubman line of classic men's products, their wax leaves little brown stache tracks on your lady's cheeks. Not well appreciated. Choose the Cowboy. Available at Montana Buckaroo Honda or www.extendinc.com/tullyhole/items2.htm
By Dusted Magazine
|
View all articles by Dusted Magazine