Every so often I find myself flipping through CDs in a jaded attempt to fins something, anything, with a little authenticity, originality or…well, something that doesn’t suck. It can be a tough job, actually. If only there were more bands like Surface of Atlantic, who really spoke out to me through the filter-less din of internet music. With softly uttered vocals, droning guitar repetition, swelling keyboards and minimalist electronica underpinning the unassumingly beautiful songs, Surface of Atlantic can easily knock the copy of Coldplay’s Parachutes or Death Cab’s Transatlanticism out of any sweater-wearing dorm rat’s CD changer. The aesthetic is decidedly mellow, but this is not to say the music lacks the right amount of rhythm to push it along at a simmering mid-tempo. Tracing the musical genealogy of this Montreal quintet back, you might find albums by Slowdive, Sigur Ros, Postal Service or The Poor Rich Ones populating their catalogs. This is truly noteworthy, and we suggest you stop what you’re doing and look into this majestic stuff.

Their latest LP, Ephemeral as we Speak, is available now.

Buy it on iTunes here.

Check out Surface of Atlantic’s really well put together Official Web Site for more up to the minute details (or, you know, look at their MySpace….)

Instrumentation
Dave Douville: vox+guit
Marco Gervais: guitar
Martin Poisson: bass
Francois Graham: Piano/keys
Fred Bujo : Drums

Discography
Ephemeral as we Speak LP - 2007
Fairmount Avenue EP - 2006

So our music inbox has been stuffed with bands, may of whom are now overdue for a writeup, or at least a semi-friendly rejection letter. I hate being behind on things, so in an effort to get through the clutter, here’s a great big super-post of about seven or eight band of the day bands.

Here’s the deal. Each and every one of these bands deserves my undivided attention to truly get a good idea of what they are about. But they’re not going to get that. Nope, I will be listening to them for the exact amount of time it takes me to write a paragraph about them. Some will fare better than others. Some will be treated unjustly. Some will not even get a chance. Life’s tough, time’s short, and I got other blogs to blog. On today’s Band of the Day Menu:
James Sudakow
Rider Jones
Margot Blanche
Dan Weintraub
Lansdale Station
Jump Back Heart Attack!
Front Row for the Meltdown
Lawrence Blatt

James Sudakow
A little electronic with heavy bass, fronted by an electric violin. I always though electric violins were the shit:

Yeah Brad Neely, you’re right. Life DOES rule, especially if you’re James Sudakow and play heavy instrumental electric violin electronica.

See? Totally! You know those people who bought the Tool String Quartet album? I bet they would rock Mr. Sudakow while playing World of Warcraft and fucking rule over all the other internerds. They’d be like head of the Theif’s Guild or whatever. Me? I can’t get into this. It’s like Yanni with a distortion pedal and drummer who can’t get enough Taiko. NEXT

Rider Jones

Well, I see from their MySpace page’s headline that Rider Jones is no more. “RIDER JONES 2005 - 2008 R.I.P” I assume that they are already done…either that, or by the end of the year they will be done. Or maybe they just changed their web site and are terrible at conveying that info.

Oh, the perils of being in a band. NOW we get to reviewing you and your band is already broken up. If only I had gotten to them back in January, perhaps I could have provided the shot in the arm they needed to continue. Oh well. Too bad, because they don’t sound half bad. They don’t sound half good either. Wussy acoustic finger-picking pop does nothing for me, but at least their lyrics aren’t as cliche as the music… Oh wait, never mind…they just sang “star light, star bright, first star i see tonight…” without a hint of irony. Yeesh. Get me out of here. NEXT

I will praise the rest of the bands’ deeds or fuck their shit up after the JUMP: it will be worth it, dear reader. Trust me. Would I lie to you? Read the rest of this entry »

We here at the world renown Synthesis Blog are happy to announce the premeire of Tim Fite’s “Rats & Rags” video from his forthcoming album Fair Ain’t Fair, available in stores on 5.06.08 on Anti- Records. If this teaser is any indication, Fair Ain’t Fair will be Fite’s most accomplished album yet.

I gotta be honest: first time I heard Tim Fite a few years back, I was not impressed. However, judging by this clip, I am going to rock Tim Fite’s new one hard, toss it around like a ragdoll. We suggest you do the same. Plus, I’m feeling a little inspired. My roommate tends to sleep heavily when he’s been drinking….I wonder what he’ll think when he wakes up tomorrow saran-wrapped to his bed.

I am mature.

The highly touted boys from Brighton are back with their sophomore release, Konk, that hit stores earlier this week, but some are questioning whether the pre-release hype matches the merit. The Kook’s debut release Inside In/Inside Out was exceedingly well received, but reviews for Konk have been mixed. Betty Clarke of The Guardian gave the record 4 out 5 stars saying, “The woolliness of their debut has been replaced with a determined pop sound that dips into hard-edged rock,” but New Music Express was less than optimistic, and rather disappointed:

“What’s clear is that they’ve lost the songwriterly knack they originally wielded with abandon and replaced it with clichés and a foggy palimpsest of what they once had. We recommend they search high and low for that spark of brightness in time for album three.” NME.com

I haven’t picked up the record yet, but if the single is any indication it looks like I’m in store for a watered down version of Inside In/Inside Out. To be honest, when I first heard “Always Where I Need To Be” I thought I was still listening to The Kooks first album. Check out thise video below and decide for yourself.

The Kooks- “Always Where I Need To Be”

This is a bit atypical of the bands that we generally choose for Synthesis Band of the Day. No horn-rimmed glasses, waifish broads with ugly indie-rock haircuts, ‘roid-bicep hardcore meatheads, striped sweater wussies or epic Dungeons & Dragons progressive metalheads. No, Phredley brings the funk-rock.

In my fledgling college days, back when tie-dye wasn’t as vomitous and my roommate’s constant Phish-Grateful Dead-Phish musical rotation didn’t drive me completely bonkers, I would have broken my left leg to check out a band like Phredley. Now bad photoshop effects kinda irk me, patchouli oil makes me want to hurl and hippie funk in general just pisses me off. But not Phredley. They’s alright.

Based around a brother-sister duo (Phred Brown on Vocals, Guitar & Horns; Alesha Brown on Keys & Vocals) and a rhythm section (Paul Loos, Drums & Vocals; Samuel Tobias Winn, Bass & Vocals) Phredley lays down funk that is far closer to the heart of nearby Detroit than that of longhair revivalists in Colorado or Vermont. And when they stray toward the pop side of the spectrum, it comes across more as radio-friendly than looking for a parking lot miracle. More importantly (for me at least), their lyrics hold water. With the aforementioned hippie-funk enthusiasts, it’s most often the lyrics that drive me to enraged hysterics; Phredley uses some clever (or nearly clever) turns of phrase. No, Phred’s not Leonard Cohen by any means, but in a sometimes poppy, sometimes rocky funk quartet, it works. Their track “The Truth About Capricorns” also has some pretty, Beatelesque, tonally complex passages. If you’re a big fan of Ben Harper/Jack Johnson/Maroon 5, or your ’70s R&B records don’t have much dust on them, do yourself a favor and look into Phredley.

Keep your eye out for A Life For Sale in Perth, Australia. It’s “a beautiful place to live,” and it’s all set up, waiting for you. Ebay has always been a bazaar of the bizarre (past things for sale: a grilled cheese sandwich that looks like the Virgin Mary, a pretzel shaped like Abraham Lincoln; once someone tried to sell a punch in the face…), but today the game was stacked even higher when recently-divorced Ian Usher put his entire life up for auction. In a grand sweeping gesture, the 44-year old Australian adventure enthusiast is selling everything, from his house and all his possessions, to his relationship with his friends and their pets (Usher’s closest friends have pledged to be nice to whoever wins the auction, which is set to begin June 22nd and end June 29th).

From his web site:

Hi there, my name is Ian Usher, and I have had enough of my life! I don’t want it any more! You can have it if you like!

No, I’m not contemplating suicide, I am going to sell my life!! I have my reasons, for further details click the “Why” tab below. However, I am still not sure whether this is inspired madness, complete foolishness, or just some sort of mid-life crisis.

Whatever it is, it’s all going up for sale in one big auction. Everything I have and everything I am.

On the day it is all sold and settled I intend to walk out of my front door with my wallet in one pocket and my passport in the other, nothing else at all, and get on the train, with no idea where I am going or what the future holds for me.

Sadly, he still gets to retain control of his own destiny and central nervous system, which I was hoping he’d throw into the auction. That would make the $500,000 price tag he’s hoping for totally worth it.

I thought this post would somehow link in with Daniel’s post yesterday of a man who built a suicide machine and then used it to kill himself using plans he found on the internets. When I first heard of this I thought he was selling his life, which would have been ten times more awesome. I always found the plot to Hostel dangerously alluring. But he’s just selling his stuff… And in the immortal words of Ian Mackaye, “You Are Not What You Own.”

On Usher’s web site, http://www.alife4sale.com, you can find out all the details. Or just watch this:

This isn’t the first time someone has tried to sell their life on eBay. But maybe you should try renting before you own. If you don’t want Ian Usher’s life you can always RENT A GERMAN.

Who would ever sell a life to the highest bidder? Sounds like a easy way to start to industrialize agriculture in a new country though and destroy a few cultures and generations of lives in the process…