May
AN INCOMPLETE LIST OF THE PEOPLE AND ENTITIES WHO BENEFIT FROM A SYSTEMATICALLY ACCELERATED CONSUMPTION OF MUSIC (THEORETICALLY SPEAKING)
AN INCOMPLETE LIST OF THE PEOPLE AND ENTITIES WHO BENEFIT FROM A SYSTEMATICALLY ACCELERATED CONSUMPTION OF SUPPOSEDLY INDEPENDENT MUSIC (THEORETICALLY SPEAKING)
1. music playback hardware manufacturers such as apple and beats by dre (e.g. iphone, beats headphones)
2. music distribution platforms and services (more products to sell, more products to stream, the accumulation of microprofits, etc)
3. cloud-based downloading services such as mediafire
4. internet server companies that provide online data space for both #2 and #3
5. social media networks where music information is shared (tumblr, facebook both benefitting from more people using their services, e.g. for data mining)
6. music media (always something new to write about, more opportunities to create pseudo-narrative out of news cycle, more opportunities to be “first” both journalistically and critically, more opportunities to graft fictive-non-fictive theories onto content, greater likelihood that grafted theories will appear meaningful)
7. publicity firms (wider pool of represented ‘talent’ means more opportunity to broker deals with more and different kinds of media, e.g. more access given to more popular artist in exchange for smaller feature/debut/no-harm-done type press, e.g. debut, tour dates, any acknowledgement of new artist’s existence; publicists become integral part of controlling the ‘deluge’ and enjoy increasing degrees of setting agendas they are paid to set)
8. booking agencies and other 10- and 20-percenteries like management and music law. (greater nationalization of booking in the form of package deals, more younger bands with national appeal willing to be “put on the road” for $100/$150night, more power when negotiating fees and festival time slots, less pressure to ‘build’ an artist’s following because the artist will likely be made irrelevant in the deluge of new and more exciting artists; increasing profitability of picking up nickels and dimes)
9. new young artists whose content is loop-based, modular, capable of being quickly understood and cheaply produced (e.g. rap, electronic dance music, n.b. this is not a value judgment)
10. festival promoters (more ‘relevant’ bands means greater demand for festivals, rise in the number of festivals in US/worldwide speaks to the financial viability, festival brand becomes greater than the sum of its parts)
11. lifestyle brands (greater exposure to more supposedly independent artists drives down the cost of syncs and worldwide buyouts, no shortage of artists willing to have their music used for marketing purposes, more opportunities for festival sponsorships and promotional content)
12. people who enjoy the fantasy football-like qualities of the music world and take honest pleasure in the minting and accumulation of proper nouns (more ‘players’, more ‘teams’, more bowl games, more opportunities to be or to appear to be in the know, whether for reasons of self-definition or personal gain, social material or otherwise)
May
COURTSHIP RITUAL ENTERS GODMODE
GREY FOXES, BEACH DAYS
By Nick Sylvester
For being around less than six months, Brooklyn’s Courtship Ritual have quite a bit of confidence. The arrangements are deliberate, skeletal: a drum machine, a synthesizer or guitar loop, a vocal melody. That’s it usually. They commit to every single element. You hear it all. But you also hear the space that acts less confident would fill up. The only other band I know who’s doing this as well are the XX, but I doubt they’re much fun at the bowling alley.
If the synthesizer and guitar playing on “Wild Like Us” reminds me of mid Cocteaus, the synth programming and sense of deliberate imprecision of “Biesenbach on the Beach (Klaus)” has a kiss of Portishead—another natural resource this country has been lacking.
Speaking of Klaus Biesenbach: Yes, the song is inspired by a chance sighting of MoMA PS1’s director on a beach in Brooklyn. He approached the beach, surveyed the surroundings. He stripped, dove into the ocean, re-emerged, walked back to land, put his clothes on, and quickly went away. Grey fox. Beach day.
Courtship Ritual are Basque and Monica Salazar. Both these songs were recorded by Colin Alexander late last year. I did some slight remixing and drum programming. Fresh off that new Deerhunter record, Joe Lambert did the mastering in DUMBO. “Wild Like Us” is available digitally worldwide, and as a limited edition red tint cassette on GODMODE.
COURTSHIP RITUAL
Wild Like Us b/w Biesenbach on the Beach (Klaus)
GODMODE CAT NO GM029
2013
Apr
FASANO - THE BARN - OUT NOW ON CASSETTE AND DIGITAL
“Last Evening” streaming right there.
Buy the cassette at the GODMODE shop.
Buy the digital at iTunes.
Stream the whole thing at Soundcloud.
The debut album by GODMODE’s Matty Fasano. Fasano sang backup vocals with a bunch of us at the final LCD Soundsystem gigs. Electric guitar, voice, and drum programming, recorded to four-track cassette at Brooklyn’s new Silent Barn studio—the first full-length record out of the place as far as we know.
Green cassette. Handstamped, handnumbered, hand-everything’d cover art, in limited run of 100 copies.
* * *
“It turns out GODMODE has its own Frank Ocean to match their balls-deep-in-the-Wipers version of OFWGKTA…” — Awkward Sound.
* * *
ON THE BARN
By Nick Sylvester
FASANO is Matthew Fasano. He sang with a bunch of us in the men’s chorus for those final LCD Soundsystem shows a couple years ago. “The Barn” is his debut cassette, with eight new songs that we recorded to four-track tape at the new Silent Barn studio. If you liked the first Waxahatchee or Grizzly Bear records I think you’ll dig this. 100 handmade, handstamped cassettes are available for purchase at shop.entergodmode.com.
Before I try to convince you that this record is my Bon Iver, let me start by saying: I hate singer-songwriters. The emotional ones, the literary ones, the ones that “understand the modern human condition” and so on. The ones that joke about how the Grammys don’t matter but still show up to accept the award. Pretty much all of them seem really desperate for me to take them seriously and it turns me off. Even the classic indie singer-songwriters that, as an educated contributor to the American musical underground (or something!), I’m supposed to respect, if not adore—it just never feels entirely genuine. What’s the rub? I want to know. It’s not their fault, but I always smell a rat.
And yet here is “The Barn”, which is very much the singer-songwriter debut by Matty Fasano, who records as Fasano. Matty and I recorded it in a day at the new Silent Barn, a DIY performance space in Bushwick. We did it live on a four-track cassette mixer, songs usually in one take, with vocals, drum loops, and electric guitar all stewing together in the room before hitting the microphones. A few songs were completely improvised. We didn’t know it was going to be a record until that’s what it was.
I’ve thought a lot about why I like this singer-songwriter record and not others. I’ve also realized that there are lots of people who feel the same way I do about singer-songwriters. And yet when I play them these songs, they all say the same thing: Something magical happened in that room.
You’ll either hear what I’m talking about or you won’t. What I respond to is the sense of voyeurism—like Fasano didn’t even realize he was being recorded. It’s evocative of a very specific kind of loneliness. The best bedroom recordings have an intimacy to them that’s almost accidental—like we’re not supposed to be hearing what we’re hearing. He’s singing these songs for himself. We’re just lucky to be hearing them.
* * *
FASANO
“The Barn”
GODMODE 2013
cat no: GM026
Songs by Matthew Fasano
Vox and Guitar by Matthew Fasano
Additional Programming by Nick Sylvester
Mixed and Recorded by Nick Sylvester at Silent Barn, BK
Mar
MR. DREAM - MONTREAL SEX MACHINE - COMING SOON
Feb
“DEAR VERONICA VASICKA” AND OTHER ALAN WATTS NEWS
1. Jeremy, Pat, and Mike remixed synth band Dream Affair’s hit single “The Porter” into what’s basically a love letter to Minimal Wave, one of our favorite labels. Here it is below. Happy Valentine’s Day, VV. Mwah!
2. In related minimal techno news, Alan Watts will be playing with A Crash Course In Science at Silent Barn on March 9. This comes off an amazing show at 285 Kent a few weeks ago with La Big Vic and Parquet Courts.
3. Alan Watts and GODMODE are excited to announce the Alan Watts Lecture Series, a bi-monthly cassette club with exclusive Alan Watts live streams, improvisational jams, and new songs in chrysalis. The cassette club is limited to 100 subscribers. If you are interested, please email internet at entergodmode dot com.
4. Alan Watts hit the studio at the end of March to record their debut LP. Like the latest stretch of GODMODE full-lengths, we’re doing this at the eerie and cavernous converted auto garage that is the Silent Barn studio.
Feb
EULA’s new single “I Collapse” debuted today on Pitchfork. Check it out below. The single officially comes out next Tuesday. They play next Thursday at Death By Audio with The Flag and Grooms.
Feb
GODMODE Dark Ops show this friday at big snow
Jan
WILL WELCH || TAKING PICTURES RELEASE || PARADE GROUND @ 187 EAST BROADWAY || 5 JAN 2013
we celebrated the release of will welch’s ‘taking pictures’ this past saturday. many thanks to kyra and grant/bushmills for providing the spirits, and james powers/parade ground for hosting everybody. mark anthony green took the photo above. a comical amount of people rolled through. thank you.
from what i understand we have about 25 copies left of this thing. you can buy one online at the new GODMODE shop: shop.entergodmode.com.
happy monday
NBS
Dec
2012 EXITS GODMODE: NICK SYLVESTER
at the end of march i was in a bad place mentally and wrote the personal inventory that follows. it became a kind of checklist for self-improvement this year, and i referred back to it every few weeks to see how i was doing and try to realign. people badmouth lists but there’s something powerful in their definitiveness and promise and finality. if i do all these things, if i read all these books, if i do all these chores… i like the grimes album fine but really there was no more important list to me this year than the one below. here it is.
2012 so far (written march 28)
-unimpressed with the efficacy of xcelerator hand dryers
-concerned that google alerts somehow missed something
-hesitant to assemble my own food
-too easily swayed into a beer with dinner
-spending too little time with people who love me
-spending too much time with people who don’t
-on the plus side, doing a good job of calling grandparents
-coming to terms with the fact that at least a part of my happiness is dependent on the approval of others
-not saving enough money
-at the sight of better musicians i am not humbled so much as defeated
-at the sight of better writers i am convinced i could do it better if i had the time, which is its own kind of problem
-physically incapable of reading books
-none of my clothes seem right
-with no contrast, gray paint appears to be white
-worried that my failures have somehow made me fearful of the risks necessary to move ahead
-my initial instinct is to change the dialogue by writing, not by doing
-sleeping six hours on average, but distressed by the number of times i have to use the bathroom
-not careful about the things i think about
-paint the kitchen
Dec
2012 EXITS GODMODE: JOSH INTRATOR + MAX TREMBLAY (SLEEPIES)
JOSH INTRATOR (in no particular order):
1. Roomrunner - Demo Cassette and Super Vague EP
2. Speedy Ortiz - Sports EP
3. Discovering EULA - I know Maurice Narcisse came out last year but it was new to me and changed everything…
4. The New York Knicks being relevant again
5. Liz Lemon finally getting married
6. Bad Credit No Credit - The Whole Buffalo
7. Montevallo, AL electing a mayor named “Hollie Cost”
8. The sold out Death By Audio Halloween covers show/Sandy Benefit
9. Heaven’s Gate - High Riser EP
10. GODMODE
MAX TREMBLAY: here ya go brah/bruh/breh…in order:
1. fiona apple - “the idler wheel…”
2. kendrick lamar - “good kid, M.A.A.D. city”
3. angel haze - “reservation”
4. violent change - “suck on the gun”
5. perfume genius - “put your back n 2 it”
6. jessie ware - “devotion”
7. terrible feelings - “shadows”
8. grimes - “visions”
9. dawn richard - “armor on”
10. hell of great singles on less-than-stellar albums: kreayshawn,
“left eye” (colossal shit); 2 chainz, “birthday song”; nicki minaj,
“beez in the trap”; taylor swift, “we are never ever getting back
together”; carly rae jepsen, “this kiss” and “call me maybe” (duh);
rick ross, “triple beam dreams”; GOOD music, “mercy”; bruce
springsteen, “land of hope and dreams”; waka flocka flame, “rooster in
my rari”; et al et al et al
LISTEN
