...Who Calls So Loud

photo from Barclay House show August 26, 2008 by Megan Lloyd, Baltimore area Photographer


After tenuring in influential bands such as Portraits of Past and Funeral Diner, the members of ...Who Calls So Loud formed a new band in the wake of the Funeral Diner break up and quickly put out a full length double 10" and a four song 12" EP in the matter of a year before suddenly breaking up.

What the band leaves in their wake is a twelve song discography spread out between two records and an all-encompassing discography cassette released on Utarid Tapes earlier this year. Due to their previous projects, ...Who Calls So Loud had a devout following before they even released their debut LP. They released their self titled double 10" amidst a flurry of critical acclaim and fan support.

The band's sound expanded upon the framework laid down by Portraits of Past and Funeral Diner to create a dense, epic, and dark soundscape on their debut LP. Impressive, dynamic drumming and a growling bass tone frame the frantic, yet restrained and intelligent guitar playing, which often makes compelling use of rhythmic shifts, and delay-washed introspective passages. The vocals are great, filled with powerful emotion and consistent motifs and themes lyrically.

The jewel of their discography in my opinion, though, is their self titled 12" EP. Each side features two songs: one instrumental intro song that leads into two of their finest and most diverse songs. On the A Side, the glitchy "Hey, I'm Outside" leads into what is the snappy, snare-driven "M'ed Palms", the band's shortest proper song. On the B Side, the moody, weird "Resonant Grain Silo" leads into the epic, nearly 9 minute long "Lark Vs Rascal", which in my mind is the band's best song. It swirls and builds, decays and re-blooms, successfully uses post-rock elements, and showcases the band's ability to write an absolutely beautiful yet crushing song without ever becoming too redundant and drawn out.

I had the privilege of seeing these guys play Barclay House in Baltimore on their last U.S. tour, and I'm glad I did.

Buy the 2x10" from Robotic Empire

Buy the 12" LP from Protagonist

...Who Calls So Loud on Myspace

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...Who Calls So Loud 2x10" LP (2008)



...Who Calls So Loud 12" EP (2008)

Tera Melos

Thursday night was fucking cold. I'm talking like ten degrees cold. For some reason I thought that it would be a great idea to not wear a jacket during the walk from the car to The Blue House, and to my surprise it wasn't that bad. Thank you Cannabis and other plant I can't spell.
We arrived at the show like a half hour after the show was supposed to start. We heard a band playing, but it wasn't Tera so we just stood outside and smoked. This was the first house show I have been to in Olympia, so I had no idea what to expect. We made our way down to the basement, which was pretty nice, and watched the first band play. The band was made up of the kids who lived in the house, I forget what they were called. It was okay. They did the switcheroo like twice with drums and guitar. One cool thing that they did was use some effect to make some Red Sparrowes-esque effect on the guitar that sounded like wind or something.
Tera Melos played second and it was pretty sweet. The guitar was a bit low, and the vocals were pretty high, but it may have been because I was standing behind the band near the bass cab. I didn't think I was going to like the new drummer because I normally don't like it when bands switch members, but this dude was legit. The guitarist, who looked like he was shrooming, was the focal point of the set, aside from the kid playing the bells and unplugging the guitar amp and the kid who was freaking the fuck out the whole time. We have dubbed that dude Freak Out Kid. This was the second time I have seen this kid, the first was at a Kidcrash show in Portland. There is a video of him, and when I get it it will be up here.
Anyways, Tera played a few songs that I'm guessing are off their new album, I didn't know them but they were pretty cool. They also played a Pantera cover, a bunch of songs from "A Complex Full of Phantoms", and some melodies. "40 Rods" was also played. After Tera was done we left.
Tera Melos is a math-rock band from California that has evolved from a noodley instrumental band to a more effects driven math-rock band with vocals. Aside from their full lengths they have a split with By The End of Tonight and an EP of covers. Its all below, as well as a video from way back in the day. Word.


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Demo


A Complex Full of Phantoms (split with By The End of Tonight)


Drugs to the Dear Youth


Tera Melos


Idioms Volume I

Lee Gull

For years, the Pacific Northwest has fostered a vibrant, famous scene. Artists from the likes of Mudhoney and Nirvana, and the offspring of the grunge explosion, as well as diverse acts like Elliott Smith, Carissa's Wierd, Minus the Bear, Botch ,The Kidcrash, just to name a small few, leave just about no genre unturned. Record labels like K Records, brainchild of Calvin Johnson, have put out records from important independents artists for years, including Phil Elverum (The Microphones/Mount Eerie), Modest Mouse, Kimya Dawson, Karl Blau, Little Wings, Mirah, The Blow, and Jason Anderson.

The K Records family has spawned it's own quiet revolution in the Pacific Northwest over the past decade and a half, nowhere near as renowned as the grunge movement of the early '90's, but, in the eyes of some, far more important. On his debut record under the name Lee Gull, Lee Baggett, musical companion of K's own Kyle Field (Little Wings) as well as a member of the band Be Gulls, stakes his claim as an important songwriter in his own right.

The songs on Burn'r are not even comparable to the more existential, introspective laments of Baggett's peers Elverum, Field, Johnson, and more recently, Adrian Orange. They are mostly upbeat, jangly, lo-fi psychedelic pop gems that sound like they could have been the result of Neil Young fucking around in the garage on the 4 track after getting too stoned. They retain a hazy, fuzzy quality that doesn't take away from the quality of the music, but rather adds to it, and brings to mind not only artists like Young and Crazy Horse, but Will Oldham and associate Kyle Field, as well (if they dropped acid and decided to write more guitar solos). Songs like "Clover Hill", the album's opener, showcase Baggett's knack for witty, clever, and catchy songwriting. The music is jammy and fun, complete with guitar solos that never seem too overdone. Burn'r is without a doubt one of the most slept-on records to be released, not only in 2008, but of the decade. This guy has only 48 listeners on Last.fm!

Download this, and then buy Burn'r from Marriage Records or one his other releases People in a Position to Know.

Unfortunately, this is the only release I have by Lee Baggett. I know he has put out several other records, including a split with Little Wings. If anyonse has these please leave a comment or post a link in the C-Box!

Here's a video of what would appear to be Kyle Field and Lee Baggett playing frisbee while "Where Does the Damage Lie?" plays in the background:

Lee Gull "Where does the damage lay?" from greg olin on Vimeo.

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Burn'r (2008)

Spermwhales

Spermwhales is the ambient/minimialist solo project of Brent Grant of Ze Ultra Boys, Man Pretty and Fuck! Don Flamenco. His spacey music reminds me of doing a bunch of acid or mushrooms. One time I had a conversation with him about music and he told me that the song he was playing for me was the music to a horrible trip. I believe that 100%. We've played some shows with him in the past, and I've seen him play a handful of times, and his live performances are very interesting to watch. He uses two little amps and a shit ton of effects including a Nintendo DS. He told me how he makes the sounds on that thing one time, but its a secret.

I remember this summer he was all bummed out because when he played shows people wouldn't pay attention and would talk and shit, and it really made me angry. It was really fucked up, but after a while he began to make music again and played at my house. Brent asked me to put his stuff up on here, and seeing as I asked him for this shit months ago I'm putting it up now. Below is his discography to date, which includes an unreleased album (Largest Toothed) that was going to be put out on my now defunct tape label. I also have a tape that he recorded in my room, but its back in Maryland I don't think he would want it on the Internet. Spermwhales is signed to Little Furry Things records and you can buy his stuff form his myspace I think. He plays shows again, so if you're around Maryland you should go see him play. Also, his other band Fuck! Don Flamenco is having a VHS release show sometime in December or something and should be pretty cool. I know if I'm around I'll be there. Here is a video called "Dreaming".

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Time Warp EP


Largest Toothed


Easy Visual


Endless Sea of Clouds


Natural Echoes


Spermwhales/Color Rabbit Split


Spermwhales/The Shy Violet Split

Deathrats

Happy Thanksgiving! Insert obligatory comment on Native American genocide and capitalism here.

Ok, now that we've gotten that out of the way, here's Deathrats.

Hailing from Washington D.C., Deathrats plays fast, crusty hardcore and has garnered comparisons to bands like Dropdead, I Object, and Deaththreat. They feature a female vocalist and I feel their sound is also akin to bands like Punch and members of Deaththreat's more well know project, His Hero is Gone as well. Lyrics focus on subjects like self-image, feminism, materialism, isolation, and family structure.

With bands from the D.C./Baltimore metro area like Lotus Fucker, Cringe, The Guilt, No Minion, and others popping up in the past few years, D.C. has once again proven that it still holds relevance in the massive hardcore/emo scene it helped foster in the mid '80's.

Deathrats' Blogspot

To Live a Lie Records (Buy the 7" here!!)

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Deathrats 7" (2009)

Sigur Rós

Sigur Rós is an Icelandic post-rock band. We had the chance to see these guys at Bonnaroo, but we all got really fucked up and passed out. Sigur Rós has been around since '94 and have a shit ton of releases and one dvd documentary thing called "Heima" which is really amazing. Once again, I kick myself in the teeth because I missed a Bonnaroo screening of this movie, but I did get a chance to view it around a year ago at David Krasner's house. The vocals are done in either Icelandic or "Hopelandic", which is a mixture of Icelandic, English, and nonsense created by Jón Birgisson. They are also really into wordplay; their band name would translate to "Victory Rose", but the band is named after Jón's younger sister, and their remix album translates to "disappointment", but it means "Variations on Von/Hope". Pretty cool huh? I tried to collect as many releases by Sigur Rós as I could, and I have them available below. I wish I could find a download of Heima, but I wasn't able to, so sorry about that. I still think that all of you should watch it though. I also have below live footage of the band playing "Gobbledigook" with Bjork at an Icelandic benefit concert.



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()


Angels of The Universe


Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do


Heim


Hlemmur


Hljómalind


Hoppípolla


Hvarf


Live at the Barbican Hall


Með Suð í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust


Sæglópur


Takk


Von Brigdi


Von


We Play Endlessly


Ágætis Byrjun

Charles Bronson

This is a band that needs no introduction. Charles Bronson was one of the seminal powerviolence acts active throughout 1990's. Their prolific output was eventually cataloged into a two disc discography collection, featuring an impressive output of 100+ songs.

You can explain Charles Bronson's vernacular in four words: young and pissed off. Front man Mark McCoy's lyrics focus on subjects like straightedge, skateboarding, hating just about everything, and general apathy and misanthropy. Check it out.

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Complete Discocrappy

мища - New Songs

So we just got the unmastered tracks for our split with Bears! and James put them up on his blog. I don't have the mp3s yet so if you would like to have them you can get em here. You can hear them on our myspace too. Hopefully we will get them mastered soon so we can send them to Bear Records and get this split pressed and shit. Word.

The Samuel Jackson Five

The Samuel Jackson Five is a post-rock band from Norway. Their sound could be compared to Neil on Impression or Explosions in the Sky I guess. I don't really know anything about them, but I really enjoy listening to their music. They have three albums, all of which are available below. According to their myspace they will be releasing a 5 vinyl discography box set thing with Denovali and Vega Vinyl. This monster release will have all three albums plus unreleased material and what not. Its supposed to be out late '09, so maybe that will be around soon.
Here is the only video I could find. It's from last year in Hanover.


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Same, Same But Different


Easily Misunderstood


Goodbye Melody Mountain

Native & Raein

Today I decided to upload two albums form bands that we have already done posts on. Its Halloween and I'm about to get my wine on, so I'm going to make this really short.
First, Native has released a new record, and we have it available for download. It is out on Sergent House Records and is called "Wrestling Moves", you should buy it if you enjoy it. Second, seeing as Raein is coming to the states in about a month I thought it would be cool to post a Raein cd that I have but didn't put up when we did our Raein post. It has a remix of "From 3 to 1 in 2 and 4" and an untitled song. Both of these songs are pretty electronic but they still rule. If you get the chance, go see Raein when they come to some select cities, or even better, go see them in Chicago with Native!


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Raein

From 3 to 1 in 2 and 4

Native

Wrestling Moves

Green is Mean

I don't really have any kind of formal information about this band at all.

What I do now is that they were a screamo/emotive post-hardcore band from the Frederick, MD area around the turn of the century. A friend of mine's old brother was friends with the group and gave him their music, and he in turn gave it to me.

The music is reminiscent of bands like Funeral Diner, in that it varies between loud, heavy parts with unrestrained, screamed vocals provided by multiple vocalists, that still retain a distinct melody followed by more mellow interludes featuring clean guitar tones; there are also parts which feature the shouted vocals over clean guitar parts. However, the band has a very original sound, with prominent, fuzzy bass lines and melodic guitar lines that often dissolve in almost punctuated riffs while the rhythm carries the songs along without making them sound spastic at all. The songs are technical without being too complex or show-offy.

I really like these guys, and I wish I knew a little more about them. I do know that some of the members now play in some bands from Baltimore which I somehow stumbled upon, but I can't remember their names and can't remember how I found them.

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Green Is Meaner Than All Your Bullies

La Quiete

La Quiete is an incredible screamo band from Italy. They share a drummer with Raein and are currently touring in Australia. I can't think of anything to write about this band that will do them any justice, but if you have never heard of LAQ you really need to get on that. It has taken me a very long time to collect these albums, and i still do not have all of their material. A good portion of their stuff is splits/compilations, but they do have some full lengths and eps. I do not have the following:
1. Verso La Fine. Benefit Compilation Against Morini Breeding.
2. Memento Mori
Here is a video of the song "Metempsicosi Del Fine Ultimo:Nevrastenica Oscillazione Fra Poli Estremi" being played in Cooksville, Tennessee.




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Split with The Apoplexy Twist Orchestra


Split with K.C. Milian


La Fine Non e La Fine


Split with Acrimonie


Self Titled


Split with The Pine


Lack of Originality Tape


Split with Catena Collapse


Split with Louise Cyphre


Self Titled CDM


Tenpeun


Song from Emo Armageddon


The Microwave Says to the Pace Maker


Split with Phoenix Bodies


This Is Your Life Compilation


Wayfarer's All Compilation



Cover of The Cure's "Siamese Twins"