Amniotic’s Abstract Liquid Guitar with Vocal Textures

More sound art than commercial audio product, this album which Amniotic describes as “lo-fi sounds from the Seaford Underground” combines liquid guitars and bass with improvisational vocals that are often barely discernible. Sometimes it’s a quick stitch of melody, or spoken word poetry or lo-fidelity recordings of a disconnected, discordant tune. And then from time to time, you get actual melodic lines and lyrics such as those on “The Valley of Wine” and “The Message is Clear” (although to be honest, it wasn’t all that clear to me).

There are no drums, no overt beats, no loops. Instead, the minimal instrumentation uses sound as a texture, weaving vaguely surreal field recordings and stringed instruments into a bizarre experience straddling the line between art and chaos, between reality and nightmare.

These questions occur to me while listening to the massive, 17-track album Let the Dogs Erode: Is this the ghost of melodies past? Is this a packaged product or a drug? And on songs like “Soliel,” is this the sung melancholia of a million aborted fetuses who once swam in amniotic fluids?

The artist name actually makes sense in a strange way. If amniotic fluid or liquor amnii is the nourishing and protecting liquid contained by the amniotic sac of a pregnant woman, then this music is the nourishing, flowing water of your subconscious which feeds nightmares and slow-motion dream sequences.

It’s tender, it’s unsettling, it’s fragile, it’s awash in reverb, and yet sometimes it’s just what the doctor ordered. Who knew field recordings plus guitar music could produce something so dangerous?

Artist’s Self Description:
Started improvising with a whole heart in 2006 on modified guitars and a home-made drum kit (made by my collaborator – Carl Henderson).
Began recording and editing jam sessions.
Began recording solo work in the beginning of 2010.
Collated works into double album in 2011.
Studying at the University of Brighton currently.

Details:

• Amniotic’s album on Bandcamp
• Caul-Imprint, the artist’s blog.

Allison Weiss’ lovelorn yet buoyant acoustic live album

Artist: Allison Weiss  | Album: Live at Sidewalk, NYC

A cross between the witty prose of Suzanne Vega and the young poppy angst of Avril Lavigne, Weiss is shiny and buoyant, even in her lovelorn pain. You can tell she’s thoroughly enjoying herself onstage, performing her music and conversing with her audience intimately. She performs the entire set on acoustic guitar, making this sound more like a jam session on your back porch after dinner than an actual album. But that’s the appeal of Weiss’ music and the personality that shows from her spiels in-between songs. Her pop is the approachable kind, like that of a talented friend’s, or a beatnik cousin’s — the person you can count on to break out her original songs around a campfire. Favorite tracks include the jump-up-and-dance album opener “I’m Ready,” the Suzanne Vega-ish “July 25, 2007,” the bittersweet end-of-relationship “I Had to Do It,” the angry “Yer Goin’ Down,” and the cover version of Rihanna’s “Umbrella.”

She knows her guitar well, and plays it with enough variety to keep it interesting. Can’t wait for her to finish her studio album. Interestingly enough, this Athens, Georgia-based artist raised a bunch of money via Kickstarter in order to record her album. Her initial goal was $2,000 but by the end of the campaign, she got more than 7k pledged.  In gratitude, she performed a marathon live-streaming concert of her singing all 50 of her songs on one afternoon, and she’s releasing it as a gift to all her donors. Talent + skill + indie marketing savvy = an artist living out her dreams.  More power to her, we say. 

DETAILS:
12 MP3s encoded at 128 kbps, 44.1 kHz stereo. Total run time of 44 minutes. 

Download page for Allison Weiss’ live album (one zip file around 41 MB) 

Artist website.

Tinyfolk’s tender, tiny moments on a ukelele

Tinyfolk: The things we cherish are small indeed.

Four songs is all it takes for folk musician Tinyfolk to transport you straight from wherever you are to a warm summer night in a back porch in rural Indiana replete with cricketchirps, where he records 3 of the 4 songs on this EP. (The fourth “Lunches” was recorded in his coat room due to rainy weather.) All he uses is a baritone ukelele, a minimum of chord changes, and his thin, melodic voice to craft folk music that is fragile and sad — perfect for early evenings or melancholic train rides. “The things we cherish are small indeed” is an EP about small things, small moments, and the beauty in the ordinary moments of everyday. Highly recommended!

Track Talk
Track 1 “Arbitrary Wist” contains several lyrical pauses that bring heartbreak up from beneath the surface. Track 2 “Dearest Foal” is a cute ditty giving fatherly advice to an offspring. Track 3 “Housemartin” tracks the adventures of a bird that’s made its way into a man’s house. Which could be a metaphor for something else. But then again, maybe not. Track 4 “Lunches” is probably the most fleshed-out song (as well as the longest) which is a hopeful love song about sharing lunches.

Details:
4 MP3s (encoded at 320 kbps , 44.1 kHz, stereo) and artwork (.jpg)

Release page on the Collective Family website.

Download all MP3 files in one zip file (18 MB).