Dreaming The Seeds Of An Extra Life

I had no expectations with this record - and the track ' Righteous Seed' floored me. The album - Dream Seeds. The band - Extra Life, a Brooklyn collective with connections to Yukon, Zs and Dirty Projectors. That said, nothing is easy here, and I can't say this will stay with me forever, or even for long. There are elements of Xiu Xiu, Neutral Milk Hotel, VAST, Animal Collective and indeed Dirty Projectors in this acrobatic, verbose, bombastic melange, and some of it comes off as pompous and flowery as it does eloquent and haunting. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the audaciousness of Charlie Looker's quite unique vocal stylings and the religiosity of some of the compositions. Above all, it isn't an easy ride, with many twists and turns, and for that I am grateful for the experience.

Buy Dream Seeds here or here.

Seth Is Frightening - B.Hoo!

You might remember some time ago I introduced you to Seth Frightening (AKA Sean Kelly), a Sonorous Circle acolyte whose album The Prince and His Madness was one messed up anti-folk delight. Well he has a couple new releases under his belt, both of which came to light in the waning hours of 2011. B.Hoo and High School follow in the SF tradition, i.e. more than a little weird (and free! Grab em both here), yet it's the hooks that are buried deep within these tracks that truly delivers. Listen to 'Wake Up' from B.Hoo below and tell me that there isn't a cracked genius at work here. sure, it's mildly disturbing, like the elongated dream-state moments in a Lynch film before the hobo or the backwards-talking dwarf makes an entrance, and you can be assured that rather head down that terrain, we may just enter an aeroplane over the sea and land in a land where up is down and black is white, yet it all seems more than OK. I so want Seth Frightening to bring out a Jeff Mangum opus; here's hoping it's just around the corner.



Seth Frightening - Wake Up