Country Rock My Bloody Valentine?
Holler, Wild Rose! Hee-Haw: For years adventurous music fans have been bemoaning perpetually MIA shoegazing masters My Bloody Valentine, the groundbreaking British group's skyscraping/waterfall guitars and gloriously demented melodies one of the great sounds from the late '80s/early '90s. Rumor has it that a reunited MBV will perform at Coachella 2008; MBV leader Kevin Shields is similarly rumored to be hard at work on a solo album. Meantime we have bands like Film School, and now, Holler, Wild Rose! to keep the MBV flame alive.
Taking pages from the selected works of Pink Floyd and Radiohead as well as My Bloody Valentine, Holler, Wild Rose! cut-and-paste sonic dementia in large brush strokes. Guitars bleed and sprawl over echo-laden drums; vocalist John Mosloskie apes Thom Yorke like a caged parrot; the songs surge and refract light like a day washed LSD trip. The only real bit of originality Holler, Wild Rose! brings to this mash-up is an almost subliminal infusion of country rock style. It's hard to detect in phantasmagorical tracks like opener "Holler, Wild Rose!," balladic thumper "Mercy Beat," or ambient closer, "Promise Braid," but a country influence is apparent, as if the band (which hails from New Jersey) has spent much time wasting away in some California desert looking for the ghost of Gram Parsons amid the cactus and rattlers. It could be in the guitars which at times recall the laptop steel symphonies of Sneaky Pete Drake, or maybe it's the minor drawl which invades Mosloskie's otherwise Yorke inspired vocals.
But beyond exact influences, Holler, Wild Rose! know how to organize their collective spew (splattered forth by Ryan Smith [drums/percussion], Ryan Cheresnick [guitars], Scott Vangenderen [bass], Mike Ortega [keys/guitars/vocals] and Lou D'Elia [guitars]) into compelling music that defies easy categorization. Space rock? Gregorian odes coupled to ambient time travel? Holler, Wild Rose!'s debut, Our Little Hymnal, sets the clock for the heart of the sunrise, blasting their prayers into deep space.
"Marylawn Hair" flails guitars and drum loops like the best MBV; "Sun Vines" briefly thumps a mocking Liverpudlian beat over finger-plucked guitars and vocals of pure woe.
"Marylawn Hair" (MP3, 5:04)
"Sun Vines" (MP3, 7:03)
Maria Schneider's Sky Blue: These days, big band music is pretty much forgotten amid our nation's obsession with fast food, fast music and fast self satisfaction. But for those who take the time to listen, the genre remains a healthy, vital ingredient to American jazz. New York based composer Maria Schneider leads one of the world's best big bands, and she has garnered multiple commissions and packed houses as well as a 2005 Grammy Award for her album, Concert in the Garden (the first Grammy winning recording with Internet-only sales). Sky Blue, the X album from the Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra, is a deeply swinging, deeply felt collection of five tracks that have all the ebb and flow of a swollen river in need of release.
Three selections from the album--"Aires De Lando," "Rich's Piece," and "Cerculean Skies"--show Schneider to be a gifted composer of atmospheric sound pieces, more like sonic impressions from a dream that roaring tributes to "Sing Sing Sing."
"Aires De Lando" (MP3, 1:39)
"Cerulean Skies" (MP3, 1:41)
"Rich's Piece" (MP3, 0:59)
