FOUNDRY FIELD RECORDINGS

The Foundry Field Recordings are in a lot of ways, exactly as the picture above shows and as their name tells - almost a rogue group of audiophiles, out in the world to discover any sound they can and see what they can then do with it. Forming out of what seems like field studies with lead Billy Schuh and a variety of artists and sound equipment, the collected recordings were all brought to you in their release, Prompts/Miscues.

The first song that drew me in was Buried Beneath the Winter Frames. I admit, it was because of the close resemblance the song had to a favorite group of mine, Sweden's Radio Dept. Beyond that, I found a bit of My Bloody Valentine and Snowden in them, with the loud, fuzz guitars and vocals that sound almost as if they are coming through the other end of a pay phone. "Shoegaze-pop resonating with strategic feedback and dance-worthy hooks" creates some interesting "modest nostalgia".

mp3 - Buried Beneath the Winter Frames
mp3 - Holding the Pilots/Holding the Facts

SUPERMAN: Brainiac Attacks

We don't usually (read:HAVE NOT YET) covered comic books or much art here at the Test Pilot...BUT WE LOVE IT, and we wish we could post more. Also, in a effort to hopefully get more posts and vary the topics, Co-Pilot Greg Fisher and Bombadier/Navigator Mark Kaesgen will put forth what they can.

Here, with his phoned in review of the animated Superman: Brainiac Attacks, that recently aired on the Cartoon Network, is Co-Pilot Greg:
"When I started watching Superman: Braniac Attacks, I went in with sort of an open mind. I had heard bad things about it, so I went in with no expectations. I am not a huge, die-hard DCAU fan, although I have watched and enjoyed many of the shows. It bothered me that it didn't take place in any continuity, but whatever. I began watching it and it started off OK. Nothing much happening. Lex Luthor is portrayed as a moron as opposed to the cunning, malicious Lex DCAU fans are used to seeing. About ten or fifteen minutes in, the action/crapulence starts. Braniac attacks some Lex Luthor technology building in the middle of nowhere that is responsible for the creation of a satellite that will fire lasers to defend the Earth from meteors and such. Superman begins the battle with Braniac to stop him from taking over the laser satellite weapon thing. There a lot of missiles and stuff being fired at Superman and the laser satellite shoots him upwards of 1204 times. This fight goes on for about forty or fifty minutes. Well, I'm sure it was only 15, but it seemed like days. I began drifting in and out of sleep at this point. Then I became really frustrated at Lex's crappy dialogue and went to go see if anyone messaged me on myspace."

Personally, I watched the whole thing. I found it to be watchable but nothing I would sit through again. As someone who prefers the meat and potatoes of all the comic universes (Marvel: X-Men, Spiderman, etc. and DC: Superman, Batman, etc.), I don't care for all the numerous villains that showed up in one issue 20 years ago and prefer a simple Superman story. The story was decent (Lex tries to team with Brainiac to bring down Superman) and the animation was iffy. Overall, I didn't care for the 40 year old, aw-shucks Clark Kent and it seemed like it could have been a standard JLA episode.

If you are a DCAU (DC Animated Universe) fan and want to see it, go here or keep your TiVo's set to the Cartoon Network if you want to see it yourself.

Be Greg's friend at myspace.

NEW DEARS SINGLE - 'Hate Then Love'

If you follow the blogosphere, you probably heard about the Montreal, Smith's sounding band the Dears. Their debut album, No Cities Left, hit at the end of 2004 to mixed hype. The album got off the ground with songs like Lost in the Plot and We Can Have It, but dudded out overall most seemed to feel.

Their next-at-bat comes out everywhere at the end of August, titled Gang of Losers. Hate Then Love is a single I have off of it and while it is off the new album, I swear I heard it before. Maybe I heard it in one of their in-studio sessions, I am not sure, but I liked it then and it is good with the full production.

Be sure to also visit the Dears myspace page often until the release date, as they will be streaming various tracks off the new album.

mp3 - Hate Then Love

Click HERE for more.

AIR TRAFFIC

Hmmm. This band is being lauded as a next Coldplay(!!!) by influential UK DJ, BBC Radio 1's Steve Lamaqc. In his weekly chat with influential US DJ, KCRW's Nic Harcourt, the two were discussing what UK bands can make the large jump across the pond to the States and make a impact. Lamacq said that Air Traffic is probably the best pre-packaged band that is ready to make the jump and that their record company (EMI) won't have to do much to sell them and would really have to screw it up big for them not to succeed. CRAZY! That is a large compliment from Sir Lamacq and I can't really back him up on this. A mix of jingly, piano driven indie rock-pop, it hits a note with the single 'Just Abuse Me' but the other two don't seem in line.

Check out Air Traffic's myspace page for their available songs and keep your ears peeled for the US landing.

Steady As She Goes VIDEO

This video is awesome! Directed by indie-film god Jim Jarmusch, it features the Raconteurs boys in a downhill Derby race, all with Paul Reubens/PeeWee Herman masterminding the race! Hilarity ensues.

Quicktime Link
Windows Media Link

BLOC PARTY TALKS 2nd ALBUM TO TORONTO STAR

Bloc Party's Kele Okereke talks to the Toronto Star about recording the band's second album.

"We've pretty much nearly recorded all of the backing tracks. We didn't record any of the vocals yet, so I suppose that'll take another two weeks," says Okereke, 24. "The act of creating the songs, when we write songs, we tend to do very quickly, but the recording process is something I used to get quite frustrated by. We're still getting it in relatively quickly ... we've been recording for about two months while other bands go in the studio for a whole year. I'm always amazed at people who can do that. It would drive me mad."

LINK

From Large Hearted Boy

NEWS: SUFJAN STREAMS AVALANCE

If you are a Sufjan fan like me, you will be happy to hear that "...the Asthmatic Kitty website is streaming the first quarter of The Avalanche, Sufjan Stevens' Illinois outtakes collection. They'll be unveiling a new piece of the album every week up until July 11, the album's release date." It seems a lot of the bloggers already got their hands on this album some how but all I can do is scour elbo.ws and the Hype Machine for tunes. Nonetheless, the release is a month away so I guess I can hold out.

From Pitchfork

AMY MILLAN

Stars poster girl, Amy Millan has her first solo effort coming out in Canada May 30th on Arts and Crafts International. As far as I have found, no US release date yet which seems odd.

Of the 3 tracks I have heard, Skinny Boy is definitely the best and the other two sound like they are from a completely different, quiet country CD. Check the mp3s below for a taste and buy the import should you want more.

mp3 - Skinny Boy
mp3 - Baby I
mp3 - Come Home Loaded Roadie

Check her myspace page for another track, Losin You.

VOOM BLOOMS UPDATE!

I wandered across the Voom Blooms myspace page and saw that they have 3 NEW TRACKS up. They sound less authentic as the London Heads EP and seem to wander into the Arctic Monkeys territory. The standout track I feel is Lovers, a bit of their old sound with some Editors and Interpol (I know, their synonymous) weaving and thumping guitars, but give them all a whirl.

It looks like they are going to try and release another single in the fall and ideally have a album following that. They also have some 'making of' footage for the single Anna.

LIVE: Cold War Kids and Tapes n' Tapes

I can't believe I forgot to blog on this already! I have to say upfront - I bought the tickets initially because of the buzz around Tapes n' Tapes but as the day approached, my love for Cold War Kids grew and GREW AND GREW to the point that I nearly forgot who TnT was. That said, Cold War Kids rocked the house and left TnT trying to catch up. Even Bombardier Kaesgen who joined me for the mission, who was new to both bands, was impressed by CWK. The concert was at the Grog Shop, the smallest venue I have been to in Cleveland, so pretty tiny and a closeup venue to see a band.

The opening band, The Very Knees I could not get into but they had a old film projector showing some home made movies/videos by the band that were mostly funny.

Cold War Kids rocked a lot, more then I expected and I was thrilled by their performance. The guys have SO much energy that they were throwing chest bumps, back bumps, hand smacks, everything they had at each other like a pro sports player getting his team hyped for the big game. Arguably, Saint John is the best track they performed and just lit it up. All the extra sounds and effects you hear are replicated - be it smacking a beer bottle, loose cymbals, tamborines on top of the drum kit, whatever - these guys brought everything and the kitchen sink to the performance and threw it all out there.


By the time Tapes 'n Tapes rolled around, I had lost my space up front due to more money in the meter and I lost my buzz for wanting to see them. They have this one guy in their band that, to me, seemed like they plucked a random person out of the crowd to play any instrument he wanted. He started off in some African tribal dance, banging a drumstick and tamborine, moved onto tinkling the keys, then onto smashing a tamborine into a cymbal and last I saw, blowing into a mini-tuba. Weird and off key but the kids seemed to thrash to the band like they were Metallica.

Overall, a good night with a decent crowd. I also had to deal with the venue paparazzi – there were maybe 5 other people taking pictures besides me and they seemed to feel because they had a camera, they had a license to go in front of you and they get really annoyed if you tried to take a picture the same time as them or your flash interferred. Annoying. Let's all mellow out and just enjoy the music.There was also one annoying girl who looked like Horatio Sanz’s character ‘Carol’ from SNL who was standing up front but just talked through the entire set(s).

Download mp3s and buy what CDs Cold War Kids have to offer here.

mp3 - Cold War Kid - Saint John
mp3 - Cold War Kid - We Used To Vacation
mp3 - Cold War Kid - Hospital Beds

It seems I am not the only one who agrees that CWK trounced TnT on the stage. In my effort to locate a link for TnT mp3's, I found this which is basically all the blogs reviews from the live shows along with some TnT mp3s.

THE ALBA COMETH

As many of you kids probably know, the 2006MTV Movie Awards airs tomorrow (THUR) at 9PM. Hosted by none other than hottie tottie herself, Jessica Alba, musical performers include Gnarls Barkley with Wolfmother lending their howl to performing during the post-show. All I have heard thus far is that Jake Gyllenhal accepts for Best Kiss for the heat he and Heath Ledger generated on-screen in Brokeback Mountatin. If you are into that kind of thing, not that there's anything wrong with it, you will enjoy.

The Tripwire via Official site

NEWS: Doves Milk Some Cows, Work On New Album

The Tripwire via NME have spoken to Doves and have news on the next album.

"Doves recently began work on new material for their next album. The all seeing eye of NME spotted a message from the trio on their official website, where they confirmed the follow-up to Some Cities is now underway.

The band stated: "We've been in there (the farm) for a couple of weeks now mainly setting gear up and ironing out our usual technical problems! The idea is to record everything here and maybe mix elsewhere & produce the record ourselves, but knowing us lot, that could all change if we get sick of the smell of cow s*** on the farm! It's very early days so don't expect anything too soon, but there's loads of ideas kicking around & we're all well excited about where we're going to go on this one."

While the band plays Farmer Brown for the next few months, they will not be playing any live dates for the remainder of 2006."