A Storm of Light "And We Wept the Black Ocean Within"

A recent band (they started around 2007), they are sometimes labeled as post-metal and other times as doom metal. From Brooklyn, not all this trendy hype bands are born: this band is a fine argument.
This record has a more doomy approach, according to my ears. Their music features slow and dense rhythms, with guitars raging the air with their high distorted notes. Blend despair with music and you get A Storm of Light.
The tracklist is:

1. Adrift (the albatross I)
2. Vast and Endless
3. Black Ocean
4. Thunderhead
5. Undertow (the albatross II)
6. Mass
7. Leaden Tide
8. Breach (the albatross III)
9. Descent
10. Iron Heart

My favourite tracks are: "Black Ocean", "Mass" and "Iron Heart". The whole album is great though: and it's the band's debut record, don't forget this. Since then, they've released 2 more albums.
Their myspace can be accessed here.
The album is available here.

Below is the third track, "Black Ocean":

[gig reviews] Epic Randomness at Gala dos Maristas and Os Passos Em Volta at Padaria do Povo

Yesterday I saw two good gigs: Epic Randomness' first gig (at Gala dos Maristas) and Os Passos Em Volta gig at Padaria do Povo.
First I'll talk about Epic Randomness' show: they only played one song, which was a cover of "Paradise City" (Guns 'n Roses song, in case you didn't know). It went really well, since it was, basically, their first gig. They were also in front of a big crowd, around more or less 725 people. They behaved really well, I must say... Now it's time they give more shows and make some EP's or merch. While playing, the drummer, Abreu, made some remarkable efforts on improvisations to accompain the guitarrist when he was "showing off".
These are some photographs I took from this event: photograph 1, photograph 2, photograph 3, photograph 4, photograph 5, photograph 6, photograph 7, photograph 8, photograph 9, photograph 10 and photograph 11.

Next was Os Passos em Volta concert, held at Padaria do Povo, located at Campo de Ourique, in Lisbon, Portugal. It was one hell of a show, one of the best I've seen from this band. They played well, synchronized in their own way, with their distinct sound. I couldn't take any pictures, because I didn't have my camera's batteries loaded. At this gig, there was even a crowdsurf, which was funny and at the same time cool. There was also some mosh held along some songs. These photographs were taken by a friend of mine and are available on Os Passos em Volta's myspace:

Big Black "Atomizer"

Big Black's career started around 1982. They didn't found much mainstream success, however they've influenced the early industrial rock scene and have been remarked as a "must" for any person who's into noise. Their use of provocative lyrics garnered much attention.
This album entitled "Atomizer" (which is their debut album), as received good reviews .Take this into consideration: All Music gave it 4.5 out of 5 stars. Their brutal slashing guitars and great use of drum machines were widely influencial. This album is included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. I know this sounds awkward, but the singer's [Steve Albini] voice of Gray Matter's vocals.
The track list for this album is:

1. "Jordan, Minnesota"
2. "Passing Complexion"
3. "Big Money"
4. "Kerosene"
5. "Bad Houses"
6. "Fists of Love"
7. "Stinking Drunk"
8. "Bazooka Joe"
9. "Strange Things"
10. "Cables" (live)

My favourite ones are: "Passing Complexion", "Stinking Drunk", "Big Money" and also "Kerosene". The album's lenght is 37 minutes and 37 seconds. The whole album is really dense and has a lot of cohesion along the song's transitions. Some people who aren't into "noise" should think about this fact: this work has more thoughts behind than it seems.
You can get the album here too.

Below is "Passing Complexion":

SPK "Zamie Lehmanni: Songs of Byzantine Flowers"

SPK formed in 1978 in Sydney, Australia, was a 1980s and early 1990s industrial music and noise music group. SPK stands for many names. Probably, the most important of them all, that influenced two members of the band, Graeme Revell and Neil Hill, was Sozialistisches Patientenkollektiv. This album that I'm reviewing is about the post-industrial SPK, more commercially oriented (however, I consider this album to be an exception, since it isn't as synthpop-ish as "Machine Age Voodoo", the previous album). This one is more about electronic orchestral work: it can also be labeled as contemporary classical ambient.
The track list is the following:

1. "Invocation (to Secular Heresies)" - 5:16
2. "Palms Crossed in Sorrow" - 5:05
3. "Romanz in Moll (Romance in a Minor Key)" - 4:15
4. "In the Dying Moments" - 6:41
5. "In Flagrante Delicto" - 7:31
6. "Alocasia Metallica" - 6:07
7. "Necropolis" - 5:29
8. "The Garden of Earthly Delights" - 3:18
9. "The Doctrine of Eternal Ice" - 4:25

My favourite tracks are: "In the Dying Moments", "In Flagrante Delicto", "Necropolis" and "The Garden of Earthly Delights". The album's lenght is 48 minutes and 10 seconds.
The song "In Flagrante Delicto" is marvelous and features angelic vocals, backed up by haunting and obscure dark ambient sounds.
You can get the album here.

As a preview to this album, try hearing "In Flagrante Delicto" below:

The Monks "Black Monk Time"

Formed in mid 60s, in Germany, this garage rock phenomenon is usually acclaimed as one of the best garage rock bands and a good proto-punk example too. They're considered by many music critics and musicians as a great 60's obligatory garage rock reference. I think they sure deserve to be in Rock & Roll's Hall of Fame. They're still active, since they reunited in 1999.
This album, "Black Monk Time" was their first and only album released. Their label by that time was Polydor Records.
The track list is the following:
1. "Monk Time" – 2:42
2. "Shut Up" – 3:11
3. "Boys Are Boys and Girls Are Choice" – 1:23
4. "Higgle-Dy-Piggle-Dy" – 2:28
5. "I Hate You" – 3:32
6. "Oh, How to Do Now" – 3:14
7. "Complication" – 2:21
8. "We Do Wie Du" – 2:09
9. "Drunken Maria" – 1:44
10. "Love Came Tumblin' Down" – 2:28
11. "Blast Off!" – 2:12
12. "That's My Girl" – 2:24

The album's lenght is 28 minutes and 28 seconds. My favourite songs are: "Shut Up", "I Hate You" and "Higgle-Dy-Piggle-Dy"(although I also admit the whole album itself is a "must" for any rock fan).
You can get the album right here.

The Monks getting their first signature haircuts in the 60's.

Also, listen to the following song "I Hate You":

Jóhan Jóhannsson "IBM 1401, a user's manual"

In case you didn't know, this man that I'm speaking of has collaborated with Marc Almond, Barry Adamson, Pan Sonic, The Hafler Trio, Magga Stina and many, many others.
Jóhan made this album using real peculiar "musical instruments": he used a computer made in 1964 called "IBM 1401 Data Processing System". It was one of the very first computers to arrive in Iceland and also one of the first affordable, mass produced digital business computer.
His father had created a way that could force this machine to produce astonishing sounds: melancholic and powerful sine-wave tones. He also gave one of these computers to him, so it made it possible for us to hear this album that Jóhan would make later then.
Divided into 5 parts, each with its own name, this bohemian musical masterpiece can surely afford your ears good sine waves and other types of more complex sounds. Melodramatic at times, relaxing, I don't know in what genre it fits... ambient music?
You can try finding that by yourself (downloading the album), by clicking here.

You can hear Part 1 next (and check out the cool videoclip):

Low- their studio albums

Low are a great band hailing Duluth, Minesotta, and were formed in 1993. Coined as the one of the main bands of the "slowcore" genre, although they dislike this term. By the way, a synonym of "slowcore" is also "sadcore". If you live in Portugal, be sure to check them out at the famous music festival "Sudoeste": they are playing 8th August there.
Next I will give you a this link that redirects you to a blog where you can download almost their entire studio albums.

One of my favourite songs of this band is called "Words" and is featured on their first album named "I could live in hope": hope you like it.

New York Gong "About Time"

Daevid Allen decided to go to New York in 1979 and moreover he formed New York Gong: his "Gong" band influenced with punk and psychedelia, a mix he did with influences of the CBGB scene.
The text written next to these words was taken from the booklet that's included in this CD:
"Arriving in New York, he [Daevid] was greeted there by a new world that focused around the CBGB's, the epicentre of post-punk artiness. Emotionally fragile, unsure of where he fitted in, Daevid found this unobtrusive collective of artists, actors and freeform musicians welcoming. It was a creative hotspot where anyone on the fringes of artistic society fitted in, and a perfect place for Daevid to rekindle, and update, his Gong mythology.
Old time cohort and manager Giorgio Gomelsky was running a rather strange and beguiling event in New York called The Zu Manifestival. Daevid, sensing a minor revolution, got involved. It was through this assortment of odd-ball jazzers and free spirits that Daevid met Bill Laswell (...).
Together, Maher, Laswell and Beinhorn became the axis of Gomelsky's all-purpose Zu Band, backing up Daevid Allen at the Zu Manifestival and embarking on a ten-city tour. Even at this stage, the Material-to-be group was already playing musical chairs. As well as playing together at the Zu Band, Laswell played with the other three groups on the tour, Maher with two and Beinhorn with one another. (...)
The result of the riotous amalgamation of Allen-goes-Stateside was the 1979 album "About Time". Reflecting their chaotic live performances, it's an odd hybrid of psychedelia ("Preface"), new wave ("I am a Freud") and punk ("Much too old"), with a lyrical sentiment reminiscent of early-'70s Gong ("Jungle Window"). The album opens with an effects-laden recording of Allen reciting his "trippy" poetry. Some of the compositions, like "I Am a Freud," bleed quickly rhythms and melodies resembling the work of the League of Gentlemen and Talking Heads whilst "Materialism"and "Strong Woman" feature Allen's glissando guitar, which sounds pretty much a forerunner to the sound Fripp and Belew were to employ on their early-'80s King Crimson Projects. "Materialism", penned by Laswell, is the album's standout track, with its dominating bass relentlessly driving home to the groove.
Daevid stayed in New York for another year, experimenting with cut ups, electronic music and performance art, all of which culminated in his 'Divided Alien Playbax' album and its accompanying live shoes. Throughout this period he revelled in uncommercial creativity, heightened by his sense of the absurd and anti-capitalist politics and succesfully avoided becoming an ageing hippy."
These excerpts let us have a good vision of how New York Gong was formed and what it actually is. I haven't listened to Gong actually, so I can't compare them with New York Gong.
However, I admire this "About Time" album, which is quite fine and is original in its own way.

If you want to download the album click here or click over the cover.

Next follows a link to one of their songs on this album (although it's not my favourite, you should hear it before downloading the album):

Sub Pop Rules

SubPop did another good thing for us, music lovers. After producing No Age, Vetiver, Vaselines and many others, they are now offering us a present.

Vetiver – Strictly Rule
Handsome Furs – I’m Confused
Mark Sultan – Hold On
Red Red Meat – Gauze
Obits – Pine On
The Vaselines – Son of a Gun
Fleet Foxes – Mykonos
Iron and Wine – Belated Promise Ring
Tiny Vipers - Dreamer
Zak Sally – Why We Hide
Fruit Bats – My Unusual Friend
Pissed Jeans – False Jesii Part 2
Grand Archives – Silver Among the Gold
Flight of the Conchords – Hurt Feelings

They even made me like Flight of the Conchords!

Enjoy!

Sunn O))) - Monoliths & Dimensions (2009)

Hello. My name's Pete. João asked me to write here, now and then. So, I'm starting now.

Hope you enjoy.

I like to consider myself a broadminded person, when it comes to music. One of my favourites kinds of music is Drone. It is almost impossible to talk about drone and not to mention Sunn O))) (pronounced only [Sun], as far as I know). The first time I heard the band it was hard for me to believe that I was, in fact, listening to music. I was used to rock'nroll and not much more.

Sunn O))) expanded my musical horizon. So, for those of you who like Sunn O))), and for those of you who don't like them yet, here it is the newest album.

"Monoliths & Dimensions" makes no mistake. Four long-drone songs, extremly slow tempos, but with some sort of variety from tune to tune. Aghartha, for example, is a traditional drone song (know what I mean?). But Big Church has this weird choral that makes you feel just like if you were in a real church (like it or not). I won't tell you how the rest goes.

Well, in the end, "Monoliths & Dimensions" it's an incredible drone album: with dark ambients, hope, light, feelings (i.e. you get to feel the music) all in 53 minutes.

password is: nodata.tv

Frustration "Relax"

The French crossed their frontiers, having plans for a new Cold Wave movement: they are Frustration. Lost in Post-Punk and Cold Wave music they launched their debut album last year. It's called "Relax" as ironic as it sounds. I discovered them thanks to Drop Dead Festival's bands list on their website.
According to Discogs, it's rated 4.67 (in a scale of 5). In a scale of 10, I'd give it a 7.8: they have awesome songs, but some of them are [almost obviously] ripped from Joy Division. The track called "She's so tired" is probably the most notorious one concerning the similiraties between Joy Division and Frustration. In this one you can hear almost Ian Curtis' voice and the specific guitar tunes created originally on J.D.'s album "Closer".
However, it's an awesome album. The intro is perfect, accompanied by splendid lyrics: "We have some... Frustration! / They have some... Frustration!". My favourite tracks are: Too Many Questions", "Faster" and "Waiting for the Bad Things"- I recommend them. There's only a little bad fact about the song "Waiting for the Bad Things" due to the singer's accent seem a bit strange and too french-like. The dissonance transmited by their synthesizers at "Too Many Questions" and "Faster" are marvelous, really great. It's a catchy depressive sound, known to be omnipresent in the Cold Wave genre, I'd say.
In conclusion I take that this is one good album (worth acquiring), from a band that has got enough guts to revive the early 80s - and I say this in a good way.

Feel free to listen to their songs on myspace, if you don't want to download the entire album...
http://www.myspace.com/_frustration

If you want to hear their album, download it here.
However, if you have enough money to spend on this, buy their album or a song of them or go see them live... all these tactics of promoting their music are featured on their myspace.

Serotonin Sounds

This is a blog I've made that I'll make some efforts so that it won't die quickly, like many others of mine did. The next sentences will develop some ideas of my own about what'll be this blog and what I thought before I created it.
If you don't know the meaning of "serotonin" and "sound", I'll explain it to you (probably it's better for you to skip this part, which is boring):

Serotonin: A hormone, also called 5-hydroxytryptamine, in the pineal gland, blood platelets, the digestive tract, and the brain. Serotonin acts both as a chemical messenger that transmits nerve signals between nerve cells and that causes blood vessels to narrow.

Sound:1. a. Vibrations transmitted through an elastic solid or a liquid or gas, with frequencies in
the approximate range of 20 to 20,000 hertz, capable of being detected by human
organs of hearing.
b. Transmitted vibrations of any frequency.
c. The sensation stimulated in the organs of hearing by such vibrations in the air or
other medium.


-Why have I chosen this kind of awkward name for a blog related with music?
Well, I've chosen "Serotonin Sounds" has a name for this blog because it translates an idea of the relation between an organic being [serotonin] and a non-organic being [sounds]: serotonin is a hormone that's sometimes involved with mood changes and sounds can also alter our state of mind too. Since these two have their peculiar relationship of changing one's thoughts why won't I combine these two names? That's the way I've named this blog.

-What does a sound and a serotonin look like?
This is a serotonin's chemical structure:


This is a sound's sinusoidal wave: