Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Katharsis Jan. 28 '08

Download


Coldest night of the winter yet here (-33 C). Brrrr. Mostly mellow indie pop tonight: Jane Vain & The Dark Matter, Damien Jurado, Prints, Monade, Low, Animaltown (who have apparently changed their name to Dryer), more from the beautiful new Ida record, Patrick Phelan, The Innocence Mission, Clock Hands Strangle, Colleen Brown, Sam Shalabi, RF & Lilly De La Mora, Yo La Tengo, Radar Bros., Andrew Bird, and a nice long instrumental track from Slow Six.

The show recording is in .ogg format taken directly from the cjsw stream. Due to the size of the file Badongo has split it up.

When you download the split files, you will notice that they have file extensions such as .aa .ab .ac etc...

You will also have to download a file with the .badongo extensions.

Make sure you download these files into the same directory.

The easiest way to merge the files back together is to use Badongo’s free Badongo Buddy software for Windows or their free File Merger for Mac OS X.

If you don’t want to or can’t install the Badongo software onto your computer, you can download the small filemerger.bat file. This file is a simple batch file that will copy the split files back together into one piece. If you would like to inspect the contents of the .bat file, you may open it in notepad or Word.

If you run Linux or FreeBSD, you can simply use the “cat” command to put the files back together.

For example
cat filename.ext.aa > filename.ext
cat filename.ext.ab >> filename.ext
cat filename.ext.ac >> filename.ext
Read more...

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Katharsis Jan. 21 '08

Here's the entire 3 hour show recording (I covered for Aubrey so the show started an hour earlier).

The first hour featured music from Viva Voce, Lightspeed Champion, Six Organs of Admittance, Om, Grizzly Bear, The Besnard Lakes, 60 Watt Kid, Avey Tare & Kria Brekkan, Beja Flor, Mount Eerie and others. The second hour offered Nina Nastasia & Jim White, The Dead Science, Ida, Dolly Sillito, Okay, Mice Parade, The Inhabitants, and more. The 3rd hour had selections from The Depreciation Guild, SubtractiveLAD, Daniel Maze, Fax, Chris Miller, Michael Harrison, Brian McBride, and Stars of the Lid and others. Enjoy.

The show recording is in .ogg format taken directly from the cjsw stream. Due to the size of the file Badongo has split it up.

When you download the split files, you will notice that they have file extensions such as .aa .ab .ac etc...

You will also have to download a file with the .badongo extensions.

Make sure you download these files into the same directory.

The easiest way to merge the files back together is to use Badongo’s free Badongo Buddy software for Windows or their free File Merger for Mac OS X.

If you don’t want to or can’t install the Badongo software onto your computer, you can download the small filemerger.bat file. This file is a simple batch file that will copy the split files back together into one piece. If you would like to inspect the contents of the .bat file, you may open it in notepad or Word.

If you run Linux or FreeBSD, you can simply use the “cat” command to put the files back together.

For example:
cat filename.ext.aa > filename.ext
cat filename.ext.ab >> filename.ext
cat filename.ext.ac >> filename.ext
Read more...

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Katharsis Jan. 14 '08

Jan. 14 '08 edition of Katharsis here


Highlights this week were selections from Christopher Willets, Wire, Slaraffenland, Sybarite, Slow Six, Soso, Fridge, Disenterested, Decomposure, Piano Magic, Amon Tobin and others.

The show recording is in .ogg format taken directly from the cjsw stream. Due to the size of the file Badongo has split it up.

When you download the split files, you will notice that they have file extensions such as .aa .ab .ac etc...

You will also have to download a file with the .badongo extensions.

Make sure you download these files into the same directory.

The easiest way to merge the files back together is to use Badongo’s free Badongo Buddy software for Windows or their free File Merger for Mac OS X.

If you don’t want to or can’t install the Badongo software onto your computer, you can download the small filemerger.bat file. This file is a simple batch file that will copy the split files back together into one piece. If you would like to inspect the contents of the .bat file, you may open it in notepad or Word.

If you run Linux or FreeBSD, you can simply use the “cat” command to put the files back together.

For example
cat filename.ext.aa > filename.ext
cat filename.ext.ab >> filename.ext
cat filename.ext.ac >> filename.ext
Read more...

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Katharsis Jan. 7 '08 - Best of 2007

This show highlighted some of my favourite music released in 2007. Here is my Best of 2007 list:

Noteworthy 2007 releases from artists currently at (or near) the top of their game that caught my attention. Maybe not their career-defining release yet solid none-the-less and definitely worth a listen:

A Northern Chorus - Millions Too Many (Sonic Unyon) Possibly their most succinct understated and accessible songs to date.

Akron Family - Love is Simple (Young God) Named by Michael Gira (Swans, Angels of Light, Young God Records) as one of the best bands on the planet; so good that he has used them as his backing band for Angels of Light.

Aloha - Light Works (Polyvinyl)

Amon Tobin - Foley Room (Ninja Tune) Tobin continues to expand the frontiers of avante garde electronic music this time eschewing record samples for field and live recordings that he sourced himself.

Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha (Fat Possum)

Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam (Domino)

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible (Matador)

Azeda Booth - Mysterious Body (Indie) A striking debut, but the band has evolved significantly since this recording and only those who have heard them live (with the full line-up) truly understand what these guys are capable of. 2008 will be their year…

Bill Callahan - Woke on a Whaleheart (Drag City) Lovely ‘solo’ record from Mr. Smog.

Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Ask Forgiveness (Drag City)

Eluvium - Copia (Temporary Residence)

Explosions in the Sky - All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone (Temporary Residence) The bonus remix disc was the real highlight for me.

Feist - The Reminder (Arts and Crafts) Deserving of every Grammy it is nominated for.

Film School - Hideout (Beggars Banquet) Driving, propulsive, shoegazey rock.

Fridge - The Sun (Temporary Residence) A long awaited return that takes some time to get into but buries into your consciousness after repeated listens.

Grinderman - S/T (Anti) Nick Cave and some of his fellow Bad Seeds rock out in a way that belies their age.

Guitar - Dealin' With Signal & Noise (Onitor) Lovely shoegazer electronica.

Harris Newman - Decorated (Strange Attractions Audio House) Takoma-ish ‘american primitive’ solo acoustic guitar instrumentals for fans of Fahey, et al.

HRSTA - Ghosts Will Come And Kiss Our Eyes (Constellation)

Inhabitants - The Furniture Moves Underneath (Drip Audio) My kind of jazz.

Jesu - Conqueror (Hyrdahead) & Pale Sketches (Avalanche) Jesu’s split EP with Eluvium on Temporary Residence was wonderful as well.

Joanna Newsom - Joanna Newsom and the Ys Street Band EP (Drag City)

Low - Drums and Guns (Sub Pop) A return to their more musically stark and challenging roots.

Lucid 44 - and God Gave Me Legs (Tonto is Jesus) Awesome voice; “sad bastard death folk”.

Maserati - Inventions for the New Season (I Have a Dagger) Post-rock lives.

Max Richter - Songs From Before (FatCat) More brilliant post-classical from this ambient electronica-influenced composer.

Mice Parade - S/T (Fatcat) More fantastic electronic post-rock from Adam Pierce's Mice Parade, featuring contributions from members of Mum & Stereolab (among others).

Mick Turner/Tren Brothers - Blue Trees (Drag City) Beautiful captivating work from the Dirty Three's Mick Turner and Jim White.

Mono - Gone: A Collection of Ep's 2000-2007 (Temporary Residence) A stunning collection of some of Mono's best rarities.

Mum - Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy (Fat Cat)

Nina Nastasia & Jim White - You Follow Me (Fat Cat) Nina Nastasia's exceptional songs are almost eclipsed by Jim White's brilliant drumming, expertly recorded by Steve Albini.

Off the Sky - Form Creek (12k) One of several 2007 releases for the very prolific Jason Corder; fantastic experimental ambient electronic.

Odessa Chen - The Ballad of Paper Ships (Indie)

Piano Magic - Part Monster (Important) Latest impeccable work from Glen Johnson's Piano Magic produced by Guy Fixsen (Laika). Rock reminiscent of Kraftwerk and New Order that beautifully expresses the frustration of modern urban living.

Pinback - Autumn of the Seraphs (Touch and Go) When does Rob Crow sleep?

Sea and Cake - Everybody (Thrill Jockey)

Shannon Wright - Let in the Light (Quarterstick)

Sigur Ros - Hvarf/Heim (XL) The acoustic renderings of some of their favourites, stripped of their signature guitar sound are strikingly beautiful and really show the strength of the underlying song writing.

Sir Richard Bishop - Polytheistic Fragments (Drag City)

The Besnard Lakes- Are the Dark Horse (Jagjaguwar)

The Innocence Mission - We Walked In Song (Badman)

The Summerlad - City of Noise (Saved By Radio)

Thurston Moore - Trees Outside the Academy (Ecstatic Peace!)

Ulrich Schnauss - Goodbye (Domino)

Vic Chesnutt - North Star Deserter (Constellation) Recorded at Hotel 2 Tango in Montreal with A Silver Mt. Zion (!!!).

Viva Voce - Lovers, Lead The Way (Amore!Phonics)

Wintersleep - Welcome to the Night Sky (Labwork)

Wooden Stars - People Are Different (Sonic Unyon)

2007 releases by artists that I discovered this year, was fairly impressed by and hope to hear more of in the future:

Arc Lab - No Spectre (N5MD)

Arve Henriksen - Strjon (Rune Grammofon)

Benni Hemm Hemm - Kajak (Morr)

Chris Miller - S/T (Indie)

Damiak - Micalavera (N5MD)

Dan Deacon - Spiderman of the Rings (Carpark)

Doveman - With My Left Hand I Raise The Dead (Brassland) The more I hear, the more I like….

Howard Hello/Greenness - S/T (Sickroom) Howard Hello were brilliant and criminally overlooked.

Ian Wyatt - S/T (Indie)

Ilad - National Flags (Indie)

Kutin - Menora (Karate Joe)

Kyle Bobby Dunn - Music for Medication (This Generation Tapes)

Last Days - These Places Are Now Ruins (N5MD)

Le Loup - The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly (Hardly Art)

Les Petits - Mighty Antlers of Songs EP (Saved By Radio)

Lights out Asia - Tanks and Recognizers (N5MD)

Lint - S/T (Indie)

Michael Harrison - Revelation (Cantaloupe) Hypnotic kaleidoscopic solo piano played on a uniquely tuned piano that evokes Indian ragas.

mwvm - Rotations (Silber)

Near The Parenthesis - Of Soft Construction (N5MD)

Panda Bear - Person Pitch (Paw Tracks)

Prism Of Eternal Now - 100% Pure Audio Soundscapes (Kranky)

Proem - A Permanent Solution (N5MD)

Rachel Smith - Famous Secrets (Indie)

Radical Face - Ghost (Morr)

Run Return - Sum of an Abstract (N5MD)

Seaworthy - Map In Hand (12k) Beautiful ambient instrumental post rock from down under, in the same vein as the Dirty 3.

She Is So Beautiful/She Is So Blonde - S/T (Science of Sound)

Slaraffenland - Private Cinema (Hometapes) Dynamic, experimental, post rock from the Danes' answer to Sonic Youth.

Sleeping People - Growing (Temporary Residence)

Snake Mountain - S/T (Indie)

Spider - The Way To Bitter Lake (Story Board)

Subtractive LAD - No Man's Land (N5MD)

The Bird Ensemble - Migration (Indie) Beautiful exuberant post rock in the vein of Explosions in the Sky.

The Consonant C - S/T (Indie)

Tobias Lilja - Time is on My Side (N5MD) Dark brooding experimental post-Talk Talk music reminiscent of David Sylvian's recent work with Fennesz.

Tunng - Good Arrows (Thrill Jockey)

Unrecognizable Now - In A Cave or a Coma (Pehr)

Mind-blowing. Albums that are the best thing that I have heard from these artists yet. Some are brand new artists and some have been putting out great music for years that I am just catching on to. These albums will be hard for these artists to follow up. Highly recommended:

Angels of Light - We Are Him (Young God) Backed up by the Akron Family, Michael Gira picks up where 16 Horsepower and Lullaby for the Working Class left off and the results are captivating.

Apparat - Walls (ShitKatapult) Sascha Ring's (co-founder of the iconic Berlin techno label Shitkatapult) strongest and most accessible album yet. Kinetic and invigorating.

Bracken - We Know About the Need (Anticon) Stunning debut album from Chris Adams (Hood). Highly recommended for fans of The Books and Bark Psychosis.

Colleen - Les Ondes Silencieuses (Leaf) Brilliant. Stunning. Beautiful.

Deerhunter - Cryptograms (Kranky) & Fluorescent Grey EP (Kranky) Noisy & chaotic yet hypnotic and affecting. Hopefully these guys don't self destruct.

Do Make Say Think - You, You're A History In Rust (Constellation) Their best album yet (and that's saying a lot).

Efterklang - Parades (Leaf) Epic, bombastic, sweeping, ethereal, jubilant and much more organic/less electronic than their previous work.

Grandfather Fire and the Holy Morning - S/T (Indie) The core of this band used to call themselves Red Not Evil, but they evolved so significantly that it was felt that a name change was required. A bass/drums/multi-guitar feast recorded live at a cabin in the woods by the band that oozes chemistry and soars to new heights.

Hammock - Raising Your Voice Trying to Stop and Echo (Darla) Ethereal uplifting shimmering guitar-based shoegaze.

James Blackshaw - The Cloud of Unknowing (Tompkins Square) & O True Believers (Important) Lush, hypnotic, eastern-inflected, instrumental 12 string acoustic guitar bliss.

Klimek - Dedications (Anticipate) Sebastian Meissner is an experimental ambient master in the vein of Tim Hecker and Stars of the Lid (his aptly-titled previous album was called Music to Fall Asleep). This release sees him paying tribute in song to people that have inspired him (from Michael Gira to Mark Hollis to Steven Spielberg to Marvin Gaye...) yet sounding only like Klimek.

Mark Templeton - Standing On A Hummingbird (Anticipate) A huge leap forward for Edmonton (soon Montreal) based Mark Templeton that has been earning him widespread acclaim in the experimental electronic world; right up there with the work of Tim Hecker, et al.

Marsen Jules - Golden (Genesungswerk) After Last.fm kept feeding me Marsen Jules tracks and loving everything I heard, I was so impressed that I had to get all of his solo albums to date, including this masterpiece. Stunningly beautiful experimental ambient.

Miracle Fortress - Five Roses (Secret City) (Maybe) like what Brian Wilson fronting My Bloody Valentine would sound like. I could not get enough of this cd last year. Of the many strong records nominated for the Polaris Prize this one would have been my pick.

Murcof - Cosmos (Leaf) Cosmic, celestial, deeply moving work from Fernando Corona, an electronic artist light years ahead of almost everyone else in his genre.

Nadja - Touched (Alien 8) Dense, dark, soul-destroying ambient doom.

RF & Lili De La Mora - Eleven Continents (Time Release) Dreamy, delicate, ethereal, melodic, blissful pop.

Ral Partha Vogelbacher - Shrill Falcons (Monotreme) This was originally released in the UK in 2006 but made it's way to our shores in 2007. Sinewy, seething, tension-filled indie rock.

Slow Six - Private Times in Public Places & Nor'easter (Western Vinyl) Slow Six are carrying on where the Rachels appear to have left off.

Stars of the Lid - And Their Refinement of the Decline (Kranky) Another 2 disc ambient opus from SOTL.

Tarentel - Ghetto Beats on the Surface of the Sun (Music Fellowship/Temporary Residence) This was originally released as 4 LP's on The Music Fellowship that were so mind-blowing I had to play them uninterrupted in their entirety on my show. Now released on 2 CD's by Temporary Residence this is a sprawling 2-1/2 hr. journey to musical regions previously unexplored.

Twilight Sad - 14 Autumns & 15 Winters (Fat Cat) I'm a sucker for the well-crafted, cathartic, Scottish quiet-loud rock that these guys deliver.

Special Mention:

Various - (CJSW Live Sessions) A Sound Experiment Incredibly strong collection of Calgary artists recorded live on various programs on cjsw (Katharsis included). Awesome!

Best new music festival:

Sled Island. It was no Tanned Tin but finally, Calgary gets a musical fiesta of big-name international ‘underground’/indie/cutting edge rock/pop/whatever augmented by some of the best bands in the country/region. The success of the event may have enticed Richard Branson to bring his Virginfest to Calgary this year, but I expect Sled Island 2008 will still provide a more musically enriching experience. Now if we could only get something akin to The Wordless Music Series or Mutek it would be heavenly…


The show recording is in .ogg format taken directly from the cjsw stream. Due to the size of the file Badongo has split it up.

When you download the split files, you will notice that they have file extensions such as .aa .ab .ac etc...

You will also have to download a file with the .badongo extensions.

Make sure you download these files into the same directory.

The easiest way to merge the files back together is to use Badongo’s free Badongo Buddy software for Windows or their free File Merger for Mac OS X.

If you don’t want to or can’t install the Badongo software onto your computer, you can download the small filemerger.bat file. This file is a simple batch file that will copy the split files back together into one piece. If you would like to inspect the contents of the .bat file, you may open it in notepad or Word.

If you run Linux or FreeBSD, you can simply use the “cat” command to put the files back together.

For example
cat filename.ext.aa > filename.ext
cat filename.ext.ab >> filename.ext
cat filename.ext.ac >> filename.ext

Read more...

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Katharsis For Hedgehogs Dec. 31 '07

Happy New Year! Here is the entire 4 hour showfill (from 8-midnight new years' eve). Many thanks to Timothy Heck for all the great music.


The show recording is in .ogg format taken directly from the cjsw stream. Due to the size of the file Badongo has split it up.

When you download the split files, you will notice that they have file extensions such as .aa .ab .ac etc...

You will also have to download a file with the .badongo extensions.

Make sure you download these files into the same directory.

The easiest way to merge the files back together is to use Badongo’s free Badongo Buddy software for Windows or their free File Merger for Mac OS X.

If you don’t want to or can’t install the Badongo software onto your computer, you can download the small filemerger.bat file. This file is a simple batch file that will copy the split files back together into one piece. If you would like to inspect the contents of the .bat file, you may open it in notepad or Word.

If you run Linux or FreeBSD, you can simply use the “cat” command to put the files back together.

For example
cat filename.ext.aa > filename.ext
cat filename.ext.ab >> filename.ext
cat filename.ext.ac >> filename.ext

Read more...