Posts Tagged ‘singles’

As we approach winter and the solstice draws closer, Texas-based electronic composer Paris Music Corp. a.k.a. John Andrew Paris presents two new tracks – ‘Midnight Pad’ and ‘Sun Halos’ – that juxtapose light with dark, similar to how night turns to day and to night once again.

Nature and cycles are themes explored on his new Ecotone album as he takes us on an electronic odyssey that is both deeply personal and geographically-inspired. This record is rooted in the artist’s relocation to his childhood home in Brownsville, South Texas, just miles from the border and the coast. Paris wrote, recorded, mixed and mastered this at Tarantula Studios over the past two years.

“’Midnight Pad’ was another late-night writing excursion using some mind expansion influence. Another piece that started with my phone and ended up with hardware synths and drum machines in the studio one it was built. And ‘Sun Halos’? Creating a song just happens sometimes. Brian Eno always talked about his main theory in that “music just happens”. It’s really like a magic trick sometimes when what you turn out is an earworm of a piece that is memorable,” says John Andrew Paris.

Originally from Austin, John Andrew Paris has spent decades creating music and collaborating with artists, including Arthur Brown (The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, perhaps best known for his hit single ‘Fire’), as well as DJ Rev Kathy Russell, DJ Lucas Ray, Catastrophe Ballet, Le Reve, Life’s Eyes, Beast of Eden, OBOYO and Don Wigwam.

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“The Ecotone album made sense to me because you have a transitional zone, where two different ecological communities or ecosystems meet and intermingle, often resulting in high biodiversity. I feel a lot closer to nature.. Some of my song titles reflect where I am. I actually lived in this area as a child and have come back to my roots,” says John Andrew Paris.

“A lot of these pieces were started on a phone app called Ableton Note. With this application you are able to scratch-pad a lot of cool ideas and then import them into you music workstation and finish them out. When I first moved to my new place I didn’t have a spacious studio setup and I wrote a lot just sitting up all hours of the night writing ideas on Ableton Note.”

Known for his cinematic and ethereal music, on this album, Paris Music Corp.’s music also shows its dark underbelly and futuristic imagination. Often with elements of 80’s darkwave and ambient soundscapes, his trademark sound includes heavily processed guitar and bass instruments locked into layered loops and further manipulated using software. Also employing live hand percussion, these dense soundscapes take the listener on a sonic journey to otherworldly places.

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NYC’s Lip Critic return with their first new music since last year’s acclaimed Hex Dealer – which Consequence of Sound described as “a cannonball to the chest” and Paste compared to “the B-52s on ketamine”, while we here at Aural Aggravation  said was “Lip Critic’s definitive statement”. Double singles ‘Mirror Match’ and ‘Second Life’ are out now and continue Lip Critic’s furious experimental energy, born in a flash of cosmic coincidence and baseball-fueled mysticism.

‘Mirror Match’ is a twitchy, high-octane confrontation with your doppelgänger, arriving alongside a bespoke Lip Critic-designed pinball game set in a cloning facility. ‘Second Life’ throws the chaos into bass-heavy nightmare territory, accompanied by a surreal music video styled like an off-brand cooking show episode, complete with Sandra Lee-inspired semi-homemade absurdity.

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"We were on tour near the end of 2024 and had just played our LA show. We had a two day gap before our next show in Santa Ana so we got a room at the hotel Casa Grande. That night after the drive I fell asleep watching Randy Johnson highlight reels. All the great moments from his time as a Diamondback, as well as his years on the Yankees and the Giants.

That night I had a dream I met a tall man with a body made entirely of radiant light wearing a baseball cap. He opened his arms and from them came two perpendicular rays that shot around me to form the shape of a diamond. When the tips of the rays connected I was engulfed in a thunderous sound, like that of a waterfall. It shook me so much that I woke up in a jolt. I woke to see that I had been writhing in my sleep and had completely displaced the other 3 members I had been sharing this queen bed with.

I apologized and brushed it off as another bad dream brought on by a late night binging baseball history videos on YouTube. Upon checking my phone, I saw I had received a text in the night from a number I didn’t recognize, offering us two days of unexpected studio time.

When we arrived at the studio that day, he opened the door wearing a fitted baseball cap, towering over our band with an average height of 5’8”. I instantly felt a familiarity. As he showed us around I felt a sense of having returned, like visiting your old elementary school once again for a younger siblings’ graduation. He led us to the control room which was equipped with a speaker system large enough for a room quadruple the size. He stood at one corner and I sat in a chair directly opposite. The square room shifted to a diamond by our perspectives.

He turned the speakers up and without hesitation played us through a whirlwind of different music at an unbelievable volume, and I was engulfed in a thunderous sound, like that of a waterfall. ‘Mirror Match’ and ‘Second Life’ were two tracks made and completed in the two days at his studio."

Lip Critic are touring extensively across the US this summer with headline dates, festival appearances, a co-headline run with Hello Mary, and support slots for MSPAINT, Pat and the Pissers & Mannequin Pussy.

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15th March 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

While releasing a double-A-sided single is one option, in the digital age, releasing two singles simultaneously is also a viable option. It doesn’t coast any more, but does probably double the likelihood of scoring hits, and double hits equals double download potential. It’s the 2024 equivalent of releasing a single on multiple formats, only not nearly the pain in the arse collectors had to suffer in the 90s, heading down to the local record shop to bag the regular release on 7” and 12”, cassette and CD, and then again the following week for a limited edition format. Because back then, these strategies would have an impact on chart placings, and chart placings mattered, receiving airplay on the UK Top 40 on Radio 1on a Sunday evening, and the chance of further exposure on Top of the Pops. Now, if any fucker downloads your release, you’re doing well, because infinite streams may be something to plug but the revenue is not. Yay, fifty thousand streams… we earned 10p.

As usual, I digress.

Reviser are pitched as sitting alongside ‘classic 80’s bands such as Sisters of Mercy, The Cure, and Killing Joke, REVISER sounds complimentary to such contemporaries as Actors, Soft Kill, and Drab Majesty.’

So many contemporary acts align themselves to The Sisters of Mercy while offering but pale ghosts of imitation, and I find myself feeling deflated on a constant basis. Reviser do at least offer something, in the deep, grooves which likely come from baritone guitarist and vocalist Krysztof Nemeth, which shares some commonality without being a lame tribute-style rip-off. The baritone guitar is a rare and underrated instrument, showcased to strong effect by Leeds duo That Fucking Tank. Here, with its thicker tones, it manifests as a foot-to-the-floor low-end groove that clearly takes its cues from ‘Alice’ and choice cuts from First and Last and Always.

‘Burn it Out’ is synthy, but there are flickers of fractal guitar which float across a thunderous drum machine. Krysztof Nemeth – while not remotely ‘gothic’ in his vocal delivery, eschewing melodramatic baritone in favour of singing ‘straight’ brings further layers to the band’s evolving atmosphere. ‘Assassins’ again brings that solid 4/4 groove melded to relentless drum machine, reminiscent of ‘Lucretia, My Reflection’ (I’m thinking this is no accident), combining reverby guitar and wispy synths, finishing it all off with some processed vocals. It’s a bit post-Depeche Mode electrogoth, but the guitars provide texture and the songwriting and the delivery is on point, hitting the balance between that mechanised detachment and a the twitch of human heart.

This takes you back to the spirit of 83/84, when their forbears were knocking out black gold, and a single, at its best, was a tightly-packed statement of dark intent. These singles – taken together – deserve your attention.

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