While I'm kinda sorta on the subject of Tesseract and vocalist Dan Tompkins, I've got the first single from Dan's latest project for your Saturday song. Ready for some mellow, 80's-style synthwave jams from Dan and none other than the Chimp Spanner himself?
Oh, sorry, did I forget to mention that supertrio Zeta consists of produced Katie Jackson, Dan Tompkins, and Paul Ortiz of Chimp Spanner fame? And yet, this combination of a couple of famous prog names (and one with whom I feel I should be more familiar, but am not) doesn't sound at all like you might expect -- assuming, of course, you might be expecting something somewhere in between Tesseract and Chimp Spanner.
What you are going to get from Zeta's first single "Silent Waves" is a chill synthy vibe that could have come right out of the mid-to-late 80's. This kind of thing isn't really my cup of tea, and it's not necessarily yours either, but worth at least checking out for fans of either Dan or Paul, I think. What say you?
Showing posts with label Chimp Spanner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chimp Spanner. Show all posts
Monday, 28 September 2015
Tuesday, 24 February 2015
2014 Round-Up: 2015 Top Prospects
Since we're already almost a sixth of the way through 2015, it's about goddamn time I got part 2 of my 2014 round-up posted, right? Lucky for me, none of the records I anticipate below have come out yet, but there's one or two that are right around the corner, so you'd better get reading!
Tool - ??? (???)
I thought I'd get this one over and done with right off the bat. Everybody and their mother's dog knows that Tool operates on a much longer album cycle than virtually anybody else on the planet, but since it's been almost nine years now since the release of 10,000 Days even Maynard and company are getting to be about due for some new material. The last year or so has seen a number of rumours and vaguely enticing social media posts that seem to suggest work on a new record is ongoing, perhaps even nearing completion, but just when we might get to hear any of this new material is anybody's guess. I'll believe this one's coming when I'm holding a copy in my hand.
Uneven Structure - La Partition (summer)
It's been nearly four years since France's Uneven Structure blew me and a lot of other listeners away with their so-much-more-than-just-djent debut LP Februus, but the band is finally putting the finishing touches on the follow-up to this masterwork of dense groove and atmosphere. The internet buzz seems to think that this one will be out by the summer, and I for one hope the internet is right for once. La Partition could well be a monster, so keep your eyes and ears peeled.
Chimp Spanner - ??? (???)
Regular readers will know that I'm a fan of progressive instrumental music, so the prospect of new material from everybody's favourite one manimal army Chimp Spanner is something I'm 100% onboard with. 2014 saw a new track called "Aurora" unleashed upon the interwebz in demo and playthrough form, but Mr. Ortiz was otherwise largely silent, studio-wise, instead spending the year playing shows and festivals around England and across Europe. That's all well and good, but Chimp Spanner fans elsewhere in the world (read: me) are due for their own dose of Paul Ortiz, and a new record would be the perfect way for us to get it.
Blotted Science - ??? (???)
Speaking of instrumental prog, tech supertrio Blotted Science also seem to be working on some new jams. Their 2011 EP The Animation of Entomology was an absolute beast, a labyrinthine slice of technicality and compositional virtuosity -- guitarist Ron Jarzombek utilized a "Twelve Tones in Fragmeneted Rows" system of his own design to cook up all the weird and wonderful riffs and chord progressions on the EP (ask your music-nerd friends to explain it to you). Of course, you don't have to have a graduate degree in music theory to appreciate the madness contained on this EP, or to be excited about the prospect of further experiments from the Blotted Science laboratory.
Dance Gavin Dance - Instant Gratification (April 14th)
By any standard of modern music you'd care to name, Sacramento post-hardcore act Dance Gavin Dance have had a pretty prolific run so far. Five studio albums, an EP, and a live record in the last eight years or so would be a good track record for any band in any genre, but for band that writes stuff that's a little heavier, a little more technical, it's downright impressive (even if DGD aren't the heaviest or the most technical band in the world...). DGD has undergone several line-up changes over the years, particularly in the vocalist department, so it's always good to get the news that the guys are back at it again with new material.
Coheed and Cambria - ??? (spring/summer 2015)
Times flies when you're having fun, doesn't it? It seems like Coheed's stellar (pun sorta intended) double album The Afterman came out just yesterday, but second installment Descension is already two years old. Seen in this light, I guess it shouldn't surprise me that Claudio and company are gearing up for another record. Coheed and Cambria's catalogue has its ups and downs, but The Afterman was a bit of a return to form, so the prognosis (pun kind intended yet again) for album number eight looks good.
The Fall of Troy - ??? (???)
Like Dance Gavin Dance, this is another one of those bands that tr00 metalheads might look down their nose at a little bit, but I've been a Fall of Troy fan a long time. As such, the news that they were getting back together definitely piqued my interest. The subsequent news that they might be working on new material hooked me even more. There's not a whole lot of word on what form new material might take, or when we might hear it, but the fact that singer/guitarist Thomas Erak has left his gig with Chiodos seems to bode well for a return to full-time TFOT recording and touring. The stars fell out of alignment for me a few years back when I had tickets to one of their farewell shows and the couldn't attend, so here's hoping that I'll get another shot to catch them on the road, preferably supporting a new record.
Deftones - ??? (???)
A new Deftones record is always something to get interested in, if not excited about, and this one should be no exception. The chances of this one being the "lost" album Eros, the last recording the band did with late bassist Chi Cheng, may be slim to none, but the fact remains that Chino and Company have been pretty strong on their last couple of outings. Assuming that the band's next effort is more Koi No Yokan or Diamond Eyes than Saturday Night Wrist -- which might be a pretty big assumption, who knows -- new Deftones material could kick a surprising amount of ass.
Mandroid Echostar - ??? (???)
As is the case with so many of the entries on this list, there's not much information to go on here -- no title, no release date, no single, nada -- but Facebook tells me that the actual recording process is indeed complete and the band has moved on to the mixing stage. These guys are not only "friends of the blog" (oh how I love being able to say that, even if it's only very loosely true), they're also stupidly good at crafting catchy, shredtastic pop-prog. Keep doing Canada proud, boys.
letlive. - ??? (???)
I got into The Blackest Beautiful in a big way. Chief among the reasons for this is definitely the fact that, as I've said umpteen bazillion times before, letlive. feels like the successor band to perennial tease Glassjaw, and boy do I loves me some Glassjaw, especially Worship and Tribute. That album's got such a vibe, such an energy, and letlive. manages to tap into that same kind of vibe and energy in spades. I've have no idea what direction the follow-up to The Blackest Beautiful will take, nor do I even know what direction I want it to take, but I can't wait to hear it.
Tesseract - ??? (???)
A new Tesseract record. With Dan Tompkins back in the mix. Need this Tesseract-loving, Dan Tompkins fanboy say more? No word on when this one's dropping, but in my opinion it can't be soon enough. For now I'll just have to content myself with waiting for the live album/DVD Scala/Odyssesy that's still, at the time of this writing, "coming soon".
The Ocean - ??? (???)
I may be a bit of a latecomer to the 'The Ocean' party, but I got into the band's last record Pelagial pretty hard. Progressive post-metal with a veritable fuck-tonne of groove, and a high concept to boot? Sign me up. The guys in The Ocean have some pretty deep shoes to fill (see what I did there?) with a follow-up to Pelagial, but if they can pull it off, it would very likely be an Album of the Year contender.
Plini - The End of Everything (March 11)
Last but most certainly not least is another "friend of the blog", namely Australian guitarist Plini, whose third EP The End of Everything will be coming out in just a couple of weeks' time. Since Plini's previous work is some of the most badass-yet-chill songwriting I've ever heard, the culmination of his trilogy of EP's is definitely something I'm looking forward to -- I've got my preorder in and everything. If guitar-based instrumental jams in which songwriting doesn't take a back seat to technicality but is rather served by it are your thing, The End of Everything should be perfect for scratching your itch. Now all Plini needs to do is stop going to school and traveling around helping people long enough to write an LP already.
And there you have it: a small selection of upcoming and possibly upcoming albums that I'm looking forward to this year. I'm sure I've probably missed scads of records-in-progress by scads of great bands, but these are some that I've read about, or at least heard rumours about, that have got me stoked up for the next ten months or so.
Now, you may have noticed a trend in the entries above, namely the profusion of question marks sitting in for actual album titles and release dates. You may also wonder why this profusion is so...well, profuse. In a nutshell, it's because that's the sum total of the information I have about these records. Contrary to what you might think, I have very little insider information about any of the above (read: none).
But rather than just write about the few albums I do have solid title-and-date information for, I thought it'd be more fun to give you a cross section of some of the stuff I'm looking forward to, or just hoping for, in 2015. If even half of the aforementioned new material ends up coming out this year, 2015 is going to be nice and heavy.
Tool - ??? (???)
I thought I'd get this one over and done with right off the bat. Everybody and their mother's dog knows that Tool operates on a much longer album cycle than virtually anybody else on the planet, but since it's been almost nine years now since the release of 10,000 Days even Maynard and company are getting to be about due for some new material. The last year or so has seen a number of rumours and vaguely enticing social media posts that seem to suggest work on a new record is ongoing, perhaps even nearing completion, but just when we might get to hear any of this new material is anybody's guess. I'll believe this one's coming when I'm holding a copy in my hand.
Uneven Structure - La Partition (summer)
It's been nearly four years since France's Uneven Structure blew me and a lot of other listeners away with their so-much-more-than-just-djent debut LP Februus, but the band is finally putting the finishing touches on the follow-up to this masterwork of dense groove and atmosphere. The internet buzz seems to think that this one will be out by the summer, and I for one hope the internet is right for once. La Partition could well be a monster, so keep your eyes and ears peeled.
Chimp Spanner - ??? (???)
Regular readers will know that I'm a fan of progressive instrumental music, so the prospect of new material from everybody's favourite one manimal army Chimp Spanner is something I'm 100% onboard with. 2014 saw a new track called "Aurora" unleashed upon the interwebz in demo and playthrough form, but Mr. Ortiz was otherwise largely silent, studio-wise, instead spending the year playing shows and festivals around England and across Europe. That's all well and good, but Chimp Spanner fans elsewhere in the world (read: me) are due for their own dose of Paul Ortiz, and a new record would be the perfect way for us to get it.
Blotted Science - ??? (???)
Speaking of instrumental prog, tech supertrio Blotted Science also seem to be working on some new jams. Their 2011 EP The Animation of Entomology was an absolute beast, a labyrinthine slice of technicality and compositional virtuosity -- guitarist Ron Jarzombek utilized a "Twelve Tones in Fragmeneted Rows" system of his own design to cook up all the weird and wonderful riffs and chord progressions on the EP (ask your music-nerd friends to explain it to you). Of course, you don't have to have a graduate degree in music theory to appreciate the madness contained on this EP, or to be excited about the prospect of further experiments from the Blotted Science laboratory.
Dance Gavin Dance - Instant Gratification (April 14th)
By any standard of modern music you'd care to name, Sacramento post-hardcore act Dance Gavin Dance have had a pretty prolific run so far. Five studio albums, an EP, and a live record in the last eight years or so would be a good track record for any band in any genre, but for band that writes stuff that's a little heavier, a little more technical, it's downright impressive (even if DGD aren't the heaviest or the most technical band in the world...). DGD has undergone several line-up changes over the years, particularly in the vocalist department, so it's always good to get the news that the guys are back at it again with new material.
Coheed and Cambria - ??? (spring/summer 2015)
Times flies when you're having fun, doesn't it? It seems like Coheed's stellar (pun sorta intended) double album The Afterman came out just yesterday, but second installment Descension is already two years old. Seen in this light, I guess it shouldn't surprise me that Claudio and company are gearing up for another record. Coheed and Cambria's catalogue has its ups and downs, but The Afterman was a bit of a return to form, so the prognosis (pun kind intended yet again) for album number eight looks good.
The Fall of Troy - ??? (???)
Like Dance Gavin Dance, this is another one of those bands that tr00 metalheads might look down their nose at a little bit, but I've been a Fall of Troy fan a long time. As such, the news that they were getting back together definitely piqued my interest. The subsequent news that they might be working on new material hooked me even more. There's not a whole lot of word on what form new material might take, or when we might hear it, but the fact that singer/guitarist Thomas Erak has left his gig with Chiodos seems to bode well for a return to full-time TFOT recording and touring. The stars fell out of alignment for me a few years back when I had tickets to one of their farewell shows and the couldn't attend, so here's hoping that I'll get another shot to catch them on the road, preferably supporting a new record.
Deftones - ??? (???)
A new Deftones record is always something to get interested in, if not excited about, and this one should be no exception. The chances of this one being the "lost" album Eros, the last recording the band did with late bassist Chi Cheng, may be slim to none, but the fact remains that Chino and Company have been pretty strong on their last couple of outings. Assuming that the band's next effort is more Koi No Yokan or Diamond Eyes than Saturday Night Wrist -- which might be a pretty big assumption, who knows -- new Deftones material could kick a surprising amount of ass.
Mandroid Echostar - ??? (???)
As is the case with so many of the entries on this list, there's not much information to go on here -- no title, no release date, no single, nada -- but Facebook tells me that the actual recording process is indeed complete and the band has moved on to the mixing stage. These guys are not only "friends of the blog" (oh how I love being able to say that, even if it's only very loosely true), they're also stupidly good at crafting catchy, shredtastic pop-prog. Keep doing Canada proud, boys.
letlive. - ??? (???)
I got into The Blackest Beautiful in a big way. Chief among the reasons for this is definitely the fact that, as I've said umpteen bazillion times before, letlive. feels like the successor band to perennial tease Glassjaw, and boy do I loves me some Glassjaw, especially Worship and Tribute. That album's got such a vibe, such an energy, and letlive. manages to tap into that same kind of vibe and energy in spades. I've have no idea what direction the follow-up to The Blackest Beautiful will take, nor do I even know what direction I want it to take, but I can't wait to hear it.
Tesseract - ??? (???)
A new Tesseract record. With Dan Tompkins back in the mix. Need this Tesseract-loving, Dan Tompkins fanboy say more? No word on when this one's dropping, but in my opinion it can't be soon enough. For now I'll just have to content myself with waiting for the live album/DVD Scala/Odyssesy that's still, at the time of this writing, "coming soon".
The Ocean - ??? (???)
I may be a bit of a latecomer to the 'The Ocean' party, but I got into the band's last record Pelagial pretty hard. Progressive post-metal with a veritable fuck-tonne of groove, and a high concept to boot? Sign me up. The guys in The Ocean have some pretty deep shoes to fill (see what I did there?) with a follow-up to Pelagial, but if they can pull it off, it would very likely be an Album of the Year contender.
Plini - The End of Everything (March 11)
Last but most certainly not least is another "friend of the blog", namely Australian guitarist Plini, whose third EP The End of Everything will be coming out in just a couple of weeks' time. Since Plini's previous work is some of the most badass-yet-chill songwriting I've ever heard, the culmination of his trilogy of EP's is definitely something I'm looking forward to -- I've got my preorder in and everything. If guitar-based instrumental jams in which songwriting doesn't take a back seat to technicality but is rather served by it are your thing, The End of Everything should be perfect for scratching your itch. Now all Plini needs to do is stop going to school and traveling around helping people long enough to write an LP already.
And there you have it: a small selection of upcoming and possibly upcoming albums that I'm looking forward to this year. I'm sure I've probably missed scads of records-in-progress by scads of great bands, but these are some that I've read about, or at least heard rumours about, that have got me stoked up for the next ten months or so.
Now, you may have noticed a trend in the entries above, namely the profusion of question marks sitting in for actual album titles and release dates. You may also wonder why this profusion is so...well, profuse. In a nutshell, it's because that's the sum total of the information I have about these records. Contrary to what you might think, I have very little insider information about any of the above (read: none).
But rather than just write about the few albums I do have solid title-and-date information for, I thought it'd be more fun to give you a cross section of some of the stuff I'm looking forward to, or just hoping for, in 2015. If even half of the aforementioned new material ends up coming out this year, 2015 is going to be nice and heavy.
Friday, 3 October 2014
Mezonz - Untangling the Quantum Pull
If I were a gambling man, I'd be willing to bet that you probably haven't heard about today's band before. But I'd also be willing to be that, if your musical tastes align at all with mine -- which there's a halfway decent chance they do, since you're reading this right now -- you'll be glad you checked them out.
Atlanta's Mezonz self-identifies as a two-man jazz-prog outfit on their Bandcamp page, but that's a bit of a dry description, and one that leaves a great deal to the imagination. A better approximation of the band's sound, especially on recently released EP Harmonic Oscillators might be to say that Mezonz sounds a little like a slightly more metal-flavoured amalgam of Animals as Leaders and Chimp Spanner (if the latter weren't quite so guitar-centric): heavy, proggy, and groovy instrumental stuff that's technical but not overly so.
Since it's Friday and you've probably got all kinds of Friday-night-type shit to do, I'm going to forgo recommending thirteen-and-a-half-minute EP closer "Projective Space: Fields of Matter" (which is a badass thirteen-and-a-half minutes, so you should really check it out, too) and instead suggest that you start exploring the world of Mezonz with "Untangling the Quantum Pull". It's a much more reasonable four-minutes-and-some, and better yet is a prime example of some of that grooving I was talking about. Tasty.
Atlanta's Mezonz self-identifies as a two-man jazz-prog outfit on their Bandcamp page, but that's a bit of a dry description, and one that leaves a great deal to the imagination. A better approximation of the band's sound, especially on recently released EP Harmonic Oscillators might be to say that Mezonz sounds a little like a slightly more metal-flavoured amalgam of Animals as Leaders and Chimp Spanner (if the latter weren't quite so guitar-centric): heavy, proggy, and groovy instrumental stuff that's technical but not overly so.
Since it's Friday and you've probably got all kinds of Friday-night-type shit to do, I'm going to forgo recommending thirteen-and-a-half-minute EP closer "Projective Space: Fields of Matter" (which is a badass thirteen-and-a-half minutes, so you should really check it out, too) and instead suggest that you start exploring the world of Mezonz with "Untangling the Quantum Pull". It's a much more reasonable four-minutes-and-some, and better yet is a prime example of some of that grooving I was talking about. Tasty.
Saturday, 13 September 2014
Friday: Stargazer - Bold and Brash
By now you should all know that I like instrumental music as much as the next guy, if not more. But if you're anything like me, you entertain occasional "what if" scenarios when you're jamming your favourite instrumental stuff. Namely, you're thinking "what if these guys had a singer?"
If you were able to flip to the end of such a choose your own adventure book about Scale the Summit, or maybe Chimp Spanner, you might see the name Stargazer printed on that last page. They've got a similarly melodic brand of djenty progcore, but with some quality core vocals thrown into the mix.
Stargazer have yet to put out a full LP, but for the time being we can all sate ourselves on their latest track, entitled "Bold and Brash". It's got some good grooving riffage going on, and even though it has flashes of the aforementioned instrumental acts, it still manages to throw a bit of a twist onto things, and that's never a bad thing.
If you were able to flip to the end of such a choose your own adventure book about Scale the Summit, or maybe Chimp Spanner, you might see the name Stargazer printed on that last page. They've got a similarly melodic brand of djenty progcore, but with some quality core vocals thrown into the mix.
Stargazer have yet to put out a full LP, but for the time being we can all sate ourselves on their latest track, entitled "Bold and Brash". It's got some good grooving riffage going on, and even though it has flashes of the aforementioned instrumental acts, it still manages to throw a bit of a twist onto things, and that's never a bad thing.
Thursday, 28 August 2014
Wednesday: Chimp Spanner - Mobius, Pt. 2
Every once in a while I read something somewhere online either from or about Paul Antonio Ortiz that mentions progress on a new album, but I hear only silence. Even a quick scroll down his Facebook wall reveals little more than the tantalizing tease that some "super cool things" will be coming in October (his words).
We can all keep our fingers crossed that those cool things will include news of new material, or perhaps said new material itself, but in the meantime let's fill the vacuum of Chimp Spanner silence by cranking "Mobius, Pt. 2" from the main monkey's 2012 disc All Roads Lead Here. I've previously featured the first installment of this three-part monster song, so now enjoy part two and long for some fresh monkey business with me.
We can all keep our fingers crossed that those cool things will include news of new material, or perhaps said new material itself, but in the meantime let's fill the vacuum of Chimp Spanner silence by cranking "Mobius, Pt. 2" from the main monkey's 2012 disc All Roads Lead Here. I've previously featured the first installment of this three-part monster song, so now enjoy part two and long for some fresh monkey business with me.
Monday, 10 March 2014
Sunday: Chimp Spanner - Aurora
Fans of proggy, instrumental, guitar-based music likely already know that British one man army Chimp Spanner is working on new material, but just in case the rest of you have missed it: Chimp Spanner is working on new material.
I have no idea how far along Mr. Ortiz is, or how close we might or might not be to a new Chimp Spanner album, but at least I've got something to listen to while I speculate wildly, since a few days ago Paul posted a playthrough vid for one of his works-in-progress. Check out the track, entitled "Aurora", for the latest and greatest in the world of spanning chimps.
(Alas, the video linked below is NOT the aforementioned playthrough. Blogger doesn't seem to want to find that one, so you're going to have to hit up Youtube and look for it yourself.)
I have no idea how far along Mr. Ortiz is, or how close we might or might not be to a new Chimp Spanner album, but at least I've got something to listen to while I speculate wildly, since a few days ago Paul posted a playthrough vid for one of his works-in-progress. Check out the track, entitled "Aurora", for the latest and greatest in the world of spanning chimps.
(Alas, the video linked below is NOT the aforementioned playthrough. Blogger doesn't seem to want to find that one, so you're going to have to hit up Youtube and look for it yourself.)
Saturday, 8 February 2014
Friday: Chimp Spanner - Cloud City
The other day a post from Basick Records came up in my Facebook feed, telling me that this particular track would be great to play Mario Kart to. I wholeheartedly agree, and have thought the same thing about this guy's work before. Not for the first time here at Loud Noises, it's Chimp Spanner.
Specifically, it's "Cloud City" from 2012's All Roads Lead Here, a track that does indeed sound like it would make a good soundtrack for kart racing and shell slinging. Mario Kart's music is fairly jazz-influenced as it is, so something as smooth as Chimp Spanner feels right at home. Load up Rainbow Road and enjoy this one.
Specifically, it's "Cloud City" from 2012's All Roads Lead Here, a track that does indeed sound like it would make a good soundtrack for kart racing and shell slinging. Mario Kart's music is fairly jazz-influenced as it is, so something as smooth as Chimp Spanner feels right at home. Load up Rainbow Road and enjoy this one.
Friday, 17 January 2014
Friday: Chimp Spanner - Mobius, Pt. 1
We're staying on the Basick Record train today. Although today's song is from something a little older rather than something I just picked up after Christmas, you know I never really need a reason to feature badass instrumental music.
Your song today is "Mobius, Pt. 1" from Chimp Spanner's 2012 EP All Roads Lead Here, the first piece of an epic three-part exploration of the awesomeness of British guitarist Paul Antonio Ortiz. If you have an ear for some djenty jazz-fusion from a guy with some pretty monstrous guitar chops, you owe it to yourself to check out what Mr Ortiz is up to.
Your song today is "Mobius, Pt. 1" from Chimp Spanner's 2012 EP All Roads Lead Here, the first piece of an epic three-part exploration of the awesomeness of British guitarist Paul Antonio Ortiz. If you have an ear for some djenty jazz-fusion from a guy with some pretty monstrous guitar chops, you owe it to yourself to check out what Mr Ortiz is up to.
Saturday, 31 August 2013
Thursday, 17 May 2012
The List: Instrumetal
OK, today I’m debuting The List, the first of what I intend to be several semi-regular, semi-themed posts here at Loud Noises. When I do a List post, I’ll be coming up with (gasp!) a list of bands/albums/whatever centred on a particular theme. (I know, I know, real original. Shut up.) Rather than agonize over actually ranking whatever it is I happen to be listing, these are just going to be lists of stuff you should check out, in no particular order (although I will of course mention when I think something is especially badass or otherwise worthy of note). And to start the listing off right, I’m going to try turning you on to what I feel might be a somewhat underappreciated variety of metal: instrumental metal, which for the purposes of this post I’ve decided to call instrumetal (nice portmanteau, huh?)
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