Storyboard

February 19, 2013 49 notes

Trapped in the Tumblr Closet: Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside

Sallie Ford — with bandmates Jeff Munger, Ford Tennis, and Tyler Tornfelt of Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside — would like you to rock out with abandon to their third studio album, Untamed Beast, dropping today.

Always sporting her signature horn-rimmed glasses (she owns a different pair for every day of the week), Sallie strives to bring an old-school, off-beat element to the homogeneity that pervades today’s mainstream music. Between prepping for their upcoming tour and aforesaid album release, the quirky frontwoman took a Closet break to chat with us about playing for European audiences, poking at those who need to loosen up, and using her sound to get all up in your face.

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February 14, 2013 294 notes

Why You’re Wrong About the Oscars: Best Original Song

Welcome to “Why You’re Wrong About the Oscars,” a series of rhetorical exercises illustrating the finer points of internet-style debate — live! Each episode of WYWAO features a pair of movie enthusiasts with opposing views about who will win a particular Academy Award. The catch: Each cannot explain why he or she is right. Instead, he or she can only enumerate the many reasons why the other person is wrong. So very, very wrong.

Today’s episode concerns the music of the cinematical spheres. Asie Mohtarez believes “Pi’s Lullaby” from Life of Pi should get the nod, while Abbas Rattani favors “Skyfall” from Skyfall by Sky Fall, er, Adele. Fight!

Shot on location at the Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

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February 6, 2013 196 notes

Trapped in the Tumblr Closet: Matt Hires

These days, life consists of bitter winter winds, undulating snow drifts and the desire to remain burrowed under bedsheets. But Matt Hires — a minstrel of poppy love songs with a cheerfully bass-heavy pulse — hopes to change that. Hires makes music so upbeat it might just remind you of breezy summer nights. Today, a few weeks out from the launch of his tour with Matchbox Twenty, Hires brings some sunshine (Florida sunshine, as that’s where he’s from) in the form of a new EP (available Feb. 12). Check it, and the premiere of “Restless Heart,” here.

— Sky Dylan-Robbins

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January 24, 2013 4,245 notes

The Book of Sarth: An Interactive Cyberpunk Tale
The influences of Brooklyn-based electronic musician Sarth Calhoun — of Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Trio — are, to put it succinctly, sprawling. Stretching from the surreal novels of Haruki Murakami to rock-opera bands like Pink Floyd and the innovations of sound-generating software system (he calls himself an “electronic alchemist”), his interests are so diverse that it becomes hard to peg him to any one genre. That ambiguity is particularly fitting for his latest project, The Book of Sarth, an interactive, multimedia iPhone and iPad app that combines original music with photography, illustration and ambient sound design. Calhoun calls it a “gralbum” — that’s short for “graphic album.”
The Book of Sarth (available on iTunes) sets off with two children who discover a mysterious piece of technology that emits unfamiliar sounds (music!) — sounds that could change the world, though the government attempts to cover them up. Set to Calhoun’s driving, synthesized electronic music, the graphics that accompany the unfolding narrative move from augmented photographs to cartoons and back again — an edgy match for a dystopian cyberpunk adventure.
The story is set in a kind of futuristic dystopia where there’s no music. How did that idea come about?
The story is an archetypical story. Kids find a device and it affects them in a certain way, the sounds it makes and the music affects them in a certain way. It’s symbolic, a meta-narrative about how music and technology can change people. The whole story was inspired by the music.

You’re calling this a “gralbum” Can you explain what that means?
We’re basically starting from the concept of an electronic book, because that is the format that allows you to take existing art forms and combine them together. So a gralbum is a platform that allows writers and artists and musicians to create collaborative, interactive work without making a radical alteration to their way of working. The book is a metaphor to combine this art and music.
What inspired you to make such an immersive multimedia project?
When I got the first iPad, I was thinking about all these different interests I had, and I thought, “Oh, I could put all these things together and create an installation piece, and then people could buy it and carry it around with them!” This is all stuff you want to do, but before, it wasn’t really practical.
Did the iPad platform change how you thought about music?
Absolutely. Multi-touch instruments at that time were thousands of dollars; on that basis alone I could buy this iPad and just see what happens. I was going on tour with it at the time and I was using it constantly. It’s like the ultimate touring companion. When I got off the tour I was thinking, “I love to buy books on here and they’re getting cooler and cooler. I want to do something like that!”
How do you think advances in technology have impacted music-making?
The app format seems like a completely new medium to work in. Music always needs a new medium, because it’s always changing. I think if music doesn’t have technology on its side, it tends to have the problem of where to go, it starts to run out of steam. The last big medium change was the music video.
What kind of instruments did you use to make the music for the project?
This is my first completely solo record where no one else played on it. I just finished doing this noise tour with Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Trio and Lou really pushed me to make newer sounds and explore textures sonically. I really wanted to do that, but I wanted it in a more structured, rhythmic form, so I made all these tunes.
—Kyle Chayka

The Book of Sarth: An Interactive Cyberpunk Tale

The influences of Brooklyn-based electronic musician Sarth Calhoun — of Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Trio — are, to put it succinctly, sprawling. Stretching from the surreal novels of Haruki Murakami to rock-opera bands like Pink Floyd and the innovations of sound-generating software system (he calls himself an “electronic alchemist”), his interests are so diverse that it becomes hard to peg him to any one genre. That ambiguity is particularly fitting for his latest project, The Book of Sarth, an interactive, multimedia iPhone and iPad app that combines original music with photography, illustration and ambient sound design. Calhoun calls it a “gralbum” — that’s short for “graphic album.”

The Book of Sarth (available on iTunes) sets off with two children who discover a mysterious piece of technology that emits unfamiliar sounds (music!) — sounds that could change the world, though the government attempts to cover them up. Set to Calhoun’s driving, synthesized electronic music, the graphics that accompany the unfolding narrative move from augmented photographs to cartoons and back again — an edgy match for a dystopian cyberpunk adventure.

The story is set in a kind of futuristic dystopia where there’s no music. How did that idea come about?

The story is an archetypical story. Kids find a device and it affects them in a certain way, the sounds it makes and the music affects them in a certain way. It’s symbolic, a meta-narrative about how music and technology can change people. The whole story was inspired by the music.

Heavy Leather: Strapping Rockstars Since 2008

Brooklyn native and heavy rocker Rachael Becker was just doing her thing — rising in the ranks at a fashion label, making the rounds at metal fests, fixing up her aqua blue motorcycle — until one day when her pals, jamming together in her living room, asked if she’d outfit them with leather guitar straps. Then everything changed. Rachael indeed strapped those friends; after all, she was well-versed in the leather arts from a previous apprenticeship. She made a few extra to throw on Ebay because well, why not?

The orders began flooding in. Rachael quit her job, invested in some heavy-duty equipment, crossed the East River to sift through rawhides in the fashion district, and lo, Heavy Leather NYC was born.

Based in Brooklyn (where else?), Rachael equips music-making masters — Cat Stevens, Johnny Winter, ZZ Top, and Slash, to name but a few — with leather straps that help their rock flow. “Sometimes I still can’t believe it,” she chuckled, cutting into a piece of hide with her Exacto. “I didn’t know it, but it’s what I’ve always wanted to do.”

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January 16, 2013 187 notes

Trapped in the Tumblr Closet: Field Mouse

Even if you’ve never heard the band Field Mouse, you can probably infer a lot about what they sound like from their name. Layers of shimmering guitars? Dreamy, stargazing melodies? Gently melancholic vocals? Check, check, check. Unlike a lot of indie-pop revivalists, however, this Brooklyn two-piece knows a thing or two about pop songcraft, a fact that’s showcased on the two excellent 7” singles they released last year.

And while their sound might draw inspiration from the shoegaze movement, they’re anything but self-serious introverts; their live shows are often punctuated by off-color jokes and deadpan rambling. The band members certainly brought their sense of humor with them when they stopped by the Tumblr Closet to chat about their songwriting process, love of Halloween and respective spirit animals.

— Mehan Jayasuriya

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