Its been a great eight and the ride keeps going. We are so thankful to all of our readers, friends, fellow tapers, artists, venues, managers, photographers, and everyone who has helped in big and small ways to make NYCTaper what it is today and what is will continue to become in the future. So thanks!
Let’s get 8 more.
Acid Mothers Temple’s yearly trip to New York has become a similarly regular event for this site, as we’ve caught almost every New York tour since 2010. The Japanese psychedelic rock veterans continue to get better, combining their can’t-miss material with fresh, bizarre and different new explorations of sound. This night at the Knitting Factory (the first of two in NYC, both of which we covered) found the band ready to put on a high-octane show, crossing-guitars in the air, banging their heads, and making jokes. The brand-new “Benzaiten”, from their 2015 CD, is an instant classic, starting with harder, almost-metal tones before veering into free-jazz-like Japanese folk. The band played a total of eight songs (counting one jam number and an as-yet-unnamed new song) that stretched the 90 minutes-plus to the limit. For the first time since I’ve seen them, the band closed out on “Cometary Orbital Drive”, which came on the heels of a spaced-out new jam number. “Cometary” is one of my favorite songs from the band’s catalog, and it made for a perfect way to end the night.
I recorded this set with a soundboard feed from the Knit engineer Mikey, together with Schoeps MK41V supercardiod microphones. The sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!
This show is hosted on the Live Music Archive. Here’s its page there. The Thursday night show at Mercury Lounge will be up soon.
Download the complete set: [MP3] | [FLAC]
Stream the complete set:
Acid Mothers Temple
2015-05-06
Knitting Factory
Brooklyn, NY USA
Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by acidjack
Soundboard (engineer: Mikey) + Schoeps MK41V (PAS)>KCY>Z-PFA>Sound Devices USBPre2>>Edirol R-44 [OCM]>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix down, compression)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects, imaging)>Audacity 2.0.3 (fades, track, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )
Tracks [Total Time: 1:34:34]
01 Dark Star Blues, aka Dark Star Blues In the Dazzling Sky
02 Benzaiten
03 Jam>
04 Pink Lady Lemonade>
05 Om Riff>
06 Pink Lady Lemonade
07 [new]>
08 Cometary Orbital Drive
If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Acid Mothers Temple, visit their website, and buy their records here.
photo by PJ Sykes courtesy of Merge Records
What you first notice when you hear Mac McCaughan play Superchunk and other material of his solo is how it puts the band’s most vital characteristic front and center: lyrics. It’s not that you wouldn’t like to also hear the surge and kick of a backbeat to go with that plaintive voice that still sounds like a 22-year old; it’s just that, without as much racket, you finally get a chance to hear and feel what Mac (and by extension, his band) had to say. What you find are keenly-observed images — data piling up like magazines, alligator clips on glasses, dancing on a propane tank, somewhere deep in the country — that curdle a certain kind of nostalgia, for places you may or may not have been, people you probably don’t know. People say that Superchunk, as a band, has gotten older with grace, and a listen to Mac’s words, and his style, proves that out. He wears his older words well, even as they sidle up to the new.
Mac (not to mention his co-owned label Merge) was a huge part of the success of this Record Store Day show at Chaz’s Bull City Records in Durham, NC. Serving as the leadoff for the three Merge bands on the bill, Mac drew in an instant crowd, many of them no-doubt hungry to hear tunes from his brand-new Merge release, Non-Believers. Indeed, we got three songs’ worth here, plus a mix of old and new Superchunk. But one of my biggest favorites was the lone Portastatic number, “Drill Me”, from the newly-reissued 2003 LP, The Summer of the Shark, a song that takes aim at existential doubt with some of Mac’s best lyrics yet. Just before tearing into “Digging For Something” to close out his set, Mac exhorted us to all to support our local record stores every day of the year. Over his own career, Mac has given us plenty of excuses to do so.
I recorded this set with a soundboard feed from NC engineer John Koelle, plus Schoeps MK4V cardiod microphones at the stage lip. The sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!
Direct download of the complete set: [MP3] | [FLAC]
Stream the entire set:
Mac McCaughan
2015-04-18
Chaz’s Bull City Records
Durham, NC USA
Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by acidjack
Soundboard (engineer: John Koelle) + Schoeps MK4V (stage lip)>KC5>CMC6>Edirol R-44 [OCM]>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix down, fades)>Izotope Ozone 5 (effects, EQ)>Audacity 2.0.3 (track, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )
Tracks [Total Time 31:04]
01 Lost Again
02 Hello Hawk [Superchunk]
03 Overflows [Superchunk]
04 Only Do
05 Box Batteries
06 Home at Dawn [Superchunk]
07 Drill Me [Portastatic]
08 Detroit Has A Skyline [Superchunk]
09 Digging For Something
If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Mac McCaughan by visiting Merge Records and buying Non-Believers and his other releases there.
Hey there, b boys and b girls. Today, we’ve got a fresh recording of a local Brooklyn trio, B Boys. These guys mine the rich territory of late ’70s post-punk acts like Wire and the Buzzcocks mixed with a more modern garage-y sound. You may have caught them playing out recently at Silent Barn or one of the final shows at Death By Audio last November. They’re in the studio right now recording their first album, but meanwhile they’re also sharing a studio version of “Other Head” on their Bandcamp page. We caught up with B Boys opening up for Tyvek at Silent Barn last month and were surprised at how catchy these tunes are. Their short, to-the-point set will no doubt leave you wanting more, but only after you’ve had the poppy “I Don’t Mind” and the aggro “Psycho” on repeat for a while, not to mention the weird, bendy “Other Head.”
I recorded this set with the AKGs in front of the board combined with a feed from Silent Barn’s Yaman Palak. The sound is as raw as punk rock should be. Enjoy!
Download the complete show: [MP3] | [FLAC]
Stream the complete show:
Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request.
B Boys
2015-04-11
Silent Barn
Brooklyn, NY
Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by Eric PH
Soundboard (engineer: Yaman Palak) + AKG C480B/CK61 (FOB, LOC, PAS) > Roland R-26 > 2xWAV (24/48) > Adobe Audition CC (align, balance, mixdown) > Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, compression, tape exciter) > Audacity 2.0.5 (amplify, fades, downsample, dither, tracking, tagging) > FLAC (16/44.1, level 8)
Tracks [23:42]
01. Sound Frequency
02. Psycho
03. Seagulls
04. Other Head
05. Untitled
06. Fear It
07. I Don’t Mind
Support B Boys: Bandcamp
[Photos by Jamie Langley]
For many Six Organs of Admittance fans, 2012’s Ascent delivered on something they’ve been waiting for a long time: the Six Organs-Comets on Fire record. The long-fabled collaboration—essentially Ben Chasny backed by his Comets bandmates—was originally teased way back in 2009 by Ethan Miller’s Silver Currant blog as “The Lost Electric Six Organs Album.” It featured three demos, all of which would later be recorded for Ascent. The demos themselves would get a limited CD-R/tape release from Silver Current as well. Three years later, Six Organs is back with Hexadic, in which all the songs were composed according to a complex card-based system that I won’t bother trying to explain. (If you want to know more about that go straight to the source and pick up Chasney’s book, The Hexadic System.) Hexadic does two things for Six Organs: it picks up where Ascent leaves off with another electric, high-energy version of the band; and it also completely re-formulates and invigorates the project. For songs that were composed based on a formal system, they downright rock.
Finally making their way to the east coast this April (there was a February west coast tour), this lineup of Six Organs at Baby’s All Right features Andrew Mitchell on bass and Adam Payne on drums. Five songs here are from Hexadic while the balance of the set sees the band drawing from across the Six Organs catalog. The most surprising inclusion is “Black Needle Rhymes” off of 1999’s Dust & Chimes, here re-imagined as a medley with a cover of Coil’s “Fire of the Mind.” “Shelter From the Ash” and “A Thousand Birds” are Six Organs hits if I’ve ever heard one. But my absolute favorite moment in this set is when “Home” (from School of the Flower) segues seamlessly into “Anesthesia” (from Luminous Night). It’s positively chilling.
Baby’s All Right FOH Harrison Fore recorded this set with the house mics and a soundboard feed and I mixed the two sources in post-production, like the Elisa Ambrogio set from the same night. The sound is outstanding. Enjoy!
Six Organs of Admittance is still on tour with Elisa Ambrogio. Check the dates here.
Download the complete show: [MP3] | [FLAC]
Stream the complete show:
Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request.
Six Organs of Admittance
2015-04-30
Baby’s All Right
Brooklyn, NY
Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded by Harrison Fore
Produced by Eric PH
Soundboard (engineer: Harrison) + Audio Technica 4051 > 4x Mono WAV (24/48) > Adobe Audition CC (align, mixdown) > Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, exciter) > Audacity 2.0.5 (amplify, fades, downsample, dither, tracking, tagging) > FLAC (16/44.1, level 8)
Tracks [52:04]
01. Hollow River
02. Wax Chance
03. The Ram
04. Guild
05. A Thousand Birds
06. Home
07. Anesthesia
08. Sphere Path Code C
09. Even If You Knew
10. Black Needle Rhymes / Fire of the Mind [Coil]
11. Shelter From the Ash
Support Six Organs of Admittance: Website | Buy Hexadic from Drag City
[Baby’s All Right photos by Jamie Langley]
If you somehow missed out on Elisa Ambrogio’s sleeper-hit solo record, The Immoralist, last year, it’s time to rectify that. Besides the standout single “Superstitious” garnering a Best Tracks of 2014 slot from Pitchfork, the entire album is superb front-to-back. And fear not Magik Markers fans, Ambrogio’s signature guitar work is all over this record. It’s a quieter album that you might have expected from the Markers front-woman, but also one any fan of that band will find satisfying. The songwriting will feel familiar but for this solo record the subject matter is more personal and the vocals are upfront so that you can hear every word. If you got in on the two records from the tragically under appreciated 200 Years (the duo of Ambrogio with Six Organs of Admittance mastermind Ben Chasny), you’ll have a good idea what to expect from her solo outing.
I’ve been lucky enough to catch Elisa Ambrogio’s solo tour twice this year, each time with different supporting musicians and each lending a slightly different perspective to the songs. Back in January, she stopped by Silent Barn on the tail end of a tour with banjo-player and multi-instrumentalist Nathan Bowles on drums (his set posted here). Then, on the second leg of a tour with Six Organs of Admittance this past week at Baby’s All Right, Ambrogio played a few solo songs followed by some full band songs with Ben Chasny on guitar and drummer Adam Payne (also of Residual Echoes). Ambrogio and Chasny even dust off one of their 200 Years tunes, “West Hartford.” Perhaps due to the late hour or the DIY venue, the Silent Barn set is the looser of the two, with Ambrogio coming nearly unhinged in her solo finale of “Kylie.” In contrast, the Baby’s set is slightly more polished, with Chasny’s subtle guitar work adding some interesting texture to the songs, particularly on “Far From Home.”
The Silent Barn set was recorded with the AKGs set up in front of the soundboard combined with a board feed. There’s a little more ambient crowd noise on this one (particularly the first minute or two of “Comers”), but Ambrogio’s powerful songs soon quell the crowd and the set is quite enjoyable. The Baby’s All Right set was recorded by FOH Harrison Fore, combining the house mics with a stereo board feed. The respectful and attentive crowd is reflected in the clarity of the recording. Overall, the two sets present varying but complementary takes on Ambrogio’s live sets. I think you’ll enjoy them!
Elisa Ambrogio is still on tour with Six Organs of Admittance. Check the dates here.
Download the complete April 30 Baby’s All Right show: [MP3] | [FLAC]
Download the complete January 31 Silent Barn show: [MP3] | [FLAC]
Stream the complete April 30 Baby’s All Right show:
Stream “Clarinet Queen” from Silent Barn:
Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request.
Elisa Ambrogio
2015-04-30
Baby’s All Right
Brooklyn, NY
Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded by Harrison Fore
Produced by Eric PH
Soundboard (engineer: Harrison) + Audio Technica 4051 > 4x Mono WAV (24/48) > Adobe Audition CC (align, mixdown) > Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, exciter) > Audacity 2.0.5 (amplify, fades, downsample, dither, tracking, tagging) > FLAC (16/44.1, level 8)
Tracks [37:43]
01. Comers
02. Arkansas
03. West Hartford [200 Years]
04. Clarinet Queen
05. Superstitious
06. Stopped Clocks
07. Far From Home
08. Kylie
Elisa Ambrogio
2015-01-31
Silent Barn
Brooklyn, NY
Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded by Eric PH
Produced by acidjack
Soundboard (engineer: Mike) + AKG C480B/CK61 (FOB, PAS) > Roland R-26 > 2xWAV(24/48) > Adobe Audition CC (align, mixdown, compression) > iZotope Ozone 5 (EQ, Exciter) > Audacity 2.0.5 (amplify, fades, downsample, dither, tracking, tagging) > FLAC (level 8)
Tracks [30:53]
01. Comers
02. Superstitious
03. Clarinet Queen
04. Stopped Clocks
05. Arkansas
06. Kylie
Support Elisa Ambrogio: Buy The Immoralist from Drag City
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