Showing posts with label Dan Melchior. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dan Melchior. Show all posts

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Dan Melchior on Hozac Records Hookup Klub Yr 3




Honestly sometimes Hozac makes me think why would I think it's alright to press singles when there's a label like this putting together sleeves like Rayon Beach with Alex P Keaton in an emotional moment. There's no way they have clearance for that, it's so completely ballsy you know this is going for the tunes inside. I start to get ideas about instead of spending the money to press one seven inch I could just get the entire Hozac catalog and be set for music FOREVER! But it never ends, I'll never be satisfied.

Here we have the Hookup Klub Year 3 single from Mr Dan Melchior. He's another guy I've seen way to many releases about and for some reason just haven't gotten a chance to sit down and really figure out where he's coming from, and that's how the singles club is freaking essential every year. The bands I look back on in that series....I need to go reorganize that section of the shelves again. Everytime I go back to these I've changed, the bands have changed and it's a whole new thing having a history behind them a couple years later. Oh shit..these guys...wow.

A-Side, "Yachts" starts off with the sludgiest, slow trudging, mass of a bassline... quivering, and most definitely slowed down. This pounding beat is even taking forever, a high tinny electric melts the direct line right in, along with this big doubled vocal and echo in that straightforward delivery as far away from melodic singing as possible. By the time this lyric is even halfway finished it's hard to remember where it started. The sort of thing that might have been conceived of and played stone drunk, it has that lazy see saw rhythm losing it's balance for a second and then righting itself. All derived from that experimentation place, like an ancient soul sucking jerk Beck kind of bassline with this slow phaser strums punch in and out. A kind of anti-energy, trying to find out if this hyptnotic ultra slow bpm will eventually take over and drive itself. A weird futuristic soul, something of a looser Mattress, slide distortion that isn't going for any kind of recognizable melody instead reaching right into that pure psych space. There are trails all over this thing, dirty psych trails.

B-Side "Barry Mundane Has Plans" is a distant big chord strummer, an awful like the way Sebadoh would switch gears at the drop of a hat on an old cassette... leading or kind of emulating, starting at that point you sort of recognize, a faint '70s sound with a synth sound coming in loud and clear along with those vocals right into the mic this time, just as lazy and taking it's time, everything rhythming with that last verse word. Even a little Jeff Novak for a second, compared to that other side. A beefy serious landscape solo, so sincere and just over the top... I could see obsessing over this stuff, I definitely want to hear how a full length is going to play out to hear all the promise of the thousand directions Dan is willing to go at the drop of a hat, in the middle of the night, the home recording ROCK. Slowly punching in layers, but not to that textural breaking point. Just making the most out of these weird unused sound settings.

"Stig and the Queefs" is positively bustling, glasses klinking, it's almost a sketch song, some kind of punk band playing in the background, the whole scene of a shitty club present. (see where Dan is willing to go?) and these two guys are having this yelling over the music conversation about how awesome all this obscure shit is and how americans suck. A band within a band... a recording of going to see a band? Perfectly crazy and there's a million possibilities here. The conversation is douchy, this band sold out, and he mentions the Lime Spiders? I think he's making fun of this scene and at the same time, identifing with it. He knows enough to mention those guys....but then I guess I've heard of them too....shit Dan, that's fucked up.

Get in on that Hookup Klub or get it from Dan direct!

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Fresh and Onlys Dan Melchior split on Volar Records


Dan Melchior Und Das Menace:
Daylight Robbery
A Delicate Genius Backstage

Fresh & Onlys:
A Taste Of Hunger
Black Coffin

The fresh and onlys have a couple of new singles coming out lately, just in time for the holidays! Like this split with Dan Melchior on the fledgling Volar Records, they still have color and reg vinyl available, but not for long I'm sure.

The Fresh and Onlys have been steadily evolving since their first fuzzy garage-y one. After that solo full length from Tim Cohen, I'm convinced they can and will go anywhere successfully. The foundation of elements are all there, the melodies, lyrically he's great, they play with early rock elements making that unsettling new/old sound. I've heard this before right? Sort of.
The new ones on myspace from their full length are just getting even catchier with sort of that Jeff Novak 60's reinterpretation feel. They actual era never sounded do good trust me...they are what it should have been. Lots of harmonies and jagged cuts, and all with a kind of optimism, keeping it all upbeat. The perfect way to sit down with some coffee and start the day off, I'm telling you.


Dan Melchior I have less experience with, just a couple of random singles after hearing so much about him, I still have no idea what to expect every time I put one on. Then recently he's exploded with a million releases, I can't keep up, and I push him to the back of the line...slow down man! But on a split with the F&O's? Of course I'm in. It ranges from tepid hippy-ish jams to screaming lo-fi distorted guitar solo for 2 minutes...a genre chameleon, all with an english accent. These are a perfect match.

Goner records has it and Academy too.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Dan Melchior

I've just barely broken the surface of this Dan Melchior's prolific career...lots and lots of albums, and it sounds like from a brief sampling of myspace that it's also bridging a lot of different sounds...more recently on the low-fi homerecorded front. Lots of others will be able to sum up his career better, siltblog, terminal boredom, ZGun. I'm not going to shed any light here, it's just one of those nice surprises when you think you've explored something to some kind of conclusion to find another branch on the outsiderish rock tree....
He's like a bluesy TV Ghost or Blank Dogs...that original sounding weird. I loved the 'No horizon No prescription' track...it has that late night muddy beat, tortured guitar lowly bounced track underwater feel, but with all the experience to back it up. A decidedly English Ariel Pink.

I'm the last one to this party, and it's worth checking out for yourself. The latest incarnation is Dan Melchior and Das Menace currently based in NC.

Get it from Mr. Mechior himself or...
SS records:
Dan Melchior - She's So Blank 7" (Almost Ready) $5
Ahhhh you know you are hooked so why should I even try to push this on you? S-S's favorite Welshman ever. That's right: You can have your Roald Dahl and Dylan Thomas, shove your Manics and Tom Jones. John Cale? Okay, you got me there. Second favorite Welshman ever. But second is better than most. Buy this.