The Hippodrome

Ivan Naranjo is a sound arranger and composer from Morelia, Mexico. A fan of composers from Kevin Drumm to John Cage, Naranjo creates experimental compositions with a predilection for original sound textures. Especially intriguing is Naranjo’s work on the incredibly beautiful “En Busca del Silencio.” From the Arte Sonoro site:

“[En Busca del Silencio] is an LP recorded by the eclectic Mexican Theater Director Juan José Gurrola in the early Seventies with various friends (Victor Fosado: Percussion, Roberto Bustamante: electric Guitar, Eduardo Guzman: Trumpet). It is an unknown record, only a few copies were made. It is a rare example of Mexican experimental music, free jazz, alternative music, at that time. I consider Gurrola a pioneer of sound art in Mexico, along with Alejandro Jodorowsky [director of the Holy Mountain] who was a good friend of his back in the sixties.

In 2007, the curator Mauricio Marcin did an exhibition of Gurrola’s artistic works and he asked me [Juan Lopez Moctezuma] if we could make a CD of this forgotten LP, but inviting electronic composers to do remixes, sound interventions or works inspired in the different tracks of Gurrola’s LP. I had already suggested this to Gurrola, and so he agreed and I invited 20 Mexican people [one of whom was Naranjo] to participate. It became sort of homage to this great interdisciplinary artist, that sadly died recently, just after the CD was published. “

Naranjo also plays in Ensamble Áspero, a trio whose aesthetic seems an elongation of Morton Feldman’s The King of Denmark. The ensemble recently teamed up with Inca Ore and Lemon Bear to create an album free for download here on internet label Umor Rex. “Miguel” is The Hippodrome’s featured track, and even after all this linking and typing, it still sounds pretty damn rad.

Audio: Miguel

From the ever churning musical furnaces of Brooklyn comes a band that’s aptly stoked. I’ve had the pleasure of following Red Sails for a few years now, so when the band inquired about an exclusive feature of their brand new tracks, I was thrilled. Red Sails live remind me of a three headed version of Tom Waits, and these new recordings complicate the effect in a very interesting way.

Tom Tierney has been turning heads for a few years (including a feature two years ago in the Boston Globe), and his DIY ethic and attention to detail have allowed him and band mates Patrick Southern and Colin Fahrner to walk a tight line between raw theatrics and compositional prowess. Completing an extensive tour last year hasn’t stopped the band from planning on hitting the road again this March, so keep yourself posted on the MySpace.

Being obsessed with different music release methods, I must also commend the band for their cleverly staggered release method. Starting with these two tracks, the band plans to release a few more every month. The next single will be called Tides/Ten Days of Sunlight. Maybe if I play my cards right each release will be on The Hippodrome, but for now, grab these two exclusives while they’re up!

Audio: River Gods
Audio: Weathervane

With all the year end excitement going on over at Tiny Mix Tapes, I thought it might be fun to have a little 2007 fest on my own. I put together this mixtape consisting of ten of the many talented unsigned artists that we’ve come across this year. I’ve tried to organize these tracks stylistically, creating some type of bridge between each track. At the very least it’s a refresher course on some cool stuff The Hippodrome found in 2007.

So please dig in, and thanks for making The Hippodrome’s first year of life a good one! I hope you have a happier holiday than that Hippo. Back January first!

Jacob and I – Twelve Download
Dan Smart – Streak Download
Fisch Loops – The Magic Love Spell Download
Boy Crisis – Strawberries Download
The Ecstatic Suffering – An Empty Glass Half Full Download
Bruce Peninsula – Crabapples Download
Trevor Wilson – Bitter Passage Download
Va Va China – Action Trap Download
Zak and His Unhappy Guitar – Special Rider Blues Download
Bogs Visionary Orchestra — Times Are Hard Download

The Magic Love Spell Download
Big Bird Is A He Download
Hunting For Woozles Download

Daniel Fischer started recording his eccentrically beautiful loop based tracks under the name Fisch Loops only about three years ago, but the samples and techniques he uses resonate with enough pop culture to satisfy even the most discerning mash-up fan. I stumbled upon his MySpace on an especially late and stressful night last week, but the second I took a listen to his work, my frown melted like a stick of butter on Venus.

As someone who is obsessed with children’s music and audio samples, A Look Into The Secret World Of Fisch Loops, the album Fischer was kind enough to send me from his home in Salt Lake City, Utah, is a goldmine. The album’s ten tracks include audio from Sesame Street, Winnie the Pooh, and everything in between. I’m still trying to locate where he got half of these samples, but that’s the fun of it!

Although Fischer doesn’t spin live with his FL work, his several other projects, Rotten Musicians, Julio Child and Daniel Tiger all find their niche in the small Salt Lake City music scene. The MF Doom/Madlib influence is duly felt in Fischer’s work ethic, his prolificacy derived from the fact that he’s “easily bored with just one thing.”

“The most recent Fisch Loops album is my attempt at an instrumental album and not just three and a half minute long repeating loops with no vocals,” Fischer says of his latest effort. Fastidiousness is what makes this record a prime example of electronic sampling mastery — it’s an attention to detail and tenacity in searching that makes the music so interesting. Underneath this bed of well-spliced samples is usually an unobtrusive, loungy backbeat, reminiscent of Luna or Tortoise.

It was very difficult to only pick three pieces to put up for The Hippodrome’s featured tracks, but I hope “The Magic Love Spell,” “Big Bird Is A He,” and “Hunting For Woozles” all divulge a piece of the intricate electronic puzzle that is Fisch Loops. To be honest, finding artists like FL is really the reason that The Hippodrome exists. No bad vibes to the thriving scenes out there, but finding good music in tough places is what motivates me to hunt in the vast musical wasteland known as MySpace.

My hunt is also a startling analogy for Fischer’s approach to music as well. “Mostly,” he says, “I enjoy listening to a record that I’ve never heard before and finding a little morsel of awesomeness and then expanding on it.”

And many more!

Action Trap Download
The South Pole Download

If you call Va Va China a “free jazz” band, you’re only proving their point. “I honestly think that using the word ‘jazz’ is the biggest problem. In Europe they call it ‘free improvisation,’ which freed them up a bit,” says VVC drummer John Thomas Robinette III, known futuristically as JTR3. “I reluctantly use the term ‘free jazz’ as a reference only because I think it will be recognized by potential listeners.”

Despite the crossover potential of experimental noisey spazz-jazzers like Talibam! (who interestingly booked VVC’s first two shows), free jazz, or whatever you’d like to call it, seems like a genre in perpetual vagrancy. VVC is immersed in this beautiful crisis, creating a dense resonance of spontaneous form and reactive improvisation for ears to feast on.

Robinette formed VVC after a long stint with the usual rock permutations, including shows with Volcano, I’m Still Excited!! and some dude you’ve probably never heard of named Sufjan Stevens. Swapping in and out players to fit the sound Robinette was hoping for, the final lineup was solidified with David Cloyd on Bass and effects, Dan Mintz (who Robinette hooked up with on Craigslist) on electronics, Patrick Wolff on tenor sax, Matthew Brown on Trumpet, Richard Miller on alto sax, and Robinette on drums. “I wanted this Ornette Coleman-style of improvised counterpoint but with electronically generated sounds to fill in where chords went before. This combination of horns turned out to be extremely effective,” Robinette says.

While VVC certainly wasn’t the first one to throw some electronics into a jazzy mix, they may be the first band that begins to acknowledge where this style fits in today. “I feel like we could share a bill with an avant-rock group like Gang Gang Dance as much as play with noise or new music musicians,” he says.

From either side of the equation, it’s hard to ignore what boundaries VVC is breaking. If you peg them as closer to an experimental rock band, then they are lifting the moratorium on complete “jamming,” something still taboo on the scene today. From the more obvious jazz perspective, VVC utilizes a form of sonic experimentation found rarely in the genre and much more in experimental music. Robinette recalls one show where he made “a kalimba-type instrument out of the spokes on my bike. When you cranked the wheel a piece of metal was raked across the spokes created a cool out of tune sound.”

Even more so then the sonic experimentation, parts of VVC’s work call to mind a Radioheadish “Life In A Glass House” type of form, as horns build in density over a loosely defined structure. This is particularly noticeable on the second of The Hippodrome’s tracks available for downloads, “The South Pole,” which reaches a screeching climax over stunning, improvised harmony. While Wolf, Brown, and Miller’s horns are flexing half-valves and tritone patterns, the rest of the band provides a warm bed of low end for the sound to evolve in.

With all this creative energy at the band’s fingertips, it’s no wonder that VVC is recording as if their lives depended on it. None of these recordings, however, were or ever will be in a studio setting. On the band’s unusual process, Robinette explains that “we record as many shows as we can and earmark the best full shows as potential releases. These are all lo-fi recordings. The point is the performances are exemplary and this is the only record of them. Plus, we cannot afford studio time. We are the new guard of independent music by default. We will release it digitally and then make limited edition hard copies to be sold at shows.”

A pragmatic approach, no doubt, but after hearing these tunes, you may be still wondering why VVC has not been picked up by a label. I asked Robinette why this is so. “Who needs labels?” he asked me instead. “I don’t want money to be driving this band. Seeking it will lead to its demise. We can record for next to nothing. We can put out a record for cheap and get it out to the world for almost nothing.”

“The only thing we lack is the name to get people to recognize it.” Well then, enter The Hippodrome and your audio-hungry brain.