#musicalphabet

[jamespowellart]

L is for Lyre (and also Lemur) @animalalphab . . #animalalphabets #musicalphabet #lyre #harp #lemur #lemurplayingalyre #illustration #kidlitart #childrensillustration https://www.instagram.com/p/CXuQqDMrOlf/?utm_medium=tumblr

[adlibitumcomic]

E is for euphonium

F is for flute

G is for guitar

H is for horn

s-l-o-w-l-y getting back on the drawing train after moving across the country (and also comics are hard when the world is terrible)

18 more letters to go!

[adlibitumcomic]

I is for idiophone

J is for jingle bells

K is for keytar

L is for lute

We’ve hit a page of (mostly) novelty instruments! 14 more letters to go...

These pages are all being colored and assembled into the full alphabet, but that’s staying offline for now, for the sake of a Big Reveal™

[adlibitumcomic]

Work in progress…

A is for Accordion

B is for bass

C is for clarinet

D is for djembe

….and now I go draw 22 more of these

[adlibitumcomic]

ALPHABET POSTERS ARE HERE!

I started posting sneak peeks of this project over a year ago and it's finally ready. Posters are 16 x 20 inches on semi-gloss paper, perfect for hanging in your classroom or music room. Also makes a great new-baby gift for musician parents! Get yours here: https://society6.com/a/products/musicalphabet_poster

[tbajournal]

Musicalphabet - C

#1: CHVRCHES Since this column is not objective or balanced in any way, but rather simply about what I personally happen to enjoy, it is always going to be rather heavy on the Rock and Metal end of the scale. I will never include an artist or band that I don't enjoy purely for the sake of pandering to the audience (which doesn't exist anyway, but disregard that). But like every teen movie has its Token Black Guy, I have my Token Pop Band, and that band is CHVRCHES (Yes, it's really spelled with a V). Hailing from the magical land of skirt-wearing men throwing logs all over the place, awesome whiskey, and mystical monster infested lakes, they play a sort of electronic synthpop with a bit of an eighties chic, but also a very strong modern indie-pop mentality. Their latest effort “The Bones Of What You Believe” (awesome album title, by the way) gripped me right away with brightly crisp production and an up-beat vibe that is just irresistibly infectious. It loses a bit of its appeal to me when the band tries to steer into more melancholic waters, where they compromise a lot of their catchy pop edge. But songs like Recover (see video below) are just so melodically beautiful and striking that it's easy to forgive and forget the slightly weaker moments. I for one am really excited to see what CHVRCHES come up with in the future. Oh, and they did a really sweet cover of Arctic Monkey's Do I Wanna Know?, which you should absolutely check out.

#2: Cloudkicker Cloudkicker, so named after a character in the 90s cartoon “Talespin”, is not, in fact, a band at all but a one-man project masterminded by Ben Sharp from Columbus, Ohio. He is a perfect example of how wonderful the world could be - if only there were no record labels. Entirely on his own, he has produced six records and four EPs, all of which are released on Bandcamp for free under creative-commons-license for everyone to download, and he simply asks for voluntary donations from those who are willing to support him. There is no label, no marketing, none of what plagues most of the modern music industry. And yet, Ben Sharp is hugely successful, in a quiet kind of way. This year, he went on tour for the very first time with Intronaut and Tesseract (two bands about whom I will write at the appropriate juncture). They didn't sell out huge stadiums or headline any festivals, but that wasn't necessary. They played in small clubs around the US, to crowds of enthusiastic fans who have been waiting to see Cloudkicker live for years. I suppose I should say something about the music as well. It falls under the broadest possible definition of Metal; sometimes acoustic and sometimes all amped up, sometimes mellow and sometimes heavy, but always instrumental, always progressive, and always amazing. There is really no way to do every aspect of Ben Sharp's music justice in what little space I have left in this paragraph. Luckily of course, with his music being entirely free, you can just go to his Bandcamp page and listen to all of his work yourself. I'll wait here 'til you get back. #3: Colour Haze In certain circles, Colour Haze is revered as a visionary, ground breaking band that has produced some of the most iconic albums of the past decade. In most other circles, no one has ever heard of them. But that's fine, because I am here to remedy that. Since their inception in 1994 in Munich, Colour Haze have released 10 records of Psychedelic Stoner Rock. Heavily influenced by Black Sabbath, their music is best enjoyed in the company of, let's be honest, a healthy dose of recreational drugs. That is not to say that you need to be flying high as a kite as you listen, but let's just say that you'd be in the minority at a concert if you didn't. In fact, the live setting is where Colour Haze are at their absolute best, and going to one of their shows is a surefire way to fall irrevocably in love with them – regardless of the amount of THC in your bloodstream. So, in lieu of an actual live performance, see below a video of them playing at the Duna Jam, a lovely festival for lovers of psychedelic guitar acrobatics on the beaches of Sardinia. It's Colour Haze in the perfect environment, with the sun about to set, the ocean at their back and their fans sitting or dancing in the dunes.

And that concludes this edition of the Musicalphabet. Next time, we move on to D, as you probably cleverly predicted. I know you just can't wait to find out what awaits you in that category, but you'll have to wait patiently like all the other kids.

Until then!

[tbajournal]

Hey, it’s another Musicalphabet! After I fell on the second hurdle because I couldn’t decide on which band to actually write about I decided to rethink the approach a little bit. From now on, I am not going to write about just one band and album at a time, I’m going to present to you a handful of bands from each letter of the alphabet. Hopefully that will not only make the decision process easier for me, but also provide more variety in what kinds of music are represented in Musicalphabet. I’ve debated back and forth whether or not to start over with A, but ultimately it seems to make more sense to just go on as if nothing happened and treat the last installment of the Musicalphabet as a sort of pilot episode.

Anyway, enough with the introductory waffle about procedure, let’s get right to it. Let’s talk about bands with B.

Black Rainbows

In the B-category there are obviously lots of bands that start with Black (honorary mentions include The Black Keys, Black Pyramid, Black Tusk and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club), but Black Rainbows are a natural pick for me here for various reasons, not least among which is their niche status. They don’t even have a Wikipedia page for christsakes!

So no one has heard of Black Rainbows. Which is a damn shame because their not-quite-unique brand of Psychedelic infused Hard Rock and Stoner Metal is, in a word, awesome. It’s beer drinking, air guitar playing, head banging, dancing like nobody’s watching, accelerator flooring, balls to the wall fun. This is the soundtrack to which you drive through the American midwest with an open-top Hot-Rod. Or the Australian Outback, since Black Rainbows with their driving and forceful riffs are quite often reminiscent of the almighty AC/DC, albeit a heavily downtuned version of the Australian Rock-Legend. But these guys are no American Rednecks, nor are they sunburnt Aussies. They hail from the land of good wine, leaning towers and Bread and Games – although they would probably say Beer and Concerts.

Ben L’Oncle Soul

Let’s stay in Europe for the moment, but migrate a bit to the west. Meet: Ben L’Oncle Soul, a French singer/songwriter who made his first appearance on the musical horizon in 2009 with a six-track EP of soul-y cover songs. Half a year later he puts out his full-length self-titled debut. The covers are gone – save for a brilliant rendition of “Seven Nation Army” by the White Stripes which also appeared on the previous EP, a song that should tickle everyone’s dancing bones in all the right places.

With this gentleman the clue is very much in the title: Soul is what it says and Soul (arguably with a capital S) is what you get. Now, I’m not necessarily an expert on the subject of soul, but tracks like Soulman or Petite Soeur are absolutely astonishing even to the uninitiated ear. The whole album is just immensely enjoyable, even when L’Oncle gets a little moody on songs like L’ombre D’un Homme.

Judging by the name and the cover, which is a throwback to the old Motown records of yore, I at first suspected this album to be a rather gimmicky affair, but there is no affected artsyness about anything on this record. It is simply earnest, strong song-writing from start to finish.

Brutus

A band with members from both Norway and Sweden called Brutus. Is it just me or does that just scream (or growl*) Black/Death Metal to anyone else? But these five Scandinavians buck the trend with glorious 70’s inspired Stoner-Rock that should remind you, with its warm guitar sound and old-school arrangements, of Black Sabbath at every little twist and turn. Actually, if you’re a fan of 70’s Rock and Metal in general and Black Sabbath in particular, just stop reading right now and watch the video below this paragraph. You’re gonna love it, I guarantee it.

And if you’re not a fan of that type of music, well then I don’t know what to say to you. What is not to love about fuzzy, downtuned guitars, thunderous drums and intense, high-pitched vocals? What is not to love about sweaty, bearded, long-haired dudes in cut-off denim jackets? Actually, when you put it like that – you might have a point there. But this is not about how it looks, it’s about how it feels. And it feels awesome!

*Haha, Metal puns.

BADBADNOTGOOD

Alright, so we had three bands now that positively ooze fun from every note and beat. There is a time and a place for all that, but sometimes you don’t feel like drinking beer and dancing around like a mad chimp; sometimes all you want is to sit back in your leather armchair and relax. So let’s take a little break from all the merriment and turn up the melancholia instead. And melancholia is something that BADBADNOTGOOD excel at. They are a Toronto based Jazz trio that made waves in 2011 doing instrumental reinterpretations of hip-hop tracks. With their second record, BBNG 2, they developed their style towards more original material, while also experimenting with covers from other popular artists such as Kanye West and James Blake. All of this they did with aplomb, backed up by stellar musicianship and crisp production.

So BADBADNOTGOOD have created this fascinating amalgam of Jazz, Hip-Hop and modern electronic music, channelled through a fierce and fearless punk spirit. Their third Album, fittingly, if slightly unimaginatively titled “III”, sees them now kick away the training wheels of simply interpreting other people’s work and focus exclusively on original material. The jam-session feeling of their earlier output had to make way for a more concentrated approach which helps make the songs feel more like concise compositions, rather than improvisations. The instrumentation is rich and sometimes quite dense, but at the same time lush enough so that everything has enough room to breathe. There is experimentation in all kinds of directions, with songs sometimes feeling like post-rock epics and sometimes 80’s synth-pop anthems. All of which is just a roundabout way of saying that the song writing on this record is absolutely beautiful.

So if you have even just a passing interest in Jazz, give these guys a listen. They’re worth it.

Baroness

Ok, full disclaimer: I am a massive fan of Baroness. From the very first time I heard Blue Record, their second LP from 2009, I was irrevocably in love. Actually, even before I listened to a single note Baroness had already made a lasting impression with their orgasmically beautiful cover designs, hand painted by frontman and all round artist John Baizley. If you’re at all into Art Nouveau, you should have a look at his work over at www.aperfectmonster.com.

But we’re not here to talk about painting, this is about music. As much of a talent as John Baizley is with a paintbrush, the musical genius he displays in Baroness is, at least to my mind, even greater.

The band has three full length albums under their belt, plus two EPs, each of which marked a distinct evolution in their sound. With each successive album, they became, for lack of a better word, more mellow. As is always the case, this upset some hardcore fans of the early day, but to me each step of the band’s evolution was just as amazing as the one before or the one that followed it. Yes, they lost a lot of the abrasiveness and aggression of their first EPs. Yes, they have become more mellow and restrained. But they have also become more intelligent songwriters, who have learned that always playing as hard and as fast as you possibly can may not necessarily be the best approach.

If you want to give these guys a listen, and you definitely should, it might be a good idea to start with their latest effort “Yellow and Green” and make your way backwards towards their earlier work. Unless, of course, you happen to be hugely into Metal already, in which case Red Album might be more to your taste.

And that’s it. Five of my favourite bands that start with B. I apologize for the lack of hip-hop or rap, but I simply don’t know enough about these genres to write about them. Let alone recommend lesser known artists. So this column will have a distinct bias towards Rock, in the broadest sense of the word. Write what you know, as they say.