Saturday, February 24, 2007

Maps and Atlases - Trees, Swallows, Houses (2006)



This is a band to watch for. Maps and Atlases come from Chicago and one listen to their math-rock inspired sound will make all the more sense. What completely blows me away about this record is the amount of notes the guitarist opens the album with. I mean, it is just mind numbing, and he keeps it up for most of the album. The sound is hard to describe. Rather, the tone is hard to describe. It has a particular clean sound that I am really into. Musically they come off like a hybrid of Don Caballero, Pele and Hella, with furious octopus like drumming skills and oddly repeated guitar figures, picked with delicate intensity. The singer has a nasally voice that is odd, but somehow very endearing. Each song is blazingly fast, working its way through many time signatures that would have an acoustical physicists head spinning. The key is how much melody they inject in to each song. Where Don Cab or Hella are content to bend the rules in hopes to find some mysterious polyrhythm on the fringe, Maps and Atlases stay its course and explores the polyrythms that exist on the inside of the spectrum, resembling quarks of sound and shimmering rays of light. It all adds up to a new band with an incredibly unique sound, one which I eagerly await either seeing live or releasing another album which hopefully delivers on the promise of this first one.

Like every good band these days, Maps and Atlases would be behind if they didnt have a myspace page and it seems that the only place to get merch is from this site. You can also find two pretty cool Maps and Atlases tee shirts. After all, who doesnt need another cool graphic tee. ^_~

11 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You have some nice stuff on the site, but do you think you could mention the bitrate of the albums you upload in the info/description?

1:42 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sounds pretty rad, I like Don & Hella

12:53 AM  
Blogger blend77 said...

i will when it is available...but mostly 192kbps

11:15 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oddly enough I sat on this cd in the back of my friend's minivan. I discounted it at the time since he is fairly invested in a ska band, assuming it was something filled with 600 trumpets about a guy named "Rudy".

Glad to find out I was wrong.

10:44 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Very cool stuff

6:17 PM  
Blogger mr.A said...

Hi there dude, thanks for the music specialy the old NY hardcore stuff, thumbs up! Made me grap a few old records and put them on the iPod!!!!

11:41 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anyone have the new CocoRosie?

4:54 PM  
Blogger braindonor said...

Hey Man,

I keep meaning to leave you a comment and I never get around to it so here goes:

Your blog has turned me on to so much great music I've never heard of that I just can't thank you enough. I 've gone through all of your historic posts tolo and I really want to thank you for the ISIS stuff. I have since bought their live dvd and most of their discs. They're coming here later in the month and I'm going to go check them out. Jesu is openeing up if they can ever get clearance to enter the States, hopefully that'll be all worked out before the Toronto gig though.

I don't know if you've heard this stream, but the new Jesu album is increadible: http://www.jesuconqueror.com/

If you know of any other music in this vein, please let me know about it man, I love it.

Also, my biggest request for a post at some point would be for someone to post the ISIS live series. That stuff is impossible to get your hands on, I guess because it is so ultra-limited.

Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for all of the great music. I come here every day dude!

2:06 PM  
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