The Contrarian
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The Contrarian is the alter ego of Washington, D.C.-based musician/producer/writer Casey Rae-Hunter. After years of creating experimental music and avant-pop, Rae-Hunter has harnessed his rock prowess for Northern Lights — a multi-layered album of guitar fervor and elemental tension that recalls the best of vintage psych and pagan prog.
Northern Lights is loosely based on a literary trilogy of some renown, and boasts seductive ditties of both stark intimacy and towering stateliness. Rae-Hunter set out to capture the magic of rock’s most sonically creative period (that’d be the 1970s), without indulging in empty stylistic exercises. These nine songs — lush, enterprising and profoundly sensual — reveal an artist unafraid to craft music that fulfils an inner calling beyond common convention.
Yet each of these songs feel as familiar as a lover’s breath against bare skin. From the imposing grandeur of “The Authority” to the elegiac hymn “The Willing,” Northern Lights paints vivid aural pictures that etch themselves deeper upon the mind with each listen.
Ever the shape-shifter, The Contrarian will likely follow another muse in the future. For now, there is this blazing little album that embraces the past while proving that modern production and arrangement need not be so sterile. Northern Lights is a bridge, a beacon, a blinding reminder of rock’s naked radiance. Basking is strongly encouraged.
The Contrarian’s previous EP, Soft Rock, is available at the above digital retailers; limited 3″ CD copies are also can also be purchased through Icebox Records.
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The Lights Out
“We should start a BAAAND!”
With those prophetic words, slurred after a late-night Boston bar crawl in 2005, The Lights Out was born. Nobody remembers who said it. They’d never even played a note together. (Sometimes you just know it.)
With clashing influences Queens of the Stone Age, Kiss, Bloc Party and Foreigner, the quartet chisels out an entirely new brand of breakneck, anthemic pop-rock, with a barrel of catchy choruses and melodies stickier than the High Life coating their sneakers by the end of every practice.
Taking a spoonful from the time-honored rock food groups of women, betrayal and bad habits, The Lights Out expands the menu with songs offering glimpses into the lives of bounty hunters, and stubborn courage in the face of erupting volcanoes.
Despite the great pride the band takes in being impulsive, The Lights Out maintain an intense work ethic, recording and critiquing every gig like a boozed-up college football team. Their goal is to ensure everyone has a damn good time by making every performance better than the last. With their growing reputation for dynamic live shows and the nods they’ve been receiving from fans and press, they’re clearly onto something.
The Lights Out chased its updated classic rock release, The Douglas Sessions ‘05 with a self-titled EP in 2007, and will up the ante with a new disc in 2008.
For the latest info and a free download of its self-titled debut EP, visit www.thelightsout.com.
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Solah
Solah is an experimental metal/dark ambient/harsh noise collective, founded by Jay Blanchard and JB Ledoux. and based out of Burlington, VT.
Solah’s Darkcar EP was released on October 31, 2007. You can download it here at no charge.
The band is currently putting the finishing touches on its first full-length album, Eternal Humm, which will be released in in digital, CD-R and vinyl formats in 2009.
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The Ten Thousand Things
The Ten Thousand Things is a blackened folk/drone collective led by Wesley Covey. Those who’ve had their ears perked by the sounds of Six Organs of Admittance, Pelt, Hala Strana and like-minded folk destroyers will want to set aside some time to give TTTT a spin. Guitars, vocals, bass, samples and various percussive instruments come together to combine trad music forms with drone experimentalism and shivering doom.
