Delano Taylor Texas Truth
Seems like I read somewhere that Texas is really putting out some great producers recently. I have no idea if that’s true, or just filler in a paragraph. I will say Delano Taylor is doing his thing out of Texas, so for the sake of staying on that course, I heard recently that Texas is really putting out some dope shit recently. Today, Delano Taylor is the dude producing that worthy hype. I have to start with his remix of North Highlands “Best Part.” If ever there was an anthem to run outside getting your neighbors to sing with you, this might be it. The thrill of this song, with its classic vocal riff sample, that sounds like some old classic house throw back joints I used to spin on the decks. Call it what you will, but your hand will be in the air, well one, the other will be sipping on some fine shit, while checking out something beautiful across the room. Don’t sleep on Delano Taylor.On “Hollywood” the sample hook is sweet enough to ride with, and of course the overall impression fits perfectly with the heat that’s coming. Delano sticks with what works, which for me is a highlight in any music. At times, sampled out work can get lost in experimentation, for me the overall idea is find something dope, and ride it out, in/out for a few minutes. Delano Taylor gets that, no doubt.
~ Ryan Boos
Ohsowhy Is A Canyon Call
“HayFeverFuzzy” is a gorgeous tune shedding light on an allergy making us stay indoors, and experiencing the outside world from inside a window. The music is soft and wraps underneath her layered voice. The song is the canyon call, the echo chamber of self wanting to roll around a field, in the dirt, under a bubble of love for the hope to obtain something pure.Ohsowhy has skills and she’s always willing to share them. You can’t mistake this when visiting her soundcloud page. If we were living in some commune somewhere, all of us. She would be the glue, the voice that kept my personality in check in order to share the beauty in front of me with everyone else. I just hope we get an album from her, very soon. Check out this song she did with Buried Redshoes, whose another songster I’ll be exploring.
~ Ryan Boos
Kyriakos Ioannou Is The Calm Cool
Out of Canada, Kyriakos Ioannou does “Make It Easy” with a steady dose of repeater, and the chant-esque to swirl your emotions up to dissect the meaning. At the half way mark of this short number, he starts to go into this nice flow, over and over. It’s indiscernible but catchy, and you’ll find yourself making your own batch of garble beauty as it plays. On “Stage” there’s a droplet haven for tears and the surreal travel log is full throughout the vibrant fall.Ioannou has the quality of providing the great ambience to your self identification process. I really feel the places in his music, the work is so calm, and cool.
~ Ryan Boos
Headaches Implore Fractured Fun
Nueroplastic drops Headaches new single “Oh Honey” which reminds me of something Moby put on his Play album. Its a non stop sample chop carnival that gets you moving. The single pack out now on Nueroplastic has three total songs.Headaches gets tuned up in the whole thing, not risking leaving any space or even a second you might wonder off from the sound. The other song “Genie” is fantastic, the samples have this mars like otherworldly quality, much of which plays like communications that are be fractured by the sun. Probably a good idea to get this, not only is it free, its damn good. Along with the digital gem stones, you get a “visual diary from a surreal exploration of the Salton Sea, California.” Rad!
~ Ryan Boos
Behind The Lens With Sarah Da Silva
We proudly introduce our first choice for our Behind The Lens Series, featuring photographer Sarah Da Silva from Colorado Springs, C.O. Sarah has established herself on the east coast, originally from Springfield N.J. She obtained her Associates Degree in Photography and has worked as an concert, event, wedding and portrait photographer. She also creates beautiful nature photography that has been hung in several galleries including “Ephemera”, an exhibition in Salem, N.Y. in 2011.
Acres: We are interested in the artist behind the lens. This project is a simple look at who you are professionally and artistically. Sarah what is your current camera and equipment list?
SDS: The equipment I use are the Nikon D60 and the Nikon D90 with the SB 600 and 800 flash. However, it’s not how fancy the equipment is, it’s the eye of the beholder.
Acres: Yes I agree, it really comes down to what a photographer can do with available tools. There is no need for fancy high-tech gear to take beautiful, insightful photographs. You have a great eye for nature photography and i’ve noticed that your work is clearly balanced between shooting and meticulous editing, with your own artistic flare. As a photographer, how do you decide what and where to shoot, how do you get there? What do you look for through your lens?
SDS: I wouldn’t consider myself solely a ‘nature’ photographer, I’m open to anything and everything. Although my dream is to one day work for either national geographic or for my own company focusing on concert photography but I want to broaden my portfolio and explore every branch of photography.
How I decide what to shoot is always something that catches my eye, whether it’s symmetry, or asymmetry, I look for some kind of balance and unity through the lens. It could be an everyday appliance we pass by without thought or a breath taking mountainous landscape. My purpose is simple, I just want humans to take a second look and open their perspective to what is around us. I feel that if I can get people to become aware of the beauty on this planet and the people who are in it, we could do more to protect it and ourselves. I want to share a different perspective. Photography is an universal language that anyone can understand. A picture says a thousand words.
Acres: Very well said, it’s difficult to bring the attention of the viewer towards a global/universal acknowledgement that our environment is in serious need of protection at this point in history. One image that comes to mind is this photograph you took last year in Colorado, with several pieces of wheat in focus. The giant mountains in the background are blurred but still recognizable to the human eye. It immediately conveys your message of bringing that sense of awareness to the beauty and the need to value landscapes that are disappearing rapidly in this country.
Acres: So you do a range of outdoor shooting for nature photography as well as indoor shooting for music events (concerts of professional musicians) and weddings. There must be a lot of technical knowledge that comes with the use of your flash and setting up for various lighting situations. Tell me about the best moment you’ve ever had shooting. What aspects of this moment changed the way you see through your camera?
SDS: The best experience I’ve had with photography was when I shot for the band Imbala at the Theatre of Living Arts in Philadelphia P.A. this past February. It was such a rush! The bright lights, the music, the crowd. Snapping pictures to the rhythm of music. It was such a meditative experience.
Acres: Imbala is from the east coast and I know you have worked with them for quite some time taking shots at their concerts. You’re long time friends of the brothers Wirjo, Scott Zanon and Mike Delia. For those of you who don’t know Imbala, check out their music HERE. They won Battle of The Bands in 2011 in Philly and are an eclectic group creating junkcore music.
We want to thank Sarah for connecting with the collective here at Acres. We hope that promoting art and music through the site can become an accessible network for independent creators all over the world.
- Jay Schimpf
Forever Lazy Aims For Digging
That ripped lo-fi with the warped dispositions, and then the warbly stain of a “who gives a shit” punches you in the face. Forever Lazy expresses sound the way a bad acid trip makes you feel like somehow the couch just connected to your spine, and if you want to take a piss you’ll have to try harder to move. But there’s this nice chilly spacious momentum. Its so laid back you might feel like you’re digging a hole the Mr. K left you in, just reach out a hand and ask for help, you should be good from there.
~ Ryan Boos
New Skaters Video ”Schemers”
An uber throw back piece with all the right moves. You can get the EP of the same name here. But first, throw back your acid trips, day dreams, and child hood pizza stained nintendo controlers. These liquid colors will get you to 85 mph real quick. Just make sure Doc has the 1.21 gigawatts to get you Back to the Future.
Bedroom Please!
Noah Kittinger is just some kid from Nashville making melodic folk essence, filled with dream pop, no big deal right? Overall the thing that strikes me the most is his patience throughout his Bedroom project, EP called Toys. Most of the time High School kids don’t relate to anything for me, not b/c of anything they’ve done, but they’re just kids, most of them punks. But not Noah, at least not his music anyway. Listening to his album, while staring into the vast wonders of the smokey mountains this past weekend, with my best friend/wife, I kept thinking of all these experiences I’ve had throughout my life. There’s some real heat in these memories, heart break of the highest order, all while trying to figure out what the hell to say, if not, how to say one word right to anyone. Toys just blew me away with its honesty, and integrity toward life, then I find out he’s just a kid? WTF!!! Its theses rarities that put things on the level for me. The songs are good, no doubt. He treats his instruments similar to how I treat mine, especially the acoustic guitar. Basically just play something that sounds nice, and don’t stop until that warm fuzzy shit goes away. Noah lets it ride, and then comes in with some full on verses. He reminds me of a band I watched in Chicago years ago called Seldom. But I’m not sure how much I can compare, except for the feeling. In all honesty though, I’m a sucker for the chanty, big folky sounds, with some claps. So, this album hits me where it counts. Its all heart man. And I’m sure he’s a great dude, it would be hard to be anything less with the pure emotion like you’ll find on his record.
~ Ryan
Fernando Lagreca Embraces 80′s Chill
Fernando Lagreca takes another page from the 8o’s and reminds me a great deal of Radio Dept. on “Silly Girl Meets Silly Boy.” There is of course the shimey shimey cool vibe in the hooky theme delivery. The only thing left to bring in is the vocal, and its done with very little effort. An overall peach of a track. The album is slated to come out in July on irregular label, until then, download this freebie for your adventurous afternoon day trip. Here’s a preview of the upcoming release.
~ Ryan Boos
Get Your Music On Mavin.fm
The way in which music is consumed changes so quickly. There are so many different ways to find music, and new generators like Mavin.fm aim to make it even easier. I had the pleasure of getting the basics from the creator of the new discovery tool, Tomer Elmalem. Here’s what he said.
What is Mavin.fm?
It’s a music discovery app for music on Bandcamp and Soundcloud with the hopes that it’ll make it easier for people to discover new artists on both sites that they like.
What made you want to do this?
I was looking for new music to listen too and figured I’d checkout what’s on Bandcamp and Soundcloud. As I was looking through this I was really wanting an easier method that wouldn’t require me to stop what I was doing, go to the site, and sift through the many results. I wanted something that would allow me to go in put in a few genres and just play all of the songs that were tagged similarly.
Why should musicians submit to Mavin?
It’s an opportunity to give themselves more exposure and get discovered by people who may not be familiar with them or with Bandcamp/Soundcloud. Their music is good, is deserves to be listened to by as many people as possible.
What bands have you discovered that we should know about?
Question, specifically the album Redux. It’s really chill instrumentals which I really like listening too.
What’s the good word on you?
Currently an undergraduate at Georgia Tech studying computer science. I’m pretty interested in working with music and applying my knowledge of computer science, website development, and technology to help independent artists out.
How do bands get their music on Mavin.fm?
Artists just need to submit their music to our site so we know about it. Submitting is easy, just add the link and a couple of genres or tags that are appropriate for it so Mavin knows when to play it.
“Discovering is easy! Just type in a genre and some related music-tags and hit listen. Not sure what you want to listen to? No problem! Hit random and like or dislike songs as their played until Mavin knows what kind of music you’re looking for.” ~ Mavin.fm
~ Ryan Boos
Lostpoet Vintage Skills
When I was a young dude I remember hitting up record town buying rap tapes. I remember getting Ice Cube’s Lethal Injection, or America’s Most Wanted. I also remember buying Nas’s Illmatic, just because I thought the album cover looked cool, turns out that record ended up getting some serious praise. Those are just a couple tapes I remember having as a kid. I also was really into LL Cool J’s Radio, or Walking With A Panther, and of course Beastie Boys, Run DMC, Ice-T, Tribe Called Quest and tons more. There’s nothing like waving one hand in the air at age 10 like I’m some G or something, then your Mom walks by and just looks at you weird. I was not cool as a kid, hell, I’m not cool now. But I feel cool listening to Lostpoet.
Hip-Hop is one of those genre’s you can go back to at any time and feel the same exact way you did when you first listened. Its something I love a great deal, similar to Reggae, you know what you’re getting, and if done right, hardly anything is better. Which is what I find on Lostpoet’s tunage. He’s an intellect first poet, like Mos Def or Common. There’s no fear to drop the Parental Advisory, but only if needed to show some emphasis.
Anyway, Lostpoet has it, whatever that is in hiphop he delivers it with ease. The music is mature, and the overall content is seasoned. When listening I think “this is veteran ish” nothing more or less.
~ Ryan Boos
Question Gives You The Virtue
Southern California is producing this Question. A combination of serious hip cat beats, and the cool jazz essence to kick your hat a little to one side. Picture bouncing through the park with mad stroll. It’s the kind of music even a non-groover could find some sense of rhythm with. Question has a great collection of tunes online. Between the bandcamp with some choice freebies, and soundcloud as well, you can easily spend some afternoon doing pretty much anything to this fresh funky good time music. So, do it then.
Hop over to bandcamp and DL some great material. Thanks to Tomer of Mavin.fm for the heads up on this.
~ Ryan Boos
