Streaming: Upcdownc - Upcdownc

Band: Upcdownc
Album: Upcdownc EP
Label: Skingasm Records
Year: 2015








Tracklist
01. Sludge Hammer
02. Black Dracula
03. Slobber Knocke
Streaming

Upcdownc are back with a new self titled EP. A little different than we used to, but still amazing!

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Video: Loma Prieta - Love

Album: Angel Eyes - Things Have Learnt To Walk That Ought To Crawl

Band: Angel Eyes
Album: Things Have Learnt To Walk That Ought To Crawl
Label: Self Released
Year: 2015







Tracklist
01. Part I
02. Part II
Download

Angel Eyes is a post-metal/sludge band from Chicago with 2 releases on The Mylene Sheath. This is their third release constisting from two 15+ minutes long tracks.

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Bandcamp (for their previous releases)

The Inquisition: 065.All We Expected

1. How did you come up with the name of the band?

Guillian (guitar): There’s actually a kind of a stupid story behind that. When we first started out with the band, we didn’t really think about having a band name yet. We just rehearsed and rehearsed, but after a while we finally felt the need to search for a name. And so we each decided to write a few possible names on a piece of paper and after a few rounds of voting we ended up with two names; ‘All Is Chaos’ and ‘Everything I Expected’. Bring those two together and voila; we had a brand new name!

2. Do you have a standard procedure of creating a song? Do you just jam around or is there a main riff and the track is build up on it?

Artuur (drums): We do have some kind of standard procedure of creating a song. Generally, it’s up to the first one of us that’s ready setting up his gear for rehearsal to set things in motion. Sometimes it’s me, sometimes it’s our bass player, but most of the times it’s one of our guitar players that starts playing a melody or a riff over and over again until the other guys join in. Once the ball gets rolling, we all completely drift away in our jams. Before you know it an hour has past and then we’re all wiping the sweat and trying to recall everything we just did. That’s basically how our songs get their first shape.

3. What are your influences and what kind of music do you hear when you are at home?

Artuur: Musically, our main influences are bands such as Russian Circles, Red Sparowes, GY!BE, Amenra, Explosions In The Sky and many more. I could literally go on for ages about that.  Guillian, our guitarist, for example listens to shady indie rock and strange singer songwriters as well, but I think we all have a pretty wide taste regarding music. We even caught our bass player listening to Katy Perry one time, so yeah, I think we’re open for anything, haha.

4. Which is the one album you can't live without?

Artuur: This is really the toughest question you could possibly ask me. There are so many albums I really like and love, but that ‘one album’, hmm… I guess I really need the Valtari album by Sigur Ròs and Amenra’s MASS III.

Guillian: That’s indeed a hard nut to crack, but if I had to choose one album only, I think I’d go for ‘Ausserwelt’ by Year of No Light.

5. What's the first record you've ever bought?

Artuur: I’m not proud of it when I look back at it, but I guess that would be a Green Day record or maybe one from The Offspring. We’re all happy these times have past, haha.

Guillian: The first record I bought was ‘Results May Vary’ by Limp Bizkit. I definitely was into the whole nu metal thing when I was a teenager.

6. Name a band that you would like to share the stage or tour with?

Year of No Light!

7. Did the internet and specially the blogs helped to spread your music around the world? Name a place (country) that you were surprised to know your music has reached to?

Guillian: Yes, it really helped us a lot! Without the internet and all of those fantastic music blogs I don’t think our demo EP would have had any plays outside of Belgium. But thanks to the world wide web we’ve reached people all over Europe and we even got response from people hailing from Mexico, Bolivia, Thailand and Iran!

8. Do you support the idea of bandcamp where fans can decide the price or services like Spotify?

Artuur: Yes! It’s so cool to see that some people are paying more than the amount we actually asked for our music, just because they want to support the scene. We really couldn’t be happier with that idea! In my opinion, services like Spotify and Deezer are great as well. Especially Deezer is a great way to discover new bands you have never heard of before. You should check out their ‘flow-function’, it’s really effective!

9. Where do you see yourselves in 5 years?

Guillian: We really don’t have a clue. We’ll see where we get, I guess. The last few weeks we received great comments and reviews about our newest work and we also got word that we were selected for an awesome music competition in Belgium, so we’ll see how that works out.

Artuur: I think I speak for all the band members when I say that it’s our dream to play on the main stage at Dunk!festival once, or even more than once, haha! It’s just such an amazing festival and it’d be so great to be able to play there in the coming 5 years.

10. Is the artwork of an album important nowadays in the digital era?

Guillian: For us, it really does have its importance, even if almost everything is digital these days. The artwork of an album should represent the band and their music visually and is just another way of expressing themselves I think. When you put your soul in creating songs, then why would you come up with crappy artwork to accompany them?!

11. What is your favorite album cover?

Guillian: I really like the album cover for one of Mono’s latest creations: ‘Rays of Darkness’. Everytime I look at it I discover something new and I just think the art perfectly fits in with the feel of the album.

12. It seems that a lot of people are turning on vinyl again. Why do you think that is and which is your preferable media format?

Artuur: Some people say music on vinyl has better sound quality, others say it’s just plain bullshit. I personally think it’s just the whole package that attracts people to vinyl. The artwork gets more attention, you get to hold the creation of an artist in your hands, and so on. It’s really something for music lovers I guess.

13. What's the most vivid story or moment as a band?

Guillian: For me that would definitely be our recording weekend. We recorded the songs for our split release in our rehearsal room, which is basically an upgraded barn, and we slept there, ate there,… We had so much fun doing it and we didn’t mind being together the whole time for almost three days straight. After one day our drummer Artuur already got as sick as a parrot, but he still managed to record his drum parts, even though he felt like breaking down any minute.

Artuur: I’d go for our gig with Raum Kingdom in Lendelede, Belgium last March. Even though we performed in a small venue in a very small town, we got so much response and the whole evening was just perfect!

All We Expected  are going to release a split with Raum Kingdom in exactly one week! You really need to listen to this split!

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EP: Landforge - As The Last Lights Went Out EP

Band: Landforge
Album: As The Last Lights Went Out EP
Label: Self Released
Year: 2015







Tracklist
01. Delphi
02. Plummet
03. And All It Contains
Download

Landforge is a one-man post-rock/post-metal project from UK with doom influences.

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Video: A Time To Hope - Sweet T

The Inquisition: 064.Aerials

1. How did you came up with the name of the band?

This was actually the hardest thing in my opinion. It took us a couple of months to think of a name and "Aerials" had a nice ring to it. Of course it's a classic System of a Down song but it's also a really good band name. It was either "Aerials" or "Knife Sky" but people thought we were saying "Nice Guy" so we scrapped that one in the end and went with "Aerials", all over a few beers of course.

2. Do you have a standard procedure of creating a song? Do you just jam around or is there a main riff and the track is build up on it?

I listen to a lot of electronic and synth-heavy music these days so most of the songs I bring to the table originate from MIDI tracks or EDM ideas that I have written on my laptop. Usually the initial "Guitar Riff" will be composed as a lead synth line but by the time I show Tristan and Jackson the demo and explain the notes to them from a keyboard perspective, the song is totally different from what it was originally was by the time we jump into the rehearsal room and pull the song apart. Since I can't play guitar to save my life, all the songs are written on piano/MIDI and the guys need to figure out the notes on guitar. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't but for most of the time, this is how we write as a band.

3. What are your influences and what kind of music do you hear when you are at home?

To be brutally honest, not a lot of new music influences me these days. I haven't been overly impressed with new releases lately so I guess you could say I'm not easily impressed with modern music. I listen to a lot of classic albums by Deftones, The Mars Volta, Tool, Sigur Ros and earlier Muse albums most of the time. In regards to influences, I'm always excited when Mew and Deftones release a new album because in my opinion, those bands haven't released a bad album yet. Other than 'bands', the last couple of years I've really enjoyed getting into 'synth heavy' or 'synth wave' genres like Perturbator, Carpenter Brut and Gost - all European artists of course. Artists like Geseffalstein and The Glitch Mob always impress me with the sounds they create so these are some of the artists you'll catch me at home listening to. On vinyl of course :)

4. Which is the one album you can't live without?

This is always a hard question isn't it. I honestly cannot name one album but for the sake of this interview I will just have to say De-Loused In The Comatorium by The Mars Volta - it's absolutely flawless. I actually have a crate of records that are my 'white whales' or 'records I can't live without', so if there ever is a fire in my house, I can just pick it up and run.

5. What's the first record you've ever bought?

I honestly don't remember. I know the first record I was given to me from by my brother was Bjork's - Greatest Hits. I think it might have been Interpol - Antics or Bjork - Medulla. Hard to say. Maybe you should ask me what's the latest record I've bought? That I could answer.

6. Name a band that you would like to share the stage or tour with?

If The Mars Volta were still around that'd be amazing. But to share the stage or tour with Deftones or Mew, would honestly be a dream come true. Mew are touring Australia later this year so seeing them live is amazing enough but to support them would literally be a milestone for us as an independent band.

7. Did the internet and specially the blogs helped to spread your music around the world? Name a place (country) that you were surprised to know your music has reached to?

Definitely. The internet has been a huge part in getting our name and music out there. This day and age is heavily relied on the internet so artists can advertise and market their product. Even though we find it difficult to reach our audience on Facebook and other social media platforms, we are very overwhelmed by our worldwide listeners and fans out there. We recently launched our pre-orders for our second EP called 'Restless' and two-thirds of the sales have been overseas. Most of the sales were in Europe (France, Germany, Russia, Greece) but we've had consistent sales in the USA, UK and Israel as well so it's definitely a nice feeling.

8. Do you support the idea of bandcamp where fans can decide the price or services like Spotify?

I do like the idea that fans can pay what they want because at the end of the day, if they don't want to pay for it, they don't have to. As an independent artist, we set the price to what we think is good value and the fan or customer can pay more if they want to. We're just stoked that people are actually buying our music and appreciating a physical media like vinyl again. We believe in our music and I think so do our fans so getting vinyl pressed was a present for them and us at the same time.

9. Where do you see yourselves in 5 years?

It's hard to know where we will be in five years but all I can say is that in years five years time we, as a band or individually as musicians will still be writing and releasing music in some way.

10. Is the artwork of an album important nowadays in the digital era?

From my perspective as a record collector and all-round music lover, artwork is definitely an important factor. Of course we now live in a digital world where the artwork itself isn't recognised or appreciated as much as the music but it's sill relevant to a release. Ed Sheeran released "X" last year and at the time I had no idea what his music was like or what his album cover looked like. However, each time I was on music blogs or searching releases on iTunes or flipping through records in a record shop, I would see this green square with a black "X" on the cover. As much as I found the artwork boring and still never knew who this artist was, the artwork stuck with me. Only until recently, I finally picked up the CD at a shop and realised it was Ed Sheeran. I can't stand that ginger guy BUT I was brainwashed by his artwork and presence for so long that it stuck with me all this time. I guess I'm a little bias because when I design all the artwork and branding for Aerials, I always try to imagine what it will look like on vinyl. I want it to be striking, detailed and eye catching immediately.

11. What is you favorite album cover?

Have you seen the album cover to Restless by Aerials? On a serious note, I would probably have to say Absolution by Muse or Ireworks by Dillinger Escape Plan. I'm a big fan of centralised and balanced artwork.

 Aha Shake Heartbreak by Kings of Leon is also great.

12. It seems that a lot of people are turning on vinyl again. Why do you think that is and which is your preferable media format?

I think there are a few variables as to why people prefer vinyl. It used to being a product for a niche market and now it's appealing to the a wider demographic. It's the "in thing" now and "must have" item from your favourite band. It blows my mind to see what's actually being repressed on vinyl these days but I try not to be too judgemental on the alternative scene. My preferable format is definitely vinyl because I enjoy listening to an LP or album from start to finish. Sure, the digital quality can be better if you don't have a sound system to support your record player but I like supporting the whole format of an LP. I enjoy seeing the artwork big, flipping the record over and I appreciate an album as a whole, whereas I think you can forget this when "shuffle" is on in your iPod.

13. What's the most vivid story or moment as a band?

Probably when we went to the woods for a few nights last year to get in touch with nature before writing our latest EP "Restless". It was great to just hang out as three mates, drink a lot of beer and talk absolute rubbish for a few days. Clearly we were also busy writing music too but it's always good to remember that this band originated from friendship and a love for the same type of music. In the midst of the chaos in the music industry, you can sometimes quickly forget why we're writing music but that moment was a good reminder why we are passionate about writing music.

Aerials are releasing their new EP "Restless" on September 4th in digital, vinyl and CD format.

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