I love music.
I filled up my shelves with thousands of CDs that followed me around from college to move after move. In boxes, in storage, all the way to Chicago in 2002. The Amazon marketplace sales paid for rent while I searched for a real job. I remember walking from our apartment on Patterson Ave., a couple blocks from the lake, up to the post office on Irving Park to deliver around 30 CD mailings a day as I sold off the physical collection. But, I lived on music.
It was a fundamental shift, as CDs were replaced with ripped mp3s on iPods, now to even to huger harddrives on my Windows Home Server. My tastes have grown, stretched, refined but I've also discovered the decrease in the marginal return for a new "album." Yes, I still call them that. Born in '77, my first music was vinyl but more along the lines of the Sesame Street collection played on the Fisher Price. It wasn't until I was older -- right around the pivitol 1991 period of rock -- when I decided that the best songs weren't the best known songs. I'm a full disc, full album, full catalog completist. I work the same way with books and authors, devouring every single book from Haruki Murakami.
It starts with a song. It's the album, though, the consistent growers, that I live for.
And Helios is impressive stuff. Keith Kenniff is probably my favorite artists right now. Under the names Helios and Goldmund, every release has been worthwhile. Nothing matches the absolutely perfect collection of songs in 2006's Eingya. I found it in those Chicago days. I remember the first time I listened to it on the Blue line commute home from Jackson to Division, underground and white-noise quiet the whole way, lopping tracks and syncopated distractions scoring the backdrop after a day's work. By the time I got to track 5, I was blown away. This is the sound of the stuff that I would write and record, if I could write and record. Well, anything other than ringtones (I'll get to that in another post). It resonated.
And here we go: jackpot.
New Goldmund album: The Malady of Elegance
The new Goldmund album, "The Malady of Elegance" will be released on Type Records in late July. Clips are posted on the main MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/goldmundmusic.
New Helios album: Caesura
To be released later 2008. In the interim, Keith has promised to provide an unreleased song a month until the release. Check out more details at http://www.myspace.com/thesadepicurean.
Download three Helios unreleased tracks:
Helios - Land Father
Helios - Isoline
Helios - Radiohead Remix
Download a new Goldmund track from "The Malady of Elegance":
Goldmund - In A Notebook
Monday, June 23, 2008
Jackpot: new Goldmund and Helios releases announced for 2008
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3 comments:
well well, Slightly Seven. I am very impressed with your writing... I didn't know you had it in you! Will download the songs tomorrow at work. Something else you can bust me on.
You bring up a great point. I'm about 2 posts shy of a post about how it's difficult to write these posts. I'm out of practice and my prose has love handles. I'm finding it difficult to make cool maneuvers.
I never really got into Helios the way you and Cameron have, and for that I am envious. When the topic comes up I feel somewhat the way that Cameron must have felt whenever we flipped out our cell phones, before he upgraded to the Dash. But as with any music you recommend, I will download.
As for Murikami, he needs to pull another Wind-Up Bird Chronicle or Hard-Boiled Wonderland out of his head and stop with this bullshit he's been churning out lately.
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