Saint John’s Math Class heads out on the road for some Maritime action this month, starting tonight in Charlottetown at Baba’s. Most of these shows are with Elephant Skeletons, who won the 2017 Party Sauce Award for Best Live Electronic Act; so you know this will be a wild good time.
Watch Math Class bringing their energy to the Peppers Pub dancefloor in their latest video, “Hot Milk.”
https://www.facebook.com/mathclassSJ/
https://www.facebook.com/ElephantSkeletons/
Coco Barracuda recently wrote on Instagram: “my songs have a hard, fuck-you feel this past year.” This week she posted a brand-new track called “XVIII.” It’s very well-produced and the emotions are incredibly powerful. Coco Barracuda is making some of the best music on the East Coast right now.
[cw: allusion to sexual assault]
How would you describe your sound to someone who’s never heard you before?
Vocal-driven, spacious electronic. Lush with lots of reverb and ambience. Dark with crunchy, bass heavy beats. It’s tough to describe your own sound. I call it cathedral pop.
What gear/software/techniques did you use in making this recording?
I have a Fender Strat through a small USB interface into my MacBook. I use an M-Audio KeyRig 49 that I found for $8! Then I have this USB microphone taped to a canoe paddle and jammed into a step ladder for a makeshift mic stand.
XVIII is the first song I’ve released using Logic Pro X and Native Instruments Komplete rather than GarageBand (with Logic & Mainstage jam packs).
I’m not really proficient at physical instruments and don’t know music theory or anything. I’ve always made do and learned just enough to be able to put an idea or a feeling out there. I’m probably under selling myself, though, because I’ve definitely accumulated a lot of technical knowledge over the years.
What mood or mental state do you hope to evoke in the listener with this music?
Most of my songs center on trying to dig out and articulate my secret insecurities, fears and traumas, particularly as a woman. It seems so selfish sometimes, but I think there’s healing in sharing our experiences. In XVIII in particular, I was exploring personal trauma, toxic masculinity and vulnerability as a gift.
Find Coco Barracuda online:
https://www.facebook.com/cocobarracudahalifax/
http://www.soundcloud.com/cocobarracuda
http://www.instagram.com/cocobarracuda
http://cocobarracuda.tumblr.com
I saw Allumette perform in a stifling hot attic in Moncton, NB and she put on a very entertaining show. Her set combined elements of synth jams, vocals in English and French, spoken word, and even some performance art, as she busied herself watering plants and reading a book to them during her set. This song “8 Hours” is super catchy and it stayed in my head for a long time after the show.
How would you describe your sound to someone who’s never heard you before?
Well, it’s pop music, but that could mean anything. It’s electronic, often repetitive, very simple, pretty happy, pretty eery. I played music my whole life but was never able to write a song I liked until I got into Coldwave a few years ago and started my first solo project. Allumette isn’t nearly as dark and heavy as Most Ghost was but it kept a solid goth bone structure, only with more off beat claps and marimbas and woodwinds. It’s warm and sterile and funny and unsettling.
What gear/software/techniques did you use in making this recording?
I use GarageBand. I’m always a little bit embarrassed to say it but it’s just convenient for me because I lose focus very easily. I’ll just write a little loop and walk away from it and leave it on for an hour while I do other things around the house and then more bits start to show up. I have a whole stack of short loops on my laptop that never went anywhere. Once in a while I’ll get really into one of them and it turns into songs before I know it. Writing music is a lot like drawing for me. I have a xaphoon I used on some other tracks, and sometimes I’ll throw in some recorder, but the sax in this one is all software. I have a big soft spot for wind instruments in dark/cold/new wave, I just find it real sexy and mysterious.
What mood or mental state do you hope to evoke in the listener with this music?
I guess I’m trying to convey a sense of joyful distress. It’s soothing nightmare music. This song is about an imaginary friendship with Alp, a demon that sits on your chest while you sleep to feed off of milk or blood from the nipple, science likes to call it sleep paralysis. But hey this is starting to sound pretty serious, hmm. So what I should say is that I hope you’ll find it really catchy and fun, but that it’ll make you uncomfortable as well.
Find Allumette online:
https://mostghost.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/most.guest.best.host/
https://www.instagram.com/tr_mp_tt_s/
Hello space cadets! Here’s today’s edition of Party Sauce Radio. The show airs every Wednesday at 3PM/Saturday at 8PM on 107.3 Local FM in Saint John, NB… and streams across the universe at http://localfm.ca.
DOWNLOAD LINK: https://partysauce.lol/mp3/PartySauce-2017Dec13.mp3
Tracklist::
Holy Ghost! – “Hold My Breath”
Allumette – “8 Hours”
Ice Cream – “Dial Tone”
Midnight Star – “Operator”
Denmother – “It’s Early And Cold”
Coco Barracuda – “XVIII”
Doot Dedoot – “On The Run”
Doot Dedoot – “Esprit (Jaguar Knight remix)”
Veev – “Custard Fat”
Little You Little Me – “Racket In My Brain”
Russell Louder – “Another Day”
Robert T. Wilson – “Cirrus 004”
Sages from Orangeville, Ontario describes her music as “emo dream pop.” She just put out this video for “Heartache Is,” directed by Sara May, which features a bunch of trippy slow-motion rituals taking place deep in the mystic forest.
Sages has been busy… in the time it took me to receive her interview answers and create this blog post, she shared a whole other brand new video. This comes via Sidewalk Hustle. It features guest voice by Fresh Flesh and some sweet trippy 3D animated orbiting blobs and textures courtesy of Bile Sister from Toronto. This track is a slice of technology-induced paranoia featuring an 808 beat overlaid with spooky synths and digital distortions.
How would you describe your sound to someone who’s never heard you before?
I would say my sound is innocent, introspective and whimsical. Its soft and gritty all at the same time. I like to over reverb my vocals and some of the synths to create a drone-like effect, I find chaotic noise and muddled sounds comforting.
What gear/software/techniques did you use in making this recording?
This song is one of nine from my upcoming album called ‘How To Fill It’. I was inspired by an event where a friend and myself locked ourselves in an apartment for 3 days and just wrote and recorded off the cuff without much editing and I loved the results. It was very raw and real and that what I wanted to make for this album. I only used the intro version of Ableton, a MiniKorg Xl and my voice. I didn’t want to use VSTs and MIDI, I really wanted less control of the outcome. One technique I used a lot was an airpusher effect on the background vocals making them rhythmic and glitchy.
What mood or mental state do you hope to evoke in the listener with this music?
I would say that my intention is to create an ethereal dimension, where the listener can empathize or relate to my introspective thoughts, maybe a sense of curiosity and amusement as well.
Sages links:
https://sagessound.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/sagessound/
https://soundcloud.com/sagessound
It’s an exciting time in the Saint John electronic music scene because Doot Dedoot has finally released his debut album, “Syncromesh.” It sounds awesome and if you love ’80s-style synth jams it was definitely worth the wait.
Doot Dedoot is also known as Jack Lepper. He won DJ Of The Year at the last Party Sauce Awards under his vinyl-slinging persona, DJ Jack Buster.
How would you describe your sound to someone who’s never heard you before?
Well, I love hardware synthesizers, sequencers, and drum machines. With the doot/dedoot project, I set about getting as much out of my hardware as I could. It’s probably not surprising that using those machines lead to music that harks back to my youth as my music has a definite 80s vibe to it. Lots of lush chords, sparkly arpegiators, and slightly mechanical drums.
What gear/software/techniques did you use in making this recording?
Lots of different stuff. Synths on this album include classics like the Oberhiem Matrix 6 and Yamaha DX7, 90s syths like the Roland JP8000 and MicroKorg, and modern stuff like the Waldorf Blofeld and the Korg Volca Bassline & FM. Drums come from the Alesis HR-16B, Yamaha RX-5, and Akai XR-10. Finally, everything was sequenced through an Alesis MMT8 and tracked using an ancient copy of Cubase SX3.
What mood or mental state do you hope to evoke in the listener with this music?
“Syncromesh” became a concept album about driving. It occurred to me that nobody really writes driving songs anymore, so I set out to write songs for, and about, the car. Hopefully, I’ve captured the sorts of experiences we all have when we’re behind the wheel of our favourite automobile.
Contact Doot Dedoot:
facebook.com/dootdedooty/
https://soundcloud.com/doot-dedoot
https://www.orfium.com/profile/doot.dedoot/
https://dootdedoot.bandcamp.com
All aboard, it’s Party Sauce Radio for Dec. 6 2017. The show is heard every week at 3pm Wednesday/8pm Saturday Atlantic time on Local FM 107.3 in Saint John, NB; streaming everywhere at http://localfm.ca.
DOWNLOAD LINK: https://partysauce.lol/mp3/PartySauce-2017Dec6.mp3
tracklist::
Doot Dedoot – “Esprit”
Sages – “Heartache Is”
Sarah Denim – “We Are Always (Tommy Lumaire remix)”
You’ll Never Get To Heaven – “Beyond The Clouds”
Future Islands – “North Star”
Thievery Corporation – “Letter To The Editor”
Tronik Youth – “Losing My Mind”
Korea Town Acid – “See Eye To Eye”
Paranerd – “Droid Shop”
Vitalic – “Hans Is Driving”
DEVO – “Blockhead”
Kraftwerk – “Space Lab”
Lapalux – “Space Violet”
