Riding Alone For Thousands Of Miles Interview

So, uh remember Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles? You know? That one band? Released the best album of 2008? Ringing any bells? No? Come onnn!

Well, regardless, there is an interview with them over on a somewhat mysterious website called "Five Questions" that might be of interest to all you fans of obscure, up-and-coming post-rock.

Nothing really revealing in the interview though: no news of the album that they've been working on, no new tracks - just a little bit of insight into the thought process behind their work thus far. Either way, enjoy.

Songs of the week: 2/24/09

Just dance.

***songs of the week #22

1. The Game - Zodiac (B-b-break beats. This is such a sick track, from sick EP, but I can't find anything else by them. There's another Zodiac that's electronic, but they suck. Any help?)
2. Slink - Bombs Into You (Jury's still out on the hype:substance ratio for Bombs Into You, but this is pretty fun)
3. Budapest 1956 (firing squad) - Riding Alone For Thousands Of Miles (The shape of things to come)
4. We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed - Los Campesinos!
5. Homesick - Mutated Forms (So fun)

New song from Riding Alone For Thousands of Miles

This weekend I received a nice surprise in my GMail from our favorite New Jersey post-rockers, Riding Alone For Thousands Of Miles. I'll let them take it from here. Enjoy!

***

Hello again,

We just wanted to let you know that we just posted a new song on our last.fm page.

We just recorded this song last night for a demo of songs that may appear on our upcoming studio debut album. There are plenty more songs on the way this one just happened to be the easiest one for us to record. Please download it, digest it and give us any feedback. Also, please tell anyone that may be interested to go ahead and give it a listen(we might not be able to leave it posted for very long).

Hope all is well.
Best regards,
RAfToM

P.S. the song is still homemade 8-track recording but the quality is about 100 times better then our older stuff. We borrowed some good mics and cables and they made a lot of difference.

Exciting stuff, be sure to let me know what you guys think. Late "Songs of the Week" to drop tomorrow night. Cheers!

The Top 20 Albums Of 2008: #'s 10-1

This the culmination of hundreds of artists making thousands of albums in one short year. So here they are, the 10 best records of 2008.

Please, enjoy.

(Read about albums 20 - 1 here.)

***
10. Feed the Animals - Girl Talk (original review)
Illegal Art
Buy/Download

Feed The Animals, as told by Chris Sanders.

It was his pick for album of the year, so I'll let him tell you all about it.

---

9. United Nations -United Nations (original review)
Eyeball Records
Buy (Amazon.com)

I guess if Glassjaw wasn't going to get off of its collective ass and release an album, United Nations was the next best thing. Daryl Palumbo, Geoff Rickly, and a few others who (literally) can't be named all got together, and U.N. was what they came up with. File under "violent", "scary", "abrasive", "obscure", and "inaccessible".

Fans of Circle Takes The Square, rejoice a noble birth. Or at least something to tide you over until Circle's next LP.

---

8. Intimacy - Bloc Party (original review)
Vice Records
Buy (Amazon.com)

Oddly enough, I think I might be the only person quite this enamored of Intimacy. I don't really know why though. The material is some of Bloc Party's catchiest to date, and successfully blends Silent Alarm's rock with the electronic A Weekend In The City to craft a diverse whole which surpasses the sum of its parts.

Bloc Party was the indie darling of the world a few years back, and it seems that everyone's been moving on to each successive "next big thing". Fleet Foxes are fine, Portishead's pretty, and Vampire Weekend are...ah...very naiiice. But me? I still have some room in my library for Bloc Party.

Intimacy is 11 reasons why.

---

7. Uphill City - I Am Robot And Proud
Darla
Buy (Amazon.com)

It's been a crowded race this year, and the whole electronic scene has been thriving, with outstanding records from outfits like No. 9 and Burning Star Core. Heavyhitter Squarepusher disappointed, and Kira Kira's Our Map To The Monster Olympics was (to me) nothing but hype.

Still, just listen to I Am Robot And Proud. Try to be bored. Try not to enjoy it.

Just try.

Best electronica of 2008? Best electronica of 2008.

---

6. The Lights We Shed Shall Burn Your Eyes - Deepset (original review)
Kitty Wu/Inspire

Read that review. It's all I have to say.

Beautiful music for a beautiful season - the soundtrack of my upstate New York autumn.

---

5. Take Me To The Sea - Jaguar Love (original review)
Matador
Buy (Amazon.com)

I dearly miss The Blood Brothers and everything which they represented. But in the ten years before it becomes appropriate for a reunion show, this album certainly has the potential to tide me over.

---

4. Conor Oberst - Conor Oberst (original review)
Merge Records
Buy (Amazon.com)

Many artists release a self-titled album as a debut. Other times it signifies a reinvention or new direction for the music. Conor Oberst doesn't fall into either category.

Rather, this is the culmination of Oberst's career working under Bright Eyes, just without that moniker. His Mystic Valley Band provides an excellent backing to his introspective, off-beat lyrics, and the mood is decidedly loungy and alt-country.

You won't find this on any Country radio station, and that's a real shame. Oberst, much like Rocky Votolato, signifies a return to what made country and folk music so appealing years ago, with stark narratives juxtaposed against jangly, manic accompaniments. Songs such as "Danny Callahan" and "Cape Canaveral" are some of Oberst's strongest ever, making his self-titled effort required listening for 2008.

---

3. Harmonic Motion Volume 1 - Gifts From Enola / you.may.die.in.the.desert
Differential Records
Buy (Amazon.com)

Deepset's beauty aside, the second best post-rock release of 2008 seems obvious to me. When two of the genre's biggest players get together on one record, how can it not be obvious? Gifts From Enola and you.may.die.in.the.desert are immensely talented groups that make immensely enjoyable music, and both bring their 'A' game to this split.

That being said, Gifts From Enola steals the show completely on their side of the album. There is an intensity present that was merely hinted at on Loyal Eyes Betrayed The Mind on songs such as "In The Company Of Others". I can easily envision a day when people talk about Gifts From Enola with the same reverence currently reserved for Godspeed and This Is Your Captain Speaking. Which isn't to say that you.may.die.in.the.desert is slacking - because they're not. But the you.may.die on Harmonic Motion is more or less the same band heard on Evergreens and Icicles. Gifts' growth is simply jaw-dropping.

I wish that I could offer a money back guarantee on the enjoyment of this album. That's how confident I am in its power.

---

2. Tha Carter III - Lil' Wayne
Cash Money
Buy (Amazon.com)

"You can't fool me, I know what you watchin - me! You watch me!"
-Lil' Wayne, 3 Peat

I can only imagine how it must feel to be "The Best Rapper Alive". Self-aware, self-enamored, self-centered, self-aggrandizing, and - most of all - self concious; Lil' Wayne, in a nutshell. All eyes are on him, and he most certainly knows it. In fact, he feeds on the attention, thrives on the adversity, and loves every minute of it. That last part is key - Dwayne Carter, Jr. genuinely enjoys the act of rapping, and it is this quality that shines in his output more than anything else.

Through his impossible rasp, you can tell when he's having fun. One such moment occurs during his delivery of the quote above, where you can actually hear him beaming, smiling in delight at his own wit, his own success. Lil' Wayne probably doesn't need another fan like me, doesn't need somebody else gushing about his latest release, his record-breaking sales figures, his omnipresence in, more than just hip-hop, but all pop music. He doesn't need anyone else to inflate his ego. But I'll do it anyway.

Tha Carter III is a sprawling contradiction. The year's most challenging, vacuous, accessible, weird, affectionate, misogynistic, genuine, and just plain fucked up music is all somehow compressed into a span of 75 minutes. The strength of Wayne's mixtapes would have rendered almost any album superfluous and irrelevant. Lucky for him, Tha Carter III isn't just any other album.

Over ambitious? Yes. Over-hyped? Probably. Overrated? Never. What's more to say, except "Fuck Al Sharpton".

---

1. Riding Alone For Thousands Of Miles - A Boldogság Minden Reményét Elragadták (original review)

The first time that Riding Alone For Thousands Of Miles graced my ears, I was sure that they were something special. At least, I thought so - after seeing them panned by The Silent Ballet, I began to have second thoughts.

Because, what really makes something the best album of a given year, anyway? Does it just have to be great, or does it have to also be groundbreaking? Must it captivate for as long as it plays, or does it have to haunt you all year and linger in the back of your mind? Or should it simply be the album you listened to the most? And the group, should they be catchy or unpredictable? Mainstream or obscure? Up-and-comers or seasoned veterans?

Or does it even matter?

A Boldogsag etc. is frankly not groundbreaking. It isn't new, it isn't catchy, and it's certainly not mainstream. Nor was it the album I listened to the most this year - according to my last.fm, the one released in 2008 with the most plays is Tha Carter III.

What it is, on the other hand, is monumental. It represents a return to form for a genre gone astray. Riding Alone are a sort of Godspeed after Godspeed, a post-rock band for a new decade. Samples, strings, and silence all collaborate for over an hour to create a brooding tension that sums up War like no other. It is my opinion that it is A Boldogsag, and not Return to Cookie Mountain or Dear Science (as many in the industry contend), which is the soundtrack of this Administration, the disc that successfully captures the air of frustration, terror, and hypocrisy that inhabits our "post-9/11" world.

So while that other website might not be so forgiving, I'm willing to spot the band on the sparse production and mixing. In exchange, they gave me the Album of the Year.

Riding Alone For Thousands Of Miles - New tracks and remasters of old ones

Another short post, but to all that are interested by slow, brooding post rock...

Riding Alone For Thousands Of Miles have some new tracks up, as well as remastered versions of tracks that appeared on this year's phenomenal A Boldogság Minden Reményét Elragadták. You can download them for free (at least for the time being) over on their Last.fm.

In case you were unaware, Riding Alone For Thousands Of Miles are an immensely talented outfit from New Jersey, who make tense instrumental rock in the vein of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Their debut album, A Boldogság Minden Reményét Elragadták, has been a front-runner (in my book at least) for the title of "Album of the Year".

Riding Alone For Thousands Of Miles - A Boldogság Minden Reményét Elragadták

2008
Self Released

9/10
Best of 2008

This was one of my "sample" reviews that I submitted along with my application to become a writer for The Silent Ballet. This was really only the second critical review that I wrote, so the quality is probably a bit questionable, but this was one hell of a release. If you want to get a copy, just e-mail the band here.


[EDIT]: They apparently disagree.
***

I’m hesitant.

I scroll through the archives of past reviews that have been posted here on The Silent Ballet. This is about the eighth time I’ve done so, but I want to be absolutely sure: never before has an album been awarded a 10/10. Riding Alone For Thousands Of Miles’ first release has me wondering if that might soon change.

Being young, and relatively new to this whole “critical appreciation of music” business, I am quite excitable and impulsive, with a tendency to hastily award superlatives after a cursory listen. So, given to hyperbole as I am, when I label a release as “the best of the year”, it is quite understandable (prudent, even) that you, gentle reader, take such advice with the proverbial grain – or seven – of salt. But you need to trust me when I tell you that this release could be the best of the year.

On paper, A Boldogság Minden Reményét Elragadták, an instrumental work with its sights set on the hypocrisies of US global policy and the war in Iraq, has failure written all over it. The foreign title and lofty concept scream pretension and immaturity, making it quite tempting to preemptively write this record off as an exercise in masturbatory self-indulgence. Resist the urge: the album is nearly without flaw.

Deeply rooted in the post-rock milieu, this young eleven-piece from New Jersey is certainly in its element on this debut – spanning well over an hour – painting with quite a diverse and eclectic palette. Over the course of twelve tracks, Riding Alone combine pads of ambience with samples and found sound, deftly manipulating droning guitar notes to work alongside passages of all-out metal fury. The finished product could be chaos, a Jackson Pollock painting in audible form – instead, the end result is nothing short of breathtaking. Perhaps it was unfair of me to pigeonhole this album as a political attack against the United States, because A Boldogság’s scope is so much wider than just that. This record is essentially a treatise on the loss of innocence, the ways in which humanity copes with that loss, and how these coping mechanisms ultimately make things worse, starting the cycle all over again. The title really says it all: A boldogság minden reményét elragadták is a Hungarian idiom which translates to mean “All hope of happiness has been snatched away”. Really uplifting stuff.

To this end, A Boldogság is split into 4 different “acts”, each with its own distinct setting and overarching theme, and the band does an excellent job in crafting each piece so that the unified whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Also quite effective is the (sometimes not so) subtle interplay between each act, most notably the juxtaposition of the album’s two anchors Fallujah Sky and Screwdriver (which start off Acts I and III, respectively).

Fallujah Sky centers around an American attack on the Iraqi city, while a frantic women screams in anguish, her Arabic chants and refrain of “Allahu Akbar” an elegy for her beloved home, while children and family members console her. An American soldier then reflects on her (and the Islamic people in general’s) religious devotion and fervor:

“The woman, seeing my reaction, came up to me and put her hand on my cheek and said Insha’Allah, which is ‘God’s will’. These people over there - it doesn’t matter what bad things happen to them - they can accept it as God’s will. They’re deeply religious. It wasn’t God’s will, it was my fucking order. I gave the order to fire those rockets into that building, and I killed a family.”

Screwdriver shows the other side of the coin and finds the listener in a more comfortable 1950s America. A young child, no older than 8 or 9, adamantly preaches that one must be saved in order to escape the fiery wrath of Hell and the Holy Bible is the word of God. Later, it is revealed that his evangelical mother abused him, forcing him to roam the streets espousing the gospel to the masses.

While starkly different on the surface, each song tackles the same issue: the wound of lost innocence when human life is neglected, and the inadequate bandage religion represents. Riding Alone also implies that America has no right demonizing the Middle East as “fundamental”, as Islam hardly has a monopoly on extremism, tacitly condemning the Bush administration’s War on Terror (the war is more directly attacked during Fading Light and Broken Windows, later on the disc). While quite controversial, these tracks are truly the meat of this release.

This album is by no means perfect, but Riding Alone For Thousands Of Miles certainly gets most of it right. In their portrayal of innocence, the band resorts on two separate occasions to the cliché of incorporating samples of children playing and singing, with varying degrees of success. The only track that is unsuccessful, A Million Little Explosions, is a bit of a misnomer, as the song never really explodes as promised, instead choosing to meander through several minutes of ambience before finding a bass riff and sticking with it. When the song finally begins to build some momentum, it abruptly ends. The effect is quite frustrating (one can’t help but wonder if the last five minutes was a bit of a waste), but when viewed in light of the album as a whole, the track seems more like a blemish than a flaw.

In the end, I decide that this album will not receive the ephemeral perfect score. Like I said, the album is not perfect. However, Riding Alone For Thousands Of Miles was able to craft a sprawling work of unified concept to great success, a feat in and of itself. That they did so with complete independence, and less than a year’s experience as a band, is nothing less than monumental.

I have been struggling for a week now to write this review, and I’m still not happy with the end result. How can I convey the sheer magnitude of this release using just words, without resorting to fan-boy gushing or carrying on for ten pages? The answer is: I can’t. A Boldogság Minden Reményét Elragadták is just something you have to experience for yourself.

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Key Tracks:
Fallujah Sky
Screwdriver