Ball of Wax 60 Songs: Sarah Pasillas and Virgin of the Birds

Posted on May 18, 2020 by Aurora Fonseca-Lloyd

Sarah Pasillas: “Hot Head”
On the one hand, this song is a dreamy dive into a well of echoing vocals, lush guitars, and intricate basslines, while on the other hand you find all of that woozy sound contrasting fascinatingly with the lyrics about dealing poorly with anger, and in the end all you can do is sigh about it all.

Virgin of the Birds: “Lila the Werewolf”
Lila the Werewolf, based on the Peter S. Beagle story of the same name, is a classic VotB number in miniature, a simple verse and a sort of chorus, steeped in a love of horror, telling a tale of the horrors of love.

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Ball of Wax 60 Songs: Hauras and Jose Bold

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Aveline MacKenzie

Hauras: “Theme for Winterrose”
“Theme for Winterrose” is a stone cold rocker that I am convinced would sound even better if my speakers had literally any bass to speak of.

Jose Bold: “Timothy”
From the title, you might expect this song to be about someone named Timothy, and you would be correct.

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Ball of Wax 60 Songs: 4K and Sound Madrona

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Aveline MacKenzie

4K – “Glory to you, Dagon”
Utterly unexpected and elegantly complex.

Sound Madrona – “Out of Breadth”
The title of this song is a very clever wordplay and that’s honestly enough for me.

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Ball of Wax 60 Songs: Great Unwashed Luminaries and Red Weather Tigers

Posted on May 14, 2020 by Steven Scribner

Great Unwashed Luminaries: “Warren Quarantino”
Ambient spooky groove or groovy spooky ambience: the choice is yours.

Red Weather Tigers: “The Lighthouse”
Bells and Biblical law echo down through the fog-shrouded eons.

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Ball of Wax 60 Songs: Tom Dyer and Pufferfish

Posted on May 13, 2020 by Leanne Dunic

Tom Dyer: “The Glass Cowell”
When Robert Fripp is your grade one math teacher and Keith Emerson accompanies on piano.

Pufferfish: “Thump60”
This song makes me feel like I’m sitting on a grassy knoll watching the clouds while, underground, the rabbits throw a dance party in their warren.

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Ball of Wax 60 Songs: Amy Denio and THEATH

Posted on May 12, 2020 by Michele Khazak

Amy Denio: “All Together Now”
Seattle’s own brilliant and prolific Amy Denio spins a mystical and complex tonal landscape to perfectly present her simple and profound incantation, which is especially relevant these days: together.

THEATH: “Helocentric World”
Spend 60 seconds spiraling through photons and spinning across beams of warm light; you can feel the sun’s bright heat.

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Ball of Wax 60 Songs: Holly & the Dead Saints and The Deep Cove

Posted on May 12, 2020 by Steven Scribner

Holly & the Dead Saints: “A Clean and Faded Calico Dress”
’80s lo-fi is recalled in these mysterious goings-on about a court and broken sticks and a calico dress, sandwiched between spates of bass and catchy drumming.

The Deep Cove: “Emergency Is My Emergency”
A ’70s vibe is recalled here, with synthesized harpsichord (back then it would have been merely electric) and intentionally-never-quite-in-tune vocals: we are promised that “what’s mine is yours,” but we’re never quite sure what that is.

 

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Ball of Wax 60 Songs: Hart Slights and The Ex-Optimists

Posted on May 11, 2020 by Lattney B. Jones

[Ball of Wax 60 is made up of a lot of really short tracks. So we’ll be doubling up our blog posts for this one, with two one-sentence reviews each, between now and June 5th, the official release date. Enjoy! -ed.]

Levi begins a new volume of Ball of Wax with a glorious slowly-unfolding bang from Hart Slights, whose “Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski” sails in on crisp-but-relaxed drums and a bassline to die for while disembodied megaphone spirits conjure the ghost of Neruda by invoking the title of his darkest poem.

“Remembering Six” from The Ex-Optimists is the kind of thrilling romp that the late ’90s promised but too often failed to deliver except on secret college radio stations, its chug and grind overlaid with excellent guitar work and, through it all, a self-aware narrative in memoriam.

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Here Comes Ball of Wax 60!

Posted on May 11, 2020 by Levi Fuller

Photo courtesy Flickr user Steve Austin

Well, it’s happened. As planned, we have assembled a mighty collection of sixty one-minute tracks from all over the world, in celebration of 60 volumes and 15 years of this ridiculousness. The release date will be Friday, June 5th (not coincidentally the next Bandcamp fee-free day), and we’ll do some kind of ludicrous Zoom-to-Facebook live explosion on Saturday, June 6th. Stay tuned for details, and look for Volume 60 track reviews to start rolling out today.

Stay safe and keep listening!

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Submit 60 Seconds of Music for Ball of Wax 60!

Posted on March 11, 2020 by Levi Fuller

Photo courtesy Flickr user Steve Austin

For a while there I had a grand, Seattle-based plan in mind for Ball of Wax Volume 60, representing the completion of 15 years of whatever this is. That fell through, but never mind: I have a new grand – and global – plan! To wit:

The next volume of Ball of Wax will (I hope) consist of 60 tracks, each 60 seconds in length.

That’s right! 60 minutes of 60 60-second tracks, to celebrate 60 volumes of Ball of Wax. (That’s a lot of 60s.) So please send me 60 seconds of music/sound (a little less and we can extend with silence, a little more and we can fade out). Send some different tracks under different project names! It could be a song or a theme or a sonic mini-landscape . . . just go for it!

Deadline: April 1st, but earlier is always great.
Guidelines: Here.
Send to: lmf@denimclature.com

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