Ball of Wax 39 Songs – Almsss – Status

Posted on February 18, 2015 by Levi Fuller

Krist Krueger (Southerly, Sndtrkr, Yardsss, Healersss, and Self Group in general) can be a tricky guy to keep a bead on, as you might guess from that parenthetical list following his name. You can read my previous attempt to keep his various projects straight in this piece from 2011, but he has zigged and zagged a couple times since then, retiring most of his other projects and focusing on Almsss, the newest incarnation. (At least I think that’s what’s going on.)

But honestly, none of that really matters. The music – as always with Krueger, whatever the moniker – is solid: a dense forest of thick, blasting beats, overdriven guitar, and simple, chanting melodies spooling out in his clear, unaffected baritone. Whether he’s hunched over a Fender Rhodes behind a projection screen, creating drone soundscapes, or singing and playing a guitar, the sounds he makes are always worth paying attention to. Plus, I’m a sucker for songs in 5/4, and stoked that I get to start this volume with two different examples of the form.

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Ball of Wax 39 Songs: Sean Kiely – This Might Be True

Posted on February 17, 2015 by Jon Rooney

New Jersey’s Sean Kiely is a newcomer to Ball of Wax, making his first contribution with “This Might Be True.” “This Might Be True” begins with voice and acoustic guitar looping through a melodic figure which largely drives the song.  Gentle and folky, the song seems to capture one side of a romantic negotiation, enumerating reasons for doing something (that something revealed later in the song). After a few cycles, booming acoustic bass and drums fill in the sound  for dramatic effect before the settles into more mellow instrumentation. Brief stabs of brass appear before the song title appears in the line “I guess some of this might be true.”  A short, pretty bowed bass solo surfaces in the back half of the song before it builds to a crescendo with the refrain, “yeah, it looks like New York is a good idea for a few.” After blasts of horn and “oooh”s, “This Might Be True,” and the vague, romantic negotiation therein, resolves with “Seven: I can see how you might / take the train to Rockaway.” Sean Kiely’s introduction to Ball of Wax is subtle, well-constructed folk pop with tastefully regional subject matter. If you’re in the Tri-State Area (NY/NJ/CT – not PA/NJ/DE), track down Sean Kiely and his band.

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Ball of Wax 39: Saturday, March 7th at Conor Byrne

Posted on February 11, 2015 by Levi Fuller

BoW-39-posterBall of Wax Volume 39 Release Show
Saturday, March 7th, 8:30pm
Conor Byrne Pub

Performances by The Foghorns, Soft Blows, Season of Strangers, Coast, Nightlife, and Shannon Jae

It’s time (past time, really) for a new volume of Ball of Wax! Join us on Saturday, March 7th to celebrate the newest volume, a themeless, wide-ranging disc filled to bursting with 21 new songs from friends old and new, near and far.

There will be a lot of new talent on the Conor Byrne stage this night. BoW stalwarts The Foghorns will be there to close out the night, but every other band and artist playing that night is making his/her/their Ball of Wax debut! We’re thrilled to have so many new friends.

As always, a copy of the brand new Ball of Wax CD will be yours upon entering. Join us!

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Left Field Finds: They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Brian Wentz

“Open up the boxes, tumble down the walls, let them be the thing they want to be, not necessarily like you and me!” This is the message of the group, a community youth band from 1968 South Side Chicago led by Father Peter Scholtes. In part this is an album of worship music, featuring several traditional arrangements and Father Scholtes on acoustic guitar. But in its best moments it is more community music and youth music, as comes out in the spontaneous harmonies, mixed with woodwinds and percussionists on swaying rhythms on a combination of original songs and reimagined christian standards.

Continue reading →

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From the Archives: Ball of Wax Volume 2

Posted on December 11, 2014 by Levi Fuller

BoW 2 cover scanLet’s take another trip back to 2005, shall we?

We continue our archival investigation with Ball of Wax Volume 2, released in the fall of that long-ago year. The release celebration for Volume 2 was the second (and, to date, final) BoW show held in my basement. I was introduced to so many great artists right around this time: Johanna Kunin, Joshua Morrison, Steven Kattenbraker, Toy Tractor . . . oh, well, you can read the track list yourself. Suffice it to say, this is a great collection of music that you should own. And hey, it’s free (or as cheap as you want it to be).

Enjoy!

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Submit Music for Ball of Wax 39!

Posted on November 24, 2014 by Levi Fuller
Image by Leo Reynolds, via flickr.

Image by Leo Reynolds, via flickr.

I’m sorry to report that winter is coming. On the bright side, though, with it will come the Winter 2015 edition of Ball of Wax Audio Quarterly – the 39th (!) such installment to be released to the world. But before that happens, some music needs to come, which is where you come in.

Volume 39 will have no theme. It will just be a bunch of great new music. Music from people like you and/or music-makers of your acquaintance. Music that might not have been recorded – or even written – yet!

Please send songs in by the first day of winter – December 21st – but earlier is always great too, of course. More info on how to submit over here.

As always, please spread the word to musical friends far and wide. I look forward to hearing what you’ve got!

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From the Archives: Ball of Wax Volume 1

Posted on November 17, 2014 by Levi Fuller

BoW Vol 1This has been a long time coming, but I am at long last making my way through the many volumes of Ball of Wax released before the Bandcamp era, acquiring permission from the artists, and uploading the music, art, and liner notes to that nifty platform (more material, you might complain, than I include with current releases. To which I say “You want liner notes? Buy the CD!”). We’ll be trickling them out over the coming months (years?), but today we are starting at the beginning with Volume 1, released way back in the Summer of 2005.

There’s a lot of great stuff to get acquainted (or reacquainted) with here, including early efforts by BoW mainstays and some favorites we haven’t heard from in way too long, such as Pufferfish, Amateur Radio Operator, Darryl Blood, Wesafari, and Seth Howard; and tantalizing pieces from projects that I wish we could have heard much more from, like Henry Hanks and geob0t.

You can download Volume 1 for free (or pay as much as you like), or you can always just give it a listen right here:

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Album Review: Levi Fuller and the Library – The Wonders That There Are

Posted on November 12, 2014 by Jon Rooney

Levi Fuller and the Library – The Wonders That There Are
(self-released, 2014)

The Wonders That There Are is the first LP Levi Fuller has made with his new-ish band the Library and his fourth overall. Like last year’s Social Music EP, The Wonders That There Are (mostly) presents Levi’s musical ideas in a fully-formed rock band setting, a rumbling departure from the sparseness and solitude of his earlier work. The Library brings looseness and a sense of musical heft to the 11 songs that make up the album, many of which have appeared in earlier forms on various Ball of Waxes (or Balls of Wax?). Opener “With Age Wisdom,” a slow-burning ponderer of a song punctuated by guest Librarian Alex Guy’s minor key violin motifs, traces the shifting worldview one throughout their life and introduces the album title in a lyric from the get go.  The first half of the second song, “They Like You,” also musically situates itself in old-school Levi folk territory before crashing drums and distorted bass introduces the slightly sludge rock sensibilities of the Library. Songs like “Free Men” and “Feet of an Oracle” play more with familiar Americana elements, while “Hide and Seek,” “Helium Balloon,” and “Freedom is Slavery” bring more Librarian rocking.

Continue reading →

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Left Field Finds: Sebastian Temple – The Universe Is Singing (12 Songs In The Spirit Of Teilhard De Chardin)

Posted on November 10, 2014 by Brian Wentz

photo 1Sebastian Temple – The Universe Is Singing (12 Songs In The Spirit Of Teilhard De Chardin)
(GIA, 196?)

Less a concept album than a lecture series, this is novel religious music, in the style of American folk and country and with a unique and purposed message. Released on the christian label GIA in 1960-something, it’s neither a feel-good community band as the Temple moniker might suggest, nor is it a guilt and brimstone soapbox, but somewhere in between. Sebastian Temple is a songwriter and scholar, and this album is an exposition. South African born and Catholic convert later in life, on this album Sebastian Temple offers a biography of the french Jesuit philosopher Teilhard De Chardin and a breakdown of his ecstatic universalist ideas, revolutionary ideas in the Catholic church. In a mostly country western style, shuffling guitar-driven melodies pick up and are accompanied by hand drums. A few selections dip into a quieter, more introspective vibe, moments of peace in the presence of the holy (“Some of us call it art and other call it God”). What attracts me to novel religious music like this is the earnestness and mission of the production, and some of these tracks are just damn catchy. Continue reading →

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Left Field Finds: Raymond Daniel Platt – Fields of View

Posted on October 29, 2014 by Brian Wentz

It’s very exciting be invited to contribute to Ball of Wax. Thanks to Levi for the opportunity, and I’m looking forward to a dialogue with the readership. This will be my first post here, and I hope you dig it! I see digging as an anthropological endeavor, unearthing unique people and moments in history. The music I want to share here will be under that theme, if otherwise disparate. Novel religious movements, outsider folk, cross-cultural projects and bedroom experimentalists, all these play in to what gets me excited, with probably the odd song about cats or spaceships. Without further ado . . .

RPD1

Raymond Daniel Platt – Fields of View
(Paradise Boutique, 1986)

Released on Paradise Boutique Records out of northern California in 1986, Fields of View is a sort of electro-acoustic music that really sounds great on cassette; saturated layers of singing synthesizers, sampled and live percussion with a sort of workshop feel. Walking the line between new age and some sort of digital jazz, this densely produced album ages well, despite the programmed “brass” sounds that play the fanfare of the opening track. Chirps and vespers cast a warm glow that bears the Californian new age origin, and there is some truly creative tape sampling on a few selections. If you’re willing to listen past just a little smoothed out sax (no solos, I promise) there is a lot on offer in this artifact. Continue reading →

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