This One Time at Bandcamp.com: Markov

Continuing our journey through my recent bandcamp.com discoveries we have:

This Quiet by Markov
Bandcamp: markov.bandcamp.com
Twitter: @thisismarkov

This was another album that I really dug after finding it on Bandcamp. With tags invoking the likes of Hot Snakes and Refused the bar was set pretty high, but in the end Markov deliver an album worthy of worshiping at the feet of those hardcore gods. To put it plainly, Markov's "This Quiet" is an exercise in the application of raw energy to audio. Clever vocals complement well-crafted songs and tight playing as Markov explore a variable sonic landscape, clearly not satisfied with belaboring the same riffs and rhythms over and over. Songs like "Lucky Me" accentuate the loud-quiet fury of influences like the aforementioned Refused while "Jaws of Life" and "Debaters" recall the undulating rhythm of Hot Snakes and Drive Like Jehu. For all the pride and skill with which Markov pay tribute to their sonic patrons they do plenty on this album to develop their own sound and it never comes off sounding like mimicry, instead what you get on This Quiet is a whirlwind blend of razor sharp riffs and tight compositions hurtling around like a kid in a circle pit. When all is said and done This Quiet is an energetic, aggressive, and anthemic album with plenty to reward repeated listening. I'll be looking forward to more from Markov if at all possible.

Next: Edge of Collapse by Bad Chapters

This One Time At Bandcamp.com: Zlam Dunk

A couple weeks ago I posted about how I had decided to search bandcamp.com in order to discover some local Austin punk bands. You see, while I love all kinds of music, if you were to ask me what kind of music is my favorite I would say punk. What does "punk" mean though? To many, that is a loaded question and the answer really varies from person to person. For some "punk" is something that happened in the 70's when bands like The Ramones, The Clash, and The Sex Pistols railed against the excesses of 70's rock, disco, prog, and glam, and produced a stripped down, hard-edged, uncompromising soundtrack for those unsatisfied with the status quo. For others "punk" is something that doesn't even take hold until the 80's with bands like Bad Religion, the Dead Milkmen, and the Descendents coming onto the scene. For others still "punk" refers almost exclusively to hardcore punk, a louder, more aggressive form of music pioneered by the likes of Bad Brains, Black Flag, and Minor Threat. There a people who think garage bands are punk, that Green Day is punk, that emo music is punk, and that the 80's "New Wave" was punk. They're all right. They're all wrong. Fuck it! Who cares?

While it may be impossible to define whether something is punk or not punk, depending on who you talk to, I know what I consider to be punk. My personal preferences lean distinctively towards the hardcore branch of the punk family tree and encompass many of its offshoots. Since moving here and before beginning my search on Bandcamp, a number of Austin and Texas punk bands had been brought to my attention. These bands were actually a major impetus in my search as there seemed to be a common thread running between all of them: a certain garage rock like style and presentation. You can hear it in bands like The Marked Men and Bad Sports, that lo-fi garage-rock/protopunk sound that recalls punk music from the early days of the 70's. While certainly not bad, it wasn't what I was looking for and after hearing so much in that vein, I began to wonder if there was any punk music being produced in Austin that had a bit more of a hardcore bent or at least didn't ascribe to the extreme lo-fi aesthetic that seemed to be so prominent.

It didn't take me long on Bandcamp to find several bands that fit the bill for me in various ways and now, after having spent a couple weeks with these albums I'd like to give you my thoughts:

Noble Ancestry by Zlam Dunk
Bandcamp: zlamdunk.bandcamp.com
Twitter: @Zlam_Dunk

Of my recently acquired albums, this is probably my favorite. Noble Ancestry turned out to be exactly the kind of music I love: something different, but still somewhat familiar. Zlam Dunk play a tight, relentless brand of post-hardcore that's as technically impressive as it is danceable. While the album leads off with the anthemic "Vice" the tempo quickly shifts into territory that can only be described as dance music for hardcore kids. With the one-two punch of "Tomorrow in Twenty-Million Years" and "Midnight Runners" - a duo of songs whose driving beats, frenetic picking, and scorching synth practically beg you to move your body - Zlam Dunk recall for me the later works of DC's Q and Not U albeit with a bit more of an edge a la At the Drive-In and Fugazi or even Athens Georgia's Cinemechanica. When all is said and done Noble Ancestry is a well rounded experience with a lot of talent, power, and creativity on display. The band's next release, "Balcones", is due out on May 3rd.

Next: This Quiet by Markov ...

Adventure. Survival. Horror.

I've been in a gaming rut for a few weeks now and today it seems that it may have subsided. A little over a month ago I finished Mass Effect 3, my thoughts on which are detailed elsewhere on this site. Since my ME3 play through had come hot on the heels of my second ME2 play through, I was a little burned out on the choice-centric RPG thing and looking for something a bit different and ideally as non-action as I could find.

The first stop on my post ME3 journey was "To The Moon", an adventure game in the style of a 16-bit RPG. Many months earlier when this game had first caught everyone's attention I had made a note to check it out. As a game designer and a lover of narratives in any form, I have a vested interest in the execution of narrative in video games. When a game like To The Moon comes along and people claim it to be an incredibly moving experience, that's something I need to see. Skeptical as I was, To The Moon did actually deliver an authentically moving experience. All told however, much of what transpired in ME3 moved me more, but seeing as how it was the culmination of 3 games worth of decisions and character building/bonding, that's not surprising.

The second game I checked out was "Dear Esther", a game that's probably most accurately described as an interactive narrative, seeing as you don't ever really interact with anything. Dear Esther was a short, but interesting experiment. I thought they accomplished the challenge of setting and maintaining a mood fairly well, although I felt some further player interaction may have allowed them to hook me into the story in a more profound way.

Truth be told, Dear Esther was merely a decoy, a pit stop, a training exercise. I had decided it was finally time to jump back into "Amnesia: The Dark Descent", a game I had purchased over a year earlier, but hadn't been able to muster the courage to play for more than half an hour. Amnesia manages to mix classic adventure game play, with the first person view point, and survival horror in a most brilliant way. As a man trapped in a mysterious castle in the late 1800's you must unravel the mystery surrounding your lost memory and a diabolical horror that appears to be chasing after you, all without being able to defend yourself against enemies. If Doom is a First Person Shooter and Thief was a First Person Sneaker, then Amnesia is a First Person Hider. In the rare instances that you do come face to face with some other-worldly horror, you have but one recourse in the world of Amnesia: run and hide. If you're lucky then you'll be able to stay hidden long enough for your foe to lose interest and not lose too much sanity along the way. All told, I thought Amnesia was excellent. The only criticism I have (which is typical of horror games) is that by the end of the game, I had figured out all of their tricks. I always knew that certain sounds and events wouldn't result in something I needed to hide from, but based on the developer's (Frictional Games) recent comments about the next game in the series, this seems to be something they seek to address.

Amnesia was great, but short and it left me wanting more. I decided to visit Frictional Games' earlier works: the "Penumbra" series. While one can certainly see in Amnesia the lessons they learned in making Penumbra, the games still hold up as very entertaining. With a more modern setting, no sanity meter, and the limited ability to fight back against certain foes, the Penumbra games were a little less atmospheric than Amnesia, but they made up for it by being much closer the a classic point-and-click adventure game in execution. Really my only gripe about the Penumbra series was that I expected a trilogy when I bought the games, but the third installment is actually a puzzle game in the vein of Portal and while it does advance the story, I was ultimately unsatisfied by the differences.

I had been left unfulfilled by the third Penumbra installment, yet I still craved an adventure/survival horror experience. After perusing several options, I decided to check out "Alan Wake", a game that I had skipped on the consoles, but that had recently been released for the PC. I don't want to say much about the game since I haven't finished it, but the parts that I have played really aren't that satisfying as far as horror goes. As with a lot of console games, Alan Wake telegraphs it's moves far too often and its insistence of taking away control of my camera and throwing me into pre-rendered cinematics as a means of immersing me in the story, has the exact opposite effect. All told, I wasn't satisfied by Alan Wake. This was not the game I was looking for and while I will revisit it, I don't have any desire to continue with it now.

All this led me to the point where there was simply nothing I wanted to play. I would fire up random games I had installed on Steam to see if I was interested in playing them, but nothing stuck. I even re-installed Myst IV, thinking that what I needed was a classic adventure game and remembering that I had never finished that game nor played it's sequel, the final in the series. Sadly Myst IV was not what I was looking for either and so I (a devout gamer ... even before it became my career) was at a loss, until today.

While I was playing Amnesia and Penumbra I had gotten the idea in the back of my head that when I was done, I needed to go back and finish "Dead Space 2". The original Dead Space was easily one of my favorite games in the year it was released, however I never got more than a couple hours into Dead Space 2 after it came out. I knew it wasn't any fault of the game itself and with my renewed interest in horror games it seemed the perfect time to revisit that world. When the third Penumbra game fell flat for me, I didn't really think that I had the heart to jump into Dead Space 2 and so I went looking for a bridge in Alan Wake. Apparently I was wrong in that decision however because today I loaded Dead Space 2 into the 360 and where every other game has failed me recently, this has succeeded.

I don't know if Dead Space 2 will finally give me closure on my adventure/horror game excursion, but it's nice to have a really good feeling about completing a game that you've let sit around for a while. I've got a PS3 on order that should be arriving later this week, so maybe I'll jump straight from Dead Space to Uncharted or the Ico/Shadow of the Colossus HD bundle. Either way it seems my brief drought of gaming has come to an end. Now if you'll excuse me, I have necromorphs to kill.

I Am So Lazy

You know, it's not that I haven't had anything to write about here, it's more that I'm lazy and also for seemingly no reason at all the last couple of weeks have gone by at an alarming rate. I've got music and game development stuff to comment on though and as soon as I catch up with the break-neck pace of time, it'll end up here. Soon. I promise.

This Wouldn't Have Happened if I had Google Glasses

Think of one of your all-time favorite bands, the kind of band that helped shape your musical tastes ... the kind of band that helped define a generation within it's genre. Now let's say that this is a band that has been broken up for years and let's say you never got a chance to see them live, because you didn't really start listening to them until right when they were calling it quits. Now imagine that this band recently decided to tour again and you just happen to live in their home state. Imagine that since this announcement they haven't published any home state show dates. Imagine that when they finally do post home state show dates, it's in a city 6 hours away and you missed the window to buy anyway. Imagine that several days later they announce a last minute show in your city at a small venue ... the kind of place they are NOT likely to play ever again. Imagine that had you been monitoring your email or twitter, you would have known about and had a chance to see this show. Imagine that you were doing other things instead.

This is what just happened to me with At The Drive-In. I've spent the last several months complaining that since announcing their reunion tour they haven't planned any TX shows ... their home state. Then earlier this week they announced a show in Marfa, much too far away for me to go see them and I missed the small window of opportunity to get tickets anyway. Now this afternoon at 1:05pm they announce a show for this Monday at Red 7, a small punk venue in Austin and I missed it because I was playing video games.

Now to be fair, chances are that I would have missed it regardless of what I was doing. Unless I'm at work, I'm rarely sitting in front of my computer and constantly hooked into email or Twitter updates. There was still a chance though, that had I not been otherwise occupied, I would have caught this announcement and I would have gotten a ticket to what is likely to be the most intimate show ATDI will do on this tour and that I have access to.

I know I'll get to see them at some point during this tour - if they don't do ACL or FunFunFun Fest then I'd be incredibly surprised - but it would have been amazing to see them at a small show with a bunch of die hard fans like myself. The funny thing about this is that earlier this week there was a lot of sarcasm directed toward the "Google Glasses" video, but honestly ... if I had me some Google Glasses, this would have never happened.

This One Time At Bandcamp.com

I always have to call bullshit on people who claim that they'd listen to more non-mainstream music if it were more accessible. There's great music everywhere if you just take a few minutes to look for it. For instance: spring is here and as is usually the case I'm in the mood for punk music. I decided that instead of my usual sources, I wanted to see what local punk bands I could find. I enjoy supporting local bands because:

1. It's just easier to see local bands live more often.
2. I live in a city with TONS of them, so the variety is fantastic.
3. Local bands don't really make money off their music, they play because they love it (and maybe they hope to someday make money off it) and to me that reflects in the sound.
4. Supporting one's own community has always struck me as both decidedly "Punk" and somewhat "Socialist", which are both things I personally identify with.

So to make good on my local punk search all I did was Google the following: "austin punk site:bandcamp.com". That's it! I've already discovered 5 new bands. Now don't get me wrong, there were just as misses as hits in my search, but in those cases I listen to a track or two and then move on. My point is that it's not hard to find new music if a) you know vaguely what to search for and b) you're willing to spend a little time. So get out there and support your local scene ... support all the local scenes and don't just listen to the music that's handed to you, find the music that speaks to you.

---UPDATE---

Maybe I should post links to the stuff I just discovered ... duh!

Game Development: Tranparency

I was thinking this morning that I really need to post more about game development here. For one thing, game development is my job; it's what I've I done for 8+ hours a day 5+ days a week for the last 6 years straight and then on and off here and there in both professional and amateur capacities for 6+ years preceding. For another thing, I have pretty strong opinions regarding game design and the development process. Lately however, one aspect of game development has revealed itself to me as perhaps being more in need of being discussed and that is transparency or more specifically the lack of transparency between development and the audience and how this creates false expectations from said audience.

As a developer I understand the need for this lack of transparency: gamers are a ravenous horde who not only seek to devour any information about projects they're interested in, but also to speculate on that information in ways that often affect the public perception - and by association the retail performance - of a product. Simply put: you scare the shit out of us. I don't think there is a correlation with any other form of media where audience reaction can have such a massive and immediate effect on the product, certainly not in any form of media this big. Gaming sites often go after any information released by a developer or or those close to a developer with the same voracity that political pundits do gaffes from the opposite party's leaders. This is a large part of the reason why I have a disclaimer on this blog. I don't want my thoughts on games and game development (or anything else for that matter) to be misconstrued as official statements from a BioWare or EA employee. This overwhelming desire for information from fans and the lack of transparency from developers forges a relationship that can quickly (and quite often) become adversarial. Because of this however the lack of transparency persists and because of that lack of transparency I believe expectations often become outrageous. It's a vicious circle.

Anyway, I seem to have gotten away from my initial point which is that I would like to post more about game development, to be more transparent, but to do so I need to create a certain distance from anything I am currently working on. That being the case, I think I'm going to try to post some things about the process of game development in a general sense. The goal being to shed some light on aspects that people rarely ever see, without incriminating myself in the process.