Pitchfork presents: Altered Zones

http://pitchfork.com/news/39305-pitchfork-unites-blog-collective-for-new-music-site-altered-zones/

Pitchfork is excited to announce the upcoming launch of Altered Zones, a new sister site that will focus on leftfield pop, experimental, and home-recorded sounds. In the last several years, there's been an explosion of small-scale DIY music, and Altered Zones is dedicated to exploring these emerging musical worlds. Uniting an international team of bloggers whose individual sites have proven among the most consistently rewarding outposts for unique and leftfield music, this new site will highlight the most notable and adventurous new artists, serving as a focal point for the flood of creativity coming from deep within the music underground.

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Part of me thinks this is a nice gesture, considering how "The Playlist" for the last year or so has basically pillaged all these blogs and served as little more than a feedreader. On the other hand, is this Pitchfork's attempt to absorb the people doing the actual scouting into their fold just to look like they haven't been sleeping at the wheel? (Because they have, no doubt.)

there's not enough space on the main site to cover these areas?

i'm not trying to be snide, by the way.

also, wasn't one of the big advantages of blogs the notion that music recommendation and criticism would be decentralized, opening up new space for acts to flourish and grow? if such an advantage ever actually existed, this seems to cut against it. i'm not against the idea, by any means; i'm just wondering.

That main image is all very 1979 Omni.

Also, Altered Zones inevitably makes me think of Mutant Sounds...which might be the point.

this will be cool if some of the music is not terrible, but "leftfield pop" and "home recording" are rarely good buzzwords

"altered zones" is hilarious. sounds like an area visited in a bill & ted sequel.

btw, I meant the Forkcast and not The Playlist, which tends to focus on a larger audience.

wasn't one of the big advantages of blogs the notion that music recommendation and criticism would be decentralized

Yes.

can't wait to see what great "leftfield pop" Gorilla Vs Bear helps to get on this site

have the feeling that pitchfork currently devotes a fair amount of dink (digital ink) to "leftfield pop" and home recorded whatever. is this a way to refine the brand so as to concentrate less on the fringes, more on the stuff that will actually sell?

TRIANGLE MUSIC

because pitchfork wasn't paying enough attention to chillwave

^ right

dink

seriously dude?

LOL, i totally missed clowning contenderizer for dink

"a fair amount of dink"

"a fair amount of dink"
"a fair amount of dink"
"a fair amount of dink"
"a fair amount of dink"
"a fair amount of dink"
"a fair amount of dink"

just tryin that out

alteredzonesreviewsreviews.tumblr.com

just sayin'

pretty chillwave nostalgia bro

http://www.tvacres.com/images/dinosaur_dink.jpg

"leftfield pop, experimental, and home-recorded sounds"

these are all kind of ambiguous terms that afaik could be applied to a huge percentage of what PF already covers, right?

Here's just the important words from the Pitchfork press release, listed without context: home-recorded, surreal, retrofuturistic, cassette-only, pyramid, phantasmagorian synergies, aura, radio wave, collage artist, daze, antiquated photographic techniques, noise, psych, lost, astrophysics, half-remembered cultural nostalgias, cosmic, colour-drenched, heartbreaking, audiophile, tacos.

kinda sick and tired of all u warm jets complaining about chillwave every day on the internet

incredible words

tacowave

pitchfork should put a dink on it imo

best of luck to P4k in their effort to monetize phantasmagorian synergies

this is as much news to me as anyone, but what makes sense about it to me is that ... I don't think there's a "sleeping at the wheel" issue, I think that (especially as the site's grown) it's had to split its real estate among covering both niche/underground stuff and everything else -- it makes a certain amount of sense to create another space that can concentrate on the niche.

oh yeah, it's smart as fuck.

they're going to be basically writing the narrative of underground music in the 2010s if chill/witch/tape/magik shit turns out to have legs instead of just being a passing fad

hope there are mediafire links

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0ZetW6bQ7Q

just sayin'

writing the narrative of underground music in the 2010s

but isn't the turnaround time between like 20jfg and the forkcast already like only a matter of weeks? not sure how this gives them any more share/control of "the" narrative.

Don't get how Gorilla Vs. Bear is a voice for "leftfield pop, experimental, and home-recorded sounds" and/or "notable and adventurous new artists" -- anyone care to enlighten me?

i totally missed clowning contenderizer for dink

― Elektro Guzzi Mane (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, June 29, 2010 9:50 AM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark

it's self-clowning tho

I don't think there's a "sleeping at the wheel" issue

I didn't mean that PFM was missing a lot of stuff. I meant that PFM was letting bloggers find stuff and then just siphon it off of their sites like a lazy newsfeed. At least all these bloggers are finally getting a home base that serves as a "thank you" of sorts, but it's also a strategically beneficial move for PFM itself.

I had a discussion with Perpetua a while ago about whether Pitchfork's role was still to discover or to just report on the discoveries of others. He claims the latter, but I think a site with the resources Pitchfork has (meaning they can hire a couple people dedicated to combing through the blogosphere and the internet at large looking for bands no one else is writing about, instead of relying on a handful of blogs and a barrage of press releases to do the job for them) is almost obligated to discovery.

daniel's first post otm

ps- wtf is witch house? is it the same as triangle music? or does it just describe salem err...

writing the narrative of underground music in the 2010s

but isn't the turnaround time between like 20jfg and the forkcast already like only a matter of weeks? not sure how this gives them any more share/control of "the" narrative.

― like a musical album. made by a band. (fucking in the streets), Tuesday, June 29, 2010 1:19 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Because this is really wrapping a bunch of disparate elements covered by a bunch of different bloggers--noise, chillwave, drone, witch house, leftfield club, psych-rock--and uniting them ONE aesthetic that essentially corners the market. Like the way we associate 70s punk with leather jackets and safety pins, we could be thinking about 10s DIY via triangles and cosmic ish and YouTube clips of Nova specials.

a site with the resources Pitchfork has (meaning they can hire a couple people dedicated to combing through the blogosphere and the internet at large looking for bands no one else is writing about, instead of relying on a handful of blogs and a barrage of press releases to do the job for them) is almost obligated to discovery.

― Johnny Fever, Tuesday, June 29, 2010 10:22 AM (27 seconds ago) Bookmark

man, hipster runoff better take the day off for this

it amuses/confounds me that talk of "discovering" new bands apparently translates directly to "combing the internet" and not, like, going to shows or being out in the world or involved in some actual small underground scene.

Like the way we associate 70s punk with leather jackets and safety pins, we could be thinking about 10s DIY via triangles and cosmic ish and YouTube clips of Nova specials.

― Elektro Guzzi Mane (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, June 29, 2010 10:23 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

it amuses/confounds me that talk of "discovering" new bands apparently translates directly to "combing the internet" and not, like, going to shows or being out in the world or involved in some actual small underground scene.

― ripe dink (some dude), Tuesday, June 29, 2010 10:28 AM (30 seconds ago) Bookmark

this includes pretty much the only blogs I ever look at anymore (xxjfg and Visitation Rites, both really good) so I'm sure I'll check it out

xxxxp 99.99% of all working bands, including those who might be just a guy and his girlfriend in his bedroom recording songs with Logic, have some kind of web presence now. Not everyone lives in London or NYC and can just have their pick of 40 shows to go check out on any given night.

I'm thinking about starting a blog

oh i know...and i definitely USE the internet to find out about bands, but (and big caveat here, i'm noone's idea of a tastemaker and i cover live shows because i get paid to do it) when i see that a band that might be interesting is playing nearby, i go see their show instead of just checking to see what i can download or how many blogs have already written about them.

blogs on tape

do it

theres already a blogs on tape I googled it just now

shit cat

similar audience?

Is that really leftfield music? In my opinion, rap is not.

Maybe I'm just not "zoned in" enough

http://oberlin.edu/student/lfamular/headache.jpg

But what does a tape manufacturer charge an artist or label per tape? That number's more important than what tapes cost some dude who want to tediously dub a lot of tapes.

I'd wager CD-R's wind up cheaper on the whole, cause those things cause next to nothing to manufacture.

It depends on the operation. It could be that the dubbing is quicker even if the tape itself costs more. I worked at a place that made automotive instructional tapes and they had two dvd writers that had a pretty low output and a whole bank of vcrs that had a huge output. Even though the cassettes themselves cost more than the dvds, they could sell them for less. And if you compare typical CD packaging to typical tape packaging, the tape packaging is easier to assemble and there's less printed material. For a while in the nineties - and for some labels this is still true - the vinyl copy of something would cost less than the CD. I think this had to do maybe with manufacturers saying, "Yes, please, we want your business," but I don't really know.

Don't get me wrong, tapes sound like crap, but I can play them in my car when my CD player overheats, which is all the time. And I buy new ones for $4 or $5 bucks and used ones for $1 or less.

I have 3 tape players, yet none of them work properly. Whenever someone gives me a tape I thank them, look at the art, and put it in the closet.

Give them to me. I have one in my car and at home. They're $6 at thrift shops if I ever needed to replace one, but I haven't yet.

I'll even pay you.

what were the automotive instructional tapes like? like were they about how to drive? or how to fix cars? or were they for the cars to listen to and learn from - like they were recorded in special car language?

I skimmed through the site earlier -- don't have sound on my internet computer atm -- and saw the name Bathcrones as being from Atlanta and I thought this is weird I've never heard of this band, read the name on a shows list, seen any flyers around town, etc. Then I went to the myspace and saw this picture

http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/124/m_3c2d9f2008d54024badb2e5dd7fe0cf1.jpg

Which, I don't know, seemed to immediately say to me, "This is why this music is on a blog". I was gonna ask what is it with the popularity of beach graphics worship in the year 2010 but I guess it's because anyone who's a child of the 80s (pretty much all these musicians) was taken to Florida or somewhere and dressed in weird silly clothes with neon palm trees and stuff. The chillwave visual aesthetic is largely derived from the Florida/California Board of Tourism.

+ Miami Vice

the Florida/California Board of Tourism is way overrated

what were the automotive instructional tapes like? like were they about how to drive? or how to fix cars? or were they for the cars to listen to and learn from - like they were recorded in special car language?

― sarahel, Thursday, July 22, 2010 12:48 AM (10 hours ago)

^^ drunk post that i don't remember making

The beach/palm tree aesthetic was pretty much all over kids clothes of the 80s, at least as far as I remember. I remember a lot of neon pinks and greens, and clothes from Ocean Pacific and the like taking over department stores.

You know we keep saying 80s, but aren't most of these people in their mid 20s and therefore much more influenced by early to mid 90s stuff?

Of which I will grant you beach graphics on Bugle Boy shirts were a big part.

yeah i mean i'd say 85-95 give or take

that aesthetic is very much early/mid-80s nostalgia though - the age (or youth, rather) of the musicians that favor it could be key - like, they didn't actually live through it already, unlike some of us on this thread.

xpost speaking of which http://www.peglegnyc.com/ is pretty hilariously inspired by bugle boy

I wonder what kind of traffic AZ has been getting -- I still read P4k pretty much daily, but only check out AZ posts sporadically, and always leave feeling like I just wasted time looking at bad reviews on a landfill music blog

"reviews"

hay guise come see my band /D/R/U/G/S/ http://peglegnyc.verbsite.net/__data/005f38b30dce004d64f28fec2f0e22b0.jpg

I feel like the opening credits to Saved by the Bell also influenced a lot of this shit.

xpost I don't know about traffic but I like the wiseblood song they have up right now.

xpost
I think the show "California Dreamin'" (very much a SBTB clone) maybe even more so.

holy shit dudes i haven't looked at pitchfork for quite a while until today

xpost

Surf dudes with attitudes
(Kinda groovy) Laid back moods,
Sky above, sand below
(Good vibrations) Feelin' mellow
Won't give it up Don't wanna stop
Don't wake me up Don't wake me up if I'm dreamin'
California dreams
Just let me lay here in the sun
Until my dream is done

kinda sums up the whole vibe

"The California Board of Tourism"

Sounds like a name for a chillwave band right there.

http://c1931172.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/post_art/toothachecoverweb.jpg

'10s chillwave or '90s emo? Both name and aesthetic.

^^^But not in sound^^^

Brutally amateur/infantile.

I didn't even listen to it, I was just struck by the cover/name combination. My 19 year-old self would have snatched that up in a heartbeat back in my emo days.

Yeah I totally agree. Almost uncannily emo/hardcore aesthetic.

wonder what the traffic is like for this

kinda seems like P4k gave it a little push before and at launch, then left it to do its own thing and now its just kinda sitting there

any ilxors read it regularly?

Not regulary but check in now and then. The guest post from AnCo turned me onto a neat glitchy 70s spoken word electronica thing, and they've covered a handful of bands that were on y radar already. It is what it is.

i check the site from time-to-time, too. i don't find it as adventurous or interesting as i thought it might have been.

yeah, i guess i just thought that p4k wouldve given it a little more postlaunch attention. and that id hear more about it in general. oh well

it's not really that (for me, at least). it's more that (a) i wish more under-the-radar genres/styles were featured and/or (b) the music from the genre(s) they do focus on was more interesting. and i also am not a fan of some of the participating blogs, which colors my view some.

i just popped over there, and saw a "guest post" from the "awesome tapes from africa" guy. him, i do like. more of that would be welcome.

yeah. i guess this was always gonna be a niche sorta thing. just kinda weird how divorced it is from the main p4k site!

i don't mind it being a niche site.

maybe i need to give it more of a chance.

i dont think its an issue that its niche at all. in many cases its totally the way to go

http://alteredzones.com/posts/233/altered-zones/

nice to see Soft Powers there, gonna check that mix out

been feeling alot of what they have been posting as of late

Soft Powers just put up a new single that's the best thing he/they have recorded yet: http://softpowers.bandcamp.com/album/its-like-a-dream-single

^^ wow, this is really good, doesn't beat "Strawberry Soup" in my ears, but still very good

so I gave that mix a spin, bored me at places, but few moments caught my attention
those mixes might be convenient for people like me, who are too lazy to keep track of AZ but are interested in their finds, so I'm def looking forward to next mixes (I'd like it even better though, if it came in form of a single .zip file containing the tracks)