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Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Radical Face


Up until today, this blog has been devoted to visual media. However, finding great music in today’s fragmented and leaderless musical landscape is also a passion of mine. When I grew up, the radio stations told us what to listen to. I always saw their playlists as starting points to find what I liked. My tastes usually landed just outside the mainstream. Today, we don’t have a common starting point to find what we like to listen to. We’ve all been left on our own to search for great music. I personally have learned to enjoy the search. As I listen to my Pandora stations and check out samples in the ITunes store, I occasionally stumble upon truly great music. When I find these gems I’ll do my best to communicate my discovery to my readers. Why not? Online communication has replaced radio as the new starting point.

My most recent discovery is Radical Face, out of Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Their origins were of particular interest to me as I’m from Jacksonville, Florida. However, I fell in love with this band solely due to their original well-crafted sound. The album is called “Ghost”, released in 2007. It's a concept album about houses and how the things we do in those houses will leave ghosts in the walls. The lyrics are very creative and well thought out. The song are all catchy and brilliant. The thing I love most about Radical Face’s album is the subtle weaving of acoustic guitar, violins, accordion, civil war type drums, flourishes of electric guitars, Ben Cooper’s haunting voice, and a myriad of sound effects. Nothing dominates here, it all works perfectly together to paint images of soldiers marching or chains jangling in the attic. I hope Ben Cooper and Radical Face can find their audience. I’ve been listening to this album for several months now, and it’s turned out to be one of those rare finds that keeps getting better over time.

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