Orange Alert's Music Minute

"On August 21, High Two will release illuminea's Out of Our Mouths. Formerly known as illumina, the Philadelphia chamber pop band's second album features 12 new songs, including “Build Your Own” and “Homewrecker.” With three distinct singers/songwriters in the band, Out of Our Mouths plays like a mix CD, albeit one that was created by a close group of friends intent on sharing their individual experiences with love and loss as a collective. Though there are frequent sonic and tonal shifts throughout Out of Our Mouths—it is at turns epic, intimate, stormy, playful, pensive, and jubilant—each song remains inherently illuminea."

When they say mix CD, they really mean it. The three styles are so unique that it is actually a little jarring upon the first listen. It took three or four times through the disc to find an overall sense of what Illuminea was trying to accomplish. I feel they are ultimately trying to say that an album does not have to have a natural progression to still be a coherent collection. The ability of each song to stand on it's own, but still contribute to the mix in whole is what makes this album worth owning.

Listen to: Homewrecker (mp3)

For more information on Illuminea visit their website, and you can pre-order "Out of Our Mouths" here.

Warp Records announced this week the details of the debut of one their newest family members, California producer Flying Lotus. His Warp debut will be in the form of an Ep entitled, "Reset" and will be released on October 1st. The 6 track Ep can be pre-ordered at Warpmart.

Reset (Warp, 10/07)

Tea Leaf Dancers (mp3)/Vegas Collie/Massage Situation/Spicy Sammich/Bonus Beat/Dance Floor Stalker

"Deer Tick began as the songwriting project of John McCauley, a singer/songwriter based out of Providence, Rhode Island. Thanks to the help of Brendon "Viking Moses" Massei, McCauley has been ferociously zig-zagging across the United States, hitting all the sparsely attended basement shows, smoky bars, upscale joints, small to medium size festivals, and everything in between, since April of 2005. At 21 years of age, McCauley has worked very hard to get his homemade CD's in players across the country, and has no plans to stop any time soon."

Deer Tick's first official release will come out on September 4th, 2007 through Houston's Feow! Records. The album is entitled "War Elephant", and if the rest of the album is anything like these two tracks, everyone will be talking about the young Mr. McCauley. Listen to: Art Isn't Real (City of Sin) (mp3) and Diamond Rings 2007 (mp3)

A band that I heard rock from a distance a Lollapalooza this year was Tokyo Police Club. This is a band that I have enjoyed from quite sometime, but due to timing issues I was unable to catch their performance. I was very pleased to hear that they recently signed to Saddle Creek Records. Listen to: Cheer It On (Acoustic Version) (mp3) and Be Good (mp3)

The Peel Back: The Orb "Orbus Terrarum"

Alex Paterson, Andy Hughes, and Thomas Felhmann took risk and left a lot of their dance and sci-fi elements for a more natural, organic sound when they crafted "Orbus Terrarum" in 1995. The transition came with the move to a new label, and seemed to usher in a new era for ambient music and electronic music in general.

When I first heard this album I would get lost for hours in the layers of sounds and samples, consistently finding new textures in every inch and with every listen. There was something new and refreshing about this album. Each track gracefully blended together, and finally culminated the pleasant and almost surreal fairy tale. Rediscover this classic creation today.

Listen to: Valley (mp3) and White River Junction (mp3)