Tag Archives: UFO

July 11, 2017 · 1:32 pm

Arcade Fire – “Signs of Life”

We’re always on board with a music video about alien visitation (this one in particular reminds us of a Doomsquad vid from a couple years back).

As we all know, there’s no such thing as a day off when you’re working the X-Files desk. Maybe you’ll fit in one art gallery, but it’s never long before a UFO shows up and you’re forced to trudge back to the office. It makes the job easier, of course, when the aliens drop a USB key for you.

Arcade Fire’s Everything Now is out at the end of the month.

-Scott Bryson

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August 15, 2016 · 2:22 pm

Doomsquad – Total Time

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This is messed up in all the best ways.

We’ve seen proof the Doomsquad siblings are UFO nuts, and they’re either still on that beat—song titles like “Pyramids on Mars” and “The Very Large Array” would suggest yes—or they’ve moved on to channeling otherworldly spirits at a drum circle. “Fire in the sky, dance though me,” they plead in the opening track. And later in the album: “This is the [look?] the fire gave me, you motherfuckers! Total time!”

Total Time was recorded, as it happens, at a cabin in New Mexico, and its two halves play like a night/day division in the desert: the first half a drug-induced dance around a campfire; the second, the sound of a desolate world waking up—an idyllic, organic comedown.

It’s not clear whether Doomsquad have managed to top their 2014 effort with this one, simply because there’s little about this record that could be termed “clear.” Take “Pyramids on Mars” for a spin, below.

-Scott Bryson

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July 19, 2016 · 3:23 pm

Andy Shauf – “The Magician”

Someone wake that kid—high tide’s comin’. Oh, never mind. Seems he fell through a sinkhole. Those hollow-Earthers were right—there really is a civilization in the centre of the planet.

What a wondrous place: enormous mushrooms, giant frogs, teacup bathtubs. Wait… is everything big, or are the people small? Perhaps the aliens are trying to confuse us; you’ll note an abundance of UFOs in this realm.

“The Magician” comes from Andy Shauf’s The Party.

-Scott Bryson

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April 7, 2016 · 4:04 pm

Black Mountain – IV

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Whether intentional or not, the cover of Black Mountain’s fourth record not-so-subtly alludes to the Solway Firth Spaceman—a photograph taken by Brit Jim Templeton in 1964 that appears to show a non-existent astronaut standing behind his daughter. The future, the foreign and the out-of-this-world inexplicably intrude on the pastoral here and now.

Looking at some of the content on this record—“Florian Saucer Attack,” for example (check out the video below)—you get the sense that that’s exactly the sort of marriage of extremes Black Mountain were gunning for (see also: “Mothers of the Sun”). IV conjures the otherworldly as well as Construction & Destruction’s Dark Lark; it could’ve soundtracked Dune.

This isn’t a wildly different Black Mountain than we’re used to, mind you—they’ve just cranked the weird factor (and the synthesizers) a tad. All their best selves are on display: the bombastic, the psychedelic and the sentimental, and they mingle with a newfound dreaminess that culminates in the epic “Space to Bakersfield”—a dirge for those lost and floating in the void. Not a single song to miss, on this one.

-Scott Bryson

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June 14, 2015 · 11:56 am

NXNE 2015 Preview: Doomsquad – “Two-way Mirror”

It’s that time of year again, Toronto: North by Northeast 2015 is nearly upon us. As usual, the Telescope is pleased to be your principal source for NXNE previews and reviews.

Doomsquad wants to believe.

This teaser for the Toronto trio’s upcoming full-length was recorded and shot near Roswell, NM; no little green men running around, but conspiracies run deep. Candy bars that reveal the alien agenda? Similar tools have aided mankind in the past. And who are the white-coats? Agents of a complicit government? Trust no one.

“Two-way Mirror” comes from the Pageantry Suite EP. You can catch Doomsquad twice at NXNE: Wednesday, June 17 at Lee’s Palace at 11:00 PM and Saturday, June 20 at the Garrison at 2:00 AM.

-Scott Bryson

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December 4, 2014 · 4:24 pm

A Place To Bury Strangers – “Straight”

A Place To Bury Strangers demonstrate what happens to a tube TV if you walk by it with a large magnet (personal experience, and there’s no easy way to fix it).

How weird is that first ten seconds, with the buildings rising? It feels unnatural—like watching UFO footage (which we sorta get later in the vid, in addition to a sasquatch attack and some sort of glowing porch being). Strange Frontiers indeed.

“Straight” comes from Transfixiation; it drops in February.

-Scott Bryson

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