Volcano! makes music that manipulates the mind and body. I’m not sure what strange practice of hypnosis these men studied, perhaps jazz, but every time I hear “Africa Just Wants to Have Fun” I end up breaking something. Volcano! is based out of Chicago, IL and is made up of Aaron With, Sam Scranton and Mark Cartwright. The group has been around since 2003, so this music is not new by any means. With that written it doesn’t detract from the fact that the music is incredible and I felt compelled to write about it. Having stalked the group’s oddly abundant number of social networking sites it looks like there is new music from this group on the horizon. Stay tuned here.

The Midwest is alive; it speaks and breathes. Jeff Walls -aka- Campfires has kept his ear to the ground and has created a sound that plays in time with its pulse. Campfires, thus far, is a solo home recording project for Jeff. The songs that are currently available were recorded over the past two years in Chicago and Michigan. The state of Michigan, both physical and current, provided much of the inspiration for Jeff’s recordings. Jeff described this inspiration well in his e-mail to me:

“I draw a lot of my inspiration from growing up in Michigan and the rust belt in a more general sense. There’s an interesting combination of natural beauty and a sort of faded prosperity in contrast with a pretty bleak and run-down current state of things, and a lot of the feeling behind the songs and lyrics draws from that. One gets a strong feeling growing up in a place like that that everything isn’t necessarily going to be ok, but you can still be at peace with that and find comfort and beauty in it, and I guess that’s the crux of the vibe that I hope the music has.”

From what I have gleaned from other reviews (Don’t Die Wondering, Rose Quartz Weekly Tapedeck) it sounds like a majority of the current songs were recorded in an abandoned trailer park, most likely in Michigan; very interesting. Jeff’s sound is large and intricate. It provides moments of pure beauty and then enriches them with the sick beats that he exercises from his drum kit. Jeff informed me that he has four tapes coming out in the near future, one self-released and three to be put out through various record labels. Keep a close watch on Jeff’s site and MySpace page to stay wise on when those releases will be made available.

“Pilot Dreams”

“Daytime TV”

“Stormy Late Fall”