Thursday March 15, 2012
Info: Here.
Poster: Radish White Ice.
The former Cap’n Jazz/Owls guitarist and current guitarist for Joan Of Arc, Victor Villarreal, is playing a solo show at The Space in Hamden next Week. Check out the flier above. I don’t know about any of you, but I’m most excited to see Sinforiano Diaz out of all these acts. For those of you who aren’t aware, that’s the long-running solo project of The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die’s frontman Tom Diaz.
Left of the Dial Radio Playlist - 6/24/11
I forgot to post this playlist from last friday’s Left of the Dial college radio show this weekend, so here it is a few days late. A youtube link to each song is provided when available. As always, this show’s playlist was comprised mostly of music that I had been listening to a lot in the past week, new and old alike. Remember to tune in this Friday from 6 to 8 PM on WNHU to hear the next Left of the Dial broadcast!
- 1. Okkervil River - “We Need A Myth”
- 2. Low - “Dinosaur Act”
- 3. R.E.M. - “E-Bow The Letter”
- 4. Sinforiano Diaz - “Congregation”
- 5. Real Estate - “Beach Comber”
- 6. Bon Iver - “Minnesota, WI”
- 7. WHY? - “Gnashville”
- 8. Madvillain - “Accordian”
- 9. Aesop Rock - “No Jumper Cables”
- 10. Crystal Castles - “Suffocation”
- 11. Weezer - “Blast Off!
- 12. Weezer - “Who You Callin’ Bitch?”
- 13. Pavement - “Date With IKEA”
- 14. By Surprise - “Mostly Harmless”
- 15. Defiance, Ohio - “Condition 11:11”
- 16. John Galm - “Kids in Catholic School”
- 17. Ramshackle Glory - “Your Heart Is A Muscle The Size Of Your Fist”
- 18. The Flaming Lips - “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate” (Demastered)
- 19. The Antlers - “Rolled Together”
- 20. Joan of Arc - “A Party Able Model Of”
- 21. David Bowie - “What In The World”
- 22. The Flaming Lips - “Fight Test” (*Request*)
- 23. The Mountain Goats - “No Children” (*Request*)
- 24. Weezer - “Butterfly”
- 25. Beck - “The Golden Age”
- 26. Pavement - “Transport Is Arranged”
- 27. Man Man - “Life Fantastic”
- 28. The Beach Boys - “I Know There’s An Answer” (*Request*)
- 29. Modest Mouse - “Cowboy Dan”
Song of the Day Number 180
Sinforiano Diaz - “06331”
Via Derrick Shanholtzer:
This is Tom from TWIABP’s long time solo project. Last summer I started recording his full length. We haven’t gotten very far. This is the only finished track.
As an adamant fan of Sinforiano Diaz since The Moosup Sessions began to make the rounds earlier in the year, I’m very excited for the full-length release. Stream the first completed track from the lead singer of The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die’s debut LP above, and check out the fantastic four-track The Moosup Sessions in an Obscure Artist Spotlight from March HERE.
edit: Download the above track “06311” at Soundcloud HERE
If you still haven’t listened to Sinforiano Diaz’s The Moosup Sessions, released earlier this year, download it HERE. These four tracks, written and recorded by Thomas Diaz, the primary singer/songwriter of The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die, set the perfect soundtrack for a lonely, rainy day. Find more about the album HERE in my most recent Obscure Artist Spotlight.
Song of the Day Number 121
Sinforiano Diaz - “Congregation”
As much as I love singer/keyboardist Thomas Diaz’ work in The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die, I am starting to find the four songs included on his recently released as Sinforiano Diaz on The Moosup Sessions to be as good if not better than those on the two TWIABP 7” records. Diaz’s songwriting is so fragile and sincere that every experience of listening to a Sinforiano Diaz seems remarkably precious and meaningful. On The Moosup Sessions’ opener ”Congregation”, the hushed singing and honest songwriting creates an air of intimacy that I haven’t heard in music in a long time.
For more information about Sinforiano Diaz, check out this obscure artist spotlight segment I did HERE, and download his album.
VIDEO: Sinforiano Diaz - “A Hymn” (Live at Wrench in the Works, Willimantic CT, 3.27.09)
As I wrote earlier today in my most recent Obscure Artist Spotlight, Sinforiano Diaz is the solo project of Thomas Diaz, a singer/songwriter from Willimantic, Connecticut best known as the primary singer and keyboardist for The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die. In this video, he performs a version of his song “A Hymn” alone with a classical guitar in a small venue in Willimantic. This version contains completely different lyrics and a slightly altered melody, but is just as beautiful as the version that appears on The Moosup Sessions. Watch the video above.
Sinforiano Diaz (~60 Listeners)
Sinforiano Diaz is a long-running project of Thomas Diaz, a singer/songwriter from Willimantic, Connecticut. Diaz is best known for being the vocalist and keyboard player for The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die, an atmospheric emo band that is also from Willimantic. A solo project, Sinforiano Diaz actually predates his work in The World Is A Beautiful Place….
The music of Sinforiano Diaz is a remarkably delicate kind of indie folk, with the hushed, occasionally whispered vocals of Diaz supported by multitracked swaths of acoustic guitar. The guitar melodies are vaguely twinkly, recalling the work of Mike Kinsella and other acoustic twinkle acts and adding a melancholic layering to the final product.
On The Moosup Sessions, a collection of four songs written and recorded over three years ago that were never properly released, Diaz’s songwriting is just as unconventional as his The World Is a Beautiful Place… work, while still retaining form and structure despite the length of the songs. These four songs are brief, honest works painstakingly crafted to perfection. The Moosup Sessions is an extreme example of quality over quantity; these songs all hover around only two minutes, but every second of the album’s sub-8 minute length is hopelessly and unforgivingly brilliant. Each track, from the warm-sounding opener “Congregation” to the utterly beautiful “A Hymn”, evokes a positive, communal outlook on life, even when the tone may seem melancholy. These songs feel like they could be universal, and yet I can’t help but feel deeply and personally affected at all the allusions to life in Connecticut itself, most notably on the second song “The From The Tracks”, in which Diaz sings about taking a train into New Haven, the town in which I live. It’s a remarkably chilling moment on a beautiful album that is quite full of them.
The Moosup Sessions (2011)
- Congregation
- The From The Tracks
- My Two Mouths
- A Hymn
Download HERE.
Sinforiano Diaz will be playing a show in New Haven, Connecticut on April 7th. Information for that show can be found HERE.
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