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In this series we ask musicians about the one album that changed their life, the album that turned that slow burn of curiosity into an uncontrollable fire, the album that straight up turned them on. This week check out three musicians from 2013 SXSW bands: My Gold Mask, The Ocean Blue and K.I.D.S.

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Gretta Rochelle
Gretta Rochelle of  My Gold Mask

Rochelle: “I first came across Pornography during high school. It was the second Cure record I bought.  The first lyrics you hear are “It doesn’t matter if we all die” on One Hundred Years and what followed sonically had me bound for life. The Figurehead quickly became my favorite track. The primal drums were totally an inspiration on my drumming style.  Pornography was the first record to really possess me, and it still does. What I’ve definitely taken with me throughout my journey as a musician is to try and recreate, in my own way, that dark place of both memory and dream that is my own artistic sweet spot. Pornography is an album so lush with textures and a certain mood that I adore and will always sort of chase in my music.  I like to find that bittersweet place in My Gold Mask songs. I don’t think I’ve done it as well as I’d like to, yet … but there’s always the next record. ”

My Gold Mask – “Burn Like The Sun”

David Schelzel
David Schelzel of The Ocean Blue
Album of Influence: Cocteau Twins –  Victorialand (4AD)

David Schelzel: “This album is perhaps my very favorite of all time. It is intoxicating. Beautiful. Otherworldly. The soundscape created by Robin’s guitars and Liz’s vocals was like nothing I had ever heard when I got this record. I could and did get lost in it. It opened up the door to a lot of other great ambient music for me, like that of Brian Eno and Harold Budd. And it pulled me in another direction at a time when I was into louder, faster, heavier music. The Ocean Blue’s second record, Cerulean, was an attempt to make The Ocean Blue more like what this record sounded like. An entire mood, atmosphere from start to finish, not just a collection of pop songs. I don’t think we got anywhere close, but you can pick up bits in the minimalistic arrangements, impressionistic lyrics and atmospheric guitars on that record.”

Ultramarine, the new release from The Ocean Blue, is available now. Listen to the first single below.

The Ocean Blue  – “Sad Night, Where Is Morning?”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDObAW5c_1M
Charles Cave
Charles Cave of K.I.D.S.
Album of Influence: Bjork – Live Box (One Little Indian)
Charles Cave: “When I look through the records that sit next to my hifi, the ones that through adoration for them, constantly avoid being filed away on the shelves, share a feeling that resonates and gives them common ground. Among those records (Duke Ellington – Far East Suite, Yes – Close To The Edge, Blue Nile – Hats, La Dusseldorf – Dusseldorf and assorted Sun Kil Moon/Red House Painters records) this Bjork live album is more than at home. This is one of the first to really transport me somewhere else. For me, there are two types of music; there is music that provides context and a soundtrack to reality, and there is music that creates a new one. Perhaps it is the modest British rapture heard intertwined between each song here, perhaps it is the incredible dedication to sonic detail (in the intro of Aurora, Bjork walks on the spot in a tray of gravel to replicate the evocative effect from the recorded version) but this out of all live records transports me not only to the concert, but to warm and vivid places from my memory. “

“Where Duke Ellingtons’ Far East Suite hypnotically whisks me to thoughts of Lebanon, Jordan, Sri Lanka, and I can smell taste and feel as much as hear, this Bjork record seems to take me to more discrete and muted memories. Visions of childhood bedrooms at distant relatives houses, dark  drive-ways in the countryside, thick-aired Summer mornings walking back from parties through suburban London all uncoil themselves from that nostalgic era of youth and innocence. The scale of the performance is what we have all come to expect from Bjork. The musicians create a intensely textured and rich sound and switch between delicacy and intricacy in renditions of ‘Unravel’ (my favourite song) to bulshy synth-drivven stomping in ‘It’s Not Up To You’. Like all good records, every time I listen to this, I hear something new, I see it in a slightly different light, it takes me to a new place I had almost forgotten about but relish remembering. I really feel this will be grazing beside my hifi for many, many years to come. For me, it is THE Bjork record and to some degree one of THE live albums.”

K.I.D.S. – “Black Star”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXOBSUuynpg

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SO Note:  Tweet your most inspirational album to @Serial_Optimist.