Medicine "The Mechanical Forces Of Love"

Where did you see it?

Which earlier Medicine stuff is worth seeking out?

The Buried Life is a bit more prog (and therefore wonderful) - IIRC, cause I no longer have a copy of it. :-(

Her Highness had mixed reviews, but I loved it because it drew from quite a broad range - prog, Prince, techno, bubblegum and George Harrison all thrown into the blender with the MBV wall of feedback.

They did an E.P. with the Cocteau Twins which should have been a lot better than it was, unfortunately.

I don't know how hard/easy this stuff is to find - were they on Creation in the UK?

But wow, this is one of the few times when I wish I'd paid more attention to the music press because this is one of those things I wish I'd known about. Top of the list on my record buying for the month!

I mean, Medicine basicaly *is* Brad Laner. I just think his music works better with a female singer, which is why Medicine were better than Amnesia or whatever his later band was called. Is Jim Putnam still involved? He was their secret weapon, really.

Funny thing is, I hated Her Highness when it came out, except for one or two songs, because there wasn't as much Beth singing, and I don't like the songs where just Brad sings as much.

I wonder who's in the band now he's lost basically his entire backing group to Beck... Oh. The review answers the question. Just him. OK, we'll see. It really does hinge on having female vocals and the tone of those vocals.

it was really funny, because Beth *looked* like such a scary So-Cal goth skank girl, but then she opened her mouth and had the voice of an angel. Never has someone looked so LITTLE like their voice.

Also, probably the loudest band I've seen live..

There was an article about them in the Independent last Friday, and it was a two page spread (i haven't checked, there may be one on the Drop 19s this week). Anyway, Brad Laner heard about some band on Wall of Sound called Medicine and got in contact about them using his licensed name. WOS said 'those rascals pissed off to Regal' and offered Laner a contract there and then.

Kate - EP with the Cocteaus? Didn't they only remake "Time Baby" with Robin producing and Liz on vocals? It was on "Sounds of Medicine" mini-LP which a bit of a mish-mash. Still, it got them onto "The Crow".

And Jim Putnam now makes lovely slow quiet music with Radar Bros, the total antithesis of Medicine. But well worth checking out anyway, he's a genius just like Brad Laner is.

Hang on, if it's a new band behind Brad, does that mean that Jim Goodall's not drumming any longer? Shit... he was so good...

MUST...BITE...DOWN...HARD...

There. Better.

The best overall is 'Studio City', completely chisled pop noise, very impressive, overlooked record and the place to start if you're a Medicine fan. It was his last record on a major label. The EC live shows around this time were incredible. 'A Pert Cyclic Omen' was the one that came out while Medicine mk I was still going, it's a guitar record, all the washy atmospherics of Medicine, beats reduced to pulses. Also, the EC track on the Tigerbeat6 inc. compilation is one of the best things he's done.

I loved the first two Medicine records, looking forward to the new one...

EVERYTHING I HAVE EVER LOVED IN MUSIC!!!

ALBUM OF THE YEAR!!!

And yes I'm aware that I said that about Manitoba, the new Dandy Warhols and the new Radiohead, but I was wrong. This album is everything that I want music to be. Throbbing electronic hum that makes me sway gently in my seat, WIBBLING SPACEROCK GUITARS, texture texture chew chew chew, yum and LOVELY LOVELY LOVELY GIRLIE HARMONY VOCALS!!!

I really was never expecting Medicine to make another album. And they've made their best one yet.

Ned you are so wrong about Medicine that it hurts. I don't care if Brad Laner killed yer mum or shagged yer girlfriend, they are still the most perfect expression of music, EVAH!!!

"chew chew chew, yum" is one of my favourite bits of music criticism this year.

If this is wrong I don't want to be right! However, you at least make it sound like Brad is finally playing to his strengths, ie computer manipulation, when it comes to Medicine, because all the early stuff is and remains el craptastic.

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=CASS70307151848&sql=A19klu3qaan4k

i really wish that amg would allow you to click on the reviewer's name and bring up other reviews the person has written to give you context on where they're coming from. it's the kind of thing that computers do very well and shouldn't be too difficult.

I think that's your answer there. At least the reviewer has the kindness to admit their bias. When he says it's got "no tunes" what he means is "no guitars". There are tunes aplenty. It's as pop as a Missy Elliot album.

This album makes sense to me because all that retrofetishistic guitar wank like the Warlocks and BRMC just sounds like shit to me. My head is at the sort of fusion of electronica and guitar psychedelia that bands like Capitol K and Manitoba are doing. If Medicine had made another guitar-ridden album like it's 1992, I'd have been sorely disappointed and written them off. Instead, they branched out in the direction that tracks like Heads and Brad's solo work were leading them. And are much more interesting for it.

I want Machines Inna Garden. And I want it now. ::pouts::

WHAT?!?!? That's the most straight-ahead RAWK song on the album.

Good For Me which switches very nicely between moody, trippy verses to a knockout Beach Boys on Mars chorus

Good For Me is the only song that sounds even vaguely electroclash to me, but mainly only cause of the Georgio Moroder bassline.

I think the reviewer just has the song titles mixed up, really. :-(

From the descriptions, I think he likes all the songs that I don't, and hates all the songs I think are strongest. Typical.

But I don't. It's a smash.

It's so funky. This I did not expect. I got hung up on the Manitoba reference. It's way more soulful. Like the last Spiritualized album only not so fake sounding (this was the one beef I had with that thing, sounded put-on, the whole pseudo-gospel aspect). Missy's a cool comparison, cuz like Missy everything goes in the pot. I can dig it. Some unexpectedly key southern california hazy harmonies, too, a la Fleetwood Mac.

ALAN VEGA " collision drive/ jukebox babe "
BAD MANNERS " loony tunes "

It would be very kind to be informed somehow, as reply I got some rare stuff too.

Gleb from Saint-Petersburg, Russia.

If this is wrong I don't want to be right! However, you at least make it sound like Brad is finally playing to his strengths, ie computer manipulation, when it comes to Medicine, because all the early stuff is and remains el craptastic.

Ned, I don't get you at all here. The first two Medicine albums are incredible. Why do you like a ton of noise pop and shoegaze, yet dismiss Shot Forth Self Living without a second thought?

Nick, what did you think of the album(s) you picked up?

The first two medicine albums are fucking great. MBV is the obvious comparison, but i think of Medicine as being sort of warm and inviting, while MBV is comparatively distant and icier. Different shoegaze for different moods, I suppose.

"One More" transcends the genre just as much as anything MBV did IMO. Laner's controlled-noise approach was, at its best, second only to Shields' in the pantheon of 'gaze effects-pedal freaks and differed almost completely from Shields' "glide guitar" method. I like their first two records alot, but there is far too much filler on both (especially SFSL) for them to be considered classics. If you took the high points from both and condensed them into one record it would make the 'gaze all-time top 10 easily. Maybe even 5.

I like their first two records alot, but there is far too much filler on both (especially SFSL) for them to be considered classics. If you took the high points from both and condensed them into one record it would make the 'gaze all-time top 10 easily. Maybe even 5.

Definitely 5, in my opinion. I can't even think of other shoegaze bands that are even in the same league as MBV, Slowdive, and Medicine. Ride, Swervedriver, and Chapterhouse are middling at best IMHO.

Is personal for Ned. Brad killed his father. ;-)

SFSL is def in my top 5 but I never ever managed to get into that last 2003 album. For me it's a different band (which it is, I know I know)

So what exactly is Ned's beef with this band? Honestly, I prefer the best songs of Medicine and Slowdive to the best songs of MBV any day of the week. I don't give a shit how that impacts my credibility. In fact, my favorite songs on "Loveless" are the ones that sound most like Slowdive ("When you Sleep" and "Sometimes").

Didn't like it, long since sold on, never investigated further.

Dude, and you raved about the Manitoba record. And Maps. SHAME ON YOU.

I did not rave about Maps; for two days I said it was good, and then I did a massive about-face and told everyone it was rubbish. And that Manitoba record is still fantastic! Plus he got better with the next two!

Ned?

Cool house!

Wow, I'm not really a fan of California moderism, but that house really does make me rethink that stance, it is gorgeously done.

(I think probably because I'm used to seeing only bad knockoffs, or else houses in that style that have been customised so much as to turn them into something else, something ugly.)

The subject of this thread remains one of my favourite albums of the 00s. I imported it onto my iPhone the other week and it still makes me happy every time I hear it. It combines so many different aspects of so many musical aesthetics I love that it's almost perfectly like it was made for my listening pleasure.

awesome! Jeez how I sometimes miss SoCal...

Awesome, awesome, awesome.

Between that and the shots of Wayne Coyne's place that surfaced after the remodel, clearly the new frontier for musicians is interior decorating.

I somehow missed Wayne Coyne's crib. Can you point me in that direction?

Go nuts:

http://gizmodo.com/5471139/the-flaming-lips-crib-is-even-more-psychedelic-than-their-music

unhappy911truthers.tumblr.com

I don't think I could live in either of those. But I suppose that's the problem with Statement Architecture. :-/

could never live in Coyne's but Laner's house seems very easy to live in!

I'm way too messy to ever live in a house like Laner's.

But then again, I suppose his studio probably was completely tidied up and everything packed away for the photo shoot.

The subject of this thread remains one of my favourite albums of the 00s.

This is interesting. I love my other Medicine albums and Kate, I think we have a lot of overlapping tastes, but I consider this album to be one of the worse "final" albums out there by a band, kind of in the same league as Tarantula or something... I just can't get into it at ALL.

I dunno, in retrospect, I might almost like it *more* than the other Medicine albums. I probably play it more often than the others. Though that could have more to do with my changing tastes in music than the quality of the other albums. I recognise that it is two different bands that made the first 3 Medicine albums, and then this one. It's just more like the final one is more where I'm at now, musically, than the others.

wowee zowee, who knew that shoegazing paid so well? did Brad Laner marry into money?...trust fund?...The story says his mom's name is Koenig...there must be some connection to the famed Case Study House architect Pierre Koenig...I am loving his digs!...wasn't there a rendering of such a house on one of his LP covers?

Holy shit I love Medicine!

That's what Jason Pierce said...

Oh wait.

Brada Laner appears to have a solo record coming out, had a listen to one track and it sounds pretty great.

http://home-tapes.com/Hometapes/HAUS_HT031.html

Brada, duh!

This is relevant to my interests...

Got the CD from HomeTapes yesterday, sounds great on first listen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x2rnXCU6xs

Ah, it's on Spotify, as well. Cool. Because I'm interested to hear which way it goes. If it's the more electronic cut-up psych end, then I'll bite, but if it's just 60s tinged Beatley psych, I really don't need any more of that in my life.

shot forth self living is an incredibly difficult listen but so rewarding. a medicine thread should be started other than this one. aruca is a beast of a song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96qQ6y_QpIc

<3 aruca, so so great

This is the only Medicine thread? Ridiculous! :-)

In any case, re-issues of the awesome SFSL and similarly awesome Buried Life here :

http://capturedtracks.com/shoegaze-archives/medicine/

...and lookee... Always Starting To Stop is here :

http://bradlaner.bandcamp.com/album/always-starting-to-stop

Thanks, Brad!

You didn't get the box? It's got everything you need!

wow I never saw this! Is the remaster job worth it?

I actually didn't open mine yet... I'll let you know!

Medicine kicks ass. I can't believe this is the only Medicine thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73_bmAZ7B-w&feature=related

tell me that song doesn't kick ass in a way that MBV never could

Indeed, it does, with a dollop of Beach Boys thrown in for good measure.

I picked up the expanded reissues of the first two albums on Record Store Day. The remastering is pretty good, but it's the extra tracks that make the thing.

I saw them around the time of The Buried Life, and it was a good but strange show. The drummer had some weird dynamic going with somebody in the audience, the music got really slowed down and hypnotic, the drummer and the singer appeared to be goading the crowd into some kind of response, and the girl I took kept having to go into the next room because the music was so loud. (Great place to take a first date, eh?)

I half-skimmed this thread on the bus yesterday and got my hopes completely up by misreading / misunderstanding and thought there was a NEW new Medicine album, as opposed to reissues and the live tape. Man, don't get my hopes up like that.

But it least it got me to dig out the other albums, and blog about them for music diary week 2012.

They do just seem like one of those bands that kind of fell between the cracks, but I also kinda like that they were this undiscovered secret between obsessives.

So...I wrote this:

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/16507-shot-forth-self-living-the-buried-life/

Well.

I'm glad that you challenged your own preconceptions. And I'm glad that you admitted your own prejudices in the course of the article.

But I just really, really wish that Medicine had been better served. Like, I guess if the option is "guy who admits he hates them" vs "no one writes an article at all" the former is the latter of two evils.

Maybe it's that "a prophet is never appreciated in their own land" thing. (I mean, I have a friend who grew up in London who, to this day, thinks of Spacemen 3 as "that awful band who always used to play with My Bloody Valentine.") I also suspect that an American Anglophile is never going to like an American band who plays within a "British" genre.

I guess it's good for me to finally have some answers of why you've hated them for so long, but I can't help, as a completely obsessive fan, feeling a bit butthurt.

sort of agree. given that pitchfork reviews appear not as individual assessments but as the site's verdict and that the site is such a prominent arbiter of taste, it's a bit disappointing that they gave these to someone who at best was going to find out that "hey, they don't suck half as bad as i thought."

on the strength of ilm love i have over the years picked up 2 medicine albums.
the debut album that ned reviews, and mechanical forces.
everytime this thread gets revived i've tried each album again.
but i struggle.
something just does not click for me, yet all the necessary ingredients for love from yours truly are all there.
maybe one day the penny will drop (knowing my head, it could even happen tomorrow)
i wonder headphone listening would open the album up more for me ..

I don't know guys, as I pointed out on Twitter, I could certainly do with MORE Pitchfork reviews that felt as personal and as honest as those did. Pitchfork has enough other sections of their site to be tastemakers, that I enjoy detours like Ned's. Of course this can lead to the slippery slope where the reviewer spends more time talking about what he drank the night he saw the band in question play, but I also think Pitchfork has enough really solid writers to indulge in this sort of thing more often. Granted, I'm not as personally invested in Medicine, so I saw them as a great read instead of something to get butthurt by.

I'm not the only one I know who found Medicine to be a lot more interesting than most of the other bands named as preferable in Ned's review. This wasn't a band that came from shoegaze dreaminess and then slowly stirred increasing amounts of noise into arrangements of lovely songs; this was a band that started from a love of industrial noise and then grafted the pop on top of it. And it was a graft; saying that it doesn't 'gel' is kind of missing the point. Spending time comparing them unfavorably to Blur or Curve instead of mentioning this as more of a meeting of Merzbow or Whitehouse and the Beach Boys with occasional guest appearances from the actual Elizabeth Fraser (and not mentioning her collaboration with them on their biggest hit seemed like an omission that would have helped potential fans quickly understand where this band was coming from; or mentioning Laner's time in Savage Republic, or etc etc). I get that the appeal of Pitchfork is the emotional space to have these gut-level responses, but at the same time it's truly a shame that this is going to be their most widely read american review

& just to clarify by my use of the word 'graft': it wouldn't have worked if they hadn't grafted some pretty awesome songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib6THw-d0c8

last minute of that song is not fucking around; Medicine did not use noise as an ornament

yes! That is exactly what I liked about them. Like, they were coming from the same tradition as the first two Mercury Rev albums - of this huge abrasive nasty racket, that just happened to have this obsession with Prince and Madonna drizzled over the top, like a spoonful of sugarpop makes the... heh ... Medicine go down. It was a collision of seemingly irreconcilable influences that somehow managed to gel and really work.

I did my retrospective of them towards the end of Plan B magazine, and my reference was Amon Duul mashed with Madonna. It wasn't just "let's scuff up the edges with some distorted haze" it was "let's somehow hammer a pop song out of this squealing feedback from a short circuited ham radio."

Aruca shows how they did it, like there was just this wall of utterly free-form noise that they treated like a sculpture and slowly chiselled a fantastic pop song out of it in a way that you saw every hammer stroke as a block of granite turned to a human-shaped form to a Greek statue, and yet still couldn't quite believe that it was in there all along, and yet the chaos still threatens to swamp the pop song at any moment.

Also, do the remasters manage to capture how FUCKEN LOUD they were? Like, you couldn't put their CDs in random with other artists because they were just mastered about twice as loud as anyone else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdAloztRU4E

^^^any other band would have cut the intro and just used the popsong at the end. But that long intro is what makes the pop song make sense.

Too bad one of you two couldn't have done the review. Thanks for the kinder form of analysis !

ooooh.

i'm so going to have to dig the albums out and give them more time aren't i.

I adored Medicine at the time, and the first two albums still sound great today, and loud too. "One more" is one of my favourite album openers ever, those first few minutes are amazing. The reissues look fab, the thought of a version of "Time baby" recorded with Van Dyke Parks make my mouth water.

I was intrigued enough to get Mechanical Forces of Love by K's effusive praise at the time, but I didn't get it; think I was coming at it from a Manitoba-direction.

I did see an article about Brad's house though, which was lush. I would like his decor.

Yes, Brad's house is f*cking delicious - http://www.latimes.com/la-hm-musicianhouse-laner-pictures,0,4423459.photogallery

I could certainly do with MORE Pitchfork reviews that felt as personal and as honest as those did. Pitchfork has enough other sections of their site to be tastemakers, that I enjoy detours like Ned's. Of course this can lead to the slippery slope where the reviewer spends more time talking about what he drank the night he saw the band in question play, but I also think Pitchfork has enough really solid writers to indulge in this sort of thing more often.

^^

What exactly was personal about Ned's review other than bragging how his having been a 1st generation Shoegaze snob prevented him from enjoying Medicine ? Ned was holding that dump in for 20 years. Hope he feels better now.

also he did 9/11

I knew it !

I fully acknowledge that a private review website has no obligation to be "fair", but it just doesn't seem quite right that someone who actively dislikes a band should review that band's work. The first two Medicine albums are fantastic, and I think they deserved an unbiased ear.

Even if Medicine isn't a first generation shoegaze band, it's still better than 85% of shoegaze-- just like how Dukes of Stratosphear are better than most of the psychedelic rock style they borrow from. Obviously, you can argue about time and place, and whether an album can truly be a classic if it came out too late, or is from the wrong part of the world, etc. It just seems kinda shitty that mediocre horseshit like Chapterhouse and Pale Saints still gets remembered when a great band like Medicine gets forgotten.

(a) the fuck is an "unbiased ear"
(b) Captured Tracks rereleasing Medicine's back catalogue is way more complimentary and useful than anything that's been doled out to either of those two bands in the last decade (that I'm aware of)

(a) the fuck is an "unbiased ear"

i'd answer this semi-coherent half-question by gently suggesting that an "unbiased" ear involves a listener who hasn't already come to some kind of strong conclusion about what they're about to listen to.

Hey Brad-- how do you pronounce 5ive?

sorry for my semi-coherent half-question Poliopolice

a review that says "check it out I thought this band sucked back in the day but listening again it is actually p cool in parts, 7/10" seems perfectly objective by the normal standards of record reviewing

I'm sure if this review had been given to someone who approached it 100% fresh and ended up bagging on it, you would have been cool w/ that thanks to their unbiased ear

ha, the biased reviewer is the literary equivalent of the proverbial activist judge

Ned Raggett = Antonin Scalia

he also a personal friend of many ILM folks.

just saying like.

as is Antonin Scalia!

anyway, are you suggesting that we aren't allowed to review the reviewer because people here know him personally? he's writing for a major publication, he's fair game. anyway, it's more of a commentary on the process than of Ned specifically.

i know not of AS.

hidden pseudos mean little to me.

i thought the review was pretty straight down the line.

provided context as to his previous experience with medicine, and then gave a current viewpoint as to the reissues.

i really dont see a problem.

all the more so given that he has expressed his love for brads non-medicine material i.e. he is anything but a hardcore hater with an ax(e) to grind.

p.s. for the record i have never met ned, and not part of the inner circle of p-fork et al.

just that there is a lot of animosity on ilm, and its very rare an artist bites as hard as this.

it's just a little strange to me; I mean, just providing your previous experience isn't really a good "out." I bet if I told everyone here that I hated Steely Dan (which I do; I think they are total crap), then went on to review a Steely Dan record in a prominent medium, ILM would be up in arms about it, even if I gave it an ok review.

given the boost that a positive pitchfork review can provide a largely-forgotten band, the fact that this was given to an avowed hater is disappointing and a bit strange. ned appears to have listened as openly as possible, but winds up doing little more than admitting that medicine aren't as completely horrible as he once thought. it's a potentially interesting piece of raggett studies, but not terribly helpful as an introduction to the album or the band. plu it doesn't read like a 6.9. it reads like a 5.something, at best.

plu = plus

we'll have to agree to disagree as i like reviewer backstories.

as i said, context.

btw : i'd back you all the way re steely dan.

mediocre horseshit like Chapterhouse and Pale Saints

I'll give you Chapterhouse, but there was never anything remotely mediocre about Pale Saints (and I'm including their latter, hugely underrated, period in this).

good call.

Spending time comparing them unfavorably to Blur or Curve instead of mentioning this as more of a meeting of Merzbow or Whitehouse and the Beach Boys with occasional guest appearances from the actual Elizabeth Fraser (and not mentioning her collaboration with them on their biggest hit seemed like an omission that would have helped potential fans quickly understand where this band was coming from.

To be fair, the song in question (Time Baby III) appeared on neither of the reviewed LPs.

imagine that pitchfork had given disco inferno's the 5 EPs to someone who "detested" the band once upon a time, and who in the here and now compares the listening experience to "encountering scar tissue that runs too deep, finding out something that could work still never exactly does."

i mean...

Also, do the remasters manage to capture how FUCKEN LOUD they were?

^ This is totally OTM. I've mentioned it elsewhere on ILM, but my hearing has never been the same after a certain Medicine show in the mid-00s. Not blaming them - the mix was probably off & I def should have been wearing earplugs, & it may have been a straw/camel's back situation, but yeah.

er, that should be mid-90s, not 00s

mediocre horseshit like Chapterhouse and Pale Saints

I'll give you Chapterhouse, but there was never anything remotely mediocre about Pale Saints (and I'm including their latter, hugely underrated, period in this).

― that mustardless plate (Bill A), Tuesday, May 29, 2012 5:02 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark

MBV aside, Pale Saints (at least before the departure of Ian Masters) were the best band to arise from that scene/era imo.

In my opinion, Slowdive is probably the best out of all of them, followed by Medicine. MBV is third, and everything else pretty much is terrible (Chapterhouse, Swervedriver, Ride, Pale Saints, Moose, Lush).

Of them all, and I'm including MBV (even with their blessed remasters), the band from that era I still listen to the most is *easily* Pale Saints. I never really got into the post-Masters stuff at the time, but having listened to it plenty over the last few years I'll stan for it unreservedly - for sure, their direction changed, but a good element of that latter output is wonderful. I think part of this is that I just love the sound of Meriel's voice, and she/they were never afraid to let her sing and be heard; Bilinda, great as she is, is rarely more than a harmony or an element in Kev's wall-of-mbv.

(sorry for going off-topic on Medicine's thread...)

:( I like whirlpool by chapterhouse...

you are not alone

Whirlpool
Does Chapterhouse's 'Whirpool' stand up today?

the post-Masters stuff

had it been under a different name i suspect it would be remembered more fondly. the meriel-led stuff is actually really nice

Ok I'm not even going to try to argue with someone who thinks Slowdive are better than pedestrian. But I know I'm the only person who rates the second Chapterhouse album (mainly coz of the Global Comm remixes) so I've got no cred.

The whole "hater reevaluates a band's back catalogue" thing could have been really interesting IF the author had taken on a band with a huge body of critical acclaim and a massive fanbase. Had that article had been about the Smiths or REM or the Cure or especially P4 darlings like Radiohead or Animal Collective then it would have been an interesting and fresh take on a band one would have thought there was nothing new to write about. If someone had written that article about the MBV reissues even that would be understandable!

To do it to a cult band as unremembered (and underappreciated IMHO) just smacks of axe-grinding. It just came across as petty, rather than original.

Ok I'm not even going to try to argue with someone who thinks Slowdive are better than pedestrian.

There is nothing pedestrian about "Souvlaki" or "Pygmalion." Their first album, maybe. Mojave 3, almost definitely. But not those two.

yeah this is crazy talk - Slowdive, MBV, Medicine and Ride are the only shoegaze bands worth giving a damn - but, damn, what a damn.
It's always a bit simplistic to stick bands in genres, but there was not much gazing involved when it came to Medicine - as argued upthread, beyond the wall o' feedback, they had a mighty groove on (eg. One More).

There seems to be a definite split between people who love Slowdive & ppl who saw them live & thought of them as "that BORING band I had to sit through to see Ride or whoever."

I've just come to the conclusion that ppl who rate Slowdive (and don't rate e.g. Lush) are just listening for such different things from shoegaze that it's pointless to argue.

Still loving your house, Brad, if you're reading.

what a powerful testimonial

Not sure how many people dismissed Slowdive for good after hearing the first album which admittedly is rather boring

I still like the first album, but "Souvlaki" is mindblowing. The production work is something else; you could get lost in those huge, warm blankets of sound.

xp

I was content to dismiss them after Holding Our Breath tbh... ;)

I could never understand all the retrospective love for "Souvlaki". It's half a good album IMO. "Just for a day" can be a bit tedious at times but really picks up towards the end and didn't really fulfil the promise of their early EPs. However the "5 EP" and "Pygmalion" stuff was great.

Great, great band worth revisiting in the wake of mbv... The Buried Life is my personal favorite. Blows my mind that Van Dyke Parks did the arrangement on...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDHK5GBi7Nw

Unh, this appears to be the only Medicine thread on ILM, but NEW TRACK FROM A NEW ALBUM!!!

https://soundcloud.com/capturedtracks/medicine-long-as-the-sun

This band never got its due THANKS TO NED

j/k ned, it was probably a confluence of factors

Holy jeezus. Vey exciting! This year is turning out to be such an incredible one for albums I never expected to see

What other albums are you referring to?

Wow I'm digging the single. Who's singing now?

I just listened to a tape my hsgf made me with the Sounds of Medicine ep, The Buried Life, plus the song "One More." That all fits nicely on a c90.
This new track is coool

It's the original lineup reunited.

Cool! Though I did like Mechanical Forces a lot.

What other albums are you referring to?

probably mbv

Oh true, should have been obvious!

hah - thought you were joking!
well mbv obv, but also new JT and Daft Punk (and to lesser extent Knife)

I generally sincerely ask things without first thinking about it for a second.

Doesn't a guy from Medicine post here? Or used to?

Brad Laner rarely posts here; I think he's frustrated by Ned's intransigence towards Medicine. If I recall correctly, Ned described them as "total crap" (or somesuch) and then went on to give middling reviews to reissues of their albums on Pitchfork. See this very thread.

Though his Pitchfork reviews were written with a "giving it another shot" vibe, right? That's what I remember.

OK just looked back on this thread and yes I remember and still agree that perhaps a more undecided writer should have taken on those reviews.

http://boomkat.com/cds/754636-medicine-to-the-happy-few

this too:
http://capturedtracks.com/catalog/_earth-dies-burning/ct-180-earth-dies-burning-songs-from-the-valley-of-the-bored-teenager-1981-1984-lpcd/

felt like this should be posted as evidence for the prosecution on the Strypes thread
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJag0zrrVqo

The one song I heard from this sounded really good.

This being the new album.

So how's the new one? It's getting pretty decent reviews.

Wow, this album rocks.

The new album is MAD

on my list of things to check out but I need a bit of encouragement to get to it - any reveiws up?

Allmusic:

After splitting up in 1995 and going their separate ways, it seemed unlikely that the original members of the pioneering American shoegaze band Medicine would ever record again. Especially after the band's main man Brad Laner revived the name for the not very noisy, not very good Mechanical Forces of Love record in 2003. Things began to change when Captured Tracks reissued the group's first two albums: the breathtaking noise blast Shot Forth Self Living and the candy pop gem The Buried Life, in 2012. Spurred by how good the albums sounded, Laner, vocalist Beth Thompson, and drummer Jim Goodall buried their bad feelings and began working on a new album. Picking up where their last album, Her Highness, left off, To the Happy Few is a swirling kaleidoscope of poppy noise and guitar-driven euphoria. To their credit, the trio decided not to allow the sonic advances that occurred after they split to worm their way into the mix -- no electronic, no laptop squiggles, no dubstep -- in other words, there's precious little to mark this as an album made in 2013. Instead, it sounds like it should have been the follow-up to Buried Life. The songs are drop-dead gorgeous, the waves of noise and sound are all-encompassing but arranged perfectly, and there is enough joyous craft and blown-out intensity in the sound to keep it from being just an empty nostalgia trip. Laner and co. sound energized and inspired by the chance to create Medicine music again, and they deliver the best result fans could have hoped for. Along with the songs that have the trademark Medicine sound like "Long as the Sun," which opens the record with a thrilling jolt of overloaded sunshine pop, the languorous "The End of the Line," and the warped "Daylight," there are a few that take some chances and succeed. "Holy Crimes," with its rolling rhythms, aquatic pianos, and dramatic arrangement, the insistent, almost danceable "Butterfly's Out Tonight," and the dub noise "Burn It" all add interesting new elements to an approach the band could follow if they stick together and make more records. Really, though, it's good enough to hear Thompson's breathless vocals weaving in and out of Laner's soundscapes again. Not to mention how good it is to experience Goodall's massive drums, which feel like the hands of Zeus pounding on the listener's skull. It's good enough to have Medicine back and making records like To the Happy Few, which stands proudly with the work they were doing 20 years previously. Other bands thinking about re-forming would do well to follow their lead and not just get back together to play the hits and count the cash, but instead create something vital and relevant; something that makes the group's continued existence worthwhile.

http://www.allmusic.com/album/to-the-happy-few-mw0002553632

track 2 sounds like something off a rubble compilation but fuzzier

Looking forward to listening to this.... but what's with the way Pitchfork handles this band? Last time, they gave the review to Ned, an avowed Medicine hater. And then this time they give to a guy who spends 90% of the article talking about everything except the actual album at hand. Would it have killed him to mention a single song that stood out?

Saw them at the Echo on Sunday night (first show in 18 years), and they were great! Hope they can get a proper tour for this going...

I'm seeing them on Friday in Brooklyn! Bringing earplugs that's for sure.

I don't think any of the "major" music reviewers were given the OK to admit this album is better than a 6 or a 7. There's so many newer bands doing the same thing but worse and getting all the accolades. Medicine just never managed to clear the bar for some reason. The Buried Life is a lost classic.

But what do I know? I'm just a know-nothing low-level forumite.

i gave it four stars

Clearly, Ned is the secret media puppet master.

See you Friday.

The Buried Life is amazing, and it pisses me off that there's absolute crap out there in shoegazeland that gets more accolades than this.

XXXXXXXP to ET - recording up on Dime, with apologies to Brad if you guys are taper unfriendly.

Not at all, wish I had a Dime account. Is that a live recording that got uploaded ? Your encryption worked too well.

Ah, grabbing it now. Thanks !

It isn't my recording, but I'm really excited to hear it, what are the chances of a UK visit?

So I feel like I want to tell people who like Tame Impala to check the new Medicine out. Not that they're terribly similar in songwriting, but the sweet pop songs plus heavily textured and processed sound put them in crosstown ballparks?

Also I really really really like the new album. That is all.

They were so good live in Brooklyn a few weeks back.

Oh! I was there, too!

Laner's new solo record Nearest Suns is gorgeous in places

So apparently Medicine, Tropic of Cancer and Savage Republic (!) are playing together at the Church on York in L.A.

http://thechurchonyork.com/site/event/medicine-savage-republic-tropic-of-cancer/

It's true, thanks.

New album announced, new single out! Like a month ago!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54Y8HfM6O5g

Ack! Usually I see news on Brad's Tumblr but I've somehow missed this one!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKaWJad7PR0

I guess it really is true?

New album Home Everywhere is fantastic so far. The Quietus a few weeks ago called for a new psychedelia that held true to its spirit of being on the absolute edge of the outer limits and pushing out further (instead of constantly paying homage to aging hippe aesthetics). This album contains both impeti.

Shhh ! Ned might hear you.

Lol Brad that post has some of the worst sentences I've written all year; my bad.

Album is great, though: "Turning" is nothing but big-drum fun and you guys have really learned how to take those jarring shifts from the last album and turn them into something sort of close to killer hooks in their own right (not that the melodies dont have tons of hooks on their own)

Thanks for listening, glad you like it !

God when I get paid I am going to buy ALL THE ALBUMS. I feel like I'm missing out on so much right now.

Cool video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK9iM5dilLY#t=60

Really enjoying Home Everwhere!

Thanks ! Video was made by Vinyl Williams, also the drummer in the Morgan Delt live band FWIW.

love the new album. so good to have this band back.

Thanks, really glad you like it !