These New Puritans

I think they're playing at the ICA in London this week (I have never heard this band, but I kept seeing the posters when I was there this past weekend), for what that's worth.

Looks like Domino is finally releasing this track as a 12" with a new remix by The Loving Hand. Interesting.

http://www.dominorecordco.us/?page=releases&releaseID=694

I know it's not exactly fashionable to talk about an English post-punk influenced band in 2008 (has this re-fit gone on longer now than the original post-punk?) but their album is surprisingly good. It reminds me a lot of the 2nd Futureheads album in tone and style. Navigate - Colours is indeed a standout.

Pulled this album back out to play again tonight on a whim and it sounds SO DAMN GOOD right now. Apparently the next one's being recorded right now...

right now/right now...ugh.

Heard new single "We Want War" on Marc Riley's show and am now really looking forward to the album.

The album's really good. Fucked up brass band, trip hop in parts. This and the Liars album are both special.

So jealous, two of my most anticipated records of early 2010!

Mine too! It's good to see them still standing.

Shit got real

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIfKqgWPVvk&feature=player_embedded

Totally love this band, can't wait for the new one. Mutant Fall/Wire/electronica blend with vocals that I really shouldn't like but really works for me.

That is an amazing track - might very well render the Massive Attack record (more) redundant.

Hidden is a damn good record - takes a while to get its hooks in, though.

This is one of the best new albums I've heard in ages.

Agreed. Very good - I'm going to have to spend a while figuring it out - one of those type albums. Quite mindblowing in places. If you think We Want War is good, check out Three Thousand off the album.

Can't wait to hear this, but unfortunately it isn't out til March here in the States.

One thing—and I feel so bad that it's the first thing I thought about when I heard this album—I just wish the horns had been given more time to rehearse. There's something about the performance that sounds like they're sightreading it. On the Talk Talk records where the horns are deliberately strained sounding you can just tell it took them six months' worth of editing to arrive at. You just wish TNPS had that kind of budget and time.

But thankfully they've basically ditched all the vestigial nu-UK-post-punk-dance stuff that you could tell on the last record they didn't quite know how to reach beyond.

For whatever insane reason this record also reminds me of Coil covering Tears for Fears songs. Ha ha I don't know if I can even explain that.

"Coil covering Tears For Fears" - that's brilliant.

Quick observations after my initial listen:
- I concur that it's a grower of a record, whereas the debut was utterly immediate.
- They seem to use the particular badoom-doom drum sound far too often.
- The lead singer has learned how to sing since the debut, and I'm not sure that's a good thing as I loved his wilfully amateurish vocals. Having said that, he sings far less on "Hidden".

Haven't heard the other record, but there's some pretty damned amateurish vocals on "White Chords."

Love that track.

"Drum Courts" is killing me right now, love this album.

it's been a while that indie music has challenged me like this album does

Can't wait to hear this, but unfortunately it isn't out til March here in the States.

Out today. Probably gonna pick this up on the strength of what I've heard, various YouTube songs and so forth.

Got impatient and acquired it anyway. Will probably buy when I have the funds again though, because I absolutely love it.

Wau at track I'd say: this album is actually a proper Thing!

"at track 6 I'd say", sorry.

to say that this album is utterly underwhelming after 'we want war' is an understatement

it's like 'hey we had one song that insidiously and skillfully built up the tension to an awesome climax - and a load of other songs that bashed around with loud drums for a bit and didn't develop at all!'

well, "5" is really good as well. but the rest can hang.

no one in america has ever heard this band

Hi I live in America and like this band a lot.

Yeah, me too. And while I find the new album pales in comparison to the debut, it has grown on me. But we may see it as classic sophomore slump in the future.

So if I were to have to choose between seeing this band and Fucked Up, I should see Fucked Up.

NB. I like Fucked Up but have seen them before, and I was curious about TNP because lots of people around here seem to like them.

Saw them live in 2008 (American here!) and even though me and one other person were the only ones who knew the lyrics to the songs, it was still a very BIG, fun performance. George kills it on the drums and is very fun to look at.

nobody has answered my criticisms of the album

'we want war' is one of the best songs of the last few months, but nothing else (apart from '5') lives up to it

nobody has answered my criticisms of the album

Nothing to answer, really, as I more or less agree with you.

I don't mind going to bat for these guys. Don't think that Hidden is as one dimensional as LJ has portrayed it. Sure there's repetition of certain themes and sounds, but they're being pulled into different shapes track by track and that's what makes it all hang together as an album IMO. Like those drums - yeah, they're always loud and militaristic, but sometimes they're banging out brute hip-hop-ish beats, other times they're more like some sort of ceremonial music by Purcell, like from one of his marches or something. It ends up suggesting this weird mix of current and historical tensions. Same with stuff like that sword sound that keeps popping up. Is it a Wu-Tang reference? Or is some sort of medievalist shit going on? (I love that sound btw, it's probably a bit naff throwing it in there as this signifier of menace, but I think it really works as a sound in itself. Kind of reminiscent of the way that Ben Frost used the howling wolves on his album last year in that respect?)

Odd that you picked up on the closing track, '5', because that's the one track that I couldn't imagine listening to outside of the context of the preceding tracks. Love the way it start out with those Vespertine-ish chimes, but then the woodwinds start playing what sounds like the same melody they played in 'Canticle' and then there's that choral melody that creeps in that seems to be looking back at 'Orion', but it's a lot more muted this time round. Give it a few more listens as a whole, cos things will start falling into place a bit better then.

BTW:

16 July 2010

Big News:

ĦỊĐĐỂŅ LIVE

This winter, These New Puritans present ‘Hidden Live’ – a chance to to witness the album
performed, as it was recorded, with 15-piece brass and woodwind ensemble, multiple
prepared-pianos, live Foley techniques, taiko drums and more; the orchestra will be
conducted by André de Ridder (Gorillaz, Monkey). Following on from the debut per-
formance at London’s Barbican Centre in October with the Britten Sinfonia there will follow
shows at the the Pompidou Centre, Paris, and Crossing Border Festival, Den Hague with more
to be announced in the coming weeks.

Kudos to Dorian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/oct/07/these-new-puritans-hidden-interview

Thanks Nick. They were exactly how I wanted them to be.

Extremely good article -- got me interested in the band singlehandedly!

Bump.

All about Fire-Power.

The music's pretty interesting, but the singing reminds me of Audio Bullys. Also could do with some metal guitars here and there.

I'm very, very glad at the absence of metal guitars.

^ see the last paragraph of Dorian's piece linked above

But yeah, I could see how they might work in a Young Gods or Tricky 'Black Steel' way.

There are just a couple of drops that could use a bit more oomph, and some nice crunchy guitars would do it for me.

Man I really slept on this record this year. Amazing stuff, it's like Mezzanine-era Massive Attack meets Nine Inch Nails meets MIA meets Benjamin Britten meets a really half-arsed singer.

Actually, the vocals are fine if you think of them as imitation 3D or Karl Hyde or someone. But yeah, kind of stunned that anyone would even try and make an album like this, let alone pull it off.

Also I would like to hear Dan Perry's opinion on this.

I have a favorable bias towards this album but get quickly bored whenever something comes up on shuffle on the ipod - I guess that might not be the best way to get into it.

Yeah I can imagine it wouldn't sound too great popping up between Tensnake and Nicki Minaj but that's the same with most dark, album-oriented rock music.

So are they the reason The Fall left Domino?

I am massively intrigued by your description and would like to subscribe to your newsletter

These are the last two singles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vasNDS9BXJI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suLfDbNHw7c

There's various live stuff on Youtube too, but I don't think that stuff translates as well.

I've listened to the first 4 tracks on this now and HOLY SHIT

well that took long enough!

I'm really not sure what to make of this on my first listen, really surprised the NME made it album of the year.

Did anyone notice the first thirty seconds of Fire-Power sound very similar to Scritlocks Door by Scritti Politti? especially the vocals.

I've tried fairly hard to get into this because I like artists who try and do something different, but I can't really. Not to say it's bad, just probably not for me.

idg this album at *all* apart from the big single, as I've said

that's because you're crazy

Indeed. I don't understand how you can love We Want War and not get the rest. It's all of a piece.

It's mostly not that different from the big single so you're probably going on some weird Hongroesque ideological stance about song length or number of sections, right?

It's totally song length snobbishness, considering that the most immediately involving song on the album to my ears is "Three Thousand".

hmm

maybe listening to the individual songs on Youtube isn't the best way to approach this record

although stuff like 'attack music' and 'hologram' and 'fire-power' doesn't grab me

we want war just has a way cooler build and narrative flow, plus the choral and woodwind chord-progressions in the second half are staggering

try maybe listening to the album before announcing that the entire thing is terrible...?

it totally ISN'T song-length snobbishness, although there's a possibility that what they're trying to do is best served by a lengthier canvas - all about subtle shifts and increments

Dan the thing is that I have listened to all the songs! Just not in order

If there's one thing this album ISN'T about it's subtlety.

well, there's something that seems sophisticated and fully worked-out about WWW, especially in the chord-sequences and sonic layering, that lacks in the other songs - maybe I'll come round to them

lol

I decided to check out earlier stuff by them and was repelled by the first 10 seconds of "Elvis", after which it suddenly became incredibly compelling

I mean, at least The Horrors had the decency to follow up their staggering epic 'wait this isn't that scrawny buncha garagey tryhards' preview single with an album that kinda lived up to it

haha ok I'll stop now

no you won't

don't get you can you like "we want war" and not "drum courts"

ok yeah who's 2011's breakout indie-gone-classy band gonna be, dibs on Two Door Cinema Club

there's a distinct sense of nerdiness to this band...or maybe it's that it's ambitious in a really transparent way, like they're just forcing together all these elements and it doesn't quite work for me.

not a big fan of the album as a whole either, it's kind of monotonous and cold and humorless. sounds like liars without the elements of fun and chaos. i do like "we want war."

i'm a sucker for the great reich-ian art/prog rock jams on this album, like "5," which even has what sounds like an oboe or two

monotonous and cold and humorless

A massive selling point! (Well, for me.)

This is a really creative album and I'm happy it's getting some love in the UK

Ned, have you investigated this yet?

i'm a sucker for the great reich-ian art/prog rock jams on this album, like "5," which even has what sounds like an oboe or two

well, "5" is really good as well. but the rest can hang.

― RIP la petite mort (acoleuthic), Tuesday, 20 July 2010 17:36 (4 months ago)

Its undoubted creativity is what's making me sad that it's not clicking for me. I'd like to explore its nuances, but that would involve actually listening to it.

NickB: Not the full album but the singles = A+. Planning on snagging it later this month but right now the backlog of stuff to work through sits next to my desk and mocks me...

Oh okay. Wasn't sure how much you were aware that this was a Graham Sutton production.

Believe me, that is a further selling point.

If this album wasn't so relentlessly monochromatic, I would not be nearly as into it.

Fire-Power was the standout to me ofl.

So much Brit press love now. This American wasn't as hip as the ones above on this thread to know about these guys till now.

Just missed out on a Pitchfork BNM, didn't turn up in the Mercurys at all. Rough treatment imo.

how can you "just miss out" on a BNM?

High score, but just below the threshold for BNM?

Isn't it ratings based? Like, 8.5 and up = BNM?

It got like an 8.4 in the same week as the Liars got an 8.6 iirc (just remember ilxor mentioning this at the time). Might be why it went under the radar for so long.

seriously though, this is the type of music I hear in my head

ilxors moaning about pitchfork scores?

not ratings based

i think we have been over this in multiple excruciating pfork threads

I don't read those (why because I am not crazy/masochistic)

"Fire-Power" is badass, huh

Isn't it ratings based? Like, 8.5 and up = BNM?

if i recall, they've given BNM to albums as low as 8.2 (maybe 8.1 even) that fit the core "indie rock" readership/demographic, while a bunch of stuff has gotten 8.3-8.5 range and not BNM -- usually it's metal, hip-hop, something noisy/experimental, etc.

not bitching about that btw, i think it makes sense given pfork's target readership

This whole album is fucking awesome.

i listened to this obsessively in Q1, need to pull it out again

This whole album is fucking awesome.

QFT

http://sickmouthy.wordpress.com/2010/12/19/hidden-until-now/

ok I'm seriously gonna have to give this a proper listen

Finally listening to the full thing myself. Such a perfect cold, pristine melodrama; the sequencing is essential.

Ned Raggett: NME apologist

Motherf***ers act like they forgot about V.A.S.T.

Damn, haven't thought of them in years...

Who/what is VAST?

trust me, you are better off not investigating

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRXW1thQtPM

so, "we want war" placed in the year-end tracks poll, and i didn't like it very much (or thought i didn't), but found myself going back to it over and over again, blasting it on headphones, until i had to admit that there must be some way in which i DO like it or i wouldn't be wasting so much time. so i went out this afternoon and bought the previous album, beat pyramid, cuz that's all they had down at the shop. and it's cool, but i'm disappointed that it's so straight rock and doesn't contain any of the spooky avant-classical detailing that makes "we want war" so strangely compelling. what it does have is lots of brutalist post-punk beat mongering and angry this heat vocals, both of which i can get with. ordered a copy of hidden and am pissed now that i have to wait for it. curse you, material world.

Hidden is so so so good

Any word of a new album?

All I heard is that they're working on it, that they're on a new label and there was this quote in the NME last year:

These New Puritans have said they have ditched plans to make a more radio-friendly third album, as they've "discovered we actually hate pop music."

Singer Jack Barnett said of the idea to record a poppier album: "I've sort of abandoned that idea. I've realised I actually hate pop music. Most people don't like good music so there's no point trying to do something for them."

http://www.nme.com/news/these-new-puritans/56765

New song:

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

Sounds like a work in progress really.

New album is called Field of Reeds. More info soon. Graham Sutton produced and emailed me a few weeks ago to say it's the best thing he's ever worked on. I am, as you say, excited.

Feels like I've been waiting for this news for so long I've kind of come out the other side. Revisited Hidden a couple of weeks back and although it's still a great record, the beats sounded really clunky, so my one big wish for this is that they've progressed on that side of things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21BT57D9AlI

I'm liking the atmosphere and especially the trumpet(?) on that sample, again they seem to be drawing that line from Talk Talk-ish post-Miles ambience to some sort of baroque processional music like Purcell or something.

omg

I'm wondering what they're going to do about the voice problem, but it sounds like one they're at least aware of themselves. But I'm really stoked for this, that sample sounds like this could be incredible.

that's gorgeous

Loving this already!

New song up on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/these-new-puritans/fragment-two

Vocals are really bad and the arrangement gives them nowhere to hide, kinda think they need to be more blood and thunder to get away with it.

Vocals don't bother me at the beginning, anyway; we'll see how this develops

Meantime

http://pitchfork.com/features/update/9128-these-new-puritans/

so did Pitchfork actually not listen to Hidden, because everything they're describing on this new album was on there

Not quite everything.

damn I don't think I've ever listened to this band before but the new album rules. honestly had no expectations to speak of. hope it gets the blowjobbiest of reviews

good to hear, have only seen the (positive) review in the wire so far. comparisons to the mark hollis solo record - sound about right?

never heard it but the ~textures~ are v Talk Talk and dude's solo album was more out there, as I understood it? so er quite possibly

Wow they really aren't even nominally a rock band any more are they?

How the FUCK did a class of 2007 NME-friendly indie band end up making this record? It sort of reminds me of Messiaen and Taverner in places, the idea of a band who came up in the same wave as The View and The Enemy making this just does not compute.

where are you guys hearing it, via a stream or other means

The latter. Only listened to it once and there's a lot to absorb, even though it's very subdued and mostly sombre, but it sounds lovely.

Also lol @ them roping in a Portuguese fado Singer and then getting her to sing like the main dude.

it ain't on w@ffles... Excited by the descriptions except that

Also lol @ them roping in a Portuguese fado Singer and then getting her to sing like the main dude.

is :-/

a lot like Talk Talk and a little like Field Music, too, especially "fragment two"

xp I guess people who remembered Talk Talk from the first album didn't think Spirit of Eden computed either. It was just an accident of timing that TNP briefly got spoken of in the same breath as the View et al. They hated all the other indie bands even then. I like this Jack Barnett quote:

"A lot of those bands, you can’t blame them really. They’re quite endearing in a ridiculous way. We watched the Subways at some festival in Wales and they were just hilarious. I don’t know if they mean to be hilarious. Maybe they don’t."

I agree there's a hell of a lot to absorb here. The Talk Talk comparison is unavoidable on first listen but it feels so limited.

I'm not sure I get the Field Music thing, they're very much a classicist rock band that's inclined to grandiose arrangements and song structures and this is anything but that.

I listened again on the way in and the lead singer's voice is still a problem, more so than on the last album where it suited the thunderous austerity of the whole thing. Here there's not really anywhere to hide especially given how obviously considered and well thought-out everything else is. Fortunately there's not much of it on here.

I might retract the Messiaen and Taverner comparison upthread but they've definitely abandoned even vague rock structures and ramped up the 20th century classical influences that were on the last album. 'V (Island Song)' is the really astonishing one here, the way it transitions through different moves from atonal piano to synthy soft-rock ballad outro. 'Organ Eternal' is lovely as well.

Didn't really pay any attention to the View and the Enemy so I could be very wrong about them, but I never really thought about TNP in quite those terms, they seemed a lot artier than some of the cack-handed clods that were around. First album is very Pink Flag/Gang of Four but mixed with a big early Liars influence (not just the sound but the occult themes in the lyrics too) that definitely skewed it to the weird side of the indie-rock spectrum. Think that 'Infinity' is probably a very important track with regard to pointing out where they were going to go next, but you would be quite right to say that there is absolutely nothing on it to suggest they'd end up where they are now. One of the most amazing things to me is that (I think?) Jack Barnett's totally self-taught - much like Mark Hollis? - but in an age where there are all these shortcuts available to someone who hasn't got the prior education in orchestration etc. Such a sense of ambition and sheer doggedness in what he's doing.

He definitely seems to have an attitude I can get behind - continual exploration, expansion, divergence...

i hear Field Music (or more to the point, the Week That Was side project) in the tasteful neo-prog vibe

i wonder, are there any people doing similar things to this new record but coming from the opposite direction i.e. the Classical realm?

nadia sirota, sort of

I think most of the ppl doing this type of rock/symphonic hybrid are actually composing videogame music

And the ones who aren't and who are doing it all wrong in any event are signed to terrible European labels and think Dream Theater is the height of sensuality.

And the others are Muse :)

Mention them not.

Actually, I'd really, really recommend North Sea Radio Orchestra, a chamber-prog-indie-classical outfit whose music might be to your taste:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hp3yViKCLo

I'd also recommend William D. Drake's output. Here's a choice track from a fucking amazing instrumental chamber-pastoral-pop record: http://williamddrake.bandcamp.com/track/at-the-end-of-the-harbour-wall

Ignore the one I just linked - might not be to all tastes. Start at the beginning. http://williamddrake.bandcamp.com/album/yews-paw

XXXP - I don't think I've ever heard Nadia Sirota's music, I only know her as a Nico Muhly cohort.

Maybe some Muhly/Bedroom Community stuff comes close, Ben Frost or Valgier?

NSRO hmm, maybe I don't see them as coming from the Classical world really, neither that weasel faced little knob from Muse either.

Muse was not 100% a serious recommendation

someone should tell them that

SERIOUS RECS ONLY PLZ

Oh wow.

I'm listening to the album again and V (The Island Song) is so, so fucking good.

Van der Graaf Generator "Climb every mountain"

Just listening to this for the first time now. Obviously I like it but it seems too composed. The chord changes are kind of oppressively drawn out and there's always something sinister lurking in the background.

"Organ Eternal" is the only thing so far (nearly done the album) with any real lift to it.

Great job by Graham Sutton though. The production is massive.

This is a eh ell of a record but I've no idea when I'll actually listen to it.

That's what I thought. Maybe at work?

I'm still at the stage of figuring out what it sounds like, I feel like there's a really obvious touchstone that hasn't been mentioned yet. Talk talk obv, and the 2nd this heat album (as ever) but something else on the tip of my tongue. For a minute I sort of fancied that it sounded like aerial but that isn't it.

June 10 can't arrive fast enough IMO

Reminds me of 'Hex' more than Talk Talk (perhaps inevitably), but also of 'Comicopera' in parts.

wyatt came to mind instantly but I thought it was just the this heat-ness of it

I'm still certain there's a missing piece, and a really obvious one, but maybe not

I just did a track-by-track of this for tQ which mentioned Wyatt. Amongst others.

http://thequietus.com/articles/12399-these-new-puritans-field-of-reeds-review

that's my train reading sorted then, thx scik

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2013/may/30/these-new-puritans-popandrock?CMP=twt_fd

there is an undercurrent of Labradford circa E Luxo So in the song structures here, though the arrangements aren't nearly as sparse

Going to have to wait a bit on that due to morning work but I WILL hear that before lunch, dammit.

Also how did I forget you were a Labradford fan.

in fairness I only know that one album (but MAN that album)

Agreed! Trying to remember if that was the most recent one the one time I saw them on tour...

Just on my first listen now. Obviously there is a there is Talk Talk comparison to be made, but also there's a maybe little hint of Radiohead too in places? In the first half of the record anyway - I'm thinking of the offishness of the melody in Fragment Two, and it's also got that dusk-is-falling ambience that I associate with Hail To The Thief. Mostly though wow, this is just out there on its own. Going to take a while to digest cos it doesn't really boil down to one particular mood, it's quite complex in that sense. Some bits are full of this awful creeping dread and you've got things like those phantasmagorical voices rising up out of the murk in 'Spiral' which are pretty fucking diabolical, but then there's all these other feelings being introduced into it all the time, all those little harmonic shifts in the scenery, notes that puncture the gloom like shining shards of glass, certain passages that don't exactly sound hopeful but maybe do have have a sense of resolve about them... fuck shit fuck I wanna shut up now and listen more, this is awesome!

One thing I really love about this band is the amazing sense of place that you get from their music. Obviously the title of this album is pretty suggestive anyway but yeah, for me this is totally music of boggy brownfield sites, those shitty neglected places at edge of city, places that always seem to be lashed with rain or hidden by mist, or at least they seem that way whenever I've been birdwatching or walking or whatever there. But it's not just about the rubbish and ruin of our times, there's also this weird sense of history, secrets held in the mud and in the ditches, like lifting up a rusty shopping trolley and finding a bog-man in the mire beneath. I guess the Karl Hyde album is about the same edgeworld zone too, but this is so much richer and more mysterious.

That's what I hear in it anyway, always get reminded of those passages in Riddley Walker where they're at work wallowing around in the mud looking for scraps of mangled metal and finding all these redundant artefacts from our civilisation and then trying to piece them together to get some sort of understanding of how they got to where they're at now.

Listening now; predictably enough I'm fucking bowled over. The missing piece of the comparisons puzzle you're all trying to assemble upthread is quite possibly later-period Ulver, btw

V (Island Song) will be very, very, very hard to beat for song of the year

here's a stream for the curious: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2013/may/30/these-new-puritans-popandrock

Linked a few posts back...

that's true. nice one getting scik mouthy out of retirement as well, tnp - not many bands manage that nowadays

this album seems to ebb and flow - some tracks feed into the grander narrative, and some serve as climaxes in themselves. so it can be listened to as a whole and as a showcase for some amazing songs. which means it'll be making some severe inroads to both of my year-end ballots

Finishing my listen now, quite lovely. Not as monumental per se as Hidden but it doesn't need to be, and I enjoy it very well from the get-go. Glad there's still interest in these kind of approaches out there.

Really wish an interviewer would bother to ask them about the 20th century classical music they're influenced by because there's something a bit eyeroll-provoking about the parade of straw-grasping comparisons to whichever ambient rock band the listener happens to like best.

ok, the missing piece of the puzzle is *googles* arvo part!

Yeah, there's something to Part for sure in there.

file under: snarky comebacks that accidentally passed sincere comment

meanwhile the album's still very good, on track 7 now. when's the HI DERE liveblog?

I already listened to it in rapt fascination and am back on Weill

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/may/30/these-new-puritans-record-hawk

Decent interview here. I'm not sure I believe the bit about the bass singer but the bit about the hawk is insane. Can anyone actually tell which song it's on?

ok this is very lovely. and serious...i mean, most of the music i listen to is 'serious', maybe this is more like intensely studious.

so track #6 must be the hawk, huh.

Agree that classical composition would be a more fruitful point of comparison than rock, especially when the drums disappear. There's obviously a bit of Reich at the start of one song, forget which. There's some Italian horror soundtrack vibes there somewhere as well maybe.

Sorry my rambling upthread was a bit tangential and pointlessly personal, but I guess this thing lends itself more to imaginative interpretation more than having any sort of functional use. Can't dance to it, can't really use it at dinner parties, would sound shit in a car, can't even really relax to it. Think what I was getting at is that instead of being some Talk Talkish meditation on the spirit of Eden, it feels more like they're dealing with a particular manifestation of the messy cultural entropy at the end of history.

This thread title btw, when was the last time anyone listened to Navigate, Navigate?

I don't get why you couldn't play this at a dinner party, or say as background music in your headphones at work

Well I did listen to it at work, but I didn't really get a whole lot done while it was on.

it's the best background headphone work music i've heard in months. so many lush long tones on low brass & organ.

This sounds amazing on grey drizzly mornings, and it's a fantastic album to read to, but it works best on Sunday evening I've found.

Yeah I agree that the noise on Organ Eternal is probably the hawk. Incidentally I have 'flown' a harris hawk before and they a) go miles very fast and b) are fucking difficult to control so god knows how they managed in a recording studio.

when that shifting orchestral motif breaks through about 4:10 into V (Island Song) it's juuuuuuuust the greatest

as a youth I read a couple of falconry books and decided that I wanted a gyr falcon, but it never happened

Sunday evening = creeping dread at the thought of another week of drudgery, yes it would work for that

We're going hawk flying or something next month for my day's birthday. I'll take a speaker and play this at the birds, see what happens.

for those about to raaawk...

Get used to holding bits of raw meat and worrying that your face is about to be scarred for life.

sounds like an undergraduate cookout

TNP's next project

They're welcome to come kind my house and record the sound of the cats chewing at us because they want to be fed. That's ominous as fuck.

Was a bit worried that this would be just like the orchestral bits of Hidden repeated ad infinitum, but boy was I ever wrong about that.

think Nothing Else is the other standout, but who knows what'll emerge. whole darn thing probably

Really looking forward to reading Owen's thoughts on this, hope he runs into it soon.

This is really great. I definitely get some songs having this Labradford 'feel'. Talk Talk too. Really digging this so far. A lot to discover sonically as well, this begs for a headphones listen.

I listened to Navigate Navigate last weekend, love that record. Noticed some similarities with Swell Maps. But, yeah, it's like a different band than the one that made the last two albums.

I love "Hidden" to death! I love "Beat Pyramid" too.

My ears get picky when chamber music instruments are recorded in a natural way. A swirl of delay and pitch-shift here and there, subby kick-drum, but otherwise this record sounds like a recording of a concert, not an album. Which is awesome! But it makes me listen with a different set of ears, the same ears that listen to Erased Tapes and Bedroom Community and Corey Dargel and Olafur Arnalds and Simon Bookish and, like, recordings of chamber music. The same set of ears that never got into The Rachels'.

I have nothing bad to say about the record because the intention is honourable and the execution is excellent. But on the first couple listens, it's not what I'm looking for as a listener. Why not, I can't put my finger on immediately? Maybe it broadcasts its godparents too loudly, i.e. Gastr del Sol + David Sylvian + "Taphead" + Michael Nyman + Hindemith? Or maybe I don't like the way the drums and vocals are recorded so cleanly? Still, great band and I am a big fan. The last track is brilliant.

Love your take, thanks for this -- and to an extent I'd agree in that while the band has massively bootstrapped I do agree with you that it feels like they're still 'in process.' The Japan/Talk Talk comparisons in terms of arc are thrown around and all but at the same time, Japan's third was Gentlemen Take Polaroids and Talk Talk's The Colour of Spring -- ie, there was STILL more to come. Not that that would be guaranteed in TNP's case necessarily but I like the idea of this being yet another signpost in their progression.

Something that always excited me about Spiritualized and Blur's forays into chamber music-- on a theoretical level, bc I don't love either Let It Come Down or Monkey-- was that in interviews both J Spaceman and Damon Albarn had a rotten-child attitude toward the Concert Hall and instrumentation. Spacemen in the MOJO magazine saying "I told the arranger I wanted 12 French horns and no other brass" and Albarn saying "I hate violas tell all the violas to go home". Even if I didn't love the resultant music, I appreciated the sentiment, it was brash and fun and stoopid and I liked it.

Then, with "Hidden", it was as if that sentiment had come full-blossom, arrangement-wise. The amount of bassoon and taiko was perverse. The sonics of that album were thrilling and its building blocks were so unexpected and unprecedented. It had the effect of "this could be a piece of chamber music" and was performed as such at Barbican? and elsewhere? I missed it but heard it was ~amazing~.

I don't like x=y discussion-- especially comparing this band to Talk Talk which, with my low opinion of Talk Talk, is a disservice to TNP's much more crystallized intention-- but the end of "V" sounds like "Taphead" (or whatever that Talk Talk song is with the two minutes of drum vamp). "Spiral" sounds like "Let The Happiness In". [Another track] sounds like [that track from Camofleur]. There's a trumpet solo that could be a sample from "In A Silent Way". Compared to "Hidden", it is all so familiar? Instead of unexpected.

I read a little blurb that said that guy wrote everything out, all parts, before entering studio. It's possible that he didn't realize how striking these reference points are, while the record existed as notes on a page. It's something I'm familiar with, a client will say "make it sound like x" and just how much it sounds like x is kind of arbitrary, dependent upon studio and players as much as the limits of the arranger's own ingenuity.

And maybe I'm supremely off-base and just listen to too much David Sylvian and Gastr del Sol etc. and I'll fall in love with the record on third listen

especially comparing this band to Talk Talk which, with my low opinion of Talk Talk, is a disservice to TNP's much more crystallized intention

Yeah, agreed. I only find that valid in terms of evolutionary shorthand -- at most -- rather than explicit reference point or role model.

P/dull from the excerpts, for Puritans I detect much pleasure here, not enough work.

Bands have yet to crack Ferneyhough Transit.

Well, I disagree strongly with that idea. If anything, Ferneyhough is trying to take "intuitive serial sound creation" and box it into notation and classical music performance. The reverse is true. Ferneyhough has yet to crack a run-of-the-mill noise rock show or a synth jam. But that's what I like about Ferneyhough? I thought it was the point? That what he was doing was really dumb and time-intensive?

Sorry my rambling upthread was a bit tangential and pointlessly personal, but I guess this thing lends itself more to imaginative interpretation more than having any sort of functional use. Can't dance to it, can't really use it at dinner parties, would sound shit in a car, can't even really relax to it. Think what I was getting at is that instead of being some Talk Talkish meditation on the spirit of Eden, it feels more like they're dealing with a particular manifestation of the messy cultural entropy at the end of history.

― dschinghis kraan (NickB), Thursday, 30 May 2013 19:39 (2 days ago)

how much of the music you listen to has a functional use?

Maybe "functional use" isn't quite the right term for it but Nick's problem sounds a bit like the one I had with the Swans album from last year, in a "I really like this but I can't imagine many moments in daily life when I'd actually be able to listen to it".

At the time, Artrocker described These New Puritans as sounding like "Sheffield and Berlin synths, '90s alt rock Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo drones, Underworld beats; and all in the most contemporary of contexts".[citation needed]

In a 2010 interview with Barnett, Paul Morley described These New Puritans' new material as "very 1970, but also quite 1610, 1950, 1979, 1989, 2005 and 2070".[5]

Ferneyhough's Bone Alphabet almost sounds like a synth jam.

The idea, if anything, is that bands have got to stop fkn about with bores like Reich and Ligeti (I mean, come on, half a dozen works worth a listen and a few rambles against serialism aside - this is bullshit right?), and rock writers shouldn't be impressed.

What Ferneyhough does could be really dumb. I mean, I doubt he could get a bunch of players and tour the music around clubs like Philip Glass did it because there would be several suicides involved given the time-intensive "demands" involved. But that's likeable, although the results are what I care about.

there are certainly some albums that could fit that category via being extremely long, dissonant, dysphoric or what have you, but there is a huge amount of music that has no sort of functional use while not sharing any of those characteristics (in which you might include 'field of reeds')

i don't think 'classical music' is that relevant here, it uses classical instruments but nothing in that interview suggests yr boy barnett is heavily invested in notated music

reich and minimalism maybe in some small measure, but that has always existed on the interzone between concert music and the periphery of popular music

1610 though, Vespers? :-)

trash ligeti if you wish but please don't place the composer of lontano, the piano studies, the second string quartet and the san francisco polyphony alongside reich

Yeah that was low, apols.

I really don't like those piano works though.

"Heavily invested", probably not, although he has talked a bit about composers like Britten and Messiaen in interview. Equally though how much rock music, especially modern rock music, shows an interest in the kind of melodic and harmonic progression of something like 'V (Island Song)' or 'Dream'? I mean when most bands use classical instrumentation they tend to stick to fairly tried and trusted rock chord progressions, as by and large did bands like Bark Psychosis and Talk Talk while texturally being closer to this album.

I mean I don't think the band believe they're making classical music in any way shape or form and I don't think they're explicitly channelling any individual composers but they're definitely approaching the writing process in a completely different way from most other bands, even/especially those who happily flirt with orchestral grandiosity on occasion.

sure, the use of these instruments/arrangements is more than just perfunctory or decorative......i think there is a reasonable tradition now of this sort of chamber pop or whatever (leftfield 'rock'ish people using small ensembles of violins & woodwinds &c....i don't want to get lost in taxonomy)

it's not an area that interests me greatly but this lp is interesting enough, i need to play it a few more times and also the previous lp

they seemed more into classical during their last lp judging by this

http://www.factmag.com/2010/07/16/fact-mix-167-these-new-puritans/

I really hope that Capleton into William Byrd transition is properly mixed.

I have nothing bad to say about the record because the intention is honourable and the execution is excellent. But on the first couple listens, it's not what I'm looking for as a listener. Why not, I can't put my finger on immediately? Maybe it broadcasts its godparents too loudly, i.e. Gastr del Sol + David Sylvian + "Taphead" + Michael Nyman + Hindemith? Or maybe I don't like the way the drums and vocals are recorded so cleanly? Still, great band and I am a big fan. The last track is brilliant.

sylvian was the really really obvious touchstone I was flailing for above btw.

This conversation has gone on too many tangents and I don't even know where to start.

I don't know why we're talking about Ligeti and Reich and Ferneyhough but xyzzzz__ u r rong, Ligeti rules and if you are feeling saturated by too many pop bands and chamber music composers who're taking cues from him you have probably sourced out a gold-mine of Ligeti-inspired music that I'm unaware of and would like to know about

You know why we're talking about it. Admitedly I've only had a skim of the discussion and heard a couple of snippets...your point seems to be that because there is not enough chamber-like pop we should perhaps lower the threshold for what could seen as good when it does arrive. Which we shouldn't do.

So I was completely ignorant of these guys until now and even thinking of them as one time indieBrit-wannabes seems absurd. I wonder if Sutton had a couple of old Penguin Cafe/Lounge Lizards albums floating around the studio. I get the Talk Talk references, but this is way more direct and making a statement while TT were seeming simple fractal-zooms.

I may have been exposed to the wrong pieces but I've never heard any Reich or Ligeti that sounds like this. Obviously there are loads of bands who take Reich and Glass as influences and considerably fewer who talk about Britten (who TNP bring up more than anyone else) and even that influence is considerably more audible on the last album than this one.

your point seems to be that because there is not enough chamber-like pop we should perhaps lower the threshold for what could seen as good when it does arrive

By what yardstick? No one would dispute that they are more rudimentary "composers" than anyone else being discussed here. I'm not really up on "chamber pop" and I tend to assume most of it is faux-baroque prissiness but until you actually mention some of the bands you're talking about (or, y'know, listen to the record) I'm going to assume your position is bullshit, sorry.

The one thing I didn't address was flamboyant's suggestion that I was sitting on a stash of magnificent chamber pop. Which I'm not.

But some of this stuff is talked about upthread: bands usually explore the ambient and minimalist ends. People like Radiohead have talked about Ligeti and tried to channel it.

Guess where I'm coming from is that I know of a few classical composers that played in punk-ish groups and liked Webern too and then went to make hard-edged "classical" music. Not all are like that; Ferneyhough played in brass bands and went on to remake post-Boulez in his own manner.

The slight frustration is how bands talk about something which they think is modern yet its actually quite old. I attached onto that and what they call themselves.

I suppose what I'm talking about doesn't quite yet exist, and may never come to exist.

You know why we're talking about it. Admitedly I've only had a skim of the discussion and heard a couple of snippets...your point seems to be that because there is not enough chamber-like pop we should perhaps lower the threshold for what could seen as good when it does arrive. Which we shouldn't do.

I didn't say that, but if that was the impression I gave, I feel the opposite. i.e. too much chamber-pop and let's all raise the bar.

I realize that there were some conflicting statements in my initial post ("I love this band" / "I'm cool on this record"). My enthusiasm for the band is generated mostly by the clarity of their intention and their commitment, and by their past successes, afaic this band has yet to turn out a bad track. If anything my gaze has turned critical on this band because I've come to hold these guys to super-high standards.

xyzzzz__ I respect this:

I suppose what I'm talking about doesn't quite yet exist, and may never come to exist.

I used to attend chamber music concerts with the attitude that for the concert to be worth my time, my pre-conceptions needed to be shattered, my life-view altered. If I heard a moment that is reminiscent of a Romantic composer, I'd assume the composer had childish Romantic ideologies. If I heard a shitty break-beat, I'd assume the composer is less intimate with the history of break-beat than I was. I'd stand out in the lobby with Simon Bookish or similar and snark about how composer X obviously hadn't heard composer Y because if they did they'd "immediately stop with all those post-African repetitions" or whatever. I just don't feel the same anymore.

What I'm trying to say is that if the pizza arrives and you realize that you want falafel, you should go and get falafel instead of complaining that the pizza chef has obviously never heard of the miracle of falafel. I really really like the last two Skeletons records, "Money" and "PEOPLE".

Album now up on Spotify:
http://open.spotify.com/album/3LNUwgmPk0dxd0pAyeKE6v

Listening to Navigate, Navigate again for the first time in a long, long time and I can retroactively hear the seeds of what they're doing now floating around in these songs; like, it's pretty self-evident (to me) that it's the same songwriter working with a different sound palette on each of these albums.

If I heard a shitty break-beat, I'd assume the composer is less intimate with the history of break-beat than I was.

chamber music has breakbeats??

Hearing the Wyatt comparison a lot more on second listen.

Only hearing the thinnest hair of Robert Wyatt here, def. more Talk Talk, or whatever it is, exactly, from Talk Talk acts like King Creosote or, I dunno, Shearwater sometimes borrow. Hanging piano chords? Background drones? Plaintive vocals?

chamber music has breakbeats??

Yep. The staff fits right between "contrabassoon" and "superfluous er'hu"

I've clocked a couple more listens and it just reinforces how crucial "Organ Eternal" is to the album's sequencing and overall quality. By "Spiral" the album becomes an oppressive muggy cloud and "Organ Eternal" is the thing I need to get through the rest. Really, it's what I thought they would do more of on this disc. Such a nice piece of music. The rest, well... 18 Musicians in Search of a Music. (I make that double reference because I feel that, as a sombre as the records are, they are always pretty self-aware, or fourth-wall aware.)

Another thing: the continuation of the move toward classical/avant garde means that I think the jazz influence on this record has largely gone unremarked. The trumpet on "Nothing Else," for example, reminds me of something from Ascenseur pour l'échafaud drastically slowed down. Some kind of film noir cool jazz thing... The keyboards on "The Light In Your Name" have a bit of a In a Silent Way thing going on...

"Field of Reeds" is another big payoff. Both it and "Organ Eternal" have major-sounding chord changes (for the most part). It really relieves some of the grinding nausea.

― fields of salmon

^^^abandoned early draft, pieced together from pitchshifted recordings of a tsunami

I dunno what that means but it sounds cool

Interview in Fact:

http://www.factmag.com/2013/06/14/you-have-to-be-quite-obsessive-these-new-puritans-on-their-dizzying-new-opus-fields-of-reeds/

Also present is one of the lowest singing voices in Britain, nurtured in the lungs of bass singer Adrian Peacock. Barnett had already written the music before realising that making it a reality would be slightly more complicated.

“I knew [the part] was very, very low. At first we tried to contact Russian Orthdox singers – they have all this music for the basso profondo range, which is even lower than bass singers, it’s really, really low. We tried to contact them but we couldn’t really get through to them, we just got answerphone messages with chanting on.

“So I don’t know how we came across him, but he’s this great character, Adrian Peacock. He’s one of the three basses [in the country], this is what I’ve heard, who can hit this note. If you listen to the song ‘Nothing Else’, it starts off with him, and that’s basically his lowest note.”

Just listened again and bloody hell, that is a low note.

Okay the bit about the answerphone messages.

Good grief @ that being a regular human voice and not, like, I dunno, some weird woodwind instrument or something. Which is what I thought it was.

They were fantastic in London last night, they managed to make this huge expansive sound with maybe six musicians onstage, and everything sounded as full as it does on the record, possibly fuller.

The best songs were probably from Hidden though - We Want War was predictably astonishing and their drummer is terrific.

Jealous.

I was looking out for you last night Nick. They were smashing. Too loud for my poor ears though. I wish I'd taken ear protection.

Sadly I am skint and many miles away. Missing Melt Yourself Down in Bristol tomorrow too. Sadface.

I'm interviewing Simon Reynolds in a record shop in Bristol next Thursday if you're around and you fancy it. And I presume that will be free.

is petridis supporting

He's out of my league (in more than one sense). I'll be lucky if I can persuade a CD player to spin Acid Trax for me in the warm up slot.

Yeah, I saw that was happening; tempting.

Any word on a US release date?

wow this album is pretty striking

it doesn't SOUND like Talk Talk Spirit of Eden, but it kinda makes me feel the same way that I did when I heard that album

ooops now i've read the thread and see that talk talk came up many times

but yeah i don't have a real good handle on how to discuss this album cuz my modern classical/chamber knowledge is mud puddle deep but yeah wow this is a fucking amazing record

it is isn't it

although v (island song) and nothing else are for me the two very clear standouts

ok i'm hearing that guy's bass voice discussed upthread (last song right?)...that is a low note!

nah, 3rd-to-last song I think, very beginning

his voice just sounds like some vague electronic rumbling tbh, but it's the very first sound on that song

the C#/D-flat at the beginning? Yeah, that's pretty low, although I can fake that note depending on how I'm feeling (I can hit it right now, actually)

I can replicate it with a throaty growl but it basically sounds like I'm drawing up phlegm. Not very impressive at all.

His voice was collosal - he could holler with the best of them. Did he influence James Brown or vice - versa?

Oops meant for Bobby Bland. I'll try that again.

Lol

this is cool as shit

i liked the last one ok but i like this a lot more

still sounds to me like what field music was making in miniature on measure ("precious plans")

it's not quite that, I think. field music way more interested in catchy hooks, deconstructing pop

not that measure isn't every bit as good as this, because it is - may even be better, but it's different

that field music album is more prismatic going for a more variegated effect song by song while these new puritans with this one are more focused i think on elaborating one distinct (mark hollis) aesthetic. maybe my point is i hear echoes of spirit of eden in recent music and i'm glad field of reeds runs with those sounds but it's not like omg they're reviving tones no one's heard in ten years

Er just bumping cos I wanna read this on zing

I like this record a lot more than I did a month ago

I only heard it for the first time about 2 days ago and I must have played it about 5 times through already. Great stuff. I'm interested in this current 'trend'/'contintuum' that seems to include this, the Knife album, The Seer, Bish Bosch, certainly Heartland and a few other recent(ish) albums (someone mentioned Ulver upthread) that work as a piece and are 'post-rock' and epic and indulgent and arty and grand but not in a Mogwai sense. It's my favourite kind of album at the moment and I can't get enough.

Maybe Matt Elliott's The Broken Man? You know, the one that features the memorable title, "If Anyone Tells Me 'It's Better To Have Loved And Lost Than To Never Have Loved At All' I Will Stab Them In The Face".

that's more impressionist european folk tbf tbf

Fair enough. My only other suggestion might be one of the more recent offerings from Kayo Dot.

October tour dates:
These New Puritans - UK tour
11th Oct Manchester, Gorilla (tickets)
12th Oct Bristol, Simple Things Festival (tickets)
15th Oct London, Electric Brixton (tickets)
16th Oct Leeds, Vox (tickets)
17th Oct Glasgow, Oran Mor (tickets)
18th Oct Gateshead, Sage (tickets)

That Simple Things Festival looks alright - King Midas Sound, Moderat, Pantha Du Prince and Jon Hopkins are on the bill too

They are incredible live fwiw.

Good to decorate to.

definitely contender for album of the year

i wanted to like this. i liked "hidden". this is like some murray gold take on "contemporary music". WACK AS FUCK.

that's an interesting perspective

look rather than call out yr hi-larious avant-snobbery I'm gonna link you my album of the year and wait for you to compare it to the fkn postman pat theme tune

http://jutegyte.bandcamp.com/album/discontinuities

'Organ Eternal' cropped up on shuffle play while I was travelling back home yesterday and just blew my mind. It just felt like the perfect track at the perfect time.

imago btw thanks for the aoty alert

gonna link that one everywhere tbh, it needs an audience. weirdly the metal thread didn't wanna know

that jute gyte sounds sweet. microtonal. passionate. for BM, "groovy". no mimetic glass/ reich /lutoslawski / ligeti, or ersatz gravitas through "classical" instrumentation. rhythm. that a million times over TNP's half arsed george fentonisms

well at least something came outta this then

i liked hidden!
just don't get this "progression" to tired old shit

hmm. certainly I don't like FOR to the same extent all the way through but I think the highlights are beautifully written

and kinda novel, to my ears at least

i guess beauty is in the eye(ear?) of the beholder n all, but to me it sounds deleteriously derivative, devoid of rhythmic inventiveness, & jeez they shoulda hazed the brass section or got a decent jazz player in. sounds like williams fairey brass band juniors play C20 modernists. "parp". who gave them the budget for this? it sounds embarrassing. don't get sutton's take either. i respect sutton. just rubs me up the wrong way.

The dry-recorded horns and vox seem to my ears to be a conscious choice to make the record sound "not otherworldly". There's a kind of disappointed quality to the production? Which I kind of like-- I mean, I like it especially in contrast to the We Are Really Into Pagan Imagery Both Sonically And Visually m.o. of "Hidden"

I couldn't wait for a US release. I quite like this album, and as a life-long fan of underground rock, it sounds new and interesting to me. But I do give credence to Massaman Gai's perspective, and it sounds like s/he is much more familiar with avante-classical or whatever genre this album fits better with. But in my experience it's always great to find a gateway into different areas of music, even if the initial exposure seems quaint in retrospect.

this is the second time this month i liked something and some modern classical know it all told me i shouldn't like it

is this even going to get a US release? still not sure why we have to play this game in 2013, but i was hoping to be able to purchase a legit copy.

Obviously it would be a better approach to say "glad you like it, now check out such and such for something even better."

I've tried listening to Hidden again and it did nothing for me

What was the first time m@tt?

ye gads you're free to like it! i'm not saying you do or should have the same value system as me. as for suggesting viable alternatives "further reading" / whatever, the thing has been extensively reviewed with reference to similar music. check it out. spoon -fed much?

ostensibly similar

Hey everyone, it's the guy from the Guardian end-of-year reader comments section!

oh you hurt my feelings. how mean

What stuff from the modern rock/classical crossover canon floats yer boat, masseman? We've had Ulcer and Kayo Dot among others mentioned here - not a fan of theirs either?

Ulver, even

this is the second time this month i liked something and some modern classical know it all told me i shouldn't like it

― "If you like the Byrds, try Depeche Mode" (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, July 15, 2013 2:09 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I similarly had someone suck all the life out of Max Richter for me years ago in this way.

That someone was otmfm

more like pees poo pooritans

Interviewed Graham Sutton about recording Field of Reeds (and other stuff, but mainly TNP).

http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/magazine/graham-sutton-interview

Awesome interview. You back in the business as well, Scik?

I've written a handful of pieces for The Quietus over the last few years.

Yeah I know. I guess quality, not quantity

That is a great interview, indeed, Nick. He comes across as such a nice guy.

Man, I need to sit down with an engineer for a month and really STUDY

Been listening to this a lot again, it matches this bad weather well. Had it on my headphones when I ran in to work this morning over wet boggy fields. Played it again this evening on a windy run along the seafront where the storm-thrown shingle has covered the paths and buried benches and a swathe of seaweed had started to encroach on city streets. I want to think of it as sort of the estaurine phase of a flow of dank music that goes from the high moors of Richard Skelton, through the wet autumnal hills of Hood and all the way down to the sublittoral kelp beds of Robert Wyatt's Rock Bottom.

estuarine even

Looking forward to seeing them at the Barbican in April 'performing one of the albums of the year, Field of Reeds with an expanded ensemble.'

YEah dug this out again too (bought a "proper" copy on vinyl). It's a great album. Sometimes the indulgences are a bit too great and you get the impression he's attempting something that's too clever and ambitious for his own good, but I guess that's better than not trying at all eh? I know what you mean about estuarine, there's something very Graham Swift 'Waterlands' about this. I'll still love the moments on this though - the piano vamp on Fragment Two; the flugelhorn on Nothing Else; the basso profondo; the whole of Organ Eternal.

the point in "V (Island Song)" when all of the meandering musical lines coalesce into that groove is my favorite transition on the album

oh man i must go to that barbican show.

the point in "V (Island Song)" when all of the meandering musical lines coalesce into that groove is my favorite transition on the album

Yeah that's kind of really what this album is about - all these strangely twisting threads that don't seem to lead anywhere and then suddenly bundle together in this cool way.

Hoping everyone gathers around V (Island Song) in the EOY poll

sorry but it wasn't the stand out for me. i might give it another listen on its own and then get voters regret.

Inspired by the revive, put this beaut on again today. It took me a few minutes to realize that it was over in the other room and that I was actually just listening to a helicopter hovering off somewhere in the distance.

OK, let the persuasion campaign commence...V (Island Song) has a (superb) video! My only qualm is that it loses that gorgeous slow transition into the midsection

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iSgJggVpNg

uh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iSgJggVpNg

something very king crimson about that lurching chord progression and the purposeful clattering of the cymbals

yeh lots of love for this album for the eoy poll but was nowhere near nominating any tracks - probs organ eternal would be my pick if i had to choose one

that said it would be nice to see tnp in any of the countdowns

I'm nominating the album so I don't really see the point of voting for any of the individual tracks. It's not really an album with major standouts anyway.

Same here. This album has just been creeping up on me all year and will do very well on my list but couldn't really pick out a single song to vote for. Think I'm going to have to go back to the last album now, I listened to it when it came out but it didn't really make any impression on me at all.

IMO the three times they've broken 7 minutes = by far their 3 best songs. Next album they gotta go fucken symphonic-prog hardball

Way back in the mists of time they did a song called Navigate, Navigate which was 12 minutes long and felt like it went on
for about 120 minutes. Soundtrack for the 2007-8 Dior Homme
 Autumn Collection no less, wasn't really much good though iirc.

http://www.arc018.com/release/navigate-navigate

http://www.arc018.com/resources/tnp_new380.jpg

oh

well the LAST three times they've broken 7 minutes, ha

i tried listening to their first album last night and other than "Elvis" (which is kidn of fun in an annoying way), it's pretty much unlistenable.

Strongly disagree, better to think of it as a completely different band that hasn't stopped wearing it's post-punk influences on its sleeve. I love it unreservedly.

^THIS! Their earlier performances/material were so of-the-moment, but they took a more interesting approach than other, more popular bands at the time. The 16min version of "Navigate, Navigate" still gives me chills. Totally listenable.

Ah I'll need to check it out. Granted, they were a LOT more interesting than a lot of other indie rock bands of the time and I have to respect that, but even Hidden I found a bit ugly and difficult to listen to.

In other news that Barbican show, it looks like all the good seats have been taken and the rest cost £20 each so I'm kind of worried about spending money on being stuck behind a pillar or not being able to see.

i liked the first album quite a bit and there's definitely a couple of songs on there that anticipate later stuff.

the only thing about this album is how on one of the tracks ('Dream'?) it sounds like he's singing 'fart it out, fart it out, fart it out, fart it out'. surely deliberate?

maybe an homage to the last scott walker album?

Only ever heard "Fragment Two" but this suggests I need to hear the album:

"Been listening to this a lot again, it matches this bad weather well. Had it on my headphones when I ran in to work this morning over wet boggy fields. Played it again this evening on a windy run along the seafront where the storm-thrown shingle has covered the paths and buried benches and a swathe of seaweed had started to encroach on city streets. I want to think of it as sort of the estaurine phase of a flow of dank music that goes from the high moors of Richard Skelton, through the wet autumnal hills of Hood and all the way down to the sublittoral kelp beds of Robert Wyatt's Rock Bottom."

maybe an homage to the last scott walker album?

― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, January 27, 2014 4:32 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Funny you should say that, but there's a track 'Nothing Else' which segues really well with 'Cue' off the Drift. Evidence: http://www.mixcloud.com/doglatin/give-thanks-some-recent-listening-jan-2014/

Made the EOY top 20, barring ridiculousness - good result tbh, even if the album is (imo) patchy in its brilliance

a rekindled love affair with it late in the year meant i voted for it at -gasp- NUMBER ONE

djh i think you would get a lot out of this record btw

Intriguing. What makes you say that?

confluence of boomkat classical and hood/hollis strands. well not at all really, but not too far away from such a concept

makes sense. i had one of those odd moments where i was pondering if known off-web.

haha no, i think your veil of mystery remains unrent

Phew. Thought I'd been rumbled. Album ordered!

Hmm.

this "live" video has got me so hyped for their US shows: http://pitchfork.com/news/54274-these-new-puritans-share-live-island-song-video-announce-tour/

Oh man, I definitely have to see them when they come to Chicago, it's gonna be mind blowing I 'm sure.

Anyone else go to the Barbican show last night? What did you think?

Sounded amazing -- utterly jealous here.

I went and it was amazing - full choir, string section, brass and wind, just Barnett and the fado singer at the front, they played the album in order and then came back with an encore of new songs (like the last album but better) and Hidden-era stuff. We Want War was astonishing with so many musicians on stage.

They had two bass singers with proper, proper deep voices as well, I've never heard anything like it.

Inexplicably two local ish shows. I've heard ticket sales are sluggish, which I suppose makes sense.

Yes, the basso profundo guys were terrific, the way they were deployed with that omnious rumble they were making kind of reminded me of what? that last Sunn O))) album perhaps? Great show overall - I did wonder how it was going to work out when they lurched into Fragment Two and the bass and drums locked into that groove in a really buoyant and overly enthusiastic way that maybe left the conductor struggling to get the strings & brass up to speed but that was such an exciting moment anyhow. After that I thought everything was really well integrated, and it was great to actually see who was making what sounds. Percussionist was a hard working guy, kind of disappointed that the glass-smashing moment wasn't all that - saw him get his goggles on and go behind a perspex screen to do it, but didn't actually hear anything happen. If I had any real gripes it would be that I became increasingly aware that Barnett does rely on using the same sonic tricks over and over - the purple-green-blue bruise hues in the brass and winds, the flugelhorn coming in somewhat predictably at the most emotive moments - but it's still for me an incredible thing he's achieved. Agree that We Want War was excellent, like Get Ur Freak On meets Benjamin Britten.

Also weird to see Bob Geldof in the audience, not just cos of the timing but more cos I wouldn't have thought it would be his sort of thing. Hope he got something out of it anyway, all things considered.

Very, very jealous.

Band was great last night playing to a ridiculously small crowd. Really struck by how exotic, for lack of a better word, it comes off live. Less Talk Talk, more like a Central Asian Radiohead.

Have we talked at all about how the drummer is literally a male model? Not the day job I expected.

yeah great show on sat. kinda wished i'd seen em the night before too

the field of reeds stuff was just incredible and the earlier stuff that i'm unfamiliar with sounded a bit like an aggro dead can dance or something (and was awesome)

big lols at the dude in the crowd who said "FINALLY they play something good" when they played some non-fields of reeds stuff. apologies in advance if this was an ilx0r

The drummer is also literally the singer's twin; interesting genetic division there.

Fraternal twin. Drummer got the looks ...

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02659/Man_2659898a.jpg

hello people of the world wide web,
we've made a new record,
'E-X-P-A-N-D-E-D Live at the Barbican',
a record of us and 32 other musicians playing massive rearrangements of 'Field of Reeds' & 'HIDDEN' +new music,
its available for pre-order now,
theres a preview below,
enjoy,
gb+TNP--X

http://www.thesenewpuritans.com/expanded/

Oct 20th

Excited.

Finally! Something to look forward to.

You can stream a preview mix of the track snippets, as well as "We Want War" on their Soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/these-new-puritans

flippin' eck. it's like all my favourite acts are releasing music in sept/oct this year.

Care to share your list? If the new Death Blues album isn't yet included, it probably should be.

Aphex, Sunn O))) & Scott, now this, although not sure if I'll shell out for a vinyl copy as I already have Field of Reeds on record.

considering ultros' comparison of the new radiohead to field of reeds, well i anticipated that comparison and listened to this again yesterday. it's so good. when are they coming back ffs?

I absolutely loved it when it first came out but hearing it recently I thought it got a bit flabby and samey towards the end with a strong closer. I definitely reckon they have a world-destroying classic in them though, especially as I think every album so far has been a huge leap foward. I hope they've gone to ground because they're working on something.

i guess your opinion of the closing run-in depends on whether you think 'nothing else' is amazing; fortunately i do

yeah it was a trip when it came out but now I only listen to it for certain moments that I like.

Don't get me wrong I like every track individually but it does and up wallowing and drifting a lot esp. during the latter half, and I think it could've done with more art-pop sort of tracks like Fragment 2 to break it up.

That was always my issue with it. Still think it's s great piece of work, I just love their drums n synths n noise bits so much I wish there were more.

Wait... I don't remember Haim winning this?

wrong thread... sorry.

Anyway, when are TNP releasing a new album?

Listening to the Expanded concert at the Barbican. Really good, but so close to the record, it might as well be the same thing.

Anyway, when are TNP releasing a new album?

― TARANTINO! (dog latin), Tuesday, August 2, 2016 11:21 AM (five months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Gotta be due, right?

have been listening to field of reeds lately, oddly calming music for these shitty times. need to revisit 'hidden' really - will be interesting to hear how that sounds now given the ever deepening fractures in our sense of national identity and the general backwards trend towards some sort of atavistic spite and stupidity.

And yes, it will be fascinating to hear their next move

Field of Reeds is really underrated, at least here. It's a pretty incredible album, but when I saw the band here behind it it was in a half empty small club.

Heh, seems J Barnett did some church organing for Nurse With Wound in Berlin a few weeks back. Never thought about that as a connection myself, but it sort of makes sense, or at least does not obviously make not sense.

jack played the organ on some recent current 93 records and he played in the live band too when i saw them, so he is connected to that whole sphere

okay so...?

they posted something on their FB with an orchestra last year but theres been nothing since

Damn, got excited with the thread revive

..hibernation almost over.. pic.twitter.com/NhYB5LdnkI

— THESE NEW PURITANS (@TNPs) November 1, 2018

they've been working with david tibet :)

oh this is awesome news
was wondering last week if we'd ever see new music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YWz1PJSGls

that's pretty much as underwhelming as it could have been :/

liked it better on second listen, but yeah you don't get a sense of any grand sonic progression from that one song. but that's just the lead track and i'd expect a lot more depth from the album. sounds like you're right about david tibet though

I like it - happy to hear the big fuckoff percussion again

I'm keen.

cool lil song
dont really see them as a singles band tbh! stoked for this

I like this but it's probably the only TNP song that feels like it might become cloying in time, Field of Reeds was extremely good at avoiding this. You don't really go to them for sweet little melodies.

I like this. I always found that TNP was sometimes such hard work that the group's music failed to make the impact it could have done if they just reigned it in like 15%.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH4zDJXybmk
(nsfw warning)

new album Inside the Rose out 22/3

and album tracklist:
Infinity Vibraphones
Anti-Gravity
Beyond Black Suns
Inside the Rose
Where the Trees Are on Fire
Into the Fire
Lost Angel
A-R-P
Six

i like this track a lot more than "into the fire"

okay i like that new song a lot. it's very bark psychosis i think? must admit that i'm hoping for some more visceral eruptions of horrible violence on the album though to offset all this lush broodiness

It's very 'Blue' era late Bark Psychosis, esp how the band sounded live, just before they imploded.

Predictably wonderful, this song

i love this

sounding very bark psychosis makes sense, graham sutton's producing again i think

Not terribly impressed by either new track myself, but I've only listened to them once. I'll wait until the full thing's out to see what their place is in the whole, besides they're probabably growers more than anything

I am also underwhelmed tbh

I like both new songs. I like that all their albums sound v distinct from each other.

probabably

how and why do i do this

what came to mind when i heard it was the Yves Tumour album so maybe that's why imago is underwhelmed

I got a King Krule echo

If Jack had a better singing voice this band would rule so hard for me but t ain't so, sadly.

I love both of these songs. I also like that the musical vision is exploring a pendulum that's swinging back in the direction of Hidden.

Big Bark Psychosis vibe here too: not so much a track as a passing weather system. Intrigued to hear it in situ.

If Jack had a better singing voice this band would rule so hard for me but t ain't so, sadly.

exactly this

what came to mind when i heard it was the Yves Tumour album so maybe that's why imago is underwhelmed

― ufo, Wednesday, 30 January 2019 15:45 (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

plot twist: have now listened again to Noid by Yves Tumor and not only heard this comparison very clearly, but FAR preferred the Yves Tumor song, lol

I'm listening to a stream of the new album now, and maybe it's the computer speakers or my cold, but it's sort of reminding me of like" Black Celebration" Depeche Mode, weirdly. I mean, def. sounds like TNP, but something kind of industrial about it, less Talk Talk-y? I'm about a third or so in, but need to take a break for other things.

that sounds about what i'd expect based on the singles, looking forward to it

Yeah I've heard a promo as well -- really quite excellent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXHJhrPa0gE

another very nice new track

doing a slot on nts channel 1 for the next hour

they’re actually playing ‘blue’ by bark psychosis, bonus point to maresnest

One more video, which I guess will be the last before the entire album drops next week?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnW__v4zBvA

I've heard the new album. The first few tracks have this 80s synth vibe that works well, then it goes soft in the middle, then the last few tracks sound like he's trying to ape Talk Talk. Meh.

managed to listen to about four-fifths of it on the way in, i think it's excellent. definitely an album album rather than just a collection of tracks. looking forward to giving it a proper listen when i'm not trying to dodge psycho taxi drivers

this is the pop Coil i needed. great album.

then it goes soft in the middle

no way! that inside the rose > trees are on fire > into the fire stretch is glorious

After the first listen: As someone who was severely underwhelmed by all the singles, it really does work better as a whole, but they might have done that annoying thing where the first track is easily the best

OK it doesn't achieve the huge step up in quality that their other albums did, but it is actually rather good. It sounds glorious at least, as expected. Stronger vocals would have helped but I can't complain too much.

This was both better and worse than I expected

Well it's not as good as Field of Reeds, that's certain. I'm still deciding how much the production carries this one

it absolutely pales in comparison but it's obviously shooting at a far lower target

Did they hire a new vocalist?

file under useless/irrelevant trivia but i had no idea until i saw the albums credits that george barnett was married to pixie geldof. i remember seeing bob geldof at their show at the barbican in 2014 and wondering why he was there

really love this

Halfway into this and it's gorgeous

Majestic. Best album I have heard this year, so far, I cannot stop playing it. It's so utterly Bark Psychosis, but in the best possible way. And that bass! That bass. Magnificent.

(is that David Tibet I hear on 'Into the Fire'?)

yes

I have never listened to these guys before, but I really like the new album. Will be checking out the older stuff.

This is great, but is it very short or is that my imagination? Seemed to be over as soon as I was getting into it

9 tracks and 40 minutes.

I'm not getting Bark Psychosis from this at all, though; it sounds like TNP boiled down to an essence, for me. Possibly slightly too much; it's slipping by me without leaving an impression quite a lot, which may just be my life and how much time I can give to it right now. I feel like it's lacking some... drama? Or tension, somehow? A little of the oddness of the last two records?

Seemed to be over as soon as I was getting into it

the last couple of tracks do seem to whizz by. has been on pretty much constant repeat on my phone when i've been out and about. feel weirdly emotional every time that 'where the trees are on fire' comes on, like i could be stood in the shop buying a toothbrush or whatever and all of a sudden i have visions of the impending apocalypse running through my head. one of the older songs on the record, iirc they closed with it both times i saw them on the field of reeds tour

xp

I've listened to this three times now and I really don't get the sense that it's aiming less high than Field of Reeds at all. It doesn't feel like a giant leap into new territory like the last two I suppose, but if anything it feels like a distillation of them (in fact there are are songs here that feel like FoR superimposed over Hidden).

Talk Talk and Bark Psychosis continue to feel like lazy comparison points to me, impossible to imagine either doing anything like the cavernous bass on Beyond Black Suns, or the moment when the skittering breakbeats come in on A-R-P - in fact it feels like a much more *digital* album than the last couple, to an extent that those moments give us a slightly frustrating glimpse of a direction they could have gone further in.

But it's all just so lush and melodically involving throughout, both the last albums had insane highs - and there isn't a We Want War or a V (Island Song) here - but also long periods where your attention would wander a bit. There isn't a single wasted minute here.

(Also I thought Steve Reich was a lazy comparison point last time round but there's a burst of female vocals midway through one song which is straight out of Music For 18 Musicians).

I agree that this album feels more like a distillation rather than reinvention and I am perfectly fine with that because the result is gorgeous.

err, bark psychosis were fiends for the cavernous bass matt, absolute fiends i tell you!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLOE7IyCGeQ

also check out all the breakbeat stuff that graham sutton went on to do as boymerang

Yeah tbh every time I've tried to listen to Hex I've ended up being bored shitless, I don't know what it is that refuses to click for me but I find it a massive chore and have never felt the urge to explore further.

the EPs that BS did are crucial to an overall picture of them tbh - check out the final minute or so of the track i posted, thats the heaviness that they were known for at the time

I think the lack of drama / tension I mentioned is the absence of a We Want War / V (Island Song). Like there isn't quite a centrepiece which the rest of the album can fulcrum around. Which it may not need in time, but both of those were 'wow' moments that carried the rest of the record through the first few listens for me.

Yeah, BP could do bass, and Graham Sutton absolutely has lineage with breakbeats. Still not really hearing BP here though. TNP are their own thing enough.

Weirdly, the album I want to link this to the most in terms of mood/impression on me at the moment is the new Apparat.

huh I had no idea that was out already

Hitting the spot this evening. I do get the Bark Psychosis comparisons (there's a similar metallic dampness to their sound) but I find them more consciously Romantic than BP. I'm getting first Guillemots' album vibes if anything.

idk if they're more Romantic, Codename:Dustsucker is practically wandering about the Docklands composing stanzas about urban decay and frosty gardens

Perhaps I just mean pastoral?

Also, Codename:Dustsucker certainly covers off the Bark Psychosis + breakbeats angle.

Matt should listen to C:D, it might be more to his taste than Hex. Certainly is to mine

Also cosign on We Want War and V (Island Song) being the grand realisations of TNP, although I'd maybe add Nothing Else in its own quiet monumental way

huh I had no idea that was out already

Just released this past Friday AFAIK

Tracks two, three and four are all quite tonally similar to the opener, which makes me feel like the album is quite samey; whereas FoR moves around a lot in the opening four tracks. I also think Fragment 2 is incredibly strong - as good as V - and nothing on ITR has a riff as strong as that.

Once you get to The Trees Are On Fire things change up; that track isn’t what I was expecting, and is stronger for it.

It doesn’t meander aimlessly as much as the middle of FoR though, which loses me for long stretches either side of Organ Eternal.

Six is beautiful, and actually does remind me of late-period Talk Talk.

The first four tracks lack orienting moments for me, so far.

I've been really enjoying this ever since the release. Does anyone know if Jack has had some vocal lessons/training? His vocals sound much better and stronger than on previous albums.

Late to party but I don't hate his singing this time around and there's less clumsy late Talk Talk worship therefore This Is Good.

I agree that this album feels more like a distillation rather than reinvention and I am perfectly fine with that because the result is gorgeous.

― GDPR vs GAPDY (DJP), Wednesday, March 27, 2019 6:55 AM (four months ago) bookmarkflaglink

heard this for the first time tonight and immediately thought "wow djp needs to hear this if he hasn't already"

this album is fucking wonderful btw

i've been discussing this album with brad - definitely my favourite of their albums so far, and I'm surprised that some people were cool on it upthread. It feels like it has drawn on all their best previous ideas and presented them in the most pleasing form possible.

"Beyond Black Suns" sounds like TNP covering Severed Heads

i think it's my favourite they've done but that's mostly due to them moving in sound a little towards things i like more and becoming a little more accessible i guess? not that field of reeds was bad or anything it's just a bit... idk if dense is the right word but it was more of an appreciate at a distance thing rather than being that moving to me while inside the rose is more direct in appeal. i can understand people who loved field of reeds being a little underwhelmed by this one though.

Field of Reeds is if anything a little bit too diffuse in places, in that the bits that aren't incredible just drift away a little. The new one has a lot more shape to it.

at a certain point i could see this being my album of the year. every time i put it on it's an almost overwhelming experience of depth and beauty lol

i'm not sure what the end of "beyond black suns" reminds me of but my god

depeche mode plays slowdive's pygmalion

reminds me of Air 'New Star In The Sky' a little bit

Only just hit me the other week the similarity of Where The Trees Are On Fire's chords to the coda of the Beach Boys 'Surf's Up' (also therefore in turn I suppose 'La Ritournelle')

I'm currently listening to Field of Reeds on a pair of £50,000 Linn speakers and *fucking hell*.

(Not my speakers, obviously)

Envious

NEW MUSIC
Listen here:https://t.co/aG0LLIzWqM
thank you to RUSHMORE HIGH SCHOOL for their dystopian vocals
THE MIRAGE is a song we originally wrote when we were 16 , now reformed.
more soon – - tnpX pic.twitter.com/bpjTItrQsB

— THESE NEW PURITANS (@TNPs) January 29, 2020

This song is kind of silly but I am still digging it hardcore

very few bands can pull off a non-horrible song with a kids' choir; TNP is thankfully one of them

Absolutely loved Inside The Rose