Some of the piano flourishes are exquisite. What's the song w/the extended piano outro?
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 2 April 2015 19:41 (nine years ago) link
Heel Turn 2
― cajunsunday, Thursday, 2 April 2015 19:45 (nine years ago) link
"Heel Turn 2," isn't it? A little too exquisite here, for me.(Overselling; I get the nuances already.) Bout time for an MG tribute album, also occasional covers hither and yon. I like his voice, but wouldn't hurt to hear others. Red Hot Mountain Goats? Let's do it!
― dow, Thursday, 2 April 2015 19:46 (nine years ago) link
"Heel Turn 2" definitely the highlight for me so far, though I've lived with that song longer than most of the others on the album (it has floated around online for about a month or so). Agree that some of it sounds a bit too restrained on first pass, but its early yet. "Werewolf Gimmick," though, might be the closest that Darnielle has come so far to writing what could conceivably become an actual metal song.
― That shit right there is precedented. (cryptosicko), Thursday, 2 April 2015 19:58 (nine years ago) link
what a great album!
― difficult listening hour, Friday, 3 April 2015 13:41 (nine years ago) link
hit me hard on the first few passes; the big moments (chavo guerrero, heel turn, werewolf gimmick) had me giddy like college+healed but the opener+closer both rly got me too. (have been into mtn goats/randy newman correspondence since the "in germany before the war" cover on the extra lens album.) "exquisite but restrained" is what i thought of the last two albums, tho it may have been bad timing or inattention; anyway they really have been a gorgeous-sounding band on these last few and this one to me sounds exquisite+unrestrained.
― difficult listening hour, Friday, 3 April 2015 13:52 (nine years ago) link
(not that like "estate sale sign" is restrained.)
― difficult listening hour, Friday, 3 April 2015 13:54 (nine years ago) link
just finished first straight-thru listen; "The Ballad of Bull Ramos" punches above its weight & feels like it could be the album closer, if you're the happy-endings type
― bernard snowy, Friday, 3 April 2015 16:35 (nine years ago) link
"foreign object" sounds like weird al; mean this as flatteringly as possible to all concerned
― difficult listening hour, Friday, 3 April 2015 21:19 (nine years ago) link
i don't love any song on this record as much as i love a few of the songs on transcendental youth but that may be a product of this one not coming out during my nervous breakdown. i really love the way some of these songs drift and distend
the instrumentation on "fire editorial" is gaucho as hell
― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Friday, 3 April 2015 21:32 (nine years ago) link
Haha I thought Steely Dan as soon as I heard that piano! Weird song though -- it's so diffuse & (as you said) drifting, I don't really feel like I have a full grasp on it yet.
Probably goes without saying but "Choked Out" & "Werewolf Gimmick" are the songs that send me careening around the room looking for things to break.
― bernard snowy, Saturday, 4 April 2015 17:02 (nine years ago) link
It's "Heel Turn 2" with the piano outro I'm crazy about.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 4 April 2015 17:33 (nine years ago) link
throw my better self overboardshoot at him when he comes up for air
― difficult listening hour, Saturday, 4 April 2015 17:48 (nine years ago) link
"Heel Turn 2" is, so far, the most devastating song of 2015 that isn't Bjork's "Stonemilker"
― That shit right there is precedented. (cryptosicko), Saturday, 4 April 2015 17:50 (nine years ago) link
yet the president of the fan club always makes me lol
― difficult listening hour, Saturday, 4 April 2015 18:01 (nine years ago) link
Yeah that's one of the big laugh lines of the album for me, along with 'Get told to maybe dial it back...'
― bernard snowy, Saturday, 4 April 2015 20:54 (nine years ago) link
"The Ballad of Bull Ramos" punches above its weight & feels like it could be the album closer, if you're the happy-endings type
haha, the very content line in this one about letting his hair grow long makes the actual album closer more devastating. btw the brief climactic switch to first-person in "hair match" killlllllllllllllls me, it's like if a helpless observer said one line as the head was submerged in "in corolla", except who would that be, it would have to be, like, god, and that would be gross, and here it's so natural.
― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 5 April 2015 11:02 (nine years ago) link
O good I've been waiting for this thread to go all inside-baseball :)
The line that really got me on "Bull Ramos" is Rise & rise, surrounded by friends, because it so nicely mirrors Soar ever upwards on air gone black with flies at the conclusion of TY
― bernard snowy, Sunday, 5 April 2015 11:47 (nine years ago) link
On Seth Meyers tomorrow:
https://twitter.com/mountain_goats/status/584747088728195072
― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 5 April 2015 16:05 (nine years ago) link
Annnnnd
http://www.nbc.com/late-night-with-seth-meyers/video/the-mountain-goats-performance-foreign-object/2857402
http://www.nbc.com/late-night-with-seth-meyers/video/the-mountain-goats-performance-pigs-that-ran-straightaway-into-the-water-triumph-of/2857388
And of course album out today.
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 7 April 2015 15:17 (nine years ago) link
i wrote about this, in retrospect wish i'd said more about the arrangements (like, wurster & hughes have been really important to the sound for a lot longer than just the past few albums) but yeah this album's pretty all right http://www.treblezine.com/reviews/22545-mountain-goats-beat-the-champ-review/
― slothroprhymes, Tuesday, 7 April 2015 17:01 (nine years ago) link
Good read here: http://thetalkhouse.com/music/talks/tim-showalter-strand-of-oaks-talks-the-mountain-goats-beat-the-champ/
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 7 April 2015 17:02 (nine years ago) link
nice to see one of my good buddies playing sax in that clip. :)
i stopped listening to NPR advance streams, something about listening to an album there (especially loading the full album where you can't tell what track is playing) makes it blur together in my head and not go back to it. but once i download something and listen to it piecemeal i usually end up loving it.
i guess this goes for all album streams, but NPR's presentation is so boring that it doesn't help at all.
― lil urbane (Jordan), Tuesday, 7 April 2015 17:13 (nine years ago) link
Great review, sloth!
― Evan, Tuesday, 7 April 2015 17:20 (nine years ago) link
'hair match' is legitimately terrifying & gorgeous, perfect execution on that song imo
― ciderpress, Tuesday, 7 April 2015 22:42 (nine years ago) link
Yeah, it's haunting. I ignored this thread for a while once everybody started talking about the songs I hadn't heard yet because, yeah, I can't stand npr streams either. But I'm glad to see that other people were thinking Gaucho upthread too. This is definitely my favorite since Heretic Pride. I've been out-of-phase with tMG in the past few years, but I know I'll be listening to this album a lot.
― louie louie whoa baby imago (how's life), Wednesday, 8 April 2015 00:15 (nine years ago) link
Hey, so, I did this
http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/q-a-the-mountain-goats-john-darnielle-on-pro-wrestling-1696283941/
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 9 April 2015 15:54 (nine years ago) link
what's he REALLY like
― Maybe in 100 years someone will say damn Dawn was dope. (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 9 April 2015 17:00 (nine years ago) link
Yo' man what do you expect the guy's a giggolo manYou know I mean?
― DJP, Thursday, 9 April 2015 18:41 (nine years ago) link
don't get fresh with me pal
― Maybe in 100 years someone will say damn Dawn was dope. (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 9 April 2015 18:49 (nine years ago) link
Oh my
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 9 April 2015 23:42 (nine years ago) link
"The next Mountain Goats record will be about wrestling" - I am 100% on board with this.
"The next Mountain Goats record will be 50% jazzier" - uhhhhh
― Andrew Farrell, Friday, 10 April 2015 09:00 (nine years ago) link
This thread has been useful in coming to terms with that; I tend to blame Steely Dan for a lot of things - I should possibly blame them for more things.
― Andrew Farrell, Friday, 10 April 2015 09:01 (nine years ago) link
idk dude, each of the last 3 or 4 albums has been 50% jazzier than the one proceeding it
― bernard snowy, Friday, 10 April 2015 12:02 (nine years ago) link
Some of it is actually hearing the live version of Southwestern Territories and falling for that one, then first thing on the record bam - here's that track you liked, with some clarinet or such.
Kind of odd to be in the position of "I'm really looking forward to hearing that one live, in its incomplete state" (partly jk, I don't think J0hn thinks that the live version is in competition with the record)
― Andrew Farrell, Friday, 10 April 2015 13:16 (nine years ago) link
My god, a clarinet
― DJP, Friday, 10 April 2015 13:19 (nine years ago) link
last night a clarinet part was applied to an older song and i told a friend "oh this is like 'say hello wave goodbye'"
― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Friday, 10 April 2015 13:20 (nine years ago) link
yes!
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 10 April 2015 13:34 (nine years ago) link
I like jazz and clarinets. What's wrong with jazz and clarinets?
― example (crüt), Friday, 10 April 2015 13:42 (nine years ago) link
Clarinet is the only instrument I play, so I'm biased.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 10 April 2015 13:45 (nine years ago) link
talking of jazz, Beat The Champ outtake 'Blood Capsules' has a really cool jazzy intro. This is definitely new territory for tMG.
http://egoaticon.tumblr.com/post/115770368137/i-could-almost-smell-the-fear-on-the-lunch-hour
― cajunsunday, Friday, 10 April 2015 13:51 (nine years ago) link
hmm i could see how it would be disruptive or distracting to have prior knowledge of the song sans wind arrangement -- but i love the wind arrangement so y'know i'd probably be the guy complaining about how the live version was missing something
― bernard snowy, Friday, 10 April 2015 14:48 (nine years ago) link
The extent to which I'm expressing universal truths here is at an all-time low, I'm aware.
― Andrew Farrell, Friday, 10 April 2015 14:59 (nine years ago) link
I like the album but draw back from the bits that get me drifting off into thoughts of all the short stories, movies and songs about decaying regretful sports performers---there are some great examples of course, but mostly not musical. They tend to be tasteful-to-tearjerky, and very predictable: Paul Simon's "The Boxer," of course; In this category, though, Waits' voice kinda works for me: at least he *sounds* like a broken down old mug with a cauliflower ear and bent brane, subsisting on Lucky Strikes and undershirt sandwiches. Not that I want that from this album, but the chamber-y bits bring it all to mind (well written, arranged and played, but can be a bit much in this context)(like maybe why Dylan ultimately decided against crowding "Sign In The Window," a song about feeling utterly alone, with Al Kooper's consort of instruments, in that excellent out-take)
― dow, Friday, 10 April 2015 17:54 (nine years ago) link
with the clarinets etclike i said i upthread i hear more randy newman (or maybe even nilsson in parts) than steely dan
― kurt kobaïan (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 10 April 2015 19:20 (nine years ago) link
when i made the dan comparison it was kind of an exaggeration. randy newman is definitely there, and in the interview with ned he mentions learning duke ellington pieces which probably contributed to the jazz vocabulary of this record more than anything
― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Friday, 10 April 2015 19:22 (nine years ago) link
ah well duke, a guy that i would imagine both fagen and newman worship that makes sense
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, April 10, 2015 8:45 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
clarinet is literally the only instrument i like! throw all guitars and synthesizers in the trash! #bennygoodman
― kurt kobaïan (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 10 April 2015 19:26 (nine years ago) link
clarinets rule
― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Friday, 10 April 2015 19:38 (nine years ago) link
they make me feel like me and my gal are rowboating on a pond
― kurt kobaïan (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 10 April 2015 19:42 (nine years ago) link
Always liked the Dan's arrangement of Ellington's "East St. Louis Toodle-oo," a wry farewell to a notoriously ill burg. An appropriate cover for SD, with nuances nicely sliced by that Coral sitar or whatever: sharp wings of the mechanical insect, seeking its prey on the summer wind. It's mostly dismissed on our Steely Dan thread (not Gaucho enough, you know).
― dow, Friday, 10 April 2015 19:50 (nine years ago) link