it's kind of like when lindsay lohan kept misusing the word "adequate", i'm just super-curious as to what he thinks all those words mean
― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Wednesday, 14 July 2010 15:42 (2 years ago) Permalink
His review of Wildbirds and Peacedrums features the winning line: "Reviewing this as I am from a narrowboat on a welsh canal, I can’t help but notice that watery metaphors abound." Doesn't anyone ever get edited anymore?
― Haunted Clocks For Sale (Dorianlynskey), Wednesday, 14 July 2010 15:42 (2 years ago) Permalink
hahah what was she using "adequate" to mean?
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 14 July 2010 15:43 (2 years ago) Permalink
Never heard the first album and playing the new one for the first time -- it's a really peculiar listen. Reminiscent of A Sunny Day in Glasgow's Ashes Grammar instrumentally and the vocals have a world/foreign tinge even though there's no accent. Something's just OFF in the melodies and chord progressions but those weird moments make it more interesting. If they can pull this off live I'm sure it's amazing.
― skip, Wednesday, 14 July 2010 15:44 (2 years ago) Permalink
His review of Wildbirds and Peacedrums features the winning line: "Reviewing this as I am from a narrowboat on a welsh canal, I can’t help but notice that watery metaphors abound."
loooooooool
― ilxor has truly been got at and become an ILXor (ilxor), Wednesday, 14 July 2010 15:44 (2 years ago) Permalink
xpost -- They do pull off the performances of that live very well, it's how the sound is so much more full live, for lack of a better word. That said it seems to depend on the venue as well, the more close (claustrophobic?) a venue, the bigger the impact.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 14 July 2010 15:45 (2 years ago) Permalink
i did see them live--thought they desperately needed a drummer which i guess they have now?
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 14 July 2010 15:46 (2 years ago) Permalink
Yup
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 14 July 2010 15:47 (2 years ago) Permalink
Ally Deheza often seems to stress sung words on odd syllables. I don't know if this is deliberate, or if it's just to force rhymes to fit the musical meter, but I find it a really interesting and charming vocal tic. It often makes you think about the meaning and intention of word choice, and about what she's choosing to stress, and if that alters the meaning.
It sometimes reminds me of Kristin Hersch - although their voices sound nothing alike, that odd quirk of vocal intonation makes the work of both take on a different dimension.
― Cow Bingo (Masonic Boom), Wednesday, 14 July 2010 15:47 (2 years ago) Permalink
The one useful point I took from that review is that Disconnect from Desire sounds a bit like Curve, which hadn't struck me before - it has the same stadium-shoegaze quality. He should have left it at that.
― Haunted Clocks For Sale (Dorianlynskey), Wednesday, 14 July 2010 15:48 (2 years ago) Permalink
But the song I L U is one of the songs that really *doesn't* sound particularly like Curve!
― Cow Bingo (Masonic Boom), Wednesday, 14 July 2010 15:49 (2 years ago) Permalink
Lord, I never thought they sounded like Curve -- much different vocal quality/emphasis.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 14 July 2010 15:49 (2 years ago) Permalink
a few years ago she signed off a drunken open letter to hollywood, sent from her blackberry, "be adequite" (sic). to which the world responded "be literite".
― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Wednesday, 14 July 2010 15:51 (2 years ago) Permalink
I was thinking more of Heart Is Strange - just the early 90s indie-dance beat, the gothisms and the sheer scale of it rather than a precise similarity.
― Haunted Clocks For Sale (Dorianlynskey), Wednesday, 14 July 2010 16:00 (2 years ago) Permalink
Might have leapt out at me as a comparison if they were closer in time to that band but there's something different about them that (granted the similarities you note) I can't fully put my finger on. And live I tended to think more of Loop!
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 14 July 2010 16:01 (2 years ago) Permalink
The whole dancey beats plus goth plus shoegaze atmospherics (with female vocals) is totally Curve-like. (if it were male vocals, it would be Chapterhouse's second album.)
NOTHING like Loop. Are you mad, Raggett?
― Cow Bingo (Masonic Boom), Wednesday, 14 July 2010 16:02 (2 years ago) Permalink
I love the fact that drum sound is so dated - you don't really hear that anymore so it takes me right back to my teens.
― Haunted Clocks For Sale (Dorianlynskey), Wednesday, 14 July 2010 16:07 (2 years ago) Permalink
it's like lush-ious jackson IMO
― hot dub grime machine (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 14 July 2010 16:08 (2 years ago) Permalink
xxpost -- I ascribe it to Ben fully there, first time through I saw 'em. Huge pulses of feedback throb etc. etc.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 14 July 2010 16:09 (2 years ago) Permalink
And yeah, it just doesn't suggest itself as Curve-like automatically for me as noted. Maybe because there's a slow burn anger in Toni Halliday's singing/lyrics that I'm not sensing here, but Ben's work doesn't make me think of Dean Garcia's either.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 14 July 2010 16:10 (2 years ago) Permalink
In Secret Machines, I could see a Loop-esque thing maybe. But not with SVIIB.
Benjamin is far more of an MBV fanboy than anything else! ;-)
― Cow Bingo (Masonic Boom), Wednesday, 14 July 2010 16:11 (2 years ago) Permalink
"Babelonia" at 2:33-2:49 basically IS Curve (and a weedwhacker).
― Andy K, Wednesday, 14 July 2010 18:03 (2 years ago) Permalink
Did this get did already?
Sonic Youth and School Of Seven Bells members set for Neu! supergroup
― WOOD! GOBLINS! (NickB), Wednesday, 14 July 2010 19:30 (2 years ago) Permalink
Just listening to a bit of the new one and maybe I said this before but the vocals *really* remind me of Linda Perhacs' multi-tracked singing.
― WOOD! GOBLINS! (NickB), Wednesday, 14 July 2010 19:55 (2 years ago) Permalink
Bye Bye Bye = neat song, btw
― WOOD! GOBLINS! (NickB), Wednesday, 14 July 2010 19:57 (2 years ago) Permalink
Just wanted to post the pic of that drownedinsound reviewer:
― All 10 songs permeate the organs (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, 14 July 2010 20:02 (2 years ago) Permalink
Oh shit, I missed this Lusine remix of Half Asleep - kind of lush and chimey in a Pantha du Prince-ish way:
http://rcrdlbl.com/artists/School_of_Seven_Bells/track/Half_Asleep_Lusine_Remix
― WOOD! GOBLINS! (NickB), Wednesday, 14 July 2010 20:12 (2 years ago) Permalink
this record needs more guitars and heaviness
im 3 or 4 listens in, and i'd agree with this.
― Enter nothing in the dialog and click 'OK' (Hunt3r), Wednesday, 14 July 2010 20:18 (2 years ago) Permalink
You know I would never ever normally engage in any kind of childish hipster bashing or anything but OH MY GOD I HAVE NEVER HATED ANYONE SO MUCH ON SIGHT IN MY LIFE AS THAT TWUNTISH REVIEWER, I WANT TO SMASH HIS PRETENTIOUSLY HELD CIGARETTE OUT ON HIS NON PRESCRIPTION GLASSES!!!!
― Cow Bingo (Masonic Boom), Wednesday, 14 July 2010 20:53 (2 years ago) Permalink
lol
seconded!!!
― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Wednesday, 14 July 2010 20:57 (2 years ago) Permalink
Got mine in the mail today... nice little box and cards, but where is this bonus CD? Not included.
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Wednesday, 14 July 2010 22:23 (2 years ago) Permalink
Is that a review or is that someone's thesis statement of an art degree from, like, Camberwell College or something?
I got as far as the top of the second paragraph:
But there is a third moment, and this is perhaps caught in Audrey's dance in the diner of Twin Peaks, where her naïf-fatale eroticism jives to Badalamenti's otherworld. His music exists at the hauntological cusp of big band, as it recedes into those hanging chromatic notes which betray the foreign agent at the heart of David Lynch's estranging of the American familiar.
― the new hot dawg stand in compton (Pillbox), Wednesday, 14 July 2010 22:58 (2 years ago) Permalink
to be honest, it kinda sounds like SVIIB lyrics.
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Thursday, 15 July 2010 00:21 (2 years ago) Permalink
they should re-record "half-asleep" with the words from this review and call it "voice of harold."
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Thursday, 15 July 2010 00:27 (2 years ago) Permalink
OH MY GOD I HAVE NEVER HATED ANYONE SO MUCH ON SIGHT IN MY LIFE AS THAT TWUNTISH REVIEWER, I WANT TO SMASH HIS PRETENTIOUSLY HELD CIGARETTE OUT ON HIS NON PRESCRIPTION GLASSES!!!!
The collected wit and wisdom of that Twuntish reviewer: h t t p : / / www . danielbyates . com / pop
(unlinked because I don't want him here)
― Elvis Telecom, Thursday, 15 July 2010 03:28 (2 years ago) Permalink
LOL at the opening line of his AFI review:
"When you try and neuter a cat it puts up a fight."
and the closing paragraph from the same review:
"So instead I filmed one of my own turds in slo-mo, epically breaking the surface of the water, proudly pushing its turtlehead up toward the light beyond the bowl. A little blood around the edges, only to signify the cancer of soft-rock guitar in what should be the healthy churning bowels of punk music. I used fake blood, nothing more serious than that."
― he's always been a bit of an anti-climb Max (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, 15 July 2010 03:32 (2 years ago) Permalink
I can think of a lot of things I'd rather do than read another word of that twuntish review's "work". One of them involves putting mine own eyes out with rusting dogshit-smeared pruning secateurs.
And no, I didn't get a "bonus CD" either. Boo hoo.
― Cow Bingo (Masonic Boom), Thursday, 15 July 2010 09:27 (2 years ago) Permalink
Ah, 50 minutes long... perfect for a nice run. I'll try it on Friday.
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Thursday, 15 July 2010 10:11 (2 years ago) Permalink
Oh! And that thing with NEU! as performed by Michael Rother with Benjamin Curtis (and Steve Shelley and some other peeps)... not happened yet, but happening in October...
http://www.barbican.org.uk/music/event-detail.asp?ID=11079
(Though I should probably go revive a NEU! or a Krautrock thread for wider interest.)
― Cow Bingo (Masonic Boom), Thursday, 15 July 2010 10:31 (2 years ago) Permalink
Sounds like everyone who is really into this = everyone who has seen them live. That must be the setting in which the MBV comparisons shine, because this record does not have much edge and really not a whole lot of atmosphere either. This album's not bad but it's very tidy and clean.
I know Ben can play huge, based on Secret Machines albums and live show. His presence feels very played down here.
― scott pgwp (pgwp), Friday, 16 July 2010 16:41 (2 years ago) Permalink
I loved them before I ever saw them live - but that was based on some (far rougher sounding) demos that Benjamin had given me pre- Alpinisms.
That said, I don't *mind* the pop sheen. I really like pop sheen and glossiness and that Aurally Enhanced shiny candy sound.
― Cow Bingo (Masonic Boom), Friday, 16 July 2010 16:43 (2 years ago) Permalink
I should probably get off this thread before every post I make just turns into "I loved them before you did!!!!!" type whinging. Seriously.
― Cow Bingo (Masonic Boom), Friday, 16 July 2010 16:55 (2 years ago) Permalink
I prefer the albums to the live stuff I've heard.
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Friday, 16 July 2010 21:23 (2 years ago) Permalink
i like the cleanness of this album - it's really starting to get its teeth into me now. i find it ironic that it's linked to a genre called shoegaze, because to me this album is the aural equivalent of looking straight up at the sky just so you can feel the wind blow harder into your face. or, like, a wind machine. it's amazingly propulsive in comparison to alpinisms.
― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Saturday, 17 July 2010 09:57 (2 years ago) Permalink
Ah, Lex, some day I will school you on Shoegaze (and the irony of the name) but today is not that day.
First generation shoegazers were never looking at their actual shoes - they were always looking at their effects to figure out which etherealiser to trigger next. It's always been an ironic name for a particularly starry-eyed genre.
Bt then again, shoegaze was always the uncomfortable marriage of two genres and two strains of musical thinking. But at least half of it was descended straight from the bits of Cocteau Twins that sounded like spinning around as fast as you could, fingers outstretched, until you fell down laughing and dizzy.
But then you take that aesthetic and you merge it with the low-down and dirty slouching miserablism of the Jesus and Mary Chain, who were decided gazers at alternately their navels and the floor (and I say this deeply loving them).
So it is an odd name for this genre, but it does capture that idea of being caught between the gutter and the stars.
― Cow Bingo (Masonic Boom), Saturday, 17 July 2010 12:00 (2 years ago) Permalink
When I started a shoegazing club at my university (the main purpose being so I could reserve function rooms to eat lunch in), the admin assistants that dealt with student groups all thought it was a foot fetish club and treated me warily because I was clearly a perverted weirdo.
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Saturday, 17 July 2010 12:12 (2 years ago) Permalink
Hazel, have I mentioned how much I love your screen name? You keep making me want to listen to Spirea X every time you post.
― Cow Bingo (Masonic Boom), Saturday, 17 July 2010 12:44 (2 years ago) Permalink
thank you! but you should not give in to such temptations. actually you made me do it just now. it's all right.
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Sunday, 18 July 2010 07:17 (2 years ago) Permalink
Really disappointed by this record.
Feels like they abandoned the "cosmopolitan Kabbalahtronic" sound for "Sarah McLachlan, after collaborating with DMC, hears some electro and post-punk revival and decides to collaborate with Moby."
― litel, Sunday, 18 July 2010 17:39 (2 years ago) Permalink
^ that's when I reach for my sb
― the new hot dawg stand in compton (Pillbox), Sunday, 18 July 2010 21:34 (2 years ago) Permalink