Bitte Orca vs. Veckatimest

I don't love or hate either one, so which falls into that middle of the pack more comfortably I guess?

I'll go with Veckatimest just because "Two Weeks" has gotten a lot of plays in my car this summer.

Oh my god.

these are both terrible titles by bands i make a point of avoiding, so i guess veckatimest wins by having the least worst title.

the killer whale is better than the island

Bitte Orca by a mile. One of the best albums this year in my opinion.

Ah yes. Two of the year's dullest indie rock albums in a head to head battle. Can't get much more exciting than that! Hopefully they nuke each other with their orchestral, hyper-composed absurdity before any more damage is dealt to unsuspective ears across the indie rock sheepisphere.

unsuspecting*

you think Bitte Orca is dull compared to what other indie rock released this year?

some people sure do hate that indie rock

― velko, Thursday, July 16, 2009 1:41 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

i dont really listen to much indie rock but i'm a fan of bitte orca

bitte orca by many miles

i dont really listen to much indie rock but i'm a fan of bitte orca

^^^^^^^^^^^^

yeah, how is bitte orca dull?

ok, from looking at youtube videos: track from Bitte Orca was night unlistenable, but the Grizzly Bear track was so dull that I'm going with the unlistenable.

lol, night unlistenable. Day unlistenable too!

i dont really listen to much indie rock but i'm a fan of bitte orca

^^^^^^^^^^^^

^^^^^^

i dont really listen to much indie rock but i'm a fan of bitte orca

^^^^^^^^^^^^

^^^^^^

ok, from looking at youtube videos: track from Bitte Orca was night unlistenable, but the Grizzly Bear track was so dull that I'm going with the unlistenable.

― De Mysteriis Dom Passantino (jim)

My feelings in a nutshell.

Totally love Veckatimest, can't abide Bitte Orca.

Like Veckatimest a lot; like Bitte Orca a little.

i like "useful chamber" and "temecula sunrise" better than any "song" on veckatimest (what happened to hooks dudes?), so orca bitte for me. they're both pretty bland albums though for the most part

orca - less shitty harmonies

I can totally see not liking Bitte Orca, but I can't really imagine finding it bland or boring.

I would have thought the appropriate avenue of attack is to say that its attempts to startle the listener are off-putting (i.e. "unlistenable").

Criticisms of Veckatimest for being wimpy don't make sense to me; play Southern Poiny LOUD; it's an enormous noisy psychedelic rocker.

"psychedelic"

crank dat grizzly bear

just because a criticism doesn't make sense to you doesn't mean it's not right.

bitte orca definitely suffers from well-documented at this point 00s faults but manages to mostly rise above them by means of good songwriting. i like it a lot better than veckatimest and i haven't even heard that record!

I can totally see not liking Bitte Orca, but I can't really imagine finding it bland or boring.

just because a criticism doesn't make sense to you doesn't mean it's not right.

i would like to ask the people that found bitte orca boring to give some examples of non-boring albums released this year. like, if your favourite album of the year was mastodon or something ok probably you would find it boring that's understandable, but otherwise... i don't know, the songs are pretty unrepetitive, often have really jarring, weird chord changes, the vocals are striking and the songwriting is creative. as tim put it, alot not to like, but what is boring on the album?

also this is a really hard choice and i have no idea what album to vote for.

bitte orca seems like it would have been on elephant 6 it it was 10 years ago which is not really a good thing(sub-Gerbils) but then grizzly bear are just about the worst thing ever.

OK, since I have no real idea who either of these bands are, what's the one best song from each to listen to? (I have a feeling that because I find Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear and the rest of the polite psych stuff dull, I'm gonna find this dull too, but I wanna give it a shot at least.)

I can't think offhand of a single Elephant 6 album that remotely resembles Bitte Orca — least of all Gerbils.

Actually I don't get the lumping in of Dirty Projectors w/ any of the ambitiously orchestrated, OTT indie rock of the 00's, either. I'm not too familiar w/ Grizzly Bear but from the little I've heard it sounds like they're pretty good at kinda incrementally "advancing" a tradition. Are their arrangements really that far out?

As far as I can hear Longstreth is not ADDING R&B tropes or West African guitar or plainsong or whatever to rock. They don't sound "incorporated," or even ornamental, to me. They sound like the starting points, fundamental.

Srsly, what about Longstreth besides "white Ivy-Leaguer-w/guitar" even merits these comparisons?

The Getty Address is a really album fwiw

really strange album

Ah yes, I am teh clueless old guy. For some reason I thought these were bands, not album titles. I've even listened to both of these! And yet, as demonstrated by my lack of clue, I obviously don't care enough about them to vote. Never mind, I'll be off harumphing about people using "shitgaze" unironically in some punk thread.

TS: Shitte Orca vs. Suckatimest.

i dont really listen to much indie rock but i'm a fan of bitte orca

^^^^^^^^^^^^

^^^^^^

― ❉❉❉❉❉❉❉❉Plaxico❉❉❉❉❉❉❉❉❉ (I know, right?), den 17 juli 2009 17:29 (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I don't like the album much, but I do like "Stillness Is the Move" a lot, which is a lot more than I could ever bring myself to give a damn about Grizzly Bear.

album needs more of the girls, less of the dude imo

my vote goes to the dirty projectors. i don't have any grizzly bear hate, i think they're very good at what they do, but what DP are doing with songwriting and more specifically, with voice, is much more interesting and captivating. they're unlike anything i've ever heard. i think its interesting that these albums are being compared because they're most likely to find themselves at the top of many people's year-end lists, and its forcing me to tease out the similarities between the two...

bitte orca

DPs take the stage 6pm @ wmsbg wtrfrnt, fwiw

the onion preview of their show yesterday said: "Bitte Orca, Dirty Projectors’ most recent album, sounds like the bastard child of Mariah Carey and Yes. Vocals soar heavenward, guitars squiggle and drone, and bandleader/savant David Longstreth’s meticulous—and wildly unpredictable—arrangements boast a surfeit of both melody and confusion. But despite its oft-beguiling complexity, Bitte Orca is without a doubt a summer album, perfect for a picnic and a view of the Midtown skyline." if there's any steve howe in dave longstreth i don't hear it

"oft-beguiling"

oh come on that sounds like something you would say

sounds like the bastard child of Mariah Carey and Yes.

I think this is a pretty apt description.

btw the weirdness of this album is oversold

It's definitely the most 'listenable' to date -- more capital B Beats, more catchy melodies, etc.

"album needs more of the girls, less of the dude imo"

When I saw them live a couple years ago, I didn't know the dude was the main songwriter, and kept thinking "Those chicks should kick him out of their band. His stuff is all lame, but they could go places."

And yeah, weirdness way oversold. But that's practically a sub-genre of indie pop these days—weirdness way oversold—what with Animal Collective et al.

the weirdness is way oversold, but i don't think that's something coming from the band themselves, so i really have no problem with it. i think it's a symptom of them getting a bit more mainstream. it's only natural for people trying to recommend this to someone who hasn't heard it before to describe it as "weird."

"yeah bitte orca is really good. it's weird in parts but overall a great record."

calling it weird makes people downplay the weirdness when they're listening to it for the first time, and probably makes people be a bit more patient with the record than they would be otherwise. as i eat cannibals mentioned above, weirdness is also an endearing factor--- a selling point for some.

Still don't get the R&B comparisons except for "Stillness is the Move." All the bylines start with "R&B Meets..." I especially don't hear it in dude's voice, though I enjoy it.

But I'll still vote Bitte Orca. The music is more interesting to me, and better to me, than Veckatimest.

Also, lolz @ their Domino Records page:

For instance, with its trills and positive “I know we’ll make it” storyline, Coffman's solo turn “Stillness Is The Move,” is ready for popular hip-hop radio, making the same gesture as recent work by Lil Wayne and Kanye West, albeit from the opposite side of culture.

jesus that description

most unintentionally racist press releases

what the fuck

I guess sweet-voiced white girls the opposite of Wayne, though I'm not sure what that adds to the press release. And what Wayne song is it referring to? "Always Strapped?" I hope that unpaid intern gets fired.

omg at that description

That is awful. "Stillness Is The Move" really has nothing do with hip hop or R&B - and certainly less so than say Gang Gang Dance which is the first thing it makes me think of.

It strikes me that sometimes US bad writers hear programmed rhythm loops and immediately start referencing hip hop, whereas Euro bad writers will hear the same thing and immediately start referencing "dance music". But the groove on that song reminds me of um mid-80s widescreen pop-rock production as much as anything else.

Isn't it funny how people have different opinions? I think this could run and run.

it's not so much a different opinion as it's ill-thought out and sort of racist, you hippie dork

Sorry, I was just talking about about the poll per se, I hadn't seen the Domino description.

Yes, I was kind of drunk.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Isms.

grizzly bear will win this

I didn't think I liked the Dirty Projectors but Bitte Orca was a pretty good "dude-I-can't-believe-you-haven't-heard-this-album-yet!-let's-listen-to-it-while-we-pack-the-next-bowl" surprise

kinda makes me think of a chilled-out summer version of OOIOO (bro-OIOO???)

bernard snowy whats up

not much, you?

just postin

was posting and drinking bojangles sweet tea but now I'm out of sweet tea so... back to just postin'

u wanna be bros?

JPB - just postin' bros

http://images.art.com/images/-/Budweiser---Wassup-Poster-C10048770.jpeg

WoW needs to have a Whassup! ad campaign where its just people sitting in quiet rooms holding the s key in the little WoW talk window

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VflIdXP46RU

back on the topic of indie rock: I swear to god there used to be a beer commercial that used that rockin' bagpipe instrumental track from In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, but everyone looks at me like I'm crazy when I mention this

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

67 votes????

Is something supposed to be weird about that?

It shows how much more popular pitchfindie is than anything else on ILM?

Really surprised Grizzly Bear lost. Too "polite"?

(I think both records are excellent, by the way.)

It shows how much more popular pitchfindie is than anything else on ILM?

― Tim F, Thursday, July 23, 2009 11:17 PM (Yesterday)

you're right, but i thought he was commenting on the low vote total

Tim, is that news to anyone who's been around here a while?

given that ppl around here generally only post about newish indie in order to hate on it, i thought it was a v. high total.

grizzly bear will win this

Suggest Ban Permalink
― Zeno, jueves 23 de julio de 2009 12:26 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Didn't vote in this, and if I had it wouldve been another for DP, but I'm still surprised at the results. I kind of...tolerated, I guess, Rise Above, but Bitte Orca (awful title aside) is way the hell better, while Veckatimest sounds like a step back from the songwriting on Yellow House.

I think the thing is that Bitte Orca's fans are a lot more passionate about the album than Veckitamest's fans.

lol more like relatively indifferent vs HATEHATEHATE

Bite, Orca! was just ahead of its time tbh

"Two Weeks"

gah, i just realized what this is! it's the worst music.