Medicine "The Mechanical Forces Of Love"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gleb from Saint-Petersburg, Russia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ned?

Cool house!

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

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

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

awesome! Jeez how I sometimes miss SoCal...

Awesome, awesome, awesome.

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

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

Go nuts:

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

unhappy911truthers.tumblr.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Holy shit I love Medicine!

That's what Jason Pierce said...

Oh wait.

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

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

Brada, duh!

This is relevant to my interests...

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

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

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

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

<3 aruca, so so great

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks, Brad!

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

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

Ah, grabbing it now. Thanks !

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

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

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

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

Oh! I was there, too!

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

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

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

It's true, thanks.

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

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

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

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

I guess it really is true?

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

Shhh ! Ned might hear you.

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

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

Thanks for listening, glad you like it !

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

Cool video:

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

Really enjoying Home Everwhere!

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

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

Thanks, really glad you like it !