Lansing-Dreiden-The Incomplete Triangle:Album Of The Year?

MY EYES ARE BURNING

"The Incomplete Triangle" was really good though, so I still want to hear the new one. More Boo Radleys, less "Movement"-era New Order sounds accurate.

anyway, it's good! the first song is killer. as is the last song. i need to dig into it more. the production is great. lots of cool sounds dropping in and out of the mix. i think you'll like it, tim. i need to listen more though.

But after two listens, none of the melodies or arrangements stick with me. I can't really remember anything about the album. This could very well be one of those slow growers, but I have a feeling that the overall hazy aura that surrounds these tracks might be detracting from the songs.

But still, tons of ambition. Which really counts for something these days. And not that Sufjan Stevens/Clap Your Hands Say Yeah parade rock ambition. This is the ambition you heard in Prefab Sprout and China Crisis records.

"The Dividing Island is Lansing-Dreiden's second full-length album, just recently released May 9th on Kemado Records. Live, L-D Section II are astonishing and refreshing, especially with their new line up bringing hints of shoegazed synth pop struts with new lead singers Sect and Ion. L-D Section I, a 9-pc band that performed Lansing-Dreiden's music in a live setting had sold-out shows in New York, Seattle, and Austin. This will also mark the debut of L-D Section II playing in selected cities."

well, duh, i finally actually read the voice live review that tim linked to. looks cool. and i like that review.

All they had to say for themselves was "Please don't be mean to us, we're just trying to have fun!" They're limp liberal-arts kids looking for fame, as childish and childlike as Len. But they've been to school and been around enough to know the easiest road to a reputation: courting overzealous tossbags with ambiguity and obfuscation. Lansing-Dreiden continue to build the biggest, whitest slate for pseuds to write spiraling academic architecture - the fait accompli that buttresses the band's naive thievery of thoughts and forms they don't even completely understand. They might as well have called their album P-KKt3.

that would be a good title too!

the pitchfork reviews are the only ones that read like that though.

"They're limp liberal-arts kids looking for fame"

aren't they already successful designers? and every one of their actions as musicmakers leads me to believe that fame is the last thing on their minds.

I don't know if this is a good record or not. It's not really my stylistic bag, but the clips on AMG sounded nice. Maybe it falls apart on closer inspection, but at the very least the songs are pretty lovely compositions (if emphemerally so).

I understand that this kind of music is Ott's turf and I can understand wanting to defend it, but I think there's something to be said for competent, interesting music, no matter how derivative, no matter how boring / pretentious the creators.

maybe that's just what they are though. i take their word for it. they put out a newspaper, they design stuff, they make cool music. i don't think they are frauds. looks like they are having fun AND actually doing stuff! frauds are usually kinda lazy.

it's definitely my turf! if i had turf. and i say thumbs up. i confess, i don't know what ott's turf is. but he is hung up on indie cred or something, and that's just silly. and, yeah, the extra-musical stuff really doesn't affect me. i'm aware of it, cuz i've read stuff, but it's not what i think about when i play the songs.

Similarly, you use the adjective "lifeless" to describe their songs, which I find convenient given some of the stylistic attributes of the music (i.e., New Wave as cold, robotic, etc.). Again, though, the description is meant as a criticism of the QUALITY of the music, and unless you are criticizing the New Wave/New Wave Revivalism aesthetic of coldness/roboticism/etc. in general (i.e., Nick Heyward's vocals sucked because they were too LIFELESS), I'm not sure why the criticism is particularly relevant to Lansing-Dreiden.

This is the entirety of your critique in that review apart from an accusation of "grotesque orchestrations," of which you do not cite an example.

the Zombies one is Undiscerning Masses btw

my favorite l-d bit is still how the first track on the dividing island turns into a who song halfway through for no reason

Guitar heroics on “eternal lie” ftw

Sent Elbrecht a note telling him how much I like the new album and asking about a repress. He replied that there’s no plan right now beyond the initial 100 copies. :/

thanks to imago for leading me down the lansing-dreiden rabbithole

elbrecht lp repressed fyi https://jorgeelbrecht.bandcamp.com/album/here-lies

haha sweet! hoped that namedrop would lead to someone checking them out. i just listened again to The Incomplete Triangle - what an album it is, just keeps getting better and better (both in terms of its tracklist and its enduring qualities)

Is this group more niche than I thought? I just got a copy of The Dividing Island vinyl reissue from six years ago #384/500. I can't fathom a pressing that limited not selling out before 2019.

yeah they are quite obscure. criminally unknown

i saw jorge elbrecht as support for kurt vile in june in berlin. and it was terrible. new wavish bombast, the voice totally distorted and hardly understandable, just crap. actually it took me about an hour to find out that it was him. and i love the "incomplete triangle" but live it does not seemm to work at all.

https://open.spotify.com/track/2Uj68LXGj9lu4RCAX741Ch
Down in flames sounds like a sectioned bean b side

I just picked up The Dividing Island on CD. I'm a fan of the Incomplete Triangle so I'm pleased to get this.

I'd never searched this band on ILM before. I must check the Jorge Elbrecht stuff mentioned above.

https://open.spotify.com/track/1siKvQOduE0LjKWuhEca7O?si=JzHubTJDSFywRYHZJmdo5Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlHAVzR41Bk

Best use of “pizazz” In a pop song?

i had forgotten how good this is. been listening on repeat. some of the solo stuff is pretty great too; the way it veers from byrds to severed heads and has this rotating cast of ilm vetted assists - drab majesty, tamaryn, sky ferreira - sorta becoming obsessed tbh. would buy some LD physical ephemera but that seems impossible now

elbrecht is incredibly talented. love the new presentable corpse record

Yeah. The “run and hide” / “fading memory” one two punch is gutting me rn.

And “words never fail to fail” from the debut is the best julee cruise/blue Nile crossover I didn’t know I absolutely needed