Medicine "The Mechanical Forces Of Love"

sorry for my semi-coherent half-question Poliopolice

a review that says "check it out I thought this band sucked back in the day but listening again it is actually p cool in parts, 7/10" seems perfectly objective by the normal standards of record reviewing

I'm sure if this review had been given to someone who approached it 100% fresh and ended up bagging on it, you would have been cool w/ that thanks to their unbiased ear

ha, the biased reviewer is the literary equivalent of the proverbial activist judge

Ned Raggett = Antonin Scalia

he also a personal friend of many ILM folks.

just saying like.

as is Antonin Scalia!

anyway, are you suggesting that we aren't allowed to review the reviewer because people here know him personally? he's writing for a major publication, he's fair game. anyway, it's more of a commentary on the process than of Ned specifically.

i know not of AS.

hidden pseudos mean little to me.

i thought the review was pretty straight down the line.

provided context as to his previous experience with medicine, and then gave a current viewpoint as to the reissues.

i really dont see a problem.

all the more so given that he has expressed his love for brads non-medicine material i.e. he is anything but a hardcore hater with an ax(e) to grind.

p.s. for the record i have never met ned, and not part of the inner circle of p-fork et al.

just that there is a lot of animosity on ilm, and its very rare an artist bites as hard as this.

it's just a little strange to me; I mean, just providing your previous experience isn't really a good "out." I bet if I told everyone here that I hated Steely Dan (which I do; I think they are total crap), then went on to review a Steely Dan record in a prominent medium, ILM would be up in arms about it, even if I gave it an ok review.

given the boost that a positive pitchfork review can provide a largely-forgotten band, the fact that this was given to an avowed hater is disappointing and a bit strange. ned appears to have listened as openly as possible, but winds up doing little more than admitting that medicine aren't as completely horrible as he once thought. it's a potentially interesting piece of raggett studies, but not terribly helpful as an introduction to the album or the band. plu it doesn't read like a 6.9. it reads like a 5.something, at best.

plu = plus

we'll have to agree to disagree as i like reviewer backstories.

as i said, context.

btw : i'd back you all the way re steely dan.

mediocre horseshit like Chapterhouse and Pale Saints

I'll give you Chapterhouse, but there was never anything remotely mediocre about Pale Saints (and I'm including their latter, hugely underrated, period in this).

good call.

Spending time comparing them unfavorably to Blur or Curve instead of mentioning this as more of a meeting of Merzbow or Whitehouse and the Beach Boys with occasional guest appearances from the actual Elizabeth Fraser (and not mentioning her collaboration with them on their biggest hit seemed like an omission that would have helped potential fans quickly understand where this band was coming from.

To be fair, the song in question (Time Baby III) appeared on neither of the reviewed LPs.

imagine that pitchfork had given disco inferno's the 5 EPs to someone who "detested" the band once upon a time, and who in the here and now compares the listening experience to "encountering scar tissue that runs too deep, finding out something that could work still never exactly does."

i mean...

Also, do the remasters manage to capture how FUCKEN LOUD they were?

^ This is totally OTM. I've mentioned it elsewhere on ILM, but my hearing has never been the same after a certain Medicine show in the mid-00s. Not blaming them - the mix was probably off & I def should have been wearing earplugs, & it may have been a straw/camel's back situation, but yeah.

er, that should be mid-90s, not 00s

mediocre horseshit like Chapterhouse and Pale Saints

I'll give you Chapterhouse, but there was never anything remotely mediocre about Pale Saints (and I'm including their latter, hugely underrated, period in this).

― that mustardless plate (Bill A), Tuesday, May 29, 2012 5:02 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark

MBV aside, Pale Saints (at least before the departure of Ian Masters) were the best band to arise from that scene/era imo.

In my opinion, Slowdive is probably the best out of all of them, followed by Medicine. MBV is third, and everything else pretty much is terrible (Chapterhouse, Swervedriver, Ride, Pale Saints, Moose, Lush).

Of them all, and I'm including MBV (even with their blessed remasters), the band from that era I still listen to the most is *easily* Pale Saints. I never really got into the post-Masters stuff at the time, but having listened to it plenty over the last few years I'll stan for it unreservedly - for sure, their direction changed, but a good element of that latter output is wonderful. I think part of this is that I just love the sound of Meriel's voice, and she/they were never afraid to let her sing and be heard; Bilinda, great as she is, is rarely more than a harmony or an element in Kev's wall-of-mbv.

(sorry for going off-topic on Medicine's thread...)

:( I like whirlpool by chapterhouse...

you are not alone

Whirlpool
Does Chapterhouse's 'Whirpool' stand up today?

the post-Masters stuff

had it been under a different name i suspect it would be remembered more fondly. the meriel-led stuff is actually really nice

Ok I'm not even going to try to argue with someone who thinks Slowdive are better than pedestrian. But I know I'm the only person who rates the second Chapterhouse album (mainly coz of the Global Comm remixes) so I've got no cred.

The whole "hater reevaluates a band's back catalogue" thing could have been really interesting IF the author had taken on a band with a huge body of critical acclaim and a massive fanbase. Had that article had been about the Smiths or REM or the Cure or especially P4 darlings like Radiohead or Animal Collective then it would have been an interesting and fresh take on a band one would have thought there was nothing new to write about. If someone had written that article about the MBV reissues even that would be understandable!

To do it to a cult band as unremembered (and underappreciated IMHO) just smacks of axe-grinding. It just came across as petty, rather than original.

Ok I'm not even going to try to argue with someone who thinks Slowdive are better than pedestrian.

There is nothing pedestrian about "Souvlaki" or "Pygmalion." Their first album, maybe. Mojave 3, almost definitely. But not those two.

yeah this is crazy talk - Slowdive, MBV, Medicine and Ride are the only shoegaze bands worth giving a damn - but, damn, what a damn.
It's always a bit simplistic to stick bands in genres, but there was not much gazing involved when it came to Medicine - as argued upthread, beyond the wall o' feedback, they had a mighty groove on (eg. One More).

There seems to be a definite split between people who love Slowdive & ppl who saw them live & thought of them as "that BORING band I had to sit through to see Ride or whoever."

I've just come to the conclusion that ppl who rate Slowdive (and don't rate e.g. Lush) are just listening for such different things from shoegaze that it's pointless to argue.

Still loving your house, Brad, if you're reading.

what a powerful testimonial

Not sure how many people dismissed Slowdive for good after hearing the first album which admittedly is rather boring

I still like the first album, but "Souvlaki" is mindblowing. The production work is something else; you could get lost in those huge, warm blankets of sound.

xp

I was content to dismiss them after Holding Our Breath tbh... ;)

I could never understand all the retrospective love for "Souvlaki". It's half a good album IMO. "Just for a day" can be a bit tedious at times but really picks up towards the end and didn't really fulfil the promise of their early EPs. However the "5 EP" and "Pygmalion" stuff was great.

Great, great band worth revisiting in the wake of mbv... The Buried Life is my personal favorite. Blows my mind that Van Dyke Parks did the arrangement on...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDHK5GBi7Nw

Unh, this appears to be the only Medicine thread on ILM, but NEW TRACK FROM A NEW ALBUM!!!

https://soundcloud.com/capturedtracks/medicine-long-as-the-sun

This band never got its due THANKS TO NED

j/k ned, it was probably a confluence of factors

Holy jeezus. Vey exciting! This year is turning out to be such an incredible one for albums I never expected to see

What other albums are you referring to?

Wow I'm digging the single. Who's singing now?

I just listened to a tape my hsgf made me with the Sounds of Medicine ep, The Buried Life, plus the song "One More." That all fits nicely on a c90.
This new track is coool

It's the original lineup reunited.

Cool! Though I did like Mechanical Forces a lot.

What other albums are you referring to?

probably mbv

Oh true, should have been obvious!

hah - thought you were joking!
well mbv obv, but also new JT and Daft Punk (and to lesser extent Knife)

I generally sincerely ask things without first thinking about it for a second.

Doesn't a guy from Medicine post here? Or used to?

Brad Laner rarely posts here; I think he's frustrated by Ned's intransigence towards Medicine. If I recall correctly, Ned described them as "total crap" (or somesuch) and then went on to give middling reviews to reissues of their albums on Pitchfork. See this very thread.

Though his Pitchfork reviews were written with a "giving it another shot" vibe, right? That's what I remember.