Medicine "The Mechanical Forces Of Love"

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.

OK just looked back on this thread and yes I remember and still agree that perhaps a more undecided writer should have taken on those reviews.

http://boomkat.com/cds/754636-medicine-to-the-happy-few

this too:
http://capturedtracks.com/catalog/_earth-dies-burning/ct-180-earth-dies-burning-songs-from-the-valley-of-the-bored-teenager-1981-1984-lpcd/

felt like this should be posted as evidence for the prosecution on the Strypes thread
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJag0zrrVqo

The one song I heard from this sounded really good.

This being the new album.

So how's the new one? It's getting pretty decent reviews.

Wow, this album rocks.

The new album is MAD

on my list of things to check out but I need a bit of encouragement to get to it - any reveiws up?

Allmusic:

After splitting up in 1995 and going their separate ways, it seemed unlikely that the original members of the pioneering American shoegaze band Medicine would ever record again. Especially after the band's main man Brad Laner revived the name for the not very noisy, not very good Mechanical Forces of Love record in 2003. Things began to change when Captured Tracks reissued the group's first two albums: the breathtaking noise blast Shot Forth Self Living and the candy pop gem The Buried Life, in 2012. Spurred by how good the albums sounded, Laner, vocalist Beth Thompson, and drummer Jim Goodall buried their bad feelings and began working on a new album. Picking up where their last album, Her Highness, left off, To the Happy Few is a swirling kaleidoscope of poppy noise and guitar-driven euphoria. To their credit, the trio decided not to allow the sonic advances that occurred after they split to worm their way into the mix -- no electronic, no laptop squiggles, no dubstep -- in other words, there's precious little to mark this as an album made in 2013. Instead, it sounds like it should have been the follow-up to Buried Life. The songs are drop-dead gorgeous, the waves of noise and sound are all-encompassing but arranged perfectly, and there is enough joyous craft and blown-out intensity in the sound to keep it from being just an empty nostalgia trip. Laner and co. sound energized and inspired by the chance to create Medicine music again, and they deliver the best result fans could have hoped for. Along with the songs that have the trademark Medicine sound like "Long as the Sun," which opens the record with a thrilling jolt of overloaded sunshine pop, the languorous "The End of the Line," and the warped "Daylight," there are a few that take some chances and succeed. "Holy Crimes," with its rolling rhythms, aquatic pianos, and dramatic arrangement, the insistent, almost danceable "Butterfly's Out Tonight," and the dub noise "Burn It" all add interesting new elements to an approach the band could follow if they stick together and make more records. Really, though, it's good enough to hear Thompson's breathless vocals weaving in and out of Laner's soundscapes again. Not to mention how good it is to experience Goodall's massive drums, which feel like the hands of Zeus pounding on the listener's skull. It's good enough to have Medicine back and making records like To the Happy Few, which stands proudly with the work they were doing 20 years previously. Other bands thinking about re-forming would do well to follow their lead and not just get back together to play the hits and count the cash, but instead create something vital and relevant; something that makes the group's continued existence worthwhile.

http://www.allmusic.com/album/to-the-happy-few-mw0002553632

track 2 sounds like something off a rubble compilation but fuzzier

Looking forward to listening to this.... but what's with the way Pitchfork handles this band? Last time, they gave the review to Ned, an avowed Medicine hater. And then this time they give to a guy who spends 90% of the article talking about everything except the actual album at hand. Would it have killed him to mention a single song that stood out?