― Avi (Avi), Monday, 16 August 2004 10:51 (nineteen years ago) link
― adam. (nordicskilla), Monday, 16 August 2004 18:38 (nineteen years ago) link
― Kaiser of Köln (Kaiser of Köln), Thursday, 9 September 2004 16:30 (nineteen years ago) link
― Avi (Avi), Thursday, 9 September 2004 17:11 (nineteen years ago) link
OH YES
― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Thursday, 9 September 2004 17:53 (nineteen years ago) link
― Hanna (Hanna), Thursday, 9 September 2004 18:00 (nineteen years ago) link
― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Thursday, 9 September 2004 18:06 (nineteen years ago) link
― amateur!!st, Thursday, 9 September 2004 18:11 (nineteen years ago) link
― Hanna (Hanna), Thursday, 9 September 2004 18:12 (nineteen years ago) link
― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Thursday, 9 September 2004 18:15 (nineteen years ago) link
What does she sound like now? Is it really her metal album? mmm...
― derrick (derrick), Thursday, 9 September 2004 23:30 (nineteen years ago) link
― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Friday, 10 September 2004 04:28 (nineteen years ago) link
― Hanna (Hanna), Friday, 10 September 2004 13:20 (nineteen years ago) link
― kyle (akmonday), Friday, 10 September 2004 13:21 (nineteen years ago) link
― Hanna (Hanna), Friday, 10 September 2004 13:23 (nineteen years ago) link
― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Friday, 10 September 2004 13:42 (nineteen years ago) link
this is a request from the swedish singer stina nordenstam.
i am working on new material for my 7th album and want alien contribution. i want strangers to send loops, bits and pieces of non-musical sounds, documentary, everyday sounds - as well as beats. naturally it is potentially more interesting with sounds i can't associate to. the other thing i will be looking for is how the loops are constructed, put together. i don't want to be too specific as a lot of time the best is in the unexpected. so, i am not asking for any particular style. i want things out of the ordinary, with character, inspiring. in any way. i don't want songs. i don't want harmonies. i want construction pieces.
stina nordenstam
― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Friday, 10 September 2004 16:59 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 10 September 2004 17:08 (nineteen years ago) link
― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Friday, 10 September 2004 17:13 (nineteen years ago) link
― ian g, Friday, 10 September 2004 20:48 (nineteen years ago) link
A friend of mine hooked me up with an album track as well and it's amazing.
― Avi (Avi), Monday, 13 September 2004 16:52 (nineteen years ago) link
― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Tuesday, 14 September 2004 02:32 (nineteen years ago) link
― Angie, Tuesday, 14 September 2004 17:48 (nineteen years ago) link
― the todster (the todster), Thursday, 16 September 2004 11:01 (nineteen years ago) link
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Thursday, 16 September 2004 12:06 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 16 September 2004 12:11 (nineteen years ago) link
― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Thursday, 16 September 2004 12:20 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jaunty Alan (Alan), Thursday, 16 September 2004 12:43 (nineteen years ago) link
― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Thursday, 16 September 2004 12:48 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jaunty Alan (Alan), Thursday, 16 September 2004 13:01 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 16 September 2004 13:02 (nineteen years ago) link
Wow it's eight years since Dynamite. That was a fucking formative record for me in retrospect.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Thursday, 16 September 2004 13:06 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jaunty Alan (Alan), Thursday, 16 September 2004 13:08 (nineteen years ago) link
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Thursday, 16 September 2004 13:16 (nineteen years ago) link
On another note, Stina is one of the few artists where I often have to emotionally prepare myself to listen to.
― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Thursday, 16 September 2004 13:21 (nineteen years ago) link
When I visited the UK about seven years ago, this was one of the things I specifically searched out (The Vulgar Boatmen's Opposite Sex being the other). I have listened to it once, maybe twice the whole way through. If I didn't go all that way for it, I'd have sold it a long time ago. Personally, I think it lacks the production that made her next one so special. The songs are kinda, eh. Download it.
― frankE (frankE), Thursday, 16 September 2004 13:21 (nineteen years ago) link
― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Thursday, 16 September 2004 13:22 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jaunty Alan (Alan), Thursday, 16 September 2004 13:33 (nineteen years ago) link
― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Thursday, 16 September 2004 13:40 (nineteen years ago) link
and she closed her eyes
― frankE (frankE), Thursday, 16 September 2004 13:43 (nineteen years ago) link
― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Thursday, 16 September 2004 13:46 (nineteen years ago) link
― frankE (frankE), Thursday, 16 September 2004 13:50 (nineteen years ago) link
― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Thursday, 16 September 2004 13:54 (nineteen years ago) link
― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Thursday, 16 September 2004 13:55 (nineteen years ago) link
― frankE (frankE), Thursday, 16 September 2004 13:58 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jaunty Alan (Alan), Thursday, 16 September 2004 14:10 (nineteen years ago) link
it took me a long time to warm to This is; I was disappointed when it came out, but when I went back to it a year later with fresh ears I found more to like. It's much more pop in many ways. I didn't even realize until yesterday that was Brett Anderson on it.
― kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 16 September 2004 14:16 (nineteen years ago) link
(the other one is now taken down)
― Avi (Avi), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:22 (nineteen years ago) link
Thanks
― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:30 (nineteen years ago) link
I'd never heard this Stina x The Knife:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-JuGewOvQY
― Soundslike, Tuesday, 21 April 2020 21:31 (four years ago) link
x-post. Was there any context to the idea that she'd be too challenging to work with?
― djh, Tuesday, 21 April 2020 22:26 (four years ago) link
Strangely, I'd started making myself a compilation "for these times" and hadn't really got any further than a David Sylvian track and a Stina Nordenstam one.
― djh, Tuesday, 21 April 2020 22:27 (four years ago) link
Oh, cheers for posting that Knife remix Soundslike. Not sure how I missed that.
― djh, Tuesday, 21 April 2020 22:31 (four years ago) link
oh yeah that remix was how I first got into the knife
also speaking of david sylvian tracks, stina nordenstam tracks, and tracks "for these times"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga4IcaRsHic
― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Wednesday, 22 April 2020 02:27 (four years ago) link
Was there any context to the idea that she'd be too challenging to work with?
They'd initially offered to release Memories of a Color but after meeting with her, Ivo decided that a working relationship would be overly complicated - apparently her personality "mirrored her beguiling, obsessive music" and he wasn't in the frame of mind to engage with this at the time.
― technopolis, Wednesday, 22 April 2020 05:45 (four years ago) link
Ha, yes, Katherine - that was one of the few tracks on there.
― djh, Wednesday, 22 April 2020 07:12 (four years ago) link
re: Stina and Sylvian, I'm somehow convinced (with no proof whatsoever) she wrote "Greetings from the Old World" by way of a salute to him when he moved from England to America. I remember reading her generic explanation of the song on her Myspace site and adding (my) 2+2.
― Max Florian, Saturday, 25 April 2020 22:08 (four years ago) link
discovered her thanks to akm's mention in the cassandra jenkins thread and wow i love her first two albums, especially and then she closed her eyes. i really love all the sax, it feels like music i've been wanting to hear forever.
dynamite is intriguingly strange but hasn't quite clicked for me yet, it's quite a left turn but i'm hoping it will open up to me. it feels sonically of a piece with from the choirgirl hotel, but pushed further into that realm in a way that tori never did. the contrast between her quiet, deadpan vocals and the kinda industrial/post-punk backing is fascinating
looking forward to checking out the rest of her output
― ufo, Thursday, 25 February 2021 12:29 (three years ago) link
The first two Stinas are def the most aligned with the Cassandra Jenkins record (which is completely great), insofar as they have more light and warmth in them than her later albums - the 'sound' of early spring, watery tentative sunshine, lengthening days etc. Really brisk and fresh.
The subsequent Stinas all feel really bound up with autumn/winter to me, to varying extents - all are great but it's a much chillier vibe overall. Dynamite is the one that leans most into 'encroaching gloom'. FTCH is a really interesting comparison and one that hadn't occurred to me before.
I disappeared down a bit of a This is Stina Nordenstam wormhole upthread but I do still think it's her strangest record in that it tries to make a big (tiny) crossover pop record out of a fuzzier version of the Dynamite sonic palette and ends up sounding like some kind of plaintive alien bulletin or... something.
― technopolis, Thursday, 25 February 2021 13:25 (three years ago) link
I think the World Is Saved is her best album. I wish she'd return to recording.
― akm, Thursday, 25 February 2021 16:28 (three years ago) link
God I love 'Dynamite' so much. Dig 'This Is' and 'People Are Strange' and 'The World is Saved' and the rest. But 'Dynamite' stands out, for me. Such an elemental sound--those crunchy guitars paired with the Reich-ian strings, and her voice... An album that hasn't aged a day.
I'm afraid she's going to go the way of Mark Hollis--silent until silenced.
― Soundslike, Thursday, 25 February 2021 23:34 (three years ago) link
I feel like there's a big jump in skill and quality between albums one and two - And She Closed Her Eyes really codifies some qualities that define her subsequent work despite the massive stylistic shifts.
Like, the voice is the same but from the first line of "When Debbie's Back From Texas" you can hear how much more aware and deliberate her use of it is - this Rickie Lee Jones in an iron lung quality, superficially blank and stripped (or evacuated) of affect, yet perversely affecting. A quality that extends to her suddenly incredibly sharp lyrical economy, conveying entire worlds and personas with the smallest number of words possible.
"From Cayman Islands With Love" from The World Is Saved is a great example of this:
Half a day behind and miles awayI'm on a beachThe only one around I know who can'tEnjoy the heatI bought the postcardNow I have to write the wordsI left the countryThere's a chance you may have heardGrand Cayman is greatOf course it isWeather like thisLiving is greatOf course it isWhat else did you thinkWhat else did you thinkI said I want a man and not a boyYou left the roomThe Caribbean sun so leaves me coldYou never doI want to see youEven want to see you bleedI can't believe I paid for thisThere's nothing here I needGrand Cayman is greatOf course it isWeather like this?Living is greatOf course it isWhat else did you thinkWhat else did you think
... The deliberateness emptiness of "weather like this?"... I love it.
― Tim F, Friday, 26 February 2021 00:00 (three years ago) link
... That said, the last two tracks of Memories of a Colour are the best on the album, so if you listen to the first albums back to back it's like Stina is gearing herself up.
― Tim F, Friday, 26 February 2021 00:01 (three years ago) link
I bought "And She Closed Her Eyes" in 1994 when I was in high school - I think I bought "Park Life" (!) in the same haul. Mark Radcliffe had been playing "Little Star" every night on his Radio 1 late show.
Anyway, it's just the most beautiful record - I think it might be favourite ever album, the only album I've never gotten bored of listening to. I used to put in on with "Five Lives Left".
I can't believe The World is Saved was released 16 years ago. And look at idiot me above, thinking ten years was a long time.
― Chuck_Tatum, Friday, 26 February 2021 00:33 (three years ago) link