St Vincent - s/t (25 February 2014)

I still haven't heard it yet, but it's got to be better than that.

The New Yorker profile of Bruce Springsteen was pretty fascinating, in that it gave a glimpse of his rehearsals, which actually included testing out stage banter and seemingly "spontaneous" stuff, the idea being that when you're entertaining tens of thousands at once, there's not a lot of room for things to go wrong, and that from pacing to performance, he wants to make sure something "works" or sounds right or whatever before he busts it out on stage.

This album reminds me of the last boring Neko Case record.

― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, February 26, 2014 7:19 AM (6 minutes ago)

wtf, they have almost nothing in common?

Singing archly over static beats.

Take issue with static in regard to this album.

The New Yorker profile of Bruce Springsteen was pretty fascinating, in that it gave a glimpse of his rehearsals, which actually included testing out stage banter and seemingly "spontaneous" stuff, the idea being that when you're entertaining tens of thousands at once, there's not a lot of room for things to go wrong, and that from pacing to performance, he wants to make sure something "works" or sounds right or whatever before he busts it out on stage.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, February 26, 2014 3:21 PM

If you can find that, please can you drop that on the Image Bands thread, because this is *exactly* what I was getting at. That this notion of authenticity and spontaneity is completely scripted and cultivated, and I find this stuff so fascinating.

i don't think i like her rhythm section

it's got this radio-ready pop-friendly indie-rock feel to it that just seems dead to me, like the 00s codification of backbeats and drum fill ideas for music that's required for traditional and economic reasons to have drums in it

― j., Thursday, February 20, 2014

I think she mostly manages to transcend this, but I recognize the concern

Yeah, that's fascinating re: Springsteen.

I know a band who got the audience to sing 'happy birthday' to the drummer every night on one tour, each day claiming it was his birthday. The shit you think is funny when you're locked on a coach / in a van / etc for days or weeks on end.

Singing archly over static beats.

― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, February 26, 2014 7:34 AM (1 minute ago)

broad strokes, but okay. don't hear the st. vincent beats as "static" myself. there's a twitchy kind of swing moving things along, and a lot more variety & propulsion than what you get from neko case. the arch delivery has sometimes turned me off in the past ("chloe in the afternoon"), but it isn't bothering me here.

If you can find that, please can you drop that on the Image Bands thread, because this is *exactly* what I was getting at. That this notion of authenticity and spontaneity is completely scripted and cultivated, and I find this stuff so fascinating.

― Bipolar Sumner (Branwell Bell), Wednesday, February 26, 2014 3:38 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah totally. It's been my dream to get my band to do a local show where we mime the whole thing on cardboard cutout instruments, complete with taped stage banter on a backing track etc.

I remember going to see the Mighty Boosh live several years ago back when they were popular. It was the last leg of their tour and I remember laughing like a drain. I was disappointed to find upon buying the DVD later that all the gaffs and 'bits that went wrong' had obviously been tried and tested several times over the course of the tour.

i really tried with this album but i do not get her at all. lo-fi indie sounds are beyond my understanding, i should learn from this

lo-fi? maybe the drums are a bit drum-machiney but... I mean this barely resembles indie music to me any more. i'm not sure what it is, just guitar-pop I guess?

yeah, not hearing anything particularly "lo-fi" abt this. maybe "distorted" is what we're after?

This is close to being my thing. Rhythmically, in particular, I hear some affinity with Tune-Yards's whokill, one of my favourite albums of recent times. I'm just not hearing a lot of really great melodies or songs ideas.

i think i mean lo-fi? horrible drum sounds, cluttered production, sounds like it was recorded in a drainpipe, my usual complaints with this style of music. i don't think i'm going to go back to it to make this a productive semantic discussion tho

feel like this album aims for prince in places and comes out sounding more like beck, it's about as funky as cardboard. i do like the eurythmics-iness of digital witness though

Crossposting to the Image Thread:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/07/30/120730fa_fact_remnick?currentPage=all

definitely have no idea why anyone even brought up prince in the first place, seems wildly off-base to me. beck makes sense though (and i've never liked him either) (and i would call most of his stuff lo-fi too)

fidelity is a question of how well a recording reproduces what was originally played. so distortion is only "lo-fi" if it is introduced by the recording process. many xposts

Singing archly over static beats vs sounds like it was recorded in a drainpipe

It's a wrong-off

I don't think stuff like this is lo-fi, it's just hyper stylized in its distortion and abrasiveness, like Dave Fridmann productions (think: Flaming Lips).

I think "sounds like it was recorded in a drainpipe" counts as lo-fi, since you are saying the whole album sounds like it was run through a pretty dramatic filter? (which I don't hear)

I have similar issues with John Congleton, producer, as I do with Dave Fridmann, and co-sign on "lo-fi", though I would just say "blown out American indie". Every sound was a nice sound! good sound! and then it was run through a reverse-DI into a Death By Audio pedal and then an Electrix roving filter and back through a refurbished Gates compressor and I picture a guy being all like "whoaaaaaa sounds awesome"

Congleton also produced the new Angel Olsen album, which I also disliked.

I don't know Congleton and he has worked on some records I love and I don't like to play the blame game re: producers. But yeah, sometimes an indie record goes for that "pedal board the size of a canoe" sound and I don't like that sound. This is not a bad sounding record! I like it, but can definitely agree with lex on the "lo fi"

this is why you have to play words with friends while recording the album. so you don't run everything through a pedal at the end and think it's awesome.

Congleton also produced the new Angel Olsen album, which I also disliked.

haaaa i tried this last week and couldn't get into it either for exactly the same reason (though was more frustrated with olsen b/c i felt like there were some really striking songs trying to get out from under the lo-finess)

I don't think he knew what to do with her electric songs (tbf I don't think she did either).

I don't think stuff like this is lo-fi, it's just hyper stylized in its distortion and abrasiveness, like Dave Fridmann productions (think: Flaming Lips).

otm, this record actually sounds hi-fi and expensive to me (drums especially!). the parts where the guitar sounds like it was recorded in that dry direct way (no amp) all feel like very intentional choices.

I don't understand Lex's definition of lo-fi if he thinks this album qualifies.

isn't Mr Pretend's whole thing that he doesn't like anything with a remote whiff of rockism or stuff that Q/Mojo writers would ride for? so why would he fuck with her in the first place? am surprised he likes Sky Ferreira…and it would seem "lo-fi" connotes "music not made in order to compete with Danity Kane's "Bye baby" to him.

her shit made no impression on me until I heard the "garbage/masturbate" couplet, and the tune went straight in the memory bank. Just watched her do the song on Colbert, and yesterday watched her talk to Matt Sweeney on his show. She mentioned he uncle Tuck from Tuck and Patti, and I don't think Sweeney had any idea that he was a big cheese in neo-Wes Montgomery/Jim hall guitar mill-yurr.

I don't know if this is the same as the lo-fi thing others are talking about but the effects used on the instrumentation especially the percussion evoke like a whirring collection of intricate mechanical toy instruments, like an intentional attempt to create this constrained miniaturized feeling

there is absolutely nothing lo-fi about this album

yeah, if you find it lo-fi it might be time to invest in some hi-fi: http://www.nathanmarciniak.com/elemental/

some vestigial strands of twee still in the dna

Listening now, pretty much sounds like the last couple of St. Vincent records. I agree the production/aesthetic lets the songs down. I always liked her first album because it seemed fussy and art-rocky but less interested in sublimating the songs in service of some weirdly stifling studio approach. A song like "Now Now" breathes like little of her recent stuff does. She has such a vision that I can't imagine someone telling her what to do - like Prince! - but I still wish she found the right person to tell her what to do, or what not to do, or push her outside of her safety zone, which only sounds safe, ironically, because she keeps doing it. Or maybe a better/looser rhythm section would do the trick, too.

I dunno. She seems to be doing more than well for herself, so what do I know.

It's like even when she leaves space in the music it doesn't feel spare. Even the quiet bits feel dense and exhausting, sometimes in a cool way, sometimes just ... exhausting.

Man, I love Death by Audio pedals. What doesn't sound better though a Death by Audio pedal.

"Pedalboard the size of a canoe" is the single most ~Canadian~ thing anyone on this board has ever said.

This is suffering in my ears by direct comparison with the Neneh Cherry, which is superfically quite similar (electronic production; female voice), but I suspect is trying to do something quite different, and I'm just much more 'ooooh' about the Neneh right now for whatever reason. I think this is good, and interesting, but I've not gone 'fuck me, this is great' at it yet, and I have at several moments of the Neneh.

The Neneh is a great comparison, not because they have a lot in common, but because you can hear how looser, sparer, "live"-er production can successfully support a strong personality. Clark's production doesn't exactly detract, but on her record, everything has personality, but she's got more than enough herself to carry the record without all the whirligigs and whatnots clanking and blooping and buzzing around. But then, Neneh has a few decades of experience over Clark, and a lot less to prove. Very different career places get very different results.

But then, Neneh has a few decades of experience over Clark, and a lot less to prove. Very different career places get very different results.

Yes, good points. "Buffalo Stance" is absolutely stuffed with sonic gimmicks, even for the time.

people have said "b-b-but you like the neneh cherry album" a couple of times after i've complained about st vincent now, i can't really explain why one rough, scratchy-sounding production is so off-putting while the other one i'm enjoying exploring (and suspect it's a bit of a false comparison given that they're different albums in most other respects) but neneh's album is a lot looser and sparser to my ears, and she's foregrounded a lot more over the rumbles and clanks

i had been vaguely wondering whether the neneh album deserves its own thread, it's a really terrific album but all the commentary so far (about four posters) is on the "buffalo stance" thread

It is a great album and there are some sonic similarities but Clark's lyrics are 100x better than Neneh's if you're into words and that.

v possibly true but neneh really sells her lyrics better (none of st v's registered that much apart from the masturbate line which i think i built up too much in my head before hearing it)

You should check out Prince Johnny for starters.

The only lyric that registered on Blank Project was "Life is going faster like a bus that runs me over" and that was for the wrong reasons.

i can see why one might prefer the stark & relatively organic-sounding neneh cherry album to st. vincent's (well-described) whirligigs and whatnots, but i enjoy the kaleidoscopic palette and compulsive filigree for their own sake. there's something quite tense about much of st. vincent, as though it rides, serene or twitching, atop a wave of anxiety. this quality is present in clark's mannered delivery as much as in the hyperkinetic music around her. "birth in reverse" reminds me strongly of early xtc, who share that jittery, seam-bursting intensity and kitchen sink sonics. also: tune-yards, talking heads, marnie stern, etc.

i do agree that the songs, while extremely enjoyable, aren't terribly catchy. i don't go around singing them, have to struggle to remember how a single song goes whenever i look at the tracklist. and i've listened to the album several times. i don't see this as a fault, as some music takes a bit longer to work its way in, and i enjoy st. vincent enough to happily put in whatever time might be required.

Lex I want you to come round my house and listen to these records with me. 'Rough' and 'scratchy' doesn't suit either of them as a description afaic; these both sound excellent and expensive and modern and hi-fi to me, albeit in different ways. I think some people have been using lo-fi in a really weird way that confuses me no end.

^^^

It's cool. Lex uses "Lo-fi" as a philosophical stance, indicating "indie-rock" rather than any kind of musical one.