Zammuto

yeah literally half of it is spent talking about the breakup of The Books, then the other half has sentences like this:

The frozen, wintry album art is the inverse of Zammuto’s verdant-spring look, and what’s inside is similarly chilly, a downcast collection of tunes that counts as Zammuto’s most low-key work since the Books’ underrated 2005 LP Lost and Safe.

which to my ears doesn't really describe this at all - the last 3 tracks (not counting "Codebreaker") are rather chilly but I found a lot of this album to be accessible and fun. or this:

The record marks a specific shift in Zammuto’s sound—more straightforward, less nervy, a Rube Goldberg device replaced with a single manual lever

I don't see how you can say this if you're paying much attention, the songs may be a little more poppier than what he's done in the past but there's more sonic oddness and goofball song structuring than on any of his previous LPs. Then to say "Need Some Sun" is an example of his (more intricate?) earlier sound when it's the most straightforward tune on here.

I agree it's baffling. If they'd have given it the same reviewer that did their first LP I wonder what he would've rated it.

He just released a new EP. I'm just gonna c/p the whole description here. It's really excellent. (not that I expected anything less)

“My Dog’s Eyes” is based on an outdated list of children’s favorite things. Zammuto took each image, found its rhythmic heartbeat and intrinsic melody, and put them in order of increasing tempo as a structural basis for the track. He then composed additional instrumentation around this structure, in the process revealing the natural cadence and harmony within each phrase.

On “You Can Feel So Good,” Zammuto built a tuned array of PVC pipes and a device that holds a small speaker in the optimal position for re-recording sounds though them (pictured on the Veryone's cover). Using Zammuto’s well- documented, innovative record-scratching process, unique vinyl rhythms were pushed through the pipes to create the rhythmic and melodic structures of the track. He coupled this with a beautiful voice from a vintage meditation tape from the 1970s, chopped and tuned to match the pipe resonances. A portion of this track originally appeared in the 'New Now' episode of Adult Swim's show Off The Air.

For the final track, “Smolt,” Zammuto guitarist, Nick Oddy, donated an old Epiphone SG electric guitar, of which Nick Zammuto removed the frets. By tuning, pitching and delaying improvisations on the fretless guitar, Zammuto sequenced a number of interlocking melodies and rhythms. An old choral tape sample, which happened to be in the same key as the guitar, became the counterpoint. To complete the piece, a lot of 'noise' from recordings of rain and fire were adapted as a kind of “smoldering” backdrop.

https://zammuto.bandcamp.com/album/veryone

coolio

Is this thread pretending to be brand new for anyone else?

it does for me. I have no clue why.