So, Manitoba then...

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I really don't like this record at all. I listened to it once through. Then I put it on to listen it through again the next day and I couldn't get past song 2. Then I put on the first album and realised I don't really like that much either: it's far too sparse, compared to what I thought. Whereas Up In Flames is too too busy, and I don't like the feel of it. I much prefer the (similar) Glifted album. (Check amg).

― Cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 19 April 2003 09:21 (twenty-one years ago) link

Hmmm. Just bought Up in Flames the other day, and didn't like it much on first listen. It seemed too muddy: lots of stuff going on but not really coalescing. Not even dense enough to be interesting as noise. And melodically disappointing, too. But I don't know, it's sort of growing on me. I think the key is headphones.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 21:03 (twenty-one years ago) link

I've still not listened to it on headphones properly (I've got quite a decent seperates set-up in a dedicated room though; it's very easy to listen to summat properly when you're able to do that).

I've just got hold of the Assholes... 12" and a track off the Giv'r 12" too; both are very unlike the UIF material but obviously of a kin, and very good too. This guy is slowly cementing himself as my fave current artist.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 30 April 2003 07:02 (twenty-one years ago) link

Headphones are totally key.

Funny thing is, it's totally grown on me. I thought it sounded like a Chapterhouse album on first listen. But now I'm hearing more of Mercury Rev in there. Like _See You On The Other Side_ era Rev. Maybe even hints of the more mellow songs on BOCES.

I like it. I like it more and more every day.

― kate, Thursday, 1 May 2003 09:44 (twenty-one years ago) link

Screw the drums, I've decided it's all about the SPACE FLUTE!!!

― kate, Thursday, 1 May 2003 09:47 (twenty-one years ago) link

It's too short, and some of the songs are a bit samey, but I like listening to it.

― Nordicskillz (Nordicskillz), Thursday, 1 May 2003 09:50 (twenty-one years ago) link

i love the drums

― ne0-ge0, Thursday, 1 May 2003 15:50 (twenty-one years ago) link

Are you saying that even though the album is samey you wish it were longer?

― Mark (MarkR), Thursday, 1 May 2003 17:03 (twenty-one years ago) link

I'm not sure if this is what Nordicskillz means, but I kinda feel like if the album were longer, then the sameyness of the songs would seem more cohesive: it'd be sprawling and epic. Since it's so short, it's sometimes hard for me to get totally immersed in the sound. Maybe?

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 1 May 2003 17:10 (twenty-one years ago) link

Oddly I don't like this album so much on headphones, the laptop roots are too obvious, on speakers it sounds organic and orgasmic.

And too short? One of the reasons I love this LP is that it fills the spaces in my life, my heart sinks when I slip a new CD in and 76:00 illuminates. Basic algebra means that the shorter the goodness then the more times you can listen to the goodness, which is good, right?

― Mike (mratford), Thursday, 1 May 2003 22:04 (twenty-one years ago) link

I think the new Ulrich Schnauss sends me the way Up in Flames was supposed to.

― Andy K (Andy K), Thursday, 1 May 2003 22:23 (twenty-one years ago) link

you lucky sod Andy - advance copies of the platters that matter! are we going to get an advance review, of "A Strangle Isolated Place" on Dubscrape?

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Thursday, 1 May 2003 22:40 (twenty-one years ago) link

Haha DJ M I assure you my primary connection is Slsk. The review will probably go up through my usual outlet in a couple weeks.

― Andy K (Andy K), Thursday, 1 May 2003 23:02 (twenty-one years ago) link

The thing that annoys me about this CD is I can't find it in stores, and when I try to download tracks I get nothing but stuff from the old CD.

― David Allen, Friday, 2 May 2003 00:21 (twenty-one years ago) link

he's playing the ICA on friday june the 6th, it seems.

― toby (tsg20), Friday, 2 May 2003 08:01 (twenty-one years ago) link

three weeks pass...

so, manitoba's show then...
i was really, really impressed. although i have my suspicions about how much was actually live – it's a marked improvement. is too bad, they didn't do any tracks from start breaking mt heart. they did the bear mask thing for about half the show & the visuals were really neat-o too.

― dyson (dyson), Wednesday, 28 May 2003 17:07 (twenty years ago) link

How packed was it dyson?

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Wednesday, 28 May 2003 17:31 (twenty years ago) link

i've seen it worse (it was at lees). but it was sold out for sure.
there was more elbow room after manitoba finnished and prefuse came on.

― dyson (dyson), Wednesday, 28 May 2003 18:22 (twenty years ago) link

That reminds me, must get Fall tickets for there.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Wednesday, 28 May 2003 18:26 (twenty years ago) link

Just got back from seeing them in Chicago - I knew absolutely nothing about them going in, hadn't heard a note, etc. Three guys came on wearing bear masks, two of them start drumming to synched-up video/animation projections, third plucking some open-tuned guitar stuff. A very engaging show, very carefully orchestrated with the animation and films, but after a little while - impressed as I was with the drumming chops and the space-y density of the sound - I got kind of irritated by how pre-planned everything in the show had to have been. For one thing, they played along to backing tracks for every song - and not just a part or two, but entire, major instrumental passages/parts were pre-programmed, including all the vocals(!), lots of drums, lots of organ/guitar washes, lots of weird looped stuff. The three guys on-stage were just embellishing what was coming out of the laptop and samplers basically. Without the visual gimmickry disguising the lack of actual instrument-playing going on onstage, it would have gotten annoying fairly quickly. But the overall *sound* of the show was quite good, even if the songs started to run together and sound a bit same-y, so I give them some respect. Seems like a band where yr better off just buying the record. To me if you're gonna get onstage, do something different. It's sad to think they have to do the same exact show every night, but given how they have everything so tightly sequenced, I'm sure that's how it is...

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 28 May 2003 22:26 (twenty years ago) link

praising an album by comparing it to blood music is weird. i learned recently that andrew sherriff won an emmy for writing music about dinosaurs. he should never have let the drummer write a song.

― keith (keithmcl), Wednesday, 28 May 2003 22:32 (twenty years ago) link

A Canadian guy was in Emma's shop the other day and he said Dawlish reminded him of Manitoba. Kewl.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 10:33 (twenty years ago) link

I'm not gonna read this entire thread, but since the mere existence of such a thread inspired me to listen to the damn thing, I just want to say that the Manitoba album is as dead-assed boring as any album I've heard this year. That's all. God, I love young people today.

― chuck, Tuesday, 3 June 2003 15:48 (twenty years ago) link

(Damn straight.)

― Cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 16:00 (twenty years ago) link

ha i think i said something really awful about ilm/manitoba on another thread, so it doesnt bear repeating, but damn is this thing boring boring BORING

― jess (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 16:07 (twenty years ago) link

you should hear what manitoba's been sayin about you¡

― dyson (dyson), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 16:13 (twenty years ago) link

God, I love young people today.

With an attitude like that you should line yourself up for CMJ.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 16:54 (twenty years ago) link

ha i think i said something really awful about ilm...
what? you, jess? surely not

― zebedee (zebedee), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 17:03 (twenty years ago) link

girl u kno its true

― jess (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 17:04 (twenty years ago) link

>>God, I love young people today.
With an attitude like that you should line yourself up for CMJ.<<

But those are young people too!! Jeez....

― chuck, Tuesday, 3 June 2003 18:05 (twenty years ago) link

young compared to the pyramids, perhaps.

― dyson (dyson), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 19:19 (twenty years ago) link

Well, at least they don't wear bear masks.

― chuck, Tuesday, 3 June 2003 19:39 (twenty years ago) link

"while Brian Wilson watches" = the punchline to a very bad dream

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 19:47 (twenty years ago) link

Shakey Mo, I think you nailed the Manitoba issue in your live review above: it's all about the sound, and I don't doubt that they go to great (and maybe dubious) lengths to reproduce it in concert. The album Up In Flames reminds me of most is the Boo Radley's Everything's Alright Forever, in that they captured that year's hallucinogenic state-of-the-art so well that, for the first few listens, you could blissfully ignore the fact that they forgot to bring the tunes. Not that they're aren't both woozily pretty, or that they don't have the *veneer* of the psychedelic masterpiece that was clearly intended, but with the exception of a couple charming songs it's all styrofoam peanuts inside.

― Sean Thomas (sgthomas), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 20:10 (twenty years ago) link

the Boo Radley's Everything's Alright Forever, in that they captured that year's hallucinogenic state-of-the-art so well that, for the first few listens, you could blissfully ignore the fact that they forgot to bring the tunes

A brilliant call! (That Boos album, one or two songs aside, just lacks anything to remember.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 20:14 (twenty years ago) link

Everyone (near London) should go see Manitoba at the ICA on Sunday, because Dublin's best band, the don't-call-them-post-rock 8-man-and-a-lady music monster The Jimmy Cake are playing support and it's less than a tenner in.

(I may be biased. But everyone agrees it's them versus Redneck Manifesto for ruler of Dublin bands).

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 20:49 (twenty years ago) link

Girl you know it's true. But what can I do? Ooh ooh ooh.

― kate, Wednesday, 4 June 2003 07:42 (twenty years ago) link

I still luuuuuurve it. But I guess I don't see at as some ultimate psychedelic rock album or anything, I just view it as madhead electronica which happens to have some guitars and skronking in there instead of (and as well as) blippy blip blips and broken radios and digital squelches.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 08:18 (twenty years ago) link

Everything's Alright Forever. Now THERE is a record that I miss, and I should pick up again. Does This Hurt? Phew!

Probably won't be able to make the show on Friday, though, as I think Joe and I are going out to visit his mum's country cottage.

― kate, Wednesday, 4 June 2003 08:29 (twenty years ago) link

And I don't get how it could be seen as 'boring' of all things.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 08:32 (twenty years ago) link

two weeks pass...

Wow, I am just baffled by all the hooplah about this album. Once again Pitchfork is up their ass. If Beulah had made this album, they would have given it a 5.5

Sure, there's a few nice tunes on here, and the guy's to be patted on the back for trying some new things, but that's as far as I'll go. And who likes all the free-jazzy noodling crap that appears on a few of the tracks? That's supposed to be tuneful?

In case any of you aren't in the know, Manitoba is the name of the lamest province in Canada, and home to Winnipeg, the lamest city in Canada. So a Canadian naming their act Manitoba is akin to an American naming their act err... Iowa or maybe Wyoming.

― blutroniq (blutroniq), Thursday, 19 June 2003 06:39 (twenty years ago) link

I wanna call my next band Milton Barnet. Yeah.

― kate (kate), Thursday, 19 June 2003 07:15 (twenty years ago) link

Yeah man, he was so rude to not write any tunes.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Thursday, 19 June 2003 07:17 (twenty years ago) link

Dude, if there really was free-jazz noodling on any of the tracks, do you think I'd be within a mile of it?

― kate (kate), Thursday, 19 June 2003 07:26 (twenty years ago) link

I now kind of want to hear this because - pretty much without exception - EVERYBODY on ILM whose taste I trust says it's bad and everybody whose taste I don't says it's good (pls don't feel flattered or insulted by this by the way) so how I feel will be a useful test of this board as a recommendation-generator.

― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Thursday, 19 June 2003 07:30 (twenty years ago) link

Yes kate.

Yes Tico Tico.

I still wuv it.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Thursday, 19 June 2003 07:31 (twenty years ago) link

Tico, you would hate it. And I mean that in the best of all possible ways, you chartpop loving freak.

"Love the Beach Boys and Mercury Rev? Really want to prove your avante guarde trendiness by getting into IDM and bleepmusic, but you really just can't get your head around the lack of TUNES?!?!? Manitoba is the band for you!"

― kate (kate), Thursday, 19 June 2003 07:39 (twenty years ago) link

still don't get this manitoba album. i mean its all very pretty, but i can't really get much deeper into it than that. is there something im missing?

― Bob Shaw (Bob Shaw), Thursday, 19 June 2003 07:46 (twenty years ago) link

And what's wrong with prettiness for pretty's sake?

― kate (kate), Thursday, 19 June 2003 07:47 (twenty years ago) link

Nowt.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Thursday, 19 June 2003 07:54 (twenty years ago) link

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