Does Chapterhouse's 'Whirpool' stand up today?

the london show : 18th march @ the scala with engineers according to advert in new mojo.

I still haven't seen the reformed Chapterhouse. I'm kinda scared. I'm tempted by the Engineers support, but hasn't half the band quite/been sacked since the last show? (I know they seem to do this every few years off and on but still.)

From the official site:

2010 Shows

UK

18th March - Scala, London (with Engineers & Air Formation) **BUY TICKETS**

JAPAN

6th April - Ebisu Liquid Room, Tokyo, Japan (with Ulrich Schnauss)

8th April - Osaka, Japan (with Ulrich Schnauss)

9th April - Super Deluxe, Tokyo, Japan (with Ulrich Schnauss)

USA

1st May- Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto (with Ulrich Schnauss)

3rd May - The Bell House, Brooklyn, NY (with Ulrich Schnauss)

5th May - Lincoln Hall, Chicago (with Ulrich Schnauss)

6th May - Tractor Tavern, Seattle (with Ulrich Schnauss)

7th May - Troubadour, LA (with Ulrich Schnauss)

8th May - Mezzanine, San Francisco (with Ulrich Schnauss)

(The band have tried to fit as many US dates as possible into the limited time they have available & apologise that these dates are so few in number. Now the gigs are confirmed we hope that fans will make an effort to travel to their nearest show)

Whoa!

and SUPER DUPER UGH at the realization that I have three classes and two papers to hand in on May 3

I'm going to the London show on Thurs.

I don't know anything about the Engineers, but people seem to like them.

really intriguing band. i recently came across a song of theirs called 'come heaven'. it sounds like radiohead's 'street spirit' dragged through a storm cloud. obviously it's far more interesting as a result.

whirlpool is quite the loose canon. it comes stocked with a slew of curve balls and never quite snags a uniform feel or sound. i think it benefits as a result. while it borrows from other bands' sounds, it also defies the one-trick method, which was often applied in the shoegaze genre to stagnating effect. 'breather', for instance, fuses the flat-out verve and urgency of ride's best work with the languor of just for a day era slowdive, forging something quite unique in the process.

I wonder sometimes if they would have just been captured best live.

i think they have all the elements in place to be an exhilarating live band. i'm sorry i wasn't able to catch one of their shows last year.

i think this was the first thread i ever started on ILM

i love whirlpool. that's all. it all went wrong when the drummer mentioned that he had a song.

I wonder sometimes if they would have just been captured best live.

After seeing them last year, I would agree.

when the drummer mentioned that he had a song.

i hope you mean bates and not simon scott

I'm generally not too big on the Blood Music-era recordings either, but, echoing the sentiments of others, those songs sounded pretty terrific live iirc.

right well the version of Something More on the reissue isn't the one that was on the original CD/ tape. and it's not the ambient version, that's something else.

THIS version, is nowhere to be found

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vJghdFjk7g

W and indeed TF?

i guess the reissue switched the (Guthrie produced?) album version for the single mix which is this and which i'd NEVER heard until just now. 20 years after it came out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tpDpgiyzf4

they did a re-recording of pearl for a japan floods benefit album. it's serviceable

this album really needs to be polled

were it polled, pearl would surely win by a substantial margin.

Something More is the correct answer, tho

yeah.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-DkizO0o88

I played it many times over about a fortnight ago. It holds up marvellously if you like this kind of thing. In fact maybe it sounds better now than it did then?

i think this is the first thread i ever started on ILXor, did post in other already started threads before this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OMoJl2Q41c

Chapterhouse - live at The Reading Festival, UK 23rd August 1991

i was there. memories are that the sound got blown around by the wind and it wasn't great. the t-shirts were though.

(can't find a picture. think classic motorhead tshirt but with the face of a kitten instead of the skull)

You can hear the sound moving around, period festival recordings off the floor are rarely good.

(the band before were nirvana, the band after were mudhoney, neither of which i remember)

(oh, not mudhoney, dinosaur jr)

This one runs a little fast, I think, decent quality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckJ1B1JBJmQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8GNe2rEu90

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OMEVPsETmM

What a fine idea!

https://www.cherryred.co.uk/product/chapterhouse-chronology-albums-singles-b-sides-remixes-demos-6cd-deluxe-box-set/

DISC ONE
FREEFALL, SUNBURST & WHIRLPOOL
1. ECSTASY II
2. NEED (SOMEBODY)
3. INSIDE OF ME
4. SIXTEEN YEARS
5. SOMETHING MORE (SUNBURST)
6. SATIN SAFE
7. RAIN
8. FEEL THE SAME
9. BREATHER
10. PEARL
11. AUTOSLEEPER
12. TREASURE
13. FALLING DOWN
14. APRIL
15. GUILT
16. IF YOU WANT ME
17. SOMETHING MORE

DISC TWO
PEARL, MESMERISE AND COURTYARD DEMOS
1. COME HEAVEN
2. IN MY ARMS
3. MESMERISE
4. PRECIOUS ONE
5. SUMMER CHILL
6. THEN WE’LL RISE
7. FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH (DEMO)
8. CONFUSION TRIP (DEMO)*
9. RAISED FROM INSIDE (DEMO)*
10. GET TO ME (DEMO)*
11. DREAM ON (DEMO)
12. NEVER ENOUGH (DEMO)*
13. IN THE WAY (DEMO)*
14. IF YOU TRY (DEMO)*
15. UNTIL YOU TRY (DEMO)
16. WALK WATER (DEMO)*

DISC THREE
BLOOD MUSIC AND B-SIDES
1. DON’T LOOK NOW
2. THERE’S STILL LIFE
3. WE ARE THE BEAUTIFUL
4. SUMMER’S GONE
5. EVERYTIME
6. DELI
7. ON THE WAY TO FLY
8. SHE’S A VISION
9. GREATER POWER
10. CONFUSION TRIP
11. LOVE FOREVER
12. PICNIC (NEW EDIT)
13. AGE
14. FROST

DISC FOUR
PENTAMEROUS METAMORPHOSIS (BLOOD MUSIC
RETRANSLATED BY GLOBAL COMMUNICATION)
1. ALPHA PHASE
2. BETA PHASE
3. GAMMA PHASE
4. DELTA PHASE
5. EPSILON PHASE

DISC FIVE
RARITIES AND REMIXES

1. ECSTASY I (DEMO)
2. FALLING DOWN (FREEFALL)
3. IT WON’T BE WRONG
4. LOSING TOUCH WITH MY MIND
5. DIE, DIE, DIE
6. MESMERISE (EXTENDED REMIX)
7. PRECIOUS ONE (EXTENDED REMIX)
8. WE ARE THE BEAUTIFUL (SPOOKY EXTRAVAGANJA MIX)
9. WE ARE THE BEAUTIFUL (SPOOKY’S UGLY AS SIN MIX NEW EDIT)
10. DON’T LOOK NOW (DRUM CLUB’S SITAR TRANCE MIX NEW EDIT)
11. MONTPELLIER FREEWAY*

DISC SIX
DEMOS 1994-1995
1. TOO LATE (DEMO)*
2. OCEAN ARMS (ACOUSTIC DEMO)*
3. HELP YOURSELF (DEMO)*
4. MORE THAN I CAN TAKE (DEMO)
5. LET THE SUNSHINE IN (DEMO)*
6. EVERY GIFT (DEMO)*
7. FEEL (DEMO)
8. WE CAN FLY (DEMO)*
9. ANOTHER LIFE (DEMO)*
10. MEDUSA (DEMO)*
11. I SAW YOU (DEMO)*
12. BRIGHTER (DEMO)
13. MAKE A WISH (DEMO)*
14. ZERODOWN (DEMO)*
15. LOOKING BACK (DEMO)*
16. CRAZY KANE (DEMO)
*previously unreleased

Also, wow at that Cherry Stars Collide box set, and kudos to Cherry Red for having absolutely minimal song overlap amongst their many comps.

whoooooooaaaa!!

Yeah I've had Cherry Stars Collide on preorder for a bit. Inspired idea: too much stuff got squashed into the shoegaze area retrospectively when there was just a more varied and unusual set of approaches going on.

cherry red and another of their only-available-as-an-expensive-box releases

Which is kinda why I love them; I won't buy all (or even a fraction) of these box sets, but I'm glad there are still things that exist as physical artifacts only.

(was talking about the chapterhouse specifically. i was looking for a copy of the first house of love recently and that's the same, 5cds or nothing)

Cherry Stars Collide is a great Spotify playlist but, you know... I already own like 90% of the tracks. The Chapterhouse box set though, hell yeah.

i guess you've all heard this, from 1972

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnQ5Pt1sLEU

That's gorgeous, didn't know it was a sample.

Really wished they made more music, it seemed like they might have gone a lot of different places.

There's a Scott Walker version too but it's very different.

I listened to the Global Communication remixes a couple of weeks ago. If there was a better randomly weird/great ambient/indie collab in the 90's, I've yet to hear it.

slowdive in-mind remixes?

Mu-Ziq/Auteurs comes to mind. Less ambient tho.

Also, Aphex Twin/Seefeel.

Also Aphex/Jesus Jones

Not better but definitely randomly weird and, I guess, not what the label were looking for

Surely Aphex/Seefeel is less randomly weird than all that, for Aphex it almost sounded like a collaboration.

Yes, definitely weighted toward the great ambient/indie collab side of the scale.