seefeel thread for discussion of relevant informations pertaining to the "quique redux" 2cd superbonus reissue (and other seefeel matters)

yes, and are also some of the best things they've done. plus i like the cover of fracture / tied - designers republic, nice heavy orange card, silver ink, slight embossing...

also worth a listen:
isan remix of when face was face
http://www.cocteautwins.com/html/discography/discog_23.html (cocteaus remixed by clifford)
2x disjecta mini lps on warp

oh wow! i have that Cocteaus EP, think it's pleasant enough for late Cocteaus material but i haven't given it more than a couple spins really. i had no idea some guy from Seefeel was involved either. i'll have to pull that out tomorrow, then...

thanks!

anyone else?

Listen to them chronologically as there is definitely a development of their sound and it can be divided into two halves: Too Pure releases and post-Too Pure releases. While the first ep (More Like Space) doesn't sound like a rock band, except for the last track, you can get a sense of rock composition from the songs. This gets thrown out the window on Plainsong when they start adding more and more layers and definitely go for a machine vibe. Quique has moments when it sounds like a rock band, but most of all it's the pinnacle of layering and density in the early sound. Imperial is one of my favorite pieces of music ever.

When they switched to Warp (you really should get Starethrough because it's fucking incredible), they started to strip back the elements so that by the time you get to Ch-Vox, it's so sparse, it's almost like listening to sonar blips. There are some fine moments on these records, but I admit I prefer the earlier ones more. Also, if you can locate it, their contributions to the Ancient Lights and the Black Core compilation on Sub Rosa are some of the highlights of their later work.

What Bill said.

Bill, thanks, that's a fantastic summary. I'm really looking forward to these now, more so than before. I checked the 4 songs on Starethrough, doesn't look like there's any overlap with their full-lengths (or maybe 1 track, i forget). watching a copy of that on eBay right now ;-) so i'll try to snag it for a few bucks.

> Also, if you can locate it, their contributions to the Ancient Lights and the Black Core compilation on Sub Rosa are some of the highlights of their later work.

lots very cheap listed on amazon.com. if only i knew a tame american who could pick up a copy for me...

Nope, Starethrough is all non-album material. I remember buying it when it came out and wondering if it was the same band that put out Quique--it's that different from its predecessor.

Also, I highly recommend Mark Clifford's collaboration with Simon Kealoha on Clifford's Polyfusia label. Running Taper is the name. It's much more of a software-processed affair than his other work and sorta reclaims the space between Seefeel and Fennesz.

Otherwise, I think the other side projects are less than the sum of the whole band. There are a few Scala tracks that I like, but they never really did much for me. The first Disjecta album is good (because Looking for Snags sounds exactly like Dubstep circa 1995), but after that until the collaboration mentioned above, I unfortunately found Clifford's stuff hit-or-miss to completely uninteresting. If you can find it, Mark Van Hoen (their engineer aka Locust) put out a really good album in the late 90s called Playing with Time.

I bought the original last week, as it was available used. I used to be a bit ambivalent about Seefeel, but damn, this album is amazing.

http://www.bleep.com/?bleep=FUS005

new release on polyfusia. 4 track ep.

01 - Blue-Fi1 (3:32) - Mark Clifford
02 - Blue-Fi2 (2:58) - Mark Clifford
03 - Prychynna (4:31) - Zaudloka
04 - Rankova (Midnight Edit) (6:49) - Zaudloka

Listening to Polyfusia right now. Completely forgot how stunningly gorgeous this record is.

ah yes, stunning record. i think i'll join you in a spin.

It makes me sad that this band isn't as widely revered as, say, The Orb. They really deserve much more praise than they get.

You'd think there would have been primed for some serious critical re-appraisal about 5 years ago or so, when all those MBV-meets-laptronica bands like (early)M83, Ulrich Schnauss & all the Morr acts started popping up all over the place. That shit has Seefeel's fingerprints all over it.

Haha, I was about to post here saying what Pillbox just said. I finally snagged this reissue over the weekend and hearing it now in 2009 in such a context is breathtaking. But what's interesting is that while it does predate those styles and predicts them, Quique very much is its own sound, and there's things going on almost track for track (like the astonishing bassline on "Industrious") that few of the modern bunch are either able or willing to try.

I listened to this on Spotify and thoroughly enjoyed it. I think I'll listen to it again now.

Still prefer Ulrich Schnauss, mind. :p

This album came out right around the time I started buying CDs (instead of tapes, ya I M old) and somehow I never got around to buying it on CD or on vinyl, even though I had virtually everything else in Seefeel's catalogue on one of those formats. So basically, since all of my tapes are stashed away somewhere now, I hadn't listened to "Quique" in ages before I bought the reissue. And yeah, it was astonishing to hear it again. It sounds so fresh, novel, and unpredictable these days, which is weird because at the time a lot of people dismissed them as MBV/Cocteau Twins rip-off fetishists!

Yeah this is a 10/10 star totally great album, unfuckwithable. I dug out the reissue last week also and listened to it and was of course blown away.

Does anyone rate the stuff that comes after Quique? I like Polyfusia well enough but haven't given much time to Ch-Vox or that other record of theirs that came later...

The Starethrough EP is pretty great!

anything with "starethrough" on it is necessarily gonna be great, but which one? the warp cd one or the white label?

aren't they the same?

Still prefer Ulrich Schnauss, mind. :p
Craziest talk on ILX yet!

Succor remains my favorite Seefeel by a mile.... they've lost some of the shoegazing qualities, in favor of a more ambient/dub/isolationist character. One of the best things Rephlex ever released; still can't understand why this hasn't gotten a reissue.

http://www.discogs.com/Seefeel-Succour/release/3617

there's things going on almost track for track (like the astonishing bassline on "Industrious") that few of the modern bunch are either able or willing to try

Mebbe cuz the Seefeel guys were at one point rockers? Whereas I could never truly accept M83 as a rock act. Most of Seefeel's distinctiveness, to me, from a 2009 standpoint comes from the feeling that the boundaries between electronic music and rock are still porous.

Seefeel fans, set those turntables to stun! Hot off the heels of Too Pure’s revamped reissuance of the late, lamented London quartet’s 1993 opus Quique, we are beyond thrilled to announce that we’ll bringing this outstanding release to your hi-fi as a 4-platter vinyl set early next year. This fabtabulous offering will be limited to 500 copies (100 of them blue) and brought to you in beautiful gatefold packaging. Nearly 15 years after its debut, this daring exercise in ambient glory sounds every bit as ambitious as it did then, so don’t miss this rare opportunity to rediscover this long out-of-print masterwork in fantastic wax.

That was late 2007 on a clairecords newsletter, guess it never happened.

i thought this was pronounced KEE-KAY, like the diminutive of Enrique. Thank you strongo hulkington (RIP) for educating me so i don't make a faux-pas in a hypothetical future Seafeel conversation that I may have.

I prefer the Moby Dick pronunciation of "kwee-kway" but whatever, it's gorgeous.

I was sure it was "Keek", at least that's what I remember.

I have been mentally pronouncing it as "kweekweh" but that is because I keep thinking it's a Latin word like "quisque" or "quoque" and it isn't. But as yet I've never had any call to talk about it out loud.

Whoops, Succour was on Warp (as the link I provided showed!). And MP3s are available on Bleep.com! Let the record show that I'm an idiot.

"Keek" is how reviewers were describing the pronunciation at the time...while we on the topic, how's Tricky's debut pronounced?...Max-In-Kway or Max-In-Key?...or neither?...or both?

had not actually encountered this record before finding it the other day; love the way everything just billows outwards around those basslines.

do you think they'll give the re-ish treatment to any of the other stuff? probably gets a bit complicated when it's spread over different labels.

The last School of Seven Bells EP has a remix by Seefeel ("Chain") - didn't seem to attract much attention?

I recently emailed Too Pure begging them to reissue all the other stuff. Still regard "Quique" as severely underrated

could listen to 'climactic phase #3' all day - like the long, slow-morph patterns that spiritualized were mining circa pure phase.

i was just listening to "succour" this morning, it's weird how their whole career was like their music decaying into its most basic elements. and then on ch-vox they lost EVERYTHING but the guitar.

could listen to 'climactic phase #3' all day - like the long, slow-morph patterns that spiritualized were mining circa pure phase.

― the shane bourne identity (haitch), Tuesday, August 11, 2009 11:50 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

So funny you say that; I've been really into Pure Phase recently and the two share a very distinct connection

definitely my fave spiritualized record. as much as i like the next couple of records, i kinda wish j spaceman had pushed the pure phase envelope a bit further!

New EP coming out on the 21st. "Faults." On Warp. Excited!

http://media.warp.net/images/WARPCD205Packshot_480.jpg

Out 7th February 11
Vinyl, Download & CD
WARP207

Digital Tracklisting

01 - O-on one
02 - Dead Guitars
03 - Step Up
04 - Faults
05 - Gzaug
06 - Rip-run
07 - Making
08 - Step Down
09 - Airless

link

Hmm. Didn't expect that as a cover.

I saw them the other night - my second time since they came back. As support for the NEU - Rother / Shelley thing they were pretty fantastic. As a headline last month at the ICA - meh, not so much.

At the Barbican the other night they were great and I don't think they played many (any?) of the older tracks. The Japanese bass and drums really took over I felt. For the best - loved it. Looking forward to new releases,

Anyone heard the Faults EP? Any good?

Hoooooly shit I'm kicking myself for not having heard it yet. I'm two tracks in right now and it's VERY good; this will probably be in my year-end top 10.

Oh, they definitely played older material at the Barbican. I'm never good with track names but at the very least they did Time To Find Me.

And yeah, that show made me want to hear the new album now.

woah I had no idea these dudes reformed! also: cool EP cover

PS thank you ILM for getting me to buy the quique reissue when it first came out, that was a good choice

ah fuck I used my new display name to post in the thread that inspired it, PARTY FOUL

faults is very good, yes. can't decide whether track 4 (which is a lot emptier) is the best or worst thing on it though.

ooh, new gig date, 31st jan. king's place too.

btw, the warp link above says you can get free copy of Faults ep for signing up to their seefeel info list.

I am not liking Faults so far. I want to, but it just sounds kinda cheesy and bad and not very Seefeel to me.

I hope they eventually can get to the states again, that 2019 show was tremendous

I'm certain that Extract from Succour has a sample of your dude dying in Contra

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

Snes death at 1:39

I hope they eventually can get to the states again, that 2019 show was tremendous

Per my interview with Mark, he definitely would love to come back so it won't be for lack of trying.

that new EP is astonishing

also i still play the s/t a lot... only good music in the seefeel catalog

For a second I thought you were saying 'the' only good music and I was going to abjure you.

Haha yeah I was like “…. What….”

haha oops. well i don't think the s/t gets enough love tbf

Aw yeah, new release now up:

https://seefeel.bandcamp.com/album/squared-roots

Is the touring version of Seefeel now just Mark Clifford? I was happy to find out that they're playing in Florence in April in a great space (https://www.musicusconcentus.com/sala-vanni-firenze/). The description here makes it sound like it's him and an A/V guy:

. . . questo A/V live show vede protagonisti il fondatore dei Seefeel Mark Clifford assieme all’artista visuale Dan Conway: uno show unico, capace di immergere lo spettatore nelle atmosfere musicali del celebre gruppo inglese.

If it's Mark Clifford and yer gran on bongoes, it's still Seefeel.

Ha, kinda. When I interviewed him a few months back he didn't give any indication that the general core live lineup had changed much, but I do get a sense it can be a bit ad hoc depending on availability, with Sarah living in Berlin etc.

https://boomkat.com/products/quique-redux-edition-3bddc8d9-0483-45a1-be03-48039bcbbf04

quique redux 2025 remaster?

same tracklisting

(oh, i read march as may, so this is out already)

wait, is this a remaster of a remaster?

oddly the boomkat newsletter today was touting a quique non-redux 2025 remaster.

(which makes 4 versions now)

https://boomkat.com/products/pure-impure-expanded-edition

cd actually cheaper than the two original eps from 94/95

https://www.brooklynvegan.com/seefeel-announce-first-album-in-15-years-share-ever-no-way/

Quite right.

https://seefeel.bandcamp.com/album/sol-hz

Lucky enough to be listening to an advance -- it's a treat, of course, as the recent EPs showed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S0-OstIrZI

awesome

love the intense guitar focus for a song that has basically no recognizable guitar

I didn't know what to make of the minimalism of this when I first heard it, but it's growing on me, drawing me deeper in

bandcamp cds were listed as sold out. but bleep was always going to be a better option anyway, given that it's on warp. and they have a special 2cd edition with a mix by someone. which felt reasonably priced until they added £6 postage, tracked, non-optional.

https://bleep.com/format/1923117-solhz

"Exclusive Seefeel mix CD by Kenyan sound artist KMRU with first run of CDs"

sol.hz out today

A++ listening on good speakers/headphones in the dark music

didn't grab me on first listen. did enjoy the mix cd though