insides - euphoria

forgot about Underground Lovers...

wasn't Clear Skin a 4AD release?

TU7 cat no. = "Temporary" Guernica release. the last, to date.

guess LMB wasn't a re-release. first issue was in the UK, on Guernica. released in Australia on Polydor later that year ('94). i must have been thinking about the US version of Dream it Down, which IIRC swapped out four new tracks for LMB tracks.

I managed to finally hear this record. I remember when it came out because I had a friend who was really into 4AD and basically bought everything they released during this period, but he never managed to acquire this one. A lot of stuff on the label at the time managed to sound gothy even when it wasn't trying to (cf., the first couple of HNIA records).

It's a good record and the production on it sounds exactly like an AR Kane record. I especially like how they recorded the drum machines and the sampled loop of wobbly cymbals on the final track is esp. nice. My only complaint is that the vocals do kind of get in the way a little bit. I prefer them on the tracks where they are more buried in the mix even though the bjork-ish phrasing is a little irritating also. I think I will mostly get beyond these criticisms on a few repeat listenings though. This one is a grower, as they say.

Guernica put out a special edition of Unrest's Imperial FFRR in the UK and Europe if I recall.

Ah, now I remember - the first Guernica wave was late '92 - Unrest (who subsequently released stuff on 4AD proper), Underground Lovers, Bettie Serveert (two of those were reissues or licensing things from other labels - maybe all of 'em); then Spoonfed/Insides/That Dog in '93, then the Insides one-off in mid-'94. I bought 'em on vinyl because you got a free 7" with the LPs (obv "Clear Skin" was CD only).

This record is excruciatingly beautiful. Like huddling under heavy blankets, sweating, turned on, listening to someone tell you their darkest thoughts. It makes me sad that so few answered this poll or responded to this thread, but it makes sense. It's just such a private record, almost embarassingly so, and in fact I just realized I don't think I've ever shared my love of this record with anyone else. Even listening to it makes me feel almost uncomfortably vulnerable. I love it.

Clarke B?

It's me! Hey Ned... "Long time" would be an understatement.

Yes indeed, you drunken sommelier. :-D How's that all going?

Well, I'm still up in Brooklyn, working for the French portfolio of a small-ish wine importer, and really enjoying my work. For a while I was so immersed in wine, and trying to catch myself up in terms of knowledge and experience, that I feel like my other interests dropped off a bit... But I suppose balance beckons to be restored, and so I find myself on my couch on a humid Sunday night, reading ILM and thinking about this beautiful, beautiful album. :-)

And a fine choice of album indeed. I haven't listened to it in a bit and will do so now.

What did you think, Ned? ("Darling Effect" would have to be my favorite.)

"Distractions" sounds like "Love To Stay" by Altered Images

Digging around I found the few non-album songs by Earwig, Insides' immediate predecessor, that I didn't have on their own one album, Under My Skin I Am Laughing. (Most of the B-sides/singles got collected on a compilation, Past, but I've still never been able to find a copy of that.) Mixed batch but I like them, you can hear them being a louder 'rock' band as such early on.

I had a copy of Past, the only copy I've ever seen, and I accidentally sold it back to Amoeba last year in a box along with a ton of other things. I went back to find it later that week and it was nowhere to be found. That said, despite the scarcity of it, I didn't find it that great; Under my Skin was much much better.

Agreed, the singles are more woodshedding than anything else. But you can hear them start to settle on a sound as they go.

looking at this:

http://eil.com/Shop/ExtSearch.asp?DiscArtist=Earwig

all three of those ep covers look very familiar but i could've sworn i was missing one. or maybe i'm missing a 4th ep. ah, yes, the Every Day Shines 12".

there was also an insides promo 12" with clear skin remixes on it that i found cheap in notting hill but my copy of which i think jumps. (Eyesore DB says GUP4)

as mike said i went to the label launch (Borderline (Break For The Border?), London, same place i saw UVS and that first B&S gig) where insides played two sets, the first of which became Clear Skin. mesmerising to the point where you had to remember to breathe. years later i heard steve reich and the spell was somewhat broken but hey...

there was also an insides promo 12" with clear skin remixes on it

! Now that I'd love to hear.

Actually somehow I had missed that the original release of Euphoria had a separate 7" single as well.

> Now that I'd love to hear.

if only someone had, say, posted it on an mp3 blog (and on my birthday too)

http://theblackenedair.blogspot.com/2009/10/insides-clear-skin-promo.html

Astounding.

And thanks!

Wow thanks Koogs!

I still have never heard the Earwig album or Clear Skin itself, appallingly.

Good lord, man.

Ha I know - it actually feels vaguely shameful considering how important Euphoria has been to me for so long.

Me on Under My Skin from ten years back:

http://freakytrigger.co.uk/old-ft/essays/1999/02/earwig/

Ned I've been imagining the record ever since I read your review ten years ago! That was the first I'd heard of it - I think i actually picked up Euphoria that year due to all the cross-references with Disco Inferno, Bark Psychosis etc.

cross-references on a.m.a. I mean.

Something really needs to be done about this! And that sounds like something that would be cross-referenced on a.m.a. that way...

tim i have clear skin, if i can track down the cd in my many boxes i will set it aside for you

Thanks Jim! No pressure though, I know what scouring through boxes of CDs is like...

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

so sick

i hate lovers
i hate the way they go to the bathroom
in shifts
after
they fuck

Possibly my favorite song by them, definitely my favorite lyric.

huh.

http://www.animalsonwheels.co.uk/index.php/2010/08/16/a-new-old-tune/#content

Good find!

thanks!

pretty good track. very 90s idm. which, um, makes sense.

only 3 votes in the original poll makes me sad, but I guess this album is kind of the definition of a hidden gem--as much as I love it, I wouldn't play it for just anyone.

i played "Relentless" once extremely late at a house party a while ago, like Sunday afternoon late, about 6 or 7 people in the room just dancing and chatting and drinking, it went down well I think though admittedly I just wanted to hear it myself

this album means so much to me but I still haven't heard Clear Skin

I just got into this in the last two years. Prefer Clear Skin to Euphoria. Got the canadian? cd ep off Amazon or Discogs recently for a buck or two. Reminds me of Reich in places.

It seems I have the mp3s for the Clear Skin promo too. They also had a track on one of the Volume comps.

Never understood the hoopla for this album - always seemed like a more boring Laika

Hurrah Neil Kulkarni once more:

http://thequietus.com/articles/07267-the-euphoria-of-insides

Some full-throated poptimism there at the start too!

Not much of a Mogwai fan I take it?

Those American bands I did care about that got called ‘post-rock’ always had too much of an obsession with melody and rhythm going on to ever be called anything other than pop (Bowery Electric, Jessamine, Labradford, Windy & Carl)

Uh...

I should tell Windy and Carl about that, actually...

Coincidentally, I was humming a Labradford song only yesterday.

I think it was the one that started on middle C. And stayed there for the next five minutes.

Missed the Kulkarni feature at the time but just caught up, I hadn't realised They had another band before Insides. The music seems to be legally available here:

http://earwiguk.bandcamp.com/

I Need Feel is an amazing track.

don't know if she was joking, but it sounded a bit too random to not be true!

I thought Earwig had got decent reviews at the time they were around so somewhat surprised to hear that. I think I picked up Euphoria after the fact so assume I had seen good reviews of it. Thinking it must have been a cheap cd shop in Dublin in the late 90s.
Thought it got some recognition at the time.

I don't remember the shows being *completely* empty the few times I saw Earwig, although they were in little places like the Camden Falcon. Not saying anecdote is... unbelievable.

I just.

Lol, Nick, you missed the punchline on the joke. After Kirtsy said that the only person who saw one of their shows was the guy from EMF, there was a brief pause before the follow on…

…drumroll…

“Unbelievable.”

but i wanted to believe!

good long interview: https://toneglow.substack.com/p/048-insides

Great interview! Nice to see some discussion of Sweet Tiptoo, which is a charming record really

I was in a bad mood the other day.

Glad I bought "Soft Bonds", glad I stumped up for the live show (which I think is available for £6.60 until tomorrow). Always thought they were brilliant ("Euphoria" is comfortably *Top 5*) but they seem lovely, too.

All aware of this:

https://music.heavenslathe.co.uk/album/crumb-dropper?token=EC-54113655M49928549

100 only but copies currently available.

^ Digital version of this available from Friday, apparently.

both records £10 on bandcamp for bandcamp friday

excellent, I can finally get a vinyl copy of Euphoria

hey

It’s about time we started posting about this because l👀k ⬇️

Doors at 7, ends at 10. We’re doing a full set. All the rest of it. Look at the art. Smooch to the music. Forget your summer holiday. A FIVER?!https://t.co/s9zeoRdUkr pic.twitter.com/RrSRxeXWSp

— INSIDES (@Insides__) June 30, 2023

Classically it is on a train strike day!

oh no wayyy! was definitely thinking about going

I've been listening to a.s.o. and they're giving me Insides vibes in how moody and atmospheric it sounds, more on the trip hop style, but still. Very introspective avant pop, to give it a name. The lyrics are worth paying attention to, as well.
https://itsaso.bandcamp.com/album/a-s-o

Delighted to see both this and Clear Skin now on Bandcamp!

https://insides1.bandcamp.com/album/euphoria-1

https://insides1.bandcamp.com/album/clear-skin

I need to get around to listening to the non-4AD albums.

Yeah you punk. Er wait.

I got promo copies of both the above records at my college radio station 32 years ago, loved them and played tracks off Euphoria on my show (tough to do Clear Skin), and even spent what little student money I had to buy the CD. I just assumed they were a brilliant one off then only just relatively recently discovered they have more records—albeit at a one a decade pace.

Given this thread has been revived, I'm gonna take the opportunity to cross-refer to Sophia Hansen-Knarhoi's Undertow, which ivy put me onto, and which reminds me of Euphoria in its tenderly delivered absolute bleakness - as if an entire aesthetic was spun out of the opening stretch of "Darling Effect.

Oh yeah? Well into my Bandcamp Friday cart that'll go, then!

nice to see that they've embraced Clear Skin as I recall it was something they initially didn't want to release

now if we could get a proper pressing of the Skinned Clean/Further Distractions remixes...

~undressing for doctors is still undressing for strangers~

akm, as I remember it the issue with Clear Skin is that the label put out some remixed/edited versions on 12" without their sing-off. Which is a shame because I think they are pretty good: https://www.discogs.com/release/248365-Insides-Clear-Skin

*sign-off