Kranky S&D

wow i am listening to this song

http://www.futuresequence.com/article/review-belong-common-era/

goddam this is great

WOW,thanks for this recommendation, the part at 2:15 on the very first song ("Come See") blew me away. new shoegaze that doesn't suck, and doesn't feel like a lesser copy of some antecedent. sold.

yeah it's really good! glad everyone's latching on so easily. every year there's basically 1 or 2 great shoegaze/dream-pop albums. this year it's Belong (for me anyway)

It's odd but I've never really linked Belong to shoegaze, not directly. For me they emerged mostly out of noise and reverb-drenched pop echoes on previous records. Seems that pace-wise they are stepping it up on this record though, it's less "druggy and slow, and suddenly it really is very shoegazey. Amazing.

just listened last night. very good!

will order this tomorrow night.
listening to Kranky Kompilation now, what a consistently kickass label

my full thoughts on new Belong album here

this is highly OTM:

Somehow they found a place between all existing music and made it so uniquely their own.

Thanks. That's a great review ilxor! The Cure reference makes total sense too.

thanks! people can say "shoegaze" til they're blue but the main touchstone i hear is '80s cure :)

which is total ilxor-bait but hey...

ilxor otm - I gave this a quick listen today (it's now up on Spotify), and the Cure was one of the first things I thought of. Need to hear it again, but this does sound like a big step up from their previous.

what did the pitchfork reviewer get wrong?

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15235-common-era/

if he wants them to retread October Language, he might as well just put on October Language again, iirc

Really enjoying this Implodes album on first listen. Anyone know anything about them?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2O4cVxQINk

Loving this, and probably preferring it to the Belong album, although it's not all that dissimilar. Hearing traces of Slowdive and Flying Saucer Attack and Low and good stuff like that.

...but duh it is on kranky after all

saw em live about a year ago and was kinda ....bored
the record sounds much better though im not quite sold on the vocals yet

Implodes includes Matt Jencik from Don Cab and Hurl

Dunno why it took me so many damn years to find this out, but this first Jessamine album is just fucking great.

Damn right.

My cd copy of it skips :((((((

Their whole catalog is on Spotify.

Yeah it's great! What's people's favourite one? And what do the Jessamine folks do these days?

Yeah it's great! What's people's favourite one? And what do the Jessamine folks do these days?

Fave Jessamine release is the Another Fictionalized History singles compilation. Great great stuff. The two team-up albums with Sonic Boom are also well worth tracking down (especially the A Pox On You EP)

After Jessamine, Andy (keyboards) and Rex (guitar) went on to form Fontanelle (couple of albums, also on Kranky). Andy also records as Southerning. Dawn Smithson (bass, vocals) has a couple of albums out too.

Unexpectedly, just about all of Jessamine has been part of Sunn O)))'s touring band at one point or another. Couple of them appear on Monoliths & Dimensions

Thanks Chris!

The two team-up albums with Sonic Boom are also well worth tracking down (especially the A Pox On You EP)

funny, i thought Pox was the only one! hmmmm

first Fontanelle album is excellent

enjoying the new disappears record. no massive departure.

my favourite label circa 99/02.

been digging some of it's older releases these past few weeks (trip down memory lane?). tho some of it hasn't aged that well (1st dissolve record, amp, bowery electric, etc), there are still a couple of underated gems in there : doldrums, flies inside the sun or pan american...

never heard the first jessamine. only ones i have are 'don's stay too long' and 'long arm of coincidence'. don't recall them that well (same with spiny anteaters, also).

First Jessamine rules. First Kranky release I picked up.

Yeah, Jessamine had a great sound. Listen to "Royal Jelly Eye Cream" off that first record, it rules.

Hey now, I'm STILL an Amp fan. Had a new album this year and everything.

Agreed on the worth of Jessamine.

Also! Magnog have reunited and are playing out. Dana Shinn's on Facebook and the band's on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/magnogmusic

Just gonna go ahead and post this to encourage any wavering souls to give it a listen, such a cool guitar sound:

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

enjoying the new disappears record. no massive departure.

Really excited to hear this, loved the live thing they did with Steve last year.

Love the one song I've heard from the new Disappears album. I love both their other albums and, so far, don't really mind if they keep refining the same sound.

dreamscape do some pretty sweet dream pop, even if their drum machine sounds a bit too secret shine-ish

Yeah, I just read this, had never heard of them before:
http://www.factmag.com/2012/07/06/kranky-to-issue-retrospective-of-long-forgotten-shoegaze-combo-dreamscape/

hahaha, they really wanted to release an EP called "greater than god," didn't they?

lool i was totally unaware it was secret shine related

totally enjoying implodes atm -- arrived via ken camden, who has become my default walk-to-work spaceout go-to.

Any thoughts on Loscil's Sketches from New Brighton?

i bought it on yesterday and really enjoyed it- it hits that spot- it's weird to compare it to the previous records, it's a softer midrange sound, but the same DNA is there.

bought it / put it on oops

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WLApSAwlUU0/UR9CPzy10wI/AAAAAAAAANE/8LjTgX2FKd0/s400/implodes-recurring-dream.jpg

^ new Implodes album out in April

new song here:
https://soundcloud.com/kranky/implodes-scattered-in-the-wind

closing section is beautiful, stellar guitar sound will get you right between the eyes

I was having a Disappears moment on the occasion of the new album, and then this week I was having a Stars of the Lid moment, which reminded me of the Labradford moment I had a month or two back. So out of curiosity/boredom I looked up the whole Kranky catalog and realized that this just might be my favorite label. Man, they have been so consistent for almost twenty years. That said, I also realized how many releases I've not heard! So: I made a Spotify playlist of the entire Kranky catalog, in order from KRANK001 to KRANK182 or wherever they're at currently.

After scouring Spotify (a few artists are kinda hard to search due to weird typography vs html coding), I found every single album except for maybe four. There's a Fontanelle EP, the first Lichens and Nudge records, and a Deerhunger 7" that aren't there. Everything else is there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X33EZhfB_Kk

Justin Walter album is still one the year's best imo - a really beautiful album of treated trumpet sounds and burbling electronics that that rise up out of the dead quiet of night like jeweled chains set against soft black velvet. Very poised and graceful, kind of like Jon Hassell meets Cluster, but every now and again it also attains this psychoactive kind of Terry Riley meditative dream state.

http://styleofsound.culturecrat.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/kranky-records.png

http://styleofsound.com/kranky-records-20-years-of-hugs-andor-drugs/

Can we please see Labradford in that TBA spot?

By the way for those interested - after I made that Kranky playlist mentioned upthread, I started writing my way through the entire catalog. I'm up to the 12th or 13th release at this point. About 170 to go. Scroll back a little to get to the beginning if you're interested: http://sctttnnnt.tumblr.com

started listening to that playlist, what an amazing thing.