Sharon Van Etten

warsaw's cool

yeah i like the new album quite a bit but i also keep just playing this song over and over

did anybody hear the demos record
i wanna

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv20Hlfl1Po

blorp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv20Hlfl1Po

i am listening to this & it kinda slays, fwiw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2duIAh5BbY

it's super messy & raw. i was not so crazy about the record & this is like the antidote; not in sweetly recasting the songs as lighter, whisperier sve-classic slow jams but in being boombox & drum machine recordings of someone howling their songs into shape. it's a $7 cdr from the label, also.

uuuugh, these are so, so much better. for the love of god, please never record with the national again sharon van etten. that demo version of serpents is an eye opener.

serpents was actually the song i liked on the record, i think it works, i am still trying to find the 7" because the b-side is nice, too. & iirc julianna barwick was playing on the record somewhere, so i can sorta feel the idea of SVE + group, rather than just doing her one man band thing. but then there is the guy from beirut singing & it's just, just what is this, you know. the serpents demo is killer anyway, yes. i hear she is real into leonard cohen, it's kinda like hearing this, the pre-edit jam:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=os_8Xpl2Jsc

some of the lyrical swaps in serpents are kinda fascinating btw

http://youtu.be/M4TCAjfGN1M --A video of Sharon covering touring mate Nick Cave's _Boatman's Call_ cut, "People They Ain't No Good", during a radio session. It's really lovely. Skip to 1:20 for the performance.

i really like the warbling aspect of her singing in "give out", where she allows her voice to drift off key in a manner reminiscent of the built to spill guy and the clap your hands say yeah guy. are there other female singers who sing in this very indie style?

Kristen Hersh?

*Kristin

also Amy Annelle. I have to say that the CYHSY guy's voice is one of my least favorite sounds in music.

yeah, you are not alone in thinking that. but you are not with me. that album came out when i was 15 or something though so i think that crackling, off-key sound, affected as it is, is a thing that works for me when it is done well. also i see it as a variation of jeff mangum's singing voice, and ITAOTS was super-formative to me.

but i can see how it would sound grating to other people, kind of like the grumbling, 90s, pearl jam voice is just the worst sound ever for me. thanks for the tips.

I heard the CYHSY album about a year after I first heard Neutral Milk Hotel, and I think I was put off by the NMH-isms of the former. It seems like they roughly copped the lo-fi kookiness of old Elephant 6 band but left out all the eerie horn arrangements and guitar fuzz and self-mythologizing lyrics and weird production choices and everything else that made NMH interesting, so in the end they were just a run-of-the-mill "quirky" indie rock band. Jess Mangum's tuneless vocal freakouts worked well within the context of his songs because he was capable of singing sweetly and tunefully when he wanted to, whereas the CYHSY's guy just grated and bleated along 100% of the time (at least to my ears) like a metal dude who doesn't know when to take his growling down a notch. I dunno, maybe I'd like the band better if I went back and listened to them now. in some ways I was a much harsher critic in 2006 than I am now.

lol, grumbling, 90s Pearl Jam stuff was just about all I listened to when I was 15.

the best place to start with Amy Annelle is The Cimarron Banks (and after that, Songs for Creeps by The Places) btw. 'Forever In-Between' is a pretty good example of the vocal trick you're looking for.

xp i see what you mean, and i agree with you that cyhsy are incapable of making an album as rich as in the aeroplane over the sea -- they are just not the same class of band -- but still, the lo-fi, warbling quirkiness seemed like a durable schtick to me in high school, and i really loved "the skin of my yellow country teeth" because it was anthemic but the singer sounded, at the same time, drunk in a vulnerable way. in general too, i am just biased toward idiosyncratic singers... dylan and nico are my favorite vocalists.

i'm listening to forever in between now and it is perfect, thanks.

I really like the backing track of "The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth", actually. it would be perfect if some 90s indie guy like Steven Malkmus was singing over it. make this happen!

glad you like the Amy Annelle song. I feel like I'm the only person in the world (or ILM, anyways) who stans for her.

yeah i like it a lot, but i have a serious soft spot melancholy female singer songwriters.

I hope everyone interested in this thread has given the excellent Torres album a listen.

And yes, that Torres album is good. Don't ignore Shelby Earl either!

Anyway, for this year -- Sharon's new album is streaming:

http://www.thecurrent.org/feature/2014/05/16/first-listen-sharon-van-etten-are-we-there

Man, this is sad, heavy stuff even for an SVE record. It's great, but some of these songs are like having somebody stand on your throat.

Obviously she touched on an abusive relationship on her first couple albums, but there's an ugliness and physicality on these songs that makes those earlier accounts seem whitewashed by comparison. There's so much trauma here it hurts; it breaks my heart that she went through all of this

the previous albums really didn't do much for me, but this one is hitting the spot.

"afraid of nothing" is a showstopper

I think "are we there yet" is one of my favorite albums of the year.

That's because it's brilliant.

The arrangements on this feel really rudimentary in that aggravating US indie way, which is a shame because with a big more care I feel like some of these songs could really be incredible. Still, 'Your Love Is Killing Me' is amazing.

I feel like taking every musician that played on this aside and gently explaining that it's okay for them to play a note off the beat every now and again. Virtually every song drags as a result, especially the stripped-down piano-led one in the middle.

that seems to be a common quality of "confessional" singer-songwriter stuff, where somehow the straightlaced quality of the playing is supposed to match the confessional sincerity of the lyrics. obv there are exceptions.

what is it about? this blancmange of song writing tropes agree very straight laced arrangements, conventional etc singer songwriter, yes yes all that but despite this I am getting more and more pulled into the swirl of van etten she is very charming and her stuff sounds authentic and heady whatever that means i mean a conventional singer songwriter still great? clearly the word conventional is the problem here who cares right just listen to the ebb and flow and get swept away by the romance of feeling something imagine that emotion still working in 2015 what a crazy thought

new(est) song from the ep coming out in a week or so, every bit as good as the best stuff from are we there imo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9Gak2mKMrE

reviewed the i dont want to let you down ep, not an earth shaking project but 5 good to great songs and as a huge SVE fan i aint complaining about that
http://www.treblezine.com/reviews/23647-sharon-van-etten-i-dont-want-to-let-you-down-review-2/

She's an actress on that new Netflix show "The OA". She's good.

I just now discovered that in the credits. Also, fuck this show.

is she pregnant? I think I saw a post of her on fb that gave me that impression. I love her albums unreservedly.

I want to watch this show but I hear it will make me give up all hope on life

Man tramp is classic

Man like Olsen she’s singing about an abusive ex that should go duck themselves

Are We There real classic too

Three songs from the new album due 18th January have come out and they are all excellent! I think I like the spooky Jupiter 4 best but the title song Seventeen which is nicely building up to her primal scream is great too. I am very intrigued about the rest of the album.

“seventeen” blew me away

never thought much of anything she done previously, but am riding hard for "Comeback Kid"

this album is gonna kick my ass, emotionally

Brad otm & I can't wait.

Trying to decide whether I should listen at my desk today, or hold out till the drive home.

I'm not sure what I think about this at all - the first few songs are ruined by bad arrangements and production yet again but Comeback Kid and Seventeen are terrific.

Didn't feel it until watching the Jimmy Kimmel vid, but Seventeen really channels some Bruce.

I'm not sure what I think about this at all - the first few songs are ruined by bad arrangements and production yet again but Comeback Kid and Seventeen are terrific.

― Matt DC, Saturday, January 19, 2019 5:25 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idk i think the arrangement of the first song is perfect with those spaced-out piano chords, and while i haven’t gotten into “memorial day” as a song yet i really love the brief dip into trip-hop

“comeback kid” -> “jupiter 4” -> “seventeen” is absolutely the core of the record tho

her last album was astonishingly beautiful i thought??? and this one is great too in a different way

i like feeling like her songs are gonna cover me very slowly with their big black wings

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Thursday, May 12, 2022 9:18 AM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

oh but this feeling unites the whole discog. good observation, old me

This is so good!

you're welcome!

That middle stretch from "Trouble" to "I Can't Imagine (Why You Feel This Way)" slams.

This is exactly the stretch that made me perk up. The bass playing is so good!

yes!

The last two tracks do feel out of place, but I like them both a lot. I'm wondering if there's an alternate tracklist for this that opens with "I Want You Here".

idk there's a lot of stylistic variety throughout this one, can't say the last two tracks particularly stick out to me. "i want you here" is probably my favorite too

It's such a great song!

I don't know, it just felt like the back-to-back pairing undersold the album a little. But that's just my first listen thought.

I get the bass-forward Cure/Siouxsie sound is an inspiration here, and it works without getting too pastiche. But it seems kinda funny taking on the 1987 goth look so specifically.

came around to this more after more listens but I really don't like Idiot Box. I also for some reason forgot that I do love the last album; it was Remind Me Tomorrow that I didn't like as much (and this album reminds me of that one). Nothing on this is as good as Like I Used To though, that song fucking rules.

otm about "Like I Used To." But I love Remind Me Tomorrow. SVE is funny for me because I don't think to listen to her very often but when I do I remember that I like her a lot. I'm enjoying the new one, need time to let it sink in. Definitely a bit of Lost Boys soundtrack vibe to it, in a good way.

Marvelous album, top five imo

It's very good.