These New Puritans

Hearing the Wyatt comparison a lot more on second listen.

Only hearing the thinnest hair of Robert Wyatt here, def. more Talk Talk, or whatever it is, exactly, from Talk Talk acts like King Creosote or, I dunno, Shearwater sometimes borrow. Hanging piano chords? Background drones? Plaintive vocals?

chamber music has breakbeats??

Yep. The staff fits right between "contrabassoon" and "superfluous er'hu"

I've clocked a couple more listens and it just reinforces how crucial "Organ Eternal" is to the album's sequencing and overall quality. By "Spiral" the album becomes an oppressive muggy cloud and "Organ Eternal" is the thing I need to get through the rest. Really, it's what I thought they would do more of on this disc. Such a nice piece of music. The rest, well... 18 Musicians in Search of a Music. (I make that double reference because I feel that, as a sombre as the records are, they are always pretty self-aware, or fourth-wall aware.)

Another thing: the continuation of the move toward classical/avant garde means that I think the jazz influence on this record has largely gone unremarked. The trumpet on "Nothing Else," for example, reminds me of something from Ascenseur pour l'échafaud drastically slowed down. Some kind of film noir cool jazz thing... The keyboards on "The Light In Your Name" have a bit of a In a Silent Way thing going on...

"Field of Reeds" is another big payoff. Both it and "Organ Eternal" have major-sounding chord changes (for the most part). It really relieves some of the grinding nausea.

― fields of salmon

^^^abandoned early draft, pieced together from pitchshifted recordings of a tsunami

I dunno what that means but it sounds cool

Interview in Fact:

http://www.factmag.com/2013/06/14/you-have-to-be-quite-obsessive-these-new-puritans-on-their-dizzying-new-opus-fields-of-reeds/

Also present is one of the lowest singing voices in Britain, nurtured in the lungs of bass singer Adrian Peacock. Barnett had already written the music before realising that making it a reality would be slightly more complicated.

“I knew [the part] was very, very low. At first we tried to contact Russian Orthdox singers – they have all this music for the basso profondo range, which is even lower than bass singers, it’s really, really low. We tried to contact them but we couldn’t really get through to them, we just got answerphone messages with chanting on.

“So I don’t know how we came across him, but he’s this great character, Adrian Peacock. He’s one of the three basses [in the country], this is what I’ve heard, who can hit this note. If you listen to the song ‘Nothing Else’, it starts off with him, and that’s basically his lowest note.”

Just listened again and bloody hell, that is a low note.

Okay the bit about the answerphone messages.

Good grief @ that being a regular human voice and not, like, I dunno, some weird woodwind instrument or something. Which is what I thought it was.

They were fantastic in London last night, they managed to make this huge expansive sound with maybe six musicians onstage, and everything sounded as full as it does on the record, possibly fuller.

The best songs were probably from Hidden though - We Want War was predictably astonishing and their drummer is terrific.

Jealous.

I was looking out for you last night Nick. They were smashing. Too loud for my poor ears though. I wish I'd taken ear protection.

Sadly I am skint and many miles away. Missing Melt Yourself Down in Bristol tomorrow too. Sadface.

I'm interviewing Simon Reynolds in a record shop in Bristol next Thursday if you're around and you fancy it. And I presume that will be free.

is petridis supporting

He's out of my league (in more than one sense). I'll be lucky if I can persuade a CD player to spin Acid Trax for me in the warm up slot.

Yeah, I saw that was happening; tempting.

Any word on a US release date?

wow this album is pretty striking

it doesn't SOUND like Talk Talk Spirit of Eden, but it kinda makes me feel the same way that I did when I heard that album

ooops now i've read the thread and see that talk talk came up many times

but yeah i don't have a real good handle on how to discuss this album cuz my modern classical/chamber knowledge is mud puddle deep but yeah wow this is a fucking amazing record

it is isn't it

although v (island song) and nothing else are for me the two very clear standouts

ok i'm hearing that guy's bass voice discussed upthread (last song right?)...that is a low note!

nah, 3rd-to-last song I think, very beginning

his voice just sounds like some vague electronic rumbling tbh, but it's the very first sound on that song

the C#/D-flat at the beginning? Yeah, that's pretty low, although I can fake that note depending on how I'm feeling (I can hit it right now, actually)

I can replicate it with a throaty growl but it basically sounds like I'm drawing up phlegm. Not very impressive at all.

His voice was collosal - he could holler with the best of them. Did he influence James Brown or vice - versa?

Oops meant for Bobby Bland. I'll try that again.

Lol

this is cool as shit

i liked the last one ok but i like this a lot more

still sounds to me like what field music was making in miniature on measure ("precious plans")

it's not quite that, I think. field music way more interested in catchy hooks, deconstructing pop

not that measure isn't every bit as good as this, because it is - may even be better, but it's different

that field music album is more prismatic going for a more variegated effect song by song while these new puritans with this one are more focused i think on elaborating one distinct (mark hollis) aesthetic. maybe my point is i hear echoes of spirit of eden in recent music and i'm glad field of reeds runs with those sounds but it's not like omg they're reviving tones no one's heard in ten years

Er just bumping cos I wanna read this on zing

I like this record a lot more than I did a month ago

I only heard it for the first time about 2 days ago and I must have played it about 5 times through already. Great stuff. I'm interested in this current 'trend'/'contintuum' that seems to include this, the Knife album, The Seer, Bish Bosch, certainly Heartland and a few other recent(ish) albums (someone mentioned Ulver upthread) that work as a piece and are 'post-rock' and epic and indulgent and arty and grand but not in a Mogwai sense. It's my favourite kind of album at the moment and I can't get enough.

Maybe Matt Elliott's The Broken Man? You know, the one that features the memorable title, "If Anyone Tells Me 'It's Better To Have Loved And Lost Than To Never Have Loved At All' I Will Stab Them In The Face".

that's more impressionist european folk tbf tbf

Fair enough. My only other suggestion might be one of the more recent offerings from Kayo Dot.

October tour dates:
These New Puritans - UK tour
11th Oct Manchester, Gorilla (tickets)
12th Oct Bristol, Simple Things Festival (tickets)
15th Oct London, Electric Brixton (tickets)
16th Oct Leeds, Vox (tickets)
17th Oct Glasgow, Oran Mor (tickets)
18th Oct Gateshead, Sage (tickets)

That Simple Things Festival looks alright - King Midas Sound, Moderat, Pantha Du Prince and Jon Hopkins are on the bill too

They are incredible live fwiw.

Good to decorate to.

definitely contender for album of the year

i wanted to like this. i liked "hidden". this is like some murray gold take on "contemporary music". WACK AS FUCK.

that's an interesting perspective

look rather than call out yr hi-larious avant-snobbery I'm gonna link you my album of the year and wait for you to compare it to the fkn postman pat theme tune

http://jutegyte.bandcamp.com/album/discontinuities

'Organ Eternal' cropped up on shuffle play while I was travelling back home yesterday and just blew my mind. It just felt like the perfect track at the perfect time.

imago btw thanks for the aoty alert