Unknown, vaguely Cardiacsy prog-pop that only MaresNest and I actually like

chill, you're probably just not in touch with your inner twee pastoralist ;)

Yeah, maybe. I mean I love the Sea Nymphs and NSRO obviously but to me it feels like Drake's trying too hard to be cute a lot of the time

o tbf if you look upthread that was kind of my initial instinct too but then it got me

'be here steryear' & the title-track def worth a review imo

~JOANNA WANG~

I don't know if Joanna Wang has heard Cardiacs, or Max Tundra, or just videogame music, but holy shit

think we've triangulated her somewhere between eleanor friedberger, kate bush and micachu, although the above artists are there in spadefuls too. and blanche blanche blanche.

she's awesome. and to think the english-language internet just hasn't heard of her. jesse nominating her for the ILX EOY and her subsequent appearance on the albums playlist is the only conceivable way we could have found out about her. how much other stuff like this must there be out there?

Hmm. I was a bit confused after clicked on one of her early videos and got something that sounded a bit like Nora Jones.

Then I got to this one, and it was like "Ohh, I see." Suddenly all the comparisons make sense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3hF8-Jeg3Y

I'm guessing this must be a new direction for her, because there are a ton of comments from bewildered fans saying stuff like "WTF is this why did you change?? :("

I listened to her 2013 album 'Galaxy Crisis: The Strangest Midnight Broadcast' and it's practically just as crazy, maybe a tiny bit less developed but still great - surely the fans would have caught on by then? This is slightly madder tbf

Reading the Youtube comments for her new videos is amazing, like, people just don't know what to do

I listened to some of her early stuff and it's just the most mundane music on Earth. Clearly she was made to do it by her seniors. Fuck you, this is what I sound like now! :D

when did she make the leap to this? I found some of her old videos too and she is just shockingly bland, I've never heard of anyone making a jump quite like that

She was the 16 year-old daughter of a noted Taiwanese pop producer when the early stuff came out. He probably 'encouraged' her to 'launch' her own career with these 'tasteful' covers and rip-offs.

Then she, uh, broke free.

The videos for the whole album are amazing btw

She's apparently come out and completely disowned her early stuff. Good on her

I would guess 2011's "Adventures of Bernie the Schoolboy" is probably the start, check this out, it's like Guernica:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUxzL6IGA7s

ah yeah, nice

it seems she's just been getting better and better though. this new album is sensational

pretty much anything I can find on her only covers her music from 2008-2009. clearly she was quite popular which makes the whole thing a lot more fun. I always hoped that some big pop star over here would do something like that, I guess Miley Cyrus is the most likely candidate right now but I haven't found her "out there" stuff to be all that exciting thus far.

well, check this out

https://www.reddit.com/r/iama/comments/k3vbe/i_am_a_taiwanese_celebrity_ama

yes! haha, I've covered Sparks "This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us" using purely the voice of Skeletor at a music festival. I think all the "Joanna Wang" fans were like ????. But the next day the reviews in the papers still said it was a soothing performance. It's moments like when I just feel like I must be the last sane person on the planet.

haha god

yeah she seems fairly singular. still has a sony contract, my god

Apparently she's internet friends with Neil Cicierega, which explains a lot.

And she recorded this cover of his song Bill Watterson back in 2007.

This will likely only make sense to frogbs.

apparently a TMBG fan as well. this hits a little too close to home, now I wonder if she does know about Cardiacs because I can't imagine someone more predisposed to go bonkers over them

and Neil's tumblr JUST NOW has a post about her? what the hell is going on!?

b0bbarker asked: Did you recently possess the body of a Taiwanese woman named Joanna Wang and release an album last year called Bob Music? Because it sure sounds like you did. And by that I mean go look up songs like Truckin Everyday and When I Nod.

NO LIE, I’ve been internet pals with her for years! She sent me an acoustic cover of Bill Watterson back in 2007. We catch up over gchat every couple months and share what we’ve been working on.

She’s had a really interesting career: She debuted as a very successful singer in Taiwan, mostly of mainstream-sounding covers. But over the past several years she’s totally reinvented herself as this eclectic, synthy baroque pop monster.

Oh that's easy to explain. I'm b0bbarker, and I too am kind of internet pals with Neil, going back his animutation days and was the one who asked him the question on Tumblr. We also used to share crazy stuff together, back when I used to make really silly mashup mixes, which he had cited as kind of being the influence for Mouth Sounds.

hah, I remember some of your stuff from way back in the day! I think I have an Aaron Ackerson CD with one of your remixes on it. I figured it had to be someone from here!

I always thought Neil was capable of making something that would fit right in this thread but he just seems to be doing so much at once. dude's pretty talented though

Yep. I'm on the Sexiest Man on Earth.

pretty much anything I can find on her only covers her music from 2008-2009. clearly she was quite popular which makes the whole thing a lot more fun. I always hoped that some big pop star over here would do something like that, I guess Miley Cyrus is the most likely candidate right now but I haven't found her "out there" stuff to be all that exciting thus far.

― frogbs, Wednesday, January 6, 2016 4:51 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I feel like there are some similarities in the strange career path of Charlotte Church - million-selling classical music star to a kind of Welsh Bjork, putting out obscure, personal music heard by very few.

I mean honestly, who could've predicted the Voice Of An Angel would end up recording stuff as odd as this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhrBm6WuIsI

i keep saying it but i was at school with her long-term partner (he wasn't back then) and he was the world's biggest radiohead fan, so it was always coming

that song there^ gets interesting in its last 5 seconds, then ends. that should have been how it started haha

But there's so much going on it! The strings, the tempo shifts, the weird jazzy flourishes. I don't like everything she's done since "breaking out" - she still Bonnie Tylers it up a bit too much on the choruses for my liking - but I'm always intrigued by what she's going to do next.

ok fine, the last minute as a whole was quite something

the EP she did after ^that one reminded me of Dirty Projectors in parts iirc, it was decent

I didn't know about this direction she went in, but it makes sense since her Quietus bakers dozen choices were surprisingly good. I just knew about the earliest stuff and her couple of singles chart pop songs that I didn't like.

Posted about this Lemon Demon album earlier, but actually, this was the right place all along:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LeSFBy2bZU

https://jlarcombe.bandcamp.com/

Lemon Demon of course being Neil Cicierega, the missing link between Cardiacs and Joanna Wang (he loves them, she loves him). Will check out that J Larcombe thing presently...

Please allow me to big-up / draw your attention to Mr Sterile Assembly, particularly the album Transit. Kinetic compound time-sigs, twin basses, sax skronk, some gamelan thing, female / male vocals, "political" lyrics that aren't totally shit. Just ideal and excellent in its own way, really.

http://mrsterileassembly.bandcamp.com/album/transit

This Heaty prog-pop

I mean, it's pretty good! Not remotely Cardiacsy but hey, you got my attention :)

Well, vaguely. They posted the video for Stella on the Cardiacs Facebook page a while back, so they are at least 'aware'. Also toured with Uz Jsme Doma, I think. Or attempted to. But yes, This Heat is a good reference point. I dig it a lot, anyway.

Big Cardiacsy week - new Knifeworld AND new Display Team! The latter is fucking amazing and VERY Cardiacstastic: https://thedisplayteam.bandcamp.com/album/shifts

I admit I haven't really felt what Knifeworld have been doing since the Clairvoyant Fortnight EP. That and the first album are wonderful though.

What little I've been able to hear of The Display Team seems good, getting heavy Uz Jsme Doma vibes more than anything else.

yeah I'm not 100% on this Knifeworld or the last one, although I did listen to the last one again recently and it was better this time so who knows, they might have become a grower band

I was at The Display Team's album launch the other night, they were really really great and so were Thumpermonkey, whose definitely-going-to-be-incredible album isn't coming for like another half-year ffs

I recently relistened to both the Knifeworld discs I have, Buried Alone is still great, The Unraveling I'm still not 100% on though I think that's mostly down to the production. Just really trebly and quiet in a way that flattens the drums. But it is pretty good because the tunes are really clever, once you start to get into them a bit. "Don't Land On Me" is definitely my favorite. Guess I'll give this new one a listen as soon as it arrives.

Lemon Demon - Spirit Phone is still the best Cardiacsy album of the year, probably. (Best album full stop?) Come on, we can't let a Yank eclipse us all ffs! ;)

I'm a little behind on recent developments, so glad of this thread

The Display Team reminds me very much of The Monsoon Bassoon

^ Yes, I did enjoy that and bought it, it hit all the right buttons and never falls in love with it's own quirkiness

...speaking if which, kinda, recently I got this CD of this weird Japanese band which I rather like but their approach to sensory overload is pretty muddled compared to Cardiacs.

This isn't on the record I have but the sample at 0:16 second mark should be awfully familiar. The video's NSFW btw (snatches of cartoon dick...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK0Zu2B_kak&ab_channel=ncnvid

But this song's legitimately a CHOOON

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw6bcGr3Shs&ab_channel=BounDEETube

Fuck I thought I worked out how to not embed things but obviously not

Lemon Demon - Spirit Phone is still the best Cardiacsy album of the year, probably. (Best album full stop?) Come on, we can't let a Yank eclipse us all ffs! ;)

It's been real fun to watch this guy's chief influence go from They Might be Giants to Devo to Sparks to Cardiacs. If this gets serious AOTY consideration (and it should!) I'd be thrilled.