Kelley Polar - Love Songs of The Hanging Gardens (Environ CD05)

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (944 of them)

(change it, quick!!)

― vahid (vahid), Thursday, 29 December 2005 17:00 (twenty years ago)

― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 29 December 2005 17:15 (twenty years ago)

Sorry I'm not listening to this twice in a day (plus MIE a few times). It sounded approximative to me, like well-done sketches and a bit tinny. The mixing I also find awkward, with elements jutting out for no reason or to somewhat weak effect.

― blunt (blunt), Thursday, 29 December 2005 18:57 (twenty years ago)

I thought so too on my first listen, but the second was a lot different. I tend to pay too much attention on my first listen to pretty much anything.

― mike h. (mike h.), Thursday, 29 December 2005 18:59 (twenty years ago)

i am listening to the global communications fabric mix. it's good!

― cancer prone fat guy (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 29 December 2005 19:01 (twenty years ago)

seriously vahid, you'd like this, i think. it's got delsin shit and weird proto-broken beat from kirk dg.

― cancer prone fat guy (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 29 December 2005 19:38 (twenty years ago)

I'm pretty sure it wasn't "underproduced". Perhaps it was overproduced to a point that it has a sound that sounds to you to be underproduced, but by the sheer accumulation of hours, they produced the hell out of this record.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Thursday, 29 December 2005 19:50 (twenty years ago)

I'm sorry to hear that :/

― blunt (blunt), Thursday, 29 December 2005 20:21 (twenty years ago)

Actually Jess, Vahid already created a thread about it:

fabric 26: global communication

― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Thursday, 29 December 2005 20:25 (twenty years ago)

i guess i just didn't understand the underproduced comment because to me it sounds like a metro area record which means lush production, but yeah i guess it's also production that sounds natural...(and i barely listen to this album. what i have been caning to death is the prima norsk 3 comp)

― tricky (disco stu), Thursday, 29 December 2005 20:28 (twenty years ago)

(and the electric institute comp which i namecheck upthread)

― tricky (disco stu), Thursday, 29 December 2005 20:31 (twenty years ago)

citing irreconcilable differences (prob. mostly cultural, due to my coming from trash) with this record, i'm selling my copy back to amoeba sf this weekend... it'll be there by this sunday, if anyone wants it.

― Susan Douglas (Susan Douglas), Friday, 30 December 2005 01:15 (twenty years ago)

i've had this for a couple weeks now. it's great. Top 5 for the year, I think.

― poortheatre (poortheatre), Friday, 30 December 2005 01:48 (twenty years ago)

I love the music and the way it unfolds, and I love the overall sound of the record, but the vocals taint the experience for me. The multitracked vocal tracks at times come across sickly sweet, almost barbershop quartet-like in terms of the actual harmonies and the general "professionalism" of their execution -- which jars next to the production, which *sounds* lush and warm and gleaming, but is fairly sparse and economical in structure.

You can tell KP has a trained voice and knows exactly what he's doing with it, but the unaffectedness and general passionlessness is what grates. Not that I demand singers to emote and growl and moan all over the place -- far from it, in fact -- but there's a difference between unaffected and passionless in an interesting way, and unaffected and passionless in an uninteresting way. I think it must be the "indie good voice" thing -- that from-the-throat, very careful pronounciation, slightly hushed way of doing vocals you find with singers like, well, Sufjan Stevens and Ben Gibbard (who I hate to use as a point of comparison because it seems both forced and obvious, but the point stands). It's a very "modest" way of singing that I don't generally enjoy. Furthermore, KP's voice sounds as if he intends it to be modest, tuneful and unobtrusive, but the way the vocals are layered so thick with harmony prevents that effect from ever being achieved.

Also, I don't think the vocal melodies themselves are particularly memorable or tuneful -- which is why the "pop" talk above doesn't quite make sense to me. I find them too tightly chained to the underlying production (especially in terms of their rhythms) for my tastes. Just because electronic music has a vocalist over top of it singing actual notes doesn't mean it's pop.

That said, I've only listened to the record a few times, and I will certainly give it more time... I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt, not least because of all the praise for it on this thread from people whose tastes I respect, and even more because of how much I love the "Audition" EP. I've done far more drastic 180s before, that's for sure.

― Clarke B. (Clarke B.), Friday, 30 December 2005 16:43 (twenty years ago)

but he claims not to have a trained voice.

― cutty (mcutt), Friday, 30 December 2005 16:44 (twenty years ago)

It's not so much trained sounding as it is very musically careful -- you can tell that he's musically trained, even if his voice isn't. It's very measured.

― Clarke B. (Clarke B.), Friday, 30 December 2005 16:53 (twenty years ago)

his voice isn't trained, but his ear is.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Friday, 30 December 2005 17:35 (twenty years ago)

strange that he dropped the "quartet" just as he started to sound like one.

Clarke makes a good point about the "modesty" of the singing and "the way the vocals are layered so thick with harmony [which] prevents that effect from ever being achieved." i guess that could either be the thing that doesn't make the album work for you or the thing that makes you love it. i change my mind about the record every time i hear it. i think i love it but yet i can't listen to all of it in one go - does that mean i don't love it enough?

― jed_ (jed), Friday, 30 December 2005 17:44 (twenty years ago)

that's so garbled.

― jed_ (jed), Friday, 30 December 2005 17:45 (twenty years ago)

I know what you mean, Jed. I can't make it through the entire thing, either. The harmonies he explores with his vocals are so rigid (the intervals never change -- it's like using a harmony pedal for your guitar, for those musicians out there) and so multilayered, that they end up sounding like keyboard parts rather than vocal parts. Now, this in itself doesn't bother me in the least. I love a lot of music that treats the voice like "just another instrument" or whatever other cliche you choose to substitute. Here, though, it sounds like that "other instrument" is one of those air organs with the "chord keys" to the left of the keyboard, and the vocals are being played on those... It's like playing a melody using the "orchestra hit" setting on a keyboard -- jarring and overdone.

― Clarke B. (Clarke B.), Friday, 30 December 2005 18:04 (twenty years ago)

i totally agree with you, Clarke - the problem with not making it through the whole thing, though, is that the latter half of the record is best and the last 3 tracks in particular are absolute perfection. listening to it now it's totally working for me and i bet you will come round to it.

see what i mean about changing my mind about it on every listen?

― jed_ (jed), Friday, 30 December 2005 18:13 (twenty years ago)

"MATTER INTO ENERGY" IS SLAYING ME. I CAN'T STOP LISTENING TO IT.

― jed_ (jed), Friday, 13 January 2006 14:54 (twenty years ago)

This album has really great pacing. I like that most of the busyer tracks are sequenced really early, things get stripped down for the instrumental and slower track, and then everything builds again for the last two. From "Ashamed of Myself" on would make a really good B-side to a vinyl pressing.

― Alexander (Alexander Buckiewicz-Smith), Friday, 13 January 2006 17:39 (twenty years ago)

just got this. need more listens, but its not the electro bassy funk orchestral glittering spangly shiny sex pop album of my dreams.

― ambrose (ambrose), Friday, 13 January 2006 20:38 (twenty years ago)

who was it that described this as "yacht disco"? think it's more meta than that, but it's a gorgeous description wrt/the f. scott fitzgerald vibes.

― etc, Friday, 13 January 2006 23:49 (twenty years ago)

two weeks pass...

01.17.06: New Album Sampler 12"
Album Sampler Vol .2 will be released March 6, 2006.

01.08.06: Kelley Polar Live Debut
Live debut: Knitting Factory NYC on March 8, 2006.

(& #145 in Pazz&Jopp (inc 3 #1 votes); two votes for "My Beauty In The Moon" & one for "Here In The Night".)

― etc, Thursday, 2 February 2006 23:07 (twenty years ago)

this record is still very great.

― jergins (jergins), Thursday, 2 February 2006 23:36 (twenty years ago)

uh, i came here to post what etc just did, so I'll just add the ticket info:

Kelley Polar @ the Knit

― ziti sanskrit (sanskrit), Friday, 3 February 2006 20:10 (twenty years ago)

and there will be an eight-piece string section on stage for that show too - can't wait!

― rajeev (rajeev), Friday, 3 February 2006 20:51 (twenty years ago)

two weeks pass...

http://acuterecords.com/kplive_eflyer1.gif

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 16:16 (twenty years ago)

Wow! Impressive!

― Le Baaderonixx de Clignancourt (baaderonixx), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 16:18 (twenty years ago)

I will try v. hard to be there.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 16:24 (twenty years ago)

Is this sponsored by McSweeney's?

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 16:26 (twenty years ago)

is this all bold for anyone else, too?!

i really hope there are going to be more shows, i'm very, very keen to see how this works live.

― toby (tsg20), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 16:27 (twenty years ago)

It's a gif, that's why it's bold. And it's not sponsored by them, just typeset by them. Actually, neither.

Please note the early nature of this event, and the lack of any other bands on the bill. This is Kelley's special night.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 16:41 (twenty years ago)

If it's any consolation, I would totally come if I lived in NYC! I was one of those three Pazz and Jop #1s.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 16:44 (twenty years ago)

so we should show up at 7:30, or close to it? no epic opening sets from you or morgan?

i'm really excited for this. live debuts can be a mixed bag, but the live string section, kelley's julliard training, and the general awesomeness of his record have me thinking this'll be great.

― rajeev (rajeev), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 16:49 (twenty years ago)

I don't know times. I'm not gonna say that I'll be djing untill 9pm so you should show up then!

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 17:01 (twenty years ago)

you're billed above morgan geist!! quite a COUP!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 17:16 (twenty years ago)

I taught Morgan everything he knows.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 17:31 (twenty years ago)

unbold

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 17:35 (twenty years ago)

holy shit! matthew herbert is djing the same night as the kelley polar gig, at the canal room. i'm guessing that if the kelley polar gig starts at 7.30, it'll be easy to make both...

― geeta (geeta), Friday, 24 February 2006 21:45 (twenty years ago)

I'll try to get a good idea of the times, though I imagine a DJ event at the Canal Room wouldn't start, and certainly not take-off, till late.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Friday, 24 February 2006 22:02 (twenty years ago)

matthew herbert is djing the same night as the kelley polar gig, at the canal room.

oh wow, that's pretty sweet. the canal room site lists a 10 PM start time so yeah, making both probably won't be too hard...

― rajeev (rajeev), Friday, 24 February 2006 23:08 (twenty years ago)

whoa! and rhys chatham is playing at tonic at 8pm the same night of the kelley polar gig! from the tonic website:

Rhys Chatham: Performing his original 70s "guitar army" pieces for the first time in two decades, RHYS CHATHAM'S "Die Donnergotter" ensemble features rock legends ERNIE BROOKS (MODERN LOVERS) on bass and JONATHAN KANE (LA MONTE YOUNG, SWANS) on drums; the guitarists include CHRIS BROKAW (CODEINE, COME), BILL BROVOLD (LARVAL), DAVID DANIELL (SAN AGUSTIN), DAVID BICKNELL, JON CRIDER and PAUL DUNCAN (JONATHAN KANE'S FEBRUARY); of course RHYS himself is front and center

!!!!!!

― geeta (geeta), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 05:20 (twenty years ago)

yeah...Mike Wolf told me about the Rhys Chatham thing last night at the Rip It Up panel. How did I not know about that? It's a Table of the Elements thing with a bunch of other acts, so maybe it'll also be later. Everyone can go to Herbert after Kelley Polar, I'm gonna try to see Rhys Chatham. I'll try to find out what time he's performing.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 16:00 (twenty years ago)

Holy damn, this is soon!

BUMP.

Pulling out records to play while people stand around waiting for the actual show. Some nice New Wave oddities and Italo...unclassics if you will.

Haven't heard more about the schedule for Tonic other then there's a few other acts so I'm assuming Rhys is going on later.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 03:49 (twenty years ago)

v.v.much wish i could be there! any word on what's on the second album sampler? supposed to out yesterday, but can't find any references to it anywhere.

― etc, Wednesday, 8 March 2006 10:32 (twenty years ago)

for anyone going tonight, kelley's set is an indeed an early one ... 8:30 to 9:30 according to the folks at the knit.

― rajeev (rajeev), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:44 (twenty years ago)

hell, you should be there now!

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:16 (twenty years ago)

Skipping 844 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.