It's wonderful. Totally claustrophobic and warm and, yes, self-indulgent, but she is on a mission to prove she's more than a synth artist tinkling on some keyboards. Totally pulls it off in a dreamy, hazy, muffly way.
Also, I saw her play in an outdoor space in Silver Lake and everyone was just floored by the sincerity of it all. She is no joke.
― nomar, Tuesday, 5 April 2016 16:43 (eight years ago) link
Multiple xp to LG - I think this sounds like a lot of stuff that already exists but it excels at it.
I didn't think any of the posts in this thread were excessively effusive, but who wants to enjoy nice music when we can turn it into a clusterfuck of some kind
― boxedjoy, Tuesday, 5 April 2016 16:45 (eight years ago) link
The experience and emotions tied to listening to Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith's Ears are like witnessing the stillborn birth of a child while simultaneously having the opportunity to see her play in the afterlife on Imax.
― marcos, Tuesday, 5 April 2016 16:45 (eight years ago) link
sorry i'm just dicking around, i think lj is being a dork, and i love this album even if euclid is a little better
― marcos, Tuesday, 5 April 2016 16:46 (eight years ago) link
lol
― Treeship, Tuesday, 5 April 2016 16:48 (eight years ago) link
this album (EARS) is aptly titled because I literally feel like I truly have been given a new pair of EARS and am listening to music for the first time in my life
― rockpalast '82 (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 5 April 2016 16:49 (eight years ago) link
looooooool
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Tuesday, 5 April 2016 16:50 (eight years ago) link
http://www.tmchoir.org/wp-content/uploads/NewEars.png
― nomar, Tuesday, 5 April 2016 16:50 (eight years ago) link
Is anyone else into Kara-lis Coverdale? I sort of group them together in my mind due to similarity of names, and KLC's music has more of an ecclesiastical Tim Hecker vibe but they both push the same emotional buttons for me.
yeah same, i thought the kara-lis coverdale & lxv album from last year was particularly nice. (apologies for the embarrassingly effusive praise)
― lazy rascals, spending their substance, and more, in riotous living (Merdeyeux), Tuesday, 5 April 2016 16:59 (eight years ago) link
i listen to a lot of music ~like this~ and this album initially seemed like just a fairly decent version of it but it's completely embedded itself in my life after a couple of months - it feels perfectly balanced between all its elements, there's always something happening so it's not just ambient mood and yet she never breaks the spell
really i only checked this out because of euclid placing in the ilm poll - i didn't love it (off the cursory listen i gave it) but it was interesting enough for me to give this some attention, am really glad i did and intend to return to her previous albums as soon as i can tear myself away from this
― cher guevara (lex pretend), Tuesday, 5 April 2016 17:04 (eight years ago) link
xp aftertouches was a v good walking around the city in the sunlight album, felt colder than KAS
― ogmor, Tuesday, 5 April 2016 17:15 (eight years ago) link
k-l c is cool imo, will check out the artist mentioned on this thread
― μpright mammal (mh), Tuesday, 5 April 2016 19:32 (eight years ago) link
lex OTM. Sums up my feelings too. An album hasn't grabbed me like this, from start to finish as a singular entity, in a while. Maybe years. Hard not to continue gushing. And listening to it loud on a really nice stereo is quite something.
― octobeard, Wednesday, 6 April 2016 01:43 (eight years ago) link
It really is quite good. Whiney is just trying to kill your buzz because that's who he is and what he duzz
― Treeship, Wednesday, 6 April 2016 03:01 (eight years ago) link
JFC what did you people do to this thread.
― Sehr Kornisch (Branwell with an N), Wednesday, 6 April 2016 05:42 (eight years ago) link
got excited reading about this (thanks to this thread).
had a deep listen and pretty disappointed really... it's nice enough mood music but i'm not really hearing what separates this musically from the thousands of mid-late-00s synth stuff. a bit more measured sure, some woodwind in there and some 4th world 5ths pitchshifting...
just yer standard vertically-composed arp-scapes really? what are people hearing as being exciting about this
― linee, Wednesday, 6 April 2016 07:16 (eight years ago) link
yeah that feels about right to me. i sometimes feel like ilm and maybe the wider world goes crazy for artists around the point where they are becoming less interesting. like julia holter felt the same.
i know that sounds like "oh their early stuff is better" - i mean sometimes an artist's sort of breakout album is some kind of middlepoint of note, but other times i just think the part that is making it appeal more seems to nullify whatever i liked in the first place. and here's why and that's okay.
anyway i am going to give this another listen.
― japanese mage (LocalGarda), Wednesday, 6 April 2016 08:14 (eight years ago) link
Sometimes it's difficult to explain why a vibe works but it this case it just does, just texturally and melodically really satisfying at the same time. I suppose it depends on what you hope to get from music like this - I don't listen to ambient because it's "interesting" (although that helps), it's entirely about the emotional effect for me.
The arp scapes comment kinda makes sense to me in that this is sort of the ambient equivalent of Lindstrom c. Smalhans, when what it's doing is sort of rudimentary but at the same time really works.
― Matt DC, Wednesday, 6 April 2016 08:37 (eight years ago) link
the last track reminds me a bit of sasha and digweed
― japanese mage (LocalGarda), Wednesday, 6 April 2016 08:45 (eight years ago) link
sorry everyone
had a deep listen and pretty disappointed really... it's nice enough mood music but i'm not really hearing what separates this musically from the thousands of mid-late-00s synth stuff.
Hard to know who you think this sounds like without you naming names, but a lot of your 0PNs and your John Elliots seemed to be influenced a lot by German kosmische stuff, where as this feels more rooted in an American tradition of Terry Riley and Laurie Spiegel and David Borden, focussing on nature and our place in it rather than the cold vast distances of eternal space etc a la Klaus Schulze. Kind of the pastoral as opposed to the astral? An organic music society sort of thing, something to sow your biodynamic carrots to or whatever (I'm sure that is a perfectly horrible misrepresentation of all concerned, also profuse and humble apologies to whiney etc).
― real orgone kid (NickB), Wednesday, 6 April 2016 09:16 (eight years ago) link
the mid-late-00s thing it reminded me of most was Mountains/Koen Holtkamp - not so much in the actual sounds but more the feeling of connection to the natural world
― real orgone kid (NickB), Wednesday, 6 April 2016 09:19 (eight years ago) link
but then like you said, there's the vocal thing and the woodwinds which i guess are still a terry riley kind of deal, but give it a total other layer to your standard synthetic yoghurt weaving
― real orgone kid (NickB), Wednesday, 6 April 2016 09:21 (eight years ago) link
i quite like this and all but it's so far off terry riley for me.
― japanese mage (LocalGarda), Wednesday, 6 April 2016 09:24 (eight years ago) link
not saying it sounds like him, he just feels like maybe a spirit presiding over it.
― real orgone kid (NickB), Wednesday, 6 April 2016 09:31 (eight years ago) link
the thing it brought to mind for me, not for specific sonic similarities but for the very organic, breathing synthworld she creates, was the VFTL album
― cher guevara (lex pretend), Wednesday, 6 April 2016 09:41 (eight years ago) link
It sounds a bit like some kind of american hauntology?
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 6 April 2016 10:15 (eight years ago) link
Maybe if you switch silent running for pendas fen
― real orgone kid (NickB), Wednesday, 6 April 2016 10:46 (eight years ago) link
Well Ears is pretty pleasant, not sure if I'll ever feel the need to listen to it again but it was superficially nice. She doesn't seem to know how to end a track though, apart from the last track they all just kind of... stop abruptly. I'd probably prefer it if it was instrumental as well.
― ultros ultros-ghali, Wednesday, 6 April 2016 15:49 (eight years ago) link
I do really like the last track though
Been listening to this a lot and like it very much, but definitely prefer Euclid. The jaunty pieces from side a of Euclid are still my favorite things I've heard from her. Really nice compositions that give me that Miyazaki vibe in a big way.
Rare Things Grow is my current favorite on EARS. The sax parts on that one are so nice.
― Check Yr Scrobbles (Moodles), Wednesday, 6 April 2016 15:55 (eight years ago) link
this album is so dope, thanks 2 whiney for his thread cuz otherwise i wouldnt've clicked on this one
― bitcoin bajas (diamonddave85), Wednesday, 6 April 2016 20:12 (eight years ago) link
Wait, did Whiney actually say that he enjoyed music made by a woman
― got a long list of ILXors (fgti), Wednesday, 6 April 2016 20:51 (eight years ago) link
ooooooh zing
― μpright mammal (mh), Wednesday, 6 April 2016 20:53 (eight years ago) link
No zing I'm serious, he never has before
except St. Vincent, but even then it was "hey wow I can't believe I like this"
― got a long list of ILXors (fgti), Wednesday, 6 April 2016 21:01 (eight years ago) link
lick me
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Wednesday, 6 April 2016 21:05 (eight years ago) link
i could write you out some list of all the female musicians I've loved and supported and wrote about and bump on the regular, but I'm sure that would just qualify me for some completely different ad-hom attack
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Wednesday, 6 April 2016 21:06 (eight years ago) link
Could you add queers as well? maybe make it a solid list of ten or so
― got a long list of ILXors (fgti), Wednesday, 6 April 2016 21:10 (eight years ago) link
honestly, this is super entertaining but it should really be on another thread -- like whiney's poll thread -- rather than here.
― Treeship, Wednesday, 6 April 2016 21:11 (eight years ago) link
not that i am not guilty of driving threads off the rails myself but still
http://i.imgur.com/7WOj5.gif
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Wednesday, 6 April 2016 21:12 (eight years ago) link
yeah, i'll gladly start a 77 thread if fgti wants to decide if the percentage of women and gay artists I listen to is woke enough for his liking
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Wednesday, 6 April 2016 21:13 (eight years ago) link
woke enough for his licking
― sexy dander (Stevie D(eux)), Wednesday, 6 April 2016 21:30 (eight years ago) link
i lol'd
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Wednesday, 6 April 2016 21:31 (eight years ago) link
I hate emotional ambient music
― lute bro (brimstead), Wednesday, 6 April 2016 22:34 (eight years ago) link
I hate music
― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Wednesday, 6 April 2016 22:38 (eight years ago) link
funnily enough i can't think of an album that's less likely to stir up any kind of heated discussion yet here we are
― j. winters (josh), Wednesday, 6 April 2016 23:08 (eight years ago) link
I think everyone agrees it's a good album, the fight is over just HOW good
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Wednesday, 6 April 2016 23:32 (eight years ago) link
lickin good
― adam, Thursday, 7 April 2016 00:03 (eight years ago) link
def my fav track off the album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOYR856Gzrg
― sexy dander (Stevie D(eux)), Thursday, 7 April 2016 00:44 (eight years ago) link