PHOEBE BRIDGERS - what's the deal?

you called me on a payphone
they still got payphones
it costs a dollar a minute

That's about her dad, right?

I’m on my first listen but so far making me feel like the early 00s is starting to come back into vogue? Reminding me of songwritery albums from that era.

xpost yes, she confirmed in something i read

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/25/phoebe-bridgers-frank-anxious-music

here ^

I hear that early 2000s thing too. Big Sufjan/Polyphonic Spree vibes from 'I Know The End'.

"I Know The End" sounds most like Bright Eyes tbh, just with a much better singer lol. Amazing song though, that closing verse is incredible.

i don't really like the horns on this album that much because they reminds me of bombastic 00s indie folk in a way that conflicts with the things i like about this album

even on kyoto?

especially on kyoto

gasp!

😱

i love the horns. i love the ending of i know the end too.

i listened to this while jogging today and yesterday. i think it's a masterpiece and an album i'll be listening to 20 years from now.

one of the reviews i saw compared "I Know the End" to the last track on Lifted

xxxxpost to Roz

Early favorites: "Garden Song," "Moon Song," and "Punisher."

Fantastic stuff. Huge step up from the first album imo, in terms of - well, in terms of nearly everything. Lyrics, consistency of sound not for the sake of it, not monotonous but because it builds towards something, creates a whole of an arc, and a hugely impressive one. 'I Know the End' is killer, and such a release!

Only quip is that the sonics of 'Garden Song' don't sit well with me at all! Listening through headphones, the warbly sound makes me feel seasick lol.

@LBI, was just thinking how much I love 'Garden Song' but that the soft but persistent pulse underlying everything makes me a bit anxious.

The sound on this is really weird in general, like everything is slushed together in the mix and backgrounded and then her voice is absolutely front-and-centre and crystal clear over it all.

otm

maybe that's what's been keeping me at arm's length idk

Yup

this is going to be one of those ilx mixing discussions i can't parse

record sounds amazing imo

Listening now and the kick in Garden Song is sidechained and heavily muffled, it's the sort of pulse you feel in your chest* more than hear, early-00s Kompakt did that a lot but it feels weird it hearing it in this context.

*FWIW that's clearly deliberate given the lyrics and I think it works.

It also think it's deliberate and applaud her for it, it just makes me - I should have said this earlier, obviously - 'motion sick' :)

No related problems whatsoever w/ the rest of the album.

yeah it's def designed to be as unsettling as it is lovely

To be clear, "everything is slushed together in the mix and backgrounded and then her voice is absolutely front-and-centre and crystal clear over it" I consider a compliment.

yeah the more i read that and listen along with the record i agree, though also i feel like "graceland too" and "savior complex" are too spacious and sparkling to be slushed together

it's a really good atmosphere the built around these songs, cloudy and clear in just the right amounts, and when the clouds appear they're huge cf. all the production touches on the title track

i love the muted instrumentation on "halloween," feels like i never hear an actual guitar note, just this weird space between note and harmonic

"My feet can't touch the bottom of you" -- "Moon Song"

I spent a few minutes staring at the tracklist on Spotify to find out if they'd randomly changed it or removed a song and then I realised that 'I See You' is now 'ICU'.

Matt's assessments otm

lol (i don't know if ppl w/o reddit accounts can see this)

https://www.reddit.com/r/phoebebridgers/comments/hdfegw/had_to_do_it/

^^ otm

anyone check out the recent christian lee hutson album that phoebe produced? sounding really nice to me today, and likely will to you too if your favorite song of punisher is 'savior complex'.

That album is really great.

I’m still stunned by how good this is

Painful and cathartic truth in every verse

“Cause I don't know what I want
Until I fuck it up”

The sound on this is really weird in general, like everything is slushed together in the mix and backgrounded and then her voice is absolutely front-and-centre and crystal clear over it all.

― Matt DC, Monday, June 22, 2020 2:29 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Feel like this is really what's making me not grasp onto this album too. I like a lot of parts of it but not the whole. I find it too distant and ethereal (or smushy) sonically and even with repeated listens that isn't changing.

Definitely feel that's the point of the production style too. Maybe it'll hit me differently at some point in the future.

i feel that all this heavy-handed studio production is impeding her and it's such a shame. the new bright eyes record is the same. i used to love listening to BE for mogis' creative production, and it's completely absent from their new songs, it all just sounds distorted and sterile. though phoebe's production is more creative... the arrangements for ICU are top.

in her 'what's in my bag' ameoba records episode she talks about liking elliott's 'new moon' bc of how stripped down it is... i'd like to hear her make a record with just a four track, too.

"Alps" was pretty stripped down and she's said in interviews she specifically wanted something different for this one.

because i think when you're gone it's forever
but you know i'd stand on the corner
embarrassed with a picket sign
if it meant i would see you when I die

sometimes when i can't sleep
it's just a matter of time before i'm hearing things
swore i could feel you through the walls
but that's impossible

that whole song is just incredible

Hayley Williams identified a pretty obvious stand-out part lyrics-wise as well

#nl @phoebe_bridgers pic.twitter.com/5QenjWNdii

— hayley from Paramore 🌺 (@yelyahwilliams) June 18, 2020

people desire transcendence. we don't feel at home in this world.

sometimes a poet can make this ancient wisdom sound new.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcQl5lerI3E

i like the skeleton outfit. maybe i'll get one.