Bands you keep trying to like but can't get into

I've just playgraded a copy of A Love Supreme that's come into the shop* and I figured this would be a great opportunity to finally tackle this one after a dozen attempts in my lifetime, but nope, it's still an unpleasant cacophony.

*crackles all the way through but only really annoying and noticeable in the quiet bits. VG- I think? Or should that be a G?

Is this your feeling towards Coltrane in general or just the more cacophonous end of his recordings? I see A Love Supreme as more or less the midpoint between the more melodic vs more "free" ends of his discography.

Yeah the more melodic Coltrane stuff I can get with. Blue Train came into the shop as well and I dug that, and I've enjoyed Favourite Things in the past, but every time I take a run at Love Supreme I can't make head nor tail of it. I can't seem to find anything to hang onto.

I have the same barrier with some of the more abrasive electronic music that gets some hype. The harsher end of Aphex Twin definitely. I tried with the Simona Zamboli album that got love on the techno* albums thread but I had the same problem where my brain just turns it all to noise and mush.

there is dissonance but cacophony implies more than that and it's a clearly structured composition, he's always playing on/with the themes, you can hear every instrument clearly. i'd understand the complaint more if it was about om (which is wonderful cacophony)

i never hated it but did take me longer to come around to than most coltrane, it's not as wild as the free stuff or as straightforwardly hooky as the earlier stuff (although it is tuneful throughout), now i love it so much i can't imagine why i ever didn't or why not everyone does

the harsher end of aphex twin can fuck off imo. but i do like autechre so i'm not consistently anti-abrasion. but i struggle to like noisy stuff if i can't find a conceptual hook or if i dislike what i (maybe erroneously) perceive to be driving it

by "the harsher end of Aphex" are we talking about Ventolin, Come To Daddy (Pappy Mix), the stuff on Classics? I don't think of much of his stuff as excessively harsh really

You sure it wasn't a mislabelled copy of Ascension?xp

Seriously, as Left says, it all comes together as a single composition. As with classical music, it helps to pick out the main themes and follow how they are developed.

idk what NotEnough meant re:AFX but I was thinking specifically of the drill n bass tracks on drukqs, ventolin also qualifies though. I think the trollish spirit puts me off as much as / more than the noise itself (but then I do like SAWII which could also be seen as trollish in its way so idk)

I'm not denying that Coltrane knew what he was doing and that everything in ALS is carefully composed. I'm talking more about what my brain does to it; that whatever the structure is, its not something that I can quite grasp. And that's okay! I'm old enough that I don't get fomo over not "getting" a canonical album. Maybe I'll take another run at it in five years time and it'll click.

And I think this is partially what this thread is about, right? Having to sit down and study an album/artist, rather than just listening and responding emotionally.

And yes, re Aphex, the drill n bass on drukqs is exactly what I had in mind.

i didnt really get coltrane until i read that deleted pitchfork review. helped me understand how much he inspired drum-n-bass.

If you really want to sit down and study it, Lewis Porter's article "John Coltrane's 'A Love Supreme': Jazz Improvisation as Composition", from the Aug 1985 issue of the Journal of the American Musicological Society, is good. DM if you can't find it.xp

drill & bass, Aphex or otherwise, just draws me in straight away, I understand that other people find it difficult to listen to but cannot really grasp why that is.

A Love Supreme for me is a little bit like the Stairway of the Coltrane catalog. An undeniably great but played out masterwork, and one that I don't think best captures my favorite elements of his playing in spite of how memorable it is.

However if it's too cacophonous for you, you are probably fairly sensitive to dissonance and I doubt you'll do better with later works.

There's an entire book on A Love Supreme by Ashley Kahn that looks into the context and the recording in detail without too much music theory, if that is useful.

Try Crescent, recorded a few months before ALS. If I had to pick just one Coltrane album, that might be it. It's extraordinarily beautiful, especially the ballad "Wise One."

crescent trained me to appreciate ALS I think

I've been listening to his final album, Expression, and I mostly have to appreciate the textures rather than follow the structure in any more than an elementary way.

that album is frustrating/upsetting bc he was starting to go somewhere new

He could have gone anywhere: electric, "spiritual", maybe even Third Stream compositions.

hendrix collab

As much I'd love to hear it, I reckon the Hendrix collaboration is best left in the imagination.

I doubt Coltrane's and Hendrix's paths would ever have crossed. Coltrane was as pure an acoustic jazz player as ever existed; there's not even a record of him ever playing with an organ trio. Alice didn't even plug in until after his death.

We wanted Hendrix and Coltrane, we got Henry Vestine and Albert Ayler on bagpipes.

I doubt Coltrane's and Hendrix's paths would ever have crossed. Coltrane was as pure an acoustic jazz player as ever existed; there's not even a record of him ever playing with an organ trio. Alice didn't even plug in until after his death.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Friday, July 9, 2021 12:49 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Coltrane sat in with Sonny Sharrock at least once (Sharrock said it felt like a massive industrial fan had been turned on behind him; he turned around, and it was Trane), and experimented with a prototype Varitone electronic saxophone setup shortly before his death:

https://i.imgur.com/xddM9dm.jpeg

we got Henry Vestine and Albert Ayler on bagpipes.

LOL. Sadly not at the same time.

If Miles had died on the same day Coltrane did, he wouldn't have recorded with electric instruments either. We'd be saying, "Miles was too traditional to have gone electric".

At the same time! on "Untitled Duet" on Ayler's Last Album.

it's pointless to speculate on alternate history, but coltrane's last recordings were his most wild and adventurous of all. i don't think it would be likely that he'd ignore electronics. if anything i'd expect him to do something much, much more wild and extreme than anything miles davis did

At the same time! on "Untitled Duet" on Ayler's Last Album.

Oh right, I knew Henry Vestine had played with him but I didn't know Albert was on bagpipes at the time.

While I'm here, Albert Ayler.

I like Waits’ the heart of Saturday night but not really anything else. It’s all I need from him.

^^^ That'd be Rain Dogs for me. I like bits and pieces of other Tom Waits records.

I don't really see how one could like Rain Dogs but not Swordfish or Franks Wild Years. They sound of a piece to me and I can happily listen to those three on shuffle no probs

Rain Dogs is the poppiest of the three, the easiest to like. Swordfishtrombones is OK, but to me it feels a little murky and not-quite-there; he was still figuring out the style he perfected on RD and on Bone Machine.

A. R. Kane

what about “when you’re sad”/“so far away”?

just perfect single imo. 69 is weird and gorgeous, took me awhile to get into it.

Gave up trying with them tbh.

talking heads

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaOj0-nvkoA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixj-NcYIKAQ

Yeah I have 69 but need to try again

sign me up as someone who couldn't get into 69 but liked "When You're Sad"

For a bit I thought you guys were saying you were trying to force yourself to like 6ix9ine

Here's where I wave my giant 'Tom Waits' Big Time is his best record! Number 1' foam finger again. Such a shame that it doesn't get any love as it has *scorching* versions of songs from the Island years that surpass the album versions by miles and is the best entry into his middle years.

It is a really good, overlooked album. It might help if the movie was available, too...

I have a friend who is passionate about Sebadoh, and I kept trying to engage with it, but have found that I am just not interested... partially cuz dude seems like such a shitty, prickish ghoul of a human.

^I wouldn't go that far, but (as a big fan) I'm not sure how someone would get into Sebadoh "fresh"... they seem like a pretty context-specific band, if that makes sense (III is a klassic, tho).

Also - Smash Your Head... is one of my favorite records, and I think the Barlow 'tude is fairly minimal on that one (it's mainly rockin'). So maybe there?

i prefer swordfishtrombones to rain dogs because its less traditional ... i remember finding rain dogs kind of a disappointment bc it just got a bit less theatrical and a bit more idk ... bluesy