seefeel thread for discussion of relevant informations pertaining to the "quique redux" 2cd superbonus reissue (and other seefeel matters)

it's a nice enough addition.

So, i just picked up all the Seefeel albums...

_Quique
_Succour
_Ch-Vox

...the other day, as well as the EP collection...

_Polyfusia

...and am wondering, what's the best place to start listening to these albums? Should I go chronologically, or in some other order, and why? Also, what are the highlights of each disc, or what should I be on the lookout (listenout?) for with each one? Any other thoughts on Seefeel in general, or these albums?

Thanks, ILM.

The three Polyfusia releases are cheap on bleep currently - new disjecta ep, autechre remix of spangle and Clifford's new album with Kealoha(?)

http://www.bleep.com/?label=Polyfusia

stephen, choronologically, because they get weirder (and, to me, more interesting). the Ch-Vox is a lot like the Disjecta things on warp rather than Seefeely. Fracture / Tied and Starethrough EPs also essential i think.

Fracture / Tied and Starethrough EPs also essential i think.
-- koogs, Friday, October 12, 2007 9:01 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

hey thanks!

(by which i assume you mean, those two EPs have some pretty nice exclusives, yes?)

yes, and are also some of the best things they've done. plus i like the cover of fracture / tied - designers republic, nice heavy orange card, silver ink, slight embossing...

also worth a listen:
isan remix of when face was face
http://www.cocteautwins.com/html/discography/discog_23.html (cocteaus remixed by clifford)
2x disjecta mini lps on warp

oh wow! i have that Cocteaus EP, think it's pleasant enough for late Cocteaus material but i haven't given it more than a couple spins really. i had no idea some guy from Seefeel was involved either. i'll have to pull that out tomorrow, then...

thanks!

anyone else?

Listen to them chronologically as there is definitely a development of their sound and it can be divided into two halves: Too Pure releases and post-Too Pure releases. While the first ep (More Like Space) doesn't sound like a rock band, except for the last track, you can get a sense of rock composition from the songs. This gets thrown out the window on Plainsong when they start adding more and more layers and definitely go for a machine vibe. Quique has moments when it sounds like a rock band, but most of all it's the pinnacle of layering and density in the early sound. Imperial is one of my favorite pieces of music ever.

When they switched to Warp (you really should get Starethrough because it's fucking incredible), they started to strip back the elements so that by the time you get to Ch-Vox, it's so sparse, it's almost like listening to sonar blips. There are some fine moments on these records, but I admit I prefer the earlier ones more. Also, if you can locate it, their contributions to the Ancient Lights and the Black Core compilation on Sub Rosa are some of the highlights of their later work.

What Bill said.

Bill, thanks, that's a fantastic summary. I'm really looking forward to these now, more so than before. I checked the 4 songs on Starethrough, doesn't look like there's any overlap with their full-lengths (or maybe 1 track, i forget). watching a copy of that on eBay right now ;-) so i'll try to snag it for a few bucks.

> Also, if you can locate it, their contributions to the Ancient Lights and the Black Core compilation on Sub Rosa are some of the highlights of their later work.

lots very cheap listed on amazon.com. if only i knew a tame american who could pick up a copy for me...

Nope, Starethrough is all non-album material. I remember buying it when it came out and wondering if it was the same band that put out Quique--it's that different from its predecessor.

Also, I highly recommend Mark Clifford's collaboration with Simon Kealoha on Clifford's Polyfusia label. Running Taper is the name. It's much more of a software-processed affair than his other work and sorta reclaims the space between Seefeel and Fennesz.

Otherwise, I think the other side projects are less than the sum of the whole band. There are a few Scala tracks that I like, but they never really did much for me. The first Disjecta album is good (because Looking for Snags sounds exactly like Dubstep circa 1995), but after that until the collaboration mentioned above, I unfortunately found Clifford's stuff hit-or-miss to completely uninteresting. If you can find it, Mark Van Hoen (their engineer aka Locust) put out a really good album in the late 90s called Playing with Time.

I bought the original last week, as it was available used. I used to be a bit ambivalent about Seefeel, but damn, this album is amazing.

http://www.bleep.com/?bleep=FUS005

new release on polyfusia. 4 track ep.

01 - Blue-Fi1 (3:32) - Mark Clifford
02 - Blue-Fi2 (2:58) - Mark Clifford
03 - Prychynna (4:31) - Zaudloka
04 - Rankova (Midnight Edit) (6:49) - Zaudloka

Listening to Polyfusia right now. Completely forgot how stunningly gorgeous this record is.

ah yes, stunning record. i think i'll join you in a spin.

It makes me sad that this band isn't as widely revered as, say, The Orb. They really deserve much more praise than they get.

You'd think there would have been primed for some serious critical re-appraisal about 5 years ago or so, when all those MBV-meets-laptronica bands like (early)M83, Ulrich Schnauss & all the Morr acts started popping up all over the place. That shit has Seefeel's fingerprints all over it.

Haha, I was about to post here saying what Pillbox just said. I finally snagged this reissue over the weekend and hearing it now in 2009 in such a context is breathtaking. But what's interesting is that while it does predate those styles and predicts them, Quique very much is its own sound, and there's things going on almost track for track (like the astonishing bassline on "Industrious") that few of the modern bunch are either able or willing to try.

I listened to this on Spotify and thoroughly enjoyed it. I think I'll listen to it again now.

Still prefer Ulrich Schnauss, mind. :p

This album came out right around the time I started buying CDs (instead of tapes, ya I M old) and somehow I never got around to buying it on CD or on vinyl, even though I had virtually everything else in Seefeel's catalogue on one of those formats. So basically, since all of my tapes are stashed away somewhere now, I hadn't listened to "Quique" in ages before I bought the reissue. And yeah, it was astonishing to hear it again. It sounds so fresh, novel, and unpredictable these days, which is weird because at the time a lot of people dismissed them as MBV/Cocteau Twins rip-off fetishists!

Yeah this is a 10/10 star totally great album, unfuckwithable. I dug out the reissue last week also and listened to it and was of course blown away.

Does anyone rate the stuff that comes after Quique? I like Polyfusia well enough but haven't given much time to Ch-Vox or that other record of theirs that came later...

The Starethrough EP is pretty great!

anything with "starethrough" on it is necessarily gonna be great, but which one? the warp cd one or the white label?

aren't they the same?

Still prefer Ulrich Schnauss, mind. :p
Craziest talk on ILX yet!

Succor remains my favorite Seefeel by a mile.... they've lost some of the shoegazing qualities, in favor of a more ambient/dub/isolationist character. One of the best things Rephlex ever released; still can't understand why this hasn't gotten a reissue.

http://www.discogs.com/Seefeel-Succour/release/3617

there's things going on almost track for track (like the astonishing bassline on "Industrious") that few of the modern bunch are either able or willing to try

Mebbe cuz the Seefeel guys were at one point rockers? Whereas I could never truly accept M83 as a rock act. Most of Seefeel's distinctiveness, to me, from a 2009 standpoint comes from the feeling that the boundaries between electronic music and rock are still porous.

Seefeel fans, set those turntables to stun! Hot off the heels of Too Pure’s revamped reissuance of the late, lamented London quartet’s 1993 opus Quique, we are beyond thrilled to announce that we’ll bringing this outstanding release to your hi-fi as a 4-platter vinyl set early next year. This fabtabulous offering will be limited to 500 copies (100 of them blue) and brought to you in beautiful gatefold packaging. Nearly 15 years after its debut, this daring exercise in ambient glory sounds every bit as ambitious as it did then, so don’t miss this rare opportunity to rediscover this long out-of-print masterwork in fantastic wax.

That was late 2007 on a clairecords newsletter, guess it never happened.

i thought this was pronounced KEE-KAY, like the diminutive of Enrique. Thank you strongo hulkington (RIP) for educating me so i don't make a faux-pas in a hypothetical future Seafeel conversation that I may have.

I prefer the Moby Dick pronunciation of "kwee-kway" but whatever, it's gorgeous.

I was sure it was "Keek", at least that's what I remember.

I have been mentally pronouncing it as "kweekweh" but that is because I keep thinking it's a Latin word like "quisque" or "quoque" and it isn't. But as yet I've never had any call to talk about it out loud.

Whoops, Succour was on Warp (as the link I provided showed!). And MP3s are available on Bleep.com! Let the record show that I'm an idiot.

"Keek" is how reviewers were describing the pronunciation at the time...while we on the topic, how's Tricky's debut pronounced?...Max-In-Kway or Max-In-Key?...or neither?...or both?

had not actually encountered this record before finding it the other day; love the way everything just billows outwards around those basslines.

do you think they'll give the re-ish treatment to any of the other stuff? probably gets a bit complicated when it's spread over different labels.

eifersucht

Ha! No, something more descriptive than that. Something that captures the curious longing but also the acknowledgement that, all being well, it will probably turn up tomorrow. Maybe Saturday.

seefeelsbadman

lol

well...

there sounds to be a mastering problem on track 11 of disk 2 - i get a glitch. rewound over it several times, same glitch every time

and i think they may've put the usual 2 second delay between tracks of disk 1 even though a couple of them run together - something sounded odd, certainly. (haven't reproduced that, didn't show up when i was skipping to tracks)

I seefeellessbadman about not having received it, now.

Seriously, though, that sucks. Seems such a shame. Like, presumably someone has played a test pressing or similar?

http://www.koogy.clara.co.uk/seefeel.png

so here are the two cds ripped as single files and you can see the top one has crept out of sync because of the gaps placed at the starts of the tracks.

and, worse, they've added one where there's a mix into the next track - you can see the tiny bit they've orphaned at the top there. doesn't look much, but sounds terrible.

http://www.koogy.clara.co.uk/seefeel2.png

and the other glitch, cd2, track 11, is a gap that shouldn't be there.

yikes

Is this the CD?

yeah.

i made it slightly better using audacity by cutting the silence out and smoothing down the join but it's not that simple. will have another try tomorrow.

wonder if the FLACs on Bandcamp will be corrected?

wonder if the FLACs on Bandcamp will be corrected?

sorry I'm drunk and eating ice cream

cd3, ch-vox redux, sounds great though (and i don't know it as much as i thought i did)

Just ordered the box; apparently the first edition sold out, but importcds had copies for $24 (cheaper than Bleep, and the shipping was *much* cheaper).

so, the things from compilations that are still not collected, a probably incomplete list

Sonics - https://touched.bandcamp.com/album/found-sound-2
Ever Me - https://audioscope.bandcamp.com/album/music-for-a-good-home-3
Is It Now and Ripley - https://subrosalabel.bandcamp.com/album/water-architecture
Lief - Ambient 4 "isolationism"
Phase Maze - Melody Maker Quid Deal cassette
Acrobat - Warp 20 (Maximo Park cover!)
When Face Was Face (isan remix) - Warp 10+3
Air Eyes (In Her Emerald Mix) - Warp 10+3
Spangle (Kid606 Rebootleg Remix) - https://soundcloud.com/kid606/seefeel-spangle-kid606

of which the only one i don't have is the last. less than i thought tbh, but i'm probably thinking of all the little disjecta bits that appeared on compilations and small releases. and the split with zavoloka which was a clifford solo release.

(that isan remix is one of my favourite things ever, they've basically used it as a backing track and written another tune over the top of it)

(i lie. Touched "Found Sound 2" is different from "Touched 2" so that's another one i don't have)

Oh, ta for pointing out that ISAN mix. I own it and love both ISAN and Seefeel ... but somehow I'd forgotten it's existence.

This was on a "Volume" mag/CD: Seefeel – Come Alive (Climatic Phase #1 Mix)

(that was also on the quique redux cd though, so i counted that as collected, just not on the new box. volume 7 fwiw)

Ah, missed that it had been collected.

Time To Find Me (Saturnalia Mix) - The Sound Of Mob Culture
(mp3 here https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/davecinzano/episodes/2006-09-20T12_10_49-07_00 )

typically great Sherburne p4k piece on the reissues

The bass and drums, cornerstones of everything Seefeel had done until now, have momentarily fallen silent; this is a strictly liquid landscape, a vaporous guitar etude that twists like ink dissipating in water. It is the sound of pure electricity, exhausted and forlorn, a haunted dial tone singing deathbed lullabies.

Just picked up the box at my local. Fingers crossed re the glitches (tho I'm not even sure I would notice.)

they are on the digital copies too, if the bleep website is indicative - you can hear the worst right at the end of their clip of Monastic.

i wonder if the second pressing will be different?

I'm guessing someone has actually told Warp??

Hmmm. Maybe I'm not very good at this, but I don't detect any glitches at the end of "Monastic" on my copy.

not at the end, ~54 seconds in

(the sample on the bleep website is 60 seconds long so it's at the end of that)

Ah! Yep, there it is. At least it doesn't skip around, and perhaps this will be something of a collector's item someday, like that upside-down plane stamp.

on disc 2 track 9, you can hear them striking the same rib twice in succession yet they produce two clearly different tones

I emailed Warp on Friday (Aus time) so will see if I get a reply when they wake up today...
I got my copy from Bleep, so the digital copies from Bleep are definitely affected.
You can tell from the track lengths on Bandcamp that they are too.

FYI I made an edit of "Monastic" to get rid of the glitch - used some identical bars from later on.
Don't want to share here because copyright, but if you own it and want to listen properly, DM me? (I'm here so rarely I don't even know how that works!)

Monastic is a previously-unreleased track, no? Maybe the glitch is meant to be there.

raven's fix is nice btw, invisible mending, i was impressed.

i would say from both hearing and seeing that it's not deliberate. it occurs only once and the hole is too ragged, the silence too flat.

Thanks koogs, yeah I've done this before :)
Agreed, it's not deliberate. There's actually part of at least a bar missing, and a tiny bit of pure silence. It's a mistake.

Haven't heard back from Warp yet (but then why would they reply to some random? Well, maybe they will.)

Fairly certain that if you're suggesting something is faulty then they should/would.

They ain't, I'm afraid.
I just posted a comment on Warp's Facebook page to try and get their attention :)

These might be sourced from downmix DATs so could it be a tape dropout/error?

I decided to fire up Audacity and fix the Monastic glitch as well... it's pretty wild that we're at a point where we (well, we're probably more on the nerd end of society than the average) can just kinda casually correct such errors and get on with things... sure the glitch is on the CD, but I listen to the FLACs or mp3s 99% of the time so

So nobody ever got a reply from Warp about this, hey?
They're just gonna slide on, pretending there's nothing wrong?

I read on the Hoffman forum that they are fixing it for the second pressing. I understand they have withdrawn the first pressing for sale. Its listed as 'available in mid July' or something. A manufacturing error that is not on the DATs.

I wonder if that's why I never got my physical copy?

Interesting to hear, ringworm! Wonder if those of us who got the first pressing (at least direct) will get a fix...

I thought if anyone was gonna complain about audio quality/glitches they'd be all over it. Sure'nuff a quick google turned up their thread! https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/seefeel-reissues-may-14-2021.1076263/

Someone pasted this from Bleep, I think
"We are aware of this, yes. I have been speaking to the production team at Warp today and they are hoping to get these issues resolved asap in terms of replacing discs (including for those who have already purchased) and updating the digital downloads where necessary"

Interesting to read in the Simon Reynolds interview that "Charlotte's Mouth" turned into "Starethrough" which then turned into "Ch-vox" – been listening to those for years, but never caught the (pretty clear) similarity until playing them one after another.

new interview here:

https://toneglow.substack.com/p/tone-glow-070-seefeel

Great interview!

I wonder if Mark and Sarah ever saw this? (forward to 9'59")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLGs41vQ8EU

"Sarah lived in Basingstoke!" was one of my main takeaways from the interview (I also did).