Jamie Woon - Mirrorwriting

i discovered "strawberry skies" in the ILM EOY poll - i love it!

Glad to hear, the anthemic surge 2 minutes in is fantastic. Considering that track's far more worked out song structure I have a sneaky suspicion Halo did more than just sing - we need a Halo, Ford & Lopatin album stat.

the hud mo mix of lady luck sounds like idm timberlake

Haven't heard Mirrorwriting yet, but I know I'm looking forward to Ford & Lopatin (aka Games) a LOT. Doran and others, did you hear the album by VHS Head from last year?

The guy I most associate Jamie Woon with is Ben Westbeech though - they both even look kinda similar.

i fucking love the hudson mohawke remix of "lady luck" - i'm not even a huge hudmo fan but his LAYER CRASHING WAVES OF EVERYTHING OVER EVERYTHING tactic works so well here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0JBXfSbvZM

I like me the sound of that.

the album itself gets the mood spot on but the stickable songwriting stuff less so

"middle" is my shit

yeah "middle" is definitely the best song on the alb i hadn't heard before

i went back to the hudmo lp recently after enjoying so many of his remixes. it's still hilariously unlistenable, except for a few amazing tracks ("fuse" is still a perfect track). i bet his next record is going to be killer.

i think i love Gravity, Waterfront and Street just as much as Night Air. I'm still extremely keen on this record!

this record is absolutely gorgeous

this album is terrible. i loved night air, but the rest sounded like jason mraz (never actually heard this guy, but just assuming) or some other fratboy singer songwriter w/electronic backings. or like jamiroquai or early robin thicke.

^ This is what I thought even way back when everyone was digging Night Air...but this week I gave the album a chance and now I'm listening to it over and over again. He's working in a Radio 1-friendly vein that I am predisposed to dislike but the lush production and I guess the subtle songwriting manages to transcend easy "James Blunt heard the kids like dubstep" snark.

Lady Luck and Gravity are my jams fwiw.

cant understand not liking 'night air'

Got to admit I found this a big disappointment...not that it's a terrible album more the fact that it's influences(namely the 1st Lewis Taylor album) are so admirable and this has none of it's lysergic blurring of the edges...he sounds more like a some bland r&b singer(the kind that sings over some shit jungle DJ in a club in Slough)...it needed to have a much more out there production and it kind of reeks of record company interference to make it more acceptable to a dubstep?? audience...having said that the final couple of tracks are more interesting than the rest of the album...Shame

i think that 'reeks of record company interference to make it more acceptable to a dubstep?? audience' sounds like total bull imo fwiw ymmv

I'd never tell someone they should like an album when they don't want to (well, maybe I would say that as a joke), but some of the complaints in here are really unjustified and flimsy.

Perhaps but it sounds so ordinary...really wanted it to be better

this album is terrible. i loved night air, but the rest sounded like jason mraz (never actually heard this guy, but just assuming) or some other fratboy singer songwriter w/electronic backings. or like jamiroquai or early robin thicke.

Come on, he may be many things but fratboy, really? If anything he comes over as irritatingly nice and eager to please.

he sounds more like a some bland r&b singer

such an alarm bell whenever people wheel this criticism out

He pretty much does fit most definitions of blandness as I understand them.

Like I know full well that "bland" is the laziest possible criticism you can level at something but sometimes it's actually true.

it's putting "bland" and "r&b" in such close proximity to each other that's the warning sign, can't even count how many times i've seen those automatically linked together. when was the last time you saw anyone dismissed as "just a bland rock singer" or "just a bland blues singer" or whatever?

people who write the phrase "bland r&b singer" probably hated craig david too

People talk about a certain type of post-Oasis rock band being bland all the time, it's usually linked with "stodgy".

I think Sonnyboy's overall criticism is wrongheaded (although I've never been to a shit jungle night in Slough) but I don't think he's "automatically" linking R&B and blandness at all.

when was the last time you saw anyone dismissed as "just a bland rock singer" or "just a bland blues singer" or whatever?

quite a lot really...

"bland pop singer" About 5,150 results (0.28 seconds)
"bland r&b singer" -bobby About 1,630 results (0.19 seconds)
"bland folk singer" About 96 results (0.27 seconds)
"bland rock singer" 8 results (0.12 seconds)
"bland blues singer -bobby" Google says 5 results but they're all false positives.

"bland rock band" About 7,110 results

"bland r&b" About 4,910 results (0.14 seconds)

"bland pop" About 41,900 results (0.28 seconds)

"bland pop group"/"pop group" = 0.00098
"bland pop singer"/"pop singer" = 0.00066
"bland r&b singer"/"r&b singer" = 0.00059
"bland folk singer"/"folk singer" = 0.00003
"bland rock singer"/"rock singer" = 0.000001
"bland rock group"/"rock group" = 0.00007
"bland rock band"/"rock band" = 0.0001 (the denominator here is going to be skewed somewhat by the existence of Rock Band as a much-discussed thing)

"bland pop" About 41,900 results (0.28 seconds)
"bland pop *" About 2,540,000 results (0.43 seconds)

Google u r crazy.

"Bland indie" About 7,680 results (0.07 seconds)

I think it's safe to say this is not a criticism that's uniquely and disproportionately imed at R&B.

IIRC the great bland wars on ILM were w/r/t Kate Bush's Aerial.

"bland r&b *"About 19,200 results (0.15 seconds)

"bland rock *" About 53,700 results (0.16 seconds)

of course standard caveats that a. there is probably more written about rock on the internet than r&B and b. lex probably pays much more attention to r&b criticism which leads to c. a disproportionate perception of "bland R&B" by the lex

jesus i'm sorry i brought this up at all JUST FORGET ABOUT IT OKAY

Sorry for causing a kerfuffle...the long and short of it is I wanted to like this album...didn't very much... He has a voice he can make wobble...thanks...goodnight...

Sorry just wanted to clarify that IN NO WAY do i link r&b with bland...The reason i was so dismissive was that best r&b can be so fucking trannsformative...Off The Wall period MJ...Instant Vintage Saadiq...Alicia Keys on "You don't know my name"...I know not cutting edge but just so great...

A point that may be too obvious to mention: within every genre there is music that can be described as "bland", music that studiously avoids taking risks, music that retreads what we've heard a hundred times before. The mini-debate above is really about whether some genres tend to be described as "bland" more frequently than other genres, which might show something about stereotypes associated with, say, r&b or pop. I tried to take the Google approach a bit further but I gave up as I don't think Google is fit for this use (see "Google u r crazy").

Though it's given me an idea for an experiment I might run...

Sorry for causing a kerfuffle...the long and short of it is I wanted to like this album...didn't very much

This. I think he's got the ability to do an amazing album, but this just disappointed.

i still quite like this, but im not passionate enough about it to mount a stirring defense really

It's probably still my favorite album of the year so far.

really liked 'night air', really liked the fragile, veiled menace in his voice. haven't heard anything on the album that approaches that yet, I'll have to give it a few more gos.

I really couldn't get into this, I can't pin point why either. It just doesn't stir any feelings what so ever in either direction good or bad. Its like it doesn't exist lol. Night Air is the best on it at the moment and I still like the Ramadanman remix a load better. Maybe its a creeper...

Lady Luck live video in a radio session + some other tracks in audio: http://www.stubru.be/media/herbeleefjamiewoonindelivingroom