Destroyer - Kaputt (2011)

(I would guess not.)

i dunno, but listening to this album and gerry rafferty recently, i have started wondering about how the sax became kinda the code sound for cheese.

relevant thread:

why was the saxophone (and especially the sax solo) so ubiquitous in '80's pop/rock?

i was always bummed no one wanted to let me play sax in bands :(

i'm a sax player btw

I've always liked this interview with Jim O'Rourke about the cultural associations and contexts of certain musical sounds, as they pertain to his record Eureka:

O'Rourke: ...there are certain songs on the record that mix genres to draw attention to the fact that they are just signifiers of genre. Like Ken Vandermark’s sax solo on "Through the Night Softly." If you take that out of context, you’re going to be wondering, "What is that?"

Q: It’s funny you mentioned that, because that’s the moment I’m leading up to. When I hear that solo it sounds like the ending credits on "Saturday Night Live."

O’Rourke: (Ecstatic) Exactly! That’s exactly what it’s supposed to be. That’s brilliant. Fantastic. That’s 100 percent what I was going for. I remember recording it and saying "No, Ken, stupider ... stupider." He kept saying, "Aw Jim, come on." But what most people have heard is Pink Floyd’s "The Great Gig in the Sky" from Dark Side of the Moon, which I can understand because the drumming was purposefully supposed to sound like Nick Mason. That’s why I used a different drummer on that song. But it is supposed to feel like "Saturday Night Live." That interests me partially because it’s a cultural reference taken out of its context but also because it’s just stupid. I like stupid stuff. I have to admit it’s also slightly a parody of a Gastr del Sol song for me. The cliched poignant piano on that song is just ridiculous. What is so poignant about a piano humping out a bunch of chords, you know? So that tune is mostly made up of jokes. But it had to work musically of course.

Sax is sometimes seen as cool in dance-punk contexts -- beginning with James Chance, probably, but then recently with the Rapture and Love Is All. But it's a different style of playing.

well sure. also i think that the main reason that sax/horns don't crop up that often and/or get relegated to specific roles is because they're pretty inflexible, tonally. not in an absolute sense, of course, but every instrument in a trad rock trio/4tet can be run through a crazy signal chain to get whatever quality you want. horns are what they are, for the most part, unless you do some morphine stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTclndT4Ilk

Song for America actually had people dancing and sexy girl dancing.

awesome! i mentioned upthread that i opened a dj set a few weeks ago with "chinatown" but have been thinking "song for america" would be a great end of the party/ its 5am and we're still dancing song

thought i might be sick of this album already but i just checked and nope i'm not

my wife, my 17-month-old daughter and I were all dancing to this record in the kitchen last night

awesome!! fuck i wish i had a family to dance with sometimes

lol otm sigh

my wife doesn't like this album :( she said it's "embarrassing"

she also does not like steely dan

im going to try it out again on saturday night when it gets packed.

awesome! i mentioned upthread that i opened a dj set a few weeks ago with "chinatown" but have been thinking "song for america" would be a great end of the party/ its 5am and we're still dancing song

yeah it seems tailor-made for that

My wife gives this album a thumbs up--says it reminds her of Leonard Cohen.

Every time I listen different lyrics pop out, like "I haven't seen you ages/I still fly into rages at the mention of your name...Christine."

was listening to Sam Prekop last nite and think that maybe his use of "cheesy" horns and "jazzy" stuff on a successful idie rock record was kind of in this vein

different flavor of cheese imo

yeah obviously. there was one track that was less funky/jazzy where the horns kind of got spacey that got me thinking tho.

Uhm ya, my review: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/entertainment/Destroyer+hits+creative+high/4161000/story.html

Every time I listen different lyrics pop out, like "I haven't seen you ages/I still fly into rages at the mention of your name...Christine."

― President Keyes, Wednesday, January 26, 2011 5:52 PM (41 minutes ago)

....whiiiiiiiiiiite"

yeah this has always been a favorite line of mine

Isn't it "Christine White"? I think that's the name of an old Canadian newsperson or something, which is a funny fake name for whomever she was. How true that sentiment

yeah i just finished the lyric

no idea who she is tho

i hate to get all meta, but what other bands/acts generate this many posts before the record comes out, just curious. destroyer is like ilm catnip

actually it was me grady and a couple other dudes for several weeks until it was obvious this would be a big internet deal, then it got BNM, etc

hey i was out there pretty early too! ;)

nothing tops the rubies thread for sheer volume tho i bet

ya to be honest there's only been a few of us really in this thread, it's not like the My Big Fantasy thread.

i don't know that one, will check it out

Kanye, I mean.

haha

that killed my buzz for "My Big Fantasy" thread

can someone explain "MIDI record"

I just bought two tickets for the Webster Hall show. Better be better than the one I saw a few years ago!

can someone explain "MIDI record"

if this is in reference to Your Blues, that record's instrumentation consists solely of acoustic guitar and transparently fake-sounding instrument samples that sound like they're MIDI-sequenced

example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTo8fjGUgs4

"It's not a war/til someone loses an eye"

Yeah, I kind of get where people are coming from with the whole MIDI thing, but realistically, most current music that has electronic elements also have MIDI sequencing. It's a pretty standard thing and doesn't necessarily have a particular sound associated with it.

Well, yes and no. When one says "It's his MIDI record" they're actually referring to a late 80s / early 90s set of sounds called General MIDI. It was not a sound in itself but rather a set of 127 instruments that would be represented across the board from bargain basement Panasonic digital pianos to the "top of the line" Kurzweil varieties. Consistently 001 would be "Piano", 020 was "Strings", 049 was "Harp", 090 was "Warm Pad", etc. (I am recalling those numbers from fifteen-year-old memory, they are possibly incorrect.)

The General MIDI sound, though not applicable to a single synth, usually describes a sound that could be described as a latter-day version of the Fairlight. You'll hear fake trumpets, fake strings, timpani, etc. It's the sound you hear on karaoke backing tracks, panflute buskers, mattress commercials.

yea i figured as much. though i'd probably call that his .MID album
when i think "MIDI album" i think yamaha DX7, tango in the night, early digital recording/production, kaputt

i need max on this thread

― gr8080, Sunday, January 9, 2011 6:23 AM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

omggggggggggggggggggggg this album why does no one tell me about these things

welcome

would be fun to feed your_blues_midi_files.zip thru gxscc for some trashy 8bit goodness

im curious why terius can use the linndrum on yamaha, sound a whole lot like prince and is awesome but this record is being scoffed at for sounding vaguely reminiscent of steely dan? seems kinda silly. oh well, haters are missing out bigtime

my wife, my 17-month-old daughter and I were all dancing to this record in the kitchen last night

― tylerw, Wednesday, January 26, 2011 2:33 PM

aw!

ha i was watching the baby last night while my wife was out and the baby was getting kind of crazy and overstimulated so i put on this album and was carrying her around and she fell asleep on me, which she never, ever does. so i guess babies are down with destroyer.

Every time I listen different lyrics pop out, like "I haven't seen you ages/I still fly into rages at the mention of your name...Christine."

Phantom of the Opera ref, IMO.

Ha, OK, I don't remember reading this:

oh man starting at abt 5:00 of "bay of pigs" pretty much is everything i love about this dude in a nutshell

havent seen you for ages
still fly into rages
at the mention of your name...christiiiiine

― tickle me delmar (k3vin k.), Saturday, September 12, 2009 3:18 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^sounds like a beautiful postmodern take on "phantom of the opera"

― tickle me delmar (k3vin k.), Saturday, September 12, 2009 3:24 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i have no idea what you're talking about

heard this album is going to knock the decemberists out of the #1 position on the billboard charts.