So, Does Everyone Hate Cass McCombs?

with a healthy dollop of Leonard Cohen.... at least on the rest of the lp.

this album is fantastic

cass is dreamy.

this story is about the last album, but its probably the best thing i've read/ heard with him
http://www.wbez.org/episode-segments/cass-mccombs%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%E2%84%A2-catacombs#

I *love* the weird, "too loud" bangs/smacks that act as snare noises on some of the longer songs late in the album- they're so jarring in the midst of how melancholic the tunes are

plus, "Buried Alive"! what a tune!

Okay I hate to be one of those guys that jumps all over something BNM'd on Pitchfork, but I was browsing at Reckless last night and "County Line" straight up stopped me in my tracks when the guy behind the counter put it on. Didn't know who it was at the time, but, damn, fantastic song.

I *love* the weird, "too loud" bangs/smacks that act as snare noises on some of the longer songs late in the album- they're so jarring in the midst of how melancholic the tunes are

plus, "Buried Alive"! what a tune!

― the tune is space, Wednesday, April 27, 2011

These caught me too. It sounds like a balloon being burst.

I also love that he is only conducting press on this record via letters in the post and that his current press shots were taken by a private investigator.

haha i was wondering about this photo

http://www.pitchperfectpr.com/images/hires/CassMcCombs2_photobyPaulValenciaPI.JPG

wit's end gets better and better. at first i was kind of luke warm on half the songs, now i love all of them except the lonely doll. especially liking hermit's cave and pleasant shadow song right now.

A Knock Upon the Door is jaw-dropping. 2 of these songs feature what may be a bass clarinet, one of my favorite instruments.

― mizzell, Saturday, April 9, 2011 1:32 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

album is very dirge-y

― mizzell, Saturday, April 9, 2011 1:57 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

u were v. otm with both these posts. good album. cass is still a fucking weirdo.

excellent, very quiet show last night in nyc. county line sounded great and just about everyone in the audience (including peter saarsgard) was grooving along to it. other highlights were meet me here at dawn, harmonia, equinox, and when the bible was wrote.

excellent, very quiet show last night in nyc. county line sounded great and just about everyone in the audience (including peter saarsgard) was grooving along to it. other highlights were meet me here at dawn, harmonia, equinox, and when the bible was wrote.

whoops sorry for that

album of the year

Wow, really? I can't get into it at all, aside from "County Line".

"County Line" is definitely track of the year, not so sure about heaping that much praise on the album as a whole yet.

The thing that broke it open for me was playing the tracks in a different order. I had to skip County Line altogethor cos its so sublime it was overshadowing everything. Now I pretty much like everything except for Lonely Doll and A knock upon the door. Memories Stain and Buried Alive in particular are stunning. I have even come round on Saturday which I thought was a serious misstep initially. Overall listening to this I can't help thinking how defiant and lacking in compromise - the whole thing is. I love the eccentric little touches ie on Memories Stain with that strange rattling drums that signal a change in direction- this just lifts the tune immeasurably and the beautiful coda. Lonely Doll and Knock I like the least because there is so little melodic development- but I wouldn't bet against that opinion changing too.

http://www.nyctaper.com/?p=5974

after this being hammered into me by repeated plays in the office, I am liking this quite a lot. are any of his past albums as good?

Catacombs is still my fav, by a good amount.

catacombs and maybe a are better, prefection nearly as good though different sound

ironically, even though A is the only one i physically own, i listen to it the least because the LP skips so much :(

Dropping the Writ is incredible, too.

Dude was amazing in Birmingham, AL Monday night. About 12-15 people there. Long versions of "Harmonia" and "Dreams Come True Girl." His band on this tour is incredible. People were complaining later about a 'lack of dynamics,' whatever that means (they played in complete darkness but for a flickering backdrop of projected lights behind them), but I thought it was the best show I've seen all year.

Lower Dens, who opened, were also awesome. Like if a Krautrock band knew how to write actual songs.

Sounds like a great show, wish they'd come to my town.
Still loving Lower Dens.

cool, he's rolling through here in a couple weeks, i think i 'm going.
haven't gotten heavily into the new one, but i just need to give it a few more listens i think.

Wits End is a perfect album and I love every song on it. I am going back to Dropping The Writ and Catacombs to find out if I was a cloth eared cunt for not really getting into them.

yeah, it is really good. wonder if the new one will be more "rock" though. that seemed to be the direction he was leaning in during the live show -- didn't even play very much from wits end.

def will be more uptempo and rock
seems like the two were recorded in the same group of sessions

"Windfall" off Dropping the Writ is seriously about the most beautiful thing ever right now.

Can't wait for Humour Risk. Was this part of the strategy all along, to release two records this year - one sad slow and deep and the other more up tempo- or did they just decide to put more stuff out after Wits End. Hard to get much info from the Mccombs camp. I guess thats how he likes it.

http://pitchfork.com/tv/special-presentation/1788-cass-mccombs/2917-more-or-less/

where do the first and third songs ("More or Less" and "Angel Blood") come from? are they on singles or something? i don't see them on the tracklists to any of his albums, including the one that's about to come out.

yeah, i guess they are newer than the new album. he played angel blood last time i saw him. not on any singles that i know of. his b-sides are good though.

so for this album's interviews he's going pithy

Were Wit’s End and Humor Risk recorded at the same time?

Wit’s End started years ago. It just took a long time. It wanted to be that way, to be a slow record. Humor Risk began about halfway through (the creation of) Wit’s End. It was like the tortoise and the hare, you know what I mean? Except if the tortoise and the hare sort of tied.

Were you surprised by that surge of creativity? 



I write every day just to keep the wheels greased.

If you don’t, do your wheels get rusty?

No, I haven’t been rusty in a real long time. It’s just a job, you see. Not a lot of hocus pocus. You just build these little songs and slowly but surely they become finished.

That’s a very unpretentious attitude. A lot of musicians I talk to seem to regard writing as a mentally arduous process.

They should get stoned more. 


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

Dude is easily one of my favorite songwriters, one of the greats, I'd say, but I hate that he feels the need to be all belligerent and off-putting to prove it. Lou Reed's Disease, I reckon. (I refer to the Pitchfork interview posted today and not the video above, which I haven;t seen yet).

the video is lol

i dunno, i think it's ok that he is not a very forthcoming interview subject, it really doesn't matter too much. he was actually a pretty lively, warm presence when I saw him play last summer -- seems to be serious about the music, but also serious about *enjoying* the music. if that makes sense.

New one is AOTY for me. Just outstanding.

didn't you say that about the last one?

i do like this one more than Wit's End. Looking forward to getting to know this through many, many plays. "Mariah" is a killer song.

I did say it about Wits End, but this one is even better. Maybe far better. I don't know. Listening to it last night for the first time, I was having a hard time remembering when I heard a 'new' record I liked as much. Silent Shout and The Drift come to mind, but this album...holy smokes.

this $3.99 on amazon mp3 today...going to download when i get home!

STOKED

the field recording/processing on "love thine enemy" is so cool

I guess I need to go back and give Wit's End another change. "County Line" is still one of my favorite songs of the year, but the rest never really grabbed me as much as that one did.

"county line" does kind of tower over the rest of the record, but there's some great stuff on there.

Hope we got Humor Risk at the radio station. Hope I can find it in a store on vinyl.

it's streaming at http://www.dominorecordco.us/usa/news/07-11-11/cass-mccombs-humor-risk-out-today/

Oh, I've been listening to it on Spotify. But I want to own it on vinyl, and I also want other programmers at the radio station to play tracks from it.