Let's anticipate Blondes' debut LP

lol @ the digital version of the remix package coming with a robert miles remix

haha i posted about this on another thread but its really really good!

these guys were awesome last night but was the standard shacklewell arms snoozy indie crowd. Determined to get them to a proper party

Why did they leave the Robert Miles mix off the CD?? It's the best remix!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrOGPSifmq4

This album is fabulous. Some of the percussion lines are just classic.

Yeah, it's great. Been jamming to this all day. Some of the track I hadn't heard before. Love the fireworks crackling explosions on Amber.

Haven't made it to the remix disk yet, other than the Robert Miles track above, which I honestly had much higher hopes for.

The Business/Pleasure pairing is absolutely perfect, and the rest is really solid too. Haven't got round to all the remix disc but I'm totally feeling the Bicep remix.

This is officially the least stealable band name ever. They couldn't have made it any harder to find if they'd called themselves Paris Hilton Sex Tape.

This albums! So sweeping, so brooding! It strikes me as an odd coincidence that this and the Talabot album have come out at the same time because they both are like extended paeans to the build.

I think it's on "Pleasure" (though I may be wrong) where about halfway through this gorgeous piano riffing section emerges... while we're not in Marshall Jefferson territory by any stretch it still feels like this massive moment of rightness, like the entire universe has deemed this moment mandatory.

This albums!

Lover is a great song, but Pleasure is where it really starts kicking off.

Do agree with this from the first post though:

But their best work is still "Moondance" from 2010

I think the Blondes-Talabot link is so clear, they're very similar albums texturally as well as structurally.

ha, yea i was surprised at how well that robert miles remix turned out but i def wouldn't say it's my favorite of the bunch. the teengirl fantasy mix is p striking, and i'm also really feeling stirmonster's remix of "lover" that plays the melody from don cherry's "brown rice" against the original song's meredith monk sample.

this is definitely one of my favorite releases of the year so far, along with the talabot disc. i don't remember "pleasure" for the piano lines per se but more because of the somewhat unexpected lissvik-style balearic synth-guitar flourishes that pop up and make me sad that this is probably the closest we will ever come to another "life's a beach". tho that sadness quickly dissipates because it's an incredible track in it's own right

this album is LOVELY.

i have no idea how i hadn't even heard of them until yesterday when a friend recommended them in response to a "where is all the decent music this year" whinge - though a search did reveal that i'd just ignored the press email and d/l links a few months ago, presumably due to the boring name or maybe the douchey press release. this is so much more anonymous than i'd have thought and all the better for it

finally listened to this all the way through (via trans-pacific flight). It's really really nice, but I kind of wish it was a little more of a continuos, monolithic thing (instead of 8 separate tracks) it's like, so close. def one of the best things I've heard all year though.

gotta dip in to the remixes next.

Do check out Touched if you haven't heard it yet!

http://open.spotify.com/album/7v19RUyMR3I1J2wOFsXZ0p

Great music, awful name

still need to hear the album in full. will rectify this today.

I think "Gold" is my favourite track at the moment but they are all so so so good. Just marvelous.

i think it's a great name and also cannot recommend the live show enough, it was awesome

Actually maybe I mean "Wine".

they all sound pretty much the same so you probably mean both

In fact I just checked and I do!

Absolute top tier: "Business", "Pleasure", "Wine", "Gold".

So close as to barely matter: everything else.

Yeah, Wine is my fave.

Absolute top tier: "Business", "Pleasure", "Wine", "Gold"

Do they have other tunes called 'Yachts', 'Cocaine' and 'Secretaries'?

Actually, each of the original 12" gathered together in the album was arranged by a ying/yang theme: lover/hater, business/pleasure, water/wine, gold/amber.

^gets the concept

cocaine/secretaries

cocaine/ketamine

action/romcom

gr8080/lex

...

Now I'm loving this. Between this, Todd Terje and the new John Talabot, the house scene is really spoiling us.

So far it's the opener, lover, that hits me most - that gapped chanting with all the reverb on it - inspired programming!

That's a sample from a Meredith Monk piece btw.

http://s1229.photobucket.com/albums/ee461/ruthsaxelby/?action=view¤t=MM_Blondes1.jpg

l-r: Meredith Monk, Blondes

well shit, that didn't work

The Bicep remix is on repeat at my house - awesome album from start to finish

Really enjoying this, it's very 'Days of Mars' with added acid house revivalism, not what I expected at all.

siiiick album

I am very slack in not listening to this, it seems.

im into this also, for the record

The Wine-Water pairing is definitely my favourite. Wine sounds like Layo & Bushwacka's Love Story refracted again and again and again, it's such a corny everyone-hug-each-other dancefloor moment but it completely works.

solid album
if you press play, no return allowed

"a little more chill, a little more swirly, a little more… stoner-y?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR0r1oDPO3g

There is also a 'boring' video for the track Amber.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiBWBCgH8Ok

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Tr4mGR36RQ

kids these days

Really enjoying this, it's very 'Days of Mars' with added acid house revivalism, not what I expected at all.

― Homosexual Satan Wasp (Matt DC), Friday, February 24, 2012 12:55 PM (1 week ago)

^^

There's something about these guys that reminds me of one of Lex's posts from last year where he was wishing for a dancier version of Emeralds. They don't quite have that depth or complexity to their sound (and heck, no Mark McGuire in the band either), but maybe this is a manifestation of that sort of way of thinking?

Hmm... Just arrived at the Amsterdam show, stoked to see them play live.

Awesome!

Yeah, so they were really great. Oceanic. Like Arthur Russell, 90's trance ('taking you on a journey') mixes, Porter Ricks...

Played versions of stuff from the albums along with more open-ended jams. Elise was an obvious highlight.

Would have liked to hear them tackle Wine, but no dice.

starting to think Swisher is the best thing they've done. picked up the vinyl + digital over the weekend. it really is deep ... Porter Ricks reference is otm but they bring melody into it too.

on track 2 when it gets into that high shrieky buildup of static toward the last third of the track ... wow.

Yeah that's amazing. I think the album is better the more stentorian it gets, even if it's just because it's difficult to top the debut in the melancholic sweeping grandeur stakes.

been revisiting both lps a ton this winter. "andrew" is so completely lovely

https://soundcloud.com/igetrvng/blondes-rein

why yes, I'll take a mix of your unreleased new stuff

not as a frickin cassette though, mind

rein is brilliant

The section from around 32min to 41:30 is crazy.

New record 'Warmth' out 11th August!

'KDM' streaming on their bandcamp now:

https://blondes.bandcamp.com/album/warmth

^^^^ out today, enjoying it so far

really good blend of prettiness + intensity

oops it does get progressively less pretty, back half reminds me of silent servant - that same sort of voyage into the darkness

oh i'm finally getting around to this and those three nickb posts are very encouraging

wow this is really really great

I totally forgot to add to the enthusiasm of NickB after playing this. It's not got anything as good as "Elise" on it but I think this might be their best full album yet.

their best since their self-titled at least

Elise is a total classic track

New album is amaze, but I find it interesting how much its concision feels like a reaction to the expansive drift of Rein. There’s something almost “right, let’s get to it” to the way they start and finish the tracks.

Also feels very “if you only buy one Blondes album...”

i could live in this album

falling in love with "wine" all over again

warmth is still so sick

revisited the blondes catalog this week, what a body of work

It really is.

One of my favourite albums of this year is Puscha’s Etterath, which despite being less beat driven has a very pronounced Blondes feel.