These New Puritans

Sounds like a work in progress really.

New album is called Field of Reeds. More info soon. Graham Sutton produced and emailed me a few weeks ago to say it's the best thing he's ever worked on. I am, as you say, excited.

Feels like I've been waiting for this news for so long I've kind of come out the other side. Revisited Hidden a couple of weeks back and although it's still a great record, the beats sounded really clunky, so my one big wish for this is that they've progressed on that side of things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21BT57D9AlI

I'm liking the atmosphere and especially the trumpet(?) on that sample, again they seem to be drawing that line from Talk Talk-ish post-Miles ambience to some sort of baroque processional music like Purcell or something.

omg

I'm wondering what they're going to do about the voice problem, but it sounds like one they're at least aware of themselves. But I'm really stoked for this, that sample sounds like this could be incredible.

that's gorgeous

Loving this already!

New song up on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/these-new-puritans/fragment-two

Vocals are really bad and the arrangement gives them nowhere to hide, kinda think they need to be more blood and thunder to get away with it.

Vocals don't bother me at the beginning, anyway; we'll see how this develops

Meantime

http://pitchfork.com/features/update/9128-these-new-puritans/

so did Pitchfork actually not listen to Hidden, because everything they're describing on this new album was on there

Not quite everything.

damn I don't think I've ever listened to this band before but the new album rules. honestly had no expectations to speak of. hope it gets the blowjobbiest of reviews

good to hear, have only seen the (positive) review in the wire so far. comparisons to the mark hollis solo record - sound about right?

never heard it but the ~textures~ are v Talk Talk and dude's solo album was more out there, as I understood it? so er quite possibly

Wow they really aren't even nominally a rock band any more are they?

How the FUCK did a class of 2007 NME-friendly indie band end up making this record? It sort of reminds me of Messiaen and Taverner in places, the idea of a band who came up in the same wave as The View and The Enemy making this just does not compute.

where are you guys hearing it, via a stream or other means

The latter. Only listened to it once and there's a lot to absorb, even though it's very subdued and mostly sombre, but it sounds lovely.

Also lol @ them roping in a Portuguese fado Singer and then getting her to sing like the main dude.

it ain't on w@ffles... Excited by the descriptions except that

Also lol @ them roping in a Portuguese fado Singer and then getting her to sing like the main dude.

is :-/

a lot like Talk Talk and a little like Field Music, too, especially "fragment two"

xp I guess people who remembered Talk Talk from the first album didn't think Spirit of Eden computed either. It was just an accident of timing that TNP briefly got spoken of in the same breath as the View et al. They hated all the other indie bands even then. I like this Jack Barnett quote:

"A lot of those bands, you can’t blame them really. They’re quite endearing in a ridiculous way. We watched the Subways at some festival in Wales and they were just hilarious. I don’t know if they mean to be hilarious. Maybe they don’t."

I agree there's a hell of a lot to absorb here. The Talk Talk comparison is unavoidable on first listen but it feels so limited.

I'm not sure I get the Field Music thing, they're very much a classicist rock band that's inclined to grandiose arrangements and song structures and this is anything but that.

I listened again on the way in and the lead singer's voice is still a problem, more so than on the last album where it suited the thunderous austerity of the whole thing. Here there's not really anywhere to hide especially given how obviously considered and well thought-out everything else is. Fortunately there's not much of it on here.

I might retract the Messiaen and Taverner comparison upthread but they've definitely abandoned even vague rock structures and ramped up the 20th century classical influences that were on the last album. 'V (Island Song)' is the really astonishing one here, the way it transitions through different moves from atonal piano to synthy soft-rock ballad outro. 'Organ Eternal' is lovely as well.

Didn't really pay any attention to the View and the Enemy so I could be very wrong about them, but I never really thought about TNP in quite those terms, they seemed a lot artier than some of the cack-handed clods that were around. First album is very Pink Flag/Gang of Four but mixed with a big early Liars influence (not just the sound but the occult themes in the lyrics too) that definitely skewed it to the weird side of the indie-rock spectrum. Think that 'Infinity' is probably a very important track with regard to pointing out where they were going to go next, but you would be quite right to say that there is absolutely nothing on it to suggest they'd end up where they are now. One of the most amazing things to me is that (I think?) Jack Barnett's totally self-taught - much like Mark Hollis? - but in an age where there are all these shortcuts available to someone who hasn't got the prior education in orchestration etc. Such a sense of ambition and sheer doggedness in what he's doing.

He definitely seems to have an attitude I can get behind - continual exploration, expansion, divergence...

i hear Field Music (or more to the point, the Week That Was side project) in the tasteful neo-prog vibe

i wonder, are there any people doing similar things to this new record but coming from the opposite direction i.e. the Classical realm?

nadia sirota, sort of

I think most of the ppl doing this type of rock/symphonic hybrid are actually composing videogame music

And the ones who aren't and who are doing it all wrong in any event are signed to terrible European labels and think Dream Theater is the height of sensuality.

And the others are Muse :)

Mention them not.

Actually, I'd really, really recommend North Sea Radio Orchestra, a chamber-prog-indie-classical outfit whose music might be to your taste:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hp3yViKCLo

I'd also recommend William D. Drake's output. Here's a choice track from a fucking amazing instrumental chamber-pastoral-pop record: http://williamddrake.bandcamp.com/track/at-the-end-of-the-harbour-wall

Ignore the one I just linked - might not be to all tastes. Start at the beginning. http://williamddrake.bandcamp.com/album/yews-paw

XXXP - I don't think I've ever heard Nadia Sirota's music, I only know her as a Nico Muhly cohort.

Maybe some Muhly/Bedroom Community stuff comes close, Ben Frost or Valgier?

NSRO hmm, maybe I don't see them as coming from the Classical world really, neither that weasel faced little knob from Muse either.

Muse was not 100% a serious recommendation

someone should tell them that

SERIOUS RECS ONLY PLZ

Oh wow.

I'm listening to the album again and V (The Island Song) is so, so fucking good.

Van der Graaf Generator "Climb every mountain"

Just listening to this for the first time now. Obviously I like it but it seems too composed. The chord changes are kind of oppressively drawn out and there's always something sinister lurking in the background.

"Organ Eternal" is the only thing so far (nearly done the album) with any real lift to it.

Great job by Graham Sutton though. The production is massive.

This is a eh ell of a record but I've no idea when I'll actually listen to it.

That's what I thought. Maybe at work?

I'm still at the stage of figuring out what it sounds like, I feel like there's a really obvious touchstone that hasn't been mentioned yet. Talk talk obv, and the 2nd this heat album (as ever) but something else on the tip of my tongue. For a minute I sort of fancied that it sounded like aerial but that isn't it.

June 10 can't arrive fast enough IMO

Reminds me of 'Hex' more than Talk Talk (perhaps inevitably), but also of 'Comicopera' in parts.