Peaking Lights

i'm just assuming people who are calling fake dub and comparing it to nonsense are not actually familiar with dub

I would not be surprised if someone who liked Windy & Carl or Stars of the Lid liked this record, but, like, the last time I tried to sneak Jessamine into a DJ set when Lex was in the room, he basically ran away holding his ears. ;-)

The problem w this record isn't that it is or isn't post-dub or post-rock it's just that I can find nothing otherwise engaging about it.

I would not be surprised if someone who liked Windy & Carl or Stars of the Lid liked this record, but, like, the last time I tried to sneak Jessamine into a DJ set when Lex was in the room, he basically ran away holding his ears. ;-)

If you're using Lex's reactions as a proxy for the reactions of any group of people larger than 1 (Lex himself) you're on a hiding to nothing IMO.

It's just weird to me when a record is portrayed as such a smorgasbord of signifiers I really love(d) - 90s Kranky! Drone/spacerock! Fake dub! The electronic end of Kosmische / Krautrock!

And it has a bunch of ppl whose tastes I often appreciate (Lex, Tim F, NickB) repping it.

And I listen to the record, which I should be all over, and it's just so... nothingy

The conclusion I can draw is either that my tastes have changed so much I can't relate to it anymore. Or it's not a good record, it's empty signifiers without content. I was of the former opinion entirely until DC (another person whose tastes I usually trust) pops in and articulates what I dislike about it.

If you want you go from that to "drawing conclusions about its listeners" rather than "trying to draw conclusions about mine own taste and the tastes of a group of ppl I know well" then TBH that's strawmanning.

I wish I could make the little open circle go from this thread so I stop clicking it. But unfortunately it raises questions (what is fake dub as opposed to "real" dub?) that I've been listening around for a couple of weeks. And sorry Nick but your thread asked that in the format of a list and I hate list threads.

The conclusion I can draw is either that my tastes have changed so much I can't relate to it anymore. Or it's not a good record, it's empty signifiers without content. I was of the former opinion entirely until DC (another person whose tastes I usually trust) pops in and articulates what I dislike about it.

I tend to think this kind of thing is a bit of both - i.e. as our tastes change our attitude towards signfifiers as being empty or full also change (strictly speaking I think the idea of a signifier/content divide is something that exists in our minds only, though it's no less "real" for that). And they can go in the reverse direction too (i.e. stuff we dismissed as empty can begin to seem full).

It's sort of like a nose looking great front-on but awful on profile. Is the nose therefore good-looking or bad-looking? It depends...

In that sense your and Matt's criticisms definitely make sense to me even though I'm coming to this record from a front-on angle.

I thought that "turn their noses up" comment was such an obvious comedy dig at Lex and his comedy indie hating ways that it didn't even need to be qualified as such. But I guess I should never take that for granted on ILM any more. I apologise to anyone I offended by it.

i'm just assuming people who are calling fake dub and comparing it to nonsense are not actually familiar with dub

This is funny cos I'm pretty sure most people posting on this thread have heard more King Tubby albums than you have propeller caps in yr closet.

I started another thread for the genre purists vs genre tourists question but I guess I didn't ask it in a v good way, because I was trying to get past ideas of fake vs real in specific genres I.E. dub or whatever

When a "genre fanatic" reaches the end of their genre

It isn't fake dub, but there's definitely a dub influence in there (on 936 more than the new one admittedly), just like there's a shoegaze influence in there, but I wouldn't call it fake shoegaze either.

Mostly it made me sad there'll be no new Air France material.

I mean, I get it WCC. I'm a p huge neo-acid rock/space-rock head, and there was tons of stuff last year that I loved (Cosmic Dead, Hills, AMT, Wooden Shjips, Seven that Spells) but there was a lot of stuff in that vein that I didn't feel either, stuff like Causa Sui, Cave, Mazes. Stuff a lot of people were repping for. It felt empty, like you say. I'm still somewhat suspicious of fans of Causa Sui's Pewt'r Sessions on here as being unthinking genre completists or nation-of-origin fetishists. But really it's just down to me: not even that I'm through with that genre (clearly not), but that just not everything can be available to me.

It isn't fake dub, but there's definitely a dub influence in there...

― Matt DC, Wednesday, June 20, 2012 2:15 AM (15 hours ago)

yup, i was saying the same thing upthread. there's a huge difference between being influenced by something, even in an obvious/direct way, and becoming a "fake" version of it. like, are the funky, fuzzed-out approximations of western psychedelic music that cropped up around the world in the late 60s and 70s all "fake acid rock"? i don't think so. they're just local variations on sounds that were voguish at that moment.

honestly, i'm only inclined to think of music as "fake" when it's a tediously exacting but oddly denatured copy, especially when something crucial seems to have been lost in translation.

my first listen gives me the feeling that it may be better than '936'. the problem is still the fact that dunnis' deadpan-sweet vocals are way too upfront, leaving most of their tracks in a grey area between the dubby/pysch excursions and "pop" friendliness that really doesn't draw me into total immersion (or something like that...).

that's why in that indecision i prefer something like 'LO-HI' or 'Cosmic Tides' to the singalong of 'Love Live' (those kinda songs that veer too close to high places territory), if only because it takes the focus away from the vocals - like they're not trying too hard to find a song among the jam-like feel, leaving it to the sonic elements to take center stage.

then again, my favourite thing from them is still 'two songs for ceremony', so it must be my problem.

Adoring Lucifer, more than 936 even I think. So airy!

this record is a lot more complete than the other one, more groovy and deeper, but i can imagine listening to it a lot more too. really enjoying it.

LO HI is really good.

it's great for summer. I like it a lot.

Adoring Lucifer, more than 936 even I think. So airy!

^^^ this is pretty much where I'm at

top tracks for me are Dream Beat and Beautiful Son

Yah this is still really great for me. I get cock chirea's Insides comparison too now - the melodies on Lucifer are so bright yet frail, not in the sense of being weak, but in the sense of being cast so delicately, like glistening spiderwebs.

love this.

One Dove meets Velvet Underground uptown.

still love these albums. their live show, not so much. just not enough going on onstage. almost all of the music is on tape and the guy does some dubby fx on it while the woman sings but it wasn't really much to watch. their set did build some momentum as it went along through sheer low-end bass rattle but I dunno. not that great.

really liking this new album, kind of a tropical Broadcast vibe, to give a very shallow first impression. Something about the dubbiness of the first one was a bit oppressive over the course of the album, but this is a lot more spacious while also having a very distinct atmosphere.

by 'first one' I inaccurately mean 936, I haven't heard the stuff before that.

http://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/15184/1/peaking-lights-lucifer-in-dub

Lucifer in Dub is streaming here now, I'm really liking it so far.

I have difficulty parsing this music as dub in any way. I find the tag hugely confusing. Just sounds like 4ad on a boom box. Just cos the midrange gets turned down on the bassline doesn't automatically make it dub.

echo, delay, note choices, rhythmic structure? i mean it's not joe gibbs but pretty clearly & heavily influenced by classic dub.

I really can't get into peaking lights

Like many in this thread I like the description of Peaking Lights more than the result.

No I still don't hear it. The rhythms are not dubby. The echoes are not dubby. They're just rhythms and echoes like in any modern music. For me, dub is as much about the groove as the sonic signfiers - the skipping, forward motion and the way the way the bass wraps around the beat; the syncopation and emphasis on the offbeat. These rhythms are played in a very straight beat-oriented style same as rock and techno. The echoes are just shoegazey washes of reverb as opposed to 3/4 delays.
This sounds like the Cocteaus with a more prominent bassline and lower production standards.
It's not that I don't like it - it's nice enough in its way. And of course you can take elements of a style (like dub) and alter it to fit a different aesthetic or style. But when people talk about Peaking Lights in this 'oh they're like dub mixed with Ze records and post-rock' this is not what I am expecting at all.

^uh sorry, iPhone

The rhythms are not dubby.

Yes they are.

The echoes are not dubby

Yes they are.

Dub doesn't have to be anything and doesn't have to be the thing you wanted or expected it to be, thankfully. It can be a shoegazy album with effects (not that i think this record is merely that). Saying that it sounds more like the Cocteaus than like a dub album does make me wonder if you have ears though.

What? But that's like saying you don't have to be able to sit in a chair for it to be a chair. If I played you a Blur song and told you it was techno and then you said it wasn't techno, by this rationale I could say 'techno doesn't have to be the thing you want it to be'.

dl i think you're being overly prescriptive, something can be dubby or dub-influenced without having much in the way of roots reggae signifiers. that said i think PL have plenty in the way of roots reggae signifiers (organ chords and percussion on the upbeats a lot of the time, 8th note heavy reggae-ish basslines, etc)

not sure if you (DL) are saying this after listening to the stream of the new one but it has a few tracks where the rhythms get fucked about w/ and are way less 'straight' than on Lucifer

well DL Dunis is merely putting this out as a dubbier version of her recent record which is what this is. You're judging it against a claim that she hasn't even made for it.

FWIW i find it a bit exhausting to listen to although a couple of the incarnations seem better, on first listen, than the straight versions.

Jordan otm. I wouldn't ever call Peaking Lights "dub", but I would definitely say that they are heavily influenced by dub and that is made pretty obvious by the music.

I don't see how Peaking Lights' use of the word "dub" is in any way more controversial than a billion artists before them - early Seefeel strikes me as being a good point of comparison in this regard.

I'm listening to this now, Live Love as it happens, and seriously, these rhythms are no more dubby than anything else with a drum machine track and a bassline on it. In fact the beats land in a very grid-like way. I just don't see how this has any more of a dub influence than anything else with the odd phaser or echo effect thrown in. I don't think the note choices are particularly of classic dub, and besides the basslines are played really quite fast. If there's any sort of West Indian influence it would be something like early-mid '90s Bim Sherman type stuff which is more digital dancehall. Cosmic Tides, now yeah I guess the bassline is kind of dubby. But shit, it's a very plain and staid impression of dub. I can't help feeling it misses much of the point. But that's my opinion I guess.
I'll grant you the cocteau's comparison is tenuous though - it's more to do with the use of drum machines and dreamy female vox.

Fwiw I'm talking about lucifer

That was a few xposts.

936 was much more overtly dub influenced so if you've heard that one first it's easier to hear the bits of it that are still there in Lucifer

check out the new one linked above (the, uh, dub versions) or 936

xp

seefeel use the dub to achieve a kind of stasis, though. this seems a bit manic but that's a fairly typical form of dub too. it's actually fairly close to the mad professor's take on protection but without the production chops imo. this is a bit headachy for me.

but "no protection" is too.

a bit headachy, i mean.

Dunis is merely putting this out as a dubbier version of her recent record which is what this is

according to the press bumph the dub edits were Coyes' work - not sure if she had any further involvement

Xpost Well... I guess it's hard to separate dub signifiers from reggae signifiers anyway(for me at least). I always found dubstep to be a ponderous term because, despite the deep basslines an echoes, I couldn't really equate it with dub as far as my view of it went, if you see what I mean. As I say, dub for me in it's most vital sense is as much about the ebb and flow and 'feel' as it is about the rumbling bass and echoes because the latter two elements are pretty much ubiquitous throughout contemporary music anyway.

I def wanna check out the dub versions of these.

see i think what you like is actually reggae

Never a truer word said ;-)

But i can hear the dub influence in, for example Primal Scream's Vanishing Point and a lot of Andrew Weatherall's work, and little of that has much to do with reggae on an explicit level

fwiw i don't like peaking lights as much as i think i could and the poor (imo) production values are the barrier. even in those podcasts she put out, 6 hours of mixes (i use the word loosely) some amazing track selections but woeful sequencing & jarring segues. that was obviously what she was going for though, for some reason.