Wild Nothing

Probs my #1 for the poll tbh.

In my top 5, I think.

I mean I know it makes me ~~white~~ but sometimes I just want Michelle Williams listening to cassettes on a walkman.

Oh, it'll definitely be in mine!

Holy shit.

Has anyone heard "A Dancing Shell"? New EP comes out tomorrow.

Un-fucking-believable. I almost thought it was the wrong band. What does it sound like to me? Scritti Politti, Human League, Pet Shop Boys, Simple Minds, AR Kane, Style Council, hints of acid house, and probably a lot of even more obvious stuff I'll talk with my therapist about when I get back next week.

Thanks for the tip. I didnt know a new release was coming up... Nocturne was one of my favs last year

i was listening to it last night, it definitely raised my eyebrows. i need to listen to it again (and again)

these guys were surprisingly good when i saw them back in feb (in the hottest room ever). the sarah-isms come out way way more live than on record, oddly

Saw them last fall, like Sept or Oct and completely disagree. Their llive set emphasized the simultaneous muscularity of the sound and boredom of the vocals. Sarah/c86 I associate with thin production.. This sound was big.

Hard times .

it had very little to do with the bigness or otherwise of the sound. melodically and instrumentally there was a lot of the wake in what they were doing, orchids too

Yes, there's a big influence, but what I'm saying is that they're doing something much bigger and more important. And when they play live it's more modern than that thin sounding indie.

"data world" is the jam

Wow, I was getting pretty hammered last night.

Anyway, just woke up to the full EP. This is a record that confounds and delights. It's got a lot to do with Bowie also, I think it sounds like Low.

Trying to arrange a 12" copy from my local record shop but the guy hasn't got back to me yet.

This guy has clearly lost his fucking mind. There's one song on here that sounds like Blur.

God I love this.

Ha, I was right. EP ends with Eno/Manzanera noodling. What. the. fuck.

I hope this arrives in the mail soon... the last album is so pretty.

I haven't read a review of this yet that isn't spectacularly insulting.

In what way? I haven't read any, really.

None of them really address how different the music is on this EP. They kind of talk about Wild Nothing in a general way, but none of them really sit down and try to understand the rationale for the stylistic shift.

Well, I guess "rationale" isn't the right word, but maybe "significance."

how would you characterize the shift? i'd be interested to hear...

Has anyone mentioned that fact that the first song on the EP is basically a straight up cover of Always Crashing In The Same Car...

Has anyone mentioned that fact that the first song on the EP is basically a straight up cover of Always Crashing In The Same Car...

― Oblique Strategies, Thursday, May 16, 2013 12:21 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Nope, I noticed it pretty much straight away. Same chord progression.

Anyways, I love this... but I loved Nocturne too, so...

From reading recent interviews, it would seem like Mr. Tatum wasn't personally happy with the way Nocturne turned out, hence why this new EP has a bit of a broader range to it. Apparently he feels like he 'tried too hard' with Nocturne and feels like it was a bit of a 'perfectionist' record and that it's 'missing something' for him. The new EP allegedly was conceived partly because he was sick to death of touring the Nocturne material. I'm sure all of you (like me) who voted for Nocturne in the 2012 EOY poll will be scratching their heads here!

*their=your

i think nocturne is great and this recent ep is doing v little for me tbqh, i would almost venture that it's his weakest set of songs

Yeah, I mean I can understand people's feelings regarding the new EP vs. Nocturne, and why fans of one may not take well to the other... I mean, Nocturne is very much a one-sound kind of record (although it's a great sound), and the new EP is more all over the place... I'm finding myself liking both releases a lot for different reasons. I kinda hope he experiments further on his next full-length, actually, which I think would be great if he could come up with songs that were up to snuff!

I'd say that 'Ride' and 'Data World' were my highlights of this new EP... really love those two.

New album is sort of meh, but the opening track has some great xylophone-sounding synths and this track is absolutely stunning:

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

Haven't heard this
but

This is the kind of thread I like to see

They are real marimbas, not xylophone sounding synths. Get yer mallet instruments straight if you're going to talk shit.

i like the songs i've heard from the new record

I stand corrected.

Get yer mallet instruments straight if you're going to talk shit.

if i had a dollar for everytime someone said this to me....

I haven't got around to hearing this yet, but thanks for sharing that McBoing-Boing, it sounds great and on first listen sounds like one of the best things he's done to date. I take it that the rest of the album doesn't quite match up to this?

Right. The rest of the album isn't bad at all, but it's not as grab-you-by-the-collar as "To Know You".

I'll definitely still be checking it out, loved Nocturne and the EP that came after.

You could tell from the first four or five notes of Nocturne that this was an artist transitioning from cassette indie to full-on Record Collection Rock. This is a good thing, and both Nocturne and the EP-that-nobody-can-remember-the-name-of were really excellent for their depth of texture and references.

The problem, for me at least, is that the thing Tatum appears to have spent the least amount of time synthesizing is the very thing he needed more than all those Berlin-era Bowie references: how to be an engaging singer with good lyrics and varied, compelling vocal delivery.

Massive Carole King influence on this one. Also, he's managed to produce a cover tune of My Bloody Valentine covering Wire's "41ºN 91ºW" and also cover Foxygen's "How Can You Really?" one right after the other. More to follow.

also It's My Life

something about Japanese Alice that reminds of Clientele in the best possible way

Hrm I hear "for love" by lush in Japanese Alice.

lol @ "Reichpop" as a title, but it sounds amazing

anything as good as this on the new album?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b20SV7v0fzE

Nope. That was a real high point for me.

Album has a nice Supertramp vibe to it.

Yeah, so having listened to the whole album twice now, I find it pleasant but mostly forgettable. :/

It's better than Gemini but not Nocturne.

nice little EP out called "laughing gas"

i like the new one. no prefab sprout-isms like the last one but there's some great stuff on here. last track is probably my favorite