Blonde Redhead

Confirmed. I do like it a lot.

Thanks for the confirmation.

I do think they've finally figured a way out of the corner they'd painted themselves into. Like this album more than anything they've done in quite a while.

really? it's possibly the dullest record i've heard in years, it's barely there

Everything they've done recently has sounded like the soundtrack for buying clothes in downtown NYC. This breaks away from that. I like the more minimalist sound. No More Honey kind of harks back to their early stuff, though it does the noise in a different way than they would have back then.

yeah this is incredibly boring and disappointing. I loved Misery and 23, the last one was heading into wallpaper territory, and this one fully lives there. It barely sounds like finished songs, just noodling. blech.

Blonde Redhead
FREE SHOW - June 16 – Thursday - 7:00pm – Red Hook Park, Brooklyn
http://www.cityparksfoundation.org/event/summerstage-blonde-redhead/

uh

cool, i might go to this

their last album was great so many blonde redhaters in this thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SLtxuJh1UY

I was unaware there was a new EP out this year, but it's stunning.

melody of certain damaged is their best IMO

(EP's up on Spotify xp)

Fake Can Be Just As Good is my favourite

Blonde Redhead is the best band in the world y/n

y, obv

I won't disagree

From the best discography thread:

Kazu made an album last year called Adult Baby, pretty cool

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, January 30, 2020 4:06 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

.. it is pretty cool! Lush, dreamlike atmosphere, the beats are driving this thing forward but it's quite esoteric and intimate. Thanks again for the rec, I missed she released this last year.

Blonde Redhead is the best band in the world y/n

indeed, fucking incredible band

live they seemed like 3 very musically competent aliens....just brought a completely different energy than most other bands

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMAKwFHXU2o

I need to revisit Misery onward... I got off the bus after Melody

But Melody is honestly one of the best albums I've ever heard

their early more noisey touch n go-ish shit rules too, they were good at everything

Yeah I tend to agree but I'm far less familiar with those albums as I got on the bus late with Misery. There's a Gainsbourg-like mood/melodicism to the three I mentioned that really clicks with me

They are doing an arena tour with Tool in Jan/Feb. Hope it goes alright for them.

The craziest thing I learned from John Lurie's memoir was he is the person who introduced Kazu to the Pace Bros & said you should be a band

Their third and fourth albums aren't as easy a listen as the others but they made for some of the most compelling live performances I've ever seen. This is a really good document of them at the peak of their (live) powers... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRN1LkYm7-U

They were honestly the best live band going for two albums

Yeah I saw them 5 or 6 times between 97-99 and they were incredible. Walking into the big, boomy, reverb-y Congress Theater in Chicago were they were opening for Fugazi right as they started playing "Kasuality" they instantly put the zap on me. Every time I hear that song I am right back in the room with them. Reality dub.

Heh part of the reason I never fell as hard for Unwound (though I did grow to love 'em) was BR outflanked them, swiped Vern and made a better Unwound record than Unwound with Fake Can be Just As Good (even the title 'natch)

Fake... is my favourite BR album. I interviewed them for my zine when they played London on that tour, and helped them load in at Upstairs At The Garage, where the sound woman was a dick to them when they discovered none of their plugs would work with UK current. The show that night was amazing, Kazu and Amadeo just kept colliding with each other throughout these really intense, near-the-emotional-knuckle songs, almost wrestling with each other, this cathartic, erotic, manic, visceral punk ballet. I think of it every time I listen to that album, which is often.

Melody>Misery>23 is such an amazing run. Been playing them all week.

― willem, vrijdag 19 november 2021 7:52 (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Completely agree! It's the exact run that comes by here every now and again.

There was a period where every show they played was said to be incredible, I only saw them twice during this time (and it ruled both time), but every time a friend's band would come home from some festival they would get this look like "omg Blonde Redhead played and it was the best show I've ever seen". My best friend called me on the phone in 2000 just to say "I just heard a perfect album, come over" and he played me Melody. Every mix CD my friends made had "This Is Not" on it and everybody named Alex would get sick of people singing "ex, ex... Alex..." at them

I wanna re-listen to Misery onward while forgetting how much I love that first run of records. I always filed this band away mentally as a kinda proto-Deerhoof, with less-impressive drumming made up for with the "we like Chopin" voice leading choices. When Misery came out I think I was like "oh no this sounds like sad Postal Service" and never gave it more than a cursory listen. I saw them live in Utah in 2015 I think, it was very good but didn't have the same magic as the early days. Backing tracks did no favours for this band's show imo!

"There's a Gainsbourg-like mood/melodicism to..." [Willem, upthread]

My first exposure to Blonde Redhead was on the Gainsbourg tribute album (1997) in John Zorn's Radical Jewish Culture series. Kazu also appeared on the Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited album a few years later.

Loved them since the 1st album, but everything after 23 has felt like a letdown.

They were honestly the best live band going for two albums

― flamboyant goon tie included, Friday, November 19, 2021 1:19 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

the first time i saw them was after melody came out and i didn't know any of their earlier stuff at the time, so at the show when they played shit like "water" at absolute full noise rock intensity i was like wait who the HELL are these guys? just incredible. the next day i was probably downloading a bunch of mp3s to track down that song.

during that period, Fake was my favorite out of all of them. i do appreciate their later run (melody --> 23), but it was especially great as a contrast against so much of that harder edged earlier stuff

I love the trajectory of BR's discography. Each album feels like a clear continuation of the album that came right before it - and yet comparing the late work to the early work, it might as well be two entirely different bands. Lots of bands evolve their sound over time but there is something insistently linear about the way BR did.

I was like "oh no this sounds like sad Postal Service"

Haha, this is brutal! Misery is the most intense, cold-sweat inducing, darkly seductive fever dream ever put down to music. Hugely important to me, which says precisely nothing, but twee sad Postal Service (which I enjoy in its own way, though way less meaningful) it is not, and not even close to my ears! I love the analogy nonetheless.

new album 'sit down for dinner' in september + US/EU tour dates announced on their website

https://blonde-redhead.com/tour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZdpbE5W4xo

the LA venue is tiny and sold out in like ten minutes, kinda bummed they're not doing another show here

their show they have booked in St. Paul is also at a smaller venue than they've played in the past

Enjoying this album so far!

really like it my first listen through, had avoided the any of the prerelease tracks that were on streaming

never thought i'd get to see this band but they're coming through here later this month - psyched

this is so good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESZwc3Clbvc

Thanks, that is indeed so so good. Too bad I missed them when they came round here last December :-/