Unknown, vaguely Cardiacsy prog-pop that only MaresNest and I actually like

Heard this band called transElement recently, like most of the music in this thread they're not that close to the greatness of Cardiacs but who is, really?

But they scratch my itch for quirky experimental indie-prog or whatever you want to call it, it's a shame they haven't existed for over a decade and never really got their dues. They had their moments of brilliance, and I always love hearing a regional accent in music.

These are their best releases I reckon:

http://transelement.bandcamp.com/album/is-missing
http://transelement.bandcamp.com/album/pendletones

Cool, will listen. That Swingers lot were ok but yeah, upon the Cardiacs scale they don't create much of a shockwave. I would argue that there is some Cardiacsy stuff that measures up, even if you have to look closer to Cardiacs themselves to find it (NSRO, for instance)

i love that album, but yeah it's definitely just early 80s pop music with an edge. similar voice though and with the weird trajectory from a prog band to a punk one to a new wave one - still these vestigial traces of each phase apparent.

that latest stars in battledress album... so amazing and manages to not go down that well well-worn extra-musical route of making this kind of music "funny" or "quirky" (a whole other thread)

yeah it's really lovely :) a superb record. the bands that make this kind of music 'funny' and 'quirky' are fucking loathsome in almost every case. don't ever google 'perhaps contraption' lol

swingers reminded me a bit of a band soref turned me onto recently...punishment of luxury, that's it. definitely a wealth of postpunk, now virtually forgotten, that mixed it up some

to be honest, it took me a while to get past the surface-level "zaniness" of the cardiacs.

which is what i was getting it - even when stuff isn't outright zany. there's often this strange affect. like a beta-male (for lack of a better term) submissive clowning - making fun of yourself before someone else does? there's a pretty close description in that pomplamoose thread " like he has neither a sincere nor a sinister bone in his body, like a pod person who only learned to imitate zaniness". little bit unfair as they're a cover band, but that's what i feel while watching recardiacs on youtube. even some of those william d drake videos.

i guess what i'm getting at is that i'd love this stuff to be presented without being wacky or playing up the teenage "we're weird and you're not going to understand this weird music" thing. just some band that are really confident in what they do and not hamming it up as if they're like a bad actor playing up the fact that they can't act very well.

it is just surface-level aesthetic that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the music. but it's kind of a framing device that prevents people (like me!) from getting into this stuff. i guess it could be historically it's probably a kind of backlash to the prog affect of being ultra-serious and humourless. or just aspects of zappa coming into atavistic being.

your criticism seems to be based almost entirely on the 'tarred and feathered' video, which is much more sly and layered than it may at first seem. 'beta-male' is obviously preposterous - their act has always been, imo, a grand play upon exaggerated universals - the themes are down to earth and serious, concerning mortality, childhood, existential despair, the pastoral, aesthetics, war, religion, friendship, possessiveness, love etc, but the canvas is an intense & highly poetic extroversion that is easy to mistake (at a distance) for quirkiness, preciousness or insincerity. quite obviously cardiacs, behind (or even through) the hi-jinks (if you look close enough), are one of the most sincere bands that have ever been. Even in character, 'beta-male submissive clowning' doesn't work - they operated as a thoroughly savvy art-troupe, with Jim as put-upon victim, Tim as domineering bully and the others as clowns only in the purest sense. it really, really doesn't come across as gratuitous weirdness unless you're only paying half-attention. the 'hamming it up' is integral to the totalising synthesis of their commentary upon life (surface-level aesthetic almost always has loads to do with the music). have you read their lyrics? it's some of the most affecting and profound material in the english-language songwriting canon. they're trying to convey the grand, rich weirdness and pathos of life itself - of course they're going to open themselves up to the brickbats of the world somewhat.

you fucking compared cardiacs to pomplamoose! omfg. tim smith is ALL sincerity, ALL sinistral menace, ALL joy of the world, ALL love, ALL frenzy. this kind of criticism is fearful of just how ALL cardiacs are - when forced to countenance it, retreating into awful lazy melody maker stereotypes and tossed-off cliches about youthful exuberance and wackiness. cardiacs are only wacky or zany insofar as they use wackiness and zaniness as part of their press relations satire, in order to keep a barrier between themselves and the mundane ignorance of the music press

it has nothing whatsoever to do with prog being ultra-serious and humourless (it wasn't) and everything to do with tim smith being an incredibly generous man

^^^ wot he said

oh no, you've got me completely wrong! i LOVE cardiacs now. i just remember being initially put off by the videos and especially the alphabet business concern stuff. seemed a bit sixth-form and done better by the residents or early devo but it doesn't really bother me now. like you say, some of it totalizes the experience and what they're trying to get across.

my criticism was on the other stuff vaguely in this vein that is getting it WRONG - like the perhaps contraction stuff or how i see re-cardiacs. i just wonder how to or why that kind of thing i describe is inherent in the dna of this stuff somehow. i guess it's a bit chicken in the egg as perhaps it's a certain type of person who is attracted to this stuff.

and then there's the difficultly of how do you present this stuff otherwise? it's like hearing minor chords as "sad" or 12 tone music as "scary" - they're just popular constructs. or is there's something inherently clownish and hammy about doing this kind of thing?

"tim smith is ALL sincerity, ALL sinistral menace, ALL joy of the world, ALL love, ALL frenzy" - love this

tbh i've no experience whatsoever of the 'cardiacs' but imago's post warms my heart :)

which is what i was getting it - even when stuff isn't outright zany. there's often this strange affect. like a beta-male (for lack of a better term) submissive clowning - making fun of yourself before someone else does? there's a pretty close description in that pomplamoose thread " like he has neither a sincere nor a sinister bone in his body, like a pod person who only learned to imitate zaniness". little bit unfair as they're a cover band, but that's what i feel while watching recardiacs on youtube. even some of those william d drake videos.

― linee, Saturday, 27 June 2015 02:36 (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Totally agree re: Recardiacs. That woman's attempt to imitate Tim's "disturbed child" persona were painful to watch. I appreciated what they were trying to do in terms of bringing this music to an audience who would never normally encounter it, but if I was seeing them cold with no knowledge of the source, I think I'd just be bemused more than anything.

It's like the difference between the critical perception of Cardiacs as a bunch of pretentious art students dressing up as weirdos on stage, and what they were really like(i.e. actual weirdos), but in this case it's very much more of the former.

oh fuck

sorry linee, i had somehow managed to escape knowing about recardiacs until this day. i think i will abstain from listening

Brilliant post up there imago.

I'm quite suspicious of mugging and zaniness myself but for me sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It's all about how genuine or contrived they come across. I admit maybe if I'd seen Cardiacs' early antics first it may have put me off but luckily I heard Eat it up Worms Hero first without knowing anything about them and it completely melted my brain. As far as musical experiences go that's rarely been matched.

The new William D Drake is out, btw, and it's really lovely, if not quite on the level of Rising Of The Lights (on first listen) - it's a bit simpler, for a start, and a bit more 'wacky', I suppose ;)

Songwriting is still largely delightful

really coming through on the second listen, stuff like 'the blind boy' is key

and then 'castaway'/'revere reach' are the 'me fish bring'/'homesweet homestead hideaway', sort of (they're more like 2x 'me fish bring' tbh, but with cool synth textures n shit)

Only disappointment for me was it feels a bit short, considering the crazy amount of songs he has that have never been on any records. Still waiting for him to record "Ghosty Ghost", "Philosophy Of Love", "The Donkey Song", etc.

OTOH it's probably his best produced/arranged album yet, it just sounds really, really lush all the way through. And hearing some of the long-time favourites from his live repertoire properly fleshed out is really cool.

yeah Revere Reach is kind of amazing now

'Be Here Steryear' is the sort of thing you listen to 8 times and then the 9th you realise it's extraordinary, WD Drake has a habit of this

Thumpermonkey related, I'm told.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzTF06syVOU&feature=youtu.be

Thumpermonkey have an album out soon. I'm quite excited. Will listen to this now...

Oh this is cool! Yeah the Thumpermonkey connection is the drummer, who is amazing

WD Drake is playing the Union Chapel on 17th Oct, 12:00-14:00

Some movement at least, from a guy's Facebook page.

"In October 2013, as part of a crowd-sourcing campaign to release their album, Lapsus Linguae offered a custom song. I promptly bought this, and here it is.
Obviously I chose the only thing I care about as the subject, my cat, Matilda. To say I am over the moon with it would be an understatement. Thanks Calum, we love it."

https://soundcloud.com/jamesre-1/make-up-a-basket-in-my-dreamz-lapsus-linguae

^this was cool. any subsequent news? come back lapsus linguaeeeee

'revere reach' is up there with the albums of the year, it's so so good. should i start a dedicated WD Drake thread? maybe some people will see Drake and click on it unawares

Idk why but I don't like Bill Drake's music. I'm sorry.

chill, you're probably just not in touch with your inner twee pastoralist ;)

Yeah, maybe. I mean I love the Sea Nymphs and NSRO obviously but to me it feels like Drake's trying too hard to be cute a lot of the time

o tbf if you look upthread that was kind of my initial instinct too but then it got me

'be here steryear' & the title-track def worth a review imo

~JOANNA WANG~

I don't know if Joanna Wang has heard Cardiacs, or Max Tundra, or just videogame music, but holy shit

think we've triangulated her somewhere between eleanor friedberger, kate bush and micachu, although the above artists are there in spadefuls too. and blanche blanche blanche.

she's awesome. and to think the english-language internet just hasn't heard of her. jesse nominating her for the ILX EOY and her subsequent appearance on the albums playlist is the only conceivable way we could have found out about her. how much other stuff like this must there be out there?

Hmm. I was a bit confused after clicked on one of her early videos and got something that sounded a bit like Nora Jones.

Then I got to this one, and it was like "Ohh, I see." Suddenly all the comparisons make sense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3hF8-Jeg3Y

I'm guessing this must be a new direction for her, because there are a ton of comments from bewildered fans saying stuff like "WTF is this why did you change?? :("

I listened to her 2013 album 'Galaxy Crisis: The Strangest Midnight Broadcast' and it's practically just as crazy, maybe a tiny bit less developed but still great - surely the fans would have caught on by then? This is slightly madder tbf

Reading the Youtube comments for her new videos is amazing, like, people just don't know what to do

I listened to some of her early stuff and it's just the most mundane music on Earth. Clearly she was made to do it by her seniors. Fuck you, this is what I sound like now! :D

when did she make the leap to this? I found some of her old videos too and she is just shockingly bland, I've never heard of anyone making a jump quite like that

She was the 16 year-old daughter of a noted Taiwanese pop producer when the early stuff came out. He probably 'encouraged' her to 'launch' her own career with these 'tasteful' covers and rip-offs.

Then she, uh, broke free.

The videos for the whole album are amazing btw

She's apparently come out and completely disowned her early stuff. Good on her

I would guess 2011's "Adventures of Bernie the Schoolboy" is probably the start, check this out, it's like Guernica:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUxzL6IGA7s

ah yeah, nice

it seems she's just been getting better and better though. this new album is sensational

pretty much anything I can find on her only covers her music from 2008-2009. clearly she was quite popular which makes the whole thing a lot more fun. I always hoped that some big pop star over here would do something like that, I guess Miley Cyrus is the most likely candidate right now but I haven't found her "out there" stuff to be all that exciting thus far.

well, check this out

https://www.reddit.com/r/iama/comments/k3vbe/i_am_a_taiwanese_celebrity_ama

yes! haha, I've covered Sparks "This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us" using purely the voice of Skeletor at a music festival. I think all the "Joanna Wang" fans were like ????. But the next day the reviews in the papers still said it was a soothing performance. It's moments like when I just feel like I must be the last sane person on the planet.

haha god

yeah she seems fairly singular. still has a sony contract, my god

Apparently she's internet friends with Neil Cicierega, which explains a lot.

And she recorded this cover of his song Bill Watterson back in 2007.

This will likely only make sense to frogbs.

apparently a TMBG fan as well. this hits a little too close to home, now I wonder if she does know about Cardiacs because I can't imagine someone more predisposed to go bonkers over them

and Neil's tumblr JUST NOW has a post about her? what the hell is going on!?

b0bbarker asked: Did you recently possess the body of a Taiwanese woman named Joanna Wang and release an album last year called Bob Music? Because it sure sounds like you did. And by that I mean go look up songs like Truckin Everyday and When I Nod.

NO LIE, I’ve been internet pals with her for years! She sent me an acoustic cover of Bill Watterson back in 2007. We catch up over gchat every couple months and share what we’ve been working on.

She’s had a really interesting career: She debuted as a very successful singer in Taiwan, mostly of mainstream-sounding covers. But over the past several years she’s totally reinvented herself as this eclectic, synthy baroque pop monster.

Oh that's easy to explain. I'm b0bbarker, and I too am kind of internet pals with Neil, going back his animutation days and was the one who asked him the question on Tumblr. We also used to share crazy stuff together, back when I used to make really silly mashup mixes, which he had cited as kind of being the influence for Mouth Sounds.

hah, I remember some of your stuff from way back in the day! I think I have an Aaron Ackerson CD with one of your remixes on it. I figured it had to be someone from here!

I always thought Neil was capable of making something that would fit right in this thread but he just seems to be doing so much at once. dude's pretty talented though