Chairlift - Bruises (This year's "Heartbeats"/"Young Folks")

The individual sounds on "Romeo" are as 80s retro as anything they've released. There's just more evident digital audio workstation touches to give it that hyperisolated 21st century gloss.

http://www.vogue.com/13363580/chairlift-caroline-polachek-wedding-snug-harbor/

But, what is this year's Heartbeats/Young Folks?

The definitive list of songs used by Apple Inc. in commercials, keynote addresses, presentations, and other marketing materials

http://www.vogue.com/13363580/chairlift-caroline-polachek-wedding-snug-harbor/

― wizzz! (amateurist), Wednesday, 2 December 2015 02:08 (15 hours ago)

Huh, turns out I've read her dad's book on the Opium Wars! Still trumped by today's "Haruomi Hosono's grandad survived the Titanic" revelation, mind.

I dislike the new track as much as I do 'Ch-Ching', to be quite honest with you. I'll still listen to the album when it's released, but I'm definitely not excited about it. My expectations have been lowered by a considerable amount of notches, and I'm actually preparing for the album to be... well, shite.

nice wedding, though.

Yes. Wedding articles. In Vogue.

https://putyourboogerinmypocket.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/fonzi.jpg

It actually looks like a boring wedding. Serious question: Are weddings in the US usually this low key? I mean small gatherings of 50+ people, fancy dinner a little dance and everybody goes home? I just saw Rachel Getting Married a couple of days ago and that's a very small wedding too. In Latinamerica weddings of under 150 guests are considered small.

I see the average wedding budget in the US is $20,000 according to this: http://www.soundvision.com/article/wedding-statistics-in-the-united-states

I've seen friends of mine who have spent half of that in the dress alone :S

I love this new song, it's up there with "I Belong In Your Arms", I think I want them to go full pop.

i like low key weddings, and there isn't anything obviously objectionable about caroline polachek's. maybe it's just resentment that she is beautiful and smart and talented and rich*, but the whole immaculate tastefulness of it (and the fact that it was even covered in vogue) grates on me.

* that said, the person her husband most resembles is macaulay culkin

i can't say that i really /like/ ch-ching very much, but it is an earworm, and it's growing on me a little.

in retrospect chairlift's first album really seems like a false start, even if it did generate some buzz and revenue. i wonder if she's embarrassed by it now.

the new song ("romeo") feels kind of melodically emaciated. the verses seem entirely pro forma, and the shift to the chorus feels really willful. i feel like all the digital manipulation--all the parts of the song feel edited to within an inch of their lives--is just trying to distract from the lack of melodic ideas. but who knows maybe it'll grow on me.

a better word for it would be "inert"

this is some of the most joyless music i have heard in a minute

in retrospect chairlift's first album really seems like a false start, even if it did generate some buzz and revenue. i wonder if she's embarrassed by it now.

― wizzz! (amateurist), Thursday, December 3, 2015 11:49 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The first Chairlift LP is definitely patchy, but it has some decent stuff on it. I'm more embarrassed about this new stuff I'm hearing, tbh.

it just seems to have come from different people entirely (yes, i know they had a third member who is now gone). the whole affect, the sensibility, is profoundly different -- much less arty, less arch (though still arch).

I quite like 'Romeo'. Production is a bit annoying, hopefully that's mainly due to shitty laptop speakers. But feels a bit like in early 2000s when everyone was putting like fake 'scratchy dj' sounds in, lots of slightly irritating little tics.

this album is really, really good btw

Just caught up with all the new songs on Spotify yesterday. Very excited for the album now.

Have never heard them, but this NYT interview/article has me curious

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/arts/music/chairlift-on-the-arias-beats-and-jazz-grooves-that-fed-moth.html?_r=0

good to see mishio ogawa's name about. wha-ha-ha & haniwa are two of the best bands ever (chakra's not bad either) & clicking through to the link I see there are three later ogawa solo albums I didn't even know about (and that aren't on discogs)

this album is... not good. it is stunningly not good. (this from someone who liked ch-ching)

lol what do you dislike about it? idk i love the horns and the post-disco guitar and etc. also "crying in public" is so gorgeous

joyless/inert sums it up well, plus "some of these tracks were either very bad ideas or very bad takes, and yet they *are* ideas, which is more than can be said elsewhere

haha i don't get that feeling from it at all. oh well

like only "ottawa to osaka" and "unfinished business" strike me as shapeless and hermetic maybe, and those are growing on me

yeah "ottawa to osaka" was one of the very bad ideas

Having heard all of the tracks previewed so far from this record, it's fair to say at this stage that this record isn't going to be for me. Oh well, at least Something still remains a killer record, but as far as I can see, my enthusiasm for this band stops right here.

yeah this album is kind of a mess

I really liked "Moth to the Flame," "Crying in Public" and "Ch-Ching," iffy on "Romeo." vv curious to hear the rest.

this is ok on first listen but nowhere near Something really. 'kind of a mess' is accurate though. no idea what they were going for on Ottawa to Osaka. i like the breezy feeling on some of the tracks, wasn't really expecting that from the singles, sort of wish they did more with that.

i obv love messes

the instrumentation on "polymorphing" and "show u off" <3

I had never heard of this band until 2 days ago and I've listened to Moth about 10 times already and currently spinning it an 11th time

It's so infectious. Show U Off and Moth to the Flame are faves

there are some decent tracks here, I still like Ch-Ching and Romeo a lot, but it is definitely a disappointment compared to Something. The overall vibe is a bit too sappy for me and there just aren't as many huge hooks as I was hoping for.

This Is also the first time I listened to them and I'm feeling some Haim vibes. Is it just me?

Love the first half but it loses me on the second. The last two songs in particular are such a disappointing end to the album. Can't remember a single thing about them.

aw i love the last song, it's so spacious and twisting

Okay, so I did listen to the album, and yes it is as terrible as I suspected it would be. A shame, as I was eagerly awaiting this record.

i'm genuinely surprised by how divisive this record is. huh

i mean i sort of get it

it doesn't sound like something very much at all and on many of the tracks they kind of go for this kinda petrified electro pop but i am so down with that aesthetic, especially when it is married to massive hooks ("polymorphing," "moth to the flame," "show u off"). hard for me to conceive of these as "terrible" in any sense

- "crying in decent" is good but they have a high bar to clear with "i belong in your arms" and this doesn't clear it; similarly "romeo" is aimed square at my musical tastes and yet somehow misses
- "ottawa to osaka" is the song equivalent of lost in translation, i.e. japan as backdrop for sluggish love affair and "whoa, we're so foreign here"
- I'm sure the last half of "show u off" was very fun to record but christ it never should have been released to the public
- there really aren't that many hooks here at all?

"Ottawa to Osaka" is a half step or two from being R&B but the choice to sing in a rather plummy way makes the thing fussy.

the spoken stuff at the end of "show u off" is fun idk. everything in that song is a hook

if it's reeeeeaaaaalll

Tentative thumbs up for this. "Crying In Public" is great. The drawbacks are that I can't really hear "Show U Off" without thinking "this is good but I'd much prefer to hear a Knowles sister singing", and on a number of the tracks the transition from the chorus back to a verse or the middle 8 has been done quite clumsily.