King Krule - i love this hipster shit

this is england 2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JawgV3apIeM

expected to hate it, but ended up loving the obvious brotherly love that drives them both.

No guitar at all on this = kind of a letdown

And it does feel like one of the things he used to just put up on his DJ JD Sports Soundcloud page.

But still, I've been playing nonstop all day. Something to be said for that, I suppose.

need to hear this

It really does get better the more I play it.

THE RETURN OF PIMP SHRIMP
https://soundcloud.com/thereturnofpimpshrimp/feel-safe-88-just-say-no

Kind of a dark disco thing. Whoooo. . .!

A New Place 2 Drown has finally been released on vinyl: http://xlrecordings.com/buy/archymarshall-anewplace2drown

UK only for now, but Amoeba is stocking it.

'Czech One'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2HRzIyyXvU

Sounds like a New Place 2 Drown part two.

Still love it.

So, after a few days and several dozen listens later, I have to say that this is both a totally genius and equally as confusing lead single.

It seems like a kind of mixture of 'The Noose of Jah City' and 'Cementality' — that kind of ultra pretty Fender Rhodes vamp sort of thing. But, something else completely different in the mix, as well. It's almost sparse to a confrontational degree. It has shades of things he's done previously in it, but I can't really, truly liken it directly to them. It was actually kind of jarring on first listen, because of how subdued it is. I'm just taking it face value presently, but if I were to go to that next step of assessment, I would say that, when 'Easy Easy' was released as the lead single to the first album four years ago, it was a fantastic, victorious moment for him. But, musically speaking, it was not in the least bit unexpected. 'Czech One', on the other hand, I can honestly say I did not see coming at all. So, in terms of just doing something completely different, this is another successful moment for him.

However, considering he just played Prima Vera Sound a few months ago and aired out several new songs, yet 'Czech One' was not among them, makes me think that this new record is going to be something of a challenge. A challenge that I wholly welcome, especially if the results are as fruitful as 'Czech One.'

The album's...okay. I guess.

It's my most anticipated release of the year. So, I'm definitely looking forward.

The OOZ, out 13 October on XL and True Panther
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/cdn.beggars.com/xlrecordings/site/images/products/157/images/kk-pinth.jpg
1. Biscuit Town
2. The Locomotive
3. Dum Surfer
4. Slush Puppy
5. Bermondsey Bosom (Left)
6. Logos
7. Sublunary
8. Lonely Blue
9. Cadet Limbo
10. Emergency Blimp
11. Czech One
12. (A Slide In) New Drugs
13. Vidual
14. Bermondsey Bosom (Right)
15. Half Man Half Shark
16. The Cadet Leaps
17. The Ooz
18. Midnight 01(Deep Sea Diver)
19. La Lune

'Dum Surfer' hit YouTube this morning and it's a dark, hazy wash of a song. If 'Czech One' was super sparse, 'Dum Surfer' is the opposite, filling every corner and darkened space with reverb and delay washes.

And, holy hell, NINETEEN songs in the tracklist?!

Just going off what I've seen and heard so far, this album is going to be absolutely huge in sound and ambition.

i haven't heard anything else, but dum surfer rules.

aiming this post for 15 years from now, but...

these assholes can play for now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5-f1Bnltu8

egh, it's just a really constrained song in some ways, despite sounding like it's bleeding out. i bet a lot of king krule sounds like this but i just haven't given it a shot. but if nothing else, l love this one, and the things that make it good make me think there's a lot more underneath the ret of his music./ newbie herer

I liked the first LP but this is something else. Awesome

i wasn't the biggest fan of the first LP (apart from Easy Easy) but this guy was so young and is clearly so talented that I figured better things were coming. Sounds like they've come.

i bet a lot of king krule sounds like this

No, actually. I think that's why I'm so taken with this new material. In the past, when he put out new music, it felt like an addition on the foundation he had established previously.

This new material, though. . . just seems to have come from out of nowhere. There are still touchstones of his major influences —namely hyper literate new wave (Josef K, Aztec Camera, etc.) and 60s era post-bop jazz— but, just going on these two new songs, he's really taken it in another direction entirely.

i thought czech one was fine but yeah, this one is fucking excellent and really enthralling sounding to me. so many layers man.

seems like he got really into the beats/hip-hop thing for awhile (that marshall album) and now that he's back to king krule it's like a combination of the two styles. he talks in that new pitchfork thing about hanging out with rappers too much and then going "wait, i forgot i play guitar" or something like that. haha.

Nah, pretty big hip hop influence on 6 Feet Beneath the Moon. I mean, 'Shades of Grey' and 'A Neptune Estate' were basically MPC beats. With live horns and guitar on it and then the remix had actual rappers on it in the case of 'Neptune Estate.' And he's always had his DJ JD Sports Soundcloud where he posts random beats. And then the Sub Luna City album as well.

def an influence from the start but specifically on the archy album and his random collabs. these feel more official and not just like some random project, cause it's under the krule name.

I think that's always been where the big connection to his music for me stems from. Even though there's practically a generation and a half between my age and his, we've both had similar musical journeys as kind of hip hop junkies that just got really into Bill Evans and new wave.

Not that I'm anywhere near as talented as he is; or even talented at all. Just totally get where he's coming from.

not sure i could've said what i wanted out of another king krule record but turns out dum surfer is exactly it

this is also p dece:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1kzMFnFSh0

I don't know if it's just me or not but I'm kinda surprised at the intensity of the positive reactions here. I gave it an ear as mentioned and...I don't know if 'forced' is the right term but it sure really seems like it makes an effort to demonstrate how much of an effort is being made. Like the fact it's being tried is more important than actually sinking in as a good listen.

they said the same thing about animal collective's 'centipede hz', and is there a single ilm poster today who wouldn't gladly place that classic in their top 700 albums of 2012?

lol.. haven't listened to this yet, most of his albums only have one or two songs that really stick with me so if this has that i'll be happy

I don't know if it's just me or not but I'm kinda surprised at the intensity of the positive reactions here. I gave it an ear as mentioned and...I don't know if 'forced' is the right term but it sure really seems like it makes an effort to demonstrate how much of an effort is being made. Like the fact it's being tried is more important than actually sinking in as a good listen.

Nah, his band is just that tight.

That...wasn't my impression. (It wasn't even a question of whether or not they were tight, more like 'why is this entire experience vaguely irritating in a way I can't put my finger on.')

To each their own, I guess.. Don't see this as being particularly showoff-y or forced. Just a nasty/tight grinding roadhouse beat.

def not show-off-y. at least not anymore than his previous stuff. he has his sound figured out a bit better (which i consider distinctive) and is trying to smooth out the fragments.

9.0 on pitchfork

that's my boy

Should have my copy in hand tomorrow. Excited.

66 minutes are you kidding me

it is pretty fucking long. i'm finishing up my first listen and there's just so MUCH there that it's hard to wrap my head around. i like it a lot, though.

more of a 9.4 than 9.0 imo

This is great

It sounds to me at times a lot like Slim Twig/US Girls

Trying to figure out what bugs me about this and i realized it's the latent Tom waits vibes

Kinda trying too hard

I'm loving "Emergency Blimp" from this album, especially after the first chord change when I realize it's actually not 1979 by the Smashing Pumpkins.

Tom Waits for sure. Or is it slow Amy Winehouse?

this record is A+ and i don't fuck w/tom waits

bag otm

y’all are trying too hard to hate

So this finally fucking got delivered today. No idea why it took so long.

For as much as I loved 6 Feet Beneath the Moon and heralded it as something truly new and unique, it only feels a lot less so after hearing the OOZ. Very much a straightforward approach to making music. Everything about the OOZ, on the other hand, feels really carefully considered, executed, and fully realized.

Also, 6 Feet Beneath the Moon very much had an introspectively depressive vibe to it, with an added undertone of anger. The OOZ, again in contrast, is no less inwardly down, but it's a lot more apathetic about its depression. 6 Feet Beneath the Moon's songs felt like they were all written under the influence of marijuana, but then performed and recorded after the high had worn off and the original intent was sharpened up quite a bit. The OOZ feels a lot more. . . I don't know, alcoholic? And a lot more blatant musical nods to jazz, obviously. It's much more of a smokey, aqueous vibe.

Too early to pick any highlights just yet, but, needless to say, this is easily my top pick for the year.

Third listen now and, I have to say, that last ten or twelve minutes of the album (basically the last three songs) are some of the darkest, dreariest, yet somehow rewarding and cathartic things he's done. It's definitely the most lucid the album gets; but even using the word "lucid" is an overstatement in regards to this record.

Pretty much sums up what I said previously, as far as the OOZ being all about the execution and presentation of the songs. Most obviously on 'La Lune', which is actually a very old song and dates from around the time of 6 Feet Beneath the Moon. Here's the original recording of it. Pretty easy to do a side by side between the two recordings for an obvious "before and after" comparison.

And, after taking it in more fully, I now would pretty much consider A New Place 2 Drown his actual second album. The lineage from 6 Feet Beneath the Moon and the OOZ becomes a lot less jarring —and just just makes a hell of a lot more sense— that way.

So, like with everything he's done, the words have started to sink in and resonate on levels I can't even articulate.

This album is so bleak. Where 6 Feet Beneath the Moon had a kind of preoccupation with things coming to an end —whether it was a relationship, an experience, or even life itself— there was at least a grounding in the fact that his existence was still intact presently. On songs like 'The Krockadile' or even 'Out Getting Ribs', despite a very cynical worldview, there was ultimately a release of tension when this realization hit.

From 'Out Getting Ribs':
"I've been broken down / So much has lost it now / I just stop and say / Girl, don’t you worry 'bout a thing."

'The Krockadile':
"My urge to purge, so bold / I need the warmth of a brother to hold / I need the warmth of your mother to hold me down."

But, the OOZ is just. . . too distracted by the emotive destruction to even stop for a deep breath. It's like, if 6 Feet Beneath the Moon had a suicidal attitude, it ultimately found solace in the ability to continue, despite the damage that had occurred. The OOZ is nearly like speculation of what lies on the other side. Very appropriate in this respect that the band was made up to resemble zombies in the video clip for 'Dum Surfer' because that's essentially what this feels like: a laborious trudge through the sheer hopelessness of what we are all destined to encounter, but which none of us know what to expect from. As Archy continues to push the plough through his expectations of death, he seems to have no fear of it, despite his impression of it being nothing but a torturous solitude in which self-reflection is just one unending negative critique.

this album is a lot.

I mean, even just the opening lines of the album are so resonating for me:

"We made a pact, but now I think it's over. . . I think we might be bipolar. I think she thinks I'm bipolar."

And that's indicative of the whole album: it just has this sense to it of randomly blurting out these things that have gone horribly wrong. Where, in the past, he seemed to infer some sort of resolution or deescalation, the OOZ simply states the bad news and quickly moves on to the next (also presumably negative) subject, offering no silver lining, or even hinting at a respite in the downpour.

i've never seen king krule live. does he bring along his zombie garage band?

everyone in the dum surfer video looks like they've been robotripping for 75 minutes, it's fantastic