I LOVE YOU "THE CHROMATICS"

Stylus writer Nina Phillips isn't so impressed:

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/reviews/chromatics/night-drive.htm

Wow, what a shit review.

I'm planning to drop by Our Disco, which is conveniently close to my hotel. I love love the entire label's aesthetic.

found a Tour 2006 full length thingy called "in shining violence". it's pretty great, but doesn't have much of the disco influence i was expecting. instead it sounds more like early TG or siouxsie and the banshees. just minimal, dark electronic pop. the dude sings on most of the tracks.

i had a friend listen to some of their tracks on myspace. she's way more into twee indie stuff, and she thought they sounded like romeo void, which i couldn't really argue w/

"poorly produced" what

i'm loving this

damn... thanks ILM

Very excited about this I'm On Fire cover. Juno has a sample: http://mp3.juno.co.uk/MP3/SF284651-01-02-02.mp3

I'm not sure I get the rapture surrounding this record, maybe I haven't been in the right frame of mind for it as yet but it's all leaving me a bit cold. I don't quite get what sets this album apart from the countless other electronic indie pop albums with breathy female vocals.

Even the Kate Bush cover feels a bit limp to me.

It's quite possible I haven't heard the countless other electronic indie pop albums with breathy female vocals. Can you recommend the best ones?

For me it's an atmosphere thing.

it's the minimal disco-noir thing, extracting maximimum emotional output from minor musical events, so like when the one new chord arrives its heartstopping

And our man Strongo lands another winner in the Fork!

yeah good review, jess!

i have to be kinda honest, as much as i love this group, and will firmly stand behind them, the album's kinda boring. there are a few amazing tracks near the end, but then it just sorta peeters off into minimal synth arpegios w/no real songs. i almost feel like making my own album w/all their stand out tracks i've gotten from comps and singles and cdrs and shit

sorry, amazing tracks are in the beginning, boring in the end

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/46207-night-drive

I thought I raved about their 2005 tour cd somewhere on ilx, but I guess not. it's in the same style as night drive or iv or whatever they're calling the new one, but it's starker and drier. definitely worth tracking down, maybe I should leonardo...

yes please do!

the 2005 cdr has 2 versions of "healer" on it, I guess they really love that song.

Is that the 'In Shining Violence' thingy?

In Shining Violence was the 2006 tour cdr.

I am totally gay for this band

I love these guys but I agree w/ jaxon

I wish they would chill for a minute and make their masterpiece instead of releasing every demo, a bunch of CDRs, five versions of everything

the title track from "Night Drive" is pretty sick tho

maybe I should leonardo...

-- Edward III, Thursday, 11 October 2007 21:36 (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

A+

I think someone really hit on what I like so much about this band upthread. I mean when you listen to them it sounds like there should be a million bands that sound exactly like them. But I can't think of even one.

The perfection of the Kate Bush quote at the end of Jess's review makes me v. jealous.

it sounds like there should be a million bands that sound exactly like them. But I can't think of even one.

glass candy?

...

I don't really like Glass Candy.

I listened to the Cyndi Lauper version of Iko Iko last night confirming my belief that it is like a billion times better.

have you heard their cover of "miss broadway"? i think it's the best thing italians have put out. it seems crazy to hate on glass candy when they and chromatics are practically the same group at current. and i can't believe italians changed the sleeve design for the "in the city" 12. i loved that whole disco 12" art aesthetic they had for a minute.

Dunno, Glass Candy seem a lot more varied to me - the thing with the Chromatics is they feel like they've consciously limited their aesthetic within some pretty narrow parameters.

the biggest difference btw the two bands is the voice that johnny shapes his music around. with chromatics, for adam/ ruth, thematically the things that pop up again and again are things like horror, emptiness, "the city", night, heartbreak ... whereas with ida/ glass candy there is much more of an ethereal/ new age/ being female thing happening.

I even love the tour pictures on their MySpace page. Alternating haunting gauzy neon sunset L.A. pics with equal opportunity sexxxy hot tub shots.

i like these individual tracks-as-tracks but all mixed together like that italians do it better comp is kind of ... zzz. not boring per se, just ... sleepy disco

I LOEV YOU CHROMATICS BUT ONLY WHEN THE GIRL SINGS. PS DUDE STOP SINGING AND GET CHICK TO SING 4ALLTIME, NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR YOUR BAD XIU XIU MEETS CALVIN JOHSNON SHTICK THX L8R

Yeah, the 2005 tour CDR <<< Night Drive because of this.

i liked the male and female voices together on the old version of healer though ....

Tiedye sounds very interesting, although another cover is kinda disappointing:
http://vivaitalians.blogspot.com/2007/10/please-welcome-tiedye-to-italians.html

Anyone know anything about these guys?

they're swedish. the song sounds like studio covering metallica.

i finally heard some of their earlier stuff last night. how did they (and glass candy) get into the whole disco thing from no wavey stuff? was there a maurice starr in the background?
-- jaxon, Thursday, September 13, 2007 8:34 PM (5 months ago) Bookmark Link

mike pretty much answers this here.
http://andybetablog.blogspot.com/2008/01/mike-simonetti-interview.html

the more i think about it the more it's just completely obvious, though. i mean, even jon williams is getting into italo

is it just me or is it kind of weird to say 'italo is kind of shitty. most italo sucks' and then name yr label 'italians do it better'??

That interview backs up a lot of my reservations about Italians Do It Better, expressed on the Hercules & Love Affair thread. Like, doing italo-disco or even straight disco and taking out all the bits that might be seen as embarassing so as not to scare off the indie hipsters? What's the point? What is this, undie-disco?

And I actually *like* a lot of Italians Do It Better.

What'ts wrong with that though? I would find it weirder if they kept the "cheezy" bits.

btw, I don't get anything of what he's saying in that interview.

Being one of the people who've put out music on the label I can testify that I love pretty much all aspects of Italo and also I have no fear of losing any sort of audience. I make the music for myself first of all and if it gets released... fine. I'm happy people have been digging what I do - so far - and it's a pretty varied audience. Also, if I wanted to do a straight up Pineapples homage, for instance - and it turned out OK - I think Mike would consider releasing it. And I *would* go the Pineapples route if I felt like it. But you can't touch that record so why even try .

why would it be weirder if they kept the cheezy bits?

Whatever became of that Tie Dye 12" thing he was going to put out? I was super excited about the "it sounds like Studio covering Metallica"!

I also want a Farah album.

why would it be weirder if they kept the cheezy bits?

It might come off as a bit "ironic" or just a bit reactionnary. What I love this stuff is how modern it sounds despite all the winks to the early 80s.