thread of copeland on occasion of their ghostly and fractured rock/r&b-ish(??) album blushing (2019)

i got some bon iver vibes from "night figures" but y'know the bon iver of my dreams

i thought of Rhye too, there's a pretty similar ghostly r&b vibe

ghostly and layered like a double exposure, every instrument leaving a spectral trail of echoes behind it

this is the best album

i've only heard the pre-release tracks (will hopefully correct this state of affairs today) but from those I was reminded of junior boys at their more spectral end

I didn't immediately think of Rhye, but I guess I can hear it...except lower tech and more whiteness.

(caveat: I've only listened to Lay Here)

I think the difference is that Rhye (certainly when Hannibal was in the band) have a certain compositional neatness that can be ghostly but is never "fractured" - it's that "professionalism" (which I don't mean pejoratively) which draws comparisons to Sade as much as the vocals.

i know i'll regret saying this but i don't think i'll hear a better record this year, this album is the genuine article

yeah there's a slippery unmoored feeling to the instruments throughout, they kind of melt around the drums (and yet there is so much clarity and space my god! junior boys otm!), that i don't really hear in rhye

re: johnny feves' "whiteness" comment i nearly clarified itt that "lay here" is kind of reaching into r&b from a nearby sophistipop dimension, though i ultimately didn't post it bc i'm suspicious of myself whenever i describe music as if it were designed to compliment my tastes specifically (could be!)

this music does feel as if the band carefully read Brad's entire ILX posting history before entering the recording studio haha

Pope was very much my favourite of these!

the pre-release tracks only give the faintest hint of how great this is

lj if you like "pope" you're gonna dig the rest, album could potentially collapse venn diagram of ilm into a circle

will not be able to join the brad record love-in this year as I am almost always totally incapable of deeply engaging with records about/evoking fucking, alas

man i love this band. i'll hold back any thoughts until i can hear the whole thing

simon i'm not trying to second guess your tastes here but i think you're going to be able to get past it + it's pretty easy to listen to the record without being conscious of that layer i think, beyond which it's more sexy than sexual

tim and i talked about this record last night and how it arrives at a r&b space from what seems a less traditional path; tim specifically said it's like they reverse-engineered the theoretical existence of r&b from the quieter stretches of in rainbows which is exactly otm

that sounds right from what ive heard, altho i do hate and rme at any and all r***ohead comparisons...

i dont think theyve ever fit into any r&b pockets, like at all. ixora may have butted up against it on a few spots. but to me the rhye comp only vaguely works in the sweet vocal styling and i guess in some the empty spaces, and really only on the song lay here.. very intrigued by the new direction if they are beginning to cross over a bit. these guys really know how to explode into a hook and i hope they dont lose that completely.

altho i do hate and rme at any and all r***ohead comparisons

enthusiastic same, a little hard to avoid with this album still

yeah it was the first thing i thought of after listening to the new tracks and i tried and tried to connect something else but in the end i circled back to the same place...

I think one reason that Radiohead comparisons can feel both seductive and “too easy” is that Radiohead since the 00s have tended to signify very weakly in terms of genre. In Rainbows in particular is an example of an album that is quite hooky and memorable and low-key inventive that never sounds like it’s doing anything radically new from a genre sense, but at the same time for the most part it has this quality of ~not particularly sounding like anything~

So when another band moves into a similar negative space, “this is reminiscent of Radiohead” can become shorthand for “this doesn’t obviously resemble other stuff but nor would I feel confident demarcating its space as new territory”.

Then in this case the effect is heightened because
Copeland actually do sound like Radiohead in a lot of ways. But the comparison feels annoying because it still has that sense of being a stand-in for a better, more substantive analogy that might be available.

yeah agree.

since i kinda grew w the band from the beginning its easier to block out any comparisons. tim have you heard any of the older albums?

ive listened to the full alb a few times now. feels like the perfect next step from ixora and im in love w this obv. so glad they got back together and continue to grow.

suddenly >>>>>

I care not for music that has vocals mixed as high as this band has chosen to mix their vocals tbh... in this regard they resemble Rhye's first album a great deal

suddenly >>>>>

― marcos smart (Spottie), Monday, February 11, 2019 11:58 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yep

"strange flower" is just unreal too

and "waltz on water" has a chorus that could've appeared on the last two maxwell records

oh yeah good call, especially with the ha-hoo-hooos.

feel like kev k would like this record

yes k3vin to thread

lol i forgot they were actually releasing this on valentine’s day. it’s out now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mvo1Ytilgwg

lol i'm obsessed with this record and want other people to hear it!!! i think this is my new favorite copeland song. seems to reach back all the way to in motion by its end, seems to collapse every copeland record into one

valentines is a perfect day for this lol. colorless is exactly what i want a copeland song to sound like in 2019

I got Beneath Medicine Tree when it came out. I really loved it at the time. An old roommate of mine had In Motion which I was into but never stuck with them after that. Starting this one now and im digging it a lot. Excited to actually dive into this.

omg I love this album so much

i knew it!!!!

This is pretty cool ... not like in a formalistic sense but emotionally this reminds me a bit of ... suede?

the pre-released tracks sound even better in context.

im listening over and over for a skippable track and not finding any.

if you folded every aspect of my taste down the resulting origami would be this record

i get lost when you look my way
it's genuine

so this is a really challenging record, something I need to listen to in a setting more appropriate than in the car stuck on west street traffic

I haven’t read this whole thread yet, but I’m trying to figure out where I stand on the question of the r&bness of this record, because on the one hand I can see it in some moments — as with parts of “lay here” most obviously — but on the other hand this record’s aesthetic seems almost antithetical to r&b as I understand it: it’s so loose and, yes, fractured, almost closer to jazz.

that might be related in some way to this essential quality I can’t quite place but keeps me at arms length for the time being — while almost every song has something to it that really comes out of left field and impresses me, there’s this feeling of...amateurishness?...that strikes me, like its unfinished — every song seems like it’s a hook short of fully coming together. I also am trying to figure out how I feel about this guy’s voice, but my initial impression is not overwhelmingly positive

like I said though there is a lot here that intrigues me, and, also, truly seems challenging in a way I really wasn’t prepared for, and I’m thankful for this recommendation and will give it more time

I think I have more to say about tim’s characteristically insightful post about radiohead up there, but the random touchpoints rattling around in my head as I listened to this included like...portishead, bon iver, mark hollis, some amalgam of latter-day emo vocalists (manchester orchestra maybe?)

none of which really make sense on their own but all feel like ingredients in some way

I hear a faint echo of Earwig’s ‘Under My Skin I Am Laughing’ in that fractured, abstracted aspect to their sound.

Blown away that they’ve been going since 2001

I decided that this album is amazing

it is

just listened the album.
i'm overwhelmed. is 'suddenly' the best song ever or what?

Just listening to this and liking it. It took me ages to work out what it most reminded me of (and it may just be the burr on the guy's vocals) but it's the Notwist.

I thought of it too but it lacks The Notwist's restraint, which I personally can't do without.

this is great

kills 1975 imo

nice to have kev on board. i thought maybe the emo-ish vox might be a hurdle too high but glad you stuck with it.

didnt expect m@tt to like it either!

re to Nourry: suddenly is for sure my early favorite on here. back half of it is perfectly melancholy.

went from blushing to beneath medicine tree this morning which was v weird bc the songwriting on bmt is way less developed, a lot more obviously derivative ("testing the strong ones" is like what if texas is the reason and jimmy eat world were one band), in many ways it is obviously a debut, but they had also already established their relationship to atmosphere on it; it doesn't sound obviously distinct from other well-produced emo records of the early-'00s but there's this dreamy sleepwalking feeling throughout that makes it feel special and like it's probing a different emotional space than other emo records (which, it was: grief)

in line with this, my favorite copeland songs are the few that sound like they could be on any of their records, like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkI3iSozeVQ

(also "eat sleep repeat," "love affair")

totally see the in rainbows comparison on "as above, so below"

the vox get *a bit much* for me at times, but musically and melodically it's a very strong record

partially i just feel happy for brad because honestly it's like god reached into the stars shaped it into a record just for you

also lol I didn't know these guys were lifers that used to be on Tooth & Nail haha

there are some great bass lines on this album, i miss rock bands w/cool basslines

i've given this album a lot of listens now and i'm still not quite sure what to make of it. it's enjoyable for sure, and "night figures" and "suddenly" are certainly standouts, but as a whole it's been a bit difficult to get a grip on. i think its sound stretched across the length of a whole album has just ended up feeling a bit formless to me unfortunately

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL3RYwhSIUE

favorite jam on the album

that video is excellent

i just wanna make you smiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiile.... onnn your worst day. I just wanna make you caaaaaaaaaaake... forrrrr your birthday *start weird drums and synths(?)*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COuhLiQtLN0
think this is my fav now on here. the back half >>>>

Had never heard of this band until this album. Didn't care for the vocals on first listen, but kept coming back for the atmosphere. Pretty sure this album is going to make my EoTY list now.

welcome, beard papa

im in for this

We’re hitting the road to celebrate 20 years of Beneath Medicine Tree. We’re bringing our buddy Kevin Garrett and the amazing girlhouse on select dates! Come sing along with us. Tickets are available at https://t.co/OTbEnqChmJ. pic.twitter.com/e32Atz0jxm

— copeland (@copelandband) February 2, 2023

umm also had no idea they put out a new record last year!

it's rerecordings/rearrangements of old songs and i just haven't gotten around to it myself lol

ok lol i was like what have i done how did i miss this