Stars of the Lid

yeah if anything "Requiem" is so affecting because it's an outlier at that point

xp Oh man, I love that record!

Great news about a possible new SotL, I too thought it unthinkable at this moment in time. Will give the new one a spin soon.

Pre-And Their Refinement of the Decline they struck just the right balance between cinematic classical and reverb-laden ambient. Everything that's come after (doubly so since they've temporarily parted ways) has leaned a little too heavily on the former aspect of their shtick imho.

― pomenitul, Tuesday, November 5, 2019 11:58 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm

I, too, agree. I've zero evidence to back this up, but my theory is that 'Refinement' was made - in part - with the following tour in mind. They came out - relatively, of course - guns blazing, with the string quartet and the whole shebang on stage. And it was beautiful! But they lost something with/after that album. I'm sure Pom will concur 'reverb-laden ambient' is a flawed description but it's close to the truth. Something of the profundity was lost, though.

I caught them during their Refinement tour (on the top floor of a Masonic Temple, no less) and it was absolutely wonderful, but I remember thinking that it put the album the shame. So your theory makes sense to me.

So AWVFTS are playing here in SF in April at Grace Cathedral, which, yes.

i wouldn't be surprised that guys who make a living selling minimalism aren't the nicest. patience wears thin when the grasping classes contend

I get the impression that Wiltzie and Brian McBride are barely collaborating these days, but don't want to say anything definitive about the end of SOTL as a recording project. There was talk last year of a McBride solo album but it never materialized. My best guess is that SOTL will reappear periodically to tour, but that's about it, unfortunately.

together we stand. divided we fall. trance syndicate. windsor for the derby. labradford

Aix Em Klemm, the Dead Texan

^^ both up there with the very best SotL ever did.

I caught them during their Refinement tour (on the top floor of a Masonic Temple, no less) and it was absolutely wonderful, but I remember thinking that it put the album the shame. So your theory makes sense to me.

― pomenitul, Tuesday, November 5, 2019 11:07 AM (fifty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

my ex-wife was at that show if it's 2008, mtl

Indeed it was!

I, too, agree. I've zero evidence to back this up, but my theory is that 'Refinement' was made - in part - with the following tour in mind. They came out - relatively, of course - guns blazing, with the string quartet and the whole shebang on stage. And it was beautiful! But they lost something with/after that album. I'm sure Pom will concur 'reverb-laden ambient' is a flawed description but it's close to the truth. Something of the profundity was lost, though.

― Le Bateau Ivre, Tuesday, November 5, 2019 bookmarkflaglink

I don't understand what you mean that they lost something post-Refinement. That was their last album... what have they released that tells you they've lost something?

SOTL toured just a couple of years ago, and there are photos of them in the studio at that time. I get the impression that they work on it when they can but they just don't live in the same city and they have other lives. So it will come whenever it comes.

I saw Brian McBride perform at a Kranky anniversary show a few months back and he was terrific. I would LOVE a new solo album from him. "When the Detail Lost Its Freedom" is right up there with the best SOTL stuff.

With 'with/after' 'Refinement', I meant 'with' the album, and 'after' the tour. Apologies for being unclear.

"When The Detail Lost Its Freedom" is indeed a huge album. Based on their solo/non-SotL efforts, a new McBride and Wiltzie collaboration would be so interesting. You can kind of hear the both of them branching out in different directions though.

tired sounds is beautiful but impossibly remote

I get most of my new music from two sources - a podcast called Low Light Mixes, and an internet radio station called Sleepbot. As with Aquarius Records I always feel sad when I think about Sleepbot because one day it's going to end. Aquarius Records actually did end. I always used to imagine popping half-way across the world to San Francisco and going to Aquarius Records and looking cool but not buying anything, but now I can't even do that.

Anyway, Sleepbot plays a load of old Pete Namlook side projects, and also Stars of the Lid, almost exclusively from Tired Sounds and Refinement. I know almost nothing about them but was I surprised. From the name and song titles I was expecting something along the lines of Thee Silver Mount Zion, but they're a lot subtler. Tired Sounds stands out more and is sad even without the song titles. "The Lonely People (Are Getting Lonelier)" was written in 2001 but it makes me think of Facebook, Occupy Wall Street etc, a general failure to connect and incessant bot-driven imitations of interaction.

I have some Low Light mixes from way back, glad he's still going

Slow & Sleepy and I Fell Asleep At My Desk... are my go to mixes at bedtime

I met Wiltzie once, he was...not especially nice. My gf and I went to see WVFtS on one of their first tours, and a very close friend in common suggested we "definitely" say hello for her, which is something I'm typically loath to do. I introduced myself after they played and I don't think his eyes ever left his cell phone. Maybe he was having a bad day.

Nope, sorry, not a new one. But the seminal 'Aix Em Klemm' is getting a 20th anniversary reissue (for those of you still looking for this one on vinyl).

It's easily one of the best things SotL or either of them solo ever did. I trust ZS to back me up on this.

it really is, i love it. it's the first record in my ambient collection, alphabetically, and i can't count the number of times i've stepped over to that shelf to listen to something without words and immediately grabbed Aix Em Klemm upon seeing it.

it's always hard to pick individual tracks on ambient releases, but "the luxury of dirt" always stands out to me. otherworldly, lovely synth.

interesting bandcamp notes on the reissue! (weird line spacing in original, i'm too lazy to fix it)

AIX EM KLEMM Is the moniker of the ambient music project consisting of Adam Wiltzie (Stars of the Lid / A Winged Victory for the Sullen) & Robert Donne (Labradford / Anjou). As Adam Wiltzie told Sadness Is In The Sky fanzine, his collaboration with Bobby Donne began when "We all met during a Texas swing of a Labradford tour that Stars of the Lid opened for back in 1996. They stayed at my house for a few days and we became close.”

A year later Wiltzie was asked to join Labradford for their Mi Media Naranja European tour of 1997 as
the sound technician. This tour also included Bruce Gilbert of the legendary band Wire who was the
opening act and joined them in the van for the entire tour. With Bruce’s nightly improvisations of minidisc
field recording explosions running through a Sherman Filter Bank, it left a profound effect on Adam &
Bobby, and led to inspiring internal philosophical discussions on the importance of improvisation.

After concluding six weeks in the van the idea of creating a unique collaboration separate from our other
projects was realized. The duo exchanged tapes over the course of a year and then Donne ventured to
Austin, TX for a week to record at Wiltzie's home studio in 1999. The in-person collaboration moved
much more quickly than the exchange of tracks by mail. One track on the Aix Em Klemm album,
"Sparkwood and Twenty-One," was written and recorded in one day. The duo took the mysterious name
Aix Em Klemm and the self-titled debut was released in the autumn of 2000.

As of late, Wiltzie lives in Brussels, and Donne joined Stars of the Lid on their last tour of Europe in 2016
playing modular synth. They still collaborate musically so new Aix Em Klemm recordings remain a
possibility.

god if their canadian shipping wasn't so hefty I'd buy....a lot of those records, damn

AWVftS post on FB for Bandcamp Friday:

Today is the day...
Bandcamp waives the fee today in support of artists.
Make sure to follow us over there to get our news directly.
We have something coming...
Bandcamp:
AWVFTS: https://bit.ly/2Znd5Jt
adam bryanbaum wiltzie: https://bit.ly/3mZP1q0
Dustin O'Halloran: https://bit.ly/36tQAXF

New AWVFTS album Invisible Cities

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/a-winged-victory-for-the-sullen-invisible-cities/

there should be a separate Winged Victory for the etc. thread so my heart doesn't jump every time this thread is bumped

Agreed, and because I've found AWVFTS's material quite disappointing so far.

Probably why there's no AWVFTS thread...

Aww. I liked The Undivided Five quite a bit when it came out.

nice score

it's the first record in my ambient collection, alphabetically, and i can't count the number of times i've stepped over to that shelf to listen to something without words and immediately grabbed Aix Em Klemm upon seeing it.

it's always hard to pick individual tracks on ambient releases, but "the luxury of dirt" always stands out to me. otherworldly, lovely synth.

Agree with this. It's funny, though, because this is an album I really love where I always skip the first track. Isn't there a thread about that? I know some people love "The Girl With The Flesh Colored Crayon" but I can't stand that style of singing, and if I'd just heard that one track without having already been a Labradford / SotL fan I'd have never checked out this amazing album. There are vocals on another track too but they don't bug me nearly as much.

the first AWVFTS album is great

Speaking of Labradford, I can’t listen to them because on multiple albums they seem to have embedded extremely high pitches in their music, on the edge of my hearing range, but right in the sweet spot of my dog’s hearing - she goes crazy (not in a good way(

is she a labradorford?

we're not 100% sure (shelter dog; intriguing past), but i can say confidently that she is NOT a labradorford. she can't stand it!

i can't believe i wasted my best joke ever in the stars of the lid thread

think of this thread as the training grounds for the joke. you can spend 10, 15 years working on it here. and then, when SotL releases something new, you can unleash it in another thread

Not to cut across what is one of the finest jokes I've ever seen but this has bugged me for a bit: are Labradford named after the basketball player or is it something more obvious/arcane?

Not sure, but it does seem like A Stable Reference to something.

The second best joke in the thread!

I'll take it :)

maybe she'd like CS + Kreme's Snoopy?

I enjoy the first two AWVFTS albums and like their subsequent stuff just fine, though nothing as transcendent as the high bar of Stars of the Lid. Have not listened to anything from new album yet.

I just listened to Aix Em Klemm for the first time in a long time, just the other day. Agree re the first track, which is also why some of the early Labradford albums are hit-and-miss for me.

Am I wrong or does Labradford only do the high-pitch thing on Mi Media Naranja? It's in multiple tracks on that album but I don't recall it on their other albums.

Not to cut across what is one of the finest jokes I've ever seen but this has bugged me for a bit: are Labradford named after the basketball player or is it something more obvious/arcane?

― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Wednesday, February 3, 2021 9:33 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

my assumption is it is a take on the band name "La Düsseldorf".

referencing the town in west yorkshire, beloved of american people everywhere

Courtesy of BandNameOrigins.com:

How did Labradford get their name? Sorry, we don't know how Labradford got their name.

stars of the leeds xp

A Wakefield Victory for the Sullen.

Sigh. It was the best I could do.

thought that was pretty good.