The Clientele - Best Band Since The Smiths

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUHB-bVUD4s&list=RDHUHB-bVUD4s&index=1

FFS. Anyway, it's a beautiful version of the Age of Miracles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUHB-bVUD4s&list=RDHUHB-bVUD4s&index=1

Here you go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUHB-bVUD4s

Thank you! Sausage fingers + drunken posting = not a good mix.

YT seems to have changed the way URLs of videos are displayed with that "channel" bit added in - think you need to delete everything from the first ampersand onwards in the URL to get them to embed here.

Great version anyway and thanks for sharing

With some years now since Music for the Age of Miracles... does anyone still rank it as their best? I maintain more decisively that for me it is their worst (which doesn't mean it is bad at all!). To me overall it is full of very busy arrangements garnishing and overcompensating for their least inspired collection of melodies, relatively. As harsh as that sounds I don't mean it to be; I think the album is wonderful, it is just far away from being better than the effortless and dreamy Strange Geometry or Suburban Light era material. Asking because I do believe that all the showy orchestrations and extra dressings are the exact kind of thing that can seduce and excite initially but lose impact with time. Like chips doused with truffle oil.

Having felt various degrees of obsessiveness with their output over the last ~20 years, it certainly was a timely arrival 4 years ago ("this is the year that the monster will come") and was an essential companion through that time.

Since the fog has lifted? I have not spent enough time on Holloway or Vincent St to say for sure.

But I think it still rates for me.

Rates for me but omg how have 20 years passed.

I can't remember, but I may have discovered The Clientele on ILX.

I think it's stronger than God Save the Clientele... Falling Asleep, Lunar Days, Everyone You Meet, and the Age of Miracles are some of their best songs

My trajectory with Age of Miracles is intense anticipation (new music!), a bit of disappointment in the actual album over first few spins (no way to live up to the anticipation), and now I'd put in the middle of the list. Minotaur would be at the low point for me. But, f. hazel otm, Age of Miracles does have some songs that rank among their best - Lunar Days, Everyone You Meet and Constellations Echo Lanes in particular.

Some of the arrangements are a little over upholstered and i could live without the yodelling man, but it is wonderful and has the edge on bonfires on the heath for me, so somewhere in the middle? Suburban Daylight gets the Tims listening party treatment on April the 1st, for fans of that kind of thing.

i listened to Age of Miracles last night and I think it's a damn masterpiece! totally beautiful from start to finish.

"Some of the arrangements are a little over upholstered and i could live without the yodelling man"

Yes exactly, those two elements indicated to me that they were overthinking things! Personally I look to to them for their effortlessness and those attributes seemed to be at odds with that quality. Also a bit unexpected given they'd reformed as the original trio and were playing shows celebrating the early material in years leading up to it, and the album is the opposite of that hazy-memory sounding minimal ingredients approach of their first couple of albums.

Appreciate everyone's thoughts. At the time I was fantasizing about hearing a "naked" version of the album. Clearly I'd still be very interested in that sort of thing.

Great conversation with Alasdair

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/alasdair-macleans-personal-beatles/id1523996711?i=1000538335472

(think it's available on other podcast providers as well)

There is a new book of Alasdair’s lyrics out - ordering info on the Clientele insta if that happens to be anyone’s bag

had a look at it, tempted

So, are they?

Best band since the Smiths? Surely

does the book have the lyrics to Honkin' on Victoria Street?

there's a london gig in september :O
https://www.facebook.com/theclienteleofficial/posts/509081890733954

The book arrived. It's handsome and contains quite a lot more than lyrics I already know.

awesome... very excited to see it!

I ordered one as well. Still waiting on the lavish career retrospective box set.

I'd prefer just a new album, which seems to be in the works

well, a new album would be very welcome surprise

Alasdair posted a picture of him with his black telecaster and something abt learning to play again

They played! They were good. And Alasdair said there’s a new LP on the way.

I had never heard of these guys before this thread. On first listen, the singer sounds like David J.

wait, they said there's a new LP on the way?? insert happy face gif

They did - said (from the stage) that they’d signed a contract with Merge for a new one.

jimbeaux listen to Strange Geometry

fantastic news!

whoop! whoop!

They really were on sparkling form friday, although a couple of the songs from the last lp had a slightly busked quality. The mix was crystalline. So glad they are a going concern and wished i'd bought one of the lyric books. Glad i didn't but one of the tiny suburban daylight t shirts.

v. excited about a new album!

new tune out!

OMG new double album in July!

Just the 19 songs on the new album then!

it's clearly going to be their Tusk

It's nice, though I have a very minor pet peeve regarding excessive vocal melodies applied to simple words like "blue" ("blue over bluuu-u-u-uuu-u-u-uuue")

we can have good things at least some of the time

If that's a way of saying "can't you just let us enjoy this" please let me reiterate how minor and inconsequential my criticism of that detail is meant to be. I'm very excited the album is finally announced!

wait until you hear the cover of Doin' the Do that closes the album

xpost i'm just excited for the album. my comment was more global. it's a good news monday on a lot of fronts.

How do you capture lyrics? A pen? A smart phone app?
It always used to be a pen and a piece of paper. I’ve now changed to notes on iphone. Tragically, I also use a Trello board to swap things around and see if they look different in a different order. Quite often ideas come from quotes or images from books I read, so I take photos of the page too.

They’re coming back to The Chapel in SF this summer. More good things.

yeah looking forward to that. I'm really happy this band has soldiered on and continues to find some way to tour outside the UK without ever becoming huge.

I'm gonna try and hit up the Philly and DC shows!

Supreme Clientele would be a cool mashup record

weirdly, there is kind of a hip hop breakdown on this new record ... and it's good!