Salem - What kind of music genre is this ?

i think they have a decent basic concept (mainstream-ish rap beats w/hazy synths), but i don't think they execute it particularly well

xps

cadillac on 22's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Burzum fronting Skrewdriver

Not to start a big thing, but this would probably rule mightily

XXXXP: I don't see the whole sound as racist or even exploitative though. On the album he does sound pretty fucking black on one of the three songs that he 'raps' on, on the album. So that's one track on the album where I did raise an eyebrow (go o_O, whatever) but this is just one strand in a music that's made up of industrial, juke, post punk, synth pop, ambient... for it to be exploitative, it would ahve to be a straight rip, no?

It might be a bit gauche or a bit upsetting to PC sensibilities but that's something else entirely.

That Levis thing is fucking appalling. I'm talking about the album. There are loads of great artists (including hip hop dudes who are great on record but fucking suck live).

And I do listen to other chop and screw things including a load of chopped Three Six Mafia remixes I've got. Just not loads of it to be honest, I'd be quite happy to hear some more.

Y'know this was originally a Jamaican dub effect anyway right?

I have to applaud the gentleman above me's trolling by the way ;-) outstanding... I may take a screengrab and note this down in my diary.

thx Whiney & J0rdan, will check out

I'm so amazed at having not having pointlessly lost my temper and had a meltdown, I'm going to stop posting now and ring my therapist to tell her. I think I know what everyone's saying but it doesn't feel exploitative to me, but that's never going to go beyond a gut feeling I guess.

It's not like the dude's got Sting's Jamaican accent.

xpost Who's trolling? I'm here all the time!

Anyway, as I've pointed out, objectively, yeah, The Knife + Young Black Teenagers + ARE Weapons = disaster, but I can't really explain why I dig this as much as I do. Then again, I'm no rock critic.

Well, you IM me, maybe we can make this Burzum and Skrewdriver thing happen. Fuck it, we should invite Eric Clapton and Professor Griff as well.

Young Black Teenagers at least acknowledged they were cultural appropriators instead of just passing of lazy junkie disaffectedness as an excuse to pretend they're Slim Thug

Yeah I loved their first EP, We Fully Acknowledge the Past.

i've just finished listening to this album!

when i first heard these guys i didn't really hear much of a hip-hop connection beyond the vague "oh they've listened to some chopped & screwed rap". the tracks where he "raps" on this album are the first i've heard it, and they're all dreadful (esp "tair", where he doesn't even have the decency to bury in in the synthwash). however the rest of it is mostly ok, in a so-far non-committal way, and the two tracks which really leap out as being somewhat special are a) the two i'd already heard, title track and "redlights", b) the ones that are furthest from any ersatz hip-hop crap.

i can see why people love them, it's a nice wash of sound to lose yourself in. dunno how much more i'll come back to it though.

as far as, um, witch house goes, i really really love these two tracks by white ring, and can take or leave everything else i've heard. it doesn't really annoy me as much as many of the other things that have received undeserving hype this year.

I just watched that fader fort performance for the first time

a few years ago I went to some restaurant somewhere in long beach that was run by some sect of Buddhist monks or some shit who believed that providing dining experiences for ppl was the way to get closer to god or something, bottom line it was this weird place that would open once in a few weeks and have free food and shit. I went with a friend who was into getting into religions or something I was stoned at the time. Anyway the whole time there was a dude on a synth enhancing the dining experience, getting closer to god. His movements were really slow and kind of sad. The way he played the synth made me really sad. It was exactly like the dude playing the salem synth. I couldn't get through that salem vid. It all made me so sad.

boy that trap door song really blows goats, it's a brave new world.

i kinda like reading about these goofballs and descriptions make me want to listen to them but yeah then you gotta actually hear the music.

i like reading about these goofballs when it's someone skeptical behind the keyboard. the earnest guff about this band is like the critical equivalent of the fader fort performance.

not really -- the critical equivalent of that fader fort performance would be if you met ethan and he tried to make himself sound like t.i.

no, because that would be entertaining.

their gucci mane remixes >>>>>>>> all original salem joints, becuase gucci mane >>>>>>> anyone in salem as an artist

― J0rdan S., Thursday, September 23, 2010 2:08 PM (2 hours ago)

this

i almost want to start a separate thread to post the earnest, positive things that people say about this band, so we can seal it in the time capsule and point and laugh at it in 10 years. Or, you know, six months

they surely won't be as hilarious as pointing and laughing at the earnest, positive things people have said about animal collective

^^^^^^^^^^^

ugh did they actually start a trend or are they just the first on a particular bandwagon? it gets worse; check out this copy from the social registry, re: a band called 'PRAYER TOWN' ...

"Best served loud with a styrofoam cup full of purple drink. Dirty south scuzz wuzz trill pop with the fog machine on and all the lights off. Strobe lights will be in effect"

i almost want to start a separate thread to post the earnest, positive things that people say about this band, so we can seal it in the time capsule and point and laugh at it in 10 years. Or, you know, six months

How is your insanely OTT vitriol toward this band any different to the gushing praise? I may not like Salem in 10-years time. Who cares? I like them now.

new here?

Since their hallowed name hath been invoked, I'll say that if you gave me the choice of listening to that "Trap Door" song a hundred times or three minutes of any random, cloying, nonsensical Animal Collective song, I'd be going to bed to Salem tonight, no contest.

Joking aside I've read and posted on ILX for about seven or eight years but never last long because of stuff like this. I'm just not down with the mad over exaggeration is all.

I remember years ago reviewing a Parts + Labor album for a small website and giving it a really good review. I had a bunch of clowns on my back on a message board for days afterwards. "This music is shit... totally derivative... sounds exactly like Husker Du..."

At first I started arguing with them. Y'know... it sounds absolutely nothing like Husker Du except in regards to some of the melodic structure and some of the vocal ticks, plus if you listen to the drumming, it's pretty amazing right? There's a guy who's obviously heard drum and bass as well as hardcore etc etc. And don't get me started on the electronics. But after a while I just realised it was pointless arguing with people who won't play with a straight bat. If someone's screaming at you: this is a straight up fucking Husker Du rip and these Parts and Labor cunts should be shot for daring to rip them off... you can't have a straight argument with them. They know you've heard the same music as them but they're willing to indulge in a shouting match instead.

Salem don't sound like Slim Thug and aren't ripping any particular rappers off in any real sense that's worth talking about. As much of the album sounds like The Chameleons or Ulrich Schnauss or Aphex Twin as it does DJ Screw. If other people choose to rip them off, they're not responsible for that... a real 101 thing we can all agree on, surely?

Come on Whiney - you're better than this. Stop telling me they're racist copycats who've made the worst album of all time. Persuade me how shit they are, don't just lie to my face, it's boring.

How about some examples of which songs are ripped off what. I don't know that much about hip hop compared to most on here. Stick up some youtubes, I'm prepared to eat humble pie.

Vocal tics, natch.

man, if you're gonna say flattering things about me, it's not nearly as fun to be a dick!

I really would love to get into some deep talk about Salem, but I have to leave soon. Doran, I promise the next time I'm in this thread I'll get down to some microscience re: my points and be less dismissive

Ooh - put me in the thread that says "Redlights" is really awesome

XP: Ha ha! Ok, sounds good.

NME Album Review: Salem - King Night (Iamsound)

More rewarding with each listen, 'King Night' is as characterised by its wisps of Southern hip-hop and celestial overtones

‘King Night’ is sick. Not just in the sense that it’s outstandingly good but in the fact that it seems extremely unwell. The skin of this album appears jaundiced, its flesh infused with thrush and lungs filling with liquid. John Holland, Heather Marlatt and Jack Donoghue, who have a murky past in hard drug abuse and prostitution, write about what they can see and how they feel refracted through the cracked prism of narcotics and sleep deprivation.

Those who’ve been following Salem for the last year or two will no doubt be initially wrong-footed by their debut, which is a lot more dense and monolithic than the ‘Yes I Smoke Crack’ and ‘Water’ EPs and their killer mixtapes. However it rewards constant and obsessive replaying. The old favourite ‘Redlights’ flickers into existence once again, but this time given extra creeping urgency. Jack Donoghue’s sickeningly chopped and screwed raps (‘Sick’, ‘Trapdoor’) are oppressive and threatening, and owe a debt to the cough syrup stumble of Southern hip-hop as well as the frantic beats of juke. Indeed it takes the angelic (but morally blank) vocals of Heather Marlatt (‘Frost’, ‘Traxx’) to help balance this out alongside a celestial sound recalling the screengaze of Ulrich Schnauss and the shoegaze of Cocteau Twins.

You can call this drag or witch house if you like but regardless of its genre tag this is monumental. As Professor Stephen Hawking said recently, God’s fingerprints cannot be found in creation. Philosophy is dead. We live as we die, with no control and little understanding suspended in a void near the dying ember of some cataclysmic accident we have no hope of comprehending. But look on the bright side: what a majestic vantage point we’ve been given. If, like Salem, you can see glitter and beauty in the chaos then you really should join them.

John Doran

9 out of 10

About 100 words was cut out of this which kind of makes the joke about existentialism at the end redundant, but other than that I stand by it...

Believe it or not I really like this record.

In fact, I think it makes a perfect sister album to the SWANS' My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky.

Which also has this total vibe of 'There's lots of awful shit happening round me which doesn't make any sense but the universe keeps on glittering away regardlessly'.

Some people here will cry sacrilege at that, John, but I agree with you. They're side by side on my top ten of 2010.

It's interesting because in the same way that I don't really like feckless hipster crackheads, I don't really like apocalyptically self-absorbed rape obsessed (former) junkies but I love both of these records.

No, please don't get me wrong, I love it too (and I like your review)

Ah right. Sorry. And thanks!

I wasn't just saying that shit about Prof. Hawking just because it happened to be on the front page of the paper that morning but I'd said that a lot of people use the word 'goth' or 'gothic' to describe this album but that personally I saw them as being exemplars of existentialism like Joy Division and not gothic like Sisters Of Mercy or The Cure or what have you.

Being gothic, imo, means being dramatic or melodramatic and either drinking or drugging to put you in another state you can report back from (The Cure 'Pornography') or just using literary or poetic license to dream all kinds of stuff up (Sisters Of Mercy 'Alice'). Joy Division on the other hand were, a lot of the time, just reporting on stuff. It's very undramatic in a lot of ways.

Now, I know Salem don't stand to be compared to JD on some levels but they do on others. (And in fact the final song on the album Killer sounds a little like JD or The Chameleons.)

It's still pompous as fuck right? But I hope it seems slightly less daft in that context...

Brief digression: I've never heard the Swans. Where should I start? With this new one?

I'm not saying this to pass the buck but there are people saying stone cold truth on the My Father thread.

Swans 'My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky

SWANS have been away for about 13 years and the new album is, in a lot of respects, more like his Angels Of Light project but there are a lot of through lines as well.

In really rough terms they started out as a No Wave/industrial/noise group, then entered what a lot of people see as an imperial period and then split. The new album and previous stuff is all remarkably different from each other.

However, the new album... if you like Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at their most apocalyptic I think you might like this.

Personally I'm not interested in authenticity too much but I'd apply the same gothic/realist or existentialist split between The Bad Seeds/SWANS. And there's something to be said for Michael Gira (main dude, visionary chap) and his sincerity. A lot of the SWANS stuff rings very true, and doesn't feel like melodrama.

I like that the last track on the album is a rip off When You Were Young by the Killers

Which? Salem or Swans? Because I can assure you with absolute certainty that M Gira has never heard The Killers

He prefers Brandon Flowers solo material.

Sorry, meant Salem.

Well, the clue's in the track title.

The first song is actually, 'O Holy Night' the hymn. Or an interpolation...

I remember years ago reviewing a Parts + Labor album for a small website and giving it a really good review.

― Duran (Doran), Thursday, September 23, 2010 4:14 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Stay Afraid and Mapmaker are so goddamn good, and no one fucking paid them the time of day.

As far as Salem's live mishaps, they're not forgivable, but they're certainly understandable. So many bands try to get their name out by performing live around town for a few years and then catching a break opening for a bigger band on a national tour. Salem was 'discovered' before they'd ever done a live show. From what they've told me, they've maybe played like two-dozen live shows ever.

The fact of the matter is, they still blow live because they're all pretty young and they do the majority of their recording on shit equipment in shit places. They have no experience. I don't know if this is common knowledge but the guy rapping in those videos also makes the beats, and until like a couple months ago, he was doing them all in GarageBand (!).

They may never figure out their live act, but if the album is good. What they are going to have big problems with is their next record. How do you reinvent yourself after you've created a genre?

American band, Salem, are all set to head over to the UK this November, for their first ever live UK shows. The trio will be here touring their debut album, the brilliant King Night, which is released on 27th September.

Tour Dates:

November
24 – London, Shoreditch Church
26 – Manchester, Islington Mill
27 – Leeds, Nation of Shopkeepers
29 – Nottingham, Bodega
30 – Bristol, Thekla

salem suxx, lol @ doran

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