I just heard the Clientele for the first time

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i like the single version of 'porcelain' better because alasdair's singing is dramatic, more of a performance, e.g., with the sustained sibilant in 'swiftly on its way,' and because the drumming is exciting and chaotic. i like the album version of 'haunted melody' because all the warmth and prettiness and angularity is up front in the production. but i don't dislike the single: it has a different mood, storms in the moors...

― youn, Friday, 31 October 2003 20:30 (twenty years ago) link

four months pass...

Have people come to dig The Violet Hour much?

I just listened again hoping it might click - as I loved the initial releases - but it's so foggy and whispy and seems mostly to insinuate melodies that rarely emerge.

Several tracks are sublime - eg. "Lamplight", the title track, those two earlier singles revisited - but I wish they would be a little more insistent throughout. Anyone else find it hard to adore?

― Nag! Nag! Nag! (Nag! Nag! Nag!), Thursday, 4 March 2004 06:08 (twenty years ago) link

two weeks pass...

I find myself not likeing the violet hour as much as I like suburban light. However, I'm of the mind that lamplight is the best thing these guys have ever recorded. Is there any searchable stuff thats not on the lps that I should pick up?

― bill stevens (bscrubbins), Friday, 19 March 2004 00:12 (twenty years ago) link

there's not really a lot out there that's not on one or the other of the albums. "fear of falling" (the b-side to "haunted melody") is worth checking out (it's on a recent Merge compilation), and the "lost weekend" EP is their high watermark.

― the surface noise (electricsound), Friday, 19 March 2004 00:16 (twenty years ago) link

I happne to know that Dr. C somehow myseteriously ended up with a copy of Suburban Light following an earlier discussion.

What was your verdict in the end, Doc?

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 19 March 2004 09:10 (twenty years ago) link

I wonder how much the excess reverb is what attracts the likes of myself, jess and Tim H to The Clientele? Indie-dub?

― Sick Nouthall (Nick Southall), Friday, 19 March 2004 11:32 (twenty years ago) link

the reverb on the newer record actually gives me headaches even when i'm not listening to it!

doesn't mean i don't like it though, in fact i'm just not sure

― !!!! (amateurist), Friday, 19 March 2004 14:19 (twenty years ago) link

i'm still not really feeling the violet hour. i know its kind of the point, but it still just sort of washes over me for 45 mins, barely leaving any impression at all.

― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Friday, 19 March 2004 14:54 (twenty years ago) link

I like it best, but I heard it first.

― Sick Nouthall (Nick Southall), Friday, 19 March 2004 15:13 (twenty years ago) link

The new EP (http://acuareladiscos.com/php_e/_noticias.php#51) is amazing: a couple of piano pieces, a limpid instrumental, a ten-minute drone and one fantastic new song in a recognisably Clientele mode.

― Tim (Tim), Friday, 19 March 2004 15:30 (twenty years ago) link

you like drones?!

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 19 March 2004 15:39 (twenty years ago) link

Sometimes. I quite enjoy talking to you in the pub, for example. (You must surely have been wanting me to say that).

― Tim (Tim), Friday, 19 March 2004 15:43 (twenty years ago) link

yes, yes I did.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 19 March 2004 15:46 (twenty years ago) link

That was like watching Raul and Zidane one-two past the last defender and then trickle it wide.

― Sick Nouthall (Nick Southall), Friday, 19 March 2004 15:51 (twenty years ago) link

for a nonbrit that last phrase sounds hopelessly lurid

― !!!! (amateurist), Friday, 19 March 2004 16:54 (twenty years ago) link

amateurist you have to change your new handle so i can stop thinking you are endlessly shocked by everything on ilx

― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Friday, 19 March 2004 16:57 (twenty years ago) link

sorry

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 19 March 2004 17:28 (twenty years ago) link

bought suburban light on saturday. it's making me feel happy.

― AaronK (AaronK), Monday, 29 March 2004 19:04 (twenty years ago) link

four months pass...

I like the shunting sound at the end of "The Sea Inside a Shell" from the Ariadne ep. I had never listened to it loud enough to take notice of it before. I only looked up the title to write about the sound. It makes sense now and confirms a thought I'd had about the droning: even though it's an artificial sound, its loudness, its insistence, has the pull of sounds in nature. And even though the shunting sound is mechanical, the after effects put it in the natural world.

― youn, Saturday, 28 August 2004 05:33 (nineteen years ago) link

three years pass...

Better late than never. Scooped up some tunes after reading thru the Clientele threads. A Fading Summer EP, "Rain," and "Since K Got Over Me" best so far. Superb.

One thing I don't get. The AMG review of A Fading Summer says it's for people who cherish Love's Forever Changes. Huh?? Forever Changes is great and all but A Fading Summer is very different in tone and intent. The references to Neil Halsted and Dean Wareham make more sense.

― that's not my post, Saturday, 28 June 2008 04:03 (fifteen years ago) link

new EP is out sometime in the next couple of weeks, by the way.

― f. hazel, Saturday, 28 June 2008 08:18 (fifteen years ago) link

Always found the Love referencing a tad odd myself, though I think it has to do with an approach to songwriting more than the actual sound. Someone who likes Love more than I could probably explain. Anyway, listening today to Violet Hour all the way through for the first time in a while and it sounds pretty fucking great -- better than I remembered. Not hard to see why it was a little disappointing after Suburban Light-- how could it not be?-- but it seems like the perfect album-length distillation of their early sound in retrospect.

― Mark Rich@rdson, Saturday, 28 June 2008 17:35 (fifteen years ago) link

New EP? Is it new, original material or re-mixed old songs?

I love this band, BTW.

― Daniel, Esq., Saturday, 28 June 2008 21:20 (fifteen years ago) link

ariadne ep is my favorite

― tremendoid, Saturday, 28 June 2008 21:31 (fifteen years ago) link

six months pass...

The Love comparisons are only half-right. If you took Arthur Lee out of Love and just let Bryan MacLean (presumably someone who's only spiritually related to Alasdair) sing about "orange skies, carnivals and cotton candy" you'd have a pretty decent blueprint for the Clientele's sound. Bryan's collected demos released ten years ago, as well as the Love songs where he sings lead, would be an example of what this Lee-less Love would sound like.

― Cunga, Saturday, 3 January 2009 08:48 (fifteen years ago) link

seven years pass...

Fans of the C should check out this band Murals

― calstars, Friday, 21 October 2016 20:44 (seven years ago) link

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