I guess I just don't understand how you dislike this, and your explainations of it are woefully inadequate.
― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Tuesday, 11 November 2003 04:44 (twenty years ago) link
― erico b. rakimington (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 11 November 2003 04:52 (twenty years ago) link
In with anger, out with love.
― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Tuesday, 11 November 2003 04:54 (twenty years ago) link
― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 11 November 2003 04:54 (twenty years ago) link
― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 11 November 2003 04:57 (twenty years ago) link
― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Tuesday, 11 November 2003 05:00 (twenty years ago) link
― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 11 November 2003 05:01 (twenty years ago) link
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Tuesday, 11 November 2003 05:12 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 11 November 2003 05:39 (twenty years ago) link
― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Tuesday, 11 November 2003 05:41 (twenty years ago) link
Why do you think I chose that analogy? I have to talk in language he understands!
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Tuesday, 11 November 2003 07:21 (twenty years ago) link
― cold cold ground (nickalicious), Tuesday, 11 November 2003 07:29 (twenty years ago) link
― Michael B, Tuesday, 11 November 2003 10:46 (twenty years ago) link
― stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 11 November 2003 10:56 (twenty years ago) link
― stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 11 November 2003 10:57 (twenty years ago) link
― Baaderist (Fabfunk), Tuesday, 11 November 2003 10:57 (twenty years ago) link
― brutal (Cozen), Tuesday, 11 November 2003 11:36 (twenty years ago) link
that *is* the point. having said that The present Lover is a faily dissappointing album for me. I love "So You" though. Vocalcity is infinatley better and listening to the 2 different versions of Tessio illustrates that pretty clearly.
― jed (jed_e_3), Tuesday, 11 November 2003 13:49 (twenty years ago) link
― jed (jed_e_3), Tuesday, 11 November 2003 13:51 (twenty years ago) link
You're right though that length is sort of the point: trying to reach for a sort of becalmed tantric intensity. And certainly on both albums the nuances of the groove shift so much over the course of a track that an evaluation of whether they "do much" is entirely based on the zoom of your aural lens - from outerspace earth looks pretty non-eventful too...
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Wednesday, 12 November 2003 02:25 (twenty years ago) link
― Ronan (Ronan), Wednesday, 12 November 2003 02:29 (twenty years ago) link
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Wednesday, 12 November 2003 02:43 (twenty years ago) link
― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 12 November 2003 10:34 (twenty years ago) link
i shall have to listen again because i didn't really notice that with his stuff. it still irks me a bit that a 14 minute long track can't be a 7 minute long track in this case - we're talking minimal dance music in spite of whatever number of subtle nuances lurk deep within the track.
― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 12 November 2003 10:38 (twenty years ago) link
― Ronan (Ronan), Wednesday, 12 November 2003 15:37 (twenty years ago) link
The tracks on The Present Lover are much shorter than those on Vocalcity - mostly between about five and nine minutes?
And the really long tracks on Vocalcity really *do* change quite substantially over the course of their length. Even something ultra-minimal like "The Right Wing" has all sorts of stuff going on. Now I couldn't imagine them being any shorter.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Thursday, 13 November 2003 05:27 (twenty years ago) link
― scissors (Honda), Thursday, 13 November 2003 06:04 (twenty years ago) link
― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Sunday, 26 June 2005 04:06 (eighteen years ago) link
It's ok! We'll make it better!
― mike h. (mike h.), Sunday, 26 June 2005 04:48 (eighteen years ago) link
I guess you make me warmwhen you do the harm,making everybody calm,getting creative with your charm.I'm trying to be all yours;although I ain't answering your calls.Don't say it's false;I'm only following my thoughts.
Baby it's ok, we'll make it better. Baby, I, I'll survive, without these women in my life.
― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Sunday, 26 June 2005 05:10 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jena (JenaP), Sunday, 26 June 2005 05:13 (eighteen years ago) link
― a real live British pub hooligan (nordicskilla), Sunday, 26 June 2005 05:18 (eighteen years ago) link
― a real live British pub hooligan (nordicskilla), Sunday, 26 June 2005 05:19 (eighteen years ago) link
The Present Lover seems to do this to people, doesn't it? You either find it completely flat and hookless or...well, the best thing ever.
― a real live British pub hooligan (nordicskilla), Sunday, 26 June 2005 05:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Sunday, 26 June 2005 07:20 (eighteen years ago) link
― c/n (Cozen), Sunday, 26 June 2005 07:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Sunday, 26 June 2005 07:27 (eighteen years ago) link
― deej.., Sunday, 26 June 2005 16:50 (eighteen years ago) link
Vintage Tim Finney here :)
i sing the lyrics slightly different to how Michael transcribed them there and i'm not entirely sure that he's right and i'm wrong. ha! did you just transcribe them from a close listen, Michael?
also what's the muffled movie dialogue at the beginning of the track from? i have an idea it might be from Hal Hartley's "Trust" and might possibly be the same excerpt Pilote used on his fantastic track "The Dialogue".
― jed_ (jed), Sunday, 26 June 2005 17:48 (eighteen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Sunday, 26 June 2005 17:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Sunday, 26 June 2005 17:51 (eighteen years ago) link
anyway i'm not so sure anymore but have a listen and tell me what you think.
― jed_ (jed), Sunday, 26 June 2005 18:14 (eighteen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Monday, 27 June 2005 15:50 (eighteen years ago) link
― I'm bad and dirty and going to hell (nordicskilla), Monday, 27 June 2005 15:53 (eighteen years ago) link
― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Monday, 27 June 2005 16:38 (eighteen years ago) link
i like:
"...making everybody comegetting creative with your charm..."
melancholy hedonism. or something.
― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Monday, 27 June 2005 16:40 (eighteen years ago) link
― mark p (Mark P), Monday, 27 June 2005 16:42 (eighteen years ago) link
"I'm the Present, true lover. Could you be mine? MOST MOMENT!"
― I'm bad and dirty and going to hell (nordicskilla), Monday, 27 June 2005 16:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― I'm bad and dirty and going to hell (nordicskilla), Monday, 27 June 2005 16:44 (eighteen years ago) link
Forgot half of a sentence there:
Whereas I was testing dance music waters, and friends listened to banging tribal techno, the palatability of microhouse, namely this idea that it was so detailed, made it very accessible.
― ed.b, Friday, 1 August 2014 17:34 (nine years ago) link
Also, I think the bad lyrics and kind of essential to it. I really could not imagine more sober or poignant lyrics working on a track like this. It's sort of like how high-school poetry class ham-fistedness of New Order lyrics makes them seem really sincere, the schlockiness of Tessio vox feels almost deliberate.
― ed.b, Friday, 1 August 2014 17:39 (nine years ago) link
totally. i mean we are talking about VOCAL HOUSE, this isn't fucking leonard cohen
― marcos, Friday, 1 August 2014 17:50 (nine years ago) link
Ed.b otm through and through
― 3kDk (dog latin), Friday, 1 August 2014 17:55 (nine years ago) link
i mean, naming your album "vocalcity" means that you are inspired by a genre in which "YOU GONNA TOUCH THE SKY / YOU'VE EVER BEEN THIS HIGH" is a great lyric (and it is imo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwk1qc2fs24
― marcos, Friday, 1 August 2014 18:11 (nine years ago) link
No one is ever going to pore over the lyrics to Tessio but they're some of the most simply effective and moving lyrics of the 00s.
― Matt DC, Friday, 1 August 2014 18:35 (nine years ago) link
oh definitely. i love all the lyrics in tessio but i think especially "for me it didn't go wrong / we just made another song"
― marcos, Friday, 1 August 2014 18:55 (nine years ago) link
It's all about "Synkro", really
― brimstead, Thursday, July 31, 2014 10:38 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
^^^^
― Tim F, Friday, August 1, 2014 12:00 AM (20 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― rap steve gadd (D-40), Saturday, 2 August 2014 01:39 (nine years ago) link
I feel like my opinion on Luomo has changed not at all, but then I never really "got" Tessio, and slightly preferred present lover to vocalcity. My perception of what people seemed to like about Vocalcity was that it kinda sounded like the music was disintegrating and the grooves were all rubbery in an awkward way—a kind of amateurish murkiness. But what I liked about it was ("Synkro" was best at this) was when the groove snapped together tightly and you gradually got a feel for the shape of the track as it evolved over time. And then what I really liked about Luomo became more apparent later:
the composition of stuff like "What Good"—the barely-there three-note background melody at 1:46 that gave the song a sense of space and distance, the particular swing of the drums, the sudden swooping key change, the unexpected keyboards, the androgynous/feminine/masculine shifts w/in the vocals....the general atmosphere. The songwriting that felt like it might be improvisatory. I know people who think it's too "music you'd hear at H&M" but i never had a problem with "music you hear at H&M" and The Present Lover was an exceptionally well-executed version of that
except "Tessio" remake which I always thought was just ok.
I also think I read an interview, and I know, the artist is dead or whatever, but I remember reading Vadislav being like, if they liked vocalcity they'll LOVE present lover, i couldn't even make it sound how i wanted...and it confirmed for me that what people liked about it was accidental amateurism, a fetishization of technology failing or w/e that obscured ideas for the forest
― rap steve gadd (D-40), Saturday, 2 August 2014 01:48 (nine years ago) link
Also I have no problem w/ digging something "for music nerds" when its general operating procedure is "make people dance" and the tools are so unabashedly populist
― rap steve gadd (D-40), Saturday, 2 August 2014 01:51 (nine years ago) link
like you could drop certain michael mayer cuts in the back of a reeses pieces commercial in 2019 and I bet you that shit becomes retroactively huge
I should clarify my 2nd post, it's not the amateurish murkiness i thought people liked, but the way that it had all these really small scale changes over time—the amateur-ness was a kind of compositional looseness, like it was intentionally non-repetitive—one bar wouldn't sound exactly like another. Basically an anti-repition in dance music argument. which i think is kind of an overrated thing but not a useless one
idk i'm projecting other people's fandom tho
― rap steve gadd (D-40), Saturday, 2 August 2014 01:54 (nine years ago) link
("Synkro" was best at this) was when the groove snapped together tightly and you gradually got a feel for the shape of the track as it evolved over time
yeah this is what i love about vladislav delay's best work, it morphs so slowly you don't even realize how much a track has changed 10 minutes in.
― brimstead, Saturday, 2 August 2014 02:06 (nine years ago) link
i mean, you DO realize, but you're confused as to how it got there
"huone" is a perfect example. 15 minutes in and it's like "wait where am it"http://youtu.be/EWZHOjfIxqk
― brimstead, Saturday, 2 August 2014 02:14 (nine years ago) link
intentionally non-repetitive—one bar wouldn't sound exactly like another. Basically an anti-repition in dance music argument. which i think is kind of an overrated thing but not a useless one
yeah idk, i really like how this approach sounds on his "solo" work (ie under the vladislav delay moniker). i don't know if he was necessarily trying to get all squarepusher w/r/t house music though
― brimstead, Saturday, 2 August 2014 02:17 (nine years ago) link
"Synkro" is the finest thing on Vocalcity for precisely the reasons cited ("She-Center" would be next for me) - whether accidental or not I think on that track Luomo really perfected this idea of groove as accumulation or a process of focusing, like early on you're too close to the groove to see it and then you ever so slowly pull back your perspective. "Synkro" is actually the tightest of the tunes on Vocalcity (well, except "The Right Wing" I suppose) in that its "morphing" feels so purposive and non-random, he's not really introducing new elements, just continually refining what's already there. In this regard it's comparable to, I dunno, Armand Van Helden's "Flowerz" or something.
So much of people's attitudes to this kind of thing are shaped by the journey they took to the music. Like, for me none of this stuff was a gateway drug because I spent basically all of 1999-2000 trying to swallow all of dance music history simultaneously and by the time I started investigating all this stuff in earnest (beyond Herbert, who I'd gotten into earlier) the idea of music being just music for dancing to was perfectly natural to me.
And yet, by the same token, dance music was still new enough to me that these particular avenues - the idea of danceable grooves as harbouring a wealth of microscopic detail - itself felt like something new and interesting and worth thinking about. If anything, my relative blind spot was not in enjoying a lot of pre-microhouse stuff but in being able to articulate that enjoyment in a way that gets at how clever the grooves are. One of the big attractions of stuff like Luomo is that as a fan his music is very easy to enthuse about, to talk about these qualities and expect other people to understand what you mean because the ideas are presented so explicitly.
Whereas if I had been a huge fan of dance music right throughout the 90s I could imagine coming to this music and being irritated by the grand claims by fans/new jacks of ground being broken - hence e.g. vahid's polemical protomicrohouse thread. But you need very "trained" ears to hear and then articulate those dynamics properly.
― Tim F, Saturday, 2 August 2014 02:38 (nine years ago) link
xp it is very dynamic music without seeming to be on the outside, kind of my personal definition of "funk" in a way, feel the same about autechre and villalobos, two other artists recently talked about on here. just to clarify from above, i love vocal tracks, i just can't quite get past the stiltedness of the vox on "tessio", like this was sort of my gateway into singers like paul st. hilaire or romanthony or byron stingily, probably not a fair or meaningful thing to compare "tessio" at all to those guys or more polished R&B-centric house vocals in english as native language. i'm going to have to revisit the album now that you all are posting cool things about it.
― mattresslessness, Saturday, 2 August 2014 02:40 (nine years ago) link
like early on you're too close to the groove to see it and then you ever so slowly pull back your perspective.
yeah this hits on how endlessly listenable his best stuff is (up through anima, anyway). maybe i'm just a spaced out fanboy but it really is like you're hearing things differently every time. different levels of focus, different perceptions of structure and mood.
― brimstead, Saturday, 2 August 2014 02:49 (nine years ago) link
Is
I guess you turn me onWhen you do the hummm
An oral sex reference?
― CRANK IT YA FILTHY BISM! (jed_), Saturday, 28 May 2016 00:10 (seven years ago) link
I mean of course it is, I don't know why I'm asking.
― CRANK IT YA FILTHY BISM! (jed_), Saturday, 28 May 2016 00:12 (seven years ago) link
This song is not depressing it's beautiful. The most depressing song is whatever the last Coldplay single was and it gets more depressing each time a new one comes out.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Saturday, 28 May 2016 07:43 (seven years ago) link
Easy target but it does make me feel miserable. fortunately noone gave a shit about their last single.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Saturday, 28 May 2016 07:44 (seven years ago) link
i know dreams probably can't really be 13 minutes long but one time i dreamed a dj let all of synkro play
― home organ, Saturday, 28 May 2016 14:14 (seven years ago) link