a thread for Italians Do It Better

aka

swedish band in balearic masterpiece shocker

actually the rubies rmx might be better

I was thrilled to find both "Nothing Else Matters" and the Rubies remix on iTunes. I think there's been a ton of talk of the label on the Chromatics I Love You thread, but they definitely deserve their own thread.
I eagerly anticipate new music from Farah.

http://www.cosmicdisco.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/rsz_1madonna_italians_do_it_beter.jpg

This is basically a great label, marred only by the presence of Glass Candy...

?

??

glass candy are so bad, so lifeless and inert. walked out of their show at cargo a few months ago, it was so boring. plus the annoying lead singer was wearing a ~terrible~ sweater-dress.

don't think they're that much worse than anything else on the label though, was really underwhelmed by the much-hyped comp last year. the cover of 'last night a dj saved my life' is one of the worst things i've ever heard. like, what could this joyous disco classic possibly be missing? that's right, a heavy dose of tedium

(a sigh so deep it burns in the chest hole)

(also = that sweater dress was hot and the show was great)

I love the remix of "Last Night A DJ Saved My Life". It's like the DJ saved her life by turning her into a vampire - "I used to be heartbroken but now I just dance all night and drain the blood from my victims."

Yeah! Amazing label. But the IDIB acts many not appeal to many pop fans. It's too dark a sound and an aesthetic.

simonetti is djing at love tonight in nyc

Yeah! Amazing label. But the IDIB acts many not appeal to many pop fans. It's too dark a sound and an aesthetic.

i don't dislike it cuz it's too dark, i dislike it because it's too dull

i don't dislike it cuz it's too dark, i dislike it because it's too dull

i picked up the glass candy/chromatics albums following the ilm love.

so far i'm struggling to get it, both albums have therefore been left unloved on the shelf.

if anything, its not dark enough for me ..

You know what's really awesome? There's this bootleg (I think) release of Last Night a DJ Saved My Life with a Shep Pettibone mix that's just the vocals over a drum machine. I have to dig that one out, I remember it being pretty awesome.

One person's dull is another person's exciting and vital. De gustibus non est disputandum.

Daniel, that's outrageous. Lex is citing a fact. You're only contributing to the indie chancers' conspiracy of tedium and inertia. CAN'T YOU HAVE ANY FUCKING FUN?!

Savannah Smiles, you've just become an agenda item at the next Indie Chancers' Conspiracy Meeting.

i think the chromatics are a snooze, but i love most of the glass candy ive heard (holding my complete support at bay until i decided on this sweater-dress issue) and the two tiedye songs are fucking jams

When is Farah's full-length debut being released?

I love that Law Of Life song. And, for Lex's benefit, I'll mention that my wife thinks that song is tedious and boring.

at once i am relieved and disappointed that someone already posted the madonna pic. i mean i guess it's too obvious. but she looks so damn good!

Previous discussion:

I LOVE YOU "THE CHROMATICS"
Glass Candy - "Iko Iko"

i still think mirage has most potential out of all the idib acts, especially if he has more songs like "loving you" from his myspace page (which even in demo form is sublime, a slo-mo, hyper dramatic, diva led piano jam with those synthetic string sounds that were all over the menace ii society soundtrack or from a bone thugs track or something and crystalline tear-drop arpeggios - also maybe the funkiest thing johnny jewel has done yet). i didn't buy the tiedye 12" because it seemed like a complete rip off and i was broke, though it sounded aight in the shop

while it's been out a while, I still love Law Of Life and the midnite remix from the 12" is reminiscent of a sally shapiro reinterpretation with the electric piano lines. i dunno chromatics and glass candy aside i dig about 3/4 of the After Dark LP.

It's weird I picked this up like a day ago, I'd had it on my mp3 player for ages but it's one of those records that needs to be a record y'know?

Also glass candy are great, and their dead aesthetic is one of the reasons the whole italians thing is so intriguing. Ice blonde and everything.

So go suck a fuck or whatever

Previous discussion:

I LOVE YOU "THE CHROMATICS"
Glass Candy - "Iko Iko"

-- caek, Thursday, July 10, 2008 9:19 AM (3 hours ago)

much better threads TBH.

kinda intended for this thread to start off talking about how great Tiedye are

i don't really understand what baeleric music is.

but this one song sounds kinda nice.

i guess balaeric music is like if The Edge played in a disco band?

wait now it sounds kinda miami vice

like dire straits brothers in arms guitars

is axel f balaeric?

i like this song.

Whoa that is some hammy guitar on "Nothing Else Matters".

yeah the guitar is total schlock but that's what's so great obv

i don't really understand what baeleric music is

judging by your next few posts .... yes you do

I don't think I can stomach it.

xpost

this stuff is kinda cool.

like half of me thinks i should be dancing.

half of me thinks i should be watching martin riggs from lethal weapon have a dark night of the soul.

i guess balaeric music is like if The Edge played in a disco band?

he did once, kinda
http://www.discogs.com/release/31585

Is that record any good because the line-up makes it sound awesome?

I bought that a couple decades ago just because of The Edge (I had no idea who the other people were at the time). Wish I still had it.

yeah no doubt i'd never heard of that?

I used to hate that record (cause it doesn't sound like Can, lol) but now that my taste is all balearic beardoed out I think it's awesome

me too, but i sold it a while back :(

even has lyrics by arthur russell.

label is fucking good

just heard that edit tiedye did of tom petty. love it.

The TieDye track is brilliant, by the way, by some distance the best thing I've heard on this label.

That record sounds so cool. I really want to go record shopping right now.

Produced by KEVORKIAN?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW9qZNcZTQ8

this is great actually

didn't mean to derail this into a Snake Charmer thread but it seemed on topic at the time :)

so all that stuff on Tiedye's page you can download free! very cool. I think the Italians 12" is out of print anyway (won't be re-pressed in case it attracts the wrath of Lars)

Actually Tiedye stuff is really cool, nice warm drum sound

really dry sounding

back to the matter at hand, did anybody snatch a copy of the after dark 3xlp??

I had to stop being completist with them, already bought the After Dark CD and have a couple of the 12"s so I took a pass on that one. ditto the Tiedye 12", I saw it in a store once but it was 10 bucks for a one-sided record. I do like the track though.

(on the other hand I would buy an LP version of Glass Candy's "Beatbox" in a heartbeat to get Candy Castle and Digital Versicolor on vinyl ... )

DMR: That TieDie single is available on eMusic, FWIW.

thx, I'm not subscribed there but I got it off their website (the link in the first post)

back to the matter at hand, did anybody snatch a copy of the after dark 3xlp??

That's what I bought a couple days ago. I figured they were all like that...?

some of them are CDs.

if you go straight to the source, some of the stuff is cheaper
http://www.troublemanunlimited.com/store/non-tmu.php

I didn't realize IDIB was part of Troubleman, cool!

yeah its a sub label. Ordered loads off TMU in the past.

It's such a great label, they're good to order off then? I've been wanting this Religious knives thing for months, and I'm loaded right now. Well by my standards.

I've never had any problems, some southern lord board/dffd and vlv posters hold grudges from long ago over them, but i know the mailorder has been ok the last 3 years or so since i started ordering

the harvey milk lp they put out is one of my favourites

cool, i'll check it out!

Its nothing like Italians Do It Better stuff obviously.
Woods, Growing, Warmer Milks, Isis Live 2 are other really good things I ordered from them that I can remember offhand.

looking at http://www.troublemanunlimited.com/store/lp.php reminds me there's still quite a few vinyl i still need to pick up actually.

That link is gonna be HELL on my credit card.

You did notice that the cd section has a special offer on? (distro stuff doesn't count tho)
Im skint and cant afford anything but I just looked at the distro section and saw stuff i've been looking for ages to get.

I can't really justify buying CD's anymore. Especially as trying to organise my CDs, I've discovered a LOT are missing.

OUCH! Shipping is V. Expensive to Europe.

I know. Relapse and Archive cd are the only place that isn't these days.

way cheaper if I buy it off amazon anyway...

if you take postage into account

Where in europe are you? TMU sell way too much you will never get on Amazon (the stuff I want anyway)

Ireland, Amazon have the Religious Knives thing anyway, I'm dying to hear that through (I like this band)

Rubies sound like my ideal right now but so far just basing that on the Tiedeye remix and stevieT's description of them to me earlier

I like what I've heard from this label, but only in small doses. I'd like to hear some of these tracks within the context of a set that also included other stuff.

you should suggest that to them!

I like how they just emerged with this whole aesthetic. They just seemed so fully formed with those Glass Candy tracks. The noir disco and girly album art, unpretentions cover verions. Particularly loving the Chromatics I'm on fire today.

guys i think you killed the tiedye site

Did you order anything from TMU I know, right??

I was about to when I looked at how strong the euro is against the dollar (it really is crazy now) and decided to go for it, then realized they charge $12 PER ITEM, which is crazy, the postage was $43, slightly more than the three records I was gonna buy. But now I'm thinking about how that would probably add up to that much if I somehow found it in ireland anyway....

And looking again, its cheaper to buy from TMU than amazon actually.

Its not post-paid prices on TMU is it? surely there's an option for multiple items? You could maybe email their mail order and see if you get a reply.

I doubt it, because they charge basically twice as much delivery for double LPs. Basically, whatever you get charged for items, it seems you're gonna get charged that same amount additionally for delivery.

Is there a similar thread, or anywhere to talk about Permanent Vacation records?

Is that this label? Waht is good? (n.1)

_________________________
(n.1) I don't see a thread for that label in the search engine, so you may have to start one.

Thats the one. Waht is good? I'd start with this, especially the Holy Ghost! remix,

http://www.discogs.com/release/1212370

and I like this too.

http://www.discogs.com/release/1165952

Maybe it would be better covered by the Balearic thread?

So, turns out I was broke because I was spending all my money on rent for an apartment I had long since vacated due to not fucking cancelling standing order. I am now due 1200 from my ex-landlord. Which is nice. This might be a sign to splurge.

watching me commit to a transaction in realtime is a long and tedious affair.

to be sure

I hope you get your money back

Well I'll wait till then to buy, obv. I've got a paper trail of emails and they're a well known auctioneers, so if they fuck me over, I'll just ring a daytime radio show. That's how we do things here. I think.

can anyone YSI the free Tiedye track? site is still down..

this blog has 2 of the tracks that were up, but not the rubies remix:
http://www.pinglewood.com/2008/July/Seeing_Sounds.html
http://www.pinglewood.com/2008/June/Hit_The_Road.html

yo, rubies rmx

admittedly both groups are hit and miss live ... but i never felt the lifeless and inert thing from gc and chromatics, in fact it's quite the opposite. 04 era gc demo of "life after sundown" is still one of the most swoon-worthy and vibrant songs for me.

there used to be a fansite which had an article that expressed it nicely ... i still have a quote ...

"... (they) take signifiers of feelings and abstract them into pure textures ... Glass Candy give the impression of not believing in love, but they still //bleed// it."

so nite jewel has a split with glass candy on IDIB and an album on Human Ear coming out. I really like the two demos on the Human Ear page. Fuzzy and pretty and cool.

I liked the Invisible Conga People 12" at the start of the year - particularly Dazed Cable. Anyone know if they've got anything coming soon?

I don't think I "get" Nite Jewel

As influences, she has cited Chris Barbosa -era dance floor greats Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam, Sa-Fire and Debbie Deb

I guess that makes sense. I was gonna say the 12" sounds like a freestyle track at the wrong speed (sloooowwww)

Friends of IDIB releases, I would like to share with you your new favorite song

has anyone picked this glass candy comp that they talk abt here? http://vivaitalians.blogspot.com/2008/10/ton.html

not yet - but soon will

Hmm... I like it, but I feel like it's too clean in some way. I like the imperfections - for lack of a better
word - in the IDIB stuff: The fact that the Glass Candy singer is kind of out of tune a lot of the time; the creepiness and dread in a lot of the Chromatics tunes; the lo-fi-ity of the Nite Jewel and a lot of the After Dark stuff. I even like the fake vinyl crackles they bust out - and normally I would absolutely hate that kind of affectation.

I really can't seem to find anything out there that's like the IDIB stuff at all, really - snatches of score from old Italian horror movies, maybe, but that's about it. Someone told me to check out Zombie Zombie, and I thought it was okay, but it was too clean too. I liked that Salem "Yes I Smoke Crack" ep - that was as close as I've gotten to something similar with that really unsettling, haunting vibe.

Yeah, I've got that Deep Gems disc - it's very cool. Lots of Beatbox remixes with some curios in there, like the one called "Geto Boys," which is the old Iko Iko 12" vocals over a "My Mind's Playing Tricks on Me" loop.

that "unsettling, haunting vibe" you are referring to seems to work for the invisible conga people, as well. As far as non-idib acts go, I think that john maus and tickley feather fit that bill, too.

Ah, yes - I love that John Maus album. I think I've played "My Whole World's Coming Apart" more than any other song this year. Haven't heard Tickley Feather but will check it out - thanks for the tip.

also, like 50% of what's posted on 20 Jazz Funk Greats fits your description. specifically, stuff like throbbing gristle's "hot on the heels of love" and chris and cosey, which they obsessively namedrop (almost as much as those italian horror soundtracks you were mentioning). tickley feather works if only because she's very similar to nite jewel.

don't forget about john carpenter, beppe loda/daniele baldelli and original afro-cosmic music in general (check out the loda mix here)

Just hearing Cable Dazed by Invisible Conga People for the first time, what with it's frequent end of the year ratedness.

Either way, woah.

love love love this track

dmr, are you going to the idib thing at poisson rouge tonight?

yeah I am ... are you? email me

sadly i have other plans. it's poker night! so, not so sad i guess... still, wish i could go.

hope you got yer tickets, dmr.
simonetti was just in here all stressed out cuz it's sold out and people are bugging him for guest list action.

!! really ?? no clue they were that popular!

I got tickets at the door, but yeah, there were tons of people there. Left after Nite Jewel cuz I had a birthday party to go to and there was still a line around the corner.

yeah i was there--small venue, long line, etc.

thought nite jewel was great & i liked the new stuff. didnt stay for glass candy but dmr said they were really good.

they can come off a little serious on their recordings sometimes but live they're a total party band, really fun set. first or second song I think was Digital Versicolor and the stage filled up with people dancin, the bouncers came and cleared them off afterward but the band was into it. they closed with a weird hip-hoppy version of Iko Iko using the Isaac Hayes loop from that Geto Boys song

at one point toward the end of their set I checked the time on my phone and was like 3:48AM WHAT THE SHIT but I forgot it automatically shoots ahead for daylight savings. lol

also it was cool to hear House of House loud. can't remember what else Mike S. played except Hall n Oates "I Can't Go For That" right after Nite jewel got done

i thought the bottin track w/the video (no static) was just ok. pretty good, but didn't blow my mind, but then i heard the other tracks on his myspace and damn. really great. especially Horror Disco makes me appreciate no static way more and i'm totally looking forward to his album.

http://www.myspace.com/bottinski

also it was cool to hear House of House loud.

yess. he played this out in sf too, and i officially lost my shit. not sure i was 100% coherent, but pretty sure i remember lots of acid house tracks being played as well

did i already tell this story? when sweeney was in sf and played house of house, i typed into my cellphone and handed it to simonetti and it said "tell tim house of house is played out already"

haha, played out in online mixes/podcasts maybe. hearing it in a club and dancing to it was fun/new for me.

but yeah, it was sweeney wasn't it?

oh, it was all jokes. i was so stoked to hear it loud.

Johnny Jewel won't stop: Desire

"under your spell" sounds like bobby digital-era rza

I love tht bottin track

so is dude like living in mtl now is what i wanna know and if so how come i didnt know aboutit

I ordered that Desire CD and just got it. I love it, but I think I'm a blind IDIB fanatic.
It's got bits of Chromatics, Glass Candy, and Farah (there's some 'spoken word'-y bits that sound exactly like her, really) - all the Johnny Jewel stuff. I still hope they put the Twisted Wires and Bottin songs out digitally; I haven't heard them yet. What else do they have coming out?

another nite jewel 12" i think?

digging the twisted wires stuff ive heard so far, they were pg when i saw them at lpr but didnt leave a huge impression

not sure about releases but there's a tiedye / rune lindbaek edit up on the blog. downloadin now

you can hear all the Bottin tracks on his myspace fwiw. there's a video for No Static on youtube

famous internet blog discohorror located at http://discohorror.blogspot.com has an exclusive bottin remix of a codebreaker track up right now

by "exclusive" i mean "not exclusive at all"

that tiedye/linbaek edit from simonettis blog is nice btw

I was wrong - the Twisted Wires 12" is now on iTunes as of this week... sounds great. There's also a Tiedye remix of a DJ Kaos song on there, too, which sounds nice.

I wonder whatever became of Farah - I loved those tracks on the comp.

(I realize almost every single one of my questions can be easily answered with Googling; I just creepily like to keep this thread around)

I wonder whatever became of Farah - I loved those tracks on the comp.

^^^^ This. She was supposed to have a full-length disc released by the label, I think.

Related: Since the initial "big" three IDIB discs debuted on eMusic (the comp, the Chromatics and Glass Candy), nothing but two singles plus an odd-and-sods collection from Glass Candy. I'm just bummed eMusic hasn't received more from the label.

There's also a Tiedye remix of a DJ Kaos song on there, too, which sounds nice.

― Shannon Whirry & the Bad Brains, Tuesday, May 26, 2009 11:50 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

posted abt this in the DFA thread -- its AWESOME

You mean this?

that's the one

There's an Italians Do It Better night this coming Thursday at Koko in London: Glass Candy / Twisted Wires / Desire / Lindstrom / Mike Simonetti...

Is anyone going to this tonight?

I was just about to post the same thing.

Yes. Really looking forward to it.

I was expecting people to, given the size of the Lindstrom thread, and the Glass Candy one.

Still not heard Desire or Twisted Wires.

Still tickets left, by the way
http://www.ticketweb.co.uk/user/?region=gb_london&query=detail&event=319541&interface=koko

Q: will Twisted Wires be releasing an album in 2009?

Twisted Wires
http://www.myspace.com/twistedwiress

i detect Cabaret Voltaire / The Aloof / New Order / Finitribe / Fluke / 23 Skidoo / The Wire circa Ideal Copy influences

this track: is sublime

Twisted Wires - Oh Hell
http://hypem.com/track/809467/Twisted+Wires-Oh+Hell

i detect Cabaret Voltaire / The Aloof / New Order / Finitribe / Fluke / 23 Skidoo / The Wire circa Ideal Copy influences

yeah that's pretty much how they sounded live. like a dancier Indian Jewelry.

i think they made ari sick that night we saw them dave

awww. maybe she was allergic, I think there's shots u can get

Did anyone go on Thursday?

gotta say i'm not really feeling this desire record. the production is actually kinda lame, and the vocalist sorta gets in the way of any potentially great moments

JESUS CHRIST THE DESIRE CD HAS NINE SONGS ON THE BACK AND EIGHT TRACKS

Going by Itunes and the lengths of songs on their Myspace player, I think "Oxygene" just doesn't appear on the album despite being listed. I'll have to listen to the demo of the song on Myspace once I've heard the album and see if I heard it somewhere...

Ah well. At least it's not FSOL's goddamn Dead Cities.

are you sure you havent picked up the 8 track sampler simonetti was punting from his blog? Different versions of the tracks. ive probably listened to the desire record more than anything else this year. Not really straying far from the chromatics/glass candy sound but the quality of the actual songs and vocals really blasts in into space

"Oxygene" isn't listed on the tracklisting on any of the download versions of the album eg http://www.junodownload.com/ppps/products/1442354-02.htm

Haven't bought this yet but I really enjoy the rest of the Italians Do It Better stuff.

they closed with a weird hip-hoppy version of Iko Iko using the Isaac Hayes loop from that Geto Boys song

― dmr, Monday, 9 March 2009 03:17 (5 months ago)

from the IDIB blog:

Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Glass Candy "Geto Boys" 12" OUT NOW
After months of mastering issues (the bass was so heavy
it was making the needle jump), legal issues, and remixing
issues. We are excited to say that the Glass Candy "Geto Boys"
12" is finally in stock. And even better...it's a double A side.
They've Been destroying this song on tour all year. Samples
the hip hop classic "Mind Playing Tricks On Me" from Houston
legends, GETO BOYS (who sampled Isaac Hayes). The flip side
of the record features the Deep Gems burner "Animal
Imagination". If that wasn't enough, the record contains 12"
instrumental versions and vocal edits of both songs. <<<

LOL!

Wait I thought that's been released for like a year???!?!?! Or is this just a remaster? Wha...?

They've been playing it in shows for at least 2 years... hmmm

It was out on a CD but now it's a 12".

the bass on IKO IKO is much heavier than on GETO BOYZ imho.

huh! never heard the CD version. that show was the first time I've seen em live. probably gonna see em again on Saturday at Brooklyn Bowl

oooops it's next Saturday. durr

we did end up bowling tho!

what you score? I bowled for the first time in like 8 years last week for a bachelor party at chelsea piers...scored 123 on my game! The fun thing though with the new hi-tech systems that record the speed is seeing how fast you can bowl. I broke 20 mph.

I am in New York next week and am looking forward to that Brooklyn Bowl show.

wish I could sell you my tix, I'll be out of town! I don't think I can though, it's will call and you have to show ID/credit card. argh. should be a good show. they were fun at LPR.

dan I think I got a 102 on my first game, worse on my second. Brooklyn Bowl is pretty cool, it's such a big space. huge dance floor / stage area adjacent to the lanes (and people actually danced), big bar area, there's a restaurant in there ...

long wait for a lane but probably wouldn't be too bad on a weeknight.

Really pumped to see desire, was just the soundtrack of my croatian roadtrip and it melted all my girlys hearts

Scala Saturday 07 November 2009
MAGIC & MEDICINE PRESENTS
DIZ-GO-TREK
Feat: Italians Do It Better with GLASS CANDY LIVE plus DESIRE LIVE plus MIKE SIMONETTI

RM 1
LIVE ;
Mountain Of One
Italians Do It Better presents ;
Glass Candy
Andy Blake (DISSIDENT )
Desire
DJ -Mike Simonetti
Dan Beaumont ( Disco Bloodbath)

RM2
HOT BOY DANCING SPOT with
Lovely Jon Jo
+ others tbc

RM3
BAD PASSION PROJECT

www.residentadvisor.net
Phonica Records

Dear Mike Simonetti,

Chicago DOES suck. 2 Many DJ Clowns.

bummer,
Bummed.

^^^^ what the fuck. glad i stayed home sick. i heard he was only booked for an hour??

Ha. I think I misread one of his twitters -- I thought he wrote that Chicago let him down, but he actually wrote "Chicago has YET to let me down." Maybe it was a good night after all but I stayed away. Last time I saw him in Chi was at the Empty Bottle and no one was there. Still if he only played a one hour set it would not have been worth sitting through the 4 (!) other DJs booked to play last night.

leavitt, barry

yeah ive missed him both times thru
tho to be honest if id been up to going out last night i would have probably hit up omar s instead

i will say its probably unlikely that a DJ who expects to tour again in the future is gonna decide to trash major metropolises on twitter

Lots of good goodies news: http://vivaitalians.blogspot.com/2010/01/feeling-without-touching.html
Farah 12" (Gay Boy) & album!! New Chromatics album! And a new label sampler a la After Dark.
Can't wait to hear the Farah stuff.

These will definitely go to the top of my 2010 release watch list. I'd really like the Chromatics album to be a killer.

sooooo is anyone going to this discoteca thing on Saturday?
and can I go with you? :D

amazing song. and the instrumental version...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6pD3qSZ9JM

Man - the new Farah track is creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepy weird.

ugh she sounds fucking horrible on it.

http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=287559

The new Glass Candy EP is amazing. The one with the saxophone solo...

love the concept, hate the delivery

re new farah

i know it's going for that hyper-bitchy divine style "castro boy" type of disco fag humour, but it lacks nuance and just bludgeons an average joke into the ground. and that drugged out "creepy" deadpan vocal delivery is so played out by now

hasn't 'sugar & whitebread' been around for 5 years or so?

and that drugged out "creepy" deadpan vocal delivery is so played out by now

i love this about farah, but agree the track is a little too weird for it's own good. does anyone outside of idib really do this much tho?

hasn't 'sugar & whitebread' been around for 5 years or so?

Yep; it's on the IKO ep.

i guess i should post this here also? i dunno if it's me moved on or if quality control is way down, but i think this song/video and the new farah are both really bad comparatively :-/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4Myo0QjwE0

nu farah sounded terrible from the sample i heard.

haven't heard the farah (never was huge on her tbw) but this glass candy song sounds like anything off beatbox so i think it's you jaxxy.

It's from the same era as B/E/A/T/B/O/X. It's on the singles comp. thing (Deep Gems).

oh then that's not new at all and probably why it sounds so familiar.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/trblmn/SOLIDGOLD-1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/trblmn/SOLIDGOLD2-1-1.jpg
OUT NOW:
Solid Gold is a collection of some early IDIB 12"s,
most of which are out of print. Tracks were carefully
selected and programmed by our own Johnny Jewel.
This entire compilation is the brainchild of Johnny,
and he put a lot of time into the tracklisting. We
hope you enjoy it. Its perfect driving music. This
is a cd only release, and is for sale in our store (link
is over there on the right column). We lowered all
of our prices as well on everything. We are trying
to accommodate the overseas people who get screwed
over with the high shipping rates, which seem to
keep going up and up and up...
This is a MAILORDER/GIG only release! enjoy!

only $5!

I got it in the mail yesterday. It's pretty great! I hadn't heard 50% of it before - the T&K stuff has sort of a simple house sound with some guitar riffs on top of it. The Solange track is really haunting classic-sounding italo number. The Tiedye song at the end is... somethin' else; there are some *really* earnest, passionate vocals on top reminiscent of the DJ Kaos "Love the Night Away" track from last year, with a familiar Lissvik sheen on top. It went from amusing to engrossing on my first listen.

They could very easily do a couple more volumes of these with some of the really rare Chromatics tracks (that amazing Springsteen cover that was on one of the ultra-rare 12"s) and some other stuff, which would be awesome, but I'm pretty eager to hear the "Into the Black" disc (the looooong-awaited follow up to "After Dark") too!!!

I would give them open access to my bank account to just auto-deduct money and send me new stuff as often as possible; I love this label.

pretty eager to hear the "Into the Black" disc (the looooong-awaited follow up to "After Dark") too!!!

this * 100K.

i went cold on this label pretty quickly tbh. everything up to and incl "cable dazed" is solid gold tho

Finally after months and month of preparation, we are
able to announce the first four releases on our new
sister label PERSEO. This label will focus mainly on edits
and things of that nature. The label was born when
Mike heard the infamous Bruce Springsteen edit by
Martin Vogel almost two years ago. It prompted him
to try to figure out a way to release it, and thus Perseo
was born. SInce then it has become a way to showcase
some of Mike and Johnny's favorite edits out there, as
well as a way to release some of their own work. Like
Italians, expect the quality to be top notch and the
records to be limited editions, usually around 400 copies
per release. The first three releases are:

--M VOGEL "Tough" 12" (aka: The Boss- the one that started it all)
--BOTTIN "Eagle/Stork" 12" (Steve Miller/Level 42)
--MIKE SIMONETTI "That Look" 12" (3 obscure house tracks)
--PERSEO "Edits Volume One" cd (this collects the three records
above, plus a bonus track from Mike not on the vinyl)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/trblmn/ItaliansDoItBetterLaunchNewRe-EditLabelPerseo-1.jpg

IDIB Fact Mix.

finally got ahold of that 'solid gold' comp, and it's excellent- as to be expected i guess, since i was familiar with most of the tracks. made me realize i kinda slept on that t&k stuff, though i'm still on the fence about solange.

and now it's time to seek out this perseo thing, i heard samples of those house edits simonetti is releasing and they are damn encouraging. excited for most of the stuff on this new label actually

MikeSimonetti:
FACT KIX TRACK LISTING (top of my head)- 1. Amon Duul, 2. obscure synth record lol, 3. HAUNTED HOUSE, FOXES, ITALO 45 rpm played on 33, ODYSSEY song about cocaine, latin 33rpm slowed all the way down to -8, everybody gotta learn somtime, then like 3 or 4 house tracks from '90 and some dumb end track for shits and gigs. there you have it. the mix... i think?

weeeird mix. i like the housey part haha

wow. what a genius. nobody has ever made a mix like that before. incredible

this springsteen ish is great

yeah simonetti posted it to his blog a few months ago

it's just so deep, the idea of re-edits. mindblowing

don't worry, Mike's been making fun of disco edits for years...

are disco edits the new electroclash?

haha betty botox otm i guess

not sure anyone ever said edits were mindblowing?

and the mix IS weird, i guess i've never been too stoked on simonetti's mixes and i don't mean weird in a positive sense. i'm all for oddball selections/sequencing but those things just don't go together very well and it was not fun to listen to imo

except for the house songs that is

Intriguing. The only Appaloosa track I've heard was on one of those Kitsune compilations and it didn't sound like something that would come out on Italians. Eager to hear this.

http://www.troublemanunlimited.com/store/idib/thumbnails/lg_appaloosa.jpg

APPALOOSA "Intimate (Glass Candy Remix)" 12 inch Single

After turning down almost every imaginable group & record company on the planet, Glass Candy returns from the studio with their second remix in 11 years ...This time it's Appaloosa's "Intimate". Imagine the romantic Human League fronted by Nico covering Stereolab. That's about the only way we know how to describe this record. Glass Candy dips them in their signature analog glitter with some of Johnny's heaviest drums to date as the synthesizers gnaw at your speakers. The result is a beautiful pop song that will haunt you. This is also the first glimpse from our forthcoming AFTER DARK 2 compilation out later this year. The B side features the original version from Appaloosa. Who is in the studio working on their debut Lp for IDIB later this year. Bonus tracks include instrumentals, drums, and vocals. Special mail order only version on Opaque Ivory vinyl ! Not in stores

Cable Dazed is I think my favourite thing this label has put out so far. Why does this seem to be the only release by these guys, like are they both members of some other band or something?

^^ love the invisible conga people 12" and want more, please
don't know if they have other projects

discogs says they're playing (individually) on some other people's records/might be involved in those bands. and then there's a few remixes they've done. cable dazed is awesome, yes.

Ditto plaxico except replace "Cable Dazed" with "One Night at the Raw Deal" by Twisted Wires. LinnDrum breakdown! I'd like to hear more of them.

'nite' may be my favorite single of the 00s

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iidZvto2mLM/Sh1Rq1pd9iI/AAAAAAAAAZM/NeEwtPF_37s/s400/Glass+Candy+%26+The+Shattered+Theatre+-+The+Nite+Nurses.JPG

love this cover art so much btw

now I really want to get my juno 106 up and running.

I used this guy:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Roland-Juno-106-Total-Restoration-Service-80017a-voice-/280547732754?pt=Keyboards_MIDI&hash=item4151f2ad12

I like the Appaloosa track, though it does sound more current (or au courant maybe?); and certainly less otherworldly) than a lot of the IDIB stuff.

Simonetti Tweeted recently about listening to some new Chromatics tracks, which I'm really excited about. They mentioned something a couple of years ago about recording a Neil Young cover, which I always wanted to hear but never surfaced.

did anybody end up getting the perseo comp? I can't stop playing simonetti's 'slow glow stick'

The Solid Gold compilation has suprised me in how enduring it has been for me this year.

the desire album is rather good.
think i prefer it to chromatics/glass candy releases, though i am currently succumbing hard to the chromatics album, even in its non-deluxe form, more and more having not 'got it' to start with.
also, i really like the way the ITDIB cd releases are packaged, but they are a bugger to spot in the racks.
very much doubt i am ever going to see the perseo edits compilation in the racks in bristol, so may have to resort to ordering from the label website.
do they ship to uk ?

yes

hurrah.

Johnny Jewel's SoundCloud features a lot of downloadable instrumental mixes of popular IDIB tracks.

this label has been too quiet for too long.

they throw a lot of parties it seems

I wouldn't hate seeing another Desire album this year.

That album is my favourite of the bunch, so I'm right there with you.

wasn't there supposed to be a sequel, in 2010, to the after dark compilation?

Solid gold?

Much as I love Solid Gold, if that is intended to be the After Dark follow-up then I'm going to be left feeling very cheated. Johnny Jewel was so prolific two years ago, why can't he have more music ready for us now?

solid gold is not after dark 2

no shit, but it's a similar thing for those that don't buy 12"s. I guess most of the after dark stuff was unreleased at the time, though.

Greg Dulli/The Twilight Singers cover "Don't Call" by Desire (it's pretty good!):

www.thedailyswarm.com/swarm/daily-swarm-interview-greg-dulli-shot-location-plus-free-download-new-non-lp-song/

http://vivaitalians.blogspot.com/2011/04/italians-do-it-in-bundles.html

... in order to make room for new releases such as Mike Simonetti's "Capricorn Rising" EP, Various Artists "After Dark 2", Glass Candy's "Body Work" 2xLP and Farah's "Into Eternity" LP...

Very excited, just hoping that Johnny Jewel hasn't let the quality control dip in any way.

hmm .. does it really cost $14 to ship from the US to Europe (UK) !?

a cd that is ..

That's got to be some kind of oversight - I've ordered from them US -> UK before and it was nothing like that. Email Mike and I bet he'll set you the right price.

ah ok.
can u give us a clue as to how to communicate with him, as i cant find a contact page. ta.
[not a personal friend so cant request FB etc .. ]

(sent a PM to you with it)

much appreciated. time to top up my paypal account.

well, 6 cds incl. postage ended up being less than £30.
thats pretty good considering how much some of these things go for when they're available via amazon.
now, all i have to do is wait .. (and wait .. )

i guess this project involves former glass candy personnel as well as the guy from miracles club (rafael)... i dig it, needless to say

http://vimeo.com/22588468

(^ finesse - elevate. it's not on idib but it definitely has a tangential appeal)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX922LVpULM&feature=player_embedded#!

thought this was just ok, a little goofy

a little goofy

Glass Candy? Surely not? They're so serious!

I don't think I like this because it's too knowingly kitsch and obvious with it - which also seems like a fundamental misunderstanding of what Glass Candy are about - I think the last stuff was a bit darker and moodier than this and had more appeal for it.

i always preferred the chromatics but this is pretty decent

Are you not kind of contradicting yourself there boxedjoy?

I think their earlier stuff derives its "goofiness" from Ida No's delivery but the actual music/lyrics indicated something a bit darker, whereas this is so... I hate to use the term "cheesy" because it suggests there's something wrong with populism, but it is very frothy. It sounds like it was designed to be played at the end of the night. I worry that a full album of this would be very saccharine.

I just meant the goofiness wasn't working for me on that track. xposts

i like that a lot! never liked them before iirc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR87ol1G6NI

nice

everyone stopped caring about this stuff for four years and then the Drive soundtrack happened \o_o/

I never stopped caring!

nice

― caek, Monday, 24 October 2011 23:24 (Yesterday) Bookmark

that rules

This is great, really great. Johnny Jewel has clearly embraced his pop instincts between this and the new Glass Candy, which is growing on me.

vox have a kind of demo vibe, hmmm

a little bird in pdx told me that johnny jewel recorded his own soundtrack for the drive sdtk and then it was scrapped by the bigwigs or the powers that be or w/e

this is a well-informed bird but i'm still skeptical- has anyone else heard anything about this?

There's a link to an interview with him about it on the Drive thread. He was sort of approached to do the score so he wrote and recorded one but never really heard back about it. He said it was going to be released in bits and pieces on various things.

found it: http://www.boxofficemagazine.com/articles/2011-09-johnny-jewel-on-developing-the-unique-soundtrack-for-drive

i want to hear it.

also re: everyone stopped caring about this stuff for four years and then the Drive soundtrack happened \o_o/

i think that this is what happens when labels stop releasing albums? still crossing my fingers for 'after dark vol 2'

Desire's II was 2009 and I think that's my favourite from the label. I know I'm splitting hairs because 2 years is a long time but, still.

vox have a kind of demo vibe, hmmm

― caek, Tuesday, 25 October 2011 04:22 (5 hours ago) Bookmark

otm but it's sorta refreshing; not that chromatics suffer from it but i guess it is a way to diversify like ice-cool-production-sheen

They've put out a bunch of great singles in the last year - the Fred Ventura 12", the Alides Hidding 12", Simonetti's EP, the Perseo stuff, and the new/old Tiedye one (which I haven't heard yet)...

Lots of people stopped caring after seeing chromatics live, me included. Glass Candy live were great though.

God, I absolutely LOVE Chromatics live!

i am aware of all of the great releases in the past few years (see upthread!) but when you come out of the gates with 2 flagship bands and all they release over the course of 4 years is unreleased demos and rarities or w/e the interest is sure to wane

desire have a couple ok songs but i much prefer the idib 12"s if u wanna talk about later pd stuff

This could just be early infatuation, but "Kill for Love" is immediately angling hard for my '11 singles list.

After Dark 2 is becoming the Chinese Democracy of neo-Moroder hipsterism.

how long ago was the 'if i cant hold you' 12"? that shit was a jam

so this symmetry record... what do people think?

i haven't spent much time with it but i think it might be sort of awesome, but i'll withhold further hyperbole until it sinks in

i *will* say, tho, that 2 hours is a hell of a lot of one on one time with johnny jewel

i'm a real human being http://i.imgur.com/zi7hd.gif

hmmm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSycSBYHitc&

Not sure what to make of that. It's certainly no Running Up That Hill.

Cool video, non-exciting cover.

Still think "Kill for Love" is a cool track, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbx8qRg6tPE&feature=youtu.be

Now I'm excited about their comeback again.

yeah this is awesome

You mean because of 'lady'? It's an old track, no? I've had a demo of it since 2008 or so. Had no idea it hadn't been released since then.
The version on this video doesn't sound vert different from what I have... the vocals are mixed higher and the rhythm halfways was definitely improved but the basics are still there. If this is from their new album I wouldn't get too excited yet until I heard the rest, Lady has been around for years now.

I thought this Chromatics record was supposed to be out Valentine's Day, but it obviously didn't come out. What's the hold up?

think it's a mastering issue or something? It's been delayed anyway

Eh, it's probably a "we don't have the funds to press a bunch of copies, but when we do..." issue.

check out Nite Jewel's album if you've got a hankering for some smooth synth-pop JF

hella frustrating to see this thread bumped with still no further mention of the symmetry album. would you guys listen to it if i told you that the vocalist from chromatics is on the final track? you know that johnny jewel is symmetry, right? are you not responding b/c whiney was making fun of a track from the actual drive stdk that had nothing to do with idib?

no, it's not another springsteen cover

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdV5fnwTwZM

pretty accomplished morning after/comedown vibes

not saying that the album is mindblowing or anything but it's a pretty good listen if you like the more ambient side of chromatics or if you dig the instrumental glass candy trax

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wlTmedBBG4&feature=related

it's a pretty good listen if you like the more ambient side of chromatics or if you dig the instrumental glass candy trax

Not as much as the more pop side of Chromatics or the vocal Glass Candy trax, so I really don't have much to say about it. It's cool for chillin out.

i like the symmetry album but i haven't got anything interesting to say about it sorry

whatever happened to Twisted Wires? saw them open for Glass Candy and thought they were pretty good, and liked that one single they released ... then they disappeared off the face of the earth, apparently.

Yeah, Symmetry is nice stuff. New Chromatics vid but still no release date for ''Kill for Love".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbuEDkPOq9I&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Good track. (But I wonder though whether I'll be able to shake 'Drive' from this aesthetic now).

I think this may be my favourite Chromatics track.

These have all been in high rotation for me, especially Lady. I have a feeling this is going to be one of the few albums I'm in the record store for on release day.

...and yet another new single (it's really beautiful):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwLwLQnInfE

that is great

Yeah, quite looking forward to this record now.

Chromatics album supposedly on iTunes now, but I don't see it.

https://twitter.com/#!/MikeSimonetti/status/184434832275808257

about to listen to this.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/kill-for-love/id514145032

There it is!

Damn that's a long album.

vocals on "Kill for Love' have been...processed (don't know the technical term) versus the single version. I prefer it!

"Lady," holy crap. And yeah, how many of these count as "bonus tracks"? 93 mins is a bit much.

listening to it now. Up to track 10 and so far I'm iffy on the longer tracks but the shorter ones have been pretty bloody great. Don't know why they felt the need for the excessive double-album thing.

Yeah, Johnny Jewel has now released three and a half hours of music this year. An hour of which would be a shoe in for end of year lists.

I'm loving the new Chromatics but I hope the physical release is a little more judiciously edited and broadly appealing. They might get away with it though, as the first six tracks are all killer.

i love the tunes where it just fades off into oblivion (tick of the clock, broken mirrors, no escape)

I listened to this last night while I was going to sleep and thought it was really clumsily sequenced. Just now realized I had my Winamp on shuffle. Listening to it in the intended order now, it makes a lot more sense.

hmmm, $12 postpaid for the 16-track cd or nearly $17 for the 17 track itunes version.. probably neither for this sort of bullshit

$12 pp is a pretty good deal for a cd, no?

it's not bad, but it seems like a stooge to be missing out on the bonus track, but a bigger stooge to pay $5 more for a download just to get it.

is it worthwhile getting the bonus track?

i;m seeing $9.99 on itunes for the 17 track version..

Yah, I paid 9.99 last night.

congratulations on not being australian i guess

if someone wants to buy it for me and zip it up i'll paypal you $11

I'm excited to hear this, will there be a vinyl release?

According to their fb-page, yes, there will be a vinyl release soon. Just hope shipping overseas won't be too much...

£7.99 on itunes uk iirc

it is looong

Italians Do It Better said...

THERE WILL DEFINITELY BE VINYL. DOUBLE LP FORMAT WITH A SILVER FOIL STAMPED BACK COVER...LYRIC INSERT...ON ICY IVORY VINYL..AND YES...THERE WILL BE MP3 CODES INSIDE. WE WON'T SPECULATE ABOUT THE ARRIVAL DATE BECAUSE THERE ARE WAY TOO MANY FACTORS OUT OF OUR CONTROL...BUT IT'S COMING. IN THE MEANTIME...WE REPRESSED OUR OUT OF PRINT CDS AND "KILL FOR LOVE" CDS WILL BE IN THE STORE AT SOME POINT LATER TODAY. ALL VINYL LPS ARE ON REPRESS FOR COLORED VINYL TOO. WE LET THE ENTIRE STORE GO OUT OF PRINT TO COORDINATE OUR MOVE TO LOS ANGELES. XO

I know its lame but I really want some IDIB t-shirts

i have two, so i am double lame

I'm kind of blown away by this... what are others' thoughts?

I think on first listen it was tough to get past how good the first 5/6 tracks are. I listened to it again all the way through, and while I still think it's long I'm loving it.

so how do i get the double t-shirt

http://soundcloud.com/johnnyjewel/chromatics-kill-for-love-album

Full album stream fyi

This is great so far. Up to Candy, could be the best thing I've heard on IDIB besides After Dark.

This record is my favorite thing right now.

this could blow up pretty big if everyone who swooned over that kavinksy track gets into it

whole shebangs available to stream

http://soundcloud.com/johnnyjewel/chromatics-kill-for-love-album

just finished this, definitely too much to take in on one listen but its phenomenal. The last track is surprisingly like tim hecker/fennesz find of ambient thing

really feelin this tbh fyi

This is the best thing I've heard all year.

has pitchdork weighed in on this one yet?

WHO CARES

my my hey hey

bnm is here to stay

considering they loved the overblown, often tedious M83 double album, they're gonna hate this for being too long and unfocussed.

mad love for the autotuned trax on this one

title track on this is pretty awesome

not use how far into it I will get before I lose focus though

this could blow up pretty big if everyone who swooned over that kavinksy track gets into it

otm

ok i was wrong about p4k

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/16452-kill-for-love/

Really like "kill for love" although, somehow, I feel like it's not as good as I'd like it to be after the intro.
I'm quite excited by this album, going to order it now !

it's a really icy, arms-length sort of album. full of repetitive, spacey probable-creepers. good on first listen, but looking forward to relating to this more when i'm feeling, i dunno, a bit more patient and/or nostalgic.

just ordered it on their blog. it's pretty cheap !

These Streets Will Never Look The Same yall

this is dope as fuck. heavy too. the neil young opener is exciting!

man idk if I should wait for the vinyl w/ mp3 codes

Excellent album.

These Streets Will Never Look The Same yall

― caulk the wagon and float it, Tuesday, April 3, 2012 8:37 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes this

not sure if i "get" this album. sounds very nice, icy and inviting at the same time, provides a comfortably inhabitable atmosphere all the way through, but nothing's really grabbing me on the first pass. in enjoy the vibe more than the songwriting, and as a result, i frequently find my attention wandering. more well-crafted persona than seriously engaging personality, at least on the first pass. guess that's sort of their stock-in-trade, though...

maybe it's just the length of the thing that's making it hard to digest. have liked them primarily as a singles band in the past.

Johnny Jewel is definitely determined to get you to devote a lot of your time to his music this year

hah, for real.

he should do a 10 album set with e-40

id like to go on record saying that i think Johnny Jewel is an epic rock n roll stage name for the ages

plus a damn fine song

Will the vinyl have No Escape on it?

Okay, so I've spent a bit of time w this over the last few days. I get it even less than I did before. This is honestly one of the laziest, emptiest and least engaging albums I've heard in a long, long time. I understand that the stasis and vacuity are not just intentional but by and large "the point", but nothing is done to make the nothingness interesting or musically compelling. It's a more or less entirely blank slate against which a few obvious influences are allowed to play. The hooks are few and far between, the melodies aren't moving or memorable, the beats plod along dully without groove or propulsion, and the tones are steadfastly generic. It sounds like a drug-deadened indietronic spin on the wallpaper mood music you hear in Starbucks.

I'm not saying there aren't standout songs. "Candy" and "These Streets Will Never Look the Same" are both pretty great, working as pop without losing the creepy-cool designer zombie vibe (autotune is a much better vehicle for this kind of narcotized robot lounge music than breathy human affectlessness, imo). Unfortunately, most of the rest is oppressively boring.

also, re the neil young cover, the breathy-voiced and pindrop quiet indie cover of a pop and/or classic rock staple is such an exhausted trick at this point. at least in most cases the reinvention brings something new to the song. here it just strips away the raw and wounded defeat in favor of emotionally inert high-end furniture arrangement. i feel like i'm playing into their hands in calling it "lifeless", but that's exactly what it is, and in a bad way. like the cowboy junkies with a nondescript, careless singer and no real ear for atmospherics. do like the electronic droning and beeping at the end, but that's the only thing chromatics bring to the song.

hmm maybe start a blog about it?

wonderful suggestion, matt

did you like the last album?

i didn't love it, no, but i didn't find it anywhere near so draggy and tedious as KFL, maybe just a product of relative brevity

helps that the song "night drive" is right up front, feel like KFL makes me wait forever for something i actually want to hear.

and i don't know why "i want your love" appeals to me so much more than similar stuff on KFL, but it does. something agreeably scrapy/scrappy music that makes virtue of the dead-end vocal.

I think I'm enjoying these descriptions of why you dislike the record more than anything.

i think i really like this, maybe as much as night drive, dont get how the neil young cover is an exhausted gimmick.

I don't have a sophisticated defense of this, maybe I like the idea of "a drug-deadened indietronic spin on the wallpaper mood music you hear in Starbucks"? Although I suspect that might actually apply as a description of another artist...

I should say, I have actually have been listening to this over my morning coffee!

Don't agree that the melodies are moving or memorable in any case, at least for the first half of the album. I haven't had enough time to absorb the rest yet.

Last time I was in a Starbucks they played Paul Simon and the Decemberists and shit.
To be honest I would probably really like to sit in a nice, non-sbux coffee place while Symmetry played quietly.

Don't agree that the melodies AREN'T moving or memorable, I should say, obv.

i'm not so big on breathy-indie-covers as i was, i dunno, ten years ago, but on the neil young cover when i hear 'rock and roll is here to stay' i don't think 'indie cover', i hear them saying: this IS rock and roll, and for some reason i believe it.

i was a jerk about this. the starbucks slam was cheap, and saying that chromatics have "no ear for atmospherics" was absolute horseshit. that's the one thing they really do nail. the soundtracky instrumental pieces are some of the best tracks on here.

it's not so much that it's a bad album, but that i was struggling w it and frustrated. i've listened to kill for love a few more times now, and while i might not ever love it, i'm starting to come around. after venting, i asked myself why i was faulting this music so severely for for its "emptiness". if music music creates a generally pleasant atmosphere, why shouldn't that be enough? i had to admit that i was making an implicit demand that music w vocals and pop structures be insistently "engaging" on some level, that droning along pleasantly was cheating somehow, especially if the music seemed "stylish". once i had all that out in the open, i realized i couldn't really defend any of it.

i'm finding that kill for love is very well suited to half-distracted road listening. it's a somnambulent-romantic horror movie, and the dead-eyed vacancy helps tell the story and build the vibe. details like the dixie cup of blood are coming into focus. and the way "into the black" turns neil into "ventura highway" is starting to seem p funny & cool.

contie you should listen to this on a lonely night spent walking

lol, it's funny you should say that. i visited some friends yesterday, and by the time i got there, it was dark. walking through suburbia at night w this on headphones really helped me get where it was coming from and what it might be suited to.

Was thinking of posting earlier on in the discussion that it's a great album for listening to while doing something else - I've been listening to it a lot at work this week. This is not a bad thing! Quality mood music is always welcome.

I'm loving the Chromatics album but I agree it's too much of a good thing. If they'd cut through all the meandering bullshit it would be one of the top 10 of the year for me. Some of the songs get ruined by their length... too much tension for too little payoff.

Kill for Love, Into the Black, At Your dOOR and Back from the Grave are tracks of the year tho.

Despite all of this I haven't found anything distracting me from enjoying the record all the way through. Funny since the last record I put so much effort trying to like, and while I did, I always felt it was carried by style points severely outweighing content. The new one is totally great, a good counter point to my usual noisy 90s indie.

i love how she sings 'i took a pill almost every niiiight'

^^^^^ yeah this

title track has kind of a Jesus & Mary Chain / shoegaze feeling going on that I love

Yeah, that line is great.

Part 3...

Okay, so I've been listening to this album for three weeks straight now and am starting to fall in love. I initially disliked Kill for Love quite strongly (see above). I felt that its accolades were lazy and undeserved, that it was little more than an unfocused exercise in cynical, vacant and rather tediously predictable style. I wanted to dismiss it with prejudice, but felt that I should get to know it in order to more effectively eviscerate its pretensions. Thing is, the more I listened to it, the more distinctive and mysterious it came to seem. The melodies, textures and narratives didn't jump out and grab me at first, but I found that no matter how much I listened, I could neither satisfactorily solve for them nor leave them alone.

Two weeks ago, I allowed that I was "starting to come around". Now I'm almost certain that Kill for Love will wind up being one of my favorite albums of the year. Maybe that's a simple product of time invested, but there aren't many new records that I'd care to listen to 20 or 30 times in the space of a month, and fewer that I could still be productively exploring by that point. I'll happily admit that I don't fully "get" Chromatics, because that's what keeps me coming back.

The first thing I want to talk about here is the idea of distance. Over the past couple weeks, I've read a great many reviews of both Night Drive and Kill for Love, and I'm surprised at how little attention most critics have paid to the way Chromatics "distress" their sound through the application of faux vinyl crackle. This strategy is quite prominent on both albums, and it distances the listener from the music in at least three ways. First, it creates an illusion of separation in time. We are listening to something that does not exist in the now, but is instead arriving to us from the past, from the vinyl-only era of postpunk, Italo-disco and Carpenter-style synth horror soundtracks. The second way the distressed sound distances us is by calling attention to the mechanics of audio reproduction. We are not allowed to sink into the music as immediate/vicarious experience because we are constantly reminded that it is being brought to us via the agency of a medium. The effect is similar to that produced by scratches and dirt on an old motion picture film print. We cannot fully inhabit the vision because we are forced to notice the screen on which it is projected. Finally, the "surface noise" distances us from the music simply by obscuring it. At 2:14 in Chromatics' cover of kate bush's "Running Up That Hill", Ruth Radlet's voice is momentarily lost in distortion and crackle. Here the distancing actually eclipses the music for a moment. This trick is duplicated on the Kill for Love track "Birds of Paradise".

Chromatics' use of this kind of distancing is interesting to me because it helps make sense of their overall aesthetic and approach. When Night Drive came out in 2007, most critics addressed the band's radical shift from fragmentary postpunk rock to sleek, club-friendly electropop, but few admitted how little they'd really changed. Skeletality, noise, mechanical disaffection and staggered rhythms were a big part of the early Chromatics' game, and these are still some of the key elements of their sound. Night Drive and Kill for Love may sound slick and synthetic on the surface, but the individual sonic elements of which they're composed are often quite harsh and awkward. We hear fingers on strings, piercing highs and layers of hissing, curdled static. The rhythmic propulsion is often slightly awkward, lacking dance music's in-the-pocket drive, and most of the tracks feel weirdly scooped out, as though several key elements were missing. Riding over all this discombobulated emptiness is ruth radlet's paper thin whisper of a voice. She has no range to speak of and almost no expressive power. Her singing denies us even electroclash's comedy of confrontational disaffection.

These elements and approaches combine to create an interesting inversion of way "humanity" is conventionally constructed in pop. To some degree or another, we typically equate musical humanity with emotionalism and sentiment. Chromatics flip this completely on its head. In their music, the humanity is the inexpressive. It's the rhythm that doesn't quite come together, the hiccup in the bassline, the failure of the vocals to hit notes or convey emotion. Surrounding this frail and complacent vision of humanity are the mechanisms of music and sound: icy synth arpeggios and plodding drum machines, a fixation on medium and technology, the familiar phrases and melodies that pop songs ordinarily use to convey and induce feeling.

The problem with Kill for Love, mentioned by most critics, is that it's a sprawling, unfocused mess. Not only is it overburdened with second-rate filler, it's very poorly sequenced. Everyone seems to love the band's cover of "Into the Black", but to my mind, this is the song that plays over the end credits. It simply doesn't work as an opening theme. (And I'd like to object very strongly to the Pitchfork review's contention that it is in any sense a "deconstruction" of Neil Young's original. It is not. It does nothing particular novel to or with the song. It does not cause it say anything it didn't say the first time around. It is simply a cover. A nice one, but by no means a reinvention, illumination or deconstruction.) The album's running order as released puts too much emphasis on crispy, brittle, bleach-blonde sunshine up front, sickly horror soundtrack darkness towards the back. Both wear out their welcome, which is unfortunate because there are at least as many worthwhile songs on Kill for Love as there were on Night Drive. The playlist version I'm currently enjoying:

1) Dust to Dust
2) These Streets Will Never Look The Same
3) Kill for Love
4) The Page
5) Candy
6) There's a Light Out On the Horizon
7) Lady
8) Birds of Paradise
9) The River
10) Running from the Sun
11) Into the Black

could you elaborate

i dunno, there's probably a good rimshot gif out there somewhere

(see above)

shoulda been an in-thread anchor-link

thought about it

with parenthetical references

(contenderizer 2012a)

anyway, a bit surprising that of the most popular chromatics tunes on spotify, only one is from night drive (the single edit of "tick of the clock"). rounding out the top five are three tracks from the in the city EP and "hands in the dark" from the after dark comp. wonder if night drive has only recently been added though.

I bought Night Drive on iTunes when it came out. "Tick of the Clock" makes sense because it was on the Drive soundtrack.

"In the City" also had a video and some degree of promotion.

'healer' rips off a riff from shadowplay I think

it turns out that time spent listening to shadowplay is time you can never get back

appreciate the challop ^_^

i'd never heard of them, so it's hard to tell which ops are chall

you've never heard of joy division?

lol me. i decided for whatever reason that you must be referring to a band, not a song.

yes, "healer" sounds a hell of a lot like "shadowplay" (a song by the band that is called the joy divisions)

drumless version of Kill For Love fwiw http://pitchfork.com/news/46414-chromatics-share-drumless-version-of-kill-for-love-tour-with-hot-chip/

"The Page" from the new one really reminds me of Joy Division too.

While I probably have no need for more Chromatics right now, I'm weirdly pleased with the idea of a drumless mix! Reminds me of Kaito's beatless Special Life/Special Love move.

Also interesting how close this new track list is at times to contenderizer's.

anybody else think Mssr. Jewel comes off like a total prick in that pitchfork interview from yesterday?

"Mssr."

Um, yeah. He definitely comes across as arrogant, not that it's especially shocking for a record producer. Also seems to be willing to take a lot of credit for things, real or imagined ('the first mysterious blog movements', 'a lot of bands popping up that had a post-After Dark feel')...

And of course, the drumless versions are for web remixes (that JJ will apparently won't even end up listening to because he's in the studio jamming to Jacques Brel!). Anyway, I'm a consumer I guess, so I'll listen to these as well.

Speaking of remixes though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz9aWI8Rs3E

haha gutsy indeed:

There's never been an Italians release that isn't good. There's no filler. Chromatics never released a bad record. Since In the City, everything's been great. All these songs are classics now.

That interview bummed me out.

Me too. I really don't like the way he keeps casually tossing off the lines about how he could just shit out awesome songs constantly and everyone would love them, but he just didn't want to.

chromatics are obviously a band helmed by someone more concerned with looking good than being good (or by someone who confuses the two). not always a bad thing.

in the long run (part IV, lol), i've finally gotten my head around this album. it's not bad when resequenced, but still not great. some good ideas, but they're held back by their resolute commitment to their aesthetic - and to their crippled singer. ultimately i'm surprised by how little they've progressed in the last five years. this is basically a carbon copy of night drive, down to the corny overreliance on faux surface noise.

that interview is hilarious.

But you can't look at this as a business model for other people because the only reason it was possible for us is because the record is so fucking ill.

...

There's been interest from basically everybody on the radio. Their creative departments are very aware of what we are doing; we're on that radar. I don't write Top 40 vocals, but my beats can be manipulated so that they can be on the radio and be just fine. And they're starting to recognize that.

might be totally true, but he still sounds like a dick.

oh he's so cool, he has no decision

Mike Simonetti seems like a dick too. They probably deserve each other

i didnt think he seemed like such a dick, relax u guys

whether he is a dick or not i don't know but simonetti is definitely a thieving scumbag

Whoa, wait, what's the story there?

one example i'm aware of

ultimately i'm surprised by how little they've progressed in the last five years. this is basically a carbon copy of night drive, down to the corny overreliance on faux surface noise.

I dunno, I think the album sounds very different to Night Drive, even though the feel are broader aesthetic are consistent. The italo influences which dominated that album have been replaced by a determination to sound like the XX but more bloodless.

Whether this is a good move or not is debatable but I don't think they can be accused of standing still.

the feel and broader aesthetic.

I don't think they can be accused of standing still

i stand accusatory

bloody hell - that waxidermy thread.

Yeah, that Waixdermy thread was a trip of a read, but I don't feel totally confident throwing around "thieving scumbag" based on that. Nobody in that thread comes off great.

agreed.

i just cant get over the fact that people are trading 7" for so much money ..

I know; Jesus! I feel guilty when I spend £20 on a record, and even then I get paranoid about my turntable wrecking it when I'm playing the goddamned thing.

talk is just talk. until he steals my money, he's just a dork.

They were so good at White Heat last night. Exceeded my expectations.

http://thequietus.com/articles/08974-chromatics-live-review

Listened to Kill For Love all the way through for the first time this morning and really enjoyed it. That is all.

bah, bummed to have missed out on tickets for that. though i'm seeing them tonight. but still.

They were great at Village Underground last night! It was kind of a drag that they were the support act since they started so early and couldn't play for very long (they were booked on the gig ages ago, pre-Kill for Love's release), but it seemed like there was a large amount of the crowd that was there for them. "These Streets Will Never Look the Same" was a highlight; I didn't realize the guitarist sings that one.

Drumless

the placement of 'the river' almost at the end is just right.

I'm seeing them this week. I've never seen them/hope they don't suck/am jazzed despite having to find parking.

Symmetry's 'Themes For An Imaginary Film' is now available on vinyl... http://italiansdoitbetter.bigcartel.com/

http://vivaitalians.blogspot.com/2012/07/after-dark-2.html

awesome

"gold glitter vinyl"!!

that first instrumental on 'kill for love', so good. generally a fantastic record, although I have a hard time taking the lonely robot vocoder stuff seriously.

http://soundcloud.com/johnnyjewel/after-dark-remastered

this label seems extremely generous to fans. all the more surprising considering they seem to operate from a blogspot.

Yeah, they've always given away tons of music.
I was kind of bummed out to read Prof. Genius' comment on the Soundcloud page there, though - it sucks if people aren't getting paid. I LOVE those two tracks of his on that comp.

But then it also looks like they resolved this?

In any case, agree that those two tracks are the bomb.

Hey guys - that was me (Prof Genius).

Thanks for digging the stuff. Johnny's a good guy. He's correcting that situation. Seems it wasn't really his doing but I will say no more. (bet u can guess).

also - i've made/released lots of stuff since the IDIB releases: soundcloud.com/professorjorge >> some randomness

didn't know you were part of bim marx! good stuff

Johnny's a good guy

i want to believe this, but several pdxers i've spoken with say... otherwise

So far so good : )

still rocking your tropical computer system cdr on a regular basis, so awesome. just sayin' :)

Thanks!I'm glad it's still got some life left! Most recent releases on other labels have been less synthpop/Italo flavored. I'll be starting a Bandcamp in a few months that will remedy that. I'll keep you posted!

awesome
pegaso was my fave track on that comp.

Here's a link that's still active (c. 2009) with free downloads, including the full version of "Pegaso". Have at it since the other label that released that hasn't payed me for it since 2009 as well !

http://rcrdlbl.com/2009/10/07/exclusive_new_download_jorge_velez_perfume_across_the_spree_pegaso "> http://rcrdlbl.com/2009/10/07/exclusive_new_download_jorge_velez_perfume_across_the_spree_pegaso

Sorry about that. One of those two links works.

From After Dark 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jBWfQ6C1qY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCeQDNoQIkc

I migh be the only person around here who gives a shit anymore, but J. Jewel put up a mix of unreleased stuff from the Kill For Love sessions: http://soundcloud.com/johnnyjewel/running-from-the-sun

I give a shit.

both of those tracks are pretty solid, not breaking any new ground but i'm not sure i want that anyway

Chromatics playing for a fashion show and a video with a bunch of models seems really appropriate. Really like the Desire track.

I'm grossed out that they would want to have anything to do with Karl Lagerfeld, but that's a nice track.

where's after dark 2?!

New Chromatics song, from After Dark 2 I think:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjQ2jGUNSck&list=HL1353865608&feature=mh_lolz

very seasonal

http://soundcloud.com/johnnyjewel/black-and-white-autumn-mix

I know it's not really winter, but since the weather outside is still autumnal...

blissed out "Ceremony" is insane...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9N17f3ERt0

hahahah just came here to post the above two posts, fuck it IM GOING FOR IT

http://soundcloud.com/culturcide/chromatics-ceremony-new-order

Loving "Cherry," really not moved by the "Ceremony" cover.

I know it's not really winter, but since the weather outside is still autumnal...

― Gukbe, Sunday, December 2, 2012 9:00 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's not winter, eh?

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8482/8250123709_d5028597bd.jpg

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/9627011/photos/drudge-siren.gifnew t-shirts in stockhttps://dl.dropbox.com/u/9627011/photos/drudge-siren.gif

After Dark 2 this Friday

maybe

https://soundcloud.com/johnnyjewel/mirage-lets-kiss

up on itunes apparently

it's there

After all these years.

How is it?

just me, or do bits of it sound very RAM?

ok really only camera by chromatics

AHHHHHHHHH IT'S HERE

Not on Spotify yet(?)...stoked though.

just bought it... sounds awesome

kind of 2004/2005 vibe about this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Akjt-RuNc6U#!

apparently it's from 2 years old, but also on this compilation?

it's been in the works for quite some time

Do we know if this is getting a physical release at all?

CD in June, vinyl in July, he says

This might spoil it for everybody, but the intro for "Warm in the Winter" is just a synthpop homage to "Where the Streets Have No Name".

Y U BRAKE HERAT JF ;_;

Really looking forward to this btw, not heard it yet

Cherry is such a great pop song, in a just world it'd be a massive hit

Got the promo in my inbox today, about to give it a spin. Praying for something as perfectly sad as 'Lady Operator' was on the first one.

What are Glass Candy and Chromatics like live?

Glass Candy are a little more of a fun time party band live than Chromatics, who are a little more too cool for school chill. Glass Candy are keyboard and vocals and a lot of dancing, onsesys and c'mon's and Chromatics are more I'm smoking cigarettes and playing guitar and you can't fuck with this.

That said, they're all ridiculously approachable. Now that they are bigger this may have changed, but last time I saw Glass Candy, afterwards Johnny and Mike Simonetti sat on the stage afterward selling merch and chatting with all comers and last time I saw Chromatics, it was rained out and they traded cigarettes and jokes with the crowd, Johnny quipped that he was afraid of being 'electro-cuted'.

Music is always on point too. I suppose if you've had a song demo'd since 2005 and only released it last year, you've probably thought about it a bit. But, I don't know. Like, you know how nobody buys music anymore and bands relentless tour and have polished this completely fine but somewhat sterile 45 minute set that they know works and play over and over again? Whereas it used to be a little less important to be on message every night when nobody used to go to live shows and bands live used to be a little looser and they'd play a cover if they felt like it, or something they were working on? Chromatics and Glass Candy feel a little more like that.

OK, great. I got my tickets for the show in a couple of weeks.

Am definitely interested in how they work the crowd and perform, IDIB style is so sedate and a bit calculated.

'Cherry' is so gorgeous, not sure if that awooeeooawooaee bit is ripping something off or if it's just an instant classic hook.

And then that swirling synth/drum fill bit right at the end of it just seals the deal

"Cherry" in parts reminds me of ... a couple've tracks off the Magnetic Fields' The Wayward Bus? "Candy" & something else.

it's definitely ripping off something. Can't put my finger on it though

ya when I try to pinpoint it I keep getting stuck on a bit of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnD_ESwsC94

which is close but not quite right.

Am definitely interested in how they work the crowd and perform, IDIB style is so sedate and a bit calculated.

yeah Glass Candy is not like that at all live. when I saw them they played all their party / dance tracks and closed with Iko Iko and Mind Playing Tricks On Me.

Last time I saw them (I might even have said this in this thread a couple of years ago), Glass Candy live was like an aerobics class.
The show ended with half the club onstage.