― Christopher Costello (CGC), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 04:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― Melissa W (Melissa W), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 04:51 (eighteen years ago) link
I do kinda appreciate that they made room for prettiness on this one. The last track is real sweet.
― Renard (Renard), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 05:02 (eighteen years ago) link
Haven't watched the movies yet.
― Renard (Renard), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 05:04 (eighteen years ago) link
― regular roundups (Dave M), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 05:31 (eighteen years ago) link
― Melissa W (Melissa W), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 18:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― team jaxon (jaxon), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 18:44 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dominique (dleone), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 18:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― Turangalila (Salvador), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 18:53 (eighteen years ago) link
-- inert false cat (enemy.airshi...), February 16th, 2006 12:20 AM.
yes
― Eggzakly Huhh? (zachary v.), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 18:53 (eighteen years ago) link
― My Inner Melissa (mike h.), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 20:05 (eighteen years ago) link
― senseiDancer (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 20:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― Melissa W (Melissa W), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 21:03 (eighteen years ago) link
― My Inner My Inner Melissa, Wednesday, 22 February 2006 21:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 21:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― Christopher Costello (CGC), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 23:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― rizzx (Rizz), Thursday, 23 February 2006 14:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― gbx (skowly), Thursday, 23 February 2006 15:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― pssst - badass revolutionary art! (plsmith), Thursday, 23 February 2006 15:18 (eighteen years ago) link
― mike h. (mike h.), Thursday, 23 February 2006 16:56 (eighteen years ago) link
Second of all, if I had posted as Mark W, I highly doubt you would have chosen to frame that mocking as some kind of girly musical/cultural squeamishness based on ignorance and fear of the strange.
With both of those things said, I dislike the album because I think it's boring and unadventurous. It sounds joyless and monotonous and uninspired, as if they bored even themselves to death while making it. The drumming and beats aren't actually all that unusual or interesting, the songs themselves lack dynamics of any kind, continuing in the same groove like a dull saw hacking at my brain. The vocals are lethargic and entirely grating, as are the harmonics and melodies. I'm just not sure what, if anything, I'm supposed to be taking away from this album. It's like a frictionless surface. I can't hold on to anything about it when it's done, nor do I particularly want to. It's all, "Yay! Drums and feedback and chanting exist!" Oh yeah? Then do something with them. Like yeah, all of that can make for a fantastic album, but only if you're really willing to really take those things to interesting places and not play it safe like kindergarteners with safety scissors.
But hey, I'll just be sitting over here with my copy of Tago Mago instead, fearing the strange like the little girl that I am.
― Melissa W (Melissa W), Thursday, 23 February 2006 19:04 (eighteen years ago) link
― mcd (mcd), Thursday, 23 February 2006 19:11 (eighteen years ago) link
― cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 23 February 2006 19:17 (eighteen years ago) link
― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 23 February 2006 19:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― snnhy, Thursday, 23 February 2006 19:35 (eighteen years ago) link
The female/male issue never crossed my mind. We usually don't post on the same threads (or at least not that I notice) so my recognition was a little slow based on the short posts you made. Lacking context, "This is really horrible" kind of rubbed me the wrong way. Knowing it's from someone who might actually be into this sort of thing adds some context and your post was great (frictionless? yeah!)
That said, Tago Mago is one of my favorite albums too.
― mike h. (mike h.), Thursday, 23 February 2006 19:35 (eighteen years ago) link
― mike h. (mike h.), Thursday, 23 February 2006 19:36 (eighteen years ago) link
Melissa's post reinforces that notion, sounds similar to my response to their last album. Who knows though, maybe I'll like this one.
― Edward III (edward iii), Thursday, 23 February 2006 19:41 (eighteen years ago) link
― js (honestengine), Thursday, 23 February 2006 19:50 (eighteen years ago) link
― m.c. (clikatowi), Thursday, 23 February 2006 19:52 (eighteen years ago) link
Isn't this part of the point?
xpost
― regular roundups (Dave M), Thursday, 23 February 2006 20:40 (eighteen years ago) link
― Cousin yogurt beard (nordicskilla), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― Binjominia (Brilhante), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― Cousin yogurt beard (nordicskilla), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:09 (eighteen years ago) link
See, dudes, like Yoda says, there is no try, there is only do, and this squawky noise blast / nazi-porn-racism anti-music / Jim Goad drunk on Ivy League semiotics and bukkake—it's all try and no "do." And I know that that, supposedly, IS your point, but like, I mean, really—HOW IS THAT A POINT IN 2005 A.D.? It's not.
I feel like there's a bit of shared ground between that and what Melissa's saying. (A lot of divergence, too, though; Hopper seems anti-noise, Melissa just wants noise to be good.) And in a lot of cases, I think I agree with it -- or at least I think it points to a problem that certain parts of the current noise crop are struggling with. There's a big and useful emphasis on the "trying" part -- the breaking-down of things into a raw, fluid state. But then it's kind of an open question whether a band is actually going to build it back up into something different. When they do: sweet. When they don't ... well, a lot of times I have a similar reaction to Melissa's, which is that some bands here really expose how their sounds work -- they make public what it sounds like to be in a room right next to a drum kit, or what it sounds like to really break down sounds with your pedals. And, well, especially if you've done those things yourself, it's easy to get that reaction: "so?"
― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― Christopher Costello (CGC), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dominique (dleone), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:40 (eighteen years ago) link
-- Cousin yogurt beard
Where did you hear this? There's nothing up on the Sonar site yet.
― jimnaseum (jimnaseum), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:46 (eighteen years ago) link
but since I can't argue for objectivity, it's hard to say that kind of stuff without feeling like I'm trolling someone :/
― Dominique (dleone), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:46 (eighteen years ago) link
― Melissa W (Melissa W), Thursday, 23 February 2006 22:03 (eighteen years ago) link
― mcd (mcd), Thursday, 23 February 2006 22:15 (eighteen years ago) link
Yes, but the point is precisely that the songs aren't interesting. And, as pop songs, I think they fail miserably, as they lack any substance.
― Turangalila (Salvador), Friday, 24 February 2006 00:04 (eighteen years ago) link
For the people who don't like this album, what would you put on instead? I know Melissa said Tago Mago, but to me it doesn't really come that close to the feel of Drum's Not Dead, in Can's music there seems to be much more emphasis on jazz influence (long, winding improvisation) and less on pure rhythm.
― Matt McEver (mattmc387), Friday, 24 February 2006 00:10 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dominique (dleone), Friday, 24 February 2006 00:19 (eighteen years ago) link
― Matt McEver (mattmc387), Friday, 24 February 2006 00:30 (eighteen years ago) link
I think the notion that the band isn't inspired and doesn't really believe in what they're doing is not remotely valid ("It sounds joyless and monotonous and uninspired, as if they bored even themselves to death while making it."--Melissa); they're obviously very into um, drums, as their evolution as a band has taken them in a more and more rhythm-centric direction.
Perhaps Melissa is wrong. Maybe they were, in actuality, quite excited whilst recording this album. However, I think the point remains that that excitement, if indeed it was present, didn't translate/reflect onto anything in terms of exploring different sonic possibilities. It's a very limited palette, and, as Dominique pointed out, the resulting sketches are unremarkably simplistic.
For the people who don't like this album, what would you put on instead?Anything else. ;-)
― Turangalila (Salvador), Friday, 24 February 2006 01:01 (eighteen years ago) link
hmm, not comparing sonics (which I might regard as a stylistic element - god I sound like an alien to myself sometimes), it's hard to compare forms and content to other records, chiefly because, like I posted earlier, I don't tend to listen to records that don't seem interesting to me formally, at least a little bit. If we're talking big blocks of structure, big blocks of interraction that don't necessarily evolve or change over time, or are particularly interesting in their own rights, maybe I could say I'd put on the last Orthrelm record. Obviously this is worlds away, stylistically speaking, from the Liars record, but it does involve big, basically simple chunks of monolothic, not extremely inventive forms as a matter of construction. Why I find OV a lot more interesting is 1) because its "parts" seem to pass by quickly (even though in reality, they don't - in fact, it's a very *slow* record in the respect that it takes a long time for different stuff to happen - itself a neat "trick"), so I don't have tons of time to contemplate on its relatively static forms, and 2) it uses its form against itself - that is, it's blasting along for 45 minutes, seemingly never changing (but actually changing), and rather than get bored, I'm lulled ever closer to the smallest details of what's happening. The "big blocks" of activity, of sound, no longer seem like blocks, but of circuits or coastlines or equations that beg to be deconstructed, to be tracked inch by inch. In that light, it seems ultra-intense, unlike my experience with Drum's Not Dead, which is ironically a pretty dead, uneventful experience.
but to be honest, I haven't lived with Liars' record anywhere near as long as I've lived with OV. I was initially drawn to OV just because I thought it sounded cool, and not having that draw with Drum's Not Dead is a big disadvantage
― Dominique (dleone), Friday, 24 February 2006 01:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― cdwill (cdwill), Friday, 24 February 2006 01:26 (eighteen years ago) link