Righteousness knows no wounds!
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Monday, 9 May 2005 17:29 (nineteen years ago) link
― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Monday, 9 May 2005 18:37 (nineteen years ago) link
Good on yer, that's something close to how I felt when I first heard "Soon." Dead Cities left me cold aside from the final track that just went on forever but did so interestingly. This is one reason why I'm so impressed with the new one, it just feels much more ON -- like leaping out of the speakers and enveloping me immediately on -- and the hyperdrama works whereas the previous one's efforts did not. It felt cold, sterile almost, like those Delgados mega-orchestrated albums that left me terribly cold. The sheer *awe* in which "Run Into Flowers" is regarded with by so many is impressive but I just don't feel it at all.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 9 May 2005 19:01 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 9 May 2005 19:06 (nineteen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Monday, 9 May 2005 19:20 (nineteen years ago) link
And then again -- "pure sublime tone and movement, rapturous and melancholy" = that Mogwai track to me. I mean, seriously, this is a great description! I'd just rather use it for another song! :-)
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 9 May 2005 19:26 (nineteen years ago) link
Somewhere way upthread, I compared M83's "Dead Cities" to Spacemen 3's "Playing With Fire". The latter has never been one of my fave S3 albums in part because the drum machines give it a glossy, synthetic quality which I think is unbecoming to S3 (live versions of the same songs are a completely different matter, though).
Similarly, tracks like "Run Into Flowers" and "0078h" have a glossy, overly-polished feel compared to the rawer "Before the Dawn ..." songs, in large part because more real instruments were used. So I can understand why some people would be (perhaps unexpectedly, in the case of someone like Ned) left cold by "Run Into Flowers".
(note: I'm not trying to get all psychoanalytic on him, or argue for the superiority of "real instruments" (yuck))
Furthermore, I would apply those exact criticisms to M83's tour opener, Ulrich Schnauss, who takes an approach to shoegazing that is approx 1000X glossier than anything M83 have done.
― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Monday, 9 May 2005 21:16 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 9 May 2005 21:23 (nineteen years ago) link
― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Monday, 9 May 2005 22:15 (nineteen years ago) link
― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Monday, 9 May 2005 22:17 (nineteen years ago) link
The Mogwai set sounds most special. I'm envious! :-) Glad I've seen them a couple of times, though.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 9 May 2005 22:47 (nineteen years ago) link
― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Wednesday, 11 May 2005 18:24 (nineteen years ago) link
― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 11 May 2005 18:45 (nineteen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 11 May 2005 19:21 (nineteen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 11 May 2005 19:23 (nineteen years ago) link
― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 11 May 2005 19:23 (nineteen years ago) link
― mike h. (mike h.), Wednesday, 11 May 2005 19:35 (nineteen years ago) link
― grimly fiendish, who should be soaking up the sun in greece but is grounded in g, Thursday, 19 May 2005 19:27 (nineteen years ago) link
ysi?
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 19 May 2005 19:40 (nineteen years ago) link
― grimly fiendish, lacking in ouzo (grimlord), Thursday, 19 May 2005 19:44 (nineteen years ago) link
― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Tuesday, 31 May 2005 21:39 (nineteen years ago) link
― phil-two (phil-two), Friday, 3 June 2005 18:44 (nineteen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 3 June 2005 19:22 (nineteen years ago) link
― teeth montrose (Cozen), Saturday, 4 June 2005 21:20 (nineteen years ago) link
― Nic de Teardrop (Nicholas), Sunday, 5 June 2005 01:39 (nineteen years ago) link
Give me grace and chemicals,I want to run into.
― nothing, Sunday, 17 July 2005 06:24 (nineteen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 29 July 2005 22:17 (nineteen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 29 July 2005 22:18 (nineteen years ago) link
― kickitcricket (kickitcricket), Saturday, 10 September 2005 20:56 (nineteen years ago) link
i'd YSI it but hymn doesn't appear to be working with stuff bought in iTunes 6, so ... anyway, it's only 79p. go on, get it. it sounds, basically, like a great lost depeche mode track.
― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Sunday, 6 November 2005 15:18 (eighteen years ago) link
Bloc Party - The Pioneers (M83 remix)
http://s5.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=35BFRBNPNNTIA36WPDBFAVLDH5
― Roz (Roz), Sunday, 6 November 2005 15:45 (eighteen years ago) link
GET DOWNLOADING, THE KIDS.
― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Sunday, 6 November 2005 16:35 (eighteen years ago) link
See, this way you will now see how great Bloc Party are. Wait, where are you going?
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 6 November 2005 17:47 (eighteen years ago) link
This is the best description of M83 I have ever read. Amazing!
― Stuck to a Seat in the New Beverly (Bent Over at the Arclight), Sunday, 6 November 2005 17:53 (eighteen years ago) link
so i got an e-mail -- in french -- a couple of days ago telling me all about m83's new "ambient" album. i was suspicious.
i just listened to the tiny extract -- 1'30" worth of new song -- on myspace (go on, you can guess the address).
i wept. i'm not joking. somehow the music he makes is hard-wired to my soul. it's not even a reaction i try to explain any more.
out on september 3 (in the US and france, anyway; not sure about the UK yet.) i have a feeling it might just pip jesu, trans am and low -- and the mute box set -- to the coveted "grimly album of the year" spot, and i've not even heard the fucker yet.
based on that minute and a half, though ... no, really.
― grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 1 August 2007 10:56 (seventeen years ago) link
ewan pearson has been working on this, apparently.
― haitch, Wednesday, 1 August 2007 12:56 (seventeen years ago) link
I sometimes forget how massively in love I was/have been/still am with M83 (esp. their debut and "Dead Cities..."). Thank you for my new-found anticipation for their/his next disc!
I am, however, doubly intrigued by grimly fiendish's high regard for Trans Am's latest. I'd read it was a return-to-form of sorts (personally, secretly hoping for a "Surrender To The Night" era resurgence of some kind sometime), but hadn't seen "Sex Change" held in such high regard elsewhere {which is my roundabout way of saying, tell me more! (please)}.
― dblcheeksneek, Wednesday, 1 August 2007 13:18 (seventeen years ago) link
my sex change thred in all its glory
it's probably the best thing they've done, to be honest. it's more ... what's the word? "focused", perhaps ... than "surrender" (and certainly than "red line"), and certainly less knowing than "liberation" (which i actually think is enormously under-rated). it's like essence of trans am; all the ingredients distilled into an album of perfection.
really. it's that good. it's better than that. go get.
― grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 1 August 2007 13:24 (seventeen years ago) link
(how did "mi" become "my" there? grr.)
― grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 1 August 2007 13:25 (seventeen years ago) link
the lack of interest in this could also make me weep.
― grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 1 August 2007 22:38 (seventeen years ago) link
Mogwai on "2 Rights Make 1 Wrong" created a song which I still think is probably their finest effort, and nailed the crescendo/epic/lead melody combination SO perfectly, so rightly. It stands out still for me as an example of sublime, careful arrangement, of making sure everything is in its place, of huge scope and quiet, reflective detail. It's a song that makes me glad to be alive.
HAHA this is word-for-word pretty much what I think! I might have 'Kids Will Be Skeletons' just ahead of it for economy purposes, but it's a close-run thing.
― Just got offed, Wednesday, 1 August 2007 23:01 (seventeen years ago) link
just listened to "digital shades volume one". i was going to say it's like the wonder of the music is in some kind of inverse proportion to the shitness of the cover:
http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FrNVGI8iL._SS500_.jpg
but, actually, the more i look, the more i like. don't ask me why.
the music, though ... ah, my god. it's not an album proper -- it's more like a collection of fragments -- but it ends up like distilled essence of M83, and as such is in the orbit of perfection. there's none of the exultation of the last one; it's much more introspective (although, y'know, with M83 these things are relative) and almost painfully poignant in parts.
fundamentally: quite, quite exquisite.
it's less than 40 minutes, too, which probably means i'll listen to it more than some of the other stuff. in fact, i think i'm going to listen again now. sleep? fuck that.
― grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 12 September 2007 23:47 (seventeen years ago) link
(a small but very tired part of me now wishes i'd gone to sleep instead of staying up drinking whisky, listening to M83 and reading irvine welsh.)
― grimly fiendish, Thursday, 13 September 2007 15:05 (seventeen years ago) link
I often wish I'd done things other than reading Irvine Welsh.
― mh, Thursday, 13 September 2007 15:15 (seventeen years ago) link
i often wish more people on ILM liked M83.
― grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 19 September 2007 21:46 (seventeen years ago) link
ah heck i'd probably like these dudes, i'll go download some now
― M@tt He1ges0n, Wednesday, 19 September 2007 21:48 (seventeen years ago) link