yeah, i was always aware of the rumor they had former dcd members, but, then again, the only real members of dcd were lisa gerrard and brendan perry. it's all a wash, but however, as i've fuck-upedly bumbled on about, - Heavenly Bodies are important - so, i'm glad we got that straight. i know it's hard to believe coming from me, but still...
randomly (importantly): search the steve roach remix of black tape for a blue girl's "kinski". it's on a "million tear-stained memories). you need this.
ah. otherwise, finish up collecting the dewdrops catalog. i don't know.
it may have sounded arrogant when i earlier called myself an expert on this genre. well, i am, but i fell out of touch with it about six years ago. Robert, you probably know as much (or perhaps more) than i do at this point.
i might need to leave ilx/ilm, but, before i leave this thread...
- check the c'est la mort discography on discogs- as above for projekt, obviously (and the webstore especially - much of that ethereal stuff for sale isn't even on projekt)- as above for hyperiume, obviously (discogs)- double check third mind on discogs (it's mostly straight darkwave, with some ethereal thrown in)- check out kalinkaland (sp?)- check out ventricle records on discogs (mysterious, lost, ambient-ethereal-goth as hell label)- if you want ethereal ambient, check out the Hypnos label on discogs (this has little to do with anything in this thread, unless you like sad as hell-dreamy ambient stuff)- check out the --ethereal-- section on the Ectophile's Guide to Good Music
I might be forgetting things. I'm trying, however! I'll come back and speak plainly about it, if I recall something else (won't post anymore nonsense).
― existence is punishment (monster mash), Tuesday, 19 January 2016 00:43 (eight years ago) link
hyperium*
― existence is punishment (monster mash), Tuesday, 19 January 2016 00:45 (eight years ago) link
Thanks.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Tuesday, 19 January 2016 14:31 (eight years ago) link
My favourite tracks from Lycia's A Line That Connects are the three that sound quite like something from Tripping Back Into The Broken Days and Time Has Come And Gone. "Blue" is particularly good. It's a great style and I wonder if they could explore it much further.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Monday, 25 April 2016 19:16 (eight years ago) link
Black Tape For A Blue Girl have a new album and they've returned to their original style (weehee). Oscar came back and brought his daughter into the band.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 26 August 2016 13:41 (seven years ago) link
Yup. Entertaining stuff.
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 26 August 2016 14:16 (seven years ago) link
Faith And The Muse - Annwyn, Beneath The Waves. Apparently all based on Welsh mythology, there's a Welsh folk song, one track takes some Goethe for the lyrics, the sleeve has lots of centuries old poetry. "The Dream Of Macsen" and "The Birds Of Rhiannon" are brilliant. Really love this album, it's probably even better than Elyria (although my memory of it isn't too sharp). Bigger soundscapes I think.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Tuesday, 25 October 2016 22:56 (seven years ago) link
Slightly relieved that Tara Vanflower doesn't like Trump.
Lycia uploaded a lot of pre-Wake material
https://soundcloud.com/lyciummusic-lycia
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Tuesday, 8 November 2016 19:39 (seven years ago) link
And speaking of Projekt -- interviewed Sam himself for my latest Bandcamp piece:
https://daily.bandcamp.com/2016/11/09/projekt-records-guide-sam-rosenthal-interview/
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 9 November 2016 18:53 (seven years ago) link
Thanks for the article. Only taken me two months to finally read it. Somehow never noticed they were going more in an ambient direction. Interesting that Plaster is on the new Black Tape album.
In the last days of 2016, Trance To The Sun's newest album Via Subterranea came out.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Tuesday, 31 January 2017 18:57 (seven years ago) link
Faith & Disease - Insularia.
Maybe their most varied studio album (haven't heard the final one yet), taken me an unusually long time to get into this and I might need to come back to it another year to get a fuller effect from it.
"Yellow Dress" must be one of their best songs. I much prefer the first half of "Marie Don't Sleep In Your Makeup" to the second part. There's a cover of Cowboy Junkies "Witches" (not familiar with the original). I like the pairing of "Violet II" and "Space Song II".
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Tuesday, 20 June 2017 23:30 (six years ago) link
Rosewater Elizabeth - Faint
Such a lovely album, more enjoyable overall than Le Petit Morte, but I like the latter just as much because it's more adventurous, unique and the best parts are possibly better. Not sure though. Faint is definitely more watery."It Swallows Me Whole" has beautiful drumming.
Great band, they should rank fairly high among the bands on this thread. Now I have to check out the band that came after: Underwater. Odds and ends of Rosewater Elizabeth are probably too hard to find right now, apart from an album of remixes which I'll pass on for now.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Wednesday, 11 October 2017 00:02 (six years ago) link
Quiet revive to note that Projekt, no doubt in response to my post from two years ago, have re-issued Lycia's Ionia in a limited run of 500 CDs! With t-shirts and tote bags, even, so I can bring Lycia to the farmer's market.
It sounds great, especially blasting it driving down country roads on a freezy winter night.
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Thursday, 7 December 2017 05:28 (six years ago) link
I've been enjoying Speaking Silence and I'll write more about them soon.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 8 December 2017 13:55 (six years ago) link
Demen - Nektyr should probably be mentioned here, TMC probably the closest comparison.
― Siegbran, Monday, 8 January 2018 21:30 (six years ago) link
If we're rounding up thislisty albums from 2017, NOÊTA - Beyond Life And Death also merits a mention. Sounds like something on Projekt from 1996, drawing from Black Tape, DCD and a touch of Americana. The album alternates between a funereal ("Beyond Life") and more organic ("In Drowning") tracks.
― Sanpaku, Tuesday, 9 January 2018 02:59 (six years ago) link
rose chronicles
(kristy thirsk)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-6pP2iMggM
― kolakube (Ross), Tuesday, 9 January 2018 04:17 (six years ago) link
reminds me a lot of lush
― kolakube (Ross), Tuesday, 9 January 2018 04:20 (six years ago) link
That Demen album was among my favourites from last year. Guess I should start listening to This Mortal Coil – my knowledge of the precursors is pretty limited.
Awesome thread, btw.
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 9 January 2018 16:47 (six years ago) link
Thanks guys.
Meant to note a bunch of Japanese bands but I can't remember the tracks I was going to pick.
Fiction and related bands Gille' Loves and Luci'fer Luscious Violenoue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwWHLNb8flMCould have swore one of them had a good song called Sepharita
Jack Or Jive (should have got one or their albums years ago, their presentation is very 4AD but with more extravagant costumes and stage design)Pale Cocoon (very early band in this genre, probably ahead of their time for sad bedroom goth)Funeral Party - Double Platonic SuicideGilles De Rais - Vampire (1981) Kuroyuri Shimai and related band Juri Et Lisa(neoclassical leaning)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60DLx281Tv0https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Uhdgz6jXy8
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, 11 January 2018 17:16 (six years ago) link
Interesting list here. You might need to leave the page to load for several minutes. Has a separate section for EPs. Might be a minefield because there's some obscure choices I adore and quite a few I was underwhelmed by. A lot of new bands I've never heard of. Don't know why some famous bands are listed but no Cure, they even feature a Cure clone.
https://www.dreampop.it
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, 11 January 2018 18:13 (six years ago) link
Demen - Nektyr should probably be mentioned here, TMC probably the closest comparison.― Siegbran, Monday, 8 January 2018 21:30 (five days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Thank you for this - been playing it all week. Really does sound like TMC or Dead Can Dance.
― Chunky Backgammon (onimo), Saturday, 13 January 2018 00:41 (six years ago) link
FVNERALS might fit in here, maybe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMAdkcR-az8
― pomenitul, Sunday, 14 January 2018 02:32 (six years ago) link
I wish I had more knowledge of mixing and production because I'm not quite sure what the issues are with the two Speaking Silence albums I've listened to recently.
Their debut Speak In Silence is really good but maybe some things don't stand out as much as they should? Rise And Fall Of A Decade had a substantial part in the album and it's easy to hear (I think Trees Dance was a full collaboration between Speaking Silence and RaFoaD, it's one of my holy grails). RaFoaD have done a couple of excellent Cocteau Twins pastiches and Speaking Silence have "The Call From Inside" which is about as good.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYmv7BTSaE0I wish there was a youtube video of "The Lost Tale" because it's them doing their own thing and probably the best track.
I'd be surprised if the third and last album The Twilight World sounds the way it was supposed to. I found it far too dense for their style but the songs are still quite good, particularly the first two.
I just paid a bit too much for their second album, so I hope it's good and closer to the earlier more rococo style. They later joined the band Am'ganesha'n.
I recall looking up the people Rise And Fall Of A Decade mentioned in one of their songs years ago and finding a lot of them were Nazi sympathizers but on checking again I don't know why I though this was so. Back then I didn't know who most of these people were but now only half are unfamiliar: Boris Vian, Jacques Brel, Simone De Beauvior, Raymond Queneau, Robert Doisneau, Jean Paul Sartre, Bernard Blier, Michel Audiard, Antione Blondin, Juliette Greco, Serge Gainsbourg, Serge Reggiani.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 9 February 2018 22:56 (six years ago) link
huge fan of Irish artist Catscars and this EP is incredible: https://soundcloud.com/catscars/sets/ep1-faster
― algorithm is a dancer (katherine), Wednesday, 28 February 2018 23:58 (six years ago) link
Years ago when I was delving into goth lists for stuff I would never find in regular music shops (really the start of my finding the sort of music this thread is about), Arcana's Dark Age Of Reason kept getting mentions, so I've wanted it for a long time. It's neoclassical and I'm sure lots of metalheads will appreciate it, sleeve art is gorgeous. But I think that the acclaim is probably mostly based on the first few tracks, but seriously, check out "Source Of Light", it's really wonderful.https://arcana.bandcamp.com/album/dark-age-of-reasonOnly a small sample of the album, "Angel Of Sorrow" is lovely too if you find the whole album.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 4 May 2018 20:55 (six years ago) link
Cantar de Procella is pretty great, album after Dark Age of Reason... I actually just bought Petrichor the other day, a collection of b-sides and other ephemerata.
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Friday, 4 May 2018 21:21 (six years ago) link
I might have to resort to MP3 for Cantar de Procella. Very expensive second hand.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 4 May 2018 22:05 (six years ago) link
expensive on vinyl, you mean?
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Friday, 4 May 2018 22:28 (six years ago) link
Just the CD copies
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 4 May 2018 23:28 (six years ago) link
Bel Canto - Shimmering, Warm & Bright
There's a bunch of good songs, the slightly aquatic german track is lovely and "Mornixuur" is gorgeous but overall it's just okay and probably suffers from the departure of Geir.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 25 May 2018 17:51 (six years ago) link
It was a couple of years ago but the few webcam performances on Lycia's official youtube channel are worth seeing.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 26 May 2018 18:35 (six years ago) link
I totally missed this Mike VanPortfleet interview from 2013 somehow.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS72VwlXsxQ
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 2 June 2018 14:19 (five years ago) link
Orange - Complete Recordings is the length of a regular album and it's a typical case of occasionally pleasant but poorly written and extremely derivative, formulaic dreampop.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 29 June 2018 18:17 (five years ago) link
it's a better album that at least two by the cocteau twins though
― com rad erry red flag (f. hazel), Friday, 29 June 2018 23:22 (five years ago) link
than
― com rad erry red flag (f. hazel), Friday, 29 June 2018 23:23 (five years ago) link
Oooh.
I owned the original LP release in 1994 (hi Brent et al from Dewdrops Records and the 4AD-email list), and if I recall, I'd rank it as 6.5 best amongst a 9 album CT discography. Ie: Head Over Heals > Blue Bell Knoll > Treasure > Heaven or Las Vegas > Victorialand > Garlands Orange > The Moon and the Melodies > Milk & Kisses > Four-Calendar Cafe.
Orange (13) (as discogs number them) was the only 90s dreampop which really appreciated how important Ella Fitzgerald and vocal improv was to CT's formula. Most everything else at the time was morose hymns by former choir girls.
It's not all as good as the following, but this is an ideal that the Projekt folks never aspired to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IC_KR75liQ
That said, Orange wasn't the best thing on Dewdrops. For that, I'd recommend Glisten by Elysium (4), which remains one of the best late autumnal records I've heard.
― Roomba with an attitude (Sanpaku), Saturday, 30 June 2018 01:18 (five years ago) link
Lots of good dreampop in the mid-90s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxFhd1k5enM
― com rad erry red flag (f. hazel), Saturday, 30 June 2018 01:50 (five years ago) link
I like April March too, but at the time considered them on the shoegaze side of the fence.
But there, hear how all the vocal lines are these long things without syncopation that line up with measures? That's part of what I grew to dislike about dreampop/etherial/etc through the 90s. Even in an obscure genre indie musics there was a conscious rejection of rhythmic play, as if to syllabylize on upbeats might mean one's giving in to the urban music juggernaut. Liz Frazer may have sounded like a wounded dolphin live, but at least on the releases she sounded like she was playing against the beats. Like Ella.
― Roomba with an attitude (Sanpaku), Saturday, 30 June 2018 02:31 (five years ago) link
that's an interesting observation!
― com rad erry red flag (f. hazel), Saturday, 30 June 2018 02:40 (five years ago) link
don't sleep on rose chronicles, kirsty thirsk's former band
― music saved my life (Ross), Saturday, 30 June 2018 02:43 (five years ago) link
I think the singer for Orange has a great sounding voice but doesn't sing very well, like even the "writing" of the vocal parts just isn't very good. Almost seems like she didn't care to learn all the lyrics for the Pixies cover.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, 1 July 2018 09:28 (five years ago) link
Just revisiting the two Salt Garden EP's by Fovea Hex, they haven't been mentioned on this thread. Somehow they're classified as ambient or avant-folk, but to my ears it's much closer to DCD/'ethereal goth' than anything else.
― Siegbran, Friday, 13 July 2018 10:45 (five years ago) link
Area - Between Purple And Pink
Fantastic, I rank it above Radio Caroline but just below The Perfect Dream. "Brave Parade", "Rail", "Our Corner Drowning" and "Dry Spell" are all particularly fine.
"The only thing crueler than an emptiness is a promise winding over our heads"
"Take me where the water runs deep and chain me there so that I might sleep"
"Someone said it's getting boring, for about the hundredth time"
Sorry to Lynn Canfield if I got the lyrics wrong.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 3 August 2018 18:14 (five years ago) link
Just two Area albums to get and one more Moon Seven Times album. Then there's Shotgun Wedding and I whole bunch of Lanterna.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 3 August 2018 18:16 (five years ago) link
First Lanterna album is 100x classic (as are the first couple Moon Seven Times records... don't think I ever got Sunburnt?)
― com rad erry red flag (f. hazel), Friday, 3 August 2018 20:08 (five years ago) link
My Medicine is like the most midwestern shoegazing track ever
― com rad erry red flag (f. hazel), Friday, 3 August 2018 20:13 (five years ago) link
Faith & Disease's fifth and final studio album is a bit like Insularia (third album). I liked things about it but again it taken quite a while and never clicked as much as I wanted it to. Even Beneath These Trees (fourth album) was a similar experience but sounds distinctly different (pretty much a folk album) and features probably their best song ever. But I really prefer the first two albums.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 5 October 2018 19:02 (five years ago) link
Black Tape For A Blue Girl - As One Aflame Laid Bare By Desire
Could this be called a concept album about a Marcel Duchamp piece?
I've got quite a few albums still to get but I'll be surprised if "Given" isn't one of their top 3 songs. Marvelous.
The sequence of "Your One Wish", "Dulcinea", "The Green Box" and "Denouement/Denouncement" is a great string of tracks.
Not one of my favorite albums by them but the highlights are as strong as they've ever been before.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 8 December 2018 15:54 (five years ago) link
It's a great record yes. Any thoughts on the Black Tape and DCD records they put out this year?
― Siegbran, Monday, 10 December 2018 13:23 (five years ago) link