Thinking Plague - In This Life: Classic or Dud?

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My favourite parts about this:

Fred Frith's guitar noise disruptions in "Organism". The slow creepy thick guitar build towards the end of the track.

The section that enters roughly 4:20 in "Love" sounds like Bjork would sound if I could like Bjork. Actually most things about this song are pretty classic - the big blocky stops and starts, the guitar solos.

"Moonsongs" -> the section where the lead singer is crying against the chorus; the electronic stuff that follows with the sliced up voices and the pulsing; the claustrophobic moods; the circular dissonant guitar picking; the unpredictability as to what will follow. Does avant-prog only truly get great past the 15 minute mark?

The way the guitars in the intro to "Possessed" sound like a hyper-chromatic Brian May. Then they break to give way to spooky reverbed melodic oratory against the piano clusters. Then after the first verse, the way the double-tracked soloing feels like tracing totally scattered little dots of light. When the descending arpeggios came in, it took me some time to figure out that they were actually just processed guitars.

At times this album frustrates and annoys me too.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Thursday, 18 September 2003 03:23 (twenty-two years ago)

beyond classic. this record gets better by the year. the instrumentation baffles me; few records manage to have songs this well written fleshed out & studio-arranged with sounds this bizarre; which came first? you can barely tell. Mike Johnson and Bob Drake made for an amazing team.

I love the Bob Drake / Suzanne Lewis records too, particularly Hail's 'Turn of the Screw'. They had an earlier band, much noisier, called Corpses as Bedmates. Brutal and obscure.. I was initially very disappointed by the Bob Drake solo records but once it happened it was like a switch being thrown, they're all great.

But 'In This Life' is the peak. One of the absolute highlights in the Recommended catalog.

― jl (Jon L), Thursday, 18 September 2003 06:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Thanks, I might want to get this. I hadn't realized that Frith ever played with Thinking Plague (who I know mainly just by name). Are there many vocals on this album?

― Al Andalous, Thursday, 18 September 2003 13:37 (twenty-two years ago)

There are melodic theatrical, sometimes almost 'oratorical' female vocals on every track.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Thursday, 18 September 2003 14:10 (twenty-two years ago)

I like Bob Drake solo a lot more than Thinking Plague (or 5uus), both of which are little *too* prog for me. That said, I still want to hear the new TP.

― dleone (dleone), Thursday, 18 September 2003 16:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Mike Johnson can write a mean riff. and I love grandiose 8 minute songs that cycle, focus, drill and land. But without Drake's production, I'd agree Thinking Plague can get to sounding a bit too 'prog'; I like bits of "In Extremis", but it's a very traditional record compared to "In This Life", which is a burning, mutant record, very distinguished from its influences. I'm also looking forward to the new album, and I'm hoping they tour this time.

Drake's solo stuff, the composition is there, but buried under layer after layer of hyper-ornamental studio details (which is good). Also he's excised all repetition, so it requires multiple listenings to unpack the songs from the 1-3 minute fragments, they are very dense constructions. I love 'Medallion Animal Carpet' more each time I listen... still need to order '13 Songs and a Thing' from ReR, it's never in stores.

― jl (Jon L), Thursday, 18 September 2003 18:06 (twenty-two years ago)

four months pass...

VRIL - Effigies in Cork. the Chris Cutler / Bob Drake / Lukas Simonis surf band trio.

first listen: not classic, but fun, with nice songs at the end.
second listen: serious fun, with those songs at the end proceeding to catch in my head for the rest of the day.
lost track of listens now, this record's wonderful. direct hit prog surf. Cutler would shudder if I mentioned King Crimson but Drake would probably nod.

this record sheds all the subterreanean fungal production of the (wonderful) Drake solo records, it's straight up catchy/angular. So accessible in fact that I can see they were forced to call this project VRIL and name the album 'Effigies In Cork' just to diffuse any risk of success...

I also got 'Skull Mailbox', '13 Songs' and 'Little Black Train'. 'Medallion Animal Carpet' is still my favorite but they're all great. New Science Group also growing on me, great pieces but Tickmayer's constant use of sequencers makes listening difficult for me...

― (Jon L), Friday, 13 February 2004 20:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Science Group = 10x better w/vocals.

― dleone (dleone), Friday, 13 February 2004 20:49 (twenty-two years ago)

yes

― (Jon L), Friday, 13 February 2004 20:54 (twenty-two years ago)

two months pass...

wow, how long you been writing for PSF, dleone?

nice article. a cassette of 'little black train' and 'medallion animal carpet' made it's way into my car a month ago and has not left the deck.

― (Jon L), Friday, 23 April 2004 18:47 (twenty-two years ago)

For what it's worth, Drake recently mentioned over on Progressive Ears that there was less than ten copies left of the album. I supposed those are gone by now too. Hrmph.

― Øystein H-O (Øystein H-O), Friday, 23 April 2004 18:55 (twenty-two years ago)

eight months pass...

new album, 53 songs, 40 minutes: http://www.bdrak.com/sounds/shunned.htm

― (Jon L), Monday, 17 January 2005 22:32 (twenty-one years ago)

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