Whatever happened to... Maxwell?

i love whatever instrument it is thats used at the start of pretty wings.

i believe it's an instrument called the gamelan, from indonesia (where i'm living) they're kinda like tuned mini gongs, usually grouped in 8 or 10 and lined up in a scale. it sounds to me like maybe it's the javanese brand of gamelan (as opposed to balinese or sundanese, which have slightly different microtunings) me and some indonesian rap dudes i hang with have sat around several times trying to determine if it's a loop from a gamalan cd or a producer playing it on a sampler - on one hand that intro sounds very much like the instruments are generally played live to me, but listening closely i can hear melody lines with just one gamelan playing coming in and out later on in the song, so i guess it's probably just samples. but i'm thinking the guy playing them has heard a gamelan record or two, he's got the style down well enough to have fooled me at first, and i listen to shitloads of gamelan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZAumC4JP3o&feature=related

man pretty wings is just so damn... pretty! and serious staying power, in this age of easy all-you-can-listen-to downloads 99.9% of everything i download only gets a single listen from me, maybe 2 if it's my favorite artist or something... but this one keeps popping up on my stereo a LOT. hell, i just listened to it 4 times in a row reading this thread!

just re-listened to this recently. the first four tracks are so amazing and i think "why don't i listen to this all the time?!" then the second half is like "oh yeah, huh".

i'm so ready for a new album from this band, but it seems like his momentum has slowed down a bit?

isnt this meant to be part of a trilogy?

"this album doesn't have a sense of melody?"

his sense of melody has *changed*, not disappeared.

iirc he had 3 albums' worth of material in the can over the long break, although I dunno if that means the other albums are totally done or if he's continued to work on them. the 2nd was initially going to be released less than a year later, but i think the 1st did so well that he's just riding it out with as many singles and tours as he can and it looks like the next one's pushed back to 2011.

i haven't listened enough to his earlier stuff to really compare, but the last album's melodies didn't sound especially different from before, or closer to other stuff on the radio.

if anything, i feel like there's ~more~ of a focus on melody than on his previous albums

^^^ yup

I listened to the album this morning thanks to this thread, and, yup: it's still my favorite album of 2009.

"pretty wings" is really good but when he goes into his slurry soul-man vamps it sounds like "pret-ty WANGS" and i laugh every time...

― flying squid attack (tipsy mothra), Monday, August 17, 2009 1:07 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark

Whatever happened to....Samwell?

http://answers.encyclopedia.com/question/did-robert-maxwell-die-296910.html

evan r. linked this to me on twitter just now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62c2oTTSLJM

How're those other two records coming, Maxwell? And don't pretend you don't follow this thread.

Maxwell duets w/Alicia Keys on her new LP... http://stupiddope.com/2012/11/20/alicia-keys-maxwell-fire-we-make-new-music/

god urban hang suite is ridic

hear hear

embrya is the greatest thing in the world

i've literally only listened to maxwell over the past few days...

i'm digging embrya but now is a bit better i think. the criticism that people levy against voodoo (too focused on grooves at the expense of songs) is something that i think actually applies to embrya to an extent, but that's still a raw record. "drowndeep" def has to be one of his best songs.

there's a dearth of writing about maxwell... i want to read a fucking tome about these albums right now

i hope when he comes back he goes thru w/ that full albums tour

I endured a Maxwell phase in September and came away thinking Embrya was my least favorite, although "Cococure" is one hell of an aural bask.

Now's "Changed" is my new favorite.

i've listened to "whenever, wherever, water" like 40 times in the last 24 hours

yeah i went through a phase late summer where all i listened to on the way to work every day was "drowndeep: hula"

i wrote an extended thing about "pretty wings" four years ago but no way would i show that to anyone

now, you guys

i mean you knew it and i knew it but for some reason i never listen to this record

i'd love to read anything about pretty wings tbh

nope, i wrote it in 2009 and i spend way too much time shitting on maxwell's pre-blacksummer'snight stuff (why) and sade (what was wrong w/ me)

now indeed

think i was trying to situate "pretty wings" as kind of new, "realer" sonic territory for him but he had already flexed plenty with now so whatever @ 21-year-old me

http://selinadee.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/537924_10151154448130997_2001650783_n.jpg

stoked cant lie

aaahhhhhhhhhhh hyped

oh, he says that's a PARTIAL tracklist. hmmmm. does that mean he's still recording more songs?

i love maxwell so much goddammit

what if that's the album cover

sticky note sadeness

passiveaggressivenotes4ursoul

summers' apparently coming out "later summer early fall" which uhhh hope it happens. also a duet ep with alicia?

http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/the-juice/1569258/maxwell-talks-new-summers-album-upcoming-duets-ep-with-alicia

man was that clip of "gods" ever posted in this thread?

https://soundcloud.com/the-known-unknown/gods-1-13-audio-teaser-rough

sounds incredible

so good.

only on my most recent listen to blacksummers'night did i realize how great the drumming is???

This guy is one of the all-time greats. Hope the next album is the one where he finally gets recognized as such outside of the usual neo-soul circles.

Actually, that's greedy. I just hope the album gets released soon.

I listened to Now this morning while showering; it convinced me I've never gotten tired of "Lifetime."

re drums - Help Somebody (the final minute!) and Bad Habits especially.

also the end of the "phoenix rise" instrumental

album is a treasure trove of great outros

man was that clip of "gods" ever posted in this thread?

https://soundcloud.com/the-known-unknown/gods-1-13-audio-teaser-rough

sounds incredible

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Thursday, July 11, 2013 4:22 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

yeah what the fuck !!

But you know, it's gonna be more hi-fi. Do you know Sam Smith? That "Latch" song, man. Not that we’re doing full Disclosure, but for me one of the ways God has been so good is I work with the people who are the best on some level.

no idea how to interpret those sentences but they sound neat

my interpretaton is he's going to zhuzh it up a bit

"Latch" yes, not "full Disclosure" right on. He knows exactly how much we can stand of them.