Big Country - s/d, c or d?

wld listen

same.

Heh reminds me of the Godspeed you black emperor ambient collage I pasted together years ago. no crescendos, all spooky glockenspiels and trains and guitar echoes

spooky glockenspiels a pretty ripe band name, i reckon.

I imagine that ambient album as described would be pretty awesome. It might also sound a bit like Frippertronics.

Speaking of ambience, the opening minute-plus of "Porrohman" could be sampled to endless purposes. This live clip may be one of the videos I posted above in this thread that have since disappeared. It's great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQRxbjyQceo

I've posted him before because he's awesome but:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBpXK5LMzXA

talking of ambient, it was fun to revisit some skids' deep cuts knowing what i know now about eno and fripp and cluster et al

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dAJxkfcehQ
Skids - Snakes & Ladders (Peel Session, 1980) - sounds like some sort of ambient guitar pedal demo from 2017 tbh, knobs eat yr heart out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_sY9ljUFac
Skids - A Man For All Seasons (The Absolute Game bonus disk, 1980) - lots of pitch-shifted guitar over some roedelius-esque bloopiness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mznYLqLicxE
Skids - Peaceful Times (Days In Europa, 1979) - big dose of bill nelson backwards magic on this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avbvgbGBnCY
Skids - Surgical Triumph (The Absolute Game bonus disk, 1980) - another another green world

I haven't heard a Big Country album yet, but I listened to Days in Europa last year. Can't say that I loved the songs, but it sounded to me like the unexpected bridge between Devo and U2 that I'd never imagined existed.

i like that characterisation of them! they were actually an influence on u2 - i think that when staurt adamson died, the edge said something like stuart was the guitarist that the edge always wanted to be. also there was that horrendous u2/green day cover of 'the saints are coming'

the devo-ish nerd punk thing did carry over to some of the early big country songs. this one definitely springs to mind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8G-VQom2kM

(there is an early demo version of that somewhere with synths instead of guitars)

Good long feature: https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-life-and-hard-times-of-big-country-and-stuart-adamson

thanks alfred, enoyed reading that

Really interesting to read that the bagpipe guitars were in some ways a happy accident by way of avoiding playing anything bluesy. Lots of melodic scales, harmonies, drones, etc.,

Yeah, that was a good read. Also confirms the huge role Lillywhite played in creating their sound.

Great set here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UlnVnQ06ZM

tough read tbh but a good one.

re the whole guitars/bagpipes thing, the comparison’s always struck me as a disservice. it was never a gimmick, and to the extent that any particular riff “sounds like bagpipes” what we’re hearing is less an effect than a melodic/harmonic sensibility.

show me a rock guitar genius suckled on highland folk music and I’ll show you a guitar that sounds like a bagpipe.

hot take: nothing in big country's music sounds like bagpipes.

sidebar: this revive has me jamming the skids for the first time in my life and i'd just like to say to the collective here that you guys are fucking awesome. thank you so much for letting me eavesdrop on your conversations and take notes.

Just watched the drummer video above, it's good. I liked in the article how Brzezicki talked about taking marching band inspiration from Steve Gadd, I wouldn't have made that connection but it makes sense.

hot take: nothing in big country's music sounds like bagpipes.

exactly. but something in big country's music made some people think of bagpipes. given the former, I'm curious about the latter.