I heard this album last night on, The Edge Of The Ape Oven......placed my order before the radio show was over!

Susan Alcorn - Evening Tales

Christian Fennesz & Jim O'Rourke - It's Hard For Me to Say I'm Sorry

Prior to that ...

The Game - Streets of Compton
Sonic Youth - Spinhead Sessions

Feel like I'm forgetting some stuff, but whatevs

cassette goodness waiting on me when I returned home:





I just placed a $200 order from BLRR taking advantage of their half off 4th discount.

Nice! By the way, I'm gonna start taking pictures of my goodies too - it's much cooler than posting "stock photos". :)

what are your thoughts on the music?

Simply put, I think the actual music is heavenly. Less droney than I had expected, but it's by no means a disappointment. I think it's a pretty perfect confluence of the two artists' styles. 7 minutes into "I Just Want You to Stay" those Fennesz tones really come out and shine, and the surrounding ambience is weird and epic. I also really love about 5 min into "Wouldn't Wanna Be Swept Away." There's that fuzzed out strumming in the background (that kind of shit always gets me, especially when it's as elegiac as it is here) and I feel like that section serves as the climax of the song and maybe the album, even though there's a good 12 minutes left by the time things begin to come back to earth.

I think Christian takes front and center for most of the climactic moments, but it's that fuzzed out guitar — which has to be Jim... just has to... but correct me if I'm wrong — that really makes me turn that track up and zone out.

There's nothing about it I don't like.... musically. And I guess I'm more or less over the cover photo, since I don't have to look at that shit if I don't want to. I don't think it will nevessarily rank among my favorite releases of the year, but that may change. I think it's a beautiful record.

But that's pretty much what I was expecting. Again, big fan of both artists here. No surprise that I like the album.

Last album I bought was Aphex Twin's Cheetah EP by the way. Did I say that already? Oh well. Fuck it.

See above, yo.

got it... I was curious about your impression cuz I found the music sort of slight and amorphous, nothing really grabbed me the first time through. but i've only given it a cursory (surface) listen. still, it sounds like something stereotypical of Fennesz; drifting, 'pretty', not very much definition, nor did it seem to possess anything striking, texturally. it's possible that it warrants a closer listen?

Well, it is a Fennesz record (mostly), so if you're not into Christian Fennesz, you probably won't be into it. I'm a Fennesz fan. And an O'Rourke fan. And I like it quite a bit, but it's not the kind of album I'm going to blast in my car every day for two week.

But I'd say yes, it deserves a closer listen.

I like it more with each listen. The Fennesz/O'Rourke alb. that is. It's got a lot to offer.

I really, really loved Bécs from 2014. I know some folks thought it was "boring," but to me it was just beautiful and captivating and kind of epic in a low key, moody kind of way.

when i hear fuzzed out guitar feedback in my mind Jim O'Rourke is what i see/hear..

im interested in hearing this new shitcbased on Severian's review

So glad I inspired an interest in hearing this "new shit cd" ;)

Hmmm... For this album think less Sonic Nurse, more the pedal steel guitar on Bad Timing, perhaps.

Last album I bought was that new Avalanches record, kind of on impulse, last weekend. I just realized that I hadn't even bothered to listen to it after hearing that awful "Frankie Sinatra" track that even Danny Brown and MF doom could save. So I bought it on iTunes.

It's actually better than I expected after hearing that terrible single. Not mind blowing or anything but a fun listen so far. They seem to be borrowing pretty liberally from Daft Punk and some hip-hop producers (No ID for one, Rick Rubin too... Ye... Danger Mouse maybe) without a great deal of shame. But not so much that they've lost a sound of their own.

Yeah, definitely not Sonic Nurse.

I'm liking the album more with every listen. Only listened about 5 times, but still. It's very good and very rich, sonically. O'Rourke has been on point lately.

Where are the Soup Nazi pics?

More cassette goodness arrived at my door this week:

I haven't remembered to steal ER I MEAN BORROW the office's camera. I don't have a pic-taking phone. I don't even have a landline. What's so great about talking to people anyway? Fuck 'em!

 

:D

By the way, I was reading an article on Jim from around the time Simple Songs came out, and he said the time he spent with Richard Thompson and Werner Herzog playing on the Grizzly Man soundtrack were "the greatest two days of my life".

(To anyone who doesn't own a copy of that soundtrack: get it before I slap your FACE.)

Not wanting to get slapped, 'Grizzly Man' is now on my list of things to get. To be honest, I didn't know a thing about the Soundtrack. However, I see where Damon Smith plays double bass and Henry Kaiser produces it. I've been buying a good deal of Damon Smith releases......from the two cassettes in my previous post to a CD he released with Henry Kaiser earlier this year.