[Genteel Death]

To me it sounds like some passive aggressive ambient garbage with some tumblr cover to decorate it. I didn't even listen to the whole album because I clicked through it on Youtube and didn't like the sound of it at all. I should work for Pitchfork but I have a job already and it pays for electricity etc. I'll give it sub zero temperatures with no jumper on.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Genteel Death

To me it sounds like some passive aggressive ambient garbage with some tumblr cover to decorate it. I didn't even listen to the whole album because I clicked through it on Youtube and didn't like the sound of it at all. I should work for Pitchfork but I have a job already and it pays for electricity etc. I'll give it sub zero temperatures with no jumper on.

How the fuck would we ever be able to check out new music without YouTube??

 

Perhaps jump into a 1990s time machine and visit a Blockbuster Music

[Genteel Death]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

How the fuck would we ever be able to check out new music without YouTube??

 

Perhaps jump into a 1990s time machine and visit a Blockbuster Music

Youtube is only one (great) site on the internet.

[dead_battery]

thats why i spent £150 on a thermal parka. when theres no money for heating oil it comes in handy. hot enough to sleep in even.

[Severian]

shade themes from kairos has some of the best cover art of the year, that's for goddamn sure.

I put together a massive list of the best albums of the first half of the year, but I am ever the perfectionist with these things, and it's grown to be about 100 albums long. I'm certain "best of so far" lists are not supposed to be that extensive.

Right now my top five are:

KidKanevil - My Little Ghost
Perfect Pussy - Say Yes to Love
Fennesz - Bécs
The Oh-Sees - Drop
SWANS - To Be Kind
... Fuck it I'll just upload the whole list.

[dead_battery]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

Perhaps jump into a 1990s time machine

your brain brah?

you are a very 90s guy.

posting these media images all day long. your unconscious is cluttered with advertising and ephemera from the 90s

i suppose we are all like this now.

cyberpunx unite.

[guest]

that wolves review is sad, sure the record is nothing special at all but there's a definite agenda behind that piece and it's decidedly unfair to the bands themselves, merely because they haven't conformed to the template a multimillion dollar corporation has ascribed to them. will try and dig up some fun links re: pitchfork and the thinking behind their reviews, quite interesting stuff.

[dead_battery]

i think its a really good album. very special. new age black metal - finally!

in fact it is the best thing ive heard all year, and the only thing that has made my sad week bearable.

[dead_battery]

what do u gifs think of this years vaperwave?

sometimes i think my brain would be more healthy listening to this stuff since its very computer and i am basically an accessory for computers now considering that im only really off them when i sleep, and even then i wake up in the middle of the night to check my new spam.

http://nima.bandcamp.com/album/see-feel-reel

most of the time i wish it would be less spacious and more layered.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by dead_battery

the pitchfork review of celestite is further example of who the real enemy is.

they do that thing that every idiot (including board members here) does by attributing postures to any kind of artistic endeavour as if the artist was only able to make moves in the preset space of critical expectations. and they always use parenthesis to imply how ABOVE it all they are. so in the celestite review they claim wolves are trying to be "bold" by deciding to "alienate" their fans. yet nowhere have wolves ever said this.

its the basic move that these idiots do to broadcast their self consciousness to everyone else. "oh, you were trying to do something so pretentious when we really just wanted good fun".

the implication is that you cant do anything in art but cater to the demand for dumbed down crap that these fans want or else they'll ridicule you with their mocking buzzwords as if theyve totally seen through you. so they sneer that you think you're so "transgressive" or something.

the whole review is one big snide pretending not to be snide attack on wolves, with the implication that they should be dumber and think less.

because these people are so crippled by their own self consciousness that its threatening to them to witness any kind of artistic exploration at all, because they think this is so niaeve and can't handle it since they only consume to cement their own conservatism. which entails ridiculing music for existing at all from a non perspective that pretends to have seen it all and be capable of out sneering anything. and of course the one thing that that sneer can't see through is itself but they don't realize it.

they have to be able to constantly pitch accusations in parenthesis at people "bold" "transgressive" "deep", whatever. the point is to totally destroy music and ruthlessly reaffirm that it can be about and mean precisely nothing ever.

and as ive pointed out before, the reason people have to do this so badly is not because they actually know better...

its very threatening to these people when an artist dares to criticise their fans, which is why wolves had to get this kind of treatment in the p4k review.

-

and also, fantano reviewed this and did it well. i think he's to be credited for not falling into the traps that p4k does and for always trying to take the artist on their own terms and never resorting to snark. whereas in p4k its very obvious the reviewers get a sad thrill out of being conservative gatekeepers who can shit on anything interesting in the name of the empty, vacuous crap that they got paid to promote. at times pitchfork seems like an industry mag that exists solely to turn people off underground music that would be a threat to the big labels.

fantano is a one man band who does better work than p4k, in fact you dont even need p4k whatsoever.

-

quietus on the other hand are interested in wider social/political contexts and try (often awkwardly) to include as many references to cool philosophy and stuff, they are doing what some of the old music mags did before they all died in the 90's. this is definitely definitely to be highly applauded for the memes it spreads, but it does tend slide over into showing off sometimes. and often quietus writers come across as the unlikable, upper class hipsters they are, who would probably be more comfortable making fun of people outside their clique than reviewing albums.

Yeah that pitchfork review was fucking terrible. And maybe I just stopped paying attention, but I don't recall the review ever pointing out that the release is a companion piece to the last Wolves album, designed to provide a more experimental & novel perspective of the music on "Celestial Lineage."

Sometimes I think their writers are completely unfamiliar with the artists they're reviewing, so they sort through press releases and "cram" on facts about the band's past rather than listening to the music and viewing it as its own entity.

Not all music writers are assholes mind you. I myself have a blog, and write reviews. My golden rule is that I never write negative ones. What's the point? I want to get people interested in good music . Not show off how snarky I can be.

I think it may be the only "positivist" music blog out there. I'm proud of it, for what it is. I've received good feedback from a few artists and labels. It's not a career. It's a hobby. I write to make myself and others happy. And pitchfork is my mortal enemy.

Though I do wish they'd hire me. I'd love to clean up that shit hole.

[guest]

Originally Posted by dead_battery

i think its a really good album. very special. new age black metal - finally!

in fact it is the best thing ive heard all year, and the only thing that has made my sad week bearable.

I'm with the genteel on this one. why would you listen to this when TD have like hundreds of records or whatever? wolves making this style of music seems pretty much redundant to me, there's so little abrasion to it which is needed when you're making throwback wallpaper muzak.

 

good area - pronunciation [hanson]

 

kevin drumm & jason lescalleet - the abyss [erstwhile]

 

james ferraro - suki girlz [self released]

-----

d_b drop some vaporwave on my headcage, I fell way behind with that stuff.

[chocolate_ladyland]

what exactly is vaporwave? i've listened to some of the stuff labeled as such but it seems to range anywhere from lo-fi R&B to ambient synth collage shit to beat tapes. is it all just music rooted in the nostalgia of "cheap" music?

[chocolate_ladyland]

I love that james ferraro album from last year though. I hear the buzzphrase "demented R&B" used too frequently now, but NYC hell 3 AM is about the only album that really qualifies.

[guest]

I see it as a logical permutation of seapunk, but whereas those bros were about trying to create an alternate reality by way of gleaming elements from a purported utopia vaporwave is more the opposite, attempting to convey the coldness of modern society via re-contextualised sounds drawn from capitalist enterprise. ie concept more than anything else. ground zero and pretty much the defining statement of the whole thing is pretty much just FAR SIDE VIRTUAL, but ferraro seemed to tire of this pretty quickly and moved into his fucked r&b phase. that record was far more exhausting and confronting than anything else the genre has produced (of which I've heard, at least) and was very much grounded squarely between the musicality and theory the genre provides. much prefer his recent spate of material though, NYC hell was a total masterwork, able to be appreciated more so as a musical work and without the inextricable context.

[chocolate_ladyland]

Originally Posted by guest

convey the coldness of modern society via re-contextualised sounds drawn from capitalist enterprise

very good description. you should write about music. seriously

[guest]

thanks dude, but she's a dead industry. // dealing with interminable knobs like myself sounds positively awful.

[tw2113]

 

Honestly a bit surprised at how much I'm liking this one. "I Love You But I Must Drive Off This Cliff Now" by Got A Girl aka Dan the Automator and Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by tw2113

 

Honestly a bit surprised at how much I'm liking this one. "I Love You But I Must Drive Off This Cliff Now" by Got A Girl aka Dan the Automator and Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

okay. i juuuuuust started playing this. at your suggestion.

thanks?

will get back to you in a month or a day, depending.

ps- im liking it

so thanks

adiós, bill

--

ps track 1: yes. track 2: skip. oh-oh...

[_tunic_]

I usually don't like electronic disco hophip whatever music, but even I might like this one. She's got a great voice. Would have liked it much more if there were real drums though, it all sounds too fake for me now

[!@#$%!]

i listened to the whole thing yesterday. i don't have time to do a track-by-track thing (i was keeping track but i lost count so if i post my notes they'd fall on the wrong places) but generally i'll say:

-i enjoyed about 80-90% of it (lost count, sorry)

-the other 10-20% was grating and insufferable.

-the girl's voice was pretty, kind of between a more childish trish keenan (whom i love/d) and a less
perverted jenny lewis

-that guy suddenly talking about some sandwich or some shit was clearly the worst part of it all. [eta: it killed the mood.]

-the tracks i enjoyed (and i did) were either portishead-lite or stereolabbish. i dont' say this in a pejorative way but rather as a descriptive.

-where they went in the direction of portishead (there were familiar beats i couldn't exactly point from memory right now) it was with a less ominous and therefore more "relaxable" sound meaning it won't suddenly jar your nerves or make you anxious.

-"italian 60s pop infuenced" (i'm quoting from the comments either here or in the other thread) tracks were sort of an easy listening less complex stereolab (with less psychedelic or revolutionary tendencies) that while less musically interesting still offer a pleasant lounge vibe that won't wear out when mixed with other stuff.

to sum it up: i'd toss a couple of horrid unslistenable tracks away but i'll add the rest to my chillout playlists for years of future fun. thanks for posting it up here.