Best Ever Albums

Re: CLOSED- BNMAT- Confield def Shields

MrFrogger — Wed, 15 May 2013 23:24:31 GMT

Author: MrFrogger

Posted: 05/16/2013 03:24

This thread made me discover Confield which is amazing, I am respectfully defeated, good job yourself.

Re: CLOSED- BNMAT- Confield def Shields

Anonymous — Wed, 15 May 2013 23:21:17 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 05/16/2013 03:21

Wow I really did not expect Confield to do well. Its been fun seeing it not only hold its own but actually win a match; and more importantly knowing some people have discovered, listened to, and enjoyed it. I'm just very happy right now. 🤣

Re: CLOSED- BNMAT- Confield def Shields

Anonymous — Wed, 15 May 2013 19:34:02 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 05/15/2013 23:34

CONFIELD BREAKS THROUGH THE TOUGH SHIELD OF GRIZZLY BEAR AND WINS

Re: CLOSED- BNMAT- Confield def Shields

Anonymous — Sun, 12 May 2013 05:28:16 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 05/12/2013 09:28

While Shields is a better album on repeated listens and a good album in it's own right, for some reason I've never really been able to connect to it, at least on a level more than I appreciate it and think it's good. I get this really eerie feel from Confield, and Pen Expers is one of the best electronic tracks I've ever heard. Even though Frogger will hate me, I say Confield.

Re: CLOSED- BNMAT- Confield def Shields

Anonymous — Sun, 12 May 2013 03:03:31 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 05/12/2013 07:03

I find the Grizzly Bear album to be listenable I suppose, although it hasn't hit home quite yet. Either way, it's hard to match up against the complexity of Confield.

yourself wrote:

I apologize for the length of this, but all attempts to edit it end up making it longer...here is my rant on Confield:

I liked it. Some interesting interpretations on the sounds of the album, and some interesting information in there as well. It feels like you put plenty of thought into your favorite albums.

Re: CLOSED- BNMAT- Confield def Shields

MrFrogger — Sat, 11 May 2013 20:52:28 GMT

Author: MrFrogger

Posted: 05/12/2013 00:52

So I guess I have to promote Shields now, although if you haven't listened to it, and are purely judging it on Grizzly Bear's past work, don't. Go listen to it.

Now that that's out of the way, here's some songs

Link

"Yet Again" acts as the tentpole for the album's first have, both combining the complexity of Ed and Daniels harmonies, with the dark folk-y sound that encapsulates a great portion of this album

Link

But its not all dark, and grizzly bear proves to us that they can still make empowering music, similar to that on Vekatamist.

So yeah, it's a great album.

Re: CLOSED- BNMAT- Confield def Shields

Norman Bates — Sat, 11 May 2013 12:37:48 GMT

Author: Norman Bates

Posted: 05/11/2013 16:37

I voted for Confield.

Re: CLOSED- BNMAT- Confield def Shields

Anonymous — Sat, 11 May 2013 02:58:55 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 05/11/2013 06:58

Shields was a horrid listening experience for me. One of the most boring albums I've ever listened to. I'm listening to the Autechre album right now though, I like what I've heard by Autechre so I might like this one (and it sounds promising so far).

EDIT: Went with Confield

Re: CLOSED- BNMAT- Confield def Shields

Defago — Fri, 10 May 2013 22:03:06 GMT

Author: Defago

Posted: 05/11/2013 02:03

dividesbyzero wrote:

the satire to content ratio of this post is mind-blowing

Confield is an amazing IDM album. It uses little melody, confusing (to the point of nonexistance) rhythms and textures which create little atmosphere. It is cold, clinical and calculated; out of this world would be an accurate literal description. An extraordinary album playing in its own league. The IBM factory simile I used previously still stands, but in a positive manner.

Shields is the best album by Grizzly Bear, one of the best bands (and one of the few decent) to emerge from the recent indie folk movement. Using unconventional chord progressions and melodies, this album combines the textures and atmospheres of Yellow House with the energy of Veckatimest almost perfectly. It's sounds very vintage, yet very modern; eerie and strange, yet you want to sing along; energic, yet relaxed and thoughtful.

Both albums are amazing within their genres, and a recommended listen. In the end, however, Confield wins, for me. It is truly a one of a kind sound the one Autechre makes.

Also I love both users 🥰 🥰 🥰

God Bless You, Mr. Frogger, Yourself, Autechre, and Grizzly Bear!!! 😄 😄 😄

Defago

Re: CLOSED- BNMAT- Confield def Shields

Anonymous — Fri, 10 May 2013 21:56:42 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 05/11/2013 01:56

Defago wrote:

Hard choice. On one hand, Confield is like a shitty soundtrack to an IBM computer factory, completely soulless and devoid of emotion. Also music made with computers isn't real music. On the other hand, Shields is generic indie folk, and all modern music sucks because it's all commercial and made by sell outs.

Also I hate both users, so that doesn't help either. I'll have to suffer through relistening to both albums to choose the least bad.

the satire to content ratio of this post is mind-blowing

Re: CLOSED- BNMAT- Confield def Shields

pearljammer13 — Fri, 10 May 2013 21:51:30 GMT

Author: pearljammer13

Posted: 05/11/2013 01:51

I have to listen to Confield but Shields is fucking great.

Re: CLOSED- BNMAT- Confield def Shields

Facetious — Fri, 10 May 2013 11:33:24 GMT

Author: Facetious

Posted: 05/10/2013 15:33

Defago wrote:

At first I thought you were JMan 🤣 I still haven't got used to JMan's new avatar (or yours obviously)

I'm going with Confield here. Shields has some decent moments but it's nothing special.

Re: CLOSED- BNMAT- Confield def Shields

Anonymous — Fri, 10 May 2013 09:24:08 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 05/10/2013 13:24

I'm not done, here are 2 of my favourite tracks: Vi Scose Poise is a stunningly pretty track that takes this fascinating, buzzing, rolling beat and combines it with quiet machine noises and simple descending reverby synth phrases that echo away into perfect oblivion. Pen Expers has some violent drum patterns with odd echo/reverb sounds that somehow form an extra rhythmic layer, making it sound like the drums are at war with each other, or perhaps are exploding. If you listen closely however, a rather gorgeous chord progression slowly emerges on a number of buzzing synthesizers, only to disappear again to make way for even more violent rhythmic deconstructions.

Link

Link

Even though it is not from Confield I recommend everyone who wants to “get” autechre to watch the Gantz Graf video, because it is a perfect visual representation what Autechre are doing with their music:

Link

Re: CLOSED- BNMAT- Confield def Shields

Anonymous — Fri, 10 May 2013 09:12:14 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 05/10/2013 13:12

I apologize for the length of this, but all attempts to edit it end up making it longer...here is my rant on Confield:

Autechre are generally known as being the most clinical and experimental of the so-called idm musicians from the 90’s. Confield is perhaps the height of all of this, where they took the robotic, fragmented sound they had been hinting at in previous albums to its full-blown conclusion. It is one of my favourite albums ever and certainly one of the most unique and creative albums of the last decade. If you haven’t heard it before a number of things will immediately stand out:

- The percussion/drums play bizarre non-linear rhythms that seem to eschew conventional time signatures whenever possible. They almost play a textural role more than rhythmic in the music, filling out space underneath the melody/harmony rather than providing a base rhythm for the song.
- There is little melody in the music, it is either minimalistic and fragmented or totally non-existent—instead focusing on crisp ambient drones and disorienting robotic sounds
-Despite the focus on sound and texture in the music, Confield is not “atmospheric” in the way an ambient album would be. The production is startlingly, inhumanely clean and precise sounding, almost completely detached of any emotional content. When the songs seem to express anything, it is something creepy and claustrophobic, kind of like some scary “ibm computer factory” as Defago so nicely put it.

Listening to Confield is like trying to navigate this incredible labyrinth of morphing, shifting sounds. What makes the music so entertaining is the joy of analyzing, pulling apart, and decoding every cool, interesting, bizarre sound Autechre come up with. The songs are fascinating in how they are constructed to play tricks on you; hiding a very beautiful synth sound underneath a particularly jarring beat, or distracting you with one set of sounds while another changes or shifts in some witty way. Furthermore, the fractured, beats may not be very normal, but they just sound really fucking cool. The sterile atmosphere is weirdly refreshing; sometimes it pays to hear music that lets you totally detach from the world, non-expression becoming in a way its own form of expression. Confield is an album in love with sound exploration and manipulation for its own sake, and that is where its joy lies. If there ever was an album that suits repeated, extremely close listens; this is it, you are almost certain to find all sorts of things you wouldn’t even know were there. Within the rhythmic chaos, this album is genuinely beautiful.

As another note Autechre are often cited for having an incredibly meticulous, intensive, complex studio process. Part of what makes Confield so amazing is its super-slick production—notice how clean and perfect even album’s most chaotic moments sound. You can read a little about it here:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr04/articles/autechre.htm

Some quotes from the article that stand out, particularly if you think the beats on Confield are just “random”:

"A lot of the time we have the studio set up a certain way for one track, and then we have to completely rewire it for the next track.”

"On Confield we also used analogue sequencers and drum machines, because you can do a lot with restarting patterns. You can hack things and maybe use a control volume to determine what step the drum machine is playing from. Perhaps you send that control volume from an analogue sequencer, so the drum machine is skipping around. And then you get another analogue sequencer to drive that analogue sequencer with a different timing. Immediately you have something that some people would call random, but I would say is quantifiable.”

“We may have one fader that determines how often a snare does a little roll or skip, and another thing that listens and says 'If that snare plays that roll three times, then I'll do this.' We don't use random operators because they're irritating to work with — every time you run the process it sounds different. How we play the system dictates how the system responds."

Re: CLOSED- BNMAT- Confield def Shields

Defago — Fri, 10 May 2013 08:19:35 GMT

Author: Defago

Posted: 05/10/2013 12:19

Hard choice. On one hand, Confield is like a shitty soundtrack to an IBM computer factory, completely soulless and devoid of emotion. Also music made with computers isn't real music. On the other hand, Shields is generic indie folk, and all modern music sucks because it's all commercial and made by sell outs.

Also I hate both users, so that doesn't help either. I'll have to suffer through relistening to both albums to choose the least bad.

CLOSED- BNMAT- Confield def Shields

Anonymous — Fri, 10 May 2013 07:51:11 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 05/10/2013 11:51

CONFIELD by Autechre (captain: Yourself)

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Confield by Autechre

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Year Released: 2001

VS

SHIELDS by Grizzly Bear (captain: MrFrogger)

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Shields by Grizzly Bear

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Year Released: 2012

(12-24 hour period before Polls are up)

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