FBK was MPP era. Also I think Chz is pretty cool but I'm in the minority on that even on the animal collective forum. And re: no good EP's, Water Curses yo
I liked FBK and Chz a lot. Chz isn't MPP, but I don't understand the lack of love for it either.
I liked FBK and Chz a lot. Chz isn't MPP, but I don't understand the lack of love for it either.
Well, to clarify the context of my criticism: I prefer their early freak folk stuff (STGSTV-HCTI) and see MPP as a standout in their latter, more psychedelia-driven era. The reason I bring this up is because the early stuff has electronics serving as textural ornamentation that can either ease or increase the difficulty or lack thereof of the music, and there's always this really interesting dynamic where there's an interplay between very pop or at least "physical/primal/whatever" sounds and these crazy soundscapes, evolving parallel, perpendicular, intertwined, etc. Their psychedelic era (Feels-present; ST is kind of a weird transitional album), to my ears, gets rid of a lot of the complexity of these early compositions, substitutes out the "tribal" freak folk drumming for drums that fit more in the framework of the pop-rock idiom, and maximizes the electronic elements as the centerpieces of melody, harmony, etc. This results in a lot of "noisy bits" to my ears, where relatively simple compositions get decorated with just a lot of "stuff." This coincides with a growing division between Avey and Panda's songwriting. They hold it together really well through the psychedelic era, building up from a low point with Feels and transcending on MPP. I get that this is the part of the band's discography that most people love the most and can see why.
With CHz, however, I feel like everything really goes off the rails. For one, the songs now have two stark forms: completely endless, silly noodling with none of the nuance or development of their really early material; and very, very straightforward pop songs that clearly need to be carried by a regularly repeating melodic line or the excitement of "Here come the drums!" "Here comes Avey!" "YELLYELLYELLYELLYELL" somewhere in the middle. The "noisy bits" that were starting to creep in and colonize all of their musical structures on past albums are on CHz the focal point of the music. Your ear gets trained to the simple pop immediately, and instead of having new avenues to explore on subsequent listens, you just have a lot of pollution that's trying to throw you off the scent. This isn't to be snobby and dismissive to pop; again, MPP is my favorite AnCo album, and the band as a whole has few moments without any pop elements. No, this is to be snobby and dismissive to bad, lazy pop. The whole album, to my ears, ends up as a bit of a racket - several songs just go nowhere, don't excite, don't get played again, but the songs that do really rely on you needing the sugar rush of that one really good pop nugget. They used to have a lot of those in each song, weave them together gracefully, introduce some murk that was well thought-out and executed, and generally pull together some of the most dramatic popular music compositions and arrangements since Brian Wilson's golden era with the Beach Boys. Scratch that - possibly ever. It's a long ways to fall.
Fair enough. Definitely agree on the lack of nuance or development. At the end of the day I still found it enjoyable and wasn't as put off by the flaws.
Eh, feels thought out and well executed to me. And I don't know about nuggets, but I really do find songs like Today's Supernatural, Rosie Oh, Applesauce and some others to be compelling front to back, with all of the activity feeling like something that enhances what is communicated by the song. Different strokes I suppose. Maybe I just like bad and lazy music? I dunno, I've never really understood how ppl get so certain about that stuff
So on the 2015 topic, theres a full OPN song and I imagine there will be some divisiveness perhaps, I'm digging it tho
Kind of a weird way to be first exposed to an album, but if anyone is interested this japanese site has 45 second previews of every song off of the new julia holter album
nope, just as you said - different strokes. i don't feel certain about anything at all applying to anyone's ears but mine; it just hurts the flow of my writing to drop "IMO" into every sentence.
I really enjoyed the very recent release from O'Malley, Gruides, but this one is a bit more diverse in sound, and really goes to some different places thru the run of it. It actually feels a bit friendlier than the doom I typically associate with his work. There's still a lot of longform droning, but it's a lot more explicitly gorgeous than I expected. And there's a nice lil chunk of singing from Jesse Sykes. Good stuff that's worth a listen.
Not a bad album at all! Still has the cohesiveness your normal Beach House albums have. They did kind of take a step back, yet that step back was in a different direction at the same time, if that makes sense... You can definitely notice a more stripped down sound, yet it still delivers the same atmosphere that I've always loved in Beach House albums. A couple years down the road, I anticipate their next album will be a noticeable improvement upon this new direction.
Sparks is one of the best tracks of the year, btw. I gotta give Teen Dream and Bloom another listen. It's been a while.
EDIT: Another little input here: I also like Victoria's vocal's A LOT on this album compared to other Beach House albums.
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Now, I gotta get on that new Weeknd album and also Destroyer's new album! _________________ ...and for dessert!
meccaleccaVoice of ReasonProfile The Land of Enchantment
I've known Josh for years. He's usually been a background force. Runs a studio with George from Twin Shadow. The record features contributions from members of Bear in Heaven, Neon Indian, Chrome Canyon, Hooray For Earth, Autre Ne Veut, Twin Shadow, but I also like it more than almost anything any of those bands have put out. _________________ http://jonnyleather.com
I listened to Negative Feedback Resistor by Destruction Unit, Choose Your Weapon by Hiatus Kaiyote, and Have You In My Wilderness while the site was down. The first two were very nice, still waiting for the Holter album to hit me though. Definitely need a few more listens but I find it vaguely disappointing after LCS, hoping more familiarity will change that view.
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