[murmur]

murmur's Album Rankings 2017

7/10
Elysia Crampton: Elysia Crampton for Grace Wales Bonner F/W 2017
6/10
Jessicunt: Don't Ask Me to Do Shit 4 Free
Various Artists: APR pres. NEW YR NEW US
Brian Eno: Reflection
5/10
Jessicunt: Jessicunt
Xiu Xiu: FORGET

[Tap]

oh nice, were you able to get all the formulas you needed? one of them is a bit weird and only appears in the top cell of a column. lookin forward to seeing how you do this

[AfterHours]

Good to see. Looking forward to this.
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Best Classical
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[murmur]

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FORGET by Xiu Xiu

Listens: 2
Rating: 5/10
First Listen: 1/2/2017
RIYL: Joy Division, Suicide, Arcade Fire

Around the 2010 release of Dear God I Hate Myself, I got really into Xiu Xiu, digging into their back catalog and seeing on full display how fucked up lone enduring member Jamie Stewart was. Xiu Xiu were a weird band that were just starting to flirt with more pop sensibilities on albums like The Air Force or Women as Lovers. They incorporated Nintendo DSes as sound sources. Their sound was synthetic and terrifying. I was hooked.

Over time, I would lose interest in Xiu Xiu, and it occurred to me as I discovered their latest effort, due in February of this year, leaked that I haven't listened to a new Xiu Xiu release since 2010. Over the interceding years between Dear God and Always, I regarded Xiu Xiu more and more as a one- or two-trick pony, with enduring affection for A Promise serving to scratch my itch for their sound for awhile. This is important because as someone who hasn't listened to new material from this act in what amounts to basically half their career at this point, FORGET sounds pretty familiar, if maybe a bit higher fidelity.

The album includes a lot of the signature Xiu Xiu weirdness. The first track starts with some yelling that sounds ripped from a DJ hyping his set that starts yelling expletives as the tempo increases before the album settles into a more mellow groove. There's a song where Stewart sings very softly with a lot of echo effects and static. Simple drum machine loops abound. This album incorporates a lot of things that I thought were fucking awesome in high school into its sound. "Wondering," for example, is Arcade Fire if they could sustain a good song without getting into needless pyrotechnics, and the band continues their flair for making what could pass as easy listening industrial music.

Unfortunately, what that all amounts to is a pretty slight album. There's nothing wrong with it, and for my money, the first few tracks make a decent EP-length release, if nothing is really as special as "Wondering." It's just not really attractive to return to again and again. I have a certain respect for the band's ability to incorporate diverse '80s post-punk and other hip kid sounds without making the album sound like a mid-aughts indie record, but unfortunately, I don't feel like I have a choice but to FORGET this one as soon as the play time runs out.

[murmur]

Week 1 Roundup: 1/1/2017 ~ 1/7/2017

Last week was pretty productive for sinking my teeth into new releases as well as revisiting some favorites from last year. I checked out Babi Audi's 6 Page Letter again and got a lot more out of it, really vibing with the atmosphere and seeing it as closer to other Babi Audi works' quality where it had left me cold before. I also checked out the Chion, Marchetti, and Noetinger release after almost a year of it being out. As expected from the folks who made Les 120 jours, they knocked it out of the park.

During new years I like to find one or two of the really early leaks or releases for the calendar year and mix them in with relistens to all-time favorites. I spun Nico's Desertshore, for example, and began the lengthy process of relistening to the massive 51-CD Das 6-Tage-Spiel set from Hermann Nitsch alongside listens to Brian Eno's and Xiu Xiu's latest, the latter of which I got a good enough grasp on to write up and the former of which will be written up this week sometime.

The week wasn't short on discovery, though, with a recent itch for jazz and classical music winning the week and dominating my listening schedule. I heard several interpretations of Mahler's Ninth and revisited Brahms's Fourth. I also listened to the Early Tapes from the Irene Schweizer Trio.

Find of the Week:

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Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 8 by Pierre Boulez / Wiener Philharmoniker

This was quite the welcome addition to my slowly growing symphonic library. Bruckner's Eighth was received fairly lukewarmly in its time and took awhile to enter the repertoire. Its edge has dulled a bit with the interceding centuries, but its power and majesty have not. A booming, hulking beast, it's pretty much what I expect when I sit down to listen to a Romantic symphony. I listened to two performances of it this week, one conducted by Boulez, a favorite of mine, and the other by Celibidache. The latter performance was my first exposure to the conductor, and I need more time for that release to settle with me, as its tempo adjustment (compare Celibidache's 1.8 hour performance to Boulez's 1.3) lost my attention a bit. I'm told Boulez plays it straight, which I don't have a great frame of reference for at present, but what he delivers is pretty incredible. I'm excited to continue spending time on Romantic music.

Total Releases: 23
First Listens: 10
2017 Releases Heard: 5

Total Listens: 24
Listened Once: 22
Listened Twice: 1
Listened Three Times: 0
Listened Four Times: 0
Listened Five Times or More: 0