I try: Parts II & III

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Antonio-Pedro
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  • #11
  • Posted: 11/28/2016 00:45
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I mean, 3 posts in a week that's nuts!
27/11

A Winged Victory For The Sullen by A Wi...The Sullen
An ode to departure, the symphonic sound of memories falling in oblivion. I guess it's from the human nature to not get comfortable with changes, with the expansion or the retraction of our comfort zone, in this plan, I always had a hard time dealing with the constant departure of friends since I was young, it was/is weird to imagine how everything would still be the same and still so different without these people in my life. I've created such an affection for the place and the friendships I've tied in my life, that even an inevitable loss seems out of my plans, even knowing that the world besides being a concrete place, has its roots established in abstract liquid human relationships. I've finished school last month, (never, in a billion years, I could have thought that this would be the place that I would have my life changing experiences) and nothing else has pictured my adrift doubts as this record did, I remember putting it to play just because I loved the cover, and with some minutes in the ambient atmosphere had already got me into its spiderweb; I have been lost in the tunnels of my mind many nights before sleep after this, wondering how much my life has changed in the last 3 years, how much a departure from this way of living will impact my emotional state, how hard it will be to see all the people who shaped a big part of my personality disappear. Adulthood frightens me, the lack of a certain magic, the draining boredom in the everyday life of a busy person, how complex and cold everything will turn into, makes me want to live somewhere close to infinity, floating in some place that everything is static. How weird it is to detach from places and persons you are used to live on every single day, how beautiful even the silliest moments in the past were, how special has every mili-second been, it's not about being afraid of the future, but being so careful with everything you have built through time that you don't want to see your temporary buildings and monuments fall down from night to day. A winged Victory for the sullen is one of my favorite records to portray the avalanche of feelings and thoughts that roll over through the last moments of a goodbye (it certainly is a topic that I commonly approach while writing about records that have a nostalgic connection with my past), the last strong hug that sticks a sensation of black-hole solitude inside your stomach, that replays a whole B&W movie inside your mind, that makes you look back and forward on your objectives as a human being. And as the closing track reminds, "All farewells are sudden"... they are not surprising, they are dated to extinguish, and are heartbrokenly hard to accept.


On a side note, I know how dumb or premature all of this must sound considering my young age and how much of life I've already tasted of. But from the brief parenthesis of time I've spent on this planet, these were the notes my mind have taken on this topic, I have an interesting hope that someday my views on loss and leaving will change, just to prove to myself it wasn't that worrying tornado it seems to be today. Heraclitus was correct, we never step on the same river twice.
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Antonio-Pedro
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Gender: Male
Age: 24
Location: Rain forest Kingdom
Brazil

  • #12
  • Posted: 12/01/2016 19:51
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01/12

Back To Black by Amy Winehouse
I saw the documentary "Amy" last week, well done work that completely blew me away btw, worth checking out if you haven't yet, and it has efficiently worked as a ticking reminder for me, that for some mumbo reason haven't listened to any Winehouse's records (pun not intended). I decided to begin with back to black because it was the most well rated of hers anywhere I go a record that I had some familiarity with (I remember tuning on MTV in early sunday afternoons when I was younger, where some of the singles here played along with bands like mcfly and Gnarls Barkley). To be totally honest, I didn't know what to expect for the complete thing before listening, sure I had already heard three of the lead singles of this album ("Rehab, "Back to black, "...I'm no good") and they were spectacular in my sphere of enjoyment, but I was worried that the rest of the album would be filled with tons of slower musical pieces that would focus primarily on Amy's voice, which would bum me totally out for having such a contrasting tone in the same record. Boy, I was dying of thirst on the expectation beach.

Totally chilling experience, from the first note of "Rehab" to the last line of "Addicted", Amy pours her unrealized fairy-tale poetry over the listener, tunes that know how to spotlight her wonderful vocal performance, in a way that she feels totally comfortable with the space the instrumentation allows her to perform with, that contributes for a more personal and intimate experience, and all of this is just the album's pleasure needle, there is still a lot to enjoy between these compositions. I have stuck in my mind an image of Amy not really caring for what and how everything is being performed over here, she is just doing the things she is used to do, not for money's sake or for public admiration, but because she finds relief and escapism singing and writing. "Back to black" (the main song included here) has an epic touch all over it that still gives me goosebumps after all those years, the melancholic storytelling that Amy performs is perfectly sided with the backing vocals' dreary elegy, a mythical yet human tragedy, that is then kissed by the sweet ghostly melodies that float all over the chorus, sustained over those background endling chant.

The production is completely neat, Mark Ronson has earned a special spot in my heart's sofa after mastering and producing this, he orchestrated all the symphonic instrumentation in such an eargasmic way, that even the less trained and ignorant ears would be astonished of how rich and diverse it sounds while following Amy's track. I often talk about the consistency of the records on this music diary, for the reason that it is a major factor which affects my vision in many albums, but I feel this one doesn't need any words to describe how concretely it flows, mostly because Amy pulls such an extravagant yet authentic presentation all through the record, that not even a single word or note is counted as lost here, she had the ability to create something softly organized from the chaos she was jammed into.
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Last edited by Antonio-Pedro on 12/13/2016 13:48; edited 1 time in total
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Antonio-Pedro
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Gender: Male
Age: 24
Location: Rain forest Kingdom
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  • #13
  • Posted: 12/06/2016 01:14
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04/12
Discographies, Episode 1:

Wait... Why did I start this? I don't even listen to discographies commonly, what the hell are you going into Antonio? Anyways, here we are, I decided to start this new segment in my music discovery with the sad blokes from slowdive, I've listened to all of these records that are going to be badly reviewed, so there is not many surprises in this odyssey (besides just for a day being much better than I remember it being 8 months ago). There is something so captivating on these following records, the sonic dreamy soundscapes, that even aging not that well, hypnotize my most lucid thoughts, congrats for this achievement Rachel & Neil's gang.

Pygmalion
I remember reading something about a bird's last chant before its species go extinct, it's called the "Endling", and it is a mechanism used for the birds to ask to something that moves the entire universe, the reasons why did this happen, why did the world became a mess for their way of living, considering the natural condictions, and what is the future for their species, what will be of the world without them? The endling is a sad, fine word.

The blissful atmosphere that shadows pygmalion's essence is a strong contender for best endling to ever exist in the history of music, the emotional intensity that threw dozens of youngsters and bands into 90s shoegaze scene was slowly being replaced by a disappointing rocky wave, the genre's gods moved all their way in contrary routes, the movement was in its last breath (considering only the path of shoegaze's high trinity). Ride completely forgot in which decade they were, ignoring the fact that they were in the decade's high point of Dream pop/shoegaze existence, MBV faded inside their multi-layered ocean and was never seen again, all the routes lead to slowdive and their new record Pygmalion. Space and post-rock collide frontally with a dream pop train in this record, lonely notes are spilled all over the first song "Rutti", a melancholic 10-minute jorney into a foggy unknown that consumes all the meantime the song has to unroll itself into, while Neil's voice is completely lost into a echoing and dense lake.

I used to write about melancholy not imposing a more pessimist significance to it, sadness was not necessarily an pejorative godsend gift to us humans, but more as a tool to keep working on ways to improve our way to look at the brighter and darker side of our choices, and in this way Pygmalion is ruffianly melancholic. "Crazy for You" is an example of this, a message in a bottle that still floats all over the sea, waiting to be delivered, holding in its verses, a hollow and cherished feeling of missing someone's half universe. But while there is emotion enough to be given away through the progression of the record, slowdive's audacity to attempt a more scattered sound is not rewarding for most part of dream pop lovers like yours truly (that blindly was expecting something here between the lines of Souvlaki), I remember tasting something very ephemeral and connected in earlier records, something here that was replaced by a big slowdown in the music enjoyment experience, pieces of sound are over here and there, talking about the leading part of course, while some jazzy drums collaborate to the songs' development, don't know if it's my unprepared ears,or just rushed to be more precise, but the work seems so filled and still unfinished to me at times.

Besides all of this bland looking change, the shift that they have done with the naked sound of the acoustic guitar in "All of us" is what this album should be remembered for, the low intensity on the guitar display is beautifully sided with the cellos, feels like a gray, still affecting, look at the past, in the realization that once something that was already in its death bed, sang its last song in the middle of the storm the world was, and even without anyone looking at it, again, found itself.


Just For A Day by Slowdive
Whoa whoa whoa, when and how did this magically became so pleasant to my heart? Just For a Day was once the record that reinforced my bias towards 90s bands, thinking that they were not much beside one album-wonders, the simpler arranged and composed pieces (I mean.. "Celia's dream" can progress so massively in just three chords) were not something I found interesting 8 months ago, I remember saying it was intensely repetitive and weak in its consistence when I first listened, silly rabbit. While I have also grown off on some of the most faster and vivid songs over here, I have grown such a big respect for the way how the song's chorus is flourished, entire shades of youth and dreams are lied between a corrupting noise, that fortunately doesn't destroy the song in pure static, but instead feeds my ears with such a creamy-like sensation, yummy yummy.

"Catch The Breeze" might be the only big hit over here, it's more produced and well-crafted than the others songs inside this album, a romantic experience that uncovers the first moments of lucidity after you wake up, trying to remember that familiar face you saw in a dream. But the album highlight is actually how cohesive and strong the consistence is, "Wavves" and "Ballad of sister sue" have certainly no potential of becoming a well succeeded single, there is no big appeal for a more structured pop single, but their importance for the album's progression can not be ignored. And that's why I got so surprised while listening to it again after such a long respite, the escapism-like flow in this record is build around all the songs, even "Erik's dream", an ethereal ambient piece about losing yourself inside that wild place, has its chair numbered, what proves that even the simplest tunes have their aural importance

In its etymological meaning, dream pop is a genre characterized by an overall subdued atmosphere, producing a dream-like, sleepy, or spacious feel. As the name suggests, songs are structured around traditionally Pop-sounding progressions, often with a steady though de-emphasized beat and vocals. No! there is nothing in this record that goes out on this way of characterizing this style of music, but nothing recall so much a dream disoriented and mystical atmosphere as Just For a Day for me right now, the sounds are so distant from a objective and concrete interpretation, that the cloudy imagery which resides in our minds while we sleep is the best way to picture this record, the first slip towards the hallucinogenic rabbit hole that composes all the transition between reality and all of our dreams.


Souvlaki by Slowdive
I already had many diverse experiences with Souvlaki until this moment that it becomes really hard to put it all down into a single review. After all, what hasn't been said since its release in the 90's? yeah, I know... the dreamy wave that makes it the middle school sister of Loveless; But in the end, the question that pops inside my head everytime I try to write something about this is How to critically analyze something that means so much to you without automatically involve yourself into? Every human that has it's soul breathing, has certain attachment with their favorite records in a way that only determinate experiences can speak, what means that even if I write 8 zillion words over here, none of them will be able to capture how many smiles and tears souvlaki has gifted me. From lonely trips at 4 am, to sudden discoveries about how much the sunrise is beautiful, this record has composed a big part of my structure as a person, I have tied so many moments and unique feelings in it, and the fact that I could record these experiences inside something concrete and real makes it so much better, because there is no better way to recall myself how human I am, than seeing how soft I have been, how strong and deep my roots are (whoa microphones reference over here huh? I bet you really didn't expect for this one) how complex and simple everything can be. Souvlaki is a mother's hug, something that surely we can live without, but it's surely missed and irreplaceable , it's warm, a hot blanket in a snowy night, it's ethereal, something that transgress the capacity of my own intellect to comprehend how subtly it moves between my ears, and comforting, there is a blue feeling of love and friendship that bursts out of these songs. "When The Sun Hits" for example, after it emerges out of its embryonic state like a champagne bottle, might be the closest I've ever been of an rough drawn of an inside supernova, the explosion of every single atomic element that exists in the universe is colorful and slow, the collapsing of two dry mouths into one single body, chaos has never been so organized and bright before.


In my first contact with Souvlaki, I remember listening to it 5 times in-a-row, it felt challenging and rewarding after each listen, I was every single time more and more drowned into it, the metaphysical adventures were just about to start. It is probably the first dream pop album I've fallen in love with, and what a great start. But I started to admire its structure and crafting after seeing the pitchfork documentary for this record, how some sad blokes just decided to pack up their things and, behind Creation's Allan Mcgee claws, record all that in depth emotion, not something raw and pure, but rather a (kinda) psychological and elaborated take in teenage relationships and the numerous curves of love. I found myself motivated to share some of my simpler or remarkable moments with it since then, don't really know why, and that's what kept me trying to find the perfect moment with Slowdive, I always felt there would be a perfect timing to fit with this album, because something in this, an unknown mass keeps pulling it over my ears, maybe it's the bittersweet sounding wall of sound that hugs the sculpture of these songs. And then, it just became so overwhelmingly connected with me, that it occupied many of my lonely nights with mellow yellow poems, daydreaming in a bus to school became part of my routine, there was a time I was listening to souvlaki like... 31 times a month, so I can say I have most of their ethereal and dreamy soundscapes painted in a unconscious part of my mind.

See? I have told a really long story about how I clicked with this record but I couldn't still explain its reason to sound so perfect. And the reason is, maybe there is so much, or maybe there is so little I've still not experienced with souvlaki, that I can't, at this moment, point a reason or a formula to its mysterious melancholic atmosphere, there is still pieces of the music here I haven't collected, there is still details that I haven't noticed. Souvlaki is special, because it maintains it's blissful unknown substance until today, the search for its essence is more astonishing than discovering itself. There is some magical liquid running through my ears every time the opening of "Alison" plays.
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HazeyTwilight
boyfriend in your wet dreams


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  • #14
  • Posted: 12/06/2016 14:34
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I'm amazed that, even after you've been away for so long, you can still write extensively and so eloquently about music you love (memes ruined my writing when I was 17 and now it's gone to shit). I always love reading these because it represents Antonio's brand of magic fantastically and it always keeps improving. Very Happy
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craola
crayon master



Location: pdx
United States

  • #15
  • Posted: 12/06/2016 17:23
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This Slowdive write-up is incredible. Well-thought-out, well-written and inspired. I'd be curious to read a follow-up on Mojave 3.
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Antonio-Pedro
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  • #16
  • Posted: 12/07/2016 19:29
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Whoa, thanks for the feedback guys, wasn't really expecting, you're awesome =)

HazeyTwilight wrote:
I'm amazed that, even after you've been away for so long, you can still write extensively and so eloquently about music you love (memes ruined my writing when I was 17 and now it's gone to shit). I always love reading these because it represents Antonio's brand of magic fantastically and it always keeps improving. Very Happy


Well, since this year was my last in school before moving to uni, I had to write many dissertations focusing the Brazil's wonderfully tiring test the ENEM, that has like... 50% of the total grade for the writting and composing texts part, so I obviously had to improve my skills in order to stand a chance to pass. And I'm pretty happy that the positive results impacted even in my odd music writting, I've been doing this in such a better way, that I even cringe in my older notes in my chart, I'm just to lazy to re-do them all over again, and I probably don't have the same childlike-wonder from 2 years ago, so yeah I will let them like that for a long time.

craola wrote:
This Slowdive write-up is incredible. Well-thought-out, well-written and inspired. I'd be curious to read a follow-up on Mojave 3.


This took
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY
more energy and time that I thought it would take
I started 17:30 and I finished writing about souvlaki in 22:30 non-stop (only for sweet snacks)
So yeah... It will not be soon that I'll do one of these again (I'm thinking something between the lines of nick drake next)
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Antonio-Pedro
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  • #17
  • Posted: 12/11/2016 18:16
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11/12
I decided to keep the paragraphs since it seems to be more captivating and welcoming to some quick read, (although it keeps out some essence from the real Antonio Pedro)


Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts by M83
An objective analysis into the unconscious part of our mind, analyzing where reason and memories lie, Being the most human machine the world has ever created. Dead Cities is the last M83 album I got into, I got used to hear Anthony singing about imaginary worlds and angels & demons fighting for the aural control of the dawn, with a more accessible pop material used as instrumentation than the pure robotic and soulless (in a positive and vibrant way of course) sounds used here, no lyrics at all, because it's up to you to dive into this corrupted youth memory slowly being sent into a computer intelligence. This record is indeed enigmatic, I don't know if there's a meaning behind all those track names, there must be huh Antonio?, but the abstract ambient sound that dictates the progression of the record, requires my complete focus if I don't want them to blend into a complete cloud mass. I just love this cover so much, kids laying in a winter desert, like a complete adult-free wonderland, that has find its way into boredom, since everything professional that kept all the structure working has worn off, still they keep their mystic sense of adventure. An outer-universe futuristic representation of what gummo must have been.

One thing which I love most over here is how strong and colorful the sound is, layers upon layers of sound, a stellar noisy symphony that still can be hideous and nightmarish (See the dracula-like organs in "In church" that covers all the fear with an unreal and dense atmosphere). "Run Into Flowers" could be the best contender for the best song representing its own name, so much effervescence that sprouts from each single footstep given into that summer field, a quick beat that doesn't allow the sound to fall over a "sound of sea" and adjust all the melodies into a more poppy material, and those ghostly vocals by Anthony, that still sits around that long field besides its loneliness. Moving further into the record, the soundscapes turn into something more cold, to the point of freezing it all, the songs will eventually collide into each other if you don't fill them with your attention (This doesn't mean that the record shouldn't be listened into a dark room, with your headphones on), in reason of the absence of more energetic elements like guitars and drums, what blurs all over the music and make the album all glide into a more dreamy (or would it be nightmarish?) intensity. And this structure is completely well designed because of the more careful crafting of the songs, that can be very boring if you're looking for something superficial or pretty simple, but is completely worth it, if you're out to look out for the details in the last songs, this albums requires brainpower (and a little bit of madness to like it : P)

And then there is "Beauties Can Die", a spacey lullaby about having that pretty childish essence, that rounds the record's pillars. I don't know if it's anything with Anthony and his weird album's creation cult, but he and his company often keeps their most epic symphonies to the end of the record, maybe because it promotes a better and more rewarding sensation about the feeling of finishing the record. This is one is no different, each new round the song gets bigger and louder, like a tree that grows besides all the rain and unnatural conditions around it, carrying all their heavy roots, breaking the concrete floor. Or better, like a ballerina sound box that keeps spinning out in space, moving into infinity.
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Antonio-Pedro
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  • #18
  • Posted: 12/13/2016 21:45
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13/12

Teens Of Denial by Car Seat Headrest
Throughout my musical journey of auto-knowledge a.k.a the process of developing a more obscure and experimental taste (you all plebs wouldn't get my patrician description at all u.u), I've eventually grown out of some more superficial music like Indie Rock and Classic Rock, mostly because it no longer represented challenge or curiosity to my ears like Ambient or shoegaze music do. And that's not something to be celebrated, because I became a boring person that most of the times tends to label indie music as mediocre and clearly rushed, in a way that whenever people show me some music they like that lie between the lines of these genres, I can no longer see something new or pretty that feels like a material to be appreciated, and that's pretty sad because I now that there is potential in certain artists. So when I came across Teens of Denial I tried to keep my bias out of the way and enjoy it in the same plan I love many of my favorite Records, I wouldn't say I was worried, but only keeping my mind clean from some spell I've put over myself. It was really hard to get into in the first tries, the simple instrumentation contrasted with the longer length of the songs, that glued some jam sensation in my mind, like they wouldn't give up playing until they got the last sitting spectator dancing, by one side this could be pretty damaging for the record's consistence because I (or would it be we? I don't know if I should use third or first person, anyway it's my diary) would get easily distracted after the tour de force that songs like "Vincent" represents, by other it would only reinforce the epic awesomeness of the same songs, so I would say I was in a Hit-or-miss situation.

On this last week I couldn't connect with any music at all, not even my favorite records could cheer some magic on my ears, everything just passed slightly as a shadow that it used to represent to me, I began to think I was going into some distorted musical identity crisis. So when "Drunk drivers/Killer Whales" came on shuffle today and gave me goosebumps, a blue bird came out to my window and told me I should listen to this record again. I'm going to take the risk of sounding bold, but I would say that the formula for this record's different fitting in my brain is how Will Toledo can combine some simple sounding instrumentation with his advanced musical designing (the man really know how to make Voice melodies). Let's take for example the contender for best song of the year, "Drunk Drivers", Will projects a pretty bittersweet melody and lyrics, as the pillar through the verses, the pre-chorus get the tension growing, and then there is the chorus explosion, and there is so much passion while he sings, so much emotion, that even the less vulnerable listener will get his/her feet moving side to side. And that's something that makes this record highlights over others from the same genre, there is, a emotionally designed crafting, not something meant to be driven at determinate listener or public, that has its feet flood in massive production (not saying that this is a bad thing at all, but by now you all should already now that) and less emotion. "Drunk Drivers" was such an important song to me this year, principally because the relating factor, all I could picture was Will going home by feet while having all these lines, all these happenings in his mind that lead to his loneliness, and It feels like a certain conversation with something that rules all over your conscience, and this being knows all that you've been hiding behind that smiley face, recognizes all the stuff you've done wrong, and punishes you in a psychological way, not because it is there you to give you shit, it is there because you can't escape and accepting that emphatic substance makes the world more tolerable.

But the attention here shouldn't be just focused on this song, otherwise we should do single reviews huh? (not a bad idea, although the single for this song is pretty shitty, they just took off everything that worked and put on some accessible structure! w..w..why?). Anyways, something I would like to address in this analysis ( I don't really know why I try these...) is the songwriting, again the "Simple" factor attacks again, there are no big and trending topics to be discussed over here (Besides Joe and his drugs, but that's all fine for me). And that really gives me the sensation that some few albums gave me that there is no pretentious soul behind these lyrics, by contrary, Will is writing in his pink diary all the stuff that he hates and continues to appear on his life, all the dilemmas, all the family drama, some glimpses of love are spilled on some songs, although it's such a personal experience, that contrasts with the most common popular relationship with the world, that it's curious how we can understand his out-of-cliché emotion. And the good side is that You don't need to be an expert or specialist in poetry to understand all that this album brings to the table, most of the things that relate to youth were already told in My Jeff rosenstock's review, so I'm not going to be here fulfilling tomatoes. The best part of Teens of Denial for me, was proving that even in the times that I'm filled with abstract and complex enjoyment, there is still a spark on the simple, there is still something in that thing I judged mediocre that has the potential to surprise me, I will take this as an advice to not judge a book for its cover, even if it looks like a gazillion of other books that you've already read. Congrats for teaching me something with music Will.

Hell, this was long, here, take a look at this douche
Will ^
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Antonio-Pedro
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  • #19
  • Posted: 12/15/2016 19:58
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15/12

Shawcross by Good Morning
The soundtrack for a cat that wakes up before everyone in a sunday morning and decides to enjoy each second of that day being as lazy as possible. Shawcross was a pleasant recent discovery in the immense jangle pop cloud, Don't know if it is an EP or an album, it is too short (containing 18 minutes), but it feels way more longer and funnier than many records playing in this short space of time. Shawcross is pretty young in its essence, in a way that it could have been made in a garage yesterday by some kids that listened to the smiths for the first time in their entire life and decided to record their songs with the drummer's uncle guitar pedal, and this lack of more specialized production and creation tools, leaves the record with a softer and more intimate sensation. The guitar here is the leading feature of this mini-record, it produces, along with the following instrumentation and the lead singer that is probably higher than a mountain in some of the songs here shown, a really laid-back experience to the listener, a totally inoffensive music, that surely will not challenge the more requesting listeners, but can be listened anywhere and anytime, so the musical flexibility and replay-value here presented is one of the major factors for my enjoyment. It's the kind of music that whenever appears on youtube you can see people in the comments, "Wtf I'm so high right now, yo this is like the perfect mayonaise to my ears" (Every neo-psychedelia album ever)

Besides having many similarities with some Captured tracks' artists, that have become part of the nu-jangle pop hysteria, Good Morning can maintain certain distance from that heavily DeMarco-influenced sound that surrounds the mainstream spot of this genre, and the main reason for this is firstly, the inclusion of two guitars (That was better than I expected, just listen to how they dance in the beginning and in the end of "Once You Know") that are bound to divide your attention while in the two sides of your ears, and secondly, how the mixing provides the bass and the drum a special spot, what means that the record isn't a work of just one man's mind, there is a whole group of youngsters that got together and decided to play together in the pure meaning of the word. Besides all of what I've mentioned there is not much of what to tell here about Shawcross, it's a record full with youth energy and desires (those silly lyrics makes me smile and that's great), and it's pretty catchy, like a chewing gum stuck under the school desk, but even with the fast oriented songs, the summer and lazy atmosphere remains intact, what is to be admired for its management (or the lack of itself) being conducted by some guys that just want to have some fun, and doesn't care for the direction that the record takes, hell they just want to have some fun and play some songs, wasn't rock n' roll supposed to be about this?

Edit: as I finished writing about this record, Shawcross had already played 3 times haha
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Antonio-Pedro
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  • #20
  • Posted: 12/19/2016 15:14
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19/12

Murmur by R.E.M.
I remember stumbling upon Murmur, after Kevin Goodsir (yeah that lovable kid), recommended it to hell for me and our teens group on Skype back in 2014, and I also remember one of the reasons why I got so quickly on this record after this are the numerous jokes we did about how he talked about the album's meaning to him, we laughed a lot about his description of the record about some fog that used to uncover the city of a kid or something like that, and then when he listened to murmur, all this fog used to give place for a sunny landscape, in which he was fine with himself besides all the aural mess and un-knowledge of what was about to come next to that ephemeral spiritual relief. It was pretty fun to talk about that review of Kevin because even being overly dramatic at times, we knew that none of us could have the (talent maybe? that was sure a creative art work) to do something like that, this is why everytime I listen to this record, that singular memory of that history about that little teenager listening to R.E.M comes back to my mind, mostly because Murmur has nothing to hide, everything can still be pretty clear and superficial to the listener, but still it's decked out with with such an effervescent and sunny paintings and drawings, that the review image is easily captured again in my mind. Nostalgia value is one of my weak points while writing records descriptions (or whatever I'm doing over here), whenever I am emotionally attached with an album - in a way that I can picture a unforgettable happening, or a simple afternoon sky that already triggers an avalanche of feels all over me, mostly good overall - I become a blind person to try to figure out why something like murmur means so much to me, what is the special characteristic that keeps my love for something for the album pumping? I don't feel like this is a curse at all, nostalgia can surely promote the introspective attachment for an album that a common listening in which I can clearly see all the details in. But it can make my encrypting work to dissolve the mishmash of feelings that are all cryptographed inside these memories and put it in the material world, such a harder job, thanks unconscious part of my mind.

How hard is to make the music progression in the album sound singular? that's a question I often ask to myself while listening to diverse records, how to not let the album evolve in such a mediocrity sea that manages to make a sequence of songs sound all alike, in a way that there is no special feature or gift that produce a spark of attention on the listener? And Murmur is one more question mark in my musical analysis journey, how the first and the second part of the record, besides not having notable difference in the instrumentation that composes both, can sound so remarkable and yet so entertaining? Well, whenever I try to answer these questions I often get myself drowned in more and more questions, because I can't simply solve a puzzle without pulling the tails of others, but if I was supposed to spot the highlight that favors this album's musical distinguish factor is actually the creativity in the musical process of constructing the instrumental structure of Murmur (bonus points because this is what lights a candle for most of the best jangle pop albums out there).

Murmur is one hell of crafted record, principally musically speaking: one of the best features here is the drums for example, how they are not bound to regret themselves in a simple and classic hi-hat chorus, and explore all the sound that is allowed they to performed, (hell they even know when to breathe and let the guitars lead the rest of the song) not only in the break to another verse enter, but also in the bridges and in the chorus, also the various styles of beats here presented also contribute for a bigger singularity in each song, from the classic post-punk dictation of a song, to sometimes a more dance-like style that is really close to an extremist and rockist vision of disco. "Moral Kiosk" is the realization of this thesis, how the musical progression all lead to the classic hi-hat and snare can move so smoothly to the low and high tom march, in a way that is given to the song a more explosive and enthusiastic feeling. What is to admire in all of this is the record continues to be a very energetic record besides the all the creative production, the essence is not lost to promote the peculiarity of the instruments or the lyrical content, murmur is such a vivid album, and all of these musical traces only contribute to it sound as fun as a ketchup war with your friends because someone didn't pass the tomato correctly, and then it all became a mess, I mean, is there something more significant to the silliness under an iron of moral respect and strict behavior, than a food war on a family dinner, the 80s movie I watched proved me not, and guess from each decade this album is? Murmur never starts any song the same way the predecessor or the successor does, so while you're finishing one tune and you're already entering the other the hook of the opening can surely pull you into the heart of the song, what contributes for the mental attention consistence of the album, for the reason that these hooks pushes the my curiosity to its peak to discover how the song will unroll along with the album.

I never could connect with REM before murmur (and after it not even one of their records could get close to the pleasure this is to me), because I had a visible bias for their song "Losing my religion" (dear god this is so overplayed over here, that I want to kick this single so strongly that it will land in mars), and I used to despise a whole record that would be just like that (reminder that for old Antonio: Faster = better), But when Kevin put out "Radio Free Europe" in a plug session, and pulled that record under our throats, forcing inducing us to listen to it, I knew that I had to dismantle this picture of them and replace with a clean music listening, and upon listening to it many and many times since then, I've already glued such emotional value that makes it totally worth every listen, not only because it's remarkably special, but also because it can also light that old spark and a new one whenever "Laughing" comes on, Even in the cloudier days, the sky opens a small hole so the sunshine can hit in my window. Past sparks with present pleasure and future value.
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