Four hours...four hours of step filter plugins! It's actually on the agenda tomorrow and i'm not looking forward to this one bit. I mean they've been peddling this electronic realm of classical music art wank for awhile now and it's contrived. On the plus side..at least it's not Arca. Clinging to the actual fact that it's not Arca plus a shitload of caffeine dosage should keep a somewhat rosey outlook possible in an otherwise horrendous kill-me-now situation.

In other used-to-be good fucking ages ago electronic artist news: Dj Shadow's latest album has him still burrowing down that narrow all-american lane in his perfection to bring us the greatest and most epic wrestling entrance theme ever. Apparently the numerous condescending crescendos found here are used to G' up isis during training routines at their camps.

Wow man, you are HARD on Autechre! Jesus! Why even bother sitting through 4+ hours of music you don't like? I can pretty well guarantee that if you thought Exai and AE_LIVE were "art wank," then you'll probably wish Elseq1-5 was an actual living thing, just so you could torture and eventually hang it up in the shed and field dress it like a dead fucking deer.

And why exactly are you so down on Arca?


Hah!
Ok, I'm with you here. The new DJ Shadow is pretty disappointing. I admire your ire. I don't personally have the energy to put this much thought into loathing music anymore.

hah, yes, it's contrived. it sounds as if they put some actual effort into the compositions.. it's an improvement on Exai (doesn't resemble it much, aside from a few tracks), and it reaches back through Confield and EP7, recalling sounds and ideas that characterised those albums. it sounds simultaneously less formal (more fun) and more advanced than Exai, somehow. your wariness/crustiness is amusing, even endearing, and it does come of as feeling a bit contrived. curious to hear your impressions of the elseqs.

yeah, it feels like one big album. especially with several tracks lasting upwards of 20 minutes+

all of the mp3s fit onto one cdr, so that's basically how i'm tackling it, as one massive sprawl.

http://www.anothertimbre.com/linda_cs_dirtroad.html

been digging this.. the music is fairly spare, though it's lush and affecting. unhurried and pretty, a good relief from the more active musics

lot of high quality stuff on the Another Timbre label, with the recent Jurg Frey discs and the regular use of John Tilbury and Apartment House on their releases. the Joseph Kudirka album Beauty and Industry (vaguely Feldman-like) is a highlight as well as Fraufraulein's Extinguishment album from last year.. real elegant and richly-textured sound art

Let's go back to the damn Chicago song after which they titled the album:


Makes sense if you believe the dog in the cover won't let go, even with that second hand apparently pulling its ear. But, detective Benson, as John Waters said (and he knows a thing or two about it), there's good bad taste and then there's bad bad taste, and I think whoever chose that picture fell into the latter category by being too clever (or, well, "black-humored") by half.

looking forward to the blonde redhead reissue of the first two records with bonus stuff.


the first four records def had sy in em but they were never a sy ripoff band like, i think, a lot of folks thought.

the drums, the harmony/chords and the singing always set them apart.

What have I got against Arca well he's gay and American so...Venezuelan (close enough) ...wait woah I think Tesla just hacked my account or summit?! yak yak. Actually I could just say Kanye West thinks he's good so. E' nuff saaaaiiiiiiiid !!

What have I got against Arca? well, he's basically really shit, like propa shit, he's so shit he makes my shit look fake....I came up with this one myself. I'm here all week...

Had a hectic work day today so I've not had the time for a 4 hour step filter session so Cheetah it is. 3 in and It's already better than super Deejay selek but what does that say ...yea..

yea

I agree. Their earlier albums definitely had a stronger similarity to SY than the later ones, but at no point in their career have they been SY ripoffs. Influenced by Sonic Youth, abso-fucking-lutely. But really I think a lot of the ripoff accusations come from folks with pretty simple minds who see an art-punk/indie kind of band with a dominant female presence and their brains resort to making easy, surface level comparisons to familiar tropes.

Blond Redhead kinda got the cultural shaft in a lot of ways because they couldn't shake the "new Sonic Youth" label, and by the time they started making records that bore virtually no similarity whatsoever to anything in SY's catalog, they were basically has-beens. Notice how little coverage or love they get these days? I think the same thing happened to Deerhoof somewhere around 2010.

Deerhoof just dropped a new album by the way.

Did you and pepper_green trade hippocampi? What's with the nonsense u be spittin?

Arca's biggest offense is that Arca often sounds a whole lot Aphex Twin at its most immediate and poppy. Like, a fucking lot. And yet, praise is just heaped upon Arca by music journalists who are too young or too stupid not to realize that there's nothing new going on in those records.

But that's the case for a lot of "IDM" artists, and as far as RDJ stop-gaps go, I've heard worse.

You're right that Kanye things he's good. But that's not evidence that he isn't. For a dude who doesn't play any instruments (except for some synth and keys work that few people know about) he's an excellent composer, and a visionary producer. Even his detractors understand this. You can hate him all you want, but suggesting that he's not talented is frankly dumb as hell.

You're not dumb as hell are you, Diesel?

Ok the best description I can give Cheetah is... it is wank, no, must inject some thought into the hate: it's not like I'm describing fucking Arca or summat!

It's sounds like early 90's- pre caustic window LP twin but produced using modern techniques. Bad 'era for dicky. Swiftly moving on, there's better stuff doing the rounds on youtube of his soundcloud dumps.

Yes it is. Thems the rules.

Oh my beloved great music artist can traverse the moonlit rooftops in silhouette majesty whilst simultaneously busting out 15 bars of pure rap gold in pristine liquid grammar all the while plucking hairs out his girlfriends arse. Even people who think he's a prick think he's just fabulous darling. Now you either agree with me or you're a dumb prick. Now tell me, are you a dumb prick? eh are you? tell me you're a dumb prick dagnabbit ! tell me so I can wank myself silly you fucking priiiiick!!

That's not at all what I meant. And you probably know that. But ^ this shit was funny as hell, so whatever.

http://www.dragcity.com/products/prismrose

listening now.. pretty nice playing throughout. Grubbs' typical melodic style with subtle flourishes, sort of a long-form piece running throughout the album. vocals only appear once or twice and the drumming is rapid-fire, free jazz-style with a sensitive touch. pleasant stuff

im just chillin.

I have know ideal about new artist or sounds, im stuck. huh?


I've already gave my opinion that I think everything sucks and im fucking yr mommy. with her sweet asshole and daydream porn head that she gives me. the licking/sucking on my ball sac is amazing.

haven't listened to much other than elseq lately, real melter that. each set would more than suffice as a record on its own yet they've got enough a-grade material to lump it into one hulking mass, glorious. their synthesis is so advanced at this point too, on the final set in particular where they toy with the residual tones of an element while honing everything else simultaneously, which given the process they're utilising at the moment goes to show -- saying it again -- how greatly they're blitzing everyone else. why would you listen to new afx when there's fucking æ is all I can muster.....

Well, I agree. But it's kind of an unfair comparison. Cheetah send to essentially just a glorified remix single (though I still have only heard the three tracks, so I suppose I could be wrong,) while Elseq is, as you say, basically five albums' worth of new material. You're comparing the massive behemoth with a little release. Doesn't mean Autechre is better than Aphex Twin.

well it does when you consider the fact that Richard has been churning out tepid crap for the last decade and his music isn't nearly as forward-thinking as autechre. they literally eclipsed what he was doing in the space of a record; each of those early releases can be directly compared to richard's yet are infinitely more complex, rewarding listens, and by LP5 they totally obliterate everything he has ever done.aphex has been obsolete since drukqs, and while I think his material is important in a gateway sense I think there are a lot of people at different ends of the sphere doing it much better than he is, with autechre standing in the middle dumping an unholy turd over everyone

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Diesel again.

Mmm... Well.
I appreciate how much you value Auteuchre, but I can't in good conscience say say that I support the assertion that they're "better" than RDJ. They were always way up there for me, and I love them, but I just can't get on board with the comparison. RDJ is more easily comparable to Squarepusher. Autechre has always had an entirely different vibe about them.

Also, more complex doesn't always mean better. Sometimes Autechre sounds utterly unlistenable to me. But the Richard D James Album and I Care Because You Do are exquisite listens, full of life and joy and (yes) acidic brain death, but they offer something that's nowhere to be found on records like Elseq1-5.

I dunno man. I get where you're coming from, I just don't happen to agree. Looking at RDJ's extended catalog and knowing that all of that came from ONE person is pretty mind blowing to me. Is Autechre artier? More experimental? More extreme? At this point in time, yes. But that doesn't mean they're better. Especially since the two artists "do" different things and have different approaches.

I'm kinda more into DJ Koze and his Pampa bros at this point anyway.

http://anothertimbre.com/ffansion.html

best improv disc i've heard in a while... great performance, super-detailed, and it's a nice recording as well. shipping (to the US) is fairly cheap if you order direct from the label

btw, the Cheetah ep is a real beaut.. been playing it nonstop. autechre (elseq) is a whole other animal (Demogorgon?), they can't be compared. a friend of mine let me sit in on his radio show last night, and we kicked it off with CHEETAHT7b. two hours later, he let me play a five-minute excerpt from AE_LIVE_DUBLIN -- the really dense part of the finale, like 65 minutes into the set. the radio show is supposed to be feel-good, indie-type stuff, so it was a good foil to their regular playlist. the AE_LIVE bit, which is a BEAST (texturally, sound pattern-wise), was met with utter silence

Agreed. I really love CHEETAH and I really love elseq, but they're not of the same realm at all. At one time Autechre and Aphex Twin could be compared pretty easily, and the two acts would certainly have been considered peers, but what RDJ is doing right now is stretching his limbs and relaxing, getting comfy, busting out some classic, coily, serpentine house jams. Autechre is trying to rip a hole in the fabric of space time. So they're two altogether different conversations at this point in time.

Not a value judgment. I know what RDJ is capable of. He could be melting brains too, but he's taking her easy for the time being and that's ok.

I would REALLY appreciate it if DJ Koze would fucking release a real full length LP though. A proper follow-up to Amygdala, which has pretty much become my favorite electro-oriented album of this decade. That would make my fucking year. His remix chapters, his DJ Kicks entry and the PAMPA sampler have been so goddamn stellar on their own — best of their respective year-level records, all — that it's just a no brainer that his next album is going to be absolute fucking madness. I don't know why he isn't taking the time to make it a priority. :(

In theory I want this massive Pink Floyd Early Years 65-72 (psych & experimental era) box set, but at $500+ it might as well be a million $. I've got a lot of good boots downloaded for free, some of which overlap this stuff:
https://www.google.com/amp/consequen...?client=safari

$500?! What in the high hell? Who exactly is this fucking thing FOR? That enormous sub-strate of the record buying public that a.) buys physical releases b.) is obsessively completist, c.) cares unconditionally about a band that hasn't been cool in 3 decades, and d.) is bloody loaded? Wow! Maybe it will sell fourteen copies!

Oh, and for the voracious Floyd fans who aren't insane (or are insane but also poor, or simply not wealthy) there's a handy 2-disc version of this 27 (27) disc set for $15. Yeah... That should please everyone.

I feel your pain. Not that I have any interest in owning this, but if I squint really hard and pretend this is by a band I had an enduring passion for/interest in, I can empathize. And it only covers their first seven years? Out of a possible FIFTY? That means there may be as many as SEVEN of these things when all is said and done. That's 189 discs at a total of 3500 USD. I don't know a single hippie turned yuppie turned rich pop-culture obsessed grandfather who would actually make this purchase. Let alone any 18-35 year-olds.

And I thought the Heady Nuggs box was bad! You can get that shit for $75 if you look in the right place. Sure, I've seen the ENTIRE Heady Nuggs collection (all Lips LP's + 20 years after Clouds + some other shit I've lost track of, on signed colored vinyl) for around the $500 mark on eBay, but that's eBay. And it's signed. And colored! Still wouldn't buy it. Ever.

Man, fuck you Pink Floyd and/or the A&R assholes behind this absurd product. Fuck you in your face for creating such a tempting(ish, to some, I guess... maybe?) product and making it so inaccessible.

Also, it pisses me right the fuck off when "newly remixed" versions of albums are counted as "never before released" material for these kinds of things. It's one thing when Nirvana drops the Steve Albini In Utero, along with the original and a buttload of b-sides and rarities, and offered the bulk of it for $30, almost all of it for $50, and the whole damn 3xLP set with bonus footage for less than $100. Or when the VU releases four-disc versions of their four albums for $90 each. That's reasonable. I spent that bread yo! But this shit defies explanation.

Not that I haven't been a pretty lavish completist myself. I have all the Unwound box sets released by Numero group. I have several different CD and LP copies of numerous Sonic Youth albums. I have the deluxe Nirvana reissues, and the aforementioned VU 45th anniversary boxes. But I wouldnt pay this kind of money all at once for ... OK, I just remembered the Kanye West tickets I bought last month, so Ima go head and shut up now.

But before I do, I want to just say that if the Beatles anthology was enough to satisfy Beatles fans (BEATLES fans now... very different, because all of the music is classic, treasured by generations, etc.) then Pink Floyd should be able to get away with the same thing. A 3-part, mostly chronological anthology, spread out over 3 years, with six discs, a monster documentary, three massive colored liner notes, and one gargantuan hardbound book to tell the band's story from absolute beginning to bitter end.

The Beatles nailed it. Course this was '95, and things were different, but they saved us a lot of BS by only giving us what we'd never heard before. The end result was three compilations that played almost like albums, and sold a ton, for about $30 each.

When the time came to reissue the individual US and international albums on CD (and, later, on cd that looked like vinyl for some fucking reason) they did it one album at a time, so people like me didn't have to break the bank to get what we wanted.

Bottom line, if the Beatles could tell their story with three double albums and an accompanying film, Pink Floyd (who did not release a 15/18 album stream of perfection, and would be lucky if they could cull together 6 discs of great material from their most beloved albums) should be able to do the same.

Ps - I'm not a huge Pink Floyd fan, if ya couldn't tell. No offense. I'm actually offended on your behalf.

Agreed on all counts. To each his own. This early '65-'72 era is really the only part of their history I am enthusiastic about, could never get on board with Dark Side, Wish, Animals, Wall, etc... Kim even said some of their early psychedelic shows on youtube inspired Body/Head, I assume she was talking about something like this: https://youtu.be/KAoBLcxESZQ

Beatles Anthology was great, especially the third volume, I play that 3LP set as much or more than any other Beatles album. Aside from some very deep studio outtakes, the only obvious thing they haven't released is a compilation of all their original promo films, some of the first music videos, which they collaged together in the Anthology film.

I'm just happy to have the Washing Machine reissue and Spinhead LPs

I just want the stuff with Syd. That's the first three discs, right? If the 27 CDs cost $550 that's $27.37 per disc so I'd just have to pony up about $61.11 and I'd be down with that OH WAIT you have to buy the whole fucking thing no box à la carte. :(:mad:

Supposedly later in the year they will be selling individual volumes a la carte...

That would be nifty. NIFTY.

most anticipated: FRKWYS with kaitlyn aurelia smith and suzanne ciani (both play buchla modular synthesizers)

most loved so far:
christian fennesz & jim o'rourke - it's hard for me to say i'm sorry
tim hecker - love streams
qluster - echtzeit
kaitlyn aurelia smith - EARS
suzanne ciani - buchla concerts 1975
jan st werner - felder
matt carlson - the view from nowhere
aphex twin - cheetah ep
bracken - high passes
lolina - live in paris
tyondai braxton - oranged out ep
deakin - sleep cycle
pita - get in

honorable mention:
bat for lashes - the bride
julianna barwick - will
venetian snares- traditional synthesizer music
radiohead - a moon shaped pool (LOVE three tracks, meh on the rest)

loved FIDLAR.. was it last year?

anticipating:
brody dalle's upcoming album..
the new pixies - released in november i think..
and dEUS is probably due with a new one soon..

i feel oldfashioned sometimes..

thinking that a new dead c record isn't going to be a monolith at this point is patently idiotic but trouble is another certifiable masterpiece, 5 slabs of the stuff only they can conjure.

recent stuff also of note:
wwwings - phoenixxx
valerio tricoli - clonic earth
m. geddes gengras - interior architecture
shackleton - devotional songs
elysia crampton - presents demon city
james ferraro - human story 3
terry - terry hq
abra - princess
maher shalal hash baz - hello new york
pan sonic - atomin paluu

autechre elseqs continue to rule over everything else

ysssss. been digging this one myself. gengras is pretty hit and miss for me i love ishi, moog years, and new process music. haven't found anything else by him that i like.

some interesting stuff down here - thanks for the matt carlson recommendation - love the album!

pretty much this, don't even love all of it but you just can't even attempt to argue with this record.

yeah, it's a really great record, certainly his most advanced one yet. have always appreciated more than enjoyed his solo stuff but since test leads he's really hit a stride in his solo work (under his own name; personable does nothing for me). and it goes without saying that all his stuff with cameron stallones -- duppy gun, celebrate music synthesiser group, the frkwys record with the congos -- has been routinely great, as was the la vampires/pocahaunted/robedoor stuff. good to see him really progressing a long way beyond those pretty stringent limitations though.

I keep forgetting about Love Streams. Whenever I think about the best records of the year, it just escapes me for some reason. But goddammit, that's a great fucking album.

cool man, glad you enjoy. i love matt carlson and golden retriever, but i am not sure why i like this album. it is pretty challenging and atonal, but for some reason i find it very pleasant. it's certainly unique and that's usually what gets my attention. hard to believe i've been alive 34 years, heard all sorts of avant garde, microtonal, just intonation, experimental noise, etc etc, and still people are inventing new approaches and sounds i've never heard before. i am so thankful to be alive during this era of ubiquitous, free music with so many avenues of experimentation.