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Old 12.18.2007, 10:09 AM   #5
atari 2600
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atari 2600 kicks all y'all's assesatari 2600 kicks all y'all's assesatari 2600 kicks all y'all's assesatari 2600 kicks all y'all's assesatari 2600 kicks all y'all's assesatari 2600 kicks all y'all's assesatari 2600 kicks all y'all's assesatari 2600 kicks all y'all's assesatari 2600 kicks all y'all's assesatari 2600 kicks all y'all's assesatari 2600 kicks all y'all's asses
Quote:
Originally Posted by Everyneurotic
mv and ee with the bummer road are hippie bullshit when they're bad, ok to plain good psych folk when they're good.

I agree. Kim, as we can see, picked them too. To be fair, I haven't listened to Green Blues or Gettin' Gone from this year in their entirety, but of what I heard, I was turned off by yet another band that cannot (let's get real) really compose songs or play together and so on and so forth. The result is cacophony borne of laziness, or at the very least, a degree of transparent lack of musical focus.

In my view, some of the material on Trees Outside the Academy falls into this same category and much of the corresponding live material from the tour bears that out, especially with Mascis not present. But on the Thurston Moore's album (as compared to MV & EE w/the GR), you've got his vocal and lyrical abilty to form an interesting juxtaposition and better players and better music in general as a saving grace. And also, some of the songs are, in fact, really, really good.

I actually like Be Your Own Pet's s/t from last year on Ecstatic Peace and ranked it highly, so try to distinguish my meaning, please. (I didn't listen to their ep this year; it appears the brothers Orrall are now out of the mix and focusing on their label.)

It's astonishing to me that every list that I read that ranks underground or experimental albums fairly highly does the reader the disservice to roundly ignore the 2005 The Original Silence concert released by Smalltown Superjazz this year. The First Original Silence is entirely performed live improvisationally. Music that finds its way to a release just doesn't get much more underground or experimental than this recording. Moreover, there is a genuine spirit to this document-in-sound that the discerning ear instantly recognizes.

And so arises a case (although I would have awarded the album a 9.0 and not an 8.0) where I agree with a Pitchfork review:
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/articl...iginal-silence
Quote:
Originally Posted by an excerpt from Marc Masters
Those inclined toward improvised music can usually find something worthwhile in all forms of it. But even the most blindly faithful recognize when a session shoots so high that it sounds more like a rocket than a record. The First Original Silence is that kind of instant attention-grabber. Original Silence use the same tools as many improv groups: rolling percussion, squawking horns, guitar feedback, and scraggly electronic noise. But these six sound-crushers have added some sort of performance-enhancing drug, injecting their sound with energy rare to any music, improvised or otherwise.
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