3 'n the Mornin' Part Two [MF's haunt]

Discussion in 'SBAF Blogs' started by MuppetFace, Dec 10, 2016.

  1. drfindley

    drfindley Secretly lives in the Analog Room - Friend

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    @MuppetFace How are you discovering albums at the rate you are? I also listen to a lot of new music (10-20% of your rate though, lots of indie) and it seems you're either discovering a lot of new bands and early music rather than just listening to the new album feed from say Pitchfork. I'm working on a best of 2016 right now in fact and I'll post as soon as I've given everything a relisten.
     
  2. MuppetFace

    MuppetFace Sultana of Seafoam Green - Moderator

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    Back in the days of LiveJournal (cue a tumbleweed passing by), I was a member of several communities dedicated to discovering and sharing music. I met some people with incredible taste and either befriended them or, at the very least, I watched their journals.

    In particular "rating communities" were a big thing back then. One in particular was called TheFuckYouCrew, and on the surface they basically just let ppl post lists of their top 20 favorite music artists as "applications" to join, but it was mostly for the purpose of ripping those lists to shreds and insulting people. You'd be surprised how many people submitted lists. I guess the promise of being part of an elite group was too irresistible? That or they craved abuse. IDK.

    Point being: underneath all that assholery were some individuals who knew an incredible amount of music. Between them, other social circles on LiveJournal, and getting to know the owners of Aquarius Records (RIP)... I got to know about a lot of really great artists spanning the 1940s to current times. The LiveJournal communities mostly helped me learn about R&B, reggae, early house, hip hop, and some rock and metal. AQ Records mostly helped me discover psychedelic rock, more obscure prog, Krautrock, proto-metal, NWBHM, doom, and the more "artsy fartsy" stuff like drone and Japanese noise.

    Local record stores were where I discovered bossa nova, folk, rock from South America and Africa, power electronics and crust punk.

    Hanging around small underground metal record labels like NWN!, Hell's Headbangers, Iron Bonehead, etc. made me aware of a lot of obscure death / black / thrash metal.

    Hanging around Captured Tracks and Sacred Bones (again: small labels) helped fuel my obsession with 80s bedroom recorded synth pop, coldwave, goth, and a lot of modern bands inspired by that stuff.



    TL;DR summary / breakdown of good knowledge sources:
    -LiveJournal (back in the day)
    -Circles of friends
    -Underground 'zines (with sample CDs)
    -trading crappy cassette tapes
    -Record store owners (both online and in person)
    -Small labels and forums run by small labels

    Once you know a lot of artists, the process of "self discovery" really begins. The principle is simple: if you know of one artist, you know of several more, because there are always several artists who inspired them and several artists inspired by them. It becomes a chain reaction.




    Also: I've found you really can't have a strong "audiophile" mindset when it comes to being truly adventurous. Or at least *I* can't. When I'm in exploration mode, there are a lot of crappy recordings and stuff that doesn't make my headphones sound magical. An audiophile in the truest sense of the word is someone who loves sound, but in practice I've found a lot of audiophile culture leads to stagnation: listening to the same tracks over and over, the sort of tracks that make expensive boutique gear sound good. It's the old "listening to your gear" rather than listening to music cliche.

    Not that I have anything against audiophiles. I just don't use the term to describe myself. I tend to like headphones that make crappy recordings listenable. And I don't mean hiding flaws, as those headphones tend to be muddy and gross sounding, but rather headphones that don't turn flaws into swords. A lot of audiophile headphones for instance are treble happy, because that makes details "pop" more. I want smooth, non fatiguing headphones that won't give me a headache. Or more of a headache than a lot of my already headache inducing recordings give me.

    /rant
     
  3. drfindley

    drfindley Secretly lives in the Analog Room - Friend

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    Thanks for that, it's interesting how your discovery works! It's interesting as I've grown older, my musical tastes seem to be ever expanding past my '90s rock roots. Seems like you've been the same way, despite this being a slow year.

    I also completely agree with you on how important it is for one to just evaluate the music over the production quality. Case in point: new Band of Horses had excellent production quality (probably still not audiophile), but Car Seat Headrest had the better album this year, more yearning and drive to the music. For better or worse (definitely worse on the budget), all my new album listening this year happened on vinyl and I think that definitely helped the poorer production albums shine.
     
  4. MuppetFace

    MuppetFace Sultana of Seafoam Green - Moderator

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    So I had a new blog post almost ready, and for stupid reasons it was accidentally deleted.
    So I'm feeling kinda bummed, as there's no way I'm gonna be able to recapture the spark for inspiration for talking about that particular album.
    So I'm gonna find a new album to write about instead.

    In the meantime, I've managed to remember more favorites from 2016:

    Ulrich Schnauss - No Further Ahead Than Today
    Biosphere - Departed Glories
    Loscil - Monument Builders
    ORB - Chill Out World
    Lustmord - Dark Matter
    Marconi Union - Ghost Stations
    Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions - Until The Hunter
    Thee Oh Sees - Odd Entrances.
    Steve Hauschildt - Strands

    This stuff is mostly ambient-leaning electronica, with the exception of Hope Sandoval whose voice is like a warm bubble bath anyway and of course Thee Oh Sees who are garage rock.

    - - - - - - -

    Some new releases I'm enjoying so far in 2017 are Brian Eno's Reflection and The Flaming Lips' Oczy Mlody. To be honest while the last couple of Lips albums have been interesting and somewhat bold (for a more-or-less "mainstream" artist), they just didn't grab me much. Especially The Terror. So far this new one is a lot more memorable for me however. It definitely has some hints of the band's post-silver-age (Soft Bulletin, Yoshimi, The Mystics).

    As for Brian Eno, well, it's Brian Eno. Specifically a long-form ambient piece as opposed to one of his pop or experimental vocal albums. So yeah.
     
  5. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    hay man! I was just trying to keep things simple!!! we all know music can go from "oh, there's this one song" to "YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO THE ENTIRE CATALOGUE!" so quickly. ain't it great‽

    (nice list BTW!!!)
     
  6. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    I can't get enough of that album.
     
  7. Deep Funk

    Deep Funk Deep thoughts - Friend

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    When it comes to the music I like there are three categories: HD600 and speakers, KSC75/PortaPro and speakers or speaker only.

    Everything with too much loudness is speaker only, simple. When Carly Rea Jepsen's album "Emotion" for instance turned out to have enough dynamic range I was very pleasantly surprised.
     
  8. Cryptowolf

    Cryptowolf Repping Chi Town - Friend

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    I had not considered this for listening to music. It seems like you are using the strengths and weaknesses of each playback media for headphones or speakers. For example, I know I've got my headphone rig dialed in when Five Finger Death Punch sounds compressed and a bit hollow. The dynamic range for most of their albums resembles a flat bug; smashed hard into a wall by a brick compressor (http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list?artist=Five Finger Death Punch).

    Could you expound a bit more on when you listen with headphones and speakers? I've personally done this with open backed headphones and speakers when listening to bands such as Tool or Progressive Rock where there is a lot going on with the music.
     
  9. Deep Funk

    Deep Funk Deep thoughts - Friend

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    I am a critical listener. I have an HD600. When there is too much compression or lack of dynamic range the music will sound bad. Ever since having the K240DF I became aware of the fact that certain headphones are like tools that indicate how shit a recording may be regarding sound. Prog and Metal are usually well produced but watch out with commercial releases post 1990.

    The KSC75 and PortaPro also let you hear things but a little compression and less loudness are not wrecking the sound yet. Forgiving and fun headphones matter for a reason.

    I started collecting music with a lot of Funk and Jazz. When a groove sounds wrong to my ears I switch off and press "stop/pause". Exposure to Jazz from the 1950-ties to the 1970-ties and then the good James Brown recordings spoil your ears. This is what I consider a good groove and remember that JB first recorded Mono, then cut the records for Mono or Stereo in a time where there was no computer to "fix" zeroes and ones from a sound file.



    P.S. Some albums will not be played because some artists put loudness over a good song, so f**k those artists.

    P.P.S. This groove gets in your head and before you know it your feet tap to this delicious groove.
     
    Last edited: Jan 19, 2017
  10. MuppetFace

    MuppetFace Sultana of Seafoam Green - Moderator

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    Oh, for sure, some records are *meant* to be blasted on shitty speakers. People on head-fi thought I was crazy for saying it (among other things).

    Like I'd never wanna listen to Guitar Wolf on headphones. That doesn't mean Guitar Wolf aren't f'ing awesome. Blast them on some cheapo speakers, preferably with some beers.
     
  11. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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    Never really listened to James Brown except for when he's been shown on TV for whatever reason. This had me bobbing my head at my desk at work. Will definitely check out some more :punk:
     
  12. Deep Funk

    Deep Funk Deep thoughts - Friend

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    Look for his Free Funk jams and go for the long versions. "In The Jungle Groove" is a good compilation to start with. Be warned, when you feel like dancing the JB effect is taking place. I already feel it...
     
  13. Dino

    Dino Friend

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    The 'James Brown - Star Time' 4 CD set (1991 and never remastered!) is a nice cheap way to get an uncompressed introduction to his music on CD.

    [​IMG]

    Over 60 songs and about $20 used on Amazon.
     
  14. MuppetFace

    MuppetFace Sultana of Seafoam Green - Moderator

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    If you're looking for something to groove to, check out Curtis Mayfield's Curtis album.

    Also check out Baby Huey.
     
  15. Dino

    Dino Friend

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    Yep.
    I will, thanks!
     
  16. Deep Funk

    Deep Funk Deep thoughts - Friend

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    Curtis Mayfield was so ahead of his time. He and Marvin Gaye found a way to say things clearly yet smoothly and sometimes their message was not happy...
     
  17. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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    "Sisters! Niggers! Jews! Whities! Crackers! Don't worry, if there's Hell down below, we're all gonna go!"
     
  18. Deep Funk

    Deep Funk Deep thoughts - Friend

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    That guitar fuzz in the intro and African percussion start it all off...

     
  19. MuppetFace

    MuppetFace Sultana of Seafoam Green - Moderator

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    Jan. 25th, 2017

    [ - Album of the now: This Heat's Deceit - ]

    Just a quickie for now, as I've got some Resident Evil 7 to play while it's still dark outside.

    Like I said before: I was working on a much longer write-up for an entirely different album, but it was not to be. At least for now. So I figured I'd switch gears entirely from that album in question, and then I arrived at the blue and yellow gates.

    For the uninitiated, This Heat can be an elusive listen. Certainly it occurs to me that This Heat---the debut album---may not be the best starting point for said band whose music is, often times, like some kind of faint smell carried on the air that reminds one of a hazy, half forgotten memory. "Drone punk" is the stupid genre name I'd give these guys who pretty much eluded most genre classifications. Certainly there are bits of Krautrock influence here and there, ghosts of the future past that would have been some kind of angular horror punk. A lot of the debut however is impossible to do any justice to in words. I've already made a mess of things myself.

    THIS album on the other hand first greets the listener by telling them to go to sleep. A human voice: something that didn't show up out of the blue before until four tracks in or so. It's a rather pleasant if slightly off courus. And I hate that this first thing that comes to mind now is Jeff the Killer creepypasta. Damn you Internet, you have to ruin everything.

    Thankfully Deceit is largely timeless and transcendent. Only, it's not: when you hear this album---truly hear it---for the first time, you're likely to never forget that time and place. Yeah, it's one of those things. At least to me.

    The angular propulsion that intruded into their earliest works is now taken to an extreme in Deceit. This is controlled chaos and calculated madness at its finest. Take "Paper Hats" and "Cenotaph" for instance: these are actual songs, somehow. Both are immensely creepy in their own way, but from a simple chord progression they suddenly turn into some of the most beautiful music ever heard by human beings. Only for a painfully brief moment. Then it all collapses back into discordance and Nurse With Wound type soundscapes.





    As if the use of language on this album wasn't confounding enough, "Shrinkwrap" takes it a step further and invents a ritual chant that Magma would surely be proud of. "Radio Prague" goes further still and dissects language into brief ejaculations courtesy of radio tuning.

    The next anthem for me is, appropriately enough, "Makeshift Swahili." Vocalizations here are equal parts full own metal growl and British walrus before the track explodes into another moment of incredible beauty, recoiling in horror at itself shortly thereafter. Or maybe the listener is supposed to be running away from a whirlwind. I don't know.

    "Independence" is equally confounding and beautiful, though now it comes from a reading of the Declaration of Independence set to vaguely Japanese sounding folk, becoming a punk rock coda---again, somehow---in the process. Throughout Deceit there is a definite sense of the political (see, no hear, "Cenotaph" and "Makeshift Swahili." And then hear them again). It remains ever so slightly out of touch if not fully present.

    The truly frightening moment of this album though, for me, is "A New Kind of Water." It begins with a prehistoric, caveman plod that wouldn't be out of place on a Ruins prog exercise. The slowly rising chorus is like a gradually swelling fear balloon. When it pops, the result is another achingly, achingly beautiful moment of transcendence that to me signifies the climax. If there was ever a single from this album, it would probably be "A New Kind of Water." That realization is the real frightening part.

    It abruptly segues into "Hi Baku Shyo," a dissonant and minimalist landscape that, itself, abruptly segues into nothingness.

    I think, for once in the history of humankind, the first YouTube comment says it best:
    "How is anyone supposed to be considered original once you know this album exists?"

    I don't necessarily agree with the sentiment there, but I do agree with the spirit.
    I don't know, xTheOxx. I just don't know.
     
  20. dark_energy

    dark_energy Friend

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    That's 'different.' I like the ''A New Kind Of Water''

    With this song, it either captures your attention or not. Like Radiohead in that sense. If it does, it is ever more rewarding experience. This isn't your ' i need a fix now' kind of music.
     

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