what’s in your cd player?
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Not a problem. Just wanted to help people find the album. It’s a good ‘un.
The album certainly is good, but hardly the masterpiece some like the usually reliable pitchfork.com have been urging. 10/10?! Still, I’m pleased you know about it and quickly corrected my lazyiness. don’t want to send anyone off on a wild goose chase and would encourage those that dont know about it to give it a listen. Its been a while since I downloaded and burnt it to disk, but there’s no excuse for not correcting my own mistake when I just knew I was making one. So thanks Aleck.
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I’d hesitate to condemn the new Neil Young to suckage too early.
Probably best you give it more time before you condemn it to suckage [img]images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] Apart from two or three songs, this just doesn’t gell for me. I can’t imagine that it ever will. Life’s just too short to want listen to another crappy Neil Young record, but you and I both know that he’s probably working on his next masterpiece as we speak.
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I’d also take issue with 16 Horsepower being the best alt.country band around, but that’s just me. Don’t hate ’em, just prefer others.
I have to confess to resisting an urge to comment on your choices of alt.country. They tend towards the New Traditionalists, to paraphrase Devo. Not that there is anything wrong with preserving and extending musical tradition of course. I really like Uncle Tulpo, Wilco, Beachwood Sparks et al but draw the line at Ryan Adams. It seems to me that he wears/bears the Emperor’s New Clothes, although I expect I’m reacting more to the way the media has jumped onto him as offering the best of a given lineage. When i listen to him, I hear a fine songwiter who is too enthralled (possibly even intimidated) by a musical past to want to actually take it further in (say) the way Lambchop, Califone or I6 Horsepower do. And please – listen to the latter again. The first and third records are especially fine, and deserve to be celebrated for trying to carve their own niche across disparate musical traditions (punk, country, rock, goth, etc). When they hit their stride, they are untouchable (I can suggest a list of tracks to try and convince you if you like).
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When you say that the new Wu-Tang is their biggest flop, do you mean commercially or artistically? Because, man, some of their stuff of late has *really* been scraping the barrel bottom. But I liked the single I’ve heard, and thought it was the best cut of theirs I’ve heard since 36 Chambers.
Iron Flag has been a critical success but a commercial flop. They are currently touring to salvage the situation. The interesting thing about the record, though, is its accessbility. They have attempted to address the complaint that the W was too ‘out there’, but to little avail (so far). Two singles were released within a month of each other to desperately render album sales more buoyant, but – most fans seem to have deserted them in droves. The current killa bees release must surely be the final nail in the coffin – 22 tracks, and barely a redeemable track or discernible sale. Although Iron Flag is a little too accessible for my (and probably your) tastes, it is still worth hearing. Especially check out One of these Days – a track not produced by RZA (incidentally)
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I will have to check out the new DJ Shadow, as I didn’t know he’d come out with anything since UNKLE. Any DJ Shadow’s better than no DJ Shadow, though, right?
The album hasn’t been released yet, and won’t be for a couple of months. Nonetheless, if you have access to p2p, you’ll find it easy enough. Unfortunately, it is a bit of a damp squid of a record, and neither fish or fowl. If it hasn’t been produced within an inch of its life, it seems to contain little in the way of ideas or songs. half the record seems to be interludes and sketches in the form of ‘letters’. the last (live) track is an obvious afterthought derived from elsewhere. Although I wasn’t expecting or wanting Entroducing part 2, Private Press is oddly underwhelming , irrespective of who might bear its name. Approach with extreme caution. Check out in particular : 6 Day War, Fixed Income and Blood on the Motorway.
PS
Beachwood Sparks Work with Dntel on New EP
So much for that suburban hillbilly rendition of “The Sweetest Taboo”
Will Bryant reports:
Los Angeles’ own post-rock Burrito Brothers on helium, Beachwood Sparks, are back with a new EP, Make The Cowboy Robots Cry, out May 21st on Sub Pop. The six-cut EP promises a much different approach than last year’s trippy, dippy Once We Were Trees, as the Beachwood boys are breaking in a new drummer (Jimi Hey of Strictly Ballroom and The Rapture) and collaborating with ex-Strictly Ballroom bassist/current Dntel mainman Jimmy Tamborello.
Beachwood Sparks’ Chris Gunst, Tamborello, and Hey (who prior to joining the Beachwoods spelled his name “Jimmy Hay”) comprise three-fifths of the original Strictly Ballroom lineup, who still occasionally play and plan to record under the band name Arca. Hey even sat behind the kit at the first two Beachwood Sparks shows back in 1997 before being replaced by Tom Sanford (who played on the Beachwoods’ demo tape and first singles) and later The Lilys’ Aaron Sperske (who played on Beachwood Sparks and Once We Were Trees). Tamborello also included his former Strictly Ballroom bandmate Gunst on “Umbrellas,” the opening track of Dntel’s Life Is Full Of Possibilities.
According to Sub Pop, Make The Cowboy Robots Cry clocks in at over thirty minutes and features all-new Beachwood Sparks material (i.e. no Sade covers). The echo-drenched, trebly haze of Once We Were Trees is now replaced by a sleeker, cleaner sound enhanced by Tamborello’s “artfully placed bleeps and squeaks.” Tracklist:
01 Drinkswater
02 Hibernation
03 Ponce de Leon Blues
04 Sing Your Thoughts
05 Galapagos
06 Ghost Dance 1492
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[ 06-04-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]