Dreamboat (2016)

mie / -o-

that present (2014)

I'm gonna get you that present. Give me all your money, baby.

On the one hand, fleeting moodpieces. On the other, atmosphere (pulling that one out, lazily explaining why something appeals as being more than just the sum of its parts without having to put anything into words) and thematic coherence as flow (again...).

Which might describe the movie quite well, actually. Maybe it's secretly a musical!

Less about the presence of silence than the last JVW record I heard, more about the layering of cacophony into something pissed off, indifferent, and thoroughly felt. Cynics snort at rockist + Romantic clichés, but it's nice to think that if it's all gone to shit then what remains is love. And if that's too gooey, we've still got the Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light series for those who like their drones mortal.

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Hash Jar Tempo - Well Oiled (1997)

Yaaaaaaawwwn. At the tempo of a fucking- OH SHIT. HEY GUYS DID YOU GET-

At the temple of a fucking Ash Ra! Right!! Drones take turns droning and twinkling, drums helping us through the chaos or forcibly driving us in, making sure we can't get up for air

here

Do Make Say Think - & Yet & Yet (2002)

post-rock is silly and the name do make say think is silly and the title & yet & yet is sillier than both of those things, and after a while of trying to understand post-rock and pinpoint what makes one thing likable and another thing bland, years ago i concluded that it must be bro-core builds a la godspeed but mono fucked all that up when i thought hey i can see where this one's going and the next one and the next one my god i hope this stops soon and so resorted to tortoise who advocated a movement from predictable bro-core crescendos and contrived catharsis into dusty high-brow steve reich and faust references, but that solution's boring, dusty, and the whole thing just confuses me. so what makes do make say think's 10 year old silly titled & yet & yet work or appeal all these years later and in spite of the world's relative dissatisfaction with post-rock outside of this year's swans and godspeed releases which'll likely be in everyone's 1-5 spots when it comes to ranking this year's bestest albums, and in spite of do make say think's tortoise-ish quietness and reserved retro experimentation standing in direct opposition to swans' and godspeed's blood-sweat-tear-hnggghh-brotharsis masculinity and mood-core drone-masochism, maybe those ones'll kill post-rock and maybe this one's a relic of that strange time in indie rock where people wanted casual escapism via the occasional transcendent outro and otherwise the mimicry of older artistic trends the listener can't've been around for- a return to the utopian naivete of modernism, or the contemporary listener's rose-n-dust-tinted vision thereof, removed of purpose, context, guts- dusty like tortoise, experimental like the early 70s (ha), jazzy like tortoise, safe like the rose tint, dusty like the rose tint, dusty like the 70s, dusty like jazz or the contemporary listener's vision thereof, dusty, just dusty. a dusty relic of a time where for some reason a record needed to be dusty- a musical encyclopedia, or a naively faux-nostalgic, creepily vacuous denial of anything post-1980.

C

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Envy - A Dead Sinking Story

1. Chain Wandering Deeply

2. Distress of Ignorance

3. Evidence

4. Color of Fetters

5. Unrepairable Gentleness

6. Go Mad and Mark

7. A Conviction that Speeds

8. Reasons and Oblivion

9. A Will Remains in the Ashes

Envy is a Japanese screamo band that includes elements of post rock and hardcore punk. Envy's sound is crushingly heavy and hopeless - emphasised by their low-key, melodic and beautiful passages. A Dead Sinking Story is their best album, released in 2003 and defining a style that was subsequently mimicked by the west. Nevertheless, nothing quite compares to Envy's grapple on the sound, complimented by the character of Japanese vocals - sometimes screamed, other times spoken. Simply one of the most passionate and well-crafted albums ever, any fan of heavy music should listen to this.

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Earth - Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I & II

Earth - Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I (2011)

1. Old Black 8:49
2. Father Midnight 12:11
3. Descent to the Zenith 7:30
4. Hell’s Winter 11:32
5. Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I 20:24

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Earth - Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II (2012)

1. Sigil of Brass 3:32
2. His Teeth Did Brightly Shine 9:00
3. Multiplicity of Doors 13:04
4. The Corascene Dog 8:26
5. The Rakehell 11:51

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Download (MP3 V1)

Here are the two latest offerings from Earth! This time, Earth is joined by Lori Goldston on cello (who you might recall from Nirvana MTV Unplugged) and Karl Blau on bass. The two albums were recorded at the same time, but released a year apart.

If you're familiar with Earth's post-2005 fare you'll know roughly what to expect. I found the first underwhelming, but enjoyed the second. However, I've only listened to them a year apart, not as a unified whole (probably the preferable option), so I doubt whether there actually is that much difference.

It might be my imagination, but the production seems worse on the second one. There are a few pops and crackles, but not enough for it to seem 'intentional' — listen to Sunn O))) for counterexamples — so it's just kinda distracting. For music that arguably worsens with conscious listening, that's not great, so hopefully most of you won't notice.