Sex, War and Robots: Wire

Showing posts with label Wire. Show all posts

Thursday, February 22, 2018

Happy Birthday to the Following Albums (5)

The following albums all have significant birthdays this year.

Happy 5th Birthday, Arcade Fire's Reflektor!

Happy 10th Birthday, The Roots' Rising Down!

Happy 20th Birthday, Mansun's Six!

Happy 25th Birthday, Nirvana's In Utero!

Happy 30th Birthday, The Church's Starfish!

Happy 40th Birthday, Wire's Chairs Missing!

Happy 50th Birthday, The Jimi Hendrix Experience's Axis: Bold As Love!

Sunday, October 22, 2017

Spotify Playlist: I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Spotify Playlist: The Numbers Are In

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Top 30 Albums of 2013

30. Deer Tick - Negativity

29. Majical Cloudz - Impersonator

28. Mount Moriah - Miracle Temple

27. Sarah Jarosz - Build Me Up from Bones

26. Deerhunter - Monomania

25. Alela Diane - About Farewell

24. Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest

23. Iceage - You're Nothing

22. Iron & Wine - Ghost on Ghost

21. Haim - Days Are Gone

20. Chvrches - The Bones of What You Believe

19. Tomahawk - Oddfellows

18. Queens of the Stone Age - ...Like Clockwork

17. Richard Thompson - Electric

16. Janelle Monáe - The Electric Lady

15. Wire - Change Becomes Us

14. Fuck Buttons - Slow Focus

13. Bill Callahan - Dream River

12. Julia Holter - Loud City Song

11. Merchandise - Totale Nite

10. My Bloody Valenine - m b v

9. Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels

8. Lady Lamb the Beekeeper - Ripely Pine

7. Torres - Torres

6. Braids - Flourish/Perish

5. Throwing Muses - Purgatory/Paradise

4. No Joy - Wait to Pleasure

3. Deathfix - Deathfix

2. Polvo - Siberia

1. Arcade Fire - Reflektor

Top 30 Albums of 2013: Honourable Mentions

Polvo - Siberia

Bill Callahan - Dream River

Torres - Torres

Richard Thompson - Electric
My Bloody Valentine - m b v
Lady Lamb the Beekeeper - Ripely Pine

Saturday, November 30, 2013

Throwing Muses - Purgatory/Paradise

Looking at the running times of each track on Purgatory/Paradise, a third of which hover around the one minute mark, it could be a film score. In a very real way, it's is the soundtrack to the last ten years in the lives of Kristin Hersh, Bernard Georges and Dave Narcizo, the book that comes with it being a treatment for the script.

Throwing Muses have always been an example to other bands; they had a whole scene built around them in the mid 80s, and when they settled into the mid 90s alt-rock scene, a scene they had a big hand in creating, they settled near the top. Another decade after that, Kristin Hersh became a pioneer of crowdfunding for music. The better part of another decade later, Purgatory/Paradise sets an example that not many are likely to follow, albeit the same one being set this year by a number of veterans, including My Bloody Valentine, Richard Thompson and Wire: how to make a great rock album in the early 10s.

If the film to which Purgatory/Paradise could be a soundtrack existed, it would be a disjointed, meandering narrative, telling the story out of order. Before the 32 song, 67 minute long album can take hold, what does make an impression is the sound. It's not lo-fi, but it's far from slick. It's very real, very human; the drums sound like drums rather than someone bouncing a basketball in an empty church. The album was mastered with an uncommonly light touch, and given the number of soft-loud transitions, it was the only way to do it. If the sound is human, then accordingly the music is direct. Whether it's a quiet, contemplative number or a strident rocker, you can imagine three people in the studio playing those instruments, and if there's any singer who sounds as if she might crawl through the speakers Ring style at any given moment, it's Kristin Hersh. Each of the songs carves out its own space while functioning as part of the album as a whole. Paradoxically for an album with so many songs, Purgatory/Paradise should be able to remind any willing listener of a time before they had thousands of albums and when their relationship with a song was deeper because of it. In 2013, releasing 32 songs that are worth listening to would have been enough, but it wasn't enough for Throwing Muses; these songs demand to be listened to.

50 Foot Wave - With Love from the Men's Room EP
Flux Capacitor: Throwing Muses - Untitled
My 200 Favourite Albums of All Time

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Ersatz Electric Hedgehog

Apparently I can get Spotify up in this bitch. Listen to this playlist 1000 times and you've paid for the artists' next lunch.

Monday, September 5, 2011

15 Great Albums That Are Shorter Than The King of Limbs

The King of Limbs may be Radiohead's most divisive album since Kid A or perhaps ever. One of the criticisms leveled at it by its detractors (and some of its supporters) is its moderate length. It is Radiohead's shortest album (37:24) and contains 8 tracks, which is at least two fewer than any of their other albums. Fuck that. It may be short, but it has girth. The best music is all about economy, not excess. Some of the albums listed below are short because the songs make their point and then fuck off. Others have a modest number of fairly long songs. Some hark back to the days when you didn't have 80 minutes to play with, while others were recorded by bands that are smart enough to know that just because you can make an album that long doesn't mean you should. They're all shorter than The King of Limbs, and most of them are better.