manchester is actually kind of pretty in the summer
need help, i was listening to the new jam city lp ‘classical curves’ and it’s attracted many fraught pups. i was only three or four songs in when local dogs set upon me and began pouring through my doors and windows at an unbelievable rate. i’ve locked myself in the bathroom for the time being until the album finishes and these mutts disperse. in conclusion, cool album
suicide - surrender
ace song, first heard it in that film attenberg. cool fil m+ good soundtrack e.g that scene with francoise hardy - tous les garcons and an unamplified bass guitar
nice to see joie de vivre have dropped even more of the rad loud/soft dynamics, minimal interwoven guitars and strained vox that made summer months the best emo record in about 15 years in favour of plodding forgettable songs with tiresomely over literal lyrics, bro’d out gang vocals, way too much horn in the mix. such a shame. did they just stop listening to mineral or something?
Cool Revision Tips for Teens: try pouring lukewarm coffee into your lap and then sheepishly looking around to see if anyone saw you. if they didn’t, you win! now you get to trudge back up to your room for a well earned revision break! Cool!
can’t believe i was following The Needle Drops
i’ve never done this before, but here goes.
my first impressions: Magnetic Fields - Love at the Bottom of the Ocean
v. disillusioned by the latest magnetic fields album. i’ve struggled to listen to songs with lyrics for 3 or 4 days now. i’m not ruling out going back to it, swallowing my pride and changing my mind but right now i’m still feeling fairly raw about the whole ordeal. i feel like stephen merritt fucked me outright on this…the third in a string of disappointing efforts from, in my eyes, one of the best artists going. although i can’t really justify claiming to feel like a battered wife who, while curled up in the tear stained corner of a dingy living room escapes to hazy recollections of washed out half forgotten warm and sunny days with a younger, kinder him…long before the drinking and the gambling and the lying took hold, but it illustrates how melodramatic i’m willing to get about a disappointing magnetic fields album.
aside from the uncontested gem that is ‘andrew in drag’, the passable ‘quick’ and the admittedly pretty damn good ‘all she cares about is mariachi’ the album is comprised of largely forgettable hookless shadows of the fantastic, intelligent lo fi electronic pop we’d come to expect after ‘Holiday’ and ‘The House of Tomorrow’. songs like ‘infatuation (with your gyration)’ are almost unlistenably wank by Magnetic Fields’ admittedly lofty standards, and you’ve pretty much forgotten about ‘the machine in your hand’ half way through the song.
after massively anticipating their return to electronic instrumentation after 2010’s dull ‘Realism’ i was pained to discover that the melodies and synths, rather than the expected charming and melodic bleeps and bloops that Merritt always excelled at interweaving with his stunning lyricism are now hyperactive and grating in their execution. instead of engrossed, i found myself mildly irritated and longing for the end for the majority of these tracks. and they scarcely pass the two minute mark! ridiculous.
of course if this album was made by anyone else it’d be different. but it’s not. so it isn’t.
make yr own mind up: http://www.npr.org/2012/02/26/147195131/first-listen-the-magnetic-fields-love-at-the-bottom-of-the-sea
what i wanted more of: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzsrEpM082M
