I discovered Coasting from this blurb from Other Music, and found that their debut self released was on emu. I'm really digging this - girl group, goth, surf garagey type thing, but a lot more talent than some of the current crop.
Recommended if you like (or ever liked) the Cure, shoegaze outliers like Lush and Curve, Jesus and Mary Chain, also current things like No Age, Best Coast (but Coasting is much more NY so Beast Coast?), A Place to Bury Strangers, Dum Dum Girls, Vivian Girls, Crystal Stilts etc. etc.. So check it out before they get overhyped and find some celebrity (over)producer to take all the fuzz and echo and noise and coolness out.
One of my very last amie purchases was the Neu! box - Pitchfork gave this a terrible review, but the Other Music review in this update convinced me to try it out sooner than I might have otherwise gotten around to it - so far I'm liking it. Stupid pitchfork.
I never really liked this album very much, but reading this in the emusic article accompanying the reissue made me give it another try, and I'm enjoying it more than I used to:
I'm even fonder of From a Basement on the Hill, which combines the sleepy softness of his early work with the elaborate arrangements of his two major-label albums, XO in '98 and Figure 8 in '00. Though Smith at times sounds tremulous or tired, and though some of the sonic ideas feel like excursions not fully followed through, his gifts remain almost scarily abundant. "Coast to Coast" and "Don't Go Down" are fuzzed-out wall-of-sound rockers densely layered with staticky background noise and ominous feedback rumbles. "Memory Lane" is a chilling tour through pharmacological hell. "A Fond Farewell" shows off his flawless George Harrison chops and features couplets worthy of the warped Shakespearean who seemed to live inside his brain: "Things full of disappearing ink/ Vomiting in the kitchen sink." And "Twilight" is a song so majestic, so perfect, so haunting, I don't even want to breathe on it. It tells the story of two wrecked souls, probably in some institution, clinging to each other while the realities of the outside world abstractly weigh upon them. "If I went with you, I'd disappoint you too," Smith apologizes. Heretical as it is to say, From a Basement is my favorite Elliott album. Wounded and down for the count, he still triumphed, like a prize fighter taking a round with one arm tied behind his back.
I'd given up on Robyn in the mid-90s. Maybe it was fatigue: my drummer was obsessed with him, and we went to almost a dozen of his shows. This and Propeller Time are awesome.
Comments
I discovered Coasting from this blurb from Other Music, and found that their debut self released was on emu. I'm really digging this - girl group, goth, surf garagey type thing, but a lot more talent than some of the current crop.
Recommended if you like (or ever liked) the Cure, shoegaze outliers like Lush and Curve, Jesus and Mary Chain, also current things like No Age, Best Coast (but Coasting is much more NY so Beast Coast?), A Place to Bury Strangers, Dum Dum Girls, Vivian Girls, Crystal Stilts etc. etc.. So check it out before they get overhyped and find some celebrity (over)producer to take all the fuzz and echo and noise and coolness out.
Thought I had lost this CD years ago ... just found it in the wrong album case. (Now if I can only find the right one to put it in.)
Thanks Craig for reminding me to listen to Fugazi. Now if I could just figure out why the heck it took me nine years to get this.
What amie street?
Bloody fantastic. But can anyone confirm a hiccup at 3:27 on track 19?
One of my very last amie purchases was the Neu! box - Pitchfork gave this a terrible review, but the Other Music review in this update convinced me to try it out sooner than I might have otherwise gotten around to it - so far I'm liking it. Stupid pitchfork.
One of my favorite Amie freebies. [/sniff]
Craig
I am at Starbucks again:
Argh.
@Thom: Thanks for seconding this!
One of my very first purchases on eMusic.
I never really liked this album very much, but reading this in the emusic article accompanying the reissue made me give it another try, and I'm enjoying it more than I used to:
(link)
I'd given up on Robyn in the mid-90s. Maybe it was fatigue: my drummer was obsessed with him, and we went to almost a dozen of his shows. This and Propeller Time are awesome.
Another album that bubbled up out of the morass of my collection; I had forgotten how much I loved it.
Judging by the cover this must be some sort of new math.
What if David Grisman had joined String Trio of New York?