Heralds of an Atheist Misanthropic Pessimist
 

So.
I only just registered on this website today. And, seeing as how this is a forum, I thought I should post something. So this is going to be a journal (mostly) of my (musical) thoughts. So first a bit about me:

- I only buy music in albums. There are no lonely songs on my iPod.

- I only buy albums that can be bought as an album. If there is a song out there that is really really good but that is sitting in an album of Sh*t, it will be left behind.

- Every time I go to buy music, I start with a list of things I want, and then buy something completely in the spur of the moment that I really wasn't planning on.

- I can tolerate music that spews about religion, but only if I can persuade myself to pretend that the lyrics are being sarcastic or ironic.

- I find it difficult to listen to most female artists.

- I have yet to find more than three people on earth who share similar music tastes to my own. (Maybe I should get out more?)

- I can play instruments and make my own music. But not well.

- The music that I listen to has changed drastically in the last 2 years.

Ok...

Some other information for the sake of context:

Favourite Genre: None

Favourite Bands/People who make music: The National, Modest Mouse, Wolf Parade, Andrew Bird, Bon Iver, Toe, Broken Social Scene, Blitzen Trapper, Owen Pallet (Final Fantasy), Department of Eagles, Elliot Brood... others?

Favourite Instruments to be heard: Drum Kit, Bass, Brass, Vocals, Guitar, Keyboard. In that order.

What else: Nothing else.





Entry for Wed, Feb, 16, 2011:

Bought two new albums. 1. Exit - Shugo Tokumaru 2. InnerSpeaker - Tame Impala

1. Exit - Shugo Tokumaru: Experienced regret followed by joy followed by embarrassment followed by admiration. This is a very Japanese sound in some ways, but most of the songs have a very syncopated sound that reminds me of a Baroque period composer that someone unleashed from the bonds of less temporary constraints. Yup...



2. InnerSpeaker -Tame Impala: Experienced self-gratification followed by buyers remorse followed by shame at having experienced buyers remorse followed by feeling high without the assistance of illegal substances. This album came out in 2010 but it sounds straight out of the 70s at times. I think the band is Ozzy and the lead singers voice often reminds me of John Lennon when he started experimenting with distortion and vocal effects. To my North American ears, there's enough that's similar between the Liverpudlian accent and an Australian accent that when two men with similar enough voices start singing, I can't tell the difference. I'm just that inept. Also: Jimi Hendrix. On the whole very good speaking from the experience of about 10 minutes. But every album will be judged by the test of time.




Anyway, that's all for today. It's over, and you're welcome for that. My apologies for the rest of it.

Great taste an I hear ya about the female artists.
Finally someone who understands :)

This looks interesting, nice way to introduce yourself breh

We have common methods. Unfortunately, your youtube videos are broken. The tag only needs the code within it to work, not the whole URL. Welcome!

Fixed your YouTube links for you, Ian. They won't work if you put the whole url in there, just put the string of characters that appear after "watch?v=" in the url.

The first thing I can never do! But usually that song that I like usually ends up being a Single so...do you have any singles?

The last two things I can say me too to.

Department of Eagles is pretty good. I sort of understand your point on female singers. I only have a few that I can tolerate (Grace Slick and Laurie Anderson being two of the few).

Thanks. I was wondering what was going on...

I came here because of the intriguing title of your thread and enjoyed your comments more than I enjoyed your music, TBH. Those "...followed by....followed by...." bits were very good, because who can decide straight off on an album?

@ Jack Pat: I didn`t realize it, but I don`t like many female artists either, although I`m ok with some stuff: K and A McGarrigle or Joni Michell for instance, and in a different style, Souad Massi and Zap Mama.

Well, Ian, I`ll look forward to your next installment. I hope you can find something really pessimistic to share with us !

Self-Motivated. Self-Interrogated.
 

Entry for Wed, March 16, 2011:

While you're reading the first part, here's something to listen to while we wait for actual relevant audio:



In all seriousness though. If I were you, I would want to listen to this video. If I were you, I would like this video. Not that you can control that, or that you actually will, but If I were you, I would be me not you.

____________________________________
I've wanted to make my next instalment here for a while now, but haven't been able to think of anything good to write. I thought of writing:

> This) An explanation of why :bowdown:The National is a band above all others.

> Or) An introduction and analysis of Owen Pallet

> And Then) A reflection on why I like some music and not others, based on attitudes or my own stereotypes more so than actual musical integrity or quality.

---F THAT---F THAT---F THAT---F THAT----F TAHT---F TATH--- FAT AH---

Instead, I'm going to just talk about what's on my mind right now.

So the first thing, is that I have about $20.00 on my iTunes account that I've had since December.

And yes we can all debate the merits of downloading off of itunes and getting a compressed music file that could be destroyed by a magnet, but at this point: it was a gift, and I can't change it into real money again now can I. (aside from that I tend to buy music off iTunes anyway just for the convenience and out of a lack of personal want to have anything tangible).

So I've been looking over my options. On average, I would say an album costs $9.99 on Canadian iTunes any who. So by my advanced calculations, that's like approximately 2 albums I can buy.

I've made a short list of albums I might be choosing.... None of them strike me as worthy however :( . I need my music to be highly rewarding no matter how many times I listen to it, and I seem to prefer the kind of music that's difficult to listen to the first few times, but that get's better with time.

Anyway here's a few of them:


Band: The Cave Singers
Album: No Witch
Song: Black Leaf
Found: Featured on an episode of Chuck I was swatching...

I know in the past this band has sounded a bit different. This album seems more intense or darker or something.

NUMBAH TWO


"Band": Final Fantasy (aka Owen Pallet before he realized naming himself after the world most milk'd out/drunken up video game series might not have been a good idea)
Album: He Poos Clouds
Song: This Lamb Sells Condos
Found: Last year or something.

I found this album a while ago, but never got it for some reason. But I did notice the artist, and so when Owen Pallet came out with new albums, I got them instead. Now for some reason I struggle to purchase this album, because I want something new, totally different, but just as great.

THE THIRD SEAL :mad:
---------------:whythis:


Band: The Young Dubliners
Album: Saints and Sinners
Song: Caroline
Found: Months ago while challenging myself to find good Irish music.

This has nothing to do with the time of year by the way. It's not St.Patricks day making me want to get in touch with the music of my ancestors or anything. This band is interesting to me for a few reasons. Firstly, they sound a bit like :bowdown:The National to me (atleast in this song - although the lyrics are about 1/898447 of the way to being of the same calibre). The other thing that's interesting to me, is that it is pretty true to a celtic sound, while also being contemporary and not making me feel like I'm in some terrible movie about two brothers murdering people to DropKick Murphy...

And I am part Irish, and I do live in a part of Canada that translates to "New Scotland"... and there is more bagpipes here then there needs to be. So I can't help myself but get into this kind of music sometimes.


So there you go. That's what I've been thinking about pretty much since my last post on February 16.

Bye 'til next time.

I'm sure I've heard some of this album before, who could forget an album title like 'He Poos Clouds'? But I didn't really rate it much. Anyway this song and video are interesting, but towards the end of the song I find both music and video seem to tail off into something less interesting and bland.

I would tend to agree with that. It should be noted also, that the video is a very good fan film, not an official one as far as I know. Thanks for the comment!

Entry for Wednesday, March 23, 2011:

Ok so this is more for me to be able to scrapbook some exploring I'm doing. I've recently become interested in finding Indie type bands from places outside the usual North America.

This time, because of St. Pats day and because for various reason the place has sparked my interest, we travel to Eire.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4X_iD2aoO3...y%27Bridge.jpg

Ok, so here's what I've dug up.



So this first band is called Redneck Manifesto. From what I can tell it's an instrumental band which reminds me of other personal favourites such as Toe (Japanese) and Special Others (Japanese). So I already really like this kind of pure instrumental guitar, bass, drum thing, and this band immediately sounded right to me. For the third band I've found, I'm now optimistic about Ireland's music scene.

(I'm actively searching for music and writing this at the same time)

I also thought their songs music video was pretty sick here.

-------------thisandthenextisnotthesame--somehowtheyisdifferent--------------



This one is Jape. Ok so the name is already good. And after listening to the song, it's not bad either. Kind of Beck-ish, and I like Beck so that's goodish. Wikipediad (is that a word?) "Jape" to confirm it was actually Irish. Turns out, according to this very credible source, Jape is an electric -rock band from Dublin, Ireland (I think that's in Ireland). I'll be checking this out a bit I think.

----------------thisisheretoshowyouthatsomethingnewishappening--------------



Now for God is an Astronaut. First impression, The Police instrumentals. That's not really accurate though. This is another Irish band, this one again instrumental. Seriously good indie music film here too. I like this music, but I have a hard time imagining myself listening to in day to day life. That applies to a lot of other good bands too though. Maybe some others will find this good.

------------------wearemovingon.letgoofthat.it'stimeforsyouhavepolio omethingnew----------



Another Dublin band. The Future Kinggs of SpainI already knew about these guys but they're a mention. They aren't what I'm looking for, but they're a good band. Wont be adding them to my collection probably though. Just not my kind of music. Other people should listen though, because contrary to the consensus of the republic of my own brain, everyone doesn't think the same as me, and no you probably aren't all just pretending to disagree.

-----------------------ifyoudontunderstandnowyouneverwill-----------------------



This would be Cane141. Not sure how well known this one is. Seems like it might be in a bit of a niche market. The band comes from Galway started up in '97. That's all I really know. I liked this particular song.

-------------------------irefusetoexplainthisanymore------------------------------

Other bands that came up:

The Jimmy Cake
The Frames
United Bible Studies
The Rags
Alphastates (Babelfish)


If anyone knows more about these bands (all the way up the page) and thinks they're worth listening more too, let me know please. :) I don't think all of this is Indie, but as I say, in my personal listening day to day, I completely ignore genres and just listen to music for whatever it is. I basically learned that Ireland makes good instrumental music, and that there is no way I will die having heard all the great bands around the world that I should have :(

Hopefully I can get some of them though.

The other day I was hanging out with a friend and I mentioned that I'd been wanting to listen to some good hip-hop and the like since I thought I'd unfairly written the genre off.

This particular friend and I have a long history of introducing each other too new music and we have extremely similar tastes. Anyway, he said he'd do some searching to see if he could find anything good. A week or so later I jacked all the stuff he'd come up with and It was pretty good even if I'm not sure if you would call it hip-hop. In the end a lot of mixing groups turned up, which was very interesting. Anyway here's an overview of some of it...

Ok so we'll just go in alphabetical order because I'm creative like that. Along with each artist I'll provide some samples of my current favourite tracks from the albums that I've been trying to wrap my head around.

The Avalanches



This band from Australia is well known for their production of "Since I Left You" which is the album that I've now got my hands on. I have to say, it is excellent. Whether or not its hip-hop... I'm leaning towards no? Regardless I'm glad to have given them a serious listen.

Since I Left You is an impressive album where more than 3000 vinyl samples are cleverly mixed to create very groovy and coherent tracks.

The Books



Formed in New York comes "The Books". Again I think my friend found one band that he liked that mixed sound samples and then ran with that idea. This band is also very good, but also not very hip-hop :p:

At any rate this album ("The Lemon of Pink") is basically a bunch of sound clips cut up, and I put to chopped acoustic guitar and vocals. You can get a good idea of the dimension that the voice clips add when you listen to tracks like "PS" or "Explanation Mark". These are less of tracks and more of compilations of awkward noises that people make... I like it. The rest of it can be pretty folksy at times. I recommend giving a few tracks a listen even if you'll ultimately end up not liking it. The guitar style reminds me a lot of Shugo Tokumaru... who might remind some people of a Japanese Stufjan Stevens? But whatever. The two tracks I've left for you here (Tokyo and This Right Ain't ****) are the two most "listenable" tracks both having been used for commercials. Also try "There is no There" some of the sound clips are really good.......... especially the one that I think must be Albert Einstein? I'm probably embarrassing myself with how wrong I am about that...

Nightmares On Wax



So once again... we aren't fitting snuggly into the hip-hop genre here... or at all... but kind of sort of close? In any rate of cases and stable structures of static nature, I also like this artist (who is actually George Evelyn of Leeds UK), although not as much as the previous two. Again we see a lot of sound mixing and old vinyls being smashed and mashed to make something fresh and appealing. This album is oriented on creating one sound that doesn't move around a lot or change too drastically (which is probably a limitation of this kind of music without the application of serious time, effort, and talent). That isn't to say this guy doesn't have talent... but basically some of the tracks get boring so if you're an active listener you may have trouble tolerating it if what your hearing isn't exactly what you want to hear over and over and over and over and over and over. Or at least that's my first impression.

That being said, this album does have a good collection of great sounds and many of the tracks are less repetitive. My current favourite track is probably "Chime Out".


And that's how a search for hip-hop turns into a discovery of electronic mixes. Oh well nothing was lost and something was gained. Instrumentally speaking I'm pretty sure hip hop is largely about sampling and looping so I may not be totally off base here anyway. If anyone has some good hip-hop recommendations that would also be cool - hoping that the above music might provide some kind of reference?

Anyway...

First Impressions
 

I changed my name. Here's some music that sounds good.

TIMBER TIMBRE

A while a go back I did an album review for an album called Creep On Creepin' On by Timber Timbre. I liked that album a lot, and subsequently I've been dipping into a lot of similar stuff by the nature of those other albums by the same band and some similar influences.

I am now in possession of four albums (well the mp3 versions anyway) by the band and they are: Cedar Shakes (2005), Medicinals (2007), Timber Timbre (2009), and Creep On Creepin' On (2011).

It looks like they release an album every two years.

The sound of the band has basically stayed true from the earliest album to the latest, although there's no doubting that the band and the recordings have gotten better by leaps and bounds. This is one of those bands that has graduated from producing songs into producing albums, which I think was achieved with their self titled album. Listening to these two, new to me, earlier albums, there doesn't seem to be as much plot to the albums, although the music is still signature and of high quality.

Samples of the band: Timber Timbre:
< Cedar Shakes
< Medicinals
<Timber Timbre
<Creep On Creepin' On

That last sample from Creep is just to show the kind of instrumental tracks featured on that album. The majority of the album is similar to previous work But when I listen to the album as a whole, I hear the tracks layed out like the plot to a film with a beginning, middle, plot twist, and ending.