The Album Review Club - Christmas Break Until 8th January

FogBlueInSanFran said:
Review forthcoming, but, completely off topic, the tweet below (by one of Twitter's best-ever tweeters, btw) is 100% correct. At least Radiohead isn't named The Thom Yorke band.

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I assume a hangover of their then atypical origins and the fact Rolling Stone apparently still hates them? Either way Nesmith and Dolenz are at least as deserving as many others. I've got a couple of Nesmith albums somewhere that I haven't played in a fair while and of course Dolenz brought Metal Mickey to our (UK) screens!

Don't know a lot about Dave Matthews, is he a narcissist then? Don't they do a lot of work for charidy though?
 
People On Sunday

I look forward to Goat's picks because whether well known or more obscure, they are well considered so I typically start with 'that's an interesting choice' as my jumping off point. This pick didn’t quite appeal to me as much as I thought it might and I was struggling to work out why; but then I was playing a bit of Joy Division, and I think the reason came to me.

Martin Hannett’s genius was twofold; he just knew intuitively how to make a sonically interesting physical sound, often going to great lengths to create exactly the right sound. There are loads of characteristics that make a note of any given pitch interesting and he just seemed to know what they were. The other, complementary, thing he was brilliant at was the space in between the sounds.

Listening to this week’s pick I realised that though it was a decent enough template, and there was a fair range of sounds and interplay between those sounds, the textures of the individual sounds themselves were not always interesting enough to really draw me into myself to start conjuring images. Once I’d started comparing the production to Hannett, the physical sounds themselves seemed too vanilla and secondly, I’d have liked a bit more sense of space at times as it sometimes felt busy rather than focused. Similarly, now and again it got rhythmically interesting but then it kind of lost its way.

All this meant that it was a pleasant enough experience to listen to, but for me it didn’t really do what I think this type of music does at its best which is allow you to create your own imagery and thoughts to accompany it. I would happily listen to it again in some contexts but I suspect it'll simply be ambient sound.

I did watch Menschen am Sonntag, the famous silent film it was commissioned as a new soundtrack for. I couldn’t find anything on YT where the soundtrack was already synced so I had to do that myself, which you can do fairly easily, because of the track titles. In fairness it works well as a soundtrack, though I came across three or four scores that have been developed for the film over the years and I’m not sure beyond giving a modern update it added a huge amount over the other ones; but nonetheless it did do a good job. I think the film would be powerful with most accompaniments. It’s much more subtle and less obviously chilling than say the rendition of Tomorrow Belongs To Me in Cabaret but in hindsight arguably the more powerful for it.

Overall, it was decent and solid in its intended purpose as a soundtrack, but I hoped it would speak to me more in terms of my own interpretation of it but unfortunately it didn’t. I think 6/10 for its general ambiance and utility in relation to the film seems fair.
 
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I love a bit of electronica. Especially if it's all synthy like this. It's also a very relaxing album to listen to. Saying that it doesn't really grab you in a way that, say, Fujiya and Miyagi do. At least in my head. I've given it quite a few listens, best with headphones whilst lying on the bed, and although I like the genre the actual record is a bit too slow for me.

Not sure how to score this as it's technically in my wheelhouse but slightly outside looking in. Getting wet.

6/10
 
BimboBob said:
I love a bit of electronica. Especially if it's all synthy like this. It's also a very relaxing album to listen to. Saying that it doesn't really grab you in a way that, say, Fujiya and Miyagi do. At least in my head. I've given it quite a few listens, best with headphones whilst lying on the bed, and although I like the genre the actual record is a bit too slow for me.

Not sure how to score this as it's technically in my wheelhouse but slightly outside looking in. Getting wet.

6/10
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Your mention of Fujiya & Miyagi is at the heart of the issue for me. They're a band making (good) conventional songs/albums whereas I think this is really 'just' a soundtrack that is a bit of a fish out water outside it's commissioned purpose.

I had a listen to DD's other full album "Miniatures de auto rhythm" which is a bit more of a like for like comparison and though it's decent I don't think it's F&M level, though I suspect a French electronica fan would probably say the exact opposite.
 
Just finished the 3rd listen, and although one of my prospective choices is very electronic pop, as I'd describe it, it generally isn't my thing. It's not awful, in fact I can listen to it, but reminds me of the cd's you used to (maybe still can?) buy in garden centres of running water/wind in the trees etc. I wouldn't rush to turn it off....but it would probably finish an hr before I noticed. 4.

Rob....which page is the nominations list on please?
 
GoatersLeftShin said:
Anyway, it was a good few months after I discovered the album that I found out it was actually a soundtrack to a silent film of the same name. It was filmed on Sundays in Germany in 1929 and I've actually watched the film with the soundtrack and it's really quite poignant. I'm going to keep the album separate to the film, but the track 'Sunshine in 1929' does give you a hint of what it's about. It's that idea that in the summer of 1929, people were doing very ordinary things on Sundays just as we do - fall in love, go for a coffee, bicker, walk in the park etc. However, for me it's the context that they were unaware of what was coming - the Great Depression and ultimately World War II. I am not quite sure how many words you would need to convey that sense of portence.
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I found the tie in to the 1930 film the most interesting part of listening to the album. Good write up to @GoatersLeftShin, and for the selection overall.

I read the backstory to the making of the film, and even watched (most of) it on YouTube. I had to FF a bit - let's just say I'm glad Domenique Dumont didn't have a "Who's Up for a Spanking in the Park?" track on this album to match the film. Strange ways of passing the time back then. In that regard, I enjoyed this album more than the film itself, especially in the historical context of what was to come.

The feeling I had listening to the album was one of repetition, and not just due to the repeated listens of it as a whole, it was mostly within the tracks themselves. I enjoyed listening as a backdrop to doing other things, but the overall repetition within each song meant not much stood out to me as much. The songs went seamlessly from one to the next too. Hearing the beginning of "Water Theme" and We Almost Got Lost" had the same "whooshing" sounds, nearly identical.

My tracks I enjoyed the most were "Sunshine in 1929" (I recalled from the EOY list), "We Almost Got Lost", "People On Sunday", and "Rituals". They had a bit of different sounds and layers that more stood out to me.

I could play this in its entirety going forward with no jarring "Green Calx" (Aphex Twin), which is always a plus. The songs in that regard stayed consistent and matched the overall mood. This is a 6/10 for me, in enjoying something that's not my typical "go to".
 
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