I think it is musically very boring and by her trying to keep her voice that low key and whispery she drifts out of tune on a regular basis.
out of tune, really?
do you not hear that? my ears don’t tell lies!
your ears are 72 years old.
they’ve actually gotten better over time.
for some reason I don’t think the voice and the musical arrangements gel at all. maybe in some places but in mostly not at all.
{track 7: Stones}
that…..
had a certain amount of merit.
{record ends}
there’s not much else I can say. I found it very difficult to keep interest in it. it starts the way it ends.
also you can’t really judge her as a singer, she doesn’t sing.
what was it then? burping?
it’s melodic talk-whispering.
Valerie Francis has been nominated fora Meteor Award in the Best Irish Female category (along with Dolores O’Riordan, whoever that is) and her (great) album (don’t listen to Nick) has been nominated for the (rlly controversial) Choice Music Prize. And I know for a fact that she might win one or maybe both or possibly neither. I can feel it in my bones.
nothing! they just come across as sort of…ehh…hand knitted jersey, pipe smoking, philosophy discussers.
‘did you read page 260 of that Sartre book?, I’m going to write a song about it.’
not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I’m sure they are very nice guys but would you want your sister to marry one of them? would you like to go have a pint with one of them?
and I’m not so sure that I would.
No, it’s not so much…I don’t mind serious but this comes across as ponderous.
it’s like this guy who comes and sits beside you in a pub and you don’t know him from Adam and he talks all about the woes of the world and after five minutes you just have to say ‘oh for God’s sake lighten up!’
Lighten up? Look at that weather out there! Drunken Boat actually kind of sound just like a drunken boat, slowly crashing through stormy waves. It’s seriously serious, fantastic stuff.
they certainly have eh…a musical identity don’t they? play me another 1000 records and I could pick them out.
what are they called again?
Vampire Weekend.
totally unsuitable name, nothing about this is vampirical is it?
have you never heard of them before?
no, never, they are completely unknown to me.
but, I like them a lot. ok it wouldn’t be exactly my scene…
in almost every song they come up with something you haven’t heard before, they’re subtly inventive, they’re not just repeating the formula.
there’s something very…I don’t know why…maybe it’s his voice but there’s something very South American about it. it’s his voice and the rhythms.
there’s also nice classical things in it.
well it’s funny you should mention South America and I can totally see where yr coming from but they get a lot of stick for ‘ripping off’ African music or even worse ‘ripping off’ Graceland which was..
I was just about to say Paul Simon! before you said it I knew the next thing I was going to say was Paul Simon.
the ripping off thing is always a pretty sort of spurious comment because no one can write music that doesn’t refer to another piece of music.
you are always open to accusations of ripping off something.
in many ways we put far too much emphasis on being totally original. Beethoven wasn’t totally original, neither was Mozart. everyone listens, everyone is influenced and there’s nothing wrong with it.
I guess a lot of people had a problem with them because they were seen as ‘rich kids’ and…
it can be dangerous to know too much about an artist.I used to be very fond of Paul Klee.
who?
Paul Klee, he was a Swiss painter.
and I was so fond of him I actually got for my birthday, when I was quite young, I got his diaries. and after I read them… I’ve never been so disappointed.
he was a really obnoxious, arrogant bollix of a person.
put me right off him.
it’s never a good idea to know too much.
but I like this, it’s uplifting.
When I listen to Vampire Weekend I often think of my little brother, dunno why, it’s not like he’s a huge fan of theirs or anything. But yeah, I think of him and Wes Anderson movies.
yes but it’s probably a cover of something I don’t know.
yep.
haha, no it’s the voices, the way they’re put together.
but the whole thing sounds like it was recorded thirty years ago.
and the voices are old! it’s hard to believe these are guys in their 20’s.
maybe they’re faking it, maybe they’re in their 40’s? and they just got some young guys to pose for the cover?
actually you do get used to the wah-wah, it’s less irritating then it was yesterday, maybe they just should’ve toned it down a bit in the mix, it’s so obtrusive.
who has a voice like that?!?
it’s someone you play a lot. someone who has a voice very similar to that.
can you not think of it? a high, old voice?
I know what you mean, gimme a second.
I know who it is!
who?
Little Wings!
who?
When are Underwater Peoples gonna trip up? It’s like someone started a record label just for me! Alex Bleeker also plays bass in those champs Real Estate, most of Real Estate are The Freaks, with Julian Lynch on that ‘obtrusive’ wah-wah. These are haunted, dusty Country Rock jams. It’s nothing new but who cares about new? Special is where it’s at!
yes this is very good, it’s not as random as the last one.
but he uses sampling as an instrument, like using a drum machine instead of drums.
the main creation is the melody and the lyrics.
whereas Mr…
Dilla
Mr Dilla, he puts together other people’s creations, he made the quilt, and in some places the quilt looks very nice.
who plays Beethoven’s 5th the best on their Gramophone? who dresses the nicest while playing it? who has the best wrist movement when putting the record on?
Some white guy in an Indie band told me to check out J Dilla.
Nick: It’s….in places it’s quite cleverly put together but, and I don’t know why, it’s quite unsatisfactory.
I don’t know what I don’t like about it.
maybe it takes itself too seriously.
I think that’s it.
I don’t know.
{later}
yes! that’s it.
too serious, too intellectual it doesn’t move you.
it’s cold.
it suffers from what a lot of contemporary music suffers from, it’s got no soul.
{track 10: You and I}
it tries to fake soul, like here.
ok so we’re halfway through, lets see if they can win you back.
there are bits and pieces I quite like, I don’t hate it all.
there’s just nothing spontaneous about it.
it’s all too thought out.
they remind me of somebody else..
some one gave me a tape year and years ago, thinking I would love it and I didn’t.
could it be…Fagen?
Donald Fagen, from Steely Dan, The Night Fly.
yes! that’s it, it had the exact same effect as this, it’s ‘good’ music but with no genuine musical soul.
god that was a long time ago, maybe 25 years?
I’ve been thinking that since this record started, just took me a while to remember.
when was this made?
it’s gonna be out in February.
so they haven’t kept up with the times, well it has some modern elements to it.
also it’s all a bit… precious, I think that’s the word for it.
occasionally it almost goes somewhere.
and then it doesn’t.
Aaaand we’re back! Hello, Happy 2010 (twenty ten) to you.
Man, I LOVE Field Music, really I do but for some reason I’m finding it really hard to counter any of Nick’s criticisms. Like…ehhh…it’s really great!…it is. Believe me.