new music: the new new music coming out thread

[coldforge]

je ne sais pas ces mots

[ellaguru]

Two Miranda Lambert albums coming out this year. Four the Record in November, and also the debut of her Pistol Annies band in August.

[RavingLunatic]

New Blitzen Trapper out in September. Listen to the new song "American Goldwing" on the above link. It's a great piece of country/folk, just what I wanted to hear. Destroyer of the Void was pretty durn weak, and I want to hear a return to their Furr form.

This is a pretty quick turnaround from their last album, which is great. I think I remember hearing Eric Earley say in an interview once that he'd like to put out an album every year the way so many artists used to do in the 60's.

Speaking of prolific bands, has anybody followed the latest Fiery Furnaces-related releases? I was thinking maybe Thermo is a big fan?I didn't care much at all for that first solo double album that Matt Friedberger put out, but I think he's released several since then. I absolutely loved the first three releases by the Fiery Furnaces, Gallowsbird's Bark, Blueberry Boat, and EP, but the stuff that's come since then I haven't liked.

[davy]

Yes, I like the new Blitzen Trapper song a whole lot! Very excited about the new record, but I don't just want a return to Furr, which I feel hasn't aged very well. Destroyer of the Void was worse, of course, and had almost zero replayability (though I think it contains 3 or 4 really solid songs).

I want a return to "Wild Mountain Nation," basically. Not the album, but the song, which is basically the 21st century's best country rock song. They came real close a few years ago with "Big Black Bird" from the Black River Killer EP. They can do it again.

Also, B. Trapp, if you're listening, I wouldn't mind a few "Country Caravans" scattered around in there for variation.

[RavingLunatic]

Yeah, I certainly wouldn't be opposed to more "Wild Mountain Nation"-type songs. I'd agree that it's probably still their best song. On the album Wild Mountain Nation they got a bit too spastic at times for my taste, but it's still really good overall.

[davy]

Actually, I'm now listening to that EP again, and it's almost entirely great. They've never been a particularly consistent band, but they proved here they can keep it up for at least 20 minutes or so.

[ellaguru]

Speaking of prolific bands, has anybody followed the latest Fiery Furnaces-related releases? I was thinking maybe Thermo is a big fan?I didn't care much at all for that first solo double album that Matt Friedberger put out, but I think he's released several since then. I absolutely loved the first three releases by the Fiery Furnaces, Gallowsbird's Bark, Blueberry Boat, and EP, but the stuff that's come since then I haven't liked.

There are three 2011 Matthew Friedberger albums so far, with three more to come, plus some bonus collaboration things. So that's prolific. I think the first three are decent, but I don't think you'd like them. They're kinda noodly. Each of the six is solo, with only one instrument used on each album. The first was piano, the second guitar, the third harp. It's sort of a cheat (or maybe this is what makes it an interesting project, what do I know?) though, because he doesn't take up any of the instruments as they are "supposed" to be played, and mostly turns them each into a percussion instrument.

The brand new Eleanor Friedberger (I think it comes out next week?) is more straight-up. You might like that if you like Gallowsbird's Bark. This song is fairly typical of the sound.

[Thermofusion]

I still haven't heard any of his single instrument solo records. They're vinyl-only, right? I went searching for clips a while back and could barely find anything.

I'll confess, while I'm a pretty big FF fan, I didn't listen to Matt's first solo album (the double one from a while ago) more than a few times. I liked certain songs, but since they mostly sounded very Fiery Furnace-y, I couldn't help but find myself missing Eleanor.

[ellaguru]

I actually haven't heard either of those albums.

Yes, they're vinyl only, although the third one (the harp one) was released to us subscribers with a download code, so that one is doubtless floating about digitally, but the other two are for real vinyl-only, so somebody would have to rip the record, which I know I didn't.

[Nick Ink]

I really like the Fiery Furnaces and I'm a bit annoyed with myself that I haven't heard any of this solo material at all. It all seems to have been weirdly low-profile for a band so well-known. Are they a bit out of fashion these days?

What we really need is some sort of ellaguru-curated mix. 

[Thermofusion]

I'd gotten the sense that Matt was treating the solo records as kind of a deliberately low-profile experiment in album-making. But they might be out of fashion for all I know! I'm hardly in touch with these things anymore.

[ellaguru]

I really like the Fiery Furnaces and I'm a bit annoyed with myself that I haven't heard any of this solo material at all. It all seems to have been weirdly low-profile for a band so well-known. Are they a bit out of fashion these days?

What we really need is some sort of ellaguru-curated mix. 

I could do that.

If you're not in a rush, though, I'd be able to make a much more useful mix in November, as then I should have the whole set of 8 records, rather then just the 3 that have been released so far.

I'd gotten the sense that Matt was treating the solo records as kind of a deliberately low-profile experiment in album-making. But they might be out of fashion for all I know! I'm hardly in touch with these things anymore.

I think it's deliberate, yes. I think it's a vinyl-only release limited edition of 1000 sets or something like that.

But also, I've seen them in concert each year since Blueberry Boat, and their venues have pretty much gotten smaller each time out, so there is likely also an out-of-fashionness at play.

[Thermofusion]

Yeah I've seen them...three? times, and I don't recall crushingly full clubs on any of those occasions. I've always guessed that they've got a somewhat fractured fanbase due to their records all being so stylistically different from one another.

[ellaguru]

Likely true. It's funny, though, since they are always killer live.

[Thermofusion]

They are really good, but they did one tour (I think shortly after Rehearsing My Choir came out) where they played drastically reworked, harsh-guitar-rock versions of their material. Set was one long, continuous, glorious cacophony. Matt didn't touch a keyboard all night. Discovered that night: Matt can fucking shred. They managed to turn "Garfield El" into kind of a noisy post-punk anthem.

Of course, the next show I saw, Matt didn't touch a guitar all night.

[RavingLunatic]

The brand new Eleanor Friedberger (I think it comes out next week?) is more straight-up. You might like that if you like Gallowsbird's Bark. This song is fairly typical of the sound.

Yeah, I definitely need to hear that album. I've always liked Eleanor's voice a lot more than Matt's, and I'm guessing I like the songs she writes better too, though there's no way of knowing since I don't know for sure who wrote which songs. I watched that video back when it was first on Pitchfork. Never realized just how hot Eleanor is before watching that one.

[reebty]

I think Matt writes almost all of the music.

[Thermofusion]

Never realized just how hot Eleanor is before watching that one.

She is so damn pretty.

[RavingLunatic]

I think Matt writes almost all of the music.

I thought I'd read somewhere years ago that Eleanor wrote most of Gallowsbird's Bark, but I could be wrong.

[ellaguru]

Yeah, I think she wrote the more straightforward stuff (so, most of Gallowsbird's Bark, most of I'm Going Away, maybe the EP stuff?) and he wrote the more experimental stuff (the rest of their oeuvre). But I don't know for sure.

[reebty]

I think Matt writes almost all of the music.

I thought I'd read somewhere years ago that Eleanor wrote most of Gallowsbird's Bark, but I could be wrong.

He claimed at one point that he was the principle songwriter, but needed Eleanor because he can't sing, but he's proven himself to be a dick from time to time and may have been lying.

[RavingLunatic]

Yeah, that whole Harry Partch/Patch thing with Matt Friedberger and Radiohead was really weird. I really have no idea whether he was joking or not originally. I remember Pitchfork was all like, "Friedberger clearly didn't know the difference between Harry Patch and Harry Partch and is trying to cover it up now by saying he was joking." In the aftermath, I think he basically said, "Radiohead sucks," and came off as a kind of bitter asshole. 

[RavingLunatic]

Also, I cannot approve of Eleanor collaborating with Obama's repugnant Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan.

[Thermofusion]

Yeah, that whole Harry Partch/Patch thing with Matt Friedberger and Radiohead was really weird. I really have no idea whether he was joking or not originally. I remember Pitchfork was all like, "Friedberger clearly didn't know the difference between Harry Patch and Harry Partch and is trying to cover it up now by saying he was joking." In the aftermath, I think he basically said, "Radiohead sucks," and came off as a kind of bitter asshole. 

huh? link?

[RavingLunatic]

I didn't even know that Beck somehow got involved in the feud.

http://pitchfork.com/news/37035-fiery-furnaces-matthew-friedberger-continues-radiohead-fight/

http://pitchfork.com/news/37147-beck-writes-song-about-harry-partch/

http://pitchfork.com/news/37167-fiery-furnaces-matt-friedberger-writes-virtual-response-to-beck-song/

The somewhat douchebaggy (though somewhat funny) statements of Matt Friedberger include:

"'Oh, please listen to our new song about Harry Patch'. Fuck you! You brand yourself by brazenly and arbitrarily associating yourself with things that you know people consider cool. That is bogus. That's a put-on. That's a branding technique, and Radiohead have their brand that they're popular and intelligent, so they have a song about Harry Patch.

"How's the song? Is it 48 notes to the octave? What does it have to do with Harry Patch? Oh, my wife says I am being very rude. She doesn't like me insulting Radiohead. She's afraid they will send their lackeys through the computer to sabotage us. But they needn't worry -- we are a band that sabotages ourselves."

"Like most creative musicians, Matt Friedberger is not a fan of Radiohead and most of their chart busters. Of course, Matt and all the Fiery Furnaces family are great fans of all Tommys living or dead, so much so that lots of the Fiery Furnaces' work is, because of the pun, dedicated to imitating the Who's Tommy.

"Back in the fall of 1996 or whenever that interview was conducted, the interviewer asked what Matt thought of the Radiohead song celebrating a WWI veteran. Matt naturally thought it would be interesting to pretend that they wrote a song about the celebrated American composer of a similar sounding name, hence his joking in the interview about Radiohead composing a song with something like 48 notes to an octave. It was easy and amusing to imagine Radiohead's attempt to colonize that relatively arcane bit of our musical lifeworld. This is what they used to call, in some bohemian and advertising circles, 'riffing' or fooling around.

"Matt has not heard the Radiohead song about Harry Patch, but if he did, he is sure he wouldn't like it. No doubt Radiohead and their fans can ignore his opinion of this matter and continue with their triumphant artistic interventions. Matt would have much preferred to insult Beck but he is too afraid of Scientologists."