new music: the new new music coming out thread

[Thermofusion]

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."

This is so fucking weird. Wow.

[jm]

Man, what a bizarre story!

[elpollodiablo]

I get the impression that Matt Friedberger is seriously insecure about his perceived cultural capital.

[jm]

My perception of his cultural capital is that, especially considering he's beefing with Radiohead and Beck, he has none

[edison]

Not that that's very important, but my perception of all of this at the time was just that he was into the idea of creating stupid little rock'n'roll feuds and laughing about it all along. It seemed pretty clear to me that this cannot be taken seriously in any way.

(also Eleanor's record is quite good!)

[Andrew_TSKS]

Having now read the quotes, I don't see how anyone can believe his totally lame elementary-school style "I meant to do that" defense of his confusion of Harry Patch with Harry Partch. Anyone with half an ounce of maturity would just go "Oh yeah, my bad," and move on. But then again, anyone with half an ounce of maturity wouldn't have lit into Radiohead, especially for putting on airs by making obscure references, in the first place. It speaks of deep insecurity. The guy made himself look dumb, and then he dug himself deeper into the hole he was already in. I'm sure everyone with any awareness of the whole incident at the time was either embarrassed for him by proxy or overcome by schadenfreude.

That is to say: Christ, what an asshole.

[RavingLunatic]

Not that that's very important, but my perception of all of this at the time was just that he was into the idea of creating stupid little rock'n'roll feuds and laughing about it all along. It seemed pretty clear to me that this cannot be taken seriously in any way.

(also Eleanor's record is quite good!)

I think Edison's interpretation is entirely plausible, as is the other interpretation. I like the one song I've heard from Eleanor's album and will listen to the whole thing soon. I really like her vocal style.

[Nick Ink]

Whatever that's all about, the fact remains:

The Fiery Frurnaces >>>>>>> (soooo muuuuch) >>>>>>>>Radiohead

[elpollodiablo]

I can't stand the Fiery Furnaces, but I'm no huge Radiohead fan either. Bugger them all!

[jm]

I can't stand the Fiery Furnaces, but I'm no huge Radiohead fan either. Bugger them all!

Same here, though at one time I might have considered myself a Radiohead fan (though never a "huge" one, really).

[Thermofusion]

Well, the Furnaces are kinda like Radiohead in the sense that their output is so stylistically varied that I'm kind of instantly skeptical of blanket "they suck!" statements. Doesn't everyone like at least one Radiohead album?

Anyway,

The Fiery Frurnaces >>>>>>> (soooo muuuuch) >>>>>>>>Radiohead

yep! Though I like Radiohead too

[RavingLunatic]

So anyways, back to new music:


William Elliott Whitmore - Field Songs

The album is out now on Anti-. I've listened to it a couple times now and like it quite a bit. There's no one song that really destroys the way "Dry" or Midnight" does, but it's a solid album, much better than Animals In the Dark, the only real misstep in his discography. It strikes me as more catchy and melodic than maybe anything he's done. 

[jebreject]

I've never heard any Fiery Furnaces stuff I've liked. But I haven't heard that much, I guess. Radiohead, I like well enough, but I don't particularly think of myself as a "fan." If that makes sense. I genuinely enjoy almost all of what they've done, anyway.

Really want to hear that new William Elliott Whitmore record. I saw him once (opening for Red Sparrowes, which makes absolutely no sense) and he was really great.

[reebty]

""Like most creative musicians, Matt Friedberger is not a fan of Radiohead and most of their chart busters".

I love that because first it pretty much dismisses Radiohead as a corporate pop band, then it uses the band's name and the phrase "chart busters" in the same sentence.

Since we're declaring our feelings for both bands, I'm a huge Radiohead fan. My opinion of The Fiery Furnaces varies from album to album.

Gallowsbird's Bark - great
Blueberry Boat - great
EP - great
Requiring My Hearse - awful
Bitter Tea - very good
Widow City - awful
I'm Going Away - good

I never listened to Take Me Round Again.

[RavingLunatic]

That's about identical to how I'd assess each Fiery Furnaces album, except that I'd change Bitter Tea and I'm Going Away to "kinda good" or something like that. As much as I love Gallowsbird's Bark and EP, I put Blueberry Boat on another level entirely. It's got enough stellar hooks to fill five albums, and it's all put together in such a novel and fresh way. The only real flaw is that on a couple songs, the guitar noodling and droning speak-singing go on altogether too long.

[mountmccabe]

I first listened to Rehersing My Choir getting into the LA area on the drive out for Arthurfest... and being brought to tears by how amazing/hilarious it was. That album will always have a place in my heart. And I will generally chuckle when someone says "faster hammers."

Also in the 90s it almost made sense to use "chart busters" and Radiohead together. I'd have to check actual chart position (if any) but they had several songs that were all over MTV and the radio.

[Thermofusion]

Since we're declaring our feelings for both bands, I'm a huge Radiohead fan. My opinion of The Fiery Furnaces varies from album to album.

Gallowsbird's Bark - great
Blueberry Boat - great
EP - great
Requiring My Hearse - awful
Bitter Tea - very good
Widow City - awful
I'm Going Away - good

I never listened to Take Me Round Again.

Gallowsbird's Bark - good, if slight

Blueberry Boat - great, though I'm guessing this is the album people think of when they say they hate the Furnaces, if only because it's the one that Pfork propped up so highly?

EP - good

Rehearsing My Choir - I think I've spoken at length here about my bizarre love for this album, but I completely understand why people hate it. I found it oddly moving. Also I think of it less as an album and more like a weird spoken word piece, or a Pynchon novel set to music. (also right on McCabe!)

Bitter Tea - personally this is the album I'd recommend to people who don't think they like the Furnaces. There's some indulgent stuff with the backmasking, but otherwise I think it's really accessible and full of great moments

Widow City - I love this fucking album, but I understand why people might not like it

I'm Going Away - good, if slight. Certainly their most accessible since Gallowsbird's Bark

And I can't remember if I've even heard Take Me Around Again, so that's probably a bad sign.

[RavingLunatic]

Probably the biggest problem I have with a lot of the Fiery Furnaces later albums is the excessive speak-singing. I just cannot get into speak-singing at all except in homeopathic doses. There's too much of it for my taste on the Eleanor Friedberger solo album as well, though I do like several songs so far.

[RavingLunatic]

So there's some kind of Adult Swim singles series, though I think it's just videos; you can't actually buy a copy or anything. One of the first (maybe the first) of the singles is by the inimitable Tallest Man on Earth. It's classic TMOE in every way, which is to say, it is of the highest degree of awesome. Even the title, "Weather of A Killing Kind," is so quintessentially in his style that I think I could've predicted the artist given just that title.

There used to be a video of it you could watch, but it's no longer there it seems. Since it's not something you can buy, I think it's OK for me to post this download link (not mine) for anyone interested: http://www.filesonic.com/file/1437213544/TTMOE_WOAKK.zip

[RavingLunatic]

New Richard Buckner album, Our Blood, is streaming at NPR in its entirety. I can confirm that the first song is amazing.

[Daniel]

Royal Headache's debut LP is coming out on September 2 through RIP Society Records. Two tracks have made it onto blogs over the last week or so that have got me excited: 'Down The Lane' and 'Really In Love'. It was recorded by Mikey Young from Eddy Current Suppression Ring and Owen Penglis from Straight Arrows. Really looking forward to this one.

[RavingLunatic]

The above-mentioned Richard Buckner album is amazing, as expected. I can't remember if I mentioned it somewhere else here or not, but with my pre-order I got a cool poster and bumper sticker ("Don't Blame Me, I Voted for Richard Buckner") to go with a sweet digipak and lyrics insert. Really happy about the whole package. Buckner's one of only three artists for which I feel like I really need to own everything they've done (the other two being Elephant Micah and J. Tillman). The only things of Buckner's I don't own are the self-titled our CD and that mediocre collaboration he did with some Langford guy.

[Nick Ink]

A Winged Victory For The Sullen - s/t - out in September on Erased Tapes/Kranky

This is Adam Wiltzie from Stars Of The Lid and Dustin O'Halloran. There are also guest appearances from peter Broderick and Hildur Gudnadottir

The title is terrible,  the music is beautiful, and the album cover, although very pretty, is probably deemed NSFW in an age when one's boss is liable to raise a disapproving eyebrow at the sight of conspicuously reddened cartoon nipples.

[Nick Ink]

A new Simon Scott album due out on Miasmah soon - 'Bunny'

There's a track up for streaming here. I'm a bit disappointed really. After his promising 'Navigare' album and his absolutely brilliant 'Traba' EP last year, he seems to have regressed into his shoegazing roots here. Those big drums all over it aren't nice at all.

[Andrew_TSKS]

Hah, on the other hand, that sounds interesting to me. I'm gonna check it out.

EDIT: OK, yeah, this is awesome. Nick, I can imagine why you might not like this, but I want the album now.