’s Sam Beam will reissue his 2004 sophomore LP, Our Endless Numbered Days, as a deluxe edition on March 22nd. In addition to remastered album tracks, this version (available on vinyl, CD and digital download) features eight previously unreleased demos of songs from the record, new artwork, and 12 pages of liner notes.Our Endless Numbered Days, featuring the iconic single “Naked as We Came”, thrust the lush indie folk project onto the national scene.
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Notably, Garden State — featuring Iron & Wine’s cover of “Such Great Heights” — was released just a few months after the record. Produced by Brian Deck (Modest Mouse), Our Endless Numbered Days was Iron & Wine’s first album recorded in a professional studio. To date, the release has sold over 556,000 copies, according to Sub Pop.In anticipation, Beam has shared the demo version of “Passing Afternoon”. Listen below.Iron & Wine will perform Our Endless Numbered Days during select dates in Los Angeles, Cincinnati, and Washington, D.C. Each show will comprise two sets: one solo acoustic, and one with an orchestra.
Get tickets.Iron & Wine 2019 Tour Dates:03/22 – Cincinnati, OH @ Taft Hall +03/24 – Los Angeles, CA @ Disney Hall.04/30 — Washington, DC @ Kennedy Center ^+ = w/ Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. = w/ Los Angeles Philarmonic^ = w/ National Symphony OrchestraTake a look at the new album art and tracklist, too.Our Endless Numbered Days (Deluxe Edition) Artwork:Our Endless Numbered Days (Deluxe Edition) Tracklist:01.
On Your Wings02. Naked as We Came03.
Cinder and Smoke04. Sunset Soon Forgotten05. Teeth in the Grass06. Love and Some Verses07. Each Coming Night09.
After three years, Iron & Wine returns with their sixth album. Includes the single Walking. Our endless numbered days by Iron & Wine( Recording ) 22 editions. Iron & Wine - Our Endless Numbered Days. Yeah, I'm not good w/ all that torrent/rar stuff so I have no idea how to find it. Just could use a zip.
Free Until They Cut Me Down10. Fever Dream11. Sodom, South Georgia12. Passing Afternoon13. Naked as We Came (Demo)14. Cinder and Smoke (Demo)15.
Teeth in the Grass (Demo)16. Love and Some Verses (Demo)17. Free Until They Cut Me Down (Demo)18. Fever Dream (Demo)19. Sodom, South Georgia (Demo)20. Passing Afternoon (Demo).
Quote from: AMG Iron and Wine's debut record, The Creek Drank the Cradle, is written, produced, and performed by Sam Beam and features only Beam's voice, a gently strummed acoustic guitar, some slide guitar, and the occasional banjo. Iron and Wine creates intimate and emotional songs, recorded bedroom-style but never letting the lo-fi get in the way of the tune.
The obvious comparison has to be Lou Barlow/Sebadoh/Sentridoh, as they share the same breathy voice, melancholy outlook on life, and devotion to Nick Drake. The difference is that there are no traces of punk rock or noise for the sake of noise in Iron and Wine's music. Beam isn't interested in rocking out or obscuring the beauty that bursts from within his simple songs; he embraces it and lets his sadness twist in the wind for all to see. Besides, his vocal harmonies are more soft rock than punk rock. 'Lion's Mane' opens the record and immediately takes your breath away as Beam's voice is so beautiful and his hooks are razor sharp. Every song that follows is just as memorable, Beam sounding positively angelic as he harmonizes with himself.
'The Rooster Moans' is a chilling side trip into Appalachian folk; 'Southern Anthem' a falsetto-led indie-gospel track with an absolutely soaring chorus. The simple musical backing never gets boring either, as there are musical hooks to match the vocal hooks — the banjo in 'Lion's Mane,' the double-tracked repeating slide at the end of 'Faded from the Winter,' the gently chugging rhythm of 'Upward Over the Mountain.' As soon as the almost jaunty, Neil Young-esque album closer, 'Muddy Hymnal,' ends, you'll want to hit repeat and start again. The Creek Drank the Cradle is a stunning debut and one of the best records of 2002. Quote from: AMG On Our Endless Numbered Days, the follow-up to 2002's stunningly good Creek Drank the Cradle, the sound of Iron & Wine has changed but the song remains the same. No longer does Sam Beam record his intimate songs in the intimate surroundings of his home.
Instead he has made the jump to the recording studio. As a result the record is much cleaner, less cocoon-like, certainly more the product of someone who has become a professional musician and not someone who just records for fun on a four-track. However, all Beam has sacrificed is sound quality. The sound of the record is still very intimate and simple, with very subtle arrangements that leave his voice and lyrics as the focal point. Luckily all the technology in the world can't affect Beam's voice, which still sounds like it comes right from his lips into your ear as if he were an angel perched on your shoulder.
His songs are still as strong and memorable as they were on Creek, no drop off whatsoever in quality. Quote from: AMG Blending rock, post-punk, jazz, and pop, indie rock outfit Colossal formed in late 2001. Intricate without being overbearing or difficult, the Elgin, IL-based quintet began playing shows in the spring of 2002 before Asian Man released their debut EP, Brave the Elements, in January 2003. Touring followed before serious writing began for the band's first full-length.
Original bassist Jeff Feucht left the group in early 2004 to concentrate on teaching; Eli Caterer (Smoking Popes) joined on to finish the album alongside drummer Rob Kellenberger (Slapstick, Tuesday), singer/guitarist Patrick Ford, and trumpeter/guitarist/singer Jason Flaks. Welcome the Problems was issued in September 2004 with Neil Hennessy (the Lawrence Arms) officially joining the group after having sat in as a second drummer since the band's first tour. Chris Perrin (Seedy Sea Controversy, the Heavens) also replaced Caterer prior to embarking on a brief East Coast tour. Ford, Kellenberger, and Flaks next helped Asian Man Records owner Mike Park record his second solo album, North Hangook Falling, in early 2005. Colossal got back on the road during the year, touring with the Alkaline Trio and Mike Park; Flaks departed that fall and Eli Caterer returned in his place, this time on guitar. The Smoking Popes then reunited in December 2005, taking the attention of Caterer and Kellenberger away from Colossal; Hennessy and the Lawrence Arms released a new record and toured at the beginning of 2006. So the only two Flogging Molly records I don't have are 2007's Complete Control Sessions, which are live recordings of songs that do appear on all their other albums, so I never bothered, and 2006's Whiskey on a Sunday, which is a CD/DVD combo pack.
The DVD is a Flogging Molly documentary, and the CD has a bunch of live recordings of some of their best stuff, including a nearly twice as long live version of 'Black Friday Rule', and a bunch of acoustic tracks, which I'll admit to wanting really badly. Merry X-mas dudes. Forgot the /sarcasm tags. My bad.Rules:No hot-linking images or albums.
You can re-host images at.Ensure your tags are correct and that you have specified both Artist/Album in your post.Upload your files in either a.zip or a.rar archive to mediaf!re.com, in multiple parts if the album is over 100mbs. The reason for this is that we know mediaf!re is safe and efficient and allows multiple downloads. The ads on other sites, such as Sendspace, are known to contain viruses on the page. Get yourself checked out.Post your link using code tags.
It's the # icon above the policeman emoticon. This prevents the links from being traced back to the forums, lowering the chance that the wrong people notice the thread, potentially threatening Jeph with legal action.Also, please do NOT request albums.Repost the rules at the top of each new page. Quote Written and recorded in 1973 shortly after the death of roadie Bruce Berry, Neil Young's second close associate to die of a heroin overdose in six months (the first was Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten), Tonight's the Night was Young's musical expression of grief, combined with his rejection of the stardom he had achieved in the late '60s and early '70s. The title track, performed twice, was a direct narrative about Berry: 'Bruce Berry was a working man/He used to load that Econoline van.' Whitten was heard singing 'Come On Baby Let's Go Downtown,' a live track recorded years earlier.
Elsewhere, Young frequently referred to drug use and used phrases that might have described his friends, such as the chorus of 'Tired Eyes,' 'He tried to do his best, but he could not.' Performing with the remains of Crazy Horse, bassist Billy Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina, along with Nils Lofgren (guitar and piano) and Ben Keith (steel guitar), Young performed in the ragged manner familiar from Time Fades Away — his voice was often hoarse and he strained to reach high notes, while the playing was loose, with mistakes and shifting tempos. But the style worked perfectly for the material, emphasizing the emotional tone of Young's mourning and contrasting with the polished sound of CSNY and Harvest that Young also disparaged. He remained unimpressed with his commercial success, noting in 'World on a String,' 'The world on a string/Doesn't mean anything.'
In 'Roll Another Number,' he said he was 'a million miles away/From that helicopter day' when he and CSN had played Woodstock. And in 'Albuquerque,' he said he had been 'starvin' to be alone/Independent from the scene that I've known' and spoke of his desire to 'find somewhere where they don't care who I am.' Songs like 'Speakin' Out' and 'New Mama' seemed to find some hope in family life, but Tonight's the Night did not offer solutions to the personal and professional problems it posed. It was the work of a man trying to turn his torment into art and doing so unflinchingly. Depending on which story you believe, Reprise Records rejected it or Young withdrew it from its scheduled release at the start of 1974 after touring with the material in the U.S.
In 1975, after a massive CSNY tour, Young at the last minute dumped a newly recorded album and finally put Tonight's the Night out instead. Though it did not become one of his bigger commercial successes, the album immediately was recognized as a unique masterpiece by critics, and it has continued to be ranked as one of the greatest rock & roll albums ever made. Quote Anyone who has followed Neil Young's career knows enough not to expect a simple evening of mellow good times when they see him in concert, but in 1973, when Young hit the road after Harvest had confirmed his status as a first-echelon rock star, that knowledge wasn't nearly as common as it is today. Young's natural inclinations to travel against the current of audience expectations were amplified by a stormy relationship between himself and his touring band, as well as the devastating death of guitarist Danny Whitten, who died of a drug overdose shortly after being given his pink slip during the first phase of tour rehearsals. The shows that followed turned into a nightly exorcism of Young's rage and guilt, as well as a battle between himself and an audience who, expecting to hear 'Old Man' and 'Heart of Gold,' didn't know what to make of the electric assault they witnessed. All the more remarkably, Young brought along a mobile recording truck to capture the tour on tape for a live album and the result, Time Fades Away, was a ragged musical parade of bad karma and road craziness, opening with Young bellowing '14 junkies, too weak to work' on the title cut, and closing with 'Last Dance,' in which he tells his fans 'you can live your own life' with all the optimism of a man on the deck of a sinking ship.
While critics and fans were not kind to Time Fades Away upon first release, decades later it sounds very much of a piece with Tonight's the Night and On the Beach, albums that explored the troubled zeitgeist of America in the mid-'70s in a way few rockers had the courage to face. If the performances are often loose and ragged, they're also brimming with emotional force, and despite the dashed hopes of 'Yonder Stands the Sinner' and 'Last Dance,' 'Don't Be Denied' is a moving remembrance of Young's childhood and what music has meant to him, and it's one of the most powerful performances Young ever committed to vinyl. Few rockers have been as willing as Young to lay themselves bare before their audience, and Time Fades Away ranks with the bravest and most painfully honest albums of his career — like the tequila Young was drinking on that tour, it isn't for everyone, but you may be surprised by its powerful. Quote None of Miles Davis' recordings has been more shrouded in mystery than Jack Johnson, yet none has better fulfilled Miles Davis' promise that he could form the 'greatest rock band you ever heard.' Containing only two tracks, the album was assembled out of no less than four recording sessions between February 18, 1970, and June 4, 1970, and was patched together by producer Teo Macero. Most of the outtake material ended up on Directions, Big Fun, and elsewhere.
The first misconception is the lineup: the credits on the recording are incomplete. For the opener, 'Right Off,' the band is Miles, John McLaughlin, Billy Cobham, Herbie Hancock, Michael Henderson, and Steve Grossman (no piano player!), which reflects the liner notes. This was from the musicians' point of view, in a single take, recorded as McLaughlin began riffing in the studio while waiting for Miles; it was picked up on by Henderson and Cobham, Hancock was ushered in to jump on a Hammond organ (he was passing through the building), and Miles rushed in at 2:19 and proceeded to play one of the longest, funkiest, knottiest, and most complex solos of his career. Seldom has he cut loose like that and played in the high register with such a full sound. In the meantime, the interplay between Cobham, McLaughlin, and Henderson is out of the box, McLaughlin playing long, angular chords centering around E. This was funky, dirty rock & roll jazz.
There is this groove that gets nastier and nastier as the track carries on, and never quits, though there are insertions by Macero of two Miles takes on Sly Stone tunes and an ambient textured section before the band comes back with the groove, fires it up again, and carries it out. On 'Yesternow,' the case is far more complex. There are two lineups, the one mentioned above, and one that begins at about 12:55. The second lineup was Miles, McLaughlin, Jack DeJohnette, Chick Corea, Bennie Maupin, Dave Holland, and Sonny Sharrock. The first 12 minutes of the tune revolve around a single bass riff lifted from James Brown's 'Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud.'
The material that eases the first half of the tune into the second is taken from 'Shhh/Peaceful,' from In a Silent Way, overdubbed with the same trumpet solo that is in the ambient section of 'Right Off.' It gets more complex as the original lineup is dubbed back in with a section from Miles' tune 'Willie Nelson,' another part of the ambient section of 'Right Off,' and an orchestral bit of 'The Man Nobody Saw' at 23:52, before the voice of Jack Johnson (by actor Brock Peters) takes the piece out. The highly textured, nearly pastoral ambience at the end of the album is a fitting coda to the chilling, overall high-energy rockist stance of the album. Jack Johnson is the purest electric jazz record ever made because of the feeling of spontaneity and freedom it evokes in the listener, for the stellar and inspiring solos by McLaughlin and Davis that blur all edges between the two musics, and for the tireless perfection of the studio assemblage by Miles and producer Macero. Quote The Most Serene Republic might tip their hats to their Arts & Crafts labelmates on their debut album Underwater Cinematographer, but this theatrical sextet is their own supergroup. Underwater Cinematographer comes off shiny and happy at first with its majestic piano arrangements dancing around angst-ridden guitar riffs and warm harmonies. Frontman/songwriter Adrian Jewett wears his heart on his sleeve like so many of indie rock's tortured souls (Lou Barlow, Ben Gibbard, Joey Sweeney), particularly on songs such as 'The Protagonist Suddenly Realizes What He Must Do in the Middle of Downtown Traffic' and 'In Places, Empty Spaces.'
These two particular tracks not only highlight a classic sentimentality, but also an inviting and a very personal effort from the band. They make it okay to be playful ('King of No One') and smart ('You're a Loose Cannon McArthur.But You Get the Job Done'), all without melodrama and too much romance. Underwater Cinematographer isn't your quintessential debut album. It's too complex, too inquisitive, and too ambitious. Tip your hats to the Most Serene Republic. Quote from: AMG It's little wonder why Drake felt frustrated at the lack of commercial success his music initially gathered, considering the help he had on his debut record.
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Besides fine production from Joe Boyd and assistance from folks like Fairport Convention's Richard Thompson and his unrelated bass counterpart from Pentangle, Danny Thompson, Drake also recruited school friend Robert Kirby to create most of the just-right string and wind arrangements. His own performance itself steered a careful balance between too-easy accessibility and maudlin self-reflection, combining the best of both worlds while avoiding the pitfalls on either side. The result was a fantastic debut appearance, and if the cult of Drake consistently reads more into his work than is perhaps deserved, Five Leaves Left is still a most successful effort.
Having grown out of the amiable but derivative styles captured on the long-circulating series of bootleg home recordings, Drake assays his tunes with just enough drama - world-weariness in the vocals, carefully paced playing, and more - to make it all work. His lyrics capture a subtle poetry of emotion, as on the pastoral semi-fantasia of 'The Thoughts of Mary Jane,' which his soft, articulate singing brings even more to the full. Sometimes he projects a little more clearly, as on the astonishing voice-and-strings combination 'Way to Blue,' while elsewhere he's not so clear, suggesting rather than outlining the mood. Understatement is the key to his songs and performances' general success, which makes the combination of his vocals and Rocky Dzidzornu's congas on 'Three Hours' and the lovely 'Cello Song,' to name two instances, so effective. Danny Thompson is the most regular side performer on the album, his bass work providing subtle heft while never standing in the way of the song - kudos well deserved for Boyd's production as well. Quote from: AMG With even more of the Fairport Convention crew helping him out — including bassist Dave Pegg and drummer Dave Mattacks along with, again, a bit of help from Richard Thompson — as well as John Cale and a variety of others, Drake tackled another excellent selection of songs on his second album.
Demonstrating the abilities shown on Five Leaves Left didn't consist of a fluke, Bryter Layter featured another set of exquisitely arranged and performed tunes, with producer Joe Boyd and orchestrator Robert Kirby reprising their roles from the earlier release. Starting with the elegant instrumental 'Introduction,' as lovely a mood-setting piece as one would want, Bryter Layter indulges in a more playful sound at many points, showing that Drake was far from being a constant king of depression.
While his performances remain generally low-key and his voice quietly passionate, the arrangements and surrounding musicians add a considerable amount of pep, as on the jazzy groove of the lengthy 'Poor Boy.' The argument could be made that this contravenes the spirit of Drake's work, but it feels more like a calmer equivalent to the genre-sliding experiments of Van Morrison at around the same time. Numbers that retain a softer approach, like 'At the Chime of a City Clock,' still possess a gentle drive to them. Cale's additions unsurprisingly favor the classically trained side of his personality, with particularly brilliant results on 'Northern Sky.' As his performances on keyboards and celeste help set the atmosphere, Drake reaches for a perfectly artful reflection on loss and loneliness and succeeds wonderfully. Quote from: AMG After two albums of tastefully orchestrated folk-pop, albeit some of the least demonstrative and most affecting around, Drake chose a radical change for what turned out to be his final album. Not even half-an-hour long, with 11 short songs and no more - he famously remarked at the time that he simply had no more to record - Pink Moon more than anything else is the record that made Drake the cult figure he remains.
Specifically, Pink Moon is the bleakest of them all; that the likes of Belle and Sebastian are fans of Drake may be clear enough, but it's doubtful they could ever achieve the calm, focused anguish of this album, as harrowing as it is attractive. No side musicians or outside performers help this time around - it's simply Drake and Drake alone on vocals, acoustic guitar, and a bit of piano, recorded by regular producer Joe Boyd but otherwise untouched by anyone else. The lead-off title track was eventually used in a Volkswagen commercial nearly 30 years later, giving him another renewed burst of appreciation - one of life's many ironies, in that such an affecting song, Drake's softly keened singing and gentle strumming, could turn up in such a strange context. The remainder of the album follows the same general path, with Drake's elegant melancholia avoiding sounding pretentious in the least thanks to his continued embrace of simple, tender vocalizing. Meanwhile, the sheer majesty of his guitar playing - consider the opening notes of 'Road' or 'Parasite' - makes for a breathless wonder to behold.
If anyone needs confirmation as to why artists like Mark Eitzel, Elliot Smith, Lou Barlow, or Robert Smith hold Drake close to their hearts, it's all here, still as beautiful as the day it was released. Quote from: AMG Elliott Smith's third album sees his one-man show getting a little more ambitious. While he still plays all the instruments himself, he plays more of them. Several of the songs mimic the melody mastery of pop bands from 1960s. The most alluring numbers, however, are still his quietly melancholy acoustic ones.
While the full-band songs are catchy and smart, Smith's recording equipment isn't quite up to the standards set by the Beatles and the Beach Boys. The humbler arrangements are better suited to the sparse equipment. 'Between the Bars,' for example, plays Smith's strengths perfectly.
He sings, in his endearingly limited whisper, of late-night drinking and introspection, and his subdued strumming creates a minor-key mood befitting the mysteries of self. 'Angeles' is equally ethereal - Smith's acoustic fingerpicking spins out notes which briskly move around a single atmospheric keyboard chord, like aural minnows swimming toward a solitary light at the surface of the water. The lyrics are a darkly biting rejection of the hypercapitalist dream machinery of Los Angeles (it would make a great theme song for Smith's label, Kill Rock Stars). Ironically, 'Angeles' was included on the Good Will Hunting soundtrack, which won Smith the acclaim of Hollywood's biggest, brightest, and best connected voting body, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Smith's stock in L.A. Soared after he took his bow at the Oscars with Celine Dion and Trisha Yearwood.
It might have been more interesting had he sung 'Angeles.' Quote from: AMG Judging only by his earlier, bare-bones indie-label albums, it seemed highly unlikely that Elliott Smith would turn into the ambitious arranger and studio craftsman of his lushly textured Dreamworks debut, XO. A big part of that shift, of course, was the fact that Smith had major-label finances and equipment to work with for the first time; this allowed him to fuse his melancholy, slightly punky folk with the rich sonics of pop artists like the Beatles and Beach Boys.
Smith continues in that direction for the follow-up, Figure 8, an even more sonically detailed effort laden with orchestrations and inventive production touches. With a couple of exceptions, the sound of Smith's melancholy has largely shifted from edgy to sighingly graceful, although his lyrics are as dark as ever.
Even if the subject matter stays in familiar territory, though, the backing tracks are another matter - a gorgeous, sweeping kaleidoscope of layered instruments and sonic textures. Smith fleshes his songs out with assurance and imagination, and that newfound sense of mastery is ultimately the record's real emphasis; there's seemingly a subtle new wrinkle to the sound of every track, and yet it's all easily recognizable as trademark Smith. Even if it is a very impressive statement overall, Figure 8 isn't quite the masterpiece it wants to be - there's something about the pacing that just makes the record feel long (at over 52 minutes, it is the longest album in Smith's catalog), and it can sometimes float away from the listener's consciousness. Perhaps it's that Smith's songwriting does slip on occasion here, which means that those weaker tracks sink under the weight of arrangements they aren't equipped to support. Still, most of the songs do reveal their strengths with repeated plays, and it's worth the price of a few nondescript items to reap the rewards of the vast majority.
Fans who miss the intimacy of his Kill Rock Stars records won't find much to rejoice about here, but overall, Figure 8 comes tantalizingly close to establishing Elliott Smith as the consummate pop craftsman he's bidding to become. Quote from: AMG Before he died in 2003, Elliott Smith released five albums (plus the posthumous From a Basement on the Hill), but he had dozens and dozens of songs recorded, either alone on a four track or with friends in various studio settings, that had never seen the light of day. Kill Rock Stars - the label for which he made arguably two of his best records, 1995's Elliott Smith and 1997's Either/Or - with help from the late singer's archivist, Larry Crane, collected a handful of these pieces, added extensive and often personal liner notes, and made them available to the public under the title New Moon. Written and recorded between 1994 and 1997, the 24 tracks on New Moon showcase Smith at his most instinctive and natural, when he uses hardly more than his (double-tracked) voice and his guitar. Though some of the songs here, especially the earlier ones, can be quite simple, even raw at times, there's a sad, clean sweetness that comes through despite the occasional bit of tape hiss, of tinny chords. In fact, much was done by the album's producers to maintain the integrity of Smith's original tracks, remixing them only when absolutely necessary (the only song that took vocal and instrumental elements from two different sessions is 'New Disaster,' and is clearly marked as such).
This means that New Moon embodies an unadulterated Smith, singing and playing songs how he wanted to, carefully layering his voice and adding the occasional harmony, the second guitar, the subtle drum tap - and with little of the full-band sound he moved into after he left KRS and went to a major label - but it doesn't mean that the pieces sound incomplete or unprofessional; almost all them could've been included on one of Smith's albums, and in fact many of them were near to making the cut. 'Looking Over My Shoulder' has a great hook, catchy in that monotonously melodic kind of way Smith knew how to do best. 'You're always coming over with all of your friends and all their opinions I don't want to know,' he sings, a slight anger in his voice, while 'All Cleaned Out' reveals a kind of pity for his subject. There's a depth of emotion in New Moon, more than pure sadness, seen in his cover of Big Star's 'Thirteen,' recorded live in DJ Rob Jones's basement and played back later on air, the near indignation of 'Georgia, Georgia,' the fast picking on 'Almost Over.'
Even the rendition of 'Miss Misery' included here, the song that propelled him into the spotlight, has a lightness that doesn't exist in the final product. Instead of that hauntingly sad refrain, that last plea, 'Do you miss me, miss misery like you say you do?' Smith hints at a different ending. 'Cause it's all right, some enchanted night I'll be with you,' he sings.
There's distant hope for redemption, for resolution here, something that was not present in the later version. In fact, that's the overall feeling that New Moon gives, a sense of opportunity, of possibility, of life within the bleak reality. The album portrays a more stable Smith and promises something brilliant to come, full of words and chords that will touch thousands, alluding to the future and the past, but mostly, in its own quiet way, screaming to show off the immense talents of one man and his songs.
Quote from: Allmusic Before he started experimenting with left-field hip-hop beats and electronic samples, Steven Ellison, aka Flying Lotus, experienced a moment of enlightenment. While filming a documentary about his great aunt/spiritual advisor Alice Coltrane and his cousin Ravi Coltrane, their cab driver asked if they were musicians. Alice responded that, in fact, the three of them were, except Steven didn't know it yet. It was a turning point, and soon after, when he viewed an ad challenging aspiring beat-makers to send in music to be used for Cartoon Network's Adult Swim bumpers, he took a chance on a whim, sent out a demo, and landed himself a paid position pumping out silky tracks for promos of his favorite shows.
As an avid gamer, it was only natural that he would create downtempo Boards of Canada beats sauced with retro 8-bit bleeps and chimes, and these were a perfect fit for the Nintendo generation fan base of Adult Swim. Lotus' second full-length, Los Angeles, expands on fractured Zelda grooves, muddy bass stamps, and glitched drum loops to stir up nonintrusive computer chillout music modeled for a hip graphic designer's headphones. It could be considered headphone candy, but with the beats as liquefied and squishy as they are, headphone Slushee is more appropriate.
'Golden Diva' rides the line between cold and sugary, crackling and popping like melting ice as carbonated hiss rotates in and out of the void behind unintelligible syllables diced together from stray vocal bits. In the same fashion, 'GNG BNG' flips a Middle Eastern sitar groove into a mangled keyboard line slithering over a distorted rototom beat, before dropping down into 'Auntie's Lock' to end the album in a quiet hush with breathy whispers over electronic piano loops. Like 2006's 1983, the patterns are subtly atmospheric and individual grooves feel tailored for the attention deficient, never lingering for very long before switching into a new tapestry. Loaded with 17 tracks, it's an entertaining and fitting addition to the Warp catalog that makes for some highly hypnotic video arcade/coffee parlor mood music. Quote The new acoustic Chumbawamba are now three albums into their career, and they seem to have really got the hang of it with this one. The boy bands haven't won, of course, not when there's creativity like this around. Perhaps they've now settled comfortably enough into their new identity to become more open, but this collection of songs long and short includes drumming, some programming, fuller arrangements here and there with Dixieland, and a stray brass band, a couple of samples (Martin Carthy speaking) and even some guests, in the shape of the Oysterband's Robb Johnson and Roy Bailey — all folkies with a strong political bent.
The songs here actually seem to pick up from where the older version of the band left off with Readymades, hutting notes that are political and poignant — usually together — 'Refugee' is a perfect example, but there's also plenty of acid wit ('Add Me') and in 'Word Bomber' they've made a gorgeous plea for peace that never comes close to the maudlin. They know their strengths and play to them, using harmonies and simple melodies — witness 'Words Can Save Us.' Now they're firmly fixed on the folkie side of the aisle, they cock a snoot at trad folk with the delicious 'Lord Bateman's Motorbike.'
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The anger might not be as overt as it was in the mid-'90s, but it's still there, and they now seem to thoroughly understand how to mix pop — of the acoustic folk variety, of course — and politics in the most natural way. Perhaps surprisingly for a band that's been around for so long, but one of the most satisfying discs of their career. With these three albums. I uploaded them to get a friend into him, so they're the best starting point IMO. Honestly though, all his music is accessible and catchy. You can't really go horribly wrong no matter what.Either/Or is a melancholy, sparse, acoustic album about love/heartbreak/loneliness.
Figure 8 is about many things including loneliness (whining about exes was always a bit of a selling point for the guy) and contains gorgeous, lush strings and various instrumental arrangements. New Moon is also sparse acoustic stuff on the poppy side. MrBlu, I know it's the Internet and everything, guy, but c'mon, don't you have a Sarcast-o-Meter or something? (unless you were being ironic, but that's so Meta I think I need to lie down)Anyways, So With all this X-Mas Music, I was thinking of ways I could contribute to all this red and green, and decided that while I fucking LOATHE X-mas and X-mas music, I do have something that is genuinely what makes me happiest when red & green come to mind.Aww YEAH!Starting with their 1997 EP Alive Behind the Green Door. Code: album title gives you an idea of the slowed down and melodic direction this record takes, focusing more of Mike King & COs Irish Traditional slow rock roots. An excellent album for hanging in the dorm/Apt.
Chilling and knocking a few brews back.Moving along,here's the 2004 album that hit #20 on the US top 200 charts and was a #1 on the Independent Music charts, Within a Mile of Home:^ For some reason this is not the cover art I have, but it's what google says it the right one, so whatever. Code: picked up this CD on their release tour (which they had tied in with the semi-successful 'Punk-Voter' tour) in NYC, and the show they put on for it was INTENSE.
It has a slightly more political connotation on a few tracks, but it's not obnoxious or ham fisted, and they find a really nice blend of Irish Trad-Rock and straight drunken punk on this CD, very pimpin' indeed. During the show, he tripped over a chord and didn't stop singing, the band didn't miss a beat, it was awesome, and after the song he said 'That's what happens when an Irishman messes around with Sake', I was made for stout, not Rice wine or whatever the fuck it is.hiccup. It's the Devil's way of reminding me not to forget who I am, ha ha.' And then the Tin Whistle comes in, heralding Devil's Dance Floor, and everything went nuts.Lastly, their last studio album to date, contained elsewhere on this thread but for convenience's sake, 2008's Float.
Code: you do, don't let Mike King's disinterested mug shot in the middle of that cover scare you away, this album is, to my ears, their most energetic since Swagger, and it comes the closest to capturing their 'Lightning in a Bottle' sound that they had back like seven years ago. Not that their other albums are bad, far from it (keep in mind I'm a huge FM fan), its just that this one keeps the energy up, keeping my foot tapping and my head banging, so to speak. I like it a lot, my favorite track on here is probably the titular track 'Float', or the extremely quick and dirty punk energy of 'The Lightning Storm'.So the only two Flogging Molly records I don't have are 2007's Complete Control Sessions, which are live recordings of songs that do appear on all their other albums, so I never bothered, and 2006's Whiskey on a Sunday, which is a CD/DVD combo pack. The DVD is a Flogging Molly documentary, and the CD has a bunch of live recordings of some of their best stuff, including a nearly twice as long live version of 'Black Friday Rule', and a bunch of acoustic tracks, which I'll admit to wanting really badly. Merry X-mas dudes.P.S. Dear Santa, All I want for X-Mas is for someone to please RE-Up to Slint albums onto this thread, I searched for em, but all the links are dead =(. Code: this is an instrumental album of both original pieces and samples of classical and foreign works alike.
I heard this guy used to be a cabbie in NYC then just got a stick up his butt and turned to a career of jaw droppingly beautiful music, and his pieces are pretty liberally sprinkled throughout dozens of psychedelic films. Make no mistake, the sober can and will appreciate the highbrow, elegant rhythms and harmonies herein, but you can't deny the ethereal pulse pounding 'whoa, far out man'-ness of this excellent record. I find most of his stuff to be totally inaccessible, like Einstein on the Beach, but this is just awesome, no matter how you cut it.
The best way to classify it, for me at least, would be Neo-Chamber music, if that makes any sense. Anyway, one of my favorite albums.edit: Removed mean things I said, gotta get ABOVE the hate, 1. The thing is, there are some Greasemonkey scripts will replace one character with another within the browser page only, so that Google won't pick it up. I know that there are some popular scripts which censor profanity, cut smilies, or limit punctuation.
I would try to convert one of those to my purposes, but I don't have the faintest idea how to even begin. So I was wondering if anyone here may have gotten frustrated as well and punched up a code to accomplish the task. Or could direct me to a code that would be easier to modify than the ones I found.
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March 2023
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