InstrumentalityOne wrote:http://www.meh.ro/original/2009_09/meh.ro213.png

WHITE
WHALE

HOLY
GRAIL

SPLIT YOUR LUNGS WITH BLOOD AND THUNDA!

WHEN YOU SEE THE WHITE WHALE

BREAK YOUR BACKS AND CRACK YOUR OARS MEN!

IF YOU WISH TO PREVAIL!

THIS IVORY LEG IS WHAT PROPELS ME!

HARPOONS THRUST INTO THE SKY!

AIM DIRECTLY FOR HIS CROOKED BROW!

AND LOOK HIM STRAIGHT IN THE EYE!

WHITE WHALE, HOLY GRAIL!

^that's hilarious

Misato makes a better Ahab.

Jeff Buckley's Grace on headphones is a spine chilling experience.

Listened to R.E.M.'s new album on Spotify. A lot better than I expected.

Oz wrote:Listened to R.E.M.'s new album on Spotify. A lot better than I expected.

Spotify only available in 7 countries?? Hmm.....

Most likely will stick to their In Time best collection for a while... but I guess no harm if you can listen to it for free...

I've been listening to a lot of old Chinese pop music lately. Like, 1940's old. Still can't find the song that plays in the background of this scene of Wong Kar-Wai's Fallen Angels. It's not on the soundtrack...

Symbv, are you a fan of R.E.M.? I utterly love Automatic for the People, but haven't really got into their other albums even though I've owned Murmur, Reckoning and Reconstruction of the Fables for a year or two. Collapse into Now sounds great so far and might as well resurrect my interest in the band.

Oz wrote:Symbv, are you a fan of R.E.M.? I utterly love Automatic for the People, but haven't really got into their other albums even though I've owned Murmur, Reckoning and Reconstruction of the Fables for a year or two. Collapse into Now sounds great so far and might as well resurrect my interest in the band.

I listen to too many types of music for my own good... X-p
For REM, I love Murmur and Automatic for the People the most. Reckoning is pretty good too.
If we come down to music from Athens GA, actually I love the neo-psychedelic sound of the Elephant 6 bands even more :-)

Bomby von Bombsville wrote:I've been listening to a lot of old Chinese pop music lately. Like, 1940's old.

Wong Kar Wai just loved those 40s Mandarin pop sound... It can be very nostalgic. One of my most favorite films is In the Mood for Love. The music complemented the film so much that it is hard to imagine what it would be like without the songs and music.

Well, it's been a busy past month with new stuff.

Black Flag - My War
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity and Miss Machine
fireHOSE - If'n
Glenn Danzig - Black Aria
The Jesus Lizard - Goat
Lard - The Power of Lard
Meat Puppets - Meat Puppets II
Minutemen - The Punch Line
Motorhead - No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith
Radiohead - The King of Limbs
The Smiths - Hatful of Hollow

My friend sent me a playlist that I'm listening to right now, it's called "Obscure Bob Dylan B-Sides."

I've gone on another King's X kick, and I really wish someone around here would take a listen to them and report back. The more I listen to them, the more I fall in love. I've never heard a band infuse such easy-on-the-ears harmony and melodicism with such poignant lyrics and outstanding, but understated, musicianship. Nearly every album has at least one tear-inducing song, surrounded by others that are just pristinely crafted and get better and better with repeat listens.

I was listening to Ogre Tones last night, and their ability to go from the hard-driving rock of Alone, to the stripped-down elegant beauty of Honesty, to the playfully, jazzy, reggae-lite Bebop, to the pure pop catchiness of Hurricane, to something as profoundly sad as Sooner or Later is just amazing. How these guys never became the biggest band in the world will always elude me.

Tankred wrote:Though I've been listening to some Mastodon lately, I just keep coming back and listening to their albums over and over again.

I nearly burnt out on them. When Leviathan came out I thought they were the Second Coming, and Blood Mountain practically confirmed it. I think I've cooled quite a bit since Crack the Skye. I think my problem with them now is that they're becoming a mediocre prog band instead of that ultimate fusion of pure metal aggression and more sophisticated structures/melodies/harmonies/etc. I still think leviathan is their best, though both Remission and Blood Mountain have a lot going for them.

backseatjesus wrote:Jeff Buckley's Grace on headphones is a spine chilling experience.

Indeed. Listening to them on a state-of-the-art headphone system is even better, trust me.

AngelNo13Bardiel wrote:Well, it's been a busy past month with new stuff.

Black Flag - My War
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity and Miss Machine
fireHOSE - If'n
Glenn Danzig - Black Aria
The Jesus Lizard - Goat
Lard - The Power of Lard
Meat Puppets - Meat Puppets II
Minutemen - The Punch Line
Motorhead - No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith
Radiohead - The King of Limbs
The Smiths - Hatful of Hollow

I've always dug Black Flag and Danzig, though I haven't listened to them a lot. You can't go wrong with DEP and Motorhead.

Eva Yojimbo wrote: I still think leviathan is their best, though both Remission and Blood Mountain have a lot going for them.

I agree with ya about Leviathan, but personally I'm not that big of a fan of Blood Mountain. Yeah it has some great moments on there, but some of those riffs are just....stupid. The middle of that album gets kinda...not as a good as the beginning of the cd.

Been listening to Underoath's Disambiguation. I'm not usually into this type of metal, but hey this actually isn't too terrible.

Eva Yojimbo wrote:I've always dug Black Flag and Danzig, though I haven't listened to them a lot.

Although I'd still say Damaged was my favorite of their albums, My War is pretty much one of the beginning points for sludge metal (especially the second side/last three tracks). And as for Black Aria, it isn't like any of the other Danzig stuff. It's...well, think dark classical meets keyboards. It's good, but completely different than the rest of his work (except for Black Aria II, of course).

Eva Yojimbo wrote:Have you heard anything from Thordendal or Alex Skolnick? Skolnick has a band now where he plays jazz(y) covers of classic rock/metal songs. I'd love to get your impression (although, I probably already know what it is). Thordendal's leads sound very similar to Holdsworth, at least on a superficial level.

I've heard some Meshuggah before, but that was a long time ago (late 80's). Don't remember much of his stuff. I've actually seen both Testament and Savatage in concert before when Skolnick was with them. It's been a long time but I remember being into their music. His trio was playing in NY at the Iridium (which is a great place), but I can't say I'm much into their stuff, I find it pretty awkward, like Pat Metheny awkward, sort of like watching a kid on a tricycle wreck awkward. It's not bad or anything, just not really into it. Which is sort of my problem with metal guitarists. It's not that they're talentless hacks who can only play really fast, the music doesn't really lend itself for them to do the things that I find impressive.

Ornette wrote:I've heard some Meshuggah before, but that was a long time ago (late 80's).

Are you sure? Their first album wasn't released until '91 and they didn't form until '87, so if you saw them it must have been when they were first touring around the time of their first demo...

Ornette wrote:I find it pretty awkward, like Pat Metheny awkward, sort of like watching a kid on a tricycle wreck awkward.

Pat Matheny awkward? I thought he was a rather legendary guitarist? You must know something I don't.

Fair enough about metal guitarists, though. Do you think it's really a limitation of the music or just a general inability or unwillingness for those capable guitarists to incorporate the more impressive stuff into the music?

Eva Yojimbo wrote:Are you sure? Their first album wasn't released until '91 and they didn't form until '87, so if you saw them it must have been when they were first touring around the time of their first demo...

I didn't see them live. It was some mixed tape or something.

Pat Matheny awkward? I thought he was a rather legendary guitarist? You must know something I don't.

I'm just not really a fan of most of his stuff.

Fair enough about metal guitarists, though. Do you think it's really a limitation of the music or just a general inability or unwillingness for those capable guitarists to incorporate the more impressive stuff into the music?

Don't know. It's just a sort of ambiguous observation more than anything specific. I think these qualities make metal what it is, or even hard rock. Bill Steer was a pretty popular guitarist when I was in highschool, I liked him in Carcass, but I wouldn't call anything they do "impressive". But what they do and their sound makes them who they are, and in their case, I think when they tried to get fancy they sounded worse.

Ornette wrote:I'm just not really a fan of most of his stuff.

Aha. The only thing I've really heard is the album he did with Anna Maria Jopek.

I posted up something new today, a little song called "White Wash":

http://soundcloud.com/esselfortium/white-wash

Tl;dr: It's a hazy-sounding summery electronic tune with an 80s vibe.

Long, technical version:
It's an experiment: I set out to create a soundalike of the 80s-infused, hazy sound of sample-based chillwave songs like Washed Out's "Feel It All Around", but in an all-original composition rather than using the established practice of sampling and slowing down an existing 80s tune to do it.

As part of the process of creating this tune, I created a rack configuration in Reason with which to effectively "sample" myself, creating an entire song and then processing the mixer's resulting stereo output as though I were working with a sample.

I also used a hell of a lot of compression, reverb, and tape distortion. Because.

esselfortium wrote:I also used a hell of a lot of compression, reverb, and tape distortion. Because.

Overboard amounts of effects are ALWAYS necessary. The song sounds cool btw.

The new Explosions in the Sky leaked!! I'm about a minute into the second song and by god I'm glad they took they're time with this album. It's...soo beautiful.