I tried to listen to the vinyl rip earlier today and was a little underwhelmed... Granted, it was just too quiet/muffled to get a good impression so I ended up deleting it rather than fucking up my first experience of the album.
Now, however, listening to these three tracks proper, they sound great. "Majorette" -- another classic, heartrending Beach House opener. At a cursory glance, these three tracks almost sound more naked than "Depression Cherry"? Not in a bad way. Stoked to hear the rest.
Also, I always see people talking about how they like Monomania all right with the caveat, "except Nitebike." Why the "Nitebike" hate? "Nitebike" is awesome. It's the perfect penultimate track for that record. If anything, "Leather Jacket II" is more of a throwaway track to me - I'm more prone to skip it listening to the album at this point.
The thing about Bradford it seems to me is that once the pendulum swings all the way to one side, it's going to come back the other way. "Microcastle" was Bradford proving that he could write song-songs after "Cryptograms." ("Weird Era" was dirtier - and not just in the production quality.) "Halcyon Digest" perfected that marriage of pop songwriting with the band's signature sound collages. "Monomania" was like an exorcism, a cleansing of the palette. I had a feeling before I had even heard "Snakeskin" that "Fading Frontier" would see a "return to form" of sorts for the band. And it's great. The thing I love about the album so far is that you can catch all these little glimpses of various Deerhunter/Atlas Sound eras throughout every song, but it congeals into something that feels new and exciting.
PS. The Fallon performance was legendary - I don't remember a recent more exciting debut of an album's first single.
I mostly agree with everything you said re: Johnny Jewel / Chromatics (also, peep this alternate track list from when "Kill For Love" was originally announced http://pitchfork.com/news/44405-chromatics-announce-new-album), but that doesn't make near 7 months of radio silence in between the original release date and now any less maddening. Obviously, Jewel's projects are in a constant state of flux up until the release date, BUT I wish at this point he would be like, "Hey, I'm going to announce this new album - actually, nah, I should hold off on it for the next 9 months of meticulously obsessing over whether or not it's truly finished."
Which, as I'm writing this small complaint, I realize it is a minor price to pay for the amazing music the IDIB crew gifts unto the world. Carry on, Johnny Jewel, stoked to finally hear "Dear Tommy." (And, like, hopefully "Body Work" too.)
I agree that this record needs to be like, four songs shorter. I don't ever need to hear Ed Sheeran on anything. Not on Jessie Ware's record and certainly not on The Weeknd's. Still, immediately it's a more satisfying listen than Kiss Land. I don't know that any new Weeknd music will ever capture that same spark as House of Balloons though. The first half of this thing goes along really smoothly, but then it feels like it starts to fall off. IDK. I do like the Lana collab.
P.S. I like how the coda of "Losers" is basically an interpolation of "Tusk?" LOL.
The cover image by John Divola is actually a photograph, not a painting. It's from a series of photographs he made in abandoned houses at Zuma Beach in the 1970s. He would enter these abandoned structures, move things around, spray paint graffiti on the walls, etc. then photograph sunsets and oceans through the (mostly broken or nonexistent) windows. Interesting that they chose to use this for the album cover. It's a much more well-known work, at least in terms of the contemporary art world, than the photo they used on the cover of Halcyon Digest by George Mitchell.
"Ultraviolence" was great for the most part, but this kind of just feels like ennui setting in to me. The rest of the song is all right, but the bridge really should have been the building blocks of the whole thing? It's so much better than the verse/chorus. Invert this damn thing.
Hold up, hold up. I just checked out the setlist creator and saw "Days of Candy" is left off the list of options. Does this mean Beach House are deeming the song unplayable live, because of the choir on the first half, or just that they're mostly planning to play it at every show?
Because, if it's not the latter, just what the fuck. I'll die.
But you're right, "Depression Cherry" largely forgoes songs that culminate in the grand, sweeping climaxes of Bloom & Teen Dream (although not entirely -- "PPP" and "Days of Candy" come to mind.) I feel like Bloom & Teen Dream were opposite sides of the same coin, while DC is something else entirely. More ethereal, or as someone else aptly put it, emotions becoming abstract. Beach House describe the songs as almost sci-fi tinged in the Pitchfork interview, which is an interesting way to put it. Super Slowdive-y vibes at points (the guitar coming in on "10:37"). Definitely more of a slow reveal. Although, the first time I listened to it, when "Levitation" hits the "The branches of the trees / they will hang lower now" part, I immediately thought, "That's it. They've done it again! This will be another classic and gorgeous album." The moments in between become murkier but edge their way into your consciousness slowly and resolutely (again, as someone else already mentioned). When the tremelo'd organ and drum machine come in on "Days of Candy," I got that same feeling. The strange, sad comfort of Beach House--these melodies have always been there, they're just reminding us of them. The best band out there. "Just like that it's gone..."
just like a spark...
this may sound kind of fucked - but i went to see beach house years back the same day as my grandma's funeral. i had gone back home that evening because i had an exam the next day that i didn't want to miss. once i started trying to study i was a wreck and just couldn't do it. i had been looking forward to the show for months. i knew it was possibly the only thing that might make me feel a little better at that moment. so i said fuck it and went. it was the "teen dream" tour, and i KNEW that they would open the show with "walk in the park." i felt it. they did. i cried. their music means so much to me.
just like a spark...
I love everything Girls did, but for whatever reason his solo stuff just can't seem to reach the same heights. Whatever affectation he's doing with his voice here seems really distracting and unnatural, in the way that it wasn't on songs like, say, "Lust For Life." Here's to hoping he'll at least collaborate with Chet JR White again someday.
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