IDM Mailing Archive

Well, I tried getting into the Flanger album in the grand old automotive. Didn't work. In fact, upon closer examination, I've figured out for sure why I'm disappointed with the release. Couldn't put my finger on it before, except for a general feeling of sparseness and homogenous-sounding blap. Now I've got it all figured out. WHY I DIDN'T LIKE THE DAMN FLANGER RECORD by Tom Millar Music Appreciation 562 Prof. Fusion Wank 6/7/99 I just ditched a paragraph and a half about how Atom Heart sucks. Make up your own. I will now delve into the specifics. There is subtlety coming out of this album's Digipak ass hole. The problem is that there is nothing else. Subtlety without some sort of big mess on top to differentiate it is nothing to me. Essentially, what I'm trying to say is that subtle factors are relative, not intrinsic to the sounds or styles themselves, and Atom Heart seems to have forgotten this a while back. He bares the intellectually-challenging tidbits to the sunlight for blatant perusal by every listener. If you took all the quarter notes out of Plastikman's "Sickness" and only left in the filter mods and the double-time squirts, it would be a horrible record. Atom Heart has done this w/ Flanger. He and Friedmann put together these time-consuming rhythm section parts that go on for days without repeating themselves and then left them alone. They could have thrown down two or three preset synth patches on top and I would have been happy, but they just left it organ & drums. No matter how many slick and innovative ways you put together one and two, you are still only left with one and two. I got tired of one and two five minutes into the first track and that's more or less it. Fusion references, dub inflections, whatever. They're only there for milliseconds at a time and then it's back to incessant, easily turgeon-ified rhythm tracks. ...bippity click cliiiick clicklick DURMP DADURMP pip ziff ziff click bip... So, whoops. That'll teach me to look forward to collaborative records (yeah, right). Tom

quoted 7 lines There is subtlety coming out of this album's Digipak ass hole. The

>There is subtlety coming out of this album's Digipak ass hole. The >problem is that there is nothing else. Subtlety without some sort of big >mess on top to differentiate it is nothing to me. Essentially, what I'm >trying to say is that subtle factors are relative, not intrinsic to the >sounds or styles themselves, and Atom Heart seems to have forgotten this >a while back. He bares the intellectually-challenging tidbits to the >sunlight for blatant perusal by every listener.

since you can't have subtlety without something relative to bounce it off of, this album doesn't qualify as subtle. without subtlety, it has to be obvious. obviously what, i don't know yet. eric p.s. thanks to ninjeff!

quoted 6 lines since you can't have subtlety without something relative to bounce it off

>> since you can't have subtlety without something relative to bounce it off >> of, this album doesn't qualify as subtle. without subtlety, it has to be >> obvious. obviously what, i don't know yet. > >Well, that's what I meant, pretty much. Aren't semantics just super? >They're nouny and adjectivous all simultaneous-like.

except music is un-language-like in that you don't need any prior experience with an unfamiliar sonic expression for it to be meaningful. i think it's a good thing to have this much difficulty making sense of a release. from what i've heard so far, this album took everyone by surprise. actually, upon rereading the review, if you subtract the bullied bitterness (see below), it's pretty positive and would probably wind up interesting a lot more people on this list. tape-spliced deruded remix:

quoted 13 lines There is subtlety coming out of this album...there is nothing else.

>There is subtlety coming out of this album...there is nothing else. >Subtlety without some sort of big mess on top. He bares the >intellectually-challenging tidbits to the sunlight for perusal by every >listener. If you took all the quarter notes out of Plastikman's >"Sickness," Atom Heart has done this w/ Flanger. He and Friedmann put >together these rhythm section parts that go on without repeating >themselves. They could have thrown down two or three preset synth >patches on top, but they just left it organ & drums. No matter how many >slick and innovative ways you put together one and two, you are still >only left with one and two. Fusion references, dub inflections, >whatever. They're only there for milliseconds at a time and then it's >back to rhythm tracks. ...bippity click cliiiick clicklick DURMP DADURMP >pip ziff ziff click bip...

i have to say i agree! granted, these are largely technical observations that say nothing about the music itself (glitchy electronic Jazz [note capitalization]). the album is very obvious in what it's _trying_ to do, and i think they're successful and it sounds good, regardless of how i thought it might have turned out. eric onnow: two lone swordsmen, "the fifth mission" (emissions)