IDM Mailing Archive

All of this talk about vocals in IDM seems an ideal time to echo the sentiment that someone posted a while ago about the new Golden Palominos album _Dead_Inside_, namely that it is dark, intense, and mighty fine indeed. They've been steering more away from windswept guitars and more toward ambient/experimental territory, and they seem to have arrived. Comparisons spring to mind like Terre Thaemlitz (who did remixes for their previous album) and Locust (who gets sampled on "Ride"), with a rich variety of sub-influences, good danceable beats, and top-notch production. Nicole Blackman does vocals in the form of spoken word, with lots of lyric layering, texturing, processing, etc., and she has quite a way with words, telling stories about or by people courting rapture, insanity, death: essentially the Lynch-ian element of the incredible contained within the mundane. Probably the best thing about the album is that the music and vocals complement each other _brilliantly_. Anyway, the upshot is that the first listen took me on one of the most seriously intense trips I've ever been on, and so I will love it forever. Now I can't claim that the vocals are buried or ignorable (for you anti-vocalists out there), but they _do_ bear much repeated listening.

quoted 8 lines I don't mind when a vocal snippet is used as an instrumental addition - the

>I don't mind when a vocal snippet is used as an instrumental addition - the >odd Ofra Haza sample here and there, fer example, or the Karen Carpenter >motif from "No One In The World" - but I have little tolerance for singing or >House divas (outside of the club/rave environment). Being one of those >people who's been pummeled for the past 30 years by guitar/bass/drums/vocals >and who "bounce[d] violently in the opposite direction", I resent the >implication that it's "my loss" because I'm sick of conventional music and >vocals. Whatever floats yer boat mate ...

Yeah, I do know what you mean ... I did the violent bounce myself (one day in the car listening to the radio), and got into ambient/IDM/etc. vocalless music exclusively. Now I can't speak for you, of course, but eventually I realized that it wasn't the vocals or guitars that I was rebelling against; it was the pop music mentality ... the whole thing of "I bet I can come up with a catchier hook than the next guy" rather than "I bet I can do something really interesting here". It certainly _is_ possible to do something interesting with guitars, bass, and vocals, but that kind of stuff is usually as obscure/specialized as IDM or any other non-pop genre. Swans springs to mind, as does My Bloody Valentine. The fact is that most vocals are pretty banal, but if you look closely there are some that aren't. Anyway, whatever floats your boat indeed, but there's no point throwing the baby out with the bath-water. (Interesting mix of metaphors there ...) So, to bring this full circle, I think that GoPals are one of those bands that is doing something interesting, and _Dead_Inside_ definitely brings their music within the scope of this list. Mucho recommendo. --Seofon