Fresh exploration is still possible 31 years later.
It's possible to hear for the first time. But it is difficult. Where could that opening bass line of Disorder possibly come from if it's not from Hook? And it's best not to discuss hearing Curtis "for the first time".
What I can hear, which has no doubt been heard by many before, is the lethargic urgency of four men who understood time was running out. Listen to Day of The Lords in the moments before Curtis arrives. It might be slow, industrial and every adjective already used by better writers and thinkers but there is a shadow of light flitting under the dour. It runs quickly and lightly but it is there, even if for only two moments.
At 3:17 Curtis howls, Stephen Morris rises - I want to say these songs lead to moments but that's ridiculous, all music is headed for a moment. It just feels more so with Joy Division.
Candidate is so different to what has come before it. That legendary sparseness is in full-throttle from the silent first seconds and then that wonderfully under used fade-in technique. On a side note only Radiohead's Black Star uses it as well. Within the context of Unknown Pleasures, Candidate feels like it is covered by brilliance either side of it and only it's coming in under just over three minutes does that.
The first five seconds of Insight might be mistaken for Candidate as silence is silence but from there nothing could be further. The soundtrack of table top video games played in an abandoned warehouse at 3am with a man you know nothing of. Despite the table tennis being played behind him, Curtis remains focused and innately linked in behind Morris' percussion that starts in an easy 4/4 groove and grows ever more complex as the space slowly fills.
New Dawn Fades, in the digital age, seems less important than it is. In 1979 the song finished Side A and for that automatically matters. A thousand bands echo the song along an ever-growing line. It is songs like this that will be the ones that increasingly draw fresh ears to Unknown Pleasures.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
At Night we Live
In 1999 Far were my favourite band I'd never heard.
I wish I'd know the guttural honesty of Johna Matranga and his coterie - their riffage and emotional opulence was hidden in a world where the Internet was only a mellow cat on grandma's lap.
More than a decade after the ego-stroking bullshit of the School Certificate here is At Night We Live. I came to Matranga before I arrived at Far and the shock of the difference is only now surmountable. Onelinedrawing was confronting emo proven mostly by Matranga's wail and the weird electronic blips from his R2-D2.
Deafening couldn't start more ironically or with a greater cliche. But sometimes it's worth noting cliches only get that way for a reason. The tick and the tock followed by Matranga whispering "it's deafening" and then drums, guitars, whatever else is lying around locking in behind it - I don't care, I love it and always will.
The meat's further on.
The riffs of Dear Enemy might be from the latest White Stripes album if they went through a different pedal. But with a double kick, flaying percussion and Shaun Lopez threading through it all it is unmistakable, Far has returned and are just as good as they ever were.
Added on to the end for a slice of fun is the wonderful Ginuwine cover, Pony.
Fight song 16, 233,241 would have worked brilliantly in that lobby fight scene from The Matrix. "This is what we do" screams Matranga over a rhythmic beast riding with synths in the back. It's the kind of radio rock that never was, I wish it had of. How much more pure the airwaves would have been for a boy living not far enough from the outback.
The Ghost That Kept On Haunting is the slow, aching work of a band that knows it mines a narrow niche. It's a sign of what might be if Far bothered to do more, to break the rules and experiment. It is all that's needed. Snapping 1-2-1 high-hat and wall-of-slowly-building-sound with Matranga surely drowned by it all.
Synth crushes with rhythm and Lopez lets the riffs bleed for an age, envisaging some sort of post polar world where there is no weather or white - only a blue grey of some sort of trap.
The secret track is the old and wonderfully ridiculous cover of Ginuwine's Pony where Lopez effortlessly plays the tempest to Matranga's seduction. Some of Matranga's most startling work has been cover's. His work on No Ordinary Love with Deftones comes to mind.
Pony is a little nod to the history of a band that needed the lay-off for a thousand reasons but never really stopped.
I wish I'd know the guttural honesty of Johna Matranga and his coterie - their riffage and emotional opulence was hidden in a world where the Internet was only a mellow cat on grandma's lap.
More than a decade after the ego-stroking bullshit of the School Certificate here is At Night We Live. I came to Matranga before I arrived at Far and the shock of the difference is only now surmountable. Onelinedrawing was confronting emo proven mostly by Matranga's wail and the weird electronic blips from his R2-D2.
Deafening couldn't start more ironically or with a greater cliche. But sometimes it's worth noting cliches only get that way for a reason. The tick and the tock followed by Matranga whispering "it's deafening" and then drums, guitars, whatever else is lying around locking in behind it - I don't care, I love it and always will.
The meat's further on.
The riffs of Dear Enemy might be from the latest White Stripes album if they went through a different pedal. But with a double kick, flaying percussion and Shaun Lopez threading through it all it is unmistakable, Far has returned and are just as good as they ever were.
Added on to the end for a slice of fun is the wonderful Ginuwine cover, Pony.
Fight song 16, 233,241 would have worked brilliantly in that lobby fight scene from The Matrix. "This is what we do" screams Matranga over a rhythmic beast riding with synths in the back. It's the kind of radio rock that never was, I wish it had of. How much more pure the airwaves would have been for a boy living not far enough from the outback.
The Ghost That Kept On Haunting is the slow, aching work of a band that knows it mines a narrow niche. It's a sign of what might be if Far bothered to do more, to break the rules and experiment. It is all that's needed. Snapping 1-2-1 high-hat and wall-of-slowly-building-sound with Matranga surely drowned by it all.
Synth crushes with rhythm and Lopez lets the riffs bleed for an age, envisaging some sort of post polar world where there is no weather or white - only a blue grey of some sort of trap.
The secret track is the old and wonderfully ridiculous cover of Ginuwine's Pony where Lopez effortlessly plays the tempest to Matranga's seduction. Some of Matranga's most startling work has been cover's. His work on No Ordinary Love with Deftones comes to mind.
Pony is a little nod to the history of a band that needed the lay-off for a thousand reasons but never really stopped.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Kings Upon The Main
Thrice has delivered much over albums that came from the remnants of hardcore and have slowly wondered into electronica, ambience and general experimentation with all the genres mentioned. I don't like the term "post-hardcore", it doesn't mean anything because hardcore was short lived.
The four EPs of The Alchemy Index were not great but they did hold some great material. Kings Upon The Main is undiscovered brilliance.
It's Dustin Kensrue's earthy voice droning for wisdom and the gales of the ocean backed by three piano notes and distant, industrial percussion. Wind blows through the recording but only gently, as if the storm is elsewhere but visible. Songs like these can pass you by, unaware of their subtle grit.
The fact not much happens here makes the song so much better. The meditation of an almost drone.
The four EPs of The Alchemy Index were not great but they did hold some great material. Kings Upon The Main is undiscovered brilliance.
It's Dustin Kensrue's earthy voice droning for wisdom and the gales of the ocean backed by three piano notes and distant, industrial percussion. Wind blows through the recording but only gently, as if the storm is elsewhere but visible. Songs like these can pass you by, unaware of their subtle grit.
The fact not much happens here makes the song so much better. The meditation of an almost drone.
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