aw yeahh made an aLBUM!! - Page 4

On October 10 2010 04:28 jon arbuckle wrote:
No one should be talking about "musical skill" in this topic, as if that's what's being shot for, or what's being demanded of the form of music that intrigue's making. It's like intrigue's playin' Backgammon and you're playing Risk.

Uhm, I have to leave in like ten minutes, but based on the first three tracks I think the addition of vocals would really help focus these songs.

I mean, I don't know if I'm a trend-hopping wiener but there's not enough polyphonic genre-hopping or reverb 'n' delay twinkling Anglo-Saxon notes against an ambient backdrop to get me listen to Tortoise or Mogwai these days. Let alone Explosions in the Sky, who are like Thomas Kinkade set to music. I only really ride for gy!be anymore and would rather a thousand Cocteau Twins c. 1987 b-sides to another Do Make Say Think album, if only because the tapestry of electronics and distorted guitars are actually draped on a vocalist.

So I guess what I mean is that this is like a wedding dress with no one inside it? And if you had a strong vocalist at the centre, you are putting someone in that dress, therefore allowing me and all others in attendance to cry and go, "gosh that's such a beautiful dress"?

If you're really committed to this instrumental style of music, which is totally okay, I would ask that you resist the urge to do the Explosions in the Sky slow-rise twinkle-twinkle distortion-pedals-at-3-minutes-in formal arrangement. It would take miracles (with a vocalist or without) to make it not sound really cheap and emotionally exploitative. Eyes roll, etc. (I actually have a friend who tries to predict when songs get loud, not kidding. He's a big xx fan if only because they thwarted him for an entire song.)

"still pretty cool" was cute if only because it reminded me of being a sad ten-year-old playing SNES by himself. The beginning of "ovary montage" reminds me of Steve Reich, but unfortunately I have to stop listening and go.

Sorry for not sucking up.

On October 10 2010 06:01 zulu_nation8 wrote:


Adding vocals would require Intrigue to create a completely new dimension. I think the main difference between gy!be and Explosions in the Sky is gy!be has a stronger and more creative artistic voice, so that even in their most sparse tracks, the tone isn't that of detached, superficial admiration (bad word) or a pleasant and unvaried gaze like what EITS conveys. I call EITS easy listening music, which probably explains why they are much more accessible and as a result successful. No one in the Indie sphere really makes pure instrumentals like the old days anymore. Everyone with their crystal castles and chillwave has lost their sense of patience. Something has to be fellating my ears all the time if there's no one saying anything.

Most of Intrigue's album is closer to late 90s/early 00s electronica a la four tet, mum rather than post-rock anyway. I think what you identify can't really be solved by vocals. You're essentially asking for a stronger voice, which can and should only develop over time. It's like advising someone to write better by telling the writer to add more characters, what you're really asking doesn't seem to have an easy solution.

Agreed about the EITS pedals for the most part.

On October 10 2010 08:21 geno wrote:
Yeah this album reminds me a bit of Explosions or Ratatat, pretty nice. Not quite as catchy/addictive as some of their stuff, but it is still very good I think.

On October 10 2010 08:27 Gummy wrote:
This is the best thing I've ever heard ever. You should be the next Taylor Swift, even though that's not the kind of music you do, but you could be just as popular. And attractive.

On October 10 2010 07:16 jon arbuckle wrote:


Well, I mean, yeah, adding vocals would change so much of intrigue's approach in terms of having him apply the tools he uses and avenues he wishes to explore (e.g. VGM/8-bit) to the pop song. I always get a kick out of musicians who attempt to impose form on the formless or to approach the medium of the pop song through unconventional methods (e.g. Animal Collective, or the disparity between Broken Social Scene's first album and You Forgot It In People, or the last two Talk Talk albums). I don't want to seem like I'm completely shitting on intrigue's work - it's very promising stuff - but I wanted to provide some constructive feedback based on what little I know about these things, as a listener.

The difference between gy!be and Explosions in the Sky is that gy!be take a lot of pains to contextualize their music. That fight between prettiness for prettiness' sake, ominousness for ominousness, drama for drama, and the applications of this toward political expression is what drives gy!be's music and makes it so tense and emotional. The time given to wayward political voices, the album artwork, the liner notes, and the live presentation - I mean, it's so heavy-handed, but gy!be just fucking went for it in a way that no one else really has. That arch seriousness makes them such an easy target, but it works for them as an enclosed system. It's what separates them from EitS and others' ersatz prettiness.

There's still a niche market for post-rock, but it's cult now because as I said it's difficult to make that music without having it sound manipulative and superficial, and even more so to have that music not touch on the same general spectrum of angst-ridden emotions. I think it's bunking with screamo nowadays, which is appropriate; at least, I know people with bands that essentially cover Circle Takes the Square, Envy, and City of Caterpillars, and similar bands who dot their respective last.fms.

(N.B. That the peak of crescendo-driven, orchestral post-rock spans from the late '90 Y2K scare [q.v. all those old reviews of f# a# infinity and Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada that keep talking about the apocalypse] and into the post-9/11 ambient music fad [e.g. William Basinski, Stars of the Lid, the whole Kranky label really, the Icelandic invasion with Mum and Sigur Ros]; like ambient music, this minor-chord twinkle-twinkle 'post-rock' stuff lacked context, and the listener could apply whatever emotions and meanings they wanted to the music they were hearing. This isn't something I thought of myself, but I find it interesting nevertheless.)

Sorry to nitpick, but I wanted to add that post-rock is definitely not opposed to electronic elements. It's a muddy term, but it's the driving force around the incorporation of jazz, krautrock, ambient, and electronic forms, methods, and sounds into rock contexts. "Post-rock" quite literally refers to anything from Slint to Stereolab to Gastr de Sol to Rachel's to Disco Inferno to Neurosis to, yes, Mum and Kieran Hebdan's work (Kieran Hebdan's first band Fridge first minor waves with Happiness in 2001). Associations with the linear-climax-piece chamber rock style we're talking about didn't crop up until the popularization of bands like gy!be, Mogwai, and Explosions in the Sky around 2000 - which I can live with, because "post-rock" flows off the tongue better than any and all of the terms I've used to describe the sound in this depressingly long post. Listening to a style that rigid and formal requires no greater patience than a Washed Out or Crystal Castles track.

On October 10 2010 08:41 intrigue wrote:
zulu and arbuckle i really like reading your discussion!! we really wanted to try out vocals, but honestly we flat out suck at writing them and even finding singers. what kinda stuff do you think would work? i was leaning towards heavy beats with rhythmic female vocals, like sleigh bells, or droney radio department ones (though i think that kind is a bit overdone).

my next project is completely different, almost exclusively acoustic and poppy stuff with smix, so there'll be vocals there!

On October 10 2010 09:17 jon arbuckle wrote:overdubs, reverb, and delay