Absolutely transcendent songs...

"Smoke Two Joints"

I would be happy (as well as amused) if those were the first two songs on the jukebox in heaven

The Arcade Fire - Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)
Joanna Newsom - Only Skin
Radiohead - How To Disappear Completely
Sigur Ros - Untitled #8
Wilco - Spiders (Kidsmoke)

Sigur Ros - Glosoli

lolindie

You'd think Pitchfork would be more of a hell thing

I don't mean anything, though. I'm listening to Moose right now, for heaven's sake.

I like that Louis picked a song that is disputably Sublime (it's a cover)

God would probably replace it w/Cocaine in my Brain

And now for a serious answer... :D

Actually, I need a new favourite song. It's gone Beck - Cold Brains to Blur - Essex Dogs to Mansun - Cancer and been there a while. I'm not going to attempt to discover a new one tonight, but as for a song I'd describe right now as transcendental (and why):

Well, there's three.

Oceansize - Savant. The best song of the best album of 2007, a slow-burning orchestral movement that uses three different guitarists, back-of-the-mix vocals and some extremely creative drumming to construct an emotional monument. Nothing is overdone. The sound is never deafening, never overwhelming. The most crushing moment is when a subtle, tremeloing guitar creeps in during a chanted refrain. The song just keeps on adding to its own glory, building and accelerating until a string section pierces the majesty and completely removes us from the vocabulary of rock music. Hell I sound pretentious saying this. Hell I don't care. Better chord-changes, better lyrics, better rhythms, better sounds, better everything.

Spiritualized - Won't Get To Heaven (The State I'm In). The 10-minute penultimate track from their much-maligned 2001 opus, 'Let It Come Down', this remains their best, most impassioned, most utterly spiritual studio recording. Beginning amidst a ticking clock, swirling sound effects, clicks, bubbling ambience and whooshes, a single piano introduces Pierce's familiar distorted guitar - and an entire orchestra. We then experience a beautiful 4-minute ballad in which our man bares his heroin-soaked soul before us, God, and whoever else feels like listening. Which then stops, quickens, and flies. The final 5 minutes are some of the most uplifting, thrilling, soulful minutes of music ever recorded. It's gospel as recorded by nuclear scientists and the best recording equipment money can buy. It features some astounding saxophone. Best of all, at the 7-minute mark it explodes in a sea of quite unstoppable synth. I think that might still be the most heart-stopping moment of music I've ever heard. All in the synth tone.

Which takes me onto...

Thighpaulsandra - Michel Publicity Window. I think this guy must be one of the biggest geniuses in music. Like, for serious. Very few people have heard of him. He is probably the main reason why the last song I mentioned is so great. He did most of the ambience, all the synths, he made it sound like it did. This is him on his own. It's 27 minutes long. The first 10 are a stupendously slowly-mounting series of outer-space atonal synth washes. They're beautiful. The oft-overused 'glacial' actually suits it to a tee. Then, without warning, a pop song breaks out. Fading in over the washes (but never dispelling them), Mr T plays a simple, bass-driven lament to the titular character, which lasts only about 3 minutes before fading back into the mix. But something has happened. No longer are the drones glacial, no longer unruffled. They become turbulent. They twist. They clash. And then...a SCREAM. A single, dying, electronic scream. It's repeated about 20 times. Towards the end, it slows down and dies. Another noise, this time a rotating upwards revving noise. In controlled chaos, the song finally fades from view. It's an absolutely stunning achievement.

Omitted due to 'don't wanna be here all night': Talk Talk, Cardiacs

I now feel so bad for leaving so much brilliant, sublime stuff out. :(

lolindie

-- W4LTER, Sunday, December 9, 2007 7:53 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

And the problem is . . . ?

My pick is "Song to the Siren" - This Mortal Coil version. For that matter, I can think of quite a few "absolutely transcendent" Liz Fraser vocal performances.

And, with regard to Spiritualized, how about "Feel So Sad (Glides and Chimes)" - or whatever the 10+ minute version of that song is called.

Power to indie:

The Mountain Goats - Pale Green Things
Panda Bear - Ponytail
Sonic Youth - Unmade Bed
Wilco - At Least That's What You Said
Wilco - The Late Greats
Wilco
Wilco
Wilco

New Order-Temptation

JGO, you can post more than one (or three!) I ain't stopping you. Your prose is appreciated. I'm gonna try to download anything that I'm not familiar with or haven't heard in ages. I wanna get a preview of such rewards what await me in the beyond.

Well, Thighpaulsandra's debut solo album "I, Thighpaulsandra" contains some of the best music you've never heard. When I first took the plunge (the record is, incidentally, longer than the new Stars Of The Lid album, which is fairly long, all while only having 11 tracks), I was in no way prepared for quite how complex, how thematically astounding it would be. Simple repetitive ambience this ain't; there's a truly absurd amount of detail, sonic trickery and remixing involved. Better still, he gets away with THREE cheeky garage-rock blow-outs. Self-regarding toss this ain't. Never mind that two of them devolve into noise experiments; this is high art, low art, everything in between, and one of the few albums I would recommend absolutely EVERYONE hear.

An absolutely transcendent song that goes in the direction of horror rather than beauty, of damnation rather than redemption: Foetus - "Kreibabe". This is what you'll be hearing if you wind up in the other place.

Oh, and how could we forget the last two tracks of The Teardrop Explodes - Wilder? Possibly the best closing 1-2 punch any album has ever had, and indeed one of the finest elegies written since the start of the 20th century.

Cool, I'll look into all of those.

w4lter likes as much as anyone in this thread.

w4lter likes indie as much as anyone in this thread.

The Late Greats is catchy, hardly transcendent tho.

the kiss - judee sill

I'm in danger of listing my favourite albums/songs here, but if you find Talk Talk transcendent (as you do, if you have functioning ears + a heart), the nearest equivalent I can think of is Ulver - Blood Inside. We cannot also forget quite how good The Beta Band are in this regard. Not all music I utterly adore I adore because it is sublime or transcendent. Much of it I love because of what it is, not what it invokes. The songs I've named here are portals to the imagination, means to further discovery. They're subtle, layered, and magnificent. Again I'm getting hazy. I've left a lot of stuff out that I could and would argue for. This is only tonight's doing. Tomorrow I will feel else. I will argue for XTC or Hood or Slowdive or Boards Of Canada. Not tonight, though. Well, maybe tonight. Depends on how many catcalls I'm getting/when I drop off. :D

Note to possible naysayers: this is a wanky thread, if you don't like it stuff off.

Well, Jordan, this, as we all know, is one of my fave blogs. so yeah.

"when its really cold outside one of the nicest things is to put on a sweater and sleep on the sofa with your sweater on. it feels really good"

this is otm.

louis you bolding names gives us another incentive not to read your monstrous posts. just saying.

the first song that comes to mind is

The Cure - "Disintegration" (the song)

Monstrous? I think 'rushed and overwritten' would probably be more accurate. The emboldening is actually so that people can skip all the tosh and get right to what matters - the musical recommendation. Anyway, I can't have a junior sass me out! Act yr age, get back to being defensive and self-justificatory! ;-)

Not all music I utterly adore I adore because it is sublime or transcendent. Much of it I love because of what it is, not what it invokes. The songs I've named here are portals to the imagination, means to further discovery. They're subtle, layered, and magnificent.

Sure. I guess that's why a couple of posts down I started toying with the idea of songs one would hear upon being ushered past the pearly gates; God's jukebox and so forth. Obviously, that could mean all kinds of things to all sorts of people, so this is a freeform thread by its very nature. But it's always great to hear people's explanations or attempts at such, in addition to mere mentions of a particular track.

strokes- barely legal
b.g. et al- bling bling
montell jordan- this is how we do it
bloc party- like eating glass
rich boy- throw some d's (i only kind of love this song but i'm hard pressed to think of a more cathartic song right now. "GET MONEY...........NEW MONEY" etc.)

i'm only a soph lou. and i was just joshing. i read your posts.

Yeah, I know. I shouldn't have used "junior", seeing as that's an actual year in US education. I was merely observing that you're one of a few ILXors younger than myself. Although you're not even the first such person to call me out on this thread! :D

Ulrich Schnauss. "On Your Own", "Medusa" and "Clear Day" especially.

Jord4n S your choices are interesting and completely different from mine. Care to go into a bit of detail as to how they're sublime/transcendental/whatever?

hm.

maybe deej or ethan or other rap dudes would disagree with me about this, but "bling bling" is kinda like the high point of the super-extravagance of late 90s/early 2000s rap, which is a period i really love. it's another song like "throw some d's" (which isn't nearly as good, but since i just brought it up) where it's about as cathartic and exultant as possible w/o saying so. the video would be able to illustrate this better than i can, with them throwing money out of helicopters and riding around in hummers and bentleys and the beatle convertible (that one kills me because i can't imagine any man would want a beatle convertible but it was a pretty big deal around then i guess so it's the ultimate we bought this because we can purchase). it's another thing of like really liking the cash money dudes and this is probably their biggest and best moment, or at least the one where they ultimately get out and say it as a group, throwing it all in everybody's face etc.

"this is how we do it" is just a song i'll never get sick of from like 1995 when i was 7 or 8 till last night i put it on at a party and it was still so awesome. idk i dont have the hugest emotional connection to it or whatever but i don't usually listen to big pop singles from the 90s that often but i listen to that and like "c'mon ride the train" once every few months or so.

"like eating glass" is kinda the big teen angst song for me that i guess older people have w/ like nirvana or fugazi songs. that probably goes for silent alarm as a whole. i spun the shit out of that cd a few years ago and that's still probably my favorite song. (probably letting on more about myself than i should here).

"barely legal" is just my favorite song on "is this it" which is probably my fav album of the decade. another one where i just have too many memories of singing that song loud as fuck not to put it on a list like this.

Defend the Indefensible: Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer...

"Those Eyes, That Mouth" by the Cocteau Twins
"Song To the Siren" by This Mortal Coil
"This Woman's Work" by Kate Bush
"Ceremony" by Galaxie 500
"Welcome to Hell" by Venom

"Odditty," the Clean.

For years this would have been the Stop Making Sense version of "Once in a Lifetime" for me, but I just can't hear that song fresh anymore.

"So What" by Ministry

or maybe some Julee Cruise...

bo rhap

East Mountain Joint - MV & EE
Minotaur - Skygreen Leopards
Lord & Master - Heron
Postcard - Comsat Angels
Born In Fire - the Frederic
And pink frost, obv.

Since I'm on a prewar-gospel/blues kick, I'll say Blind Willie Johnson's Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground.

So, Jord4n, what's 'transcendent' for you is both the grandest possible materialistic celebration of wealth by popular culture, and an ability to provoke the most intense memories of prior enjoyment. These are valid criteria, even if I myself wouldn't subscribe to your choices. Thus is found the beauty of such subjective judgements. You're approaching the question from a far more populist angle, with the sublimity not manifested through sculptured sounds (assonance and dissonance, rhythm and arhythm, beauty and horror), but through real-life associations and communal experience. If I were to name a similar song that can transcend a group occasion, in my eyes Bohemian Rhapsody is nigh-on unbeatable. :D

you're missing what i'm saying re: finding rap songs transcendent. maybe you have a geir like predisposition to dismiss the genre, but there's a parallel feeling in finding something like "bling bling" or "throw some d's" transcendent. personal triumph same as their triumph etc. or finding personal triumph in their triumph. and again idk, i just think it's awesome to hear a dude like rich boy who by all means has worked his way up from the bottom to the top, got himself out of a bad situation etc. etc., scream "get money...new money!" idk how you can't feel great for a him.

also i didn't mention the musical qualities of those songs but undoubtedly the music on a visceral level is part of the appeal.

personal triumph same as their triumph etc. or finding personal triumph in their triumph.

Surely this is what I'm saying when I mention firstly "the grandest possible materialistic celebration of wealth by popular culture", and then when I speak of the "real-life associations and communal experience" you share?

Doubtless the music also helps, but an ability to slip into the character of the musicians is precisely what I described, in all its glorious escapism. I don't have any Geir-esque predispositions about rap; my only problem with it is that I haven't heard nearly enough.

right. sorry i read "grandest possible materialistic celebration" as a slight.

If "Uptown Top Ranking" isn't transcendent, than I want no part of transcendent.

Hey, if I ever use any sort of intensifier that insinuates ambition, largesse, or grandiosity, it's almost always positive! I have a special place in my heart for subtlety, and another for enormous sweeping statements. One in the context of the other is ideal. Bad music compromises, fudges, fails to make grand statements or subtleties, stinks the room with unambitious, mundane crap. No single KIND of music is bad except the sort which limits itself to extremely narrow and self-defeating parameters.

Al Green - Georgia Boy
Big Star - Back of a Car
Gilberto Gil / Jorge Ben - Meu Glorioso Sao Cristovao
Fleetwood Mac - Sara
Funkadelic - Maggot Brain
John Fahey - Dalhart, Texas, 1967
Judee Sill - Lady-O (Live)
Joni Mitchell - Down to You
John Cale - Andalucia
Neil Young - Cinnamon Girl
Velvet Underground - What Goes On
Van Morrison - Sweet Thing
Thelma Houston - Don't Leave Me This Way
Television - Marquee Moon
Soft Boys - I Wanna Destroy You
Prince - I Would Die 4 U

thanks thread, i needed a pick-me-up

Bowie - "Warszawa"

Velvet Underground - What Goes On

Oh goodness me I need to get hold of this song again. I will agree with you that the solo is truly sublime, one of the few extended solos without any degree of gratuity to it, instead a fully integrated, exalting few seconds spent isolated in music.

John Cale - Andalucia

Love this

This takes me onto another potential criterion: songs which transcend their crude instrumentation, their lyrics, their limitations of design, to become perfections, songs which you wouldn't change a hair of even given a limitless palette of sounds to pick from. For this I will pick Hood - "SE Rain Patterns". The guy can't sing. The instrumentation is hesitant, archaic. Plinking pianos, whirring drones, and shambling guitar. It's decrepit and unrefined. The beat (what there is of it) is repetitive. The melody barely changes. The woodwind section squeals unsophisticatedly. And yet...there is an evocation, a magic to this music, and whenever I hear it I feel that a single alteration would spoil the effect utterly. Out of that initial two-note drone comes something quite, quite special, a rustic transportation that subliminally places you, the listener, in its own melancholy setting, and holds you.

John Cale - Andalucia

Yesyesyesyesyes.

Oval - Mediaton
Grizzly Bear - Central & Remote
Mickey Newbury - Write a Song a Song/Angeline
Mary Margaret O'Hara - You Will Be Loved Again
Bobbie Gentry - Jeremiah
The Millennium - Karmic Dream Sequence #1
Badfinger - In the Meantime/Some Other Time
Dexys - Until I Believe in My Soul
Cale/Reed - A Dream
Beach Boys - California Saga (really!)
Roddy Frame - Hymn to Grace
Dillard & Clark - Out on the Side

Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band, "Cherchez la Femme"
Calle 13, "La Jirafa"
Santa Esmeralda, "Another Cha Cha"
A Tribe Called Quest, "Electric Relaxation"

apparently, strgn and I are music twins.

also:

Vinte E Seis Anos De Vida Normal - Marcos Valle
For Your Precious Love - Linda Jones
the instrumental break in Plateau - the Meat Puppets
the version of Little Maggie on Doc/Merle Watson's Home Sweet Home ("Little Maggie" is kind of the best song ever written; I've yet to hear a version I don't love)

NEW 3 DOORS DOWN SONG

Nina Simone - Sinnerman
Mahalia Jackson - Summertime
Faith Evans - Soon As I Get Home
Aretha Franklin - People Get Ready
D'Angelo - The Root
Nas - 2nd Childhood
S.O.S. Band - Take Your Time (Do It Right)
Anthony Hamilton - Coming From Where I'm From
Roberta Flack - I Told Jesus
Björk - Ancestors
Rufus - Sweet Thing
David Ruffin - I Miss You
Portishead - Roads
R. Kelly - A Woman's Threat

there are so many, really...

GREEN DAY SINGLES POLL

C+ trolling at best.

how can you deny the transcendent power of longview

Armand Van Helden ft. Roland Clark, "Flowerz"
Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell, "You're All I Need to Get By"
Omni Trio, "Mystic Stepper (Feel Better)"
Flying Burrito Brothers, "Hot Burrito #1"
Prince, "The Beautiful Ones"

War, "All Day Music"
The Temptations, "You Make Your Own Heaven and Hell Right Here on Earth"

Half of Billie Holiday's catalogue qualifies, e.g., Gloomy Sunday, April in Paris, Strange Fruit, Stormy Weather, Autumn in New York, among others.

smog - river guard
unwound - october all over
david sylvian - the boy with the gun
okkervil river - okkervil river song
neil young - roll another number (for the road)
the for carnation - moonbeams
robyn hitchcock - the man who invented himself
guided by voices - over the neptune/mesh gear fox
steely dan - doctor wu
junior boys - last exit

hmm

CREAM

Prince, Wu Tang, or Clapton?

Yes - Awaken

then

XTC - The Wheel and the Maypole
Stereolab - Plastic Mile
Aphex Twin - Tha
Coldplay - Daylight (yes i know)
Split Enz - Message to My Girl
Human League - Empire State Human
ELO - Twilight
Silverchair - Across the Night
Radiohead - Paranoid Android

I think I regret that ELO one.

Oh yeah, "A Dream," God damn. Also second "Back of a Car," which I was listening to 10 minutes ago.

Mekons - Last Dance
Merle Haggard - Sing Me Back Home
Richard Thompson - The Calvary Cross
Ice Cube - It Was a Good Day
Devo - Gut Feeling
Devin the Dude - Briar Patch
Spiritualized - Shine a Light (live)
Roxy Music - If There is Something

Blues in the Night - Bobby Bland's version (tho' Sinatra ain't bad)

The Wipers - Return of the Rat
Slint - Good Morning Captain
My Bloody Valentine - When You Sleep
Neu! - Hallogallo
Slayer - Raining Blood
Weird Al Yankovic - Dare to be Stupid

A few more:

New Order - Blue Monday
Angry Samoans - Lights Out
Aphex Twin - Xtal
Big Black - Passing Complexion
DAF - Der Mussolini
Underworld - Jumbo

The best song of the best album of 2007, a slow-burning orchestral movement that uses three different guitarists, back-of-the-mix vocals and some extremely creative drumming to construct an emotional monument. Nothing is overdone. The sound is never deafening, never overwhelming. The most crushing moment is when a subtle, tremeloing guitar creeps in during a chanted refrain. The song just keeps on adding to its own glory, building and accelerating until a string section pierces the majesty and completely removes us from the vocabulary of rock music.

Sounds hideous

ooooh i forgot one:

Negative Approach - Can't Tell No One

Popol Vuh - too many to list

layla

Self-indulgent long post time featuring v. few actual "songs" (hope instrumentals are allowed)...
Two glimpses of celestial harmony of the spheres filtered down through northern lights:
Stars of the Lid - The Artificial Pine Arch Song, The Azusa Plane - last track on Tycho-Magnetic Anomaly (obv transcends my ability to remember titles)

strangely wistful ecstasy while cresting wave for 3.5 minutes:
Blondie - Union City Blue (or for a more corporeal take see Atomic, and while you're there is I Feel Love too obvious?)

machine transcends clanking and buzzing to reach consciousness (use other ideas please):
Kraftwerk - Autobahn (full LP version) (also a ton of Cluster + Harmonia but I am not good at titles today)

dim sense of presence/otherness encroaching, unsure as to whether good or bad:
Circle - Brilliant Colours for Bright Ideas

head so full of the heat and buzzing of unfocussed ideas:
Sunroof! - Grasshopper, Mouse On Mars - Saturday Night World Cup Fieber (maybe this is for the previous set too)

oh shit yeah teleport rush moment:
that moment when the hook of "Better Git It In Your Soul" kicks back in

transported to cosmic paradise island soundtrack:
Aphex Twin - xtal (latebloomer xtalpost), Mouse on Mars - most of Vulvaland (today I pick "Chagrin", see also "strangely wistful")

things which make me feel like "I Only Have Eyes For You" does:
Santo and Johnny - Sleepwalk, a lot of Joe Meek stuff

conclusion: none whatsoever, except that I am sorry to go on so long, but there are other posts with as many picks, just condensed/sans verbal wankiage

Must leave thread before remember Unwound - "Demons Sing Love Songs" and 2 Bad Mice - "Hold It Down"... (sorry, again)

No need for apologizing! It's cool that you categorized your picks and said some words about them.

Insides - Clear Skin

This Heat 'Sleep"

Spiritualized "I Think I'm In Love"

Sun City Girls "Space Prophet Dogon"

short list today, "transcendent" is a pretty up-there adjective for me.

Beefheart, Big Eyed Beans From Venus and Kandy Korn

Spiritualized "I Think I'm In Love"

Agreed, as long as you're talking about the Albert Hall version.

Lambchop, the one-two punch of "You Masculine You" and "Up With People". And as transcendent as they are on record, when they played these live on the Nixon tour I learned what heaven is like.

Agreed, as long as you're talking about the Albert Hall version.

fuck no dude, studio version all the way for me. I remain impervious to your entreaties.

Hmph. I need to get hold of the complete works, so I can hear 'Feel So Sad' and thus settle the 'most transcendent Spz song' debate for good...

("Shine A Light", live OR studio, is also up there)

I've got Feel So Sad cd single, if you want me to send it to you somehow.

ooh is it the 13-minute version? if so, just bung each song to me as an email attachment! or use s3ndsp4c3. :D

Fairly sure it's that version. It'll take me a day or two to dig it out. I need an email address.

ok, de-g00gl3pr00f "d00mt3mp3r4t✧✧✧@4✧✧.✧0m" and there it is! cheers!

the 6 stars are replaced, in order, by u r e i m c

Eyvind Kang "Binah"
The entirety of the album "Live Low to the Earth in the Iron Age" is pretty transcendent, but this song takes it all the way. My friend, Gabe, described it well when he said it was like "a comfortable old shirt." It's transcendence isn't immediate, it slowly wraps you up and then unwinds. The song is 27 minutes long.

You've completely lost me now. Add me as a friend on facebook, email me at my gmail address, I'll reply with the songs.

xpost

You the guy with a beardy photo, or a drummer-y photo?

beardy painting at the moment

"Sirenes" - Claude Debussy
"Like Spinning Plates" - Radiohead
"Galaxy in Turiya" - Alice Coltrane
"June 15" - Mara Carlyle
"Alone in the Country Heart" - George
"Ballad of Sister Sue" - Slowdive
"I Believe In You" - Talk Talk
"In My Life" - The Beatles
"Bode Radio / Glass Light / Broken Hearts" - Jonny Greenwood
Trois Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé - Maurice Ravel
"Boy Child" - Scott Walker
"Only Skin" - Joanna Newsom

fell from the sun - opal
when you sleep - my bloody valentine
sensitive - the field mice
new grass - talk talk
cortez the killer - neil young
fifty-fifty clown - cocteau twins
isla de encanta - pixies
where i end and you begin - radiohead
beatles and the stones - house of love
flower to hide - catherine wheel
rhinoceros - the smashing pumpkins
is that important? - swell
weissensee (neu! cover) - autechre
didgeridoo - aphex twin
everything you do is a balloon or dayvan cowboy - boards of canada
negativland - neu!
sonnenrad - michael rother

there are so many more but how could i forget the wipers when it's over, probably the most transcendental of all songs i have ever listened to. it goes up and up and up. a loop going towards the sky and beyond. it never stops. it does for music what escher did in his paintings for the visual arts.

minnie riperton - lovin' you
orange juice - rip it up
pharoah sanders - the creator has a master plan

Prince - "Purple Rain" (the song, not the album)

HONEY I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW TIMES ARE CHANGIN'

Cannot believe Xtal has had more mentions than Tha.

I enthusiactically second the mention of Eyvind Kang's "Binah", that song is so cool.

"The Valleys" by Electrelane
"Isobel" by Björk

thievery corporation - heaven's gonna burn your eyes

this

(if i was in some movie where i had to justify the continued existence of the human race in 3 minutes, i'd play that and say "look give us another 5,000 years, we could do that again")

that was great until it sped up!

that was great until it sped up!

but the coda is fucking gorgeous. Wow, I can't believe I haven't heard this before..

"Mr. Zebra" - Tori Amos

The Chameleons - "Second Skin," "View From A Hill"
Aphex Twin - "Rhubarb"

"Sequent C" - Tangerine Dream
"Untitled 4" - Piano Magic
"a harmonic algorithm" (1981 version) - Laurie Spiegel

Meet On the Ledge

"Father Lucifer" - Tori Amos

The three part vocal harmony toward the end is sublime.

shook ones pt 2

"fisherman" - congos

"Rose Hip-November" - Vashti Bunyan
"Joy" - Circulatory System (which rips off the former song. still, inexplicably affecting)

"Sableyalo Mi Agontze (The Bleating Lamb)" - Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Vocal Choir

"Prema" - Alice Coltrane

i don't see what's so interesting about that joan jett song. and yes, i have ears

doot-doot by freur has always and will forever send my brain to some faraway place.

"I Ran Away" - Coldplay

Don't knock it till you've tried it.

My Bloody Valentine - "Soon"

"Rose Hip-November" - Vashti Bunyan
"Joy" - Circulatory System

GREBT SONGS

Smashing Pumpkins - 1979
Beatles - Yesterday
and tons of other stuff I dont even want to begin to think about
especially with all the new eclectic shiz Ive been finding lately.

i don't see what's so interesting about that joan jett song. and yes, i have ears

-- Charlie Howard, Wednesday, December 12, 2007 1:40 AM (Wednesday, December 12, 2007 1:40 AM) Bookmark Link

Yeah, I totally would have blown up the planet if that's the best Earth could come up with.

joan jett transcending

http://www.dickdestiny.com/rokkkk.JPG

(not pictured: the alien invaders she is destroying through her magic powers of ROCK N ROLL)

well that's a nice rock n roll pose, i won't deny you that. also, she seems really into it, so well done her!

"Ohio the Homeland" - Suzy Mangion

"At Last" - Etta James

Arthur Collins - "Strawberries"

Hugh Masekela - "Goin' Back to New Orleans"

Transcendence is a big deal in my love of music.

There is a lot of music which I think is transcendent in itself, but personal circumstances also come into it of course - and sometimes it's impossible to extricate how much of the latter is involved. For example, when I was 14 and first started experiencing weird mind effects from sleep deprivation (every now and then, when I'd stay up to 1 or 2am then get up at 4.30am to go help my dad sell fruit at a weekend market) I would listen to the record Helen Said This/Bury by the Dead C. and feel pretty mindblown. And now I think there is something transcedent there, especially in a kind of time-stretching way, but I don't know how much it is to do with hearing it in such formative circumstances.
Also, for my entire teenage years, I was constantly taping together snippets of my favourite music + whatever was on the radio, (kind of like a crude plunderphonics, but I didn't find out about him until later), then listening back to it over and over. This was transcendent! And really made me grasp the whole "cut-up" writing/magic technique when I got into WS Burroughs.

For me, transcendence of the normal ideas or experience of time is the very powerful thing of music. I guess I'm being pretty clumsy here (which is why I mostly lurk on ILM), so I'll just mention some of the songs that spring to my mind as transcendent:

Parallelograms by Linda Perhacs - the sound and the lyrical subject matter

Autobahn by Kraftwerk - the deep deep deep hypnotic melodic heart
also Europe Endless and it's coda, Endlos, Endlos
Rez by Underworld

Point That Thing Somewhere Else by the Clean
Eight Miles High by the Byrds
Midnight Blue Vision by Plagal Grind
Fall and heaps more by Alastair Galbraith
Transmission by Joy Division
Acid Bird by Robyn Hitchcock
Splash 1, Slip Inside This House by 13th Floor Elevators
Dominoes by Syd Barrett
Shipbuilding by Robert Wyatt - def some more of his too
More Than This Roxy Music
Um Tom, You Don't Know Me by Caetano Veloso - and his cover of the Beatles'"help me", for a start
On a Holiday segueing into Wind Chimes on Smile
Carousel by Garbage and the Flowers
Sweedeedee by Michael Hurley - a less obvious example, but wow, his voice just reaches out so forcefully but he's also singing in something of a laidback manner

so many blues songs - Blind Willie Johnson john the revelator, i know his blood can make me whole, dark was the night (and Ry Cooder's reworkings of it for Paris, Texas + the Revelator by Gillian Welch, some Leadbelly; some versions of In the Pines, On the Road Again by Canned Heat

Tony Conrad's Four Violins
Space Prophet Dogon Sun City Girls
much or all off Astral Weeks

and how could I not mention dub, specifically the behemoth I Trim the Barber King Tubby and the Aggrovators (heaps of versions, obv; this is my favourite)

Also, ummmmm Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty (now I'm sure to be taken seriously!)

But hey nobody picked Astronomy Domine or Interstellar Overdrive? And Albert Ayler is not on this thread.

Isidore - Sanskrit

Death in June - All Pigs Must Die, All Pigs Must Die, All Pigs Must Die

<i>Acid Bird by Robyn Hitchcock </i>

"They grow up, and instantly decaaaayyyyyyy!"

Yeah, that bit.

Nick Cave's "The Mercy Seat" has been getting played a lot recently, and certainly fits the bill.

Spiritualized's "Ladies And Gentlemen..."

I don't know, this is a cryptobump

Jeff Buckley's "Mojo Pin".

the entire album is great but this song sets the tone for the album and lifts me away!

"For a price, push up and be part of it all: Surfin', swimmin', kissin'"

Soul Capsule - Law of Grace

Right at this minute: Electrolite, by R.E.M.

<i>The Third Time We Opened by Capsule</i> by Kitchens of Distinction.

YES!

god, every time I hear that song I wish the "I want a light to shine in my eye!" part just went on forever and ever

blue line swinger by yo la tengo

disappearer and JC by sonic youth

porno by clinic

holland 1945 by neutral milk hotel

i heard her call my name by vu

i second the point that thing somewhere else nomination

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UooKXuysHk0

less than half the song. it's a shame.

Koop songs/videos:

Summer Sun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa4A9G1gu2g&feature=related

Koop Islands Blues
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf0U6FR3UeU

Baby (remix)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXKetPZG47I&feature=related

Come To Me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akE4BnH5kdA

life's a bitch - Nas. "that buck that bought a bottle could've struck the lotto"

haha mehlt, i see you really love that song. i nominate chez damier & stacey pullen - forever monna.

sun kil moon - trucker's atlas. i'm a sucker for geographical references, so this always makes me stop in my tracks.

blue line swinger by yo la tengo

nice one; i'd have picked "i heard you looking" though

The Seekers - The Carnival is over

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nze8B39OB0k

Silver Apples - Program for me.

Everything about it...the driving motorik but varied percussion combined with the lyrics ('why, i do not know')...

crime mob - represent

NMH - Two Headed Boy Pt. 2

Disco Inferno - Second Language

Tall Dwarfs - Crush!

"that buck that bought a bottle could've struck the lotto"

moronic

The Future Sound Of London - Papua New Guinea
Saint Etienne - Avenue

bump

The Raveonettes - The Beat Dies

(new album, closing song, O M G)

Rod Stewart - You Wear it Well

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLSYCoIj64o

Dreams Of Leaving, by The Clientele.

DLP 1.1, from The Disintegration Loops, Vol. I, by William Basinski.

Primal Scream - Higher Than The Sun

Velvet Underground - Heroin

^^two songs that would tempt me to sell my soul to the devil

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Mama, Won't You Keep Those Castles In the Air and Burning?

Dexy's Midnight Runners - This Is What She's Like

^^two songs that restore my faith in humanity

minnie ripperton - expecting

la belle histoire d'amour - edith piaf
after all - david bowie
come to me - björk ( oooooooooooh ooooooooh oooooooh )

creedence clearwater revival - i heard it through the grapevine

^^^^

i couldn't agree more. i think it's my fave version ever of that song. i recently read an article in the guardian about the "worst cover versions" ever and they named ccr's version of "i heard it through the grapevine" as being in the all time top ten worst. losers!!!!

one for the list - "eastbourne ladies" by kevin coyne. you need this song in your life!

i didn't know it had a bad rep. the last 3/4s are god.

alice coltrane is god

and she owns this thread

yeah

srsly though

Galaxy in Turiya
Transcendence
Oh Allah (THE STRINGS! Pure transcendence)
Blue Nile
Prema (w/overdubbed strings)
Journey to Satchidananda (title track)
Going Home
Firebird suite (yes, I love her take on Stravinsky)

etc. etc. etc.

pharoah sanders

but mainly alice

hmm?

that should have been 'i really like pharoah sanders on the 2-3 alice coltrane discs i've heard but alice's harp work is usually the best thing about them.'

the byrds - 'you don't miss your water'

Agreed, strgn, but her string arrangements in general were equally amazing. Have you heard the albums "Universal Consciousness" & "World Galaxy"? The arrangements are so alien and unique. They just fucking stab you. Rarely has anything sounded so transcendent.

I place her in the same league as I place Debussy or Messiaen in terms of her musical uniqueness, and also them being my top musical heroes.

yeah i started out with 'univeral consciousness' and then was stupid and lost it and then i got sidetracked. i want to hear it again now, thanks for reminding me.

rashied ali is also god in that album, btw

(I can upload if you want me to)

"Little Argument With Myself" - Low

So many Low songs, actually.

Whore
Kind of Girl
Embrace
July
Laser Beam
Sunflower
Sandinista (Live)
Do You Know How To Waltz?

add this to the alice coltrane love -

http://www.discogs.com/release/533862

that's way too obscure

:-)

yeah that record's good

So many Low songs, actually.

Whore
Kind of Girl
Embrace
July
Laser Beam
Sunflower
Sandinista (Live)
Do You Know How To Waltz?

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
MMMMMMMMMMMMMM

velvet underground - oh! sweet nuthin'

Also, PJ Harvey. Seriously.

Oh My Lover
The Dancer
The Garden
The Wind
Angelene
Catherine
Is This Desire?
C'Mon Billy
Horses in my Dreams
It's You
Missed
The Devil (live)

Morris Brown - Outkast
I Want You - Elvis Costello
Sea Song - Robert Wyatt
Bad Patient - Piano Magic
French Mittens - Piano Magic
Halloween Boat - Piano Magic
Moonchild - M83
Missa Luba - Boniface Mganga
Misa Criolla - Ariel Ramírez y los Fronterizos
Marquee Moon, seconded.
This Lamb Sells Condos - Final Fantasy
The Pooka Sings - Final Fantasy
"Pie Jesu" & "Vieille prière bouddhique" - Lili Boulanger
Creole Love Call - Comedian Harmonists
Scatterbrain - Radiohead
Lepo Sumera - Piece from the year 1981
Moishei Wainberg - Symphony No.18 Op.138 - III.'Dearest little berry, you do not know the pain in my heart'

Horses - Tori Amos
Icicle - Tori Amos
Bells for Her - Tori Amos
Purple People - Tori Amos
Liquid Diamonds - Tori Amos
i i e e e - Tori Amos
Fine Day - Opus III
les amours perdues - Juliette Greco
Saint Mary - Sparklehorse
Maria's Little Elbows - Sparklehorse
Reckoner - Radiohead
The Diamond Sea - Sonic Youth
2+2=5 - Radiohead
Gmeeoorh - Iannis Xenakis
Trois petites liturgies... - Olivier Messiaen
Turangalila-Symphonie - Olivier Messiaen
Quartet for the End of Time (Myung-Whun Chung version) - Olivier Messiaen
Vingt regards... - Olivier Messiaen
All Neon Like - Björk

osborne - 16th stage

Supplica a mia madre - Diamanda Galás
HW/Hope of New Fields - Jonny Greenwood
Verklarte Nacht - Arnold Schönberg
Piano Quintet in g-minor, Op 57 (1945) (iv) Intermezzo: Lento - Shostakovich
String Quartet No. 7 in F-Sharp Minor Op.108 (1960) (ii) Lento - Shostakovich
Thirteen - Big Star
Those Were the Days - Mary Hopkin
Janitor of Lunacy - Nico

^Transcendence ID skill +10

Instant Karma - John Lennon
Afro Blue - John Coltrane
La Passerella d'Addio -Nino Rota (the closing music from 8 1/2)
Peace Piece - Bill Evans
I Think It's Going to Rain Today - Randy Newman (we can have transcendent bummerz if we want to)
Sweet Jane - Velvet Underground
Cheree - Suicide

off the top my head:
Walker Brothers - Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore
Walker Brothers - Night Flights
Monkees - Porpoise Song
Nick Cave - Ship Song
Blue Rodeo - Hasn't Hit Me Yet
Love - Alone Again Or

Miles Runs the Voodoo Down
Beast of Burden - Stones
Rainy Night in Portland - Watty Burnett
Merengue - Franco
Wimweh - Ladysmith Black Mambazo

The Kiss - Judee Sill

I was thinking about this earlier and noting that while bands like Spacemen 3 get there sometimes, the vast, vast majority of what I'd immediately think of when I think of "transcendent" is mid-to-late '60s jazz, particularly Coltrane. Also, I'm kind of surprised to not see more classical listed here—Holst and Dvorák, particularly.

Black Sabbath-Into the Void

the shangri-las, 'the train from kansas city'
giorgio moroder, '(theme from) midnight express'
zombies, 'hung up on a dream'
hanatarash, 'god-noise-god'
the upsetters, 'bird in hand'
robert wyatt, 'stay tuned'
deerhoof, 'whither the invisible birds'
albert ayler, 'angels'
carpenters, 'superstar'
my bloody valentine, 'swallow'

Cheree - Suicide

YES

Scatterbrain - Radiohead

probably the last Radiohead song I'd call transcendent, but to each his own...

add to my list: Placebo with David Bowie - Without You I'm Nothing

a lot of shit is crazy transcendent but other stuff not so much

w0rd

Nina Simone - Sinnerman

Well, it's all obviously very subjective, stephen. I guess the thing about "Scatterbrain" for me is the sense of exhilaration I get when I hear the despondent "scaaaaaaaaaaaaattebrain" wails above those beautiful, beautiful chord progressions. But, hey, at least we agree on the Low stuff. :)

Placebo & "transcendence" is something that I'd never associate, either.

I guess the more obvious (but no less "worthy") musical signifiers of transcendence are intersubjectively agreed upon, though. For me, nothing tops "Sirenes" by Debussy in that regard.

The Kiss - Judee Sill
Yesssssssssss. Especially the live version or the demo versions. Weirdly, I think the studio version with the strings waters down the minor chord changes.

Also, for that matter:
The Donor - Judee Sill

I love Low but would have picked "Lazy".. I told Alan and Mimi after a show how much I loved that song & they said maybe they'd play it next time they were in town. and they did! last song in the set at the 9:30, I believe that tour was with the Dirty Three. :)

Nice. :)

Wichita Lineman - Glen Campbell

and for a classical suggestion, how about Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis by Vaughan Williams

There's been so much said about "Wichita Lineman" on ILM, but let me add yet another OTM. This is a better song than "God Only Knows" IMO.

WHOA! just checked out Wichita Lineman! Yes!!! thanks, ilm.

But, hey, at least we agree on the Low stuff. :)

only my fav band :) !!

(Low is) only my fav band :) !!

Close to being my favorite, too. Of their recent stuff, I'd say Silver Rider and/or Death Of A Salesman are pretty transcendent.

velvet underground - oh! sweet nuthin'

-- phantompenguin, Tuesday, 15 April 2008 03:35 (2 days ago)

otm. just listened to this for the first time in ages a few days and had to replay it four times.

Ms. Jon Soda - Elusive

The rest of their work is nice, but this song just does it for me. So delicate and gorgeous, particularly from the second chorus on through the end.

miles davis - blue in green
ravel's piano concerto in d

a girl called eddy- golden

Madame George by Van Morrison

massive attack - teardrop
mbv - soon
rufus wainwright - beautiful child
spiritualized - i think i'm in love
spacemen 3 - like, half their catalogue (ecstacy symphony, big city, walkin with jesus, suicide, etc.)
carole king - natural woman
neutral milk hotel - oh comely, two headed boy pt 2

Throwing Muses - "Hate My Way"
Cyndi Lauper - "Time After Time"
Talking Heads - "This Must be the Place"
Neil Young - "Albuquerque"
Journey - "Don't Stop Believin'"
Modern Lovers - "Roadrunner"
Queen and David Bowie - "Under Pressure"
Donna Summer - "I Feel Love"
Simon and Garfunkel - "America"
Dionne Warwick - "Window Wishin'", "The Greeen Grass Starts to Grow", "The Beginning of Loneliness"

Seconded/thirded:
Waterboys' "Whole of the Moon"
Bill Evans' "Peace Piece"
Walker Brothers "Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore"
etc.

great call on "time after time"

or, as you guys say around here, OTM

Oh! Both "You Broke My Heart" and "Rise in the Springtime:
http://lavenderdiamond.com/music/lavenderdiamond_youbrokemyheart.mp3
http://lavenderdiamond.com/music/lavenderdiamond_rise.mp3.

electribe 101 - talking with myself

aneka - japanese boy

Paint a Vulgar Picture- Smiths
Boxers- Morrissey
Atmosphere- Joy Division
He Stopped Loving Her Today- George Jones
Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered- Ella Fitzgerald
In Dreams- Roy Orbison

tall dwarfs - breath