A Thread For School of Seven Bells Love!

electro-inflected nu-gaze with identical twin sister vocalists singing in unison: there can't be many of these about.

Take the guitarist/vocalist and the keyboardist/vocalist from On! Air! Library! and the guitarist/soundscapist from Secret Machines, mix it all up together with lots of atmospheric textures and spooky Throwing Muses-esque vocal harmonies and A Sunny Day In Glasgow style cut and paste glitchiness, and you might just have my favourite album of 2008. (Tied with Fantasy Black Channel but that's another thread.)

Express your love here, rather than cluttering up the End of 2008 thread!

i've only listened to the album once but i really love the opening track and 'prince of peace' especially: i like when their vocals go into ring chants and mantras

Sorry, should have cut and pasted the whole quote... something about autotune... there's only one song where they're deliberately caning the autotune, and I do actually love it because the Deheza twins are actually naturally such amazing harmonists that they don't need it - it's just for funs, obviously.

They don't always sing in unison... I love the way their voices weave in and out. To this day, I still can't tell who's singing what, even after seeing them live. I think Claudia tends to do the lower bits and Ally does the higher bits, but I could be wrong. What I love best is when they sing in unison for most of the phrase, then suddenly just... branch out into these shimmering vocal pyrotechnics as the song opens up, their voices slide in and out of one another, and then they go back to these incredibly close harmonies again.

It's really quite breath-taking.

I can never remember the names of the damn songs!

I know I love Connjur and Chain... and yeah, Prince of Peace...

That song with the autotune/vocoder riff always gets stuck in my head. "I can't seem to remember my dreams... lately..." I love their phrasing on it.

And the production on this album is just so.... when I first heard it, I thought it was really quite minimal compared to the demos I'd had. But the more I listen to it, the more I notice how perfect and wonderful it is. It manages to be both baroque and yet also quite restrained at the same time. Lovely.

I am so forgetful - it's Chain I'm thinking of up there ^^^^

That song with the autotune/vocoder riff always gets stuck in my head. "I can't seem to remember my dreams... lately..." I love their phrasing on it.

their catchy stuff like this is awesome and infectious, i've been hearing this one for days in my head now

chain and iamundernodisguise for me

I keep meaning to check this out, everything I have read about them makes them sound awesome.

Matt, you would like it, I think.

Would it be totally arrogant to say that I would heartily recommend it to any fans of early Shimura Curves? It's very much in the same sonic space. I mean, two years ago, when I first met Benjamin Curtis, and we exchanged demo CDs, he was playing in a prog band, and I was in a nu-gaze electro band with two harmony-singing sisters. Two years later, he's in a nu-gaze electro band with two harmony-singing sisters. COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT!!!

^^^^^^^^^^^^ kidding! Totally kidding, before anyone rips me a new asshole.

haha shimura curves were the VERY first thing which came to mind when i heard this

the way the melody of 'connjur' resolves itself is so gorgeous btw

Quite like this. I checked out their tracks on MySpace/YouTube after hearing them a lot on Gideon Coe and other 6Music shows a couple of months ago. Haven't bought the album yet though lol.

The Robin Guthrie remix of My Cabal is good too, but I prefer the original. That and Iamnodisguise

I love all of A Sunny Day In Glasgow's stuff, but it's taking me longer to get into SO7B.

I've not totally fallen for the whole of this album just yet, but I'm a huge sucker for the straight-up swoony stuff. Half Asleep is getting played so much, such a perfect chorus, loving those backwards cymbals. Something sort of japanese about the melody too, isn't there?

I was going to start this thread a few days ago. I love the orderliness of the singing and how much of the music is sort of clean and bright-sounding. To actually pull that off for an entire album is pretty impressive (see also the last Mahogany album which I love for the same reason). That melody in "Chain" has been stuck in my head more than anything else this year.

Yeah, as much as I like the Robin Guthrie My Cabal, the original is kind of... bouncier. (The demo is, of course, the best of all - but I would say that.)

The vocal riff to Prince of Peace really encapsulates everything I love about the way the harmonies work - they sing really really close together on the verse, and then on the chorus, as the music widens and becomes more... intense, the vocals fan out and break from unison into harmony and it's the best thing ever.

Yeah, I totally hear the Mahogany thing. The other obvious comparison is Asobi Seksu, I think - but kind of less *rock* than Asobi and more electronica.

It makes me a bit sad, because this is very much what Shimura Curves second album would have sounded like had the band not imploded. But hey! It means I can be lazy and listen to this instead. Heh.

this album is wonderful. claudia, please marry me.

ditch that prefuse 73 moron

Yeah, I was gonna say, you've got *some* competition there!

i like this lots. "connjur" is my favorite, if i remember correctly

i had the unfortunate luck to meet her while he was present. he was totally cockblocking.

Ha ha, and *I* get called a fangirl! She's really lovely, though. They both are - hell, they all are.

I long ago accepted that I am *never* going to marry Benjamin Curtis but good god, it made me really really happy that he goes out with someone who is so dead cool and creative and talented. Like, it makes me have more appreciation for boys if they have good taste in a partner.

OK, now enough of the creepiness. Back to talking about how amazing their music is.

The second half of "For Kalaja Mari" feels oddly Christmas-y for me, can't put a finger on why.

They're at The Airliner in L.A tonight which is basically like seeing them in your living room. See you all there!

just snuck into my personal top ten

my mom just wrote me this morning telling me how much she likes them!

just snuck into my personal top ten

Ditto.

can i just thank masonic boom for introducing me to this on the best of 2008 thread? good, thanks m.b. a few times in the last couple of days i've been wandering round town with my ipod on and gone "what IS this amazing song that's just come on again?" and it's always 'connjur'.

yar cheers kate! lovely record.

Yay! I am always glad to share the love.

The second half of "For Kalaja Mari" feels oddly Christmas-y for me, can't put a finger on why.

It's the open fifths in the vocal harmonies - it's a classic Xmas carol trick.

Aw, Chris, if you read this before you see them, can you tell Benjamin I said hello? And ask them to plan a NYC show the week that I'm over there. Why couldn't the LA gig just WAIT three weeks until I'm in California? I'd have flown down to LA for that.

My impression upon first listen was that the songs are good and often lovely but they've been badly served by whoever produced it. There really should be more in the way of texture and build and dynamics and intimacy but the production job just flattens everything out. I get this problem with a lot of nu-shoegazey stuff really.

i kind of know what you mean, but i think it's meant to be slick and clean, like of texturally like kraftwerk. some of the synths will be slightly abrasive in a nice way. i'm going to go to the mercury lounge show in a week or so, which might be fun.

I didn't like the production on the album (especially compared to the demos) at first, but it really grew on me with repeated listens - especially listening on headphones. It is very understated, but deliberately so.

Awww, when is that Mercury Lounge show? It's not when I'm in NYC, is it, bah!

No, dammit. Why couldn't it be a month later? Oh yeah, coz they'll be in Japan.

uh huh :(

I'm downloading this now :)

thanks for letting us know

np

Hmm, yeah, this is nice.

Still, I don't know. There's something faintly unsatisfying as well in all this, like there's no actual surprise beyond 'oh, they put that bit of noise there.' I actually like the beats the most, and they seem to be the element that gets the most prominence in each mix.

Agreed though that "Connjur" is the best song they've got so far, it's as if they took the generally good ideas they have elsewhere and recombined them to best effect; also seems to be the song where all three main parts of the band's music (vocals, textures, beats) have an equal balance.

Do you always need to be surprised by music?

I think, for me, the surprise was, OHMIGOD THIS IS THE CULMINATION OF EVERY SINGLE THING I REALLY REALLY LOVE AND WANT MUSIC TO BE.

Hearing them for the first time was like the feeling that someone had been raiding my notebooks and taking EVERY SINGLE ELEMENT I REALLY LOVE and putting it all together in some giant "how to make Kate happy musically" recipe book.

It doesn't need to be surprising. It feels like... like walking into a stranger's house and finding the exact replica of your childhood bedroom, only even BETTER than you remember/imagine it.

and even less creepy than finding a replica of your childhood bedroom in a stranger's house

xpost looking fwd to this now

finding a replica of your childhood bedroom in a stranger's house
*theramin sounds*

Not creepy, just coincidence. I mean, there's a picture of what looks almost exactly like my childhood bedroom on the inside of a Smallstone album - *that* freaked me out.

But... erm - you know what I mean! I hope.

I like the theremin sounds anwaysy wweeeeeooooooweeeeeooooooooohhhh

Oh sod it I'm going to go to the Pier and buy some paisley cushions and make the whole world look like my childhood bedroom.

Do you always need to be surprised by music?

Not at all. But this was a pleasure of the expected, and its impact is less than it might have been. In contrast (say) right now I'm listening to the Birdsongs of the Mesozoic compilation that's just out on Cuneiform and while it's no less derivative in many cases, I'm sure, its reference points are less immediately familiar to me, which I appreciate very much.

I get what you're saying in re: combinations of music coming together just right in terms of what one wants and expects -- this in large part explains my Smashing Pumpkins love in the 1990s, as Billy Corgan was hotwiring a LOT of my record collection and musical contexts at the time. I don't know if I'll necessarily have that moment again, or even if I want to have it, if that makes sense. That's a bit like me now wanting to have an experience like listening to "Soon" for the first time, the whole point is that it was unplanned.

*listens to 3 songs*

o fuk there's snoopy AND gnipgnop

...christmas tree lights and my weird stuffed horse's head made of purple and orange paisley...

DAMN I forgot to go to the Pier. Tomorrow. I need glitter.

Sometimes one wants comfort and familiarity. Or a perfected version of something that seems like your own private world. This album sounds like the inside of my head. I'm going to shut up now.

Sometimes just finding balance of preexisting elements is enough. "iamundernodisguise" is an Enya track with the saccharine backing shunted aside by indie sweat. And that's just what we sometimes need - emotionally uplifting music that doesn't give us the candy bellyache.

SVIIB does wear their influences on their sleeve. Spot the Loveless backing vocal rip, the Neu! riff, a rhythm borrowed from M.I.A. I'm perfectly okay with that.

saw the word "christmas" ^ somewhere and reminded me of the first tune. anyone else think the vocals are kind christmas carol-y? in a good way!

"iamundernodisguise" is an Enya track with the saccharine backing shunted aside by indie sweat. And that's just what we sometimes need - emotionally uplifting music that doesn't give us the candy bellyache.

The mention of 'sweat' makes me think very obliquely of a comparison I was drawing in my head earlier, namely to Seefeel and Quique, and that album's almost preternatural cleanliness and precision. There's something there I'd love to tease out further, which has less to do with either band and more with larger signifiers already being applied to this group, as evidenced on the thread. Hm.

Last night...

What a time for YouTube to get blocked! I shall have to watch at lunch.

Good lord, have they switched their hair back again? that's too confusing.

Extra laptop = extra BEATS which I like.

Also, Claudia is using a different synth - I don't recall her having a Nord the last time I saw them, she had something more compact.

Not enough Benjamin. Barely a whiff of ginger. Boo hoo hoo. :-(

my initial reaction to this album was the same as ned's, it actually struck me as just kind of generic. It really reminded me of mark van hoen stuff, Locust or something, but not as good. But, subsequent listens have changed that opinion.

i don't understand why connjur is getting attention ahead of half-asleep. half asleep is the best!, and fits with the generally awesome this-sounds-new start to the record.

But, subsequent listens have changed that opinion.

It does seem like a grower! And there's nothing wrong with that, for sure.

half asleep is the best!

this is the first song in forever that i have wanted to read the lyrics to

It's funny, I was just thinking this morning, how good Half Asleep is. I've had it stuck in my head all day. But then I got distracted by the video and forgot to say.

No, this album really really *is* a grower.

It's also weirdly sequenced, like, it's *really* back-loaded - that the poppy upbeat songs are towards the end. But Benjamin probably did that on purpose coz he is perverse like that. That you have to listen to the whole thing to get to the poppy bits, and that makes you do multiple listens to the earlier songs and then you get sucked into them and you realise every time you listen to them you notice something different and then one day you wake up and realise you cant' live without hearing the album again and again and again.

it's not an immediate high. But it gets better and better every time you listen.

It seems like they're still figuring themselves out, but the album is definitely a grower and I love how it reconstitutes the familiar into something seemingly new (though Kate was onto it first!). I'm reminded of the Raveonettes.

I know that you could sling lots of comparisons around, but I was thinking the other day that Half Asleep specifically sounds a bit like nineties Yo La Tengo with a multi-tracked Georgia H. There's a simplicity in the singing there that makes it feel very emotionally direct, even though I don't really have a clue what they're on about half the time.

Saw them live again in NYC, oh my god, they're SOOOO GOOOOOD live. Those harmonies are just spectacular live.

It's strange, that for something so baroque and textural and nu-gaze, they're actually quite minimal, I really like that. These kind of sleek, tight, elegant, sinewy beats all the better to hang these melodically and harmonically really complex things over the top, and Benjamin in the back generating sonic haze like the guitar equivalent of a smoke machine. (cough cough) I love the way he does not play guitar like a guitarist.

Pictures, pictures, pictures...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3367/3207192146_ca6852eec6.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3398/3206415653_cd45c7c48f.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3259/3206649341_dd0676856d.jpg

Is it wrong to be interested in a band based on three pics uploaded?

(He asks, as if Kate is going to say yes...)

Inaccurate, if positive, reviews always seem to poison a record for me.

I loved this until people started sticking their perceptions on it.

Mark G, visual presentation is a totally important part of a band's appeal. Some bands, you can tell that you will like them just by looking at them. (Not always accurate, but sometimes you can just tell.)

u s steel, I cannot process your statement in any way that makes sense to me. Do you not have a mind or opinions of your own? You listen to a record, you either like it or you don't. What on earth do other people's opinions - whether or not you agree with them - have to do with your enjoyment of something?

I simply can't process what you're saying.

Why do you play these games on this board? They're hurtful. Stop provoking me. :(

OK, my take on u s steel's comment:

"They take what My Bloody Valentine started, and made it more tuneful" would be enough to send me away from a band.

Which may well be unfair. Often, it's only when I get to hear said band and go "who they? OH THEM!!!" alright!

I simply don't get to hear enough to make untrammelled evaluations of everyone. Still, there's no substitute for actually hearing the band. But, as you say kate, seeing the bands image can at least show where they are coming from.

I remember buying the Lemon Trees single based purely on the pic, and being sorely disappointed with the lameness of the music/song.

I'm not playing games, I'm asking a question, because I don't understand what you are staying in the slightest.

I don't think that I could ever read something in someone else's opinion of a piece of music that could make me dislike that piece of music. I mean, I can think of situations where someone has explained something in a piece of music as to why they liked it, which made me understand the music better. But I can't see how someone's *opinion* would make me like a piece of music less.

If I hadn't heard a band, reading something negative about them could make me less likely to seek them out and listen to them. Or even ILX hype can turn me off something - but this is about the decision to listen to something. (Because there is so much out there, how do you decide what's worthy of time/attention/money?) But don't you make up your mind about the music itself by listening to the music, not by reading about it?

As to a band's image... I think it's fine to like or respond to a band's image, so long as that is not the *only* thing you like about them. It's like an added extra special bonus plus.

I don't think that I could ever read something in someone else's opinion of a piece of music that could make me dislike that piece of music. I mean, I can think of situations where someone has explained something in a piece of music as to why they liked it, which made me understand the music better. But I can't see how someone's *opinion* would make me like a piece of music less.

It's easy to say that while LJ is banned.

Like, saying they sound like Throwing Muses is completely inaccurate, and makes me go "ick" that someone with a tin ear likes this. It's like I can't get that sentimental "ick" out of my mind when listening to them, because I know that sentimental "ick" people with no ears (they simply do not sound like these bands!) are listening to it.

I'm just sensitive that way, I don't know why you feel it is so important for me to explain myself to you. You act as if it is a personal failure of mine if I don't make sense to you.

tbh starting to dislike a record just b/c you've seen some muddle-headed comparisons to it in print does seem like a personal failure. how do you like any music at all?

To me, the harmonic structure of the vocal arrangements sounds very similar to Throwing Muses. That doesn't mean I have a tin ear, it just means that perhaps I'm clueing in to different things than you are. If you don't like TM, that's your loss. You're welcome to disagree with the comparison. But how on earth could that comparison affect whether you like the music or not?

Even if you think I'm an idiot, or have no taste - and you can think what you like about me, it doesn't affect who I am or how I feel in the slightest - then why on earth would my opinion of this band be relevant to whether you like them or not? Surely my supposed "tin ear" would make my opinion less relevant?

Disliking a band because of who you think listens to them is as stupid and pointless as *liking* a band just because other people like them. Just sounds to me like you have some really strange issues. I don't understand this way of thinking in the slightest. Whether you feel that's a personal failure or not is your business - I was just trying to understand or get clarification on a statement that I wasn't clear to me. Thank you for clarifying.

Though ha ha, Caek, I guess I see your point. Louis actually succeeded in making me feel embarrassed about liking stuff like LOTP and Youthmovies. I guess, like... I didn't want to be associated with him in any way. But what's objectionable about him isn't his taste, it's his actions. Brings up the whole can of worms about whether you should judge a band by their fanbase, but that's not for this thread.

(I think - hope - that defining yourself or others entirely by your musical taste, and its converse of judging a band by its fanbase is something that one grows out of, as one gets more secure in one's own personhood. But I know that's debatable.)

re: SVIIB, 'iamundernodisguise' is probably my favourite - i love it when the vocals slip so smoothly into a different key.

Sounds like Dido to me

I really love Half Asleep, but I must admit the Dido thing stalks them a little bit too closely not to feel slightly uneasy about my liking.

tbh the comparison just makes both them and dido sound better

like, you suddenly start hearing gorgeous harmonies in dido songs, and realising that SVIIB have that latent MOR tinge is an interesting & effective aspect to their shoegazey droney aesthetic

when you suddenly start hearing gorgeous harmonies in dido songs it means you're getting old and boring.

I don't really hear the Dido thing, TBH - but I haven't listened to much (OK, read: any) Dido, and suspect it's not so much an observation as an insult.

There was *always* a kind of adult-oriented-rock tinge to a lot of shoegaze - think later period Cocteaus and a lot of Slowdive - that *is* just a danger of that sort of music. That it can wibble off into dullness. But the trick is to have an element of danger, of offness, of... *noise* behind the music that saves good shoegaze from being yuppie cocktail wallpaper music. Yes, it's adult. But just because something is "adult" doesn't mean it has to be boring.

Beauty can get boring. And SVIIB are - possibly problematically to some people - unrelentingly pretty. I don't have a problem with prettiness, so long as there is something *more* to it - and yes, I think there is *more* to SVIIB, there's enough interesting things going on texturally and melodically.

They could just as easily have gone too far in the opposite direction and been so "ooh, look at us, we so QUIRKY!!!" aesthetic which is irritating in a different way. I like how understated they are, how they're not particularly attention-seeking or wacky, they just get on with making really beautiful music.

It's music like how Matisse described his paintings - beautiful things to sink into at the end of a long and tiring day. If that offends you, then, you know, go and listen to some doom metal or something.

Okay, so I picked up the Face to Face In High Places ep a while back, and have some moderate like for it. It's pretty, but not too pretty, and slots into my mental filing system somewhere between shoegaze retro and contemporary art weirdos like Health. Haven't heard the Ghostly LP though. How does it compare to this EP I've been sort of digging? From all the pretty-pretty talk in this thread, I'm getting the feeling I might not be able to handle it.

It's probably that I like it and think it's great in some ways - I liked enough to pay for it - but it appeals to emo types and maybe the bad review brought that out or made me more aware of it. Should I even bother?

Throwing Muses are kind of folk or roots influenced and I'm just not hearing that here.

Last.fm says "Broadcast" is the comparison.

I haven't listened Broadcast in a long time, but sounds about right. It just seems like reviewers (as opposed to critics) are less interested in encouraging people to learn about different artists ("who the hell knows Broadcast"?) as they are hitching a viable artist to something that was a proven commercial success (i.e. 4 AD and shoegaze).

Throwing Muses are kind of folk or roots influenced

????

i can't imagine you've really heard any

Ya TMs have some plenty harmonious tuneful bits! I dunno abt comparisons to these guys but thats because ive only heard the Guthrie vers of "My Cabal" and ive a feeling that isnt representative of them?

I spent the morning of New Year's Day listening to this while making omelettes and waffles. It was a good morning.

No, the Guthrie version really isn't representative.

I made the TM comparison mostly on the basis of early demos - songs like Tartomundeo and the first version of White Elephant Coat had a much stronger TM vibe in terms of instrumentation, but the album got much more electronic.

But the vocals arrangements *do* remind me of TM, a lot of those kind of sparkling harmonies that they hit. And the way that one will take lead and the other will kind of wind a harmonic phrase around the other - and then they switch.

As a long term Throwing Muses fan I gotta say - I really like this record.

Really loving this, like finding a record that's been slap bang in the middle of my collection for years that I'd somehow never got round to hearing. A big melting pot of all my favourite bits of lots of other things. Surprised there aren't more comparisons (at least here) with the Cocteau Twins as I hear them sprinkled all over this album.

ha ha ha ha ha! I saw them last night, and I was wondering to myself whether boy-unit School of Seven Bells would count as a Dirty Drone Rock Boy. Now we know.

On balance, I am underwhelmed by this band. Live, they sound a bit too much like a Curve tribute act, while on record they seem a bit like weedy electronica. But I will persevere.

Benjamin Curtis = so total DDB katebait that if you looked up DDB in the dictionary, there's probably a picture of him there. Oh yes.

I am seeing them tomorrow! Exciterated! (Well, hopefully - my friend knows I love them so so much that she says that she will sell me her ticket even if they forget to guest list me as the show is, amazingly and happily enough, totally sold out.)

Live, they sound a bit too much like a Curve tribute act

SHIT, I wish I'd been able to see them in Glasgow last night ;)

Onimo sums up the album beautifully: it's so Grimly-tastic that I find it hard to believe I haven't been listening to it since I was 16.

the show is, amazingly and happily enough, totally sold out

oh no! i didn't realise they were playing as have been in deadline-induced hermitude...do you know who's doing the PR kate? could you email me if you do? i'd love to see them live...

A proper video:

Though, to be honest, I'd never associated SVIIB with being stuck in traffic.

SO. GOOD. LIVE.

CAN'T SPEAK. TOO HAPPY. SO GREAT.

Nah, I like that video ^^^^^^^^^^

I think it really works, and not just because of the pretty, smeary lights - but more the sense of disconnection between the sped up traffic outside the car, and the slowed down video of the Deheza sisters inside the car. Because that's what the song's about (to me, at least) - the disconnect/differing speeds of external and internal life. And the car is a good metaphor for the self here.

Can't wait to see these guys three or four times at SXSW in a few weeks!

Great, brief interview on The Quietus this week:

http://thequietus.com/articles/01208-let-it-ring-school-of-seven-bells-interviewed

this is how much I love them...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3382/3317867718_4b6972003b_o.jpg

You should commission that as an official gig poster!

That's awesome Kate!

Well I did suggest it to them, but they never answer their email.

::cries::

;___;

yeah.. the Throwing Muses thing is a bit of a red herring for me too.

I kind of know where Kate's coming from, and I know Kate knows her Muses very well... I just wouldn't highlight that particular trick from the rest of the music if I was describing it as pretty much nothing else but the vocals seems TM-ey to me, at least on the full-length. First listen to this anyway, and I like quite a lot. I feel like the vocals (but yes, that autotune track is fabfabfab) could do with a bit more strength or identity.. they seem a lil' anonymous so far.

the sound of this is really, really together though. amazingly so, I kind of feel like close to this has probably been done before but they're doing it so seamlessly that you kind of forget on first encounter.

Having seen them on Saturday, the trick lies in catching them live. Because that smokes their studio work completely.

http://nedraggett.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/school-of-seven-bells-worth-the-hype/

In this weather, all music is sounding amazing to me. Put this on last night and it sounded incredible. Vitamin D.

Well, I do think that they are EVEN BETTER live than on record, but then again, I bloody love the record.

they're like a 21st century red red groovy!

Ned's pretty OTM in this thread. I saw them open for M83 and thought their show was a lot tighter and more exciting than M83's, much better suited to be live. But my friend picked up Alpinisms and neither of us liked it that much outside of "Half Asleep" and "Connjur" (which are both strong). They have a great sound which translates well live, but on the record, their songwriting is more prominent and that didn't really catch me.

Family issues so I may not be able to catch tonight's show. Bummer.

Glad I caught them three times at SXSW, though.

New American tour:

09.25.09 - Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda's *
09.26.09 - Baltimore, MD - Ottobar *
09.27.09 - Washington DC - Rock & Roll Hotel *
09.28.09 - Chapel Hill, NC - Local 506 *
09.29.09 - Atlanta, GA - Drunken Unicorn *
10.04.09 - San Diego, CA - The Casbah *
10.05.09 - Los Angeles, CA - Troubadour *
10.06.09 - San Francisco, CA - Slim's *
10.08.09 - Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge *
10.09.09 - Vancouver, BC - The Biltmore *
10.10.09 - Seattle, WA - Neumos *
10.13.09 - Minneapolis, MN - 7th Street Entry *
10.14.09 - Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle *
10.15.09 - Toronto, ON - Lee's Palace *
10.16.09 - Northampton, MA - Pearl Street *
10.17.09 - Boston, MA - The Paradise *

Also CMJ I'm guessing.

Touring with WARPAINT who are fantastic and I'm so jealous.

Friday, September 25th - Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brendas w/Popo
Saturday, September 26th - Baltimore, MD - Ottobar w/ Phantogram
Sunday, September 27th - Washington DC - Rock and Roll Hotel w/ Phantogram
Monday, September 28th - Chapel Hill, NC - Local 506 w/ Phantogram, Graveyard Fields
Tuesday, September 29th - Atlanta, GA - Drunken Unicorn w/ Phantogram, The Tealights
Thursday, October 1st - Austin, TX - Emos Alternative Lounge w/ Phantogram
Friday, October 2nd - Austin, TX - Austin City Limits / Ziker Park
Sunday, October 4th - San Diego, CA - Casbah w/ Phantogram
Monday, October 5th - Los Angeles, CA - Troubadour w/ Warpaint, Phantogram
Tuesday, October 6th - San Francisco, CA - Slims w/ Warpaint, Phantogram
Thursday, October 8th - Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge w/ Warpaint
Friday, October 9th - Vancouver BC - Biltmore Cabaret w/ Depreciation Guild, Warpaint
Saturday, October 10th - Seattle, WA - Neumos w/ Warpaint
Tuesday, October 13th - Minneapolis, MN - 7th Street Entry w/ Depreciation Guild, Warpaint
Wednesday, October 14th - Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle w/ Depreciation Guild, Warpaint
Thursday, October 15th - Toronto, ON - Lees Palace w/ Depreciation Guild, Warpaint
Friday - October 16th - Northampton, MA - Pearl Street w/ Depreciation Guild, Warpaint
Saturday, October 17th - Boston, MA - Paradise w/ Depreciation Guild, Warpaint
Friday, October 23rd - New York, NY - Webster Hall w/ The XX, First Aid Kit

Though I'm hoping that the gig they've just scheduled at the ICA for 4th December means that they're playing the MBV ATP?

Superfans, help me out with the Deheza sisters: Alejandra "Alley" is the guitarist with bangs who sings a lot of the lead parts, started the band with Ben before drafting her sister, and is the more frequent lucid dreamer. She also came up with the band name.

Claudia is the keyboardist, the one without bangs, from Daylight's for the Birds and who collaborated with Scott "Prefuse 73" Herren in A Cloud Mireya, and she sings most of the harmony parts. And just to confuse things visually, she used to have bangs and grew them out.

Do I have any of this right? Most articles about them seem to lump the sisters together.

Yes, that sounds about right.

Seeing them again Monday! And I specifically told my bunch we have to show up early for Warpaint based on yr recommendation, Kate.

So jealous you get to see Warpaint! Wondering what they sound like live, if they keep that spooky Slumber Party vibe going.

ARGH, you get Phantogram as well who are my new favourites, as well. Do let me know what it's like.

Ha this is sounding better and better. Thanks!

Did you miss the thread about Phantogram? You might like them. They're shoe-tronica in the same sort of vibe as Telepathe. That is gonna be one amazing line-up.

ooh i shall bear that ica gig in mind...

Thinking about hitting up the Austin show tonight...

Since I was quoted at the head comparing SOVIIB to A Sunny Day in Glasgow, I should mention briefly that the new ASDIG, Ashes Grammar, drops much of their prior lo-fi noise to arrive a destination not too dissimilar from Alpinisms (they're definitely excavating similar veins of the dream-pop mine). It also seems like ASDIG has been listening to a good deal of Juliana Berwick, though virtual choruses are not unexpected with cut-n-paste vocals. I've only heard it through once, but thought others might be intrigued enough to sample it at lala.com.

Is that new ASDIG record out yet?

short answer: yes, and it's on iTunes. RESULT.

not into the new ASDIG

but it did make me break out the SOSB record again!

Surely you mean 'not digging ASDIG'

our own dearly departed Fluffy Bear just turned me onto School of Seven Bells this week; pretty cool stuff I intend to investigate further

theyre playing the paradise in like 3 weeks fyi

I'm enjoying the new ASDIG so far, but then again I have almost infinite capacity for that sort of looped ethereal girl singer thing. It's a bit less melodic and a bit more droning than the last one, but hey, I'm a dirty dronerock girl and not Geir, you know.

however, if you live anywhere near any of those tourdates above ^^^^ GO AND SEE SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS. They're even better live than they are on record.

What Kate said, it's v much another level live, so if you like the studio stuff, Dan, definitely go to the Boston show.

FB said the same

Dan, seriously - if you don't like the show, I will personally refund yr cash via paypal. They're one of the best bands I've seen in years.

Also, if you don't wear earplugs, you are insane. LOUD band.

i just want to stare at claudia

daylight's for the birds used to share a rehearsal space with my old band so i used to see her a lot. no more :(

Claudia's lovely. I have a girl-crush on her myself. Hell, I have a crush on ALL of them.

Been completely KILLING it tonight.

have they learned how to pronounce "cabal" yet

The evening summarized:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2422/3986766606_38c36ef6af.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3468/3986022421_31462deb7b.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2557/3986784906_e09ae6e6de.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3431/3986029737_11d1eff215.jpg

Have I mentioned how FREAKING JEALOUS I am of you?

What a killer bill.

It was pretty great! I am now sort of awake.

Photos

Blog post

Yay.

Glad to see Warpaint getting some love around here. We were one of the openers for them last year and are just terrific live.

Speaking of Warpaint, I see on iTunes that their mini-album came out this week! Hurrah! d/l-ing now.

A report from the field:

School of Seven Bells show a couple hours ago was holyshitamazing. I've caught their show 2 or 3 times before and it was great, yes, but went into tonight's thing expecting more of the same. So they were 30 min late to the stage... "My Cabal" came and went as song #1, it was enjoyable and sounded great (glad that long soundcheck was put to good use). So that was that; I was expecting them to breeze through "Fast Asleep," "Disguise," "Connjur" and the rest on autopilot, pretty but predictable.

Nope. Song 2 was brand new, same with 3, 4, 5... All a BIG progression from Alpinisms, waaaayyy wayy better (and I say this with Alpinisms being one of my most played, and favorite, albums of the past few years).

The new songs are more confident, less fleeting and the vocal interplay has been really pushed forward. They still do the dual vocals thing but I dare say it's improved, been spotlighted at the front of each song, more complex harmonies, just absolutely gorgeous. Meanwhile Ben Curtis has gone more in a Kevin Shields direction, guitar parts less Cocteau ambient-wash, more muscular, straight out of Medicine's "5ive" or "Aruca" era stuff, blasts of feedback stabbing between Spector-y vocal harmonies. Song tempos are all faster, easier to dance to; they've kept the drum machine but added a live fourth member who compliments it well. First new song had me floored, almost at tears, just incredibly beautiful and absolutely the right direction for their sound to go next.

Watch out... This new album is really gonna be something to fuck with.

― I just wish he hadn't adopted the "ilxor" moniker (ilxor), Friday, March 19, 2010 9:54 PM

OK that made my evening.

man that just sounds fantastic. I've never seen these guys live, but after reading this & Ned's blog post (linked to above), I will certainly go out of my way to, given the opportunity.

alpinisms continues to be vastly rewarding.

The new live drummer was great, btw; he let the drum machine hold its own, didn't overdo it with the drum fills or go Bonham all on that shit. Not sure if it's been noted here on ILM, or elsewhere (or everywhere) but the thing that kills the Secret Machines live show is their hulking gorilla of a drummer who just pounds the fucking shit outta his skins without any hint of subtlety, skill or texture; it's depressing. I was really worried when the SVIIB live drummer sat down that this was gonna be the same thing, given the Curtis connection to Secret Machines, but I'm pleased to say the drummer made the songs sound "bigger" while letting the drum machine do its thing appropriately. Same style, but a bit more stadium-sized now. And that's fine with me; these guys deserve to be huge, and the new drummer gives the songs some rhythmic muscle that will be needed as they move on to bigger venues.

Huh, I thought the Secret Machines drummer guy was the other reason everyone listened to the band in the first place (the first reason being Ben of course).

Ned OTM x10.

OMG this excites me in ways I can't even begin to express!

psyched

Via Pfork:

New Release: School of Seven Bells: Disconnect From Desire

http://cdn.pitchfork.com/media/bells.jpg

Artist: School of Seven Bells
Album: Disconnect From Desire
Release Date: July 13
Label: Vagrant/Ghostly International

Tracklist:

01 Windstorm
02 Heart Is Strange
03 Dust Devil
04 I L U
05 Babelonia
06 Joviann
07 Cammarilla
08 Dial
09 Bye Bye Bye
10 The Wait

Notes: New LP from this New York dream-pop trio, made up of former members of On!Air!Library! and the Secret Machines. Produced by band member Benjamin Curtis.

Please oh please let track 9 be an *NSYNC cover.

lmfao

Hahaha

Anyway, v. cool. This will rule.

Very good news. Love the debut.

Oh wow, awesomeness. I have a demo of Cammarilla somewhere, great to hear it finally reach the light of day.

This is likely to be my album of the year, I'm guessing!

hyped

"ilu"!!! <3

trying to imagine SVIIB reading ONTD now

Here we GO:

http://pitchfork.com/news/38814-new-school-of-seven-bells-windstorm

Interesting addition to the Vagrant line-up, thats for sure.

The Echo, eh? Might be able to make that...

Oh yes oh yes oh yes!

The Scala? Damn. They moving up in the world.

Sounds less etherial, more pop. But god yes it's yummy.

::does twirls of happiness::

Found this one on YouTube, also:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDz9XuVLYLI

Ha ha, with "this is a promotional item" voice over and everything.

OMG this album is gonna be so amazingly good if these snippets are anything to go by.

"windstorm" is really really cool

Saw these kids supporting Bat For Lashes last year. Amazing.

two months seems like a long time right now

cant make that windstorm stream work for shit tho

Love'em.

Ace! Really love Alpinisms, thought it got a bit overlooked when it came out (in the UK at least)

Oh! I forgot to revive this thread last night!

Windstorm single is out on iTunes now. Plus a really lovely floating-on-beds-of-clouds MBV-esque ethereal B-side.

GOGEDDIT

Roxor. Am hoping to be able to catch them tonight but we'll see...

I only took one photo last night, but for those who demand such things

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4006/4666071664_553a6bef34.jpg

I want to see them so bad, but I have to wait until July.

::sadface::

So first of all, if you haven't yet seen SVIIB live yet do so immediately as the next time they tour I expect them to be at much bigger venues (and a different crowd too - more on that later). Their basic sound is the same as from when I saw them the first time, but man is it revved way up and yet refined. Ben and the drummer (didn't get his name) work very well together, each branching off appropriately from the drum machine's basic framework but never clobbering the harmonies or each other. The only criticism I ever really had of them before was that there was very little power to all the sound that was coming at you (all voltage with little current) and, well, that simply isn't the case anymore. Almost all the songs were new, but I didn't care. They've tapped into a big vein of Something New, and for the first time ever a band has finally superseded all that nuGaze nonsense and used Loveless as a jumping off point into the unknown rather than as some sort of cosmic ideal to strive for.

Bottom line: fuck yeah! New album now please.

Very unusual crowd for The Echo though... Lots of KCRW signs everywhere and relatively few of the Usual Gang Of Drone Rockers that I always see at these types of shows. Huge crowd though. Couldn't quite pin it down, but I did think of the AOR/Dido namechecks upthread. Not sure if it means anything and if anyone deserves to play big shows it's them. Guess the secret is out now.

Also: All nuGazers need to take heed and stop dragging around entire music stores with them on stage. SVIIB has *less* equipment now and yet have a bigger sound.

Drummer? Again?

Oh yeah, more people need to play Hagstroms. That is all.

Drummer? Again?

Yes, they're now a four-piece live but as noted upthread he naturally fits into the band as if he was there the whole time but never calling attention to himself (think Jon Mattock on Lazer Guided Melodies).

Sounds like the set I witnessed back in March! Everything is bigger now. And better.

Sounds great! I was a little too wiped and exhausted for my part to make it, oh well -- next time!

The only criticism I ever really had of them before was that there was very little power to all the sound that was coming at you

Venue might sometimes explain it? At the more claustrophobic Detroit Bar that power was definitely there last year, less so at the Troubadour, so perhaps having the drummer helps bridge that gap as they play bigger spots. No bad thing, of course!

Pssst! London fans!!!!

Free tickets to a secret instore at Pure Groove if you pre-order the album through them...

https://www.puregroove.co.uk/itemview.aspx?item=1424

did I miss a west coast tour? tell me they didn't play SF and I slept on it.

Looks like this was their only West Coast date for this tour so you're good. Will be interested, per Chris's description, where they play next time.

Occurs to me that a double bill of them and the xx would be a heck of a show (and would also possibly explain where some of the new fans are from, indirectly).

so great.

vagrant has the new stars record too. good signings.

Venue might sometimes explain it? At the more claustrophobic Detroit Bar that power was definitely there last year, less so at the Troubadour, so perhaps having the drummer helps bridge that gap as they play bigger spots. No bad thing, of course!

Perhaps... I wasn't at either of those two shows, but it certainly seems that they've zeroed in on "their sound" (however you want to describe it) and are making it (as ilxor says) "bigger and better"

Next step world conquest.

Unrelated directly to SVIIB, but had to mention this observation: show etiquette

OK, so I'm listening to a live recording of The Echo show and the version of "Sempiternal / Amaranth" with the live drummer is even better than how I remember it being. With apologies to Kate, it's essentially Shimura Curves + "Hallogallo"

Hey, I'm not saying nothin' but just remindin' you that I gave Benjamin a CD of Noyfriend at a Sonic Cathedral back in ... oh, I don't even remember what year. But he was still in Secret Machines, and I was making pretty krautrock-styled shoegazetronica with a pair of sisters.

I give him the CD, and six months later, HE'S off making pretty krautrock-styled shoegazetronica with a pair of sisters.

COINCIDENCE!??!?!?

OK, probably. But still.

Hand over this live recording, dammit!

Upcoming instore in Brighton:

http://www.resident-music.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/resident-instore-appearance-school-of-seven-bells.pdf

Nice shop, that.

xxp - not to burst yr bubble MB, but I'd guess that the collab came about as a result of Secret Machines & On!Air!Library! touring together while opening for Interpol in 2004. Just a guess ;) - tho yr story is much better!

That was a terrific triple-bill btw

Ha ha yeah, I know your point. And there's actually more to the story than that. A lot more. (As admitted in my making THE SAME JOKE 2 years ago, on the start of this thread.)

(I do actually have that On!Air!Library! record - doesn't really sound particularly like SVIIB much, though you can obviously hear the germination of their sound.)

I <3<3 SVIIB, but "Bread" is still my favorite track of theirs (& one of my top songs of the 00s tbh).

The rest of the OAL lp was not quite as grand iirc, at least when weighed against the comparative strengths of Alpinisms

Kudos to Sam V. IV & Ghostly for releasing these records. After ten years of Factory-style cash drops on uberpremium sleeve design for niche IDM shit, he deserves to have a runaway hit & this next SVIIB record probably is probably better poised to perform as such than anything Ghostly has put out since... Alpinisms?

That was a terrific triple-bill btw

Yes, I was there. Remember when Interpol was actually kinda good?

I'll rep for interpol as a live act, but then: tight rhythm section + cavernous reverb guitar wash = I am a total stooge for it. Sam Fogarino is the undersung hero of that band. Now that I'm thinking about it, I believe he actually had something to do with the OAL record & that was the connection for that tour. Too bad Magnetic Morning (Fog + Adam Franklin of Swervedriver) turned out to be so dud.

To be fair, the Magnetic Morning album was still better than Our Love to Admire.

Interpol was good on record from 2002 to 2004. After that, fuck it.

I say brief things, my love's temporal, the hype's ephemeral.

How disappointed am I when I see that this thread has new answers on it... and they're about bloody Interpol. Do not wake me from mine slumber unless you have things to say about SVIIB k thx bye

Kate, you make Paul Banks sad.

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/33521279/Julian+Plenti+275779.jpg

HE IS WINKING @ U W/ A CULINARY EYE

Ew.

Get that thing off my nice clean thread and replace it with something pointy nosed and ginger if you please.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/96/215120003_fe34e0090f_o.jpg

Kudos to Sam V. IV & Ghostly for releasing these records. After ten years of Factory-style cash drops on uberpremium sleeve design for niche IDM shit, he deserves to have a runaway hit & this next SVIIB record probably is probably better poised to perform as such than anything Ghostly has put out since... Alpinisms?

the album is out on vagrant.

Both labels:

http://ghostly.com/releases/disconnect-from-desire

http://www.vagrant.com/artists/media/36-school_of_seven_bells?release_id=253-disconnect

...

hmm. maybe ghostly truly is INTERNATIONAL.

pillbox your DN is XD

;)

(I do actually have that On!Air!Library! record - doesn't really sound particularly like SVIIB much, though you can obviously hear the germination of their sound.)

Pulled this off the shelf last night, listening today. It's better than I recalled! And yes, you can hear the SVIIB sound starting to take root, esp. in the vocal stylings. The groove on track 1 is just massive, btw. And the Interpol drummer guests on that track. Yet another connection between the SVIIB/O!A!L!/Secret Machines/Interpol love fest... ;-)

"Bambalance" is tremendous. The dissonant guitar! Somehow the whole thing reminds me of, like, Cabaret Voltaire (don't ask). Too bad the following track, "Sad Sad Zoo," is really just... boring. Sounds like a bad Smog track.

OK, I'm gonna get that On!Air!Library! record off the shelf again then. You have inspired me.

(Still hate Interpol though)

love this record to bits, really psyched for the new one

New album is fantastic - Windstorm undersells how much they've progressed from shoegaze fandom. Heart Is Strange is mega-rave-goth in the spirit, though not the precise sound, of Ladytron's Destroy Everything You Touch. Totally addictive.

Stop rubbing it in that you have it and I don't yet. :-(

Just trying to hype you up. Heart Is Strange is my latest crush song.

Hello:

Indie-pop trio SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS is offering fans the opportunity to hear their new album Disconnect from Desire in its entirety prior to release day on July 13th. Beginning today at 12 pm EDT, the album will be available via stream on RollingStone.com and the band's website, SVIIB.com. To access the stream via the band's website, fans will be asked to join the mailing list. To coincide with the online premiere of the stream, SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS will release an exclusive new interview on their YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/schoolofsevenbells.)

Also, fall tour dates were announced, can't wait to see them at the Detroit Bar again...

AWESOME

Oh! I meant to revive this thread.

Any London people - I seem to have a spare (free) ticket to the secret gig on the 8th July. If anyone wants it, please email me.

So much for streaming:

Not Found

The requested URL /sviib.com/stream.html was not found on this server.

Streaming from RollingStone.com, then.

Second track is incredible.

One track from the end and I'm thinking this whole album is really consistently solid. It doesn't (yet) have the completely blissful highs as Alpinisms does on a couple tracks, but it'll likely grow on me. A lot. I really like it.

Also can't wait to hear the full-blown production job, instead of a RS.com stream through shitty earbuds.

School of Seven Bells show a couple hours ago was holyshitamazing. I've caught their show 2 or 3 times before and it was great, yes, but went into tonight's thing expecting more of the same. So they were 30 min late to the stage... "My Cabal" came and went as song #1, it was enjoyable and sounded great (glad that long soundcheck was put to good use). So that was that; I was expecting them to breeze through "Fast Asleep," "Disguise," "Connjur" and the rest on autopilot, pretty but predictable.

Nope. Song 2 was brand new, same with 3, 4, 5... All a BIG progression from Alpinisms, waaaayyy wayy better (and I say this with Alpinisms being one of my most played, and favorite, albums of the past few years).

The new songs are more confident, less fleeting and the vocal interplay has been really pushed forward. They still do the dual vocals thing but I dare say it's improved, been spotlighted at the front of each song, more complex harmonies, just absolutely gorgeous. Meanwhile Ben Curtis has gone more in a Kevin Shields direction, guitar parts less Cocteau ambient-wash, more muscular, straight out of Medicine's "5ive" or "Aruca" era stuff, blasts of feedback stabbing between Spector-y vocal harmonies. Song tempos are all faster, easier to dance to; they've kept the drum machine but added a live fourth member who compliments it well. First new song had me floored, almost at tears, just incredibly beautiful and absolutely the right direction for their sound to go next.

Watch out... This new album is really gonna be something to fuck with.

― I just wish he hadn't adopted the "ilxor" moniker (ilxor), Friday, March 19, 2010 9:54 PM

I wrote this back in March 2010 after seeing the live show. The bolded part was referring to "Bye Bye Bye," which I think is one of the better tracks here. Live it definitely had a bigger wall of guitars than it has on record. Which I hope they keep doing live, because it was utterly moving and transportive and I can't fucking wait to experience it again in person.

I really think they are just that kind of act that will be best heard live -- Radiohead are kinda the same way for me, much as I love their work (still kills me I haven't been able to see them since 2003...)

London? Anyone?

They really become more muscular live. More noise, feedback. Guitars turned waaayy up in the mix. Full-on shoegaze worship.

xp

Case in point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amg1hRpYbIg

That was pretty much... AMAZING.

Love the new drummer, really adds a depth and looseness that, although it wasn't missing before, still very much added to the equation.

I'll leave it to Lex to give his own impressions... but what a fabulous show.

it was great, and i'm so glad i got to see them in a venue that small. had never seen them before properly, but live they conveyed everything i expected from their records and then some - such a great sense of build and release. the deheza sisters' voices are actually really different! i don't know why i didn't expect that.

i also thought ben was super-hott

shirt unbuttoned juuust enough to show off the tat in the dead centre of his chest

The Lex is lusting after a DDB. This is amusing me SOOOO much you have no idea.

I liked the moment we both realised it was a tattoo. Like "Is that a tattoo?" :;stares:: "Or is it a shirt?" ::stares some more:: "I don't know, but I'm really enjoying trying to figure it out" ::both stare a little more::

The thing is, Benjamin is such a sweetheart that I feel really bad about lusting after him the way I do, whenever he comes over and talks to me and he's just like this big, bouncy oversized puppy and he's *lovely*. And then I feel really really bad about trying to stare at his chest for half an hour.

Well if he didn't want you to stare he shouldn't be wearing his shirt that way..

I didn't mean to end up standing at the front (really), just wanted to stand somewhere where I could see..

This is very, very true.

Christ, was it crammed enough, though. I don't think that was a 150 capacity venue. I think that was more like a 75 capacity venue they rammed 150 people into.

i thought i saw you jill but wasn't sure!!

staring at ben's chest was very calming after the mad group of girls next to us decided to take 9484397 photos of each other throughout the entirety of "ilu". i get taking photos of your friends at gigs but a) so many? b) you couldn't wait til between songs?

Still trying to work out if the new drummer is an extra Curtis brother or not. He kinda looks like a cross between Benjamin and Brandon - but I think two sets of siblings in one band would be too much for anyone.

Can I just --

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flKTnN_91eg

"heart is strange", "dust devil" and "ilu" are my immediate favs on the new album

Stupid me for pre-ordering the album so I could get the free tickets and actually having to wait until I get the physical copy before I get to hear how great it is... OK, I lie, I've been listening to the live MP3s, but I can't wait to hear how much more intricate and layered the recorded material is.

I hope I'm not building it up too much - but I pretty much already know, based on the live material, that this is going to be my album of the year.

It's just that kind of build and momentum - they manage to achieve this kind of trance state with their music which is not entirely motorik, and yet not entirely "dancefloor dynamics" either - they just have such a great sense of being able to create a mood and sustain tension.

oops. sorry for not coming over to say hi last night. we rushed off for food afterwards because my friend and I were hungry.

Kate, the album is steaming on the rolling stone website. thought it a bit odd that they couldn't give us the album last night.

Yeah, I don't understand why we couldn't just get the album on the door, since we'd all already paid for it. (well, obviously not the plus ones, but if you were on the list, you'd bought it.)

I suppose coz it's not technically coming out until next week.

Cos you mite put it on the interwebs... o wait :(

THIS NEW ALBUM IS SO DAMN GOOD

Stream (reposting): http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/17386/151087

They're playing with IUD (Gang Gang Dance side project) in late July which is a weird but cool booking :)

THIS NEW ALBUM IS SO DAMN GOOD
otmfm

it's like all the best parts of liz fraser and blinda from mbv yet something completely their own

and that's only the vocals!!

album of the year?

^ probably

Streaming is working on the sviib.com site now btw.

this is a really pretty record. beautifully arranged....seems really shiny and glasslike. it just glides across the surface of the water

Really can't wait to hear the album tomorrow in full-quality CD sound, played loud. I've had this album streaming on near-repeat at work for the past week or however long it's been out. Probably heard it 20 times by now...

I get almost zero low-end sound on these pathetic headphones, so really just want to hear the full-scale production.

Also, this is just a gorgeous-looking band.

ok two tracks in and this already smokes the debut

THREE tracks in and it KILLS IT DEAD

OK, I'm old enough to get over it when people I hate like bands I love. But I am still childish enough to be annoyed when ILX0rs I hate start using screen names based off bands I love.

;_;

Because I pre-ordered it, I have to wait for the post to deliver it. Should have selected pick-up.

But I am still childish enough to be annoyed when ILX0rs I hate start using screen names based off bands I love.

hm?

A question which I don't expect an instant answer to, but please bear it in mind:

I've got the deluxe edition of the new CD that comes with an 'alternative' version of Alpinisms thrown in. Would be interested in reading opinions as to whether this differs much from the original album, which I've not heard.

is la petite mort a band?

it's a well-worn expression I used in a way that tickled me enough to turn into a screen name

in other news, this album is still very good, if not quite up with tracks 2, 3 and 4 (i.e. Lex OTM for now)

LJ i think she's talking about whiney

oh yeah haha

xxxxxpost

ah masonic c'mon it's whiney!

indie buzz band....77 reference...testicles...it's like asking a bird not to spread its wings and fly

every song has good elements to it! 'dial' is probably my favourite other than those 3. this album is much better than the debut, and it's also got its own sonic profile - finally this band is a thing, and although it's not music that i find viscerally thrilling, the songs are good enough to justify buying into them, luxuriating in their sprawl

I didn't know the deluxe edition came with an alternate version of Alpinisms! I just wanted the tarot cards.

Tarot cards? TAROT CARDS?!?!??! arrarghghghghgghhg Benjamin why do you do this to me. Can you get this version in the UK? This is deliberately to torture me and make me buy more than once copy since I had to pre-order the normal one to get into the secret gig.

This is not fair. I want those tarot cards.

mutter mutter mutter

I don't KNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWW which version I am getting. I checked the order and it says a signed copy. It does not say which version. I am gonna hope that this means that it's a special limited edition but if it isn't waah wah wah I'm gonna do a sad obsessive fan cry all the way home.

I want me those tarot cards.

Tarot cards, tarot phenomenon
Tarot Cards domestic HAaaaaands!!!

Relax, you only get seven tarot cards, not a full deck. You can't make predictions with them or anything.

I don't care how many of them there are, I still want them. Sheesh.

If it were my band, I would create an entire deck.

It's not like I haven't offered to do one for them!

Oh wait. I can't even finish mine own tarot deck beyond about seven cards so it's not like I would actually have the time to do a full one for someone else.

Is the deck, well, *them* as tarot cards? Or is it just interpretations of their favourites?

Something like this, I imagine:

http://witchcraft-supplies.com/tarot/jane.austen.tarot.deck.jpg

Um, the "tarot cards" are just the lyrics printed on cards.

Further digging re the bonus disc leads me to conclude it's the same bonus CD that came with the deluxe edition of Alpinisms. So you may already have it if you're a long-time SVIIB fan.

The dream is better.

Went home sick from work. The box was waiting. They are indeed lyric sheets with images on them. Lovely indeed. The box is beautiful, the album artwork looks a lot better as a screen print or whatever it is than as a gif.

(no bonus disc, though. But I didn't get the deluxe version of Alpinisms because I was unemployed and poor when it came out.)

Their pic, not mine, but looks like this:

http://twitpic.com/24pfi2

So so so glad I have the stream for now, none of the stores I stopped at this morning had this. Oddly enough, my local indie store "decided there wasn't enough good releases this week to get anything in until next week's shipment". I've said this in other threads, but if you are an independent record store and want to stay in business, STOCK RECORDS TO SELL. I mean, they didn't even have the new M.I.A. in which seems fairly stupid in a college town.

satisfied customer so far.

This album is even better than I was expecting on so many levels. It's so beautiful.

But the only thing that marrs it for me is I L U which has that really irritating sort of 80s soft rock rhythm section which so distracts me from the rest of the track that I can't concentrate on it. There's just something so "mid 80s John Hughes teen movie soundtrack" about that song, even despite the big woozy MBV guitar groans.

I'm sure that kind of thing has its fans, and it's time and place, but it is just jarring for me.

I really liked what I heard of this the other evening - my problem with the first was mostly the production, it sounded really flat and lifeless all the way through, this one sounds so much richer. Think the drums are a big part of that.

That's odd, because Benjamin was originally a drummer. I think part of why this sounds so different is that they got someone else to mix this - so the drums sound bigger and everything sounds clearer and more "in its right place" - but unfortunately it does make some songs have that 80s Teen Soundtrack problem. I'd love to hear an alternate "closet mix" of this album, mind you.

But I mean, when it's good, it's AMAZING. Which is most of it. Babelonia gets me every time, as does Joviann. This version of Camarilla makes me so so SOOOO happy.

Not a complaint, mind you but... there are times when it's mixed a little *too* politely for my dirty dronerock ways. There are definitely times that I want to tell them TURN THOSE BLOODY GUITARS UP! Give me NOOOIIIIZZZZEWEEEEEEE

But that could just be because I've become used to the way these songs sound live.

Yeah the drumming (drum programming?) is very 80s and the whole thing is very tastefully produced. The album brought to my mind All About Eve actually!

This is a very special bit of writing. The first two paragraphs appear to have come from a review of a different record all together.

http://drownedinsound.com/releases/15507/reviews/4140447

Wow.

this record needs more guitars and heaviness

it's super mannered and suffers for it imo

Their current live show takes all those "super mannered" traits, shits on them from a great height, throws them onto a bonfire and strikes a fucking match. GO SEE THIS BAND LIVE PEOPLE

Is that a review or is that someone's thesis statement of an art degree from, like, Camberwell College or something?

There are bad reviews, and there are incomprehensible ones. It's like dude scribbled that on his laptop while smoking dope and was just looking for a record to pin it on without any attention to the music involved.

What ilxor said. I enjoy their studio work, but it's the live performances that are the clincher.

As for that review. Uh.

If you're going to pull back that far for your way in to a record you might as well just start with "Webster's dictionary defines music as the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity".

That would actually have made some kind of sense. That DiS review was far more garbled than that.

dying @ that review

it is one hell of a review

A sort of theological reversal of postmodernity, where instead of the inherited fragment there is now something growing from the pile - a global culture, that no longer refers to its antecedents, no longer comes from anywhere, but proliferates like a remix of remixes.

Dude's going to be a hit at grad school.

it's kind of like when lindsay lohan kept misusing the word "adequate", i'm just super-curious as to what he thinks all those words mean

His review of Wildbirds and Peacedrums features the winning line: "Reviewing this as I am from a narrowboat on a welsh canal, I can’t help but notice that watery metaphors abound." Doesn't anyone ever get edited anymore?

hahah what was she using "adequate" to mean?

Never heard the first album and playing the new one for the first time -- it's a really peculiar listen. Reminiscent of A Sunny Day in Glasgow's Ashes Grammar instrumentally and the vocals have a world/foreign tinge even though there's no accent. Something's just OFF in the melodies and chord progressions but those weird moments make it more interesting. If they can pull this off live I'm sure it's amazing.

His review of Wildbirds and Peacedrums features the winning line: "Reviewing this as I am from a narrowboat on a welsh canal, I can’t help but notice that watery metaphors abound."

loooooooool

xpost -- They do pull off the performances of that live very well, it's how the sound is so much more full live, for lack of a better word. That said it seems to depend on the venue as well, the more close (claustrophobic?) a venue, the bigger the impact.

i did see them live--thought they desperately needed a drummer which i guess they have now?

Yup

Ally Deheza often seems to stress sung words on odd syllables. I don't know if this is deliberate, or if it's just to force rhymes to fit the musical meter, but I find it a really interesting and charming vocal tic. It often makes you think about the meaning and intention of word choice, and about what she's choosing to stress, and if that alters the meaning.

It sometimes reminds me of Kristin Hersch - although their voices sound nothing alike, that odd quirk of vocal intonation makes the work of both take on a different dimension.

The one useful point I took from that review is that Disconnect from Desire sounds a bit like Curve, which hadn't struck me before - it has the same stadium-shoegaze quality. He should have left it at that.

But the song I L U is one of the songs that really *doesn't* sound particularly like Curve!

Lord, I never thought they sounded like Curve -- much different vocal quality/emphasis.

hahah what was she using "adequate" to mean?

a few years ago she signed off a drunken open letter to hollywood, sent from her blackberry, "be adequite" (sic). to which the world responded "be literite".

I was thinking more of Heart Is Strange - just the early 90s indie-dance beat, the gothisms and the sheer scale of it rather than a precise similarity.

Might have leapt out at me as a comparison if they were closer in time to that band but there's something different about them that (granted the similarities you note) I can't fully put my finger on. And live I tended to think more of Loop!

The whole dancey beats plus goth plus shoegaze atmospherics (with female vocals) is totally Curve-like. (if it were male vocals, it would be Chapterhouse's second album.)

NOTHING like Loop. Are you mad, Raggett?

I love the fact that drum sound is so dated - you don't really hear that anymore so it takes me right back to my teens.

it's like lush-ious jackson IMO

xxpost -- I ascribe it to Ben fully there, first time through I saw 'em. Huge pulses of feedback throb etc. etc.

And yeah, it just doesn't suggest itself as Curve-like automatically for me as noted. Maybe because there's a slow burn anger in Toni Halliday's singing/lyrics that I'm not sensing here, but Ben's work doesn't make me think of Dean Garcia's either.

In Secret Machines, I could see a Loop-esque thing maybe. But not with SVIIB.

Benjamin is far more of an MBV fanboy than anything else! ;-)

"Babelonia" at 2:33-2:49 basically IS Curve (and a weedwhacker).

Did this get did already?

Sonic Youth and School Of Seven Bells members set for Neu! supergroup

Just listening to a bit of the new one and maybe I said this before but the vocals *really* remind me of Linda Perhacs' multi-tracked singing.

Bye Bye Bye = neat song, btw

Just wanted to post the pic of that drownedinsound reviewer:

http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh310/yodelagogo/53769.jpg

Oh shit, I missed this Lusine remix of Half Asleep - kind of lush and chimey in a Pantha du Prince-ish way:

http://rcrdlbl.com/artists/School_of_Seven_Bells/track/Half_Asleep_Lusine_Remix

this record needs more guitars and heaviness

im 3 or 4 listens in, and i'd agree with this.

You know I would never ever normally engage in any kind of childish hipster bashing or anything but OH MY GOD I HAVE NEVER HATED ANYONE SO MUCH ON SIGHT IN MY LIFE AS THAT TWUNTISH REVIEWER, I WANT TO SMASH HIS PRETENTIOUSLY HELD CIGARETTE OUT ON HIS NON PRESCRIPTION GLASSES!!!!

lol

seconded!!!

Got mine in the mail today... nice little box and cards, but where is this bonus CD? Not included.

Is that a review or is that someone's thesis statement of an art degree from, like, Camberwell College or something?

I got as far as the top of the second paragraph:

But there is a third moment, and this is perhaps caught in Audrey's dance in the diner of Twin Peaks, where her naïf-fatale eroticism jives to Badalamenti's otherworld. His music exists at the hauntological cusp of big band, as it recedes into those hanging chromatic notes which betray the foreign agent at the heart of David Lynch's estranging of the American familiar.

to be honest, it kinda sounds like SVIIB lyrics.

they should re-record "half-asleep" with the words from this review and call it "voice of harold."

OH MY GOD I HAVE NEVER HATED ANYONE SO MUCH ON SIGHT IN MY LIFE AS THAT TWUNTISH REVIEWER, I WANT TO SMASH HIS PRETENTIOUSLY HELD CIGARETTE OUT ON HIS NON PRESCRIPTION GLASSES!!!!

The collected wit and wisdom of that Twuntish reviewer: h t t p : / / www . danielbyates . com / pop

(unlinked because I don't want him here)

LOL at the opening line of his AFI review:

"When you try and neuter a cat it puts up a fight."

and the closing paragraph from the same review:

"So instead I filmed one of my own turds in slo-mo, epically breaking the surface of the water, proudly pushing its turtlehead up toward the light beyond the bowl. A little blood around the edges, only to signify the cancer of soft-rock guitar in what should be the healthy churning bowels of punk music. I used fake blood, nothing more serious than that."

I can think of a lot of things I'd rather do than read another word of that twuntish review's "work". One of them involves putting mine own eyes out with rusting dogshit-smeared pruning secateurs.

And no, I didn't get a "bonus CD" either. Boo hoo.

Ah, 50 minutes long... perfect for a nice run. I'll try it on Friday.

Oh! And that thing with NEU! as performed by Michael Rother with Benjamin Curtis (and Steve Shelley and some other peeps)... not happened yet, but happening in October...

http://www.barbican.org.uk/music/event-detail.asp?ID=11079

(Though I should probably go revive a NEU! or a Krautrock thread for wider interest.)

Sounds like everyone who is really into this = everyone who has seen them live. That must be the setting in which the MBV comparisons shine, because this record does not have much edge and really not a whole lot of atmosphere either. This album's not bad but it's very tidy and clean.

I know Ben can play huge, based on Secret Machines albums and live show. His presence feels very played down here.

I loved them before I ever saw them live - but that was based on some (far rougher sounding) demos that Benjamin had given me pre- Alpinisms.

That said, I don't *mind* the pop sheen. I really like pop sheen and glossiness and that Aurally Enhanced shiny candy sound.

I should probably get off this thread before every post I make just turns into "I loved them before you did!!!!!" type whinging. Seriously.

I prefer the albums to the live stuff I've heard.

i like the cleanness of this album - it's really starting to get its teeth into me now. i find it ironic that it's linked to a genre called shoegaze, because to me this album is the aural equivalent of looking straight up at the sky just so you can feel the wind blow harder into your face. or, like, a wind machine. it's amazingly propulsive in comparison to alpinisms.

Ah, Lex, some day I will school you on Shoegaze (and the irony of the name) but today is not that day.

First generation shoegazers were never looking at their actual shoes - they were always looking at their effects to figure out which etherealiser to trigger next. It's always been an ironic name for a particularly starry-eyed genre.

Bt then again, shoegaze was always the uncomfortable marriage of two genres and two strains of musical thinking. But at least half of it was descended straight from the bits of Cocteau Twins that sounded like spinning around as fast as you could, fingers outstretched, until you fell down laughing and dizzy.

But then you take that aesthetic and you merge it with the low-down and dirty slouching miserablism of the Jesus and Mary Chain, who were decided gazers at alternately their navels and the floor (and I say this deeply loving them).

So it is an odd name for this genre, but it does capture that idea of being caught between the gutter and the stars.

When I started a shoegazing club at my university (the main purpose being so I could reserve function rooms to eat lunch in), the admin assistants that dealt with student groups all thought it was a foot fetish club and treated me warily because I was clearly a perverted weirdo.

Hazel, have I mentioned how much I love your screen name? You keep making me want to listen to Spirea X every time you post.

thank you! but you should not give in to such temptations. actually you made me do it just now. it's all right.

Really disappointed by this record.

Feels like they abandoned the "cosmopolitan Kabbalahtronic" sound for "Sarah McLachlan, after collaborating with DMC, hears some electro and post-punk revival and decides to collaborate with Moby."

^ that's when I reach for my sb

This is a fabulous record.

a bit torn about "I L U." kinda wish they canned the lyrics and just extended the soaring bits more, but maybe that's too much of a good thing. and i feel like i've heard "babelonia" before, kind of like i swear that kt tunstall song "suddenly i see" was released in the '80s and they thought they could get away with it

Babelonia is strikingly similar, both in the guitar riff, and the vocal harmonies, to Sweetness & Light by Lush. But that's OK, I love both bands, I'll let them get away with it.

these guys were better live without the clunky-ass drumming. it really grounds everything.

Can't believe people have been talking about the drums without mentioning NEW ORDER, which is surely the desired effect pretty much throughout the album. It's exactly the same sort of propulsive feel you get on True Faith and the remix of Bizarre Love Triangle, except blurred with all this MBV fuzz and strange madrigal pop.

Totally loving this, it's the summer album to Alpinisms' bleak midwinter album.

Heart Is Strange and Bye Bye Bye are about as New Order as you can get without wheeling out Bernard Sumner.

Um, no. I'm a big New Order stan, but honestly - I don't get New Order from the album's drums.

Mind you, there was a moment last night (probably because the drums were mic-ed so much LOUDER than everyone else onstage) that I did think "Hmmm, Atmosphere" but now I can't remember which song it was, and it didn't pop out listening to it on the tube this morning.

It's the synths as much as the drums for me, admittedly.

It's funny, Bye Bye Bye is such a difficult song to pull off live, it seems, but it's growing on me so much more and more every time I see them. That "dee-dee-doo dee-de-de-doo" guitar riff is just so damn infectious.

byebyebye is definitely a highlight for me, the bass drum rush at the beginning gets me so pumped!!

I am on this bandwagon.

You scenester! (Actually I'd be way surprised if you weren't.)

the first 10 seconds of "heart is strange" is totally mid 80s tangerine dream

Seriously fucking great. Both albums. Gets a bit too 6th form prog in places but then good things happen

"I L U" moves me in a lot of ways, but last night it got to me lyrically. I'm not even missing any past girlfriend or anything. But just the idea of a woman resigned to saying "I loved you" seemed particularly poignant last night.

So I'm listening to Alpinisms for the first time.....it feels more exciting and organic but is a bit patchier. Don't know how I slept on this.

Pantha du Prince remix?

Hrrmmm. Could be very good, could be very... hrrrmmm.

Interviewing Ben on Monday. Anybody have any questions they'd like answered?

Will he ever stop sweeping his haircut out of his eyes 100 times per show and just play the songs?

descended straight from the bits of Cocteau Twins that sounded like spinning around as fast as you could, fingers outstretched, until you fell down laughing and dizzy.

really like these wordz from Masonic Boom upthread, fwiw

What does he think about the other Curtis brother (whatshisname?) joining a washed-up Interpol touring lineup?

Do they all still live together?

Keep 'em coming!

Which of the Deheza sisters is he currently smoochin'?

Hmm. No questions about the music itself, then?

Do they wear clothing while rehearsing?

Sorry, couldn't resist. I'm curious about the guitars, but that might get a bit Musician magazine.

Most of the questions I have wanted to ask Benjamin over the years I have already pestered him about. But I'll try and think of some new album specific questions for you.

He can talk for hours about guitar questions, though! Seriously! He managed to get quite a sweet endorsement deal on their guitars IIRC.

Hahah cool -- that's already given me a couple of ideas to follow up on!

When is he going to make headlines by playing guitar in Nick Oliveri's usual stage attire?

Quick bump if anyone wants to ask anything else...

Oh and the most direct shoegaze signifier on this album might actually be how the backing vocal loop on "Joviann" is almost exactly the same as on Chapterhouse's "Breather."

No other questions (and you can ignore my joeks upthread), but I'd love to read the interview once completed.

Won't be running for some weeks but will let folks know...

Pretty hilarious, we almost completely sidetracked ourselves talking about New Order a lot.

I think I've worn out my .mp3s of this album. Also, this new one is much better than the first.

Can't believe that STEREOLAB hasn't been mentioned yet on this thread. Along with The Cocteau Twins and Lush, I'd say it's their most apparent influence - especially the vocals (although I like them much more than 90% of Stereolab).

Also, this new one is much better than the first.

Have to agree -- I'll preview the story a touch by saying that Ben indicated they came in with less of a blank slate on this album and that it was shaped by both all the touring and their sense of what their sound is now, and I think that's made all the difference.

Seeing them tomorrow in Ann Arbor!

omg there's going to be a pantha du prince remix of "heart is strange"

so excited

And as promised a while back, my interview with Ben is now up at the OC Weekly:

http://www.ocweekly.com/2010-09-30/music/school-of-seven-bells-ben-curtis/

Pretty hilarious, we almost completely sidetracked ourselves talking about New Order a lot.

Good article, Ned!

Anything esp. interesting re: this ^^ topic that wasn't included?

Nothing too big, really. He was very much following New Order Recycle, though.

Yes, I caught onto that. :D

And to think I got scoffed at upthread for comparing this whole record to New Order.

A winner is you, in the end.

Heart Is Strange and Bye Bye Bye are about as New Order as you can get without wheeling out Bernard Sumner.

Incidentally, these are my fav. two songs on the album!

Show on Saturday night was really spectacular -- and made more interesting by the fact that Claudia wasn't on stage! I gather she was ill, but they still put on a show and if the full harmonies were missing everything else made up for it. Ben is way more active on stage now and Zachary the new drummer is a hell of a good fit as everyone's been saying. Also loved the fact that the set was almost all Disconnect songs.

I admit it was also pretty fun when Ben looked over at one point, stepped up to the mike and went "Ned?"

While about larger things my Foxy Digitalis piece this week was also something of a show review:

http://www.foxydigitalis.com/foxyd/?p=812

I admit it was also pretty fun when Ben looked over at one point, stepped up to the mike and went "Ned?"

looooooool

I am seeing these folks this Saturday, for like the 4th or 5th time in a few years... never gets old.

Also loved the fact that the set was almost all Disconnect songs.

This is good but also kinda sad -- I love that first album. Can't we just get them to play both albums, back to back, in full? =/

Bye Bye Bye are about as New Order as you can get without wheeling out Bernard Sumner

haha was just thinking this about bye bye bye, which I listen to obsessively on the drives to and from work. it's like the bastard love child of st. etienne and new order. the end is so good, I want to loop the hook for another five minutes.

Just posted on their Facebook page...

Hi everybody. We just wanted to let you all know that Claudia has left the band for personal reasons. In the meantime, we are excited to continue to write and tour as usual, and we're very much looking forward to seeing you all at our upcoming shows. ♥ Alley and Benjamin

Is Claudia one of the uglier ones in the troupe?

In terms of chord progressions and all that. The name should be sacked for starters the spoilt brat

ahem.. well there goes a perfectly good thread

I don't like this development. Well, either of these developments (Claudia leaving or the introduction of assholery into the thread).

Indeed, thanks for nothing Fer Jessie.

WELL -- in that case, I can say that I caught one of the first shows in the new lineup, then! I will definitely regret not seeing them do Disconnect stuff with Claudia since not hearing the full harmony overlay live was certainly a missing element but as everything else pretty well killed, roll on whatever's next.

Wonder if she was really "sick" for that show, Ned, or...?

I missed the Austin show three days ago, sadly, and can't find any info on whether Claudia played w/ them. :(

To be honest I didn't exactly catch what Ben said on stage, it sounded like he said she was indisposed or whatever but it was more than likely something generally vague.

Looking thru Facebook comments, it sound like Claudia was out for the Dallas show so I'm guessing Austin as well. Btw, Ned, the band linked (and commented on) your foxy digitalis piece on their FB page. :)

Yeah, very nice of them!

Nice job on the Fallon show tonight, but could barely hear Ben's guitar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3bz6Kble2Q

I never saw them live with Claudia, but I'm assuming she filled in some vocal harmonies that seem to be missing here. Regardless, it was nice to see one of my favorite songs of the year being played on national tv.

I'm assuming she filled in some vocal harmonies that seem to be missing here

Spot on. I wonder if they're going to get a replacement for her at some point.

I saw them in DC a few days ago and it just didn't click with only one vocalist. She did her best and sounded great but that's how those songs are supposed to sound. It didn't help that the synths and a lot of the beats were played from a laptop, though that's forgivable. Still glad I went and they are obviously a talented group.

Acoustic "Dust Devil" as part of Take Away Show knockoff: http://vimeo.com/13924411

It's also fucking fantastic

damn, i didn't know claudia left :(

Just posted to their facebook page:

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs970.snc4/76295_497684106062_32542831062_7673918_5660143_n.jpg

These will somehow feature in the upcoming video for "I L U". Mostly I'm just happy that there's going to be a video for "I L U".

Video for "I L U" finally up. It's exquisite in every respect.

http://vimeo.com/17016568

The not-clipping-your-guitar-strings trend is so hip rite now.

Also I dunno if it's just me but these guy's really aren't so much a shoegaze band to me anymore. I don't know what to classify them as but it's just way too minimalist with the latest album.

Not a complaint, surely.

Don't know how I missed this before, but this Siouxsie cover is terrific: http://vimeo.com/16176931

thankig u!!

I am juuuuuust hearing them for the first time right now; halfway thru "Disconnect from Desire" and I can tell you that this is easily one of the best albums I've heard this year. It's v Curvey but not as lol90s

Heads up Los Angeles!

LA people- We’re doing a very rare full acoustic set live in LA on Wednesday. Should be cool. Check by here soon for details…

Acoustic show (well, acoustic guitars augmented by laptop + POD effects box) tonight was fantastic. Even played the Siouxsie cover...

Whatever they end up doing next, I'm on board.

I just got around to picking up Disconnect From Desire

what a fantastic album

Indeed!

Told ya.

it's funny, because on my first listen I was all "this isn't a shoegaze album, wth were you all talking about" and then I heard the implied feedback/wash of sound and went "....OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Hahah. (Now imagine what it's like live.)

kicking myself for not going to their show because I didn't know any of their music when they came through town

Seeing them live was very much the trick for me getting into the band to start with, as I mutter upthread somewhere; having said that, the new album is so consistently strong that it can be its own gateway.

hate to say that as much as i love the new album, the first one does it one better-- if not for the songs (which are equally strong on both records), then the cavernous, shimmery production, which took a slight step down on the new one

that said, "ILU" is the best tune they've done by FAR soooo

I still haven't managed to get into the new album, apart from "Windstorm". Somehow it lacks the intimacy of Alpinisms for me.

Two clips from the show tonight. They're just killing it live these days...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGR9oiMOpMc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5IRzQMG8zs

how's the live set without the 2x vocal harmonies thing?

It depends... I've seen them twice w/Claudia and twice without and out of all of these shows, I liked last night's one the best. I do miss hearing Claudia's harmonies, but they're overcompensating in interesting ways. Ben is basically doing everything now and hops around like a crazed mad scientist guitar hero. Ally has a stage presence now that she didn't really have earlier and with all the noise they're making now I wonder how much of that harmony would get drowned out. Hopefully, Claudia could make an appearance at least on the next album?

Having played Disconnect From Desire to death for about a month now, why is "I L U" the default approved song? I mean, it's a good song, but it seems very... safe, I guess? It's a very straightforward beat, very simple vocal line, very simple vocal harmony, very simple instrumental arrangement... it seems like the least representative song on the album of what this band seems to be about (syncopation and vocal harmony, mostly).

"Camarilla", on the other hand, is just full-on great. I love the way the harmony comes in on the verse and the moving thirds in the second half, mixed in with the creepy suspensions in the low voice of the chorus.

try just getting over a breakup and then listening to I L U
'i want you to know that i loved you' is just extremely emotionally powerful

Yeah the words do take it to a pretty high level, once they sank in.

But "Camarilla" and "Jovian" are just as A+.

yeah forgive me but I'm not about to break up an 18-year relationship so I can truly feel a song

like I said, I think it's a good song; I just vibe off of the musical choices of most of the other songs on the album more

I hadn't been through a break up or anything even close when I first fell in love with that song, but I could identify with the feeling by memory...which I guess is way harder to do if you've been in a relationship for 18 years. But even discounting that angle, the chorus's melody just cuts my guts like a knife.

It's not the melody, though (which is very basic pentatonic scale motion); it's the chord progression that is interesting/impressive in the chorus of that song (and that's mostly because of the false cadence on the first two repetitions followed by the real cadence with suspensions on the outro).

Also IMO the killer line is "And I was a fool to think/It'd be easier to leave/Than to be left behind"; without that, the chorus is kind of powerless and context-free.

(I do like the song a lot but it doesn't strike me as THE SONG of the album, partially because its construction is out of step with what's happening on most of the other tracks.)

I L U is too slick and contrived to have any real emotional resonance with me, but it's fantastic nonetheless. i think it works by virtue of its simplicity -- the restrained vocal line, instrumentation etc. make for a very elegant song.

I just picked up Alpinisms. I see why ppl would prefer this to DFD (it's way more indie)

Update on band and new album: http://stereogum.com/878532/progress-report-school-of-seven-bells/franchises/progress-report/

I like me the sound of that.

*drums fingers*

i had "i l u" on repeat tonight

Behold!

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/12978-lafaye/

Now THAT is a late eighties Cure intro.

This track is amazing. Looks like I'm back on the bandwagon.

cannot wait to see them on tour

Only half way though, but the new one is sounding magnificent. Even bigger and more expansive than the last one.

Nice!

Man, the harmonies in "Heart is Strange" are so perfect. I love how they're all mixed evenly so no one melody dominates, and also the way she carries single syllables across measures. It's brilliant.

Listened again, the production and the whole sound of the thing are fantastic, perfect for this sort of weather where things are just getting bright again and the light feels clean and sparkly. I'm not quite sure the songs/vocal melodies are quite sticking with me yet.

A couple of the songs have really big, thick, continuous basslines under them, like they're consciously going for that Skream balladstep sound, except the synths and guitars on top of all that are much brighter. One song later on is like a skittering electronic take on Gish-era Smashing Pumpkins. And on the last track, When You Sing, they're very obviously channeling the Weatherall mix of Soon, but I can live with that.

full stream:

http://hypem.com/#!/artist/School%20of%20Seven%20Bells/1/

confused by this thread's current proximity to the schoolboy q and sleigh bells threads...

anyway, already repeat-listening to "lafaye" and "reappear"

thumbs up on one listen - the twin who left must be seething at how surplus to requirements she turned out to be cuz if i didn't know i wouldn't have guessed. my favourite tracks were towards the end but i wasn't looking at the titles so i don't know which they were

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di6NAiWVCpU

First listen through and I'm also picking up a Laurie Anderson + MBV vibe. Really want to hear how "When You Sing" sounds live.

okay I am listening to "Love From A Stone" on Spotify right now and HOLY SHIT YES

Yeah.

I am extremely irritated that I will not be able to listen to this properly until later today. I'm also irritated that this goddamn flu or whatever I have had for the last few days is going to impact that listen anyway.

The last two tracks are so so so great!

Okay! Finally sinking into this. Damn this is already their most...expansive album, for lack of a better term. It's like they're starting to fill out a huge space. (Also really love how they're repurposing Cocteau Twins background non-Liz vocal shadings -- think the very end of "The Spangle Maker" -- on something like "Love Play," that's a great use of them!)

Ha and I now see that Matt DC said expansive too. He's damn right about that!

The last two tracks are so so so great!

― Tim F, Wednesday, February 22, 2012 5:00 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Last three songs I should say. But it's all excellent.

Meantime they've also just remixed A Place to Bury Strangers:

http://www.spin.com/articles/first-spin-get-school-seven-bells-remix-place-bury-strangers-so-far-away

I'd only heard 'Lafaye' (I think that's what it was called) up until now, which I wasn't too taken with, but that 'The Night' track posted above I really love. Crazy. I'm finding myself wanting to check out the full album now, which I certainly will do. There's a lot of elements to this stuff that seem right up my street.

I listened twice today. This is a serious favorite.

an action album

ilxors that have heard this, please tell me that this awful Popmatters review is just wrong on every level

He's wrong. Also, he apparently prefers Google+ to Facebook. He's wrong often.

lol

be kind, dude justs want to hear another good poco album

"drum machine bleating" should never be said by anyone ever

mark e. smith could pull it off

Lafaye video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUrQnDVWXvo

im in love with "white wind"

"scavenger" and "white wind" are astonishing

the lyrics to "scavenger" are a lot more...specific and vicious than i expected from SVIIB!

Listened to Ghostory on a long dog walk at dawn today. Its very solid. OTOH, what it gains in confidence, it loses in the sense of awkward exploration that worked so well (for me) on the debut.

It's quite handy that this thread is at the top of the page, because I've finally got around to listening to the album today. I listened to it several times all the way through this morning, and yeah, I love this a hell of a lot. Even 'Lafaye', which I wasn't too taken with at first, has now got its claws in me. I can see this becoming a favourite of the year, and as much as I liked the Chairlift record, this quite comfortably runs rings around it as far as I'm concerned.

as much as I liked the Chairlift record, this quite comfortably runs rings around it as far as I'm concerned

If you're looking for a thing from SVIIB that SVIIB is best at, you're not going to find it in Chairlift (and vice versa). They're not exactly apples and oranges, but very different to my mind.

Apples and oranges, yes, but I get the feel that Benjamin Curtis knows what he wants better than Patrick Wimberly. Caroline Polachek and Alejandra Deheza definitely belong in different horticulture sections.

on the first couple listens this one seems a bit flat to me, but i need more time i guess.

If you're looking for a thing from SVIIB that SVIIB is best at, you're not going to find it in Chairlift (and vice versa). They're not exactly apples and oranges, but very different to my mind.

― Johnny Fever, Tuesday, February 28, 2012 5:24 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh, absolutely. I completely agree with you, and it wasn't what I was getting at in the slightest. Rather, the Chairlift record was the first record of 2012 that I enjoyed and played the hell out of, and I'm finding myself preferring this much more.

"scavenger" and "white wind" are astonishing

the lyrics to "scavenger" are a lot more...specific and vicious than i expected from SVIIB!

― lex pretend, Tuesday, February 28, 2012 9:30 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

'White Wind' is one of my favourites on the album, definitely. I also find 'Reappear' incredibly beautiful.

on the first couple listens this one seems a bit flat to me, but i need more time i guess.

same here. decent and pleasant enough, couple really strong tunes, but Disconnect and Alpinisms were both top 5 records of their respective years for me, and i cant really see this doing the same. seems a bit SVIIB-by-numbers. and the changes they HAVE made (bit more Secret Machines-y bass throb, less gazey/hazy guitars, fewer overlapped-to-the-heavens vocal harmonies) aren't really to my liking as much as, say, "connjur" or "my cabal" or "iamundernodisguise" or the more stunning songs from Disconnect. "white wind" is really really good though, that's an early favorite for sure.

yeah I am missing the overlapped-to-the-heavens vocal harmonies a bit; I was thinking about that earlier today. I really hope they've got someone else singing with them when they tour.

!!!!!

"Low Times"!!

!!!!!

The thick-range steeliness of the sound oddly puts me in mind of parts of the second Garbage album - perfectly constructed walls of sound etc.

they were super great live last night

just total command of a space, sonically

Was it just two of them?

My god, I love the harmonies on that final track.

Was it just two of them?

filled out with a drummer and a keyboardist/backing vocalist, both great, drummer especially great i thought

P R E D A T O R

I FINALLY HAVE THIS!!! (sorry, I've been avoiding the thread because I didn't want to have my impressions spoiled)

3 songs in, and it's Album of the Year for me. I mean, I knew it was going to be, but I just wanted to check.

It's just... how can just one band take *everything* I love, and smoosh it into one glorious and amazing mixture. Mid 80s New Order (I think they thought it wasn't obvious enough on the last album, so they had to ramp it up to 11 on this album) and Pornography era Cure and big My Bloody Valentine guitars and the swirling harmonies, and just... YES.

OK, the harmonies aren't as baroque as the last 2 albums, which is an obvious loss, and makes me a bit sad.

Who else expected the drum break on Low Times to go Dut Dut Dut Dut Dut Dut Dut DUTDUTDUTDUTDUTDUTDUTDUT - come on you guys, missed a trick.

GOD I LOVE THIS BAND SO MUCH.

I like it a lot after an underwhelming first listen.

"When You Sing" is an epic closer.

Has Kevin Shields ever sued anybody for copyright infringement?

But they do SO MUCH MORE than just straight MBV copyright infringement, they take that sound and meld it with so many other things that it becomes one more element in the mix, rather than a straight up rip. I mean, if Shieldsy was gonna sue anyone, Ringo Deathstar would be far more at the top of his summons list.

Excellent WCC.

I was going to refer to "Shieldsy" too but i bottled it.

I played a sus 2 instead

Love to you all

Yeah SVIIB is increasingly and deservedly its own beast album for album. The touchstones are inevitable, the synthesis and extrapolation was not.

The last time I saw him, he commandeered my table and spilled wine all over me. I can call him Shieldsy if I like! :-P

I mean, if Shieldsy was gonna sue anyone, Ringo Deathstar would be far more at the top of his summons list.

Otm but I mean you cannot deny how much of a straight rip "When You Sing" is

3 songs in and this is soooo much better than the last one

Technically, it'd be copyright infringement of the Weatherall remix of My Bloody Valentine, so you'd have a hard time proving anything! And considering that remix is one of my favourite things OF. ALL. TIME. I'm just happy that it exists.

I am really digging this, although it feels like the album doesn't really shift into gear until "Low Times"

(my main complains-v-much-in-character comment is "plz use more syncopation")

xp to Kate yeah, I feel p much the same. Like, it's shamelessly blatant and yet I dont give one single rat's ass--it's just heavenly

Can you pls not use my government name? Thanks.

ack shit sorry, will (not) do

i love that this is a co-release by Vagrant and Ghostly.

its like my teens and my twenties collaborating to make me happy in my thirties

^^^ otm, I had to laugh when I saw both logos on the back

Actually, having compared these two, I think that When You Sing is more like the original than the Weatherall remix, but i love them both.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqFAMyngGlw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LseSx_hPJyQ

Christ that was so amazing live. Especially the bits where Benjamin whipped out the hollowbody bass to play the Peter Hooky bits on the new material. Words cannot... just, wow. They're so HUGE sounding live. I was skeptical about live drums, but it's totally kicked it up another level and somehow made it even more dancey?

Also LOL at the Knife's support set.

incredible show, my ears are still ringing. didn't feel the lack of the third member - certainly didn't stop them sounding even more expansive and BIGGER.

i thought, compared to the last time i saw them, that the guitars were more dominant in the mix to the vocals; but while the voice wasn't as prominent, alejandra's personality was way more in the spotlight. felt a couple of times she was still unsure of what to do as ~the frontwoman~ but it was almost as though, instead of being layers of sound, she was conveying her songs more sharply. this was only a subtle thing i felt, though.

CANNOT WAIT UNTIL SHOW HERE IN APRIL

What he said.

My right ear is chiming like a bell, I blame that last encore of Sempiternal.

They've always had more guitars than vocals! they're a shoegaze band, after all! I think it's just the last venue was so tiny that it couldn't handle the power of Benjamin's pedalboard. It definitely felt *bigger* than many times I've seen them, but that was the live drums, I'm sure.

Extra keyboardist/vocalist did fill up a lot of the space, but I'm still going to do a *sniff* over missing Claudia because she was always so lovely (and she would always say hi to me.)

They are just my favourite fucken band in the world, that are still existent. They just take little bits of EVERYTHING I LIKE and mix it all together in the most WCC-friendly fashion.

Radiowho?

P R E D A T O R

the endings to "white wind" and "low times", so sudden they left me gasping

P! R! E! D! A! T! O! R! That! is! What! You! Are!

Man, I did not want to cross Alley by the end of that song.

Listening to Low Times now, and just remembering how MASSIVE that burbling synth breakdown into the ending sounded. (Also how it sounded like Forest Families by The Knife crossed with New Order.)

Holy shit, they're playing Amsterdam next sunday! Must re-organize my agenda...

Also LOL at the Knife's support set.

(ugh sorry 'bout "their"...)

No, that was a joke. There was no support band, but someone stuck on Silent Shout on random while SVIIB set up their keyboards, so we were joking "oh, hey, it's like a Knife support act but without the masks."

If you can in any way see them, this tour, do so. They are sounding SO HUGE.

Ah, I was a little bit afraid of it being an injoke after I posted my exlamation mark larded post.. :-)

Will definitely try to go!

I've been a bit obsessed with 'When You Sing' for the last couple of days, possibly the best pastiche of that sound I've heard.

Katy Perry twitter promotion

lol:
http://i.imgur.com/a8B38.png

I've been trying to figure out which, exactly, song it is that When You Sing rips off pays homage to. And it's such a weird thing because, although it does manage to sound like it's totally Soon, it's about 3 or 4 different MBV songs all mixed together, with bits and pieces of elements taken from many different songs.

It just does that sound SO WELL. And it manages to capture the bits of that sound that I really really liked, the density, the interlockingness, the dancefloor dynamics of it, rather than just being a copycat of a specific MBV song, it's like they've completely captured the entire aesthetic on a conceptual level. It's not even that magpie thing we were discussing with Radiohead, where they try to do something, do it wrong, and then end up with something brilliant by accident. It's like SVIIB took MBV's entire aesthetic and almost managed to go one level up, and do something even better with it.

I think of Saint Etienne when I hear "When You Sing"

I agree about how well it captures the essence, but takes it up a notch. I think the drums have a much better sense of groove than Shields drum programming ever managed on Loveless. Plus the EQing on the production I'd how I wish those Loveless remasters to sound like if they ever turn up.

To my ears, it's 75% Soon, with a bit of the guitar tone from 'Sometimes' on those exquisite guitar "drops", and some of the circular whammy-bar/sampler pitch bending from tracks like "I Only Said". Plus 5% horns from The Boo Radleys.

Yay! On my way to Amsterdam - any other ILM 'associates' present tonight?

"White Wind" on repeat x 10. This restlessness has always been. Have to love an album where everyone's repping a different favorite track.

Sweet Christ the lyrics are terrible. What happened?

What? I don't think the lyrics are terrible at all. I love the nastiness and edge of bitterness, but then again, I would.

Nasty and bitter is fine, but dull and trite is not. And did they ask Steve Kilbey to title the album? Oh well, initial impressions... I'll give it a week or two. I never like things off the bat.

p - r - e - d - a - t - o - r

(I like Steve Kilbey's bad puns but that's another story)

::hangs head in shame::

Also, yes.

P! R! E! D! A! T! O! R!!!!

that outro just kicks complete ass; this is a really great album

I don't really listen to SO7B for lyrics so the outro to "Low Times" leaping out at me so strongly is a new experience.

i'm definitely noticing lyrics a lot more/sooner/more immediately on this album

my god, "When You Sing" is just fantastic

I love dude's harmony line, it's so simple and yet so effective

Dude? "Dude"?

his name is Benjamin.

It is all about the Benjamin.

This album sounds like that Toni Halliday solo LP from before Curve.

No, not really it doesn't. If you're talking about Scylla, it's much better produced than that.

It does occasionally sound a bit like Curve in places, but jeez, you say that like it's a bad thing. Curve were freaking awesome, at least for the first couple of albums before the breakup and reform.

I'm talking about Hearts and Handshakes, from 1989. And it is a very, very bad thing.

Well, maybe I need to hear this solo album, then, because quite frankly I think this album is amazing and I'd be happy to hear anything remotely like it.

Hearts and Handshakes is really kinda good if you're predisposed to Toni fandom in the first place, but I totally get why it sold bupkus.

I was playing tracks off the first two albums on my ski weekend and people got all antsy and wanted me to turn it off because it was "too aggressive" (!)

They then put on a Pandora station that played as its first track... "Santeria" by Sublime

I don't understand people at all

people are the worst.

Record Store Day 7"
"Kiss Them For Me" & "When She Was Me"

What? As in the Siouxsie cover?

That's my guess as well. Add that one to my need list on RSD.

Oh. My. God.

If that's true... I will just die of happiness. Because that is one of my favourite Siouxsie songs of all time (I think I voted for it on the Singles poll, because Monitor wasn't a single) and it is just *so* perfectly SVIIB in both sound and sensation, like thematically as well as the sampledelic loop thing.

Oh dear, now I have the inescapable desire to hear Monitor.

I should have known, during that moment in their live set that they almost broke into Happy House, that they were massive Siouxsie fans.

OMG, they just told me it is, it is, IT IS a cover of the Siouxsie song.

::dies of utter happiness::

How can this not be the best thing in the ENTIRE world?

I posted their Siouxsie cover upthread a year ago!

http://vimeo.com/16176931

Really happy they went ahead and recorded it.

"Kiss Them For Me" was embarrassing, it sounded like a Paula Abdul single. I hope their cover is better than the original.

The thing to remember is that I have the memory of a guppie!

listening to this album for the first time now. it seems to have a much more direct and charged sound with a lot of the songs striking me as even more focused and anthemic than usual. i'm also hearing much more uniformity from track to track compared to their other albums. it's all pretty joyous. there's a simplicity and pragmatism that really cuts to the chase and plays to the bands strengths.

"reappear" is an early favourite.

"white wind" = very playful and jaunty. definitely the most different sounding thing on here.

yeah, and "when you sing" is totally soon-lite. i don't really get it. while it's an obvious MBV nod on a certain level and invites direct comparisons, it just seems to be cruising along passively on its own momentum, totally lacking the menace and snarl that make "soon" so memorable. you could say it's not looking to channel these same fireworks (and you'd most likely be right), but i just find it strange that they chose to broadcast the MBV influence (right down to chord changes, tribal-esque rhythms, guitar sound) so loudly.

I do not think "menace and snarl" when I hear "Soon"; I think "hazy swirling cotton candy".

(And to be perfectly honest, I'm really struggling to think of a world - except some alternate reality where I'm still 15 and still playing high school tribal warfare with the mean girls - in which Siouxsie covering Paula Abdul is somehow a *bad* thing?)

"he's a COOOOOOOOLD-hearted SSSNAKE!!!! lookintohisEEEEEYYYYYES his EYES his EYES -uh-OH! -uh-OH! Whoaaa! HESBEENTELLINGLIES!!!! LIES! LIES!!!! ah-wwoooaaa-OOOAAAA-oooh"

Come on, that'd be awesome.

which Paula Abdul singles sounded like "Kiss Them For Me"?

Not specific ones, just the general vibe. I could hear Paula sing it, which is fine for her but for Siouxsie... I don't know it seemed pretty thin and fluffy. Not a favorite.

So apparently School of Seven Bells are recording a Radiohead cover?

STOP THAT. STOP THAT RIGHT NOW. MY MUSICAL CRUSHES MUST STAY SEPARATE AND NOT RECOMBINE LIKE THIS.

What song?

They're playing a guessing game. Only hints they've given so far are: it's not Paranoid Android, FPT or Idioteque.

(They said PA was close, though, so probs something off OKC?)

Or it could just be a rumour designed to make me lose my mind.

trying to think of what would appeal to them off that album... Lucky? Climbing Up The Walls? Karma Police? Airbag?

Exit Music (For A Film)? Subterranean Homesick Alien?

Knowing my luck, it'll be Electioneering. Or Climbing Up The Walls.

Or they could actually try to kill me and do something oddball like Amazing Sounds of Orgy. And my head would explode.

I would love for it to be "Let Down".

Actually Let Down would be awesome - wasn't Lex saying that'd be great with female vocals?

I would much rather if they did something like The Gloaming, which would more fit their electro-spooky aesthetic, but I guess what's the point of doing a song that's already quite close to your sound, they'd probably want to do something they could make quite different because otherwise would be the point.

Though Radiohead vs SVIIB is really kinda daddy vs chips for me and I wouldn't ever want to make that choice.

I'd like to hear them do their "Soon"-lite thing to "Just"

If we're going that far back, I'd like to hear them do Black Star in a Drugstore stylee.

(Actually, musically, SVIIB vs Radiohead is not even a competition. SVIIB in a heartbeat. That was surprisingly easy.)

it's actually going to be Meeting in the Aisle.

Then I would *know* they were just fucking with my head.

Subterranean Homesick Alien.... Headed Home For Marfa.

I've just realized that thanks to the Pulp show that same evening I'll need to miss their LA appearance this time around, fiddle. But they always seem to tour a couple of times through each album so I'll wait on the return...

Someone please teach me how to animate photoshop drawings into video, please.

http://genero.tv/schoolofsevenbells/

I'm not sure a month is enough time to hand animate 3 minutes of video, though.

Ah! By complete randomness I have just made contact with another local artist who knows Final Cut Pro. I think we're going to do this.

I am seeing them tonight! so pumped

So jealous, they're sounding so amazing on this tour.

(But if you speak to them, tell them to give me the prize, my video will be awesomes.)

I can't wait to see them again! July needs to hurry up...

They were p good but not amazing. They didn't play "Heart is Strange" or "The Night" (even though the latter was on the setlist taped to the stage) but it was still a blast to hear, like, half of Ghostory and Disconnect from Desire live.

They didn't play The Night?! That's odd. They didn't play Heart is Strange when I saw them in London either. Bye Bye Bye sounded great though.

i know i was rly bummed

Show tonight = righteous!

They need to obey the Foghat Rule and go with fourth album double-live. Their live sound is so unbelievably powerful right now.

Listening to the RSD single now and the Siouxsie cover is fun. Ben gets a convincingly Manzanera sound going out of his guitar.

However, the flip-side to this "When She Was Me" is mind-croggingly beautiful 4am post-party comedown/crash trance-motorik. It makes me think of being somewhere vaguely unfamiliar and you have to take a cab because you're both too drunk and too high and are desperate need of coffee and dessert so the cab driver takes you across the city to a cafe his brother owns instead of the great one down the avenue but it doesn't matter because you get to see the central city look like an electric lost city of cibola

why is this not available in the UK :(

Yes, this is patently unfair. Since they won't let us buy it legally, please to rip it and email it over to us. ;-)

Here's Siouxsie...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAf6akprIBQ

WCC, check your email

Fuck, I have to listen to it again!

Seriously... I want to hear it echoing off of skyscrapers late at night.

awesomes! thanking you!

(Cornish broadband please do not let me down.)

So far Kiss Them For Me is sounding amazing...

I was going to try to walk to Nanjizal Bay before the rain hits, but I need to put on a kettle of tea and listen to these, first few seconds sound SO AMAZING. Just completely the right aesthetic for them.

WCC can you fwd this to me please!

I'm *trying* but Cornish broadband can only seem to do one thing at a time...

"Kiss Them For Me" is like whirling shoegaze Blondie. I love it!

got it WCC, thanks!

They really are determined to turn into the 00s Cocteau Twins, but without any of the bad yuppie coffee bar bits. This is just utterly blissful.

It is just the guitars and vocals from Cocteau Twins rolled over the top of Ibiza era New Order. Which has my teenage self just completely weeping with happiness.

I'm gonna put this on my headphones and go up Pedn-Men-Du and watch the storms roll in.

Argh you guys, I want to listen to this too!