God POLL The Clientele: The Clientele Album Poll

I guess SL is the hip answer but I had to go for SG.

Probably my favorite band, and I'll relisten to all the albums before voting.

I've always found their music and Alasdair's singing extremely comforting. Like a voice from above saying: don't worry, it's OK.

Great songs on SL well served by the ethereal production, but I think I prefer the lush production of the latter records.

SL perhaps sounds a bit like a compilation, whereas SG hangs perfectly together as an album, this wonderful journey you can go on whenever you put on the album. Strong songs, perfect production, I think it's their masterpiece. Guess I tend to think of their albums, in terms of overall style, on a scale from SL to GStC with SG the perfect balance.

GStC was my favorite for years but these days I think of it as a bit too poppy to be the perfect Clientele album.

Bonfires on the Heath is the one I've listened to the most for the past years, maybe because I had overlooked it a bit and so it sounded very fresh, maybe because it is in fact their best record... Very warm, perfectly conjures summer evenings for me.

I can't yet place the new one, but I love it.

Bonfires is the one I come back to most often, title track especially.

The Violet Hour, Strange Geometry and Music for the Age of Miracles are all pretty equal for me right now. Really tough to choose between them.

i'm glad this band is still around. I feel like they announced their retirement ages ago yet the records keep coming? seeing them next month.

seeing them on Halloween night, gonna be haunted...by wistful memories of falls past

I'll always be thankful to ILM for introducing me the Clientele some years back. Not even sure how I stumbled into the recommendation, might have been on a Low thread. I sampled A Fading Summer and was instantly hooked. It's like a trick how they make what could be pretty mundane in terms of instruments and influences sound so miraculously addictive. So Suburban Light is the sentimental fave for me with The Violet Hour and Bonfires in the mix.

love the new one but the i think the violet hour has the highest concentration of the qualities that make them unique... never fails to transport me

Violet Hour

sg>sl>both>tvh>gstc. Not quite sure where the new one will fall yet. Though it's great, of course.

sg>sl>tvh>gstc>both>mftaom

violet tour. "missing" is classic

*hour

I seemed to stop listening properly after Strange Geometry, fairly or not. Suburban Light for me, though its lead over TVH and SG seems to have shrunk considerably over time.

I'd rank them TVH >>> SG/MftAoM > SL > GStC/BotH > Minotaur

sorry Minotaur I still love you

And you forgot to include It's Art Dad

It's Art Dad is actually way up there for me. I end up putting it on more often than the proper albums.

Yes, it's got plenty of songs as good as anything from Suburban Light (Untitled No. 2, Elm Grove Window, The Night that Changed Our Minds) and the whole thing hangs together really sweetly... I'd rank it next to SL on my little tree.

I love Strange Geometry an awful lot

I don't know what to make of the new one, I think it's so corny that they have another spoken word song that's all "dreamy" imagery, though I reckon I'm on my own there.

The spoken word song on the new album kills the vibe for me. I actually forgot about it because I delete it from the running order when I listen to it.

Corny that they did a second one? Or corny that they've done spoken word tracks at all? I love Losing Haringey a lot.

Corny that they did a second one. The first one is good, but to try the same thing again, with a pretty similar narrative framing, ugh.

Sorry I didn't include It's Art Dad ... wasn't sure if it was a real thing based on Discogs. My bad.

xpost about the spoken word track on the new one - OTM. Skip it every time.

Does anyone else think Alasdair's voice doesn't sound that great on the new one? I think it's how they recorded it. It sounds a bit dull.

Maybe the new spoken word song doesn't land, but the album would be worse without it. Even if you skip it.

everyone vote please. doesn't look like there is much consensus so far.

suburban light is a compilation

it's also amazing

not really jazzed about any others

It's Art Dad is actually way up there for me. I end up putting it on more often than the proper albums.

― Evan, Saturday, October 21, 2017 11:11 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah this is great too!

assumed it will be a pretty even split between suburban light, violet hour, and strange geometry. surprised by the bonfires on the heath contingent honestly (although I like the album)

Love em all. The Suburban Light-era singles were all gorgeous, The Violet Hour was and is underrated ("Policeman Getting Lost" is a favorite) and Strange Geometry has a few of their best songs. Great stuff on God Save and I'm enjoying the new one so far. But I think I'll vote for Bonfires..., for me their closest to perfection overall.

I think his vocals are fine on the new record, but it is a little bass-heavy.

GStC for me. Not even close. I love many songs on every one of their records, but that's the only one which I enjoy from start to finish without reservation.

Only heard the first two so I won't vote, but damn I thought Suburban Light would be crushing this. Imo it's a perfect album/compilation/whatever - thirteen beautiful songs that create such a lovely, introverted world.

won't somebody please think of the Minotaur

suburban light is a compilation

Even before it came out the band would talk about the SL songs as an album which happened to come out bit-by-bit as a result of them not having the resources to record it or release it all at once.

So it's both, I think.

really beautiful piece on the new record:

https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2017/october/1506780000/anwen-crawford/another-summer-s-night

I hope someone votes for it.

That said i voted for violet hour, though it could have been suburban light or god save on another day, just a whisker ahead of strange geometry.

SGw

SG that is

As a wrinkle in this, please remember that the US original pressing of SL did not include "Saturday".

(And I can't find my copy of It's Art Dad anywhere :()

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Hope we get lots of votes. The band has earned it with multiple albums vying for top spot.

xp that piece was indeed v good, choice quote:

Tiredness is an ideal state in which to approach The Clientele

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

9 votes for the new album? damn

Wonder how people will feel when the excitement wears off

Almost 50 votes, that shows some love. Wouldn't have predicted the new one would be near the top of the table. The Violet Hour got a number of mentions in the thread but not too much discussion. Glad to see it do so well.

The top 3 I love equally.

I think about 15% of my total ILX posts are about how much I love the Violet Hour, so I didn't say much in this thread

That's great to see so many people voted. I went for the new one. It's perfect. I'm a little sad to see God Save The Clientele so low down. I much prefer it to Bonfires On The Heath.

apart from Minotaur (which is also only an EP) you could make the case for any of these

GStC got robbed, but so it goes - we can always poll the individual tracks from that album to show love

but now let's poll Alone and Unreal, shall we? :D

Y'all motherfuckers is crazy. lol

I saw them last night for the first time - solid gig, and I picked up LPs of SL and SG. There was very little banter, beyond Alasdair introducing "The Museum of Fog" with "I think this is the one Pitchfork likes." It made me wonder how much of a sales hit a critical-darling band like them takes when they get a middling review. (I think something similar may have happened to Algiers.)

they're a critical-darling band?

Besides the P4k BNM usually resulting in an initial sales spike, I'm unsure whether lukewarm reviews overall affect anything else (unless it gets really terrible scores).

they are absolutely 100% a critics'/writers' band, always have been!

that term doesn't mean anything

"critically adored but commercially ignored." is that better?

but I'm not a critic, and I love them!

i don't understand their affection for the spoken word bits, do they feel stuart david was a bit overlooked? i voted for the new one because i think it has some of the loveliest moments of their career and its shiny. maybe i am just easily manipulated by the soppy strings. i think i go back to suburban light the least although i will admit that whenever 'saturday' comes on I have to stop everything i am doing.

keyth! where you been?

So I went to California over the weekend to see their SF and LA shows, since they didn't come to Texas. They have obviously been following this poll closely since they didn't play anything from God Save the Clientele or Bonfires on the Heath (or Minotaur).

i don't understand their affection for the spoken word bits,

man, i love the spoken word bits

I wonder whether it would have been better received here if they simply titled it "Losing Haringey Part 2" or something.

That being said I am personally a MUCH bigger fan of the bonus track song version of that same tune called All Alone.

So I went to California over the weekend to see their SF and LA shows, since they didn't come to Texas. They have obviously been following this poll closely since they didn't play anything from God Save the Clientele or Bonfires on the Heath (or Minotaur).

― erry red flag (f. hazel), Thursday, November 16, 2017 12:44 PM (twenty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah it seems they're establishing their earlier material as the ideal Clientele sound.

Well, that or without Mel Draisey to play violin and keyboard a lot of those songs can't be done live. The only songs I'd really have liked to have heard were Impossible and Falling Asleep, the latter of which I'm surprised they didn't play... they've definitely performed it live before.

Was very cool to hear them play Missing, Porcelain, and I Had to Say This though!

I thought the new songs sounded so much better with the classic Clientele instrumentation and without all the needless bloat in the studio versions. For instance I like The Neighbor but often I don't have the patience for all of the excessive parts they shoehorned into the mix. Really overdid it, which highly contrasts their original compositional mission statement imo. Hearing it live with the reverb guitar and minimal instrumentation was really refreshing!

I want them to release Music for the Age of Miracles... Naked really bad.

I can't think of a comparison any more apt than that.

Email them and beg them to release the demos as a digital-only release? Would be fun to hear.

Gee do you think they actually would? Not sure how I would frame that inquiry.

Well, they released It's Art Dad, and have included digital-only bonus tracks on a couple of releases... don't see why they wouldn't. Alternately, buy a radio station and create a critically-acclaimed acoustic radio hour program on it, then invite them to be on the show and perform the album in its entirety.

Or tell them you have in your possession the location of a nuclear device that is set to detonate in London at an unspecified time in the future unless they accede to your demands.

Music for the Age of Ultimatums

hey when are we polling Alone & Unreal? :D

hey f hazel I was at the SF show as well. So good! I don't really care what they play TBH. I'm amazed at how lush they sound with just drums, bass, and guitar.

I went to the SF show as well. Great show. Only disappointment was that they didn't play a bit longer.

It was a great show! LA show was lovely as well. I've seen them a bunch of times so it's always nice to hear them play something I haven't seen them do live before, or a favorite song like Impossible. No complaints, really.

The Violet Hour killing me recently. Today it was Missing that got me.

The Song "The Age of Miracles" hit me like a ton of bricks this morning, having my morning coffee and feeling sort of pathetically mortal yet happy to be not dead after a rough bout of the flu. Spent some time looking into the origins of "nataraja/nataraja/ananda tandavum/I am born"

Whensoever there is the fading of the Dharma and the uprising of unrighteousness, then I loose myself forth into birth.
For the deliverance of the good, for the destruction of the evil-doers, for the enthroning of the Just, I am born from age to age.
-Krishna; Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 4 verses 7–8

Surprised there was only one track from the album nominated. Was going to vote for Lunar Days but it wasn't there.

which was nominated? hard to pick a standout, it's kinda album oriented psych imo...

which reminds me - we should poll the Alone and Unreal comp!

Everyone You Meet

cool, that would be my choice too

Lunar Days for me.

Re: polling Alone & Unreal. I'll put a poll up next week. I'm getting palpitations just thinking about having to pick one track.

it's such a terrible greatest hits though

I listen to a lot - what's wrong with it?

I like the compilation, it just needs a few more songs. Having just one song from The Violet Hour is crazy.

well unless we do a full artist poll with everyone submitting their top 20, the comp is the next best thing. Any takers to run a full poll?

Well, no takers so I've put up a poll for Alone and Unreal.

great!