Mid-Air Thief - Crumbling (Korean prog/psych-folk)

https://midairthief.bandcamp.com

so i don't know a lot about this album but it's one of my favourite things i've heard this year. all gorgeous folk songs with very dreamy harmonies that will suddenly (but smoothly) morph into psychedelic synths. it's reminiscent of 00s indie psych folk like Grizzly Bear, but much prettier, and much much better imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JQIUWdypG8
"Ahhhh, These Chains!" i think best summarises the general approach here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8xJWnKZXaU
"Gameun Deut" is probably the most straightforward track on the album

i came across this via the rym charts of all places, where it's somehow (though deservingly) gotten a following

to repeat my own sentiments as a result of the RYM hype: it's really good and nearly amazing, although I never quite had my mind blown. really worth a listen though, there are some really lovely moments

(really!)

this kind of stuff always reminds me of High Llamas. what is wrong w/ me?

Oh, I like this record.

yeah this shit been tearing up the charts on rym, and for good reason imo

i don't think high llamas is that off-base, there's a somewhat similar vibe with the vocal harmonies etc?

it does really remind me of jim O'Rourke's song based albums

a cute lil gem of an album, very nice to accompany my walk last night by the canal as the sun set

will explore it a bit further today

this is good and no one else is really doing this sound anymore that i'm aware of so that gives it extra points

been listening to this a lot lately it's v good

https://daily.bandcamp.com/2019/01/15/midair-thief-crumbling-review/

this is a great review

still loving this

good writing indeed. i have a hard time understanding mid-air thief as a "cult band" though. maybe there really is a "mainstream" and i'm so totally disconnected and alienated from it i don't even know it exists; to me whenever i find a record with more than 100 ratings on rym i feel like i'm late to the party, like "damn, everybody knows about suss already, i feel pretty clueless for missing out"

lol they're turning this into the new Fishmans

not sure how this didn't get on my radar but I'm 2 tracks in and damn its good

xp you are definitely not "behind" on this band. they still qualify as unknown, even among music nerds. no doubt.

In this case, 'cult' works better as an indicator of its relative popularity rather than it's relative obscurity imo

there does exist a cross section of bands that just suddenly get really popular on RYM even though they're barely discussed anywhere else. I think if something gets like 100 ratings and winds up above a 3.8 or whatever suddenly a ton of people start checking it out, and if the rating doesn't tank immediately then it becomes one of those things

i'm kind of surprised at how much of a new album's rating on rym can be expressed as the proportion of 3.5 ratings to 4.0 ratings

i deeply enjoy this, think i put it at the top of my eoy ballot

their first album is pretty good too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R19Tfa8FOYA

two new songs, under a different moniker. he's used it in the past for an EP but i haven't seen anyone explain what the distinction between them is

what are they doing now I wonder. their two albums still sound like nothing else on the planet

https://midairthief.bandcamp.com/album/flood-format

he put out this album last year under a different name

oooh I like that, sounds goofy as hell in spots but overall very fun. I did not realize this was just one guy!

listening to crumbling - this is really interesting!

this stuff really effectively channeled the olivia tremor control etc world in a way that I don't think anyone has been doing, although I happened to catch black country new road a while back and it was a rapt audience of mostly young people. The show sounded like a decemberists arcade fire thing, not my thing at all but was undeniably well done

my point being that the time period of music that this channels is surprisingly (to me) alive and well

the more I replay Crumbling the more I realize it's a miracle, just the feat of creating music that sounds so outwardly pleasant while also being deeply strange whenever you really focus on it is really something. almost like Loveless in that it's just created its own musical language that doesn't sound like anything else. you really focus on basically any section you get that Autechre-like feeling of "whoa what is going on here". feel like it's gonna be timeless

Wao. This album is absolutely beautiful.
Thanks ufo.