Electrelane

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

I went to see Too Pure act Electelane last night at Spitz in London. Really very very good. The album doesnt do them justice. Sort of Stereolab-ish (lazy comparison) but more punky. They were great.

― garret (garret), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 15:38 (twenty-two years ago)

I rather liked the first album, though it was a little annoying how it was 74 minutes long and Spartakiade managed to sum it all up in about one and a half minutes. Is the second album out then?

― William Bloody Swygart (mrswygart), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 15:43 (twenty-two years ago)

The new album is The Power Out. Release date is 2/2/04. I got an early copy - very good indeed. I also got The Exorcist by Ill Ease on the same label. not so sure about that one - yet!

― garret (garret), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 15:54 (twenty-two years ago)

the new album has a lot more vocals and is much more varied than the first one. less soundtrack-y/more song oriented than "rock it to the moon"... albini produced i think?

― cutty (mcutt), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 15:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Oooh, i'd forgotten the first album was called "rock it to the moon" God, that's a really bad album title...

― Kate Jane Connolly (fixitgirl), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 15:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Better yet, it was on Let's Rock! Records...

― William Bloody Swygart (mrswygart), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 16:05 (twenty-two years ago)

hah, no. it was on mr. lady. don't be silly.

― cutty (mcutt), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 16:08 (twenty-two years ago)

oops. let's rock too. i submit.

― cutty (mcutt), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 16:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Hurrah for the new album! I am very much looking forward to it.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 16:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh, so they've improved live then? Saw them about 18 months ago and they were the dullest live band I think I've ever seen.

― Ricardo (RickyT), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 16:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes, new album is pretty good, but I admit nothing is really sticking. Saw them live at the Barfly a few months back (can't recall who they were playing with), but left early. They didn't suck THAT badly - I was pretty tired at the time...

― Rob Bolton (Rob Bolton), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 17:21 (twenty-two years ago)

i'm glad to read they went away from the soundtrack-y style, i always try to like them and end up bored and not noticing when the record's finished. i need actual songs!

― joan vich (joan vich), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 17:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Jagz Kooner's remix of "Blue Straggler" is in my top ten remixes of anyone ever. I'm looking forward to hearing the new material.

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 17:31 (twenty-two years ago)

CharlieNo4 completely OTM.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 19:50 (twenty-two years ago)

They're on of those bands that I always desperately *wanted* to like. But they never really clicked with me. I'd be interested to hear the new album, all the same.

― The River Kate (kate), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:57 (twenty-two years ago)

two months pass...

New album is freaking great. One of my favorite this year. Albini's hand seems less heavy than on most of his recordings.

― scott m (mcd), Friday, 2 April 2004 19:47 (twenty-two years ago)

New album rules! So much going on on it (the Stereolab comparison only applies to two or three songs, if I remember correctly). Great production. I say: Best all female post-punk type group since...Ut?

― Tim Ellison, Friday, 2 April 2004 20:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Ooooh I like the Ut mention, very fitting.

― scott m (mcd), Friday, 2 April 2004 21:07 (twenty-two years ago)

they're playing tomorrow night at boogaloo in williamsburg, but i haven't had much luck with seeing/hearing anything when i've been there.

― lauren (laurenp), Friday, 2 April 2004 21:15 (twenty-two years ago)

five months pass...

this record is soooo good. i caught them in philly about a month back and they were amazing. possibly one of the best shows ive seen all year.

― maria tessa sciarrino (theoreticalgirl), Thursday, 23 September 2004 16:32 (twenty-one years ago)

I agree. Unfortunately, the album seemed to kind of got lost in the shuffle (at least here in the U.S.).

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 23 September 2004 16:45 (twenty-one years ago)

"get"

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 23 September 2004 16:46 (twenty-one years ago)

what's the barometer of being lost in the shuffle or not? they got a great pitchfork review and their shows seems to fill rooms...

― cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 23 September 2004 16:47 (twenty-one years ago)

i loved the record, but live, they were one of the worst bands i've EVER seen. it's totally made me like the record less.

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Thursday, 23 September 2004 17:03 (twenty-one years ago)

yancey, what did you not like about their performance?

― maria tessa sciarrino (theoreticalgirl), Thursday, 23 September 2004 17:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Dude, pitchfork reviews four or five albums every day. Are they filling rooms as headliners?

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 23 September 2004 17:06 (twenty-one years ago)

i have been listening to this a lot lately.

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 23 September 2004 17:08 (twenty-one years ago)

their cover of "i'm on fire" = classic.

same goes for ted leo's "dancing in the dark."

apparently the sincere boss cover is the new cool thing.

― asl, Thursday, 23 September 2004 17:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Really must get this album, though I fear this Bruce talk. (Then again the sincere Boss covers by Badly Drawn Boy were the new UNcool thing so I suppose there has to be cosmic balance.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 23 September 2004 17:14 (twenty-one years ago)

hey, i dont like the boss* but im down with their cover of "im on fire."

* being an NJ resident, that might be worthy of having my license revoked or something.

― maria tessa sciarrino (theoreticalgirl), Thursday, 23 September 2004 17:17 (twenty-one years ago)

the two BOSS covers on the most recent portastatic EPs are good (esp. "growin' up").

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 23 September 2004 17:22 (twenty-one years ago)

basically the only person worth a hoot in the band is the woman who plays keys and guitar, and sings. the bassist had no idea what the fuck she was doing. ALWAYS off-tempo. same with the drummer: played every song too fast. the guitar player struck these barbie doll ax-shredder poses, but played single-string guitar solos that SUCKED, and when she tried to play more than that, she was terrible.

but of course virtuosity don't matter much at all, so it wasn't just that: the setlist was awful. they would play one song with vocals, and then one long, instrumental jammy monstrosity, and then another vocal song. it gave the set NO momentum (NOmemtum), even though the audience ate up the jammy shit, even though they were only playing two motherfucking chords (i think the nearly all-female audience gave them the benefit of the doubt just cuz they were women; no way would a male band jerking off on stage like that have gotten any love, and rightfully so).

basically the impression i got was that the lead singer has been in many bands before, but all of them primarily men, where her talents were underutilized and she was, most likely, seen as Just The Girl. so now she has her own band with other women and she's trying hard but she's just way above their level. it was like seeing a high school band where you can tell one of them is gonna devote his/her life to music even if it means working in guitar center while the rest will move on to office jobs, cheap sex or drugs once the whole thing falls apart.

there wasn't any grace to their performance. the album works cuz it's understated and easy and mellow and stoned and all of those qualities. but live, they wanted to be THE ROCK BAND and holy fuck did they whiff at it. the two people i attended the show with (both women, btw) hated it. but we honestly seemed to be the only ones.

(the show was at the knitting factory in nyc two weeks ago, fyi)

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Thursday, 23 September 2004 17:22 (twenty-one years ago)

electrelane's 'I'm on fire' is not as good as TJO's but I'm sick of singing tht song's praises.

anyway, I think I'd like electrelane's new album if I cd bring myself round to buying it but that album cover is awful. I saw them live, playing the new material, and they were v. v. good. wht songs shd I download maria, as a taster of the best of the album?

― cºzen (Cozen), Thursday, 23 September 2004 17:22 (twenty-one years ago)

those were recorded at my radio station!!!

― maria tessa sciarrino (theoreticalgirl), Thursday, 23 September 2004 17:23 (twenty-one years ago)

the guitarist is the one & only mia clarke of the wire, I think

― cºzen (Cozen), Thursday, 23 September 2004 17:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Albini's production on that album is excellent.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 23 September 2004 17:24 (twenty-one years ago)

when I saw them the set was driven, I thought all the talk of 'kinesis' and 'motorik' maybe a touch played and journalistic but ws actually quite on-center and accurate.

― cºzen (Cozen), Thursday, 23 September 2004 17:25 (twenty-one years ago)

last time the played the knit, (not the show a couple of weeks ago), they were amazing.

and yes, the frontwoman is the talent in the band obviously. when she just grabbed the sax and started blowing, i was wowed.

― cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 23 September 2004 17:36 (twenty-one years ago)

and yes, tim, they were the headliners. the room was full, sold out even?

― cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 23 September 2004 17:37 (twenty-one years ago)

That's cool.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 23 September 2004 17:38 (twenty-one years ago)

when she grabbed the sax and started blowing i immediately pictured her in band class playing the clarinet, but then again i think i'm just a h8r.

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Thursday, 23 September 2004 17:43 (twenty-one years ago)

It's a shame that the best song on The Power Out is the rather unexemplary "The Valleys", which is nothing like the rest of the album but is one of my fave tracks of the year.

― dog latin (dog latin), Thursday, 23 September 2004 17:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, The Valleys is god.

― Melissa W (Melissa W), Friday, 24 September 2004 04:17 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm kinda over postrock really

― Andrew Blood Thames (Andrew Thames), Friday, 24 September 2004 05:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Yanc3y hits the bullsey back there. I've seen them on four or five occassions, and they've been terminally ungreat each and every time.

― NickB (NickB), Friday, 24 September 2004 07:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Oops, bullseye. Aye, aye.

― NickB (NickB), Friday, 24 September 2004 07:40 (twenty-one years ago)

I'd go for 'Only One Thing Is Needed' as the track to download: it's the best one to dance to, and the moment when the sax comes in is pretty awesome.

― Flyboy (Flyboy), Friday, 24 September 2004 08:16 (twenty-one years ago)

"The Valleys" is the best song of the year so far. :) And yeah, I hate the drummer, too.

― Salvador Saca (Mr. Xolotl), Friday, 24 September 2004 18:46 (twenty-one years ago)

So the L.A. Weekly has a review of their recent show at Spaceland with the Ex and The Mae Shi, and it says that the bassist of Electralene "collapsed" onstage, cutting their set short at 4 or 5 songs. The writer doesn't really elaborate, except to guess that it was some kind of exhaustion. Does anyone know anything else?!

― Taxi Dancing in the Soft Prison (Ben Boyer), Friday, 24 September 2004 19:05 (twenty-one years ago)

And, on a separate, more selfish note - does anyone have an MP3 of Ted Leo doing "Dancing in the Dark" referenced above? I saw it live and was floored. I was praying it would be on that Balgeary stopgap E.P., but he put on the Jam cover instead...

― Taxi Dancing in the Soft Prison (Ben Boyer), Friday, 24 September 2004 19:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Skipping 139 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

great covers live as well...Smalltown Boy, I'm On Fire, The Partisan.

― dan selzer, Sunday, 19 April 2020 23:41 (six years ago)

Had this amazing long cross country run streaming The Power Out, and only at the end did I realize it was being shuffled. I wish I could get that sequencing back. Still, it made it my fav.

― Julius Caesar Memento Hoodie (bendy), Monday, 20 April 2020 00:53 (six years ago)

I only discovered them recently when someone put No Shouts No Calls as their favorite of the 2000s in the ILM decade poll.

― o. nate, Monday, 20 April 2020 01:25 (six years ago)

that such a given? I think I like the last one the most.

― dan selzer

Yeah, that's my favourite too followed by The Power Out.

― kitchen person, Monday, 20 April 2020 01:42 (six years ago)

when I found this...I couldn't believe it existed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtbjvQbLd6s

― dan selzer, Monday, 20 April 2020 02:39 (six years ago)

an amazing song that brings me to tears every time

― Nudeln und Klopapier Gore (Sufjan Grafton), Monday, 20 April 2020 03:15 (six years ago)

'No Shouts, No Calls' is also my fave. Thanks for the reminder!

― cooldix, Monday, 20 April 2020 04:55 (six years ago)

great news!!

― let me be your friend on the other end! (Karl Malone), Monday, 20 April 2020 05:03 (six years ago)

q+a is here: https://www.facebook.com/electrelane/videos/2919873061382225/

― devvvine, Monday, 20 April 2020 07:56 (six years ago)

Just put on "The Greater Times"

Just wow

― kraudive, Monday, 20 April 2020 08:44 (six years ago)

one year passes...

https://www.instagram.com/p/CWOJHHyMWa_/?utm_medium=copy_link
!!

― willem, Saturday, 13 November 2021 22:53 (four years ago)

oh wow

― bovarism, Saturday, 13 November 2021 22:56 (four years ago)

\m/

― mookieproof, Saturday, 13 November 2021 22:57 (four years ago)

They’ve been hinting at this for a while now but really cool to see how many people are excited on the socials.

― dan selzer, Saturday, 13 November 2021 23:17 (four years ago)

hell yeah

― JoeStork, Sunday, 14 November 2021 00:04 (four years ago)

Yes!

― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Sunday, 14 November 2021 01:44 (four years ago)

― plax (ico), Sunday, 14 November 2021 17:26 (four years ago)

nine months pass...

I only just saw that they're getting back together (after they popped up in my Pandora), and they're a band that I am willing to get COVID for (if they're even considering a tour).

― we talkin bout praxis (Leee), Monday, 22 August 2022 21:39 (three years ago)

I’d love to see them live!

― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Monday, 22 August 2022 22:11 (three years ago)

seven months pass...

yo, i just discovered this band! they are so great!

― budo jeru, Sunday, 9 April 2023 03:13 (three years ago)

otm

― mookieproof, Sunday, 9 April 2023 03:30 (three years ago)

Power Out and No Calls have aged very well. They seem more distinctive, even more in their own little sound world, than in the 00s

― Terrycoth Baphomet (bendy), Sunday, 9 April 2023 03:51 (three years ago)

Axes as well!

― underwater as a compliment (Eazy), Sunday, 9 April 2023 03:56 (three years ago)

this show is so great...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR63neoReGQ

― Elvis Telecom, Sunday, 9 April 2023 09:11 (three years ago)

Haven’t seen anything more about the reunion but Verity Susman has a new band Memorials that’s releasing a double album and touring the UK this spring.

― JoeStork, Sunday, 9 April 2023 14:27 (three years ago)

With Matt from Wire.

― dan selzer, Sunday, 9 April 2023 16:02 (three years ago)

lol that Susman's website link to her band actually leads to memorials (dot) com, to buy funeral related items.

― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 11 April 2023 19:12 (three years ago)

one month passes...

Pretty into the Memorials albums on first listen!

― JoeStork, Monday, 22 May 2023 16:12 (two years ago)

eight months pass...

happy 20th to the power out

― mookieproof, Friday, 26 January 2024 23:19 (two years ago)

Still love it and listen to it regularly.

― fajita seas, Saturday, 27 January 2024 01:32 (two years ago)

two months pass...

New EP from Verity’s new band, Memorials

https://memorialsmusic.bandcamp.com/album/centre-pompidou-ep

It’s lovely!!

― Premises, Premises (flamboyant goon tie included), Sunday, 7 April 2024 19:19 (two years ago)

I saw them supporting Stereolab last year. tbf I didn't enjoy it that much but I had dragged a friend along who hadn't even heard Stereolab before so I was probably too focused on trying to make sure my friend was having a good time than enjoying the gig (he did in fact love Stereolab esp the last half of the set when they played the longer songs, so I probably shouldn't've worried)

― Colonel Poo, Sunday, 7 April 2024 23:08 (two years ago)

five months pass...

Memorials’ first album proper is out, 24 hours in and it’s my favorite Electrelane record ever:

Memorial Waterslides https://memorialsmusic.bandcamp.com/album/memorial-waterslides

― Xgau Murder Spa (nikola), Friday, 4 October 2024 13:23 (one year ago)

I wouldn't go that far but I love love love it, yes

― I for one care less for them (flamboyant goon tie included), Friday, 4 October 2024 17:14 (one year ago)

<3 lamplighter

― nxd, Friday, 4 October 2024 19:42 (one year ago)

Oh this is extremely exciting.

― Benson and the Jets (ENBB), Monday, 7 October 2024 11:07 (one year ago)

Yeah, this is fantastic! If we really aren't ever getting more Electrelane, this is a very nice consolation prize!

― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 8 October 2024 20:39 (one year ago)

wow, this is great!

― Elvis Telecom, Friday, 11 October 2024 22:24 (one year ago)

This is stunning. I love it very much.

― kraudive, Saturday, 19 October 2024 17:04 (one year ago)

Great album

― Hmmmmm (jamiesummerz), Saturday, 19 October 2024 20:12 (one year ago)

five months pass...

This record is really sticking with me. Gradually it dawned on me that "I Have Been Alive" reminds me of Catherine Ribeiro + Alps' "Paix",

― Theracane Gratifaction (bendy), Friday, 18 April 2025 17:39 (one year ago)

Very enjoyable live too.

― lilcraigyboi (Craigo Boingo), Sunday, 20 April 2025 00:38 (one year ago)

eleven months pass...

New Memorials album out now! Planning to see them in Seattle in May.

― JoeStork, Friday, 27 March 2026 18:26 (one month ago)

Not sure I've heard Verity go the spooky-folk mode of the last third of "In The Weeds" before.

― etc, Saturday, 28 March 2026 19:41 (one month ago)

New album is fantastic. I'll need to listen more but it might be the best record she's ever made.

― kraudive, Thursday, 9 April 2026 19:53 (three weeks ago)

!!!! that's bold words!

excited to hear this, loved the last one.

― better than ezra collective soul asylum (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, 9 April 2026 19:57 (three weeks ago)

Aceness of the new album is seconded, a real all-bases-covered banquet for total listener immersion, with a gorgeous sleeve

― technopolis, Friday, 10 April 2026 04:54 (two weeks ago)

I'm very happy with what I've heard so far of the new album. It seems to expand on what they've done before, while being more accessible and enjoyable.

― giraffe, Tuesday, 14 April 2026 08:13 (two weeks ago)

words from Mia

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/apr/08/the-sweaty-singular-indie-music-scene-of-early-00s-brighton

― Andy the Grasshopper, Tuesday, 14 April 2026 18:05 (two weeks ago)

FINALLY listening to the new Memorials. Jesus christ is it good.

― dan selzer, Tuesday, 14 April 2026 18:08 (two weeks ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.