The Moles - Untune the sky - an obscure masterpiece?!

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If they would cut some songs out, it would be a masterpiece.
how come this record didnt become a cult-legend?
maybe it will,someday...
anyway, in 1991(!!), quite ahead of the Elephant six time, this record came out, putting together a record that sounds as if Brian Eno and the Velvet underground are doing a pre-elephant six record together.
ok, so there were Tall dwarvs and The chills, but this record is better than those two - its not lo-fi at most parts, it is much more creative, (though sometimes carrying too much into experimental), sometimes borrowing ideas from new wave and prog, and almost always melodic, its a little "Wow" record, that wont appear at almost anyone list of favourite records,but it should.

― emekars (emekars), Tuesday, 30 May 2006 10:20 (nineteen years ago)

..oh, and may i add Galaxie 500 and shoegaze as a big influence as well.now you get the picture..

― emekars (emekars), Tuesday, 30 May 2006 11:11 (nineteen years ago)

i think it *is* a bit of a cult legend. a great record, highly in debt to flying nun bands, but also pretty ahead of its time.

― electric sound of jim (and why not) (electricsound), Tuesday, 30 May 2006 11:27 (nineteen years ago)

agreed w/ all of the above, but for me, the true "obscure masterpiece" is the Instinct lp. you may not like it as it pretty much abandons the Chills-ish pop thing. basically a Richard Davies solo lp (with Hamish Kilgour guesting!) much more experimental, looser approach. one of the oddest records ever. haunting.

― nerve pylon (flat_of_angles), Tuesday, 30 May 2006 13:05 (nineteen years ago)

i prob. turn up on all moles threads but am pleased to finally find i am not the only person who thinks 'instinct' is the true masterpiece in davies' canon. 'untune the sky' is amazing too, though.

― jon dale, Tuesday, 30 May 2006 14:23 (nineteen years ago)

Agreed that it's classic. Had the vinyl when it first came out, somehow lost it, then bought the cd when it was (finally) issued. But...it seems to me that this cd contains different versions of a few of the songs. (not as bonus tracks either but rather...proper tracks) Anyone else notice this?

― kwhitehead (stephen schmidt), Tuesday, 30 May 2006 23:28 (nineteen years ago)

i also had the vinyl for a long time and was unaware that other versions of the record had more tracks but then i picked up the flydaddy reissue and realized all of the good songs were on the vinyl. the great thing about 'untune the sky' is that it sounds like a lot of my favorite flying nun bands all at once. there is some bats, snapper, chills, clean, etc...
i also love instinct, i sometimes think his stretch from untune the sky up through there's never been a crowd is pretty untouchable. of course he's completely lost it now.

― keyth (keyth), Tuesday, 30 May 2006 23:55 (nineteen years ago)

i don't know if davies has completely lost it, but the last record wasn't so amazing. some nice songs on it, still. (i remember loving "palo alto".)

i'm at work & therefore can't ref back to the records re: the diff. versions, but i seem to recall 'europe by car' and 'bury me happy' on the lp are diff. to the cd and all subsequent reissues. i think it's the same with 'rich man' and 'curdle'.

does anyone know which moles tracks are on the 'blunt' compilation cassette? and did anyone else pick up the 'on the street/rare and weird' double cd set?

― jon dale, Wednesday, 31 May 2006 06:46 (nineteen years ago)

I got it. Have mixed feelings: regarding the 1st CD, it doesn't include nearly as many songs as the Flydaddy one, and some of the tracks were remixed (by RD, or so I was told). Not in a heavy-handed way, but it means still more versions of these tracks floating around...you can hear the difference on a few of them. Re: CD2, the rarities were interesting, but I don't think any of them were absolutely essential, and again it wasn't all inclusive.

I'd probably get a used copy of the Flydaddy "Untune" 1st if I were setting out to buy my first Moles album.

― dlp9001 (dlp9001), Wednesday, 31 May 2006 08:31 (nineteen years ago)

otm dlp9001. i like the Flydaddy mixes better than any of the On the Street mixes; that cd is a letdown.

re: RDavies--i wouldn't write him off yet--i saw him live a few years ago (opening for Tobin Sprout)--he was solo, just him and his acoustic guitar. he did stripped down versions of some of the Barbarians tracks that were fantastic. i read he was touring w/ Robt. Pollard recently so maybe there's something new in the works.

― nerve pylon (flat_of_angles), Wednesday, 31 May 2006 13:07 (nineteen years ago)

I'd just like to thank emekars for posting this. I had never heard of this album before, but now I've listened to it three times and I love it. So thanks for bringing it to my attention.

― smartypants (smartypants), Friday, 2 June 2006 01:24 (nineteen years ago)

he just seemed to change his focus. he was very much in the tradition of classic pop songwriting but he always had an affinity for awkward sounding arragnements and odd voices and production tricks but on 'telegraph' it became hopelessly bland and uninspiring as if he had some sort of intervention to root out his quirkiness. maybe he was just getting old.

― keyth (keyth), Friday, 2 June 2006 02:12 (nineteen years ago)

I'm with Smartypants - I really like this stuff a lot and had surprisingly not heard of them before. Both albums sound awesome from the clips on Amazon and Allmusic.

― Nick Wilson, Friday, 2 June 2006 06:11 (nineteen years ago)

and awesome they are!

while you're at it, get the Cardinal lp, and Richard Davies's first lp, There's Never Been a Crowd like This, as mentioned above.

― nerve pylon (flat_of_angles), Friday, 2 June 2006 11:04 (nineteen years ago)

two years pass...

This is a nice record for the stormy summer time in the midwest.

― Trip Maker, Tuesday, 22 July 2008 16:44 (seventeen years ago)

nine months pass...

Eh, I posted this in the R. Davies thread, but it vanished so thought I'd put it up here as well to make it easier to find.

Anyway, in addition to the news that an album w/R. Pollard is coming out in June, a link to the 3 tracks from the short-lived Cardinal reunion (plus one not very released R. Davies track) can be found here:

http://www.tirbd.com/2009/03/pollard-richard-davies-partner-as.html

They are very good...

― dlp9001, Thursday, 23 April 2009 19:16 (sixteen years ago)

great news.
the Pollard song sound quite good, the Davies one...mmm...not so good?!
i wish,(and expected) that it would be the opposite...

― Zeno, Thursday, 23 April 2009 22:31 (sixteen years ago)

i should really check out this moles band huh

― 4,000 hoes in blackburn, lancashire (M@tt He1ges0n), Thursday, 23 April 2009 22:51 (sixteen years ago)

yeah, they are great.
as almost everything Davies puts his hands on in the past.

― Zeno, Thursday, 23 April 2009 22:55 (sixteen years ago)

the untune the sky reish on flydaddy (probably now out of print huh) and the on the street disc are both A+

― parmas never visit nightclubs (electricsound), Thursday, 23 April 2009 23:30 (sixteen years ago)

i just checked there are tons of cheap used and new copies available on amazon

― 4,000 hoes in blackburn, lancashire (M@tt He1ges0n), Thursday, 23 April 2009 23:31 (sixteen years ago)

http://pics.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/bin_15x54.gif

― parmas never visit nightclubs (electricsound), Thursday, 23 April 2009 23:33 (sixteen years ago)

I did not expect to find this:

http://www.mick.com.au/

― dlp9001, Friday, 24 April 2009 02:45 (sixteen years ago)

i'm not sure if i was completely unaware of that or just blocked it out

― private static void (electricsound), Friday, 24 April 2009 02:47 (sixteen years ago)

eleven months pass...

Vinyl reissue: http://killshaman.com/site/kill-shaman-store/ksr44-the-moles-untune-the-sky-2xlp/

― dlp9001, Sunday, 18 April 2010 02:16 (fifteen years ago)

when's the new cardinal record coming out? is it still? will it be horrible?

― keythhtyek, Monday, 19 April 2010 00:35 (fifteen years ago)

I thought they gave up on it. The three songs from the project that I heard were pretty good...

― dlp9001, Monday, 19 April 2010 01:13 (fifteen years ago)

haha i just ordered this

― dynamicinterface, Monday, 19 April 2010 02:24 (fifteen years ago)

This is not the "We are the Moles" bunch, right?

― Mark G, Monday, 19 April 2010 07:25 (fifteen years ago)

no. it is not.

― fully sic alps (electricsound), Monday, 19 April 2010 08:33 (fifteen years ago)

five years pass...

Let's have a look through the square window today...

― dynamicinterface, Thursday, 8 October 2015 20:09 (ten years ago)

one year passes...

On the first bunch of listens, I thought the new record "Tonight's Music" was basically ok but nothing more. As often happens with the Moles, I've gotten more and more interested, and am now on the point of saying it's the best thing Davies has done since the original band. One of the things I love about him is that I usually don't really get his stuff for months and months, if not longer. Guy really operates on a different plane....

― dlp9001, Sunday, 9 April 2017 19:41 (eight years ago)

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