Working For a Nuclear Free City (c/d, etc.)

Anyway, ENOUGH, I don't want this thread locked. WFANFC need more coverage!

This thread is only going to be locked if you keep acting like a worthless cunt (which it will because you can't control yourself).

Music great and I stand by my first post. Dammit.

Erm, welcome to ILM.

may i also point out that the opening few seconds of the album sound JUST like a bit from the middle of Yes' 'Close To The Edge', which is speechlessly awesome, and surely deliberate.

the run from 'england' through to 'innocence' is just...just...indescribable.

This is really, really, really good.

Yus.

They list Four Tet and Manitoba twice each too, plus Caribou once as well.

this is what happens when you follow my advice, nick, HEAVENLY NOISE appears in your very expensive hand-crafted headphones. whoopsie, i'm drunk again, maybe i should only post to this thread when hammered, seems to do the trick.

Bit... hollow at times (emotionally / content wise, not sonically), too in thrall to some things, not massive on the vocals, but for the most part, still very, very, very good.

Emotionally hollow? Give 'The Tape' through 'So' another listen. Then stick 'Forever' on. Some of the most affecting music I've heard from any band this century!

I would actually say that despite their being 'in thrall' to certain aspects of shoegaze/rave culture, they are probably the current band with whom I am able to find least fault. Their intentions and their methods of creating music strike me as being entirely noble.

Emotionally's the wrong word, I think. Not sure.

Um, no idea of their intentions.

You've not got aspergers have you, Louis? Last person I knew who went on about intentions had aspergers.

ooh thanks for the reminder, must dig this one out again - it fair knocked me over when i first heard it but then it got lost under a pile of life. it deserves A LOT more than that.

Another Sonic Cathedrals band. (Though I missed their show) Are they worth checking out?

Or, are they just the latest Maps/Nathan Fake/Manitoba?

Much better than maps, probably better than Nathan Fake, not as good as Manitoba (very different though).

You'll hate them Kate - I like them!

yeah this is going well - may pause for a lunchbreak but EVERYONE GIVE THESE GUYS A SPIN

How many songwriters are involved with this band, because so far each song has been a completely different thing.

One Fragile-like Yes progsterpiece, one sort of wubtastic glitchy nugazetronica thing, and now just bog standard jangly nu-gaze with overlapping harmonies.

Which is fine, but... I don't know if they seem to be better at certain aspects, or if I just prefer certain aspects better.

hey give it a few more tracks before leaping to judgement (btw every song is pretty much different to the others)

track 4 is a massive highlight imho

I'm not leaping to judgement, I've liked it so far. It has a lot of what I actually liked about nu-gaze, even though I've mostly moved on from nu-gaze as a primary interest. It's kind of like a cross between the first Engineers album and Youthmovies last album so I can totally see why you love it. But with added extra laser noises and bleepy electronic bits. I just usually tend to want more bleepy electronic bits.

And a less ... nothing-y singer. Better a nothing-y singer than an annoying one, though.

main album is awesome, half-hour title-track is a goddamn trip :D

opening track is so, so, so very good inna 'written for LJ' way

Still getting to know this, but I like it.

Turns out this album was a massive grower too

I prefer the more immediate songs that hit me on first listen, but I've come to enjoy straight-through listens, too. Very excited for whatever comes next.

The main songwriter turns out to be an angsty so and so with severe doubt issues about his band's output - all the signs of a troubled genius tbh - anyway I like that he worries a bit - the stuff he deems worthy of putting out, be it in song or collage form - is superb.

colour me chuffed.
having had the 'normal' debut album in the archive since its release, just found the 2cd remixed/reissue/expanded edition of this in the bins for a few quid.
guess the follow up album didn't quite hit the same highs ?

I do think Businessmen and Ghosts is one of the best albums of the 00's, but I think the second kind of destroys their momentum. Maybe I need to hear it again but it sounded mostly like a bunch of fragments with only a few actual ideas. Plus the production is god awful - it's sonically overwhelming with some weirdly high treble levels. Every cymbal crash makes me wince.

Hmm, loved the two-disc version of Businessmen and Ghosts to death, but have yet to come across a copy of the follow-up, maybe thats not such a bad thing from the sounds of frogbs' post.

it's sonically overwhelming with some weirdly high treble levels. Every cymbal crash makes me wince.

blimey.
one of the best things about the debut/business.. is the upfront use of thunder storm bass lines.
have to say the title of the follow up album, and cover art did make me wince and hold off from picking up the one copy i saw.

no, i actually agree with that

it's just that on the new one, those big washes of sound seem to come at the expense of everything else and make the album hard on the ears. not powerful, but actually kind of painful. you can hear some clipping too which really takes you out of the album (which otherwise is fairly good)

gave it another listen on headphones today; IMO it's basically the cymbals and vocals that have a ton of hiss on them. the rest of it is mastered fine. still, a lot of it is giving me a headache. the music itself is pretty good though - doesn't have many standouts like the last album, but it kinda falls somewhere between Ruins and the Stone Roses, which is a good thing

http://sickmouthy.com/2013/02/20/working-for-a-nuclear-free-city-working-for-a-nuclear-free-city-2006/

real shame if you can't see beyond the first record/ep.

Anyone heard the Motorifik album? Phil Kay from WFANFC and another guy. Gary McClure involved too. I like it.

http://motorifik.bandcamp.com

McClure has a solo release upcoming on Edwyn Collins' AED Records.

this is pretty lovely

real shame if you can't see beyond the first record/ep.

you think? I liked the 'other' songs on Businessmen and Ghosts - that album is very neat as a whole. but the stuff that was on the s/t was usually my favorite.

as I mentioned above, I really could not stand "Jojo Burger Tempest" because of the production. I really thought I got a faulty copy when I first heard it.

B&G is the best one but there's plenty of gold on JBT - it really all comes through after a few listens. Highlights at the beginning and the end (Do A Stunt was my song of the year - joy upon joy upon joy)

B&G is miles and miles better than the s/t. Fucksake, it has those three epics on it, all of which are incredible, as well as ace shorter stuff like Heaven Kissing Hill and Donkey

I'll have to take your word for Do a Stunt...I find the whole album basically unlistenable. Give it some leeway at first because I was really excited about new WFANFC material but my god does the loudness war kill this one.

Gonna be giving B&G another listen then. I do like both the tunes you mentioned and I realize that I haven't heard the "new" stuff half as much as the "old" stuff so maybe I was a little biased. But I still thought it was one of the 00's best so I'm not sure how much more I'm going to like it.

Well, the three epics (England, Soft Touch and especially - oh my god especially - Nancy Adam Susan) are up there with Do A Stunt and So/Over (or was it Over/So?) as the band's all-time highlights IMO. And yeah, decade top-twenty, probably.

It's a shame about the mastering on JBT compared to their earlier stuff, but it doesn't kill the album for me.

Alphaville is another standout.

And here's what happened to McClure since:

http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/rftmusic/2015/04/how_st_louis_american_wrestlers_signed_to_a_respected_label_before_ever_playing_a_show.php

I enjoyed Wreaths. Glad to hear that he'll be recording again.

I've been listening to the American Wrestlers album this weekend, it's really good.

whoa this is great

fuck it's *really* great

Ha, been listening to American Wrestlers' album for many months now, having no clue the dude was part of Working for a ...yada yada band. Not to long ago a song popped up on my ipad on random from their 2006 album, so I thought a new album was coming out.

well this is unexpected

http://www.melodic.co.uk/wfanfc1/

Went in blind. Listened while walking about the neighborhood this sunny winter afternoon. Some really lovely moments, but I need to let it sink in.

whoa

ended up thinking that my rapturous reaction to the american wrestlers album was an overreaction. pleased there's new wfanfc. phil kay clearly been a busy chap

There's at least one track on this that wouldn't sound at all out of place on the American Wrestlers album.

The horns on ''New Day'" are the greatest thing right now.

did they wind up mastering this one properly? as I've mentioned upthread I found their last album unlistenable and I'm leary about buying this one if it's the same

I keep forgetting to listen to my copy! Got an advance but then the holidays took over.

this is great

feels like the music Caribou should be making if he wasn't such a boring dweeb

lovely all the way through. doesn't have any of those B&G epics but it has the concise flow of the debut release

crazy how little press this disc has gotten. I bet a lot of people who loved the debut/B&G don't even know it exists.

currently sitting at 2.78 on RYM...seems a lot better than that

RYM is giving some serious bullshit ratings this year. anything both obscure and low-key gets trashed for some reason

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DY_Aa3Pj_0

Listening to "What Do People Do All Day?", this band is pretty dope. "feels like the music Caribou should be making if he wasn't such a boring dweeb" is about right - although I get a bit of an Out Hud vibe from them too

may have to listen to it again. I remember thinking it was pretty good but didn't really blow me away the way their early stuff did

the fact that this pretty much conked out means this band is kaput, doesn't it?

nah, it's basically just one guy now and I think he'll continue to use the name. the other main guy is American Wrestlers, who are slightly less good but interestingly more high-profile

I see B&G all over the place in discount bins.

I keep wondering what the last great 90s album is*, 2008's B&G a fine contender. My 7-track redux of the album (featuring nothing from the s/t) is stellar

*it's probably the new Sea Nymphs lol

Seriously, try it: https://open.spotify.com/user/louisjagger/playlist/0qDEhkxk8XUZq9GcmIJgso

may have to check that out. never really knew how to parse B&G since I had been so obsessed with the s/t

I remember listening to "Forever" a few days after Klaus Dinger died and it felt so impossibly moving, in that context