Shining - Kingdom of Kitsch/Grindstone

Who else makes music like this?

Shining playing Winterreise at Øya Festivalen here in Norway. Great quality. Lot's of other bands on in the next days too.

http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/asx.aspx?param=DB9B3688061F82AC46BCDC4F98CDAB083466D597C27332E10B9FBFA6A1E9FE3B73935F91A278DC6564BE333E04C826FA54AFFAD43BCFC39BD96FCFC7DB28AA2BF512BEEE53090887F5F0BE27115E6E41E6E0CE5A0E6A5E61EB8A84E8A64E4494341B06CCE78EB95296E2CC4FE731CF5D3A53B72F639A8DF6B4A03C8D3D5F5D57C15617313C4937871394C62080BE61A0A1ACA6795197CA367D1170B37AB36681B2207BB5792DAE87E1D05C9014535987

Paste in Windows Media Player/IE/Firefox whatever. Just watch.

http://rita.nrk.no/community/oya07/

I'm sure you'll figure it out.

wow there are some good leads on this thread

bumped because i'm listening to this band right now and enjoying it very much

OK, Grindstone. This album.

Great band. Especially live, my jaw hit the floor when I saw them.

The only issue I have with it is that Ulver did the whole Bach-on-synths thing first, and with WAY more awesomeness. But then we're talking best album of the decade there, and this record has plenty else going for it. Goddamn plenty.

Opening track and Psalm are flat-out sensational.

Opening track is one of the most totally thrilling pieces of the decade and I'm drunk but right. Fucking hooray for people who still make music like this.

my favorite track tho is probably asa nisi masa. they put everything into that one + a little andrew w.k sprinkled on

that one is awesome but is not awesome for any longer than 2 minutes whereas the opening track is 6 minutes of calculated psychological pornography

^^^lol at my turn of phrase

ok i think this band needs a threadbump, and some big, big love. will be obtaining the new album pretty much asap.

Whoaaaa at just having sampled a few tracks on Myspace. I thought this band sounded like Isolee and had no idea they were hc/metalish. Would I be way far off in comparing them to Refused?

Review and wacky interview:
http://www.paperthinwalls.com/singlefile/item?id=539

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Friday, February 23, 2007 5:06 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

wish this was still up. i don't even remember what it was

SHINING - “Winterreise”
Stream
from Grindstone (Rune Grammophone)
Avant-Jazz // Out Now

SHINING
There’s just the right amount of humor in the “serious” music of Norway jazz-metal madcaps Shining. Like playful luminaries John Zorn and Mike Patton, Shining toy with our sense of both the maudlin and the sublime, running the gamut from slapstick to schizoid on fourth album Grindstone.

On the dreamlike “Winterreise,” Shining take a Schubert dip in a series of mini-suites that find them bouncing back and forth between “dignified” Disney-fied classical and cerebral prog, creating a ghoulish, hermetic atmosphere accentuated by an angelic choir that makes a mockery of John L. Williams’ Wagner-lite. Of course, it’s delightfully over the top, but “Winterreise” never veers into self-parody mainly because at just over three minutes long, it condenses both the classical and prog forms into a radio-friendly pop format.

Shining on “Winterreise"

What's "Winterreise" about?
The first "Winterreise"—that I know of—is a song cycle by Franz Schubert, on poems by Willhelm Müller. It was written in 1827 and is a programmatic piece consisting of 24 songs for tenor voice and piano. This Winterreise is actually about something: It describes a man on a lonely walk in the winter while he's thinking back on his lost love, all the while meeting different persons, animals and entities. It's somewhat lonely and sad.

Shining’s “Winterreise” is not programmatic, and it's therefore not that easy to say what it is about. We just thought the name suited [it] well, as well as making it an ode to Schubert himself. It kind of makes one think of the whole song as a soundtrack to a long, long journey, with the opening theme as a sudden and heavy start—right out in the snow! A little pause to think about the weird and elegant birds you meet, which suddenly turns to huge vampiric bats which forces you on your way out in the snow again! Then suddenly you're on a ship in the middle of the ocean where dead old Schubert plays the piano in double time like the Devil himself is whipping his syphilis-infested ass, while merry exotic dancers pour drinks to him and wipes his feverish forehead. Then suddenly the storm stops and it's dead calm. There's a huge fog arriving and the earth and ocean begin to throb. Then suddenly huge eagles come and lift you up from the ship, just before it gets swallowed by the ocean, and they take you high above the clouds on your way back home to your family and long-gone love. But before you get time to enjoy the flight, the eagles suddenly turn into the same horrific, huge vampiric bats that chased you away from home, and they throw you down the snowy mountainside and you try your best to avoid getting crushed by the huge rocks that you rush and slide by. You run as fast as you can in knee-deep snow, only wearing shorts and a thin shirt—because just minutes ago you were on a big ship in the Caribbean Sea, the snow keeps getting into your shoes and underneath your shirt and into your pants while the bats keeps snapping at you. You run faster and faster, fall down a hill or two before you suddenly see the door to your home! You rush in and slam the door behind you! Phew! Home!
- J T. RAMSAY

ok seeing as I'm posting to ILX again I just thought I'd say that 'Blackjazz' is my album of the year so far (by some way, although Jaga Jazzist have really surprised me with how good their equivalent 9-track Norwegian jazz-prog blow-out is)

and that 'Blackjazz Deathtrance' is both my track of the year and a leap into brave new musical tomorrow

witness for yourself (headphones ideal):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYvQ3ho5e9Y

the above is truly leagues-beyond, worlds-above stuff, astonishing even by shining's lofty standards.

can't for the life of me understand why i still haven't heard this. picking it up tomorrow if i can.

you should

To copy and paste what I wrote beneath the DiS review:

A nicely frazzled treatment of a truly frazzling album. Holds up to repeat listens too. You haven't mentioned Omen which along with Blackjazz Deathtrance is the craziest, most unhinged thing here, and also the record's surest grower. That whole second half (all three tracks of it!) is crushing where the first half was energising, and is somehow even better for it.

I liked the description of 21CSM on another review which states that skipping KC's absurd level of interplay and detail (those bass runs!) is precisely the point; they've almost literally murdered a classic. To death. With big guns. I think that's pretty awesome. Although the original's one of my 10 favourite songs ever, I really dig what they've done. KILL YR IDOLS and all that.

Anyway, this is my album of the year so far as well, although I'm expecting a huge 2010. Doesn't let up at ANY stage, mines a sleek industrial pop angle far more slyly than most people seem to have noticed. There's even a riff from Exit Sun 1 that's *totally* ripped off from Muse's Hysteria of all things! Married to a Meshuggah machine of mashsome mania. And as for Blackjazz Deathtrance well have you got all week? The attention to detail and broad-minded structural aesthetics, within a monstrous pop context, are fabulous, and this album fulfils its (stated) ambitions with élan.

Oh, and wear headphones!

I have tried three different record stores in New York City and none of them had it. I guess I'll just buy it online.

Saw them on Sat night in Oslo. Absolutely smoking. This is taken from a review I wrote for a local paper straight after the gig, which is why it's a bit breathless:

ALL WORK AND NO SLAYER MAKES JAZZ A DULL BOY

Jørgen Munkeby split from his day job as a member of Jaga Jazzist when he was still a teenager over a decade ago to form Shining and they released their debut in 2001. Since then their experiments have pushed them further and further into outlier territory. This is not to say that Shining's ouevre is without precedence. Elements of their sound can be traced back to Bill Laswell, Fred Frith and Fred Maher's bleak avant metal project Massacre, to Birmingham industrial grind overlords Godflesh, to Canadian jazz punkers NOMEANSNO circa 'Why Do They Call Me Mr Happy?' and to the New York avant grindcore of John Zorn's Naked City. And then even further back to King Crimson and Frank Zappa. But this would only give you the vaguest of sketches of how they sound now circa their stunning new album 'Blackjazz'. Add Ornette Coleman, Front 242, Fugazi, Fantomas, Ministry, The Cardiacs and Young Gods into the mix and you're getting closer.

JAGGED JAZZISTS

Munkeby splits his time laying down complicated lead riffs on guitar and 'shredding' on saxophone. He uses the latter to great effect on closing cover of King Crimson's '21st Century Schizoid Man', which calls to mind Italian jazz metal trio Zu at their ear drum perforating best before ending on a stop/start noise coda of devastating precision, which then flips to a riff that sounds like Slayer playing the Mission: Impossible theme music.

At the end of what can only really be described as a ludicrously brilliant performance, the ever polite Munkeby says "We're Shining from Norway; not from Sweden." I don't mind saying that there's nothing wrong per se with the suicide obsessed goth metallers from the other side of Scandinavia but when all's said and done, they aren't fit to hold a candle to their Norwegian namesakes. It's not their fault. Very few bands at all are fit to hold a candle to them at the moment.

We're running an interview with Jorgen on TQ next week.

Loads of troo kvlt metal review sites giving this record hilarious 2-star-or-less slatings on the grounds that it is not by the self-harming Swedes

Awesome, will stay very much tuned as ever! Norway is kinda my #1 musical heartthrob atm; I've just gotten back from a rather slayful Ungdomskulen gig. Frontman agreed with me that these are exciting times in Norwegian music.

P.S. it's 'Cardiacs', no The. You twat. Just kidding, <3 etc, also I clearly need to hear Massacre, NOMEANSNO and Naked City asap

makes a change from your infatuation with shitty uk acts :)

how dare you talk about Esoteric like that

ok, i insert "indie" in there

oh god, Naked City is by and far the most violent-sounding thing I have EVER heard in my life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezpC6iFTH8c

Yeah imagine how that sounded to me in high school when I bought the vinyl of Torture Garden. Still destroys most other brutal music. What a lineup.

Also I am visiting Norway for the first time this May. Can't wait!

Visit the Maiden Bar! No shit man. And more Metal at John Dee and the bar next door.

Also go to the Sculpture Park and the Mausoleum built brothers.

And if you can go round the Edvard Munch museum while listening to Khanate on headphones you may just have the most metal holiday possible.

I'm surprised at myself for not posting on this, I like these guys a lot

Good call on Ministry imo John - there's one track especially on Blackjazz (I'm not too hot on the titles) that really brings home why they got the Marilyn Manson dude to twiddle the knobs

Exit Sun, I reckon

My own review sez 'Fisheye'

Just received my copy in the mail yesterday! Got to listen to a few tracks so far, and I really like it despite the fact that I'm largely not really into metal.

that's coz it's a spanking great avant-industrial wig-out :D

I listened to Blackjazz again this morning. Probably going to be one of my favorite albums of the year.

hurrah

yes. I'm a little bit burned out on it due to excessive repeat listening, but I know I'll come back to it.

i. anyone got any thoughts on the RMGDN CNCRT(o) ep?
ii. playing in london, august 19, supporting 'ihsahn': who is this person? is anyone going?

Ihsahn is the former vocalist for black metal band Emperor. Jørgen Munkeby of Shining played sax on his latest solo album After.

thank youu

i'm not sure about rmgdn. it's meant to be the 'first movement' of something; it's mainly synth-noise/'free' sax playing, and then it crashes into an almost-groove (not a great one) for a couple minutes, with more sax bleating over the top; and then there's a synth drone thing. maybe in the context of the larger thing i'd enjoy it more; on its own its not really what i'm going to this band for i guess

Their new single isn't bad but sounds a lot less experimental/jazzy/techno-ish than the stuff on Blackjazz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpyrbD-jeFs

Just read about these dudes in a secondhand copy of "Prog" magazine. I'm glad I did, because this stuff is pretty awesome! Experimental thrash-prog-jazz?

Yes!! Blackjazz is light-years more experimental and fascinating than their new album though imo