Electric Soft Parade - Holes in the Wall *** also The Electric Soft Parade and Thomas White - C/D

na na na na nanananananana etc. etc.

But if they don't release 'Why do You Try So Hard to Hate Me' as a single, I may be forced to hate them.

Thomas White's solo record (I Dream Of Black) is my album of the year.

Did you like The American Adventure? I was heavily into that record but never managed to get into anything else they did.

Yeah, it's their best album by a fucking street.

Basically it's a dark, broody, tight, short, experimental, loose record where T. White assumed almost total creative control, and when I heard it I thought they were destined for greatness. Then they piddled around doing not much except releasing a pretty good EP, but when album 3 came out, it was a huge, overstuffed, bright-eyed disappointment.

In fact, it was while looking for contact details with which to berate his failure to steer the group towards choppier waters that I discovered Thomas had banished the demons of perfunctory pop with an American-Adventure-writ-more-subtle basement-made art-rock arc. Absolutely brilliant, better than anything ESP ever did.

Remains a great debut, even if they never managed to follow it properly.

Deserves to stand as one of the great one-off debuts that were never followed properly, along with Aztec Camera, The Strokes and some others.

The debut is deeply problematic, but it does have "Start Again" which is as convincing as any first-track-on-first-album this decade, and more importantly it has "Silent To The Dark", an achievement so stunning, so genuinely monumental that I'm seriously considering it for my decade CD-80. That song alone is why I bought the second album.

("better than anything ESP ever did" refers to albums, not Silent To The Dark)

He's back! http://www.thomaswhiteonline.com/

Love this dude so much.

the maximalist is a fucking trip

lol. that's a pretty horrific album cover.

haha I like it! was at the gig last night, storming stuff and they closed with 'Someday I Will Treat You Good' which was a nice touch. came home and listened to the album; also listened to their drummer Damo Waters' solo stuff and found it very much to my taste (he performs as Muddy Suzuki).

anyway yeah, the maximalist is super. very different album from the debut; far bigger and grander all the way through; it's not a 36-minute statement of lo-fi invention but a full on prog-pop opus. so far, maybe doesn't have the bizarre unplaceable homespun magic of the debut, anything as abstract as 'starry nite 3', anything as luminous as 'the silence stops tonight' or anything as flat-out decisive as 'solar collapse'*, BUT what it does have is a kaleidoscopic, which-way-will-he-turn-next tumble through pretty much all of music, and it does it fucken superbly. as he said to me after the gig, when I informed him DiS had given it 4/10 and bemoaned the lack of stability to the songcraft, there are so many people out there who get so snotty when music doesn't do what they expect or demand it to. this album is meant to be listened to as one piece, and it really does reward your patience. it's very strange, psychedelic, but instantly likeable album; it gets you onside with the melodies, and keeps you hungry with the adventure.

*otoh, pretty much every track is awesome, and repeat listens will presumably reveal a couple of them to be as luminous, abstract and decisive as anything he's done (prime suspects: 'jerusalem thorn', 'moonlight and snow', 'synapse galaxy', 'starry nite 4'). but i could talk about them all. suffice to say that even the two covers are fucking superb. and '...lost' is Thomas White's Slow Life! Sort of.

yeah, this is really, really, really good. sequenced like a dream.

Haven't checked it out and not certain about it. I absolutely loved the Electric Soft Parade album, but then felt they lost it completely. So unless his solo work is anything like that brilliant debut....

ooooh boy, you'd REALLY love this, Geir, no joke

it is SO FULL OF SMOOTHNESS AND MELODIES AND PROGGERY

Well, I picked up the third one on discount today, and that one was considerably better than "The American Adventure" and more similar to the debut. So may be right. I still consider "The American Adventure" one of the most disappointing followups to a brilliant debut album ever though.

Just saw them again in a TINY venue, and once more they brought it big-time. Little more to add except that I personally *love* The American Adventure but can see why Geir doesn't - if I were he, I'd completely skip 'I Dream Of Black' and go straight for this one.

LJ you might enjoy this reminiscence: looking at that Reading 2001 poster i put on the landfill thread reminded me that Trail of Dead were up against the Soft Parade (not Electric yet) and i decided to see the Soft Parade despite the fact that i had tix to see them at the mighty Coventry Coliseum just a few weeks later. if i could have my time back, well... but at least they were good, particularly given that they were probably worried about their A levels.

oh heavens, he returned this year without telling anyone

https://chordorchard.bandcamp.com/album/fuchsia-days

so far, so gorgeous

there's a couple of new muddy suzuki records too https://muddysuzuki.bandcamp.com/album/good-grief