Crystal Stilts: So, the singer is singing in a different key than the music on PURPOSE, right?

This is the 'oh my God are you hipsters really, like, for real serious with this bullshit?' band of 2008

a little samey but i like it

I would change "on PURPOSE" to "via a charming serendipity"

i love a couple of songs on this album and like the rest

stilts antlers castles gale

waters

This is the 'oh my God are you hipsters really, like, for real serious with this bullshit?' band of 2008

― If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Wednesday, November 19, 2008 1:20 PM (46 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Passion Pit

method

lol

I like this album too

meth

This band might even be worse than the Vivian Girls. At least they had one good single!

i wish beavis and butthead were still around to provide their thoughts on crap like this

No one under 28 should ever make music again ever.

Also, girls who live in Brooklyn.

you rule

1982

No one under 28 should ever make music again ever.

Also, girls who live in Brooklyn.

You win! Challops of the year Two Thousand And Eight!

i listened to two songs from this band on youtube and they sounded awful, but i'm not exactly in their target demographic

Do they really have a "target demographic?"

I love this track - Converging in the Quiet - for the special "ambient" twist to it and it reminds me of one of the great anthems of 90s ambient techno - "Tha" by Aphex Twin from the classic album Selected Ambient Works 85-92.

Wha

i hate that goddamn jingle bell thing. they overdo it to death.

Music with a "target demographic" = dud

In this case, kids who heard Jesus and Mary Chain yesterday and think Black Tambourine, Shop Assistants, et al are "new"

Funniest thing about this band is particular is all the hipsters of yesteryear who turned their backs on the equally awful BRMC are all about this right now.

It's more or less retarded to treat any music as having a "target demographic." I've never even listened to these motherfuckers but I'm gonna guess that's not what they're going for.

Funniest thing about this band is particular is all the hipsters of yesteryear who turned their backs on the equally awful BRMC are all about this right now.

toe the line you little fuckers!!

Funniest thing about this band is particular is all the hipsters of yesteryear who turned their backs on the equally awful BRMC are all about this right now.

Man that is OTM. See also Raveonettes/A Place To Bury Strangers.

crystal stilts reminds me of the guy i met who told me that his band sounded like "if the guys from the smiths, joy divison, and interpol ALL HAD A BAND TOGETHER."

then he told me my name was rad cuz it was like ian curtis.
uuhhhh.. (this guy was in his thirties.)

raveonette's last album was SO GOOD

I'm far too old for this but I quite liked the track embedded above. It sounds terribly monophonic, which I assume is not deliberate (youtube usually reduces audio to mono, and if your track is mixed in a certain way, with a lot of stereo effects processing, it collapses into this weird, cavernous mono) BUT, as I say, I liked it. I never liked this sort of music first time round so the subtleties of who it sounds like are a bit over my head. To me it sounds like a cross between Joy Division, the Stone Roses and the B-52s.

"if the guys from the smiths, joy divison, and interpol ALL HAD A BAND TOGETHER."

Hahaha so it sounded like Carlos D doing a guest spot on an Electronic record?

Wait, that would still sound basically the same. Are you sure you weren't talking to someone who was in Electronic?

In this case, kids who heard Jesus and Mary Chain yesterday and think Black Tambourine, Shop Assistants, et al are "new"

hey guy, just because people like something doesn't mean they think (or care) that it's "new"

i can understand that it would seem weird that someone would really love this band, but i find it equally weird that someone could really hate this band ... they're pretty inoffensive

you must only be saying that because you're in their target demographic.

i think i might hate them if they became super huge

For a college kid today to discover and get excited about Black Tambourine would be pretty much the same thing as me in college 10 years ago discovering and getting excited about the Shop Assistants or Talulah Gosh. (I know the internet makes things a little easier these days, but it remains true that 99.99% of people in the world with broadband connections do not sit awake at night sweating over all the singles collections from 10-year-old fuzzy indiepop bands they've never heard or heard of.)

xpost - I know I said something similar about the Strokes and got seriously burned on it, but I don't see bands like this getting "huge" individually -- what I do see is a whole lot of stylishly rickety/shambly old-school indie-style bands, lo-fi and C-86y and VU-ish, who might make up a sort of taste category for people ... a situation where people kinda-love a whole raft of new bands doing this sort of thing. Though maybe a real standout will emerge among them

Oh, the other thing I said about the Strokes, long ago, that I didn't get burned on was that it seemed like all the enthusiasm for them was coming from people being slightly starved for poppy rock bands that really sounded like people playing instruments together in a room -- and I think that did play out, early in the decade, with a lot of unreasonable excitement over any rock band that seemed to be offering that.

But across the decade, it felt like bands were still striving to be big, shiny, ambitious, and exciting. And with a lot of the things that people are enthusiastic about lately, I get the feeling that what sounds refreshing to people now is hearing something that's not like that -- something that's more slack or sloppy or insular ... I'm not sure how to pinpoint it yet, but it's often something that shoots back to 80s indie roots (like Stilts or various C-86y bands) or sometimes 90s feels (which I get out of No Age; Vivian Girls actually sound like they straddle both of these things, 80s and 90s, to me).

So I expect to see attention for lots of bands coming from these directions, to be honest.

Hah that song in youtube isn't too bad (though too long by half). I hear Joy Div a bit, don't really hear Raveonettes or APTBS or anything like that.

I'm thinking on this and Vivian Girls, bands like these are too intentionally "slight" to become super huge. This isn't like the Strokes in that there's really no rock and not even much pop involved. Bands like this are not what I would call good but sometimes I like to listen to stuff that sounds like this. Slight, slightly amateurish music can be nice at times.

x-post I'm freestyling here but is it possible that this stuff is a reaction to grandiose (Arcade Fire), fussy (The Decemberists, Sufjan), or mainstreamed (The Shins) versions of indie rock that have really come on in the past couple years?

no this stuff has always been around

I realize this stuff has always been around, but would you agree that it's catching a little more attention in the past year or so?

i think that bands like this aren't really reacting to much other than aping their SFTRI lps, which in my opinion isn't really a bad thing though i can see why people might not dig their style.

i don't really pay attention to the trends and what not, though. for me this sort of thing has always had its audience, and a pretty sizeable one at that.

peeps should check out the blank dogs! they are great

Yeah, that's a lot of what I'm thinking of -- grandiose, fussy, and mainstreamed -- but let's also include the portions of the indie world that have gotten shinier or dancier or more party-based, and the level of seriousness and ambition across the board. It seems totally natural to me right now that people would find slack, shambly, amateurish, not-trying-anything-huge bands somewhat "refreshing" in this moment.

Obviously this kind of sensibility has not gone anywhere over the past few decades -- obviously -- but it seems telling to me that the past year has seen what feels like a bigger audience perking up to new iterations of it.

What I wonder about, though, is this: it took a certain kind of mentality, in the past, to be like "yeah, whatever, my favorite bands are a bunch of rickety lo-fi weirdo acts who aren't doing anything grand I can hold up as important" -- and I suspect way less of the enlarged indie audience these days really has that mentality. I hope that's not true, though.

hate thisband:

ILX IT IS LATE AND I AM ANGRY. I NEED YOUR HELP IN DEBUNKING THIS EMAIL LINE BY LINE

...>:[

xpost What do you think goes along with that mentality? I can think of a couple of inroads into this kind of music such as:

a) I liked punk rock and I've graduated to liking something weirder
b) I have an interest in making music but not that much skill/experience, so I relate to this
c) I have listened to a lot of music and I can appreciate this for what it is/is not

So yeah, could u expand pls.

noooooo

But I'll say for like the third time that I'm not claiming this kind of sound is new or that it has some audience it didn't before -- I am thinking/predicting that we might see this approach have an increase in, umm, cultural currency in the short term! Based on its probably seeming "refreshing" and interesting to people who've spent the past few years paying attention to the stuff that, umm, loads of people have been paying attention to for the past few years.

Aren't these bands basically a continuation of the lo-fi/noise pop nostalgia of bands like Times New Viking, Psychedelic Horseshit, Sic Alps, etc? If so -- and it sounds like it to me -- then this has been going on for a couple years now.

So yeah, this is basically the next phase in retro-everything culture.

i'm entirely predisposed to liking this band from them being on one of my favourite labels of all time, but i do think some of the press they're getting is rather over the top. the album is a LOT better than the previous EP too..

I'm old enough to have a certain fondness for this sound which, ironically, reminds me of a prior wave of lo-fi/garage/VU type stuff. Fer instance, I really enjoy Vanessa and the O's, even though there's not much I can say is outstanding.

this is pretty much garbage but at least it's coated in muddy reverb

it's not as good as the manhattan love suicides

it's not as good as the manhattan love suicides

Are Crystal Antlers the one I like?

this band blows live

i'm going to listen to nothing but hipster music today in tribute to this thread

saw this band on my first trip to nyc and it almost turned me off the city entirely

i defended this band above but i saw them live last night and it kind of made me hate them ... they are the most charisma-free band ever. their singer is especially bad. he's really stiff and bored, not in a way that seems cool but like he'd rather just be asleep or anywhere else other than on stage. the drummer was the one redeeming factor in the band, she was the only member who seemed engaged with what was happening

just because he has sleepy hair.

they should play without the organ player. he makes it seem like every other group ever.

they didn't have an organ player last night

I saw bands like this in 1986 and they were old then.

Saw them live last night and loved them. Far less sulky JAMC copyism than I was expecting, and no faux-bored posing either - they were totally enjoying themselves, engaging with the crowd, urging them to dance, etc. They play faster than on record, with much less echoey reverb and reliance on effects pedals. Plenty of 60s influences: Mysterians garage-punk (as emphasised by the keyboards), Shadows/Ventures twang, country/rockabilly rumble. The singer is still shrouded in echo, and he still gets nowhere near accepted notions of pitch, but his doomy, indistinct Peter Murphy mumble adds a useful smudge of dissonance.

Manhattan Love Suicides were on the same bill, working many of the same low-fi 66/76/86 influences, but with more of a CBGBs punk rock/surf-pop feel. Dead simple and basic, and arguably a genre exercise, but it was properly thought through and precisely executed - they achieved exactly what they set out to do. I loved them every bit as much as Crystal Stilts.

raveonette's last album was SO GOOD

Real talk.

Crystal Stilts album is pretty good, I don't get the hate. It's nice and VU/JAMC/Black Tambourine-ish and pretty in places and generally doesn't do anything to deserve the hate in this thread. Nowhere near BRMC levels of inept, aimless posturing. I get the sense Crystal Stilts are just doing songs that sound like the songs they like. Which is fine, if not extraordinary.

more like the crystal shits

sorry i had to

Graham Nash needs to join 'em --------> Crystal, Stilts & Nash

I've seen a lot of people slag this band as an Interpol knock off. Which makes no sense to me, but I've only knowingly heard the 1st Interpol album.

I think they're fine but I'm predisposed to like anything on Slumberland records.

Stilts, Hausen & Walkman
(xpost)

I've only knowingly heard the 1st Interpol album.

I'd keep it that way, frankly.

First Interpol album > Crystal Stilts album >>>>> second Interpol album >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> third Interpol album.

xpost Or collaborate with the lead singer of The Clientele -----> Crystal Stilts & Alasdair

no faux-bored posing either - they were totally enjoying themselves, engaging with the crowd, urging them to dance, etc

This is in every way the opposite of when I saw them last week. I actually quite enjoyed the music, which has a bit more of a Gun Club type steez comp'd to the record, but the stage presence would have barely been acceptable from 16-year-olds playing in their school hall

'love is a wave' is a great little tune almost spoiled by terrible singing

yeah but "sugar baby" is just perfect... i'm glad slumberland is getting some hits lately, which should allow them to release more records!

more slumberland records is never a bad thing

bricolage lp is ace btw

The Doors

Are Crystal Antlers the one I like?

― I know, right?, Wednesday, November 19, 2008 7:30 PM (5 months ago) Bookmark

lol - this is what i thought when i opened the thread

I'm so annoyed of Passion Pit already.

new CS album out next week i see

shake the shackles was great so i'm a bit excited

these guys are pretty good.

I liked that first self titled EP so was interested in seeing them at Maxwells months ago. My friends were there and hated it and now I can't live down liking them in any way, though I never had much interest in them beyond that EP.

interesting. i thought their first EP and half of the first album was pretty much total shite

I kind of liked the dreamy, half-there ethereal guitar driven aesthetic of it, at the time. They kind of sounded like a mysterious, very early 90s slumberland band on that first EP. Never really paid attention to the lame singing, but loved the guitar on tracks like Crippled Croon and Converging In The Quiet. Vocals just added to the haunted sound, never in the forefront for me when my focuses are broken down.

I'm such a guitar + lo-fi + sloppy + bittersweet fan.

I'm not really into instrumental bands overall, yet would be perfectly happy with vocals not doing much more than adding yearning harmonies to play off the music in most cases.

i like this band more than i like most brooklyn bands! they're a band i will actually go to see.

Isn't that you up there with the hate in 08?

i think this band are a reasonable example of one that has improved in some way with each release

lol evan, yeah it was! i've mellowed out. they're a fun live band to see, though i still don't think i'd listen to their rekkerds.

played the new album this morning, it's nothing extraordinary but i like it alright. kinda get the feeling these guys are impossible to love, impossible to hate for me. anyway, i played the record the morning after a lady gaga show that came across like a grandiose broadway production (was *fantastic* btw!) and the crystal stilts record sounded good the morning after, functioned like a post-gaga hangover cure. just a big load of cavernous, reverbed-the-fuck-out production and some guy mumbling. most of the tunes not catchy or memorable, really, functioned more like ambient-indie rock. sounds good in the background, when i don't wanna think too much abt the record i'm hearing.

diggin

first track has vague silver apples vibes

Enjoying this new album far more than I was expecting to.

the music is fantastic. with a better singer it would probably be one of the best records of the year. as it stands, it's still pretty good

Yes - Mister Reverb Drenched Misery Chops does get a bit wearing after a while, but the band have come on in leaps and bounds.

Side question: Hey, is singing out of tune a thing now? I feel like there are a good number of bands--Smith Westerns and Titus Andronicus are the ones I'm thinking--who's singers can't/won't hit a note in tune to save their lives. Part of me wonders if this is purposeful or even part of some trend I can't wrap my head around.

Kurt Vile is another one.