new piano magic album, anyone?

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I read a review on amazon.co.uk and it doesn't exactly urge you to buy the album. Talks of "lovely dilettantism" or something along these lines... Has anyone heard it yet? (BTW, the title is "writers without homes" and it's out on june, the 10th) Comments? As for their past output I still have to make up my mind. They can surely come up with beautiful melodies but on the other hand they generally tend to stretch things too far. the Son de Mar soundtrack for example got a bit boring after a while...

― Simone, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

new album ----> new answers

― Simone, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i bought it on saturday (2nd hand copy on berwick street), havent played yet, didnt like son de mar very much, but wanted to hear the new one...

― gareth, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

gareth was yrs a promo? i haven't heard any of it yet (ag is being a bitch), but i have higher hopes than thought, since glen doesnt seem to be singing on it as much as artists rifles.

― jess, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I got the promo. They're on 4AD now, and they're trying to PROVE it by sounding as much as humanly possible like Dead Can Dance without actually being Dead Can Dance. I like it, but that's coz I'm a dodgy old goth...

― speak of the devil, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

:``(

― jess, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Tears of joy I hope you're crying there. ;-) Then again, given the amount of DCD clones in the world, one more might be a problem...

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I was sort of hoping for something that combined Artists' Rifles ambition with Low Birth Weight's sound... But this album is just sort of generally pretty and a bit inconsequential. There's really none of their trademark guitar texture here, either. The Tarwater track and a few others are really good, though. And they dragged the wonderful Vashti Bunyan out of retirement to sing the most boring song on the album. It seems to be Piano Magic on autopilot.

― Melissa W, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The song Vashti Bunyan sings, "Crown of the Lost", is the only one I immediately liked out of the 6 or 7 I've heard. The first song on the album, "(Music Won't Save You From Anything But) Silence", may be the worst thing Piano Magic has ever done.

― Curt, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

one year passes...

New album, The Troubled Sleep Of Piano Magic, due on December 15th, on the Spanish label Green UFOs. Does anyone still care?

― desolert (desolate), Saturday, 29 November 2003 13:27 (twenty-one years ago)

For some reason, I do.

― JC (JC A.), Saturday, 29 November 2003 17:00 (twenty-one years ago)

i am actually kind of amazed how LITTLE i care, from a band that was once so very close to my heart. (the old records stil are.) they really broke it with that last one...

― fiddo centington (dubplatestyle), Saturday, 29 November 2003 21:51 (twenty-one years ago)

eleven months pass...

Has anybody even heard this yet???? OPINIONS????

― fizzcaraldo (Justin M), Monday, 1 November 2004 21:17 (twenty years ago)

writers without homes is very good. much better than the singles comp. there is a live on the french radio planet claire which is even better than the lp.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Monday, 1 November 2004 23:02 (twenty years ago)

it's been out for almost a year (troubled sleep), it's excellent, much better than writers. the final song is gorgeous.

― kyle (akmonday), Monday, 1 November 2004 23:03 (twenty years ago)

also, glen's textile ranch record (bird heart in wool) is very good as well, more like popular mechanics/the early singles. if piano magic died with low birth weight for you (as it did for a lot of people i know), then give it a listen.

― kyle (akmonday), Monday, 1 November 2004 23:05 (twenty years ago)

five years pass...

"the faint horizon" on the new one is all sorts of aztec cameria wonderfulness

― kamerad, Saturday, 7 November 2009 17:17 (fifteen years ago)

I wish I liked their recent music. :(

― Turangalila, Saturday, 7 November 2009 20:46 (fifteen years ago)

have you checked out the latest one yet though? at least give "you never loved this city" a listen. "recovery position"'s pretty good too and "exit"'s a perfect closer

― kamerad, Saturday, 7 November 2009 21:08 (fifteen years ago)

Yeah. The arrangements are a bit better on this new one.
I don’t find anything particularly objectionable about their new music. But the PM I love isn’t a Joy Division/Durutti Column tribute band, I guess is what I’m trying to say? It used to be about alien, sparse musical backdrops with evocative narratives/pretty vocal harmonies on top. Now it’s kind of generically niceish and sounds like a different band altogether?

― Turangalila, Saturday, 7 November 2009 21:25 (fifteen years ago)

Also I really don't like his singing voice. :-S Especially when I know Suzy Mangion's just a phone call away.

― Turangalila, Saturday, 7 November 2009 21:33 (fifteen years ago)

this new one's more new order cloning, but i'm not minding that much at all. "you never loved this city" develops a pretty evocative narrative if you should care to check it out

― kamerad, Saturday, 7 November 2009 22:44 (fifteen years ago)

I love 'The Troubled Sleep Of...', quite like 'Disaffected' (esp. the New Order bits) but thought 'Part Monster' was mostly pretty but inconsequential wheelspinning - in fact some of it sounded excellent but since it was always stuff they'd done previously and better it didn't draw me back much.

Will I like the new one?

― Tim F, Sunday, 8 November 2009 09:43 (fifteen years ago)

i like the sound of all the post-4AD albums but not one of them have contained a song that stayed with me in the way that the early singles and most of artists rifles have

― frank bananarama (electricsound), Sunday, 8 November 2009 09:45 (fifteen years ago)

It's funny that you say that because I think The Troubled Sleep Of... is my favourite from a songwriting perspective but a bit behind Low Birth Weight, Bliss Out (those two esp.) and Artists' Rifles on a sound level.

Love this line: "You turn on your side/like you have to face north/or else you can't sleep/the unwritten law."

I don't even know why but it's one of my favourite lyrics ever.

― Tim F, Sunday, 8 November 2009 09:50 (fifteen years ago)

idk Tim, maybe you'd dig his solo album ("Details Not Recorded") that came out earlier this year?

From the title track: "You are sleeping with the singer/though the drummer fucked you twice."

― Turangalila, Sunday, 8 November 2009 10:41 (fifteen years ago)

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