Throwing Shadows and Avoiding the Industry Treadmill: ILX Pre-Covers The Next Day

Annnnd...enjoy.

https://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-000040059896-e7d2ye-t500x500.jpg

http://www.sendspace.com/file/cq61sb

https://soundcloud.com/nedraggett/sets/ilx-pre-covers-the-next-day

The Next Day -- MaresNest
Dirty Boys -- The Mysterious Monopole
The Stars (Are Out Tonight) -- The Roswell Incident
Love Is Lost -- DJP
Valentine's Day -- Ismael Klata
If You Can See Me -- Eazy
I'd Rather Be High -- snoball
Boss Of Me -- Grannykart
Dancing Out In Space -- da croupier
How Does The Grass Grow -- Mark G
(You Will) Set The World On Fire -- pippa's hearse
You Feel So Lonely You Could Die -- scare quotes
Heat -- crüt
So She -- The Linger Effect
I'll Take You There -- weatheringdaleson
Plan -- Spectrist

yay!

Should correct the final 'band' name, that's Sam Therapy there.

SHAM Therapy, rather.

these are all really good so far!

Yeah it's a nice fairly low key mix.

http://images.cheezburger.com/completestore/2010/12/6/4924b29d-133c-460d-bfc3-e078fbb4888d.jpg

KYLE MACLACHLAN! YAY!

ahah, great art cover !

would love to listen to this if soundcloud was working at all

Yeah, got two tracks in, digging what I heard, then SC went and had and aneurysm.

urgh i finally got the app to work but it refuses to get me to the album stream, just the individual tracks

Huh, that sucks. Working just fine for me over here. There's always the sendspace option!

not at work :(

anyways not ned's fault obv. thanks for putting this together, ned! i'm listening via the app in whatever order they decide to give me the songs

Indeed, thanks to Ned and all the other contributors. What I've heard so far is pretty great.

well this is cool, I can't get to this at all on my new work PC

This is good so far. Thanks chaps!

YAY!!!

lol way to go, stupid default sound settings

Just spotted that this is up so not started listening, but just being picky, there's a typo in the description: where it says "'Where Are We Know' has no pre-cover" - should be 'Now', obviously.

okay yeah this is starting out super awesome

listening to the DJP track now with it's nice wet synth and was pleasantly surprised by where it went. Again, this is a cracker so far.

Up to Mark G's contribution and I have to say, not a dud in the bunch. Stellar work people.

jesus mine is half the volume of everyone else's AGAIN

brb, gonna actually learn how to use Garageband

Spectrist's is n/l

Mark G's has a whiff of the early Cabs, and that Seeds influence, great stuff.

Ha, thanks emil.y. Brain lock there...

Should also say that the cover art was courtesy of da croup!

I contributed pony sex to "Dirty Boys!"

wait

Oh man, you can barely hear me :-(

Why did you Jason Newsted me, Emil.y?!

Its alright Jeff, you can go on and join Voivod for a little while and then release your solo Hamster EP.

J3ff, you are the brony backbone of the whole thing. Also, your recording level was low to start with, so I had to make you more of a haunting pervy bassline, sorry.

I really should get me in on one of these pre-cover things... maybe next time!

Whoa, actually started to listen to this, Maresnest's track is awesome.

I think I say this every time an ilx album comes around, but I love snoball's voice.

I enjoyed the whole record. Excellent music from start to finish.

I freely admit that every new snoball track makes me so glad.

I concur, EZ.

On the Linger Effect now, gonna have to go back and see who that was, because it's fucking rad, and probably the most actual Bowie impersonating, hehe.

eazy (not EZ), is this your first recording since your album?

Yeah, I think so, other than live/radio shows.

don't call it a comeback

Wait, album? Is Eazy Kevin Shields?

Folk game Terrence Malick

Get back to editing your new film then you punk.

On the Linger Effect now, gonna have to go back and see who that was, because it's fucking rad, and probably the most actual Bowie impersonating, hehe.

Thanks emil.y! Inspired by side 1 of Low. Liberated bits of Crowley/Kabbalah after consuming truckloads of coke and sleeping with Mick Jagger.

I just finished listening to this - great job everyone! I take it this hasn't been uploaded to youtube like Lulu was?

MaresNest's track is my fave - sucker for motorik that I am. I want more stuff like this in my life.

Most anticipated YouTube leak comments: "Boss of Me"

MaresNest's track is better'n mine by an unstoppable motorik beat.

you guys are so cool

#ilxfanclub

DJP FFS

Oh there is no track five.

That would be the ghost track.

Whooo..

If only Momus.. oh wait

lol

who is "pippa's hearse"?

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y161/MarkGrout/ilxnx_zpse2c3424d.jpg

You genius

"boss of me" source material:

http://publicdomain4u.com/ora-alexander-youve-got-to-save-that-thing/mp3-download

my track was built by me panicking, taking an old Rebirth track I did circa 1999 and throwing percussion and Latin piano Garageband loops on top of it

Mine was made up as I played it into my phone.

BUMP!

probably the most actual Bowie impersonating

Oi! The man himself actually enters appearance on mine; that's a pretty fine impersonation imo. I was originally aiming towards a full-on 'Hello Spaceboy' number, the ghost of which is in the skittery beats near the start, but it ended up developing entirely differently.

Surely that's a cameo not an impersonation? Oh, I am so confused...

you've got me there. Was good of him to spare the time though

Rave

Music for Blizzards

"Follow nedraggett, Lana Del Rey, The New Yorker and others on SoundCloud."

Soundcloud always comes up with the nuttiest connections.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh9djDJyI0Y

Momus 'sort-of' joins in...

(i.e. he has the lyrics of the next single "The Stars (are out tonight)", but not the music. So.... )

Reviewed blind and subjectively, and with cloth ears. No offence intended:

The Next Day - cracking start, I love the disembodied voices, mournful piano and theremin combo.  The ensuing synths are pure Berlin-era and I like the mechanic percussion and bass when it arrives.  The main (guitar?) thunderous loop is too much for me though, it drowns everything else out; I'd've rathered it be more sparing and the whoops and vocals mixed up more.  Excellent mood setting though.  (8)

Dirty Boys - very amusing, the voices overlapping are (un)pleasingly nightmarish.  I feel like there's something wittier here than I'm getting.  It needs more musical progression though, to drive the track onwards - the second half drags for me.  (6)

The Stars (Are Out Tonight) - this is lovely, the overlapping surges are very dramatic.  I'd've ventured that it could stand to lose a couple of minutes maybe, but that feels kind of irrelevant to a piece like this.  (7)

Love Is Lost - this is really good, well put-together stuff from bass to the cute little key changes that kick in around 1:50.  I'd've liked a dirtier, fuller piano sound I think.  And a vocal - no male diva refrain feels like a cop-out on this one.  (8)

Valentine's Day - amazing.  (11)

If You Can See Me - sweet little ditty, but what is with the imagery?!  'even though it doesn't have a palm, or any fingers' ffs.  Bonus mark for having a coda, but tbh it could lose the reaching-for-the-stop-button effect at the end.  (6)

I'd Rather Be High - I found this kinda annoying at first, but it's *possibly* the pick here, if I'm in the right Numanesque mood.  Love the breakdowns and dissonant screeches bringing us back in.  (8)

Boss Of Me - brilliant textures on this, initially it's like something you'd hear looped in a darkened side room in a modern art gallery.  I love how the bluesy loops join up near the end with the rising static; I imagine this is how the earth's scrambled radio waves get picked up in space, eighty light years out.  (9)

Dancing Out In Space - this is incredibly annoying.  You say there are people make a living out of this sort of thing?!  That said, I do like how sometimes I can't tell if the vocals are double-tracked or not, and 'everybody chases the sun...' is a hook than anyone else's on this thing.  Still... (5)

How Does The Grass Grow - yeah, this is nice.  I like the non-repeating graduated entries throughout the first half, they give a good sense of progression.  What doesn't please me is the uneven levels of distortion between the riffs - it makes for a binary change between times when those riffs are on/off, and I find the second half uncomfortable as a result.  Maybe something more continuous and unifying would've been better here, and turned more into one piece and less into a compilation.  (7)

(You Will) Set The World On Fire - I'm out of my depth here.  (6)

You Feel So Lonely You Could Die - excellent!  I wasn't expecting anything approaching epic out of this.  Beautiful solo too, I appreciate the restraint.  Maybe I don't like the percussion so much, sparseness is good but the individual hits should be softer.  There's a bit of Simple Minds, a bit of 'I've Had The Time Of My Life' about it, and incredibly here those are good things.  (9)

Heat - this poor soul suffers from the tracklisting, this dinky sonic experiment isn't what I'm wanting right now.  I do like the sounds, but it might've been more pleasingly manic chopped in half.  (6)

So She - this is the other one with a hook.  More than one actually.  Loses a point for no middle eight, or coda as such; so even though it hangs together so well, I'm not getting the resolution I crave.  (8)

I'll Take You There - I enjoy the percussion loop, and this is a pleasing and favourable return to the slightly novelty feel of some of the early tracks; ultimately, however, this is too bitty for me, and I respond badly to classical references generally, so (6), though I'm tempted to sling it (7) for the unexpected horn flourish at the end.

Plan - these art gallery soundtracks are a genre of their own, then?  Nice sounds, witty samples, doesn't exceed its welcome; but in the end not where I want to be for a closing track.  (7)

Brave man.

Gulp. I forgot to say the whole thing's a treat - even the stuff I'm not so into personally has been beautifully put together. I had a spare hour and some big headphones and thought I'd give it the attention it deserves and a critical ear, don't hang me!

Not a problem.

Eh, I feel like he's pretty spot on about mine.

gotta say i'm flattered to have the lowest score while also allegedly having the sole hook - sounds i'm challenging the rockists

I shouldn't've scored these; that was stupid of me, sorry. Low score partly explained by my playing yours on repeat at our house the other night - I'm afraid it drove us all mental after about four passes. I assumed that was what you were going for tbh. In any event it's clearly scrambled my judgement - I'll consider myself challenged, and defeated.

a bit of 'I've Had The Time Of My Life' about it

This should be the next Bowie/Jagger charity cover.

So She - this is the other one with a hook. More than one actually. Loses a point for no middle eight, or coda as such; so even though it hangs together so well, I'm not getting the resolution I crave. (8)

I can dig that. But that was pretty much the intention - a Low-side-one-esque song fragment at the same length as Bowie's So She.

Though I am nearly always guilty of omitting choruses and middle-eights when I make music. Constructive criticism much appreciated.

I'll Take You There - I enjoy the percussion loop, and this is a pleasing and favourable return to the slightly novelty feel of some of the early tracks

*Thanks!

ultimately, however, this is too bitty for me

*I don't know what this means!

I respond badly to classical references generally

*You should hear my Hamlet tune!

so (6), though I'm tempted to sling it (7) for the unexpected horn flourish at the end

*Well "there is a flourish" had to be realized at some point.

Nice job, everyone, the whole thing is a really great listen! I had to get mine wrapped up before I was quite ready to do so, so I'll take 6/7. And yeah, con/crit is appreciated here too. I was just really happy to be on one of these comps. :-)

yall are nuts. my favorite track is "You Feel So Lonely You Could Die"

aw thanks

hey whatever happened to this

Ned, did you take it down to make room for another pre-cover?