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Joined: Wed January 02, 2013 2:42 am Posts: 2444 Location: Minneapolis
so lost in the dream was the monthly selection for vinyl me, please subscribers a couple months back. as i said above, i never wanted to hear under the pressure ever again, so suffice it to say i wasn't excited about receiving the record. but i did get it and tried to give it a few fair listens.
i don't get it. the album really doesn't do much at all for me. the songs definitely feature a confluence of styles that form a unique whole, but i feel no excitement or impulse from it. this is one album that, the more people gush about it (which is happening more and more), the more i am confused as to how i just don't feel the same way. like, what am i missing? i wish i knew.
_________________ ah, copperplate, a font for the truly modern man.
In response to AndySlash's question earlier: This album wasn't an instant winner for me either. Sometimes the songwriting feels kind of vague and sketchy, like you can't tell where the composition ends and the interpretation begins (some of Will Oldham's songs are like that -- the melodies are so austere that it seems hard to believe that someone deliberately composed them). And the thing about this record is that those subtle melodies and turns of phrase are obscured by walls of atmosphere, so at first it comes on sounding like this big noisy mess of nondescript nothing. However, once those tunes start to emerge, that atmosphere adds an immense weight to them. All I can really advise is to keep listening -- it repays not only repeat listens but also listens in a variety of settings; I too found the cursory listens on my headphones rather unremarkable, but once I took it out into the world and listened to it in the city, on the highway, etc., a lot of the hidden pleasures of the album started to reveal themselves. There is a nostalgic sweetness at the heart of it, and there's a masterful sense of conjunction between the songwriting and the singer's sense of phrasing. I'm having a hard time pulling as much of that good stuff out of "Slave Ambient" -- hopefully it's in there somewhere...
I have had this for a few weeks. I am begining to appreciate it more. Thus far it reminds me a little of 80's Don Henly and Bryan Adams. But I trust Kevin Davis, in that there is more than meets the eye. Although I prefer Mingus to his contemporaries (I'm certainly no jazz expert)
An enigma of a man shaped hole in the wall between reality and the soul of the devil.
Joined: Tue January 01, 2013 5:13 pm Posts: 39812 Location: 6000 feet beyond man and time.
There is no doubt that on the surface their music sounds like the worst of early 80s adult contemporary garbage (and some not so terrible bands), but the end result is something far superior. Its kinda amazing. I can't stop listening.
I feel like Dire Straights (who WoD steals wholeheartedly from) never lived up to their potential. They had a cool sound, but never seemed too concerned with exploring it in depth. They kinda had that "too cool to care" mentality that I've grown to hate (ie Jim James). WoD seems to take it further. This sort of "derivative" art is fine by me.
Its hard to choose between this one and Slave Ambient, though. I like both.
There is no doubt that on the surface their music sounds like the worst of early 80s adult contemporary garbage (and some not so terrible bands), but the end result is something far superior. Its kinda amazing. I can't stop listening.
I feel like Dire Straights (who WoD steals wholeheartedly from) never lived up to their potential. They had a cool sound, but never seemed too concerned with exploring it in depth. They kinda had that "too cool to care" mentality that I've grown to hate (ie Jim James). WoD seems to take it further. This sort of "derivative" art is fine by me.
Its hard to choose between this one and Slave Ambient, though. I like both.
There are some pretty incredible tracks on Slave AMbient but the overall product that is Lost in a Dream is superior. It's the total package from start to finish. This is hands down my favorite record of the year.
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