thread in which we talk about kinda arty kinda electronic stuff which gets compared to "The Knife" type stuff

More Gazelle Twin needed, yes:

http://youtu.be/BOXJS6iS1fg

oh ffs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOXJS6iS1fg

Grimes is good. There is one unreleased song she's been playing live all year that will be a hit, I can't find a good recording of it but this is the one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq2SSXEY3IQ

Here's a much better sounding video http://player.vimeo.com/video/21480152

OMG @ this Gazelle Twin album.

^^^ OTM, made my afternoon

Wow that Gazelle Twin album is fantastic. Why did no one who'd heard it start a thread about it?

Listening to this record reaffirms the importance of production and arrangement to stuff like this. I can't really get with people like Zola Jesus or Austra because while the voices are nice the arrangements and synths sound so out-of-the-box. Whereas there's great sound design and interesting stuff happening right across the Gazelle Twin record, same goes for Fever Ray and Planningtorock and the likes. I'm getting bits of Vespertine and the last Trentemoller album in there as well, and Alison Goldfrapp warbling over Tricky and the bleaker sounding Orbital tracks as well.

(Same criticism applies to witch house types who use the same tinny production techniques as yr jobbing US rap producers to worse effect).

I agree with this for the most part. I get that Zola Jesus is going for some sort of goth/EBM aesthetic, but jings, it's 2011 already and I'm just not interested in cheap synth music.

I suppose I need to spend more time with Gazelle Twin on better headphones because so far, although y'all are going bonkers for it, I still haven't had that instant "WANT this in my life!" like I had with Emika and Barbara Panther, for example.

I agree, it's much more the production and the arrangements than it is "crazy lady in the attick" voice (as much as I like crazy ladies in attics) but we probably disagree on what makes a good production because I'm not bothered by Austra, I quite like what they're doing.

Zola Jesus, though, I have really tried with, and agreed, it's just silly goth affectations. There was one thing I thought I liked by her, but I think it was a collaboration with another artist in a similar vein (heh) - I don't have Spotify on this computer so I can't even look up what it was or see if it held up under re-listening.

(And Owen, I can't get any of your Grimes vids to work but that might be this rub old puter not yr links)

Your computer, I think? Don't watch the Youtube, the Vimeo is way better.
I don't know if Grimes has anything to do with "Knife-y vocals", if anything, she sounds to me like a female Damo Suzuki, but I love that the song goes from skip-rope chant to Madonna and ends with backwards rapping. Great song!

Do I have to spell this out every 5 posts? I didn't start this thread looking for stuff that sounds JUST LIKE The Knife or even Knife-y.

I am looking for stuff that gets *compared* to The Knife, as in, shorthand for "arty, weird, slightly pretentious electronic music with non-traditional vocals that are usually female or falsetto or pitch-shifted."

Repeat to fade.

This might be why I'm not fully onboard with the Gazelle Twin stuff, because although the production is nice and fairly interesting, her voice is really quite "traditionally pretty" sounding and I just think I'm not really that interested in traditionally pretty girl voices at the moment.

I think it's quite unsettling actually, but that's probably the melodies and the treatment of the vocals rather than the voice itself.

I want to thanks this thread for introducing me to the fantastic GRIMES

cool thread! a few more picks

new ford & lopatin feat tamaryn fits here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAGIb5U5wkY

dillon. more newsomesque than electro weirdo but this tune does the trick

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq6HhsWgTpo

LOL. one of the most slept on records of the year. this is great stuff. "dare me" and "quarter life crisis" are also worth tracking down

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IiCiES0tAU

pandr eyez. came across these guys recently. they just put out an ep a month ago or so. sort of a poppier take on witch house, which i dig.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-OQZpy7pew

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJobaxZqy18

^ Ayshay - Warn-U

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

^ Julia Holter - Goddess Eyes

This is probably not directly under the remit of this thread but I love this track so much I will take any opportunity to talk about it

Lamb - "Butterfly Effect"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzkGWdw9ieM

(although there are strong shades of We Love in the arrangement, now that I think about it)

Well, I listened to the whole Gazelle Twin album and I just wonder what I'm missing on it.

Like, I can hear that it's very obviously quite skillfully put together, and I appreciate the aesthetics ... but as a whole, it just felt leaden and plodding, and always just slightly too small, like I constantly wanted to nudge the BPM just up a little, too down-tempo, too dreamy, too bog standard "ethereal girl" which I've just done to death really and have no need to ever hear again.

I can recognise it's a well made album, it just does nothing for me.

Anyway there's a ton more videos on this thread I shall listen to now.

Too small? Too SLOW.

I thought you were saying it was too restrained and that bumping up the BPM would let it loose

That too, actually. I don't really know, and I don't really care to spend enough more time with that album in order to figure out what's not reaching me on it.

I want to thanks this thread for introducing me to the fantastic GRIMES

the more i think of it, the more geidi primes is one of my favorite records of the year.(n.1) i think i read an interview with grimes where she said she's embarrassed by it now, and thinks all her prior work pales in comparison to the album she's about to release early next year. i think she went as far as to almost say she wishes she hadn't released that prior work, which -- as i say -- is crazy!, since geidi primes is a very cool little disc.

________________________
(n.1) possible it was very quietly released in late 2010, but it's basically new to everyone in 2011.

Actually I should spend more time with Geidi Primes, too, bcuz I might tend to agree with her, but I'd still like to look into that record more. I just got SO knocked out by the sprawling *reach* of Halfaxa.

I approach the Gazelle Twin as ambient/atmosphere album, so the pace doesn't bother me. The major flaw is that its pretty front-loaded, with few highlights for me past song 6.

Anyway GT is a woman who wears masks in public and namechecks J.G. Ballard. I'm predisposed to be smitten.

btw i also saw the twist in Incendies coming a mile off but that's cos every bloody review described it as "Greek tragedy"

may have seen the twist coming a mile off yet i am clearly unable to post things in the right thread

Actually I should spend more time with Geidi Primes, too, bcuz I might tend to agree with her, but I'd still like to look into that record more. I just got SO knocked out by the sprawling *reach* of Halfaxa.

i'm smitten with the dune-theme of the record, and i tend to hear it through that conceit. also, i think it's a charming little record, a reminder that not every good disc needs to be -- or should attempt to be -- "epic" (not everyone needs this reminder, but sometimes i do).

(yeah, I was this close to searching Spotify to see if Incendies was some hot new electro-pop outfit from Toronto)

x-post

Whoa Grimes seems to spontaneously burst into the Nyancat chant at the end of GrisGris, that threw me.

3 songs in and I quite like the SLEEP ∞ OVER album but I think I liked it better when it was called Livonia.

It could just be the specific reverb they are using but if someone told me this was a rerelease of a record that had come out on 4AD in 1986, I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised.

or Black Tape For A Blue Girl

You're quite right, there is something very 4AD about it. The album was a bit of a letdown on the whole imo, but she's someone i'm definitely looking forward to hearing more from in the future.

Actually I should spend more time with Geidi Primes, too, bcuz I might tend to agree with her, but I'd still like to look into that record more. I just got SO knocked out by the sprawling *reach* of Halfaxa.

i'm smitten with the dune-theme of the record, and i tend to hear it through that conceit. also, i think it's a charming little record, a reminder that not every good disc needs to be -- or should attempt to be -- "epic" (not everyone needs this reminder, but sometimes i do).

― Daniel, Esq., Wednesday, December 7, 2011 11:10 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Permalink

Geidi Primes is probably my favourite of her three releases, although they're all excellent. Watching her cobble the stuff together live is a blast, although I haven't seen her in a year or so, since the Lykke Li co-sign, NYTimes, etc. have brought her further and further afield from Montreal.

Also, while Vanessa is her most 'accessible' track, I still think the best pop song she's written is 'avi'

Also, came to post this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80Tf9XL11Bc

Not sure if CREEP fit in here, but they're wonderful and if this doesn't beat their collaboration with Nina Sky earlier this year, it's still worth a listen.

lol this is the third time Creep has been mentioned in this thread

ha. well, at any rate, the video just got released today. track out in january.

i don't really get this julia holter album. it's kind of like sonic decoration that plays as you're wandering around an art installation except there's no art installation

the only time i perked up was when "so lillies" went into the 4/4 beat :/

I am so not down with CREEP. I keep trying to get with CREEP and I think it's not them, it's me, but it's just not happening for me.

Should probably give these things another listen but I'm so full of flu today I just wanna down cough syrup and listen to J-Pop.

Oh, I thought you had something against Red'ohed's song of the same name.

Yeah, bring on CREEP featuring Thom Yorke and then we'll talk.

But I think that's on a level with the cough syrup induced "Thom Yorke / LOLrie Penny slash" head-splode that happened yesterday. I gotta lay off this stuff.

the best thing about creep is that they use vocalists who are amazing, not thom yorke!

i love the new one, think i might be alone in preferring "days" to "you" though

Lex, you can't fool me, after 2 glasses of wine you confessed to me you thought Thom Yorke's voice was pretty damned amazing when he sticks to his lower register so NYEAH NYEAH NYEAH. But whatever, you say potatoes, I say truffle fries.

This 'changing display names' thing is fun!

I might sack it when real ILX comes back, but for now...

I don't think I've seen Blouse mentioned itt. I don't know much about them/her but I love the track "Into Black" and the use of Les amants du Pont Neuf in the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwvflpqOb5M

Really liking this one from Delilah - I think she first emerged as a jobbing vocalist with Chase & Status and I assumed her solo career was going to be along the post Katy B lines, but this new one seems to indicate she might belong here just as much...

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

the best thing about creep is that they use vocalists who are amazing, not thom yorke!

I like Romy XX a lot but I would never call her "amazing"!

well she's kind of amazing at what she does!

this is prob the best thread, in the sandbox era, for some NEW ROISIN MURPHY:

http://soundcloud.com/hardcandymusic/roisin-murphy-simulation