completely raw impressions with absolutely zero editing or revision; i did not re-read a single sentence here after typing it
track 1: it sounds nice and i like the tape hiss, but i don't think it's interesting or "atmospheric" enough to warrant such a long duration. there are baudouin oosterlynck pieces which are long and repetitive, but they give you a sense of
thereness -- that is, you are transported somewhere, and as such, the repeating sound is the sound of your alien environment, which you are now spending time in. i am spending time
listening to this track. it is a little mysterious... but not enough for me. i like the sound of the rolling fingers upon a board or whatever that is that starts up after the first five minutes or so. that is pleasant. maybe that was there the whole time and i only started focusing on it after 5 minutes. i'm not sure.
i actually went into this album thinking it would have a guy singing and would be some kind of post-punk thing, but without guitars. like uhhh... monoton or something. i'm not sure why i thought that. might just be because the album cover looks like it could be a monoton album cover.
this didn't actually feel like it took anywhere near 15 minutes.
track 2: more emotional. melancholic, lonely. a bit more variation. i prefer this. at the same time, i'm starting to become disinterested because i'm starting to anticipate that the entire album will simply be a single "quiet" instrument being played in an empty room for a moderate duration of time -- wait a sec was that a field recording? maybe it was just the microphone being moved. i'm not going to rewind. i feel vaguely more interested upon hearing these slight variations in ambience -- not the ambience of the instrument, but the ambience of the static canvas upon which the instrument is being played. i'm starting to listen to this album as i would listen to onkyo, actually, and finding that it's much more enjoyable. that is: listening to the "silence," or lack thereof. you hated sukora, so i doubt you can relate to this mode of listening. i have my volume at 100% at this point. going to go get another beer because i'm starting to sober up. i forgot that this track was supposed to be melancholic, and the tape hiss background ambience air sound hasn't changed in a while. the creaks and shuffles are in the foreground now.
i just want to go listen to sukora now.
track 3: the background ambience fade-in makes it sound like distant rain. is that intentional? this track is immediately much more interesting. the artist has to be doing this intentionally. i turned the volume down to normal volume and the background ambience is barely noticeable and just sounds like tape hiss. maybe i'm being weird. i like the jingling sounds and the percussion. i'm not looking at track times anymore. i kind of hope this album is on the short side. by the way, the melody is "asiatic," which is... okay. it actually makes it somewhat uninteresting compared to track 1, which was more strange. the asiatic thing is a little too obvious. speaking of track 1, we have a little kalimba harmonizing now... this is more interesting. i'm glad that the one-instrument-repeating-a-melody-in-an-empty-room formula is being broken; i wasn't a huge fan.
it would be insane if a guy started singing right now. i would immediately give the album 4 stars.
my focus has kind of been lost at this point. i'm not doing the "derp im listening to the changes in tape hiss im so deep" thing anymore. i'm just browsing the internet while forgetting this shit is playing and u mad. the gooky melody is straddling the line between catchy and annoying.
track 4: oh, what's this? electronics? there is a huge risk of sounding cheap and tinny, but a huge potential benefit of sounding like
Tolerance. let's see where this goes. (how the fuck have you never listened to Tolerance?) this doesn't sound cheap, thankfully. no hi-hats or anything tacky. it's a good addition. i like the way each track is making a slight variation upon the formula. the melody here is nothing special, not much to say about it. piano is a bit of a step down from kalimba, isn't it? if i wanted loosely-repetitive-slightly-varying mellow piano minimalism, i would listen to... (you know what i'm going to say) (i'll just say it: dennis johnson's
November)
November by Dennis Johnson (really by R. Andrew Lee) is my mother's favorite album for some reason. it's always playing in her car. this is in part because the car picks that albums from her phone automatically and she doesn't bother changing it...
she listens to it at an extremely low volume. actually, she might've stopped doing this over a year ago. maybe something changed in the car settings or her phone settings. but she was listening to it all the time for at least 2 or 3 years.
i just want to go listen to
November now.
some stereophonic stuff is being experimented with right now as i continue listening. ASMR-like. quite good. significant change to the piano melodies; faster pace. the formula has been completely broken. we're escaping the empty room. is the track going to end now?
ironically, my attention was lost again quickly after this... when i'm no longer listening for small changes, when more things are happening, i paradoxically become far less attentive. to be fair, this might just be because i saw a notification on the forum.
i feel like laying down and closing my eyes now. i'm sleepy. it's a little past midnight. the stereophonic stuff is happening again; good. there's a risk of me falling asleep to this, which would mean i'd need to listen to the album all over again from the beginning...
*gets up* this piano is sickeningly tonal. it's just... playing. i can't drift to sleep to this.
track 5: kind of a goofy off-kilter melody. not sure what he's going for with this. there's no way he'd continue on with this for the whole track... yeah, it's changed, now. why are we still on the piano? i'm a bit disappointed by the lack of timbral diversity; early into track 4, i was hopeful for some exploration, including electronics and exotic instruments. during track 2, i was tripping or something thinking he was intentionally experimenting with the tape hiss and background ambience. this would be a much better album if all of these things were actually focused upon by the artist, integrated, and turned into a true immersive soundscape. what we have instead is a guy diddling his piano. but wait! the electronics make their return? the tape hiss is suspiciously louder? something -- something is bound to happen. right? i'm waiting.
waiting, waiting, waiting -- we're trapped in this empty room forever, aren't we? doo-doo-dee-doo. doo-doo-doo--dee. doo-doo-dee-dee. doo-doo-dee-dee-dee. doo-dah--di-doo. doo-dah-di-doo-doo. i like the two piano melodies in dialogue, actually... in fact i haven't felt this engaged in a while... i don't actually know why i'm suddenly enjoying this so much.
i'm actually slightly sad to hear the track fade out. this would be a fine ending to the album.
track 6: i guess i shouldn't have been sad, because this is very similar... again. actually, it sounds more like
November than anything else so far. if you told me this was an except from somewhere in the middle of
November, i might actually believe you. but
November is actually far more realized, far more mature... because it goes on and on for like 5 hours and constantly has these subtle variations that frequently feel melancholic and lonely, wandering, with the addition of very pleasing slightly-radical-but-slightly-familiar harmonizing. note clusters. i do like this. what this album is doing, i mean. but it isn't anything new or original, and it's in fact a lot simpler than other offerings of the world of music. dennis johnson wrote november in the 1950's. the fucking 50's! and it really is just this track, but better, and for 5 hours!
the tape hiss. i guess i've neglected you. but can you blame me? so has the musician.
oh, the album's over, now.
i still wish he would've sung.
4 track album
irritablehedgehog.bandcamp.com
not gonna lie it's kind of absurd how much better this is than your album. this makes me feel like im gonna melt because of how good it sounds. your artist is not classically-trained and therefore lacks the ability to play these triads. and therefore he noodles.
the notes themselves that are played here are fascinating to me, and that's why it holds my attention despite the timbral monotony.
this is from the 50's btw.
in the event that @muttonhead is evicted, @mochi is responsible for choosing the next album.
