super groovy delicious bite: dreampop

Showing posts with label dreampop. Show all posts

Friday, November 13, 2015

takk...

Sigur Rós created glowing galvanic moments out of little adventures in the delicate dynamics and swelling strings of this rapturous requital. The Icelandic quartet had developed their unique ethereal sound over three albums ('Von' in 1997, 'Ágætis Byrjun' in 1999, and '( )' in 2002), three EP's (Rímur in 2001, Sigur 1 / Sigur 9 in 2003, and their composition for Merce Cunningham's Split Sides Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do in 2004), and the instrumental electronic soundtrack to the documentary Hlemmur in 2002.

'Takk...' was recorded at their Sundlaugin "swimming pool" studio near Álafoss, in the town of Mosfellsbær. The sessions featured Jón Þór Birgisson on vocals and guitar; Kjartan Sveinsson on keyboards; Georg Hólm on bass guitar; and Orri Páll Dýrason on drums; with strings by Amiina, Kristín Lárusdóttir, Júlía Mogensen, Stefanía Ólafsdóttir, Eyjólfur Bjarni Alfreðsson, Ingrid Karlsdóttir, Gréta Salóme Stefánsdóttir, Matthías Stefánsson, and Ólöf Júlía Kjartansdóttir; brass by Eiríkur Orri Ólafsson, Snorri Sigurðarson, Helgi Hrafn Jónsson, Samúel Jón Samúelsson, and Össur Geirsson; Frank Aarnink on percussion; and Álafosskórinn as the choir on "Hoppípolla". The band co-produced the album with Ken Thomas.

Orri Páll Dýrason: "I think you can hear through the music what kind of mood we were in. We were a bit dazed by the brackets album. Life was weird, so many things were changing and we had no roots. Touring a lot. Now we are secure about ourselves, having gotten used to the whole thing. We are happy...We felt like writing lyrics. The reason there were no lyrics on the last album was that we had written these songs years back with Jónsi singing gibberish vocals to them the entire time. They were fully formed and it would have been strange to suddenly insert lyrics into these finished products. This time we went into the studio with only two old songs and both of them are lyricless. The new songs all have lyrics. It's fun to write lyrics. We all get together and chat a lot."

Kjartan Sveinsson: "We're thankful for we've been able to do, and for the appreciation we get. We really love where we are...We didn't set out to do anything. I think it's more heavy-ish and slow...We very rarely try to do anything. It's always just things happen in a way. We're always learning, of course. We did things differently but I'm not sure how to describe it exactly...It always develops. We mess with things until the last moment. So, no, I wouldn't say there's a goal when we start the process...We're just trying to do good music and enjoy it and have fun...We're really bad at practicing. The only time we play together is just when we're writing music. Then of course we play so much when we tour. We would never actually to go to the studio to practice our own songs. That's really boring to us. We should always be writing something new...They're kind of stories, some of them are just a few sentences, and it's all very childlike, fairy tale-y. They're not deep and meaningful lyrics on this album, no! It's more stories, short stories ... We have never been much for concepts even though it sometimes looks like it. Concepts come afterwards. When you look closely at a work it's always easy to find a concept there but we have never approached a project with a predetermined concept in mind. It's not our style, really. Sigur Rós is not a clever band. There are no deep thoughts behind what we are doing...If we don't [agree] we always manage to find a way to work it out. We've played together for so long and know each other inside out...No one is exactly the same. It's like a marriage. You have to nurture the relationship and make comprimises. Otherwise it won't last. This is especially valid for bands who form at a young age. You're always learning new things about behavioural patterns and about the different characters you meet. The difference is that in a marriage there are only two people who have to settle their differences...We've been working on this record for twenty months, which is a normal period of time. For Sigur Rós at least...You never know what will happen. This is our baby. It's exciting. Very exciting."

Georg Hólm: "It comes as a surprise. It's as if we're constantly starting over. When we were making Ágætis Byrjun that's how it felt. The brackets album was more of an extension. It was a tough period. Now we're fresh again and it feels like we're starting anew. We took a vacation before we started this album and when we came together again it felt like we were all about to burst. Like we had been storing up creativity which was trapped inside us. It was a very pleasant feeling...We play in response to our surroundings. When we begin playing and writing we exaggerate the atmosphere around us. The songs exaggerate our feelings. We never decide on a fixed goal. We don't sit down and play a riff we wrote at home last night...We all agree to have no direction. It's just the four of us playing around, not discussing things we are doing...For us, music is the magic that happens in a moment. If you start dissecting it then you might spoil it. Sometimes you can discover new facets in music by talking in a superficial way about it but as soon as you try to get any deeper than that, you're in trouble. After all, things that are dissected usually need to be dead first."

Jón Þór Birgisson: "It's been a long process. We've been doing it for two years and toured in between. I'm terribly excited now that it's being released. It will be fun to see how people react to it...Takk is probably richer than the other albums. We're always learning. When we made Von we had to learn how to use the recording equipment because we wanted a certain sound and mood to come forth in the recordings. We also learned a lot from Ken Thomas while recording Ágætis Byrjun. He taught us that music is about a feeling and a mood rather than frequency and other bullshit. The brackets [( )]album was to a certain extent the most difficult. We had been playing the songs for so long and were tired of them when we went into the studio. It's hard to be creative when you're tired. We learned from this and have now gained a lot of important information which I think will benefit us in the future...We've been able to do [as we please] from the start. People often ask me what it's like being signed to a big label and I tell them it's exactly like being signed to a small label. We just get more space. We've been playing for twelve years and have proven ourselves as artists and don't need any supervision anymore. No one is monitoring us. We do everything ourselves: arrange, record, mix, master. We even make the videos ourselves. The label knows they don't have to worry about us so they just don't bother. They help us instead...We are feeling the pressure now though. In addition to all the music we're doing the album cover ourselves and handling the first video through internet correspondence. We handled the prep work and now it's being processed. We've never let go of creative control and let others do things for us. I guess it would be healthy for us to just trust other people. Somtimes the work we put into the band is more of a lifestyle. It's so much fun to be the four of us in a band, playing at concerts and stuff, but there are so many practical things that make it difficult. A lot of energy goes into these practical things. It's laboursome but in the end it pays off to have a grasp the bigger picture...It was fun writing lyrics this time. It's always been quite a challenge for us to express ourselves through words. Somehow music flows more easily. When it comes to words we freeze up. We listened to the songs together and let the music trigger words in us. I think we learned something from this experience. The lyrics are very simple and naive. Moments and small adventures. Nothing too deep...People tend to overinterpret and find meaning in something which isn't remarkable to begin with. It's funny."

'Takk...' reached number thirty in France, twenty-seven in Germany and the US, nineteen in Australia, sixteen in Denmark and the UK, twelve in Sweden, eight in Finland, six in Ireland, four in Italy and Norway, and number one in Iceland.

http://www.sigur-ros.co.uk/

'Takk...'
full album:

1. Takk... "Thanks..." 00:00
2. Glósóli "Glowing Sole" 1:57
3. Hoppípolla "Hopping into Puddles" 8:12
4. Með blóðnasir "I Have a Nosebleed" 12:40
5. Sé lest "I See a Train" 14:57
6. Sæglópur "Lost at Sea" 23:37
7. Mílanó "Milan" 31:16
8. Gong "Gong" 41:41
9. Andvari "Zephyr" 47:14
10. Svo hljótt"So Quietly" 53:54
11. Heysátan "The Haystack" 1:01:18

Sigur Rós Live in Reykjavík 2005 (Full Set)

Setlist:

0:00 Takk...
2:20 Glósóli
8:47 Ný batterí
19:10 Sæglópur
26:36 Untitled #4 (a.k.a Njósnavélin/The nothing song)
34:55 Gong
40:00 Andvari
46:30 Hoppípolla
51:20 Með blóðnasir
54:10 Sé lest
1:02:55 Olsen Olsen
1:11:25 Viðrar vel til loftárása
1:22:10 Svo hljótt
1:28:50 Heysátan

1:35:50 Hafsól
1:44:40 Untitled #9 (a.k.a. Smáskífa)
1:53:44 Untitled #8 (a.k.a. Popplagið/The pop song)

Friday, October 23, 2015

mellon collie and the infinite sadness

The Smashing Pumpkins wreaked havoc with restless resolute rage in the enchanted emptiness of sacred starlight to find meaning in the mad murmurs of this mysterious musical missive. The band had broken through with the multi-platinum success of their second album Siamese Dream and during the exhausting thirteen month tour that followed, band leader Billy Corgan had hatched a plan for an ambitious followup: "After Siamese Dream, I really felt that we had no future, that it was the end of the line as far as the band went, emotionally and creatively. I felt that I had completely stretched my abilities beyond the beyond. Also, I started to feel my age. And I could sense other band members starting to root down. You start to lose just that little bit of edge. I think about the attack posture that the band had in the early days, the hunger, and then you see people getting more worried about mortgages and stuff like that...The third thing was that we were reaching the end of a creative cycle. Or at least I was, where the basic format of up-and-down rock guitars, pounding drums--all these elements that are classic Smashing Pumpkins was reaching its end point It's become such a formulaic thing and not just by us. People don't even bat an eye anymore. You start to lose at your own game just from sheer imitation...So I said, 'Let's approach this like it's our last album.' Because it either will be our last album, or it will be our last album as people know the Smashing Pumpkins. And it was a very freeing decision to make. It was just a matter of pushing it as far as we could go--in harmony."

D'Arcy Wretzky considers the pressure going in: "If you don't sell more than the last record, it means you're going downhill...We all had our own head things going on that summer. Not so much tension within the band, but just not being able to deal with other people in general."

Jimmy Chamberlin: "After putting everybody's egos and personal shortcomings aside, you have what you love to do, which is to make music...It was the sound of four people together."

James Iha: "It was time to make another record or disband. Nobody wanted to go through the high dramatic b.s. anymore. It was totally necessary for everyone to do the next record...It was about going for a feel rather than editing or cutting something into shape."

The band opted out of working again with Butch Vig (who had produced Gish and Siamese Dream) and tried to change things up by bringing in Flood and Alan Moulder as co-producers. Some tracks were started in the fall of 1994 at Corgan's home studio Sadlands as well as Bugg Studios at Iha's home; but Flood insisted that they play live together on a daily basis. They began recording basic tracks at their Pumpkinland rehearsal space on the North Side of Chicago, which ended up forming the foundation of the album. More work was done at the Chicago Recording Company and The Village Recorder with multiple recording booths making it easier to get more work done. And there was a lot of work to be done, adding sythesizers, sequencers, loops, and other embellishments gave each track its own sound. In the end, 'Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness' had twenty-eight songs and clocked in at over two hours long.

'Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness' features Jimmy Chamberlin on drums, vocals on "Farewell and Goodnight"; Billy Corgan on lead vocals, lead guitar, piano, mellotron, production, mixing, string arrangement on "Tonight, Tonight", art direction and design; James Iha on rhythm guitar; backing vocals, mixing, and additional production on "Take Me Down" and "Farewell and Goodnight"; vocals on "Take Me Down"; D'arcy Wretzky on bass guitar, vocals on "Beautiful" and "Farewell and Goodnight"; with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra playing on "Tonight, Tonight"; Greg Leisz adding pedal and lap steel guitar on "Take Me Down"; and Audrey Riley doing the string arrangement for "Tonight, Tonight".

It was a painstaking process. Corgan admits: "I know it looks anal...It is a means to an end It's not the best means to an end. It's not the shortest distance between two points. But it is a means to an end. In a weird kind of way, music has afforded me an idealism and perfectionism that I could never attain as me...It's really the end of an era. Most people don't know us except for Siamese Dream. In their minds this is our second album. But for me, it's seven years of playing in clubs, dragging your equipment upstairs, dealing with my dad, all those doubts, people writing stuff about us, the band almost falling apart--you look at all those things, and you can't help but go, 'We fucking did it.'...We finally managed to manifest everything I always thought we could do...Somehow we managed to get a lot of blood out of the stone...We've talked about it as a band. It's a pretty amazing war horse, a great accomplishment. Fuck, nobody can take this away...It will be totally misunderstood by plus-30-year-old rock critics. I'm not writing it for them, even though I'm on the edge of losing my connection to youth, as is anyone entering their late 20s, and you've got a house, you get married, and the things that are important in your life begin to change. But I wanted to communicate from the edge of it, an echo back to the generation that's coming, to sum up all the things I felt as a youth but was never able to voice articulately."

'Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness' soared to number thirty-six in Austria; thirty-three in Japan; twenty-one in Germany; eighteen in Italy; fourteen in Finland; eight in Scotland and Spain; seven in Norway; six in France and the Netherlands; five in Portugal; four in the UK; two in Belgium; and number one in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, and the US. In the US, the album made its debut at number one.

'Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness' earned The Smashing Pumpkins Grammy nominations for Album of the Year, Record of the Year ("1979"), Best Alternative Music Performance, Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal ("1979"), Best Hard Rock Performance with Vocal ("Bullet with Butterfly Wings"), Best Pop Instrumental Performance ("Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness"), and Best Music Video, Short Form ("Tonight, Tonight"). The band won only one: Best Hard Rock Performance with Vocal for "Bullet with Butterfly Wings".

'Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness' has sold over ten million copies in the US alone.

http://www.smashingpumpkinsnexus.com/

"Tonight, Tonight" went to forty-six in the Netherlands, thirty-nine in Belgium, thirty-six on the US pop chart, twenty-one in Australia, thirteen in Ireland, seven in the UK, five on the US alternative chart, four on the US mainstream rock tracks chart, and number two in New Zealand.

"1979" became the band's biggest hit, reaching number thirty-eight in France, twenty-nine in the Netherlands, twenty-one in Belgium, sixteen in Australia and the UK, twelve on the US pop chart, nine in New Zealand, six in Ireland, two in Canada, and number one on the US alternative chart and the US mainstream rock tracks chart.

"Bullet with Butterfly Wings" reached number forty-one in New Zealand, thirty-three in Australia, twenty-two on the US pop chart, twenty in the UK, eighteen in Canada and the Netherlands, seventeen in France, number four on the US mainstream rock tracks chart, and number two on the US alternative chart. It gave the band their first top forty hit and their first Grammy.

"Thirty-Three" hit fifty-one in Australia, thirty-nine on the US pop chart, twenty-four in Canada, twenty-one in the UK, eighteen on the US mainstream rock tracks chart, seven in New Zealand, and number two on the US alternative chart.

"Zero" found value at number fifteen on the US mainstream rock tracks chart, nine on the US alternative chart, and number three in New Zealand.

smashing pumpkins - zero by aquarius3

'Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness'
full album:

All songs written by Billy Corgan, except where noted.

Disc one – Dawn to Dusk
1. "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" 2:52
2. "Tonight, Tonight" 4:14
3. "Jellybelly" 3:01
4. "Zero" 2:41
5. "Here Is No Why" 3:45
6. "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" 4:18
7. "To Forgive" 4:17
8. "Fuck You (An Ode to No One)" 4:51
9. "Love" 4:21
10. "Cupid de Locke" 2:50
11. "Galapogos" 4:47
12. "Muzzle" 3:44
13. "Porcelina of the Vast Oceans" 9:21
14. "Take Me Down" Iha 2:52

Disc two – Twilight to Starlight
1. "Where Boys Fear to Tread" 4:22
2. "Bodies" 4:12
3. "Thirty-Three" 4:10
4. "In the Arms of Sleep" 4:12
5. "1979" 4:25
6. "Tales of a Scorched Earth" 3:46
7. "Thru the Eyes of Ruby" 7:38
8. "Stumbleine" 2:54
9. "X.Y.U." 7:07
10. "We Only Come Out at Night" 4:05
11. "Beautiful" 4:18
12. "Lily (My One and Only)" 3:31
13. "By Starlight" 4:48
14. "Farewell and Goodnight" Iha 4:22

demos

01 - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness [0:00]
02 - Lily (My One and Only) [2:34]
03 - To Forgive [5:53]
04 - Bullet With Butterfly Wings [9:40]
05 - Here Is No Why [14:10]
06 - Galapogos - [17:50]
07 - Frantic Ab Groove [22:05]
08 - Autumn Nocturne [24:57]
09 - Ugly [26:27]
10 - Wishing You Were [29:14]
11 - Thirty-Three [32:21]
12 - Beautiful [36:35]

The album cover was done by illustrator John Craig, using a composite of images from classic paintings. The face is Greuze by French painter Jean-Baptiste.