Indie Renaissance?

[polystyle]

Hi connect_i cut

While I wouldn't call it an 'Indie renaissance',
there are so many new groups coming out of Brooklyn at this time that seem to be beat led reactions/ responses to Gang Gang's hype about their 'beats'.
Have never really gotten Gang Gang, they talk the talk , make the moves, guest MC's but the er, 'grooves' have thrown or glazed me every time. But wish them well, on 4AD.
Dirty P's - don't get it either, seems like such weak tea.
Listening to most of that Teardrops cut, ok, but nothing we haven't heard many times already.

Nothing that 'replaces' anything else, or fits neat in a 'nuum -
but Pterodactyl , Big A little a ( Thirteen, Manshake ) have their drums, beats as pretty much main sonic
( in some cases, wish they did instrumentals ).
Javelin does their club lite sounding thing ( Twyce , Radio ) , also Dinowalrus.
Mirror Mirror has some nice new stuff heard recently , a certain sound and song- writing.

High Places I have heard when they played here in Stuytown in summertime, didn't really notice it.
Possibly off topic but I do find it hard to believe that Beach House is the same guy who used to do Silicon Scally !

Seems things are beyond Gang Gang and DP by now ... thankfully !
There's always new things coming up.

 

[routes]

is this really an 'indie' renaissance? what is indie?! strikes me as more of an ensemble/band renaissance tho. lil groups of people using technologies in a 'live' kind of way to deliver 'songs'. and why not eh..? i'm lookin forward to checking out mount kimble.. and the darkstar live show..

btw the xx singer also plays the guitar so it hasn't changed their sound much. it's just even more skeletal, with a few more parts coming off the sampler. they were good as a 3 piece when i saw them.

these mexican guys make me lol. why so serious.. is that indie? seriousness?

 

[lazybrowndog]

carl finlow (silicon scally et al) def nowt to do with beach house ... he is awesome tho (finlow)

best drum programming of any of the homegrown uk house/techno lot for my money

 

[polystyle]

carl finlow (silicon scally et al) def nowt to do with beach house ... he is awesome tho (finlow)

best drum programming of any of the homegrown uk house/techno lot for my money

'def nowt to do with ...' aha, seeing the name Alex Scally in Beach House i made the wrong connection !
Glad I was wrong as yeah, Findlow usually did so solid things. Loved that old Silicon Scally.

 

[jimitheexploder]

I want to add Golau Glau too, I wasn't sure if they where indie or not but I couldn't really think of another tag either.

They're very electronic but they also have vocals going on, its very dreamy and vaugly poppy.

http://www.myspace.com/golauglau

Plus check out their friends on myspace, nuumadelic!

 

[nomadthethird]

That XX track sounds like if The Kills and Interpol collaborated. I don't have to mention that I think that would suck bigtime.

There's been some recentish indie stuff that I liked. That Nite Jewel album. Excepter 'Debt Dept' is fun if you like industrial throbbing gristle inspired stuff (I slept on that when it came out.) For some reason I really like that fucking Panda Bear album, even though it annoys me to even mention it. Black Dice had a bunch of good ones. I don't mind GGD, but I am pretty sick of the shtickyness of the stuff that originated on Social Registry.

Mirror Mirror is fun in a proggy kinda way.

I can't even really think of new indie stuff that isn't like Grizzly Bear level awful.

 

[polystyle]

T
I can't even really think of new indie stuff that isn't like Grizzly Bear level awful.

Hear that Nomado , jeez Grizz ... wtf !

 

[nomadthethird]

I went to look at Pitchfork the other day for the first time in years and I was disappointed to see that they're still talking about the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Arcade Fire!

This is how I like my indie:

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[michael]

The only XX related thing I've heard that I liked (and I really like it!) is a remix they did of Florence & The Machine. Not liking either act, I assumed it'd be shit, but... Nothing flash, I guess, basically just some fairly smooth UKG.

Legit free MP3 here:

http://rcrdlbl.com/2009/09/30/download_florence_and_the_machine_you_ve_got_the_love_the_xx_remix_'

And I tend to agree with Zhao that a lot of this stuff is not much to do with indie rock, as such.

I still like quite a lot of stuff like Modular artists. Just cheery synthesis of a zillion different bits of rock history with some dancey bits in there, but in the case of e.g. Cut Copy and sometimes The Presets I reckon the writing prevails. Cut Copy in particular I reckon do great stuff. Probably much too indie cool for many.

 

[Leo]

i had a funny, some might say sad, "original" indie rock moment this afternoon: my wife dragged me to a baby shower in brooklyn and michael stipe was there!

 

[connect_icut]

i had a funny, some might say sad, "original" indie rock moment this afternoon: my wife dragged me to a baby shower in brooklyn and michael stipe was there!

A few years ago, REM did a "surprise" in-store performance at the record store where I was working. There I was, sitting in the office, doing some ordering and in walks Michael Stipe. He said "How are you doing?" but the look on his face totally said "Please don't try to start a conversation with me!"

My parents are weirdly obsessed with REM. It's so strange how that band is still hugely popular in Europe when they basically can't get arrested in North America.

In Michael Azzerad's Our Band Could be Your Life - the definitive history of early indie rock - REM show up repeatedly as an the epitome of corporate sell-out "college rock" (as do PiL). I mean, this is like 1986 and they already weren't cool any more.

 

[PeteUM]

I like the way in that book the Butthole Surfers somehow manage to be both the most hardcore and the least committed to any kind of ideal.

 

[connect_icut]

That book is a great read, even if you don't love the bands. For instance, I've never cared for Black Flag's music but I love reading about them. With the Buttholes, though, I love the music and the story equally. Simon Reynolds' piece on them in Blissed Out is possibly my favourite piece of music writing ever. And Locust Abortion Technician... well...

Still, I am troubled by the band's totally amoral attitude, somewhat. It's basically what allowed them to turn into an unbelievably shitty corporate rock band. You could also argue that it's a cop out given some of their genuinely questionable behaviour - (allegedly) getting Daniel Johnston into acid, for instance.

 

[CrowleyHead]

Black Flag certainly are larger than life; I remember reading 'Get In The Van', and literally copying down every band Henry Rollins name dropped... Which, didn't hurt AT ALL.

In almost every page of "Our Band...", the severe difference in bands is semi-astonishing. I mean, technically The Replacements are musically neanderthals compared to every other band listed; but they still have incredible value.

 

[connect_icut]

Black Flag certainly are larger than life; I remember reading 'Get In The Van', and literally copying down every band Henry Rollins name dropped... Which, didn't hurt AT ALL.

It's a funny thing - I don't enjoy hardcore punk at all but it seems like a lot of people in the most significant hardcore bands had really broad tastes. When those people started to show those tastes in their music, things got really interesting and you got albums like Up On the Sun and Zen Arcade and bands like Fugazi and Butthole Surfers.

Getting back to what's happening now, I just bought the first album by A Sunny Day in Glasgow (Scribble Mural Comic Journal) and it's the most imaginative and clued-in American indie rock record I've heard in years. They're basically a "shoegaze" band but there stuff is much more ambitious, eclectic and uncompromising that that tag suggests. Their newer album (Ashes Grammar) is really excellent too.

 

[CrowleyHead]

Rollins had some interesting moments... I mean, the solo band kind of degenerated into some lame trad-metal David Lee Roth style stuff. But there was a sort of one-off Rollins Band Side-Project where I believe the "End Of Silence"-era line-up did some strange sort of... "Go-Go Metal". There was a video up of it, I wish I knew where it was...

 

[MankyFiver]

in my own head i wouldnt have said most of the bands mentioned were indie e.g. GGD i sorta think of them as pitchfork type bands ( and i dont mean that as a pejorative). Maybe cos of my age i always thought of indie as guitar based music but then you look at animal collective which is i suppose indie and guitars aren't to the forefront so i suddenly realise i dont know what im talking about!

but personally in the last couple of years the sound of a guitar or lo-fi synths and guitars has been so refreshing, i think its where the experimental/noise/drone kids have started to be unafraid of including melodies or attempting to write songs

so ive loved the pink noise, blank dogs, male bonding, vivian girls, tonstartssbandht, ducktails, teepee, washed out, eat skull, visions of trees, sun araw, nobunny, graffitti island blah blah blah

 

[continuum]

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[baboon2004]

Belle & Sebastian are still godlike (this is my epiphany for the afternoon).

 

[continuum]

this should probably go in here

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