Group Listening Party Fun Time II: Craner vs. Craner

shiels

shiels

_
craner said:
OK, onto Aphex.

This is one of those ones that shows you what he’s capable of when he’s not just trying to be a twat, which he usually is.

This track has been sifting through my nerves and heart valves since 1995. Apart from being a delicious sonic object it is also a beautiful piece of music: something that zeroes in on the soul, articulates shards and shades of feeling you were only otherwise dimly aware of. The tone is hard to define: it is melancholy, triumphant, a love song, an elegy; you can be in a different place at a different time and this piece of music somehow finds a way to reflect or transform the moment. He’s a riddle, because maybe he just has a good ear, but, surely, to make music like this you must have some rarefied poetic sensibility, some depth of feeling and width of vision. Perhaps he’s just English: if he has it there somewhere, it has to be deflected, downgraded, treated like an accident, something meaningless. Don’t show your emotions, lads!
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I dont get what you mean by downgraded, i think that interplay is the best thing about his stuff. i think the spazz, the intensity is more marketable. But i return to him for the beauty, the gorgeous melodies. The goofiness makes the virtuosity and melancholy more intense, and the other way around. He's a very pure soul, and pure souls are playful, childish

 
shiels

shiels

_
That said I also get frustrated at the impatience, the fussiness. Just leave the beauty alone for a minute ffs
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
So far (3 tracks in) 'No News is News (Instrumental)' is the clear standout. One of those ones that I'd listen to with mates on an MDMA fuelled bender and forever after be moved to tears by, lamenting the transience of friendship, love and life. Sorry for being a bender about it, but there you go.

It's beautiful, eternal, painful.
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
craner said:
This doesn’t necessarily kill the reality of feeling, it simply reflects the filters that transform the way feelings are framed, encountered, understood: the feelings here being romantic longing and physical yearning. This song is a perfect encapsulation of the new phenomenology of desire: immediate, transparent, captured and even enslaved by the surface, but as deeply felt and difficult as emotion and lust have ever been.
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I'm quite a fan of 'One Kiss' (has anyone noted how this is a Sophie Ellis Bextor tune for gen-z-ers?) but it can't possibly be as good as what you wrote about it, the poor thing.

The best bit (apart from the chorus) is the bit immediately after with the annoying trumpet sample. That's when it shifts into a higher gear, production-wise - before that it's a bit flat and inert.

I also like how Dua Lipa looks like she doesn't give a fuck about anything in the video. I want her to stamp on my balls with high heels.
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
shiels said:
That said I also get frustrated at the impatience, the fussiness. Just leave the beauty alone for a minute ffs
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Although I think this does fuck up a lot of his music I think it's also a reason why 'Alberto Balsam' is superior even to the beauty of its melody. He doesn't fixate on a riff that anybody else would overload a tune with, he's constantly restlessly exploring. Perhaps he did this less on 85-92? There was more serenity in that album, perhaps.
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Wow this padlock tune is awesome like a tropical breeze and I'm not even stoned.

The Finest used to be one of my absolute top 100 lock-ins and then I overplayed it a bit. You'd be absolutely mad not to recognise it as solid gold.

I think I just needed to hear it again through the lens of craner's love. Yup... yup, it's working.
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I first heard 'The Finest' (sort of) via a happy hardcore tape pack I had called United Dance 5. It was the DJ Dougal remix and I loved it to bits.
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Craner will one day write an amazing book about apocalyptic 5%er rap that will be on every connoisseurs bookshelf
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I really like the verses on 'Fast Life' but not so much the hook and I can't ever love it as much as I love 'Happy' so that kinda sours it.

Amazing rapping though.
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
Version's list didn't put a foot wrong. It was all tastefully curated, like that section in Wire magazine where they get members of Tortoise to guess what unnamed tune is being played. A list nobody could ridicule.
 
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