The N&G Listening Club V1 - Archive only

Teeeee said:
Ooops, I missed @rightasra1n 's excellent post giving an update on Nai Palm. Now I feel like an ass-hat for wondering where she is. She's recovering from breast cancer and her mom's death you insensitive trollop, teeeee!
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Well her mom died when she was a teen. So I'd say The solo project started the band's hiatus. And then her getting sick while they were working on their next record just extended it. I think I remember an interview with her saying something to the effect that they all have interests in music outside of Hiatus Kaiyote (other bands, other styles they like playing etc.) so they also want to be able to do those things and then come back together for HK stuff.
 
I will end this review with kind of a bad joke. I apologize in advance.

It's a first listen for me and I can see (1) how this might be a grower and (2) how it might be an amazing sounding album on vinyl. But I'm not 100% convinced by this one. For me, the drumming stole the show by far and made this album a really fun thing to follow along. It has a very blocky and syncopated texture that the guy pulls of exceptionally well and tight, and it's (for me at least) what seems to propel the entire sound of them. But the rest of the band doesn't really click with me... finishing it, I realized that nothing sticked besides the drumming and the vocals. Which were really okay! But I missed a bit of musicality and soul in it.. The high point was the chaos of Swamp Thing going into the simple and laid-back groove of Fingerprints (amazing fills on this one!) and the last part of Jekyll. Atari made me cringe a bit tho.. All in all, it wasn't a bad listen, and I'm curious to hear more of their first album and see what I might have missed on this one. Verdict: I charge them with attempting to play funky-soulful R&B music while being white.
 
I've listened to this a couple of times over the week. It's obvious they are talented musicians, they have a distinctive sound, but something about it is not grabbing me. This album is pretty complex and probably took an enormous amount of time to create. I think that is part of the problem, its dense which makes it hard to find a way in. It made me realize how hard it is to really make an impression as an artist despite pouring you blood and soul into developing yourself. Consumers have so much to choose from.
 
Dtknuckles said:
I've listened to this a couple of times over the week. It's obvious they are talented musicians, they have a distinctive sound, but something about it is not grabbing me. This album is pretty complex and probably took an enormous amount of time to create. I think that is part of the problem, its dense which makes it hard to find a way in. It made me realize how hard it is to really make an impression as an artist despite pouring you blood and soul into developing yourself. Consumers have so much to choose from.
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I kind of agree with this. It's interesting, and they're clearly talented, but it's not clicking with me, despite the fact that they're writing jazzy songs about Studio Ghibli movies and thus should be entirely within my wheelhouse. It's a bit meandering.
 
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kvetcha said:
I kind of agree with this. It's interesting, and they're clearly talented, but nothing about it is clicking with me, despite the fact that they're writing songs about Studio Ghibli movies and thus should be entirely within my wheelhouse. It's a bit meandering.
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Dtknuckles said:
huh?
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I don't understand this either
 
kvetcha said:
The song Laputa is pretty explicitly about Hayao Miyazaki's 1986 adventure movie, titled Castle in the Sky in the US, and Laputa elsewhere.
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Pardon my ignorance., I'm old. Are these Anime movies? The only one I've seen it Akira. My wife an I are trying to get through the Zatoichi series, but our three year got in the way. I know not Anime.
 
Dtknuckles said:
Pardon my ignorance., I'm old. Are these Anime movies? The only one I've seen it Akira. My wife an I are trying to get through the Zatoichi series, but our three year got in the way. I know not Anime.
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Ah, yes. Studio Ghibli is among the most acclaimed anime studios in existence, and Castle in the Sky was their first film.

Ghibli films are great, I recommend them almost without reservation.
 
kvetcha said:
I kind of agree with this. It's interesting, and they're clearly talented, but it's not clicking with me, despite the fact that they're writing jazzy songs about Studio Ghibli movies and thus should be entirely within my wheelhouse. It's a bit meandering.
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I had the same experience the first few times as well. Probably the first 10-15 actually, but for whatever reason I wanted to keep trying until, I dunno, I learned it enough so that it didn't seem so dense anymore. Obviously you may never be that interested or into it, but I absolutely get that it can be hard to latch onto. I thought about mentioning that denseness on my intro blurb, but I didn't want to provide much direction or any caveats that might skew people's experience heading into it.
 
Splunders said:
I had the same experience the first few times as well. Probably the first 10-15 actually, but for whatever reason I wanted to keep trying until, I dunno, I learned it enough so that it didn't seem so dense anymore. Obviously you may never be that interested or into it, but I absolutely get that it can be hard to latch onto. I thought about mentioning that denseness on my intro blurb, but I didn't want to provide much direction or any caveats that might skew people's experience heading into it.
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It's not even the density - I love jazzy, weird rock. I love Deerhoof. I love Badbadnotgood. There's just something about the musicianship, or maybe just the production, that strikes me as kind of sterile, and the melodies aren't hooking me like I want them to.

I'll give it more time. It often takes me a while to really decide how I feel about an album.
 
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