danshoebridge

Main stage area nearer the back and on the right for me - can confirm it sounded pretty dreadful there too, everything swallowed up by the kicks and bass as you describe. They really need a different sound guy IMO.

Good album! Room of Reflections in particular doing it for me. What sort of gear did you use to put it together?

Oh right, my subscription had expired that's why all the ads appeared at once. Now renewed.

Is anyone else suddenly getting a crazy amount of ads? Three on the front page, overlaying actual links, another popup when you click a link? Makes the site near unusable on a mobile.

Providence is probably my favourite of his, but I seem to be on my own with that. Sunder EP as well from that period was great. Enjoying the new one though, title track in particular is a banger.

Probably not, FireScope digital albums are always outrageously priced on bandcamp. You have to wait for them to pop up on bleep if you want to pay a normal price. Strange business model but there you go.

Tim may talk a right load of bollocks in interviews, but he does sometimes come up with the goods too. This is sounding like his best one in years.

Would be great if so - but it's also possible Bleep have just fucked something up with the downloads, and are sending a generic 'deal with it' email rather than fix it.

Yeah that was a very poorly thought out email title, had about 5 seconds excitement as the full email loaded thinking it was the long-awaited 'bocset'.

Didn't Sean say they were aiming to get them out round mid-2023 in the AMA? Am I remembering that right?

This album is fucking solid and sounds amazing LOUD. My neighbours will be hearing it a lot this weekend I reckon. Coupled with the Reeko EP Surgeon is on a roll at the moment.

Pretty sure it's new, guessing it's just a few seconds only. Wonder if they got Alex Rutterford on the case for it? Already got these on vinyl but it's a good excuse to break them out again. Confield still sounds incredibly alien even 20 years later, there's really been nothing quite like it since. I remember finding Sim Gishel one of the weakest tracks but these days it's an absolute banger, might be my favourite track on there. I can even almost get my head round Bine - another 20 years and I'll finally get there.

He seems serious. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/apr/05/tim-hecker-sacred-music-ambient-electronica-4ad

Probably doesn't help with his interviews, his music is “pagan music that dances on the ashes of a burnt church”, or “an electronic version of the Nordic desecrations of Christian sites” apparently. That and his rakish beenie hat. But... I still rate a lot of his stuff. Harmony in Ultraviolet in particular is a great album.

Just bought my Draft 7.30 t-shirt.

Yeah there's definitely some anxious passages, particularly between the 10 and 40 minute mark on the Helskinki recording. It's a weird one, listening to it at home there's lots of bits that for me just flat-out don't work at all, mainly their approach to melody with stuff just sliding around all over the place. It's such a queasy, unsettling sound at times. BUT there's also some really good stuff in there and I bizarrely find myself going back to it a lot more than SIGN, which I was initially much keener on. Seeing this tour in person was anxiety-inducing for a different reason, mainly because the volume just drowned out any detail in the music, all I could hear was percussion and bass. It might have worked in a club, but not with everyone sitting down, I found it initially distressing and eventually boring.

Great EP this, particularly for 'Mason Autonome' but it's solid all the way through.

The repress is pretty good in this regard, fairly quiet like you'd expect but sounding excellent. Shame they couldn't have dropped that 2nd Musicology track instead. Back in the day I always had to skip that one, and it's not sounding any better 30 years later.

The volume would have worked in a club I reckon. For a venue with everyone sitting down though... not so much. Listening to the recording there's lots of stuff going on but I couldn't get any of it on the night. Just the beats and low end. It got a bit monotonous after a while.

Got to add a quick thanks to the guys who recorded and mastered the two Barbican sets, they sound as good as you could possibly hope for from a crowd recording. Weirdly I'm enjoying the recording of the 1st barbican set a lot more than I did actually being there. Probably sounding like an old man here, but the volume was so loud I couldn't really make out much over the booming kicks and percussion. Maybe it was where we were sat? Anyway, pretty stoked for the soundboards. Would be nice to get a release before Christmas...

Good news, 1st AI comp has been on my discogs wantlist forever and never drops under £200.

Oh no doubt, I recently started getting into 'Bine' which was always my least favourite on Confield. Only took 20 years... That said, one track that I've never warmed to is 'Dial'. Those shepherd tone style melodies just rub my brain up completely the wrong way. There's loads on the first half of Helsinki with a similar thing going on which is a worrying sign.

Now it’s been out for a couple of weeks, what’s everyone’s thoughts on the Helsinki soundboard? I’ve given it a fair few listens - at this point I find it equally amazing and frustrating. First 10 minutes work as a great intro to their current sound – you can hear echos of Exai, Elseq, NTS and PLUS (not so much from SIGN though) but it sounds very different as well. The way everything mutates and transitions from one bar to the next is nuts. After the 10 minute mark it starts to get increasingly tiring though, there’s nothing melodically to hold on to, the pitched elements all sound like they are playing in different keys. Notes are queasily sliding about and by the time the watery bass comes in at 18 minutes the structure kind of collapses as well. By the 30 minute mark I find it genuinely unpleasant to listen to, something about the lead sliding about with the weird ascending percussion (C16 deep tread patch? Much prefer the Elseq version if so). But around 45 minutes it pulls out of the tailspin, things start to fall into place, it no longer sounds like 3 songs playing at once. The section that starts at 48 minutes is one of the best things they’ve done IMO, all these parts locking together yet constantly shifting, the way it segues into the next section with all the synth shards at 55 minutes is stunning. Most of the whole last third of the set is top-tier stuff really. Must have sucked live that this was where the speakers blew out. Overall definitely looking forward to the full soundboard release – second Barbican set also sounds great in places from the audience recordings. I’ll probably have to edit some bits out though if I’m going to keep coming back to them. Maybe with Covid delaying their original tour, this set has now been worked over so much that parts are impenetrable for mere mortals like myself?

Yeah the second half of the second set sounds pretty amazing, nice clear mic recording too - there's just more to 'latch' on to, more dynamics, it's just the sort of dark punchy stuff I was hoping for. I feel like I was at the wrong show damnit... Definitely looking forward to the release of this set.