Re: Pop Ambient

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No, not that Kompakt crap.

Oh, you.

I should post an all-Kompakt mix, what eh?


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 8:03 PM
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Yeah, why not?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 8:09 PM
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I should post an all-Kompakt mix

Or a mix of all Kompakt, if I understand hyphenation now.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 8:11 PM
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Hyphen-understander is understanding hyphens.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 8:18 PM
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I guess maybe nosflow was joking, but I'm listening to the mix now, and I fail to detect anything pop-like about it. I don't understand.


Posted by: trapnel | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 8:35 PM
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trapnel's presence in the music thread reminds me that I have to decide: take a fun out-of-town trip this weekend or attend a Hold Steady concert in town. (First-world problem, yeah.)


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 8:40 PM
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Well, "pop ambient" isn't really the same as "pop". But come on! Two of the albums were released on Erstpop, you've got covers of well-known tunes ("One", "On Suicide" (the Art Bears track), "When Your Lover Has Gone", "No More Songs"), you've got legitimate popular music artists Akron/Family, David Sylvian, and Dälek. What more can you ask for?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 8:45 PM
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You may recall that the "smooth jazz" mix I posted didn't actually contain any smooth jazz.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 8:46 PM
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(Though IIRC it did contain David Sanborn.)


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 8:46 PM
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1 cont'd: maybe tomorrow-ish.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 8:50 PM
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Well, if the answer is just that "pop ambient" isn't pop, okay. But if you're really pressing that other line... well, I'm not very knowledgeable about music, I suppose. But still: that Nicki Minaj song linked recently, "Super Bass"--that's pop, right? The people on this list--Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Katy Perry, Britney Spears, u.s.w.--they make pop. I just can't hear the family resemblance that connects your playlist to that stuff.

I should probably stop playing the straight man in nosflow's routine here, but oh well.

And Stanley: you should go to The Hold Steady concert if and only if Thundersnow would also go (and likes THS).


Posted by: x.trapnel | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 8:58 PM
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Sure, that's pop, but so is this.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 9:01 PM
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I increasingly call almost all the music I listen to "Pop". The Hold Steady? They write pop songs.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 9:03 PM
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Oh, and Thundersnow can't attend THS show. Basically, I'd be ditching her, which is sorta jerky of me. But it would be a good chance to see some friends, including one who recently broke up with his girlfriend.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 9:06 PM
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Oh, and speaking of German things, I watched this movie last night, and liked it quite a bit. I get the feeling Bob would like it, if it had subtitles. There's a certain selfish obliviousness that's really easy to fall into when you suddenly move from desiring to desired, and I feel like the movie does a nice job capturing that.


Posted by: x.trapnel | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 9:07 PM
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I'm also not seeing any commonalities between "One" and at least the first 6 songs of the playlist.


Posted by: trapnel | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 9:09 PM
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Trapnel got his x back.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 9:10 PM
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Or not.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 9:10 PM
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5: You are talking to someone who unironically supports the use of the diaeresis. Adjust expectations accordingly.

Having said that: this mix looks awesome. I will totes download it when I'm on a computer with a working sound card.


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 9:12 PM
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Anyway, the real impetus behind this mix is the closing track, from Bailey's album Standards; it's basically solo Bailey, except with bits of "When Your Lover Has Gone" spliced in (mostly near the end), and I think it's really successful; when he states almost all of the melody toward the very end but veers off before finishing it ("when your lover has ...." and you don't get the "gone"), it's great.

And then there are the two Stangl-involving projects (he's in Magic I.D. as well) that explicitly bring pop music into a specific kind of not-very-poppy music-making (so-called Berlin reductionism/onkyo/eai, though the last isn't very apt here because I don't think the Magic I.D. stuff, at least, is actually improvised)—a general school in which Akiyama can also be classed, though Akiyama also uses blues forms in some of his (sometimes quite a bit more active, see Route 13 To The Gates of Hell: Live in Tokyo) music. And then you have people coming from the other side: Sylvian playing with Bailey on Blemish or, on Manafon, a whole host of English, Japanese, and German/Austrian/Swiss players, or Akron/Family recording a track with imperign, and the Faust/Dälek encounter (though Faust doesn't really belong with any of the people I've been mentioning so far). And whatever you want to think of something like Sakomoto and Fennesz, or Bargeld and alva noto, recording together. (Sakamoto's also recorded a bunch of (really good) albums with alva noto. And played with Sylvian way back when!)

I also think that things like the Brandlmayer et al. track is, well, accessible in a way that belies its generic origins; it's not particularly melodic, admittedly, but it is easy on the (my) ears and has some emotional content (IMO). Ratti does weird electroacoustic things with e.g. Giuseppe Ielasi, but here he's playing significantly less weird folky electroacoustic things.

Admittedly, none of this is "pop" in the sense in which Nicki Minaj is paradigmatically pop, but it is poppy, especially when one recalls that there's a bunch of indisputably pop stuff that isn't remotely like Minaj anyway.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 9:13 PM
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I'm also not seeing any commonalities between "One" and at least the first 6 songs of the playlist.

That's weird, because the third song on the playlist is a cover of "One".


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 9:14 PM
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That's weird, because the third song on the playlist is a cover of "One".

Oh. Good point. Perhaps I'm not the most attentive of listeners.


Posted by: x.trapnel | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 9:17 PM
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15:"404 not found" and you have me curious

Too many great movies, too short a life. Need to find time for Fassbender.

Bela Tarr on cue. Satantango is going to change my life, so they say, certainly for the worse. Beauty must be accompanied by terror to be sacred, to be ecstatic.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 10:55 PM
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23: http://www.ardmediathek.de/ard/servlet/content/3517136?documentId=8042780


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 10:57 PM
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23: Fassbinder's dead, Greta.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 11:11 PM
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I can't explain why this gives me such a warm, fuzzy feeling inside, but it does.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 11:20 PM
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26. Oh wow. This totally made my day.


Posted by: jms | Link to this comment | 08-31-11 11:39 PM
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20: Admittedly, none of this is "pop" in the sense in which Nicki Minaj is paradigmatically pop, but it is poppy

Yeah, but considering the Harry Nilsson link, we're apparently talking aural Valium grade (style? type?) pop. Which is fine if downers are your thing.

max
['Thanks for the link.']


Posted by: max | Link to this comment | 09- 1-11 3:56 AM
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Okay! I'm not sure it's ambient, really, but the kick drums do take a number of tracks to arrive, and some of it's pretty quiet. It does contain several songs from the Kompakt label.

Sifu Tweety -- Pam-bient
1. A La Ping Pong -- Farbenspiel
2. Arp -- Premonition Of The Sculptor Steiner
3. Clark -- Herzog
4. Gang Gang Dance -- Vacuum
5. Fuck Buttons -- Sweet Love For Planet Earth
6. Isolée -- Enrico
7. Partial Arts -- Telescope
8. DMX Crew -- Bad Boy
9. Justus Köhncke -- Yacht
10. Matias Aguayo -- Minimal
11. Battles -- Tonto (Four Tet Remix)


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 09- 1-11 6:22 AM
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Battles!


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 09- 1-11 6:30 AM
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For those of you interested in morning music for old people, I went to a downtown merchants association sponsored thing this weekend: they'd blocked off Main Street, and had some of those bands old folks like. The headliner played this song at the end of the thing.

A person might draw an inference about downtown merchants.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 09- 1-11 6:40 AM
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Oh shit, I forgot to include any Arthur Russell!


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 09- 1-11 7:54 AM
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Me too.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 09- 1-11 8:05 AM
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Both mixes look f'ing excellent! I'll wait till I have the Internet connection all to myself before I download, by which time this thread will be dead. Anyway, nice work fellas!


Posted by: W. Breeze | Link to this comment | 09- 1-11 1:29 PM
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I vote for the hold steady.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 09- 1-11 8:58 PM
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but I think perhaps the fun weekend trip is underdescribed.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 09- 1-11 9:02 PM
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Stanley might have been disappointed if he got too excited about the Battles track on my mix. I can admit this now.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 09- 2-11 1:01 PM
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