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Unsung Forum » Joy Division and the uncanny in music |
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dave clarkson 2988 posts |
Mar 03, 2015, 21:33
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The Names 'Night Shift' also has that feel too - incredibly evocative track. Another Hannett classic :-)
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Fatalist 1123 posts |
Edited Mar 03, 2015, 22:19
Mar 03, 2015, 22:18
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Monganaut wrote: That's a great documentary, beautifully shot and put together. Bought it last time I saw it for the extras. Sadly those stories and asides mentioned by Barney and Hookey when JD played in Belgium were not included in the extras, some of those tales sound hilarious. I'd like to put a vote in for Bowie's 'Man Who Sold The World' LP to your list of the inadvertently 'uncanny'. For me, this is deffo Bowie's darkest album. Maybe it's cos' much of the subject matter touches on mental illness, but tracks like 'After All', with that minor chord mellotron and subtle sound effects definitely leave me a little unsettled. After All https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJRk1pz3tk4 Also, the Echo and the Bunnymen album 'Heaven Up Here' has a few moments that to me, appear to be greater than the sum of their parts. I'm particularly thinking of the tracks 'Turquoise Days', 'Over The Wall' and 'The Disease'. Such an evocative cover to. I used to stare at it for ages whilst playing the album, it really led my mind to other places. Turquise Days - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEc-axg8av0 The Disease - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2rNPwbkn-I Over The Wall - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erKtIsnisp4 All My Colours - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC_VRXenP4Q The Coil soundtrack -'The Angelic Conversation', deffo has a few uneasy moments. If you're not familiar with it, it was a soundtrack composed by Coil to accompany Derek Jarman's film of the same name. Beautifully constructed, with Judi Dench reading several of Shakespeare's sonnets over very atmospheric sounds. Parts of earlier EP How To Destroy Angels, cut up with choral and string pieces, noises like ticking grandfather clocks, and water/bathing, it's very effective. It could almost be a lost soundtrack to the movie 'A Field In England'. It has a similar vibe and feel. Angelic Conversation (Full Album Stream) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YarAULw2-1w Completely agree re TMWSTW and After All, one of my absolute favourite albums. The more I write about music, the more I'm interested by what it's doing to us when it REALLY works, like it's reaching into and flicking switches in some part of the brain we don't normally use/have access to. Thanks re EATB, a band I'm unfamiliar with beyond the hits, mainly because I've always regarded McCulloch as a bit of an idiot, but those tracks sound intriguing. Ditto Coil, one of those touchstone bands for a lot of critics, whose back catalogue seems a bit daunting. Will make a note to investigate further.
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tyroneshoelaces 38 posts |
Mar 03, 2015, 23:37
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I'd back you up on the Space Ritual thing. You'll think this absurd, but there's a Bridget St John song, Ask Me No Questions, which is a straightforward acoustic guitar song with an incredible middle section in which the music dies away and you hear church bells and other bucolic sounds for more than a minute before the guitar and singing come back in... It really takes you to another place very effectively.
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tyroneshoelaces 38 posts |
Mar 03, 2015, 23:43
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It was a fantastic documentary, and I found myself comparing it with the Kraftwerk one that is also mentioned on this site and which was a complete wasted opportunity. This one had excellent footage, talking heads that were worth listening to, appreciation of the man and the music without ever being over-reverential. Top top quality. I went back to both albums after quite a long break from listening to either of them and was surprised to find my opinion hadn't changed much - both are excellent, but flawed: the first side of Unknown Pleasures is far better than the second; the second side of Closer better than the first. But really it's those last four tracks on Closer that stand out both lyrically and musically - in some ways, knowing he killed himself, it's hard to listen to, but very rewarding and, like you say, uncanny. It's one of my great regrets that I wasn't really into them straight off and never saw them live, though I could have done. I also remember that as a pretentious teenager I watched the film Ian Curtis watched that very night, which made me feel a bit odd when I read about it, though of course it's simply a coincidence. Anyway, great programme.
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jb lamptoast-morsley 2448 posts |
Mar 03, 2015, 23:43
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What came to mind just now was a track off Sufjan Stevens' Seven Swans album - actually i think it is called Seven Swans. The ending particularly sends shivers down my spine. Some kind of apocalyptic black angel of death judgement day kind of thing. Does that count? : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99TCWaHmWKc
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Monganaut 2382 posts |
Edited Mar 04, 2015, 01:04
Mar 04, 2015, 00:22
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Probably heresy to say this on HH, but I got into the Bunnymen waaaay before Teardrop Explodes. Also, If I'm honest, for me, those early Bunnymen albums eclipse everything the Teardrops did after kilimanjaro. Honestly, those first 4 Bunnymen albums are apsolute diamonds, not a duff track on any of them. No one album really sound like the album previous to it, all have something to recommend them. Crocodiles has a great stripped down post punk, almost garage vibe to them. My mate recons there's a big nod to Television, but I couldn't say, as I never really rated Television. Heaven up Here has gorgeous dreamy guitars, makes me think of endless horizons and wide open vistas. U2 really stole theuy're thunder re: the sound they later adopted. Porcupine isn't the easiest album to get into initially, but has two killer singles in 'Back Of Love' and 'The Cutter', and if you pick up the CD, the non album 'Never Stop' is included. Ocean Rain is where they realy embraced pop bigtime. Huge orchestral arrangements and an epic single in the form of 'The Killing Moon'. Will is still digging out those epic guitar lines, and McCulloch's lyrics mine a deftness they never recovered on later albums. As with all good bands, the single B-Sides are almost as good as the A-Sides. Sounds fatuous, but it still amazes me that when I hear McCulloch speak, that he could turn out such lyrical poetry. I find it hard to reconsile the consumate scouser he is, with the beautiful songs he writes. And Will Sergeants guitar is always a pleaseure to listen to. De freitas and Les are totally locked in as a rhythm section. I just love everything about those early 80's recordings. Nice interview with Les Patterson here. http://www.incendiarymag.com/interviews/echothebunnymen/incendiary_interview_les_pattinson_part_1 http://www.incendiarymag.com/interviews/echothebunnymen/incendiary_interview_les_pattinson_part_2
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Fatalist 1123 posts |
Mar 04, 2015, 14:03
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jb lamptoast-morsley wrote: What came to mind just now was a track off Sufjan Stevens' Seven Swans album - actually i think it is called Seven Swans. The ending particularly sends shivers down my spine. Some kind of apocalyptic black angel of death judgement day kind of thing. Does that count? : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99TCWaHmWKc It's definitely got that vibe where you wonder what's going through the artist's head to produce the music they're making. It's tough exactly defining the uncanny, and it will mean/feel like different things to different people. Das Unheimliche, the original German term, means "the opposite of what is familiar", so maybe we're talking about music that gives enjoyment, but in a way that our normal pleasure centres find harder to process - perhaps it's those synaptic gears grinding that causes the weird cerebral tingling that I associate with the uncanny.
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Pursued By Trees 1135 posts |
Mar 04, 2015, 18:21
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Christian Death ... mainly for a few bits on A Catastrophe Ballet (with Rhapsody of Youth and Rain) and Ashes. I kind of hesitated before bringing them up as I suspect that uncanny is something that they were desperate to be perceived as and may have tried perhaps a little too hard at times to achieve this. In a few places I feel that they were successful. Also as the purely Valor years were almost another band entirely.
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Stevo 6664 posts |
Mar 04, 2015, 19:44
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JD could be pretty monolithic live. They were a very powerful band so it isn't all down to production. But other bands that have something of the same feeling include Einsturzende Neubauten especially with the Mufti/Chung line up but I think they still had it with teh later line up. Swans especially 1988 when it was still the Children of God band who were playing an ultra heavy folk rock. Dead can Dance will think of others later. Stevo
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Howburn Digger 986 posts |
Mar 04, 2015, 23:06
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I watched and very much enjoyed the JD prog last Friday. As well as making me feel a bit old, it also reminded me of being young and my first encounters with JD. The beginnings of that weird journey out of my teens at the arse-end of the 70's... from a wet, grey West Coast of Scotland council scheme into the 80's and another part of my life. I wont go into first encounters with JD or how I love Unknown Pleasures or Closer. For me the revelation of JD came with three songs. Firstly the utter metal of "Dead Souls" which I'd taped off Peel in early 1980 (the 7" release never made it the distance up to Ayr). Then a wee bit later when "Still" plopped out onto the Armitage Shanks. I was grateful for some new stuff, but found myself drawn to only two tracks really... "The Only Mistake" and "The Sound Of Music" (and of course a complete version of "Dead Souls" without Peel's voice on it). I know TOM and TSOM were instrumentally "added to" after Ian's death but I don't think that takes anything away. I loved the mighty metal majesty of those three JD tracks. I still think they eclipse everything else they ever did. As for other uncanny music... I read a few comments here mentioning Echo And The Bunnymen. I was heading to a funeral last November. It was a grim one. A long drive. I was late. The death was a suicide and I felt like shit. I got a puncture. I took a wrong turn at Newton St Boswells. I nearly ended up in England. I arrived late at the burial site as the family left in a bus. My dead pal had liked a bit of The Bunnymen and we'd chatted about their performance at The Wickerman a few years before (an old crony of mine from Ayr was playing guitar in the live line-up). I paid my respects at his woodland grave and drove back home under biblical skies. Black clouds riven with silver and gold. Torrential rain. The Eildon Hills looked like Tolkien's nightmare. I stuck on a CD. The Bunnymen. A song "Stars Are Stars" - which I'd always liked - hit me full on. Great bass, amazing drumming, lovely spare guitar, uncrowded, uncluttered, a young twenty-one year old Mac singing like he mean't it. I kept the song on repeat until I got home. The sky seems full When you're in the cradle The rain will fall And wash your dreams Stars are stars And they shine so hard Now you spit out the sky Because it's empty and hollow All your dreams Are hanging out to dry Stars are stars And they shine so cold I saw you climb Shadows on the trees We lost some time After things that never matter I caught that falling star It cut my hands to pieces Where did I put that box That had my name in it I saw you climb Shadows on the trees We lost some time After things that never matter Cards are played And the clock's real heavy Say you're numb Make another day You came here late You've gone home early Who'll remember now You've gone away Gone away Gone away I realised that although I'd been listening to that song for about 35 years, I'd never heard it properly before. It was uncanny.
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