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Post by ganews on Jul 1, 2017 12:52:50 GMT -5
The winner for July's Record Club is "A Spectrum of Infinite Scale" by Man or Astro-man?. Post your thoughts below!
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Post by Jimmy James on Jul 2, 2017 6:59:27 GMT -5
Going by his discography, this is Albini's second time working with Man or Astro-man?, previously recording their second album Project Infinity. That's more in line with what I think of as Man or AStro-man?'s bread and butter, up-tempo instrumental surf rock interspersed with B-Movie samples. Film clips are absent here, with an increase in alternative instruments- not sure if that's a theremin on "Spectrograph Readings of I'm not gonna type that whole title", and most notably the ImageWriter on "A Simple Text File". I'm not sure of the best way to mic an old dot matrix printer, but I think that Albini probably makes it sound as good as could be expected. Also, I really like drummer Brian Teasly (Birdstuff)'s playing in general, and I think it sounds really good on this album. Joe Strummer once said a band is only as good as their drummer, and I believe that's true regardless of how unconventional the band may be. Joe's right about most things. Highlights are "Un Espectro Sem Escala", "Within One Universe There Are Millions", and Track 7, which is untitled in Windows Media Player when I put the CD in now. I think a previous iteration rendered it as "/=\", it's just a trapezoid on the back of the CD case. Trapezoid and "Un Espectro..." are ones I would consider more 'conventional', similar to the stuff they had been doing for years but they've just gotten better at it. Oddities like "A Simple Text File" are fun, but I'm not likely to put them on a mixtape. |
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Smacks
Shoutbox Elitist 
Smacks from the Dead
Posts: 2,904 
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Post by Smacks on Jul 5, 2017 10:41:03 GMT -5
I had absolutely no idea what to expect going into this. I had heard their name but for some reason thought they were punk. I must say I enjoyed the shit out of this album! If it had been straight up surf rock, I probably would have gotten bored pretty quickly but the heavy dose of weirdness really does it for me. I like dissonance, odd sounds, ambient noise, etc. and this had just enough of these elements while still maintaining a tune (in most tracks). I'm also downright amused by the song titles so that is a bonus in my book. Standout tracks for me were "Curious Constructs...", "Very Subtle Elevators", "Within One Universe...." and I think "A Simple Text File" is really fun, even though it's not something I'll go out of my way to listen to again. I am going to give the whole album a second spin right now, just after I've finished it. I make one long playlist each year on Spotify of songs I like from bands that are "new to me" and "Curious Constructs" has made the cut. I am glad this album won this month cause I very much enjoy it.  |
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repulsionist
TI Forumite
actively disinterested
Posts: 3,687 
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Post by repulsionist on Jul 5, 2017 12:11:44 GMT -5
I musta seen this band 4 or 5 times between 1990 and 1998. Always a gas! Will add to this post after listening.
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Post by Jean-Luc Lemur on Jul 6, 2017 9:53:56 GMT -5
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Post by ganews on Jul 7, 2017 7:32:32 GMT -5
Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. It's fine. As usual with instrumental albums, I can't think of anything to say about it. I can't even remember which track is which, except of course for the dot matrix printer. Which is cute, but it also stops one from putting it on in the background at a gathering because eventually someone looks up and says "what the hell are you playing?". It sounded like any of their class of instrumental college bands that recorded in the same cramped little studio. My favorite of these is Maserati, both because they're from Athens and because they wrote the greatest song title ever, " I Have a Dagger, It's Shaped Like a Lightning Bolt!" If only these bands could expand their clever song titles and extraneous punctuation into clever lyrics. (Not so fast there, Panic! At the Disco.) Ever seen one of these bands live? Even when they're good, I can't help but wonder what the point is. |
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Post by Buon Funerale Amigos on Jul 7, 2017 11:55:47 GMT -5
Lyrics are dumb and instrumental surf music rules. At some point in the early/mid 90s, I picked up Is it... Man or Astroman and Destroy all Astromen!, but neither one grabbed me as much as the more obscure original '61-'63 stuff that finally started getting reissued after Pulp Fiction. Then came a huge wave (heh) of trad surf revival bands, and there were a shit-ton that were way more interesting than MoAM (like The Penetrators, The Space Cossacks, The Ghastly Ones, The Finks, The Volcanos, The Boss Martians, and The Phantom Surfers). This one nearly bored me to tears. It rarely settled in for some surf shred. Too much herky-jerky stop-start business, ambient noise and aimless dissonant noodling around. There's some decent surf in places, but it's buried in the ostentatious weirdness. Without the B-movie samples of their earlier work to provide amusement, it faded into reasonably pleasant background music. "/_\" or "Trapezoid" or whatever you want to call it is far and away the best track here. "A Simple Text File" gave me unpleasant flashbacks to printing out 60-page grad school papers on my Imagewriter II. The song titles are pretty funny, and in a way remind me of the first couple of Carcass albums. Give me Satan's Pilgrims over this any day of the week. |
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Smacks
Shoutbox Elitist
Smacks from the Dead
Posts: 2,904
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Post by Smacks on Jul 7, 2017 12:18:21 GMT -5
..... stops one from putting it on in the background at a gathering because eventually someone looks up and says "what the hell are you playing?". That's actually one of my top goals in life and also a phrase that when uttered by me, lets me know I'm about to learn about a cool band. Also Maserati are cool. I love that what you disliked about this is what I loved about it. F this formatting I'm frustrated |
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Post by Jimmy James on Jul 8, 2017 10:31:39 GMT -5
It sounded like any of their class of instrumental college bands that recorded in the same cramped little studio. My favorite of these is Maserati, both because they're from Athens and because they wrote the greatest song title ever, " I Have a Dagger, It's Shaped Like a Lightning Bolt!" If only these bands could expand their clever song titles and extraneous punctuation into clever lyrics. (Not so fast there, Panic! At the Disco.) Ever seen one of these bands live? Even when they're good, I can't help but wonder what the point is. Common misconception- they just sing outside the audible range of human ears most of the time. Per repulsionist, they were a lot of fun the time I saw them live- back in ~2014, after they reunited. They were the last band in the line-up at an afternoon festival, playing around dusk at the Starlight Drive-In in Atlanta. Even brought out the Tesla coil to discharge as a grand finale. Then they struck the stage and had everybody get back in their cars for a triple feature of The Last Starfighter, Buckaroo Banzai, and The Thing. I did actually put this on in the background back at one of our Waffle Society meetings in college. "A Simple Text File" went unremarked upon until someone asked if the CD player was trying to spit out the disc. |
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repulsionist
TI Forumite
actively disinterested
Posts: 3,687
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Post by repulsionist on Jul 11, 2017 16:02:11 GMT -5
Rambling, mutter, wheeze. Last surf band I saw was, welp, nearly 10 years ago in 2009. The Surf Coasters were playing in some speakeasy down Lake Union way. 'Twas a fun show. The Space Age and Jet Age. What promise, what expectation - because Science! We can figure it out with enough grant money. The promise of Heinlein, the quintessence of Stapledon. That's what I see these guys doing with this spazz-boy study music for series functions. I hear a lot of Space Ghost Coast to Coast moving through this somehow. Like Buon Funerale Amigos , I dove into the surf music that was re-released via the compacted digital disc format in the 90s, meaning labels Ace, Sundazed, or Del-Fi. Those compilations usually come across as boss and mesmerizing for driving. If any of us are in the recording arts, perhaps someone might give us a recording engineer's perspective as to what else this album holds from that vantage. Albini, Top Producer. Theme. Ramble, mutter. |
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