Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Pardon the shlock

I've had over 11,000 visitors in less than a month. So I've added some Feedjit widgets to help me get to the bottom of this.



Subtle – Autumn (2002) self-released

1. Coldcoals Camera Action
2. Arsenic Chic
3. Bluerose Charade
4. 6 Small Men In A Giant Robot
5. Earthsick

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?y4ndeu5mczn


Today marks the autumnal equinox, so I’ll post the second of the Four Seasons. What I love so much about this project is that each EP is solid, and together they make an even greater body of work. Autumn is pretty similar to Summer, rather ambient, without much song structure.

The production is extremely fitting. The band recorded everything themselves, using laptops, in kitchens & on rooftops. But you’d never know, it doesn’t suffer from weak production values that are integral of lo-fi music. They somehow use their limits to their strength, resulting in something that’s raw. Not in a “rough around the edges” sense, but something that’s unadulterated and feels genuinely improvised.

“Earthsick” is not only the closer, but the word itself is the mantra that opens the EP and is hidden throughout the other seasons. The lyrical content, straddling between stream of conscious & dreamt nonsense, manages to invoke some nebulous longing, or maybe some type of collective regret. As difficult as it is to identify, you are well aware it originates from your dreams, or maybe your imagination, or old photographs you’ve never actually seen. Regardless, it’s quite familiar, which makes it much easier to venture off & explore the unknown.