« A sucker for the boogie-marking | Main | Most favoritest »

April 07, 2005

Full of texture

Check out the debut from Vancouver ambient/glitch composer SubtractiveLAD - it's been a while since Sleepy so enthusiastically recommended an artist to me. Sweeping and lush, yet crunchy and full of texture, this is an edgier but equally creative Boards of Canada-style release. From the February 2005 debut Giving Up The Ghost.

SubtractiveLAD - Freckle
SubtractiveLAD - Nothing Is Enough
SubtractiveLAD - Martyr Relief Unit

Recently on Comfort Radio:
Orlando Caichaito Lopez - Mis Dos Pequenas
Radiohead - Everything In Its Right Place
Osymyso - Intro-Expansion02

Posted by Scotto at April 7, 2005 09:00 AM

Comments

SubtractiveLAD needs to take his own advice and "subtract" about 4 minutes from every song he writes.

I mean, it's alright, but 11 minutes later... still going.

=darwin

Posted by: Darwin at April 7, 2005 05:39 PM

thanks for the posts. wtf is up with this darwin character. didn't his mother tell him if he doesn't have anything nice to say to keep his big mouth shut. what a hater and pompous music snob. start your own blog darwin so i can leave my snobby comments on there

=radio tinman

Posted by: radio tinman at April 7, 2005 08:31 PM

thanks for the posts. what is up with this darwin character? does he just go around and spread his musical genius so we all can benefit from it or is all out of the desire to make up for his lack of...oh i didn't just say that. take your comments somewhere else music snob. if you don't have anything nice to say start your own blog. it's people like you that pollute the airwaves.

=radio tinman

Posted by: radio tinman at April 7, 2005 08:36 PM

sorry about the repeat. i didn't see the first comment come up. if it's worth saying once...

Posted by: radio tinman at April 7, 2005 08:39 PM

i appreciate the heated defense. however, to play devil's advocate, darwin actually does have his own blog - Nuclear Beef, www.nuclearbeef.com. we obviously don't always see eye to eye re musique - i'm kind of a populist - but. thanks for writing though! :)

Posted by: Scotto at April 7, 2005 09:40 PM

"didn't his mother tell him if he doesn't have anything nice to say to keep his big mouth shut. what a hater and pompous music snob."

I've always figured that people appreciate feedback on the music they post, whether that feedback is good or bad. I've also known Scotto for uh, coming on 8 years now, and I figure he's a big boy and won't take it personally if I disagree with some of his musical choices.

Do music bloggers really not want comments if those comments are negative? Speaking for myself, I'm happy to know that people care enough to comment, even if that comment happened to be negative about the music I posted.

"start your own blog darwin so i can leave my snobby comments on there"

As scotto says, feel free to join us over at The Beef : http://www.nuclearbeef.com

As to being a "hater" and a "pompous music snob" well.. yep.

=darwin

Posted by: Darwin at April 8, 2005 04:34 PM

well as long as there's an opening to discuss this - yeah, i would prefer to hear people disagreeing with my musical choices than the deafening silence that goes on for long stretches, mainly because any feedback is good feedback for keeping the site relevant to the people who are visiting, while also having a good time keeping it alive myself. to me, conversation about music is almost as fun as listening to music. by the same token, aside from this particular thread and perhaps one snide mention in a post a few weeks ago, i haven't felt all that comfortable soliciting feedback too overtly; certainly i go long stretches of time listening to other people's blogs and quietly enjoying what they post without ever being motivated to write in. people got shit to do, i understand that.

anyway, thanks for the excitement yo!

Posted by: Scotto at April 8, 2005 05:49 PM

If I have the time to listen to the track, I think that pretty much means I have time to say something about the track. Doesn't have to be deep, but I understand exactly the dynamic you're referring to. I'm one of the fewer-but-longer posts mp3 blogger type (pioneered by Moe Rex?) and I try to only post music which I really love... but I can just love it by myself if nobody is going to read. I know I have a few subscribers and stuff now, but most of the comments are still by my friends. I go out of my way to be cordial to commentors in part because I so appreciate the feedback. I know people like the music I post, I mean statistically that has to be the case. I'd just like to hear about it a bit. Sure, it's narcissitic, but who wants to put effort into sharing something when they have no idea how it's recieved?

I am planning to post more stuff which I wrote or mixed (as soon as I finish it) and it'll be interesting to see what folks have to say. Just have to put forth the effort and enjoy the process, I guess, with the music or blogging.

Kinda similar to any creative act, I guess... duh. :)

=darwin
PS - This comment is really incoherent but I think you get my drift!!

Posted by: Darwin at April 10, 2005 01:57 PM

Oh, BTW, I bought the Obadia that you posted a while back. Great little EP.

=darwin

Posted by: Darwin at April 10, 2005 02:03 PM

i'm obviously of a different bent when it comes to publishing. because my site is tied to a radio station that i'm curating, i don't feel like i have to love everything i'm talking about. liking it is good enough. i'm trying to make radio for people who don't all share the same tastes, but there's enough overlap that ideally we're all kind of learning a bit about other styles and suchlike, and the blog helps push styles around, which is fun and useful i hope. but the songs i really truly love are just too few; while the songs i think are interesting or worth more exposure, that's a larger set that makes the blog worth pursuing to me.

but i love how the mp3 blog community ranges from your style / the moe rex style, darwin, all the way to the bumrocks style of zero commentary at all, and everything in between. some folks seriously identify as music journalists; others, like me, are just music enthusiasts. some folks make it personal; others keep it light. one of my favorite comments when tofu hut was actively interviewing mp3 bloggers was from the guy who does the suburbs are killing us, whose main suggestion for people publishing in this scene was "more japes" - and that's something i take as seriously as i take anything else. :)

Posted by: Scotto at April 11, 2005 12:17 AM

I have to say I'm not wild about the zero commentary at all style. Even if the tracks are great (like at Swound (http://www.cuechamp.com/swound/) for example) I find myself wanting to know who the artists are, why the poster decided to post them, etc.

But I understand and appreciate that there's a niche for everybody. For my part I just want to share music that I really like and which I think I have a unique perspective on. I'm occasionally tempted to post the new big thing by an artist I know everyone will be up on, but over time I've decided that it's a dead-end game. I don't want to get caught up in the competition aspect, trying be the first one to post the new Russian Futurists or whatever. If I wanted to, I could be up there with Fluxblog or Music For Robots or Scenestars (blech) in terms of posting indie music's greatest hits.. because frankly we're all getting our music from the same place.

Whenever I feel tempted to compete, though, I remind myself that what I enjoy is spreading music which I really like. Music that I would recommend to my friends. Not whatever I judge as being the two tracks most likely to be popular from the flavor of the month. I'm quite sure that it results in less traffic overall, but it means that I never post a track which I don't actually like. I'm happy with the current state of affairs.

In some ways I envy your format, because (as you say) you don't have to absolutely love everything you post. If it's good, you're not likely to care about whether someone else has posted it or whether you have anything insightful to say about it or anything else, really. It must be nice, though I could obviously never handle the 5-days-a-week posting schedule myself. I guess each style of mp3 blogging has its plusses and minusses. :)

One last thing (and this is probably worthy of an entire new comment thread) which concerns me about the competitiveness of MP3 blogs is the degree to which certain blogs are becoming integrated into the music promo mainstream and are starting to play by their rules. Only posting promo-botted copies of songs, for example, or cribbing promo material copy text for their posts. I don't think there's one standard of "keeping it real" but I'd prefer that people be straightforward and transparent about why they're posting what they're posting. If I wanted to listen to music that people paid to get played.. I'd listen to the radio.

Anyhow, just some thoughts. If you want to chat more about stuff (and dish some mp3-blog scene gossip, I'm sure) then you know an IRC server you can private message me on. I'm on there all the time.. :)

=darwin

Posted by: Darwin at April 18, 2005 05:26 PM