Tír Na HiFi

dhyantyke wrote:

cybot wrote:

dhyantyke wrote:I've just been surprised by how good these sound played at decent volume. I also have the Nursery Crymes and am tempted to fill in with the 'Platinum Collection' Box set.

I'd rather have the original albums rather then a 'greatest hits' set; up to A Trick of the Tail anyway...not interested in the Collins stuff at all, with the exception of Tail....

Yep, I put that out there expecting (hoping for) a response...........I find myself averse to 'box' sets and to this point don't own ANY!!!!!!! for exactly the reasons stated. I think there is also a connection to my inability to 'bond' with the computer product!! But in this case I was considering it as I agree that after 'Tail' there is a lot of totally forgettable stuff. .. I did say 'tempted'..maybe I'm cured!

Delighted to be of help :) Me, I love (vinyl) box sets! Even though I rarely play them....theirin lies the rub ;) Seriously, as long as I have the original albums, box sets don't bother me. I get them for the extra bits plus notes etc etc

cybot wrote:

dhyantyke wrote:I've just been surprised by how good these sound played at decent volume. I also have the Nursery Crymes and am tempted to fill in with the 'Platinum Collection' Box set.

I'd rather have the original albums rather then a 'greatest hits' set; up to A Trick of the Tail anyway...not interested in the Collins stuff at all, with the exception of Tail....

I haven't listened to it in a long while but I have very good memories of Wind and Wuthering, Steve Hackett's last album with the group.

jadarin wrote:

Friggin' brilliant riff :) They're a long time on my to buy lis too....The song sounds naggingly familiar; A kind of son of Knocking on Heavin's Door? Thanks John :)

mcq wrote:

cybot wrote:
I'd rather have the original albums rather then a 'greatest hits' set; up to A Trick of the Tail anyway...not interested in the Collins stuff at all, with the exception of Tail....

I haven't listened to it in a long while but I have very good memories of Wind and Wuthering, Steve Hackett's last album with the group.

Used to have it but it's long since gone (with the wind!)....so I can't comment.

Enjoying this recent acquisition of mine. It's been a long time coming but thanks to Paul's gentle persuasion I finally succumbed to the inevitable :) Not as intense as In Praise of Learning but somehow all the better for it. A first listen indicated a kind of Soft Machine influence with classical/avant garde overtones. Side one being the 'easy' listening side and two being the more experimental. No need to point out which one's my favourite :) Though I love them both....



Remastered vinyl edition with absolutely no info. whatsoever!

cybot wrote:

jadarin wrote:

Friggin' brilliant riff :) They're a long time on my to buy lis too....The song sounds naggingly familiar; A kind of son of Knocking on Heavin's Door? Thanks John :)

Some great riffs on this.While nothing new, it's an album with nearly
every track familiar, but that's what makes it so enjoyable.
I've just spotted the album on limited orange vinyl for €15 on
their site...

On the tt. Playing this a lot since I received it this morning....It's improvised solo electric guitar using minimal fx and a Telecaster. Not what I expected.....







Dig the Tele :))

BRAINWASHED: Son of the Black Peace

This English guitarist’s first full-length is just as impressive as last year’s excellent Brown Bear EP, but displays quite a significant and somewhat unexpected evolution. Rather than playing up the psychedelic touches and constant sense of motion that made his earlier work immediately gratifying, Dean has taken the more difficult and distinctive road of shifting his emphasis more strongly towards space and decay. Thankfully, his melodies are usually strong enough to support that potentially perilous decision. As a result, Son of the Black Peace is as much a bold artistic statement as it is a great album.
The one thing that most fascinates me about Dean McPhee is that his style is so difficult to deconstruct: he isn’t doing anything ostentatious or overtly experimental, but there is no clear chain of influences leading to his sound. There are definitely some subtle nods to Takoma Records, jazz, and contemporary pedal-stomping experimentalists, but Dean seems to built upon their tactics rather than their content. These four songs sound like traditional folk-inspired steel-string instrumentals that have been electrified, softened, slowed down, blurred, and improvised into something new.
McPhee is quite adept at weaving strong melodic motifs, as he proves with both the opening harmonic reverie in “Power of Nines” and the Eastern-inspired central riff of “Golden Bridge,” but the true depth of his artistry is a bit deeper and less immediately apparent. Dean wields his battery of pedals in a remarkably nuanced and ingenious way, using delay and chorusing to keep notes hanging and shimmering in the air like a fog. That nimbus of gently quivering decay holds the pieces together (kind of like drone music) and eliminates the need to stay busy or play a lot of notes just to keep the songs’ momentum going: Dean is clearly trying to bring as much sensitivity and feeling to his notes as possible. He wants them to matter.
Well, perhaps not quite all the time, as another great facet of this album is that almost everything McPhee does is essentially a fantasia on a theme. The basic framework of these pieces is often merely a jumping-off point for endless variations and improvisations. That tendency could be quite tedious in the wrong hands, but Dean has a knack for deftly and unexpectedly locking back into the melody in a tight and oft-striking way. At times, I wish he would stick a bit closer to the song’s core (particularly when there is an especially likable melody), but I still enjoyed the low-level tension of wondering how he is going to pull things back together. He even managed to surprise me a bit near the end of “Cloud Forest,” as he wields feedback in a way that weirdly approximates a singing saw (while still maintaining a skeletal chord progression, no less).
Notably, this album was recorded in single takes with absolutely no overdubbing (apparently in a single afternoon, even), yet it sounds like the end result of a lengthy and painstaking process of distillation. In fact, Son of the Black Peace feels like such a product of restless and exacting perfectionism that it seems like it only could have been recorded in this fashion–it needs that organic, spontaneous feel as a counterbalance to make it all work (which it certainly does). Some of McPhee’s artistic decisions (increasingly abstract divergences, fewer attention-grabbing “set pieces,” etc.) make this album a bit less immediately accessible than its predecessor, but it is worth the effort to get past that. I’m admittedly a little concerned about how dangerously close Dean is to crossing the line between “refreshingly reflective and understated” and “languidly meandering,” but he is staying on the right side pretty damn consistently at the moment (it helps that he keeps his releases somewhat brief though). If it finds its way to enough ears, this masterful and subtly mesmerizing effort should quietly ensconce McPhee in the upper echelon of contemporary solo guitarists (which is exactly where he belongs).

The only turntable around here I'm afraid. Good though....

and for good measure: