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Fire Records
Cardinal 'Hymns'
£7.99
Fire Records
Cardinal 'Hymns'
£7.99
18 years after the release of their landmark self-titled debut, Cardinal ' the recording collaboration between Richard Davies and Eric Matthews ' are preparing to unveil their long awaited new album. The new record, entitled Hymns, picks up where their debut left off ' well-crafted, layered orchestral pop, with Matthews' multi-instrumental talents enhancing Davies' sublime songwriting gems.
Hymns comprises ten new originals, another milestone in the band's quest to provide the missing link in chamber pop history, following the Beatles and Bee Gees and before Belle & Sebastian, and a worthy follow up to their self-titled debut, a record lauded then, and now, as one of the most important albums of the 90s.
Ushering in an era of appreciation for the orchestrated pop music the 1960s, with a modern approach, Cardinal's debut opus, originally released in 1994, seemed to come out of nowhere with it's layered textures and delightful melodies, swimming against the tidal wave of grunge. The record would achieve deafening acclaim, and impact other artists even to this day. But as influential and significant as Cardinal seemed, their musical output totaled that lone, brilliant self-titled record, as Matthews moved home to the West Coast while Davies remained out East.
The two embarked on individual solo careers, Davies remaining on Flydaddy, home to the Cardinal album, and Matthews on Sub Pop, and soon many, many years had passed. Miraculously though, what may have seemed to be the end of the story, was not the closing chapter for Cardinal. A reconnection between the two musicians ' an on-again/off-again chronicle of creating new music ' a bi-coastal recording process ' took hold. Finally completed in 2011, what was thought to be a pipe dream, and an object that is sure to elicit delight from both musicians and music fans alike, a new album Hymns.
Hymns signals a new beginning for Cardinal, signing to storied independent label Fire Records ' in fact, also originally home to the last album from Davies pre-Cardinal outfit, The Moles.
Hymns combines self-assured and pious pop gems (Northern Soul) with immense-canvas outback masterworks (Kal), and improbably, hot-blooded essays on the first law case Davies ever read (Carbolic Smoke Ball). Like the first album a lifetime ago, Hymns is a set of diamonds. Great songs ' actually, plain-old-fashioned good songs, filtered through Davies' John Donne/Sir John Mortimer law/art prism, and Matthews' trained arranger's ear.
The two are perfectly matched. It is clear that, once again they spur each other on to greater heights. Guitars, vocals, horns and strings, bass, along with the weird, are used with invention, purpose, and confidence.
When Cardinal was released in 1994 they were arguably the best band in the world. In 2012 with Hymns they are well positioned for a repeat performance.
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One of Entertainment Weeklies 100 Best Soundtracks Of All Time.
A precursor to Lynch's Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet sets a template for ethereal noir soundtracks in a modern, quite disturbed age. 'The shock of the new fades by definition, but it has hardly done so in the case of Blue Velvet.' Dennis Lim, Salon, 2016
"The haunting soundtrack accompanies the title credits, then weaves through the narrative, accentuating the noir mood of the film." - John Alexander, The British Film Resource
You know that feeling you get when you're shook awake in mid-dream? You were teetering on the ledge of a building, or maybe trying to free a butterfly from a spider web while wearing cricket gloves? Perhaps you're running late for a train and your short cut takes you through a bad part of town, you're being followed but the ever changing reflection in the shop window is a younger you, a healthier person - with a better hairstyle. It's an anxiety thing, an off-kilter almost world, best summed up on the soundtrack for Blue Velvet, David Lynch's 1986 film that nods somnambulantly to the shadowy netherworld of film noir.
Oedipal fantasies, finding a severed ear on your way home, voyeurism, crime and retribution, violence; they're all there in abundance in the movie, a rotten sleazy commercialism set off against a set of strange situations that the edge of the seat is never far away from. And what soundtrack would suit such an experience? Of course a mix of orchestral pieces from composer and conductor Angelo Badalamenti inspired by Shoshtakovich's 15th Symphony (which rumour has it Lynch played onset to create the mood') mixed up with trashy Hammond-led boogie and overblown baroque pop from Roy Orbison and Ketty Lester, suitable for any dive's jukebox.
That awkward mix plays itself out in Isabella Rossellini as Dorothy's rendition of the song Blue Velvet'that melds beautifully and indeed hauntingly into Blue Star', a broken piece of vintage pop. Similarly, the track Going Down To Lincoln'with its narrative audio shtick takes all of the previously-mused elements to create a perfectly disjointed travelogue. The soundtrack album starts with Bernard Hermann-styled Hitchcock-esque strings and violin slashes, which dally before deconstructing the themes and motifs into a disturbing procession that climaxes with Julee Cruise's funereal Mysteries Of Love', a fittingly titled epilogue to an epic that concludes with the hero's true love's reality of a simplistic birdsong dream from earlier in the film.
It's a cyclical trip that feeds directly back to the beginning and, yes, there's that severed ear again, now ant infested laying on the ground, proving that dreams become real, or is it reality that becomes a dream?
Tracklisting:
1. Main Title
2. Night Streets / Sandy And Jeffrey
3. Frank
4. Jeffrey's Dark Side
5. Mysteries Of Love (French Horn solo) (a)
6. Frank Returns
7. Mysteries Of Love (Instrumental) (a)
8. Blue Velvet (b) / Blue Star (a) - Montage
9. Lumberton U.S.A. (a) / Going Down To Lincoln - Sound Effects Suite
10. Akron Meets The Blues
11. Honky Tonk Part I (performed by Bill Doggett)
12. In Dreams (performed by Roy Orbison)
13. Love Letters (e) (performed by Ketty Lester)
14. Mysteries Of Love (a) (Vocal by Julee Cruise) -
Sold outRemastered by Bob Weston and featuring new liner notes by MAGNET magazine editor Eric Miller, physical copies of Vee Vee includes sixteen bonus tracks and new cover art re-imagined by graphic artist Jay Ryan. Reissues of All the Nation's Airports and White Trash Heroes followed later in 2012.Visit product page →
The first full-length produced by Bob Weston, Vee Vee was a slight departure from the previous bombastic noisepop that characterized Archers of Loaf's previous work, and it proved that the band wasn't just a flash in the pan. The album became their best-selling album to date and landed them on the covers of most fanzines and at the top of college radio charts across the country. "Harnessed in Slums" and "Greatest of All Time" became anthems of the underground and led to successful tours with the Flaming Lips and Weezer.
CD 1:
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2. Harnessed in Slums
3. Nevermind the Enemy
4. Greatest of All Time
5. Underdogs of Nipomo
6. Floating Friends
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8. Fabricoh
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12. The Worst Has Yet to Come
13. Underachievers March and Fight Song
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1. Harnessed in Slums (Bob Weston Radio Mix, 1995)
2. Telepathic Traffic (Bonus)
3. Don't Believe the Good News (Bonus)
4. Smoking Pot in the Hot City (Bonus)
5. Mutes in the Steeple (Bonus)
6. Mark Price P.I. (Bonus)
7. Bacteria (Bonus)
8. Equinox (Bonus)
9. Big Joe and Phantom 309 (Bonus)
10. 1985 (Bonus)
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12. Nostalgia (Bonus)
13. Let the Loser Melt (Bonus Demo)
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On saleNew Zealand/New York City legends Bailterspace, offer up their best album to date with their first new recordings in 13 years. The band were once described by Pitchfork as "simultaneously beautiful, jagged, atonal, and supremely melodic" and 'Strobosphere' emerges at a time when the band's trailblazing sound has never been more relevant.Visit product page →
Revered as one of the loudest and most intense live bands of all-time, they haven't lost any of their bite or their love of tone, dissonance, and melody. The first single "No Sense" darts, snaps and swirls with alternating snare cracks, atmospheric surges and dirty buzz, featuring Parker's distinctive vocals. -
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First time on Double Silver Vinyl.
Critical praise from Pitchfork, Clash, The Wire, Q Magazine and more upon release. New inverted LTD edition artwork.
Fire re-issue Bardo Pond's eponymous eighth studio album from 2010, their debut for Fire from way back when. A lysergic brain wrestler in which the Pennsylvanian drone outfit perfect their modal sound. Teasing the artistry of LaMonte Young and Terry Riley into a guitar shaped cauldron, the album's compulsive reverbed guitar shapes slowly simmer behind Isobel Sollenberger's esoteric vocals 'Like hearing a tannoy at a station in the voice of Jesus.' The Quietus.
A claustrophobic stuttering raga interlocks with their psychedelic leanings best exemplified on Cracker Wrist'which sounds like something that's intentionally always just about to happen/and/or spin back in time.
Featuring lengthy fully nurtured play offs between the quintet Bardo Pond'is a heady statement that's like the most wholesome kind of vegan-friendly mushroom trips.
Pitchfork reckons they're 'playing fuzzed out stoner dreams.' Vice's musical brother Noisey likens them to 'Fugazi On Acid.'
Allmusic intervenes with: 'These are epic, soaring psychedelic ambient power-drone rock noise melodies where partially buried, distant female vocals are laced throughout a roaring, murky/sludge guitar soundscape.'
Tracklisting:
1. Just Once
2. Don't Know About You
3. Sleeping
4. Undone
5. Cracker Wrist
6. The Stars Behind
7. Wayne's Tune
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