I really hate to be melodramatic and critical of you guys at twisted, but here it goes anyway; I have never listened to a single song that came out of twisted records and didnt LOVE IT until I heard Vaccine by Younger Brother.
DON’T GET ME WRONG! I love you guys and will continue to await the next masterpiece that comes out of twisted labs, but… magic monkey juice? finger? sleepwalker part 2?..... I AM A FREAK??? these songs and the energy they created in “flock of bleeps” and “last days of gravity” is NOTHING like the stuff that is being put out by YB now, and i am almost disturbed by the difference. anyone else feel the same?
hhazard20 good for you for being frank! You can’t love everything right? Anyway, if you check some of the anticipatory threads for Vaccine, you’ll see that there was a lot of ambivalence towards YB, especially when they were releasing Vaccine singles and giving fans little remix MP3s. Most people were like wtf going on with YB? But the thing is, that’s the direction they’ve been going in, and Last Days was packed with vocals. Now that Vaccine is out, I think a lot of people that wanted to hate it… don’t! It’s kind of like Pink Floyd! Anyway, don’t despair, there are rumours that a new Hallucinogen may be in the works
PLEASE GOD!
and why dontcha fly to NY or Oakland for a Halloween Shpongle show? It’s gonna be fvckin’ nuts!
yo, this was similar to my initial reaction when listening to vaccine.
BUT
i’ve always been a big fan of pink floyd, and psychedelic rock when it’s done well. i also got into psychedelic music after listening mostly to indie when i was in high school (for a bit of background .
it goes without saying that as a psychedelic electronica-ish album, it doesn’t hold a candle to the previous two. but if you look at this as a rock-ish album, i have to say that it shits on pretty much anything else out there, from a production point of view. if you take out the two singles that were pre-released (shine and night lead me astray), it is actually a really good album. i have to say that those two singles just completely missed the mark.
the biggest problem with the album are the lyrics. to be frank, they are banal - in most songs. if you’re gonna bother singing, you should have a reason to sing. i can’t stand boring meaningless lyrics, hence why i can’t stand coldplay. it totally takes away from the music itself.
however, even in that regard, vaccine has some good moments. safety in numbers is cheesy, but the lyrics are still pretty clever. i also don’t mind the lyrics in train, to me it’s like yb’s take on the trans europa express also, the start of crystalline actually reminds me of nick drake.
basically, the way i see it is that this was an experiment. the outcome is very hit-and-miss, and i wouldn’t be surprised either way if they decided to go back to a more electronic sound, or if they decided to keep pursuing this sound. i genuinely believe that, given a couple of albums and maybe some collaborations, younger brother can become a big band and convert hordes of youngsters to the psychedelic sound. i would love to see that, and to enjoy some good songs in the process.
at the same time, i can’t help but think about the incredible dance music that simon and benji could make together. :(
Unsane your right not to like everything, but your sick not to open your ears!
Vaccine is a master piece of work, a great album and above all it’s unique. But if you don’t like OK, but don’t say it suck because it hurts to read! I don’t understand people who are always expecting things, then they get disappointed always… If you don’t like don’t bother and don’t listen and don’t make silly comments like Twisted going like IM because both are great in my opinion. In example I really don’t like first albums of IM, but I don’t say it sucks maybe some other like them though…
Unsane your right not to like everything, but your sick not to open your ears!
Vaccine is a master piece of work, a great album and above all it’s unique. But if you don’t like OK, but don’t say it suck because it hurts to read!
hear hear. It would seem people are so caught up because there are lyrics in picture now, that they miss the musical mastery that lies underneath. One can still hear the old sounds that have been sublimely intergrated with the new. I was sceptical at first what with the dominance of the vocals, however i didn’t stop listening and then started to hear the brilliance. I’m not comparing the music to Pink Floyd however i’m comparing how i listen to it. I think of the lyrics as the story teller and the music is what takes me away on the magical journey.
Unsane fair enough you don’t like it. That is your rightful choice to make and I won’t try to convince you otherwise. However you came out with your statement without so much of a decent reason to why you think like you do. Is it you don’t like lyrics in music? Is it you feel the music hasn’t evolved? If so i would have to disagree with you on that. Is it you just don’t like the style/genre (if it can be genre defined)?
I can say Manchester United suck, that’s just because I follow Liverpool. Now as a true football lover I know the statement is not true. Manchester United have been a team that has set a high standard within not only the English premier league but Europe also. I’m not a big fan of the manager they have but he has earned respect from football fans who follow different clubs for what he has achieved with Man Utd. He has constantly evolved and adapted new techniques and innovations to move forward. If he had stayed with his old ways, apart from not being successful he wouldn’t have a job.
I’m not comparing Man Utd to Twisted or YB. I was just using it as an example. But let me ask you. Why did you feel the need to write that they suck? How did you feel after you pressed the submit post button? Did you feel a warm satisfaction that you got your point across in a well thought out manner?
I’m not saying bow down and love twisted music for what it is and follow blindly. However what i will say. Please, if you make a staement like that then come up with constructive points on to why you think so. These then can be discussed, agreed with or disagreed with.
i don’t necessarily agree with unsane, but i do think there is a tendency on here to shut down any statement that doesn’t sufficiently praise twisted/simon/etc.
i also completely agree with your point, though. when critiquing something it’s not good enough to just throw out your value judgement - you need to explain yourself.
for example, raphy says that vaccine is a masterpiece. i completely disagree, but it’s hard for me to provide a counter-argument, because he/she just left it that. what exactly makes this a masterpiece??
also, i can’t help but LOL at anyone who thinks the first IM albums suck, but that’s for another discussion.
i’ll assume that most on here are big hallucinogen fans.
the way i look at it is this: if you listen to the two hallucinogen albums now, and then you listen to classical mushroom and the gathering, which sounds more outdated?
to this day i’m still astounded when i listen to those 2 IM albums. in my opinion, no other psytrance albums from that era have stood the test of time as well, but i’m happy to be challenged on that. even disregarding the style itself, the samples, effects, beats, etc. used in those albums just don’t sound outdated to me. certainly not if you compare it to the two hallucinogen albums.
from there, however, it was all downhill for IM. they tried to evolve their sound, but if you ask me you could tell that duvdev got more and more influence on the sound. i’ve never been a fan of metal (unless you include liking limp bizkit when i was 12…) so there’s very little in their music for me. all of their lyrics are corny as fuck, and the quality of their productions has plateaued, much like GMS. i suppose that’s what commericalism does to you.
Ok everyone on this thread ^^ that is how you make a point and not a drive-by shooting.
The thing is though flavius, I’m not an Infected fan, and I don’t know a lot of their recorded output. My ‘thing’ about IM and this board is that I don’t really see the connection (though Si frequently gets double-billed with them)! All I can say is that I’ve seen them play live three times, twice in a festival setting and once in a nightclub, the first time was SA2000 where Si busted out Milloonium. And I never liked them. I would be really digging some of their beats and electronics (which is usually one guy in the techno act) and seconds later I would be “this just went to cheeseville”. Like a giant fondue. Then after a few minutes I’d be smitten with the beats, (“is this still the same band?”), like a yo-yo. So their sound was always really bipolar to me. The last time I saw them about two years ago they were really into hard rock I guess and trying to be rock stars. For sure what they sound like now just has nothing to do with what Twisted’s about (to my ears). But I guess I don’t really know their oeuvre so I’ll have to back away slowly from this one…
Although isn’t it interesting that both IM and YB came from very sub-subcultures, and then decided they wanted to broaden their appeal (or, to be fair, honour some influences from outside their subcultures)? And Tsuyoshi from Matsuri did that move big time. Out of the three, IM may have succeeded the best in terms of getting new fans, but I do think that beneath the vocals on Vaccine Si and Benji did some really nice music. It’s not a ‘masterpiece’ like Nothing Lasts, but still. And Tsuyoshi just went to hell and bought a condo.
the reason why IM and hallucinogen are often talked about together is because the two hallucinogen albums and the first two IM albums are widely considered to be the cream in terms of pioneering psytrance music from that era.
hallucinogen introduced what we now all think of as the ‘twisted’ sound, and IM introduced what is now considered the dark/forest sound. neither of them necessarily invented those styles, but they took psycheledic trance to new, groundbreaking places.
i urge you to listen to those two IM albums, i honestly consider them masterpieces. check this out - this is one of my favourite songs ever - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JXYV6_7Vsg
the reason why IM and hallucinogen are often talked about together is because the two hallucinogen albums and the first two IM albums are widely considered to be the cream in terms of pioneering psytrance music from that era.
It’s a shame acts like Logic Bomb aren’t mentioned more often. Rised up around that time with pioneering music also.
Logic Bomb is more my style, but flav I did listen to four tracks from “The Gathering”! I would say that some bits do sound ‘of a time’, but there definitely are some innovative and cool chunks in there (all in the same track). Some of it sounds fresh enough to be released today, I really did like the beats with the modified vocal thing in Return of the Shadows.
Ok everyone on this thread ^^ that is how you make a point and not a drive-by shooting.
(...) I would be really digging some of their beats and electronics (which is usually one guy in the techno act) and seconds later I would be “this just went to cheeseville”. Like a giant fondue. Then after a few minutes I’d be smitten with the beats, (“is this still the same band?”), like a yo-yo. So their sound was always really bipolar to me.
I think I’m a bit on the other side of the yo-yo, enjoying the ride. On one side, the ‘angry pop’ songs and the occassional simplistic ‘Rammstein’-8th-note riffs send me to cheeseville too. On the other side their electronic sounds & fx are - to my ears and inspiration at least - ‘right up there’ in twisted heavan. I also love the way they incoperate classic soundtrack music and shimmering acoustic guitars. All in all, for me, what Flavius said above about the rock-ish side of psychedelia also applies to Infected Mushroom. Songs like ‘Project 100’ from the newest IM album are more progressive rock than radio rock, having about 10 different parts and several time signatures.
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also, the start of crystalline actually reminds me of nick drake. 
