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Author Topic: I'm working on a slow, heavy, melodic project, looking for suggestions  (Read 5518 times)

casull

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I'm currently kicking around various ideas for a project I want to start this fall when I get back to school. The sound I'm kind of aspiring to is probably closest to (of the bands I've heard) Jesu and MBV in terms of tone, but I would like to include some extremely slow tempos, something more along the lines of Bohren and Der Club of Gore. I am also a big fan of Jesu's massive low-end punch.

The instruments (and players) at my disposal will probably be drums, bass, drums, guitar, and electric violin. I'm particularly excited about the role that electric violin could play in this, both in terms of its ability to perhaps mimic bowed guitar (but with actual control over the pitches produced) and the possibilities as a melodic instrument. One violin sound I'm envisioning would involve a pitch-shifter and lot of fuzz.

Also, I'd like to try and create harmonies and texture by writing complementary parts, rather than having one virtuoso guitar try to do it all. Also, I want guitar, bass, and violin to have fuzzy enough tones that playing more than one or two notes wouldn't really work. A band that exemplifies this kind of composition is Isis, although they play faster and cleaner than what I have in mind. I would like to incorporate some of the post-(rock/metal/etc) aesthetic of long slow builds, coupled with a gradual ascent out of an extremely slow starting tempo.

Other bands whose sound has some attraction include m83 (whose dense melodicism is admirable even though they're a lot more upbeat than I have in mind), a few boris tracks (track 5 from pink especially), and The Angelic Process, even though they're a bit on the noisy side.

Nadja, cult of luna, and more angelic process are all on my to-listen list for this already. Any thoughts or suggestions for additional listening in this vein?


Applicable material:

Isis -
Grinning Mouths
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-x7Ez7yCyA8
Holy Tears
http://youtube.com/watch?v=rWjhxnVcmgg

Jesu- I especially like Silver, but anything he has up here, really.
http://www.myspace.com/officialjesu

Bohren and Der Club of Gore
On Demon Wings
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJg_BzMBp4A
Midnight Black Earth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_1-zwBsvjw

MBV-
I Only Said
http://youtube.com/watch?v=dfrf9qJa-Hk
Loomer
http://youtube.com/watch?v=lxSWTtHPXL8
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Say old man, can you play the fiddle?

Johnny C

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A Place To Bury Strangers would be a good textural reference point for you, I think.
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KharBevNor

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Johnny C

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Oh yeah, definitely "Dopethrone." If you only listen to one of those, "Dopethrone" should be it.
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fangsanalsatan

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Nadja, cult of luna, and more angelic process are all on my to-listen list for this already. Any thoughts or suggestions for additional listening in this vein?

Rosetta would fit right into that list. heavy, spacey mix of sludge and post-rock. also a big yes for Electric Wizard, but not just Dopethrone. Come My Fanatics... is just as good.

That "video" of Funeralopolis on yt is actually my upload. :lol: I love that riff. very much.
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onewheelwizzard

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The Black Angels are kind of on the more traditionally rock-ish side of the spectrum but I think they're trying to do something similar with their instruments.  You should check them out.

Moccasin are really good with heavy-fuzzy tones and layered textures, you'll probably like them a lot.  You can't go wrong listening to Dead Meadow either ... they might not be drone-oriented enough for what you're trying for, but "One and Old" in particular is a track I think you'd get into.

Bardo Pond are awesome and you should listen to their music, it is probably very close to what you are looking for.

There are definitely a lot of songs in the Acid Mothers Temple catalog that I think you could use as reference points here, but listening through their discography in search of the right kind of stuff will probably be taxing.

Bongripper has put out a lot of stuff you'd probably like too.  "The Great Barrier Reefer" is probably closer to what you're looking for, but "Hippie Killer" is better in my opinion.

Daturah is probably right up your alley.  Check them out.

You probably couldn't go wrong with Earth but I don't know how droney you want this stuff to be, so there's no telling.

Growing are really far out there in terms of noisy ambient soundscape stuff, so you might find something there.

If you want to play up the hypnotic effect, you might want to look into Pharaoh Overlord.

Other recommendations: Llange, Manatees, Meniscus, One Starving Day, Surface of Eceyon, 5ive, Thergothon (props to Caspian for this one), Teeth of the Lions Rule the Divine, SUNN0))), SoulPreacher, Snowblood, Ramesses (members of Electric Wizard), Disappearer.
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Caspian

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Quote
Nadja and more angelic process are all on my to-listen list for this already. Any thoughts or suggestions for additional listening in this vein?

I honestly don't see why you need to listen to more then that. Easily the best two bands ever- TAP in particular is miles ahead of any other band as far as totally awesome music goes. Check my reviews on Nadja on Metal-Archives for suggestions if you want, I've reviewed almost every single release of theirs on it. Buy every single Angelic Process release straight off, you won't regret it.

Seconding OWW's Growing (I think they are a bit overrated but yet I keep on listening to them). Bardo Pond is also a very good idea, a bit more stonery and a bit less shoegazey but still extremely good times.

I would liken Tim Hecker's approach as jesu or Isis within an ambient context, well worth checking out.

The Goslings have an extremely loud (quite fatiguing, actually) sound, I liken it as MBV and Boris and an absolutely massive amount of tape distortion. Grandeur of Hair is pretty cool, as is Occaison. Something you must hear, this, and I'm honestly surprised that no one here has mentioned them.

Seconding Thergothon, that's some seriously epic funeral doom stuff right there. Not remotely shoegazey or anything, but very slow, very heavy and imbued with a strange sense of grace and elegance. Essential.

I think some later Godflesh could fit this thread, too. Hymns is still fairly industrial-ish but quite uplifting, very solid stuff indeed.

For epic trance inducing drone, check out Burial Chamber Trio, particularly Side B.

Li Jianhong does some excellent, albeit quite noisy, one man guitar stuff that vaguely reminds me of TAP for some reason (just not as mind blowingly good, naturaly). Don't know how easy it is to find, but get San Sheng Hi.

Finally, I'm surprised OWW didn't mention Alasehir (think he was the one who uploaded that). Very jammy and psychedelic, really awesome stuff.

Also, tell us what out of here you liked/disliked the most out of the recs so far. No point listing off another 50 or so bands.
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casull

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Ok... Khar, like you said, your stuff is good but not necessarily all that relevant. As far as the stoner sound, the tone is often something to aspire to, but they don't go to much for harmonies... actually, just as I typed that, a guitar solo started in dopethrone, then the singer came back in- that was pretty good while they all overlapped.

I found some rosetta last night, that was really good.

I've heard Sunn O))) and Earth. It's nice stuff to have heard, but I'm honestly looking to be a lot more melodic. Perhaps I should throw in Sigur Ros as a point of reference in my mind. They're pretty far removed from most of these bands because they're so clean, but if I could somewhat translate their gorgeous textures into a deeper noisier context, that would be cool.

Now I'm listening to Stays Demons by nadja... this is great. lots of noise, but there are several pretty things going on under the fuzz. I also listened to some godflesh the other day because of broadrick's involvement. The jackhammer drum machine is either really cool or obnoxious, but sometimes the rest of their sound is pretty neat.

Manatees is good so far... I like the vocals, they're down in the mix and very much like just another instrument. I also like thergothon- they there are a lot of harmonies way down in the muddled mix. That's something I'll get more of when I have time.

I'll get to more bands later, I've gotta run now. Thanks so much for the recommendations.

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Say old man, can you play the fiddle?

Ernest

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from what I can tell, John, your band is going to be giant pussy music

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Where I come from, we usually just shorten that to "yee-haw!"

KharBevNor

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Ok... Khar, like you said, your stuff is good but not necessarily all that relevant.

Each thing was there for a reason. MDB really just because of the violins. Also I feel we might have different standards of melodic because to me Xasthur is pretty melodic.
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[22:25] Dovey: i don't get sigquoted much
[22:26] Dovey: like, maybe, 4 or 5 times that i know of?
[22:26] Dovey: and at least one of those was a blatant ploy at getting sigquoted

http://panzerdivisio

casull

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from what I can tell, John, your band is going to be giant pussy music



Just for that I'm skipping polvo
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Say old man, can you play the fiddle?

Johnny C

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That hurts you more than him.
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sleepsymphonic

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I started a project with the idea of combining The Microphones and ISIS... and during the process I disovered how much I fucking LOVE Boris.  and Sunn 0)))... But Boris is what really made me drive the project forward... "Feedbacker" especially...  and then for good measure I recommend some of the more recent Boredoms releases... Vision Creaton Newsome or Seadrum/House of Sun.

and if anybody wants to hear my finished product I'm giving it out for the time being:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/kfzwz1



-Bard
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