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New LCD Soundsystem stuff

Started by Serge, May 04, 2017, 08:42:36 PM

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Serge

This popped up in my Facebook feed (via LCD Soundsystem's FB page):

Quotein other news, we're releasing 2 songs tonight at midnight (and i mean, literally, midnight. wherever you are. so, like, australia first, and so on and so forth) via the digital things that people use now on their devices. these songs are named "call the police" and "american dream". we played them both at brooklyn steel. they're new. i (james) mixed "american dream" DFA Studios, and my friend dave sardy mixed "call the police" at his sweet place in LA last week, and shuttled them quickly to the great bob weston (at Chicago Mastering Service) to master them so we could get them out today.
seriously almost done with the LP. 1 more vocal and 2 more mixes to go. as eager as folks have been for me to get this done, it's got nothing on how much i want to be finished myself. it's been one of the most enjoyable records to make in my life, if not the most fun ever (i think it is, for sure, the happiest i've ever been making a record.) so it will be sad in some ways to see it leave the house etc., but we're really looking forward to not feeling "late" all the time, and being able to do things like plan a weekend to do something fun. or respond to an email about eating with a friend with something other than "i'm sorry! i'm totally buried in the LP! check with me in a month?"

so, to answer some inevitable questions:

Q. but when is the ALBUM coming out!?!! gahh! SERiously!!

A. that's hard to say in specific, but here's some info. i insist that there is vinyl on the day it's released (because... well... because i'm an old person) so it will go like this: finish last mix > get to bob to master > get masters to pressing plant > plant takes X amount of time > records get to distro so that they can go to stores > record released. however long that takes = when the record will be out. i can control the first part, and i'm furiously trying to get everything to bob before shellac goes on tour and that pushes things further back, and then there's the jockeying for position in line at pressing plants, and various other things i don't control nor fully understand, but i've been assured by folks i trust that there are a series of fast runners in sweat wicking clothing waiting at the line for the baton to then bolt forward...

Q. is there vinyl of this release?!?

A. no. see above. time makes that hard. also, these are album versions, so they'll be available on vinyl on the LP. i'm not doing "b-sides" for this, as this is, essentially, a "double A side" release. meaning that there isn't one song i'm like "oh this is THE song" and another song that i'm like "well, this one can go on the other side" with these. it's not a 7", nor a 10" nor a 12", in theory or format for me... these are just 2 songs that we wanted to get out to the lovely and patient (and some less patient, but one assumes equally lovely) people who want new music. there may be "singles" on vinyl of these later, if that seems to make sense and not be dumb. depends on whether there are smart things to put on a b-side. they're not necessarily things i'd want remixes of, so it's more about whatever else would go with the songs. there is a LOT of new music--much more than i usually have, so we're puzzling through all that.

Q. are you guys playing any SHOWS?? near ME??

A. well, that depends on where you live. but our plan is indeed to play shows near where people live. and no, not just festivals. that's all being planned as well. we loved playing the Brooklyn Steel shows, and we're just in a funny place, in terms of understanding what size venues/how many nights we should play in various places. we generally prefer medium sized venues over huge ones, but we also loathe overpriced stubhub bullshit, so we're navigating this as best we can. honestly, a lot of this is down to me (james, still) being difficult when talking to our very lovely and capable managers and agents w/r/t larger venues... i'm always like "that seems insane!" when a properly big venue is proposed, since we've only ever played hollywood bowl, red rocks and MSG, all of which were "special" shows, so it's just hard to get our heads around the fact that maybe many more people that we assumed want to see us perhaps DO want to see us. it's been a very nice revelation, but oh dear it's still hard to make sense of.
what we don't want: us in some mega-dome (looking like we think we belong in some mega-dome) playing to 1/16th of a full room, while someone says things like "well, we can curtain off the balconies so it doesn't look so bad," after telling us "you have to charge $180 a ticket for it to make any sense."

what we also don't want: tickets to our shows being sold for $1000 on eBay, and people who like our band standing outside crying because they bought some bogus barcode from some shit-heel scalper.
what we want: full shows that aren't so big that you feel like you need binoculars to see if pat is actually behind the drums or if it's louis ck or something.

anyway, this has been a communication from the desk of JM. now i need to get some oatmeal and go to work.
love,
us

tl;dr - Two new songs released online at midnight: 'Call The Police' and 'American Dream'. New album on the way. Possible live dates.

I'm not staying up until midnight just to hear them, so I'll report back to this thread sometime tomorrow.

Viero_Berlotti

Just listening to 'Call The Police' on 6music now. I'm still angry with them over the fake break up of the band, but this is pretty good.

Repeater

every band breaks up every 2 years, they did an amazing job of making their seems like a huge event, and as such their return has been huge. Good marketing

phantom_power

They? Their? Isn't it just James Murphy plus som A N Others? I never saw it as a break-up so much as Murphy getting tired of the pressure of having to live up to the reputation of the name and so "broke up" the band to get away from that. For whatever reason he is ready to make music under that banner again. I think you would have to be quite cynical to read more into it than that

Pepotamo1985

Quote from: Viero_Berlotti on May 05, 2017, 07:53:52 AM
I'm still angry with them over the fake break up of the band, but this is pretty good.

It was very real? They ceased to exist for the best part of five years.

Repeater

And nah there's more components to the group that old Jamesyboooooyyyyy.

hewantstolurkatad

Wasn't it very much meant to be the end of the band, but when he finally came around to trying to make new material, the people he initially called around to bash out some ideas with were the other members of LCD Soundsystem.

So he was left with a choice of:
1. calling themselves something else for absolutely no reason that makes sense, which seems like a weird mix of cowardly and fiscally stupid
2. calling it a James Murphy solo project as was originally the plan but now just seem like a demotion to the other guys
3. swallowing whatever negativity is thrown his way and going back on the break up.


As far as reunions go, it's about as natural of one as you could get.

momatt

Yeah, he's the main guy, but the same guys seem to pop up on most of the records.   Patrick Mahoney and Nancy Whang are on most of them I think.

Wikipedia only list James as a member.  But has another section for the live band.  I don't think that's really the case.

hewantstolurkatad

Yep, Pat Mahoney, Tyler Pope and Nancy Whang all feature prominently enough on each album, Gavin Russom on two. All are part of the live band and  I think they were credited as band members at various points. I'd certainly find it weird to hear Nancy Whang on backing vocals and not immediately consider it an LCD Soundsystem album.

I assume most or all of them contributed a lot more to the new material than he had expected.

Serge

Call The Police

American Dream

'Call The Police' starts like Eno's 'Here Come The Warm Jets' and then goes into the Neu! Apache Beat (with other elements very similar to 'Hallogallo'), has a pointed line about moving to Berlin, and is blissful. 'American Dream' is mellower, keyboards sounding a bit like the '86 Neu! album, or, if I wanted to be particularly brutal, 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' Both bode well for the album.

Yeah, the live band is the band on the records, pretty much. EDIT: As others have said!

Viero_Berlotti

Quote from: Repeater on May 05, 2017, 08:19:42 AM
every band breaks up every 2 years, they did an amazing job of making their seems like a huge event, and as such their return has been huge. Good marketing

Good marketing for them, put packaging it up as a 'Final' ever show a then selling a concert film and album off the back of it tainted them a little in my opinion.

Repeater


Pdine

Quote from: Serge on May 05, 2017, 11:39:21 AM'American Dream' is mellower, keyboards sounding a bit like the '86 Neu! album, or, if I wanted to be particularly brutal, 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' Both bode well for the album.

Reminded me of a Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me era Cure B-side, which I consider a good thing. In fact both tracks are fantastic.

Repeater

Both songs are fucking stupendous.

Crabwalk

Four word review of 'Call the Police': The Killers discover motorik.

Seriously, it's just stadium rock filtered through a bit of Neu. The mid-70s need to call the fucking police as some bloke keeps nicking their ideas over and over again.


Repeater

"and over and over again..."

thugler

Quote from: Crabwalk on May 06, 2017, 10:42:27 AM
Four word review of 'Call the Police': The Killers discover motorik.

Seriously, it's just stadium rock filtered through a bit of Neu. The mid-70s need to call the fucking police as some bloke keeps nicking their ideas over and over again.

Bit harsh but you're completely right. I remember when I finally got into talking heads and realised what massive rip off merchants LCD are. Pretty good at it though to be fair. I still dig them.

Viero_Berlotti

They've certainly nailed that Robert Fripp Heroes guitar sound.

thugler

#18
Quote from: Viero_Berlotti on May 06, 2017, 12:20:57 PM
They've certainly nailed that Robert Fripp Heroes guitar sound.

And they've already nicked that on a previous song!

edit: Finally listened to the two new songs. Bit boring really. Prefer when they're a bit dancier

Crabwalk

#19
Quote from: thugler on May 06, 2017, 12:38:43 PM
And they've already nicked that on a previous song!

Exactly. Murphy's such a great producer, why doesn't he use his talents for pushing things forward anymore? It's only LCD's debut that was genuinely future-facing, everything else has been way too indebted to sounds pioneered 40+ years ago, often by Eno. Some good songs along the way though.

I don't want to be too cynical, but he might well have one ear out for the stadia and festivals that LCD probably have the pull now to headline for many years. There aren't too many acts from the 00's to compete with them for those slots so maybe he doesn't want to frighten the horses.

Anyhow, I know I'm being a bit harsh basing all this on the first couple of songs released. We'll see what else Murphy has up his sleeve.

Serge

On Saturday Night Live: Call The Police and American Dream. If they play anywhere near me, I'm going to have to break my habit of not going to live shows twice in one year.

Dr Syntax Head

James Murphy could release an album of him hoovering the house with cowbell and I would love every second. New LCD? Well xmas came early for me.

Dr Syntax Head

Quote from: Crabwalk on May 06, 2017, 05:45:19 PM
Exactly. Murphy's such a great producer, why doesn't he use his talents for pushing things forward anymore? It's only LCD's debut that was genuinely future-facing, everything else has been way too indebted to sounds pioneered 40+ years ago, often by Eno. Some good songs along the way though.

I don't want to be too cynical, but he might well have one ear out for the stadia and festivals that LCD probably have the pull now to headline for many years. There aren't too many acts from the 00's to compete with them for those slots so maybe he doesn't want to frighten the horses.

Anyhow, I know I'm being a bit harsh basing all this on the first couple of songs released. We'll see what else Murphy has up his sleeve.

Y'know that's a good point. But I don't see Murphy as someone who is future looking. He is always looking back. He wants to be Talking Heads in 77. He doesn't want to progress. I admire that. It's like he's a museum curator. There's a real need for that in music.

Dr Syntax Head

OP. Thank you for this thread, the new LCD songs have had me in nostalgic tears.

Dr Syntax Head

I keep seeing Killers reference to the new stuff. What the fuck? LCD were around a lot longer. And the Eno guitar stuff is deliberate. Murphy wears his influences on his sleeve. Anybody that thinks he's not original is missing the point. He doesn't want to be and isn't trying to be original. I love that about him. Similar with the likes of David Holmes. There is a place for classic music curator music. We can't all be Kevin Shields FFS!

Serge

Which is good, as I hate Kevin Shields.

momatt

New tracks are alright.
They've tried something a bit different at least, but it's not particularly memorable.  After all this fuss it'd be pretty funny if the new album is bollocks.

Crabwalk

Quote from: Dr Syntax Head on May 08, 2017, 12:32:40 AM
I keep seeing Killers reference to the new stuff. What the fuck?

Just for the record I made my comment without having read a single response from elsewhere about the new LCD songs. It just leapt out at me during the first listen to 'Police' that it sounded a lot like The Killers.

hewantstolurkatad

Quote from: Crabwalk on May 06, 2017, 05:45:19 PM
Exactly. Murphy's such a great producer, why doesn't he use his talents for pushing things forward anymore? It's only LCD's debut that was genuinely future-facing, everything else has been way too indebted to sounds pioneered 40+ years ago, often by Eno. Some good songs along the way though.
How about 45:33? It's probably my favourite album of theirs at this stage (largely due to the Joubert Sisters copycat second song) but overall felt like a pretty neat update of a certain kind of ~1980 electronic album without sounding like too much of a throwback.

Sound of Silver is a peach but there are several songs that definitely aren't pushing anything forward whatsoever.

Norton Canes

I love North American Scum. A proper losin' your shit on the dancefloor song.