Copping Bon Iver's new one in the fuckin pitch black at Dolby in Soho like a CUN

[alan nagsworth]

T

That's what I did tonight.

Well first off, this morning I went and got a colossal hunk of ineffective ear drops and deeply compacted hard wax sucked out of my ears and experienced a sudden clarity I had not felt in years. I always knew my hearing was a bit shit but getting this done has been a revelation. My ears must have been like this for YEARS, listening to music was like suddenly putting on a brand new set of expensive headphones and realising you wasted your life with inferior gear. Incredible.

So obviously this wasn't timed just so I could go to the Dolby listening room in Soho Square and get completely pitch-blackly immersed in a ludicrously produced brand spanking new album. It's just coincidence that I've been unable to hear jack shit for the last few days and was totally despairing. But nevertheless it coincided with this and woooooo I could not have picked a better day.

I was meaning to start a new thread on this but haven't been all that arsed about writing recently. But this was incredible! So we're all in these big ass plush chairs and obviously the sound system is off the charts. We all stick eye masks on and they fuck the lights off and about 15 minutes into this thing I'm fully visualising the music physically in front of my covered eyes. This album is disarmingly massive, there is so much going on, it's like some mental patchwork quilt of sounds and textures all utilised with proper precision, things that might not jump out on a stereo but on this system it was three dimensional and completely bewildering and fascinating.

I really fucking like Bon Iver anyway and the direction he took on 22, A Million was always sorta waiting to spring out of his first two albums, the weird little sound fragments and experimental leanings. This new one - i,i it's called, fucks sake - seems to weave that wintry folk with the glitchy strange electronic side really nicely, or if not at least intriguingly.

I can see why this sort of thing must be divisive, not least of all among fans of the earlier stuff, but I think it works great and I'd go as far as saying in terms of an artist getting fucking massively well known and then going off in a bonkers direction, he's one of the best in recent years. It's no surprise he's worked with Kanye so much.

I'd love to see him live but his next tour he's playing fucking WEMBLEY ARENA for fucks sake, so the bearded prick can go piss up a rope for all I care but cheers for the tunes like

[McFlymo]

Brad Cook, the producer who works with Bon Iver did an interesting interview with Jamie Lidell recently on this here podcast:
Hanging Out With Audiophiles