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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Before Oasis "stopped the clocks" this was the future....., 27 April 2007
There was a period in British music, around 1993 when guitar bands started to get interesting again. Spurred on by the mixing desk manglings of My Bloody Valentine and the Ambient-dub sounds of The Orb and Aphex Twin, the likes of Main and Seefeel began to re-write the Indie-kids rulebook of what you can do with Guitar, Bass & Drums. Then Oasis and Britpop came along and suddenly experimental dreamscapes were out... recycling 30 year old "dadrock" was in. It was back to heads down, no nonsense mindless boogie. But, for a short while back then Seefeel were showing the way to a new rock aesthetic, using the production techniques of dance producers, making a band sound...nothing like a band. Writing songs that didn't sound like songs. So-called 'Post Rock' came a little later but the initial momentum had gone..as had Seefeel.
These days this kind of music would be the work of a lone bedroom boffin but Seefeel were a proper group (I was lucky enough to catch them live and they were brilliant). Each track slowly builds around Mark Clifford's beautiful layers of sampled guitars, rooted around Darren Seymour's excellent Jah-Wobble-esque basslines and Justin Fletcher's taut percussion while Sarah Peacocks cooing vocals occasionally float in from outer space.
Their legacy is a handful of records of which this is probably their masterpiece. It still sounds fresh today and like nothing else before or since. When NME journalists used to write about "Sonic cathedrals...Shimmering shards" etc. this is what they really meant. That's not to say this is meandering, fluffy ambient chill-out. There is still structure and content to the music and, some 'songs' of a sort even if they don't follow the normal rules. Yes it is pure sonic bliss from start to finish but you need to listen properly to appreciate it...so pay attention!
Seefeel subsequently jumped ship for Warp making one further LP (and later, further recordings from the same sessions on the Rephlex label) but opted for a much harsher, barren industrial sound inspired by Autechre but lacking the warmth and humour of the latter. (Worth seeking out if you like this record though).
This "Redux" version is a real treat if you're already a fan. It comes nicely packaged in a fold out card sleeve, with period reviews and notes from Mark Clifford. The sound is nicely remastered, and best of all you get a whole extra disc full of unspeakably rare remixes and (gasp!) unreleased tracks all of which are really good and will have you falling in love with the band all over again.
If you've not heard this, its an essential listen for anyone bored by the generic supermarket-friendly Indie bands of today, and/or interested in what can be achieved at the outer limits of rock and electronica.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent extra disc re-issue of an album that drifted to the outer reaches of rock musics possibilities, 26 May 2007
The reviewer is absolutely spot on about bands like Oasis stagnating the British music scene with their at first fresh and enjoyable retake of rock .It quickly stagnated of course and ushered in a fallow period where record companies eager for unit shifting acts and bands desperate for a breakthrough sought traditional and conventional routes to that end buoyed up by the Brit pop movement. I disagree , though that British music became interesting around 1993, as bands like Loop, Spacemen 3, AR Kane and My Bloody Valentine had already started revolutionising where rock music could be taken ( Along with American bands like The Butthole Surfers, Big Black and Sonic Youth and a band from Switzerland called The Young Gods) at the arse end of the 80,s.
It,s certainly true tough that it precipitated bands like Seefeel to push the boundaries further , amalgamating rock , ambient and to some extent dance to create a verdant evocative series of soundscapes, some of which have a humanistic corporeal feel while some evince a more synthetic and remote edge. Either way this is one of the very best albums of it's kind and still sounds remarkably pristine and cutting edge today.
The music never really moves beyond a languid mid-tempo and revolves around amorphous eddies of sounds , pulses and digitised mists, muted wails of feedback and the odd silvery dash of percussion. Sarah Peacocks voice drifts in and out of the mix sometimes intimate, other times barely registering as if she's singing a siren song from the bottom of a well. "Plainsong" is the absolute apogee of this approach , a monumental and stunning piece of music that adds a tangible emotional undercurrent to the sounds and textures.
The extra disc of nine unreleased tracks if anything see's the music dissected even further ,so that the gristle and sinew of the tracks are stripped way leaving "Charlottes Mouth " for instance an amorphous suffusion of bleached tones and sounds. "A Silent Pool" is an especially apt song title for the preciously muted strains evident here while "My Super 80" sounds like Aphex Twin or Polyphemus at their bleakest and frigid.
A wonderful album , and arguably the best of it's kind( what it's kind is is open to vigorous debate but I'd settle for post rock ) released in that period. Its certainly the best thing Seefeel ever did and it's a shame that they along with other bands pushing the confines like Scorn , Main , Bark Psychosis to name a few didn't make more of an impact and radicalise a new generation of bands willing to experiment and assimilate different genres and methods of making music. Instead along came Oasis , Coldplay , Razorlight etc regurgitating not only rocks past but their own , selling lots of albums and well.... the rest is very depressing history .
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Deluxe reissue of lost 1990s classic..., 1 Jul 2007
This two disc, expanded reissue of Quique by Seefeel is a reminder of a lost age, nostalgia TV and simplistic music journalism has written stuff like this out of history. I guess people like to make the easy jump from Madchester to Grunge to Britpop and forget anything that falls between the cracks? Seefeel were mildly acclaimed, which the 1993 piece by Simon Reynolds suggests, though in the scheme of things, how many have heard of them?
The late 80s probably saw some acts moving in this direction, from certain Cocteau Twins records (Seefeel would support Guthrie & co and one member would work with him on the Violet Indiana project) to the dream pop of AR Kane, Hugo Largo and My Bloody Valentine. If Kevin Shields' had followed through with something after Loveless, this might have been the next phase? Since a lot of Loveless was created on keyboards and Seefeel's sound is primarily electronic, I think this is fair to say! Seefeel still sound like the future, managing to fuse two disparate areas, their sound over all feeling like a combination of electronica and shoegazing. Blissed out in the extreme...so if you can imagine a record that sounds like a mesh of Autechre, AR Kane, Bark Psychosis, Black Dog Productions, MBV, and Ultramarine, this might be it!!
Quique is not really song based, lead by trancey electronic rhythms, it might seem too ambient and repetative for some...I say, let it wash over and through your cortex. It's probably coming from a post-Ecstasy place, the comedown after something like Voodoo Ray? This album, like Every Man and Woman is a Star and Selected Ambient Works I by The Aphex Twin makes something like Screamadelica seem a bit of a joke, after-E, after-Generations of Love, though not far from later records by Orbital, Spooky, and Underworld - I guess One Dove were a more song based relative? Seefeel weren't alone, Tortoise have recorded some material in this direction (possibly fed by their link with Autechre), while Slowdive followed this direction after masterpiece Souvlaki, their 5 track ep featuring 'In Mind' and the third and final LP Pygmalion was very electronic and in this continent.
Hard to pick out any particular tracks, since these aren't that conventional songs, one shifting soundtrack. Two discs in one go might be a bit too much, though the second disc features some alternative versions and remixes otherwise hard to get hold of. If you want to sample one track to get an idea of what this album sounds like, I'd go for 'Plainsong.' Seefeel were moving in these avant electronic directions in a much more profound style than someone like Radiohead, who get all the credit for being avant garde, when they're anything but! Quique feels like a prediction, or a few steps before joys like Dead Cities by M83, Endless Summer by Fennesz and parts of Music Has the Right to Children by Boards of Canada. A very welcome reissue of a lost cult classic LP, and one that will blow minds in the future...
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