____twoism

If TH is an OST, then Palace Posy is an intermission. At least that's how I always thought about the track

Najlepsiejszy wrote:If TH is an OST, then Palace Posy is an intermission. At least that's how I always thought about the track

If TH is the soundtrack for post apocalyptic movie, Palace Posy is when the main group of survivors groups up and it shows a montage of them building camps, searching for water, making tools and weapons, etc.

It's like that part in a really depressing film where you think it's all going to be ok. Then you realise there's still like 30 minutes to go, and everything is most definitely not going to be ok.

TH is basically Battlestar Galactica (the new version). Palace Posy is the point where Bill Adama grows a mustache.

^ These are both great interpretations of Palace Posy

FortonServices wrote:It's like that part in a really depressing film where you think it's all going to be ok. Then you realise there's still like 30 minutes to go, and everything is most definitely not going to be ok.

TH is basically Battlestar Galactica (the new version). Palace Posy is the point where Bill Adama grows a mustache.

Like in a movie where someone is sick, Palace Posy is the scene where they're still in the hospital surrounded by family and friends, and the doctor comes in and says "The tests are back. You're going to live." and then cut to them having a seizure or something in the hospital. Everything is not ok after Palace Posy.

Geogaddi is my least favorite BoC LP. The editing sounds incohesive and many of the songs don't go anywhere.

The Campfire Headphase is my favorite. "Ataronchronon" is my favorite song on the album, and maybe my favorite BoC song out of all their releases (excluding "Roygbiv", of course).

Their earliest stuff is generally better than the post-MHTRTC stuff.

Twoism is their best release.

I think BoC are better when they put less effort into the production of their songs. It doesn't do much for me when it sounds clean and studio-mixed. Old Tunes has a significantly stronger vibe and is much eerier than the later stuff. "Dawn Chorus" is the worst example of production ruining a song.

"1969" is just an awful song in every way and I wish it were never put onto Geogaddi. It completely kills the mood. Actually, Geogaddi would have been better as a double-LP instead of a triple, with all of the filler omitted.

"Telepath" is the best song on Tomorrow's Harvest.

The post-MHTRTC EPs aren't very interesting.

drillkicker wrote:"Dawn Chorus" is the worst example of production ruining a song.

Really? I don't get that at all. I think it was pulled of splendidly, the track that incidentally introduced me to BOC and still one of my favourites. It is what piqued my interest to begin with. Not that that has anything to do with why I think it is brilliant. It is genuinely a classic BOC track in my books.

I don't know what to say, it just doesn't work for me. At all. The "you might be dead" sample is cool how it's subtle and has the delay on it, and the song had potential. But that potential was ruined by the big, distorted supersaws and the weird, shitty vocals over them.

drillkicker wrote:I don't know what to say, it just doesn't work for me. At all. The "you might be dead" sample is cool how it's subtle and has the delay on it, and the song had potential. But that potential was ruined by the big, distorted supersaws and the weird, shitty vocals over them.

Put it down to taste I guess. The vocals are weird but make the track for me, and the supersaws (I was always under the impression they were sampled and processed strings) epitomise the nauseous psychedelic feeling of the album.

Aerial Boundaries wrote:

drillkicker wrote:I don't know what to say, it just doesn't work for me. At all. The "you might be dead" sample is cool how it's subtle and has the delay on it, and the song had potential. But that potential was ruined by the big, distorted supersaws and the weird, shitty vocals over them.

Put it down to taste I guess. The vocals are weird but make the track for me, and the supersaws (I was always under the impression they were sampled and processed strings) epitomise the nauseous psychedelic feeling of the album.

Glad I'm not the only one who thinks that part sounds "nauseous". The very first time I heard Dawn Chorus, I thought it sounded like the auditory version of being super sick and nauseous.

Aerial Boundaries wrote:

drillkicker wrote:"Dawn Chorus" is the worst example of production ruining a song.

Really? I don't get that at all. I think it was pulled of splendidly, the track that incidentally introduced me to BOC and still one of my favourites. It is what piqued my interest to begin with. Not that that has anything to do with why I think it is brilliant. It is genuinely a classic BOC track in my books.

Yeah it was the first BoC song that really clicked with me too. For a while I thought of it as quite an accessible song. But it dawned on me after repeated listens that it was actually really fucking dark.

I made a thread about Dawn Chorus 6 years ago here, basically just to say how disturbed and amazed by the song I was. It really does sound nauseous, it almost made me nauseous back in the day and I even couldn't bear to hear it for a year or two because of such a powerful reaction the first few times, but now I just listen to it and love it and I'm fine.

Anyway...

I think MHTRTC is maybe their weakest official LP. It feels oddly disjointed and just doesn't flow as beautifully as the other three do, and I'm not crazy about most of the songs after Aquarius. It's also not QUITE as emotional an experience for me as their best work like Geogaddi, Hi Scores or Boc Maxima, Old Tunes, TCH, TH, etc.

IABPOITC is pretty good but their weakest EP. Kid For Today and the title track are awesome for sure but Amo Bishop and Zoetrope do little for me. And actually, even the other two have a kind of empty, threadbare sound to them that lacks the resonance and power of much BoC.

Telepath is one of the best tracks on TH for sure.

David Came to Mahana'im would possibly make a top 5 or top 10 BoC list for me. Just something about that one...

If forced at gunpoint to only be able to listen to one half of their career ever again, it is very possible I would choose Old Tunes, Random 35, Twoism, Boc Maxima and Hi Scores over MHTRTC, IABPOITC, Geogaddi, TCH, Trans Canada and TH. Not an easy decision, but I love those early tunes and there's such a unique and personal quality to stuff like Old Tunes or Boc Maxima. I do think that the more lo-fi production and less streamlined sound back then added to the nostalgic, uncanny feeling. Still, this isn't to lessen how much I love most of the later material.

The thing is about MHTRTC, is that out of all the official albums for me it has the most amount of strong, standalone tracks. I can easily listen to many of them on their own and they all have a different feel, and a incredibly well constructed. By contrast I usually don't listen the whole way through the album like with the others. I think they quite clearly changed their approach to album construction with Geogaddi. They had much more narrative focus and so those albums became a whole entity, clearly made to be listen to all together in the precise order they are in. MHTRTC does have a narrative too, but it is far more vague and less like a metaphorical journey, and more like a tour through disparate yet related ideas and feelings from the same period of time.

boredoms wrote:I think MHTRTC is maybe their weakest official LP. It feels oddly disjointed and just doesn't flow as beautifully as the other three do, and I'm not crazy about most of the songs after Aquarius. It's also not QUITE as emotional an experience for me as their best work like Geogaddi, Hi Scores or Boc Maxima, Old Tunes, TCH, TH, etc.

MHTRTC is more of a compilation than an actual album. I think the tracks were all old ones that were either touched up or rerecorded for the release.

boredoms wrote:Telepath is one of the best tracks on TH for sure.

Damn right.

boredoms wrote:David Came to Mahana'im would possibly make a top 5 or top 10 BoC list for me. Just something about that one...

I feel the same way about The House of Abin'adab, Finity, and Audiotrack 6A. The first of those is especially trippy. It makes me think of weird old videogames. It's a good feeling.

boredoms wrote:If forced at gunpoint to only be able to listen to one half of their career ever again, it is very possible I would choose Old Tunes, Random 35, Twoism, Boc Maxima and Hi Scores over MHTRTC, IABPOITC, Geogaddi, TCH, Trans Canada and TH. Not an easy decision, but I love those early tunes and there's such a unique and personal quality to stuff like Old Tunes or Boc Maxima. I do think that the more lo-fi production and less streamlined sound back then added to the nostalgic, uncanny feeling. Still, this isn't to lessen how much I love most of the later material.

I definitely agree on that. Those old ones have much more charm to them. Though I would probably choose the part of their career before even that, the part that we've never heard before.

drillkicker wrote:

boredoms wrote:I think MHTRTC is maybe their weakest official LP. It feels oddly disjointed and just doesn't flow as beautifully as the other three do, and I'm not crazy about most of the songs after Aquarius. It's also not QUITE as emotional an experience for me as their best work like Geogaddi, Hi Scores or Boc Maxima, Old Tunes, TCH, TH, etc.

MHTRTC is more of a compilation than an actual album. I think the tracks were all old ones that were either touched up or rerecorded for the release.

boredoms wrote:Telepath is one of the best tracks on TH for sure.

Damn right.

boredoms wrote:David Came to Mahana'im would possibly make a top 5 or top 10 BoC list for me. Just something about that one...

I feel the same way about The House of Abin'adab, Finity, and Audiotrack 6A. The first of those is especially trippy. It makes me think of weird old videogames. It's a good feeling.

boredoms wrote:If forced at gunpoint to only be able to listen to one half of their career ever again, it is very possible I would choose Old Tunes, Random 35, Twoism, Boc Maxima and Hi Scores over MHTRTC, IABPOITC, Geogaddi, TCH, Trans Canada and TH. Not an easy decision, but I love those early tunes and there's such a unique and personal quality to stuff like Old Tunes or Boc Maxima. I do think that the more lo-fi production and less streamlined sound back then added to the nostalgic, uncanny feeling. Still, this isn't to lessen how much I love most of the later material.

I definitely agree on that. Those old ones have much more charm to them. Though I would probably choose the part of their career before even that, the part that we've never heard before.

totally agree, afot, otv2 and r35tt are my favourite releases. king of carnival, finity, forest moon, 5-9-78, zander two, carcan... fucking amazing

david came to mahana'im is awesome. the strong kick beat at the end really brings it home

i always skip 1969

Aerial Boundaries wrote:The thing is about MHTRTC, is that out of all the official albums for me it has the most amount of strong, standalone tracks. I can easily listen to many of them on their own and they all have a different feel, and a incredibly well constructed. By contrast I usually don't listen the whole way through the album like with the others. I think they quite clearly changed their approach to album construction with Geogaddi. They had much more narrative focus and so those albums became a whole entity, clearly made to be listen to all together in the precise order they are in. MHTRTC does have a narrative too, but it is far more vague and less like a metaphorical journey, and more like a tour through disparate yet related ideas and feelings from the same period of time.

drillkicker wrote:MHTRTC is more of a compilation than an actual album. I think the tracks were all old ones that were either touched up or rerecorded for the release.

I've often thought similar myself and posted the 'theory' on here - that MHTRTC is more of a collection of earlier work, while Geogaddi, TCH and TH are 'proper' albums, each with an individual sound and concept.
It's why I've never had time for the idea that TCH was some sort of radical departure from an evolving musical theme in BOC's work. In my view all the albums should be very much viewed as individual works.

clearcut wrote:i always skip 1969

Good.

drillkicker wrote:

clearcut wrote:i always skip 1969

Good.

lol.

Never been a fan either.

I never skip tracks in albums, but I enjoy ironically singing along because it's so hilariously bad. That song never should have made it onto Geogaddi, though.

Aerial Boundaries wrote:

drillkicker wrote:

clearcut wrote:i always skip 1969

Good.

lol.

Never been a fan either.

One of my least favourites off Geogaddi too, although It's far from a bad track. I can't actually think of a single BoC track I don't like to some extent. What's odd is that I've seen a lot of BoC newcomers call 1969 a standout track upon first listen of Geo, seems particularly accessible.