Deluge Grander - Oceanarium (2017)

[Plasmatopia]

I listened to the first four tunes last night. I love this stuff. One other similarity I found (this may just be how I hear things) is Magma. There is often a frantic "leaning forward" vibe coming from the drums. There was even a short section in one tune with distorted bass that sounded quite a bit like Magma in other respects. But of course it's not as if this album in total really sounds like Magma.

[interbellum]

... trying to fit an ocean into an aquarium...

Now I understand the title of the album

Thanks for the background information!

[bill g]

Great comments Dan, very illuminating! Gives me something to listen for on future spins.

I spun the album again last night. It didn't have my undivided attention, but I tried to figure out why I liked this album so much with a construction that typically doesn't work so well for me. I think it comes down to three things. First, as you said above, you tend to give some level of repetition to ideas, and a certain amount of time on those ideas. So they get established before moving on, even if they don't repeat later or resolve into some tradition type of form. Second, the tempos of various sections tend to be similar, so while the part is changing, the thrust of the piece isn't typically interrupted.

Finally, I think it just comes down to the parts themselves, which I just love. Haven't heard a single moment on the album that hasn't been enjoyable or felt like it didn't fit. And since the flow between the parts is extremely organic, it makes for a consistent listening experience even without that traditional form to hang onto.


Bill

Spot on comments, similar thoughts to what I was feeling.

Funny Dan referencing it ends up just sounding like Genesis or King Crimson. The only comparison I would make to Genesis is that on Selling England, every note counted. Seemed perfectly placed, which is obviously the case here. And, of course, the emphasis on melody and beauty. The combination of those are part of what I find so compelling, along with the consistency (unlike Selling England) as every track here is fairly equally great. Musically though I find it quite different. A very small dash of Bo Hansson here, 60s soundtrack music there, and perhaps 'Amarok' by Mike Oldfield in moments, and I do hear the Ratledge moments. Overall, quite original though in my opinion.

[Baribrotzer]

There was indeed a bit of "stuffing ideas together" without much repetition on this album - I admit that some of these songs can feel like "Part A - Part B - Part C - Part D - Part E," etc. .... that kind of goes along with trying to fit an ocean into an aquarium......

That's a tendency sometimes found in Gershwin (and perhaps Mozart): He could come up with so much melody so easily that his "serious" pieces could be more like suites of songs than conventional symphonic works. He didn't economize on his melodic writing partly because he didn't need to, say, go back to Part A after Part D or Parts B and C after Part E; he didn't need to re-use ideas as if he had a limited number of good ones. No, he could always come up with a Part E that flowed out of Part D, and Parts F and G that flowed out of Part E. So why bother with the kind of tinkering and rewriting needed to make recapitulations like that seem natural and inevitable? It would only mean less melody, therefore less beauty. And perhaps even a bit of forced awkwardness - making a Part D that sounds like it must go back to Part A can involve quite a bit of work and a certain amount of having to do it by the book, and the chances are it won't sound effortless.

[Tom]

That's a tendency sometimes found in Gershwin (and perhaps Mozart): He could come up with so much melody so easily that his "serious" pieces could be more like suites of songs than conventional symphonic works. He didn't economize on his melodic writing partly because he didn't need to, say, go back to Part A after Part D or Parts B and C after Part E; he didn't need to re-use ideas as if he had a limited number of good ones. No, he could always come up with a Part E that flowed out of Part D, and Parts F and G that flowed out of Part E. So why bother with the kind of tinkering and rewriting needed to make recapitulations like that seem natural and inevitable? It would only mean less melody, therefore less beauty. And perhaps even a bit of forced awkwardness - making a Part D that sounds like it must go back to Part A can involve quite a bit of work and a certain amount of having to do it by the book, and the chances are it won't sound effortless.

This is a good point. It also works in reverse: somewhere in here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPZ2MrXhEpk) the members of Genesis basically say that Selling England By the Pound got its thematic unity largely from the fact that they were starved for material.

[Baribrotzer]

Another couple of things that hit me:

- Dan may be inspired by Genesis, et al, but he doesn't copy them. Not really. An occasional section might feel similar, but it doesn't have similar notes, and doesn't come from, or go to a similar kind of place in a similar manner. Part of this is that he has his own harmonic and melodic "voice". And while it's quite distinct from that of Tony Banks & Co., it manages one feat of emulating them that most copiers miss: it is equally harmonically sophisticated. It is also even more wide-ranging. Just listen to some of those remote key-changes, even sometimes showing up within the basic progression of a section - they go all over the place, yet feel right, not forced, and sweetly melodic rather than harshly "avant". They might echo Canterbury more than anything else, and a few bits even remind me of early Henry Cow.

- The specific Deluge Grander sound may not be intentionally retro, yet it gets the same effect as quite a few early-Seventies recordings. Part of this is the mid-fi sonics and mix, and part is the orchestrations: Dan uses his keyboards to play, essentially, organ and piano sounds - classifying Rhodes, Clavinet, and harpsichord as subsets of "piano" and Mellotron as a subset of "organ". He rarely or never uses conventional trumpet/flute/guitar-sounding synth leads; if he wants a trumpet or flute or guitar sound he gets a trumpet or flute or lead guitar player. Which is the sort of approach you typically heard in, say, 1972.

[Plasmatopia]

The part I thought sounded a bit Magma-ish is in track 3 "The Blunt Sun and The Hardened Moon" at about the 4:30 mark to about 5:00. Maybe it's just the bass line.

[Zappathustra]

Ship those vinyls Dan - that would be a good Christmas present (I owe this thread a big post, but it would be unfair if I didn't "crank up" my vinyl first).

[bill g]

The part I thought sounded a bit Magma-ish is in track 3 "The Blunt Sun and The Hardened Moon" at about the 4:30 mark to about 5:00. Maybe it's just the bass line.

I listened for that, and I do hear what you're saying, though I wouldn't have noticed had you not pointed it out.

I love the fact that the music is continually morphing, the lack of repetition makes it all the more fulfilling to me, so there are those moments of influence but they are all short lived!

[Plasmatopia]

I listened for that, and I do hear what you're saying, though I wouldn't have noticed had you not pointed it out.

I love the fact that the music is continually morphing, the lack of repetition makes it all the more fulfilling to me, so there are those moments of influence but they are all short lived!

That's a big part of what I love about this music too. It never sits still and there's always something interesting just around the corner.