Bubblemath-Edit Peptide(Best cd of 2017)

[Rand Kelly]

https://cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.co...m/edit-peptide

[Scrotum Scissor]

Not my personal no. 1, but very, very good all the same.

I'd love for them to keep going, but honestly I don't see too much future in 'prog rock' at this level of intense sophistication - and certainly not if Cuneiform decide to cease operations as a haven for contemporary "rehearsal intensive" artists. Labels like Skin Graft, Believers Roast or AltrOck (?) might've had a place for them, yet altogether I kinda feel that we're at a crossroads towards an ending of something.

[Steve F.]

I'd love for them to keep going, but honestly I don't see too much future in 'prog rock' at this level of intense sophistication - and certainly not if Cuneiform decide to cease operations as a haven for contemporary "rehearsal intensive" artists.

Cuneiform has decided to cease operations as a haven for losing money. Anything beyond that is still being swatted about.

[Scrotum Scissor]

Cuneiform has decided to cease operations as a haven for losing money.

Hey, gallow's humor is my game! As when I told that emergency anaesthetic how I wanted my erupted kidney in a doggy bag on waking up from narcosis back in 2005.

[Zappathustra]

A top-3 prog album for me, and one that hasn't exhausted yet its listening potential. One of the very few bands that answer convincingly the question of what it means to write and play progressive rock music in 2017. Without counting on nostalgia and retro seduction.

A great achievement overall.

[Steve F.]

^ ^ ^ ^ ^

It is always tremendously nice to read such enthusiasm about one's work. Thank you.

[aith01]

A top-3 prog album for me, and one that hasn't exhausted yet its listening potential. One of the very few bands that answer convincingly the question of what it means to write and play progressive rock music in 2017. Without counting on nostalgia and retro seduction.

A great achievement overall.

+1

Edit Peptide was my favorite CD of 2017, regardless of genre.

[Scrotum Scissor]

Listening this very minute (Nordic whisky-weekend prog-dog-log hasn't started yet), and yes it's stupendously good. A thing which captivates me about it is the fact that they were basically youngsters at the time of their debut some (nearly) 15 years back, yet this one displays those exact same moves while also showcasing their ageing. It's kind of bizarre to comtenplate how they've apparently kept up buddy-prowess while obviously 'coming of time'. Makes you Wonder how their (eventual) newfound domestic partners were treated to and/or accomodated this crazydom when hearing their first release and asking: "So this is your hope of a career in Professional music?"

[aith01]

Listening this very minute (Nordic whisky-weekend prog-dog-log hasn't started yet), and yes it's stupendously good. A thing which captivates me about it is the fact that they were basically youngsters at the time of their debut some (nearly) 15 years back, yet this one displays those exact same moves while also showcasing their ageing. It's kind of bizarre to comtenplate how they've apparently kept up buddy-prowess while obviously 'coming of time'. Makes you Wonder how their (eventual) newfound domestic partners were treated to and/or accomodated this crazydom when hearing their first release and asking: "So this is your hope of a career in Professional music?"

Interesting insights, Mr. Scissor. It seems that, if anything, Edit Peptide is actually more zany (musically at least) than their debut. The compositions are sprawling, yet full of "hooks" that make it easy to get into.

While I liked quite a bit of Such Fine Particles, it didn't all gel for me. IMO, the band shows a maturity in songwriting musically and lyrically on their second album -- one of those rare instances where the follow-up improves upon the first one in every way.

It is interesting to wonder how their significant others felt about this stuff.

[Zappathustra]

It is interesting to wonder how their significant others felt about this stuff.

My significant other told me to ram this up a significant opening of my body.

Not true, but I've never played this in her presence. Then it would be true.

[proggy_jazzer]

Damn - this album pushes many of my buttons. Just finished listening through and ordered the CD. Seriously talented cats! Thanks for starting the thread and helping me spend money

[Scrotum Scissor]

^ Hah! My first wife was a truly cool woman. Although five years my junior, she had progressed quicker in her studies (advanced contemporary literature) and was a major at 24, something which was rare in humanities here in Norway (they have since applied the British standard of Master's studies, which is far less comprehensive than our previous graduation systems). Anyway, she absolutely LOVED the freakier progressive stuff; Slapp Happy, Art Bears and Iva Bittova being faves, but also Wyatt, Hail!, Naked City et al. And one of her very faves was the frenetic art-punk of The Stick Men (with Jim Meneses), prompting me to imagine what she'd may have thought of Bubblemath. Those were sadly rapid 15 years since we parted directions. I thereafter married a babe who was seriously into Dream Theater.




Sorta kidding.

[Steve F.]

And one of her very faves was the frenetic art-punk of The Stick Men

saw them twice. There will truly never be anyone else remotely like them....

[Scrotum Scissor]

^ Precisely!

And just to contemplate the girl power of a hen enjoying that!

[Baribrotzer]

One factor I find truly impressive about Edit Peptide: It's one of the very few albums I've heard that manages to "progress" old-fashioned symph-prog without turning it into something else in the process. True, some avant bands have roots, of a sort, in symph - Thinking Plague and The Knells first album both have audible Yes influences, for example - but most of them draw as much from formal 20th-Century classical composition, and create something distinct and different from the tradition. Bubblemath, though, manage to broaden their net while fishing the traditional grounds. And considering how many bands do that, but don't seem able to create anything more than second-rate Big 5 knockoffs, it's a most impressive achievement.

[Zappathustra]

One factor I find truly impressive about Edit Peptide: It's one of the very few albums I've heard that manages to "progress" old-fashioned symph-prog without turning it into something else in the process. True, some avant bands have roots, of a sort, in symph - Thinking Plague and The Knells first album both have audible Yes influences, for example - but most of them draw as much from formal 20th-Century classical composition, and create something distinct and different from the tradition. Bubblemath, though, manage to broaden their net while fishing the traditional grounds. And considering how many bands do that, but don't seem able to create anything more than second-rate Big 5 knockoffs, it's a most impressive achievement.

Exactly this. The word "achievement" is the one that best describes what these guys did. Did the prog world heed this achievement? I am not so sure.

[Baribrotzer]

Did the prog world heed this achievement? I am not so sure.

Hard to say, since it hasn't been out all that long; but they did get a couple of festival bookings in the wake of its release, so somebody must have been noticing.

However, about 15 years ago, Echolyn released a couple of albums I would rank alongside Edit Peptide: Mei and The End is Beautiful. Not in sound - Echolyn present an elegiac, Coplandesque take on incorporating mainstream Americana into symph, whereas Bubblemath exhibit a bumptious, mutant Zappa/Sondheim/XTC cross - but in musical quality. And, significantly, in expanding and deepening symph without pushing it forward into avant, or pulling it back into adult pop (i.e., Steely Dan, Richard Thompson, The National). Lots of prog fans liked those albums, myself included. But how many bands saw them as a challenge to "up their game", to write stronger lyrics and more sophisticated music?

I'm not sure if very many did. Certainly the successful acts - Dream Theater, Neal Morse, Steven Wislon - don't seem to have changed much: DT put out a double album that emphasizes their weaknesses; Steve continues to cross prog with Eighties synth-pop and keeps on his cottage industry of wislon all over classic albums; and Neal still takes his cue from the words of Jesus: "Blessed be the cheesemakers" as heard in The Life of Brian.

[proggy_jazzer]

One thing that stood out to me on first listen and was a factor in me immediately buying the CD was the density and oblique nature of the vocals and lyrics. Great singing and harmonies. It sounds to me like they may have used some "enhancement", but when the melodies are that thorny and disjunct I don't mind it, and it may even be necessary to make those quick moving harmonies really pop. If they can recreate it live my hat is all the way off to them. How they managed to create stuff this angular yet exceedingly catchy is a mystery I'm looking forward to sussing out.

[arturs]

I ranked Edit Peptide as a Top 3 for 2017 in that thread we had a few months ago. I love it but it is dense. Best appreciated a tune (if you can call them "tunes") at a time.

Also, just noticed the title is a palindrome. Any other prog palindromes? "Ole ELO!" is the only one I can think of.

[Steve F.]

Prog palindromes?

The entire lyrics to the song Kew.Rhone!

[arturs]

^^^ Cool. I'll have to look at the lyric sheet. I know there's a part where they go on about "set animal laminates" but I had not noticed about the rest of the song.

[Steve F.]

“Peel’s foe, not a set animal laminates a tone of sleep”

Much more, but that’s what I remember accurately!

[edit: I think the rest was annagrams, NOT palidromes]

[Baribrotzer]

How they managed to create stuff this angular yet exceedingly catchy is a mystery I'm looking forward to sussing out.

The obvious prog predecessor is Gentle Giant. Also vocal jazz of the Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross variety, a form of which may also be heard on Kew.Rhone. For that matter, Henry Cow wrote some great melodies - they just didn't repeat enough or enough in the expected way to register as conventionally "melodic".

[JKL2000]

Also, just noticed the title is a palindrome.

Oh, I hadn't realized that!

[mnprogger]

bump.

very cool to learn they are opening for BENT KNEE in Minneapolis on July 10th!

https://www.facebook.com/events/228872804327632/