Can we discuss Deluge Grander? I saw them at ProgDay, and am just now downloading The Form of the Good. Will probably listen to it tonight.
I'd like to know what people consider to be their best album. Perhaps our resident band member will join in.
Can we discuss Deluge Grander? I saw them at ProgDay, and am just now downloading The Form of the Good. Will probably listen to it tonight.
I'd like to know what people consider to be their best album. Perhaps our resident band member will join in.
I have and enjoy 'August in the Urals'. Good, often subtle composition, and of course, good musicianship. Can't believe I havent picked up The Form of the Good yet.
Both releases are very good IMO, and apparently they're working on another one as we speak. Dan B.'s other two (main) projects are excellent as well; Birds & Buildings dwell into even more intense landscapes than DG and are perhaps leaning a bit more to the experimental side of things, whilst All Over Everywhere is more song-based and overtly poetic. I listen to all of these quite frequently.
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
Ah yes, well said about B&B and AOE. 'After All The Years' (from All Over Everywhere) was one our singer Sharra just was floored with. That's really a killer tune, and it was cool to see her genuinely blown away reaction when I played it for her, shouting with delight. Love it when that happens.
I have and enjoy both albums. I still lean towards AitU as my favorite on the strength of the opening track and the last two tracks. I spun Form of the Good tonight. It's good, but to me, it never establishes enough uniqueness in its ideas. Everything sort of sounds like everything else, and it all sort of blends together, with nothing really being memorable at the end. There just seems to be more continuity on some of the tracks on AitU, so that is the one I prefer. I'm looking forward to the new one(s).
I also like Birds & Buildings, though I don't hear such huge differences between this project and Deluge Grander as some. To me, they are virtually interchangeable. I also like Cerberus Effect. All Over Everywhere ultimately just wasn’t to my taste, but for what it is, it's a fine album.
Bill
The lo-fi nature of the recordings (I have a few from B&B and DG--don't recall what off hand) sort of turned me off from this band. I need to give . . . well, whatever I got a more nuanced listen.
I want to dynamite your mind with love tonight.
I prefer August In The Urals,although The Form Of The Good is excellent.
When is there going to be something new from them?
I was confused and thought it was John Battema who was in DG. But oh yeah, it's Dan Britton. It's because I've bought used CDs from both of them at festivals!
Please don't ask questions, just use google.
Never let good music get in the way of making a profit.
I'm only here to reglaze my bathtub.
Another Dan Britton fan checking in. I have August & Form & also B & B and love them all.
Also a Battema/Eph Sun fan.
"My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician, and to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference"
President Harry S. Truman
Fine, fine albums, and the lo-fi sound never bothered me - in fact it ties in perfectly with the psych lines and phrasing of Dave Berggren's lead guitar. I find this band particularly interesting because, without being "retro" at all, their music has many of the virtues of early prog, many of the reasons I started listening to this music in the first place. Part of it is the variety of styles and approaches within the group - Dan is a prog composer, Dave's a psych nut, Pat (drums) is a metalhead, Brian (reeds) is a jazzer. Part of it is the sense of exploration, of them making it up as they go along. And part of it is that Dan's writing, at least for this band, is not song-based - which gives it a refreshingly unusual sense of structure. Good stuff, and I'm looking forward to their next.
Listening to the band’s later album, Oceanarium, now and Baribrotzer was exactly right. The band will slow down and explore a passage the same way KC or or VDGG or whoever would, but not sound like and other band in any specific way. This album is great. Still lofi, but it just gives the music a 70s patina. I want more from them!
I'm not getting the supposed "lo-finess" of this album?
I find the recording to be pretty terrible. It's like there's a grey curtain hanging between me and the vibrant colours of the music (if that doesn't sound too dorky). I think I'd have listened to it a lot more if it wasn't for that, because the music itself I think is pretty great. FWIW I find the production to be more of a problem with Oceanarium than the earlier albums.
This stuff is all quite subjective, of course.
Ocenarium is far and away my favorite DG album. Just an incredible listen from start to finish. I do see the description "lo-fi," though I think "going for that 70s sound" is probably a better way of saying it. As with most of Dan's stuff, it's all very mid-rangey. Everything lives in a very narrow sonic space, and in the case of Ocenarium I think the lows are are even less present that in other DG/B&B albums. So it does have a sort of "tinny" sound. Doesn't bother me a bit, but I totally get how some would feel it is "lo-fi."
Bill
I normally can be put off quite a bit by "lo-fi" sonics, but the music on the DG albums is just too good to let that be a problem.
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Lo-fi or not, there is no such thing as bad publicity.
The sonic range of his albums is pretty uniformly flat, which I always felt was a deliberate choice. To me it pushes the albums into a sort of weird American-Canterbury space.
I'm holding out for the Wilson-mixed 5.1 super-duper walletbuster special anniversary extra adjectives edition.
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