How many Dirks we got on this ship anyhow?
We’re back with another jam-packed episode of We Have A Technical! We’re doing a few new things on this episode, from field testing a new feature (Lists! Drafts! Swerves!) to dropping some news regarding the future programming of this here podcastery. We’re also responding to some listener questions, and giving a sneak peak (and possibly world premiere?) of the brand spankin’ new mind.in.a.box record! Please rate and subscribe on iTunes, or download directly. Or go ahead and stream it from the widget below, why not.
Somewhat new to this podcast, but certainly not to the site, and just have to say that I really enjoy it.
Keep up the great work.
Cheer,
Fielding
Thanks! We really appreciate the feedback!
Love the new format!
And I couldn’t resist to try it myself – could only come up with 3 winter albums though:
3. Current 93 With Thomas Ligotti – In A Foreign Town, In A Foreign Land
Memories! Worked in Providence (RI) once for half a year and when I arrived from germany, it was winter and I had my first encounter with New England weather. Walking through the deep snow in a foreign town, in a foreign land, listening to this very foreign collaboration – it all came together perfectly.
2. Black Tape for a Blue Girl – A teardrop left behind
Always reminded me of snowflakes and sunshine in grisp, clean winter air. Something very cold and fragile about this album.
1. Amorphis – Tales form the Thousand Lakes
Yeah, totally leaving the industrial/dark wave-area with this, but holy shit – this is a winter album if there ever was one. I mean, Black Winter Day is the most wintery song I can think of (and the only black metal song you should listen to even if you’re usually not into this stuff, it’s such an exceptional track.)
Oh man, haven’t listened to that c93 in years! Gotta bust that one out, thanks for reminding me about it!
5. Hooverphonic – The Magnificent Tree
4. ‘Control’ film soundtrack
3. The Cure – Bloodflowers
2. The Smashing Pumpkins – Adore
1. Covenant – Northern Light
I tried to run this gimmick on my page, but it’s tough to coordinate four people with terribly different schedules. Please run with it – I love these.
Northern Light was one of my alternates! Great album.
Burial – Untrue
Lorn – Ask the Dust
These two go together for me as that winter I listened to these two albums almost exclusively on my subway commute. I still get a keen sense of cold and emptiness when Lorn’s “Ghosst(s)” or Burial’s “Archangel” comes on and I can almost see the nearly deserted streets of Watts flashing past at speed again.
iamamiwhoami – kin
This may be because almost every video for this album includes snow, but I still think if ice could sing, it’d sound like her!
Clark – Totems Flare:
I got this album for Christmas (I don’t think it’s a texturally cold album) quite the opposite in fact! I’d imagine “Growl’s Garden” would be a fun track to ski too though.
Coil – Unnatural History 3 Specifically “Lost Rivers of London” is just about the coldest thing I’ve ever heard.
The allure of list making is something oddly irresistible.
Oneothrix Point Never – Drawn & Quartered or Commissions I
embracing old, unpopular synthesizers from the “yacht rock” era of the early 80s, and masterfully repurposing them into a sound that has an otherworldly coldness to it. It’s as if Boards of Canada’s “Tomorrow’s Harvest” and Vangelis’ Blade Runner soundtrack had a baby. Plus, the invocation of the early 80s (zeitgeist-ically speaking) implies grey, overcast skies.
Andrea Parker – Kiss My Arp
The instrumental tracks (or indeed, the instrumental version of this album) in particular are what remind me the most of a metropolitan snowscape with the cold synthesizers, minor keys, and heavy bass. Plus, you know, good strings, good vocals.
Haujobb – Ninetynine
it was obscenely difficult not to populate this list exclusively with late-90s/early 2000s Haujobb-related projects (here’s looking at you, NEWT.), but ninetynine is personal all-time top 10 material, so it wins by default. Those glacial pads on Overflow……
Atom ™ – Winterreise
Glitchy, digital coldness – this is Uwe Schmidt in a more formal mood, with nods to Schubert’s work of the same name, no less. Apparently was recorded as an accompaniment to a photography / art exhibit in Tokyo & Frankfurt.
Covenant – Northern Light
What else can I say? Is there really a Covenant album that doesn’t remind me of fall or winter? Beautiful.
Honorable mentions:
Forma Tadre – Automate 2.0
Coil – The Snow
Radiohead – Kid A
Nice fucking list
Hahaha! Thanks!
I barely remember writing this, so I must’ve combined Hemingway’s & High Fidelity’s advice – “Write [top 5 lists] drunk”
I’m not sure if I can make a list, but my pick for wintriest music ever goes to Mick Harris and Martyn Bates and their Murder Ballads trilogy. As Bates croons age-old tales of murder and mayhem, Harris constructs epic yet restrained atonal soundscapes that call to mind snow blowing across vast featureless ice floes under the long Arctic night. It is a chilling listening experience, in every sense of the word.
I also have a blizzard-related pick: The first Electronic Saviors set. I had ordered it and a bunch of other stuff from Metropolis in February 2010, right before the pair of blizzards immortalized as “Snowmageddon” hit the East Coast, leaving Baltimore buried under four feet of snow. And so it was a cold, sunny day after the last storm had gone its way, and I was digging my front walk out from under the accumulated snow, trying to connect it to the network of trenches that was springing up around the neighborhood. A station wagon bearing U.S. Postal Service livery came slowly slaloming down the street, and slid to a stop in front of my house. A postal worker stepped out and greeted me, and after confirming my address, handed me my Metropolis package. How bizarre that the post office would be trying to deliver packages under these conditions, I thought, as the station wagon went trundling off again. Some time later, I heard an engine repeatedly revving. It sounded like someone was stuck in the snow around the corner. I picked up my shovel and headed over to help. Turning the corner, I saw that – yep – it was the station wagon. The uncleared streets had proven too much for the poor thing. My neighbors and I spent the next hour or so digging it out. And so, whenever I hear one of the songs from the first Electronic Saviors box, I can’t help but think of four feet of snow, a hapless postal worker, and his doomed mission.
Oh, and if hearing Kattoo’s “Place8” doesn’t make you have all the feelings, you are a robot.
My top 5 winter records:
Bjork – Vespertine
Lycia – Cold
Love Spirals Downwards – Ardor
Gazelle Twin – The Entire City
Faith and the Muse – Evidence of Heaven
Vespertine will forever remind me of utopian winter wonderlands with the sun blinking through icicles and gleaming on elaborate ice sculptures carved by the hands of fairies and sprites.
Blue Bell Knoll is a great choice. I hadn’t thought of it as a winter album before, but listening to it while looking at a calm, fresh blanket of snow outside sounds like sensible ambiance.
I like the lists, looking forward to more of them.
Off the top of my head, my “Top 5 Winter Albums”:
Fever Ray – Fever Ray
Covenant – Northern Light
Legend – Fearless
VALHALL – Leaning On Shadows
Tori Amos – Little Earthquakes