Loved this a whole lot and made me strongly consider rewatching Twin Peaks a 4th?/5th? time. Will definitely be returning to this and checking out Black Earth. How are their other albums?
It’s been a while since I’ve listened but Gore Motel was my intro to them and I loved it i would say it still has the seedy dark noir feel but it’s rougher, less jazzy. Heavy bass and noodly guitar
As @I Am Mick says, Gore Motel is a rougher, more bass-forward album, from before Christoph joined the band. Definitely worth checking out. Sunset Mission is their foundational record though and they haven't really diverged from that path, focusing on perfecting the simplicity of what they do. So the differences from record to record tend to be more subtle tonal and emotional ones. Black Earth is colder, more desolate and I think a near equal of SM. Patchouli Blue, their most recent one, is perhaps a little more elegant. Piano Nights is quite similar. The furthest they've strayed is on the Beileid EP where Mike Patton sings on a song; an unsuccessful experimentation in my opinion. But they don't make bad records. The one I myself need to go back to is Midnight Radio, which is the album that immediately precedes Sunset Mission, again before Christoph joined the band. It's about two and a half hours long and I can't even remember the last time I played something from it.
Listened to this one tonight while reading in which Harold Budd’s in rare form, getting spooky and sexy with it. It reminded me a bit of this week’s record.
Listening to Sunset Mission now, and the Twin Peaks/Badalamenti comparisons are so spot on. Feels like this should be the sound track to a great noir movie.
Some more smoky, Bohren-esque, Twin Peaks-inspired, ambient jazz for you all, this one furnished with vocals and a denser, more electronic palette.
dope. some other things that fit the vibe since we're sharing. these aren't perfect matches but def similar
I am working forwards but maybe I will jump to this one. I had longer versions of the below saved but I'll put em here in short: WA Mathieu - Beautiful pretty piano record where you can hear how he influenced Arthur Russell despite the very bare recordings John Butler Trio - The songs that did not sound like Dispatch were pretty great, especially when my man was soloing, but that roots rock sound is really tough for me overall. Daniel Striped Tiger - I love Western Mass hardcore and would've seen these guys at the time if I had known about them. It's possible I did unknowingly at some point. Fun record, better at doing "screamo" "revival" than the "wave" bands imo
I went to a jazz bar for the first time a few weeks ago and had a great time, so Sunset Mission came at a great time for me as I’ve started exploring the genre a little bit more. It’s a much darker type of jazz than I’ve been diving into, so I enjoyed this for showing me the versatility of the genre. It really perfectly captures that dour noir feel. I’ll probably pop it on again in the future when I feel like stewing in that.
Sunset Mission is great. You read about the record and the group and you find a lot of the word "dark" and idunno it's a little foreboding I suppose but mostly it's pretty to my ear. A little anxious at times, there's definitely a tension and release that you don't necessarily find in a lot of ambient stuff. It definitely feels connected to a scene I've been dipping my toes into lately, via Aquarium Drunkard as usual, which is kind of a new wave of ambient jazz that takes a lot of influence from new age, library music, and smooth jazz but also free and spiritual jazz. Carlos Nino, Anna Webber, some of Tyshawn Sorey's stuff, some of Greg Foat's stuff, even the Shabaka album and the 3 Stacks album kinda fit. It's a super wide scene that really is just united by an ~ambient feel~ that they tend to all arrive at in different ways. These guys sound like they got there via John Carpenter and Wadada Leo Smith. Great record
hell yeah, great album that I haven't heard in awhile. I remember thinking it was reminiscent of early Gorillaz when I first checked it