That video is fantastic. I hope they blow up in the US but those small club shows were life highlights.
It was a video on YouTube of this acoustic but it got a LOT of backlash because someone left the drums(?) in and it just did not work at all. Unsure if it was intentional though because it was a beautiful version. I did check my watch history and it isn't appearing though so wondering if it was a mistake.
Well that’s a hell of an interview. Hyde’s certainly didn’t have to talk much. PS “unison” sounds great at 4 in the morning.
After listening to the EP and hearing about the new direction I kind of wish they take a different approach. Obviously I haven’t heard anything beyond the EP, but I’m drawn more to Angel than Unison. If Dave had chose to do a very personal side project album about the passing of his father and included music from his heritage and electronic beats or whatever that may have been cool. I do think having another big sounding record with guitars and stuff with Gang of Youths would have been fantastic. I get artists can be torn with identity, pressure of signing on to a label, changes within a band and popularity. Just hearing that they’ve reworked the songs so much makes me wonder if they could have been two separate things. I may be wrong in the end when the album is released. I’ll admit it when the time comes. It shuts seems like a long delay between albums and all the rewrites could have been minimized if he wanted to do a specific genre and personal thing first. Then go back and try and do another GoY records. He sounds like the kind of guy who has a lot going on. It just wonder if that would have been a way to streamline things and actually take pressure off a bit.
I’ve listened to Total Serene a lot and Angel is still awesome. Unison is good, but I really wish they wouldn’t have stated that they aren’t doing anymore guitar lead songs or whatever that comment was.
I don't think Dave said there wouldn't be *any* guitar-heavy songs on the new stuff, just that the music will feature a lot of indigenous Pacific music samples and that the guitar songs that are there won't sound like Go Farther in Lightness. He compared it to Achtung Baby in terms of its variety of sounds.
Ok, I hope I misunderstood his descriptions. Go Farther was pretty diverse I my mind. They use lots of strings and stuff in songs, so maybe they have just replaced some of that with samples and music reflective of his heritage. Angel is a pretty awesome song and to indicate that was the last song of an era/sound and Unison was more of where they are headed kind of disappoints me that an new album couldn’t feature both kids of songs.
I loved angel but unison is probably already a top 3-5 GoY song for me. Didn’t think it was even too dissimilar from the other records. Obviously not guitar heavy but as long as Dave sings like he does it’ll never feel jarring.
Sometimes artists are terrible at describing their new music too. I’m not saying that’s the case here, but the comments have created a weird expectation for me because I though their last record was diverse sounding stylistically.
Some are almost to “in it” to even describe it to people who are very much not. I get talking about what’s influenced an artist coming into a record, but sometimes the comparables they make just don’t make any sense once you hear the record, for better or worse.
Also, when I listened to Angel again paying really close attention to the lyrics the song became even better.