Sun Kil Moon Band • Page 3

I really like how he's going deeper into the rabbit hole

I really appreciate how he's allienating everyone

no compromise - no remorse

no one is doing that stuff, his bluring of life and art is literally a new approach to music I think, and that's really exciting to me

also, I find it genuinely beautiful

 

this album is not beautiful

 

I thought the last album was garbage, so I'll hesitantly check this out...

 

Also, just now finding this thread but this is one of the best posts I've seen on the site

 

I can appreciate the experiment but overall there's no musically pleasing quality to this record-- the lyrics are among the most sloppy he's ever written, and I personally didn't feel like there was any sonic direction. I always knew Kozelek was a bit narcissistic but this album disappoints me in how its proven to me his head is truly up his own ass. there's so much SMH here in the storytelling. you almost don't want to believe it's the same guy who did Carissa only a few years earlier.

I also don't think the personal lyrics / blend of life and art is all that original of a concept and plenty of artists (including himself) have done it better too

 

This is pretty much exactly what I thought of Universal Themes.

I want to hear what @Craig Manning thinks of this.

 

I have very little desire to sit through 2+ hours of this shit, haha. But every time I see a new hot take about the lyrics on Twitter, my morbid curiosity grows.

 

its just brain-spilling. No creativity. His opinions and life story aren't nearly as interesting and important as he must believe

 

Meh. I'll listen to Low or American Analog Set if I want slowcore and I'll listen to Yo La Tengo or Sonic Youth if I want noisy, wild guitar. RHP doesn't add that much to that already existing pallete of 90s indie rock music, that I satisfy with other bands.

SKM brings things to the table that basically no other artist does for me, aside from Leonard Cohen I suppose who is the king of cryptic, stream of consciousness, storytelling. But then musically he's not very similar.

 

:|

if we're talking about rhp as slowcore no contemporaneous slowcore band got as close to being godflesh as rhp did on "funhouse" and "mother."

 

kozelek was also a great lyricist and melodist in a way that none of those other bands save low were. "katy song" ("glass on the pavement under my shoe / without you is all my life amounts to"), "strawberry hill," "mistress"... these are gorgeous, languid songs that unfold with patience and detail

guy fuckin sucks now though

 

rhp also really straddled genres, there are blushes of shoegaze, metal, folk, etc. throughout their work so that i can't think of a reasonable analog to them

 

Low are the slow core gods

 

V true they don't fit in to any 90s indie scene besides just general indie. They were more experimental than 90s PNW indie bands but weren't afraid to be more straightforward than the more experimental and underground indie bands of the decade

 

first of all, really find it annoying how some people seem to be revising their opinion on RHP and pre-crazy (let's call it that) SKM just because he "sucks" nowadays, or because PC or some other shit - all this meeeh he wasn't that good anyway is weak

second, I would like to know who else is doig this thing here Mark is doing and doing it better as some people suggest/say - I would like to know becuase in my mind this is quite unique and powerful and beautiful, so come on, hit me with that

and last, and to the matter at hand, I beg for you to leave behind all preconceived notions of what is cool, or pretentious or musical or art - just let this wash over you, absorb the lyrics, the ideas, get to be another person and see/feel/live life through his unique persona for 1 min (or two hrs LOL), without judgement, without having to form an opinion (for the moment)

I believe that, even if the whole album doesn't hit the spot (for you), you will find moments of beauty through intimacy and candidness and spontaneity - you will find a true artist, no, fuck that, you will find a true human being, at a crucial moment of his life, sharing his INDIVIDUAL perspective on life, on people and the crazy shit they do, sharing his ego, his bad moments, his insanity, but also the immense love and passion that has driven him for 50+ years (all the people saying he wrote this shit in a week and just dumped it on us is dead fucking wrong, this took 50 years to create) - and you know what, maybe, just maybe you will discover a life affirming min or two, and I don't know about you, but those are getting harder to come across these dark and troubling days

through a hyper-individualism and hyper-realistic approach, or his crazy mumbling and rambling about "trivial shit" Mike fucking Kozelek has revealed life's very fabric, thus creating something universal

now, how is that not fucking special

 

That post could be the lyrics to a song on this album.

 

I dislike when people criticize art for being self-indulgent. Isn't that the point?

 

brash cynicism right here, however, I wholehartedly take this as an undeserved compliment

 

Haha, I meant no offense, honestly. I just thought it was a good joke.

I can't think of anyone who does exactly what Kozelek does, so I think you have a point with what you're saying. I thought the approach was really pretty fascinating on Benji, but I also liked most of those songs musically which is something I can't say for Universal Themes or what I've heard of this.

 

all good

give it a shot, if you thought Benji was fascinating, you will find something here

also, it's interesting how the conversation has shifted away from the music because Mark has taken the center stage, but you will realize how beautiful the music is (as a whole and as instrumentation) if you pay attention

I will offer two keys for those of you who are willing to actually listen

1. go in without expecting to hate it (or anything altogether)

2. try to play it in the background while you do some shit (I'm doing so right now while hungover and it's almost a revelation haha) - it surprisingly works really good that way too - you focus in and out of it and find random moments of beauty or ideas or whatever - although obviously this isn't ambient music, ideally you pay attention to it... but yeah...

 

Kozelek's recent work has had more value for me than it has for others, I know: Benji is an all-time favorite, of course, but I loved the albums with Desertshore, Jesu, and Jimmy Lavalle (even if I thought the latter two could have used some trimming). And I suppose that's my main issue with his past couple of releases: none of them really have the conciseness of Benji. I'll admit that that is probably the point, as Horrorca pointed out - this whole idea of inhabiting another's headspace and conveying both the banal and the beautiful of everyday life, everyday thoughts - but it nonetheless makes for a tiring listen sometimes. (There's a comparison to be made between Kozelek's project nowadays and Karl Ove Knausgaard's book(s), My Struggle, and the latter has certainly influenced my thoughts on the former.)

So yes, a two-hour album in the vein of Universal Themes strikes me as, well, kinda overkill, but I'm going to give it a shot, just like I do with everything he releases. I'd argue there is worth for what he's trying to do, although I'm not sure he's going about it in a way that works all the time.

 

I enjoy this one 2 songs at a time or all the way through

it's alright, we don't have to listen to it all in one sitting - that, to me, isn't a defect

the idea of an album is from a very rockist mentality, that when I lost it (in general) I was liberated from some weird notions (not re:skm but in general)

 

I just feel like the concept is easy to do, easy to understand, and I'm dismissing the music because it doesn't strike me as instrumentally beautiful as his past releases. I really liked the Jesu release too, and some of Universal Themes, but this is his weakest project in this style, and I'm ready to see what else Kozelek can do. Like Gjpeace said, it's real tiring stuff. I personally cannot imagine listening to this as though it were an ambient album as it grates on my ears as his voice drags on and on and on. I know this man has immense talent, and this album simply disappointed me

 

I understand that

I also think this could be his best although it's hard to say something like that considering how varied everything Kozelek is - it's also irrelevant

 

I listened to the first five songs (50 minutes, lol) and liked it more than Universal Themes, musically. It seems to blend the typical sound of the past few albums with some touches from the side-project stuff, which I liked. That "music journalist" bit, though . . . Probably the one part of the album so far that justifies the criticism I've seen. (His remarks about Laura Snapes still bother me, so whenever he starts attacking music writers, it rubs me the wrong way, even if there's not an explicit connection between the two.)

I don't think it's bad! Pretty much exactly what I expected.