1.
the whirled famous (1.41)
2. dotwrk (6.04)
3. no sleep 'til brooklands (2.25)
4. the innocent bystander (1.00)
5. later than planned (4.03)
6. look busy (3.22)
7. things we like about ghosts (3.56)
8. be like boy (2.38)
9. the sleeping eight (5.06)
10. vs. the sixth birthday party (2.16)
11. make some noise (1.17)
12. new product (8.33)
13. drunk guitar (0.49)
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Click
these to see the full front
inlay and back,
these pretty pics were snapped by Tina with me peeking
over her shoulder on the plane to Milan. When we flew.
Togther. Like a couple! Scroll down for a stack of
mp3s!
It's been about three months since the last record,
about time for another one or else I might get rusty.
'You Need This To Live' is the mildly sarcastically-titled
14th Enough Rope album and introduces elements of turntablism
and pop choruses into the mix. Well, of course it doesn't,
but maybe one day.
What we have here is kind of an extension/continuation
of the sound from 'schemes', echoing melody things
with the odd bit of weird thrown in. 'dotwrk' is probably
my favourite track and fits into the former category;
it does a surprisingly good job of justifying its six-minute
length considering it never leaves its single four-chord
pattern. It introduces the theme of fuzzy lead lines
layered on top of each other which reappears later
on. I think there's six guitars going at once toward
the end there. 'no sleep 'til brooklands' would be
in the 'weird' category, the title came from a recent
journal entry about a security scare at Timperley Metrolink
station which lead to me considering the similarities
between my local area and New York, and one thing lead
to another. The music itself revolves around a weird
looped bit of guitat which I played by accident and
decided I liked; it's sometimes slightly piercing and
almost unpleasant but it all works out in the end,
right?
Lots of things I like on here. 'later than planned'
is old-skool Enough Rope. 'look busy' features another
effects-heavy loop. 'things we like about ghosts' uses
a sounclip from a demo I recorded on my webcam back
in August one lazy Saturday afternoon. I think it was
the opening day of the season and 'Football Focus'
was on, I believe that's QPR manager Ian Holloway being
interviewed at the start there. Again it takes the
loud guitar lead line and runs with it, there's few
things that excite me more in music than a straightforward
climbing riff, and this one triples your pleasure by
having 3 guitars play it at once but starting at different
points. 'be like boy' (that's a Simpsons line, fact
fans!) was gonna have more layers but I decided to
stick with the muted, minimalist kinda feel, with the
faux-drums and the weird 'twatting the strings with
a battery' sound.
'the sleeping eight' was originally a track for the
more spacious planned The Rogue Telephone album which
may never materialise, so here it is. The title was
inspired by Tina's description of the infinity symbol,
and I thought it sounded pretty. Anyway, it's sort
of in three parts, and toward the end of each one you
get many repeating notes on top of each other until
it starts to take on a kind of mechanical sound, which
reminds me a little of the prepared guitar with little
hammers hitting the strings which Paolo Angeli uses.
No? Fair enough. It stops sounding like a real guitar
and just sounds like something altogether tinnier,
but pleasing to my ear at least. 'vs. the sixth birthday
party' was recorded, as the title suggests, in my room
as a really fucking loud kids' party happened two doors
down from here. I recorded a couple of minutes of it
and planned to have it run through the whole track,
but it had to be boosted til it hissed so I just left
a quick snippet at the end which fits kinda nicely
with the grating noise of the following track.
And then we come to what was almost the title track,
'new product', which is one of my favourite songs ever.
It doesn't really feel like 8 and a half minutes to
me, there's loads going on in there that I don't even
remember playing. The whole thing kinda bounces along
with layers. Always with the layers, man. I like it!
Interesting fact: the main riff had to be changed because
I worried it sounded too much like 'The Hot Stenographer'
by Kinski, a track I could have ripped off anyway without
anyone noticing. Oh well. And then we get the fun 'drunk
guitar', which is what it sounds like, completely out
of tune beer bottle sliding! Yes! |
© Enough
Rope