-=- SHGZ -=-
* Shoegaze * Indie * Post-rock * Grunge * Dream Pop * Ambient * Ethereal *
Artist..: Slowdive
Album...: Pygmalion
GENRE....: Indie
STYLE....: Shoegaze, Post Rock, Ethereal, Ambient, Experimental
LABEL....: Creation SCENE.....: 2015-01-03
BITRATE..: 645 kbps avg STORE.....: 1995-00-00
ENCODER..: FLAC 1.2.1 -8 -V TRACKS....: 9
SIZE.....: 238.2MB SOURCE....: CD
URL..: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_(album)
- TRACKLIST
1 Rutti 10:05
2 Crazy For You 6:00
3 Miranda 4:49
4 Trellisaze 6:21
5 Cello 1:41
6 J's Heaven 6:47
7 Visions Of La 1:47
8 Blue Skied An' Clear 6:54
9 All Of Us 4:07
Total Playtime: 48:31
It took me awhile to appreciate the beauty of Pygmalion. My first exposure
came directly after listening to and then falling in love with Souvlaki. The
record was beautiful and left me with an almost happy sensation after each
listen. Then I listened to Pygmalion. Everything I enjoyed and respected
about Souvlaki had died and been replaced with an almost frightening side of
Slowdive I could have never imagined. My first impression of Pygmalion left
me feeling empty. The music seemed to not want to go anywhere and have no
urgency at all to progress in any form.
Months later late at night and with a different state of mind I gave the
album another listen. This time I was blown away. Between the cold and
darkness and the emptiness of Pygmalion, the album felt a lot more personal.
Emotionally the album had grabbed me and kept me listening from the first
song till the last.
Musically the album rests on fragile ground and is a complete departure from
previous material. You won't find anything that resembles Souvlaki or Just
For A Day here, and tracks from Pygmalion should not be mixed with tracks
from other albums. Pygmalion is experimental and completely untamed, with
musical landscapes full of swirling echoey voices and melodies which populate
every track. The urgency of progression I felt the music needed before isn't
necessary if the song or album as a whole is on repeat, because once the
album captures you, 48 minutes won't be long enough.
Between the beautiful production and the countless layers, the vocals fit
perfectly. Delivered in an angelic manner with an almost depressing undertone
to them, the vocals bring every song to life. In all honesty I have no idea
what any of the songs are about, though hearing lyrics like 'Isn't life so
small' repeated over and over again leaves me to translate them in my own
personal way.
Learning to understand this album is important because you probably won't get
it on your first listen. Pygmalion has a certain freedom open to explore. I
was lucky enough to hear it in the perfect condition to soak in everything it
had to offer, though I'm afraid most people will hear it under the
circumstances I first heard it under and not appreciate it as much as they
could. If you ever have a time and you feel alone give this a listen, you
might enjoy it.
- Sputnikmusic
*
Pygmalion is the most abstract of Slowdive's albums; after moving from the
sugary pop of Just for a Day to the more mature and more experimental
Souvlaki, the band began to incorporate even more elements of ambient
electronica -- drum loops, samples, and songs even less tangible than on
previous releases. There seem to be two prevailing opinions of the album,
among Slowdive fans: either (a) it's disappointingly "out there," since it
doesn't work with the conventional pop underlying the sounds of Souvlaki, or
(b) it's absolutely brilliant, taking their sound into the realms it was
always destined to go. The second opinion seems a little more reasonable;
tracks like "Blue Skied an' Clear" and "Crazy for You" demonstrate that the
songs are still in there, somewhere -- they're just buried under more
abstract sounds than before. The album is not for those seeking a direct and
solid song under the surface -- but for anyone who appreciates the indirect
and intangible, it's a stylistic masterpiece.
*
To anyone who listens to both Slowdive and Radiohead, it is difficult to
believe that that Radiohead's Kid A was not inspired by Slowdive's Pygmalion.
This album by Slowdive features a shift from Slowdive's hazy shoegazer
dream-pop to a spacious experimental ambient style displaying electronic and
minimalist influences. Gone are the verse/chorus/verse/chorus structures of
Slowdive's earlier efforts; on this album, the band abandons almost all
traces of pop, replacing the vocal hooks of old songs like "Allison" and
"When The Sun Hits" with manipulated vocal samples a la Aphex Twin. Several
of the songs recall the more experimental moments of their previous effort
"Souvlaki" with Eno-influenced pieces that begin as sparse smudges of sound
and grow in intensity until they come to a dense, layered climax. Others,
such as the brief but heartbreakingly beautiful "Cello", are clear
predecessors to the sounds of post-rock groups such as Godspeed You! Black
Emperor, Sigur Ros, and A Silver Mt. Zion. Slowdive was dropped from Creation
immediately following Pygmalion's release for failing to produce a pop album
that could rival the growing Britpop trend. The band dismemebered and
reformed into dream-pop/folk act Mojave 3, leaving Pygmalion as their final
statement in ways of ambient music, and it is a statement that remains a
highly relevant piece of work to ambient, experimental, and minimalist
artists. // 9
Lyrics: One near-universal characteristic of the shoegazing scene was the
lack of importance attributed to lyrics (british quartet Lush have admitted
to not even knowing what their own lyrics were supposed to mean). This never
really applied to Slowdive, who often carefully crafted lyrics that had as
much emotional impact as the cascading waves of sound that surrounded them.
"Pygmalion" is no exception, but it demonstrates a much more abstract style
of songwriting, focusing on repeated phrases (the lyrics of the song "Crazy
for You" consist only of the words "crazy for love" repeated dozens of time)
and surrealistic storytelling. Guitarists Rachel Goswell and Neil Halstead
share vocal duties just as they did on Slowdive's previous efforts, but there
are certain departures from their earlier reverb-soaked harmonies. On the
opening track "Rutti", Halstead's voice is higher in the mix than it has ever
been, and Goswell's swooning melody on "Miranda" sounds mystical and exotic,
clearly borrowing elements from ethereal wave artists such as Curve and Love
Spirals Downwards. Where Slowdive's vocal work was always subtle and subdued,
they are placed in much sharper relief on Pygmalion and focus on chillingly
beautiful and haunting melodies. // 9
Overall Impression: It is difficult to compare "Pygmalion" to anything that
came before it, and to anything that has come since. While it obviously draws
influence from both minimalist composers like Brian Eno and from fellow
Shoegazing acts such as Lush, Curve, and Ride, the album is cearly of an
entirely different breed. It achieves a level of sonic innovation that was
completely unprecedented, realising Brian Eno's vision of ambient music as
something that has volume, that can be taken into account or ignored as a
physical object can. The obvious stand-out tracks include "Crazy For You",
"Miranda", and "Cello" (all discussed earlier), as well as "Trellisaze", a
slow-moving, floating affair with a hypnotic, trickling lo-fi drum beat and
"Blue Skied an' Clear", a hauntingly beautiful track that recalls the pop
tendencies of Slowdive's early work, featuring a densely layered atmospheric
sound that builds under Halstead's repeated vocal line "You say love, and it
sounds so sweet". Though it is itself a departure from the shoegazing sound,
"Pygmalion" is by far the most challenging and ultimately rewarding album to
have emerged from the British shoegazing scene, and it is one that continues
to have relevance almost fifteen years after its original release. // 9
- ultimate-guitar 2009
-=- SHGZ -=-
P.S.
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