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release:
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artist: Black Marble
title : Fast Idol
label : Sacred Bones Records
catalog_number: SBR-278
#\---------------------+-----------------------------------------/
tracks: 11
type : normal
date : 2021-10-22
url : https://www.deezer.com/us/album/245661372
sourcemedia: WEB
encoder : LAME3.99r
bitrate : 320 kb/s
sample_rate: 44.1 kHz
stereo : Joint stereo / MS Stereo channels
genre : Darkwave
genres:
- coldwave
- post-punk
- electronic
- shoegaze
- minimal synth
similar_artists:
- Lust for Youth
- Cold Cave
- The KVB
- Soft Kill
- Tempers
artist_url : https://blackmarble.bandcamp.com
bandcamp_albumartist : https://blackmarble.bandcamp.com/
discogs_albumartist : https://www.discogs.com/artist/2433043
musicbrainz_albumartist: https://musicbrainz.org/artist/fd7d4ed7-1a14-4b5b-b8f2-074888187ebc
deezer_albumartist : https://deezer.com/us/artist/4051073
lastfm_albumartist : https://last.fm/music/Black+Marble
spotify_albumartist : https://open.spotify.com/artist/6Nii4K84ZzBZS8X2MP8c9t
bandcamp_album : https://blackmarble.bandcamp.com/album/fast-idol
musicbrainz_album: https://musicbrainz.org/release/9daa9a35-e064-440b-81a3-b3dcd7dbc833
deezer_album : https://deezer.com/us/album/245661372
spotify_album : https://open.spotify.com/artist/3DHzWu5j1M4GY0SWBeKj5u
lastfm_album : https://last.fm/music/Black+Marble/Fast+Idol
barcode : 843563139868
label_url : http://www.sacredbonesrecords.com
bandcamp_label : https://sacredbonesrecords.bandcamp.com/
discogs_label : https://www.discogs.com/label/98317
musicbrainz_label: https://musicbrainz.org/label/dba6e089-932a-4442-9ebe-fbbceb9476ef
# <--------------------+------------------------------------------>
# \_____________________________________________________________/
#/---------------------------------------------------------------------\
comment: |
On Fast Idol, LA-based Black Marble reaches back through time to connect
with the forgotten bedroom kids of the analogue era, the halcyon days of
icy hooks and warbly synths always on the edge of going out of tune.
Harmonies are piped in across the expanse of space, and lyrics capture
conversations that seem to come from another room, repeat an accusation
overheard, or speak as if in sleep of interpersonal struggles distilled
down to one subconscious phrase. At the same time, percussive elements
feel forward and cut through the mix with toms counting off the measures
like a lost tribe broadcasting through the bass and tops of a basement
club soundsystem.
Fast Idol is Stewart's fourth full-length album and his second for Sacred
Bones. His previous album Bigger than Life was written in the face of
cultural shifts in the US, in experiencing these he realised he was not
keyed into certain negative sentiments that were bubbling below the
surface, which were breaking out into the open. “I chose to try and take
the approach of a soothsayer writing from a macro level, trying to find
strands of connection between us because it didn’t feel appropriate to
create something self referential and gloomy at the time,” he says.
Now, Fast Idol sees him return to a sentiment and process that defined the
earlier days of Black Marble, in a return to his intuitive song writing
process where songs land as impressionistic snippets of daily conflicts,
and people struggle with the challenge of trying to move through the
world. “People don’t expect me to be responsible for altering their
outlook or mood, they come to hear something that meets them where they
are. I trusted on this record that if I stayed in that space and created
things from that more mysterious place, it would connect with others.”
Melodies roll with the fizz and charm of Jacno and phrases repeated are
electric torchlight ballads sung after hours in William Gibson’s San
Francisco. 'Somewhere' opens in sombre herald, before dropping into a fast
freeway tempo; the glassy synths and crisp beats cut through the anxious
moods on 'Bodies' and 'Try' sits in a lineage with cult bands like Asylum
Party. 'The Garden' is a journey through a post-apocalyptic cityscape,
earthed by the pulse of a drum machine whereas 'Ship To Shore' could be a
lost Oppenheimer Analysis B-side, and the album’s closer 'Brighter and
Bigger' catches a sentiment like The Dadacomputer has learned to feel
emotions.
Black Marble is the universal and enigmatic observer at the centre of his
music, watching time passing, the world changing, and embracing the anxiety
it brings. He captures the loneliness of Ray Bradbury’s atomic-era sci-fi and
the apocalyptic but revolutionary spirit of Godard’s Sympathy for the Devil,
as in ‘Preoccupation’, the beating heart of the album, which conjures
ambivalent scenes of an empty world and the comfort to be found in a shared
humanity in lyrics that state: “What is gone only people and time, standing
tall covered cities and signs. Well I’ve wandered the west side and I’ve
laughed at your broken roads but this feeling of preoccupation makes life
whole.”
Stewart writes and plays everything himself, and tours with a rotating cast
of players. Emerging from the early 2000s New York synth scene, Black Marble
carried on the tradition of early synthwave pioneers like Martin Dupont and
Modern Art who repurposed synths once reserved for expensive studios and
stadium rock superstars. Available widely and cheaply for the first time,
these synths became a staple for bedroom artists – connecting wires and
twisting knobs into something that felt entirely new. Seeking to channel this
spirit, Black Marble recalls the gauzy tape wow and flutter of The Membranes
and the warbling VCO of Futurisk, carrying on a sound that seeks to channel
the future while imprinting residue of the past. These early reference points
are still audible, an electronic sound steeped in punk spirit, galvanised by
passion: "When I started making songs I got enough positive feedback just to
keep me going," Stewart says, "and then I never stopped."
Black Marble was signed with just one song available online, and Stewart
has been writing songs and making music ever since, beginning with A
Different Arrangement on Hardly Art in 2012, followed by It's Immaterial in
2016 on Ghostly International and Bigger Than Life on his current label
acred Bones in 2019, with two EPs also to his name. "On my previous album
I was more specific about the themes I was talking about," Stewart says.
"Fast Idol goes back to the songwriting on my early records, where the
themes were guided by intuition and instinct – often, their meanings only
become clear to me after they're written."
Fast Idol sees Black Marble face the rising tide of uncertainty, leaving our
future selves to trace its signal as its frequencies echo into an
interstellar expanse, looking for a receiver. He says: "I want my music to
stick with you after I leave, even though you might not feel like you’re
any closer to knowing it."
bio : |
Black Marble is one of the latest and greatest additions
to the Brooklyn synthwave lexicon. Their stark, alienating
textures cloister a vaguely hopeful intensity, like a lone
and distant rhythm echoing from the hull of a lost deep sea
vessel. Reminiscent of early DIY synth recordings, which pitted
emotional undercurrents against wan dystopian landscapes, Black
Marble’s sound struggles to squeeze blood from monolithic
concrete. Collaborators Ty Kube and Chris Stewart take their
inspiration from a disparate group of past musicians who dared to
mix punk ethics with cold electronics, resulting in an enigmatic,
handmade style that recalls the isolated-but-uplifting feel of
early European minimal and coldwave music. Triumphantly bleak
but undeniably infectious, Black Marble's debut EP Weight
Against the Door arrives, appropriately, at the height of
winter.
# | |
# >-------------------------------------------------------------------<
tracklist:
- [ 1 , "Somewhere" , 00:06:04.512 ]
- [ 2 , "Bodies" , 00:04:34.625 ]
- [ 3 , "Royal Walls" , 00:05:37.084 ]
- [ 4 , "Try" , 00:05:19.608 ]
- [ 5 , "The Garden" , 00:02:53.557 ]
- [ 6 , "Say It First" , 00:05:07.644 ]
- [ 7 , "Streetlight" , 00:05:09.707 ]
- [ 8 , "Ceiling" , 00:05:00.355 ]
- [ 9 , "Ship To Shore" , 00:03:44.104 ]
- [ 10 , "Preoccupation" , 00:04:50.716 ]
- [ 11 , "Brighter And Bigger" , 00:04:02.024 ]
# \____________________________________________________________________/
#
#/---------------------------------------------------------------------\
news: |
Hi chaps! This is the new retrofuturistic "back to the future"
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As a possible first in the scene (is it really?), we provide an nfo
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Why this?
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nfo files supporting the yaml format should have the extension
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schema_version: 0.0.5
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