Sparklehorse & Fennesz – In the Fishtank 15
The In the Fishtank series is something I think is great, something I wish I could emulate and yet nevertheless, and rather oddly, something I rarely like the results of all that much. Dutch label Konkurrent book out a studio for a couple of days and invite two bands who happen to be around to take advantage of the time to record… well, whatever they want, really.
There are a lot of things I hugely admire about this project. Firstly, I generally do not like covers at all, but I love collaborations for some reason. Not rubbish like Monsters of Folk (that’s getting a review this week, and it’s fucking awful), but musicians getting together and genuinely experimenting together in a loose sort of manner like this. They only have two days after all.
Secondly, I love the attitude the label take – we’ll bring you together, you guys do what you want. No pressure to record pop songs, singles, skew the collaboration towards certain styles, divvy the writing up equally, or even to produce anything listenable at all. The results may not always work, but projects like this, at the edge of what we’d call pop music, are important for pushing everyone forward, be it labels, the audience or musicians themselves.
Sparklehorse are one of my favourite bands, but I don’t really know much about Fennesz. Listening to this there’s none of the fairly traditional song structure I am used to on a Sparklehorse record, so I assume a lot of that came from Fennesz, but you can certainly hear an awful lot of familiar sounds so Linkous’ involvement is clear enough.
The experimental nature of a lot of this – Shai-Hulud is, er, a little much for me – means that this is another of those collaborations which I love to hear of but at times don’t exactly like to listen to. I am, for all the readers of this site make fun of my taste for low-fi noise, still pretty much a song-based music fan and there’s a fair bit of this collaboration which is simply too lacking in traditional song structure for me to be able to really relate to it.
Nevertheless, there are a few gems, and when Fennesz fuck with Linkous’ songs, bringing all sorts of mess to the recording, then I really do enjoy it. Some of this is really, really good. It’s another In the Fishtank record I guess I would classify as something I admire and something I find interesting rather than something I necessarily would always listen to for pleasure. But then, that’s how I’d describe Joseph Conrad’s books as well, so it’s no insult.
Sparklehorse + Fennesz – Goodnight Sweetheart
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Sparklehorse + Fennesz – Shai – Hulud
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Fennesz website | Sparklehorse website | In the Fishtank website | Buy from Boomkat
I’m largely unaware of the In The Fishtank series, asides from the Low/Dirty Three one.
Which, perhaps unsurprisingly, is one of my favoritest albums ever.
That, Barticus, is not a surprise.
I would absolutely love, now we’re talking about it, to be able to do something like this around here, but I’d be amazed if I could find the time. Just think, though. We could have some amaaazing collaborations.
Maybe if the Versus gigs continue their success, it could branch into a recording project too?
Or maybe they could sort away of recording the performances. If they haven’t thought of that already.
If it’s Dave, they’re probaby doing it already. The Limbo stuff was all recorded, wasn’t it.
Besides, I was thinking more like the split 10″ we’re currently recording. Frances Magic Tricks, Neil Meursault and Pete Leg are recording three tracks of each other’s music together and the results are gorgeous – well, the half we’ve done already is anyway. I’d love to do more collaborations like that – proper recordings, but quite improvisational and with interesting mixtures of musicians.
Not sure if it’s feasible, but I really like the idea.
ideas ideas
Surely it is quite feasible though, you must have some ace recording equipment that you use in the sessions and you could just do limited CDR runs which would keep costs down. I imagine half of the problem would be fitting it around, what I can only imagine to be, an already tight as hell schedule.
You could always just do it as a toad session, get two bands together to practice one day then film the next?
Sorry, I imagine you’ve thought about all that already and this comment is just a big brain fart really.
That is pretty much how I’d like to do it, but recording everything really is just the tip of the iceberg. Once it’s recorded there really is a ton of work to do afterwards, which at the moment wouldn’t be feasible, I don’t think.
There might be ways to do it though – I will apply what little remains of my brainpower.
there’s a willard grant conspiracy one floating around somewhere – worked okay i think
re: monsters of folk – it really is ordinary isn’t it – jim james is better than that – would like to seem him head out to left field a bit more, rather than being dragged back to middle of the road fare – thought the last my morning jacket release hinted at the possibility of something more interesting – that said, did find myself enjoying the george harrison tribute
Shai-Hulud is really great – it captures perfectly what it must be like to be eaten by a 200 metre worm with shards of crystal as teeth and a propensity for swallowing tanks.
(The link to download ‘Goodnight Sweetheart’ is broken, by the way.)
The WGC one is with Telefunk and is really nice. Twistification and The Cuckoo in particular.
Thanks AnotherDave, I think that should be fixed by now.
I like the idea of two bands playing together but frankly I don’t like either of these songs at all. They just sound like people monkeying around. It’s sort of like a musical doodle.
I like both Sparklehorse and Fennesz quite a lot, so the combo is rather exciting to me. And turns out I love it. Fennesz is usually all about massively buggered-about guitar sounds, and while I can sit and bug out to him for hours (he played Edinburgh Venue years ago, in one of the most mesmerising yet least visually interesting gigs i’ve ever been to), the lack of identifiable tunes does limit the occasions when I feel like popping him on the stereo. Working with Sparklehorse does move it ever so slightly towards melody and structure, but without losing the good bits. Luvverly.
It’s interesting that it is much more fennesz than sparklehorse- I get to wondering whether that reflected the dynamics in the studio somehow.
Me too, very much. I really don’t hear much Sparklehorse, so I assume there’s a lot of Mark Linkous which secretly hankers to produce this kind of experimental music but has never quite managed the determination to do so. I could be wrong, but I really wonder about his secret inner mental experimentalist after hearing this.
I saw the fennesz gig at the venue… I have been smitten ever since. Same though, It is only on rare occassions i feel the urge to pop him on the stereo…same with most types of stuff like this. doesnt really make it any less special when you take the time to actually enjoy it. his work with david sylvian is amazing too. And fenn’o'berg. This record sounds equal to all of these. Cannot wait to steal it… i mean have a listen to matthews copy