I read an interview where they said hocketing isnt actually that hard to do, it just takes a little getting used to.
Funnily Geo said singing heâs vocoder part during Golden Gal while doing his instrument (effect) parts was like The hardest song of theirs for him to perform.
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Watching that video again brought me back⌠seeing them in a small venue in Portsmouth, NH the day after Painting With was released was such an incredible experience. I believe I read they played Gnip Gnop for the first time that night. The energy that night was wild. Itâs amazing how much better these dudes sound live.
Paying attention to Lying In The Grass, it looks like Avey might be playing the sax samples, perhaps with slices on the OT, and he manually starts the sequencer during the chorus to do something⌠I think there might be a sequenced sax part there? Pandaâs OT looks like the sequencer is running but heâs mostly playing bass on the OP1 so Iâm guessing the OT is playing back pre-recorded vocal harmony loops. They probably do most of the hands on stuff in between singing, but triggering samples or starting the sequencer isnât too different from playing one of their keyboards, so it just comes with practice, which they have a lot of. Theyâre used to triggering loops by hand with the SP samplers, so the OT probably makes life easier.
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I think Geologistâs coordination is the most impressive of the bunch, especially during the Centipede Hz tour when he was playing the bass lines with his feet on a Taurus and triggering all the samples by hand. Heâs so underrated.
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Hes the glue
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I used to love their music, from Sung Tongs to Merriweather Post Pavilion (corrected: Fall Be Kind EP indeed @GirTheRobot). But then something was lost, the experimental got over the coherence and beauty IMO.
In this video they handle so much gear Iâm starting to think it might be the reason why.
Love Geo. Heâs so often the cohesive force indeed, sometimes with just a few bass notes!
Fall Be Kind was the last truly great releaseâŚI like Centipede Hz a lot too, but man that thing is DENSE and thatâs an understatement. Everything since then has been a sad disappointment, and I say that as a huge fan. Painting With is fine, but doesnât warrant nearly as many listens as the rest of their output. Tangerine Reef is boring. Man of Oil is boring.The EP they just put out is boring. Pandaâs recent solo record was OK. Aveyâs recent record was good and grew on me, with some of the best songs heâs written solo, but overall just doesnât quite have the emotional impact his older stuff doesâHORS being the exception.
Theyâre not even âexperimentalâ anymoreâat least not in the way I would use the term. Theyâre rehashing old ideas: droney, textured slow jams and sometimes acoustic guitars. Experimental to me means playing with ideas youâve never played with before. Every Bowie record from 70-80 was âexperimental.â Every Beatles record from 63-69 was âexperimental.â Every AnCo release from 2000-2012 was âexperimental.â They might buy new gear (Painting With saw their first foray into modular) but nothing feels fresh.
Granted, theyâve done a LOT of experimenting, probably more than any other âpopâ act, and I have no idea what else they could do at this point. Orchestrations? Rock n Roll music? idk lol
funny anecdote: when me and my buds saw them on their US tour for Painting With, we saw they had an Ensoniq ESQ1 and were using those Roland Space echoes on their voxâwhich is exactly what we were using lol. They stole our ideas!!..after we had played many shows using a 404SX and a Roland Juno 60 
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Right, âexperimentalâ was not the right word.
âUnfinishedâ was closer to what I had in mind, but I donât think that even more polished, their most recent song would seduce me neither.
Even if they had been rehashing old ideas, I donât see the magic inside anymore.
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I still hold out hope. Them and the Flaming Lips have been disappointing me lately and thatâs sad to see. The state of Neo-Psychedelia Iâm generally pretty optimistic about, but itâs hard to see your number one favorite band put out disappointment after disappointment. They donât even really have âsongsâ so much anymore. All of Aveyâs vocal performances are quiet and contemplative and laid backâŚAnd hey, I LOVE that half of Feels that is super slow like banshee beat, flesh canoe, BeesâŚbut that record also has Grass, Did You see the Words, Purple Bottle. It makes for nice dynamism.
The only thing Iâm finding consistently interesting is their sound design and production. But those donât make up for mediocre songs.
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Maybe Iâm just a fan boy, but I think the most recent stuff theyâve been doing is among their best output. Granted, painting with the LP pales in comparison to the live records they released from the era (live at the ritz is phenomenal). Centipede hz is probably my favorite AC record (including the incredible singles and b-sides), mostly because Iâm a sucker for prog and thatâs the closest theyâve gotten to that genre. Maybe this is also why I love tangerine reef, as I canât get enough of the early tangerine dream records.
The new EP is nice, but here I feel like they are trodding some familiar ground a bit. As the EP is put together from some practice sessions, because they could not get together to properly record the material of their 2019 live shows, this is understandable and in that light, itâs a pretty enjoyable piece of music.
Judging from the bootlegs of these 2019 live shows, the next record is going to be a bit more laid back and less frantic. Iâm really looking forward to it, especially how the 20 minute epic âdefeatâ will turn out.
Pandas two latest records are the best heâs ever put out IMO.
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Flaming lips are a bit hit and miss for me, but oczy mlody and the kings mouth have been top notch, I think.
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https://youtu.be/u92KaPA0Ewo Their definitely still experimenting and in ways they hadnât before If anything is the âissueâ ironically it would be the over use of the octatrak. They just liked the idea of short beat style songs so instead of recording long textures and layering them they just made lots of one shot samples and short loops out of their instrument on the octatrak than built beats out of them.