No Filler Music Podcast - Sidetrack: Black Dice - Tree Tops

Episode Date: September 3, 2018

Fresh off the heels of our Animal Collective episode, we keep things weird for this week's Sidetrack with a look at Black Dice's "Tree Tops" and "Skeleton" from their 2004 release "Creature Comforts". We really tried to understand and enjoy the noisiness of these noise tracks, but the lack of song structures and melodies just left us scratching our heads. For more info, check out our show notes: https://www.nofillerpodcast.com/episode/album-review-animal-collective-sung-tongs#sidetrack Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This is our sidetrack for the week My name is Quentin I've got my brother in my earbirds Travis, how are you doing? Dude, if nobody listened to that early episode where I said earbirds, they might not know what you're saying. Dude, you say it almost every episode now, man.

Yeah, maybe. We're talking about earbuds, people. Headphones. Well, yeah, dude, you're like, it's a little bird in your ear that's chirping. I get it. I'm not an idiot. I don't think our listeners are either.

And you know what? I don't appreciate that you think they are. So what are we talking about today, Kee? So we are talking about a band called Black Dice. They're based out of Brooklyn, New York. And these guys were an influence on Animal Collective. And apparently they're all good friends. They tore together a lot, or at least they did in the early days.

I know Black Dice has done some remixes for Animal Collective. I'm sure Animal Collective has done the same for Black Dice. This is just another one of those noise bands that came around that time. Well, dude, I can tell you the history of Black Dice and New Dust. We did feature them. Or at least I featured them as an Electric Saturday track once. I remember it must have been a remix. or it was the actual song, but it was called Smiling Off.

I recognize the album art. So there you go. We do have some exposure to this band. Didn't even know. There you go. Now you know. Well, so this kind of music, it's definitely one of those you either hate it or you love it. It's all about twisting knobs and throwing in distortion.

and lots of repetition and just chaotic noise, basically. You know? And you can definitely see the influence that they had. And you can see, you know, how members of Animal Collective, if they're all, you know, friends with these guys, I'm sure they all fucked around and jam together from time to time. Yeah. So I purposely picked.

these guys today because they're kind of hard to listen to, which is something that you kind of said about Animal Collective. And admittedly, I agree, there's a lot of Animal Collective songs that are hard to listen to, really hard. Yeah, I mean, I guess it's not that it's hard to listen to. It's just too much going on, you know? It's like, I can't keep up with all the all the sounds that they're trying to mix together, you know? Yeah. So it's almost like jarring, you know? I don't know.

Yeah. I'm not using the right word. No, but, but that's like, I mean, it's what, it seems like it's what these, all these bands, it's what they're going for. And something I forgot to mention last week when we were covering sung tongs. One thing that, that, uh, Avey Terr, and I believe Noah as well, one thing that they both or big fans of are

soundtracks to slasher flicks specifically Texas chainsawmasker is something that they bring up and that's kind of telling right like I guess specifically that movie that soundtrack was

more just noise and like field recordings and it was just it just added to the scene And it just added to that gut-wringing kind of emotion that, I mean, you know, that you would get if you were being chased by a crazy, a crazy guy with a chainsaw. Right. And A.V. Tare even has a side project now called A.V. Tare's slasher flicks is what it's called. It's just, it's music. You know, that's, it's a side project.

I haven't listened to any of it, but yeah, he released an album called SlashorFix, and I think it's supposed to be kind of in that same wheelhouse. So, yeah, noise rock. Travis, have you ever entertained even the thought of listening to music like this? Have you ever come across a band that you would put in this category? Not ambient, but, like, like noise. Any of them that come to mind?

I can't think of any of the top of my head. I mean, a thing is I wouldn't classify Animal Collective as rock. And I probably wouldn't classify these guys as rock either. So noise rock makes me think of like, as like punk, early punk or something like that, you know? Or like experimental,

punk stuff, you know? Yeah. Noise makers. How about that? Well, what do they call themselves? Black Dyes. According to Experimental Rock.

Well, they do call themselves Noise Rock. So let me tell you this, dude. Here's who I would call Noise Rock in a band that I actually really, really dig that one album of theirs. Holy fuck. Yeah, dude.

We need to do a fucking episode on them. Like, yeah, dude. I think the name of the album was, I think it was just LP. I think it was called LP. Yeah, I know, you're right. LP. Yeah, that's a great album, man.

That's a great, that's a great album. Talk about it. My favorite, my favorite one on that, I think, was lovely Allen or Royal Gregory. Yeah, dude. And that came out in 2007. Yeah, I would classify that as noise rock. But that's the thing.

Like, for me, and honestly, like, between Holy Fuck and Animal Collective. I think as far as like, you know, steering away from melodies and like verse chorus structure, I think it would probably go, holy fuck, animal collective, and then Black Dice, as far as like getting farther out from, from any kind of structure, you know, in a song.

And that's, so there's a couple other bands that I thought about doing today. that so i so i'm pulling this from uh the same interview that we pulled from for our sung tongs episode last week uh from identity theory a geologist uh was asked uh so the so the interviewer says at this point in the history of music what do you think the boundaries are what contemporary musicians do you think are pushing them are pushing those boundaries you know and he said Well, our friends are mostly the ones who are inspiring me. Black Dice, gang gang dance, which is another band that we featured on New Dess.

I recognize one of the album covers. Bands like that. There's another artist who goes by Gas. Dude, it's funny that you say that because I think gang gang dance was the artist that I paired up with Black Dice. And I did my electric settings. No way. Yeah. So, you know, I usually I would try to find two artists that were kind of similar and post them as the electric Saturday post every Saturday.

So it makes sense that I would pair these guys together. I probably, you know, saw that they were, they were probably listed as related artists or something like that on Spotify, which is why they came to them. Yeah. Yeah, no, they're all in the same circles. Yeah, there's an interview actually by the same website, identity theory. They interviewed Aaron Warren, who's one of the members of Black Dyes. They had asked him what his favorite albums were of the last few years. Sung Tongs, of course, is on there and an album called God's Money by Gang Gang Dance.

So I think these guys are all friends. He also put room on fire on there by the strokes. Okay. But another artist to look into, you know, if you kind of want to see where Animal Collective pulled their influences from, There's an artist that goes by gas. He's a German electronic musician. He's been making music since the mid-90s. His name's Wolfgang Voigt.

And he is very ambient. And specifically, they had said that his, like the sound that he makes is kind of what they were trying to go for with their acoustic guitar sounds. like kind of like just this like wall of of hums is what is how avie put it but we're not covering that today but just just a few more artists to look into so but again we're looking at black dyes today we're pulling songs from their 2004 album creature comforts mainly because it's the same year that sung tongs came out our intro clip was the first track on that album it's called cloud pleaser. And let's listen to a little bit of track two.

This will be our official sidetrack for the day. This one is called Tree Tops. Now this is when you should be asking yourself, what the fuck is happening? Well, so I would have been interested in this song, perhaps if they added a drumbeat or something, you know? that's what I'm saying man it's literally these guys are even farther out there than animal collective yeah way farther out

yes but like where do you put this on the landscape you know like I like I'm not it's like when somebody here's a good analogy it's like when somebody walks into a modern art museum and goes man how is this art it's just a you know

one stroke of pain across a canvas man I could do that right my my five year old nephew could do that, you know, something like that. Right, right. That's what this is, right? It's one of those things where it's like, how is this music is what a lot of people would probably say.

Yeah. But it's, you know. But that's the thing. Hey, that's the point. Define music, right? How do you define music? Yeah, sure. Yeah.

But I mean, they're not trying to make a song, right? They're trying to make a, uh, thought, a theme, an idea, like represented with noises. I don't know. I don't know what's going on, dude. I feel like cloud pleaser sounded a little bit more organized, I guess. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. So here's the funny thing, dude.

Our friends at Pitchfork, so they gave this album an 8 out of 10. And it ranked as number 97 of the top 100 albums of 2000 to 2004. Yeah, I got issues with that, man. I really do. I do, too. you know, what, what did they rate a 7 out of 10? You know what I mean? What really good album did they rate a 7 out of 10 compared to this?

That came out in 2004. But I guess that's the thing. You can't compare this with something that may have gotten a 7 out of 10 because maybe they're, maybe they're saying an 8 out of 10 when you look at the, the landscape of experimental music that came out in those five years or whatever. It's not like it's being graded against all other. albums, you know what I mean? Yeah.

Well, so here's a writer for Pitchfork declared that the band had delivered one of this year's most interesting records and proved that you don't have to be noisy to make beautiful noise. Okay. I thought it was pretty noisy myself. I mean, it depends on what you mean by, again, when I think of noise, I think of slip-not, you know? Yeah.

Well, hey, let's look, dude. Let's listen to another clip. Let's try another one. So apparently... Let's play a song that the pitchfork reviewer has high praise about. So apparently the song, Skeleton has been described as the centerpiece of the album. Okay. Let's do it.

So let's give that a listen. And that's from the same black... I'm sorry, that's from the same pitchfork guy. So let's give... I didn't listen. This one's a 15 and 25 second song. 15 minutes, 25 seconds. This one's a doozy. Okay. We'll just see what happens. It's track six on the record. All right. Let's see, let's see what happens.

Okay. So how many, how far end did we get? That's a minute, 15 seconds then. All right, hey, let's skip ahead. Let's go to like, let's do 10 minutes in and see where we're at. I guess you can fade out. That's kind of cool, actually. Yeah. I enjoy that at the end. Right. I don't know, man, I can't get into it. I don't think I could either.

But hey, I thought this would be a great, a great sidetrack to pair along with Animal Collective to kind of just kind of listen to more of that. I mean, I think it makes me appreciate it. It makes me appreciate Animal Collective even more, dude. For sure. Dude, and that's the thing with this kind of music. Same with Animal Collective, dude. I said the same thing about Animal Collective.

You either love them or you hate them. So, hey, you know what? Let's reach out to our listener. If you like Black Dice, please send us an email. Let us know what you like about them. Let us know what you love about them. And we'll give you a little shout out on our next episode. I would love to know what we're missing.

I just want to know what kind of a mindset or mood calls this kind of music like i can't i'm trying to think too like you like for me i you know i listen to music all the time and i pick certain types of music based on what i'm doing right like i'm clean if i'm cleaning the house or if i'm um out on a hike and i want to throw some earbuds in what music or i'm sorry what what are you doing in your life where you think it's time for some black dice. I need to listen to some black dice right now while I'm doing this.

I mean, I would put this album on to keep me awake on a long drive. Oh, I wouldn't, dude. It would drive me crazy. Exactly. You'd keep you awake. Sure, but so would be, so would heavy metal, you know.

Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I can't get into it. I don't see the appeal of it. But I, but I'm not going to sit here and say this isn't music or, you know,

Dude, I think that was a great analogy that you said earlier. Oh, yeah. About the modern art museum. Yeah. You know, if there's an equivalent, you know, there's a modern music museum. You don't think Black Dice is going to make it there? Of course they will. They'll have an examiner too.

If you want to say that this is like, you know, it's abstract, right? Yeah, this is textbook abstract art. Right. Well, where are we sitting here? On our minute marker here. We're sitting pretty, dude. We're sitting pretty. All right, good.

24 minutes. All right. Awesome. So I guess let's wrap it up, huh? Let's do it. This is, yeah. So, yeah, let's tease next week because you can say at times that, Drum and bass music is very noisy and has a lot going on.

But it's in a whole different way. So we're talking about Aiman Tobin next week. Dude, I'm really, really excited. So did we agree to do briegelage? Yeah, let's do that. I gave it to listen, not all the way through, but I listened to a handful of tracks yesterday. So Briegelage is his first album. as Aymond Tobin, his first full-length album.

Now, he was Qujo before that, right? Right, and we'll get into all this. But, yeah, Amin Tobin is one of my favorite electronic musicians, for sure. But his music is, I'll just say he's the only artist in that category, the drum and bass category, that I really like. because of how he ties you know old jazz samples into his music especially that

that's my favorite thing about him that and his his beats are just insane I love his drum beats yeah he's awesome okay so that's what we're going to talk about next week

and that's going to be awesome man plus that album came out in 1997 so that's kind of an oldie that's 20 years old so we're going we're going backwards don't remind me. Yeah.

Okay. So that's that. That's the end of this episode. I can say this is the first, I think this is the first artists that we've covered where both of us are walking away saying, eh, not for me. Yeah. But hey, that's,

I think that's fine. Sure. If we would get some, some listeners to give us some suggestions for albums together, maybe those will happen more often. Well, that's what I'm saying. Like, let's, you know, I would love to hear from somebody who,

who, understands black dice and can explain the appeal of black dice to me. Yeah. Yeah. Or why they enjoy it. Yeah. All right. So, that's it.

My name is Travis. And my name is Clinton. Talk to you all next week.