The Batlord

Just looked at the tracklist, and for a second I thought this was a relatively short album. Nope. Still almost an hour long. What the **** is with you people and long-as-**** albums?


1. "Encapsulate" 4:03: Quasi-futuristic airport music. Nice. This was kind of what I was hoping for the first time I listened to Brian Eno's Music for Airports.

2. "Beneath Me He Is Nothing But Brightness" 6:59: Not much else to say about the music so far. It's chillaxing, and... I think I'm just going to say nonsense now to fill up time.

I feel like this is what would be playing if I were in some sci-fi movie, and I fell asleep in an airport, but then all of a sudden, I'm awoken when they call my flight. So I open my eyes, only to realize that I've somehow been transported forward in time by a hundred years, and instead of airplanes going to San Francisco, there are spaceships going to the Moon.

3. "After Everyone Leaves" 4:31: But everything is so quiet, and this music is so quasi-futuristically soothing, that all I can do is mutely marvel at everything around me: the holographic projection screens, telling me arrival and departure times, whether from here to Jupiter, or from the asteroid belt, to here, and then on to Pheonix; the people rushing to and fro, much like in my time, but with strange devices which have replaced many of what is familiar to me, though some may have only changed a bit... iPhones still look exactly the same though, cause they're already quasi-futuristic enough as it is; there's also glass everywhere, from the floors to the walls to the ceiling, it's as if all humanity is visible at once, yet there are no scuff marks or dirty footprints anywhere that I can see.

4. "Outer Wave" 3:56: Most arresting of all, however, are the ships which are landing and taking off. They don't roar, or rumble, or zoom, or anything that I can even hear. They just shoot off into the sky, like majestic insects, their pure white exoskeletons glinting in the sunlight long after they have disappeared into the puffy, white clouds, lazily drifting across the vibrantly blue sky.

5. "Floating In the In-Between" 8:52: I'm broken from my reveries by an impersonal woman's voice softly, but loudly speaking from an unseen source, "Now boarding Flight 471, Little Rock to Venus."

Curiously, I reach into my pocket and pull out my boarding pass.

Flight 471. Little Rock to Venus.

Not knowing what else to do, I enter the line queuing up at the terminal, and wait to embark onto my spaceship. It moves as airport lines tend to do: infrequently and at odd intervals.

After an interminably long time, I finally hand my ticket and boarding pass to the attendant, and they stamp my hand with... something, and I feel a slight prick. I glance down at my hand, only to find it without blemish. Before I can ask what they have just done, she has moved on to the next person in line.

Still feeling pleasantly dazed, I decide not to worry about it, and make my way through that... corridor... thing, that connects the airport proper with airplanes and spaceships.

6. "Separation" 4:34: I'm quietly amazed at the interior of the spaceship. The seats, floors, windows, and flight attendants are much like you'd expect from any plane in our time. It's as if the previous hundred years have been no concern at all to those who design such things.

I must have been standing there for a second or two too long, as one of the flight attendants politely encourages me to find my seat.

My seat isn't really any different than it would have been before I fell asleep. I'm somewhat disappointed to be perfectly honest. I have a window seat that doesn't look upon the airport, only the tarmac, which is likewise the same as it always was. It's all a bit jarring.

Even the captain speaking over the intercom, announcing our imminent departure, and the flight attendants safety demonstration are the same (though the seat belt is thankfully more of a harness).

7. "Mornings Dissipate In Somnolence" 5:17: I'm startled by a faint hum, followed by the nearly unnoticeable vibration of the floor, which seems to pass through my feet, my legs, my chest, and all the way up to my head. I'm almost to bemused to notice that our we are now floating into the sky, accelerating ever faster, until the ground becomes nothing but a blur, far underneath us.

I'm not prepared for when we break the atmosphere. I've seen pictures and movies of and about space, but to see that moment for yourself, when the blue dissolves into formless black and the scattered white pinpricks of the stars, is something which leaves one forgetting how to breathe.

8. "The Bell Jar": The tug of my safety harness is what informs me that I no longer weigh as much as a feather. To my amazement, I observe as the man sitting next to me unhooks himself, and attaches a kind of cord to a hook in the floor, which then gently zips along the aisle in-between the seats to the back of the plane, presumably the to space bathrooms.

I am curious to try this myself, but don't want to risk embarrassing myself if I fail and have to be hauled back into my seat by annoyed flight attendants.

9. "Penultimate" 5:46: I console myself by staring out of the window (do they even call this a window when it's on a spaceship?). The stars zip by, like I was in Star Trek, and I assume that we'll arrive at Venus slightly quicker than if we were to take a "modern" space shuttle.

As much as I am enjoying this experience, I must say that it would become rather tedious if it were to last... however long a space shuttle mission to Venus would take.

It seems like only a few minutes before the brilliantly red and yellow ball of out solar systems second planet becomes visible in my... viewport? Close enough, I suppose.

Venus looks pretty much like Venus. There appear to be a few more space stations than I remember, but all in all, not much has changed about the molten planet in the past hundred years. I don't know if it's being terraformed at the moment, if it's only being used for mining purposes, or whatever else a futuristic government might want to do with a planet.

10. "Does It End Like I Want It To?" 2:14: Over the intercom, the captain informs us that we will begin our descent shortly. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I had a new ticket in my pocket when I woke up, but I don't know if I also have new identification to go with it. I'm also assuming that everyone I've ever known is now dead. And I certainly won't know what to do with myself on Venus.

I can't find it in myself to panic though, because the music is just too soothing.


Final verdict:


/10

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YorkeDaddy

It's almost as if my album got you to...daydream

;D

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9-Time Winner of MusicBanter's "Most Qualified to be a Moderator" Award

The Batlord

I'd just like to get props on writing that as I was listening to it, which means that that was spontaneously inspired and only took me an hour to do.

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YorkeDaddy

You may have your props

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9-Time Winner of MusicBanter's "Most Qualified to be a Moderator" Award

The Batlord

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bob.

Caroliner Rainbow Open Wound Chorale - Rise of the Common Woodpile

this my friend...is all you have ever looked for...and so much more.....

may all singing cows live strong in your subconscious!

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Reach out, pierce the fine fabric of the sheltering sky, take repose.

Trollheart

Brilliant review, Batty. Very creative and in fact it seems you actually didn't hate the music, so I was ... right? Made me wish I was in that world, although Venus is probably not the planet I would have chosen. "Earth's evil twin"? Great writeup though.

Here's my next one; I don't have much stuff that falls into the category you want, but if anything is a/g in my collection it may be this. It's also you'll be glad to hear a very short album (only 43 minutes total).

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

I have no idea what the **** this even is, but if Frownland think's grindy "might win" for suggesting this, then I'm sure I'll love it. Beanie wearing ****.


1. "No Drone Rising" 7:34: I don't know what that is, but something tells me it isn't bullfrogs, though it sure sounds like it. I think it's the five singing dudes. God damn it. They're bullfrogging louder now, and it's like Tibetan monks on acid are doing the zombie intro from "Hell Awaits". It started out pretty goofy, but it's kind of becoming unsettling now.

And now they sound like Humpback whales. Zombie Humpback whales? Yeah, they're back to sounding goofy.

WTF? I can't tell if one of them is gargling mouthwash or taking a nasty dump.

As amusing as this is, does it actually have any point, other than an exercise in just how weird the human voice can sound? I want to get this for my grandmother for Christmas. Everything about it is unassuming, until you actually listen to the damn thing, and it will utterly confuse the **** out of her.

2. "Cappa" 2:43: Considering how goofy and arbitrary their vocalizations are, the attitude they seem to have about this whole thing, and just how not weird the presentation of the physical album is, I'm convinced these guys are just having a lark, and don't give much of a **** about anything else.

I guess I could tell you what the music is like, but I would just be using more variations of, "Listen to how weird these dudes sound." It's not even three minutes long, so I'll wait to get back into that.

3. "Quiet Neighbors Moaning" 6:43: Just FYI, I would much rather listen to this than either of Frownie's recs. Those were either irritating or just plain dull. This is at last whimsical and amusing.

First, some dude sounds like a bird in the rainforest, then another dude starts making wheezing sounds, then another guy sounds like an engine, now another one is making weird snorting sounds that sound like they must be hell on his sinuses, then he's making sounds like a demonic Donald Duck, etc. Honestly, actually talking about this song would basically require a five page bullet point list of every sound effect that these guys make.

However, I'm sure the amusement factor will quickly wear off, and I'll spend the next however-the-****-long waiting for this silliness to be over.

I heard you laughing in the background, you trolling ****s! They recorded themselves laughing in the god damn background. Their music might be an endurance test, but I still like these *******s as people.

4. "Six Cobbings" 6:59" There's no way these guys can be taking this seriously. As an exploration of the human voice or whatever, I'm sure they're dead serious, but as far as this actual performance goes, they're just ****ing around.

Is that guy gonna finish hocking that loogey already? I like the Japanese guy sing/speaking Japanese like he's constipated. And the one who can impersonate a Theramin is quite impressive.

Have I mentioned that this is entirely a capella?

5. "Haiku Sonic" 8:56: There's no way anybody can be listening to this for pleasure. Are they even getting some kind of hidden emotional thing that I'm entirely missing? This can only be one of those chin-stroking things that pretentious douchebags like to interpret just so people can hear them interpreting it, like the whole blues-that-doesn't-sound-like-blues nonsense that Frownland was spouting earlier.

God damn it, why do these things always have to be so long? Can't these weirdos be goofy in nice, thirty minute chunks? Why do they have to cram everything they can into an album, like some rancid, misshapen sausage.

Alright, that guy is just making farting noises, and you can't pretend he's doing anything more artistic than that.

I think this music is somehow making my eyes hurt. That's never happened before, but I'm sure this album is the cause for my current eye pain. Sometimes the guys are just making random noises apart, but then they'll combine to make this dissonant cacophony that just drills right into my ears... and into my eyeballs, apparently.

6. "Ten Tones High" 4:54: The pain seems to be dulling, but it's still poking at the back of my right eye.

They actually sound like they're singing this time. They sound like a choir made up of, and trained by fellow retards would, but they're still singing in something approaching a normal fashion. Although, I guess when they started making lip flapping noises, then that's what a choir of retards would probably sound like as well. That's some hella loud lip flapping noises BTW.

That's some hella loud cat strangling noises.

7. "Four Way Four" 3:09: Twenty-two minutes left to go! Let's do this.

Occasionally this music honestly cracks me up it's just so ridiculously absurd, and I'm pretty sure that the guys are doing this live, because they're clearly cracking each other up as well (along with what I'm assuming is an audience). Even the guys singing are laughing at times.

8. "Nosing Around" 4:13: More goofy vocal noodling. Not sure what more to add at this point. Oh wait, they seem to be flicking their throats. I can't say that's new, but it's the first time they've done it all together, not to mention for an extended period of time.

One of these dudes is clearly taking a ****. I think he succeeded as well.

9. "Tough and Rumble" 7:47: Noises. Noises. More noises. How much longer on the whole album? Thirteen minutes? ****. I'm amazed my patience for this has somehow managed to hold on by the skin of its teeth for so long, but I think I'm finally done with this.

Song isn't even half over yet. God damn it.

Two minutes.

Forty-five seconds.

WTF? Has my brain been misfiring? Cause I just looked at the timer after another twenty seconds or so, only to find that I had a whole minute left. Well it's over now, so who gives a ****?

10. "Five Men Singing" 7:03: Home ****ing stretch.

Still not even a third of the way through the song. Song is as described above BTW.

Half over. **** yes.

Two and a half minutes left.

Weird dudes reaching some kind of crescendo of random noises.

Minute left.

Done. Thank god.


I must say, as tedious as this is to actually listen to, it's also amusing, so long as you can maintain a hold on your sense of humor long enough to keep the irritation at bay. I'm also rather impressed, not just at the sheer variety of noises these men can make with nothing but their voices, but I'm assuming this was also all improvised live. An hour of this ****, nonstop, would leave my voice shot for a week, but these freaks don't even seem to have broken a sweat by the end.

Still, I will probably never listen to this album in its entirety again. I may come back to it in small increments, just to assure myself that it exists, but that's about it.

Final verdict:


/10

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The Batlord

I refuse to expand on my review any further.

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grindy

This review made me laugh pretty hard.
It also makes me want to listen to the album again.
Nice.

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