And String Bean Jean - my god, that song rocks my proverbial; apart from Le Pastie, which rescues the relatively disappointing 3,6,9...EP, it's the song I most look forward to hearing in the world at the moment.

"String Bean Jean" is merely a nice track, but to me nothing on the "Dog on Wheels" EP (with the notable exception of "The State I Am In") can touch the other records. Of course some time has passed, but there is at least an EP's worth of unreleased songs which beat DOW. (Plus, the DOW EP came with the sting of discovering they had released an entire album which had gone totally unnoticed by me and the several fans at Reckless in Chicago where I often shop. As I suggested earlier, after hearing _Tigermilk_, "Dog on Wheels" sounded weaker.) Now "3...6...9...Seconds of Light" is disappointing? We will have to agree to disagree, since I think that is the most consistent of the 3 EPs. The first two tracks of "Lazy Line Painter Jane" hit higher highs, but let's just say that when I picked up my specially-ordered CDS after having the 7" a couple of weeks, I didn't feel like I'd been missing out on -too- much. Of course it doesn't get much better than "You Made Me Forget My Dreams". I would love to hear additional (past, present, or future) recordings made in that space -- a local church was it? Sounds like an old-fashioned recording where they put the band in a great-sounding room, with stereo mic, and let them play it like they mean it. Great match of material and technique....hope they keep that in mind when it's time for a live album. --Mark +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". For list archives and searching, list rules, FAQ, poor jokes etc, see http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +---+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" +---+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+

Someone mentioned something earlier about TBWTAS taking a bit longer to put together because of something to do with compression. It was all quite vague, but maybe I can offer some explanation. A compressor squashes the dynamics of the signal you pass through it. Sometimes that can be very desirable. For example, to get a longer sustain on a bass guitar, or to even-out inconsistent playing. However, compression inevitably deadens the signal a little. One of the cues that tells your brain a sound is real is the dynamic range, especially the loud peaks. The downside is even CD is only marginally capable of capturing the quietest and the loudest moments of say a symphony orchestra. Ever notice sometimes when you are making a mixtape or something, that on some songs the meters just about sit at 0dB? That's a heavily compressed mix. Ever notice how then you put on another track, and the peaks go higher and yet it doesn't seem as loud as the other song? That mix isn't compressed (or rather, not as much). It is one of the ironies of digital music reproduction that compression and limiting are used as much as, and perhaps more than ever. Give the engineers 96dB of dynamic range (versus mabye 70-some dB on vinyl), and what happens? They just squash the signal with greater precision. If by some chance I were called upon to record the band, I'd want to do one of two things: 1) set them up in that church(?) with just a stereo mic and maybe a couple other, mono mics for reinforcement; or 2) compress the drums and bass guitar, mainly on the louder songs (to give the rhythm section a nice, solid sound that an ordinary stereo can reproduce) but leave most everything else as-is going to tape...possibly some soft limiting on the vocals so the quiet parts don't get lost and the loud parts don't stand out too much. --Mark "a little compression goes a long way" Kolmar __ <http://www.xnet.com/~mkolmar/BurningRome> <MPEG 3 & RealAudio tracks> October 19th: SENSELESS CD on Mindfield Records MindCD03 Cathartium 14 +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". For list archives and searching, list rules, FAQ, poor jokes etc, see http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +---+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" +---+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+