Steven Wilson - The Future Bites - Atmos

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Wow, that first single is really bad. I think I’m done with SW. I’ve been drifting away for a while, but this pretty much seals it.
 
Wow, that first single is really bad. I think I’m done with SW. I’ve been drifting away for a while, but this pretty much seals it.
I didn't find it a world changer but not too bad either. Hope for the rest to be better.

Just FYI, that 12-6 is the British way of saying the 12th of June, not December 6. So you have 6 months less than you thought you had!
Ah, thanks.
What's the matter with those brit's, backward dating and metric measurements too???
 
I know it's sacrilege, but I'm not digging "Personal Shopper". I wasn't a huge fan of "To The Bone" either, although there are a few tunes I love on it. I'm sure, however, that I'll find something to love here as well (aside from the 5.1 mix, which should be excellent :) )
To the Bone is one of those things I have to be in the mood for, and listen all the way through. It doesn't have the catchy individual songs he plays a lot in concerts. I haven't listened to Personal Shopper yet but we'll see. I'm just glad he isn't tied up doing endless mixing for the bands he grew up with that I could care less about. More blasphemy, I'm sure........
 
Regardless of what you think about "Personal Shopper" (I found it rather catchy), you have to admit there's a hell of a lot to work with surround-wise on that track. I can't wait to hear all those harmonies spread around the room and Elton's voiceover through the center channel :)
 
The first section of PS is so beautifully mixed, I can't wait to hear the 5.1 (6 speakers is enough for this old guy) mix. I'm not 100% sure about the bulk of the song, but then, I like to judge an entire album, not just the single. You could almost say, it is taken out of context this way.
 
I'm sure, however, that I'll find something to love here as well (aside from the 5.1 mix, which should be excellent :) )

I agree! On every SW release, there's a few songs I absolutely love, a few that end up growing on me, and a few that don't. What's really interesting is that the amount of "love at first listen" tunes has actually increased with each successive solo album.

Insurgentes - "Only Child"
Grace For Drowning - "Deform To Form A Star", "Like Dust I Have Cleared From My Eye"
The Raven That Refused To Sing - "Drive Home", "The Watchmaker", "The Raven That Refused To Sing"
Hand Cannot Erase - "Three Years Older", "Hand Cannot Erase", "Routine", "Happy Returns"
To The Bone - "To The Bone", "Nowhere Now", "Pariah", "Same Asylum As Before", "Blank Tapes"

*ducks for cover*
 
These two are interesting.

Elton John - voice. Not vocals? Voice. Is he not actually singing?

Dudes gone all "Gangsta" talk is he'll be packin heat too

EltonJ.jpg
 
Cool - as instructed I shall buy the stand alone blu ray. 🤑 Some of his earlier stuff is a bit too heavy for me but 'Personal Shopper' sounds like a great song!

And exciting that there's Atmos! That should sound epic considering Steven Wilson's mixing prowess... 🎚🎛💡
 
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Thanks for posting that. I listened for about 6 minutes and I have to say it presses most of my "yuck" buttons: prominent synthesizers throughout, a spoken word passage, vague admonitions about materialism. Unless Steven is living some sort of ascetic lifestyle, he should find something else to complain about. Having said all of that, I do kind of like it (it's got an apocalyptic electronica vibe of the kind you might find at a bar where everyone is too depressed to dance) and it IS Steven Wilson so I will be buying the blu ray on the first day!
I hated his last album and I don't like the new single either. I have everything SW produced up to To The Bone. I'm not a fan of his more dance music direction.
 
Great, this again. It was the same issue with To The Bone. Ridiculously overpriced shipping to anywhere outside Britain. I'm not paying $36.50 to ship one $96 item. Ugh.

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The situation has improved somewhat: there is now a UPS option that comes in just under $30. 🤦‍♂️

Call me a sucker, but I bit. It seems unlikely that this will be sold at retail anywhere else, and will undoubtedly sell out. If it does indeed show up in a U.S. store for preorder at a lower price, I'll gladly cancel this one and reorder.
 
Heard the track. It has all the "I seem to have heard this all before" sorta vibe. SW seems to be recycling ideas from either his previous endeavours or from stuff he's heard before. Sadly nothing new. Being a completist, I will be picking the Bluray up with the hope that there will be something fresh in there somewhat.
 
Cassettes are making a comeback, OK then, may the magnetic 🧲 force be with you 🧘‍♂️
I post everywhere I can about this. The practical upshot in this "analog vs. digital" business comes to a focus point with Cassettes as a quality music medium. There are two starkly different consumer experiences. The first and the one that made the strongest argument for blank cassettes actually helping the sales of "original format media" (back in the day) is the "quality" cassette/machine demographic. Top-end Naks and Pioneers using the highest quality tape (that still holds up today, I use it every day) that were well maintained and NOT left in cars and walk-persons to fry/melt/warp/whatever. Those machines made tapes and had print capabilities that could make copies that were (for all intents and purposes) nearly (or virtually in the case of Dolby S) indistinguishable for an original recording. The cleavage point is for the vast majority of non-critical music consumers (listening does not have to be inclusive in that descriptor) that was not their experience. Cheap decks and (again) "walkpersons" playing tapes that were "only slightly impregnated" with something resembling an Iron Oxide coating (made that way on purpose, I might add) are what MOST people remember from the Cassette Era. Like RTR, because of the (very) gentle compression/overload of the best Type II and Type IV tapes (used with a reference class machine) could (and did) they, used with TOTL machines, could give 16/44.1 (at the very least) a serious run for its money. It can be argued that its ability to reproduce fine detail (like massed string tone) exceeded 16/44.1. So, cassettes (and RTR) WERE, in terms of SQ, a quality audio format. But your average kid, going through their (monetary resource impoverished) "headbanging" adolescence wasn't concerned about audio quality. With judicious over level recording (above 0dB) and our psychoacoustic ability to hear BENEATH a tape hiss/microphone preamp noise, noise floor the differences in dynamics could often (leaving the purposefully introduced compression issue aside for a moment) be "slim to none". In general, analog (cassette/RTR) tape does "small signal" and HF's well. Digital reigns supreme with reproducing Ordnance and VERY loud, VERY LF material. I have tapes that I made in 1980 that sound as good as they did the day they were made. But I never let them bake in my car or my backpack/gigbag/walkman.
 
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