The Trunk 24/6/2018: Talking Points - Discs and Digits

Welcome to a new experiment for The Trunk. We've noted, both on our own Facebook page and elsewhere in the progressive music community, that good music often sparks good discussions. And, for a fair while now, we've been considering some kind of "talking point" feature where we look at some of the more common topics of debate in the music scene. This is very much a "pilot episode", so we're especially keen to hear what you think of it and whether it's worth continuing, but we thought we'd ease ourselves in with something fairly straightforward: CDs versus digital downloads.

The Case for CDs

A young CD undergoing its first coming-of-age ritual.

CDs are, in general, hassle-free. Between managing downloads and file structures, navigating the perils of DRM (fortunately not an issue with our choice of sales outlet), and importing the right files into the right player on the right devices, it can be surprisingly hard to keep a substantial collection of digital music in order. If you can find a CD, you can listen to it. End of.

For some, CDs are more user-friendly. No messing around with aux cords or Bluetooth from your phone - you put the disc in a player and it plays, and you'll be hard-pushed to find a suitably-sized gadget these days that doesn't come with a CD drive. Granted, playing digital music is also now easier than ever, but CDs remain ideal for those who want to control their music in as simple and tactile a way as possible.

Finally, there's the simple but undeniable pleasure of owning a physical artifact. Many digital albums, including many of ours, come with downloadable versions of the cover and sleeve notes, but having a plastic case and a little paper booklet is a very real factor in a lot of people's decisions to buy physical music. Sometimes it's nice to be able to hold your music physically in your hands!

The Draws of Digital

Oh God, who coiled those headphones and where can I contact them? I've got a bone to pick.

The most obvious upside of owning music digitally is simple: it's cheaper! It's not uncommon for a digital release of to sell for half the price of a physical copy, sometimes even less. In a music scene as vibrant as the one we're lucky enough to be part of, many listeners find that digital downloads get them twice as much new music for the same price, which is handy if your tastes are broad - or if, like me, you're terminally indecisive.

Digital downloads are also somewhat more flexible than CDs, since you can download and rearrange them across multiple devices to suit your needs. Obviously you can do some of this with a CD rip, but, if you ever find yourself in the mood for some music you don't have to hand, all it takes to get hold of it is an Internet connection and a couple of minutes.

And, of course, there's the matter of space. Even lovers of physical media will concede that finding somewhere to put all those CDs can be a pain! When you're working with digital, though, the only space you need is whatever your hard drive takes up - and they seem to be getting smaller every year. So, if storage is at a premium and you don't want to compromise on quantity, a digital library may be your friend.

Your Take

So what do you lot think? We're not going to give a verdict here - instead we're turning it over to you, our loyal readers. Do you prefer CDs or digital when it comes to music, and why? Stick it in the comments here or over on our Facebook page (please keep it respectful). We look forward to seeing what you all have to say!

Status Update

We've had a pretty busy week, what with one thing and another! Between breaking the news that we've signed Oxfordshire's finest in acclaimed prog outfit Sanguine Hum (more detail on that over at Progarchy here) and making Exo-Oceans, the first album from Tangent virtuoso Andy Tillison's solo project Kalman Filter, available through the webstore, Elephant Towers has been positively humming with activity.

The countdown to July 20th, and thus the release of Argos' Unidentified Dying Objects, surges on, and you can preorder a copy right now.

No review roundup this time around - catch you all next week!

The Trunk 17/6/2018: From the Vaults - Irritant

Welcome back to From the Vaults, the semi-regular feature where we dive back into the BEM archives to revisit some of our older releases. We're taking a look at something fairly recent this time - it's still hard to believe that June 2017 was a whole year ago. So put on your protective goggles and take an antihistamine, because today we're joining Schnauser for a close look at their third full-group album, Irritant!

Schnauser are Alan Strawbridge on guitar, Duncan Gammon on keys, Holly McIntosh on bass, Dino Christodolou on sax, and Jasper Williams on drums. (The vocals are a joint effort.) They started life as a solo project by Strawbridge in 2005, but their first album as a full band was 2013's Where business meets fashion, followed two years later by the excellent and critically lauded Protein for Everyone.

Schnauser are, in the grand BEM tradition, a thoroughly weird band. They describe themselves as "melodic pop/prog/psych", but they've been covered by sites devoted to all kinds of genres, from traditional prog to crossover pop and even jazz. Their songs are called things like 'Re-Mortgaging the Nest of Hairs' and 'Have You Got PPI?'. And sometimes they'll start a song with a curious announcement...



The amusing (if slightly uncomfortable) subject matter here is fairly typical of Schnauser. From hypertension to, yes, PPI-related cold calls, they tread the kind of left-field lyrical ground you're really not going to find anywhere else, but they sell it almost effortlessly. How the hell do you write a compelling song about a parasitic worm picked up from undercooked meat? I couldn't answer, but this lot have clearly managed it, and it's laced with wry humour - I remember a few uncontrollable chuckling fits when we heard this album for the first time.

There's more to it than the vocals, of course. This is Schnauser's first album with a saxophonist on board, and Dino Christodolou is a fresh electric jolt here, punchy and clear. That clarity is a running theme: Irritant is undoubtedly psychedelic, but it never loses itself to noodling, maintaining a strong, driving energy powered by brash instrumental stings and wild, jazzy rhythms. And it's cheerful! There's enough bounce and irreverence here to lift your spirits and keep them high throughout, and that's part of why we like it so much.

Sound good to you? Well, if you can make it to Wales in a couple of months, Schnauser are playing at the Dream of Dr Sardonicus Festival over in Cardigan, but, if not, you can still enjoy Irritant in the comfort of your own home by picking up a copy here.

Status Update

The wait is over - Suite for Piano and Electronics is out right now! Follow that link to grab a copy, CD or digital, from the webstore.

Preorders are also open now for Unidentified Dying Objects, the long-awaited new album from the inimitable Argos! The album drops on July 20th, but you can get a complementary download of the first track right away if you preorder, plus the full album as soon as it's released.

And we've a big announcement for you tomorrow, a very exciting new signing we can't wait to share with you... keep your eyes peeled.

Review Roundup

DPRP have been good to us lately, with reviews of both The Euphoric and Close to Vapour from John Wenlock-Smith! These multi-review features are great reads all round, but it's always a joy to see our artists there.

The Euphoric continues to gain traction elsewhere, with more excellent from both Gavin Brown at Circuit Sweet and The Prog Report. It might just be our most reviewed album yet, and the consensus is that, to quote Brown, it's "ecstatic and feel-good music... one of this country's best kept secrets".

As always, you can pick up all these albums from the BEM webstore!

The Trunk 10/6/2018: The Secret History of Bad Elephant Music

As you may be aware, because we can't seem to shut up about it, 2018 marks the fifth anniversary of the founding of Bad Elephant Music. The actual day is coming up very soon - that would be July 1st, the release date of Rise Up Forgotten, Return Destroyed, the first BEM record, back in 2013. So, as that very special day approaches, let's take a look at some pieces of BEM history the Grand Elephant probably doesn't want you to know about.

The Week of the Two Elephants

If you're a history buff like me, you may know of the Western Schism, the time in the late fourteenth and eary fifteenth centuries when two and then three people claimed the true papacy and denounced each other as heretics. Well, for a brief time in 2014, the very same thing happened to Bad Elephant Music.

It looked a little like this.

During a staff meeting at the local curry house, an argument broke out about the best Genesis album, and it soon spiralled out of control. Reigning CEO David Elephant (claiming Selling England By The Pound) drew battlelines against upstart [REDACTED] (who favoured Invisible Touch), who had claimed half of the young company's meagre assets for himself. As hours wore on into days, the situation looked set to escalate into all-out war, but an eleventh-hour intervention by David Elephant's wife, who said something along the lines of "oh, grow up already", put a stop to the chaos and reunited the label.

The Week of the Two Elephants is still commemorated every year by sliding an Invisible Touch CD into the stereo at Elephant Towers and immediately turning it off.

The Markov Chain Disaster of '16

In a previous article, we alluded to the pilot scheme undertaken back in 2016 to replace Bad Elephant's PR team with an experimental bot, Loxotron3000. As we mentioned, the incident was suppressed at the time to avoid inconvenient questions from the audience, but we can now reveal that the bot was not, in fact, posting blurry photographs of Magic: the Gathering cards.

It was sending vital state secrets to Portugal.

It looked a little like this.

To this day, we don't know how Loxotron3000 got hold of these state secrets, or why it was sending them to England's longest-running military ally rather than anyone who might stand to profit from them. All we know is that we received a knock on the door from MI5, who informed us that a track we'd featured from Emmett Elvin's album Assault on the Tyranny of Reason was laced with coded messages related to the Trident nuclear programme. Needless to say, Loxotron3000 was destroyed and its leaks were redacted with extreme prejudice, and we've tried to put the whole unpleasant incident behind us.

Bem

We bought a plush elephant last year. We named him Bem.

It looked a little like this.

It was meant to be a joke. Just a silly, innocuous little joke, a mascot more fitting than the horrifying spinning-headed monkey thing Mailchimp sent us.

Oh, how little we knew back then. Back when we still had hope.

Bem has usurped Bad Elephant Music. Bem owns our souls. Bem knows where our loved ones live. Bem's influence is inescapable, inexorable. Bem cannot be reasoned with, and Bem cannot be disobeyed. I can hear Bem calling me now. Bem's call is not a call I can refuse. I am Bem's messenger. I am Bem's. I am Bem. Bem. Bem. Bem. Bem. Bem. BEM. BEM. BEM. BEM. BEM. BEM.

b̨̬̠̥̮͜ͅu̶̶̘͓̰͈̺̥̜̗y̛͓̗̙̤̯̟̱͚ ̛͉̝͚̹̜̫̯̣͡o͏̶̞̻̩ų̩͚͍̘̺̖̰̜͡r̴̖̫̖͓̳̼͈̼͝ ͈̗̬͇͚͚̲m̴̗̳̟̘̻͎͜ṷ̢̥̹̺͔̠̙͠s̛͓̦̩̥̯̟͙̻͜ì͔̰͓̙͓̞̟̯͉̕c̶͏̡̰̭͍͔̯̜͈

Status Update

Dear readers, we have a very big week ahead of us. Busy busy busy. Suite for Piano and Electronics is out on Friday (preorder now for an exclusive bonus track!), and tomorrow we'll be launching preorders for the new Argos album! And we've one other huge piece of news lined up for Wednesday, so keep your eyes peeled for that...

We are also delighted to announce that The Fierce and the Dead have been nominated for two Progressive Music Awards - the band themselves for UK Band/Artist of the Year, and The Euphoric's sublime Mark Buckingham cover art for Album Cover of the Year.

Review Roundup

First up, congratulations to Matt Baber, as Suite for Piano and Electronics got a nice meaty column review in the latest PROG. As per usual, click through the image for a bigger, more readable version.

Jez Denton of Progradar gave Suite for Piano and Electronics a spin, too. Ideal music for dog-walking, apparently. We've no way to test that, alas, but we assure you that a dog is by no means necessary to enjoy the album.

The Euphoric was featured over on Echoes and Dust this week: Martyn Coppack concludes that you should "jump on board the TFATD juggernaut right now", which is encouraging, but also a little concerning, as we have no idea how he found out about BEM's secret experimental naval programme. Metal Gods TV also had a listen, with "Dark Juan" (God, I hope that's his real name) giving The Euphoric an 8/10, which he says is "the equivalent of a mass grave of people missing limbs and faces being discovered and the subsequent war crimes trial held in the glare of world publicity".

Okay then!

The Trunk 3/6/2018: Review Roundup Special

June is upon us! Good grief, it came around fast. This week we're doing another Review Roundup Special, this time collating the many rather excellent reviews we've had for the now-legendary The Euphoric. Without further ado...

Jez Denton for Progradar - "The Fierce and The Dead have made an album of deep complexity whilst retaining a simplicity within the riff structure that drives the album on and doesn’t allow it to become samey or repetitive... The band are happy to confound, confuse and surprise in composition and performance which makes this album a fulfilling and satisfying listen."

Lee Davidson for Prog Metal Madness - "it's a bloody banger with ear-worms aplenty which would make Khan’s wrath uncontrollable!... a beautifully written and paced album which writhes through many different styles and moods and will leave you wanting more."

Real Gone - "This album is so obviously the work of The Fierce And The Dead and yet parts of it sound like nothing the band have attempted before. Always pushing forward – true progression – it’s a very satisfying listening experience."

Indie Buddie - "The Euphoric is a tight album, it’s cool well crafted and one wild ride and is sure to be awesome when performed live."

The Prog Mind - "It recalls the sounds of the 80s and 90s without actually sounding like those decades outside of the great use of synth... The Euphoric leaves the heart and humor of the band intact, but you will also find more experimentation with loud and soft tones, too."

Susan for Progressive Music Planet - "There are touchstones to music of other eras – I hear the 80s! – but the music is uniquely and passionately the band’s own... If you enjoy the work of instrumental bands such as The Dixie Dregs and Explosions In The Sky, please give The Fierce and The Dead’s The Euphoric a listen."

Zachary Nathanson - "Matt, Kev, Stuart, and Steve have shown that they are new captains of the millennium falcon and being a part of their ride as they make the jump to light-speed into the cosmos... The Fierce and The Dead are in my opinion are a family that works together. And The Euphoric is the growing spark."

Here Comes The Flood - "When the band locks into a groove they can transcendent, trippy, pastoral and - yes - metal. The Fierce And The Dead have found a middle way between sounding spontaneous and in control simultaneously... See your local bookie about the odds for The Fierce And The Dead."

Pete Blum for Progarchy - "And have I mentioned that it rocks?  That’s one of the things that I love the most about The Fierce and the Dead.  As they speak, as they provide passage, as they make serious music with what always sounds like a light touch, as they practice their aural alchemy, they also always rock."

Phil Lively for The Progressive Aspect - "The riff may be all, but, as I have explained, there can be too much of a good riff. One must know when there’s just enough and this must be arranged and moulded into a song. A great trick – if you can master it! I think that, and their astonishing live performances, is what The Fierce And The Dead do so well and it is at the root of their popularity and success."

Paul H for Musipedia of Metal - "As the album progresses there is plenty to captivate the listener... it is certainly well worth devoting time to give it a spin."

Any or all of that sound good to you? Pick up your copy here.

Status Update

Matt Baber has crested the horizon and is now running full tilt towards us, inescapable, merciless. In unrelated news, his album's almost out! Suite for Piano and Electronics comes out in less than two weeks, and we highly recommend preordering now to get hold of it as soon as humanly possible.