Danny Don't Rapp Wrote:
Stars of the Lid is one of the many tricks that God has pulled on hipsters
I have to disagree with this. While I do think it's unfortunate that a lot of people who checked out and really liked the last one may not have gone any farther than Stars of the Lid in looking for similar music, there's no way I can fault them for that. The guys have consistently put out some of the outright prettiest music out there for awhile now.
In addition to being just pretty, I think they are just as good, if not almost always better, as similar artists in understanding every aspect of what they do. What I mean is, you have some ambient/drone artists that dwell in the electronic realm and understand wave interplay and decay as it is applied in an almost mathematic sense. You have others who understand the very organic side and can modulate notes to the next perfect piece as far as progression goes. But with the Stars of the Lid you get all this, plus a serious understanding of both modern and conventional instrumentation (in my opinion Keith Fullerton Whitman is the only other person in this class). They understand the way one sine wave is going to react when another is placed on it, and can start the decay at the absolute peak of the note and extend it, as waveform goes. At the same time, and perhaps this part helps by seeing them live, they also understand for example, the different way a note will exist when played on a platinum flute as opposed to one of lesser density and they orchestrate this difference well. When you have two platinum's play a note that will produce zero decay naturally and two different flutes play the same note, at the time the note ends there's this very natural difference, it's subtle but still noticeable, and they capture those nuances very well.
I don't know, I'm ranting like a starstruck fanboy here (and honestly am quite unapologetic about it), but the guy's are great at what they do, and really no argument against that is valid in my opinion.
