classic albums, atsonicpark edition # 7: polvo - today's active lifestyles
 

POLVO "TODAY'S ACTIVE LIFESTYLES"
1993, Merge

1. "Thermal Treasure" - 4:32
2. "Lazy Comet" - 3:49
3. "My Kimono" - 2:21
4. "Sure Shot" - 3:24
5. "Stinger (Five Wigs)" - 7:23
6. "Tilebreaker" - 4:09
7. "Shiska" - 1:30
8. "Time Isn't On My Side" - 3:06
9. "Action Vs. Vibe" - 3:43
10. "Gemini Cusp" - 7:05

Well, as a band, Polvo is pretty much perfect... "Shapes" didn't have too many stand-out moments, but it's not like it had any bad songs.. so, it's really difficult to choose a "classic" album from this band.. I think my favorite thing by them might be the Celebrate the New Dark Age EP, but since that is just an EP, I'll choose this..

I don't even remember how I first heard this album.. I think I was reading about "math rock" or something. Anyway.. Using alternate tunings, complex song structures, and a sense of melody unsurpassed (though underplayed on this particular album), Polvo created a unique sound that -- feel free to disagree -- crafted the best elements of Pavement and Sonic Youth without any of the fat or filler (no Pavementy stupid lyrics; no Sonic Youth midsong feedback breaks or overt sassiness).

Every song on here is amazing and -- most importantly -- different. They could have easily written 10 chugging noise rock numbers, but they managed to fill their songs to the brim with innovative guitar textures. The best song, BY FAR, is "stinger", which applies noise with melodic guitar playing and creepy harmonics for a startlingly epic effect.

Another highlight is "My Kimono", which is just guitarist Ash Bowie playing a solo guitar piece on strangely-tuned guitar; it makes me want to give up playing guitar forever. So effortlessly beautiful. Ridiculous.

For fans of Thinking FEllers Union Local 282, Sonic Youth, Truman's Water... this is one of the best albums of all time and the most overlooked. Give it a listen. It's perfect.

These threads are all well and good, but could you do one for an album that's not shit/ obscure/ shit & obscure? Perhaps the Carpenters' best of or something?

I avoid this band like I avoid most bands described as "math rock." It's not fair and hypocritical on my part but hey life sucks.

They're the least-math rock band to ever be classified as math rock. They're mindblowing; more consistant than Sonic Youth (but obviously only have a few albums whereas Sonic Youth has like 20). You're really missing out. I dunno how you could avoid a bunch so structurally rich, melodically complex, and uniqually noisey, but one day you'll check em out and be like "what was I thinking?"

Also, Glice, I haven't even really posted any obscure albums; I kinda want to post about Zazen Boys, Coaltar of the Deepers, Gaji, Plus-Tech Squeezebox, Diablo Swing Orchestra, Vicious Hairy Mary, Circus Monoxide, and stuff like that but I'm posting relatively mainstream acts like Captain Beefheart.

i love this album, i don't listen to it enough. i love the liquid quality of the guitars.

polvo are as math as shellac or unwound, they are not as math as don caballero, battles or dillinger escape plan. it's aritmetics instead of logarithims.

yes yes and yes. best polvo ive heard to date!

I've been meaning to get this album for months now. I've heard some samples and it sounds very good.

hmmmm . . . i hear sonic youth all over this album.

which can either be a good or a bad thing. sometimes both.

unfortunately, i has it not.

but i is dowloading it now.

Brilliant album, I love Thermal Treasure - its just one of the most crazy ass brutal insane pop(ish) songs I've ever heard.

YEAH, thermal treasure has that insane ... is it a flanger or a wah? It's only in it for like half a second at a time.. great..

Oh, and is this album made me rethink the whammy bar.

got it and love it!

can anyone upload vibracobra? saw it on youtube, its a beautifull song? please?

awesome band, and this is my favourite Polvo album

Great (and criminally underrated) band.
I dunno which album I prefer, either this one or Exploded drawing.

i think i'd rate it like this:

1. today's
2. exploded
3. cor crane
4. shapes

though i think their ep's were the best.. 1. celebrate, 2. this, 3. s/t.. yeah.

oh.. the tuning on this album is G G C C C E .. lazy comt is D A# A# # D D

They are great and very unique. I would barely call them math rock.

yeah.. pbradley must be scared of innovative music.

Oh and you forgot to mention Tilebreaker. My favourite one off there next to My Kimono.

No, just the concept of "math rock." I hate math. I hate the idea of reducing music to just math. Later I found out that Chavez came up with it as a diss. Makes sense then.

Anyways, I came around almost immediately after this thread and have since bought this album, Exploded Drawing, and Cro-Crane Secret. Now they're one of my favorite bands so thanks there. However, I do feel that Exploded Drawing is superior to Today's Active Lifestyles.

it's just a fucking name.

great album.

99% of music is math and all music can be reduced to math if you think about it. I highly doubt there are that many bands that are complex for complexities sake, except something like Orthrelm.

The only thing with math rock and mathy bands is some of the dumb band names and song titles. Rumah Sakit, for example, has the worst song titles I've ever heard. And there's this fucking amazing math rock band called "Giraffes? Giraffes!" ....... I mean, come on!!

Other than that, yes, a 7/4 beat is usually more interesting than a 4/4 one.

all math rock bands I know aren't too keen on labelling themselves math rock anyway, other than Foals who are not a math rock band and are not very good.

Right, I just think "math rock" is the term used by critics when a rock band breaks out of any kind of structural norm. For example, Shellac doesn't sound like math rock to me, they just have some odd song structures. Yet they get called math rock all the time.. They certainly don't sound like Don Cab or something.

Angular rock!

math is just an ugly word, all i think about is meanspirited algebra treachers (mrs savory=cunt) making me feel insignicant for not understanding finding the zeros in polynomial functions, even though i was a straight a student in every other class, they considred me dumb for not doing well in a subject that has very little to do with very little of our lives. but i like math rock as a genre of music.

Yeah, and when I first heard the term math rock used I was like ????

sorry to tell you, but all music is math.

No shit, but treating it like math is what I dislike. Something to be quantified, equations to be considered. Music makes math human, but math should not make music inhuman.

I'd go more with science and physics, which is what math is a part of. I have now officially invented the term "Physics Rock", where one utilises the laws of Physics in order to ROCK OUT!

I never understood time signatures like 7/4 and 6/3, can't the y be broken down 4/4. Doesn't it just have to do with the musical notation?

i meant in principle.

notation and composition is all math, i had a friend in high school who was headed for m.i.t. to study physics and one day he caught me doing chord charts and he told me "dude, that shit is complicated".

but i agree, it's like the rock critic wankers in the 70's who would explain the importance and appeal of genesis and the like by explaining how complicated their compositions were, like giving you reasons why you should like them.

Yeah it's to do with where the accent is placed. Time sigs aren't like fractions, that confuses a lot of people.

And I meant as a consideration in the production and appreciation of music.

well, if you are going to play music, then, even even unconsciously, you have to consider math in it's production.


hahahahahahahahaa.

Then let my conscious mind not have to consider it. *skronks*

I'll skronk you

this thread is ridiculous.