dead ends

Spiritualized - Lazer Guided Melodies

I think I tried to get into Spiritualized once in high school, then again in college, and even this third time around it's not really clicking. This dreamy-pop, soft psychedelic, spacey shoegaze is nice to have on in the background but I can't ever focus on it enough for active listening. Also, I'm constantly comparing it the Verve's self-titled EP (which also came out in 1991) and their first full album, A Storm in Heaven. I listened to those so much in high school that I basically can't hear anything but Verve when listening to Lazer Guided Melodies. Oh well.

Klaus Schulze - Irrlicht

Holy moley this is creepy. I was listening to it at home alone in broad daylight and I had to turn it off because I thought I was going to get murdered. It's perhaps unfair to call this a dead end; I'll still check out some of his other works. I reckon I checked this out due to his history with Ash Ra Tempel, but it turns out Schulze wasn't involved with my favorite album of theirs, Schwingungen. Since it's Schulze, I expected it to be synth-heavy, but instead there are no synths to be found here on his debut album. It's all organic, both in the sense that there's no electronic manipulation and that an organ drone is the dominant instrument. It's amazing how evocative this album is, but it's not something I'll return to often.

Duran Duran - Duran Duran

I gave it an honest try but this doesn't do much for me. I'm still going to check out Rio, so if that one clicks, I may return to their self-titled debut.