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10 favorite albums of 2010 - #9: Going Places by Yellow Swans

This album is not for everyone. There, I felt that would be an important preface to my acclaim for this album. Going Places isn't so much an album of music as it is an album of sonic ideas. It is ambient noise that wants attention. It washes over you in undulations of sound.


This is noise music. There is a lot of atonality, a lot of fuzz, a lot of dissonance, and lots and lots of subtle shifts in the noise-scape. It's this subtlety that immediately turned me on to the album.


I knew I was truly in love with it one night as I was listening to it while going to bed. I had let myself become fully immersed in the music and I felt as if I were being carried away by something.


Each track is a unique experience; listened to properly, I'd say that is what Going Places really is - a collection of little experiences. Noise music is something to be experienced, after all. 


Noise music has, until Going Places, carried a negative association in my mind. I couldn't feel a great deal of appreciation for it. I suppose I thought that the idea of noise music's aesthetic was far more relevant than the aesthetic itself. This album changed my perception. If you're interested in the psychological sway music can have on an individual, have a go at Going Places.  

Comments

Unknown said…
I listened to this today.... really liked their stuff. :)
January 27, 2011 at 10:15 AM
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