#joy electric

[brokenfoetus]

[dreamxeyes]

Robotnik/Stobotnik Playlist

1. Robotique Majestique - Ghostland Observatory

Come on, evil machine Come on, work with me Come on, evil machine Come on, set me free

2. The Man Machine - Kraftwerk

Man Machine Pseudo-human being Man Machine Superhuman being

3. I Sing Electric - Joy Electric

They bend back to tax, to cream me Here I come, the weak receive me I sing electric To the Godly collective I sing electric 

4. Bot - Deadmau5

bot.... bot....bot....

5. Technologic - Daft Punk

Buy it, use it, break it, fix it Trash it, change it, mail – upgrade it Charge it, point it, zoom it, press it Snap it, work it, quick – erase it 

6. Robots FTW - Aperture Science Psychoacoustics Laboratory

(Instrumental only)

7. Stupid MF - Mindless Self Indulgence (Explicit)

Yo they think you're dumb; I think you're smart No, wait, I lied; I think you're dumb Yo they think you're dumb; I think you're smart No, wait, I lied; I think you're dumb Get it? Get it? Get it? You just don't get it! Get it? Get it? Get it?

8. Magic Spells - Crystal Castles

Don't worry, Dear Pamela I'll do my scientific best to command your fleet

9. Who Are Friends? - Joy Electric

I make a sound In my self contained hospital Fend off the stares In my glass walled cubic Pins drop for noise Am I faint or just paranoid? Caught in the clutch of the poisonous Who are friends?

10. Infatuation (With Your Gyration) - The Magnetic Fields

Infatuation With your gyration That's my fixation, I'm (infatuated with you) Infatuated with you (infatuated with) 

11. Sadist - Crystal Castles

Keep them on this course Graceful without remorse Paresthesia, para It's fine You're fine You'll be fine, you'll be fine Life without conscience The disdain is just consequence

12. Destroy Everything You Touch - Ladytron

Everything you touch you don't feel Do not know what you steal Shakes your hand Takes your gun Walks you out of the sun What you touch you don't feel Do not know what you steal Destroy everything you touch today Please destroy me this way

13. Infra-Red - Placebo

One more thing before we start the final face off I will be the one to watch you fall So I came down to crash and burn your beggar's banquet Someone call the ambulance, there's gonna be an accident I'm coming up on infra-red There is no running that can hide you 'Cause I can see in the dark

14. The Globalist - Muse

You were never truly loved You have only been betrayed You were never truly nurtured By churches of the state You were left unprotected To these wild and fragile lands But you can rise up like a god Arm yourself You can be strong You can build a nuclear power Transform the earth to your desire Free your mind from false beliefs You can be the commander in chief You can hide your true motives To dismantle and destroy 

15. Survival - Muse

Race, life's a race And I am gonna win Yes, I am gonna win And I'll light the fuse And I'll never lose And I choose to survive (So I told you) Whatever it takes You won't pull ahead I'll keep up the pace And I'll reveal my strength To the whole human race

16. (We Are) Taking Over - Joy Electric

I want it all but you won't hear me or catch my fall I started pure, then you decieved me Now I own you Back off, I've claimed the rule

17. Mushroom Compost - µ-Ziq

(instrumental only)

18. Live Alone - Franz Ferdinand

I want to live alone Because the greatest love Is always ruined by the bickering The argument of living I want to live alone I could be happy on my own Live the rest of my life With the vaguest of feeling Wherever you are Whoever is there You know that I'll be here, I'll be here Wishing I could be there 

AVAILABLE ON SPOTIFY AS WELL

[virtuacore]

Visit Original Link

Dance House Children A Windswept Place (from Songs & Stories, 1991)

this might be the third time i’ve posted about the brothers Martin’s earliest project, but these records deserve it because they’re endlessly fascinating—the first one, Songs & Stories, especially. images of windswept tundra, endless fields, flowing creeks and overgrown forests rendered as flowery, baroque dreamscapes, anchored by ronnie’s fey whisper, plus orchestra hits and gated snares galore, and recorded under the bed shoved into a corner of the basement. it’s otherworldly, and despite its pious christian heterosexuality, it feels exceptionally... queer? teenage psb/new order impressionism. every song is a gem with its own world, i love it.

btw, ronnie’s recent album, Chariot of God, reminds me of S&S in how evocative it is... definitely worth seeking out. conjures these beautiful, vast natural environs via electronics

[dreamxeyes]

~~Albums I Can’t Live Without~~

Absolution (2003) - Muse Ok Computer (1997) - Radiohead Junior (2009) - Röyksopp Marry Me (2007) - St. Vincent Crystal Castles (2008) - Crystal Castles You Could Have It So Much Better (2005) - Franz Ferdinand Homogenic (1997) - Björk Robot Rock (1997) - Joy Electric Last Night (2008) - Moby Phaedra (1974) - Tangerine Dream

[dreamxeyes]

Ronnie Martin - Joy Electric We Are the Music Makers (1996)

[saltfield]

There will come a time when it’s time to let go.

To let go of those unrealized dreams that never came to pass.

And realize there are good reasons why some things remained out of our grasp.

Likely because of the grasp they would have had on us.

A hidden grace.

-Ronnie Martin

[redactedreview]

The White Songbook by Joy Electric

A struggle for me in writing this review is to avoid slipping into fanboy, effusive praise, territory. I like Joy Electric, but I love this album. For me it is Ronnie Martin's (who is Joy Electric) masterpiece and cements him as a genius. "The White Songbook" is Joy Electric's softest, hardest, richest, most layered, most complex, most heavy, most delicate album. Ronnie goes all out and it somehow works. I am going to go all out on this review, embrace my excessive enthusiasm, and hope that, ultimately, it works too.

The first thing one notices about the album is its range. It is the only electro synth pop album that I know of that has a few downright head bangers on it ("A New Pirate Traditional," and "We are Rock"). “We are Rock,”  would be the perfect anthem for the underground, for the marginalized by the music industry, but by their very definition, they can’t have anthems.  

It is impossible to tell what Ronnie's intentions were, but I read "The White Songbook" as a critique of the music industry, specifically the contemporary Christian music industry. In the mainstream experimental artists have it tough, but there was even less openness in the Christian music scene that Ronnie was emmeshed in at the time. Ronnie’s music just sounds different. It is upsetting but not surprising that his music was never commercially viable. 

"The White Song Book" has a lot working against it. The album features fairy-taleish lyrics that lack an obvious meaning, he uses only analogue synthesizers to create a bleepy bloopy sound, and his singing has a melancholic, wistful tone to it. Ronnie coats the songs with a wonderful but eccentric syrup using gorgeous synthesizers and sugary vocals. Underneath all the interesting instrumentation however, they are, at their core, damn well written songs. 

From its lush instrumentation to its fantasy-world lyrics, Joy Electric creates a sound unpalatable for most. Too pretty for the indie kids, but too ornate for pop radio, and add to that the Christian music dimension, and Joy Electric falls into the no mans land of contemporary popular music.  

The less careful listeners may call The White Songbook weird. The too careful listeners may say the album collapses under the weight of its own ambition. But anyone who approaches the album in an honest straightforward manner will encounter magic. Even though a common theme in the lyrics is a wintery setting, the album is a scorcher. 

This album is a testament to the human spirit, that someone could take such alienation and spin that into a masterpiece. A candle stands out most when it is placed in the darkest corner, a torch burns brightest at night. By facing, instead of turning away from his pain, Ronnie generates not festive colorful lights, but a wild natural fire lit light. When it is winter, we don’t deny its winter. The only way to make it though a winter night is to create something that can keep us warm, and therefore alive. The White Songbook is a light in a dark place not because it is upbeat, because it’s not, not because it is brilliant, even though it is, but because it is beautiful.

The climax of the album is the pen ultimate song, "The Heritage Bough". The climax of "The Heritage Bough" and thus the whole album, is the cryptic, distorted voice, spoken text Ronnie recites near the end of the track, that ends with, “ice it spreads while longing lingers.” Then it concludes with the last song, a softer song, although rage still bubbles up from beneath the surface. The song is titled, “The Songbook Tells All.” Fitting for an album that ends it’s first song with the question, “from here, where are we to go?”

From the frustration of standing in front of an audience and trying to perform your music even though the sound person keeps the volume low, even though there are only ten people at your show and only three even know the songs and the rest were dragged along with their youth group and came only out of boredom, even though you had such low sales that you are kept on a record label more for appreciation for your talent than as a profit driver, even though everything was going against you, you were uncompromising, and you were rock. And because you were rock we could be rock together. "We are rock forever."

“And so the heritage bough will grow,” indeed.

[k1ngdomfa11]

<3