Customer Reviews

Up in Flames

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Here's what Other Music, a store in New York, had to say about the Manitoba record:

Manitoba's second album, "Up In Flames" is a production
masterpiece. Dan Snaith hinted at the genius that lay within on his
first album "Start Breaking My Heart", but where that album was a
pastoral journey in downtempo beats, jazzy textures and bedroom
electronics, this album is full of '60s psychedelic flourishes, tape
loops, distorted guitars, and some of the most beautiful melodies
heard since "Loveless". It is extremely rare for an artist to produce
two entirely different sounding records with the masterful expertise
that Manitoba has, all the while creating albums that are destined to
become classics. "Up in Flames" is like Spiritualized with beats, or
Mercury Rev mixed with the Beach Boys. I truly believe that this is
what My Bloody Valentine would sound like today (especially after
hearing Kevin Shields' remixes of Mogwai and Primal Scream from a
few years back). "Up In Flames" is the essential blissed out late
night album for 2003. Truly Amazing! [JS]

How often to do hear hand clapping in Electroinc musc? Right, never. Well, now you have and you love it. The sound of those jangly guitars and hands clapping just make you want to dance and shake and do all sorts of crazy things. The songs that you want your life to be soundtracked by if they made a movie about you. Quite possibly perfect in its jubilence.

This seems to be part of a wave of recent electronica that doesn't sound like the "oomph-chicka-oomph-chicka" danceclub stuff I've come to associate with the word electronica. I guess artists like Moby or Air have been around for a while, but this is something entirely different. Basically, "Up in Flames" is electronic music for rock fans. The songs are composed in a verse/chorus/verse manner, and the sonic texture is organic sounding. The opener "I've lived on a dirt road..." is a scorcher, luring you in with an elctro-folky little vocal and guitar melody, and then trampling you underneath an insanely syncopated jungle beat. The song after that, "Skunks" just might be the best one on the album. "Jacknuggeted" is also a great song, although it starts off sounding pretty boring... at first. It sneaks up on you though, and before you know it, you're tapping your feet and swinging your head around gleefully. Comparisons to the Flaming Lips and My Bloody Valentine are apt, but this album explores a space thats not entirely identifiable as rock music, but is flush with entrancing, ethereal tuneage and rump shaking beats nonetheless.

This is easily my favorite CD of 2003 so far. It's basically an instrumental album that combines the adventurous sound of The Flaming Lips and the turntablist approach of DJ Shadow. In between is an amazing mixture of ingredients, from Krautrocks jazzlike improvisation, late 60's psychadelia, Wilco's roots rock, Brian Wilson's experimental use of sound, the spacey epics of Spiritualized, and Kevin Shields' production wizardry. The approach to sound/texture is almost similar to the 'cut and paste' blueprint of the Beta Band's first 2 albums, yet taking it to a much higher musical plane. All this is topped off with underlying, almost subliminal beats that glue this pastiche of sounds together. Manitoba fuses elements of each, shakes it up, and creates something that not only makes sense but is much larger and breathtaking than the sum of it's parts. 'Up In Flames' is truly a remarkable work demonstrating the intoxicating power of music, all under the spirit of a childrens workshop. The analogue 'Bitches Brew' for the 21st century, and for one brief moment...with Manitoba on the same level of genius of Miles Davis.

Think: Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine producing a Beta Band cover album of undiscovered collaborations between Boards of Canada, DNTEL, Spiritualized, and the Nuggets collection, and you're in the ballpark. I guess this Manitoba guy used to be straight-up IDM, but this is more, so much more. Amazing production, beautiful melodies, groovy beats, rounded out by some electronica glitches and bleeps. An album to face the century with. Gaaaaah, I love it.

4.5 stars. OK, let?s get the references listed - recommended if you like: Happy Mondays, Slowdive, My Bloody Valentine, Four Tet, Sigur Ros, The Byrds, Spiritualized, Stereolab, Laika, The Beach Boys, Primal Scream, The Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Tortoise, Out Hud, Amon Tobin & His Name Is Alive. This may be the most natural or organic electronic/laptop release to date. I believe it works better than the acclaimed Pause cd by Four Tet. The overall mood of this cd has a spring/summer, rays of sunlight on a breeze across your eyelids vibe, which makes me feel like I have been warmly awakened from my past Chicago winter hibernation. The cd sounds mostly like an even more Technicolor and upbeat version of the Spiritualized cd Laser Guided Melodies, which is one of my top 5 cds of all time! Also, it mostly reminds me of The Beach Boys on a vocal level and My Bloody Valentine?s ?Loveless? on the sonic. I?d like to see this cd make my top 25 list and I believe it will! (Which I may list on Amazon one day) This cd is a truly feel good cd in a My Bloody Valentine meets 1965 era sound. This cd does have many songs with lyrics, which are very similar to Jason Spaceman of Spiritualized but with heavy backward reverb and fairly inaudible words. A problem one could have with this cd is the fact that the layers of sound can get really overwhelming at times. Also, the use of a laptop to edit and arrange the sound may cause one to believe it?s not real, that it is a creation made by the computer. Remember that you can?t get a computer to do something if you don?t tell it to! ENJOY!

This is Manitoba/Caribou's second album, and it is not disappointing. For anyone familiar with Manitoba's first album, it might at first shock the listener with just how different this album is, but then again, anyone familiar with the first album should be aware that Dan Snaith (the genius behind it all) is all about defying expectations. (And his third album is nothing like "Up in Flames" or "Start Breaking my Heart.")
This album is not as immediately accessible as the first one, but it has a soul that is very worth getting to know. The songs often rock in an almost Neutral Milk Hotel kind of way, and yet the the use of handclaps and kicky beats is unprecedented, and the organic use of xylophone is astonishingly happy, especially in the song "Crayon," which starts as a bright, instrumental xylophone piece and becomes a New Order/Joy Division celebration.
This album is perfect for listening to as you drive dirt roads late at night. All Manitoba/Caribou is. Every album of theirs is so different from the others, yet there's always that certain something that you can recognize in the core of it. ...Like seeing an old friend who's really grown into someone new and amazing, yet is still the same old pal you ditched school with.
Accept "Up in Flames" as something new and different, love it for the wonderful thing that it is, and keep an eye out for whatever Dan Snaith does next. It's bound to be good.

Imagine Chemical Brothers meets Mercury Rev, meets My Bloody Valentine.

Soaked in 60s psychadelic flourishes, sunkissed melodies and bombastic throbbing drumming, this album is a constant attack on the senses.

Its a wall of sound and an amazing feat of production much like My Bloody Valentines ' Loveless'. Its danceable (well, almost!), full of an amzing amount of energy and vitality, extremely engaging, and a melodic feast.

A modern Classic, and the best thing I've heard (maybe on a par with Kid A) so far this century!

Holy [cow], this is the best 'pop' cd ever. If you are a fan of progressive rock or anything with that lovely big sound... then you will freakin' love this. I myself, am actually not much of a prog fan, I concentrate mostly on Metal and it's subgenres, but this album is so intensly beautiful that my tastes have been bent all out of wack. This is probably one of the best albums I own. It start's out intense and doesn't let up untill the last song, and there's not many times during the album that I am bored. This should be a part of any music fan's collection.

What's here is all pretty listenable `twisted' psychedelia. I can't quite fathom the logic of those who place among `best albums' though. I would really rate it about 3 & ½ stars, but feel it is currently rated too highly overall and 39 minutes is slim pickings for a full-price CD.

The best tracks for me are:

- `I've lived on a dirt road all my life' - full of life, with shimmering floaty lyrics - a good opener
- `Skunks' - warped - jagged sax snatches and eerie synth themes complementing a jaunty beat. Fabulous
- `Jacknuggeted' - minimalist intro, morphing in a number of ways before deconstructing and dissolving into the ether
- `Kid you'll move mountains' - a bit like Jesus and Mary Chain on Prozac - strangely engaging
- `Crayon' - a joyful, bubbly and captivating little tune - definitely the album highlight; which flows effortlessly into:
- `Every time she turns round it's her birthday' - shimmery synth washes around Brit-pop-like fuzzy vocals - a warm and vibrant way to end a good, though not great, album

A few of the other tracks are a bit forgettable. This is an album best listened to on headphones, as there is a lot of inner detail you could miss otherwise.

Don't be fooled into thinking this is an electronica album - far from it! I was sucked in by others' rave reviews and Amazon's `people who bought this also bought...' recommendations. It is just reasonably engaging psychedelia, inventive and easy to listen to.