Wednesday 22 June 2011

Song Of The Day 23/06/2011: Codeine - Ides

Codeine were an early 90s slowcore band and, along with other slightly later acts such as Low and Red House Painters, helped to define the 'genre'. They were, however, much heavier than either of the other two bands mentioned. Instead of the same kind of sparse production as the rest of the scene, they had a slightly more experimental sound and a lot more energy. Their second (and better) LP features very basic instrumentation which is just left to echo through the record, as in this song. The album, released well after Slint released Spiderland and set the tone for this kind of thing, goes into almost post-rock territory in places, without ever building up to anywhere near the wall-of-sound levels of some of their contemporaries. The lyrics are incredibly despressing, with the line 'Can't watch the trees, can't go outside, don't go outside' pretty much summing the song (and band, and scene) up.

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