That Feeling....

[edward]

Remember that feeling you had when you first heard the Cocteau Twins? Did you ever feel that again? I remember the first time my friend played me "Svefen-g-Englar" by Sigur Ros, and as it unfolded, I felt just as thrilled and amazed.... it didn't last, alas, but it aproximated the first time I hear CT. any other bands ??

[djproject]

i think for me post-ct (after the spring of 2006), it was the appleseed cast

[DJ SMITHMIX]

When I first heard Lisa Gerrard belt out the demo version of "Frontiers" .
Another spine chilling experience like hearing Liz singing "When Mama was Moth"
Ill never forget it.
I never had hero worship for anyone, till Liz and Lisa.:heart:
They both move me to tears to this day!:crying:

_______________________________________

NP: Seventh Tree - Goldfrapp 2008

[zepolant]

It was before I heard the Cocteau Twins...Echo & The Bunnymen..."Songs To Learn And Sing"...the entire album rocked my world....after that music was never the same for me again.

[shoegazr]

one night sitting in my friend alli's car, she put in her cassette of slowdive's "just for a day" and played "ballad of sister sue" for me. it was just like hearing "aikea-guinea" for the first time again...

[Clayton39]

I had the experience with Slowdive as well, but it was with Pygmalion. The first time I heard Rutti, it was like the world was turned upside down. I never played music the same way again.

[dprid]

Only two other recordings ever made me feel the same way - Teenage Kicks by The Undertones and Song To The Siren by This Mortal Coil.

[Bettina]

From the Flagstones on the radio (Peel session) stopped me in my tracks, I had my ear pressed to the speaker and didn't want it to end. I hadn't heard anything like it.

Also, first time hearing Godspeed You Black Emperor felt like mild electrocution. All my favourite music triggers some kind of physical response, usually positive.

A friend of mine who was a Psychic TV fan told me the band had been experimenting with sound to trigger involuntary bowel movement. I don't know if this is true but it sounds like classic Genesis P antics.

[Ghosty]

I can think of two songs that touched me as deeply (and continue to do so) as CT did: Ocean Rain by Echo and the Bunnymen, and Devorzum by Dead Can Dance.
There are more that I can't think of right now.

[zepolant]

I had the experience with Slowdive as well, but it was with Pygmalion. The first time I heard Rutti, it was like the world was turned upside down. I never played music the same way again.

Definitely Rutti, Spanish Air by Slowdive still gets me everytime.

[ludwig]

I had this feeling very recently with the song 'Taken' by Eluvium. It moved me and gave me the positive shivers.

[spangled]

Sigur Ros deeply moves me.

[hebe]

I know what you mean... the power of the sensation in our blood... is like flying!!!!


I always FLY when I listen Meena Devi or Zeava Ben. Both are arabic singers. They are really fabulous!!!!

[edward]

I read that about Psychic TV also! It sounds to good to be true. So sick and wonderful..

[Bettina]

I read that about Psychic TV also! It sounds to good to be true. So sick and wonderful..
I guess they'd want to leave it for the encore!

[mike_mhg]

Two spring to mind....

My first hearing of Sloop John B and also Mr Tamborine Man.

I still love most of The Beach Boys stuff.

[thebite]

Simple Minds - Hunter and the Hunted (live) 1983
U2 - New Year's Day 1983
TMC - Just Another Day 1984 (the first time I heard Liz)
Smiths - How Soon Is Now? 1985
Sugarcubes - Birthday 1987
Pixies - Gigantic 1988

I heard all songs when I was 14-19 and no matter how good a song is I don't think I ever will feel the same thing again...

[RUFH0USE]

My first listen to Sinead O'Connor's The Lion and the Cobra was an unforgetable experience.

Seeing CocoRosie live when they opened for Anthony and the Johnsons at Town Hall was another- i had never heard of them and when they started playing my jaw dropped.

And the album Ys by Joanna Newsom. How nice to feel so strongly about an album after this many years of listening to music- it's had more impact on me than any album has in a decade.

[winters]

Some from the vaults

1st movement of Beethoven's 9th
The opening of Dark Side of the Moon
Candy Says
In the Light

[ResetTwo]

No, I never felt that way again when hearing another band for the first time.

[crivens200]

This is a great thread. I just had a whole series of shivers recalling where and when I first heard a lot of the bands above.

Two that stick out for me are The Sundays, Can't be sure and The Cure, Pictures of You. Had to run out and buy the CD's after first listen and still love hearing them to this day.

I can't find any music that does this to me nowadays. It's a bit like first love. That'll never happen again. Sadly.

Big fan of Sigur Ros as well.

[Kazoo]

The first time I heard Cocteau Twins it was like a bewilderment that grew into a fascination. They're a genre unto themselves.

Edward....that's a nice photo of Laetitia there. There have been quite a few Stereolab tracks that have "stopped me in my tracks".

[nightraven]

First CT song I've heard was 'Heaven or Las Vegas' and it was thrilling needless to say. I guess it felt like my first encounter with My Bloody Valentine and Yo La Tengo. And no, I don't think I will ever 'get' any sensation from music like I did with CT.

[Fritter]

I just read that there's a name for this feeling I get when I hear music that I like (CT included): Duende. Nice to put a name to the face, as it were.

[elisa]

Yes, duende. One of Nick Cave's favorite words.

Truthfully, nothing can compare to the first time I heard CT. I was a high school junior ('86) and heard Pearly Dewdrops' Drops for the first time. Even though I'd started to get into more "alternative" music back then, I'd never heard anything quite like it, particularly Liz's voice. I instantly knew it was something special and I had to hear more. In a rare moment of assertion (I was still pretty mousey in 11th grade), I asked the guy playing the song who it was.

The only other two bands who come close for me are Throwing Muses and the Cranes. I got into Throwing Muses around the same time as CT, maybe a few months after. I remember reading a review of the Fat Skier in some indie music mag and decided I needed to buy some of their music. I found a cassette copy of the Fat Skier at the record store and the second I popped it in my walkman, I was transfixed. Similarly to my experience first hearing CT, I'd never heard anyone make music or sing in quite that way before and I knew it was something I needed to understand and definitely hear more of.

I was doing the college dj thing when I got into the Cranes. I was reading NME and Melody Maker almost religiously when they started posting some reviews of the Cranes' early EPs. By that point, I knew when the Brit music press used certain words to describe a band (usually 'haunting,' 'beautiful,' 'ethereal,' etc.), I'd usually fall in love with the band. So I went over to Deep Groove Records, my home away from home at the time, to see if they had any Cranes eps, which they did. Similarly to my first experience hearing CT, I hadn't been hit hard in a visceral way by a voice in a long time. Alison Shaw's voice did that, and still does to a certain extent. I think for me, it's an 'inner child' thing. Or, in the case of Throwing Muses, a teenage girl thing.

[Kazoo]

.....well, I've been listeing to CT nonstop since yesterday. I hope you're all happy being a part of my relapse. Hehe. I can't stop listening to Tiny Dymamine/Echoes In A Shallow Bay. I'm throwing in The Moon And The Melodies just to break it up a bit.

[Tafkap]

Sorry I'm a bit late to this, but I'm nodding inwardly to the mention of The Cranes - seeing them on King's 120 Minutes show on MTV back in the day was amazing.

Also watching The Pixies playing live on 'Snub' (an old indie music show on Channel Four in the UK) back in '88...I think the track that amazed me most was 'Dead'.

Hearing 'Delius' by Kate back in the day was special.

I remember being addicted to 'Raspberry Beret' by Prince, holding my tape recorder to the TV speaker then waking up at 2am or something with an urge to listen to it. I'm still addicted to him!

The CT track that really got me first was 'Hitherto'. That was from my first EP purchase having heard 'Loves Easy Tears' on the telly...I knew this was a band I had to hear more of, but that track was pure raw cathedral-like power. I remember feeling sorry for anyone who didn't appreciate this incredible music like I did, even at the tender age of fifteen.

I kind of still feel like that. :-)

[edward]

yeah 120 minutes probably meant alot to many kids our age back in the day. I for one lived in a kind of a shit hole town, so there weren't many ways to get exposed to new stuff. BUt Sundays at midnight? That was just cruel!

[elisa]

Now that I think about it, Joanna Newsom's voice has a deeply moving effect on me, too. About 3 years ago, I bought her first cd, The Milk-Eyed Mender, around the christmas holidays. I was driving to my mom's house, 2 hours away, so I put some cds in my car player to listen on the road, including Joanna's, which I hadn't heard yet.

Visiting my mom's house always brings up past issues for me, and about a month prior, I'd broken up with a guy I'd been dating for about 5 months, so I was in a weird frame of mind. My cd player shuffled over to Joanna's cd and within minutes I was in tears. Again, I think it had to do with the inner child thing, the same thing that often happens when I listen to Cranes, but in a more powerful way. I think it's the simplicity of the harp and the rawness of her delivery that brings me back to my childhood and the things I've pushed into the far corners of my brain.

[edward]

recently I heard "If It Be Your Will" by Antony, on the Leonard Cohen Movie, and it goit inside me. I had heard him before, on the Lou Reed record, but then I heard "I am Your Sister" duet with Boy George, and it was so moving... not like CT, but maybe the best I can hope for at this jaded age.

[elisa]

How did the "christmas holidays" in my post get turned into a link? Weird. Antony's voice often gets me close to tears, too.

[postlibyan]

Remember that feeling you had when you first heard the Cocteau Twins? Did you ever feel that again? that is, of course, the moment to live for, that one startling experience of sheer beauty, of sheer majesty. a few moments for me:
- 1984 or 1985: some kid at a Science Team competition i was at (yes, i was a geek) played Black Flag's "My War" on his boombox when we were all sitting outside eating lunch. it was so raw, so angry, so focused. it was like nothing i had ever heard. i just stopped and listened.
- hearing "What Difference Does It Make?" on the radio in a friend's car while driving home from school sometime that next school year.
- hearing "April Skies" at a friend's house in early 1987. she got the import as soon as it came out. wow.

lots of those in High School.

- first hearing Victorialand in early 1989, sitting on the floor in front of the stereo in my friend Sergio's dorm room.
- 1992. i was in the Tower Records near Lennox Mall, browsing, and the instore sound system played this bizarre song that started off with a spoken word bit, then had a dog barking, then an unstoppable bass line. and it seemed to go on forever... i bought the album, "U.F.Orb" that night after asking what that was.
- "Like a Fool" by Superchunk, on the radio in 1993. i stopped at a CD store i was driving near a few minutes later, and bought the record.
- two in 1995: early in the year, while browsing at Tower, i came across "Otherness". i bought it, went home, and put it in the CD player. whoa. CT reinvented! a few months later i found "Twinlights". i was expecting more of the same, but instead it was the exact opposite, and yet still lovely and engaging, especially the version of "Pink Orange Red".
- 1999 - the boyfriend of my roomate at the time brought over "F#A# Infinity" by Godspeed You Black Emperor. when the strings started after that dark poem, it blew my mind.

those are the moments that come to mind most easily. i am sure that i can find others if i think hard enough...

I just read that there's a name for this feeling I get when I hear music that I like (CT included): Duende. Nice to put a name to the face, as it were. "duende". according to Merriam Webster . com, this term means "the power to attract through personal magnetism and charm" and is derived from an old Spanish term meaning "ghost or goblin". i like it!

PJK

[ossian]

A friend of mine who was a Psychic TV fan told me the band had been experimenting with sound to trigger involuntary bowel movement. I don't know if this is true but it sounds like classic Genesis P antics.
Throbbing Gristle claimed they had used high vol ultralow frequencies to drive Gen's obnoxious neighbors away from their studio in Hackney. They said the dogs were the first to run. I think Subhuman was dedicated to the same people.

[Bettina]

Thanks for reminding me, there's a passage on that in Simon Ford's book Wreckers of Civilisation.

Frequencies can certainly do strange things - my gentleman gets very unsettled by noises I can't hear such as high pitch sounds from monitors and even dog whistles.

However, I used to work at a remote creepy house and at night I couldn't sleep for a strange ringing sound that I never located and a general feeling of unease. Other staff reported strange visual and sonic occurrences and were convinced the place was haunted. I think it was perhaps a nearby pylon and overhead cables interfering with our perception rather than anything genuinely paranormal. Or at least I hope so!

[Gemini]

My first encounter with CT was buying a copy of FCC after reading an article in NME which included a fascinating description of Liz’s singing style so I was keen to hear what that sounded like.

Listening to the beautiful phlanged guitar notes that open Know Who You Are At Every Age and I reckon I was hooked before Liz even started singing.

I know a lot of people don’t rate that album but for me it’s the one that epitomises their sound. It was a kind of music that came to me just when there was a void in me that needed filling, and nothing else would have made such a perfect fit. Plus it’s got Summerhead, My Truth, Theft And Wondering Around Lost, Squeezewax, Pur…all great, great tracks

[ossian]

Other staff reported strange visual and sonic occurrences and were convinced the place was haunted. I think it was perhaps a nearby pylon and overhead cables interfering with our perception rather than anything genuinely paranormal. Or at least I hope so!

Frequencies that can make your eyeballs vibrate can make you see things.

[ossian]

I went to see Low play last Saturday - they blew me away. Every song sounded perfect, totally effortless, more focused and warmer than on the record. In some ways comparable to CT.

[Bettina]

Frequencies that can make your eyeballs vibrate can make you see things.

I will reassure my colleagues with this info. This house is no longer being used I'm glad to say.

[ossian]

:) I'd love to visit the place.

[edward]

I've seen Low live as well, and they are very powerful. They used to be right at the top of my list, but I was so dissapointed with the last few records, I'm afraid I've fallen a bit out of love with them... I like that new video where Alan eats a whole cake and 3 glasses of milk in 3 minutes though. That sort of thing sure makes an impression.

[edward]

Frequencies that can make your eyeballs vibrate can make you see things.

I like this sentence. It's sort of like poetry.

Frequencies that
can
make your eyeballs vibrate
can
make you see things.

[ossian]

:D