All 3 entries tagged Hope Of The States

Troubles

As many of you will know, Hope of the States split up last year, failing to see through to the end their however-many-albums contract with Sony. I don’t know the details; my friend Arfie – who is a Hope of the States MEGAFAN – filled me in but I’ve forgotten what it was all about. Anyway, a few months ago the same friend introduced me to Troubles, a group comprised of several ex-members of Hope of the States and producing some of the most fantastic ambient music I have heard in, ooh, at least 20 months.

Sam from Hope of the States, now in Troubles, pictured here pondering the most cool angle to hold a cigarette

Last term I must have played Tinderboxes (listen below) about 100-200 times and I still enjoy it, along with the other tracks on their EP/album. I don’t know what this EP/album was called and amazon isn’t my friend on this one so I’ll have to direct you to their myspace page for more information. This track Tinderboxes sounds like it belongs in Shadow of the Colossus. At one of the upbeat, happy bits though – not the bits when you’re killing innocent colossi what don’t even deserve it or nuffin’.

Troubles’ mix of strings, percussion and guitar/keyboard/musicbox creates an intoxicating environment of BLAH BLAH BLAH I really hate that style of music journalism so shall stop right there. Listen to Troubles. Enjoy Troubles.

Tinderboxes
MP3 Expired

P.S. It’s worth noting that their wikipedia page suggests they’re moving away from ambient, closer to their post-rock sensibilities. Since I have no idea what post-rock really means, I’m just going to ignore that and hope they continue pumping out beautiful ambient pieces. Hell, Brian Eno seems more concerned with making poncey light shows and producing Coldplay’s latest album these days so, I mean, SERIOUSLY.

P.P.S. I know Troubles’ Myspace page is a bit pretentious. I think it’s POST-pretentious though, so that’s okay mm-hmmm yeah uh-huh.

James Miles : 18 Feb 2007 01:40 |  Tags: Arfie Mansfield Audio Hope Of The States Joel Clifford Jon Winter Michael Hibbert Mike Siddell Sam Herlihy Simon Jones Tinderboxes Troubles |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

No Hope Left

So, Hope Of The States are another band to add to the list of disbanded-ness. I followed this band early on, intrigued by their brand of ambitious post-indie-rock and anxious to grab every music snippet I could find on the web and rummaging through NME every week (I was that sad, I know) for news on the album. When the album, The Lost Riots came, I had already heard many of the songs but still loved it all the same, especially when coupled with the deluxe string bound liner ‘medical’ notes (yup, still that sad). I was never a huge gig-goer at the time, and so missed on their apparently great live show. Of course, when years went by the fancy CD packaging didn’t fit with the rest of my collection, and all opinion on the band kinda got lost in the ether…

When Sing It Out was released earlier this year, I was completely flummoxed, this didn’t seem to be the same band I had loved a few years ago. And when album Left came out to a number of discerningly average reviews, I was even more inclined to ignore them in lieu of all the other bands I had been discovering in the meantime. This announcement is a disappointment by either way, because their debut was a stormer.

This song is a B-side off The Red, The White, The Black, The Blue single, which came together with the album. Hope you enjoy it…

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James Riley : 02 Sep 2006 07:42 |  Tags: Hope Of The States Indie Rock Split |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Response to the sleep mini–mix: Mat's Sleeping Mix

Follow-up to Mini–mix : Sleep from á la discothèque

Without wanting to steal some of the thunder from Jim’s excellent Sleep Mini-Mix, it inspired me to create my own, longer version. Whereas Jim made an excellent job of mixing the tracks together seamlessly, I’m rubbish at that kind of thing so I concentrated more on the ordering and making sure that things flowed smoothly from track to track, much like an album ordering… so this is more of a mixtape than a mix :) But enjoy, nevertheless.

Note: If you use the in-browser player, ignore the progress bar – tracks will play one after the other

MP3’s Expired

1. Radiohead - Go to Sleep [Buy Hail to the Thief]


2. British Sea Power - To Get to Sleep [Buy Open Season]


3. Belle and Sebastian - We Are the Sleepyheads [Buy The Life Pursuit]


4. Hope of the States - 66 Sleepers to Summer [Buy The Lost Riots]


5. Voxtrot - Fast Asleep [Buy Mothers, Daughters, Sisters and Wives]


6. Idlewild - Let Me Sleep (Next to the Mirror) [Buy 100 Broken Windows]


7. Something Corporate - As You Sleep [Buy North]


8. The Postal Service - The District Sleeps Alone Tonight [Buy Give Up]


9. The Flaming Lips - Sleeping on the Roof [Buy The Soft Bulletin]


10. Eels - I Need Some Sleep [Buy Shrek 2 OST]


11. Evanescence - Goodnite [Unreleased]

Mathew Mannion : 17 Aug 2006 10:21 |  Tags: Belle And Sebastian British Sea Power Eels Evanescence Hope Of The States Idlewild Mixtapes Music Radiohead Sleep Something Corporate The Flaming Lips The Postal Service Voxtrot |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem