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Long Distance Calling: How Do We Want To Live?
Long Distance Calling - How Do We Want To Live Album Art

Long Distance Calling: How Do We Want ...

Progressive Post Rock
4.0/5.0

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InsideOut Music
Words: Craig Hartranft
Added: 24.06.2020 | Released: 26.06.2020

Since forming in 2006, Munster based progressive post rock band, Long Distance Calling have had a consistent studio output, offering fans a new album about every two years. The band returns with their seventh album, How Do We Want To Live?. The album is something of a concept album, exploring the relationship of our lives to and within the digital and technological age.

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Long Distance Calling

If you don't know what post rock is, don't feel out of the loop. Until about three to four years ago, I had no clue either. After exploring the genre, my first questions were, who makes this stuff up and then gets to name a new musical genre? But that's a topic for another time. Essentially, post rock is experimental rock (why didn't you say so in the first place), and mostly instrumental. In song composition, post rock rejects traditional rock arrangements of chords, riffs, or structure such as verse, chorus, verse, chorus ad infinitum. Instead, post rock favors elements such as cadence, timbre, texture, and sans vocals. With that reductionistic definition, how does Long Distance Calling fit into this?

LDC song composition, essentially, revolves around the timbre and texture of twin guitars over the cadence and rhythm of the bass and drums, and then they drop in electronica and synth programming for accent and atmosphere. Additionally, in the case of this album, there's a modest amount of talking that weaves between conversation and narrative. (I really couldn't understand most of it because, in this summer heat, I had the AC and fans running in my second floor office.) Throughout, you'll hear guitarists David Jordan and Florian Funtmann drop in some spry guitar solos, which some have described as Gilmour-ish in character. To which, many have ascribed a Pink Floyd influence to their music. I wouldn't disagree. Mostly, then, How Do We Want To Live? is a singular instrumental composition made up parts and movements, much like a symphony. And this time, the album includes one vocal song, Beyond Your Limits, as one of those parts. All said, if you enjoy instrumental progressive post rock or anything Long Distance Calling has done in the past, you will be ecstatic for How Do We Want To Live?. Sit back on your porch with a fine Pinot Grigio, and enjoy this album on this fine summer day.



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The Bottom Line

If you enjoy instrumental progressive post rock or anything Long Distance Calling has done in the past, you will be ecstatic for How Do We Want To Live?. Sit back on your porch with a fine Pinot Grigio, and enjoy this album on this fine summer day.

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