I want to say that the first time I heard this piece of work I didn’t really understand it, but it grew on me more and more overtime.

I don’t think it has gotten the recognition it deserves, at all. The grammys didnt even nominate it for best Surround album… ugh.

Anyways, great album,

It is an amazing piece of work, but it’s hard to swallow for a lot of “fly-by-night” fans who only know BT for things like “Flaming June” and “Godspeed.” My friends who have a TRUE appreciation of music love it, but others whine and complain that he needs to “go back to the way things used to be.” I try to explain to them that it’s all about evolution.  Who the hell wants to be a one-pony show and have all their music sound the same?  Every one of his albums is a totally new feel...IMA isn’t ESCM, ESCM isn’t MISL...and so on and so on.  I’m willing to bet money that in another five years, they’ll be whining that he needs to go back to TBU. 

Short story long, it’s one of those albums that I think is too involved for the casual listener.  All I know is that I love it, and my daughter revolts if she can’t watch it at least twice a week. 

Funny you mention that Delphinia, I had a bitch and a rant and a rave about that, but with Chicane. People are complaining that his new stuff isn’t ‘Saltwater’. Well, if you want the old stuff, listen to the old stuff. I think that musical progression, such as what BT, Hybrid and Chicane have shown is what makes them so appealing to me, musically at least. Growth and progression makes the CD go ‘round.

I love ‘Good Morning Kaia’. I bawled my eyes out when I saw that the first time. Yes, I’m a sap. Yes, I’m male, and yes, deal with it ) The detail and clarity in the music is just so pristine, but shows flavours (inspiraitions) from his earlier work too. Maybe it’s just me reading into it too much, but even though so much of BT’s work is different, it’s still neatly related.

Delphinia - 28 July 2007 12:04 AM

All I know is that I love it, and my daughter revolts if she can’t watch it at least twice a week. 

Aww! How old is your daughter?

I once played Dynamic Symmetry for my little cousin Martha, and she was giggling at the animation

She’ll be 18 months old on the 18th....*sniffle*

And Marty, don’t feel bad about crying at “Good Morning Kaia.” I have yet to show it to ANYONE (male or female) that doesn’t at least well up when watching it.  It makes my husband bawl like a baby!!!

You know, I too am a Male and I cry when a song is really good and hits my heart,but I have NEVER cried to any song like I did to the one part in 1.618 with the bells..it just freaking spoke to me with a language that can not be easily translated into English..

I loved TBU and honestly, it’s what really made me start liking BT

It raised the bar for music that satisfies me

Please don’t mention Chicane and Hybrid in the same breath as this album, kthx. Absolute unabashed heresy.

Always good to see the familiar face of dissent around. Check the smileys closely Vinnie, you’ll notice a surprise.

eh?  “I see EZboard smilies.”

BTW, : tired is showing up as angry man...is that the surprise? >:

woo hoo Vinnie is here!
oh, my favorite thing about TBU was playing it nonstop in the home theater room at Circuit City when I worked there.

That’s funny Raven… I worked at Magnolia A/V (within Best Buy) shortly after TBU’s release. When the district marketing manager came in one week, we struck up a conversation and I discovered he was a huge audiophile and an EDM geek, so I told him about TBU. He immediately walked over to the CD aisle, grabbed it off the shelf and “store used” it to listen to the whole thing in our $20,000 sound room. We used it as a demo CD from that point on.

As I’m sure you know, legally we aren’t supposed to show DVDs in the store… so manufacturers and vendors send sampler discs for us to loop throughout the day. DTS sent out a Blu-ray one shortly before I quit, and I snagged it. Take a look at the tracklist:

http://www.rageousmusic.com/images/dts1.jpg
http://www.rageousmusic.com/images/dts2.jpg

Watching those was like seeing it in Chicago with BT all over again.

Wait, does that mean parts or the whole of TBU have been redone for HD, or were Dynamic Symmetry and 1.618 just upsampled for that disc?

Both are running full 1080p high definition, I would imagine from the picture quality that they were not upscaled.

In that case, one can only wonder if a Blu-Ray edition of TBU is down the road...that would be kinda sweet.

yeah TBU was created in HD.
I got some nice promo discs as well from my time at Best Buy and CC. From CC I grabbed a 5.1 promo disc which features a live Rabbit In the Moon performance which was just fantastic.

Yo, Ravey, you might recognize me as the hobird on btpewsic!

raven848 - 28 July 2007 10:39 PM

...a live Rabbit in the Moon performance which was just fantastic

Any “Out of Body Experience”?  I’m...such a total sucker for that track.  When I heard it on Northern Exposure 1 way back in the day it ROCKD me and still holds as one of my fav tracks of all time.

Yumm ... 1080 7.1 1.618

///

Ok, the thing I wanted to mention about TBU.  Totally blissful, classy, timeless, expansive, yeah yeah…

To me, it sounds like that imaginary BT Final Fantasy (golden era) score we never got.  Granted merely making that comment vaguely insults TBU’s integrity, but my mind gets to imagining things whenever I listen to music and this album played right into some fantastical fictional ideation, FF or not.  I mean, you get so many different moods and styles but each has a very far-seeing quality to it. Maybe a better way of describing this would be, “the BT score to the most amazing nonexistent sci-fi epic drama w/ killer screenplay and noteworthy performances and properly out-there Japanese sensibilities.”

Or something.  TBU can just kind of go anywhere. 

...

It really does feel like you live inside that universe when you listen to it.

(Does anyone else constantly find themselves watching the characters field number sink as you type?!  WAM, b!tchz.)

The fact that it’s coming out to theaters!

When I first picked up my copy, i had it pre-ordered from a store called “Hastings” in Moses Lake, WA. @ the time, I was still in Job Corps, when i ran into one of my friends @ the store. She was an influence on me, and i shared with her this cd. I cant forget the day i bought it, and just kicked back at her place, and we just spaced out that entire day (aside from it raining outside). Its one of my favorite memories, something I’d never want to forget.

I listen to it now, i have that feeling again like last time. Its never easy to let go from some one, and this is one of those albums that has that push. It makes you think back to whatever youv’e done, or have yet to do in life.

Favorite track.. novel I enjoy them all equally. But a few of the songs carry a different vibe for me. Dynamic Symmetry - when the notes begin to kick in after the storm, it ripples through and feels like you’re flying (alot like that bird in the mv). Plus it felt like time stopped when i was with her, some neat energies behind this one most of all.

1.618 - denoted, like having a dream within a dream. with my friend i had a fascinating conversation, even though in the rain, she had her tv loud enough to hear it outside. im just sitting there, spacing every moment of my mind, there, its all clear. we just related on so many things it felt like there were no boundaries. its one of those places in my mind, i goto whenever i hear this track.

I’ll share more later. feels great to listen to this again.

I love how LOUD the DVD is.  Just kidding.  But honestly.  My volume’s normally set to 30ish.  But with TBU, nooooooo, try 7.  EEK.

SYOTOS (that’s see-yoh‘-tose) is my secret favorite.  1.618 and Dynamic Symmetry are my two other favs, and they definitely have a lot MORE going on purely in terms of quantity of sounds, but there’s something really really powerful about the ostinato in Syotos, something suggestive of the track’s inquest of death and what’s beyond.  But my very favorite thing is that bass...oooooh goodness, that stuff has some sort of resonant frequency for human bones or something cuz, at an appropriately robust volume setting, it never fails to run through me like a wave.  I just close my eyes and let it rock my physiology.  RIP Tootsie.

I love how it strays sooo far from anything I’ve ever heard before and I still am able to love it.

I still can’t really watch it with anyone else.  Everytime I do, I end up worried about what they’ll think, like maybe they’d be all, ‘dude, this guy’s totally lost it.  This is tooooooo trippy for me,’ or maybe they’d be really excited, but either way, it’s just not the same unless it’s a calm, rainy day by myself, dissecting every little detail as I go, just getting lost in it

I think my absolute favorite (gosh that’s hard to say, I love em all) is “The Internal Locus.” The progression of the artwork fit with the music, the collision of two worlds, one living flowing natural earthy world and one quantized mechanical machined world (the metaphors, but more just the overall feel and motifs within this one are what do it for me), wow, it’s just awesome.  The fishbunny’s super cool too

I really want to buy a big print of the artwork from The Internal Locus.  Even more than any album cover, or anything like that, just hang a massive print of my favorite frame from that one over my bed.

Good Morning Kaia… Goosebumps, shivers up the spine, awesome emotional-moving track.  I also love the high quality sound of the whole album, great for some good ol fashioned speaker testing.

to me the most amazing part is that it still sounds fresh to me. I have been listening to it a lot lately and I think I like it more than I did the last year. Thats saying a lot.

I love that it’s SO chill.  And soooo epic and deep.  The most relaxing and yet also intellectually stimulating album I’ve listened too in a long time.  Chill forever!

(And the video to SYOTOS is the best.)

The stutter technique present throughout does get a little tiresome to be fair (a similar one that can be heard in KiloWatts & Vanek’s “Lies” from 2004).