Brittle Stars - collection
They are the definition of Dreampop. Estelle's beautiful voice with electronic indie rock melodies make for some goosebumpy female vocal music.
Bio by Jason Ankeny:
Gainesville, FL indie-pop combo Brittle Stars was formed in the summer of 1997 by guitarist Steve, bassist Dan and drummer Josh; after a handful of practices the trio disbanded, with Josh joining Crush 22. By early 1998 that band had dissolved as well, leaving Josh to reform Brittle Stars; fellow Crush 22 alum Estelle signed on to sing and play keyboards in the reunited lineup, which after a handful of compilation appearances issued its self-titled debut LP on Shelflife in 1999.
links:
https://www.discogs.com/artist/376216-Brittle-Stars
http://mrclay.org/brittlestars/
https://www.inkoma.com/pages/interviews/brittlestars.html
https://www.amazon.com/Brittle-Stars/dp/B000QR17A4/
https://www.amazon.com/Garage-Sale-Remixes-Brittle-Stars/dp/B000QR14M0/
https://elephantparade.bandcamp.com/album/bedroom-recordings
https://elephantparade.bandcamp.com/album/home
I found out about Brittle Stars via elbo.ws (remember that awesome music blog search engine?) in 2007. I was only able to locate m4a files on emusic. It took 3 months of checking Amazon daily and creating custom eBay and Gemm email searches to get the CDs (Amazon sellers eventually had them). And then several years of searching for Crush 22, when eventually Cloudberry decided to do a re-release of the EP. Now the Brittle Stars CDs are readily available via eBay, Amazon, and Discogs sellers.
Here's my collection including saved web pages. The Mr. Clay and Facebook ones do open- they were created via the MAFF plugin for legacy Firefox (they've been unzipped so you don't need MAFF).
Crush 22 - (1998) Crush 22 (EP)(FLAC)
01 - These Feelings.flac
02 - Unsatisfied.flac
03 - Anne Murray.flac
04 - Wrapped Around.flac
05 - If It Wasn't For This.flac
06 - Unfinished.flac
Brittle Stars - (2000) Brittle Stars (FLAC)
01 - Tripping Me Up.flac
02 - Four Words.flac
03 - This Trip.flac
04 - No Longer Waiting.flac
05 - You Went in Phases.flac
06 - Afloat.flac
07 - So Unfair.flac
08 - May.flac
09 - Circus.flac
10 - Occasional Appearance.flac (there's a remix I did with a pleasant ending in the Compilation)
Brittle Stars - (2001) Garage Sale EP + Remixes (FLAC)
01 - Falling Backwards.flac
02 - Disorderlies.flac
03 - Someplace (But Not This Place).flac
04 - You Went in Phases (original mix).flac
05 - Rumpshaker.flac
06 - Instrumental.flac
07 - Your Street Is Dark.flac
08 - Souvenir.flac
09 - Occasional Appearance (Phofo mix).flac
10 - Tripping Me Up (Majestic mix).flac
11 - Someplace (Window Gardens mix).flac
12 - Four Words (I Am the World Trade Center mix).flac
13 - Your Street Is Dark (Masters of the Hemisphere mix).flac
14 - Rumpshaker (C.Hand4D mix).flac
15 - Falling Backwards (Steward mix).flac
Brittle Stars - compilation (FLAC)
101 - Wrapped Around (by Crush 22).flac
201 - Tripping Me Up.flac
202 - Four Words.flac
203 - This Trip.flac
204 - No Longer Waiting.flac
205 - You Went in Phases.flac
206 - Afloat.flac
207 - So Unfair.flac
208 - May.flac
209 - Circus.flac
210 - Occasional Appearance (alt ending).flac
301 - Goodbye (by Elephant Parade).flac
401 - Grand Opening (by Elephant Parade).flac
501 - Falling Backwards.flac
502 - Disorderlies.flac
503 - Someplace (But Not This Place).flac
504 - You Went in Phases (original mix).flac
505 - Rumpshaker.flac
506 - Instrumental.flac
507 - Your Street Is Dark.flac
508 - Souvenir.flac
509 - Occasional Appearance (Phofo mix).flac
510 - Tripping Me Up (Majestic mix).flac
511 - Someplace (Window Gardens mix).flac
512 - Four Words (I Am the World Trade Center mix).flac
513 - Your Street Is Dark (Masters of the Hemisphere mix).flac
514 - Rumpshaker (C.Hand4D mix).flac
515 - Falling Backwards (Steward mix).flac
Brittle Stars - 2008-05-08 Pop Mayhem, Common Grounds, Gainesville, FL (720p&480p)
Found on Youtube:
practice show:
Brittle Stars reunion on May 7, 2008, Wayward Council, Gainesville, FL - YouTube (480p)(2015 cap).mp4
fan recording (closer view but not stereo):
Brittle Stars reunion on May 8, 2008 at Common Grounds, Gainesville, FL - YouTube (480p)(2015 cap).mp4
Note both of the above were captured in 2015, before Youtube cut the audio bitrate in half. They have 254Kbps AAC LC audio (various Google forum members claim it never had higher than 128Kbps, here's proof they did!).
fan recording (decent stereo recording, but in the back):
Brittle Stars - 2008-05-08 Pop Mayhem, Common Grounds, Gainesville, FL.mp4
720p at 8026Kbps and 318Kbps AAC LC.
In the uploader's profile was a link to a cloud drive with the original (best quality) video and a FLAC recording of the show! Uploader had the following notes:
"I attended the Last Show Ever by Brittle Stars at Pop Mayhem held at Common Grounds in Gainesville. Here's the recording I made my for memories. This was the first show I ever recorded and took 10 years to finally finish merging the audio with the video (working software to do so only recently became available).
Setlist:
01 - Four Words
02 - Circus
03 - This Trip
04 - Someplace (But Not This Place)
05 - You Went In Phases
06 - May
07 - No Longer Waiting
08 - Afloat
09 - Occasional Appearance
10 - So Unfair
11 - Falling Backwards
12 - Tripping Me Up
13 - Spacehead
Brittle Stars - 2008-05-08 Live at Pop Mayhem, Gainesville, FL
fan recording using:
Video: some 2006 era HDTV camcorder
Audio: M-Audio 1696 recorder, but bad microphone circuit (this was the first live gig test of it):
"Belt Mic" using 2 Panasonic WM-61A (Linkwitz modded to allow clear high dB recordings). No preamp as recorder had sufficient gain. However, DC blocking solid polymer electrolytic capacitors were in backwards.... which was audible as crackles every few seconds... after much time with CoolEdit's crackle noise remover, I was able to produce a passable recording.
Software used:
CoolEdit (don't know what version, this was done in 2008).
Audition 3 for mastering:
Buzmaxi3 for decent output levels without clipping.
Vegas 15, Plural Eyes, Mercalli SAL v4 at max qual- 35Mbps
(Vegas Mercalli plugins did not work properly, thus SAL).
Mediainfo, MPC-HC + ffdshow, Videoredo 4 & 5.
Generations: 2 renders on video, 1 on audio."
FLAC recording of the above show (was on the cloud drive):
Brittle Stars - 2008-05-08 Pop Mayhem, Common Grounds, Gainesville, FL (FLAC)
Setlist:
01 - Four Words
02 - Circus
03 - This Trip
04 - Someplace (But Not This Place)
05 - You Went In Phases
06 - May
07 - No Longer Waiting
08 - Afloat
09 - Occasional Appearance
10 - So Unfair
11 - Falling Backwards
12 - Tripping Me Up
13 - Spacehead
If you like this music, please show your support and buy the albums. If you prefer CDs, eBay or Amazon sometimes has copies:
https://www.amazon.com/Brittle-Stars/dp/B000QR17A4/
https://www.amazon.com/Garage-Sale-Remixes-Brittle-Stars/dp/B000QR14M0/
https://elephantparade.bandcamp.com/album/bedroom-recordings
https://elephantparade.bandcamp.com/album/home
