Best Ever Albums

Re: Sounds and Nonsense

Hayden — Wed, 4 Oct 2017 16:35:13 GMT

Author: Hayden

Posted: 10/04/2017 20:35

craola wrote:

hey ben have you ever listened to this i think you'd like it

Icky Mettle by Archers Of Loaf

something about it reminds me of deja/yourfavoriteweapon era br&nu.

Such a stellar opening track. Copped this on vinyl about a year ago for fairly cheap, don't regret it at all.

Re: Sounds and Nonsense

craola — Wed, 4 Oct 2017 16:12:23 GMT

Author: craola

Posted: 10/04/2017 20:12

hey ben have you ever listened to this i think you'd like it

Icky Mettle by Archers Of Loaf

something about it reminds me of deja/yourfavoriteweapon era br&nu.

Re: Sounds and Nonsense

benpaco — Mon, 2 Oct 2017 16:44:43 GMT

Author: benpaco

Posted: 10/02/2017 20:44

Mercury wrote:

Sorry, I will jump in here and say yes its mellow in sound. No, insofar as the subject is some of the most intensely unmellow and leaves me in gasping tears when I go in without steeling myself a bit.

I'm talking about the new album obviously, this one...

A Crow Looked At Me by Mount Eerie

in case it wasn't completely obvious.

If you didn't speak English, this would be a wonderful and calming experience to fall asleep too.

If you do speak English, my god, this is haunting. I can't really listen to it often, it's insanely personal and intimate and just difficult.

It's a weird one too because it's a total stream of consciousness to almost bizarre levels, and it's getting more bizarre. He has a new song he plays live that brings back the Crow metaphor and stuff but also has a weird funny moment talking about smoking while leaning on Skrillex's bus. He's a fascinating artist.

Re: Sounds and Nonsense

Mercury — Mon, 2 Oct 2017 14:30:20 GMT

Author: Mercury

Posted: 10/02/2017 18:30

Tilly wrote:

Sounds intense! Would this album be suitable for The Mellow Zone?

Re: Sounds and Nonsense

Repo — Fri, 22 Sep 2017 14:14:04 GMT

Author: Repo

Posted: 09/22/2017 18:14

benpaco wrote:

Mount Eerie was incredible live, but it really was kind of hard to leave. I don't think I can ever love someone as much as he still loves Genevieve, and he changes a lot of the lyrics live, some to be funnier, some to be even more crushing.

Sounds intense! Would this album be suitable for The Mellow Zone?

Re: Sounds and Nonsense

craola — Fri, 22 Sep 2017 11:21:09 GMT

Author: craola

Posted: 09/22/2017 15:21

benpaco wrote:

Last night I dreamt of Elliott Smith covering Nirvana's "Dumb" and now I'm sad it wasn't real cuz that was a great cover

Now I want to hear Ben covers Elliott's dreamy cover of Nirvana's Dumb.

edit: sorry this post was way old it's a new post to me

Re: Sounds and Nonsense

benpaco — Fri, 22 Sep 2017 11:10:11 GMT

Author: benpaco

Posted: 09/22/2017 15:10

Mount Eerie was incredible live, but it really was kind of hard to leave. I don't think I can ever love someone as much as he still loves Genevieve, and he changes a lot of the lyrics live, some to be funnier, some to be even more crushing.

Re: Sounds and Nonsense

benpaco — Thu, 30 Mar 2017 12:40:16 GMT

Author: benpaco

Posted: 03/30/2017 16:40

Tap wrote:

Congrats on the job! I'd strongly recommend this one, got an early copy 9 days ago and have listened to it every day since, it's like hyperreal level of hifi, new age vibes but with really amazing level of detail and compositions that are active and keep you on your toes with some change ups

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Reassemblage by Visible Cloaks

This is a fascinating listen! I had tried to find it before but guess it wasn't on spotify yet or something, listening now. The words that happen from time to time almost take me out of the immersion of everything else because it doesn't sound as ridiculously perfect, but that's not a bad thing, just weird to get my head around.

Also my school just announced their upcoming concert schedule and it's impressive. Italics means I'm planning on going to it

4/3: Wet w/ Overcoats
4/6 (afternoon): LOLO w/ Bay Faction and Decriminals
4/6 (night): Dan Deacon
4/8: Rae Sremmurd and Kesha w/ Atlas Genius
4/13: Noname w/ Sammus and Akenya

Last life update is that I've been getting sick and fatigued a lot lately. Going to a doctor soon, no idea what to expect, but there's been a number of days this month (5 to be exact) where it was not possible to stand for more than about 5 minutes.

Re: Sounds and Nonsense

Tap — Sat, 18 Feb 2017 19:40:23 GMT

Author: Tap

Posted: 02/19/2017 00:40

Congrats on the job! I'd strongly recommend this one, got an early copy 9 days ago and have listened to it every day since, it's like hyperreal level of hifi, new age vibes but with really amazing level of detail and compositions that are active and keep you on your toes with some change ups

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Reassemblage by Visible Cloaks

Re: Sounds and Nonsense

benpaco — Sat, 18 Feb 2017 16:39:44 GMT

Author: benpaco

Posted: 02/18/2017 21:39

So in good news, I've been lucky enough to get a(nother) job I adore, working with kids again but this time in a public school.

In bad news, my first full time job's kept me busy enough I've been keeping up with neither new music nor BEA.

In good news, I'm working full time and getting paid so I can afford to do cool music things like go see Ben Folds with the Boston Pops and I'm more pumped for that than any other shows I've heard about in a long time.

What albums have I missed from 2017 that I should check out though? Literally only heard DROGAS light

Re: Sounds and Nonsense

benpaco — Wed, 6 Apr 2016 20:04:06 GMT

Author: benpaco

Posted: 04/07/2016 00:04

Last night I dreamt of Elliott Smith covering Nirvana's "Dumb" and now I'm sad it wasn't real cuz that was a great cover

Re: Sounds and Nonsense

benpaco — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 20:19:41 GMT

Author: benpaco

Posted: 02/13/2016 01:19

Went to a show with an old friend last night (first person from back home I've seen in Boston thus far and sorry rayword for not shooting you an invite but I can only get one person in on a given night) at my school that was shockingly good.

Brittle Brian was up first, and while the set went about as wrong as possible - at least 3 songs had to stop and restart due to tuning problems - that wasn't on her so much as bad equipment/planning, and her music is incredible - some bastard child of Kimya Dawson's fun and simple tunes and Daniel Johnston's lo-fi upbeat musings that are really fairly depressing under it all. The track that the link sends you to is one of her most lush things to date, most is much more minimal, and that's saying something. Great stage presence, really a unique experience.

These next two are significantly different experiences live than studio, so I'll link to live performances.

Eskimeaux put on a fairly intimate concert with their own adorable moments in a very different way - while Brittle Brian had the general stage presence of a kid playing their first show for an audience but who was killing it, Eskimeaux was more like a Catholic school teacher having some fun on the weekend. Rather reserved but still silly, and the music was really good live. Her vocals work far better for me live and I already liked her on the album.

Porches, as some of you know, put out an album recently. It's been pretty well received, even got BNM, but I was not a fan (and the band sort of laughed off the BNM when someone congratulated them during the show). The first 1/3 was great, like "what did I miss on the album these could be a favorite band of mine" great, cool harmonies with the female bass player, dark lyrics, awesome. Then, I remembered. The bassist switched to a synth and the vocalist switched to autotune. The resulting chunk of songs were awful. It didn't fit the rest of the set, the lyrics got ... well, terrible ("She was just 17, and you have no idea what I mean" HAHA LOOK CUZ WE LISTENED TO THE BEATLES GET IT), the lack of the bass which had been a really driving force and keeping the music darker made it just sound like pop without any real force whatsoever, it was a mess. Bassist came back for the final two songs. I'm convinced it's her that made the band good.

And on that note, it turns out she's Kevin Kline's kid. She was in "The Squid and the Whale" when she was younger, and she modeled for the Waxhatchee album cover from last year. She's also put out a billion albums (well, 38, in the last 5 years alone), not including Porches. And I really like the little bits of her stuff I checked out, they're more Kimya Dawson too, pretty anti-folk/lo-fi feel. Sucks that the band is sort of wasting her talent, and I think if they just push the band as more of a "it's a two singer deal" than "she does harmonies sometimes I guess", it would be great.

Re: Sounds and Nonsense

benpaco — Sun, 31 Jan 2016 16:29:31 GMT

Author: benpaco

Posted: 01/31/2016 21:29

Ended up skipping Oh Wonder on the realization I didn't care about them and had homework to do.

stumpf was pretty alright, the lead singer was very much the style I enjoy, that very paranoid squeeky thing, but everyone on stage seemed so high and out if it it didn't work great. Much prefer their studio works which are some mix of Flowers Taped To Pens and Sparklehorse.

Animal Flag just had some bad luck as a whole - bassist was late, drum stand broke in the middle of a song, etc., but they were pretty dark and interesting. Did a pretty short set, I think because they started late, but I'd definitely go see them again.

Vundabar takes the cake of being the weirdest band I've seen live to date. The music, some light but slightly edgy math rock. But the band. Oh my god. These bizarre chicken dances, total deadpan humor by the bassist mixed with the exaggerated and satirical style of the Patrick Carney looking drummer and the ... I don't even know how to describe the singer, but I can say that the way that he signaled to the band that the dramatic silence was over was to produce an inordinate amount of green mucus and spit it just everywhere. It was fantastically weird music and stage performance, and then all their stuff was stolen shortly thereafter. You should go help them out here: https://www.gofundme.com/eum9er8k

Re: Sounds and Nonsense

benpaco — Wed, 27 Jan 2016 13:03:42 GMT

Author: benpaco

Posted: 01/27/2016 18:03

First show of 2016 was last night. Some local rockers who sounded fairly different live than on recordings. Lead singer was really trying to do his best Cassablancas impression, but it actually fit in pretty well and offered a markedly darker sound than their album imo. Not exactly unique music - you could probably listen to Hot Fuss, Is This It, and The Blue Album and not miss a beat of what they did here, but pretty good live and there was a more serious take on that stuff that I can appreciate. The puns between songs were probably the best part of the night.

Here's them live but not at my school:

Link

The other band, CRUISR, got some attention for opening for The 1975 on their most recent tour. Now, I don't have much of a problem with The 1975's music - Chocolate is a catchy enough single, and Sex had some genuinely interesting things going on for a radio hit (at least on my station) - but the fanbase is terrible. It's a lot of the people who would be into Twenty One Pilots but think that the music is too serious, but somehow want to fit in with the "scene" just to fit into something. Lots of green hair and piercings and giggling about how "awkward" their fairly confident, tattoo'd, backwards hat claden lead singer was.

Really, I think the show would've been pretty average without screaming fans, literally blowing kisses at the singer, who had no idea any of the songs. People knew one song, and that seemed to be about it, but some of them were really going all out, yelling his name and stuff. His constant replies to "put your hands up!" or such really just detracted from the music, but at the same time they were trying to be edgy in the lightest ways possible, the band as a whole dressed more like a Warped Tour wannabe than radio friendly pop. The music was average but the show was insipid.

Re: Sounds and Nonsense

benpaco — Mon, 25 Jan 2016 21:02:31 GMT

Author: benpaco

Posted: 01/26/2016 02:02

Shows start tomorrow but for now let's take a moment to discuss my favorite album of the year so far.

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The Waiting Room by Tindersticks

Long before bands like The National were releasing their own takes on chamber pop with post-punk influences, Tindersticks pioneered dark chamber pop with their critically acclaimed 1993 self titled album. 4 albums and three soundtracks later, the band called it quits. In 2007, a reunion was announced, and 5 more albums have followed. While these albums have been fairly well received by critics, the band never found the mainstream success of other similar acts, and continued to change slightly with each album, getting more and more optimistic lyrically, with less goth influences and a generally more radio friendly outlook.

Here, in their tenth LP, the band appear to have settled back into a solid mix of their former outputs. While the sound is a little more Earth, Wind, and Fire and a little less Nick Cave than their early material, the lush orchestration associated with Tindersticks makes a shining return. More elements of jazz or even funk have been taken in, and the band's use of any number of live horns across all of the tracks really helps the album shine through as something unique in today's landscape.

Those familiar with the band may be a little tripped up by the new style. The first two tracks offer a melancholy atmosphere, aided by the production of the vocals on "Second Chance Man", sounding almost like singer Stuart Staples is underwater. The third track, "Were We Once Lovers?" remains dark lyrically, offering the refrain "How can I care if it's the caring that's killing me?", but the funk bass driving the tune offers something almost danceable. "Help Yourself" continues on this trend, with a really loud, driving bass and driving horns contrasting lyrics discussing suicide and a cracking voice that sounds near to tears to create some sort of hellish disco.

This drive dies and the focus shifts into the next track, almost certainly the best track on the album. "Hey Lucinda" is a very subtle duet between Staples' wavering baritone and a female vocalist, driven by bells and bass clarinet that slowly crescendo into more and more chaos as the two vocalists fight before resolving. The song finishes instrumentally, introducing strings, steel drums, saxophones, and a whole other cacophony of sound. The whole track is rather reminiscent of a more lush, refined version of San Fermin's past efforts.

The album is not without flaws. More than one quarter of the tracks are instrumental, and while they aren't bad, these obviously lose Staples' signature voice, and don't really stack up to the rest of the album as a result. Other tracks which do feature vocals simply drag on for far longer than needed without really going anywhere (see: "How He Entered"). As a whole, though, it's not dragged down by these tracks, and the mood is never really lost, only altered.

Re: Sounds and Nonsense

benpaco — Sat, 23 Jan 2016 14:09:19 GMT

Author: benpaco

Posted: 01/23/2016 19:09

Deleted cuz making individual posts is going to be easier

Re: Sounds and Nonsense

benpaco — Thu, 31 Dec 2015 20:26:04 GMT

Author: benpaco

Posted: 01/01/2016 01:26

Bringing in the new year with new friends, old friends, some hopes, and some Scots:

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Killed My Parents And Hit The Road by The Twilight Sad

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The Midnight Organ Fight by Frightened Rabbit

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Nobody Wants To Be Here And Nobody Wants To Leave by The Twilight Sad

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Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters by The Twilight Sad

Re: Sounds and Nonsense

benpaco — Mon, 21 Dec 2015 20:07:14 GMT

Author: benpaco

Posted: 12/22/2015 01:07

FINISHING 2015:

Wow. OK. So the other stuff was good. Today I have listened to:

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No Now by Clarence Clarity

Which was a hugely surprising, great album. Very avant garde, bizarre electronic music with some R&B influences, some random latin influences, it's all over the place but gorgeous. Will be in or around the top 10 probably, maybe down a little, I need to let it sit. Also heard

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Abyss by Chelsea Wolfe

And oh my god it's incredible too. Dark, eerie, musically deep landscapes that are creepy while still being really pleasant in a strange way. The best here is far and away "Survive", but the whole album is really good and feels somewhat like buying a Cocteau Twins 45 and spinning it at 33. I'm going to go through the rest of her discography once this bit of the project is done, it's that good.

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In Colour by Jamie xx

Really, this is what everyone's been talking about? With the exception of some steel drums and Romy's vocals, really not anything special or different here at all. That being said, Young Thug's feature is actually really good and makes me think that this album might be useful for if I get back into making mashups, there's not much going on but if these were beats for other songs, it could be good. Dunno.

Re: Sounds and Nonsense

benpaco — Mon, 21 Dec 2015 00:14:24 GMT

Author: benpaco

Posted: 12/21/2015 05:14

FINISHING 2015:

My friend and I have started running a really informal tumblr music blog here, so I need to finish my listening queue in the next week or so to have my end of the year list ready to go. As a result, all of the key albums I need to listen to/relisten to are my first priority. Here's the first chunk I've gotten through:

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Constant Bop by Bop English

Huge surprise, great album, may end up finishing in or around my top 10. Cute pop rock with some interesting lyrics and some cool stuff going on musically underneath a pretty generic shell, reminds me of some of Paul McCartney + Wings' better moments.

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La Vie Est Belle / Life Is Beautiful by Petite Noir

I think I honestly prefer the EP over this, it just dragged on a little bit and got a little bit overly into itself and trying to be experimental for me, plus the Kele Okereke similarities became a little more exaggerated. Still great and very excited to see what else he puts out going forward.

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High by Royal Headache

An album I knew was really hyped but that was all I knew, turns out it's really pretty good rock music. Nothing that absolutely swept me away, but a pleasant listen.

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Ba Power by Bassekou Kouyaté & Ngoni Ba

My first album by these guys, a really cool blend of styles ranging from a variety of Afro-Beat genres to some almost funk and/or bluegrass ideas. A strange listen but something I'll revisit and that I think my dad would adore.

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Bush by Snoop Dogg

A totally OK album that would be a lot better if I smoked weed and understood all the references, because really everything here is just weed references. What it lacks in substance it makes up for with some really chill beats and overall catchy, good music, but it's not exactly the shining star in a year of such incredible hip hop.

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New Bermuda by Deafheaven

5 really good ideas for EPs stapled together. The flow is actually alright, and I like the vocals a lot here, but each song is stylistically different enough I don't know how cohesive it is on the whole. I also didn't buy into the Sunbather hype as much as others, so maybe it's just not for me, but I think this was OK and a little overhyped.

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Poison Season by Destroyer

Destroyer are a band I enjoyed a few songs of in small doses. They're just a band that I couldn't really sit around and listen to for an extended period of time, I think due to his vocals. The lyrics are alright, the instrumentals are fairly unique and interesting, I just really actively dislike the vocal style, which is a pity.

Re: Sounds and Nonsense

benpaco — Sun, 20 Dec 2015 23:57:16 GMT

Author: benpaco

Posted: 12/21/2015 04:57

craola wrote:

benpaco wrote:

Updates:I paid a guy to write a pretty cool song, that was sort of cool:

https://soundcloud.com/dandelionhands/commission-its-my-fault-again

this is cool. how did this commissioning come about?

Yo I'd missed this completely but basically the guy is retiring that moniker at least (I don't know if he'll keep making music otherwise) but put out one last batch of 10 songs and there was a sale to help choose what the final themes should be. We emailed for a bit and I told him how I really connected to a lot of the themes of overanalyzation on his other albums cuz that's something I really struggle with, talked some more about style, and a week later this was born.