ok so coming into this day, I've been listening to something I was shocked to discover was not in the database yet and so I just added it. I mean it's on me too, I kept forgetting about it but man
Ugh. How did this glaring omission sneak past me. Guess I must've been too lazy. It's probably my favorite Angels of Light record too (although I love "Sing Other People"), and I may like them better than Swans for the most part. _________________ http://jonnyleather.com
This has been in my rotation for a few weeks now, I just keep coming back to it. Found out about it via the excellent www.mimaroglumusic.com tho I've probably been buying a bit too much music lately, so fortunately it's on the ol Spotify. But yeah that store is run by Keith Fullerton Whitman who is amazing and used to write good descriptions of things for Forced Exposure, and he tends to be on top of a lot of really good stuff. I really like this sort of jazzy thing. The sorta woozy drumming that still hits hard but still is relaxed, the tasteful horn, and then the buchla200e modular synth bringin all sorts of weird timbres, I'm all about this stuff. It gets into some "ugly"/somewhat abrasive sounds but it's never mean about it, they're never on a full on assault with it, it seems more driven by "wouldnt it be cool if this happened", and it is cool.
Had a fam call in the middle of this one, picked it back up after while editing up my previous posts for the day with some actual details. and now... I'm not sure what to listen to. Oh hey why not that compilation I was thinking about earlier
So this is Warp's compilation celebrating their 100th ep/nonalbum release (those got the "wap" catalog numbers while albums got the "warp" cat numbers). And ugh the Aphex Twin + Squarepusher collab that starts this off is so good. I actually had that on a mixtape for a laser tag place that I worked at as a teenager. Playing laser tag to this song is so good. And then Boards of Canada, Broadcast, Plaid gets a bit dorky but it's still fun, that Autechre track which I totally still listened to again cause it's good, all so killer. Nightmares On Wax doesn't get enough credit he has some good stuff and has a nice instrumental hip hop type of thing here, really lively and fun. But then Jimi Tenor... hoo boy. Could never get into that dude. Like he seems like Warp's early attempts at getting some sort of pop guy, but it just always hits this cheesy/annoying spot for me. Like the music goes up to the verge but then you get those lil vocals and that pushes me over the edge and I'm about to break. That's strike one. But Plone turn it around and deliver one of their best tracks ever, it's cheesy too but I dunno, it just works where Tenor fails for me. I mean it's slower and not as abrasively cheesy, maybe that's it. Then Red Snapper come on. I could never get into them but this is ok, heavy on the drums and then some guitars and things come in, its cool. Mira Calix and Two Lone Swordsmen bring in some cool tracks tho, they never really struck me as especially amazing but they do good work that rises above RS to me. And then Mark Bell closes it out strong cause he was awesome. Yeah, this is definitely one of the better compilations I've heard and an essential one for IDM fans.
Now I'm unsure what to listen to so I do the mutantsounds thing, immediately find this album Alesia Cosmos - Exclusivo, and check it on youtube and it sounds like this, so I'm sold, that is my next listen.
Alesia Cosmos - Exclusivo
It's a really bizarre one, that's for sure. It sorta alternates between things that fall under experimental music trappings, and then things that are more overtly song oriented, although with a fair amount of strangeness in construction. Don't think it'll be ending up on the overall but there's a lot of great stuff in here. But also a few things I'm not really feeling. Some of these guitar bits sound a little hokey. Definitely going to use some tracks on a mix or plug sessions
This has also been in my rotation recently. I never gave it a chance when it first came out, I remember people talking about it but I was lazy. It is really something special and with more time will probably end up in my overall. It's all really distinct, the tracks are all really distinct and unified mostly by adventurousness. Tho one noteworthy thing is all this percussion that is like perfectly mapped to some vocals and it's really cool. I don't know how to describe it, so if that's your sort of thing you should check this one out. Don't be like me and take forever.
Watched a few episodes of Kaiba, having a rewatch of that. Yuasa is so great. Now it's time for some sleepin.
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This one sorta falls between the more garage rock type of stuff from The Master's Bedroom and the more quiet Cool Death of Island Raiders (my favorite). Which makes sense cause that's how it worked out chronologically as well. This early stuff from them is so good but most of the discussion seems to be centered around loud Oh Sees. But quiet Oh Sees is pretty great too y'all. Jamming this on the bus cause I gotta go in today (I get to work from home monday tuesday and thursday), which means I'm tired so I just sort of launched whatever playlist looked cool and this one has been in the rotation lately so I went for it.
Now gettin into the work business, gonna start off with the new episode of the podcast Who Charted. It's a fun one and I get to hear little snippets of the songs that popular with youth culture and I can be all like "I don't get youth culture, maroon 5 what is happening" its a good time. They did Japanese billboard charts this time tho so that was a bit different
This is a new release that's been on heavy rotation. Electronic music, some sort of collab between Co La and some other people, using lots of improvisation. It's not all freeform tho, there's lots of rhythm to it. It's accessible and difficult to categorize, weird but not abrasive, if that sounds appealing you should really check it out.
Decided to go with a classic. Working on-site is tricky cause I don't have a desk so I have to find a spot in the building, and people are all around and making noise and it gives me anxiety. So something comfortable seemed appealing, and this popped in my head first. This album is fantastic of course.
This is Ben Vida's more physical instrument band type of music (as opposed to the heavy synthesis from his xtian name). Tho there is still some electronics, but they aren't always the focus. This was my favorite release of his before last year's Slipping Control. But yeah, I've heard this a million times so it continues the "just want comfort" music. The music is really refined sounding, and tracks range from super relaxed to heavily distorted. A fantastic album.
Happymeal's chart reminded me it had been a minute since I listened to this. And it's so good. College roomie introduced me to them and this album was always my favorite. Just some wonderfully catchy, intelligently constructed 90's rock. Tho that hidden track... yeah. Could not get thru that. Did the cd have it where the hidden track came on so soon after the last real track? Cause if I had time to hit stop that'd be cool, but the way spotify presents it, I do think I have to count it as a strike against the album, cause it is funny, but it's more annoying.
So then I wasn't ready with something and then I was hearing all sorts of awful slurps and other human noises and I hated it. So i had to rush and get something on and went with the first playlist I could see. This is a fantastic album, but I've had it on heavy rotation past few weeks so I will probably be taking a break from it. But yeah this album is fantastic, I skipped over these guys forever, probably cause I thought their name was dumb. But this music is an innovative rock album incorporating electronic elements. Really feel like a lot of people would be into this.
Now I'm bussing home to finish up last bit of work there, listening to the podcast "Doug Loves Movies", and editing in all these words for these albums.
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Pretty great so far. Last year's album didn't really click with me, but this one has the rockin energy, catchy tunes, and Brigid Dawson back in the mix. Planning on really blasting this one this weekend to get a better grasp of it but I'm enjoying it. It's a short one, but it has some really killer songs. And there is a sense of development to their sound here, there do seem to be moves towards a more "mature" direction. I don't know, it's good rock music tho.
THIS IS AVAILABLE DIGITALLY NOW WHICH MEANS Y'ALL CAN ACTUALLY HEAR IT! And I can play it without annoying my roommates! This is an indonesian duo, one dude has a crazy string instrument that also doubles for making percussive type sounds, and then the other dude does vocals. The album from last year kinda went heavy on the screeching, there's a sort of theatricality to everything that I found really entertaining, but not something that I would consider to be among the absolute greatest music of the year. This one, though, also has a sort of move towards greater "maturity". And yeah, right now I got it at #3 on my 2015 list. It could go higher, still needs more time. But I am confident that it is at the very least that much brilliant. Although this digital release has some bonus tracks and aghhh i'm not sure how they fit in the album. Like they seem good but I think the album works better as a whole without them maybe?
now for some food, while listening to a proper non-npr stream copy of
I didn't want to have to start listening again on the low bitrate stream, but there's a leak of it now. So this will be my dinner music, looking forward to diving back into this one. It really is quite superb. A lot of the tracks here are sort of reminiscent of some of the weirder house music coming out lately, like Tlaotlon or some Gobby stuff maybe. I was especially taken with the 2nd track on this listen, which has a sort of steady beat that keeps shape pretty well but still is constantly mutating, and on top of that stage there's these sort of jagged sound blobs that drop in, like a bunch of similar small sounds overlapping in a way that forms erratic rhythms but still it's all perceived as a singular unit. Or something, I dunno. I'm into it.
Skinny said the new Jenny Hval samples Church Universal and Triumphant so with Braxton finished I gotta dive right into that
Dear lord this year. It's so good! I don't even know what to say about this, I'm actually not really familiar with Hval aside from the collab thing from last year. I've been slacking on looking into her stuff more and this really emphasizes that.
Took a lil break to just zone out but now I'm gonna watch The Duke of Burgundy, the latest movie from the guy who did Berberian Sound Studio. Or, maybe not, the encoding on these copies I'm seeing looks really bad. So yeah that'll have to wait. But what then... oh I know I have an Amazon Prime free trial going, and oooh they have that movie Obvious Child. Been meaning to watch that so now I am.
Good movie. Jenny Slate is hilarious. I go out on the porch for a smoke and the venue next door is having a rave, it sounds like this kinda.
Now I'm gonna play some videogames feeling like doing up some breakcore soundtrack
I dunno if this is technically breakcore, all the subsubgenres got a little confusing for me. But this is like aggressive and noisy and beat driven so that seems like the closest one. But yeah it's not really breaks, all synth and stock drums? Just really insanely intricately programmed? Yeah this one's something special. I got hungry so this is also soundtracking dinner. I think I may have called the last meal dinner but this is real dinner. And now it is late so im sleepin.
The label that put this out has a weird philosophy where they support piracy and only use recycled materials and release everything with no copyright. But this has been my favorite thing of the year and I had to get it, in the knick of time too cause it says 297/300 on it. It's so great, all of these
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Being set off, played as instruments and used to build the composition of scrapes and clicks, all recorded so beautifully. I dunno, I really dig it. I've heard a lot of music that could be described as scrapes and clicks, but the mechanical nature of these powered sound generating objects being played live and the sound seemingly not being treated with effects, presented straightforward and well recorded, I dunno there's just something special to this one for me.
Ahhh this album. It's out on cd now so I'd imagine it'll become more available at some point. This one is really worth having though, this is totally going to be one of those records that is fun to pull out years down the line and just continually blow your mind with. The dominant element is this prepared piano that sounds like gamelan, but each of the sidelong compositions all go to some pretty wild places with additions of electronics and bird calls and tons of cool things. I'm still not sure what to think of the whole white guy making imaginary world music conceit, like I feel like it's actually a positive thing but I don't know how to articulate it and the politics get really murky. I'm not really thinking about that much while listening tho.
Good records, back to digital, lets do this Hval again
Still don't know what to say about this one, I'm feeling very positive about it though. I really do need more context tho via her older work. Really digging Take Care of Yourself tho.
now i'm listening to the awesome new Tame Impala song with awesome new Robert Beatty art
really hyped for this album, kevin parker is very good at using the studio as an instrument, and also at really great melodies. but hmm now i wanna listen to something from Robert Beatty
I realized I was underrating this album on my 2012 chart and bumped it up. I also find the melodies in this really compelling, tho they are much weirder. it's both the melodies themselves, and the sort of world they're built to exist in that really hooks me. like just the sense of space and relationship between timbres, this stuff is so distinct and fantastic. and now, lets do oh sees again.
Yeah this album is still great, I'm pretty sure some of you guys like rock music here, you all should check this one out.
next, doin some podcastin with Improv 4 Humans, they did a musical episode with Waxahatchee http://earwolf.com/episode/waxahatchee-and-the-beige-river/. I haven't heard their new album, the name is similar to my real life name and that weirds me out? But also it seems really lyrics driven and I suck at following lyrics, so it's like stuff will sound good but the greatness of it is something I can never get a full grasp on. Her songs sounded nice though, and it was fun to hear the other comedians take snippets of lyrics and have that lead into improvised scenes. I like a lot of the improv comedy stuff, it sort of reminds me of when I was a kid I would play this game "Bein' It" where I would just go up to one of my friends and be like "hey lets be xmen i'm wolverine" and just by taking it from there and using words, we'd have a whole imaginary world goin that we could play around with and be on the same page. I have no idea how it worked, but I think the sort of improv on this podcast reminds me of it the most. Like the seams will show, and it won't always work, there'll be all these exposition statements where someone is telling someone else something they should already know for the purposes of building the shared world for all performers. And this episode seemed to go a bit broad and over the top a lot more than usual, which I think maybe lead the scenes to not having as much resonance with the inspiration points as they usually can. But it still made me laugh and was a fun time, and it seems good that maybe some comedy nerds will be hearing about Waxahatchee.
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The recent EP's were alright, but a lot of the instrumental stuff here sounds top notch and better than what came out after Surrounded By Silence. The first two vocal tracks from Rob Crow and Sam Dew really did not work for me. But the track with Busdriver was really good, I need to catch up with that guys stuff again. But yeah, I really haven't been into what's been coming out from Prefuse for a while, but a lot of this is soundin pretty nice to me right now.
Hearing Busdriver reminded me that it's been forever since I heard this
So this probably runs counter to what I was saying earlier, but a lot of these lyrics do come thru loud and clear for me. I mean, part of it is that they're very nonsensical and so following it from beginning to end and walking away with some sort of greater meaning doesn't really seem to be the point. A lot of it is dorky and I can see it being really off-putting for people, but it's so much fun and it's so great to hear Daedelus doing stuff that can serve as the backdrop for vocals, it operates a lot differently than the other stuff he was doing at the time. Tho this album is probably a bit too long, I dunno I feel like the ridiculousness of the lyrics wears out it's welcome a little bit. Barely Music is such a drastically different noisy thing that it still rules hard in spite of all that, or maybe because it's so noisy I can only understand maybe 3 words thru the whole thing.
Started reading some news from Adult Swim at the upfronts thing today and apparently they're doing a pilot with Matt Furie (creator of famous internet frog Pepe, also a genuinely great artist), so I'm all psyched on the possibility for that (also looks like they are going thru with the new Jon Glaser show yay), but that reminded me that I'm slacking on Ben Jones' (from Paper Rad) new show, Stone Quackers. I absolutely loved Problem Solverz so I should get on this so I'm gonna check that out. And OMG THE CATS NAME IS GOTHFIELD and it looks like a goth cat and I love this. And there's Lightning Bolt on the soundtrack, the colors are all really pretty and not as abrasively saturated as the older stuff (which was great, but change is cool), ppl who like cartoons should check this one out.
Hmm now what. Really wanted to listen to the new Leafcutter John album but it looks like it is delayed till next week. I think some video games are going down, and the soundtrack shall be
Powell's electronic dance music is aggressive, and sort of minimal in its sound palette, in theory. But in application, it's huge and maximal and full of energy. This is his singles collection from last year, his debut album should be out late this year or early next. I'm looking forward to it, dude seems to just keep getting better.
Now I'm browsing amazon and I see I can watch The Dead Zone. I've always been curious to see what Cronenberg adapting Stephen King would look like, so I think that's what I'm finishing the day up with before bed.
While showering I had Animal Collective - Today's Supernatural stuck in my head, so I think I'll listen to Centipede Hz soon. But first I saw the new episode of the podcast With Special Guest Lauren Lapkus (where the guest starts things off as a character hosting a fake program and she jumps in as the guest), the guest/host this week is Nick Kroll so I gotta get on that first.
I really like this album, I know everyone's like "wahh there's too much sound in this music" but idgaf. I say put more sounds in. But yeah it's really just a couple songs in the middle that I think are a lil iffy but then New Town Burnout comes in and it's all set right again. But yeah I'm on board for all this otherwise, a really nice album to get things started for the day too, pairs well with coffee/becoming more awake.
I was like "hmmm I wanna keep things going loud and energetic", which eventually led me to think "oh hey you haven't listened to melt banana in a while". If you haven't heard melt banana, they're like noise rock with tiny girl vocals, like perfect pussy are sort of the american indie rock version of them (but melt banana has been around for a while). They're good music to keep the morning rolling.
Hmm, actually feeling this one even less than his earlier one I listened to on Monday or whenever. Some of the instrumental bits sound good and all, but the vocals just don't work for me. I don't wanna shit on the guy cause his stuff sounds interesting, I think it's just not for me maybe.
Time for a classic. This mini-album is a weird outlier in KFW's discogs, he doesn't really have any material like it. It sort of has a really classy European prog rock type vibe to it, but also going to some far out processed bell + weird voice drones type of stuff and yeah I dunno, this is just one I've heard a million times and I wanted to spend some time somewhere familiar and awesome.
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Was feeling like getting a bit weird, checked which Xenakis was on Spotify and they had this one. I go back and forth on what my favorite Xenakis is, with this being one of the contenders. Just one huge 47 minute piece that starts with tiny high pitched synthetic noises, and gradually evolves into this giant beast of all sorts of scrapes and things. I love spending time in soundplaces like this.
Decided to keep the weird electronics going, with this album of previously unreleased live digital music from the early 80s. This is a bit friendlier space than the Xenakis. Still weird as hell. I dunno, I just find the whole weird mutating beast made of synth tones really compelling and comfortable enough to have alongside me while working.
Had my work meeting and heard a bunch of blah blah blah. So now more blah blah blah, goin for the other podcast from the Who Charted ppl, Two Charted. Except they had a guest host so he's here, and he was Harris Wittels' best friend, who was a brilliant comedian who passed away this year and so its getting kind of sad.
Here's one I picked up via Mutant Sounds a while back. I dunno how to talk about jazz with any intelligence, so I don't know how to explain why I prefer this so much more than something like the Kamasi Washington album I listened to earlier in the week. This is totally smooth and beautiful, but there's something below the surface that just feels a bit wilder. I guess maybe the melodic elements are bit more subdued and less friendly to people, I dunno. I think it's really great tho.
Keeping with the 70's, decided to move back to electronics with Oskar Sala. His stuff is crazy distinct, like his stuff just felt so immediate and easy to grasp, but so unlike anything else I've heard, both in the particulars of the timbre and the way the songs come together. If you are into the fringes of electronic music at all, or even just merely open to them, this is one you really must check out. If you need help finding it pm me.
One of the best noise acts. They don't want to deafen you or smother you, seemingly (I wasn't there so I dunno). But a lot of there stuff has struck me as being relatively quiet, and more focused on taking supposedly ugly sounds and building a world for them where they can be as compelling as supermodels. They're a pretty reliably good time for me.
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Somewhat recent discovery from the eai list I linked earlier. This woman is fucking incredible. This album has an orchestra and so theres lots of wonderfully beautiful string business, like these clouds of shifting notes that I guess can evoke an orchestra tuning up. But there is a definite sense of focus here. And also some contrast with some noisy business. But it's not like an aggressive sort of noise, I dunno I'm not smart enough to explain this one really but it is such a wonderful experience.
So I guess this is a neo-soul sort of thing? I saw some ppl getting rly hyped for this, so I decided to check it out in spite of the awful cover. It's a solid album tho. Some of the music can get a bit reminiscent of flying lotus/l.a. beat scene stuff, vocals are solid, the songs have a sort of restless inventiveness to them where they seem to constantly pulling out new flourishes. This is probably the thing I've listened to this week that would have the most chance of clicking with someone else, on average, I think.
This is some essential dancey post punk here. They've been sampled so much, from J Dilla to Liars to Return of the Mack. Because they are excellent. This one's on my overall, it was friday night and so time for some fun dancey stuff but with guitars and stuff.
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[url=http://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?a=45732]Galaxy Garden by Lone [/url
But then it's time to go really heavy on the electronic. This album sounds a lot like the cover to me, all heavy saturated pretty colors contrasting against black space. Just more fun dancey stuff, heavily listenable and the machine drum collab is so good.
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I really like this album but it doesn't seem to be catching with many people. I got excited a while back when I saw tinymixtapes was finally reviewing it 3 or 4 months after the fact, but then it turned out they were just trashing it. It had some halfway score but the review threw the thesaurus at it. Which I guess describes what they always do but I meant in the bad way. Whatever, they blew it on Rashad Becker too. I dunno, I think the steve reich-ish minimalism delivered with percussion heavy modern electronic sensibilities, and the awkwardness explored in all the really mechanical sounding bits is really special and something I can't find anywhere else.
Giuliano Sorgini - Elettroformule
Keith Fullerton Whitman has this bootleg cd-r reissue label called Creel Pone, that finds the really cool completely unavailable old electronic stuff and gets it out there. I've found a lot of favorites thru that (Jacques Lejeune and Josef Anton Riedl among others). And so it's been a really good resource for me, this is one I haven't heard before. It's like some library music thing, all these relatively short musical scenes, some ending quite abruptly. It seems like it was shooting for like people making horror stuff, theres some pretty easy to grasp lead melody type synth lines that read as "spooky". But then all around that there's all sorts of really cool stuff happening, and the last track goes all spastic. Yet again creel pone delivers the goods.
Decided to keep going with the weird electronics so turned to this classic of computer noise. I'm a big fan of Pita/Peter Rehberg (he's the "berg" in Fenn O'Berg). This album of his has always been my favorite of his solo stuff, and not just because of the amazing cover (the back cover is equally good). The compositions here are really varied, there's stuff that is really busy and full of noises, some stuff that gets overwhelmed in distorted reverbed to the extreme little droney melodies, and there's no dull patches, every track really goes for it.
Winding down now, some ambient from this year. This album is really gorgeous but there's a fair amount of distortion and otherwise degraded sound, and it is keeping me too connected to reality. I finish the album still awake.
So I turn to this super clean drone orgy. Just lots of really nice pitches mashing around in my brain, I made it a ways in, definitely remember hearing clouds as edges, but I'm out before it finishes.
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