Might as well

[Space-Dementia]

February 26, 2019
Superfly by Curtis Mayfield
For a movie that apparently glorifies the drugs and violence of the ghetto, its soundtrack really is pretty much the complete opposite. Mayfield sings passionately about the harsh reality of poor, inner city black America in the early 70s over soulful funk tracks whose rich production and string and brass arrangements make the whole thing sound huge and, sure enough, cinematic. And for a movie soundtrack, I was not at all expecting the music to be as consistent as it is. The album starts with three tight and catchy funk tracks that set the tone for a hot summer day in the city. Although the lyrics obviously deal with issues like drug-dealing and death, the music to back it up is anything but dismal. The bass and drums keep a very tight rhythm, allowing the higher-registering instruments, like the strings, brass, guitars, and vocals, to play off each other in a way that's really fun to follow, all while the bongos are going crazy in the background. After that we get a mostly instrumental break: "Junkie Chase" is a short instrumental that sounds just like what its title suggests it would sound like, and "Give Me Your Love" doesn't have much singing until the last minute or so, but it's a nice romantic break from all the action. You could call "Eddie You Should Know" filler, but it's catchy enough to stand on its own as a pretty good soul track. "No Thing On Me" is a beautiful celebration of a drug-free lifestyle, as Mayfield sings about his "natural high" over a satisfyingly simple funk pop song. Finally, after a pretty but forgettable scene-setting instrumental, we get the title track, a driving, funky, brassy, and extremely catchy song that would be really fun to have as your personal theme song. It's a great way to round out the album and end on a high note.
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These are my favorite albums right now.

[Space-Dementia]

March 20, 2019
I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You by Aretha Franklin
For an album of mostly covers and non-originals, it's incredible how much of a personal edge Aretha gives to each song. "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" and especially "Respect" are anthems for female empowerment, even though they were both written by men. She just has so much power in her voice that she gives each song an energy of its own, with the style ranging from samba to catchy soul pop to slow sensual blues. The songs themselves are pretty simple, so there's not much else I can say about this album, but it's just so pleasant to listen to that I'm kicking myself for not checking it out earlier.

Baduizm by Erykah Badu
The energy of this album is so subdued that it's easy to miss. Her voice doesn't immediately come off as anything particularly noteworthy as she softly croons her way through this relaxed atmosphere, but you listen again and you realize it's perfect. Sure, she doesn't really harmonize with herself the way other singers might, and she may not belt out really high notes or hold notes for really long, but her voice is everything these songs need and more. There's not much in terms of arrangements besides a funky bass track that goes perfectly together with the drums, a Rhodes keyboard coloring in the gaps, and maybe some really subtle strings or other synths, but anything else would be too much. The album has an incredibly relaxed energy, and so while there may not be any real memorable standout tracks, it's totally okay, because you can basically toss any of these songs on at any time and it'll make everything so much simpler.
On a side note, this album reminds me of Dummy by Portishead, but warmer.

When I Get Home by Solange
I love learning about the background of an album: who the artist was inspired by, who else worked on the album, how the previous album affected this one, etc. If I can get a picture of what was going on in the studio during the recording of the album, for some reason that just makes me appreciate and enjoy the music that much more: whether it's the whole late 60s NYC Andy Warhol Scene affecting The Velvet Underground and Nico; the back-and-forth inspiration between Brian Wilson and the Beatles in the mid 60s; Rivers Cuomo's whole mental journey before, during, and after the making of Pinkerton; the whole David Bowie / Brian Eno / Iggy Pop scene in the late 70s; the Soulquarians and their role in the late 90s early 00s neo-soul / jazz rap scene, etc. And I get the feeling that right now we're living in a second phase of that 90s R&B movement, except today's artists are going even further into experimental and abstract ideas. Frank Ocean's Blonde kinda seems to be at the center of it all, and then you have Kanye & Cudi, FKA Twigs, Earl, Tyler, Solange, Flying Lotus, D'Angelo, Blood Orange, and Playboi Carti putting out this weird experimental R&B/Rap thing and collaborating on everything, it's just wild. Anyway this album seems to be a huge step forward for the movement because it doesn't really make sense if you look at it as a pop album or an R&B album. It's the type of album that grabs you and puts you in a completely different world. It starts off a little confusing and off-putting with the first three songs and interlude transitioning into "Stay Flo" as the early peak. It's such a catchy instrumental and it leads right into "Dreams", which slows everything down for a couple minutes through a nice soulful ballad. The interludes definitely slow things down on this album, because I'm already talking about the 8th track but it feels like we're still just getting started. Anyway, tracks 9 to 11 serve as a nice transition into the next part of the album. They're among the best songs on the album, but they come together to form a nice bridge. "Almeda" is a memorable song with a great Carti feature, "Time (is)" is just really pleasing to listen to, and it's interesting to catch her off guard on "My Skin My Logo", where she starts laughing in the middle of a simple relaxed and (it sounds like) high as fuck verse hyping up Gucci Mane, before he returns the favor. The next four tracks after the intermission seem like a build up to "Sound of Rain", the centerpiece of the album, whose soaring synth lines work as a great finale to the whole journey, before the final two tracks bring you back to reality. Although at times it does just seem like a collection of ideas, I think it works because it's like she's showing us what goes through her mind with no filter. Some of these songs take such unexpected turns, but it all feels authentic. Nothing on here sounds like it doesn't belong. I think that's the sign of a great album, and When I Get Home is a great album.
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These are my favorite albums right now.

[Space-Dementia]

March 21, 2019
loop-finding-jazz-records by Jan Jelinek
The idea behind this album seems very similar to From here We Go Sublime by The Field, in that both albums consist of really short samples repeated over and over until they sound like their own song, and then with techno drums added overtop. The difference is that The Field's album worked really really well, and the whole thing is kind of a euphoric experience for me. Here, though, I still enjoy a lot of what I'm hearing on this album, but there's just too many tracks that either don't work or that go on too long. The first two songs, for example, are interesting mood-setters but never really pick up and take too long to wind down. However, after that Jelinek hits a three-song stretch of utter beauty. "They, Them" is a quirky and glitchy track that sounds reminiscent of Music Has the Right to Children, but a little more playful. "Them, Their" and "Tendency" are the two most complete songs on the album, and they're both so great, especially when the synth chord that's being held without change travels down a few steps, and then back up again. It's hard to describe but that just sounds so good. After that peak, though, the album goes downhill. It's like Jelinek can't decide whether he wants to make an ambient album or a techno album. It's somewhere in between Gas and The Field, but it's either ambient with too much going on or techno that acts too much as background music. And the glitch thing seems to be a quirk that's not really necessary. Sure, it adds some ambience, but if you're gonna go the glitch route, I'd rather hear something that's going all the way, like Sweet Trip's velocity : design : comfort or Fennesz's Endless Summer than this in between stuff. I guess that's the word I'd use to describe this album: inbetween. Sure, he succeeds on a few tracks, but for the most part it's lost in a state of inbetween.
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These are my favorite albums right now.

[Space-Dementia]

March 26, 2019
Al Green Gets Next To You
Having only heard "Let's Stay Together" before this, it's definitely more funky and guitar-centered than I was expecting, but not enough to where it's distracting. It just sounds like Al Green getting down rather than Al Green serenading you. There are serenades, though. "Tired of Being Alone" is a fantastic soul track, and there are other slower, more soulful numbers on here, but for the most part the album is full of Allman Brothers-type riffs and that classic 70s R&B brass. It does get pretty repetitive, which is why I usually move on to something else after "Tired of Being Alone" or "I'm a Ram", but it's a short album, so it's definitely worth checking out. I'll definitely be giving his next three albums after this one pretty soon, because I want more "Let's Stay Together"-type songs as soon as possible.
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These are my favorite albums right now.

[Space-Dementia]

March 27, 2019
Syro by Aphex Twin
I do agree with the general consensus that this record doesn't really break any new ground for Aphex Twin, but I honestly could care less, because this is exceptional stuff. He could just keep putting out albums like this every two years for the next twenty years and I'd be happy. It's just become so clear that he's miles above anyone else in his league when it comes to techno/ambient/breakbeat or whatever you want to call this style of music. It's honestly hard to talk about Syro, or anything else that sounds like this, because I just don't know what to mention. It's all so thought out and each new sound that floats into your ear is like a gift from Richard to you personally. One thing that I find interesting is that some of these songs would just sound like normal quasi-house songs if the chord progressions actually made sense and didn't include weird unexpected tritones. He makes it work so well, though. Songs like "minipops 67" and "produk 29" ride a very thin line between quirky, badass, creepy, and relaxing which really shouldn't make any sense but... well just listen to it. I feel like this is the type of album that just pisses off musicians in literally every genre because they hadn't thought of these ideas yet. "180db_" is such a simple song that should have been made 20 years before it was released, but somehow nobody thought of it. It's a busy album, with fast, staccato beats and tons of sounds layered on top of each other, but at the same time it's so relaxing. It's futuristic, but he also could have released it 15 years before he did and it would have made just as much sense, although I guess you could say that about all his albums. Basically, I need more music like this. This is art from another world that transcends category, time, and beauty. Aphex Twin is in his own universe.
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These are my favorite albums right now.

[Space-Dementia]

March 30, 2019
Orbital 2 by Orbital
This is what I imagine to be the pinnacle of pure techno. I'll take Aphex Twin and Gas's ambient techno any day, but this... Listen to those synths warp around your head while the bass drum pounds at your eardrums. It's loud and upbeat, but it's ethereal. This album is in its own world completely. And it's not just a collection of tracks either. I don't think I've ever heard an hour-plus-long album that goes by so quickly. The intro and outro set an uneasy and psychedelic mood, and then you're thrown right into it. "Planet of the Shapes" is a great opening song whose droning sitar and weird ambient noises envelop you in this mystic atmosphere that you'll be in for the next hour. The next three tracks basically build off one idea, adding and subtracting elements and transitioning into each other perfectly. And when the main 'thesis' of "Impact" comes in about a minute into the song, it's like the official opening to the album. It's a long track, clocking in at 10 minutes, but it's such a celebratory song that it's honestly okay, even if the length does slightly take away from the quality. After that, "Remind" brings us back into the weird, dark atmosphere we were in before, until "Walk Now..."'s synth line and "Monday's" low-key piano loop, both extremely repetitive and catchy, capture your energy, leading into the centerpiece and final statement of the album, "Halcyon and On and On", a trance-inspired techno track that honestly reminds me a bit of Sigur Ros and even Clams Casino. It's a perfect way to end the album. I need more trance and techno, asap.
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These are my favorite albums right now.

[Space-Dementia]

April 1, 2019
Samba Esquema Novo by Jorge Ben Jor
It's a pleasant listen, but honestly the whole time I was just wishing I could be hearing Joao Gilberto's vocals over it instead of Jorge Ben's. His voice sounds fine most of the time, but the little voice crack thing he does multiple times per song, along with the proto-Morissey wailing he closes a few tracks with both get a little annoying. While the songwriting is very simple, it can be fantastic at times, with "Mas, que Nada" becoming a samba standard, and a few other especially memorable songs, like "E so Sambar" and "A Tamba". Having never listened to Jorge Ben's music before, I'm glad I started here so I could see his growth as an artist, but I don't think I'll be returning to this album too often.
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These are my favorite albums right now.

[Space-Dementia]

April 16, 2019
Titanic Rising by Weyes Blood
I had meant to check out her last album, Front Row Seat to Earth back when it came out a few years ago, but I never got around to it. Now I'm mad I forgot about it, because this is terrific and I wish I had heard the other one for reference before getting to this one. It's a diverse but focused album that doesn't really break any new ground for the most part, but brings together a whole host of influences, both old and new, to create a record that takes the pleasant, easygoing route, but also steps up and takes unexpected turns once in a while.
The album starts off really great. The first two tracks are more successful than the next two, but all four bring together grandiose strings, patient pianos, relaxing slide guitar, and beautiful soft melodies over happy-sounding but constantly morphing chord progressions, and create a really great atmosphere that sounds like what Father John Misty was trying to do with his last three albums but more interesting, with Mitski's voice, and with the adventurousness of Julia Holter. Add George Harrison, Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys, and Joni Mitchell to the mix and that's more or less what the album sounds like to this point. The mood changes altogether as we reach the centerpiece of the album, though. The title track is a short instrumental interlude that leads into "Movies", a lush but minimalist track that places her voice, harmonizing with itself, over a soft, mysterious, arpeggiated synth that Black Holes & Revelations-era Muse would be jealous of. The tension builds and builds, until everything drops and some arpeggiated strings, along with a soft, building kick drum, take the place of the synths. The track continues to build until it ends, just like that. I sort of wish the climax was a little bigger and more intense, but that change-up halfway through the song is so satisfying that it makes up for it. The next three tracks more or less go back to the style of the first four songs, but they just don't hit as hard. "Wild Time" is about on level with the rest of the album, but "Mirror Forever" just doesn't really do anything for me, and "Picture Me Better" is pretty, but without any accompaniment besides an acoustic guitar for the most part, it gets a little slow. The album ends with another interlude, this one bringing back ideas from the the first track, "A Lot's Gonna Change", and it's a smart move because it really makes me want to go back and listen to it again. The tracklist overall is really smartly set up for this album: start off with probably the best song, very slightly decline in quality over three songs until an interlude leads into the other best song, a not-as-good song, a return to form, obligatory acoustic track, and interlude leading back into track 1. She clearly thought it out and it really shows how important a tracklist is to an album. If these songs were in a different order I might not like the album as much, but the way it's set up makes me just want to keep listening to it over and over, even if I don't love it as much as other albums that I listen to less. Either way, though, this is a great album that I'll certainly be listening to a lot this year and for years to come.
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These are my favorite albums right now.

[Space-Dementia]

April 21, 2019
Here Come the Warm Jets by Brian Eno
As a singer, Eno’s somewhere between Bowie and Byrne, but as a composer and producer he’s in his own field entirely. Sure, you can call it glam rock or whatever else you want to, but it’s pointless to try and narrow him down, because it seems like he just wants to leave the earth and create his own world. He would go on to do that two albums later, but this is such an interesting album because he’s right there. He’s right on the verge, but there’s still something holding him back. It’s not a bad thing though. In fact I think it’s more interesting this way, to have an album or two that show him right before he reaches peak Eno creativity, rather than just seeing him blast off right after leaving Roxy Music (that being said I haven’t listened to any Roxy Music or Taking Tiger Mountain, which he put out between this one and Another Green World, so I’ll be checking all that stuff out soon for sure).
Although it’s not his masterpiece, Here Comes the Warm Jets is incredibly inventive and experimental and takes so many turns that you would never expect it to take. Take the guitar solo on “Baby’s on Fire”, for example. Up until that point it’s a strange-sounding sound, mostly because of the vocals and production, that compositionally is pretty straightforward. And then the solo comes in and for like two minutes Fripp hammers nails into your eardrums from all different angles. I mean listen to that solo it’s so out of nowhere and it just keeps going for some reason. It’s amazing. Or take the weird noise break like a minute into “Blank Frank”. It literally just sounds like he’s jackhammering a guitar. And that song comes right after “On Some Faraway Beach”, a song that sounds exactly what the title suggests it would sound like. It’s actually a pretty good sign of what he would do with his next album, in that it’s a pretty ambient rock tune that sounds like its own world. And then he follows it up with “Blank Frank”. It’s hilarious. Or take that “Oh no” sample on “Dead Finks Don’t Talk”. It might be annoying the first few times you hear it but give it some time and you’ll be yelling along with it the entire song. And how about that ending! What is that? It’s like some weird glitch/IDM-type ambient thing, 20+ years before those things even existed. And then the next song sounds like if Syd Barrett-led Pink Floyd had access to synths back in 1967. Until, of course, there’s another weird outro, this time some weird scary glockenspiel ambient-theme or something that, again, leads right into the next song. And that song is the title track, which would fit perfectly on his next album and really shows the type of atmosphere he’s able to create. I haven’t even mentioned the first two songs, which are two of the album’s best, and most straightforward, but at this point just know that Brian Eno is a genius and this album is fantastic.

The Shape of Punk to Come by Refused
I don’t know enough hardcore punk to know whether this really was the shape of punk to come, but it’s definitely a tight-as-fuck metalcore album. What’s interesting is the music isn’t as bold as the title, but i don’t really see a problem with that. I did a little at first, but after a couple listens I’m fine with what they did musically with this album. Because they do experiment with electronics and jazz and although it feels gimmicky at times, it really is kind of absurd how naturally all the parts flow together. Some parts more than others — the techno outro on the first song just seems like they kinda had to shove it in your face that, yes, you are listening to techno on a hardcore punk album, but other times it’s so smooth, like all the jazz elements on “The Deadly Rhythm”, especially how suddenly they transition into full jazz mode randomly in the middle of the song. And besides the obvious experimentation, if you just look at the straightforward rock parts on their own, this is brilliantly composed punk music. Songs completely change halfway through, there’s polyrhythms everywhere, they transition between different dynamics perfectly, and they’re always extremely tight.
But, like, take the first minute and a half of “New Noise”. A cool riff played on the bass with a snare following along, it builds up until it sounds like it’s about to explode, but instead of exploding you get some weird ambient synth pad with these funky drums out of nowhere and all this time you’re sitting on the edge of your seat until, right after you’ve had enough of this weird shit, he goes “CAN I SCREAAAAM” and you’re right back into the punk rock you came for. Sure, these guys seem pretentious as fuck, from the album title to the stupid spoken word sections, but damn if they don’t back it up with some quality hardcore punk.
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These are my favorite albums right now.

[Space-Dementia]

April 22, 2019
Neu! '75 by Neu!
This is kind of what I was hoping their first album would sound like when I first checked it out a couple years back. While I like the debut and I enjoy it more every time I listen to it, it's honestly not the best introduction to Neu!, besides Hallogallo. The rest of the album is good, don't get me wrong, but the ambient tracks really throw you off when all you're expecting to hear is motorik beats and psychedelic proto-punk songs. Obviously I've come to appreciate the album a lot more, but this would have been a much better introduction to one of the fundamental krautrock bands. "Isi", "Hero", "E-Musik", and "After Eight"are terrific motorik songs with various warm and fuzzy sounds enveloping your head as the rhythm section pounds away, "See Land" is basically motorik but slowed down, and "Leb Wohl" sounds like you're laying by a pond wiithout a care in the world. The first album has higher peaks and really puts you in a completely different world, but '75 is Krautrock 101.

Jeopardy by The Sound
It starts off so strong, and then it all just falls flat in comparison. "I Can't Escape Myself" is an absolutely fantastic song that mixes the rhythm of Neu with a less emotional Joy Division to create a minimal, breathtaking post punk song that I could play on repeat and dance to for hours. After that, though, "Heartland" greets you with piercing synths that botch an otherwise good track, and that kinda sets the mood for the next several tracks that create a 20-minute lull right from the start of the album pretty much, which is never good. Although they sound like they want to combine Joy Division's dark atmosphere with Devo's quirky dance-ablity, they're not as clever as they think they are. The lyrics that I paid attention to are just so straightforward and cliche: "Who the hell makes those missiles?", "I miss the noise of life, the silence deafens me", etc. And musically, they just don't really bring anything new to the table at all. And if you're not bringing anything new to the table, your stuff better be really good, and their's just isn't. All this isn't to say I don't like the album. It'll get your foot tapping, and they clearly have potential, based on the brilliance of the first song, and they do bring out some interesting ideas in the last few songs, notably "Night Versus Day" and "Unwritten Law", but I just don't see why I should listen to Jeopardy when I could listen to Are We Not Men?, Unknown Pleasures, or Fear of Music instead.
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These are my favorite albums right now.