Genre: Avant-Garde Metal
Sounds Like: middle-of-the-road free improvisation performance interrupted by the metal concert next door
First Listen: February 16, 2016
Current Rating: 5/10 Yearly Ranking: N/A
February 16, 2016
Gowi suggested this for the Album Listening Club, and I had the following to say. 5/10
Satie wrote:
I guess I should disclose a slight bias that I find very forward, announced attempts at synthesis of avant-garde music and genres like metal and prog to almost always be extremely eyeroll-worthy. I don't know what exactly puts me off about these syntheses, but maybe it has something to do with the feeling that musical technique is taking precedence over expression. It's the kind of thing where laypeople get the idea of putting the cart before the horse on other avant-garde music, thinking its rigor in some ways is a replacement for emotive connection across the board because of the incredible exhibitionism these bands have with their formalism.
I tried hard to not let such bias cloud how I approached this album, and my experience hasn't really devolved into the same kinds of feelings I got from (apparently very closely related act) Kayo Dot, so that's good. I definitely don't get Tool vibes from this, I guess I should say. But I still think that Ehnahre's stated goal of making me re-think extreme music or metal or whatever isn't really hitting home for me. What exactly do I need to be rethinking about extreme metal? Bands like Demilich who, granted, weren't as technically proficient or as forwardly academically-minded as Ehnahre apparently are, made a fucking incredible album with Nespithe, and they radically asserted the role of atonality in shaping extreme metal's sound without giving me a press release about that. Those kinds of organic evolutions that keep the source genre in place are more interesting to me than these kinds of things, I guess. I find a lot of the instrumental work in the more metal-oriented songs complicated but not particularly effective, often coming off as clumsy in context and failing to really capture a mood for me. It's the sort of dry group improvisation fostered by dexterity that ECM jazz suffers from in my mind, honestly. The vocals are also terrible, terrible, terrible - absolutely texture-less, effortless, and dull.
It's not all bad, though. The works that incorporate disjointed piano and acoustic guitar improvisation against a backdrop of light percussion work and scraping metal are far from original or fascinating, but they approach an atmosphere and bear a superficial resemblance to a lot of music I've been spending a lot of time with. In general, the more slow-building and airy works that make up large sections of the album are the best parts. The vocals are definitely kind of silly in context a lot of the time, but it's a risk I'm glad Ehnahre took. I'm unfamiliar with their other work, and I'm less familiar with the overall world of avant-garde metal, but it's the first time I've heard those kinds of vocals put into counterpoint with that kind of improvisation (I guess unless you count things like "Wounded One Blurred Among the Leaves," which vaguely resembles a subpar Keiji Haino vocal performance), and it occasionally produces interesting results, even if I don't see myself coming back to this. Honestly, if this were tidied up and condensed and a bit, I could see myself enjoying it more. As is, it's a bloated failed experiment, but a great ride to have taken all the same.
Genre: Industrial
Sounds Like: New World Order, Maurizio Bianchi
First Listen: February 19, 2016
Current Rating: 8/10 Yearly Ranking: 1
*Favorite First Listen - February*
February 21, 2016
Okay, I think I can be assed to actually give a fuller account of how I feel about this now after listening to it a couple more times. To catch us up again, Jónó Mí Ló, real name Jonathan Lockhart, has put out some of the most ambitious leftfield electronic mixtapes in the past few years, and he really caught my ear with End of Light #3 last year, which really pushed him to the forefront, in my eyes, of the apocalyptic noisy industrial sounds that are coming out lately. Lockhart's previous mix really upped the ante for longform, atmospheric pieces that don't really rely on much on dance music digressions at all. His music is unapologetically dense, introverted, and gradual.
Hymn of the Nephilim is among his latest releases, coming out in January of this year for Trust Magazine. It opens with some kind of sampled radio announcer that vaguely reminds me of Elysia Crampton's use of Spanish radio commentators and advertisements and FM radio tags to generate associations. Lockhart uses them more as a backdrop to slowly be phased out. The central uniting motif of the mix - if we can call it a motif and not a monolithic fucking force front and center - is a thick cloud of noise that's really reminiscent of Maurizio Bianchi's best works. Around this central plane, there is a revolving cast of very novel and gratifying textures. Skittering percussion that sounds like glass beads crossing across a metal floor, sine waves, static pops, and more aggressive percussion from things like helicopter blades are just a few of the sound sources Lockhart employs in the work. Far from being a progression in the traditional sense, Hymn of the Nephilim's structure tends to emphasize focus on the present moment. Any illusions of forward movement are more a result of time passed than themes unpacked. It results in a very dissociative listening experience given that a lot of the viscera that might be expected of noise or industrial music really only phases in to jolt the listener's sense of what exactly is going on. The lull of the static cloud in the center and occasional aberrations on its surface paradoxically make the work very accessible and tantalizing, if a bit inscrutable.
I'm curious if Lockhart intentionally summons visions of a specifically globalized "late capitalist" apocalypse in his music. It's perhaps a bit too tempting to link artists with provocative political imagery associated with their releases (gunshots, sickles and hammers on NON covers, etc.) to the present Moment as articulated in variously dire ways on the Internet by accelerationists, Dark Enlightenment folks, techno-libertarians, etc. I've so far departed from this kind of analysis in the case of NON and NON-affiliates, for example, because I think a general sheen of violent resistance is perhaps a bit too multi-directional to really package up nicely with my own vague impressions of where the zeitgeist is. This release is different, though. That might be because I know that Lockhart is intimately involved with (the founder of?) a Facebook group of which I'm a part that focuses extensively on sort of post-Jogging "alt right" imagery. The general sentiment seems to be a sort of tongue-in-cheek left accelerationism that falls somewhere between irony and sincerity when posting about Donald Trump-ian Juche or the reptilian origins of Hillary Clinton, inhabiting both modes at once in most cases, peeling back the layers of conspiracy theory to reveal a left critique and plan of action in a novel realm as simulated as the reality it references. Thus it's not a straight-ahead subversion of this very tenuous loose collection of "dark" signifiers, but it results in incredibly novel permutations thereof. This mix conjures images, for me, of the kind of New World Order that the far right and far left perceive with different amounts of nuance and creativity in opposing. This would make comparisons to Bianchi even more useful than mere surface-level aesthetic similarity. Bianchi, too, flirted a bit with fascist imagery in an expository way, perhaps most obviously on Symphony for a Genocide, which was pressed with visual and titular motifs relating to Nazi concentration camps. It seems that Lockhart's work exists in a similar space - toying with exposition of the Situation in ways that have dark resonances but as a result shimmer with a possibly revolutionary potential. It is a release to be revisited time and time again if you can manage. 8/10
February 20, 2016
There's a lot more to hear in this release, and I'm historically terrible at describing these kinds of things, so bear with me. Hymn of the Nephilim is the 2016 release for Trust Magazine from Jono Mi Lo (nee Jonathan Lockhart). Following up End of Light #3 from last year (as well as, most likely, several other releases I just haven't become aware of), Hymn of the Nephilim sees Lockhart exploring dense, interior soundscapes. Both releases have strong roots in industrial music, but the sound sensibilities seem much more textured and diverse and shouldn't be confused with the kind of foreboding industrial music that inspired rock spinoffs. A lot of the best qualities of this release are completely intangible, but I'm addicted to every second and have already heard it a couple times since last night. Definitely looking forward to unpacking this one a bit more in a more formal, written-out way, but for now, I'm just really enjoying it. 8/10
Genre: Downtempo/EDM
Sounds Like: Chillout Big Drop Electronica playlist on YouTube
First Listen: February 22, 2016
Current Rating: 4/10 Yearly Ranking: N/A
February 22, 2016
Another ALC pick. Wasn't feeling this one too well at all. 4/10
Satie wrote:
I like some of the bits here, particularly the openers of the first couple tracks and "Poppy," where they're utilizing nice frenetic beats to start up a cool song and stuff. But then there's these mindless detours into modern EDM cliches of warped voices blabbing into a drop that then morphs into that terrible new downtempo sound where it's like loungey? if that's how I can describe it? Idk, that stuff that would get called "electronica" in most circles. That chillout shit. I think there's plenty here that borrows from some more interesting branches of dance music, but the overall sheen comes off to me as repurposing stray bits of wonky or grime or trap into larger compositions that follow too many cliches for comfort. The best example of an absolute sin against good taste would be the closer of "Zatoichi" with its '90s soft jazz trip hop whatever the fuck sound that's just completely garish.
Ultimately, it's those regressive tendencies that make it come off as very amateurish and unappealing. I would never in a million years compare this to Future Brown's latest. Take it or leave it, that album wasn't ever sounding like a YouTube freestyle beat like this does on "Mr. Pill." There wasn't a straight up snoozer like "Hoisin" within miles. The grime influences ran deeper and their sound was always living up to their name even when their experiments failed. The latter half of this completely collapsed into nu-jazz downtempo wankery that fills up a lot of corners of Soundcloud before detouring back to standard EDM fare. Not feeling this at all. That bonus track is alright, though.
Genre: Glitch
Sounds Like: NON, Plunderphonics
First Listen: February 22, 2016
Current Rating: 6/10 Yearly Ranking: N/A
February 22, 2016
Another new NON release came out today from Isis Scott, a figure with whom I was previously unfamiliar. It's unfortunately too short to add to the database (hint: that link above under the album art will take you to the NON Bandcamp page), but it's a solid little EP. Isis Scott, according to the EP's page on Bandcamp, does both digital sound and visual art work and makes mixes through various conflicting influences. King Isis continues a lot of the NON motifs of loud, violent sounds like gunshots juxtaposed with isolated pop vocals (the most immediately recognizable being "Beautiful $ea'"s use of Rihanna's "Diamonds" vocal), but the manipulation takes a distinctly plunderphonics approach, departing from the label's tendency towards rearranging elements and fitting them together into beat-based alternate reality club music and focusing a lot on cutting up and rearranging samples as well as extensively treating and manipulating them. It's a lean release, clocking in at under ten minutes, so there isn't much to discuss. The first track is the most simple but the most gripping, and I would have liked to hear it expanded upon. That vocal sample (original recording? I didn't recognize it) is awesome. The aforementioned Rihanna mashup on "Beautiful $ea" is novel and enjoyable, continuing the recent trend of finding a voice of radical resistance in Rihanna's music that I've recognized becoming the norm in remixes of her songs since "Bitch Better Have My Money" but more likely than not predates it. "Thugs Love" is a slow burner that's honestly just much longer than it needs to be, and I was less impressed with it. It's a shame it takes up so much of the EP in my opinion. All in all, well worth the small time investment if you like this sort of thing and a nice sampler for an artist I'd love to keep watching but nothing that stands on its own as particularly revelatory or worthy of extensive revisiting. 6/10
Genre: Electropop
Sounds Like: trying out S&M and getting tied up in the wires, Product, McDonald's commercial
First Listen: February 25, 2016
Current Rating: 4/10 Yearly Ranking: N/A
February 25, 2016
Charli XCX's new EP Vroom Vroom has been sold as the outcome of her long-discussed collaborations with PC Music mainstays SOPHIE and Hannah Diamond. It seems in past weeks that the EP has taken on the larger form of being the manifesto/opening salvo of a new sub-label or something that Charli is putting together or at least the first of more future collaborations. The single of the same name leaked last year sometime and was a minor sensation amid the furor around SOPHIE's "debut album" (compilation of singles) Product. It's hard to discuss what I like and dislike about Vroom Vroom without putting it in the context of SOPHIE's other production work, and I'm unfamiliar with Charli XCX's other material, so I apologize if I lean on that angle a bit much, though I feel that can probably be forgiven given how openly and obviously she seems to just sublimate into the PC Music world on this one. Anyway, I'm one of those people who was really, really into SOPHIE and the whole PC Music thing very early on, and what drew me to the label was the incredible weirdness and novelty of the influences they incorporated into their music. Things like Radio Tank Mix from A. G. Cook continue to strike me as incredibly new, fresh sounds. SOPHIE's early songs "Bipp" and especially "Hard" were incredible forces of nature when they dropped, taking the wonky sound to unspoken heights. SOPHIE's mixes and club engagements were the work of a producer on the cutting edge. Well, the cutting edge minus A. G., the true genius (besides Diamond, to whom I'll return) of PC Music's early success. As conceptual blah blah blahing and thinkpiece slamming, from Garvey's yawns to Kretowicz's calls of appropriation, began to stuff more and more words into SOPHIE's pitched-up mouth, the music seemed to bow in turn. The resulting slew of singles leading up to Product were lukewarm at best and nauseating at worst, showing off more of a lack of engagement and the strong embrace of having A Sound than really pushing that Sound to new heights. Since then, SOPHIE's been throwing together random bass bass bass stab stab stab synth bits and then splashing some SOPHIE-isms in somewhere and calling it a day. That's the collaborator Charli XCX seems to have gotten.
And that's important, because Charli XCX's palpable talents (the vocal hooks here are incredible at times, and her performance surely doesn't falter) are wasted on an incredibly lazy producer. Capturing the mystique of SOPHIE's music, which two or three years after his debut has not evolved from ooo dark and spooky to ooo light and crispy to ooo weird and wiggly and back, is old hat as fuck. The whiplash that "Vroom Vroom" creates between two competent vocal and synth lines that have nothing to do with each other just being arranged as a verse and a chorus and a verse and a chorus for far too long until it ends is unbearable. But at least it's memorable. I've listened to this a couple times now, since it's short enough for that to be quite easy, and most of it just keeps rolling off my ears. There's nothing for it to stand on, not even the appearance of Diamond, whose arrival is signaled by synths that just remind me of how much better her singles are and how her debut album is probably the last thing of interest out of the increasingly self-parodying and navel-gazing PC Music aesthetic. Altogether, a somewhat trifling footnote on the careers of Diamond and Charli XCX and another nail in the coffin for a lost producer who's not as good at making stupid music seem smart as he thinks he is. 4/10
Genre: Cabaret
Sounds Like: traditional music from the Balkans, feverish Japanese circus-pop
First Listen: February 26, 2016
Current Rating: 7/10 Yearly Ranking: 6
February 26, 2016
Charan-Po-Rantan are an act that I've followed with varying diligence over the years, remarking every time I hear something from them at how much more I should listen to them. For those not in the know, Charan-Po-Rantan are the sister band of Momo and Koharu, two young Japanese women who specialize in synthesizing the traditional music of the Balkans and J-pop. Quick fiddle playing and brass band energy propel the music forward, up and down, and side to side, while Koharu's lovely accordion playing carries the show most of the time. I was first exposed to them through their collaboration with fellow Japanese Eastern bloc enthusiasts Cancan Balkan, Tada soredake from 2010. The energy of that record is frequently overwhelming, and the fact that the gimmick quickly faded of cosmopolitan Japanese people re-interpreting swinging music that oozes gypsy jazz, klezmer, and all those other bouncy, resilient folk musics of that part of the world.
Fast forward six years, and Charan-Po-Rantan are still at it. I'm sure if I listened to them as much as I threaten to that I might eventually have some work floating to the surface and others showing more flaws, but the very occasional revisiting that I do to this sound is always well-rewarded. On this latest effort, Onna no 46 Pun (Google translated as 46 Minutes of Woman? Maybe?), there is a definite further delving into the big top sounds that can sometimes get conjured by the stuff Charan-Po-Rantan plays with, and I'd go so far as to say that that cabaret sound is just the development this act could use in their music. There's even a more electronic experimentation a bit later in the album, where stabby synths and weird video game sound effects take us in a totally different direction. It's hard to articulate much about this music besides the surface level sheen, but if that's not bright enough for you, you're harder to impress than I. Lovely work from a consistent project worth your (and my) constant attention. 7/10
Genre: Sound Collage
Sounds Like: noisy, claustrophobic club; ambient grime
First Listen: February 29, 2016
Yearly Ranking: 5
February 29, 2016
In a year already chock full of some pretty awesome new mixes, Faithful (formerly Louis Faithful) has put out a new mixtape. I first heard Faithful's work during Christmastime 2014, when I dived headfirst into his Angel EP and what singles and mixtapes I could find on his Soundcloud. A complete revelation to me at the time, Faithful was creating absolutely massive atmospheres, working on the hardest edge of grime in a way I had no way of really articulating. The drop outs into various obscured pop moments, incredibly opaque compositions that seemed to work in a similar idiom to, say, Blasting Voice but not quite, and the overall brashness and sort of foreboding quality to the music had me completely sold. Over time, I've somewhat cooled on Faithful, occasionally revisiting those mixes that I fell in love with that Winter Break, but largely moving onto other realms with more continuous production. I never even checked out Vol. IV of this series when it dropped last year. But at some point along the way, I followed the guy on Twitter, and that's how I randomly stumbled across the release of this latest mix yesterday.
And what a good move. This is a development of what I remember from Faithful in an even more dark and abrasive direction. The first ten minutes are so scattershot, noisy, and overwhelming that I was downright confused by the mix for awhile. The way that music is incorporated into the mix is pretty interesting, as there's definitely a lot of layering and overloading going on throughout, this sort of constant, thick fog of lo-fi bursting speaker covers and digital artifacts and harsh textures, and the songs that are brought in go away as soon as they appear, sometimes never even really emerging to the surface of the mix before being violently drowned again by its creator. There's diversions into every which direction, with frequent almost-cameos by female rappers from across the spectrum (I recognized Katie Got Bandz as one of the most clearly accentuated talents; most others don't last on the mix for more than a few seconds), choral settings on keyboards, the opening breaks of songs that run the beat-driven genre gamut (grime, trap, and drill mostly), and more.
This is a complete mindfuck, and it's something that's going to take lots of time to really unpack or make any sense of, but I'm excited to feel continually challenged by the mixes I've been lucky enough to come upon this year. We're already two months into 2016, and we've got tons to show for it. 7/10
Genre: Trap Rap
Sounds Like: comfy in nautica
First Listen: March 9, 2016
Current Rating: 6/10 Yearly Ranking: N/A
March 13, 2016
I just realized that I checked this out the day that his actual first official mixtape came out, but this had been in my backlog for awhile and is really the perfect length for this kind of music. I'll check out the mixtape itself soon, but for now, I'm digging this. It's a nice ~20 minute slab of what Lil Yachty is about. For those not in the know, Lil Yachty has been making a splash on several of the usual suspect blogs like Noisey and FADER, the latest in a seemingly endless line of Atlanta trap rap crooners. He's hardly doing anything new or particularly novel, but the music is pretty forward about that and indulges its surface level sheen to excellent effect. It's really enjoyable stuff, with the fun that being an Internet sorta-star allows you to throw on a record, complete with Lil B "RARE!" label at the end of "Bitter Sweet'"s title on the tracklisting. Particularly on the first half, the boat (yachty) feeling really oozes forward, and it's hardly transformative, but it delivers a nice unity and reflects the lightness Yachty brings to a genre that can frequently descend into extreme excess and indulgence. Check it out if you want a nice light palette cleanser. 6/10
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