The Repo Zone: 1999

[Komorebi-D]

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AOTD 4: Timeless
File Under: 2018, Indie Punk


Future Me Hates Me by The Beths

I don't care when this came out. 1977. 1994. Yesterday. Today. It just doesn't matter. It's timeless. Good songs are good songs. And this would have been considered a near perfect slice of indie punk whenever it was released. Sometimes you just want to listen to a gem of a rock song. And this is full of them. And the lyrics are some of the most insightful and self aware that you will ever hear. In fact I'd challenge you to name another indie punk album with lyrics this good.

Highly Recommended!

Grade: B+

RIYL: Superchunk, The Hinds and other GREAT indie punk from 2018.

[dihansse]

[dihansse]

And if you want a tip on a very good new punk/powerpop album: the Canadian Steve Adamyk Band:

Paradise by Steve Adamyk Band

makes me want to listen to all their other previous albums as well: very infectious.

[Repo]

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AOTD 5: Malkmus Goes Backwards. In The Best Way Possible
File Under: 2019, Synth Punk


Groove Denied by Stephen Malkmus

What if Malkmus had gone in a different direction? What if he had never learned guitar? This sound like the sort of stuff Malkmus was doing at the time of Perfect Sound Forever/Westing Comp but if had been focused on synth-based punk like Gary Numan instead of The Fall & Swell Maps (& of course if it had been recorded on shitty, lo-fi equipment.)

It's yet another frustrating recognition that some people are just more talented than you and can excel artistically at whatever genre or even art form for they set their minds to. Total fuckers.

At any rate this is a perfect companion piece to the excellent Sparkle Hard. Recommended!

Grade: B

RIYL: DAF, Tubeway Army-era Gary Numan

[Repo]

AOTD 6: Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld: The Prequel
File Under: Ambient, 1979


Rainbow Dome Musick by Steve Hillage


Many years after this one-off ambient classic from 1979, hippie rocker Steve Hillage - originally a guitarist for 70's UK-French spacerock band Gong - staged a surprising comeback via dance music in the 90's and beyond. He collaborated with The Orb and also formed his own psychedelic techno dance and ambient outfit System 7 with long-time musical partner Miquette Giraudy.

The comeback was sparked by a chance meeting in the chillout space of a London nightclub in the late 1980's that has now entered rave legend. The Orb's Dr Alex Paterson was spinning sounds from an obscure Hillage album and was entirely unaware of Hillage's presence until he approached Paterson in the DJ booth. And that album was Rainbow Dome Musick (1979).

Rainbow Dome Musick is the fruits of a one-off ambient detour taken in the late 70's after he left Gong. Co-produced with Giraudy and containing two colourful side-long meditations in a quasi new age style, it's superior electro-acoustic ambience with a flowing, expansive quality and wave upon wave of celestial electronic sounds. Featured instruments include Hillage's distinctive "gliss" electric guitar, ARP synth, Tibetan bells and Moog synth. The music was originally commissioned for use in the "Rainbow Dome" at a 1979 Mind-Body-Spirit Festival in London.

Rainbow Dome Musick is, in a way, a real oddity because it doesn't fit with anything else that was happening in the UK music at the time. It's very different from the more austere ambient sounds of UK art rock as embodied by Brian Eno. The new age overtones are much closer to the then-young new age music scene that was stirring on America's west coast. Presumably Hillage got wind of this scene, either independently or via the organisers of the festival. At any rate, the album is a trippy classic and can claim to be a formative influence on the psychedelic chillout music that emerged from the early electronic dance music scene in England, Europe and America a decade later.

-ambientmusicguide


RIYL: The Orb

[Repo]

AOTD 7: THE Torch Singer
File Under: Vocal Jazz, 1950s


Black Coffee by Peggy Lee


Excellent early album of sultry, sizzling vocal jazz numbers from 1953. Upbeat & playful, it's the perfect album to throw on to get any pre-party started. Highly Recommended.

Grade: B+

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