#dark psychedelic rap beat

[iamnotawomanimagod]

What did you think of Gag Order?

Oh god, I love it.

And, as per usual, when I love something, I write a damn essay about it. The shortest version: this is going to be my album of the year. I think it's Kesha's masterpiece.

It's definitely Kesha's most mature and vulnerable album yet. It reminds me a lot of If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power by Halsey, in that they both deal with a lot of reflection, confronting their self-loathing, finding faith. But while I think IICHLIWP is ultimately Halsey's story about finding faith in love and in themself, Gag Order is about Kesha seeking answers and surrendering to something else.

It's powerful, nameless - and hard to resist wanting to follow her when she cries out for it. Some might call it "god," but I think that, while she does name-drop some religious figures, she's not really talking about any specific religion or belief system.

But I also think this album is about Kesha struggling with the darker parts of herself. Rainbow and High Road were so much about finding peace and acceptance, forgiveness and redemption. Even when she explored darker topics or her trauma, it was couched in this (probably necessary) optimism and positivity that acted as a wall between the painful truth and our perception of her. Maybe even her perception of herself.

I don't think she was willing or ready, for whatever reason, to fully leave the "Tik Tok"/"Die Young"/"Blow" party-queen of the early 2010s behind. Both Rainbow and High Road have had multiple party anthems on them, even if they were more grown up and less focused on youthful recklessness than the songs on Animal and Cannibal.

But the closest thing Gag Order has to a party/dance anthem, the kind Kesha is most known for, is "Only Love Can Save Us Now." And while it starts with a really aggressive, thumping (fun!) beat and the verses feature that iconic Kesha kinda-rap (her words, not mine,) the chorus bursts out in this incredible, gospel-esque belting chant of Kesha begging god to save her. And the music shifts from a dance/club beat to an acoustic guitar and a gospel choir arrangement.

It's so powerful, and while I go nuts to it, it definitely is a far-cry from songs like "Die Young" and "Blah Blah Blah," or even "Woman" and "Tonight."

It's not a song about partying. It's a song about surrender.

The same themes are echoed in songs like "Eat the Acid" and "Something to Believe In." Kesha was reckoning with some dark shit, and she found herself seeking something more. I don't know if she always liked what she found, or enjoyed the process.

As a result, it's also definitely Kesha's saddest album. She's had one or two sad songs on every album ("The Harold Song," "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes," "Resentment," "Father Daughter Dance," etc) but this record has at least four, depending on how you interpret them.

"Too Far Gone," "The Drama," "Living in My Head," "Fine Line," and "All I Need Is You" are all pretty sad, definitely more slow-tempo and ballad-y. And "The Drama" is the only one that ends with any sort of tongue-in-cheek humor.

That protective armor, the silly party-queen persona, is almost non-existent on this album. And as a result, this is Kesha's best work yet.

And I love party-queen Kesha, don't get me wrong!! I've loved Kesha since the beginning, I never had a moment where I didn't. I talk a lot about Halsey being the artist that changed pop music for me, but Kesha came before. There's no world where I listen to Halsey without Kesha. (God, y'all, I think I'm realizing how much she means to me writing this, lmao.)

The hopeful songs are definitely there, like "Hate Me Harder," "Happy," and "Peace and Quiet." But even those have a melancholy to them.

Sonically it's also really different. Not just the instrumentation, although that's a big part of it. It's more trance-y, industrial, kind of psychedelic, and the vocals involve more chanting and repetition. She's also using her voice in a really cool way, often more like an instrument than just a way to convey the lyrics.

The vocalizations in "Peace & Quiet" and "Living in My Head" are really novel, and I've never really heard her sing like that before. She started out singing as a yodeler, and I think people always underestimate her voice. It's stronger and more interesting than ever on this record.

I also really liked how she used the repetition of "you don't wanna be changed like it changed me" as a rhythm element in "Eat the Acid."

This album is definitely a departure from anything she's ever done, and I think it's going to have a mixed reception as a result. "Only Love Can Save Us Now," the closest thing to a party song, is already quickly becoming the most popular one on the album. A lot of them haven't even cracked 1mill plays on Spotify yet. (I'll get them there by myself dammit.)

But, if you ask me, it's a no-skip album. I think Kesha's first.

This is so long, and although I could absolutely keep going, I'll stop now. But I'll go deeper into my album ranking/what I think of each song if anyone asks, haha.

But yeah. Go listen to Gag Order. Unless you don't wanna be changed like it changed me.

#gag order #kesha #only love can save us now #asks #anon #anons #I can never remember which I use lol

[sinceileftyoublog]

Roc Marciano & The Alchemist Live Preview: 11/23, Thalia Hall, Chicago

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Long Island rapper Roc Marciano and legendary producer The Alchemist have crossed paths many times, the former teaming up with the latter’s Gangrene for an EP in 2011 and featuring on tracks with like-minded MCs such as Action Bronson and Mobb Deep’s Prodigy. Finally, the two came together for a full-length album earlier this year, The Elephant Man’s Bones (ALC/Pimpire International). As prolific as Marciano has been over the past decade, and as inspired as The Alchemist’s recent work has been on albums with Freddie Gibbs, Armand Hammer, and Curren$y, The Elephant Man’s Bones feels like a career highlight for both.

From the get-go, you’re reminded that Marciano’s flow and voice are a perfect match for The Alchemist’s aesthetic. Marci’s confident, laid-back rhymes fit softly within The Alchemist’s menacing psychedelic shimmers, glassy chimes and foreboding bass on opener “Rubber Hand Grip”, lounge jazz piano and spoken and soulfully sung samples on “Deja Vu”, and boom bap snares and keyboards on “Quantum Leap”. As the album progresses, Marciano delivers some of his finest statements, making a case for the record’s minimalism on “Liquid Coke”: “Made some chicken off raps you thought was some chicken scratch,” he spits. The beat, incredibly, is comprised of just distorted strings, drums, and cymbals. Ice-T’s grim outro on “The Horns of Abraxas”, detailing finding dead bodies covered in maggots in a car trunk, nonetheless pales in comparison to Marciano’s telling of a similar story, one where he still finds time to slip in some namedropping: “I fantasize about a Fantacide / I'm standing over your dead parents fanning flies / The Porsche Panamera, it flies / I'm wearing Fear of God, but I don't even fear god / The cardiologist can't hear my heart / I'm dark / Did a lot of robberies in the Skylark / Left tire marks / All this ice, it don't hide my scars.”

As impressive as Marciano can be, The Alchemist also shows how much he has his feet under him as The Elephant Man’s Bones moves. “JJ Flash”’s beat is a perfect mix of vocal loops, pitter-patter drums, and noodling guitars. “Zig Zag Zig” features an ever-bragging Marciano interpolating Luther Vandross to detail his sexual prowess, but you’re too busy hypnotized by The Alchemist’s cascading piano lines to care too much. Overall, it doesn’t really matter who else is involved, as bleak as Boldy James’ or as absurd as Action Bronson’s verses may be on “Trillion Cut” and “Deja Vu”, respectively. The Elephant Man’s Bones is a record whose purpose is to show how good of a team make Roc Marciano and The Alchemist, and how they better each other.

Marciano and The Alchemist perform tonight at Thalia Hall with Boldy James. Tickets are still available as of time of publication (doors at 8:30 P.M., show at 9:30 P.M.). Go see the live performance of one of the best hip hop albums of the year!

#live picks #roc marciano #thalia hall #the elephant man's bones #the alchemist #roc marciano & the alchemist #gangrene #action bronson #mobb deep #prodigy #alc #pimpire international #freddie gibbs #armand hammer #curren$y #ice-t #luther vandross #boldy james

[indietapes]

Aggrasoppar - OMMACHEPANNEKÆK (Experimental)

🕑 2 min / Text: Adrian Release Date: 16/02/2024 I must admit that the rap punk was unknown to me until now, but it has definitely caught my attention thanks to this track. There's something very captivating about the experimental vocals it has to offer: 'OMMACHEPANNEKÆK' is the latest release by Aggrasoppar from the Faroe Islands, and their music is definitely anything but mainstream. It really manages to stand out with its dark and gloomy soundscape and features an echoing downtempo beat, adding a special psychedelic feel to the music. Even though I don't understand the language, I really like its pronunciation, especially in the spoken parts. Give it a listen! If you dig it, make sure to keep up with Aggrasoppar's new releases on Spotify. Stream: https://open.spotify.com/track/3AzGVzOFVKI2JB7JvRoeAM Follow: https://www.instagram.com/aedrasoppz ✔️ Available on our Indie Playlist on Spotify.

/via Musosoup #sustainablecurator

#Indie Rock #Aggrasoppar

[gerogerigaogaigar]

The Stooges - Fun House

These feral little guys were just not content with how noisy their debut was and had to get noisier. Fun House aims to capture the live energy in the studio and it seems to have worked. Every crunchy nasty sound is perfectly preserved and the songs can get rambly in a way that feels very much like a live performance. There's more psychedelic peeking in during those lengthy jams, but there's also some delightful saxophone there as if imitating old school rock and roll as a joke. I love manic, noisy music so naturally I love Fun House.

Missy Elliott - Supa Dupa Fly

Its true, Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott is in fact the bomb diggy. Her style of rapping is super casual and chill and it eases the transition from rapping to singing so well that you won't even notice it happening. Timbaland produces and he makes these groovy, psychedelic beats that match Missy's level of chill. But of course beneath the mellowness is a cool confidence. She isn't just here to be cool, she's also gonna let you know that she is top dog here. Both Missy and Timbaland had been around the music industry quite a bit before putting this record out and it shows. Most hip hop artists do not get this strong of a debut.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Axis: Bold As Love

What am I even supposed to say here? Axis: Bild As Love has some of the best guitarwork ever recorded. Obviously. Of course drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Noel Redding are no slouches either. The Jimi Hendrix Experience was an incredibly tight trio. Where their debut was very heavy and energetic, this album leans slower and melodic. The most well remembered songs being the flowing delicate Little Wing and the fuzzy spacey If Six Was Nine. Scolars have studied this album up and down to analyze all of Hendrix' technique. These scholars need to spend more time listening to genuine garbage ass music and gain an appreciation for the artists that can't play like Hendrix, but I digress. It's a really beautiful album.

Bruce Springsteen - Darkness On The Edge Of Town

Springsteen's last two albums had been full of epic swells and street opera stories. Darkness On The Edge Of Town humanizes those epics. He leans more towards hard rock and a less theatric sound. The songs feature more mature and more broken protagonists than on Born To Run. It's a reminder that for everyone that escapes there are many more that never get out of their dead end life and those people still are gonna lead fulfilling lives no matter what.

Neil Young - After The Gold Rush

So after the overwhelming success of Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere with Crazy Horse and Déjà Vu with Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young naturally Neil Young decided to ditch 90% of his band and literally record an album in his basement. The only member of crazy hotse he brought along was guitarist Nils Lofgren who he had playing piano. This disastrous series of self sabotaging antics naturally led to... uh wait this album is really fucking good? I guess Neil Young can just do whatever the fuck he wants. Actually doing a raw and stripped down album with little of the rock accompaniement of his previous album or the lushness of CSNY was a brilliant move. After The Gold Rush isn't heavy, but it isnt soft either. Its rough and emotional. In the case of Southern Man it is outright bitter and the only rock song pn the album. The rest is very much country folk music.

Erykah Badu - Baduizm

The jazz influence, her voice, the subtle reference to Willow Weep For Me tucked in Appletree. It's clear that Erukah Badu knew she had the energy of a modern Billie Holiday. Despite being a clear exanple of neo soul the amount of jazz on display makes me want to also consider this an example of vocal jazz. As a mix of both styles it is completely beautiful. Badu delicately croaks through each track. The vocals lack of smoothness makes them so incredible against the walking bass and smooth synths. A completely stunning debut for a consistently amazing artist.

David Bowie - Hunky Dory

Bowie is at his highest levels of camp on Hunky Dory. Songs like Oh! You Pretty Things, Andy Warhol, or Kooks are so goofy that the only way they work is when sung completely sincerely. The laid back glam hits a perfect spot alongside mild psychedelia where you have some solid Bowie artistry with fairly accessible songs. Lyrically its all over the place, but Life On Mars is probably one of his most lyrically sound pieces. Hunky Dory kinda sits in this liminal space where it doesn't sound like a lot of things that came before or after it, but you can see echoes in both directions. This is probably as much a symptom of being from 71 as from Bowie's artistic influence but it still stands as a unique piece of art.

#500 album gauntlet #the stooges #missy elliott #the jimi hendrix experience #bruce springsteen #neil young #erykah badu #david bowie

[soysaucevictim]

That there @thefreaklovesmusic is my music blog, for newer people.

Just felt like copying the genres info.

Personal Favorites:

big beat

breakcore

dark cabaret

death metal *

electro swing

funk

funk metal

funk rock

glitch hop

horrorcore *

industrial *

industrial metal *

industrial rock *

nerdcore

psychobilly

psytrance

shock rock

steampunk

tango

trip hop

turntablism

General:

alternative metal

alternative rock

anime

cover

disney

drum and bass

edm

electronic

folk

heavy metal

hip hop

hour mix

house

indie pop

indie rock

mashup

metal

musical

new wave

ost

pop

rap

rock

trance

vgm

Other:

a capella

acid crunk

alternative country

baroque pop

bellydance

bluegrass

blues

blues rock

breakbeat

chap hop

chiptune

classical

crunk rock

downtempo

dubstep

experimental

experimental metal

folk metal

folk rock

french house

glam rock

groove metal *

glam rock

grunge

halloween

hard rock

horror

horrorpunk

indonesian rock

jam band

mainstream hardcore

new wave

noise pop

nu metal *

post hardcore *

progressive house

prog rock

psychedelic rock

punk rock

rap metal

reggae

rnb

rockabilly

rock and roll

ska

southern rock

symphonic metal

thrash metal

trance metal

vocaloid

world

*Discretion advised.

[humanitea]

Musical Theme

For my themed playlist - I chose Growth. We all like to think that at one point or another in our lives, we have grown in some aspects be it mentally, physically, emotionally - we’ve all made some form of progress that has either pushed us forward slightly or significantly. My own growth has centered around gaining a sense of self; the initial loneliness, the risks, the confidence, the imposter syndrome, the realization, and the affirmation. 

After Dark - Mr.Kitty (Electronic)

For this song, I get a sort of haunting feel from it. The tempo consisted of simple composition with an echoing acoustic to convey a languid mood. The lyrics present a connection to another individual in a way that is distant and hesitant, longing to make a connection. Connecting to the world that feels so isolated from an individual when they’re thrust headfirst into it.

Freak Like Me - Halestorm (Rock)

Compared to the previous song, this is an energetic song that acts as a rally cry in a way. Any instance of the lead singer Lizy singing “You’re a freak like me” is paired with the guitar chiming in consonance to give the words more power. It is a call for acceptance for the strange and unusual parts of a person. 

Woman - Doja Cat (Rap/Hip-hop)

This song has a simple tempo that sounds alluring and seductive - however the lyrics convey a message of the acceptance of femininity and placing more importance on yourself especially if you're a woman. This song makes me feel like I can love myself and my identity because I know my worth.

Who Is She? - I Monster (Electronic)

Like all of the songs within this list, this song has a simple tempo but at one point divulges into a few measures of disjointed, dissonance of electrical noises that feels psychedelic in a way. I put this song in this playlist because it conveys the moments in growth where we fall back and feel a form of imposter syndrome. Who are we? Is what I’m doing my own actions or the actions of a persona that isn’t us? The song feels dizzy, disorganized, hazy of what there is to personhood.

From The Embers - AmaLee (Electronic)

This song begins with a haunting glide of instrumentals before embracing a slightly fast but sharp tempo that hooks the listener in before giving a “floating melody" to pair with the beat. The vocalist of the song is enhanced by the instrumentals in a consonance that presents a firm, confidence. Despite falling back, we can be assured that we’re making progress in our growth. 

Rhiannon - Fleetwood Mac (Country)

This is a personal song that presents my own growth. The song uses a steady melody between the guitar and keys in order to create a peaceful tune that lulls me and makes me feel most like myself and at peace.

#Youtube

[rcmndedlisten]

Like all music these days, there is an entire sea of new rap music being released to dive into on a pretty much near-daily basis. These pages can’t profess to going as deep as the diehards do on that scene, but where it does pay attention are the words of rhyme making their way up from the alternative underground scene as well as those big, artful blockbusters that etch new mile markers in its culture. Here’s 2022′s best moments in those corners of the game...

AKAI SOLO - Spirit Roaming [Backwoodz Studioz]

Spirit Roaming, AKAI SOLO’s first release in collaboration with Armand Hammer’s Backwoodz Studioz, may be the 27-year-old Brooklyn’s rhymer’s most audibly compelling yet. Across a spectrum of color-and-mood-immersed production by the likes of established progressive beatmakers Preservation, Animoss, Messiah Musik and August Fanon as well as those being discovered in Theravada, ibliss, WifiGawd, Roper Williams and JUNIE creates a complimentary canvas for AKAI’s think bubbles, wrapping deep processing in prose inside a steep haze and self-designed spiritual ladder hell bent on ascending.

Backxwash - HIS HAPPINESS SHALL COME FIRST EVEN THOUGH WE ARE SUFFERING [Self-released]

Backxwash’s 2020 breakthrough God Has Nothing To Do With This Leave Him Out Of It and last year’s I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND MY DRESSES heard the Montreal-by-way-of-Zambia noise rapper tearing through her skin and soul with her own process of faith, trauma, vice and addiction, all while unspooling her identity, and the trilogy’s conclusion, HIS HAPPINESS SHALL COME FIRST EVEN THOUGH WE ARE SUFFERING, goes an additional layer deep in her therapeutic catharsis by looking even further beyond her own timeline and understanding the plague of debts generationally burdened onto the individual by history with a siphoned rage.

billy woods - Aethiopes [Backwoodz Studios]

These days, listeners are probably more familiar with billy woods as one half of Armand Hammer, but Aethiopes, his latest solo effort recorded alongside underground producer Preservation, deservedly reaps what he began to sew a decade ago in NYC’s alternative rap scene with an even finer skill set in beautiful rhymes and progressive beat-making that’s nearly gothic in its darkness, creaking in with minimalist structure as well as global influences, all while woods sets scenes fictional yet blurred into past and present realities.

Earl Sweatshirt - SICK! [Tan Cressida / Columbia Records]

SICK! is another example of how when the rest of the world of rhyming goes left, Thebe Kgositsile is already swerving into the right lane. Comprised of 10 songs in just 24 minutes manifested during the lowest points of a global pandemic, going through the motions of grief and anxiety of it all are right in Sweatshirt’s wheelhouse, but the murkier, fragmented production that once tattered his prose behind a curtain on 2018′s Some Rap Songs or 2019′s EP Feet of Clay doesn’t need any outer coverage here.

ELUCID - I Told Bessie [Backwoodz Studioz]

I Told Bessie, the third solo effort from Armand Hammer’s other half, ELUCID, is a personal document from the NYC rapper inspired by his paternal grandmother and doubles as an origin story from the roots up. The listen positions ELUCID in a headier space as he shifts through timelines with a jazz-rock fusion in its beat production that forms more psychedelic orbs to project abstract memories into. billy woods and Pink Siifu are close to his back throughout, but its ELUCID cutting through the daze that gives us a clear portrait of the energy that’s surrounded him.

Kendrick Lamar - Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers [Aftermath / Interscope / pgLang / Top Dawg Entertainment]

Even at his messiest, Kendrick Lamar is still miles ahead of the rest in the rap game on Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. An introverted nightmare where he feeds into his inner villain’s origin story, his pain, shame, and everything in his life that’s trying to kill him, Lamar at his ugliest can’t stop the Compton rhymer from being even more agile in his flow with full-on art in its production as his prose teeters disjointed bouts of soul and funk that jostles the brain and always knows when to bring a moment back into a banger.

MAVI - Laughing so Hard, it Hurts [Self-released]

MAVI’s way of rhyme is a very insular one, but the way the Carolina rapper and neuroscience student projects his singular experience brings his corner of the underground into a scope as big as his life is getting itself on his sophomore effort, Laughing so Hard, it Hurts. His flow here moves over a masterclass cast in beat production rich with soulful, spliced woozy textures as he peers into balancing the struggle introspectively. He’s got a lot to say in figuring this life (and it’s “jokes”) out, and with that, we’re privy to be a part of that journey with him, cracks in the sidewalk, and all.

Pusha T - It’s Almost Dry [G.O.O.D. / Def Jam]

It’s no surprise that It’s Always Dry plays out like another master class from one of rap’s most gifted rhyme articulators who isn’t afraid to put his ugly side on full display. A certain someone’s shadow behind the boards looms, but its Pharrell’s light that shines most, and it’s here where It’s Almost Dry gets most of its veneer of experimental freshness within its air. Where there’s plenty of wealthy to brag of, there’s also been plenty of bullets dodged. A true villain never apologizes, however, and as long as he keeps danger at bay, we can expect to hear Pusha T staying hungrier than the rest.

Vince Staples - Ramona Park Broke My Heart [Blacksmith / Motown Records]

The passion of Vince Staples is even more illustrious on Ramona Park Broke My Heart, the counterpart to the Long Beach rapper’s excellent 2021 eponymous self-reflection, with beats shifting away from the overt rumination of last year’s Kenny Beats production in a more finessed sense despite working with a collective of names familiar and not in the studio. It complements the richness in Staples’ style as he continues letting his life story from the darkened street corners be seen out in the open.

Wicca Phase Springs Eternal - Full Moon Mystery Garden [Self-released]

Adam McIlwee has had a prolific run since putting behind his emo rock days as the vocalist of Tigers Jaw and forging ahead with his emo rap moniker Wicca Phase Springs Eternal, but his latest effort, Full Moon Mystery Garden, may be the most cohesive statement from the genre-transcending rhymer. The sprawling 23-track listen has no filler and features Wicca Phase’s GothBoiClique cohorts in one of their most collaborative visibilities and hears the beat behind his morbid flow at its most compellingly absorbing, layering accessible patterns in rap-pop and trap with shoegaze and experimental electronic flashes in the dark.

#best of 2022 #akai solo #backxwash #billy woods #earl sweatshirt #elucid #kendrick lamar #mavi #pusha t #vince staples #wicca phase springs eternal

[thebandcampdiaries]

Jake Haze has announced a new album: 1985

October 2022 - Rap artist Jake Haze is back on the scene with a brand new studio album titled 1985. The title of this release speaks loud and clear. There is definitely a retro twist to the sound of this release, especially when it comes to the warmth that fuels this incredibly varied release. Still, the album is not just a way to cash in on the popular nostalgia aesthetics. There is a lot of room for Jake to fuel new ideas and add some enticing vibes to his sound. Jake’s songwriting style is laced with personality and authenticity, bringing a lot of character to the table.

The album has 17 original songs, which is quite an amazing achievement in itself. These days, most artists only have the budget and the time to actually focus on one single at a time or an EP at most. A regular album has about ten songs on it, so it’s easy to see why Jake’s 17-song tour-de-force is so impressive! He wasn’t only committed to making each song the best it could possibly be. He also wanted to give the audience a really immersive listening experience overall. There is also room for a plethora of collaborations. Many of the songs have been featured, giving the album a more diverse sound. In hip-hop, it’s always a lot of fun to have other artists have their footprint on the music, bringing a whole new twist to the mix. The opening track, “PanAm Flights,” has a boom-bap type rhythm and a unique aesthetic reminiscent of groups such as Run The Jewel. The feature with DenvaRich is awesome as well, serving as a great introduction to the album. There are so many excellent tracks throughout this release, but “Imported Everything” is perhaps one of the most memorable and punchy songs on this release. The track features Jake alongside The CNDLLGHTS, and it offers a unique feel with some funk and soul influences in the instrumental. The lyrics are also very witty and unique, complementing the album’s concept and flow to perfection. The use of acoustic instruments, such as guitars, keys, and percussion, really add to the flow of the mix, lending it a very organic vibe. The album is full of surprises, including the song “Oh Lawd!” which is a truly massive collaboration featuring Jake alongside four other artists. This is definitely one of the most modern songs on this release. The drum sound is based on a simple yet incredibly big and deep drum machine pattern with a clap and a hat ruling over the arrangement. The ghostly vocal parts in the background offer a dark mood throughout the song, which is one of the album’s most interesting and unique-sounding tracks. The following song, “Ain’t The 1 (Steady Pimpin), takes a turn-around, going for a more traditional sound. It is always amazing to hear how many styles are so seamlessly blended together on this album as Jake Haze continues to push the limits and explore with every release. The song “Cholo” is a perfect example of how different styles can merge together so seamlessly. The guitar tone might be reminiscent of some psychedelic rock from the 70s. The wah-wah effect gives it a bit of a Hendrix vibe! However, the drum machine beat has a more crisp and contemporary tone. The vocals are well-placed, perfectly fitting the mood of this instrumental. “Run and Hide” even divers deeper into tropical lounge sounds, with a very smooth drum beat and some cool vocal harmonies in the background. The last track, “Now I Gotta Go,” features some charming vintage-inspired melodies, but it’s actually not the final song on the album since there is room for not one but two bonus tracks!

This album is highly recommended to fans of artists such as Mac Miller, Lloyd Banks, A Tribe Called Quest, Wu-Tang Clan, Lloyd Banks, or Kanye West, only to mention a few!

Find out more about Jake Haze, and listen to 1985, which is currently available on Spotify, as well as many other digital streaming services.

https://open.spotify.com/album/3a7R1Hfb8Cdb7x6OA5U88z?si=6MCGi5Y1Q_KCRUIDGRGm_A

[bluetapes]

NEW RELEASE

BLUE FORTY-FIVE: SOFT-BODIED HUMANS x SILVER PYRE x ABYSMAL GROWLS OF DESPAIR

It’s not an album. It’s a double EP. Following up the surprise critical hit that was Soft-Bodied Humans’ debut EP - Kaiju Kitala, a collaboration with Ugandan MC Swordman Kitala - are the next two instalments in a planned series. Like Kaiju Kitala, the new EPs – Silver Kaiju, a collaboration with art-pop auteur Silver Pyre; and Kaiju Growls, which features one-man extreme-metal army Abysmal Growls of Despair – use samples from vintage Japanese monster movies as the building blocks of a sort of abrasive, psychedelic not-quite grime. On the Silver Kaiju side of this tape, Silver Pyre sounds like a post-punk seer, propelled by sub-bass explosions and riding crests of synths, cruising through a cosmos of his own imagination and reporting in detail on the myriad truths he’s uncovered there. On the Kaiju Growls side, Abysmal Growl of Despair’s throat-singing incantations sound like he’s summoning smoke-wreathed Lovecraftian kaiju into being from a surreal dimension of weird gods. Neck-snapping beats and pulverising, searching drones create a musical space that sometimes verges on a sort of industrial doom-gqom. In this universe, nothing moves quite like it’s supposed to. Monsters might be real. They might be us. Praise for Soft-Bodied Humans “Samples of Japanese monster films and unmatchable lyrical prowess accompany infectiously energetic instrumentals.” – The Wire “Fuck-the-club up mid-00s grime riffs and late-00s dubstep kickdrums that gobble up all the air in the room” – The Quietus “Just like the kaiju that inspired them, these beats clang and scrape when they don’t rock the earth beneath their feet, blazing like towering infernos at the mercy of the gigantic beasts whose presence is clear in the snippets of newsreel that occasionally force their way through the maelstrom.” – Underscore Magazine “Wonky, acerbic, bass-heavy hip-hop” – Pan African Music “Kaiju Kitala is an impactful take on the 00s UK grime and bass sound which allows Swordman Kitala to introduce his flexing, argumentative flow in an appropriately gritty way. The splashy, fleshy, and full-body production, which partially lends Kitala his strength on this release, was bred and released by the capable bass-demon tamer Soft-Bodied Humans.” – I Thought I Heard A Sound “A gnarly volley of industrial grime rap infused with Japanese monster movie samples” – Boomkat Praise for Abysmal Growls of Despair “It’s immensely heavy - the level of distortion applied to the string instruments is extreme enough to vibrate buildings into dust despite how glacially slow the notes crawl forth. The vocals also give new meaning to the term ‘cavernous’.” - No Clean Singing “When one is at a loss for rational words to describe inner turmoil, music is often the most adequate outlet for expression. Hangsvart was diagnosed with schizophrenia a couple of years ago, and after having heard his diagnosis, he started to write poems and create songs to come to terms with his illness. Since 2013, Abysmal Growls of Despair has been his primary outlet for alleviating the negativity surrounding that diagnosis, through which he focuses on a mixture of funeral doom and dark ambient.” - Heathen Harvest “This is not happy music but it is magnificent.” - Merchants of Air “Abysmal Growls Of Despair dwell in a dimension that isn’t meant for the ‘average’ listener (or musician), but within their specific league, thy are winners! Consider it as a ‘me like’…” - Concrete Web “Pretty devastating.” - Doom Metal Heaven “I can’t find anything emotionally positive in this music.” - Monarch Magazine “With a name like ABYSMAL GROWLS OF DESPAIR you can bet your sweet ass that this isn’t going to be a hair band of any kind.” - Battle Helm

#silver pyre #abysmal growls of despair #soft-bodied humans #blue tapes #doom #grime #gqom #industrial #post-punk #art-pop #psychedelic music

[theeverlastingshade]

Favorite Albums of the 10s

25. Shaking the Habitual- The Knife

The Knife made a name for themselves with their third and most celebrated LP, Silent Shout, but it’s their fourth LP, StH, that pushed their idiosyncratic blend of electroacoustic synth-pop to the furthest, most far-flung places that they’ve gone yet. The record deals with a diverse range of topics from the surveillance state, to fracking, pollution, gender discrimination, and unchecked greed with colorful, ketamine-fused candy cotton synth work and ritualistic percussion. There are long passages of ambience like the menacing build of “A Cherry on Top” dispersed between roaring apocalyptic dance numbers like the astonishing industrial eruption “Full of Fire” and the electro-acoustic freak out “Without You My Life Would Be Boring”. With the exception of the mid-album ambient epic “Old Dreams Waiting to Be Realized” every song on StH justifies its length with consistently engrossing arrangements that sustain their momentum without compromising an ounce of their potency. Everything about the record lives up to its title, from its thematic ambitions, to the breadth of the sonics, pacing, and performances themselves. StH if the full manifestation of the darkness that was lurking beneath the surface of their music from as early as their breakout single “Heartbeats”, but thankfully the music never collapses under the weight of their thematic concerns. Their resilience remains inspiring all these years later, and if Karin and Olof never reunite for a fifth LP we couldn’t have asked for a better send off.

Essentials: “Full of Fire”, “A Tooth for an Eye”, “A Cherry on Top”

24. XXX- Danny Brown

Hip-hop grew to remarkable heights throughout the 10s, and yet there were few rappers that displayed the level of growth and consistency from record to record throughout this past decade quite like Danny Brown. The Detroit native spent the aughts hustling the mixtape circuit, finally catching a spark with 2010’s The Hybrid, his strong debut LP. But a year later Brown returned with his sophomore LP and magnum opus XXX, a twisted rap odyssey that ignited the blogs, and signaled that a new era of hip hop was beginning to emerge. XXX found Brown rapping over an assortment of wonky boom-bap instrumentals courtesy of Bruiser Brigade producer Skywalker that fused classic hip-hop, trap, baroque pop, and techno into shapes far more disorienting than the beats that the vast majority of his contemporaries were rapping over. While it was evident beforehand, XXX really cemented the notion that Brown could rap over anything. The beats here are generally extremely impressive, and there are plenty of singular stylistic touches like the slurring violin stabs of “Lie 4”, the menacing synth lurch of “Monopoly”, or the distorted brass loops of closer “30”, that really stand out, but the appeal is first and foremost Brown’s rapping. His voice alone is one of the most versatile and unpredictable instruments in hip-hop, but aside from his masterful vocal alteration, always perfectly synched to the tone of any given moment on any given song of his, he’s a naturally gifted writer, as thoughtful as he is straight up hilarious. Whether bragging about his destructive lifestyle (“Die Like a Rockstar”), describing how much he loves cunnilingus “I Will”, mourning the desolation around him “Party All the Time”, or reveling in his come-up “30”, Brown is a thoroughly engaging presence throughout the entire album. On XXX profanity and profundity march gleefully hand in hand with one another, casting Brown as one of the last decade’s most singular voices.

Essentials: “Die Like a Rockstar”, “Monopoly”, “30”

23. House of Sugar- Alex G

On Alex G’s latest LP, House of Sugar, his concoction of warm guitar pop and warped electronic production reached a new peak. The songs on HoS detail the misdeeds of various characters succumbing to their greed, and the vignettes that he paints are growing increasingly well-realized thanks to a continuously sharpening songwriting voice and a plethora of tasteful pitch-shifted vocals that help imbue his characters with color and personality. HoS opener “Walk Away” provides a reasonably sonic barometer for what’s to come before dropping us into a series of the most immediate pop songs that he’s ever penned. “Hope” and “Southern Sky” are nimble acoustic guitar pop songs that are almost disarming in their immediacy, and framed around references to the real life death of a friend of his due to opioids and a dream he had, respectively. By the time we reach acoustic guitar and sitar-drone of “Taking” the pitch-shifted vocals are at the forefront of the music and HoS shifts gears into its abstract middle section which owes a lot to the new-age beat deconstruction of avant-garde electronic producers, specifically Oneohtrix Point Never. On the instrumental “Sugar”, a sublime concoction of pitch-warped whispers, dissonant strings arpeggios, and creeping acoustic guitar plucks, HoS reaches the depths of its depravity. The next song, “In My Arms”, leads us to the suite of sublime acoustic reveries that close HoS, arguably peaking with the gorgeous acoustic love ballad “Cow”. The dramatic sonic left-turn that HoS takes midway through may leave some new listeners a little cold, but for most Alex G fans nothing about the eclecticism of HoS should come as a surprise. Nor should the overwhelming quality of the songs here. From Alex G’s debut, Race, in 2010 up through HoS, he released a remarkable catalog of some of the most eclectic, and vital indie rock of the century, and I have no reason to believe he won’t top HoS at some point.

Essentials: “Gretel”, “Sugar”, “Walk Away”

22. Sea When Absent- A Sunny Day in Glasgow

A Sunny Day in Glasgow may be one of the 21st century’s most underrated bands, but not even Pitchfork could resist the coveted BNM tag when it came time to review their fourth and strongest LP, Sea When Absent. Building off of their first three idiosyncratic LPs that superbly fused electronic pop with shoegaze and dream pop, A Sunny Day in Glasgow moved into decidedly more psychedelic territory with their fourth LP while still retaining the sharp melodic sensibility of those first three. Much of the shift is easy to credit to vocalist Jen Goma who joined the group on their third LP, Autumn Again, and here her soaring vocals deliver rich melodies that are more fleshed out and focused than anything on their past releases. SWA sidesteps the kaleidoscopic sprawl of their 22 song sophomore LP, Ashes Grammar, and instead delivers 11 tight, stargazing pop songs. Whereas on the prior records it more often than not felt like the band were throwing ideas at the wall to see what stuck (with primarily successful results) on SWA the band commit more thoroughly to their ideas, writing songs that are well within their wheelhouse but have never been so well-realized. “Byebye, Big Ocean (The End)” and “Boys Turn Into Girls (Initiation Rites)” erupt with a wall of dazzling distorted guitars that slowly build into engrossing melodic payoffs while “Never Nothing (It’s Alright (It’s Ok))” and “The Body, It Bends” are sublime, soft spoken breathers that put a premium on texture and melody, and are among A Sunny Day in Glasgow’s most impressive songs yet. Even seemingly inconsequential moments like the “Double Dutch” interlude positively radiant with melodic warmth and joyous energy. Their strain of sun-kissed, jubilant dream pop tonally stands in stark contrast to much of the pop that’s dominated the airwaves this past decade, but their temperament doesn’t sound naïve so much as defiant. They have yet to follow up SWA with another LP, and I can’t blame them if they feel like they’ve said everything that they have to say with SWA.

Essentials: “The Body, It Bends”, “Never Nothing (It’s Alright (It’s Ok))”, “Boys Turn Into Girls (Initiation Rites)”

21. Strange Mercy- St. Vincent

Annie Clark has spent the past decade releasing music under her St. Vincent moniker, collaborating with the likes of David Byrne, producing for Sleater-Kinney, and appearing on the sketch comedy Portlandia. Although she began her solo career in earnest with her strong 2008 debut, Marry Me, in 2011 Clark released Strange Mercy, her third, and strongest record to date. Produced by John Congleton, SM is a compelling fusion of art rock/and chamber pop that often lands with a jarring, visceral impact, but is still imbued with a sense of grace that heightens the sentiments of her bewitching songwriting. Her first two records showcased her singular voice and tastefully, ornate baroque arrangements, but on SM Clark begins to let loose and lean into her virtuosic guitar playing. Songs like “Cruel” and “Northern Light” are propelled by her nimble riffs caked in distortion while strings rise and fall in a satisfying sweep all around her triumphant vocals. “Surgeon” brings the pace down to a crawl and gets a tone of mileage out of sensuous synth arrangements as Clark sings softly of depression and carnal desire “Stay in just to get along/Turn off the TV, wade in bed/A blue and a red/A little something to get along” before the song erupts into a furious storm of guitar distortion. The balance between fury and serenity animate the record from start to finish, and Clark seamlessly toggles these impulses from start to finish. On the title track, over a lumbering tom/kick drum rhythm, the incessant ping of a synth, and bluesy guitar licks Clark brilliantly sums up the record’s theme with a scene of police brutality “If I ever meet that dirty policeman that roughed you up/No, I, I don’t know what” that depicts the contraction inherent in the way justice is carried out by police in the west, and the way those contradictions bleed through to our understanding of morality on the whole. SM is a record full of these sorts of messy contradictions, and the music constantly reflected that perpetual sense of disarray with songs as colorful and chaotic as they were controlled.

Essentials: “Northern Lights”, “Surgeon”, “Strange Mercy”

20. A Moon Shaped Pool- Radiohead

Radiohead’s eighth LP, 2011’s solid but unremarkable King of Limbs seemed to cement the notion that while Radiohead may not have another game changer left in them, they were probably weren’t ever going to make a bad record. And with all of their various solo pursuits it seemed plausible that we may never get another Radiohead record, as underwhelming as capping off a career as thrilling as theirs with KoL would have been. Thankfully things didn’t pan out that way, and in 2016 Radiohead released their ninth LP, A Moon Shaped Pool; the platonic ideal of a master stroke from a legacy act. The album is partially composed of older songs re-worked into new forms, such as the tense string onslaught of opener “Burn the Witch” while a few of the newer songs like the gorgeous, ambient “Daydreaming” are string-laden compositions that are as eerie as they are radiant. For a band that’s been prophesizing the increasingly dismal state of the world that we now find ourselves in for the past several decades, they sound increasingly comfortable with their position in the world, and there’s no question that they’re in full command of their craft here. The production is sublime throughout the entire record, with a sense of encroaching doom bubbling just beneath the surface juxtaposed against rich baroque instrumentation. AMSP is the Radiohead album most informed by Johnny Greenwood’s work scoring films like There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread, and as a result there’s a remarkable sense of immersion at work even for a Radiohead album.

So while there are some recognizable forms from records past, such as the brass-lead krautrock strut of “Ful Stop”, or the twitchy IDM drum work of “Identikit”, the spectral production heightens the potency of everything here. The compositions on AMSP are the most elegant, and nuanced of Radiohead’s to date, and Yorke’s voice continues to age superbly. Yorke’s lyrics touch on familiar topics, more relevant now than ever, such as climate change on “The Numbers” “The numbers don’t decide/The system is a lie/A river running dry/The wings of butterflies” the dangers of unchecked authority on “Burn the Witch” “Abandon all reason/Avoid all contact/Do not react/Shoot the messengers/This is a low-flying panic attack” and the broader, horrific realities of the world that we live in on “Ful Stop” “Why should I be good if you’re not?/This is a foul tasting medicine/A foul tasting medicine/To be trapped in your ful-stop”. What’s more unexpected are songs like the graceful string-led “Glass Eyes” and the devastating ambient closer “True Love Waits”, two songs that are poignant tributes to Yorke’s ex-wife, Rachel Owen, who passed away from cancer in late 2016. AMSP isn’t just a spectacular late-career gem that would make a superb swan song; it’s also the most human record that Radiohead have made yet.

Essentials: “True Love Waits”, “Daydreaming”, “Ful Stop”

19. Eye Contact- Gang Gang Dance

Few bands set the tone for the kind of cross-culture hybridization that would become the sonic norm for music throughout this decade quite like Gang Gang Dance. Throughout the early aughts they cut their teeth in the Brooklyn noise scene alongside bands like Animal Collective, Black Dice, and Exceptor blending noise, experimental rock, and worldbeat into blistering, unconventional shapes. As the years progressed Gang Gang Dance gradually began to open up their sound, folding elements of hip-hop, dance music, and psychedelic pop into a colorful concoction of rhythmically robust, delightfully manic pop music that was just as forward-thinking as it was infectious. The shift really began on their criminally underrated 2005 LP, God’s Money, but began notably on their terrific 2008 LP, Saint Dymphna. On the follow-up to SD, their remarkable fifth LP, Eye Contact, the sound of Gang Gang Dance crystallized into something more immediate and far-ranging than anything that they had done prior (or since so far). On EC, everything that the band had attempted throughout the course of their career (tribal rhythms, eastern melodies, shards of refracted noise) was gloriously combined into a hyper-saturated tapestry of progressive future pop. EC is the peak of Gang Gang Dance’s prior decade of sonic exploration, and nearly a decade later there’s still nothing that sounds anything like it.

Beginning with the astonishing slow-burn intro of “Glass Jar” that finds the band patiently building up what begins as a pent up ambient composition toward something more volatile that eventually rips open midway through, spilling into a calamitous, euphoric release into the song’s second half, EC is bursting with joyous energy and possibility. The melodies are some of the sharpest, and most direct that vocalist Lizzi Bougatsos has ever penned, providing a warm immediacy that cuts through even the most outre arrangements here, and they continually expand into shapes as the songs continue to progress. “Adult Goth” and “MindKilla” are bolstered considerably by Lizzi’s dynamic vocal performances, and the off-kilter, spellbinding synth arrangements of the band’s keyboardist Brian DeGraw, while “Romance Layers” provides an ideal mid-album psychedelic breather.. And on the album’s closer, “Thru and Thru”, the band deliver a send-off that succinctly sums up a prior decade’s worth of experimentation into a nearly six-minute song overflowing with eastern melodies, mesmerizing chants, and infectious tribal rhythms that congeal into a sound that couldn’t possibly be mistaken for anyone else. Although they’ve only graced us with the somewhat underwhelming 2018 record Kazuashita since, when Gang Gang Dance are firing on all cylinders, as they are on all of EC, there’s simply nothing like it.

Essentials: “Glass Jar”, “Adult Goth”, “Thru and Thru”

18. Shields- Grizzly Bear

Although the zeitgeist was already beginning to dramatically shift by the time that Grizzly Bear released their fourth LP, Shields, guaranteeing that it wouldn’t have the same immediate impact that they enjoyed with its predecessor, their 2009 breakout LP, Veckatimest, they still ended up releasing their magnum opus. Compared to Veckatimest’s approachable folk-pop leanings there are moments on Shields that sound downright prog, but the band never let these intricate baroque pop/psychedelic folk arrangements get away from themselves or compromise the remarkable melodic instincts that were undeniable on their terrific sophomore LP, Yellow House. The ten songs throughout Shields are perfectly paced, and there isn’t a single moment that overstays its welcome, but they each develop just as much as they need to. The band’s primary songwriters, Edward Droste and Daniel Rossen, were each peaking as singular songwriters in their own respective rights on Shields, and they both deliver a handful of the band’s strongest songs to date. Droste’s songs tend to creep in ethereal waltzes with delicate baroque instrumentation (“gun-shy”, “A Simple Answer”) unfolding patiently while sustaining a remarkable sense of tension while Rossen’s are jaunty folk rippers that unfurl in unpredictable, and thrilling cacophonies that still retain the grace that the ornate instrumentation demands (“Yet Again”, “Speak in Rounds”) but unfurl in far more complex structures than those on Veckatimest.

Grizzly Bear’s progression from Droste’s cozy lo-fi folk bedroom project to a knotty baroque folk juggernaut was one of the most quietly satisfying of any band from the past decade, and on Shields they hit a gorgeous peak. While Droste and Rossen had peaked as songwriters here, their contributions never overshadowed those of Chris Taylor or Chris Bear, and the chemistry on Shields is sharper than most bands ever come close to achieving. It’s easy to get lost admiring the sheer craft of their meticulous arrangements, crisp production, provoking but elusive songwriting, and the sharp interplay between Droste and Rossen each on their own individual merit, but on Shields everything that previously stood out about their artistry is amplified, and congealed in a way that’s approachable yet inimitable. On Shields Grizzly Bear umped the ante from Veckatimest on both fronts, and proved that they could grow more immediate and melodic while still dazzling with rich compositional complexity. Grizzly Bear followed it up with Painted Ruins in 2017, that while a perfectly good record in its own right is nowhere as cohesive, and most unfortunately, patient. And to be honest, I haven’t heard a baroque folk record released since Shields that’s as consistently engrossing, or one performed with such remarkable execution. Shields isn’t their most immediate, but it best distills their singular essence, and its generosity knows no bounds.

Essentials: “gun-shy”, “Yet Again”, “The Hunt”

17. The Money Store- Death Grips

Anyone from future generations looking to hear a band that’s most emblematic of the 10s as a full decade probably couldn’t do better than Death Grips. The trio consisting of vocalist MC Ride, keyboardist/producer Flatlander, and drummer Zach Hill released their abrasive Ex-military tape in 2011, and right out of the gates the trio had a fully-formed sound that plucked unapologetically from west coast hip-hop, industrial, hardcore, and noise. Although far from the first band to draw equally upon genres like these, Death Grips stood out immediately thanks in no small part to MC Ride, who has since proved to be one of the last decade’s most compelling frontmen. His lyrics are cryptic, and intelligent yet visceral, with a deceptively wry edge. Although there’s quite a bit of variety to his delivery, it’s always propelled forth with an overwhelming intensity that can take some time to become accustomed to. Ex-military was received rapturously by critics and bloggers, but as exciting as group like them may have seemed at the time it would have been hard to predict any kind of real longevity for them. And their unrelentingly antagonistic streak (leaking No Love Deep Web, putting a picture of Zach Hill’s dick on the cover of said album, skipping performances or just playing recorded music instead of performing, trolling fans, faking a breakup) would have decimated the momentum of almost any other band, but Death Grips feed on this sort of chaos like a troupe of anarchist vampires. Their arc from Ex-military to 2018’s Year of the Snitch is one of the most rewarding streaks of any act throughout the 10s, and while most of these records are great, there isn’t one that better distills their essence than their 2012 debut LP, The Money Store.

While Ex-military presented them as an admittedly idiosyncratic, yet undeniable product of their environment, TMS blew their sound wide open proving that they had range far beyond sounds of their native state. Right from the bass arpeggios that jolt opener “Get Got” to life, it’s clear the fidelity has improved considerably, but they haven’t compromised an ounce of their fury. This still scans as music custom-tailored for little other than violently thrashing your limbs, and little else from the past decade as been anywhere near as effective at distilling that aesthetic so neatly across the run of a single record. But on TMS Death Grips were still writing actual songs, with memorable hooks, sticky melodies, and conventional structures that served to heighten the potency of their tantrums. Songs like “I’ve Seen Footage” and “Hacker” are shocking for how immediate and unthreatening the band sound despite MC Ride’s sour bark, while songs like “The Fever (Aye Aye)” and “The Cage” showcase early peaks for Flatlander’s immaculate, and underrated synth work. MC Ride is at his best here, whether talking shit and espousing authenticity (“Hustle Bones”), calling out doubters (“Bitch Please”), or just railing against general conformity, he delivers 13 career defining performances in neat succession. Death Grips have continued to relentlessly experiment on all their subsequent records, and while some have come close to matching the excellence of TMS, they’ve all fallen short. Thankfully, the immense exhilaration and urgency of TMS sound more potent with each successive year that we inhibit this desolate hellscape.

Essentials: “I’ve Seen Footage”, “The Fever (Aye Aye)”, “Hacker”

16. Twin Fantasy (Face to Face)- Car Seat Headrest

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that a re-recording of a devastatingly personal LP that Will Toledo recorded at 19, with better production, stronger arrangements, and cleaner vocals, would end up being his best record to date. What was surprising was that he decided to return to the record of his that’s most important to him, and give it the sort of justice that it deserves after having developed into a far more adept talent in the years following its release. And although I’m sure some of those songs (if not all of them) were painful to revisit, the discipline and audacity paid off enormously. Twin Fantasy centers entirely around falling in love with another man at 19, and the arc of their relationship from mourning the distance between them on the opening song “My Boy (Twin Fantasy)” to the newfound acceptance of their relationship’s dissolution on closer “Twin Fantasy (Those Boys)”, detailing the highs and lows with unabashed sincerity. While the original still holds up fairly well, there’s no question that the re-arranging, cleaner vocals, and stronger fidelity overall just heightened the potency of what was already there without diminishing any aspect of the original record. Will’s cleverness, sense of humor, and dynamism as a bandleader elevate TF beyond a melancholic teen drama into a searing document of formative growth, demonstrating craft, ingenuity, and wisdom far beyond his years. More so than any other record released throughout the last decade, TF exemplifies just how potent indie rock still is.

This new version of TF is more of a “re-imagining” of the original record than anything else, and as such the thematic scope as it initially existed, along with the exact same track listing, is held perfectly intact. The record’s two epics, those being “Beach Life-In-Death” and “Famous Prophets (Stars)” are both even longer, and benefit more so than anything else here from their new arrangements. The fidelity has been cleaned up notably, but TF is still far from overproduced, and without any fuzz obscuring a lot of the detail you can hear just how crisp, and superbly layered these arrangements are. The new-wave outlier “Nervous Young Human” practically radiates with a newfound sheen, and is handedly the most radio-ready song the band have ever written, but it still folds seamlessly into the record’s mid-section between the anthemic, distortion-fueled peaks of “Sober to Death” and the record’s mid-album power-pop stunner, “Bodys”. Toledo’s drawing from a great deal here of different sub-genres here, and he manages to land on a remarkably uniform sound that belies the myriad of intricacies at work that prevent these compositions from being crushed underneath the weight of their own ambition. The album’s greatest achievement is how deftly Will manages to tell a story about the most profound event of his life coupled with music that’s as multi-faceted as the human experience being conveyed. TF may be proudly out of step with the current cultural zeitgeist from a sonic perspective, but the sentiments conveyed throughout are sublime missives from a distinctly millennial outlook. As far as concept albums about a single relationship are concerned, Toledo has set the bar this century with TF.

Essentials: “Famous Prophets (Stars)”, “Beach Life-In-Death”, “Bodys”

15. Modern Vampires of the City- Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend have come a long way from the indie afro-pop roots of their debut to their pastoral, jam band informed fourth LP, Father of the Bride, but on their third LP, Modern Vampires of the City the band refined their sound to a sublime strain of chamber music and art pop filled with Ezra Koenig’s strongest writing to date. Whereas their first two records were entirely produced by the band’s multi-instrumentalist and not-so-secret weapon Rostam Batmanliij, on MVotC Ariel Reitscheid, a producer known for working with acts like Charli XCX, Haim, Solange, etc joined the proceedings, and there’s a lighter feel to a lot of the arrangements, but everything has more dimension overall, and the low-end really pops on a lot of these in a way that it hadn’t really before. There are plenty of welcome production choices throughout, like the sprinkling of auto-tune on “Step”, or the blistering saxophone solo on “Worship You” that do a great deal to expand the parameters of the band’s sound without ever finding them really going out of their depth. Compared to their prior records there’s a fairly vast tonal gap on MVotC, with a heightened sense of existential dread and fixations on mortality, nostalgia, and faith. It’s weighty stuff without question, and the exceptional pacing goes a long towards helping evenly pack in the melancholic, languid compositions like “Everlasting Arms” and “Don’t Lie” with infectious up-tempo numbers like “Diane Young”, “Unbelievers”, and “Finger Back” that, while far from the best of what’s here are still as immediate as anything they’ve ever released and benefit from the same immaculate arrangement, production, and writing as everything else here even if they don’t break as much new ground. But the best of what’s here are without question among the best pop songs released so this far century.

Both opener “Obvious Bycycle” and “Step” are devastating looks at nostalgia that frame Ezra’s thoughtful character sketches in rich compositions that in the case of the former consist of soft wisps of grand piano, percussion that sounds like a stamp being punched, and surprisingly visceral bass, while in the case of the latter the band opt for gorgeous harpsichord arrangements, and a swaggering bassline. But “Hannah Hunt”, which is for the record the best VW song to date, is on another level entirely. It opens like the sun after the storm with field recording of a crowd of people clearing away for delicate grand piano and the gentle rumble of bass. Ezra sings of a relationship slowly starting to break apart as a couple travels the country together “A gardener told me some plants move/But I could not believe it/’Til me and Hannah Hunt/Saw crawling vines and weeping willows”. The song slowly builds into a rousing baroque pop crescendo over roaring keys as Ezra delivers one of his most devastating lines to date “If I can’t trust you then damn it Hannah/There’s no future, there’s no answer/Though we live on the US dollar/You and me we got our own sense of time”. Rostam left VW in 2016, and although their first record without him, the aforementioned 2019 comeback LP, FotB, his absence was sorely felt. On “Hudson” it almost sounds like Rostam is singing to Ezra, under that lens especially, it’s functions as a poignant, but fitting cap to VW’s first era. As great as FotB, Rostam’s 2017 debut Half-Light, and I Had a Dream That You Were Mine, his 2016 collaboration with Hamilton Leithauser of The Walkmen, I hope that MVotC isn’t the last time the two of them work on a full LP together.

Essentials: “Hannah Hunt”, “Step”, “Ya Hey”

14. Channel Orange- Frank Ocean

Few albums released throughout the last decade have brought about the sort of sweeping sea change that Frank Ocean’s sublime debut LP, Channel Orange, did. Ocean’s kaleidoscopic, self-released 2011 mixtape Nostalgia, Ultra established his artistry as something far beyond that of the go-to hook ghostwriter identity he cut his teeth establishing for himself. A year and a half later, amidst signing to Def Jam, collaborating extensively with Tyler, the Creator, Kanye West, and Jay-Z, and writing a now legendary tumblr post stating that his first love was for another man a few days before releasing his immensely anticipated debut LP, Frank Ocean released that album, and decided to call it Channel Orange. Like Ocean’s music itself, the narrative surrounding his ascension feels both timeless (moving to LA after Hurricane Katrina struck his hometown of New Orleans, ghostwriting and joining Tyler, the Creator’s hip-hop collective Odd Future before releasing his own music, which drew primarily from soul, classic r&b, and funk more than anything that was on the radio at the time) and modern (sampling extensively on N,U, having a few key co-signs that seemed to unlock all the right connections, leveraging the power of the internet along with the rest of Odd Future to build and sustain a fanbase) but none of it would matter if the music didn’t live up to the hype. But all of this is particularly interesting to consider when talking about CO, especially considering that it’s the best debut LP of the 10s, and an absolute master class in songwriting.

CO is a remarkably fully-formed debut LP that finds Ocean in complete control of his craft on all fronts. The instrumentation is a lush palette of analog keys, bass, and strings, and with the exception of a few fairly stripped down ballads, shows a keen command for maximalism that never sounds overwrought. Even a song like the colossal, mid-album change-up “Pyramids”, is saved from complete indulgence after the beat seamlessly shifts into a woozy down-tempo trap instrumental with plenty of space for Ocean’s falsetto to linger in. Ocean would shift gears dramatically with the 2016 visual album, Endless, and his second studio LP, Blonde, trading in the rich, dense analog soul and r&b for a minimal psychedelic soul sound. While the production on Blonde and Endless is more impressive than that of CO, neither record was quite able to match the lush immediacy that seemed to come to Ocean so naturally here. Ocean produced the record alongside the musicians Jonathon Ikpeazu, Malay, and Om’Mas Keith who all provided additional keys, drum programming, and/or guitars. Earl Sweatshirt, Tyler, the Creator, and Andre 3000 are the only guests that provide verses, and while each completely delivers, CO is Ocean’s record through and through. Regardless of whether Ocean is singing about the emptiness of privilege (“Super Rich Kids”), or depicting a tale of someone’s life falling apart due to crack addiction (“Crack Rock”) or delivering the closest thing he’ll likely ever come to a straight forward love song (“Thinkin’ Bout You”) his eye for detail, wit, intelligence, and empathy render the characters as rich, and multi-faceted regardless of what angle he’s coming at them from. The warmth and immediacy of the instrumentation and Ocean’s voice draws you in, but it’s the sheer strength of his songwriting that elevates CO from simply being another immensely promising debut to the classic that it is.

Essentials: “Crack Rock”, “Bad Religion”, “End / Golden Girl” ft. Tyler, the Creator

13. Sunbather- Deafheaven

Deafheaven were far from the first band to blend black metal, shoegaze, and post-rock, but on their stellar 2013 record Sunbather they distilled elements of these genres into a punishing, and breathtaking sound that’s unmistakably theirs. Their solid 2010 debut Roads to Judha showed tremendous promise, but their songwriting wasn’t on par with their ambitions yet. But on Sunbather, Deafheaven lived up to that early promise. Sunbather is primarily a blistering fusion of black metal drumming and shrieks engulfed in walls of shoegaze guitar that often give way to instrumental outros that shine with the radiance of Sigur Ros or Explosions in the Sky. George Clarke delivers the lyrics in an indecipherable shriek that either amplifies the intensity of the surrounding arrangements, or is used as a sublime juxtaposition to their fleeting moments of transcendent beauty. Sunbather is seven songs long, and superbly paced so that the band’s lengthier compositions are evenly split between songs that include a dreamy minimalist guitar/piano composition (“Irresistible”), a menacing baroque-noise march that congeals midway through into a jangly guitar conclusion (“Please Remember”), and an eerie collage of vocal samples and droning strings (“Windows”). This odd assortment of songs may seem random, but they do a nice job of breaking up the surrounding onslaught, and demonstrating the band’s range, while still adhering to the record’s searing aesthetic. It’s remarkably accessible music as far as metal is concerned, and if you can make it past the tone of Clarke’s voice there’s a lot to love about this album.

For all of Sunbather’s seemingly impenetrable harshness, there’s a great deal of beauty glistening just beneath the surface. On Sunbather, Deafheaven managed to strike a near perfect balance between beauty and chaos that, while greater heights were achieved later on, they never quite improved upon. The longer numbers here transition into moments of transcendent, cathartic beauty, and back into frenetic fury so subtly, and masterfully, that the juxtapositions quickly begin to seem less like extreme exercises in contrasting dynamics and tones so much as the fluid spectrum of Deafheaven’s multi-faceted artistry. And while the lyrics throughout Sunbather match the brutality of the corresponding arrangements, they also match their life-affirming, triumphant sense of urgency. Whether Clarke is reflecting on habitual patterns and habits that he just can’t shake “Lost in the patterns of youth/And the ghost of your aches comes back to haunt you/And the forging of change makes no difference” on “Vertigo” or ruing the alcoholism that he inherited from his father “In the hallways lit up brightly but couldn’t find myself/I laid drunk on the concrete on the day of your birth in celebration of all you were worth” on closer “The Pecan Tree”, his lyrics throughout Sunbather imbue his tortured yelps with a devastating poignancy rendered all the more morose by the band’s unflinching, formidable poise. It’s not hard to hear why Sunbather was the best reviewed album of 2013, and a game changer for black metal. Few records, metal or otherwise, have managed to convey such overwhelming emotional intensity through such ambitious composition. Its crushing beauty hasn’t lost an ounce of its potency in the years since.

Essentials: “Dream House”, “The Pecan Tree”, “Sunbather”

12. To Pimp a Butterfly- Kendrick Lamar

Kendrick Lamar caught the attention of the zeitgeist with his generation defining sophomore LP, Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City, but that record’s follow-up, To Pimp a Butterfly, cemented his status as one of the definitive musical auteurs of his generation. Whereas the former record was a gripping street epic that seamlessly tucked a coming of age story into the larger fabric of a blockbuster west coast hip-hop record, the latter record blew open the history of black music and wove together a tapestry of disparate styles that congealed to express a more multi-faceted look at the black experience. The beats are composed of live instrumentation courtesy of Terrance Martin, Kamasi Washington, Thundercat, and a plethora of the west coast jazz elite, and they span the likes of jazz, r&b, soul, and funk alongside instrumental hip-hop without showing the seams. The music runs the gamut from uplifting anthems (“Alright”) to bouts of unbridled fury (“The Blacker the Berry”), and everywhere in-between, but thanks to Kendrick’s deft pacing and execution nothing sounds out of place, and there’s no mistaking these songs for the work of anyone else through sheer scope alone. Kendrick’s writing and rapping had increased considerably since GKMC, but throughout TPaB he spends less time trying to prove what a capable rapper he is, and far more time using his ability to explore the nuances of systemic racial issues through the lens of a plethora of different characters. TPaB couldn’t have possibly sounded more out of step with the zeitgeist upon its release, but in venturing beyond what hip-hop in the mid 10s sounded like, and exploring perspectives beyond those of himself, he was able to tap into something far more universally human.

Throughout the course of TPaB Kendrick tackles a wide plethora of topics with music that’s matches the breadth and scope of his thematic ambitions. The g-funk strut “King Kunta” is one of the most immediate songs in his career, and he juxtaposes the song’s infectious backdrop against verses that evoke the resilience of Kunta Kinte in the novel Roots as a through line for the jarring shift he experienced throughout his come-up after growing up in poverty. “u?” brilliantly distills the sort of tragic survivor’s guilt that Kendrick experienced in the wake of his success watching so many of his friends continue to succumb to the perils of systemic racism through harsh free-jazz arrangements, while “i” gains power within the context of the record as an uplifting neo-soul anthem of self-love after the preceding storm has subsided. The uplifting anthem “Alright” has become a canonical protest song in the wake of civil unrest as a result of excessive police brutality while the finale, “Mortal Man”, begins with some of his strongest verses to date before transitioning into a fabricated interview with 2Pac. There’s an absurd amount to unpack within the songs on TPaB, but the album never buckles under the weight of its ambition, and delivers performances that are striking at every turn. Kendrick never shies away from depicting the devastating realities throughout the history of the black American experience, but he finds reasons to persist through these tribulations in the power of community, god, and love.

Essentials: “The Blacker the Berry”, “u”, “Wesley’s Theory” ft. George Clinton

11. Lonerism- Tame Impala

On Tame Impala’s debut, Innerspeaker, the band proved adept at piecing together the finest moments from their record collections into strange, idiosyncratic new shapes, but on their sublime sophomore LP, Lonerism, they began to push their sound into the present moment. The flanged guitars, shuffling drum rhythms, and frontman Kevin Parker’s Lennon-esque falsetto are a hallmarks of classic psychedelic rock, but the spellbinding synth textures, evocative samples, and cavernous production showcase a definitively 21st century sensibility. There was no mistaking them for a pure homage act on Lonerism. With the exception of piano on a few tracks courtesy of Jay Watson, and a spoken word interlude courtesy of Melody Prochet, Lonerism was written, recorded, and produced entirely by Kevin Parker, and it helped signal a major shift from bands being the dominant artistic vehicle in indie music to the solo artist taking up that mantle. Lonerism is a perfectly paced album, and aside from a few breathers, and a few epics, it almost plays like a greatest hits set. There were signs of the disco-prog synth act that Tame Imapa developed into on a few of Lonerism’s more immediate moments, but this is still thoroughly steeped in the lineage of psychedelic rock, acid rock, and blues rock. With Lonerism, Parker began to show signs of the poptimist that he was all along, but he hadn’t yet compromised the instrumental ingenuity that he’s capable of for a strong melody, and so here you get the best of both worlds; the band’s sharpest hooks and most adventurous production. Lonerism is where Tame Impala evolved from a promising project with immense potential into one of the defining musical acts of Parker’s generation.

Lonerism is a record that completely lives up to its title as a concept record about isolation. Every song here finds Parker grappling with some aspect of self-imposed isolation set against hazy, psychedelic pop/rock instrumentation. Some songs like, the disarmingly immediate “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” spells out his anguish explicitly, with a love interest that he keeps falling for against his best judgement, while “Endors Toi” finds Parker rejecting the hardships of reality for the bliss that’s only possible when you’re literally dreaming. The lyrics rarely go deep, but on a record like this they’re entirely beside the point. Thankfully Parker’s writing works superbly within the context of the concept without detracting from the instrumentation and production. Parker wrote a few strong hooks on IS, but they were the exception, not the norm. On Lonerism, Parker’s melodic intuition had fully blossomed, and the hooks on songs like “Elephant”, “Why Won’t She Talk to Me”, and “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” were more immediate, and more memorable than anything on the top 40 at the time. The songs on Lonerism are bursting with sonic personality; whether we’re talking about the euphoric streaks of synth that send “Apocalypse Dreams” into the stratosphere, the phaser-smeared guitars and immersive samples that bring “Sun’s Coming Down” to its triumphant finale, or the propulsive drum fllls that propel “Endors Toi”, Lonerism is the most sonically rich record that Parker has ever released. Parker would achieve more audacious and unexpected heights on his superb 2015 follow-up, Currents, but he has yet to top Lonerism’s consistency, and near perfect balance between studio experimentation and pure pop craftsmanship.

Essentials: “Nothing That Has Happened So Far Has Been Anything We Could Control”, “Sun’s Coming Up”, “Apocalypse Dreams”

10. Flower Boy- Tyler, the Creator

Flower Boy may not have come as a surprise to those who closely followed Tyler Okonoma’s progression from the lo-fi hardcore hip-hop days of Bastard and early Odd Future through his chaotic, candy-coated third LP, Cherry Bomb, but for the casual listener it may have seemed like an unthinkable evolution. And no one could have predicted its consistency. The signs of Tyler progressing into melodic, psych-leaning neo-soul were on the wall as early as his terrific 2013 record, Wolf, but on FB his melodic sensibilities, compositional chops, and an increasingly empathetic outward writing perspective all coalesced into an idiosyncratic tapestry of vibrant sound and color unlike any hip hop record ever recorded. It’s the first time that Tyler’s chops had fully caught up with his ambition, allowing him to completely deliver on the promise of a truly genre-adverse opus that Cherry Bomb merely hinted at. The lyrics are somber, and reflective, demonstrating Tyler’s newfound sense of maturity that would have been unthinkable throughout the early OF days. The sincerity and vulnerability of the lyrics go a long way towards heightening the potency of his vibrant, melodically rich compositions. FB capitalizes on all the strange contradictions that have always been inherent in his music, while removing the adolescent excess that have bogged down each prior release. The result is a highwater mark for what hip-hop and neo-soul can sound like unbridled with concern for what music should sound like. That attention to detail and unrelenting creative spirit are what helped propel FB into being the classic record that it ended up being.

Eschewing the lo-fi Neptunes meets MF DOOM beats of his past records, Tyler landed on a perfect blend of neo-soul synths, jazz strings/horns, and drums that split the difference between classic boom-bap and mid-10s trap for FB. The music is bright and vibrant, with a wealth of detail tucked within each mix that rewards multiple listens. There are songs that are completely in Tyler’s wheelhouse, like the frantic, mid-album trap cut “I Ain’t Got Time!”, and a few like the show-stopping psychedelic soul ballad, “Garden Shed”, that dramatically expand the parameters of his sound, but they all cohere together superbly into a fully-realized kaleidoscope of sound. Even the songs like “Pothole” and “November” that seem like more run of the mill Tyler cuts showcase a renewed sense of focus and tight production that belie their simple construction. FB is a record that’s focused on unrequited love, and while themes of abandonment, disillusionment with fame, growing pains, and insecurity emerge as on past records, the bulk of the action is focused on Tyler coming to terms with both his bisexuality and the anguish of a missed connection. Rarely does heartbreak sound so unflinchingly, thrillingly alive. True to form, the music is never mopey or saccharine, but it’s always brimming with the intensity of young love. FB is the record that Tyler has always set out to make, and while I’m sure he’ll top it at some point, it currently stands at the definitive realization of his singular vision.

Essentials: “911 / Mr. Lonely” ft. Frank Ocean & Stevey Lacy, “Garden Shed” ft. Estelle, “See You Again” ft. Kali Uchis

9. Until the Quiet Comes- Flying Lotus

After Steve Ellison, aka Flying Lotus, dropped his masterful third LP, Cosmogramma, it seemed like he could take his sound anywhere, but doubling down and improving on the maximalist excess of Cosmogramma would have proved a near impossible task. Thankfully, on his stellar follow-up LP, Until the Quiet Comes, FlyLo swung all the way in the opposite direction, and despite it being the flavor of the decade minimalism rarely ended up sounding better on any other artist. UtQC is a minimalist electronic jazz/instrumental hip hop record with dreamy meditative arrangements that belie their complexity at every turn. The album is a concept record that finds FlyLo exploring the realms of human consciousness coupled with ambitious arrangements and immersive production that complements his thematic ambitions perfectly. FlyLo is still making beats in a traditional sense, but the compositions on this LP are more rich and varied than the entire discography of most producers, and the music he draws from spans the likes of ambient, psychedelia, r&b, post-rock, progressive rock, and meditative astral jazz as much as his usual instrumental hip hop, IDM, and free jazz touchstones. And so while UtQC is more insular, less immediate, and more likely to necessitate multiple listens than any other record of his, it’s the best showcase of FlyLo’s versatility, melodic intuition, and use of texture.

The compositions are short and sweet, and barely last longer than it takes for FlyLo to introduce an idea, tweak it, thwart expectations, and move on. Like on Cosmogramma, UtQC incorporates live instrumentation weaved throughout various compositions (Thundercat’s bass playing was cemented as a staple element of FlyLo’s sound here) as well as vocal features from the likes of Thundercat, Thom Yorke, Laura Darlington, and Niki Randa. The features are all utilized tastefully, and heighten the potency of the existing arrangements without detracting too much. There are songs like “All In” and “Yesterday/Corded” that just feature FlyLo alone constructing remarkable, lived-in soundscapes from his usual toolkit of drum machines, samplers, sequencers, and keys, while others like the title track and “DMT Song” that commit thoroughly to their minimalism, and coast effortlessly around strong melodies or guest vocal performances. Many of these songs retain the visceral low-end and celestial sweep of his best work, but they don’t serve to overwhelm and disorient as much as they sedate and mesmerize. “Getting There” hits the sweet spot, with and infectious, heavy-hitting low-end juxtaposed against Niki Randa’s sweeping falsetto. UtQC may not go for the jugular as FlyLo’s prior two records, but it’s just as captivating in its own quietly confident way.

And a few of the songs on the back half of the record are some of the most gorgeous that FlyLo has ever composed. The loose and dreamy “Only if You Wanna” provides a simple but sublime bridge from the drum and bass rush of “The Nightcrawler” into the droning r&b mirage with Yorke’s vocals wafting eerily through the crevices in the mix. From there the record moves into “Hunger” and “Phantasm”, two songs that skew the closest that FlyLo has ever veered toward straight up ambience, and they slowly unfurl into gorgeous, unpredictable string progressions as Niki Randa and Laura Darlington deliver understated, ethereal vocals, respectively. From there we’re led into “me Yesterday//Corded”, one of the strongest songs that FlyLo has released to date. It begins in the same somber, minor-key tone of the preceding songs before erupting into a cosmic drum and bass coda with a euphoric melody and pitch-shifted vocals. The final song, “Dream to Me” is a whirring synth and woodwind lullaby that brings everything full circle, leading us right back into the intro, “All In”. UtQC breezes by in nearly 47 minutes, but there’s another singular, self-contained universe of detail packed into this record’s spellbinding grooves.

Essentials: “yesterday//Corded”, “Electric Candyman ft. Thom Yorke”, “All In”

8. Carrie & Lowell- Sufjan Stevens

By the time that Sufjan Stevens released Carrie & Lowell he had already released several classic records and had undergone several stylistic change-ups, but nothing in his discography established the precedent for a masterwork quite like C&L. On C&L Sufjan returned to the sparse chamber folk sound of his superb fourth record, Seven Swans, but he replaced the short vignettes and character studies that peppered that record with an engrossing scope that centers around his tumultuous relationship with his late mother who suffered from substance addiction and schizophrenia. The music is hushed, and minimal, consisting of little more than finger plucked guitar, banjo, ukulele, and an assortment of strings underneath Sufjan’s tender delivery. His music has always radiated a sense of overwhelming empathy, and so when plumbing the depths of his psyche for memories of his mother the tone is often devastating and cathartic in equal measure, but never overly morose or self-pitying. With C&L Sufjan succeeded in honoring his mother’s memory as honestly and as faithfully as he could while his songwriting hit a new peak.

C&L sustains an almost overwhelming poignancy throughout its duration, but it’s never a slog. The heaviness of the sentiments never really subsides, but these songs are each filled with strong hooks, sweeping melodies, and a disarming directness that he’s never quite managed on prior records. Songs like the opening cut “Death with Dignity”, “Should Have Known Better”, and “The Only Thing” soar with warm, infectious hooks and nimble guitar arrangements alongside a few electronic and orchestral embellishments, while songs like “No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross” and “Fourth of July” bring the tempo to a crawl and bask in Sufjan’s falsetto and minor-key acoustic guitar arrangements. It all comes to a head on the devastating centerpiece “No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross”, as Sufjan depicts the self-destructive behavior he engaged in right after his mother’s death “There’s blood on that blade/Fuck me, I’m falling apart/My assassin/Like Casper the ghost/There’s no shade in the shadow of the cross” just so that he could feel closer to her.

Essentials: “No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross”, “Death with Dignity”, “The Only Thing”

7. Some Rap Songs- Earl Sweatshirt

Earl Sweatshirt was arguably the greatest living rapper before dropping his magnum opus, Some Rap Songs, but since its release it’s become much harder to dispute. On SRS Earl runs through 15 songs in 22 minutes, delivering sometimes little more than a hook and a verse per song before transitioning into the next one. The songs operate according to their own logic, and forgo traditional song structure for a loop-based compositional approach. Earl produced the bulk of the record himself, and heavily opted for dusty, de-tuned pianos, shuffling, lo-fi percussion, and a plethora of discordant texture. Earl’s precision is remarkable, and what may initially scan as awkward or clumsy flows slowly reveal themselves to be masterfully sidestepping the rhythms entirely. But for all its challenging aspects, SRS is hardly a precious, posturing sort of record. It demands your full attention, but will reward it several times over.

The songs throughout SRS are bleak missives from a remarkable talent unpacking years of trauma. The record tackles many of the same themes of abandonment, drug abuse, and depression as his past records, but he’s cut out any lingering excess in his prose, distilling only what’s absolutely necessary into each bar. The rapping is lean, and virtuosic, but never showy, and the brevity of the songs themselves is indicative of how succinct and substantial the music there is. Songs like “Red Water” have just a single couplet that he repeats a few times as the ebb and flow of the instrumental sustains the onset momentum, while other songs like “The Mint” are closer to convention, but still unfold along unpredictable loops, and verses that zig zag in and out of the mix at irregular intervals. There are songs like “Cold Summers” and “The Bends” that are the closest that Earl comes to rapping accessibly, and there are those like “Playing Possums” and Peanuts" that owe more to tape loops, ambient, and noise music than anything resembling hip hop. SRS and it’s follow-up EP, Feet of Clay, are easily the most challenging, experimental, and divisive records that Earl has released to date, but they’re also singular masterworks that push hip hop into stranger, and more human realms.

Essentials: “Peanut”, “The Mint” ft. Navy Blue, “December 24”

6. New Bermuda- Deafheaven

After releasing their superb second LP, Sunbather, Deafheaven had become one of the most acclaimed metal bands of the century, and had achieved a level of popularity unprecedented for metal bands. Never mistaken by anyone as purists, Deafheaven began their career flirting with through lines between shoegaze, black metal, and post-rock before tastefully combining them on Sunbather. While they easily could have churned out another LP of post-rock/blackgaze of the same stripe, the band went deeper and darker, and re-emerged with their third LP, New Bermuda, the heaviest, and arguably most melodic, record of their career to date. Across five songs that collectively clock in around 46 minutes Deafheaven continue to expand their parameters of their sound, incorporating heavier tremelo guitars, incendiary blast beats, and sweeping post-rock passages that are more adventurous, expansive, and gorgeous, than what any other bands are doing today. NB may lean the furthest towards the brutality of classic black metal, but the band’s 2015 onslaught still amplifies an immense feeling of transcendence alongside the terror.

Opener “Brought to the Water” rustles to life with the ominous sway of church bells before its lead guitar riff kicks into gear, foreshadowing the premium they place on atmosphere with foreboding timbres. Throughout the next several minutes the band continue to build a scorched earth black metal composition bristling with distortion and rapid fire drumming that eventually slyly segues into a sugary breakdown reminiscent of “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer. It’s disarming, and unprecedented, but a perfectly logical evolution of their sound that reaffirms their status as the most versatile band at the vanguard of contemporary black metal. “Luna” and “Come Back” are two of the heaviest songs that Deafheaven have ever released, and get a ton of mileage out of their seismic guitar riffs and pummeling percussion, while “Luna” boasts one of the loveliest melodies they’ve ever penned, gliding alone a star-dusted, stratosphere-bound guitar riff. Closer “Gifts for the Earth” is a succinct culmination of the preceding 38 minutes, capped off with their most cathartic coda to date with jangly guitar and minor key piano softly swirling around Clarke’s feral shrieks. The warmth exuded beneath Clarke’s shrapnel-laced delivery posits Deafheaven as a band executing well-beyond the scope and limitations of metal.

Essentials: “Gifts for the Earth”, “Brought to the Water”, “Luna”

5. Halcyon Digest- Deerhunter

By the time that Deerhunter geared up to record their fifth LP, Halycon Digest, they already had a rich body of work behind them, but very little of their music set the kind of precedent for where they would go on HD. Here, Deerhunter tapered down their most avant-garde impulses in favor of cleaner guitar arrangements and big, bright melodies, unearthing the pop band they’ve always been at their core with poise and aplomb. The walls of guitar noise, ambient interludes, and studio effects that had defined their previous releases became relegated to marginal aspects of their song craft, and they began opening up their songs like never before. Thankfully, they didn’t dilute their sound, they just cleaned it up, and the 11 songs that make up HD are the most immediate, and richly produced (thanks to Ben Allen, who produced this record after nailing Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion a year prior) of Deerhunter’s career to date. Deerhunter’s shift towards accessibility only seemed to accentuate their inherent strangeness, and HD remains one of the most engaging and endlessly replayable indie pop records of the 21st century.

From the droning low-end thump that ignites opener “Earthquake” it’s clear something substantial has shifted. Allen’s biggest contribution was a heightened low-end that caused Josh Fauver’s bass to really pop without distracting too much from the rest of the arrangements. This extra oomph propels songs like “Don’t Cry” and “Coronado” well into infectious, anthemic territory while it helps ground more ambitious cuts like “Helicopter” and “Desire Lanes”. Frontman Bradford Cox had completely grown into his role as a charismatic, provocative frontman with the pipes and poetic disposition to back up the antics, and propel his band towards a stadium sized sound even if they would never end up touring them. Bradford’s vocal melodies on closer “…He Would Have Laughed” and centerpiece “Helicopter” are the strongest that the band ever penned, while he delivers two of his most impressive vocal performances on the lulling “Sailing” and the pensive “Earthquake”. The closer, a tribute to the late Jay Reatard, is perhaps Deerhunter’s finest moment to date, with Bradford spinning surreal couplets “I live on a farm, yeah/I never lived on a farm” around the band’s steady harpsichord pulse until the composition bursts with euphoria, and then slowly begins to fade out before cutting out abruptly. Deerhunter have never made a bad record, but HD was the last time they showed how simultaneously adventurous and immediate pop music can be.

Essentials: “He Would Have Laughed”, “Helicopter”, “Desire Lanes”

4. Black Messiah- D’Angelo & The Vanguard

In the years following D'Angelo’s spectacular second LP, Voodoo, it seemed increasingly likely that he would never release another record. But then in the twilight days of 2014 D'Angelo surprise dropped his 3rd and best LP to date, Black Messiah, with a new band supporting him called The Vanguard (which consisted of Questlove on drums, Pina Palladino on bass, Isaiah Sharkey on guitar, Roy Hargrove on horns, and a handful of other musicians). BM eschews the warm r&b/neo-soul solo singer-songwriter sound of the first two D'Angelo LPs in favor of a fiery cocktail of avant-garde soul, jazz funk, and psychedelic r&b that’s simultaneously more abrasive and experimental than anything he had done prior. D'Angelo still has a remarkably agile falsetto, but it’s been notably weathered by the years away, and it now has a grainier disposition that happens to be a much better fit for the songs throughout the record. The band’s chemistry is just remarkable, and it’s hard to believe that they weren’t all cutting records with each other for decades prior. Unlike most artists that come back with new work after a notable dry spell, D'Angelo has never sounded more human than he does on this latest LP of his. Thankfully, despite the years apart D’Angelo hasn’t lost an ounce of his remarkable talent, and brings a magnetic charisma, sublime range, and a much sharper point of view to songs that reflect the turmoil of the preceding years of unrelenting police violence, yet respond in a multitude of ways. The Vanguard prove to be an ideal backdrop for D’Angelo’s songwriting, and together they achieve a new standard for neo-soul.

Although it had been 14 years, D'Angelo’s return felt right on time in the immediate wake of the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and plenty of others at the hands of the police. While D'Angelo’s music has never shied away from political statements, BM is by far the most explicitly political record of his career. “1000 Deaths” opens to a sample of a Khalid Abdul Muhammed speech about Jesus being black and quickly gives way to a visceral, funk rock rhythm and red-lining guitars with D'Angelo dissecting the difference between courage and cowardice “Because a coward dies a thousand times/But a soldier just dies once”. On the following track, “The Charade”, D'Angelo opts for searing soul that builds into his most anthemic melody to date while he delivers devastating imagery of the cruelty still inflicted on black people all over the world “All we wanted was a chance to talk/‘Stead we only got outlined in chalk” while “'Til It’s Done” contains D'Angelo’s finest melody to date and finds him questioning the nature of our existence and whether we’re really reckoning with the way that capitalists are destroying our planet “Perilous dissidence evening up the score/Do we even know what we’re fighting for?”. He also delivers some of his best love songs to date, including the funky mid-tempo shuffle of “Sugah Daddy”, the tender soul ballad “Betray My Heart”, and the spellbinding centerpiece “Really Love”. These songs fold neatly within the larger fabric of the record as a whole, and complement the politically charged songs without breaking the greater aesthetic. D'Angelo’s conviction is palpable throughout it all, and the newfound wisdom that he accrued in the years since Voodoo enrich the perspective that he brings to the songs in such a generous, humble way. Even if D’Angelo never releases another record we couldn’t have asked for a better swan song from him.

Essentials: “’Til It’s Done”, “The Charade”, “Really Love”

3. MBV- My Bloody Valentine

Like D'Angelo, it didn’t seem likely that My Bloody Valentine would ever follow-up their masterful second LP, but 22 years after the release of Loveless, in the dead of February 2013, MBV, the third My Bloody Valentine, finally emerged. There are 9 songs here, and they can neatly divided into three sections that find the band progressing from an extension of what they were doing in the 90s to styles never associated with them. MBV picks up right where Loveless left off, beginning with expansive suite of shoegaze songs rendered with the kind of sublime texture and tone as we’ve come to expect from the group, and slowly but surely they branch out into psychedelic pop, ambient, and pure noise, realms they’ve teased in the past but have never quite committed to prior. You can hear the band straining against their limitations, and although seeking out perfection is a fools errand, they nearly achieve it.

There’s no mistaking MBV as the work of any other band, but here they’re painting in darker, bolder hues than they’ve used in the past. Beginning with the opening song, “She Found Now”, their sound is much richer, and more forlorn, than it’s ever sounded, with thick plumes of guitar washing over wispy androgynous vocals and faint, skeletal percussion. Even as the tempos increase and the melodies begin to peak out beneath the fuzz, that wistful, melancholic tone remains. “Only Tomorrow” amps up the tempo with a driving rhythm and scorching guitars perpetually firing into the red

while “In Another Way” is a bludgeoning slice of driving noise pop with a strong melody from guitarist Belinda Butcher. “Nothing Is” coasts off the hypnotic repetition of its bludgeoning guitars for 3.5 minutes, and perfectly segues into the glorious noise piece, “Wonder 2”, which closes the record on a note of whirring guitars that approximate the overwhelming euphoria of first wave shoegaze, but takes the listener to much stranger places.

The nine songs throughout MBV strike a perfect balance between updating the shoegaze style that they perfected on loveless while wading into new territory, but it all hangs together beautifully. Kevin Shields and Belinda Butcher still harmonize on the bulk of these songs, and they’re ethereal delivery is still the perfect counterbalance for the aggression of the guitars. The searing slow-burn of “Who Sees You” is the peak of their vocal interplay, while on the midsection pop numbers like “New You” and “In Another Way” Butcher takes the reins and delivers two of the band’s strongest melodies to date over driving percussion and sleigh bells. The relative immediacy of “New You” is new sound for the band, and they completely deliver on its hypnotic pop premise. “Is This and Yes” and “Nothing Is” are the two instrumentals at the polar ends of the band’s sound that perfectly balance out the more dynamic songs, and the aforementioned noise piece “Wonder 2” complements the opening song “She Found Now” perfectly in that it’s an exploration of what My Bloody Valentine might explore more of if they ever release a fourth LP. It’s a miracle that MBV even exists in the first place, so the fact that it’s this good is just icing.

Essentials: “Only Tomorrow”, “New You”, “In Another Way”

2. Blonde- Frank Ocean

After releasing his generation defining 2012 debut Channel Orange, it was hard to say where he was going to take his music next. A cryptic series of videos in mid-August 2016 featuring Frank building a ladder led to few clues, but at the end of this week we received an audio-visual album titled Endless. Before anyone could really acclimate themselves to sleek, genre-agnostic minimalism of Endless, the proper follow-up to CO, titled Blonde, released a day later. Whereas CO was the sound of a singular talent discovering what he can do, Blonde is the sound of that talent capitalizing on those gifts with unparalleled precision. On Blonde Frank opts for a striking minimalist palette of psychedelic pop, avant-garde soul, ambient, and jazz, that are off-kilter and adventurous without sacrificing the warmth of his past work. Like CO, Blonde primarily explores themes of nostalgia, heartbreak, identify, and the nature of human perception, and here his eye for detail and attention to detail remains unmatched by any songwriter of the last decade.

From the opening song “Nikes”, Blonde presents itself as a drastic stylist departure from what Frank was doing prior. The first half is a distorted r&b dreamscape with Frank crooning in a pitch-shifted higher register, and actually has him rapping a few verses, before returning to his normal register. Blonde is filled with strange, yet tasteful stylistic touches like this, from the distorted shrieks at the end of “Ivy”, to the collapsing, pitch-shifted orchestra that gives way to an eerie children’s choir’s on “Pretty Sweet”, the album rarely shifts into anything that scans as conventional. “Pink and White” is the most straight forward moment on the album, but the verses rarely stay grounded, and soon give way to a soaring chorus that slyly tucks Beyonce’s voice into the fold before the instruments dissolve from the mix entirely. “Skyline To” and “Godspeed” flirt with ambience and put a great deal of emphasis on exploring texture and negative space, while “Close to You” is a brief, glitchy cover of Stevie Wonder’s classic that provides a terrific segue from the “Facebook Story” interlude into the record’s devastating centerpiece, White Ferrari. The record covers a remarkable amount of ground sonically, but it coheres in a way that completely belies this scope.

“Nikes” sets the tone for the record on the whole as Frank watches his friends lose themselves to the spoils of his fame and begins to recognize himself as a placeholder for a partner’s lost love. “Self-Control” depicts the story of one of Frank’s relationship’s imploding “I’ll be the boyfriend in your set dreams tonight/Noses on a rail, little virgin wears the white” set to a mesmerizing neo-soul slow-burn that unfurls a gorgeous, understated melody while “Nights” juxtaposes the highs of the come-up “Oooh nani nani/This feel like a Quaalude” with a guitar pop/boom-bap instrumental and the perils of fame with a woozy, cloud-rap adjacent second half “Shut the fuck up I don’t want to hear your conversation/Rollin” marijuana that’s a cheap vacation". The record hits its peak with the spectacular ballad, “White Ferrari”, the strongest song of his career to date. Over warm acoustic guitar provided by Alex G Frank details the permanence of the love that he’ll have for someone that he’s no longer in a relationship with “I care for you still and I will forever/That was my part of the deal, honest/We got so familiar”. The humility and humanity of the moment is heartbreaking, and speaks volumes about the depths of Frank’s artistry. Blonde set a new benchmark for avant-garde pop, and is arguably the most influential album of the past decade.

Essentials: “White Ferrari”, “Nights”, “Self-Control”

1. Cosmogramma- Flying Lotus

After breaking through with his superb sophomore LP, Los Angeles (a singular blend of IDM, trip-hip, and woozy Dilla & Madlib-esque instrumental hip-hop) it would have been easy for Flying Lotus to continue mining the same sounds for successive records that were just slight variations on that singular template. But for FlyLo’s third LP, Cosmogramma, he blew his sound wide open, eschewing the quantized beat grid for a lusher, more sprawling sound that couldn’t be confined to standard rhythms. Cosmogramma is steeped in the lineage of instrumental hip hop and IDM like its predecessor, but it manages to juggle a wider palette of disparate styles such as four on the floor, drum and bass, jungle, free-jazz, and experimental bass while incorporating a wide variety of guest musicians that do a superb job of fleshing out his expansive compositions. Cosmogramma is a record that can barely contain its ambition, and despite having been released over a decade ago it still shines like a beacon illuminating the boundless possibilities of where music can go.

The sublime fusion of the live instrumentation, supplied by Thundercat on bass, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson contributing string arrangements, and Ravi Coltrane providing tenor saxophone, among many others coupled with FlyLo’s mind-warping production is what gives the album it’s compelling thrust. The first half primarily splits the difference between frantic drum and bass/synth-pop heaters and atmospheric cosmic-jazz interludes, and the pacing is just remarkable, with no moment overstaying it’s welcome and plenty of space to give each idea the space it needs to develop. Thom Yorke drops by for a wispy vocal performance on the agile IDM strut “And the World Laughs With You” while Thundercat delivers a formal career introduction on the tender ballad “MmmHmm” before the record shifts into the infectious four on the floor centerpiece, “Do the Astral Plane”. From here the record deploys the astral jazz and eastern influences in a more pronounced fashion on songs like “German Haircut” and “Dance of the Pseudo Nymph” respectively. The celestial ambience of “Table Tennis” featuring Laura Darlington is a welcome breather for the life-affirming synth surge of closer “Galaxy in Janaki”, ending the album on a somber, but ultimately uplifting note with Flylo sampling the ventilators that his mom was hooked up to on her death bed for a euphoric, synth-streaked send-off.

The enduring appeal lies in its function as ambition existing for the sake of ambition. The songs throughout Cosmogramma all vary in texture, tempo, and tone, and they all around great on their own, but it’s the journey from start to finish that Cosmogramma exemplifies as a spiritual experience. Cosmogamma was intended to function as a loose concept album of sorts about lucid-dreaming and out of body experiences influenced by the study of the universe, heaven, and hell, and it’s remarkable to hear just how much of that vision that he’s able to convey without the prevalence of vocals. Although electronic music has changed dramatically in the decade since Cosmogramma was released, the execution of FlyLo’s masterpiece hasn’t been in matched, in electronic music or anywhere where else. Cosmogramma is both the pinnacle of where music has been, and a glimpse at the possibilities of where it could go moving forward.

Essentials: “Galaxy in Janaki”, “Do the Astral Plane”, “MmmHmm” ft. Thundercat

#Flying Lotus #frank ocean #My Bloody Valentine #d'angelo & the vanguard #deerhunter #deafheaven #earl sweatshirt #Sufjan Stevens #Tyler The Creator #Tame Impala #Kendrick Lamar #vampire weekend #car seat headrest #death grips #Grizzly Bear #Gang Gang Dance #Radiohead #St. Vincent #A Sunny Day in Glasgow #alex g #danny brown #the knife

[shadowlover]

SUNDAY HEADCANONS

(nope, not sexy)

I was thinking about post K/DA Evelynn. What happens???

Barring she gets arrested for 35 counts of first degree murder, she definitely continues her music career. I think she'd also venture into a collaboration fashion line with Prada (this is personal preference as I love the Prada aesthetic and I have some Prada stuff 🥺). Also, I think she'd have her own makeup like. I'm not sure what she'd name it, but it's probably edgy (I came up with Angxl but idk).

As for music, her first solo album is definitely in the same vein as Villian. The lyrics and aesthetics are all still dark, mysterious, oddly threatening. I would anticipate 10-12 tracks with a host of features on the album, which I will now go in depth about.

Features

21 Savage: I think that most songs today have some sort of rap verse and 21 Savage matches Evelynn's aesthetic pretty well. Listen to No Heart, Runnin', or Bank Account by 21 Savage and you can see exactly why he would be the perfect guest verse on an Evelynn song.

Grimes: I think a Grimes produced track with a verse would be really cool for Evelynn. I like her songs New Gods, Darkseid, and Kill V. Maim and Evelynn would slay on a beat like Darkseid.

Rina Sawayama: Currently one of Pop Music's rising stars, Rina on a track with Evelynn would be a chart topping, instant pop classic, a massive hit.

Lady Gaga: Look, everyone knows Evelynn was hard based off of Lady Gaga during her Fame Monster/ Born This Way era. I am even slightly convinced that Riot tried to get Gaga for Evelynn's voice but couldn't afford her or scheduling conflicts happened. Giving Evelynn a Lady Gaga song would be so amazing and something that needs to happen.

Charli XCX: God this song would be sooooo cool. A dark pop/ hyperpop song would be a club banger to shake ya ass to.

As for Evelynn featuring on other people's songs, she would be very selective. Here's a list of people I can see her featuring for.

Anyone mentioned above.

Travis Scott: Astroworld, psychedelic beat with a 90210 off Rodeo type song would be so trippy.

Poppy: I think Poppy and Evelynn's aesthetics match a lot, although the bubblegum metal isn't Evelynn's thing, she'd give a verse over.

Playboi Carti: Imagine Sky or Vamp Anthem but with Evelynn on it. SLATT

Lorde: This would never happen, but an emotional bitch can dream.

Lana Del Rey: Only if she went back to a Born To Die/ Ultraviolence aesthetic. I didn't like Chemtrails Over the Country Club.

Kim Petras: Evelynn's song is literally based off of Kim Petras' stuff, so obviously.

Future Career

After Evelynn's chart topping record, she probably does her tour, interviews, and still kind of keeps to herself for a bit. A two year gap, then another album which is also a hit. This one is more experimental, but still really good. It's more dark pop, like bass focused.

After that, she starts a career in acting, although being typecasted as the main villain a lot. She refuses any roles that portray her dying, she only does movies where the villain wins (think like Jennifer's Body, Gone Girl, maybe even like Kill Bill). Music still gets released, but at a slower rate now. She does a few movies, maybe a season of American Horror Story. She does features for people as well, maybe she has like 3 more albums over 10 years before she kind of calls it on her music career and focuses more on her makeup, fashion, and acting career.

Would she do a K/DA reunion tour? Most definitely.

[lovejustforaday]

Album Review - The ArchAndroid by Janelle Monáe

THE ARCHANDROID - JANELLE MONÁE

Main Genres: Art Pop, Progressive Pop, Contemporary R&B

A decent sampling of: Psychedelic Pop, Jazz Pop, Neo-Soul, Rock N Roll, Synth Pop, Swing, Baroque Pop, Conscious Rap, Alternative R&B

It’s hard to think of an artist who arrived onto the scene with a more fully-formed vision than Janelle Monáe.

Creative minds of her caliber are few and far between. I bet a lot of artists wish that they could say that their debut LP was as bold, ambitious, and left as lasting an impression as The ArchAndroid.

The ArchAndroid is the most cinematic experience an album has ever given me by itself. Artists like Gorillaz and Beyoncé have dropped “album movies” where every song (or just about every song) gets a music video, and I admire those kinds of projects for all the effort that goes into them. But The ArchAndroid never needed a music video for every song - each song is already so vivid, so full of colour and life, that I can already picture clearly what the music and the story looks like inside my head. Of course, it helps that Janelle Monae did everything in her power to make the story behind this concept album as real and tangible as possible, between little details like the written lore in the liner notes to the real life persona she adopted at the time of its release. But what exactly is The ArchAndroid all about? Well, it’s a little complicated. Monáe refers to her debut EP Metropolis and her first two LPs as “suites”, with Metropolis representing suite 1, The Archandroid suites 2 and 3, and The Electric Lady suites 4 and 5. These suites tell the story of Cindi Mayweather, a prophetic, afrofuturistic android protagonist who was cloned from Janelle Monáe’s DNA, who falls in love with a human named Sir Anthony Greendown, and lives in a dystopian future where time travelling villains known as ‘The Great Divide’ are oppressing androids.

Essentially, the story of Cindi Mayweather serves as allegory for issues surrounding blackness, queerness, oppression, and interacial love in our own times. Furthermore, Cindi Mayweather’s character represents love itself as an opposing force to hatred. The ArchAndroid in particular very strongly represent’s Janelle Monae’s socio-political manifesto of love, protest, and peaceful rebellion in the face of societal injustices like racism. The whole thing is basically just really nerdy pop music meets sci-fi social justice, and I absolutely fell in love with the concept from the very first time I heard The ArchAndroid. Anyways, let’s talk about the music. Monáe’s pop fusion sound takes inspiration from all sorts of directions here - from good old rock and roll, classic psychedelia, and 60s girl groups, to modern hip hop and neo-soul. What really stands out however is a particular fondness for the classy sound of 1920s jazz, swing, and big band music, and the accompanying visual aesthetics for the album draw heavily from this influence. The production on this album is BIG. Part of what makes this album so cinematic is the crisp, clean mastering and the large orchestral arrangements that feature prominently throughout. Everything sounds meticulously placed and she clearly worked with a really great team on this project. I’d also say that this is the kind of album you definitely have to hear on vinyl to get the fullest experience possible. Monáe’s talents as a vocalist are also a key element. She’s got a fire in her soul and a very real stage presence, and her range is impeccable. She can rap on tracks like “Dance or Die” and “Tightrope”, she can serenade the listener so sweetly on tracks like “Say You’ll Go” and “Sir Greendown”, or she can belt out a song with sorrow in her chest on tracks like “Oh, Maker” and “Cold War”. At almost 70 minutes, it’s a very long album by pop standards so it’d be pretty difficult to pinpoint what all of my favourite tracks are on The ArchAndroid and why, but here’s a few highlights anyway. “Dance Or Die”, “Faster”, and “Locked Inside” start off the album with a three part musical chase scene where Cindi is fleeing her oppressors. I see a heavy rainy night, dark alleyways, flashing city lights, and futuristic floating cop cars when “Dance Or Die” kicks in with its incredibly infectious beat that gets my heart pumping every time I hear it. “Sir Greendown” is a wonderful little love song with mysterious undertones, and a warm throwback to the era of brill building. This song establishes one of the main conflicts of the ArchAndroid portion of Cindi’s story in particular; that is, choosing between her destiny to stay and fight for her people as the Archandroid, or escaping to the safe haven land of mushrooms and roses to live a life of peace with her lover. “Tightrope” is just a total banger from start to finish. This jazzy, swingy r&b rap track features Big Boi of Outkast, one of her clearest musical inspirations and it’s really cool to see both of them absolutely kill it alongside eachother. The breakdown with the record scratching is one of the very best musical moments on this LP and it really gives me the vibe of an android glitching on the dance floor from partying too hard. “Wondaland” is absolutely utopian, a lofty, mythical synth pop song that sounds like it came right out of a pixar movie with all kinds of weird little android voices in the background. “Say You’ll Go” is my personal favourite. This classy tune is mostly an exhibit for Monáe’s artistic tastes and her soothing vocals, but it’s done so incredibly well that I can’t help but wonder if this is what elevator music in the tallest skyscraper of an advanced society might sound like. The ending with its interpolation of “Clair de Lune” and a soulful choir in the background is a really nice touch. “BaBopByeYa” is a fantastic eight minute closing piece of soul jazz that represents the peak of the album’s cinematic qualities, with a progressive song structure that tells an entire story on its own. The fact that this wasn’t the biggest album of its decade is honestly sort of a crime. I can only think of one other album from the 2010s that I love just a little bit more than The ArchAndroid, but if we’re to assume that some element of music critique is objective (which is a whole other can of worms), then I have to point out just how put together this whole LP is, how much love and hard work clearly went into it, and how incredibly impressive this sounds even to this day. Speaking as ““““objectively”””” as I think I can, this is the most impressive thing I’ve heard that’s come out in the past 11 years. This could have come out yesterday and it still would have sounded so incredibly beyond what I thought was possible at the time. What’s more, the political issues tackled by The ArchAndroid are sadly just as relevant today as they were the day that it dropped. Speaking as a dumb privileged white guy who obviously isn’t an expert on the subject, I really did want to put out a review for Black History Month that would honour a great black artist, and Janelle Monáe is the first one that comes to mind. Monáe is obviously a very proud black woman, and her art definitely needs to be celebrated.

That being said, The ArchAndroid is really the kind of album that just about anybody should be able to enjoy regardless of their background. Either you love sci-fi, hate injustices, or just like listening to really fucking good music.

10/10

highlights: “Say You’ll Go”, “Wondaland”, “Tightrope”, “Dance Or Die”, “BaBopByeYa”, “Sir Greendown”, “Oh, Maker”, “Locked Inside”, “57821″, “Cold War”, “Mushrooms & Roses”, “Suite III Overture”, “Suite II Overture”, “Faster”, “Make the Bus”

#janelle monae #cindi mayweather #the archandroid #r&b #art pop #progressive pop #soul #best music #favourite music #album review #music review #2010

[1albumaday]

2020

2020

The Chats - The Clap

Easy-peasy punk rock album 

Loving - If I am only my thoughts

Charming sun-dappled folk-pop, clean, gentle melodies

Steve Spacek - Houses 

iPhone/iPad recorded, latino and jazz accented dance/house beats

Ghali - DNA 

Total Flop and failed expectations. Mishmash of bland and frivolous lyrics and arrangements.

King Krule - Man Alive!

Alienating, violent, romantic, anguishing, doomed, noir / jazz, post-punk, soul, dubstep, electronic, garage rock, hip-hop

Justin Bieber - Changes

Disappointing comeback - boring r&b with zero sex appeal and cheesy lyrics and all-the-same songs

Guided by voices - Surrender your poppy field

Unusual time signatures, song lengths, and baroque-prog structures - mature rock and sometimes pixie / 80s dreamy

Corrections - Simply Activities

80s new wave and post punk nostalgia - cheesy vocals at times - first half more solid than second

Swim Mountain- If

A lovely mix of indie and funktronica, synth pop, r&b

Caribou - Suddenly

Sly and sofishticated sound design flits between uk garage disco and more - some tracks way less strong than others

Grimes - Miss Anthropocene 

Mix “Ethereal nu metal”, ambient, dance, electronic, drum’n’bass, country - is violent and dark but sexy, delicate and dreamy

Porridge Radio - Every Bad 

A dissonant lush indie rock sometimes dreamy sometimes dark and ironic with mantra-litany dusky lyrics from peaceful to desperate

Four Tet - Sixteen oceans

Wind instruments, synths and drum patterns gradually fade to calming ambient sounds, intense and meditative but also danceable and powerful

Kamaiyah - Got it made

Short, stripped-down, bubbling keyboards and drum-machine handclaps. NO current rap trends. windows-down bass-rattle record of one person’s confidence in her own sound and charisma

Poolside - Low season

Funk percussions, retro synths, pop and disco influences + indie vocals

Morioh Sonder - Is this psychedelia?

Surf pop and psych rock, dreamy post punk influences, danceable and whimsical 

KEYAH/BLU - Sorry, I forgot you were coming 

Perfect blend of rap, rnb, experimental pop, dark rhythms textured electronics, intimate tales 

TOPS - I feel alive

Pop, radiant and 80s romantic with a contemporary experimental palette

The Chats - High risk behaviour 

Classic old-school pure punk / cheerily undemanding fun

NIN - Ghosts V: Together

Buzzy ambient, melodic hooks, emotional palette of sounds 

NIN - Ghosts VI: Locusts

Together’s opposite, anxiety-inducing, despairing horns, breathing and devouring sounds.

Roger and Brian Eno - Mixing Colours

Feels like a balm for these anxious times

Fiona Apple - Fetch the bolt cutters

Handclaps, chants, makeshift percussion, echoes, whispers, screams, breathing, jokes, dog barks, rattling blues. Contains no conventional pop forms. freeing and powerful. 

The Weeknd - After Hours

Satisfying collision of new wave, dream pop, R&B, synth-pop nostalgia

BC Camplight - Shortly After Takeoff 

Jazzy eighties rock with some icy funk and electronic pop, painfully personal and uneasy but so self-deprecating it speaks like your best friend

Rone - Room with a view 

Deft splicing of beats-based electronics and dance music with classical influences. 21st century baroque chords, snatches of conversations, speeches, children’s voices

Other Lives - For their love

Bluesy acid-rock, dreamy meditation sounds, eerie string-crescendos, music for the afterlife

Lil Uzi Vert - Eternal Atake 

Drill-influenced rapping, melodic crooning, trends-aware hip-hop beats, untouchable pop sound production

Squarepusher - Be up a hello

Frantic breakbeats littered with echoes of classic jungle, hardcore, and drum’n’bass, ’90s drill’n’bass, glitchy 8-bit chaos

The Orielles - Disco Volador

Cosmic, playful, funky dreamy indie pop, shuffling organs, woozy guitar, shimmy-shimmy hand percussion

Portico Quartet - We welcome tomorrow

Perfect dreamy sequel of ‘Memory streams’

Charlie XCX - how i’m feeling now

Quarantine creation / 2020 romance manifesto of club-pop, trap, k-pop, video game sounds, fuzzy synths and crackling bass

Holy Fuck - Deleter

Trippy, psychedelic tapestry of euphoric escapism, ‘90s dance, glitchy beats, airy vocals, experimental electronics 

Luge - Luge

Energetic and playful avant-garde and quirky math rock, zolo? 

Good With Parents, Triple Stephens - Comments & Reflection

Playful indietronica synth pop + classical instruments 

Wishing - None of this was your fault 

Lo-fi indie, ambient, slowcore w/ fragile lyrics 

Bibio - Sleep on the wing 

Indie folk treated like ambient / a gorgeous soundscape of strings, guitars and flutes, feelings of loss, hope and escape. Perfect picture of tranquil countryside memories

Piotr Kurek - A Sacrifice Shall Be Made / All The Wicked Scenes

Electroacoustic experimental, meditative-ritualistic atmospheric music / conceived for theatrical performances 

Military Genius - Deep Web

Meditative ambient, retro-futurist soundscapes / hypnagogic pop, dark, abstract and mysterious / early ‘70s folk interjecting jazz-brass sections 

Jockstrap - Wicked City

Melancholy waltz and winsome ballads, fluttering strings, soft piano glissandi mixed with gnarly and distorted hip-hop beats, buzzing guitars and synths / cherubic vocals, pcmusic-style manipulated at times

Georgia - String Token 

Experimental ambient electronic, minimal, melodic, futuristic, hypnotic and grim

EVOL - Madball Manners

Lingering experimental rave electronic, hardcore, techno 

Upsammy - Zoom

Playful, sampling, abstract IDM, ambient techno, melodic and rhythmic, surreal, futuristic, sparkling synths and billowing pads

Tomasz Kunicki - Muzyka dla Świątyń

Playful and abstract IDM, glittering synths, obscure pads, glitchy and bleepy

Tomasz Kunicki - The sound is gone, where did it go, I have no idea

Very bassy and very dubby IDM, atmospheric ambient and loopy electronics

Kate NV - Room for the moon

80s new wave, progressive electronic, synth pop, cornucopia of melodies and genres. Wriggling synths, chirping flutes, warm baselines, jazzy sax, woodwinds, marimba. Russian girly vocals cartoon theme-song-like.

Khruangbin - Mordechai 

Psychedelic / funk rock with some soul, dub, lounge, poolside disco - exotic and atmospheric 

Dalai Lama - Inner world

Chanted mantras rhythmically woven into wafting new-age flutes, chimes, strings and free-form guitar picking. 

K-Lone - Cape Cira

Tropical ambient house, warm, lush, soft. Zen yet bouncy rhythms. Digital and analogue recordings, at times feels like you’re underwater. 

Arca - KiCk i

Experimental industrial club rhythms with reggaeton and folk influences

The Beths - Jump Rope Gazers

Sleek and personal indie rock, romantic ballads, more sentimental and slow than the previous album

J Lloyd - Kosmos

Tasteful soul and funk pop in 25 tiny tracks, charming low-key, rich textures, good vibes

Julek Polsk - Tesco

Dissonant, ominous, dense, post industrial ambient, noise, sound collage, deconstructed club music

Taylor Swift - folklore

Folk/chamber pop, indie folk, bittersweet, mellow, melancholic ballads

Bill Callahan - Gold Record 

Contemporary folk, warm and deep vocals, pastoral, peaceful and melancholic 

Mura Masa - R.Y.C. 

Indietronica, post-punk revival, catchy indie/synth pop, early 2000 EMO, lots of hip collabs

Fontaines D.C. - A Hero's Death 

Post-punk, indie rock, art punk, gothic rock, raw deadpan male vocals, darkish and melodic

RAMzi - cocon 

Tribal House, ambient dub, balearic beats, downtempo, hypnotic and tropical 

Auguste - Indust 

Experimental ambient electronic + field recordings, glistening and splintered sounds 

Paul Blackford - Betamax

Dreamy and hypnotic trip hop, downtempo, synth wave

A.G.Cook - 7G

49-track archival collection of sketches, cover versions, volatile lab experiments, divided into 7 discs. a glimpse at the whirring cogs beneath hyperpop’s pristine casing.

Clap clap - Liquid Portraits 

Experimental musical tapestry and collage / high-energy concoction of unpredictable and wavy rhythms, exotic vocals and heavy, relentless bass and drums / UK Bass, ambient dub, footwork + far-flung field recordings

E.M.M.A. - Indigo Dream 

Progressive electronic, ambient house / 80s melodic atmospheres, goosebump-inducing synths, whimsical melodies and classical leanings

Leif - Music for screen tests 

Performed live @ Barbican as a 54min session ambient / drone film soundtrack (Andy Warhol's Screen Tests)

Crack Cloud - Pain Olympics

Post/art/dance punk, experimental rock - energetic, anxious, apocalyptic, dark, male vocals

Document - A Camera Wanders All Night 

Post-punk, noise rock, past-hardcore, distorted and raw male vocals

Keisuke Matsuda - Clumsily Back Up

Experimental electronic with playful hummed vocals, lo-fi beats, melodic, youthful, dreamlike

Coi Leray - Now or Never

Gen-Z superstar, melodic flows, bouncy trap, energetic killer lyrics 

The Ophelias - For Luck

Artful, string-laden indie-pop EP, grungy dream-pop, a quarantine remake and a Joni Mitchell cover

Romare - Home

Deep house, UK Bass, groovy and detailed sonic palette + soul and funk influences - dancefloor highs and after party wind-downs

Mulatu Astatke, Black Jesus Experience - To Know Without Knowing 

Ethio-Jazz, Cuban, funk, reggae workout + rapid-fire rap or Afrobeat drums 

Good Doom - Spider Temple Valley

Experimental psych-wave, gentle and peaceful lo-fi, dreamy and oozy with flute, sax and field recordings

Ralph Kinsella - Abstraction

Dark ambient experimental / instrumental electronic

IDLES - Ultra Mono

Post-punk, garage punk, hardcore, noise rock, raw male vocals, dense, energetic, angry, political

Mild Orange - Mild Orange 

Alternative, Indie rock, dream pop, 

Skinshape - Umoja

Experimental psychedelic rock - afro beats - afroswinig - funky - world music

Vulfpeck - The Joy of Music, The Job of Real Estate

Mixed bag of funk, jazz, soul, self-indulgent? classical reworks, progressive electronic, melodic and uplifting, groovy drums and bass lines 

OPN - Magic OPN 

Manipulated and sequenced archive radio and sounds collages as interludes, uncanny processed voices, poppish trope ballads, art pop, sentimental and surreal, dense, progressive hypnagogic electronic and more

Pa Salieu - Send them to coventry

Combined dancehall, Afrobeats, hip-hop and grime. Scattered drums, stop-start energy, handpicked words and rhymes. skips from trap trills to baile breakdowns.

Mama Ode - Tales & Patterns of the Maroons

Classic hip-hop album with jazz, funk, blues and reggae influences. Creole Sega Rap Roots music, afro-drum patterns and grooves

Tony Allen, Hugh Masekela - Rejoice

Live sessions of unique fusion of afrobeat and swing-jazz with lyrics in English, Yoruba and Zulu 

Miley Cyrus - Plastic Hearts

Pop rock, 80s synth-rock, grit and freewheeling sense of fun, rough-hewn panache of vocal performance, bittersweet eclectic and sentimental / collabs with rock idols

2019 

LCD Soundsystem - Electric lady sessions 

Live recording with some new wavy covers 

Harry Styles - Fine line 

Not catchy / mediocre pop 

Boothe - 8 or 9 Walled Room

10 minutes of playful electronic and soft vocals

Good with parents - Good with parents 

Clever indietronica synth pop, fun + ironic + millennial + sax 

Taylor Skye - Kode fine & sons 

Synth, beats and pop vocals 

Famous - England 

Wonky pop punk mixed to electronic sounds and raw spoken vocals

Orville Peck - Pony 

Simple pop rock Johnny Cash style ballads and 80s

Sassy 009 - Kill Sassy 009

Distorted electro pop with strong vocals + post-punk notes

J-Walk - Mediterranean Winds 

Jazzy electronica with glassy synth pads cheesy and chilled out

Mattiel - Satis Factory 

Punky garage rock strong female vocals

Ross Backenkeller - Come Around

Country dreamy and melancholy guitar and vocals 

Legss - Writing Comedy 

Art rock and a dark underbelly of post-punk + topnotch spoken track and electronic sounds

BEA1991 - The Lost Demo EP

Trip-hop with Bjork-style vocals

BEA1991 - Brand New Adult 

Chamber folk and yacht rock meld with R&B and trip-hop

Matt Maltese - Krystal

Lo-fi flowy bedroom pop breakup album

Faye Webster - Atlanta Millionaires Club

Folk-pop, mellow and melancholy soul with an r&b tinge

Infinite Bisous- Period 

Soothing and warm bedroom night album 

Achille Lauro - 1969

Trap changed into rock with romanticised lyrics 

Jerkcurb - Air Con Eden 

Indie-psych and retro Americana, atmospheric, sensitive, wobbly

Octo Octa - Resonant Body

Breakbeats and house bangers

ALASKALASKA - The Dots 

Jazz fusion, disco rhythms and high-gloss art rock

Orphan - Yijoda

Glitchy and sharp electronics + ambient-atmospheric sounds

Honeymoan - Body

Avant-garde pop tapestry of beats and synths with playful vocal

U-Bahn - U-Bahn

Traditional new wave DEVO-moulded, Hypnagogic pop, art-punk, some vaporwave synth sounds

Hail Conjurer - Erotic Hell

Obscure and raw Finnish black metal 

Ride for revenge - Chapter of alchemy 

Quality black metal with long and short tracks pretty smooth 

Boys Age - Neverchanging, Neverending 

Lo-fi, slow-tempo, soul, r&b, mellow tracks with sad very low vocals

MorMor - Some place else 

Indie-pop with sweet synths and delicate vocals 

Felicita - hej!

Overproduced pop dance hits broken down into harsh and jarring staccato melodies, hissing ambient and screams

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Ghosteen

Endlessly giving and complex meditation on mortality and our collective grief, scored by synths, pianos, and electronics

Portico Quartet - Memory Streams

Ethereal keyboards, hypnotic grooves, layered post-rock textures mixed with electronic, ambient and magnetic jazz build-ups

Charles Rumback + Ryley Walker - Little common twist 

Mellow and pastoral folksy guitar melodies and soft drums + ambient tones, drone electronic

Shadowax - Nikolai Reptile

Effervescent techno and mutant bass jams

The Rhythm Method - How do you know I was lonely?

Ostensibly witty and warm pop songs from hip hop to indie and electronic about romance and millennial youth

Martin Dupont - Accident of Stars

80s kinda goth new wave full of electronics, guitars synths and clarinets

Raime - Planted

Latin American and Chicago footwork influences merged with alien sounds, half-heard voices, dark and rhythmic bass and percussions

Sunn 0))) - Pyroclasts

Sunn 0))) - Life Metal

Slow-motion drone feels like a religious ritual / pipe organ and cello, guitars webbing together the space between notes

Special Request - Vortex 

Breakbeat barnstormers and house epics, with room for bleep, electro and gabber

Caterina Barbieri - Ecstatic Computation

Oscillating sequencers, rhythmic pulsations, cascades of synthesiser melodies echoing dance music/new age

Battles - Juice B Crypts 

Playful electronic wizardry, dense array of beats, bleeps and squelches, loopy keyboards and guitars, ecstatic vocals

Haruomi Hosono - HOCHONO HOUSE

Home-recorded aesthetic, funk shaped into minimalist space-age lounge music 

Florist - Emily Alone 

Thoughtful, calming and melancholic, full of hushed, enveloping guitar sounds and gentle vocals

Spencer Radcliffe - Hot Spring 

Alt-country, indie falk americana, very relaxed,pastoral and wry poetics

Ciamkam - Play-doh Dog 

Noise ambient / screeching, dissonant, surreal, ominous 

Equiknoxx - Eternal Children 

UK soundsystem style, reggae groundings, earthy dancehall with a vast range of puzzling vocalists

Eh hahah - Fissure

Experimental deconstructed electronic, sound collage, glitches and post-club music

Upsammy - Wild Chamber 

Lucid shades of IDM, bleep techno, perky synths and frazzling hi-hats, polyrhythmic drum patterns

Otik - Blasphemy

Fresh, vibrant, dark experimental club music, techno + dance + electronic 

Shanti Celeste - Tangerine

Tech / ambient / deep house, breakbeat, rhythmic and mechanical yet dreamy 

Bez - Banki Mydlane

Dream pop, shoegaze, noise pop, space rock, reverberated female vocals + spoken word

Yu Su - Roll with the punches 

Ambient dub, downtempo, tribal ambient, sampling, mellow, atmospheric with female vocals

Drive45 - Dried up 

Bitpop, Artpop, indietronica, quirky and playful, androgynous vocals 

Lala &ce - Le son d’apres 

French hip hop, trap, cloud rap, alternative b&b, dancehall / sparse dark and ominous, warm female vocals

Leif - Loom Dream

Tribal ambient / ambient techno + field recordings / pastoral, ethereal, atmospheric 

deathcrash - Sundown (a collection of home recordings)

Slowcore, drone ambient, post-punk, fragile male vocals

FEET - What’s inside is more than just ham

Post-punk, indie-rock, dance-punk, sarcastic, playful, technical, male vocals

Coi Leray - EC2

Trap, hyphy, pop rap

Ariwo- Quasi 

Dub techno, afro-cuban jazz, ambient techno, chants, programmed beats, pulsating relentless rhythms and percussions, loud sax

Floating Points - Crush

Strikingly melodic and elegant, cinematic, frantic and distorted rhythms, shuddered synths, vibrant breakbeats, sampling, UK garage nodding

Jacques Greene - Dawn Chorus

Bittersweet, sad but triumphant, mix of experimental electronic and lightweight techno + field recordings, hazy sampled textures, distorted drones + disco house + percussions + spoken word

Men I Trust - Oncle Jazz

Indie electronic, minimal, chillout downtempo, dreamy female vocals, jazzy

Raveena - Lucid 

R&B, soul, experimental, pop, groovy, jazzy and dreamy, with some field and spoken words recordings

2018

Shit and Shine - Very high 

Lazy hippie funk with slowed rnb vocals 

Saloli - The deep end

New Age-inspired delicate only-synth music 

Adrianne Lenker - abysskis 

Guitar and sweet and warm vocals 

Ever ending kicks - Ideas relayed 

Sweet lo-fi similar to the previous two 

Negative Gemini - Bad Baby 

Solid synth pop with dreamy intimate vocals

Okay Kaya - Both

melancholy bedroom-pop sarcastic and harsh lyrics

Trust Fund - Bringing the Backline

Witty yet melancholy self-aware pop-rock

Jockstrap - Love is the key to the city 

A fusion of Bossa Nova, 1930s Disney-esque orchestra, and coarse electronica

Noah Cyrus - Good Cry

Pop and rnb debut album with a bit of gospel and melancholy

Carla dal Forno - Top of the pops

Alternative indie electronic, subtle instrumental backdrops with plaintive vocals

Lala Lala - The lamb 

Alternative/Indie rock with grunge tones and personal and warm vocals

Diamond Thug - Apastron

Progressive but dreamy pop, graceful vocals

Denh Izen - Storage Solutions 

Dark and charming sounds with warm and distorted vocals, desperate but calm

Imperial Triumphant - Vile Luxury 

New York Jazz mixed with top-notch black metal great for a sci-fi dystopian movie - especially Cosmopolis

Oliver Coates - Shelley’s on Zenn-La

Beat-oriented electronic music, sublime cello and synths

Dylan Carlson - Conquistador

drone-metal imaginary Western mostly solo electric guitar

Project Pablo - Come to Canada you will like it 

Dozy laid back deep house with  jazzy chords and subtly swinging drums

Ryley Walker - The Lillywhite Sessions 

Dave Matthews Band tribute with proggy folk, primitive guitar, free improv, Chicago jazz-rock on darker tones 

Grouper - Grid of Points

Empty room, piano and voice slip through your fingers like water

Kali malone - Cast of Mind

Glacial synth tones mapped to acoustic woodwind and brass 

Likes - New Pedal

Short tracks of fun glitch / hypnagogic pop

Jake Tobin - Fifth Thought

Fun and whimsical take on classical sax sounds and guitars

Jake Tobin - 135

Avant-prog / jazz fusion / romanticism / off-kilter melodies / psychedelic chords with the emotion and aesthetic of bedroom pop

Twig Twig - Darkworld Gleaming

Experimental pop, whimsical instrumentation, lo-fi uplift, beats and loops

George Clanton - Slide

Cult 2020s electronic born from vaporware influences mixed with whispery chillwave and downtempo R&B, feels like a 90s rave in an open field, no irony

Good Doom - Mood Life

Unique, very chill, dreamy sound, incorporates world music, trip hop beats, lo fi bedroom pop, krautrock and noise

Ex:Re - Ex:Re

Husky and mellow ambient pop, dream pop? Lethargic and melancholic 

Zaumne - Emo Dub

Minimalistic ominous and repetitive ambient house with ASMR-like spoken words

Ehh hahah - And the weather so breezy, man, why can’t life always be this easy?

Progressive experimental electronic, deconstructed club music, EDM, bubblegum bass, playful yet dark

Kate NV - для FOR

Progressive electronic, ambient, new age, minimalist, surreal, otherworldly and playful. wet, fleshy bleeps; bubbly, liquid noise

Leon Chang - re:treat

Mellow lo-fi hip hop, downtempo, electronic, future bass, sampling 

Coi Leray - Everythingcoz

Pop rap, trap, hyphy tunes, powerful + well produced 

Domenique Dumont - Miniatures de auto rhythm 

Sophist-pop, balearic beat, chillwave, dreampopish, soft female vocals, lush, summery and rhythmic

Big Joanie - Sistahs 

Pretty standard textbook indie-rock, post-punk with female vocals 

Darto - Fundamental Slime 

Haunting and spacious, deep male vocals, intriguing eerie melodies, dream state lullabies + sax and spoken word bit

Old Maybe - Piggity Pink 

Chaotic post-punk, unusual time signatures, strong shouted female vocals

Brad Mehldau Trio - Seymour Reads the Constitution! 

Elegant and melodic modal jazz - post-bop album, fragmented but coherent, ever changing time signature and tempo

2017

Ross Backenkeller - Bardo

Folk indie guitar melodies with honest and gentle vocals

Maruego - Tra Zenith e Nadir

Italian trap with disillusioned and ironic lyrics + cool collabs

Nervous Condition - Untitled 

Forceful drums, wails of sax and commanding vocals - mix of experimental rock, post-punk, no wave, jazz

Powerplant - Dogs Sees Ghosts

Synth punk, garage punk fast and fun

Wool & The Pants - Wool & The Pants

Experimental r&b / soul / hiphop vibez pretty smooth and lo-fi

TOPS - Sugar at the gate 

Soft rock tunes, vintage atmosphere, fuzzy, honey-dipped songs 

Slothrust - Show me how you want it to be 

Covers album with grungy sounds and good arrangements 

Rone - Mirapolis

Misty synths and heavy bass lines, dreary and melancholic industrial electronics, packed with doomed vocals of all sorts of guests. 

Ada Babar & Kasra Kurt - Nino Tomorrow

Weird pop and experimental DIY with MIDI keyboards and guitar, playful lyrics, video game menu music

Good Doom - New Shapes for you

Evocative, dreamy and atmospheric melodies, warm at times, chilly, spooky, grungy, dark at others, synth buzzes, glitchy drums

Phoebe Bridgers - Stranger in the alps

Atmospheric ballads for sad times, deeply personal stories of heartbreak and loss 

Florist - If Blue Could Be Happiness

Indie folk, soft and atmospheric, pure gentle quiet and soft female vocals about understanding light and darkness. Swooping guitar, dots of piano notes, gentle beats that recall Simon and Garfunkel

Wishing - Heat Death 

Ambient pop, lo-fi indie beats w/ soft vocals that make you feel things you haven’t felt in a while

Martyn Heyne - Electric Intervals

Ambient in the broadest sense, calm instrumental downtempo guitar-centric with electronic flourishes

Equiknoxx - Colón Man

Vivid and tactile masterful sound design, syncopated loops, wonky and scintillating rhythms 

American Pleasure Club - I blew a dandelion and the whole world disappeared 

Lo-fi acoustic guitar with raw male vocals

Andrea Laszlo De Simone - Uomo Donna 

Progressive pop, baroque/psychedelic pop + field recordings / bittersweet and pastoral 

Drive45 - Have you seen me? 

Bitpop indietronic, glitch pop, sequencer, dance pop

Drive45 - System Format

Bitpop indietronic, playful video game sounds

Leon Chang - bird world 

Bitpop electronic, sequencer, videogame music, future bass / uplifting mellow and playful 

dynastic - SPACE/SUMMER 

Glitch hop, electronic bubblegum, kawaii future bass, mellow and uptempo, cheesy sax, chaotic sounds + dance floor dnb

Darto - Human Giving 

Spacey experimental electronic mixed with post-punk, warm tones, 80s synths, soft melodic vocals + spoken bits

Pregnant - Duct Tape

Indie/art/soft rock, electronic, brilliant pop tunes, dreamy yet rhythmic

2016

Ever Ending Kicks - Music World

DIY colourful dreamy hazy songs 

Mild Eye Club - Skiptracing 

Low-key folk dreamy with 60s 70s vintage links

Loving - Loving 

Easy and dreamy pop melodies, wavy, warm and mellow

Lala Lala- Sleepyhead 

Alternative/Indie rock with grunge tones and personal and warm vocals

Gruff Rhys - Set fire to the stars

Soundtrack to the homonym 2014 film set in the 50s - soft romance rock, jazz-inspired, elegant and familiar

Oliver Coates - Upstepping

Deep house, techno, footwork blended with sharp and experimental classical strings 

Garden Center - Garden Center

Erratic pop music, fun and playful electronic sounds, silly vocals

Raime - Tooth

Ominus and gloomy sound of dub, electronic and post-rock / stripped down to the flesh 

Amiina - Fantomas 

Violin, cello, drums, percussion, metallophone, harp, ukulele and electronics fused in a contemporary classical post-rock gentle melody-focused experimentation

Jake Tobin - Sorta Upset

Short tracks of experimental rock, avant-prog - eclectic and dissonant, technical and manic

Jake Tobin - Accidentally on Purpose

Post-modern experimental pop, jazz influenced sounds, off-kilter saxophone, silly humour 

Vanishing Twin - Choose your own adventure

Swathes of percussion, exotic drum beats and funky guitars merge into a cosmic blend of reverberating bleeps with jazz skits / heady voyage across sound influences

Good Doom - Hug

Good Doom - Naps

Both off-beat lo-fi with a rock twists, spacey, fuzzy, grainy sounds

Zeal & Ardor - Devil is fine

Top notch black metal merges African-American spiritual slave music and some electronic beats and sounds

Shield Patterns - Mirror Breathing

Haunting vocals and sensual cello, clarinet and piano, all wrapped up in ethereal synths

Ashley Henry - Ashley Henry’s 5ive

Complex and uplifting post-bop jazz, imaginative flare, delicate and soothing piano

Florist - The Birds Outside Sang 

Lo-fi indie, ambient-dream pop,sparse, minimalist keyboard leads bordering on chilly drones + intimate and personal songwriting

CBMC - OOR

Acustic lo-fi bedroom pop with an airy tone and somber feel but still feels fresh and lighthearted 

Told Slant - Going By

Slowcore indie pop/folksy emo, ‘intimate spaces in which small town kids write memories of touch, togetherness, loss, love, depersonalisation’

Kate NV - Binasu

Art pop, progressive electronic, sequencer, joyful grooves but also atmospheric and ethereal sounds, eclectic and dense, melodic female vocals

Zaumne - Przezycia

Minimal ambient techno with a couple of spoken word bits 

Mauno - Rough Master

Enticingly and eclectic indie rock, smooth vocals, strings and moody guitars, delicate piano, powerful drums

Susso - Keira

Tribal house, tribal ambient, folktronica, Mande music, rhythmic and powerful chants

Phern - Cool Coma  

Psychedelic pop, lo-fi, mellow and playful 

Hellier Ulysses - Ulysses Hellier 

Experimental rock, math rock, jangle pop mixed with post-punk, technical, lo-fi, uncommon time signatures

Brad Mehldau Trio - Blues and Ballads 

Deceptively sweet-sounding jazz album, songs are played with variations and every phrase is a cliffhanger - gracefully executed + bonus of my fav song <3

2015

Adeodat Warfield - Pacific, Missouri 

Synth pop with electronic beats, vaporware notes

Ross Backenkeller - Rare Please

Folk indie guitar melodies with honest and gentle vocals

Grimes - Art Angels

Immaculate and authentic, synthetic and unreal but also super pop, folk, and dance / POST-art pop?

Jake Tobin - Third and Fourth Thoughts

Short tracks of weird avant-prog where the vocals follow the melodies all the time

Florist - Holdly

Vocals move slowly and sweetly through gentle meditation sound and soft guitars

Starry Cat - Starry Cat

Indie pop, lo-fi indie, wavy and shaky, bitter-sweet and personal male vocals 

CBMC - FOOTWEAR

Acustic lo-fi bedroom pop with a somber feel but still feels fresh and lighthearted nearly asmr-like vocals 

Wishing - To Forget

Lo-fi indie slowcore, fuzzy synths + acoustic sounds mixed with short electronic tracks / lyrics are whispered and very intimate 

Oren Ambarchi - Live Knots 

Two very long live recorded tracks of propulsive drumming full of tensions and releases + droning notes, plucked strings and mournful guitar 

Juxta Phona - we will not be silence 

Ambient, electronic, minimal melodies over crisp, tactile beats

Khruangbin - The Universe Smiles Upon You

Psychedelic / Funk rock, rhythmic and jazzy, tropical warm and peaceful

Red Sea - In The Salon 

Indie experimental rock, psychedelic pop, math rock, melodic yet uncommon time signatures 

Eyeliner - Buy Now 

Synth-pop/funk - vaporwave / instrumental, melodic, uplifting, lush, futuristic / great bass lines! 

2014

Ricky Eat Acid - Three love songs

First half found sounds, experimental electronics, fuzzy piano loops. Second half IDM beats and keys, choir-like vocals / “might be the sound of music having a dream within a dream about music”

Jake Tobin - Torment 

Jake Tobin - Life as a Clerical Error

Weird dissonant mix of avant-prog, art punk and jazz fusion but in an amazing way

Richard Dawson - Nothing Important 

Brittle, crudely amplified nylon-string acoustic guitar, experimental drones, folk sketches, imitation field cries, and free jazz diversions

2013

Ever Ending Kicks - Weird priorities

Sentimental chill instrumental and colourful with gentle vocals

Gruff Rhys - American Interior

John Evans-themes concept album - witty folk oriented retro-futurist music 

Michael Andrews - Spilling a rainbow

Well-crafted pop tunes, nostalgic and lighthearted memories of folk rock with a dash of avant-garde electronic haze

Pill Friends - Blessed Suffering

Lo-fi indie/emo noisy and raw with existential and stark male vocals 

2012

Told Slant - Still Water

Lo-fi/bedroom-punk with folksy guitars and delicate vocals as if they could break down in tears at any moment

2010

Hype Williams - Find out what happens when people stop being polite and start gettin reel

Ypnagogic vortex of incredibly canny hard to pinpoint music with distorted spoken vocals

Zach Hill - FACE TAT

Constant restless drumming, squiggly melodic instrumental hooks, mosaics of disconnected noises, fuzzy sounds and vocals

2008

Amplifier Machine - her mouth is an outlaw

Half-improvised ambient - drone - experimental - electronic - post-rock

E. Bandel, Victory & Good Hunting - s/t

Classical, piano, folk, melancholic, haunting

2007

Seabear - The ghost that carried us away

Indie/folk multi-instrumental dynamic floating sound, warm melodies, calm and gentle vocals

HEALTH - HEALTH 

A masterful noise/experimental rock with elements of post-punk, drone and electronic - disorienting rhythms, tempo-shifting, noisy outbursts

2005

The Darkness - One way ticket to hell

Hard / glam rock ballads and pop tunes 

2004

The Emperor Machine - Aimee Tallulah is hypnotised 

Mix of electro euro disco, post-punk, krautrock, sci-fi scores, jazz-funk. Thick dance rhythms and mind-altering synths

2002

ESG - Step Off 

Sweet soul with a punk attitude, jazzy sassy vocals

Hella - Hold your horse is 

Non-stop, indie-audio assault / Nintendo music / midi and electronic beats / head-spinning leading drums, very fast guitars

1998

Eels - Electro-Shock Blues

elegantly sad grief and death themed album, deeply personal, yet brilliant pop tunes, post-grunge, jazzy arrangement, archive sounds, electronics

Duster - Stratosphere

Bashful slowcore lo-fi experimental space/indie rock

1975

Bobbi Humphrey- Fancy Dancer 

Funky jazz with forms of world music, soul, club music and pop

1973

Kevin Ayers - Bananamour

Progressive pop, art rock with mix of soul, r&b, reggae - choirs and country type ballads

1972

Kevin Ayers - Whatevershebringswesing

Experimental new age prog rock, semisweet tunes, lighthearted, skewed sounds

1970

Kevin Ayers - Shooting at the moon

Experimental, progressive, avant-garde, rock with jazz influences, sound recordings, excellent songwriting

[coolitsriver]

16, 25, 26, 30

A  PEAK  AT  WHAT’S  INSIDE  THEIR .    .    .

send a number  1 - 30  to take a closer look inside this characters life ♡

16. Cd collection

Anyone that’s been inside my apartment knows that I have two, tall racks full of cds. One is filled with ones I collected as a kid whereas the other is full of my dad’s old stuff that he gave to me before moving to Tokyo. The ones I bought myself are what you can expect from a kid: lots of pop, rap, r&b - anything you can find on throwback 90s/00s playlists or on the hot 100 billboard charts. My dad’s stuff, however, is very different. Rock, psychedelic pop, ska, afro-beats, jazz - anything you want to hear, it’s probably in his old collection. It’s been great listening to his collection over the years and widening my knowledge of music genres - but most of all, it allows me to feel like he’s still in Greensville when I blast his favourite songs. 

25. Five most recent google searches

1. Most accurate comic-book superhero casting choices | An example of the type of debates myself and Hailey have every night over dinner. If you’re curious, she said Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool and I said J.K Simmons as J Jonah Jameson. 

2. Tax accountant near me | I’m a big 22 year old adult that has no idea how to file taxes so I pay someone else to do it for me. His name’s Derek and we text frequently. 

3. Unique friendship tattoos | Jack has been trying to convince me to get a tattoo recently so we can match. if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s put up with me so much over the years we’ve known each other, I wouldn’t entertain it. But we’ve been sending each other photos of inspiration recently and now I’m really into it. 

4. Can dogs fall in love with cats? | Mai’s being eye-ing up the neighbour’s cat a lot and I’m starting to think we’ve got a romeo and juliet styled love story going on between them.

5. Why do I keep having dreams about tsunamis? | Let’s just say that I’ve apparently been feeling very overwhelmed and insecure according to my dreams as of recently. To which - I can’t really deny. 

26. Most used playlist 

30. Netflix watch history 

my top five most recently watched: 

- why did you kill me?

- dark tourist

- icarly (I put it on for Alex when she comes over but I might like it too)

- malcolm and marie

- brooklyn 99

#asks; #Anonymous #|| this was fun!! ||

[yandere-society]

Can I get a imagine of poly BTS kidnapping the reader, trying win her affection by force???

for the poly one, can it be rap line? thank you:) 

Word Count: 1.4k

Trigger warnings: yandere themes, violence, mental illness. Do not read if sensitive to these topics.

The three men that stood in front of you bickered, pointing fingers at each other like children. Low grunts turned into a full blown argument between the three as you woke up, strapped and tied onto the bed post. It was like you were back in your parent’s house, always hearing them argue for what seemed like countless hours.

You sighed, your eyes drifting off of their figures. For a strange reason, their presence and the thought that these men kidnapped you didn’t scare you. The exhaustion of living took a bigger toll on your mental state than these men, who in your eyes, seemed like children in adult bodies.

Your wrists and ankles ached as you pulled on them, the rope burning your skin. You grunted, the boys paying no mind to you as they were deeply invested in their argument. Closing your eyes, you wondered if anyone would miss you. Your life was a constant cycle: wake up, eat, study, come home, repeat. It was no longer strange to you to always feel alone in such a large world.

As you turned over, staring at the three men that were fighting over you, you felt a sick feeling in your stomach.

You liked it. You felt desirable and needed when it seemed as though nobody else wanted you. Hell, nobody probably knew you. But these handsome men did. It was as if you wanted to play a sick game with them, to deny them, knowing they’d do anything for your affection. Until it hit you, how different were you really from these men? All of you were sick in the mind, desperate for anything that gave affection. You wouldn’t have been surprised if you turned out like them sooner or later. Or maybe you had, but wanted to deny it.

One of them looked over, catching your gaze as your dull eyes stared at them. With a hushed voice, he directed the other men to you. They turned around, all scattering to be closer to your presence. The shorter one gently touched your arm, noticing the tight ropes around your wrists.

“Good morning, kitten.” He cooed, brushing your messy strands of hair off your delicate face. He stared over at the larger male, whispering his complaints. “Don’t you think these are too tight? What if you hurt her? You’re going to ruin her skin.”

The larger male just glared at him, his arms folded across his chest. “It’s so she doesn’t try to escape. Do you ever use your brain? If you loosen those, she’s going to make a run for it and all of our work will be gone.” He clicked his tongue in annoyance, but the worry in his eyes was evident.

The last one kneeled, bringing his body closer to yours. He gave you a concerned smile, but nevertheless, showered you in affection.

“Hi, my name’s Hoseok.” He brought his hand up to your cheek, caressing your skin with his thumb. His eyes scanned over your face, looking for any sign of emotion. He looked over his shoulder, pointing at the larger male. “This is Namjoon and he’s really intelligent. I thanked him for planning this out. Thanks to him we finally spend time together with you!”

As you looked up to take a better look at ‘Namjoon’, he gave you a confident smirk, walking over and standing next to Hoseok. Hoseok continued, pointing to the thinner and smaller male on the opposite side of the room.

“That’s Yoongi. Don’t tell Namjoon, but I like Yoongi just a little bit more!” He whispered, giggling to himself. Namjoon let out a sigh of disapproval, shaking his head, causing Hoseok to giggle even more. You turned over, the ropes burning your skin again as you stared up at Yoongi’s flushed cheeks. Ignoring the aching pain that spread over your body, you nodded at Hoseok. He smiled up at the rest of the boys, happy that you showed little resistance.

“Namjoon, let’s quickly untie her. I don’t think she’s going to leave.”

Unlike his naive partner, Namjoon shook his head. “I don’t think we can do that Hoseok. She might be faking it to try to escape. It’s too early to trust her.”

“Don’t you think you’re just paranoid? There’s three of us. How is she going to escape?” Yoongi broke him, his brows furrowed. “I think you’re being too rough, Namjoon.” Yoongi leaned in towards you, his arms resting on the mattress. Hoseok and Yoongi approached you from each side of the bed, shuffling the blankets around.

You could feel their warm breath, one near your neck and the other close to your ear. Shuddering, you were unaware of their eyes searching your face for a reaction. Yoongi eyed you up and down as Hoseok nibbled on your earlobe, whispering sweet words of affection. Namjoon stared at the scene before him, being content just watching them toy with you.

“Stop it,” you huffed, subconsciously pulling on the ropes. Yoongi grabbed your chin, his hands tightly squeezing onto your skin.

“Don't reject us.” he sternly demanded, pressing harder until he felt the bone of your jaw.

Namjoon laughed from the side. “And you call me rough.” He scoffed as he watched, his gaze dark. “We get what we want, y/n. It'll be easier for all of us if you just submit. If not… well, things might a little bloody.”

It was obvious to you that he could easily carry out his threat. Not that you cared for your family. In fact, the idea of your parents slaughtered and tortured brutally brought a smile to your lips. You were too cowardly to do something so psychotic. It was obvious you had three men in the palm of your hands. But you wanted to play the game just a bit more, regardless of the consequences. Just wondering how far you could push these boys sent chills down your spine. An evil thought crossed your mind as you chuckled internally.

“Well, Namjoon, you see…” you started, nudging Yoongi and Hoseok off your shoulders. “I don't really care of these other two. To be blunt, I would only be interested in a relationship with you.”

It was an intense air that suddenly grew as those words left your lips. You could have heard a pin drop on the wooden floors. Your heart rapidly beat in your chest, awaiting the following chaos and it came. Namjoon smirked, running a hand through his hair.

“Interesting.”

In a sudden outburst, Yoongi and Hoseok grabbed onto you. Shaking your body was intense fervor as they cried out. Their words jumbled and meshed together, you were unable to decipher what they meant. Tears streamed down their faces as they tightly gripped onto your clothing, believing you would disappear. Their eyes were bullshot red as they wet your shirt.

“Y-y/n, you don't know what you're saying!” Hoseok screamed, convincing himself that it just had to be the case. “You're just tired. Sick! They did something to you.” He jumbled his words, realizing it did nothing to penetrate your reasoning. “H-here let me get these ropes off you.”

Yoongi on the other hand, ran over to Namjoon, clutching onto his arm. As Namjoon looked down, he saw pain in Yoongi's expression. It was as if he had been shot multiple times, backstabbed by his own partner, cheated and left to rot.

Several thoughts drifted in Namjoon's head as he stared at the two other men in their breakdown. What if he killed them? What if he could have you all to yourself? You said yourself that you weren't interested in either of them besides him. He wavered, remembering the sentimental memories he kept of them. Yes, they were his family. They were his older brothers. They meant the world to him in such a lonely place. He would find comfort with their mere presence and their abundance of love. Was it worth it?

It wasn't.

Namjoon gently brought his hand up, comforting Yoongi. It'll be okay. She'll warm up to you. Just be patient. He whispered into his ear, feeling Yoongi's tense body loosen. Securing his arms around Yoongi's back, he felt the older slack his body onto his arm due to exhaustion.

“Hoseok!” Namjoon called, getting his attention. His eyes widened as he saw Hoseok's psychedelic state. He was hyperventilating, his arms spasming as he fumbled with the ropes. Yoongi grabbed Hoseok's hand, dragging him over to Namjoon. The two of them encased Hoseok in a hug, in an effort to comfort him.

You stared at the three men, already feeling the pleasure of their pain. To you, this was going to be the most exciting moment of your life.

-🎉nomnomsik

I really enjoyed this one! Thanks for sending it! Let me know what you think 😊❤.

#yandere bts #yandere #bts suga #bts yoongi #yandere yoongi #bts rm #bts hoseok #yandere hoseok #yandere rm #yandere namjoon #bts rapline #rapline x reader #bts reaction

[duxwontobey]

Since everyone is probably gonna be inside for the next week or month, here’s some stuff to do and look into!

Music:

Declan McKenna: Indie Rock, very passionate and thoughtful. Cage The Elephant: Indie Rock, punk aesthetic, moody and meaningful. Ghost: Heavy Metal/Rock, cool and chill as hell, Satanist aesthetics. AJJ: Folk Punk, incredible lyrics. Very sad but powerful songs. Nothing But Thieves: Alternative Rock, Awesome and unique rock sound. Gorillaz: You know these folks probably but they’re fantastic. Dance With The Dead: Hard Techno, perfect for a rave or club, dark and cool. Depeche Mode: Mixed Genres, some of the best old style synths and vocals. Radiohead: Misc rock, one of the most unique sounds out there with fabulous vocals and meaningful songs. MUSE: Rock/Metal, absolutely perfect riffs and melody, heavy and energetic. Nightwish: Viking Metal Band, do I need to say more? Royal Blood: Heavy Rock, headbanging powerful riffs and beautiful vocals. Skip The Use: French Punk Rock, catchy and beautiful vocals with great rhythms and aesthetic. Kaiser Chiefs: Indie Rock/Misc, fantastic beats and absolute bangers, would recommend the hell out of Education Education Education and War. Red Vox: Indie Rock/Misc, Vinny Vinesauce’s band, beautiful vocals and moody feels and dreamy space-inspired tones. Arcade Fire: Indie Rock, incredibly emotional and powerful songs. Nero: Dubstep/Electronica, Cyberpunk/futurism feel with some great tunes like Dark Skies and Promises. The Wombats: Indie Pop/Post-Punk, mental lyrics with great melody, lots of variety and quality. Tame Impala: Psychedelic Rock, Incredibly chill vibes with catchy well structured melodies.  Brockhampton: Hip-hop/Rap, deep basslines and meaningful well crafted rap. Noisia: Grime/Dubstep, dark and moody electronic chunes. Stop Light Observations: Indie, powerful lyrics and catchy tunes with a deep relaxing background, Dinosaur Bones is a perfect sleep track. IDLES: Post Punk, soulful music with classic punk vibes. Rebellious af. Slaves: Punk Rock, loud, proud and all about meaningful British Punk.

Free To Play Games:

Team Fortress 2 Counter Strike Global Offensive YuGiOh Duel-Links Warframe Destiny 2 Warthunder Hearthstone

Youtubers:

Bisnap: Gaming youtuber with hundreds of videos on indie games like The Binding Of Isaac, Risk of Rain 2 and Tower Of Guns.

Joel: Variety streamer with long lets-plays and hilarious content, known for OS destruction where he uses a virtual computer to download viruses and other dodgy things to see what they’d do and how long the virtual computer can survive.

Vinesauce:  Twitch streamer who does long playthroughs of games and game corruptions, where he uses a program to break games and create extreme glitches.

Dexbonus/Dodger: Twitch streamer who plays a lot of puzzle games and is generally chill as heck. Very good playthroughs of games are uploaded to youtube too!

aliensrock: Twitch streamer/youtuber who plays tough puzzle and strategy games with great editing. A great chill time.

Joltzdude139: Twitchstreamer/youtuber who solely plays Borderlands games currently, with challenge runs and one life playthroughs.

Jerma985: Variety streamer and weird dude. Honestly I don’t know how to describe him. Totally crazy but has amazingly inventive content and plays a lot of unique games, lots of fun to watch. He took out a $6k loan to put on a funfair for his viewers.

Aztecross: Destiny 2 youtuber with informative videos and great gameplay, all around charming dude.

Duel-Links Meta: Yugioh Duel-Links streamer/youtuber, very loud and very energetic and one of the best players out there.

GernaderJake: Destiny 2 streamer known for trials and other high-skill game types. Very friendly and positive and always has something cool going on in his streams if you like Destiny 2.

Jim Browning: Tech expert and general awesome dude. Outsmarts scammers and accesses their computers through backdoors to get some revenge and to destroy the scamming companies. Very interesting and satisfying to watch scammers get what they deserve.

Call Me Kevin: Variety youtuber with tonnes of personality. Official number 1 funniest Irish youtuber. Loads of well edited comedy gaming videos.

Let’s Game It Out: Simulator game player who’s only goal is to play the games as wrongly as possible. This includes; making the most inefficient factory possible in Satisfactory, making the worlds worst zoo in Planet Zoo and making the worlds most unsafe hospital in Two-Point Hospital.

Nyx Fears: Hilarious horror reviewer who talks both about philosophy and meaning in horror films while also talking about hilariously bad films that couldn’t scare anyone. 

Critical Role: 5 Years running dnd group who are some of the most well known voice actors in gaming. Hilarious and emotional dungeons and dragons live sessions with millions of subscribers and views. 

Kripparrian: Hearthstone streamer known for being salty as hell. Very good at the game and makes a lot of cool videos on Arena/Battlegrounds regularly.

How To Drink: One of the most charming people to ever exist. This channel is all about cocktails, mixers, drinks and the history of all those combined, incredibly fun to watch even if you don’t drink!

Braille Skateboarding: Amazing channel all about skateboarding, but you don’t need to know anything about skating to enjoy it. The entire team is lovely and they’re all insane, mainly because they often do videos where they try to skate anything they can, including crowbars, glass skateboards and “nunchuck boards”

oboetwoshoes: Variety youtuber/streamer who mainly plays Borderlands. Incredibly fun commentary and editing. Also loves bionicles a bit too much.

Grand Illusions: Strange old man who reviews his collection of even stranger old toys and gadgets. Very relaxing and blessed.

AquaFPS: Escape from tarkov/Rust streamer who’s generally a lot of fun. Great video editing and immersive yet funny gameplay videos.

Ryan Hollinger: Horror film enthusiast with incredibly insightful and interesting videos about the depths of horror films and the history and complexity behind them. Also has a great series on how to survive various horror films.

Jesse Cox: Variety streamer/youtuber. Amazing personality and great series of long playthroughs of games like Control and Night In The Woods. Does one of my favourite series ever with his friends called Scary Game Squad, where he teams up with his mates to do horror game playthroughs, I highly recommend watching their entire playthrough of Until Dawn. 

Welyn: Perhaps the best Rust streamer/youtuber out there. His videos are almost like miniature films about how he betrayed a clan or infiltrated a base, and he’s known for overcoming even the most deadly and large clans in the game solo.

Binging With Babish: Cookery youtuber who creates some of popcultures most famous meals, such as the Krabby Patty, Portal Cake and more, along with actually helpful guides on how to cook basics like hotdogs and burgers.

The Spiffing Brit: Variety youtuber who does his very best to be the most British™ person ever while also finding thousands of exploits in games like Civilization V, Evil Genius and Stellaris.

Feel free to add your own shit in the comments, I’ve got pretty limited taste so the more people add the more stuff we’ll have to occupy folks during these coming weeks.

#long post #coronavirus #Covid-19 #hobbies #youtube #music #this took like an hour #:^) #if this gets no notes call me booboo the fool