#it's not really a playlist. it's more like one of those weird compilation albums that i definitely didn't consume too many of as a child

[guillemelgat]

Hey hello I made a thing! As perhaps a few of you know, I have spent the last half a year being completely unhinged about Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin books, and I’ve always been particularly interested in the character Stephen Maturin and his relationship to Catalonia. I saw that there was a lack of stuff about this part of his identity, and, being me, I felt the need to fill it in the only way I could: compiling music and yelling about it for thirty pages. Hence this playlist.

You really don’t need to know anything about these books to listen to this playlist. You also don’t need to know anything about Catalan (I hope). Catalonia and the Catalan Countries in general (including Valencia, the Balearic Islands, and parts of southern France, Aragon, and Sardinia) have a really interesting musical and literary tradition, and I wanted to make that more accessible, so I put together a few songs I liked, translated them, and wrote a bit about each of their significance, including the most important cultural tidbits I could. Some things don’t translate super well, and I hope my Catalan followers will forgive me for trying to adapt them more for English-speaking audiences than perhaps would be preferable; I usually don’t choose to do that, but in this case I wanted to open the door, and not to intimidate people.

Now that that’s out of the way, here is a link to the PDF of the liner notes (graphic design is my passion, as they say): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MUpRM84W8aypznEIrt0eA1jG5OxaRZvz/view?usp=sharing

Under the cut I’ve included the ephimera and unnecessary commentary that you know and love, feel free to read or ignore it as you will

These roughly follow the order of the songs and are varying levels of seriousness

If you like "Sant Joan, feu-lo ben gran" then I'd highly recommend listening to the whole Tornaveus album. I almost included the “Stabat Mater de Sudanell” and the “Goigs de Sant Julià de Lòria”, which are both from western Catalonia, and they also have more cançons de pandero, in perhaps a slightly more traditional style. A lot of the other songs have interesting cultural commentary in them, especially on feminist topics, and they’re very well-researched because literally one of the members of the group is basically the ethnomusicologist of Catalan music at the moment. Anyways, if people would like the liner notes perhaps next time I’m home I’ll scan them, they’re in Catalan and English and very well-written. Also note the legendary Lluís Llach song which has been turned into a polyphonic piece lol (and I did not include the “Goigs de la Nostra Senyora de la Llibertat” but tbh that might have been a mistake on my part) (Blorbo side note that I think this fits Stephen’s childhood very well which is mostly why I chose it)

“L’Hereu Riera” is one of my favorite Catalan folk songs I love it so much and if you want to hear the Catalan version (as opposed to the Valencian one included here) and see the dance and also see a cobla, I am including a link to this version by Germà Negre which is tragically not on Spotify. I chose the Valencian one because (1) Al Tall and (2) I think it fits The Blorbo better (specifically I was thinking of his fiancée who dies before Book One who idk if anyone ever remembers shdjfhskf). That being said, Stephen would probably know the Catalan one (and almost certainly not the Valencian one). Also, on a memey-er note, Hereu Riera bisexual king and literal icon <3 love how he has to remind his girlfriend on her deathbed that actually he'd technically be interested in both her sisters AND her brothers if he wasn't so into her that he never wanted to marry anyone else

I literally did put in Roger Mas just so there would be at least one person with a Lleidan accent, #diversity win

Many points about the “Cançó de pandero de l’Urgell” and “Jo no canto per la veu” so here we go:

I put these two songs in mostly because I got very obsessed with the cançó de pandero from Alcarràs (which is a great movie that came out last year about a farming family in a village near Lleida that is winning all the awards atm). Anyways, since Carla Simón has been too busy winning things to put up the gotdam soundtrack, I did a bit of digging and it turns out that it was written for the movie?? By her brother??? It's excellent and very anticapitalist and you can listen to it here and see the trailer for Alcarràs all in one! (Includes English subtitles)

The original “Canto per un amic meu que per mi daria la vida” is probably from a Valencian cant de batre, although I could not get any confirmation on that. But regardless everyone should listen to Pep Botifarra's version of it, which I would literally marry if it had a physical form it’s so so good. (I posted it here back in ye olden days but it's been long enough I think I can post it again)

Valencian music side note because I can’t stop myself: the second pair of verses in the "Cançó de pandero de l'Urgell" (starting with “vos esteu ben acotxada…”) are sung by Miquel Gil, who is a very famous Valencian traditional singer, anyways you should listen to this version of him singing “Del Sud” by Obrint Pas (you want to go down a Valencian music rabbit hole so so bad)

I firmly believe that Stephen would canonically be obsessed with Ausiàs March, and the fact that he has not yet recited any of his poems is Patrick O’Brian’s biggest failing in my eyes. Anyways I have more thoughts but I’m saving them for other posts shdfjsd

If you read this before listening to the playlist please just listen to "El testament d'Amèlia" and follow along with the lyrics in real time before reading the blurb, it's such a good experience to let that song hit you as it comes. I won't say more than that but you'll get it when you get it. (Also obligatory listen to Marala they're so good <3)

From the Càntut album, I also quite like the songs "El pomeró" and "El divino vull cantar", and Càntut in general is an incredible resource, it's a database of folk song field recordings from northeastern Catalonia.

Brief pause to scream about the fact that Maria Arnal and Marcel Bagés WERE ON NPR??? AND NO ONE TOLD ME???? Anyways link in the sources section, also they're great and you should listen to their whole discography

As the #1 Roba Estesa stan blog on Tumblr, listen to Roba Estesa. And Ebri Knight. And El Diluvi.

I chose this version of "La presó de Lleida" because I like it but here's a more traditional one sung by Joan Manel Serrat, another Catalan legend. Here's another one in Catalan rumba style with Sílvia Pérez Cruz singing, the sound is a bit wonky but it's also one of my favorites. The Valencian version of this song is called "La presó de Tibi" and El Diluvi have done a very explicitly anti-monarchical rendition of it (the Balearic one is "La presó de Nàpols").

I'm sorry for never putting the Sílvia Pérez Cruz version of "Corrandes d'exili" but if you want it here it is. Also note that the statue of the Virgin in the poem is a reference to the Virgin of Montserrat, it literally all goes back to her shfjkshdf (also apologies for being very bad at Christianity and Catholicism, if I mistranslated things let me know)

HOO BOY SARDANA TIME

Okay so I have a whole essay to deliver on this that I've been holding inside for the past like two months or so, I apologize in advance for my excessive pedantry on the topic.

In Master and Commander, Stephen delivers this speech:

"‘Then I must tell you that on Sunday mornings it is the custom, in that country, for people of all ages and conditions to dance, on coming out of church: so I was dancing with Ramon Mateu i Cadafalch in the square before the cathedral church of Tarragona, where I had gone to hear the Palestrina Missa Brevis. The dance is a particular dance, a round called the sardana.’"

I hate to be a hater but it is very, very unlikely that anyone would have been dancing a sardana as far south as Tarragona in this time period. The sardana as the symbol of equality and brotherhood emerged in the Renaixença and would not yet have been a thing; Stephen could well have heard sardanas in Ullastret, but they would have been a more typical folk dance, and not anything like the way they're described in the book. It's very ironic, then, that they've become THE Catalan music style for Aubreyad readers, but hopefully this playlist can change that a bit :)

(also sorry for being a sardana-hater on main, someone bring me to dance a sardana and maybe I'll feel better)

Songs that didn't make the cut: La cançó del lladre, Rossinyol que vas a França, La balanguera, La gavina - I'm always happy for more recs!

Originally, this list was also going to include songs in Irish; I quickly realized that I was in over my head with that one, but the working list of songs is here (may be subject to changes so save songs elsewhere if you like them!). Also I would add "Fé Bhláth" by Imelda May and Kíla if it was on Spotify but alas it is not; and "Amhrán na Leabhar" which I have not had time to add but was kindly recommended by someone. I'd love it if someone was interested in actually doing a proper playlist for Irish though—it's a gap in my knowledge that I'd love to start filling.

Aaaaaaand that's a wrap. I hope. Final comment to say thank you to everyone who voted in the cover image poll, turns out you all won :) (Pirineus did win and take the cover of the liner notes though)

#my masterpiece is done i have peaked i'm retiring now #jkjk but i've been working on this since like. november #so it is kind of insane that's it's finally done #please notify me of any mistakes or corrections <3 #and hopefully this is enjoyable for you all! #it's a little funky at times but i think it works??? #it's not really a playlist. it's more like one of those weird compilation albums that i definitely didn't consume too many of as a child #did kind of want this to show up in the aubreyad tag but i wanted links more so rip :// anyways here goes nothing #aubreyad #catalan #catalan:general #catalan:music #catalan:reference #catalan:culture #general:music #general:reference #general:culture #there'd better not be any typos or i'm fighting someone

[meanbossart]

A long over-due ask compilation (Art & Music)

It's vaguely based on a short story from the book "The Consumer" by Michael Gira, specifically "The Boss". I think it came up in conversation with a friend or something when I was picking a new username, so that's how we arrived at it - this was almost a decade ago so, my memory on it is a little hazy!

{MORE UNDER THE CUT]

HAHA thank you so much!!! Glad you enjoy what I do 😎🍻

I BELIEVE this little guide I put together over here might be helpful to you, also! I touched on pretty much everything you brought up.

As for reference material when it comes to facial expressions, I have a mirror next to my desk which I glance at often and make weird faces at LOL and for consistency, it's really a matter of learning to dissect and remember facial structure. It's just something you end up developing an eye for when you've done it for long enough! Naturally, if we're talking about drawing existing characters, it's always helpful to just look at some pictures of their mugs and take a minute to define what features about them make their faces recognizable - I touch on this at the link above as well!

I do plan on making a "drowstarion" (love that, by the way LOL) playlist eventually, life's just been kicking my ass and I hardly have the time 😭and when I do, I just wanna draw.

Otherwise I don't have any other playlists floating around at the moment, BUT the one my boyfriend made for his Vellioth comic can be found here, and it might scratch a similar itch!

Thank you! I believe this was in reference to this post. Something like that takes me about... An hour??? If we're talking just the colors, at least. Though that's a really rough estimate because I take a lot of breaks, so my sense of time when I work ends up pretty skewed. Even if the application of the colors themselves took less than 20 minutes I probably spent 2 hours just staring at it LOL.

My friend, I have no idea. I'm in a constant battle between "I want to draw more realistically" and "I want to simplify my art so I can draw more/faster". What you see is the result of that ongoing brain-tug-of-war.

Also, just the way I assume everyone else develops theirs - they see stuff they like and emulate it until their art is Frankensteinish enough to be it's own unique thing!

I'm far from a Type O Negative buff, BUT I'm happy to share some of my favorites with you! They're quite scattered across a couple of their albums so I'm not sure I have a favorite, but I would say October Rust is a good starting point.

In no particular order, these are my most listened tracks of theirs: -Love You to Death -Black N.01 -Haunted -She Burned Me Down -Can't Lose You -I Don't Wanna Be Me -Be My Druidess -September Sun -Tripping A Blind Man

Alas, I was one of those people who was already drawing in kindergarten 😅 though I would say I only started taking it seriously when I was around 15-16 years old. As someone who has tried their hand at several other hobbies since reaching adulthood, I get what you're saying that it can kinda feel like... You missed the wagon? I've felt that way about all kind of things lol

That said, I've seen adults managing to develop their art skills extremely fast and effectively before. Understanding where and how you need to improve, and how to follow lessons/guides best is something that is vastly improved by maturity and knowing how to best hone your time, attention, and resources - and those are skills we completely lack as children. So, I sincerely believe that as long as you commit yourself, you can definitely get to a point that you're happy with in a couple of years if not less.

JUST DO IT BUDDY we are all just people looking through a screen and you won't ever see, talk, or meet 99% of the folks who ever clap eyes on what you post. Whenever you start getting nervous about sharing something, take a minute to ask yourself why you're nervous, and if none of the reasons have any genuine substance besides being afraid of what people "might think", just go ahead and post it. You're no mind-reader after all, and if you are, I doubt you can hear what a guy from Argentina or wherever is thinking about the art you made.

Point is, nobody online can touch you 🤷and if someone doesn't like what you do, they can simply choose to not interact with it, and if they do you can block and move on. There are zero reasons for you to feel "bad" about putting up a doodle when our experiences on the web are so easily curated nowadays.

#ask compilation

[randomvarious]

1990s Punk Rock Playlist

Hey, did you ever realize that if you take the phrase, “Massachusetts’ Dropkick Murphys,” you can pull out and rearrange some of the letters in order to form the words, “Mother’s Day”? It’s true, even the goddamn apostrophe too. Go ahead and try it if you don’t believe me. I’ll wait.

Anyway, I’ve got a nice little update this week for a 1990s punk rock playlist that I haven’t touched in a long while, and it includes not just any song from the Dropkick Murphys, but the first song that they ever wrote, “Barroom Hero.” The Dropkicks really were the first band to crack that “Irish drinking songs can be punk songs too” code. Sure, there were The Pogues before them, but The Pogues were more of an Irish folk band who infused their sound with punk, whereas DKM are a punk band who infuse their sound with Irish folk. There’s a distinction with a difference there.

Also, Dropkick Murphys weren’t actually always a Celtic punk band either. Although “Barroom Hero” was the first song that they’d ever come up with, it didn’t appear on their debut release, and that release doesn’t have any of that Celtic punk sound on it that would soon become the band’s very own calling card, eventually leading to anthems like “Tessie” and, of course, “I’m Shipping Up to Boston.”

“Barroom Hero” is included on a 1997 compilation called Give ‘Em the Boot, which was put out by Hellcat Records, a sublabel of punk powerhouse Epitaph that was founded by Tim Armstrong of Rancid. And there appear to be multiple, slightly different versions of this song on Spotify, but the one I put on this playlist has 281.6K plays, whereas the other one is at over 5 million. And it looks like Spotify included that more popular one on their Give ‘Em the Boot entry, while the less popular one is on mine. Weird!

Speaking of weird, another add for the Spotify playlist comes courtesy of a band who was there during Cali punk’s late 70s infancy. It’s The Weirdos from Los Angeles, with “Cyclops Helicopter,” a song that fuses punk with a bounding, galloping theme straight out of some old western TV show from the 60s. It’s a fun and catchy one that appears on Frontier Records’ 1991 label sampler, Burns From the Valley of the Sun, and currently has about 37.6K plays on Spotify.

The Weirdos – “Cyclops Helicopter” Dropkick Murphys – “Barroom Heroes”

Now, those two songs are on the YouTube version of this playlist too, but I also ended up adding a whole bunch of songs to that YouTube version that aren’t on Spotify as well; some real rare and unknown ones, in fact. And a lot of them happen to make for some speedy, catchy, and melodic anthems 🤘.

First is Diesel Boy’s “Lime Green,” which is the song among these new YouTube adds that has the most plays, currently sitting at about 4.2K. There’s a shorter album version of this song that’s at about 34.7K plays, but I think this lesser known one, which comes off of Fearless Records’ great Punk Bites compilation from 1996, is better. And it has a stupid recorded prank call skit at the beginning, too, which the album version doesn’t have. Great, vintage mid-90s Cali punk sound on this one from these Santa Rosa boys.

Next is a song from a very unknown band that hailed all the way from Australia; so unknown, in fact, that I can’t figure out what part of that giant country that they specifically came from. They had an unfortunate name—Epstein—but don’t let that fact ruin the fantastic mid-90s pop-punk vibe they brought forth in 1996 with “Just the Way.” I found this one on a fantastic compilation from pioneering indie/new wave/power pop/punk rock label BOMP! Records called Pop On Top! The Cream of Australia’s Power Pop Crop!, and the song is currently sitting at only 17 plays. Criminally low. Get to know Epstein; the good kind!

Then we have a song with an even lower play count: “Hangover,” by Detroit’s Motor Dolls, an all-woman trio who had the honor of appearing alongside both pioneering punk bands The MC5 and Stooges on a compilation called Motor City’s Burnin’ in 1998. This tune only has 14 plays, and among all the songs I added today, it’s definitely the least poppy and melodic. Frontwoman Paula Messner, whose current gig appears to be performing punk rock for kids’ functions, sings with a sharp and fierce chest voice, à la someone like Zack de la Rocha. Her downhill vocals on each verse of this song are just so electric.

And following that is a song with a play count that’s even lower!: “After All,” by Sacramento’s Smartbomb CA, which only has 13 plays. It’s this sort-of rowdy hybrid of Cali punk and pop-punk, with verses that tend towards this slightly malevolent Pennywise-ish sound and choruses that represent a transitional climb towards a much more sugary and exceedingly catchy bout of melodically anthemic pop. I discovered it on a punk and melodic hardcore compilation called You Don’t Have to Be Tom Jones, Volume Two, which was put out in 1998 by Coolidge Records. Coolidge also released a cool concept compilation that same year called Coolidge 50 that had 50 different bands sing a song about their own home state. Most of it wasn’t very good, but it was mostly punk, and the handful of the ones that I’ve come to love are already included on both the Spotify and YouTube versions of this playlist.

Plus, Smartbomb CA also consists of members of another band called The Tank, who also have songs on that You Don’t Have to Be Tom Jones, Volume Two album. And I’ve got a pair of Tank songs on this playlist too.

And last, but not least, is a song from a band called Cooter, who hail from Orange County, but not the Orange County that you’re probably thinking of—Orange County, New York. And I guess that’s kind of surprising, because their song “Full House,” which appears on another album from Fearless Records called Serial Killer Compilation that was released in 1999, really sounds like some sunshining Cali skate punk-type of stuff. Its play count isn’t as low as some of these others I’ve added, but for something this good and anthemic, 146 still feels pretty damn low.

Diesel Boy – “Lime Green” Epstein – “Just the Way” Motor Dolls – “Hangover” Smartbomb CA – “After All” Cooter – “Full House”

This playlist is also on YouTube Music.

So, here’s where things currently stand with this playlist: The Spotify version is at 47 songs and just a smidge over two hours, whereas the YouTube one is at 55 songs and 2 hours and 25 minutes. I’m always gonna end up suggesting that you listen to the longer one, but you’re also gonna find some really underheard gems with it too this time.

And if anything over two hours of 90s punk rock sounds like too much for you, I’ve got another playlist that consists of tunes that are solely from the year of 1996. It’s at under an hour on both Spotify and YouTube.

1996 Punk Rock: Spotify / YouTube / YouTube Music

Enjoy!

A bunch more to add to this. Stay tuned!

Like what you hear? Follow me on Spotify and YouTube for more cool playlists and uploads!

#punk #punk rock #rock #music #90s #90s music #90's #90's music #playlist #playlists #spotify #spotify playlist #spotify playlists #youtube #youtube playlist #youtube playlists #youtube music #youtube music playlist #youtube music playlists

[rrxnjun]

from here ;

hmm i haven't really listened to dynamite and tbt i don't really want to bc butter was v disappointing djkfhgf i had only been in book fandoms since the beginning bc i got a yt/gmail acc only after i turned 12. i gave western music a ‘serious’ listen from then and after that i got into the wild place that is k-pop. ngl i don’t regret it bc the insanity >>> but oml there was a time when i used to read like 2/3 books in a week and now it’s regressed to like 1 in 6 months i genuinely feel bad for not being able to make the time to read 😭😭 (are we counting fanfiction tho hmmm). it was fun reading all those ya dystopian fiction with crazy amts of angst lol. are you into any specific book/author these days?

omg do you play the flute ?? and noooo sticker is nuts but I really like roadtrip from the album it’s so pretty as a song dkfjgd

FDSDGH so i’m pretty sure yangyang said the same ab cat food so bye bye #bar and renjun soulmate agenda hihi #bar and yangyang childhood rivals to complicated relationship with messy feelings (enemies ?? ) bc you’re both grown up now but he’s still a p(r)etty, overthinking idiot [affectionate] to friends of weird sort to smth more wink wink??

YESSS GIVE EXO A TRY their group music is so good literally all of them are bops i can’t stress enough on how good they are 🤧 omg i love their solo stuff too kyungsoo’s solo songs literally have me shedding tears haven’t still recovered from empathy. love shot ikfjgd it's one of those songs which makes loving exo so damn easy it’s the song which got me into them, that and overdose <3 and the choreo🧎🏾‍♀️love how we all collectively went batshit crazy over love shot oh gods i absolutely loved watching other idols trying that iconic love shot move the feeling of unitedly obsessing over them is unparalleled. here’s the exo playlist hope you like it omg had to use up all of my self control from adding entire discographies. 

I LOVE BAEKHYUN’S VOICE even when the man’s screaming which is like always lol <3 that compilation video of byun baekhyun screaming in youtube my beloved. cry for love is beautiful and un village was the first baekhyun solo i listened to so it’s special <3

the worst part is how superm won’t be active in the next few years bc of the enlistments we’re losing god tiered music makers to the war </3 kjdgf ALL OF THEIR VIDEOS ARE HILARIOUS YESS those vids where they quiz each other is sm chaos lmaoo. jfgsdf have you watched this video where they react to their as we wish scenarios?? sheesh that amt of clowning and slandering is >>> ohhh fave superm song hmm hard to choose but i’ll go w dangerous woman (ten’s ‘what’s wrong with you part’ is just too cute) wish you were here, infinity and tiger inside.   

ALSO LOVED THE PARX PLAYLIST haven’t listened to it fully tho but for now my faves are easy to hate and i felt younger when we met omg i love most of the songs from fandom <33

and oml tysm i really needed to see that 😭 i’m literally so scared bc lord it’s my last year in school and my last year as a minor ahhhhh 🤧 stem is extremely hard and puts me through sm pain <3. the only reason i’m sticking w it is bc i like learning it <3 getting the opportunity to study what you like is actually such a rare thing + almost the entirety of my country’s population is obsessed w getting their kids major in stem subjects (bc of the asian stereotypes surrounding those fields) but we don’t have that many good unis so the competition is really tiring </3

p.s. i haven’t really used tiktok so idk 💀 and the yangyang brainrot is doing a little too bc of your fic 😵 feeling sm things after reading i’m not angry anymore (well, sometimes i am) bc yangyang's character <33 need a few weeks to recover from that tyvm 

oof i get you w butter it was so disappointing🤧🤧but oh well. everyone has different taste🤷‍♀️ i dont really get solo armies but i guess im not the one to judge.

i get you with book fandoms!!! i wasnt in many book fandoms, since i didnt really know they existed 💀💀 but i am a massive bookworm! i too used to read like 3 books a week once and now im happy if i do 1 every three months😭 but im busier now and also have other hobbies, so i guess that's why i dont read as much anymore! what are some of your favorite books? 🥰 im a big fan of john green books (dont judge. i copy his writing style /j) and j.d. sallinger! i love me some good YA and dystopian books hhh. im currently reading this crime book i stole from my grandma but im too lazy to look up the english name 😭😭😭 are you reading anything atm?

SJSJSJ i dont play the recorder 😭 i mean,, i have it at home and i can play when i look up the simplified version of notes with the drawings,,, like the sheet music they do for elementary school children 💀💀 i knew how to play the titanic song lmaoo i play the guitar tho! do you play any instruments?

your yangyang childhood rivals to complicated relationship with messy feelings (enemies??) bc you're both grown up now but he's still a p(r)etty overthinking idiot [affectionate] to friends of some sort to smth more wink wink is so specific i might just take some inspo from this wink wink

OVERDOSE >>>>>>> I FUCKING LOOOVE THAT SONG@!!! also i listened to the playlist and found out that i knew more than half of the songs you added 😭😭 i loved the ones that were new to me tho!!!! espeCIALLY going crazy! i think that one was my fav out of the new ones! i might just need you to help me stan them or something bc the playlist slAPS

dont remind me of superm military hiatus when i miss them the most :(( also no i havent seen these!!! gotta catch up sjsjsn

FANDOM IS MY FAV PARX ALBUM!! its very dear to my heart!! also our fav songs match🥺 i felt younger when we met is probably my most played song of this year smh 🤧

oh so youre 17?? enjoy it i romanticize that age so much i feel like the last time when i was truly happy was when i was 17 💀 but no trust me its all gonna be good! i know it seems scary but as your self proclaimed older sister figure, i promise its less difficult than it seems and you'll do great. you can always come to me and vent whenever things get hard! i am glad you are fortunate enough to study what you want to, its truly a privilage some of us tend to overlook

p.s. the yy brainrot is still going in me as well i listened to miracle today on repeat and i swear his parts make me feel a different type of way😭 also make sure to tell me more abt your thoughts and feelings on that fic if you want to!

#💌ask #ni 🌱

[mytastessuck]

Gorillaz: Humanz

SHere it is, the comeback tour! I was so excited for this album, I sucked all the singles that came out before I could download the album. This album basically reminded me of the reasons I love Gorillaz. All of them. One particular reason a little too well...

Okay, let's get the elephant out of the room. This album is a bit controversial among the community for playing a little too hard to one of Gorillaz' strengths: showcasing cool artists. There are more than a few tracks where Damon doesn't even show up. Hell, my favorite track doesn't even have it on him. Me, I honestly don't care about that as long as I get to hear good music but for the rest of you die hard Gorillaz fans? Just think of this as a compilation album like NOW That's What I Call Alternative/Indie Hip-Hop/R&B/Electronica/Pop.

See? Rolls off the tongue. Now let's get started.

1. Intro: I Switched My Robot Off

Nice. Real ominous. Gorillaz really know how to build up a presentation. Feels like you're walking through the doors of the doors to the Shrine of the Silver Monkey. Anybody remember Legends of the Hidden Temple? Were there doors on that stage? Anyway, awesome.

10/10

2. Ascension

Holy hell, Vince really knocks it out of the park on this one. Different beat, nice flow, social commentary...He was not fucking around on this track. Damon's barely on the track but Vince makes up for it with his existential rhymes and chorus back-up. Man, Gorillaz has gotta take advantage of gospel more often.

9/10

3. Strobelite

That didn't take long, did it? Anyway, this is my favorite song on the album. Peven has an incredible voice, the music psychically compels you to dance and...that's it. Sometimes, well usually with me, you just need to go with Simple Yet Awesome. Have a good voice and a good beat. This song has both and I'm pretty sure that one day, a scientist will hear this song and will be inspired by it to cure diabetes.

100/10

4. Saturn Barz

Ah, the lead single from the album. Remember the 360 house, everyone? Yeah, you remember. Glad to have Gorillaz welcome back Reggae into their line-up with Popcaan manning the helms. He and Damon tag-team the eardrums with the power of dread as the instrumentation makes you feel like you're in a haunted house. Welcome back, guys.

25/10

5. Momentz

WELCOME BACK, GUYS! De La Soul returns to say some real shit about time and how you should, respect and stuff. Seriously, awesome track. Kicks so much ass and you can even dance to it as you wonder if this MOMENT will be one of the last times when you feel really happy. Nice...

9/10

6. Interlude: The Non-Conformist Oath

Hey, Steve Martin! I like to imagine a bunch of assholes listening to this and...just not getting it. Not us though. We get it. We're smart. Smarter than those guys...

10/10

7. Submission

This song had to grow on me but years after I got the album and after I learned to appreciate Danny Brown a little more like all humans should, this song became one of my favorites off the album. Don't worry Kelela, he doesn't carry the whole song. Her voice is so beautiful that it can calm a charging rhino or a coked-up Connor McGregor. These make the song a lot classier than it had any right being.

90/10

8. Charger

She's beauty, she's Grace...she's also Jones. Man, I haven't heard from this woman since Corporate Cannibal and she has clearly been keeping up practice. God, how can a woman's laughter both scare and arouse me? Damon's no slouch on this track either, singing about the monster that keeps us all tethered: the charger. I kid, I kid. Hey, did Damon really get a boner on stage when he sung this or are you guys messing with me? Message me if you know.

9/10

9. Interlude: Elevator Going Up

On a recent trip, I tried to go up the elevator but it was card-activated so a desk lady had to help me. That's it.

8/10

10. Andromeda

Damon has to do the heavy lifting here and his muscles have not completely wasted away from lack of use. He tells us to take in our heart and you know what? I did. I took this song directly in my heart...and my playlist.

50/10

11. Busted And Blue

Yeah, this song is a bummer. A good bummer. It's Broken's younger brother who joined the army to make his parents proud after he couldn't get into university like his older brother who managed to form a separate family with his squad and began to think that maybe he was good enough after all before his squad gets bombed and, as he lies legless dying painfully on the ground, a blue butterfly land directly on his outstretched busted hand...

Directed by Mervyn LeRoy

10/10

12. Interlude: Talk Radio

You ever wonder how we get voices in machines? I know you think it's a complicated process but I know a dude who picked up the radio in his electric fan once. Think about it.

8/10

13. Carnival

Again, this song had to grow on me but one day, while I was thinking about Gamzee for a godforsaken reason, I thought "Geez, he talks about the Dark Carnival and the Dark Carnival isn't even some of ICP's best days. What's a good song about a carnival?" Anyway, Anthony can spin a person's mind and mind around just by singing. He's wild.

80/10

14. Let Me Out

Hey, wouldn't it be funny if Mavis was Vince's mother? She's not but that would be funny as well as cool. Her and Pusha T bang on the walls of this track as they rant about the politics at the time of this song. Yeah, they're talking about Trump. That car horn can't protect you forever, you orange bastard.

9/10

15. Interlude: Penthouse

Dear Penthouse: Hi. Does anyone check in on you, just you? I'm here to say I think you're important and you provide a necessary outlet for men to brag about being perverts. At least before the Youtube comment section existed.

Thanks for everything,

mytastessuck

8/10

16. Sex Murder Party

Ooooo, this track puts me in a funky mood. Like, there's a part but there's sex there...and MURDER. So you know it's an awesome party. Kick-ass, right? I know it's kick-ass. Keep dancing, people.

11/10

17. She's My Collar

Pretty sexy song. Gotta love people vauging about being used in a song. That's why we love Offspring, that's why we love Damon on his knees onstage. Hey, there was a post that said Noodle wrote this song about her girlfriend. That was an excellent post. Well done.

9/10

18. Interlude: The Elephant

I SAID GET OUT OF HERE, YOU BASTARD!

8/10

19. Hallelujah Money

Ah, the technical first single. Remember when they said that they weren't going to put this song on the album? Anyway, this is exactly the song we needed after The Incident occurred. Benjamin manages to calm down an entire populace while Damon just fearfully wonders what our future will be like...and he's in the UK. This song is one long terrifying lullaby to an entire country...until the end, anyway.

75/10

20. We Got The Power

A great way to remind listeners that no matter what's happening, no matter who's in charge, we have the power change everything. An excellent message for people who were still recovering from The Incident.

10/10

21. Interlude: New World

Okay, the bonus tracks. Should be nothing special here, right? Just some B-sides and I've never shown favoritism towards B-sides, right?

8/10

22. The Apprentice

A nice song from the same Rag n' Bone Man who brought us "Human". Zebra manages to lay down some nice rhymes as Ray BLK backs them both up with the force of her voice. These guys should form a team with how well they work together. Oh, they should make a virtual band! All they need to do is find an artist...

9/10

23. Halfway To The Halfway House

A very nice song if a bit overshadowed by the others on the album. Still, Peven can't be beat when it comes to crooning and he raises a song from a solid C to a B.

8/10

24. Out of Body

This song had to grow on me also but when it did...lord, this song is weird. Hypnotic suggestions, telephone tones, the song starts then Zebra jumps in to help then who is this person?! Why are people applauding?! Who are you people?! Why are there so many crows gathering outside my house?!

60/10

25. Ticker Tape

Well well well, look who's back. Damon returns with his old friend Kali to join the accuser of the vain Carly Simon to beg us to stay on the album. Sorry Damon, but I got places to do and people to go. There's nothing you can do to convince me to stick around after how long this album already is.

9/10

26. Circle of Friendz

Huh. Seems like a riot is going on. Weird for Gorillaz to get this real. What, this guy is just going to keep saying Circle of Friendz again and again? Is this supposed to affect me? Get real. It'll take a lot more than a nice voice and implications to...

To...

...

...Maybe I should listen to the album again.

11/10

Album score: 25/10

Damn, that took a while. Shouldn't be the case next week when we cover The Now Now. See you then!

#gorillaz #humanz #music #review

[airadam]

Episode 142 : ...If You Hear Me

"We all need...some fresh air."

- Tobe

This month has been pretty exhausting, but I did have some good ideas for this episode, and once I hit stride with the recording I decided to try and keep the pace up and get it released on a weekend day! The selection has turned out to be heavy on artists who are no longer with us, but left us some great music to remember them by. Get yourself comfortable and press "play"...

Twitter : @airadam13

Twitch : @airadam13

Playlist/Notes

Evidence ft. Raekwon and Ras Kass : The Red Carpet

How is this track ten years old already? Time has flown since the 2011 release of "Cats & Dogs", the second solo Evidence album after four LPs as part of Dilated Peoples. While Evidence is an excellent producer in his own right, the reins here are taken by his future partner in The Step Brothers, The Alchemist. He further shows his confidence by bringing in California's Ras Kass and Raekwon from the Wu to guest, both legendary MCs, and holds his own next to both. A great collection of talent to kick off the show!

[DJ Premier] Gang Starr : What's Real? (Instrumental)

I just had to go back to "One Of The Best Yet" for another Preemo beat! Definitely get the instrumental release if you can, especially as you get the previously-unreleased "Glowing Mic" as a bonus cut.

The Notorious B.I.G ft. DMC : My Downfall

As I say on the voiceover, it feels weird playing a good chunk of Biggie's catalogue given how he ultimately died. This track from "Life After Death" is a perfect example, and feels like a mix of the creative writing he was famed for and maybe a realisation of exactly how much negativity swirled around him even after he had made the transition from the streets to the music industry. The legendary DMC of RUN DMC guests, only on the hook - but he does it well.

Agallah : Slaughter

Just a few bars, just a taste, as I needed something to bridge a track with no instrumental outro and the other with no open bars on the intro! Big respect to Agallah though, who has been putting in work since the mid-90s and will probably have yet another new project out by the time I finish typing this sentence. Find this beat on "Propain Campain Presents Agalllah - The Instrumental Vol. 1".

Sean Price and Small Professor (ft. Rock and DJ Revolution) : Refrigerator P

Heavy business! Ruck (Sean Price) and Rock, formerly the duo Heltah Skeltah, reunite on this killer from the "86 Witness" LP. Small Professor makes the beat dramatic, and DJ Revolution seasons the mix with his trademark super-sharp cuts.

Fred The Godson : Presidents

The Bronx-born-and-bred MC Fred The Godson sadly passed away last April at just 35 - one of the relatively early US casualties of COVID-19. During his lifetime, his catalogue consisted of some highly-rated mixtapes, but only after his death do we finally hear his debut album, "Ascension".  This track of course is built (by Hesami) around the same sample as Jay-Z's "Dead Presidents" as Fred expounds on the drug game.

Broke 'n' English : Tryin' (Calibre Mix)

"Tryin'" was one of the standouts on the 2007 debut LP "Subject 2 Status" from this respected Manchester crew. Both Strategy and DRS have a long-standing history in the drum & bass scene, and so it made sense that the remix of this track would be handled by someone like Calibre. Sharp, crisp drum action and a smooth bassline drive this one along, with DRS' vocals being woven in as a refrain. You can hear in this one track how DRS then went on to make several excellent D&B albums - his vocal versatility allows him to shine on any production.

Marco Polo : Cindy

The "MP On The MP" (see what he did there?) beat tape is inspired by a Youtube series he was doing, and features a host of new and unreleased beats. Marco Polo is one keeping this style of production alive, which I'm thankful for.  I still think of him as a "new" producer, but he's a veteran with over fifteen years in the industry!

Le$ : Out To Cali

Le$ is a great MC to go to if you want lyrics about just living life and having fun - almost like a Curren$y, but without the extreme high-end references. Right here, he's going to Cali, buying some weed, riding around, and enjoying the view - sometimes it doesn't need to be more lofty than that. Mr.Rogers goes to a familiar sample as a basis for the beat, and if you want more, the whole "Summer Madness" will give you these vibes - and exercise your speakers in the process.

O.C. : What I Need (Keelay Remix)

The "Smoke & Mirrors" LP is a bit of a forgotten one for many, but I really enjoyed it, and when acapellas became available, it was expertly remixed by the Sole Vibe crew out of San Francisco. The classic soul sample (which you may recognise from tracks like "Deeper" by Bo$$) is the foundation, with a heavy kick and skipping hi-hats providing the rhythm. O.C. never lost a step from his first LP, and he's never afraid to put his feelings out there on wax.

Sadat X : Stages & Lights

This is one of those tracks I was stunned to realised I hadn't already played on the podcast, so here it is at last! This Showbiz-produced cut from the 1996 "Wild Cowboys" LP, Sadat's solo debut, was also a B-side on the "Hang 'Em High" single - but definitely stole the show. If you ever find the original sample, you'll be amazed at how Show plucked that one small piece for this beat!

Phife Dawg : Thought U Wuz Nice

Killer B-side action from Phife Dawg, on the flip of the Superrappin "Bend Ova" 12", with J Dilla on the bouncy production. Still can't quite believe that both of these icons are no longer with us.

Saib : Beyond Clouds

The Chillhop label seems to put out endless amounts of beats from producers specialising in sounds inspired by greats like J Dilla and Nujabes, but with their own spin. This one comes from the "Chillhop Essentials Fall 2020" compilation, one of any number that are perfect for soundtracking study, work, or just a lazy day!

213 : Run On Up

That beat by Tha Chill and the delivery of "Shut the f********ck up and ruuuu-uuu-uuuun" by the late great Nate Dogg is enough to make this an absolute classic in my ears, but the full picture is even better. Way before "Doggystyle", "The Chronic", or even "Deep Cover", 213 was the group formed in Long Beach by Nate Dogg, Warren G, and Snoop, before any of them had got their big breaks. Years later, after all of them had become stars in their own rights, it was heart-warming to see them reform for the "The Hard Way" LP, from which this is taken.

Sporty Thievz : Angel

The Sporty Thievz deserve to be remembered for more than "No Pigeons", as much as we enjoyed the whole thing at the time. The "Street Cinema" album may not have quite lived up to the name, but there were some solid cuts on there, and this was one. Produced by King Kirk of the group alongside Ski, this track has all the foreboding, and while the singing on the hook may not be Marvin Gaye level, it absolutely works here.

Jean Grae : My Crew

One of the great underrated MCs - not because her skills are in question, but simply because not enough people know her! She's in fine early 2000s form on this cut from the "Bootleg of the Bootleg EP", produced by China Black. Straight boom-bap, and she cuts through with clarity and dexterity. Jean Grae raps, sings, produces, acts...one of the true talent of the culture.

Bronx Slang : Just Say No

New single from Jerry Beeks and Ollie Miggs, who have really been on a hot streak the last couple of years. It's nice to hear some protest music in an era that really calls for it, and if this is a marker of how good the upcoming second album is going to be, then you need to reserve a space in your crates right now! Jadell on production brings an appropriate heaviness to the track, no lightness on the beat!

[Ron Browz] Big L : The Heist (Instrumental)

All these years and I'd never looked to see who produced this beat from Big L's posthumously-released LP "The Big Picture" - come to find out it's one of Ron Browz' first credits. He's much better known for "Ether" by Nas, which came in 2001. The vocal version of this track is what the name suggests, a robbery tale, and you can hear the sound effects that punctuate the narrative still here in the instrumental.

Tobe Nwigwe : Fresh Air

Tobe Nwigwe and his collective (including his wife Fat and his producer Nell) have been quietly on the rise for a while, but in very recent times their profile has elevated noticeably. "The Pandemic Project" is a short six-track album from last year, and another quality addition to the catalogue. This man is an amazing MC, and Nell's often-unconventional beats are the perfect canvas. Don't sleep! 

Please remember to support the artists you like! The purpose of putting the podcast out and providing the full tracklist is to try and give some light, so do use the songs on each episode as a starting point to search out more material. If you have Spotify in your country it's a great way to explore, but otherwise there's always Youtube and the like. Seeing your favourite artists live is the best way to put money in their pockets, and buy the vinyl/CDs/downloads of the stuff you like the most!

Check out this episode!

[mikkock]

Uhm??????? Unacceptable?? Please tell me more about your OCs in that last art? I demand it? I want a full report on my desk before morning? Cite your sources please?

Oh no,, you’re asking,,, about my own faves,,, sorry to everyone, but I guess im never going to shut up ever now. (i already don’t shut up ever, what have u done, im now going to speak so much that society will collapse AT LEAST)

But for real. I enjoy pretending I don’t have faves, I love all my kids the same, buT WE ALL KNO THAT’S A LIE, those two my fave bitches (they snatched that title from the last two faves, rip to them, and they also snatched, n I must really make that clear, the title of “the bitches with the most AUs from the previous previous faves. Their power.)

SO. Get ready for a ride, table of content: them, their respective character, their story, and the pLETHORA OF ALTERNATE STORIES I GAVE THEM because i must yell about all the versions of my kids i have (non-exhaustive cause its that serious bro, but ill take extra time for the universe depicted in that art just for u bby). (tbh if clamp is allowed to sprinkle their fave gays in all their universes so am i, except they aint secondary characters there, every story is just theirs. love that concept.)(itll be so long you’re getting a whole novel even if i have to post it in two posts)

So~ Em twos. Dari n Wei-wei as I call em, or Dumbass n Egg if you wanna get friendly.

They’re my proudest instance of “oops i made a squad of characters, and two of them just accidentally were so perfectly compatible and complementary oh no I guess they’re in love now.” And then they became my favourite. Cause I guess their potential was too much (jk its bc they hot)

cuties.

I spent ten minutes wondering which to introduce first cause dang son, I want to talk bout them both so much shefjgfdg

First, as I technically designed him first (like ten minutes before the other), my man weiwei. if u ever saw my art its impossible that you havent seen him at least once. cause i’m legit always drawing him. cause im in love bro.

Demonstration : here are my computer scribbled weiweis of 2020 so far (with a few daris there n there they’re a package deal), that i could find, and they do not include all the paper sketches that i’m too lazy to take pics of. (i just been drawing him with so much hair these days that’s illegal, his brand is baldness)

But anyway, he’s CHEN Chia-Wei, he’s 21, he’s Taiwanese n I love him. Two very important facets of his character when you meet him: he doesn’t talk, and is absolutely, in every single dimension, built to make you fall head over heels for him.

He’s (in the “canon” storyline if i may call it that since it’s def not my most developed one but oh well) an art student, mostly paints but is also great at photography and videography (his vibe is busy hectic pieces with strong bold colours, lots of harsh edges, and very people focused).

Aside from that, he’s also super into fashion, and because he’s part of the rich boy squad (the “im broke so im giving half my characters wealth in compensation) he Can and Does exhibit some quite funky fits when he feels like it. (maybe a reason I draw him a lot, since my fave thing is pretty boys in weird ass clothes)(and then i also draw him in just casual shit cuz tittiful men in plain white tees you know. there’s just something about it.)

Small compilation of outfits. ft me and my band handwriting roasting outfits that id also kill to own but ok u know.

He digs music. (i make playlists for my OCs and i gotta say, his is the best one, i spent so many hours researching it, “arranging” it etc n its still a work in progress but dude. she got many moods my fave part is when it suddenly turns into so many cheesy ballads also she’s enormous cause im as wordy in playlists as I am in writing.) listens to a lot, n also he can play piano n guitar. cause you know. heartthrobs got to win your heart with a song (and if he’s alone he can even mumble some songs, who knows maybe even sing em softly, definitly a sight to stumble on accidentally). Big main artists that have his vibes are Hello Nico, No Party for Cao Dong, n Circa Waves’s “what’s it like over there” album.

He does a lot of sports. He ain’t fit through magic, rip to him. He’s got a serious routine, and it’s a time he likes to use alone, cause nothing like running at the break of dawn, alone with your thoughts, which you can just easily forget through the exhaustion of a workout session afterwards.

he also eats. A lot. Food is just good, bro. (the canon story is def happening some place europe aka his biggest struggle is how expensive food is here. outrageous.)

He secretly loves super cheesy movies. the dramatic romcoms??? the cute shows that are just so cute and worriless?? anything involving soulmates??? yeh dude. he watches it, he reads it, he listens to it, and he may cry about it, but no one will know. That’s the one true guilty pleasure. (and he definitly has a collection of romance dvds, books n manhuas in his old room back at the family home. where no one can see it. perks of studying abroad. no one can see ur hoarding of material that clashes your image. “yes i watch edgy experimental things haha yes i love those smart people movies of course wow the philosophy…” and then immediatly goes to watch the trashiest predictable but oh so sweet dramas all night)

While he doesn’t speak (as in with the mouth) he can communicate in a bunch of language, due to having moved around quite a bit. On top of his native mandarin and hokkien, he’s fluent in English, so he can use those to write, and is also fluent in TSL, and pretty good in HKSL (and from that, other close-in-syntax sign languages). So he doesn’t have trouble getting around, but then he is also overall quiet in public (with close friends and over text though, that’s another story, that’s where he gets chattier, and also where you may get more of his true personality). Also, he can speak with his sister. That’s pretty cool bro.

I was going to say he’s a very “hides his true colours under a shell” type of character but you know, for an egg character, that’s pretty ironic. We love poetic cinema.

He presents himself as a very laid back, chill detached dude, going with the flow and all that great stuff, and masterfully mixes just the right doses of mysterious, flirty and calm to just go around vibing. But ain’t that jUST THE MILLENIAL’S ILLNESS, those dANG KIDS, going around, gettin relationships but never intimacy 👏😢 (there’s more to it dont leave)

First of all, before you see the Drama, the Turmoil, the first thing you notice when you really do befriend him is that he’s c h i l d i s h, he gets sulky when things dont go following the plan, he gets whiny n jealous for not getting attention , he gets competitive over stupid challenges, and way too playful if you start teasing, and when he gets flustered too…you think you get cool stoic dude but actually you get a dude who’s reacting to things with way too much intensity, and boi i thought u were gon be mature what’s that why have you been pouting for three days over losing a bet come on- That’s mostly coming up when he interacts with his sister, but the closest you are to him to more of it you get to see.

He’s also an affectionate dude actually. Like physically. As in you’ll get spontaneous hugs. He’s come nap on your shoulder. That’s a perk of befriending him if you ask me.

Also he tries to look so cool, so tough haha. He’s actually a lil sensitiv boi. he gets fluffy, he gets flustered, he heart eyes. you turn around and he’s gazing at ya as if you were the whole universe. he gets a mini crisis for holding hands with his crush. ya know. he’s secretly a softie.

nerd.

Then in the “what he doesn’t show” (my fave part), where you stock all the anxieties, all the trauma… Obviously there’s a lot of anxiety here (selective muteness being a symptom of it, he hides the other ones very well) mostly fear of inadequacy, of abandonement and of loneliness. mmmmmmmaybe that’s why he was v reticent to continue pursuing that one guy he was into when he realised he was just a tad too into him oh no is that some,, like?? some lovey-love?? cant have that im afraid of gettin heartbroken bro. Aint that sad for a someone who’s one true goal is just findin someone to love and to be with forever, the struggles of yearnin for a soulmate when there’s nothing you fear more than getting attached to a person and letting them see you and your flaws.., delicious.

Now tho (because its so alone speaking about a character on their own and i just wanna get to the part where i can speak bout em together and how they bring out bits of each others ya kno, the good kush….), Dari…

He’s pretty, i must say, and got the funniest hair to draw, and comes from the most opposite background to weiwei’s.

Darian Andriev PARVANOV, also 21, comes from the remote Bulgarian countryside, but i still love him (this makes it sound as if i wouldnt normally love someone from the bulgarian countryside. its not what i meant. by default ud remind me of my son so you’d start being liked if u came from the bulgarian countryside) Now for the first instance of “wow, the complementarity”. The first thing i thought making Dari was that he looked too cool, and that he obviously was a dumbass, and mostly that he was physically unable to shut up. (o fuck he’s me)

best picture i could find of him. He’s got the dilemma of “wow he looked so pretty n cool until he opened his mouth” 

He’s ALSO an art student (cause they were initially created for the purpose of filling the gap of “i have ocs in every field except the one i sorta know that’s so stupid”), painting major (def vibes differently than weiwei though, he’s doing those soft pretty landscapes n flowers, everything real pretty and peaceful, we got some impressionism nerd in here folks). 

He was/is a real country boy, farm family, he helped tend the fields, he worked in plantations for pocket money, he knows how to take care of cattle and chicken and goats and all the cool babies you can take care of, he can tell whether the soil is good or not, he can drive a tractor, and doesnt fear dirt.

but then also he’s kind of a neat freak, he hates getting paint on himself, so the duality of man, dirt ok but paint? disgostin. his spaces are real neat and spotless, he likes cleaning (its relaxing) and does it nearly too often.

his dumbassery comes from lack of common sense and impulsiveness, aside from that he’s actually what you’d call “mad smart”, dude had em good grades, he can memorise pages upon pages of the most trivial information, he has an accumulation of knowledge beyond limits, and is good at problem solving. so he can recite all the words of the F letter of the dictionnary, but would also put a curling iron in his mouth to see if it would curl his tongue. (side note, he does have a problem with heat n fire, most his “oopsie how i wound up hurting myself on acccident” story involve burning -that stove was just too tempting…)

while he doesnt feel very attached to his home country, he does feel strongly for his family. he’d do anything for his mum (and actually does everything to make her proud already, that’s his one main goal), and he’s ready to sacrifice a lot for her (as in, spend years working non-stop a really uncomfortable job so his mother wouldnt have to pay a cent of his expenses even though she said she could by doing some sacrifices herself,and then being ready to come back as soon as needed if anything happened, and potentially drop his career and dream n go back to the farm life to provide for mama)(also he still does hold onto some parts of his home country’s traditions, and does sometimes feel homesick but more in a ‘i left the most beautiful landscapes n the city feels cramped and claustrophobic and i dont know people and i dont feel in the right place cuz im a forreigner with a thicc accent who doesnt master the language of this place and straight up have different body language communicators due to cultural difference oh lord i wanna be home where a nod means no and a head shake is yes i keep misunderstanding everything”)

if you want background noise he’s the perfect pal to call over, he’s just so chatty, he got hours and hours of non stop speech ready for you. you can shut him up once you’re done listening with the offering of food. works everytime.

he’s definitly not shy. neither in terms of talking to people, nor when it comes to making decisions. he’s quite bold, and rarely hesitates to go towards something he wants. he’s direct in his approach to most everything.

he likes partying. mostly the socialising part, talkin to people is just fun ya feel. and being in the crowd, doing whatever, pressure free? ya can dance n enjoy yourself, and people wont notice? yeah that’s nice. but doesnt do it super often cause broke bitches aint got the party time n budget. 

he likes arm. (just an excuse for me to drop this thing here cuz i like it)

While he’s an overall bubbly looking character, with a cheery loud personnality, he does carry some youth trauma that has him more reticent to engage in happiness, he comes from what you could call “not the wokest background” and he may have fallen victim of it : he’s kind of a flashy noticeable character, both physically and in his personnality, and doesnt exactly matches the expectations of dudes in the area he comes from (delicate, emotional and sweet guy? that doesnt exist bro). He went through it, and it has definitly had some impact on his confidence in many aspects. But he’s 100% the type of guy to put on the fake happy front because if feeling bad is sad, making the people you care about sad for you too is Unacceptable Right??? relying on friends?? what???

But then what are we supposed to be doing with such charming characters huh,,, 

Make them fall in love obviously.

Their story obviously has to do with falling in love and workin a relationship cause if I dont write romance i literally die, but I make the center pivot of all of it communication, and barriers in communications. Most obvious being them coming from wildly different cultures, having different native languages, and also the ways you adapt to muteness (what i love most bout that part is even then they fucked up given the easiest quickest small body language things to communicate are head nods n then i managed to make one come from the one country that reverses those like iconic how do they even understand each other -through a lot of work and love bro) but also on more “introspective” points, how to say things that you are even afraid to think about, how to open up and share your burdens and trauma with someone, how to say words you’ve been convinced you weren’t allowed to, the inner turmoil of communication in short. And then also communication through art, and through alternative unusual ways. If i were snobbish i could call it something like “a thinkpieces on how humans overcome obstacles in communication, and adapt, all for the sake of pursuing love” but fact is its mostly boys being in love n learning how to speak, figuratively and also quite literally. And also its me having fun with making characters evolve from each other, be able to influence each other for the better, helping each other be more comfortable with themselves and express the true things of their personnality, and discover new aspects. I just wanna write intense and soulful love bro.

So in less concept and more facts, weiwei meets dari, dari being his puppy self just immediatly strikes a conversation and weiwei gets interested cause “oho nice pretty boy? very good. i want some of that”. they get closer because you cant fight off the Power of friendship (and also the power of “what your friend is bestie with my friend?? guess we hanging out”) and then friendship and interest turns into pining, held back by respective dread of what romance with the other would mean (as in “romance?? cant have that we cant feel” and “with him?? cant do that, convince yourself he’s just a friend immediatly what would the family think”) but eventually they do have to just crash into one another cause that’s just the gravitational pull bro, its physics bro. and from then on its all unlearning destructive behaviours, bettering oneself with the help of the other, and getting over trauma to finally live ur best life. and gettin fckin married bro they’re both cheeseballs theyll wanna wed

BUT MAKING EM FALL IN LOVE ONCE ISNT ENOUGH time to make 3894853 alternate universes about em.

Lets speak bout my fave of those for a hot second.

First of all, the one of the art that brought this ask, guess i could call it “Pretty Tribes” AU, bunch of tribes live and do their things, having nature and energy powers. Dari n Weiwei’s tribes are bros, the latter’s powers needing them to move around to get energy from different places, enabling them different abilities. So basically they get to hang at the other’s place while the regenerate energy from there, and in exchange they help them out with various tasks (dari’s tribe is a rly farmer oriented one, with plant magic, while weiwei’s got more poyvalent powers, and have very good healers notably, so it comes in handy). The two boys were born a few months apart in their respective tribes, so naturally, anything the two clans meet, they’re put together to play and all, and from that they became besties, and each time they meet, after the gaps of time separating the two groups, they feel more and more of a little something else~ story is themed round growing up, friendship between clans, their traditions and cultures, and pretty boys in pretty clothes in pretty landscapes interacting with nature.

The superpower AU, i fuckin love it bro. Its an old one, made for other characters, but i just love it so much that i had to inject my faves in it. Its got a grimy ugly setting, bad government, propaganda, and fights between super-people (heavily mediatised for entertainment and reinforcing the idea that “look at these evil villains thank god us the good government protects you from them”), with a side of bad ethics in science. In all that, those two have the role of “those two young enemy warrior and villain, they were so powerful and fought so hard”, public figures, legendary and admired by both sides, everyone followed their fights, til one day they presumably died in one of their showdowns. (haha sike they actually found themselves talking for 5 seconds and realised they lived in a society, n built a plan to run away). The main characters get to find they’re alive because one of em had history with super-warrior-golden-boy and go to seek their help to overthrow the Big Bads. (stealing them from their nice gay cottage hermit life smh so rude)

Mermaids. I like those. Sailor weiwei sees merman dari, they both save each other in different occasions, they grow fascinated with each other, they’re at sea, water romance. Amazing. AU made half cuz i just like water n fish. and shirtless sailors.

(i couldnt find art of it in five minutes so have a link to that lil animatic piece i made of it once)

Indie band AU, where i was listening to songs that vibe so well with those two in general n then my brain was like “what if they’re the ones playing”. They’re (along with the rest of the art squad) a nice little alternative rock band, doing their thing, then one of their songs blows up, and they get quite the attention, to the dismay of dari who wrote that song in a moment of “oh no im so in love with my bandmate but i cant tell him what if i ruin everything we have going on ill just have to love from afar and deal with that” and now has way too many people interested in who he wrote it about and theorising from his every move when performing it (a mix of music, secret crushes and social media) (ft a picture of neither of them but its the least ugly art i found of this AU cuz its old and instruments are the bane of my existence)(also kelana is so pretty i gotta flaunt her around)

in kind of the same vibe, as in we’re in a music world overexposed to social media, i also integrated em to an AU i did for fun, “boyband AU” as its called aka idol based band system cuz you kno, i got a hobby, lets apply it. Band boy Dari and bodyguard Weiwei got a thing going on, but can’t really act on it in any way, because they’d just destroy the whole band if it ever came public. Featuring annoying bandmates, catchy pop songs and people making fanaccounts of that one hot Mr.Bodyguard cause dang he hot.

(all the art of this one so ugly im sorry)

SPY AU, one of my fave brand. They spies, they get assigned on the same mission, they work real nice with each other. spies hot. fights. strategy. i just like the concept. Gays taking down the worst traffics imaginable??? I love that song.(i actually have so much on this cause s p i e s are fuckin great)

Fashion. U kNOW i have an AU for fashion. Supermodel and his private stylist, trying to maintain the line of professionalism. And failing to do so. Lets make out in unpractical designer clothes.

Have an highschool AU for a bunch of characters, injected them as “spinoff”, start chatting online being art buddies, fall in love without meeting (ft. all the iconics of internet friendship like knowing tiny details of their personnalities but not the fact that they have a sister or “waIT ur a GUY i thought u were a girl wow wild good news for my gay ass”)

n those are my faves as far as i remember, i got a fuckton of small other ones that arent fleshed out enough, or some that are more of a guilty pleasure universe, and some that are more like “projects that i can expend on as soon as i run out of daydream material” (like u kno those hospital drama shows with super innacurate medicine n shit like idk scrubs or whatever, yeh i want some of that but im keeping it for later)

#thats way less talk than i thought id do #prolly bc i wrote half of it when it was between midnight and one AM #wait no it was 2 am #but ye #sry if shit messy af #those two are my faves tho n talkin bout em on the spot is hard cuz my brain is screaming about everything bout em at once #if u wanna get more info on em do ask i love them so much n i feel i didnt do em justice here cuz speaking is a fraud words dont exist #im glad they caught ur interest tho #nothin more gratifyin than not being the only bitch who likes his own children

[detroitswindle-blog]

Detroit Swindle: Move Out The Way. I need Coffee In The Morning

Lars Dales and Maarten Smeets are Detroit Swindle and have had quite a run the last decade. From making music for the hell of it, to making tens of thousands of fans all over the world happy with their releases, mixes and performances, they have seen their star rise in a seemingly unstoppable manner. With a string of releases on renowned labels like Dirt Crew, Freerange, Tsuba and their own Heist Recordings, they've cemented their place in the House Music scene by keeping true to their roots and keeping diversity and authenticity at the centre of their story. 

Notorious for their energetic DJ sets at clubs like Panorama bar, Fabric or Social Club and praised for their productions with that signature shuffle and those carefully designed drops, they put as much energy into their music as they have always done and they are treasured for it. They have their own label Heist Recordings and one thing is clear, they refuse to be tied to any given genre, celebrating the broad fabric of House Music in all its forms. 

Despite being in isolation (this interview took place in the last week of May 2020), the duo is still really busy. They are releasing two tracks on the 5th June; ‘Coffee in The Morning and ‘Move Out The Way’ with vocalist Jitwam which speaks to the soul of their creativity and they should be roundly applauded for releasing material in what are very challenging times.

We are therefore extremely grateful that Maarten Smeets talked to us on the phone for over an hour to tell us the Swindle story.

So Maarten welcome to the Switched On family. How have you been handling the pandemic and has it given you a different perspective on life?

Well, the entertainment industry was the first one to suffer. We saw our events getting cancelled very early on. I think the gig that got cancelled first was actually our tour in the US. We woke up, I think it was like a Friday morning, two weeks before the tour in March, with an email from our agent saying, ‘Hey you guys, Trump has closed down the country. So it’s going to be hard for you guys to tour here if all the borders are closed’. That was the first thing that we noticed and we soon realised it was really happening. I think within a week, we saw that pretty much everything was getting cancelled. All the countries were tightening the rules on social distancing. 

That was a bit of a heavy changeover for us because we went from touring full on every week to not touring at all. It's weird because your whole life was touring. It means getting up Friday morning, taking a plane, playing and arriving back home on Sunday night and trying to do as much as you can during the week and spend some time with the family. Now suddenly all that travel was done with, which was a relief, but gigging was gone as well. It’s a shame as we really like DJing. We like playing music and we like visiting different countries; seeing what kind of music works in different cultures. So that was a big change. The upside of not having to travel anymore, because it can be tedious and tiring and heavy on the mind and body, was outweighed by the fact that what we lost three quarters of what we do. 

But there is a plus. We work as a duo. We're not actually allowed to be in one room together because we're not family and don’t live in the same household. We therefore decided to split the work up a bit. I get to work in the studio because I have three kids at home. 

We've taken on a few more remix projects than we would usually do, which is great because we've managed to secure a couple of really fun projects. So that was actually a great change for us because we both really enjoy the production side of our work. 

It hasn't been like that since we started touring in 2012. We have never taken as much time off of touring as we have done now. Even though it's not our choice, it feels really nice and it feels like it gives us room for new creativity and allows us to look at things from a different perspective; like how we run our label and how we've run our business so far. 

We've had the opportunity to vary our activities a bit which is also nice. Obviously, we have to deal with less income. So that's always a bit of shame but there's loads of people out there that have it way harder than us. So I'm not gonna cry about it. For me personally, it's been a bit more complex because my wife works in one of the big hospitals in Amsterdam with people that have leukaemia. So the security measures that they have in place are intense. What that meant for us is that we had to be super strict with our lockdown as well. So that was a bit heavy for me and the kids. It's a new world right now.

So I think the next six months will see some incredible music come out?

I'm super interested to see what happens. Obviously, there's a bit of a delay between production and music actually. People are either starting new projects or maybe dusting off old projects that they always wanted to finish. So that's going to be exciting. That's going to be interesting. 

I really hope that the market will stay intact. For our label, we still see sales going well and obviously streaming is important. From a creative perspective, I think a lot of nice projects will come out. The challenge of course for everyone, is how to make music together if you're not allowed to be in a room together. For bands doing session recordings, it's going to be a bit more working with Zoom session recordings. Might not be as fun as a personal session but it saves a lot of flying.

So you grew up in Amsterdam?

We both lived in Amsterdam for a long time; Lars is still there. I actually live 20 minutes outside of the city in a lakeside area. Me and my wife both felt it was time to get a little bit more space. Spend time with nature a bit more. Amsterdam is where our studio is and where we meet and where most of our life has taken place. 

Born in the early part of the 80s. House Music was an already established genre by then; what appealed to you as you headed into your teenage years about House Music?

Actually, to be honest, House Music was not a thing where I grew up. People were into bands and rock music and I played drums with some high school friends and we did punk. We liked surf punk and that was our big thing. So House Music was, I think, more of a big city thing. It only really reached me when I moved to Amsterdam in the late 90s, early 2000s. I know for Lars on the other hand that he was a club kid and he had a fake ID and went to all the raves. 

The feeling I get is that for a lot of DJs there needs to be an accumulation of musical genres to be able to develop a sound as they go into music production.

Yeah, I think I think that you could be very right with that. For me, I'm very easily bored with repetition which is a weird contrast because House Music is all about repetition; I need to find different new genres and different types of music to cater for different types of mixing and applying different types of effects to really get inspired. That can come from anything. 

I still like the raw feel of that punk. I really liked that a lot and how they had dub influences as well as being able to deliver a harder sound. I think musical diversity is a blessing and it's something to embrace. Lars loves hip hop as well and is a huge De La Soul fan. We go through everything. 

I was just compiling a Spotify all night long playlist to go along with our new release. It was doing my head in over how to approach that because obviously you can't compile a list of 1000 songs. Because I like so many genres, it's hard. Where do you begin? Where do you end? All these different types of inspirations that have shaped my view on music. They have also shaped the sound that we put out with our own productions and our DJ sets. It's super varied.

I've noticed that you've also started getting into that Afro sound lately. What is it about that genre that some appealing to you?

There are so many things. I think as DJs we've been playing Afro related or Afro inspired music for a while now. If you look at our productions, it's been there. I think one of our releases on Freerange, five or six years ago, was an afro house record. And then on our latest album, in 2018, we did an Afro song with a Dutch brass band. So it's been there but the recent remixes we did for Pat Thomas and The Mauskovic Dance Band, they are full-on Afro.

The nice thing about Afro is that everything is lively. There's so much energy in it even with percussion that's over six or seven minutes long and that's just slightly offbeat or changing. It's so vivid and everything is connected. Even sometimes when the drummer is kind of losing the rhythm, when they get back into the groove you have that uplifting energy. Bubblegum music is also inspiring because of the fact that its music made with very limited means. You hear and feel the energy of the singers and the artists playing it. It's a really honest and true genre. That's what I really like about it; the unpolished raw feel gives it so much authenticity. 

The fact that we get to work with all these original artists and work on the stems of some great recordings is very rewarding. It's great to put your own personal touch on it. Obviously, we have a more electronic approach so it'll sound different. But for us, the chance to work on these tracks and give it our own perspective, the club perspective, is amazing. 

So Detroit Swindle was really an homage to Detroit and the Motown experience. Motown has those big sweeping arrangements of musicality with your music of being more of that deep house stripping much of that production away. How do you align those different concepts?

The reason we chose the name; it's the common ground we have. We both grew up with Motown and we really like Marvin Gaye and artists like that; acts that we've heard over and over again during our childhood. That’s why the name is really appropriate for us. In terms of musicality; House has a different approach. I already mentioned the fact that it's mostly based on repetition. So the many changeovers that there are in most soul songs are just too much. You need to strip it back to the essentials and find a tight groove that gets people in; like a little bit of a hypnotic seal. We use the catchiest part of a song or the catchiest part of a certain chord progression and we build around that. They all have these thermal changeovers or different chord progressions and we can build so many elements around that little piece of groove we find. That could be a two-bar sample. There are so many things you can build around that. 

Simplicity is our main challenge. To go back and take older records to their simplest form and to strip them of all the excess waste and all the stuff that is actually unnecessary to portray the message of the song. It's not about getting 10 or 15 different elements or extra elements in; it's about the opposite. 

And is that the driving element behind why you have resisted the temptation to go for commercial?

No, I think the driving element behind that is actually most of what we really like is just not commercial. We've had many opportunities to do really commercial remixes and work with artists that really want to make it in the mainstream area. It's just not what makes us tick. I can listen to some music, pop music or jazz, that's super popular and really appreciate that. But the stuff I like most is very uncommercial. It's very low key. I mentioned Spotify playlists earlier. I was going through my Discogs page of all the records that I've been buying the last few years just to see where to start. Most of the stuff I buy, I can’t even find on streaming sites. So, my take and I think our combined take on it is, that luckily, what we produce is popular enough for us to be popular.

I was gonna say it all stems back to when you originally met where Lars had to sack you for playing too much underground. So you have stayed true to yourself, right?

Well we both were making money with something else. When we started, we said, ‘all right, this just has to be for the love of it’, because of the type of music we really love to play and produce. Our endgame wasn't to make a living out of this. That kind of just happened. So when it did happen, we decided to embrace it and honour it by staying true to what we started. So everything we remix, or every track we make, needs to be something that we make out of love and belief in the music. Being commercially viable is not part of the decision-making process because we feel that when you start to do that, it's a very slippery slope towards making music for money. 

When you start making music purely for money it becomes less and less from the heart. Suddenly, you end up not getting booked for the kind of parties where you get to play the music you love. People will only remember you for the commercial stuff you've done and then you've wasted all that energy on building a profile. Suddenly that's lost. So, for us as producers and as DJs, I think there's no other way. I'd rather make less money and have more fun than the other way around.

That brings us to the fun that you have in the live performance space. Because you tend to put on shows with the inclusion of a keyboardist like Lorenz Rhode it becomes an event rather than a DJ experience. How important is that to you?

We both feel that the experience of dancing should build up towards something. When we are in full control of a line-up we can build something exactly the way we want. When you don’t have that control its way harder to connect. With full control, you can take the audience on a path that you've decided on; whether it's three, six or 12 hours. It all adds up to something. The more you're in control, the more you get to introduce people to the music that you that you really want to play. You can kind of ease people into listening to something that they weren't planning on listening to or that they’ve never listened to before. 

When you only have an hour to play there's loads of stuff happening around you. There's not much of a story to tell. So, with an added keyboard player at a live show, we get more flexibility and we get more of the live energy that we really like in our music. We also get to take people along with old genres that we like. If we do an all-nighter, we start at 90 BPM with downtempo Disco or hip hop even and slowly move towards some faster tracks. We build up the tempo and we change from genre to genre; like 110 BPM, Bubblegum or South African dubs. Then towards House and then Electro and Techno and up-tempo disco. 

The awesome Highlife came out in 2018. Looking back on it now what does that album means you?

Wow. It was a really special process because for the first time we really took time off touring to write music whereas normally we just wrote music in-between gigs. This was recorded in a unique way for us. If I look back at it, I don't think we could write it again. It could have only been written then. Lorenz was a big part helping with it; writing the key parts for pretty much half of the album. We rearranged our whole studio and put some synths in. We also had this chance meeting with Tom Misch who came to Amsterdam afterwards for recording sessions. 

The whole album was unplanned, sound wise, and unplanned in terms of what we wanted to achieve. We just wanted to explore our sound. I think when I listen to it now it gives a really good perspective of all of our interests. So yeah, I'm still super happy that we got to write that.

So, we know you started out in a completely digital environment, but you gradually incorporated more analogue processes into your production techniques. Is that because you like to challenge yourself because it's infinitely harder in the analogue space? 

Yeah, definitely harder and more time consuming. Machines don't necessarily respond the way they should. Especially old machines which sometimes do completely different things (from what you intended). Then you need to find out if something's broken or shut down. You need to turn them off and on and some synths don’t have midi so there's no sequencing. You have to do everything live and edit it. But it's just the feeling of sitting behind the keyboards or the drum computer, making use of that device rather than using your mouse and clicking on some stuff or automating everything. The likelihood of doing something that you didn't really plan but actually found really interesting is high. Purely because the filter resonance was a bit too high or something or just because the reverb in the patches you've made is different from what you thought it would be. It gives you a few more surprises and it feels more real. 

Even though VSTs can sound great, just the feel of playing a synth and touching the knobs with your hands, making your own patches while you're playing, rather than having a sequence running from a MIDI clip; that for me feels infinitely more interesting. That's just personal. I really enjoyed the way we worked before as well. But to be honest, producing with two people behind the one laptop is not that exciting.

I'm gonna ask you a DJ question now because you've been on this journey. What weapons does a good DJ need?

I think the most important weapon is originality and timing. You need to find your own sound. If you don't have your own sound, you can be anyone and anyone could be you. You need to find something that fits with you and that hopefully will connect to a big enough crowd to get enough people moving in the club. But to be a really good DJ, you need to know when to take risks, when to go safe or when to build up a bit longer and then go for your delivery. 

If you go to a festival and a DJ just plays hit after hit after hit after hit for an hour and people go there because they just want to be able to say I've seen this DJ at this festival; well yay for them. But for me, that's not that's not the art of DJing... Anyone can plan a show and if you have enough hits behind your name, you can play live off those hits. 

But the interesting part for me as a DJ is when you actually get the crowd moving to music that they never expected to hear and never expected to dance to. You unleash all these new emotions. And for me that's also why the combination of Lars and me works so well together because Lars is really good at finding the moment of delivery and when you need to throw in a bomb; I'm really good at extending the track and throwing in the odd-balls. 

People know what kind of vibe they'll get when they come to see us play but they never know what they're going to hear. We have a certain energy in our sound and our music but whether we play one Detroit song or zero Detroit songs, our DJ sets are always different and full of surprises. So I think a combination of those factors makes for a good DJ. 

Even when you're touring as much as we do, there's nights where you can really feel the connection with the crowd but sometimes it's just not there. But the most memorable nights are the ones where you feel like you're part of the crowd. You're not standing on a stage far away but you're connected and get the opportunity to play anything you like. You just know that whatever you play, people will be into it. And those occasions are amazing. And that's why I love being a DJ. 

Let’s talk some Amsterdam industry stuff. The ADE festival used to be a very community-based affair. Now it's grown to this really big occasion. Do you think that's detracting from what it was originally set out to achieve?

That's a hard one because I understand their path. I mean, I've been going for such a long time and I've been organizing events so I know the struggle in general. For ADE, the popularity grew and the organization also needed to find a way to actually make it economically viable. So obviously they connected with bigger artists or bigger labels to get the mainstream people to actually buy tickets. I get that. 

What I don't like about ADE is that it's very, very hard to have a normal party. People arrive at your party and they help build your vibe but there is this mentality of party hopping. They visit maybe four or five events on the night so you lose half of your crowd every hour and a half. That's really hard to build a connection with an audience because the story is always changing. The new arrivals don't have a clue about the idea of the night. That's a bit of a shame; they can still have fun and they can still listen to my records, but they won't get the full package. 

On the other hand, we've done three or four hostings at the same venue and we've always had a super steady following with our label and for Detroit Swindle. We've always really enjoyed our nights and we don't have that many industry people networking on the nights themselves. We tend to meet everyone during the week, during the day or outside of the clubs and make sure that the events are still about that love of music

I know some people from Amsterdam leave the city because it becomes touristy x 10. Normally Amsterdam is already full of tourists but at ADE time its super hectic. On the other hand, an event like that in our city is an amazing opportunity for us to catch up with people that we haven't seen in a while and who we only get to see when we're in South America or Australia or wherever. Suddenly everyone's in Amsterdam and you can show them your favourite coffee spot and catch up on releases, hand out records rather than posting them. So there's so many advantages.

Okay so that leads me to who's your favourite DJ behind the decks. 

I really enjoy guys like Hunee and Antal and a guy from London called John Gomez. He has an amazing taste in music and a large collection of Brazilian and South American music. We play together with him and every time he surprises me with something that I'd never heard before but which feels like I should have it in my collection. So, yeah, I'm a big fan of his music 

Who do you need to thank for where you are in your life right now?

I need to thank Lars because without him we wouldn't be where we are and I think he would thank me because it's really obvious.

My wife, for sure. She made so many sacrifices for me to be able to do this. The moment we started touring full time was the moment when our first kid was born (my daughter). She decided to cut back on work for me to be able to do more and then at some point we decided together that she would take time off full time to be able to run the family. Without her this would never have been possible.

Quickfire Round

DAW? Ableton 

Favourite keyboard? The Korg Monopoly. 

Preferred Decks? SL 1200s 

Favourite Mixer? Carmen Rotary. We take it on tour.

Favourite Sound? Waves crashing on the beach.

Love is…? Compassion.

Favourite club? In Australia … Revolvers

So besides playing back to back with Lars, who would be     the one person that you'd love to play back to back with?     Soundstream 

What are you most proud of? I am at this point really     proud of how, me and my family are dealing with the challenges in life.     We're very open minded and I'm proud of being open minded. 

So finally, this is a fun question is not meant to be anything sinister in this. So your family gets a phone call to say you're in a bit of trouble. What friend are you with?

My friend Pete.

He's always up to no good. Whenever we're on a night out you just know it's gonna be trouble lol 

 Stream Detroit Swindle

https://store.detroitswindle.com/ 

 Jay B is a published author, music journalist and international DJ who has deep roots in the global House Music community having played the music he loves for over 30 years. From London, New York, Paris, Tokyo and Sydney, he has travelled the globe and interviewed some of the biggest names in the business as head honcho of Switched On Music! 

#Detroit Swindle #Exclusive Interview #Switched On Music! #DJ #DJ Producer #House Music #Disco House #Afro House #Jackin House

[popscenery]

The Knocks, »The One«

by David Cooper Moore

My decade was all about family -- making one, maintaining one -- and so I only have three options for the song that defined my decade. One is inextricable from its surroundings -- "On My Own" from Farrah Abraham's My Teenage Dream Ended, an album about death and motherhood that is as poignant and sad and weird as anything I've ever heard. Another is from the second-best mom album of the decade, Flesh Tone by Kelis, "Song for the Baby." But my song of the decade is the first song I heard after my first son was born, “The One,” by the Knocks featuring Sneaky Sound System. The thing about having kids is that it really wrecks you -- I didn't realize that my entire life, its daily rhythms and boundaries, was being broken down and remade in those first few weeks. I was consumed with a pointless mania, so while he and his mom slept I spent most of my time hacking wooden chunks out of his bedroom door with a boxcutter in a doomed effort to "level it" and putting together an enormous playlist of every song ever featured on the first 50 NOW! compilations -- something that I have almost no memory of doing, but which nonetheless currently has 38,000 followers and counting. This is all to say that maybe I wasn't my most stable or least sleep-deprived self when I first heard "The One," but whatever it was, I remember thinking, when the chorus hit, that this crass thing, this stupid thing, is right -- everything is going fast, and he is everything to me, it is true, he is the one, my number one, and I cried, a good, long, cleansing cry. And then a few weeks later, when I was settling into the new me and sleeping a little more and monkeying with that NOW! playlist for the minor omissions from my fugue state and nursing the wounds on my fingers from the boxcutters, I listened to "The One" again, and you can probably guess by now that I cried again, the very same cry, with snot and everything. And then three years later I had another son, so I listened to it again, just to see what would happen, and I thought, surely this time it won’t -- but it did! And I cried again, because he was my number one now, too, the song was still right, because with your kids they’re all number one, you just find more heart to hold it all. Why did this particular song have this effect on me, a song that to my knowledge no one has heard the way I hear it, possibly including the people who made it? Right time, right place, right me? A random twist of neurochemical fate? Maybe it doesn't really matter -- we all get our own private sessions with epiphany, but we don't control the schedule, something like that. Songs speak to us when we listen and sometimes even when we don't, and sometimes, if we're lucky, we can really hear them whether or not we were ready for them — there, I heard it, this was the one, and I didn't get to choose my vessel any more than I got to choose my kids, but there it is and I love it all the same. Now it's been five years and it still goes fast, and there is so much to lose, more to lose than you could have possibly imagined. But it's lovely while it lasts.

#the knocks #pop music #the one #songs of the decade

[grimelords]

I realised I finished writing up my January playlist and then forgot to post it, so I’m doing it here and now at the tail end of February. It’s 3 hours of good music, complete from A$AP Ferg to ZZ Top. Please enjoy.

​Dream House - Deafheaven: I started the year off with extreme mental anguish at the realisation that Sunbather is five years old this year and that I am thusly one million years old and have wasted my youth. That aside, Dream House is still an incredible song. It does what the best songs do and speaks directly to the teenaged part of your brain that thinks nobody will ever understand you like this song does right now. It is an overwhelming experience, the whole album is, and very good for having an embarrassing amount of emotions while you're driving alone and it's very loud.

Hold My Liquor - Kanye West: When this song came out I remember someone said the best musical moment of 2013 was when you couldn't tell the difference between Chief Keef and Justin Vernon on this song and I'm inclined to agree.

Melody 4 - Tera Melos: I've talked about this album at length in these playlists and probably featured almost every song at this point but I'll just say, what I like so much about this song is how it moves so effortlessly between a very melodic almost pop-punk type chorus before disintegrating into stop start mathematics and back again before you even notice.

B Boy (feat Big Sean & A$AP Ferg) - Meek Mill: I don't know how the fuck he did it, but somehow Meek Mill got a bunch of rappers who are normally nothing amazing (Meek included) to operate at the absolute top of their game for whole verse each. Highlights especially are 'I got commas on commas on commas, and I ain't talkin about a run on sentence!' 'put my P up on her head like that bitch is reppin Philly, and I wheelie in the pussy like my n**** meek milly' and the immediate about turn of A$Ap Ferg saying 'You thinkin' Khloe don't know me, I'm in the car dashin' haters/I'm in the Kardashian, get it? I'm lyin', can't I pretend?/They say fake it 'til you make it, well let the fakin' begin!'

Shabba REMIX - A$AP Ferg, Shabba Ranks, Busta Rhymes, Migos: This song's a good example of how many different flows you can get to work over one beat, and how much it improves the song. Ferg is so fast and so varied, then Migos even it out with straight triplets for most of their verse before Busta kills it by just doing absolutely everything. Great job everyone.

Attak (feat. Danny Brown) - Rustie: I normally can't stand Danny Brown but he kills this song. I still have a lot of feelings about Rustie, who showed so much promise for being the weirdo that dance music needed before presumably watching HudMo make a million producing for Kanye and friends and deciding to remove every interesting element from his music to make it palatable for rappers. That is, at least, my theory. This song is great, but every other song on this album is an example of this approach not working and instead producing boring, half assed songs where nobody's at their full potential.

Ultra Thizz - Rustie: Compare it to this, the busiest song in the world. The way the melody of the bassline that sounds like it's about to swallow you whole contends with the synth melody AND the pitched up vocal melody for your attention, they all come it at once and trade barbs before being superseded by a fuzzy, inscrutable guitar solo which fades out and leaves us back at the start. What I love about this song is the absolute maximalism and hypercolour sounds, combined with the only simple melody being the big chord stabs that centre the piece combine into a total sensory experience. Not to mention the rhythms, where absolutely every part of it seems to be slightly stranger than you expect, constantly dropping one beat before or after you expect - your first clue is the snare build at the start suddenly splitting into triplets.

If I Were A Carpenter - Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash: My girlfriend showed me this song and it unlocked a third of the triangle in my brain where this song, Wichita Lineman by Glen Campbell and The Engine Driver by The Decemberists make a sort of trinity of songs about having a job and thinking about Wife. They're all very very good too.

12 Bricks - OG Maco: Outside of the famous video, which is very good, this song is also incredible. Another in the pantheon of songs with extremely minimal instrumentation where the vocal performance is so good it doesn't need anything. The slight delay makes all the screaming and wooing toward the end just pile on top of each other in waves building the texture up until it finally levels out.

Requiem Para Um Amor - Toquinho: I really cannot get enough of the organ in this song. I don't think I've ever heard a classical guitar/electric organ duet before and now I'm hungry for more.

You Can Be A Robot, Too - Shintaro Sakamoto: This song appeared on my Discover Weekly playlist and I'm not really sure why but it's very good. I can't tell if it's actually a children's song or just playful like one but I appreciate it either way. When it started playing from the playlist the album cover was a cartoon of a kid surrounded by robots, but when I tried to add it to a playlist the art changed to a green picture of a skeleton playing a lap steel guitar with an explosion in the background, which felt very cursed to me.

Raver - Burial: This song has always stood out to me on Untrue because of how straightforward the beat is. Under anyone else's control this would be a normal song but instead it's this incredibly detailed, messy piece of work that feels like looking at a house song through a dirty window. I also have no proof at all to back this up but in my mind the xylophone line is sampled from Donkey Kong 64 or possibly Banjo Kazooie.

Cavalettas - The Mars Volta: I remember reading a bad review of this album when it came out that was mad because it pulled 'the most egregious studio trick in recent memory' by having the whole mix except for one guitar get sucked down into a wormhole multiple times, including the bass getting physically detuned until you can hear the strings slack before resuming as normal a second later. In my opinion it's incredibly funny and it sounds good so more bands should do it. Also the other day I saw the drummer Thomas Pridgen comment on Omar Rodriguez's instagram 'check ur dms bro'. Imagine being in a band with someone for a decade and not having their number, insane.

Flash Back - Rustie: Honestly I cannot get enough of this bassline. This song is another good example of what I was talking about with Rustie dumbing his melodies down after this album, the main line in this winds around and around itself in this loping confused rhythm and against the bass that's also syncopated it just ends up sounding like hypercolour, which is a feat for a song that's basically just those two melodies against each other for the bulk of it with some plastic choir stabs throughout.

Heaven - DJ Sammy: What an absolute perennial banger. Can you believe this AND Boys Of Summer were on the same album? Incredible stuff DJ Sammy. I've been meaning to make a playlist of all the 90s/2000s lame rave songs that are secretly very emotional and have definitely inspired absolute emotional turmoil in ravers the world over like this Better Off Alone and Heaven Is A Place On Earth, but for now just enjoy the Bryan Adams classic as reimagined by DJ Sammy.

Stalking To A Stranger (Planets Collide Remix) - The Avalanches: I owe this song a lot because it not only for me into Hunters And Collectors, who it turns out have far better and angrier songs than Holy Grail, but it also turned me onto Vertigo/Relight My Fire by Dan Hartman which is sampled at the start. When this song came out it was the first new Avalanches song in a decade or so and nobody knew what to make of it because suddenly Avalanches songs just have screaming men in them, which was very good.

Miracle - Kimbra: I think that very soon everyone is going to figure out that Kimbra has been the pop genius the world needs and she's been here all along.

Wayfaring Stranger (Burial Remix) - Jamie Woon: Jamie Woon got a raw deal in my opinion. He had a song remixed by Burial, and then Burial co-produced Night Air for him and he was the king of dark and mysterious British dubstep wave, but then James Blake and everyone else came along and sort of overshadowed him totally. Now that whole movement is sort of clouded because of how quickly 'dubstep' came to mean 'skrillex', and for some reason the only place this song is on Spotify is a compilation called The World's Heaviest Dubstep, Grime & Bass.

Chanbara - At The Drive-In: A lot of writing about At The Drive-In focuses on how they never really captured the ferocity of their live shows on record until Relationship Of Command but the absolutely big screams on this working against the salsa bongo rhythms is an amazing thing. I also kind of prefer the weedy half-clean guitar sounds on this and their first album especially to Relationship of Command's crunchier sound, it feels like it gives a lot more space to the weird noodling melodies that come and go.

All Medicated Geniuses - Pretty Girls Make Graves: The intro of this song absolutely blew my 15 year old math rock mind with how simply it transitions from the snare on the beat to the snare off the beat. It is endlessly fascinating to me because I am a dummy. Every part of this song is amazing to me, from the big swing band bassline behind the guitar that's sort of just screaming through the verses and absolutely on its own journey through the chorus to the drums for the reasons I already mentioned but also the way they keep everything straight and absolutely refuse to indulge the guitar's worst math impulses.

Dangerous - The xx: I really love the horns in this song, and the big air raid sirens toward the end. It is still shocking to me that The xx transitioning to making upbeat bangers worked out for them but I'm so glad that they did.

Running - Bully: I was listening to a podcast about water management policy and infrastructure called Water You Talking About because I am young and cool and for some reason they were using the chorus of this song where she goes 'I'LL ADMIT IT! I GET ANXIOUS TOO!' as their theme song in an episode which is I suppose appropriate but also really made me laugh.

Simultaneous Contrasts - Warehouse: The singer in this band has my new favourite voice, it's amazing. She sounds like she's eaten a belt sander or something. I love the way the guitar line follows her vocals up in the chorus and also just how extremely busy the whole band is around her. They remind me of some kind of alternate universe Life Without Buildings where she's pissed off instead of just beguiling.

Light Up The Night - The Protomen: There's no reason this band should be good. They wrote a rock opera based on the story of Megaman inspired by Queen and Bruce Springsteen and it actually turned out incredible somehow. Unfortunately since this album came out almost a decade ago all they've done is a couple of live albums and covers albums, so I may never get the resolution I crave on the story of Thomas Light and Joe and whoever.

Tonto - Battles: Here's what's so good about this song: it spends 2 and a half minutes winding up to a huge centrepiece that's over way too soon and then the next 4 minutes slowly slowly slowly winding down to absolute zero. It's like the opposite of how to write a good song but it's absolutely enthralling.

Wall Street - Battles: Around a minute into this, there's two snare hits where it sounds like it's part of a roll that got digitally muted that I am obsessed with. Every part of this song is incredible, but the drums throughout alternate between sounding like he's desperately trying to keep up and sounding like pure power and total command. I especially love the big brassy snare sound that comes up from underneath occasionally to pull the brakes. The performance of this song that Battles did for La Blogoteque is one of my favourite videos on youtube.

Every Single Line Means Something - Marnie Stern: For about a week this month I developed a quiet mania about John Stanier from Battles filling in on drums in the Late Night With Seth Myers Band (for some reason), and then I found out that Marnie Stern is apparently in that band as well and it really threw me for a loop. I don't really know why this was such an incredible thing or why I focused on it so much, maybe something I need to figure out, but it reminded me of this great song so that's a positive. This is some of my favourite work Zach Hill has ever done because he's being forced to play pretty much a normal backbeat for a lot of this song and it feels like he's been cursed by a witch. The amount of power he's putting out for such a straightforward idea is incredible. Of course because it's Zach Hill he's also doing the absolute most in every other part of the song. I haven't even mentioned how much I love Marnie on her own song! Anyway, listen to this whole album.

Hacker - Death Grips: I never got into the hype around Death Grips when they were the thing, and haven't really investigated their discography past this album, but this song is an absolute masterpiece and probably everything you ever need to know about them. Lyrically between this and 'I've Seen Footage' there's a pretty neat summation of their worldview, paranoid because your existence is inextricably linked to the internet and everything that entails, 'having conversations with your car alarm'. 'make your water break at the apple store,'

Pass The Word (Love's The Word) - The Mad Lads: I was looking up where the sample's from in Hilltop Hoods' Chase That Feeling and it turns out it's this song. Try to listen to this whole intro. He's trying to give a sermon but his dumbshit friends simply will not shut the fuck up for fully three whole minutes. Other than the intro the song is very, very good.

Monkey Time '69 - The Mad Lads: I also found this other song by the Mad Lads called 'Monkey Time '69', which to me is the definition of comedy.

She's Got Guns - The Go! Team: New Go Team album! Unfortunately nothing on it sort of lived up to the promise of the first two singles Mayday and Semicircle song, but this song is still a hit. The way this is mixed is so good, the brass behind the massive bass and spacious drums and the vocals sort of backgrounded within it all, very appealing.

Coast To Coast - Tune-Yards:It feels weird that a Tune-Yards song can be this smooth. A sort of apocalyptic, politics is ruined, new york is sinking, funky smooth jam.

Cattle And The Creeping Things - The Hold Steady: I've never listened to much of The Hold Steady outside of this album because I don't feel like I really need to, it's got everything I'd ever need. Sorry to always to talk about drums but the amount of reverb on them in this song makes them sound absolutely huge and I really love it, especially in the last verse they just become massive. Also I went through a long period of being obsessed with the lyrics of this song, it's a good distillation of this whole album's christian cult/drugs in middle america story and it is completely my shit.

Losing All Sense - Grizzly Bear: There's something about Painted Ruins that's impenetrable to me. I keep listening to it and only absorbing about one song at a time, totally loving that song and then ignoring the rest of the album. Now it's Losing All Sense.

Blue Cheese - Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile: This song is like Kurt Vile in his purest form, just sort of strumming and talking about whatever the fuck. The best part of this song is when they go 'woo hoo!!!' then he whistles a little bit and then says 'here come the lone ranger!' in an elvis voice and plays a solo that sounds like he's tuning his guitar. Also right at the end you can hear someone's phone message tone going off.

Catch Me If You Can Theme - John Williams: John Williams didn't have to go as hard as he did with the Catch Me If You Can theme. I have this in my head all the time. I love the rapid shifts in this recording, because I guess it's functioning as the overture so he's just cycling through every different variation he's got in his aresenal.

I've Seen Footage - Death Grips: It's good that Death Grips' most popular song is about how the internet melts your brain There's a good quote from Zach Hill about where the title came from: 'The line “I’ve Seen Footage” was from a conversation I had with this street-person dude in Sacramento named Snake Eyes. A friend of ours recorded him on the porch in a conversation– he didn’t know he was being recorded. He was all fucked up on drugs and shit, just rattling off all this crazy information. He was talking about structures on the moon. I mean, I talk about those things, too. So we were talking about moon structures, and Snake Eyes says, “I’ve seen footage! I’ve seen footage of it!” And I was like, “That’s good!”

The Bucket - Kings Of Leon:It seems impossible that Kings Of Leon were a really good band at one point but here's the proof.

Standing Next To Me - The Last Shadow Puppets: I'm a truther for Muse ripping off Knights Of Cydonia from The Age Of The Understatement by The Last Shadow Puppets but that's a post for another time. This is a perfect song in my opinion. The absolute pace of it, the minimal drums that are just sort of accenting the strumming, the huge sweeping strings elevating the whole thing, the fact that it's over in just over two minutes. Incredible.

Jesus Just Left Chicago (live) - ZZ Top: Nobody believes me when I tell them but ZZ Top are very good. I have a fantasy about this song that ZZ Top were ringleaders of a sort of revival blues cult and this song is gospel to them. Jesus did really leave Chicago and he's heading towards California and we will be here waiting for him. You may not see him, but he sees you and he loves you. This and the La Grange recording are absolutely furious for live recordings, I love how much crowd noise there is in it throughout, they are truly fucking loving it.

La Grange (live) - ZZ Top: Especially here, my god they love it. La Grange is a good song because it's just a good riff and one verse of nonsense lyrics that are just an excuse to go the fuck off for the remainder. The huge drum fill and the 'have mercy everybody!!' is massive, the solos are ferocious, and somehow this song that feels like it could jam out for 15 minutes is reined in and tightly structured and has somewhat abrupt end.

Barracuda - Heart: Hey remember Guitar Hero? Cause I had ptsd flashbacks when this song came on during I, Tonya.

Bloodmeat - Protest The Hero: I don't know how exactly Protest The Hero pivoted from a concept album about a goddess(?) being executed(?) and bringing about a new genderless utopian age(?) to their second album opening with this very bicep emoji classic metal song about the mongol hordes slaughtering all who oppose them, but good for them I suppose.

Born On A Day The Sun Didn't Rise - Black Moth Super Rainbow: The drums in this song have no place being that huge. Black Moth Super Rainbow are good and I can't believe I hadn't listened to them in years until I woke up with this song in my head one morning, like an omen.

Been Drinkin' Water Out Of A Hollow Log - Mississippi Fred McDowell: Literalyl every Mississippi Fred McDowell song sounds exactly the same which is good because if it works why change it. In my understanding this song seems to be about a man dying of hunger and thirst on purpose to meet god, which is very good to me.

Listen here.

#playlists

[moonsandmelodies]

My Top Albums/EPs of 2018, Part 1 / 2

Like with my end-of-2017 list in December, I don’t intend this to be an in-depth recap. These releases are only what I’ve been able to hear so far, and there’s always some good stuff out there I happen to miss.

I’ve discussed before that I’ve had a lot of issues with the current music scene since around 2015, and not a lot of those issues have calmed at this point. This kind of obligated that I wouldn’t be crazy about this year’s music so far, and I haven’t been. The seeming exact same cliches and trends have persisted, some of them getting even worse. I’d elaborate some more, but it’s too complicated to get into for now.

That said, I have hope for the music to come in the next half of 2018, since I did hear a lot of albums that were close to being overall-strong from these past six months.  And I have to say that that’s an improvement.

I’ve also included a song link for each release, including for the honorable mentions under the cut - every chosen song is a personal favorite of mine. Stay tuned for more of my favorite songs of the year in my upcoming playlist!

Top 4 albums

4. Angelique Kidjo - Remain In Light

afro-funk

I was surprised and very intrigued when I learned Angelique Kidjo from Benin was to revamp the entire Remain In Light album by Talking Heads. According to her interview in LA Times, she heard “Once In A Lifetime” long ago and recognized the African influence in it’s sound, which is what eventually led to this cover album. Although part of me wishes some covers were a bit closer to the originals than they are, most of the interpretations are still very interesting and enjoyable with an excellent sense of energy and rhythm.

Listen to “Born Under Punches”

3. Music House - Scandi Disco compilation

electro-disco / synth pop / electropop / synthwave

If you’re bored of the sheer quantity of 80s retro music out there, maybe don’t listen to this. But if you’re like me and love this music enough to still give the continuous new releases a chance, I highly recommend this recent library album. I enjoyed near every song on this one, which is surprising seeing how it has no hype at all surrounding it. I only found it because I was looking through other, older releases by this label, Music House and this happened to be their most recent album. Everything about this album is shiny, stylish and fun with plenty of energy and melody. The production is impressive as expected from a stock music label, and while it has a prominent modern polish they channel the huge potential and legacy of electro-disco very well.

[note: the cover doesn’t seem to exist in a bigger size, hence it being smaller than other covers shown here.]

Listen to “37th Parallel”

2. U.S. Girls - In A Poem Unlimited

psychedelic pop / art pop

Bros are really into U.S. Girls’ music for whatever reason. But don’t let that scare you off - after all, it’s not like musicians choose what kind of audience they get. While I did find the previous U.S. Girls album Half Free a bit inconsistent, In A Poem Unlimited feels like a step up - there were only about 2 or 3 tracks that I didn’t enjoy. The album has a warm semi-70s feel thanks to the band put together for it. There’s also a sense of eclecticism that’s executed better than on a lot of other albums with similar ambitions. The voice of Meg Remy, the one true ‘member’ of U.S. Girls, can be quite twangy and takes a bit of getting used to at first, but it’s somewhat grown on me since then, and it got some time to shine here. This is most often when she does a kind of nervous falsetto like in two of my favorites, “Rosebud” and “L-Over”. While the many styles that Remy explores here aren’t much new (70s funk, jazzy rock, general quivering psych weirdness, a bit of synth pop), the variation of it all and the will to experiment helps keep things interesting, and most of them evade the boring cliches that tend to pop up in so much music lately.

Listen to “Rosebud”

1. Fishdoll - Noonsense

wonky / dream pop / electronic / downtempo

Fishdoll, a new artist from China, somehow manages to recall nearly everything I miss about electronic music of the earlier 10′s. I thought of 'wonky’ producers like FlyLo and Teebs who had such interesting and creative taste in electronic production and samples. Take a gander at the amazing operatic vocal/harp sample that ends “Beijing Well” or the spacey fluttering chords on most of the songs, for example. Fishdoll’s vocals are treated to subtle effects and manipulations that say, Grimes or Washed Out became popular for, channeling a similar kind of surreal sleepiness.

It doesn’t do enough justice to Fishdoll to make so many comparisons, though, since this album really does feel unique. And that’s exactly one of the reasons it’s my #1 of the year so far - it’s an electronic artist doing something unique and doing it well.

I’m looking forward to Fishdoll’s next musical move, and I’m convinced Noonsense deserves more than a bit of Bandcamp popularity, which seems to be all it got upon release.

Listen to “Blueeyce”

Top 4 EPs

4. Elaquent - Celebrate Life!

glitch hop / instrumental hip hop

Elaquent has retained a very good taste in shimmering, jazzy sounds like electric piano and even synths over the years that make his new EP very pleasant BGM. It’s not quite his best (his album The Midnight After would deserve that praise) but I enjoy it much more than his past few releases, so I have some restored hope for his future work. My favorite has to be “Sao Paulo”, which happens to sound more like a modern lounge instrumental than what I’ve come to expect from Elaquent.

Listen to “Sao Paulo”

3. D A V I C I I - W sercu pozostaje tylko to, co wypalone ogniem

hypnagogic pop / synth pop

This musician’s sound is similar to that of Adonis listed below - a kind of lo-fi, airy synth pop, but it makes sense since they’re on the same label. This EP is a bit more ghostly and empty, though - D A V I I C I puts his voice through what seems to be autotune to a very weird, even creepy effect. This is most noticeable on the songs “Skruszone serce“ and “Czas przez pryzmat“ which are also my favorites of the bunch. I have to say that while I like the idea of ‘hypnagogic pop’, it’s often bored or disappointed me; D A V I I C I and Adonis, though, have impressed me to an extent I didn’t expect.

Listen to “Skruzone serce”

2. Ravyn Lenae - Crush

neo soul / R&B / pop

Ravyn Lenae happens to be both a very good vocalist and just 19 (which is hardly older than me). This EP has an organic soul sound with some twists that help to distinguish it from the flood of gritty 'alternative' R&B that tends to get the sole approval from critics lately. It's also very concise, which helps. I figure she has a bright musical future ahead.

Listen to “Sticky”

1. Adonis - Wiosenna ofensywa nie trwa dłużej niż do letnich wakacji

hypnagogic pop / synth pop

I only came across Adonis through Bandcamp recommendations and he's still a bit of a mystery to me. This is in part because all the info and lyrics are Polish. But I'm glad I found this EP, since I enjoyed every one of these five songs - while I’ve been blasting the incredible title track all June. In a similar situation to Scandi Disco, it may not be very new, since it’s pretty much a collage of 'alt 80s’ sounds, but if you love the sort of music that entails (e.g. synth pop/shoegaze/dream pop) like I do, than I certainly recommend it.

Listen to “Wiosenna ofensywa nie trwa dłużej niż do letnich wakacji”

Honorable mentions

Gwenno - Le Kov

art pop / new wave / psychedelic pop / dream pop

I thoroughly enjoyed Gwenno’s previous solo album, and while this one has a similar sound, the songs do begin to feel too similar to each other, which is my main issue with it. Her unique style is still very pleasant to hear, she sings the songs in the revived Cornish language, and there’s a handful of songs I know I enjoy, but I couldn’t help but feel something was missing. I figure it could grow on me. Either way, it came close, hence my inclusion of it here.

Listen to “Tir ha Mor”

SOPHIE - Oil Of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides

bubblegum bass / experimental / post-industrial

There’s little doubt in my mind that SOPHIE is very talented and has a lot of promise as a musician/producer. I also find that while many of these songs are a bit too abrasive for my tastes, most of them still have interesting elements or ideas going for them. I just wish that there could’ve been a little less of the stressful industrial parts and more of the sort of aquatic sounds found in “Infatuation” and “Is It Cold In The Water?”. Or maybe even some more poppy songs. It could’ve gone either way, and I’m sure that either would still be interesting to hear from her. So while this album is not quite up my alley, I’ll be keeping an eye on what SOPHIE does in the future.

Listen to “Infatuation”

JQ - Invisible

new age / ambient / electronic

Seeing how this could be New Atlantis’ most gorgeous cover art yet, I couldn’t help but be a tiny bit disappointed in this. JQ has an interesting taste in sounds and I enjoy most of the ambient/new age tracks on here. However, elsewhere the album devolves a bit into other experiments that don’t always work. The album is split into two, with the first being lighter and the second darker. Overall, like New Atlantis’ previous releases, this does have a lot of good things going for it, which is why I include it here. It helps that most songs (minus two surprisingly pretty 7-minute-plus tracks) are short and digestible.

Listen to “Gold”

Mary Lattimore - Endless Days

Mary Lattimore plays the harp very well on this album and most of it works for peaceful BGM. Some songs do get a bit long-winded though and while I’m not opposed to the idea of harp combined with synths, that doesn’t sound very interesting here. The harp playing itself is still very impressive and I did enjoy around half the songs, which is why I wound up including it. I’ll have to look into her previous work since I’ve developed a much bigger appreciation for harp in the past year or so. My favorite song is without question “Hello From The Edge [...]”, maybe the most tender moment on the album.

Listen to “Hello From The Edge Of The Earth”

Beach House - 7

dream pop / indie pop

With this album I continue to enjoy Beach House at times and not get their immense hype other times. I have to admit I enjoy a lot of 7′s first half, which has a more moody, shoegazey sound than expected from BH. The second half, though, devolves into more twee territory that just doesn’t sound near as interesting. The instrumentation and the ideas sounded less creative, and it culminates in “Girl of the Year”, a bland slow jam with such generic, dreary lyrics as ‘Baby’s gone / All night long’. For this reason, I suggest hearing the first 6 - 7 songs myself, and only include it as an honorable mention.

Listen to “Dark Spring”

Melody’s Echo Chamber - Bon voyage

psychedelic pop / dream pop / progressive pop

Bon Voyage is often similar enough to the Melody’s Echo Chamber debut, but a lot weirder. The longer songs morph and evolve several times, sometimes in very unexpected ways. For the most part this makes for interesting, multilayered results, but in places it does wander a bit too much for my liking. This is most evident on “Desert Horse”, which is my least favorite on the album with it’s unfitting additions of turntable scratching, 808 drums and a general rambling feeling. If I ignore that song and a few other iffy moments, it’s nearing a #5 or #4 position in my above Top 4.

Listen to “Shirim”

#best of 2018 #2018 music #best of 2018 halfway #2018 favorites #2018 #2010s #10s #Fishdoll #Adonis #U.S. Girls #US Girls #Angelique Kidjo #Ravyn Lenae #D A V I I C I #Elaquent #Music House #SOPHIE #Melody's Echo Chamber #Mary Lattimore

[secretradiobrooklyn]

May Day Edition | 5.1.21

Secret Radio | 5.1.21 | Hear it here.

1. Zia - “Helel Yos”

This song has been in our heads in a big way the last few weeks. Zia was my first exposure to pre-revolutionary Iranian rock  — sometimes called “psych rock,” though I can’t tell if that’s a designation he would make himself. But to be fair, I have no idea what he’s going for. Nonetheless, those little whistles he does get under my skin and into my brain. I wake up in the morning singing “helel yoza, hella hella helel yoza”… This is from the late ‘60s, I believe. The whole album (also called “Helel Yos”) is pretty excellent, and includes the song “Khofrium” from our last broadcast. A recent favorite and highly recommended.

2. Shin Joong Hyun - “Pushing through the Fog” 

Somehow stumbled on this collection of South Korean music, and it has been mesmerizing. Shin Joong Hyun is a great example of something I love discovering over and over again: someone working within a language and a genre, but also expressing a completely unique personal style that extends beyond those general qualities and into startling specifics. This song is from “Beautiful Rivers and Mountains: The Psychedelic Rock Sound of South Korea’s Shin Joong Hyun 1958-74,” which blows my mind, because the tones, and especially the bass and drums, sound so completely of the moment. It’s sold out at Light In The Attic’s store, so we’ll be keeping our eyes out for it in the wild, because these are going to be some crucial liner notes. The brief version on their site describes him as a guitarist, songwriter, producer, arranger, and talent developer. He began by performing for US troops in Korea post active war time, became a bewitching guitarist and songwriter, then started producing other bands in the region, and a string of hits developed. It sounds like his story includes a really harsh period of intrusion and disruption by the government… but as far as I can tell he survived to the current day, and even helped oversee this collection.

3. The Traces - “Je t’aime moi non plus” - “Thai Beat A Go Go Vol 2”

Ummm… I would LOVE to know what words they’re singing. This chummy Thai version of Gainsbourg’s super sensual “Je t’aime, moi non plus” is such a weird listening experience. I think one of the singers is either drunk or hearing the song for a first or second pass. What are they saying?!

4. Annie Philippe - “On m’a toujours dit”

I really love the energy and style of this track and many of the Annie Philippe songs I’ve heard, which makes it aggravating that the first thing one finds online in English about Philippe is a condescending, limp writeup on her by Richie Unterberger that tries its best to ignore how delightful her voice is and how pleasurable the arrangements are — luckily the dude mentions that Paul Mariat worked on her albums, who also arranged Charles Aznavour. I love the florid colors of French pop from the ‘60s with hothouse arrangements and wide-flung voices. The ebullient drums and electric guitar, the confident harmonies and tucked in little organ and horn licks are all pure joy.

5. T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou - “Houton Kan Do Go Me” 

While we were in the Illinois woods we received some very welcome records from Germany’s Analog Africa label which included “The Skeletal Essences of Afro-Funk,” a collection of songs by pretty much our favorite band in the world, T.P. Orchestre. These songs that explore some of the facets of the band that “Echoes Hypnotique” and “The Vodoun Effect” — both gorgeous, keystone records — hadn’t gotten to yet. The language is Fon, the style is Jerk, and the composer (though not the singer, I think) is Bentho Gustave, T.P.’s bassist. pretty sure the singer is Lohento Eskill.

- Hailu Mergia & The Walias - “Musicawi Silt”

The Walias is the band that Hailu Mergia was in when he first came to America. I seem to remember a story that they were disappointed with the trip, went home to Ethiopia and broke up, but Mergia stayed and kept developing his keyboard style, which did a few decades later (!) actually win him wide recognition and acclaim. This is some of his earlier work, not in the director’s seat, and you can hear so much of Mergia’s style woven into the band’s arrangements. I love how it sounds like he’s just playing pure electric current — it barely sounds like an organ to me, more like uncut groove tone.

6. “Newsies” clip

In celebration of May Day, we present this inspiring tale of unions forming in the streets of New York. 

7. Sexe a Pile - “Pas Méchant”

Another recent record score, this one from our other most favorite label, Born Bad Records in France: “Paink: French Punk Anthems 1977-1982.” One thing I love about this song is that the chorus always makes me think of “High Class” by the Buzzards, a song that never got nearly enough love as far as I’m concerned.

8. The Replacements - “Customer”

Dave got me thinking about the Replacements and before I knew it we were deep into “Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash.” So wild and loose and pissed off and sincere the whole time. You can really hear Westerberg yearn to be great but also sneer at himself for taking something seriously. It used to sound so unhinged to me but now it has become an album about being young and scared of yourself 

9. Plearn Promdan - “Ruk Kum Samong”

Well, this was something we didn’t see coming — the Thai music we’ve heard up to now has been more ’50s influenced. It sounds like a four-piece rock band surrounded by a drum circle. This is part of what’s apparently known as Luk Thung underground. There’s been some very good stuff so far, I look forward to finding out more. 

10. T.P. Orchestre - “Azanlokpe”

I got a little obsessed with T.P. Orchestre for a while there, and was trying to listen to every single recording that Discogs offered — which is a LOT, because they were super prolific. This is one of my favorite finds so far. I wish I could say which singer this is; it was noted as Melome Clément but I don’t think that’s him. So many talented people in this band!

11. Francis Bebey - “Super Jingle”

Francis Bebey contains multitudes. I’m pretty sure he records all of these parts himself. I think he’s just a master of rhythm — all of the instruments weave a tapestry that he can then cavort upon. The body of the song is so hypnotizing, the lead so akimbo. 

12. Dalida - “J’ai revé”

One of the highlights of the 2017 St. Louis International Film Fest was the biopic of her life. This is early Dalida. As far as Paige understands, she’s the French Lady Gaga for people who were clubbing in the ’70s and ’80s. The story of her life has some really sad shit, but this take on Bobby Darin’s “Dream Lover” is full of life.

- “Newsies” reprise

Radical sincerity sometimes requires references to musicals.

- Petch Pintong - “Soul Lum Piern”

I love this track and know nothing about it except that it was collected on “Thai Beat A Go Go Vol 4.” Those collections have turned out to be full of riches!

13. Atomic Forest - “Obsession ’77 (Fast)”

OK, these guys seem really interesting. They’re an Indian psych-funk band, which was apparently totally unheard of there, and they only released a single album — and that one only after they broke up. Because that album is full of great stuff, most notably (at least to me) this track, their story is almost too perfectly suited to the obsessions of vinyl collectors worldwide. Now-Again Records re-released the album in 2011, and we ran across it just a couple months ago. I really enjoy the sense of narrative in the song — what’s happening in the foreground keeps evolving and remaining legitimately interesting.

14. Metak - “Da Mi Je Biti Morski Pas”

I’m proud to say that these dedicated rockers are Croatian, and this track from 1980 rocks like a seafoam T-top Stingray. This is from a 7” with “Rock’n’Roller” on the flip.

15. Mai Lan - “Les Huîtres”

Paige found this amazing playlist on Spotify years ago, and this is finally the way she started getting into more contemporary French music. It sounds like she’s from a musical and artistic French-Vietnamese family. “Les Huîtres” is from around 2008. Kind of feels like 

16. VIS Idoli - “Maljciki”

We found a video of this Yugoslavian ska while looking for something else entirely. I did learn that this is political ska, and that they were frowned upon by the government. One account has them being indulged by the government; another has them under threat of punishment. I do love knowing that ska is a political form and not just a genre. I have no idea how they would feel about the Croatian rockers a few tracks back, and I hope none of them did any harm to one another other during the terrible ‘90s. 

17. Para One, Arthur Simonini - “La Jeune Fille en Feu” - “Portrait of a Woman on Fire” score

Did you see “Portrait of a Woman on Fire”? We highly recommend it, for a lot of reasons but definitely for the passage of this song. It sounds great here, but at night, by firelight, with all the nuns and farmwomen on the island? 

18. The Space Lady - “Ghost Riders in the Sky”

- Sleepy Kitty - “Western Antagonist Reflection”

19. Mikyas Chernet - “Ziyoze”

Marc, this is the song I was talking about stepping into the Teddy Afro position. It’s definitely not the same, but you can hear the modern Ethiopian pop feel running through it. It helps that I first heard it while picking up an order from our favorite Ethiopian in STL, which is also where we first heard Teddy Afro. The dancers are on POINT in the video, and they’re rockin a couple of new styles that I hadn’t seen yet.

20. Nazir Ali - “Lad Pyar Aur Beti”

Listen to the giant smiles in their voices! This is from a very recent compilation. That female voice has to be Nahid Aktar, or at least it sounds just like her; I think the protagonist-sounding male voice is Ali’s. There is a brief appearance from that Oscar the Grouch-sounding guy from last episode’s Aktar song. It’s so cool how the song shifts into new mode after new mode as it goes. 

21. Nathalie - “L’Amour Nous Repond”

22. The Fall - “L.A.”

This period of The Fall is surely our favorite — wherever Brix E. went, the songs were great. And now, with vaccines coursing through our systems, we can feel our thoughts casting their way to LA and San Francisco…

23. Akaba Man & The Nigie Rokets - “Ta Gha Hunsimwen” 

Analog Africa’s most recent release is “Edo Funk Explosion Vol. 1,” with tracks from the late ‘70s and ‘80s in Nigeria’s Benin City. Akaba Man is described as “the philosopher king of Edo funk.” The whole album is full of good tracks that only get better with repeated listens. This one has a bed of sounds that could happily go on for hours or days.

24. Gérard Manset - “Entrez dans le rêve”

Paige: “If you ever want to hear Lou Reed sing in French, this is the best we’re gonna get.” 

- Johnny Guitar - “Bangkok by Night”

We heard the “Shadow Music of Thailand” album a while back but haven’t dipped into it for too long. This Santo & Johnny style reverbed-out dream of the ‘50s lives eternally in Thai psych guitar.

25. David Bowie - “When I Live My Dream”

We do not condone the killing of any species of dragon, and I can only trust that neither dragon nor giant was harmed in the making of this fantasy.

[thisisathingthatiamdoingwithsome]

For Today

COTD: Earlier in the round, people were going short, and now people are going long, in terms of write-up. I am a little jealous of those that went short, but I’ll go long, because I very much enjoyed the process of getting to my favorite, so might as well share some thoughts.

I mentioned the other day that I was narrowed to 6, but it was missing the Hives, so it was actually 7. I’ll start with some honorable mention that were lost in the cuts to get it to 7. 

LCD -- as laid out when I did a bit, there wasn’t one album that was exceptional.  God, the highlights though.  I don’t know how it would be possible that a band with only five albums could put together a “two-disc” best of compilation that would be in the running for mankind’s greatest accomplishment and for which i would be absolutely livid about some of the stuff that had to be left off.    

Kanye - My Dark Twisted Fantasy is so incredibly good.  

Funeral, Apologies to the Queen Mary, Turn on the Bright Lights, White Blood Cells -- what a time to be alive, both the era that these came out and now.  Think of the joy that these albums and some others by those artists have brought us collectively.  

Teens of Denial by Car Seat Headrest -- so great.  No practical way that an album I found in my 40s could or should be my favorite.  

U2 generally -- for this COTD, I have listened to most of Joshua Tree to Pop.  Great stuff.  God, we watched some of those concerts and the concert footage from Rattle and Hum so much in Comms.  I don’t know how anyone could stand to be around me.  My one favorite is Achtung Baby

Pearl Jam generally -- again listened to a lot recently. With U2, this band was the co-best band of my life, during what was probably the best time of my life (last couple years of college).  I  honestly intend to listen to their newest at some point.  My one favorite is Vitalogy, I am pretty sure.  

Dandys are obviously a great band with an unreal falling of a cliff.  God Bless Zia for being hot.  Urban Bohemia would have to be my favorite one of theirs.  

Throwing Copper by Live -- I never gave it serious thought for this, but senior year of high school, i very earnestly thought that I would never own a better album.  

Uptown Sinclair -- a local Cleveland band.  Saw them open for the Strokes.  Great pop punk.  Never hit it big and almost were never really even a band, but they had one album out, and it is on Spotify and I genuinely enjoyed listening to it recently and I do it once every couple of years.  I have continued to follow lead man, who recently is a comedian and was in a band that wrote the theme song for the John Oliver show.  

Okay, it appears I am ready for the final 7.  I am relatively certain this is in order, but Arcade Fire would be in here somewhere.  

Rings Around the World -- Super Furries are great.  So, so great.  This album is my favorite of theirs.  It is so weird, but the melodies are genius.  The opening 30 seconds of albums was important to me as I worked towards my answer.  I love this opening 30 seconds.  Title track is great, Sidewalk Serfer Girl, A touch sensitive, a lot of highlights.  If this was my album, I’d go with Run Christian, Run.  That song is so good for me. 

 Silent Alarm by Bloc Party -- One of my two favorite anti-Bush records.  I think about it a lot in the glaring absence of anti-Trump records.  A ton of highlights.  Another great opening 30 seconds.  Great urgency.  I love Pioneers on this album, and it would have been my pick had this been my album.  For the two days when we had negative oil or whatever that was, I wanted my COTD to be the Price of Gasoline, but when it came back around to me, too much time had passed. Separately here, I have often thought about how no album in the future of rock and roll will ever be released before I turn 25.  It just felt different before then, and other people had earlier or later ages, but this album came out after I turned 25 and I couldn’t make it my pick.  Even as one of the heaviest new music boosters on this list, I didn’t want an to break that rule.  

The Bends -- Ketts recently called it, the flow of this album is superb.  The best songs are superb.  The B-Sides are awesome and Ketts, I really miss the mix you put together called Bastard Headmaster.  I spent a day or two toying with the idea of picking this album but making my cut a b-side such as Killer Cars or Maquiladora. (I think I am right about when those songs came out, but obviously I would have vetted that).   I have not listened to it as much the last several years, and that allowed me to eliminate from my list while going from 7 to 1.  

Veni Vidi Vicious -- Of the ones that I am not picking, I think I most wanted this to be my pick.  I couldn’t quite do it, and I hope that these wonderful bastards can be pleased with a place on my top 5 list.  In terms of an opening 30 seconds, you can’t do much better than a declaration of nuclear war, both in song title and guitar tone.  This album is less than 28 minutes and God Bless them for it.  

OK Computer -- Based on Lifetime Cumulative stats, I am fairly certain this band has meant more to me than any other.  at some point, I’ll jump in on rating my Radiohead favorite album, but my top 2 are here with OK Computer beating out the Bends.  I don’t really feel like I have more to say about this album at the moment.  

Stone Roses Stone Roses -- When I did album openers, I stated that this very well might be my favorite and that was true, but after spending a lot of time on this over the last week or so, it isn’t quite my favorite album.  I can remember in 2002/2003 Q Magazine asked people to vote for albums for a best album of all-time list that they were putting together.  I can remember taking my list really seriously while unemployed at Avalon at Mission Bay and then submitting the list on John’s computer.  At the time, I put this at number one, and I remember making a comment about how of all the albums that I have ever loved, it is the only one that i never got sick of.  And I still haven’t gotten sick of it, though it has wondered away from my consciousness from time to time.  It is so great throughout, and ‘ol Chief Mitchel was the one who kindly brought it into my life.  There is a part of I am the Resurrection where there is a bit of a breakdown towards the end, God, it just kills me.  I would have to rate it as my favorite that many seconds of music anywhere. (6:30ish to 7:00ish, but the rest of that song and the whole song, obviously are real nice for me) The first time I heard the first ten seconds of Fool’s Gold, I was completely in on that song.  If this had been my album pick, I think my track would have been She Bangs the Drum.  “Have you seen her?  Have you heard? The way she plays there are no words, to describe the way I feel.” (I hope that song isn’t about heroin, but sometimes I think it is) Guys, I am really, really happy that I like music as much as I do and that I have had the chance to have a lot of great moments with you boys listening to it.  

But when I did the list for Q, some part of the reason that I chose it was a fear of a recency bias.  

Apogus aplenty for McX, but Is this It? is just my favorite album.  It just is.  I thought about several different approaches to picking something different and obviously I could have advocated strenuously for several others, but I sort of always circled back to this being my favorite of all time.  I never envisioned this theme as not allowing repeats of albums, so apogu to anyone that is offended, but McX and me are favorite album buddies (hey favorite album buddy, McX).  To be clear, I am talking about the original track list of 11 songs including new york city cops.  One of the first things I did when I got on spotify was make a playlist of the real track list and I would never dream of listening to a different version.  Talk about an opening 30 seconds?  Picking one cut is really challenging.  I am picking Take it Or Leave It.  It is almost certainly not a Top 5 on the album.  I took a stab at ordering the 11 songs on this album from best to worst and this song landed in the bottom half of my list, but as I swirled around and around making this pick of my one favorite album, i was listening to this song when I realized what I had to do.  If a song that great could be in probably the bottom 5 of songs on the album, there is no way that I could pick any other album. Without digging too much into setlists saved on the internet, my recollection is that most or all of those 2001/2002 shows ended with this song.  The last 30 or so seconds are glorious and then the concert ends (or the album too) and you have to go back to your life.  Studio version from the album should be added to any lists, but here is a Live from Letterman version to enjoy  https://youtu.be/L3ZMabdnEwc  

I wrote more than I planned to.  Sorry about that.  Kernal, you are next.  

[vinyloftheyear-blog]

Vinyl of the Year 2017

It’s that time of year once again for a music recap! I know I’ve pretty much abandoned the “First Impressions” thing, but I realized that I prefer to let my opinions ferment for some time and serve them up all at once at the end of the year, so that’s what I’ll be doing instead from now on--and in lieu of those posts being reminders of what albums I like, I made a “Best of 2017” playlist out of selected songs from my favorite records of the year. You can listen to it here on Google Play.

I’ve done my album rankings a bit differently this year as well: I’ve compiled a Short List of every album that had at least one song I liked on it, and I’ll be going through all of them one at a time, getting a bit more descriptive the higher up the list I go.

Here’s the Short List, sorted roughly by release date:

And without any further introduction, let’s do this!

36. Joji - In Tongues EP

Joji is George Miller aka Filthy Frank aka Pink Guy’s moniker for more-serious music, and his record debut is a collection of mellow, lo-fi beats with some shallow lyrics on top. I like some of the sounds on here, especially the ukulele sampling on Worldstar Money, but overall this just sounds like any other amateur lo-fi artist on SoundCloud.

35. Electric Guest - Plural

Electric Guest’s second album features more indie-pop tunes, most of which are completely forgettable in the sea of similar music--but Oh Devil and Back For Me are a couple of rare exceptions that return with the magic and groove of their much-better first record.

34. XXXTENTACION - 17

After hearing about how X seriously abused his ex-girlfriend, I pretty much gave up on liking him and instead hope his mental health improves. The 20-minute album he released is mostly some super-low-effort “I’m depressed” music, but the one stand-out track is Jocelyn Flores, and that’s much more thanks to the potsu song it heavily samples. So at least I can thank X for introducing me to potsu before I never listen to him again.

33. Migos - CULTURE

The Atlanta trap trio climbed to the top of the game with this album, and Bad and Boujee will be remembered for a long time for popularizing their flow and production style (provided by Metro Boomin), for better or worse. T-Shirt is another catchy track with a wonderfully unique flow throughout, but the album pretty much drops off after that for me.

32. SZA - Ctrl

SZA’s debut full-length album is critically acclaimed as a soulful and personal take on modern urban romance and the role she takes in it. I can appreciate the album for that, but it’s not really a concept that I can connect with personally, so this album doesn’t stick with me like it did others. However, the songs with more blatant concepts like The Weekend and Doves in the Wind are more replayable--especially the latter, with its hilarious Kendrick Lamar feature.

31. Mount Eerie - A Crow Looked At Me

I really think this album should be labeled ‘FOR EMOTIONAL EMERGENCIES ONLY’. As the listener, you are taken through what is effectively just cathartic music-therapy for Phil Elverum after the very recent death of his wife, Genevieve. No deepy-contemplated lyrics or music here, just somber mostly-guitar ballads with very straightforward “lyrics” on top about his personal thoughts on various aspects of his life now that she is gone. It’s hardly music, but it’s not for the faint of heart--the first song, Real Death, however, is a good summary of the album’s aesthetic for those who don’t want to sob for 40 minutes.

30. Open Mike Eagle - Brick Body Kids Still Daydream

OME is very hit-or-miss in my opinion: he is capable of some excellent flows and lyricism, and can really knock it out of the park with the right production behind him. This album didn’t completely hit--it was mostly too slow, and I admittedly don’t like it when he sings sometimes--but Tldr (Smithing) and Brick Body Complex both had enough of a driving beat to keep me listening.

29. Pink Guy - Pink Season

I was honestly surprised when the In Tongues EP came out that it didn’t have production nearly as good as Pink Season’s: regardless of whatever offensive thing he raps on top, Pink Guy has several solid beats on this album, especially in the food-based songs where the raps are more typical and less off-the-wall raunchy. Adding a few comedic diamonds in the rough, like She’s So Nice and Small Dick, makes the album worth coming back to every so often.

28. The Shins - Heartworms

The Shins have really carved out their own bubbly-indie-rock niche in music and made themselves comfortable, and Heartworms is no departure from that in the slightest. The result is an album that’s both easy to enjoy but hard to really celebrate. A few stand-out tracks are Rubber Ballz, Name For You, and Mildenhall, which each have a slightly different tone, but belong well within the Shins’ signature aesthetic.

27. Portugal. The Man - Woodstock

It must have been one hell of a year for PTM since they’ve gone from a lesser-known indie-rock group to Top 40 hitmakers, since it’s been weird to hear Feel It Still on the radio even as a fan of theirs. Besides that song and a couple others though, Woodstock just feels like a more popped-up and watered-down version of the slightly-less popped-up and watered-down Portugal that I grew to like when Evil Friends released.

26. Alt-J - RELAXER

The indie-rock powerhouse returned this year with a woefully underwhelming third album, stuffed with nicely-composed but lullaby-worthy tracks following in the wake of the more ambient sounds from their second record. In Cold Blood is by and large the standout track, bringing back the punchy rock feel and dynamic shifts that made An Awesome Wave so catchy and groundbreaking. Deadcrush also lends to this with its tough drum beat, but beyond that, a strange and ill-fitting attempt at garage-rock, and a much gentler cover of House of the Rising Sun, this album can be missed with no regrets, even for an Alt-J fan.

25. San Fermin - Belong

The eight-piece baroque-pop outfit came to my attention when opening for Alt-J live, and their infectious stage presence and unique ensemble led me to find their studio recordings, which were good in concept but unfortunately poorly-mixed for the most part. Their newest record, however, seems to be mixed and recorded much better, with songs like Dead and Cairo bringing that live energy properly into my earphones. Many tracks are good enough but a bit poppy and smooth for my taste, like Belong, but overall this is a great album for anybody who wants more horns and violins in their pop music.

24. N.E.R.D. - NO ONE EVER REALLY DIES

N.E.R.D. finally explains their name on their latest album, which still brings the experimental genre-mixing hip-hop that got them their initial fame, but the experiments seem to be overcooked a bit: there are some interesting samples and beats here, even going so far as combining an 80s new wave style beat with a Future feature on 1000, but most of the songs drag the beats out too long for me to stay interested. Lemon is an exceptional standout track, with one of the bounciest beats of the whole year, and Rihanna with an unprecedented rap feature.

23. Mac DeMarco - This Old Dog

The New York indie-rocker popularized his own “slacker rock” genre with his excellent album Salad Days, and This Old Dog proves that Mac is still the master of his own domain. He branches out his song foundations on this record to include acoustic guitar and piano, among other things, but maintains the psychedelic guitars and wavy synths that characterize his style. His lyrics also get more somber and personal than usual, a rare side to Mac’s music that slows it down a bit too much for my liking, but not enough that this album should be ignored.

22. Gorillaz - Humanz

Pretty much all of the singles from Humanz were great examples of genre-defying instrumentals with fitting rap features on top--Vince Staples does an awesome job on Ascension, DRAM gives Andromeda a nice bit of depth, and Let Me Out is a wonderful gospel-rap-fusion track with Pusha T and Mavis Staples (and the album’s De La Soul and Danny Brown features are good too). Unfortunately, the rest of the album is overloaded with production so all-over-the-place you can never stay immersed for more than a little while before you’re either bored or confused.

21. Smino - blkswn

The underground St. Louis rapper’s debut album is full of wavy beats that have a neo-R&B feel to them, similar to Chance the Rapper or Noname’s recent work, and flows in his own slightly-off-kilter sometimes-singing-sometimes rapping style. The whole album is definitely worth a listen, but most of the tracks are a little too off-balance in their beats and rhythms to really stick; the flow overtakes the underlying rhythm and makes it sound messy. Some tracks, however, like Blkoscars, Innamission, and Spitshine, strike a much better balance--and the soulful final track Amphetamine makes a wonderful closer, especially with Noname’s feature.

20. Vallis Alps - Fable EP

The Australian electropop duo released another EP that is wonderful in every sense of the word, with the only true crime being its short length. As with their self-titled EP, Fable is loaded with glittering synths and Parissa Tosif’s beautifully-airy voice on the high end, with driving percussion in varying amounts to balance it out and change the tone. Sometimes the composition is a little samey, like the repetitive chords in East and Fading, but that doesn’t stop me from coming back.

19. Lorde - Melodrama

Lorde needs no introduction at this point, and her newest album chronicling a relationship and subsequent breakup brings more of her personal side out, which is a welcome change--but the tone of the album is much more poppy, and most of Lorde’s characteristic darkness is washed out. Tracks like Homemade Dynamite and The Louvre show how the production behind her has improved and diversified, filling in the gaps in her old minimalist music quite nicely, but it is a balance that not a lot of the album strikes.

18. Foster the People - Sacred Hearts Club

Foster the People went much more electronic for their newest installment, bringing to the front lines what was once just some background effects. In many ways the change is great for the dancey energy of the band’s music, like in Doing It For the Money and Pay the Man, but other times it just makes the songs less interesting. The rare punk-rock track Lotus Eater also brings the band’s typical energy with a welcome new style that I hope to see more of in future albums.

17. Sufjan Stevens, Nico Muhly, Bryce Dessner, James McAlister - Planetarium

Stories of eponymous Roman myths with Sufjan’s poetic twist are sung through several effects on top of grandiose and often-overwhelming production throughout this technically-huge album. The main setback of this record is its length and overindulgence in its composition, like a musical all-you-can-eat that just keeps coming (and it’s a slight thorn in my side that the track order seems meaningless). In moderate doses though, tracks like Jupiter and Mars serve up lots of beautiful soundscapes with interesting dynamic shifts throughout.

16. 21 Savage, Metro Boomin, Offset - Without Warning

The back end of 2017 saw the release of several collaboration albums between various trap artists and producers--and this surprise Halloween-themed album is the only one worth coming back to. Metro Boomin provides beats that are as spooky as they are sticky for 21 Savage to rap on, but Offset is the true star of the album, bringing crazy flows that amplify the groove of the whole record, especially on Ric Flair Drip and Ghostface Killers.

15. Tame Impala - Currents B-sides & Remixes

The remixes on this album are okay, but it mostly has this rank because of its bonus material from my 2015 Vinyl of the Year. The three tracks sound from a time between Lonerism and Currents, where real drum beats dominate the driving percussion but synth leads take over the instrumental. List of People (To Try and Forget About) and Taxi’s Here are both excellent tracks that are better than some that actually made it to the real Currents, but I’m happy they hold their own separately, too.

14. Fleet Foxes - Crack-Up

Fleet Foxes continuously push the boundaries of folk music to new heights, and this album is no different, featuring an impressive amount of dynamic switches (especially in I Am All That I Need / Arroyo Seco / Thumbprint Scar), strange time signatures, and of course the characteristically-angelic harmonies and ambient guitars. Third of May / Ōdaigahara is the best blend of complexity and accessibility that Fleet Foxes has yet produced, with the rest of the album leaning a bit heavy toward the former, but I’m excited to see what they’ll do next.

13. Father John Misty - Pure Comedy

The ex-Fleet Fox brings another dose of well-composed irony to the record press, this time focusing the negative energy of Americans everywhere in 2017 into a concentrated mass of pure sarcastic cynicism. The theatrical compositions Father John is known for get even better on this record as he places it in the modern age by singing about having VR-sex with Taylor Swift and updating his status one last time before dying. The result is a wonderfully relatable and over-the-top message about the folly of man and just how funny it can all be sometimes.

12. Jaden Smith - SYRE

I still can’t take Jaden seriously after this album came out, but the production on it is so good it makes me almost wish I could. Lido’s beats and instruments, especially in the opening medley BLUE, are impressive enough that they bring up the album quality by themselves, and while Jaden’s lyrics range from platitudinous to cheesy to insane, his flow is usually a pretty good fit with the beats, so not all is lost--though he could stand to use the triplet-style a little less.

11. Richard Dawson - Peasant

If Lord of the Rings is high fantasy and Game of Thrones is gritty low fantasy, then Peasant is scraping the bottom of the barrel. Dawson’s folk songs each discuss a different story from 6th-century Britain, most dealing with brutal subjects like a child prostitute or a poor beggar losing his dog. The compositions are also period-authentic with amazingly erratic guitar work and some modern production scattered throughout, for a wonderfully unique and just-accessible-enough blend of old and new.

And now, on to the Top 10!

10. The National - Sleep Well Beast

I heard rumors that this album would be more electronic before it came out, and I was hoping for more of a 22, A Million-type situation combined with Matt Berninger’s characteristically deep and smooth vocals. That did not happen (yet) but this album is still a great addition to the National’s catalogue, bringing their downtempo slow-burners like Guilty Party alongside more traditional tracks like Day I Die--a welcome change from their slightly-too-mellow previous record. The National also had their own foray into faster rock music with Turtleneck, which gives the album a nice dynamic change.

9. Vince Staples - Big Fish Theory

Quick disclaimer: I have yet to listen to Vince’s earlier and more-acclaimed album Summertime ‘06, so I can’t really discuss comparisons to it--but in a vacuum, Big Fish Theory is a grimy, groovy rap record in all the right places. Dirty industrial beats carry Vince’s top-notch flow while he raps about darker perspectives on fame and his current position. A lot of tracks are repetitive--sometimes making the song catchier and increasing overall bump-ability, other times dragging it out into a monotone--but both are seemingly by design, which shows that the producers really know their stuff, though I hope that Vince branches his sound out somewhat in his next (or previous) records.

8. Sampha - Process

This album is a real masterpiece of electrosoul: lyrically founded on Sampha’s personal struggles and tragedies, and musically ranging between punchy drums and soulful piano, the one-of-a-kind compositions on this album are still seriously impressive, and vary enough that there’s something for everyone to enjoy, from the trap-head to the chorus singer. What’s more, the production fits the mood of each song to the point where you’re joining Sampha on his cathartic journey across the record--and that immersion only makes Process more memorable.

7. Rapsody - Laila’s Wisdom

Rapsody entered my radar with her features on To Pimp A Butterfly and Malibu, and I’ve been waiting for a project from her ever since--and now that it’s here, it satisfies pretty much every expectation I had. The raps are personal and candid but also inspirational and confident, showing how Rapsody lets her past strengthen her present. She also hosts a huge variety of features that all fit very well where they’re placed, including a strong verse from Kendrick Lamar, a couple of choruses from Anderson .Paak, and a slightly-discomforting love rap from Busta Rhymes. The production is also top-notch, making great use of tempo shifts, sampling, and sound effect transitions. The thing that keeps me from really bouncing to these tracks though is Rapsody’s casual, off-tempo flow--it’s enough to make the raps sound more genuine but it also throws off their rhythm. That’s a small gripe for an overall-solid project, though.

6. Everything Everything - A Fever Dream

One of my favorite indie rock bands released their fourth album this year, and it did not disappoint. Like their past records that have a loose theme, this one roughly revolves around the crazy society that seems to have developed in the past year or so (as a lot of music this year also focuses on). Unlike their past records, however, the quality seems to be more in the slow-burner tracks than the energetic ones, which are seemingly more under-written than ever. That isn’t to say I don’t like them, though--the louder songs really punch with amped-up guitars, a driving rhythm section, and the band’s characteristically choral vocals. However, the mellower tracks have much more interesting and introspective lyrics, as well as instrumentals that are unique to the group’s discography and make for a unique tone in each song.

5. Big K.R.I.T. - 4eva Is a Mighty Long Time

There isn’t a lot about this album that really breaks any molds, or pushes any boundaries--it’s just a very, very solid rap project. The production is some of the best on any album this year, and most of it is done by Big K.R.I.T. himself, and his flows are marvelous whenever he raps. Tracks like Subenstein and Big Bank bring the hard beats on the first disc of the double-album without being overbearing, and the second disc has more melodic tracks like Miss Georgia Fornia (with some excellent vocals from Joi) and Bury Me in Gold (a wholesome wrap-up for the whole project). 4eva Is a Mighty Long Time is a mighty long album, though, so anyone listening might want to split it up into its two discs so they’re not too tired of it before it’s even finished (both are self-titled, the first his rap name, the second his real name). Oh, and the two skits are both hilarious.

4. Kendrick Lamar - DAMN.

The legend returned this year with an album that is equal parts evocative and enigmatic. Ignoring the lyrics/narrative for a moment, the production is very different from any prior project of Kendrick’s: he brings in instrumentals founded on guitars, ambient and/or erratic samples, and even U2, with the vocal effects varying across the album, matching Kendrick’s own vocal virtuosity. He even tries singing a few times, which is more fitting on some tracks than others. Lyrically, it feels like Kendrick is also getting more repetitive, but he uses that repetition to his supreme advantage when conveying ideas he wants to stick in your head, like his feelings of anxiety with fame and his worst fears throughout his life. The album’s narrative also takes different directions depending on how you listen, which is an amazing feature of this album that shows Kung-fu Kenny’s genius storytelling once again and reminds everyone why he’s staying on top.

3. BROCKHAMPTON - SATURATION trilogy

Out of nowhere, this fourteen-person boyband collective hailing mostly from Texas saturated rap music with three full-length albums in the past six months, and they’re all insanely good. Mostly produced by Romil Hemnani, the instrumentals are incredibly eclectic and use an insanely wide variety of sounds, drums, and effects, that somehow blend really well together into a solid beat. Each of the rapping members of the group then use that beat to its maximum potential with their own characteristic style, akin to boybands of the past: Kevin Abstract gets passionate about his homosexuality and leads the group, Ameer Vann discusses his drug-dealing past to solidify his tough-guy persona, Dom McLennon brings fast, rhythmic, and candid bars, Matt Champion raps with infectious confidence and bravado, Merlyn Wood adds a not-usually-serious energy to the mix, and JOBA is a wild-card that can go from singing beautiful harmonies on one track to screaming about breaking necks on the next. I am confident that this type of prolific, eclectic, and personalized rap is where the genre is headed, especially now that this group is around, and I can’t wait for their next album--already slated for early 2018.

(The albums themselves are pretty similar, but I would rank them 2, 3, 1 (descending), which is really just based on the number of less-memorable tracks they have.)

2. Joey Bada$$ - ALL-AMERIKKKAN BADA$$

Lots of musicians had their take on the current events of the past year or so, but I don’t think anybody had a political message that was as focused, thought-out, and powerful as Joey Bada$$ did on this album. For starters, the instrumentals are really immersive, with triumphant horn sections and choirs leading some of the more confident tracks and grimy samples backing the more passionate and angry beats--and it’s all mixed pretty much perfectly, leading to a combination that keeps you moving to the beat. On top of the stellar production, Joey raps about what it’s like to be a black man in modern America, taking perspectives on fear of the police, gang violence, and hatred of the current government, all with the incredible rhyme schemes and flow that he is known for, even singing a few of the choruses pretty well. The overall theme is a duality between anger and disappointment at the current system and an inspiring call to action to improve the future, which is a large chunk of why I think this album is both firmly rooted in the present and timeless in its quality.

1. Tyler, the Creator - Flower Boy

Tyler has always been one of my favorite rappers in the abstract, with his lyrical schemes, unpolished production, and unconventional narratives being the driving force behind his work--but Flower Boy is a newer, more mature Tyler than the one that’s been heard before. Both his lyrics and his production have stepped up so much on this album that it’s hard to even believe it was all done by Tyler himself. The lyrics are incredibly candid and rooted in Tyler’s own anxieties about fame, friends, and relationships, with his uniquely dynamic, almost chaotic rhyme schemes adding to the fittingly-awkward aesthetic of the lyrics. The production is also butter-smooth and usually based on laid-back, jazz-like piano or psychedelic guitar chords, with soulful vocal performances from Tyler, Frank Ocean, Rex Orange County, and Estelle to name a few--all of this culminating in a sound that’s just as much chill psychedelic rock as much as it is hip-hop. Tyler’s talent and maturity have really bloomed with this album, and its message connected with me personally: in a year that was filled with worries, loneliness, and shifting friendships, I could put this on and find peace in the moment--and that is why Flower Boy is my Vinyl of the Year for 2017.

That about wraps it up! If you liked what you read and are interested in any of these albums, remember you can listen to most of the music I just talked about in my Best of 2017 playlist. I’ll see you again this time next year with another playlist, countdown, and Vinyl of the Year.

Thanks for reading, and happy listening!

#vinyloftheyear #VotY2017

[cadpadawan]

31-Day Music Challenge

The social media is now flooded with all kinds of funny challenges, as people are stuck at home with nothing much to do. I guess online gaming, or getting shitfaced, becomes increasingly boring, when all kinds of tiresome responsibilites, like work, do not present any restrictions and limitations anymore. In a way, Facebook has started to resonate the air of those naive first few years, when your newsfeed was basically just one continuous stream of challenge that and challenge this.

Well, why the hell not?

What else is there to do, in order to pass the time with your mental health intact?

So, here I am...just another bored individual to join this endless crusade to make life worth living again, to make my personal life great again. Thus, I jumped on the wagon, and took on this fancy 31-day music challenge, that has been circulating in Facebook (for years, I think).

Although, I didn't find it challenging enough to just type the daily keyword in the Spotify search box and post the result in my Facebook wall. Because: more is more.

(Go ask Yngwie Malmsteen, if you don't believe me...)

The challenge for day #1 was to pick a song with a colour in the title.

I could immediately come up with a bunch of songs, only to realize that the vast majority of the song titles were themed around two basic colours: black and blue. I guess songwriters are a lazy bunch, when it comes to colours. It's pretty obvious, why lyricist everywhere find these two colours exceptionally appealing and resort to the abundant use of them, neglecting all the wonderful possibilites posed by the other colours of the spectrum. Of course black and blue, in terms of emotion and imagination, are much stronger than, say, yellow and orange. So, instead of just settling with the first few titles that came to mind, I wondered if I could come up with one song for each colour I can think of. I mean: a song that bears some personal meaning to me. In practice, this challenge basically meant that I would have to think hard while rummaging through the main three Spotify playlists that I have compiled with something like +16k or +17k songtitles, with the addition of my personal collection of some +2600 cd's – at least the rarities section for songs that are not available in Spotify.

Let's see if I have the stamina to go through my cd-racks, though. I had the forethought to organize my cd's in alphabetical order, by the name of the artist, years ago. For some weird reason, my beloved spouse has not yet agreed to the idea of re-furnishing our apartment with the central theme being those precious compact discs. That's why the cd-racks are placed in somewhat random and impractical fashion: most of them are located in the living room, with a few sections located in our bedroom. I guess, it's a good thing I had disposed of my vintage Rhodes-electric piano by the time when we started dating 20 years ago. I'm pretty sure she would have opposed strongly to the idea of having the instrument as a kitchen table, with the giant lid down. My Rhodes-piano was the so-called suitcase model, with a keyboard of 73 keys. When I moved out from my parents' house in the mid-90's, I decorated my one-room-apartment in the ethos of Japanese minimalism, due to the fact that I spent most of my income on records and alcohol. That Rhodes-piano served as a kitchen table, when I wasn't actually playing with it. Because: why the hell not?

Ok, then. The first colour...it shall be black.

Oh, boy! What a multitude of choices it presents! Should I pick an iconic 90's grunge anthem, like Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun? After all, I saw the band on stage in Helsinki cirka 1995. (I say ”cirka” because I'm not 100% sure about the year, and I'm too lazy to look it up in Google) The fond memories of those grungey early years in the 90's instantly remind me of a couple of equally important bands: Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains. Although, I've never seen either of them live. Pearl Jam had a song titled Black on their breakthrough debut album Ten. Alice in Chains had a killer track titled Black Gives Way to Blue. That epochal Pearl Jam album played non-stop in my car stereos at the time of its' release. I had it copied on a C-cassette. Remember that vintage format, anyone? (Yes, I'm THAT old...) With this particular AIC song I fell in love much later, as it was the title track on the band's comeback album, released in 2009 with the new singer William DuWall. First, I kinda hesitated to give this new AIC line-up any chances, but it turned out to be pretty damn good. Obviously, nothing can top the impact, that the Laney Staley-fronted AIC made with their Dirt-album in 1992. At the time of its' release, that album was a full-blown mindfuck! In retrospect, the year 1992 seems to have been pretty kick-ass, in terms of album releases:

Alice in Chains: Dirt

Rage Against The Machine: Rage Against The Machine

R.E.M.: Automatic for the People

Pantera: Vulgar Display of Power

Tori Amos: Little Earthquakes

Faith No More: Angel Dust

Dream Theater: Images and Words

Aphex Twin: Selected Ambient Works 85-92

Prince & The New Power Generation: (Love Symbol Album)

Stereo MC's: Connected

Tom Waits: Bone Machine

Sade: Love Deluxe

The Prodigy: Experience

Megadeth: Countdown to Extinction

Eric B. & Rakim: Don't Sweat the Technique

The Orb: U.F.Orb

k.d.Lang: Ingenue

Suzanne Vega: 99.9 Fº

Stone Temple Pilots: Core

Curve: Doppelganger

Nick Cave: Henry's Dream

Neneh Cherry: Homebrew

Maybe I should choose something less obvious? At least, it would make this challenge less arduous for me, because it's evident that making a choice between two particularly dear songs from the past is nothing short of impossible. When in doubt, go for the dark horse! So, here goes: my choice for the song with the colour black in the title is:

Bonobo: Black Sands

Being something of a jazz aficionado, despite not really possessing any of the musical prowess to actually play jazz myself, it was love at first soundbite, when I chanced to hear the title track from Bonobo's 2010 album Black Sands on Bassoradio's morning special back in the day. Bonobo is the musical alias of British DJ-producer-musician Simon Green. His career spawns from the 90's trip hop aesthetics, with heavy influences of jazz and world music. Spicing up electronic beats with raw jazz samples, or even live musicians, was the thing to do, somewhere along the mid-90's. I guess it all started with a few insightful hip-hop artists layering their ghetto stompers with the occassional hardbop jazz sample back in the late 80's. For a short period, acid jazz was the coolest shit ever in the early 90's. In a somewhat natural chain of events, jazz eventually made its way to the brand new genres that evolved around the middle of the decade, trip hop and jungle, too.

That's how I got sucked into the all-consuming whirlpool of this abominable voodoo music – jazz. It's a wonder no-one has come up with a gateway theory yet, regarding the highly addictive nature of jazz music. It usually starts with small doses: an occassional jazz sample is slipped in the hip-hop track, or the breakdown section of a rock song is ornamented with a brief, improvised saxophone lead. Then you find yourself craving for more, and start delving into the depths of acid jazz, nu jazz, or whatever new genre that has incorporated jazz as an inherent element in its' aesthetic toolkit. After this honeymoon period, that might spawn over years and years, you eventually catch yourself red-handed, holding a genuine jazz album in your hands at the local record store, probably the usual entry-level drug-of-choice jazz classic: Kind of Blue by Miles Davis. It has been awarded the title of the greatest jazz album of all time – and for a reason, too. Multiple times. Then you're hooked. Next thing you know, you'll be blasting John Coltrane at a family reunion, with your beloved relatives giving you the dead-eyed stare, doubting the state of your mental well-being. Long story short: you simply cannot go wrong with a mellow waltz rhythm that's punctuated with the organic groove of a flesh-and-blood jazz drummer, and topped with hauntingly beautiful brass harmony.

Next up: the colour blue...

Again, I could go for something utterly obvious, like the song titled Blue by A Perfect Circle. Those lucky few, who know me in person, should be well aware of the fact, that I'm quite a diehard fanboy of the band. I was lucky enough to see the band's live performance a few years back, when they paid Finland a visit. Nevertheless, I think I can come up with something more unexpected.

Just let me think for a sec...

Remember the band Europe? Of course you do! (Unless you were born yesterday, like some, eww, millennial!) I think it would've required some exceptional measures in the noble art of cutting contact with the external world to not have been exposed to the band's 1986 megahit Final Countdown, during the past 34 years. (Fuck! Do I feel old yet?!?) BUT...before you dismiss the band as yet another hair-metal has-been, check out this song:

Europe: Not Supposed To Sing The Blues

It's pretty damn hard to believe it's a song by the same band that's responsible for that Final Countdown atrocity. To be honest, that particular throwback 80's hard rock ear-worm wouldn't probably get under my skin in such a thoroughly repulsive fashion, had I not performed the song countless times myself. It was quite an essential part of the live repertoire of the party band, that I toured with cirka 2004-2008. The modus operandi of this covers-only band was to play the most annoying 80's megahits, with the lyrics translated in Finnish with a liberal amount of tongue-in-cheek references to gay erotica. (On a side note, the band was actually quite popular in certain small regions, despite this dubious approach and the substantially high level of bad taste incorporated in the lyrics and live performances. We even ended up playing in a genuine gay wedding once. The humour of the band was, after all, benevolent albeit a bit harsh, at least in the context of these politically correct times...)

The song Not Supposed to Sing the Blues was released in 2012. It's pretty evident, that during this 26-year-period, following the release of Final Countdown, Europe managed to grow some serious balls, hidden somewhere below my musical radar. The oriental sounding motif, played with some cool mellotron string patch in the refrain before the chorus, has a nice Led Zeppelin-esque feel to it. You can't really go wrong with a slowed-down hard rock blues that is sugar-coated with a grain of Kashmir-strings, now can you?

Next up: white...

What first comes to mind? Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum, and Nights in White Satin by the Moody Blues, obviously. You see, I had both of these tracks in vinyl format, way back in the early 90's, when I was going through my ”moustache prog from the 70's”-phase. (Although, this particular Procol Harum song was actually released in 1968, and the Moody Blues song in 1967 – but, in order to be consistent and thorough, I had to dig deeper, to the roots of the prog...to the very dinosaur fossils)

I could throw in White Room by Cream, too. I used to listen to these particular tracks A LOT! In the age of vinyl, conducting a music marathon themed around, say, 60's and 70's ”moustache music”, was actually quite a laborous ritual. Every 25 minutes, or so, I had to flip the side of the record. Shuffling songs totally at random was simply a no-go-zone. Nowadays, it's so easy to compile a lengthy set of personal favorites in Spotify, WinAmp, iTunes, or whatever the fuck application you'd prefer, and just hit the randomize-button...fucking millennials, they have it SO easy. They have no idea of the struggle.

That's why we had those vintage C-cassettes: to copy that very special selection of songs, compiled with tender love and care, onto a format, that didn't require you to be on a constant lookout for when the album side was closing to an end. Besides, before the onslaught of cd-players, those vintage C-cassettes were the only way to impress people with either your refined taste in music, or with the lack of it, while you were occupied with the gentle art of pussy racing, driving around downtown in your awkwardly tuned-up mirthmobile, every goddamn Friday night.

I could pick White Wedding by Billy Idol, too...

It was one of those 80's hits that I used to play with the ”covers only”-party band.

Nah...

I think I will have to choose between Aisles of White by the Aussie soft-prog band the Butterfly Effect, and The Heart of a Cold White Land by the Finnish doomsters Swallow the Sun.

My beloved wife introduced me to Aussie prog, some 10 years ago. The gateway drug, I think, was Karnivool with their music video for All I Know. One day, when I was coming home from work, I caught my wife watching this particular video in YouTube. A little bit later, she unearthed a shitload of Aussie bands in Spotify. I guess she must've been hitting that ”similar artists”-link quite relentlessly. The Butterfly Effect was one of those magnificent bands she discovered. I remember hearing the song In A Memory for the first time. It struck a chord with me, in such a profound way, that I felt compelled to order the album Imago ASAP from some Australian music webstore. At the time, the back catalogue of the Butterfly Effect wasn't available in Finland. I don't know, if it's available even now, because the band is no longer active, I think. Aisles of White is the track #2 on that album, released in 2006. The band released one more kick-ass album in 2008, titled Final Conversation of Kings, and then I don't know what the hell happened.

Swallow the Sun is a bit doomish Finnish metal band, and I'm not really sure, when I actually found the band's music. I think I had their debut album The Morning Never Came (2003) in my cd-rack for years, but it wasn't until 2012, with the release of the magnificent Emerald Forest and the Blackbird album, that I truly fell in love with the band. It took me some five years to actually haul my ass to their gig for the first time. Every single time, when I found out that they were touring nearby, I was too busy with some utterly meaningless work-related bullshit to make it. Finally, in 2017 it happened. I had managed to get rid of my soul-sucking job, although due to a pretty hardcore reason (a brain tumour), so when I found out that Swallow the Sun was performing in Helsinki, in the legendary rock venue Tavastia, I definitely made sure that I was there – and fuck me sideways! It was indeed one of the best live performances that I have ever experienced, hands down!

In 2015, Swallow the Sun released a monolithic triple album Songs From the North, and this particular track, The Heart of a Cold White Land, is on the disc II, that is focused on the beauty side of the band's doom palette.

Swallow the Sun: The Heart of a Cold White Land

Next up: Red

Sielun Veljet was one of the most iconic Finnish rock bands in the 80's. The band released only a couple of albums with lyrics in English, of which the 1989 release Softwood Music Under Slow Pillars was the only one with the songs originally written in English. There was some other attempts to gain international fame and fortune, but in those cases, the songs were merely English translations of their most beloved hit songs, initially written in Finnish. This particular album was planned for international release – but the label executives were pretty disappointed, to say the least, when the band came up with an album full of acoustic psychedelia. It was released only in Finland and Sweden. The artwork on the album cover is actually a painting by a Peruvian artist Pablo Amaringo, depicting the shamanic ayahuasca ritual. Listening through this album in one go is somewhat similar experience, I would guess: a rewarding journey into the depths of the human psyche, albeit potentially exhausting, especially if you're not exactly in the proper mindset to begin with.

Well, ever since I got exposed to the oriental psychedelia of, say, Jimi Hendrix, Kingston Wall, and the like, I seem to have acquired a taste for this kind of weird and druggy, over-the-top freeform musical expression.

Sielun Veljet: Hey-Ho, Red Banana

Ok, then...What next?

What other colours are there, anyway? The three primary colours are: red, yellow and blue. All the other colours can be derived from these three fuckers. To be precise, I think black does not actually qualify as a colour... So, I've got most of these covered already. Of course, in order to pick some hairs, printers actually use magenta, yellow and cyan as their primary colours – and black, obviously. I can't recall a single song with ”magenta” or ”cyan” in the title, though. I could come up with a band or two, with these colours in the band name, such as Magenta Skycode, or Cyan Velvet Project, but song titles?

Nada.

Maybe, if I combed through my post-rock and soundtrack archives, I could come up with some epic 15-minute instrumental with either cyan or magenta mentioned in the lengthy piece of contemporary literature, that is supposed to be the title of the song...but I guess those tracks would not exactly mean worlds to me, as I clearly cannot remember them now. If something comes to mind, while I'm writing down this epistle, I'll address that particular colour and song, accordingly. Now, I shall get on with this challenge journal, onto the next ”normal”, everyday colour...

Which is?

The colour green.

Having played keyboards in a dubious number of proggy bands, with the tonal preferences leaning heavily toward everything vintage, I might as well pick a mellow Hammond-organ classic, such as Green Onions by Booker T. & the MG's, or a vintage synth classic from THE motion picture soundtrack album of all time: Memories of Green by Vangelis, from the timeless Blade Runner soundtrack.

But I won't...

It wasn't actually easy to come up with that many titles with the colour green mentioned. Excluding these two aforementioned classics, I could barely come up with four! As much as I like the desert rock stonerism of Kuyss, the song Green Machine is not my personal favourite in their back catalogue. So that narrows my options to three. The problem is that two of these songs seem to defy the laws of quantum physics: they both take a firm stranglehold on my soul, and throw it casually down the dark and dangerous alleys of nostalgia.

In the midst of 90's acid jazz boom, I had a peculiar habit of buying compilation cd's at random, if the heading on the cover somehow suggested that the contents of the cd had anything to do with this particular genre of music. By impulse-buying music I discovered a lot of gems, like the song Apple Green by Mother Earth. The band was an English acid jazz outfit, virtually unheard of in Finland, despite the tidal wave of acid jazz washing over also these rural perimeters. If Jamiroquai, the Brand New Heavies et al. rub you the right way, you definitely need to check this band out. I can still remember clearly, as if it happened yesterday, how I picked this acid jazz compilation from the vaults of the local record store that no longer exists.

Mr. Big was a band everybody just loved to hate at the turn of the decace, when the gigantic hair-do's of the 80's started to flatten out, and flannel shirts were showing faint signs of becoming the next level shit in the never-ending quest for cool. At the time, I was an under-aged college drop-out, devoting my attention to the finer things of guitar playing techniques, instead of studying for a decent profession. I had received my first electric guitar from my parents in 1988, and for the following 5-6 years, I spent most of my time and energy in an attempt to unravel the secrets of how to play guitar like Jimi Hendrix. I listened to quite a lot of speed and thrash metal on the side, too. Y'know, bands such as Anthrax, Metallica, Slayer and Stone, which was quite a legendary Finnish speed metal band in the late 80's. My budding personal artistic expression was anyhow more influenced by legendary old timers, like Hendrix. I simply loathed all sorts of pyrotechnical wankery (with the exception of certain tracks by Steve Vai and Joe Satriani). Mr. Big's lead guitarist Paul Gilbert was famous for that very special blend of technical stuff, that I wasn't interested in, not in the slightest. So, I never really gave the band a chance. I think my misconception of the band's music as some kind of a shit-show of technical masturbation was due to some instructional videos hosted by Gilbert. After all, his fame as a highly skilled guitarist must have derived from his contributions to several guitar magazines and instructional videos, instead of his career in Mr. Big. So, everytime I heard the intro of, say, To Be With You, on my car radio, I simply had to change the channel. In order to do so, I had to manually rotate the tuning knob. Yes, my first car stereos were THAT vintage! What a time it was to be alive! Years later, with the maturity of age like with a fine wine, I finally listened to the worn-out hits of this horrid band only to find out that – bummer! - in terms of songwriting, those goddamn Mr.Big hits were actually not that bad at all. The song Green-Tinted Sixties Mind was released on the album Lean Into It in 1991. Now, everytime I am exposed to this particular song, I am instantly reminded of what a stuck-up elitistic music snob I used to be during those emotionally tumultuous times.

So, I could resort to the luck of the draw, but luckily I've got one more candidate to go.

Lonely the Brave is one of my most recent findings. It's an English alt.rock band from Cambridge, formed in 2008. I really don't know much about the band, just this one song titled The Blue, The Green. I was exposed to it while playing the music trivia game Songpop 2 with my mobile phone during the past two years, I think. The game is about guessing songs within the timeframe of a 15 second clip. Pretty addictive at first, actually. This 15-second-soundbite was enough to gain my full attention, so I had to check out the song in full, instantly. I cannot pinpoint what exactly it is, but this particular song has that vague feeling of ”something”, that draws me to listen to it, time and time again.

Lonely The Brave: The Blue, The Green

Next up: yellow.

I was first introduced to Frank Zappa's unique music in the late 80's, by my classmate Jussi, who kindly exposed me to the timeless classic Bobby Brown Goes Down. At the delicate age of 15, it was a pretty anticipated reaction that the explicit song lyrics would strike a chord. A few years later, as I was browsing through the vinyl section at the local second hand record store, I came across a pure treasure: the gatefold vinyl edition of Roxy & Elsewhere by Frank Zappa & The Mothers. In mint condition, too! Dropping the needle on the first groove on the black vinyl back home was like taking the first hit of some mind-altering illegal substance. My perception of reality changed in an instant – and there was no going back. Such an exciting mixture of fusion jazz, rock and harsh satire was sure to make me an addict. So, in no time at all I built up enough tolerance and moved onto semi-lethal dosages, and purchased the albums Hot Rats, Grand Wazoo and Apostophe('). The last one was released in the year, when I was born (1974), and it included the hilarious 4-part rock suite about the unfortunate adventures of an eskimo named Nanook. One part of the suite is titled: Don't Eat the Yellow Snow. Sound advice at the time of a global pandemic, that originated from some peculiar pathogen spillover event in China, don't cha think?

Frank Zappa: Don't Eat The Yellow Snow

Not many colours left, I think...

Next up: purple.

I was exposed to the music of Jimi Hendrix via a documentary on TV, when I was a rosy-cheeked 7th grader in junior high. It happened around the same time, when I got my first electic guitar. So, I guess it must have been written in the stars, or something. The universe simply wanted me to focus on the noble art of guitarism, instead of getting a college degree on psychopathological marketing or accounting (fuck no!). My first guitar was a cheap stratocaster-copy with a Williams-logo on it. In a way, it resembled the vintage Mellotron keyboard: it simply would refuse to keep in tune. One of the first songs that I learned, despite the frustrating limitations imposed by the crap tuners on the guitar, was Purple Haze by Hendrix. I had to learn it by ear. You see, back in the gloomy days of the late 80's, there just wasn't that many guitar tabs around. Not in Finland, anyway. Later I did find an instructional guitar playing manual at the local library, with a few pages dedicated to the art of Jimi Hendrix. Mainly, the only viable option to learn any contemporary rock song, or even any classic from the days long gone, was either to learn it by ear, or to resort to the occassional tabs provided by the international guitar magazines – if you were fortunate enough to spot these much-sought publications at your local bookstore. (These fuckin' millennials have it SO easy!) On the other hand, learning to play primarily by ear must have developed my improvisational skills a great deal, as an added bonus. Improvisation is not so much about throwing up some pre-programmed fancy gimmicks at any given chance, but actually LISTENING to what your fellow musicians are playing and responding accordingly.

Next up: grey.

I think it was my dear wife, once again, who first introduced me to the band Thrice, by playing the song Digital Sea from the band's double album Alchemy Index, a long, long time ago. The band's vocalist/guitarist Dustin Kensrue is one of those few singers, who are blessed with a distinctive voice that speaks, or to be more precise, sings volumes. He might not have the same gravitas like Mark Lanegan or Tom Waits, but nevertheless, he has the voice of a protagonist who's been to hell and back. Mark Lanegan sounds like he's got a season ticket, and Tom Waits sounds like he's the devil running the show – or, to put it in Waits' own words:

”Don't you know, there ain't no devil,

that's just God when he's drunk...”

 Tom Waits: Heartattack and Vine

Anyways, the lyrics in a Thrice song could be compiled of a list of phone numbers, or the decimals of Pi (like Kate Bush actually did), and it would still sound like a profound wisdom concerning the transformative journey of being fully human.

Thrice: The Grey

Last but not least, the colour: turquoise.

For years, I actually thought that Boards of Canada was indeed a Canadian outfit. Y'know, indie bands in particular come up with these band names that have some funny and ironic twist. Somewhere along the way, it finally dawned on me that this magnificent electronic duo is actually from Scotland. Well, of course it is! If my memory isn't playing any tricks on me now, I'm pretty sure that Soulsavers and Hidden Orchestra are Scottish, too. And they all have something in common. Each of these electronic outfits has an extraordinary and unique, boss-level prominance in the way they manage to capture emotion in their instrumentals.

Boards of Canada released a 5-minute electronic epic titled Turquoise Hexagon Sun on the album Music Has the Right to Children in 1998. The name of the song is actually a reference to the duo's recording studio Hexagon Sun. It makes it even more marvellous, that an instrumental track with a title deriving from something so mundane can touch your heartstrings so deeply. It's not that often, when an electronic instrumental with a hip-hop beat, glassy vintage synth motifs and deliberately lo-fi production paired with grainy samples, manage to do that. These Scottish bastards must've been onto something...

Well, that's pretty much all there was to the first day in this music challenge! I was supposed to pick one song, and I ended up writing a fucking novel about it...Tomorrow the plot shall thicken even more, when I introduce you to the theme of the day #2.

In the meanwhile, you can do yourself a favour and listen to:

Boards of Canada: Turquoise Hexagon Sun

Stay tuned! Cheers!

[northcountryprimitive]

“You Can Hear Someone’s World View Through Their Guitar.” An Interview with Josh Rosenthal of Tompkins Square Records

This interview originally appeared at North Country Primitive on 11th March 2016

Josh Rosenthal’s Tompkins Square Records, which has recently celebrated its tenth anniversary, has become somewhat of an institution for music fans, thanks to Josh’s consistent championing of American Primitive guitar, the old, weird America and various other must-hear obscurities he has managed to pluck from the ether. Not content with running one of the best record labels on the planet, he is now also an author, and about to go out on tour with various musicians from the wider Tompkins Square family in support of his new book, The Record Store of the Mind. We caught up with him this week and pestered him with a heap of questions - our thanks to Josh for putting up with us.

Congratulations on The Record Store of the Mind – it’s an absorbing and entertaining read. Has this project had a long gestation period? How easily does writing come to you - and is it something you enjoy doing? It certainly comes across that way…

Thanks for the kind words. I don’t consider myself a writer. I started the book in November 2014 and finished in May 2015, but a lot of that time was spent procrastinating, working on my label, or getting really down on myself for not writing. I could have done more with the prose, made it more artful. I can’t spin yarn like, say, your average MOJO writer. So I decided early on to just tell it straight, just tell the story and don’t labour over the prose.

I particularly like how you mix up memoir, pen portraits of musicians, and snippets of crate digger philosophy… was the book crafted and planned this way or was there an element of improvisation - seeing where your muse took you? And is there more writing to follow?

If I write another book, it’d have to be based around a big idea or theme. This one is a collection of essays. As I went on, I realised that there’s this undercurrent of sadness and tragedy in most of the stories, so a theme emerged. I guess it’s one reflective of life, just in a musical context. We all have things we leave undone, or we feel under-appreciated at times. I wasn’t even planning to write about myself, but then some folks close to me convinced me I should do. So you read about six chapters and then you find out something about the guy who’s writing this stuff. I intersperse a few chapters about my personal experience, from growing up on Long Island in love with Lou Reed to college radio days to SONY and all the fun things I did there. Threading those chapters in gives the book a lift, I think.

Tell us a bit about the planned book tour. You’ve got a mighty fine selection of musicians joining you on the various dates. I imagine there was no shortage of takers?

I’m really grateful to them all. I selected some folks in each city I’m visiting, and they all are in the Tompkins Square orbit. Folks will see the early guitar heroes like Peter Walker, Max Ochs and Harry Taussig and the youngsters like Diane Cluck, one of my favourite vocalists. You can’t read for more than ten minutes. People zone out. So having music rounds out the event and ties back to the whole purpose of my book and my label.

It’s clear from the book that you haven’t lost your excitement about uncovering hidden musical gems. Any recent discoveries that have particularly floated your boat?

I’m working with a couple of guys on a compilation of private press guitar stuff. They are finding the most fascinating and beautiful stuff from decades ago. I’ve never heard of any of the players. Most are still alive, and they are sending me fantastic photos and stories. I have been listening to a lot of new music now that Spotify is connected to my stereo system! I love Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith. Her new one is out soon. I like Charlie Hilton’s new album too.

Any thoughts on the vinyl resurgence and the re-emergence of the humble cassette tape?

Vinyl has kept a lot of indie record stores in business, which is a great development. As a label, it’s a low margin product, so that’s kind of frustrating. If you’re not selling it hand over fist, it can be a liability. The model seems to be - make your physical goods, sell them as best you can within the first four months, and then let the digital sphere be your warehouse. I never bought cassettes and have no affinity for them, or the machines that play them.

Turning to Tompkins Square, did your years working for major labels serve as a good apprenticeship for running your own label? Did you have a clear idea of what you wanted the label to look like from the outset or has the direction its taken developed organically over time?

Working for PolyGram as a teenager and then SONY for 15 years straight out of college was formative. I like taking on projects. My interests and the marketplace dictate what I do. I’ve always felt like the label does me instead of vice versa. For example, the idea of releasing two, three or four disc sets of a particular genre served me well, but now it feels like a very 2009 concept. It doesn’t interest me much, and the commercial viability of that has diminished because it seems the appetite for those types of products has diminished.

Working in relatively niche genres in the current music industry climate can’t be the safest or easiest way to make a living. Is there a sense sometimes that you’re flying by the seat of your pants?

We’re becoming a two-format industry - streaming and vinyl. The CD is really waning and so is the mp3. The streaming pie is growing but it’s modest in terms of income when you compare it to CD or download margins at their height. I don’t really pay much mind to the macro aspects of the business. I just try to release quality, sell a few thousand, move on to the next thing, while continuing to goose the catalogue. The business is becoming very much about getting on the right playlists that will drive hundreds of thousands of streams. It’s the new payola.

American Primitive and fingerstyle guitar makes up a significant percentage of Tompkins Square releases, going right back to the early days of the label – indeed, it could be said that you’ve played a pivotal role in reviving interest in the genre. Is this a style that is particularly close to your heart? What draws you to it?

Interest in guitar flows in and out of favour. There are only a small number of guitarists I actually like, and a much longer list of guitarists I’m told I’m SUPPOSED to like. Most leave me cold, even if they’re technically great. But I respect anyone who plays their instrument well. Certain players like Harry Taussig or Michael Chapman really reach me - their music really gets under my skin and touches my soul. It’s hard to describe, but it has something to do with melody and repetition. It’s not about technique per se. You can hear someone’s world view through their guitar, and you can hear it reflecting your own.

You’ve reintroduced some wonderful lost American Primitive classics to the world – by Mark Fosson, Peter Walker, Don Bikoff, Richard Crandell and so on. How have these reissues come about? Painstaking research? Happy cratedigging accidents? Serendipity? Are there any reissues you’re particularly proud of?

They came about in all different ways. A lot of the time I can’t remember how I got turned on to something, or started working with someone. Peter was among the first musicians I hunted down in 2005, and we made his first album in 40 years. I think Mark’s cousin told me about his lost tapes in the attic. Bikoff came to me via WFMU. Crandell - I’m not sure, but In The Flower of My Youth is one of the greatest solo guitar albums of all time. I’m proud of all of them !

Are there any ‘ones that got away’ that you particularly regret, where red tape, copyright issues, cost or recalcitrant musicians have prevented a reissue from happening? Any further American Primitive reissues in the pipeline you can tell us about – the supply of lost albums doesn’t seem to be showing signs of drying up yet…

Like I said, this new compilation I’m working on is going to be a revelation. So much fantastic, unknown, unheard private press guitar music. It makes you realise how deep the well actually is. There are things I’ve wanted to do that didn’t materialise. Usually these are due to uncooperative copyright owners or murky provenance in a recording that makes it unfit to release legitimately.

You’ve also released a slew of albums by contemporary guitarists working in the fingerstyle tradition. How do you decide who gets the Tompkins Square treatment?  What are you looking for in a guitarist when you’re deciding who to work with? And what’s the score with the zillions of James Blackshaw albums? Has he got dirt on you!?

It takes a lot for me to sign someone. I feel good about the people I’ve signed, and most of them have actual careers, insofar as they can go play in any US or European city and people will pay to see them. I hope I’ve had a hand in that. I did six albums with Blackshaw because he’s one of the most gifted composers and guitarist of the past 50 years. He should be scoring films. He really should be a superstar by now, like Philip Glass. I think he’s not had the right breaks or the best representation to develop his career to its full potential. But he’s still young.

Imaginational Anthems has been a flagship series for Tompkins Square from the beginning. The focus of the series seems to have shifted a couple of times – from the original mixture of old and new recordings to themed releases to releases with outside curators. Has this variation in approach been a means by which to mix it up and keep the series fresh? Are you surprised at the iconic status the series has achieved?

I don’t know about iconic. I think the comps have served their purpose, bringing unknowns into the light via the first three volumes and introducing some young players along the way. Cian Nugent was on the cover of volume 3 as a teenager. Daniel Bachman came to my attention on volume 5, which Sam Moss compiled. Sam Moss’ new album is featured on NPR just today! Steve Gunn was relatively unknown when he appeared on volume 5. There are lots more examples of that. I like handing over the curation to someone who can turn me on to new players, just as a listener gets turned on. It’s been an amazing experience learning about these players. And I’m going to see a number of IA alums play on my book tour : Mike Vallera, Sam Moss, Wes Tirey - and I invited Jordan Norton out in Portland. Never met him or saw him play. He was fantastic. Plays this Frippy stuff.

What’s next for you and Tompkins Square?

I signed a young lady from Ireland. Very excited about her debut album, due in June. I’m reissuing two early 70’s records by Bob Brown, both produced by Richie Havens. Beautiful records, barely anyone has heard them.

#josh rosenthal #tompkins square #american primitive