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newmusickarl · 1 year

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Top 50 Albums of 2022

4. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.

Considering their cult-like status and massive global following, it can be quite easy to forget that Fontaines D.C. only founded in 2017. Where a lot of artists after a highly successful debut will sit and stew over their follow-up for years on end before releasing another album, in just five short years the Irish post-punk quintet have already found themselves on record number three.

In that time, they have set a very high bar for themselves too – from their instant classic, Mercury Prize-nominated debut Dogrel to their darker, brilliantly moody sophomore record A Hero’s Death, they’ve already delivered two of the finest albums of the last few years. Both those records landed inside my Top 20 in 2019 and 2020 respectively, but now their incredible third album, Skinty Fia, has earned them their highest spot to date on my annual year-end countdown.

The brilliant teaser tracks for Skinty Fia released earlier in the year heavily suggested Fontaines were about to unleash their best album to date with this latest opus. Now after playing it constantly throughout the year, I am certain that it more than holds up to the extremely high standard set by its two predecessors and that it is for me personally, my favourite of their records so far.

Whilst they may have lost some of the raw punk energy that made Dogrel so captivating, their confidence in what they’re creating has grown and it is coming through loud and clear in the music. The musicianship is more accomplished, the songs more dynamic and Chatten’s poetic storytelling is as entrancing as ever.

In ár gCroíthe go deo sets the tone perfectly – a sermon-like six-minute opener that draws on known modern tales of Irish people living in England and highlighting some of the xenophobia they have faced. With the album largely inspired by the band’s own experiences since moving to London, it is a central theme that runs right through the record.

Big Shot is more classic Fontaines, with the band pondering their newfound fame with genius lyrics like “I travelled to space and found the moon too small.” As great as the original album recording is, the live arrangement of this song is even better, as you can see from the beautiful string-tinged Glasto performance above. How Cold Love Is then features the perfect contrast between a sweet, romantic guitar melody and Grian’s drawling, tired vocals, sonically encapsulating the song’s lyrical subject matter perfectly.

When Jackie Down The Line was released earlier this year it immediately became one of my favourite tracks within their catalogue, and since then only one thing has changed – it is now one of my favourite songs of the whole year too. With a signature jangly guitar melody and an infectious refrain of “I will wear you down in time, I will hurt you, I’ll desert you, I am Jackie down the line” along with the odd “do do do, la la la”, I still think it’s brilliant. The meandering grungy riffs of Bloomsday then make way for other single Roman Holiday, which has a strong, very noticeable Oasis feel to it, both in terms of the Noel Gallagher-esque guitars and Chatten’s own Liam impersonation (which isn't a bad thing).

The Couple Across The Way then sees Grian describing an argumentative couple whilst reflecting on his own relationship. With the track featuring a simple accordion backing for a more Irish trad style feel to it, it divided fans upon release but I have personally always loved it. The accompanying music video is well worth seeking out too, as it really brings the song to life. It arrives at just the right time in the tracklist too, acting as almost a palette cleanser that sets up the final three tracks in quite emphatic fashion. Once the accordion fades and the title track’s brilliantly glitchy synths and thumping drums kick in, you’re suddenly transported into a different zone, and it makes for an utterly exhilarating crossover. With heavy Joy Division vibes, the title track is simply pulsating and another big album highlight.

If that wasn't good enough, subsequent track I Love You then arrives to blow nearly everything else out of the water. Hugely atmospheric, it steadily builds to Grian Chatten’s passionate vocal cries in the song’s outro, with more stunningly poetic lyrics:

“And I loved you like a penny loves the pocket of a priest, And I’ll love you ‘til the grass around my gravestone is deceased, And I’m heading for the cokeys, I will tell 'em 'bout it all, About the gall of Fine Gael and the fail of Fianna Fáil, And now the flowers read like broadsheets, every young man wants to die, Say it to the man who profits, and the bastard walks by, And the bastard walks by, and the bastard walks by, Say it to him fifty times and still the bastard won’t cry, Would I Lie?”

After that jaw-dropping moment, Nabokov then arrives to close the record out perfectly, with some dreamy, spiralling shoegaze riffs that eventually fade the album to black.

Whilst the debate surrounding which Fontaines record is the best will no doubt rage on, and everyone will likely have their own favourite of the three too, there are still some universal conclusions that can be drawn about Skinty Fia. The main one being that this is another hugely impressive and brilliantly crafted work, from one of the finest bands operating anywhere on the planet right now. A worthy addition to their increasingly remarkable discography and without a doubt, one of the year’s very best albums.

Best tracks: Jackie Down The Line, I Love You, In ár gCroíthe go deo

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#new music #best new music #albums of the year #album recommendation #album of the year #best of 2022 #best of the year #aoty #aoty 2022 #best albums of 2022 #albums of 2022 #fontaines d.c.#big shot #glastonbury #glastonbury 2022 #skinty fia #grian chatten #Youtube

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boricuacherry-blog · 1 year

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The Boston band Sleep Chamber spent most of the 80s building an audience for a self-styled music that blended ritual magic, eroticism, and churning industrial sounds. At first, they booked gigs in small clubs and tapped into the goth scene, drawing in new fans with their dark music, their incense-scented atmospherics, and black-clad leader John Zewizz's brooding intonations about obsession and submission. They were part of a network of bands that included Holy Cow, Peeling Autumn, and the Five - habitues of a demi-monde that gave a warm embrace to the groups and their fans while being largely misunderstood by other factions of local rock culture.

As the decade turned, Zewizz fashioned Sleep Chamber into a cottage industry. The group's local popularity increased to the point where they could sell out rooms like Axis and Man Ray, demanding substantial guarantees. Out of town, Sleep Chamber, augmented by a troupe of scantily clad female dancers called the Barbitchuettes, headlined prestigious New York venues like the Limelight, toured the country, and crossed the Atlantic. Zewizz and his shifting pool of musical collaborators released a substantial catalogue of albums whose titles - which include Submit to Desire, Siamese Succubi, Sexmagick Ritual - were either a magnet for those attracted to Sleep Chamber's deliciously opiate combination of sex, mysticism, and otherworldly sonics or a distasteful puzzle that seemed too deviant to bother sorting out.

Then, at the peak of their popularity, Sleep Chamber almost vanished in a cloud of drugs and scandal. The frantic outflow of Sleep Chamber recordings (roughly 21 CDs, 12 vinyl albums, nine seven-inches, plus odds and ends) slowed to a trickle after a 1997 tour of Germany. Zewizz was addicted to heroin; he was also under suspicion for the terrible murder of 20-year-old Swedish au pair Karina Holmer, whose upper body had been found in a dumpster a few blocks from Zewizz's Fenway apartment. Even after newspaper accounts of the investigation tapered off and one potential suspect from Andover committed suicide after being asked to visit the police for questioning, Sleep Chamber did not regain their pace.

The band's most recent performance was a one-off New Year's Eve gig at Man Ray two years ago. And contemporary releases, like last year's 45 "Kum Kleopatra/"Nessus" on Germany's Membrum Debile Propaganda label, plumb the band's vaults. So it's commonly assumed that Sleep Chamber are no more. Even some of Zewizz's former associates believe that he's fallen prey to his addiction and has simply faded into the woodwork, as junkies do.

Zewizz acknowledges that perception as he tears into a plate of seafood with pasta at Floramo's, the old-time family restaurant in Chelsa, just a few miles from his home in Everett. He's chipper when one of the restaurant's crackerjack waitresses asks which one of is emitting the heavy whiff of patchouli, a fragrance familiar to anyone who's ever attended a Sleep Chamber gig. "I am," he chirps up, then listens respectfully as she explains that it's her favorite scent but she can't wear it at work because "the owner hates it." And he talks candidly about his battles with heroin; his love of sex, magic, animals, and music; his frightening scrape with the law; and how - despite the odds - Sleep Chamber continue to survive and evolve.

For one thing, he's been quietly striking deals with European labels for reissues of previous Sleep Chamber albums and unreleased material. He's also been collaborating with a pair of musicians/programmers on a new sound that will be a dark variation on techno, fittingly dependent on the low-end sonorities and electronic distortions that have long been Sleep Chamber's stock-in-trade.

"But the songs are going to be more personal," he explains. "In the past, the lyrics have been more cold and distant, maybe exploring a theme, like a particular kind of fetish or an animal-rights issue. Now my lyrics have become almost a diary of my life. I've been drawing on personal relationships, my experiences."

Certainly there's plenty to draw on. The interests that Zewizz incorporated into Sleep Chamber invited the intolerant to cast him as a misanthrope right from the start. "When I was beginning the band, it was around the punk era, and I didn't want to jump on a bandwagon. I wanted to be creative and original. I'm a science-fiction fan, so I wanted to bring that into it. And I wanted the band to be a manifesto of everything I believe in: the importance of individuality, sexuality, animal rights, and magic."

In keeping with his faith in individuality, Sleep Chamber's live and recorded performances left room for his shifting cast of musicians to improvise. And his search for imagery for the band that reflected his naturist system of beliefs and related interest in sexuality and eroticism has led him to depictions ranging from the titillating to the provocative to the unintentionally troublemaking.

When Zewizz talks of believing in magic, which he spells "magick," he's not referring to prestidigitation. He describes it as a higher state of consciousness, to which practicing certain rituals contributes, that allows him to relate better to other people and the world around him. It's nothing dark or sinister. He also says that though he's used S&M imagery extensively in Sleep Chamber art and performances, he doesn't practice sadism, masochism, or erotic discipline himself.

Nonetheless, it's these things that triggered his questioning in the Holmer investigation - which is perhaps the best example of how he says his art and interests have been misinterpreted over the years. It started when he threw a party in June 1996 and some of his guests in turn brought guests who were unfamiliar with him. "I have very esoteric stuff in my home," he explains. "Ritualistic art work, books on magic. I have human thighbones that we use in ritual magic. They're hollowed to produce a low-pitched trumpet sound. And I have some things I picked up in witchcraft stores with human bones in them. This one girl couldn't understand why I had these bones, and with the books on magic and the occult, she assumed I was a sinister character."

When poor Karina Holmer's upper severed upper body was found shortly thereafter, this party guest told her mother about Zewizz's collection, and soon the police were at his door interrogating him.

"Once that happened, nobody would come near my house. Even the people I knew would be like, 'We know you didn't do it. It's crazy...But it's always the person you expect the least,' and then they'd give me a double take."

The taint of suspicion has lessened, but Zewizz says the shadow of his addiction will always be present. Like so many artists who became junkies, Zewizz at first found that heroin gave him the confidence to feel more creative. "And it might take a year of dabbling with it until you have an addiction. But then as you try to maintain that habit, you're spending at least $40 to $100 a day and you're constantly chasing the drug down. There's no time for anything else. Eventually you find yourself withdrawing from public, then from your friends and family, and there's no time for making music because getting money for heroin becomes a 24-hour/seven-days-a-week thing."

He's sober now, and if his new Sleep Chamber songs are like a diary, he has plenty to draw on.

#sleep chamber #karina holmer #massachusetts #boston #fenway park #john zewizz #true crime

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raging-himboifcation13 · 1 year

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re animator

jeffrey combs film and va career

oingo boingo (danny elfman)

rocky horror picture show

russian doll

ginger snaps

horror films (primarily body and cosmic horror)

the thing (1982)

they live

evil dead, evil dead 2, and army of darkness

society (1989)

slumber party massacre

daises (1966)

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what we do in the shadows (movie and tv series)

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#this is a lot of stuff I am sorry

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tonkiduo · 2 years

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lucienballard · 3 years

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The Velvet Underground’s 30 greatest songs – ranked!

30. Ride Into the Sun (1969)The Velvets recorded two versions of Ride Into the Sun: a fabulous 1969 instrumental laden with fuzz guitar and a hushed 1970 vocal take backed by organ. Somewhere between the two lies one of their great lost songs; Lou Reed’s disappointingly flat 1972 solo version doesn’t do it justice at all.

29. Run Run Run (1967)For all the shock engendered by the lyrics of Heroin and I’m Waiting for My Man, the most malevolent-sounding track on the debut album might be Run Run Run, a powerful R&B groove lent a gripping darkness by Reed’s noisy guitar playing and the screw-you-I-take-drugs sneer of his vocals.

28. Beginning to See the Light (1969)The title suggests awakening, the melody is bright, but the lyrics are dark and bitter. They may have been directed at John Cale, who played on an initial version of the song, which was subsequently re-recorded after Reed sacked him, against the wishes of his bandmates. A ferocious 1969 live version amps up the tension.

27. Foggy Notion (1969)Reed was a lifelong doo-wop fan. His passion usually found its expression when the Velvet Underground recorded backing vocals for their ballads – as on Candy Says – but the tough, rocking Foggy Notion went a stage further, gleefully stealing a chunk of the Solitaires’ 1955 single Later for You Baby.

26. The Gift (1968)In which the band set a two-chord grind that may, or may not, have been based on their instrumental Booker T in one channel and a blackly comic Reed short story read by Cale in the other. “If you’re a mad fiend like we are, you’ll listen to them both together,” offered the producer, Tom Wilson.

25. Guess I’m Falling in Love (1967)Recorded at the White Light/White Heat sessions, but never completed, the April 1967 live recording of Guess I’m Falling in Love – taped at the Gymnasium in New York – will more than suffice. It boasts three chords, a distinct rhythm and blues influence, Reed in streetwise, so-what punk mode and explosive guitar solos somehow potentiated by the rough sound quality.

24. Temptation Inside Your Heart (1968)“It was not Mein Kampf – my struggle,” the guitarist Sterling Morrison once reflected of the Velvet Underground’s career. “It was fun.” A delightful late Cale-era outtake that inadvertently captured Morrison, Cale and Reed’s giggly backchat as they recorded the backing vocals, Temptation Inside Your Heart bears that assessment out.

23. New Age (1970)New Age comes in two varieties. Take your pick from the world-weary, small-hours rumination found on 1969: The Velvet Underground Live, or the more epic studio version that the Velvets biographer Victor Bockris suggested was “an attempt to present some encouraging statements to a confused audience as the 70s began”. Both are superb.

22. After Hours (1969)The Velvets’ eponymous 1969 album ends, improbably, with the drummer, Moe Tucker, singing a song that could have dated from the pre-rock era. The twist is that her childlike voice and the cute melody conceals an almost unbearably sad song, ostensibly a celebration of small-hours boozing, but filled with longing and regret.

21. I Can’t Stand It (1969)Amid the Velvets’ songs about drugs and drag queens lurked the plaintive sound of Reed pining for his college sweetheart, Shelley Albin, the subject of Pale Blue Eyes, I Found a Reason and I Can’t Stand It. The latter’s cocky strut is disrupted by a desperate lyrical plea: “If Shelley would just come back, it’d be all right.”

20. The Black Angel’s Death Song (1967)There is something folky and vaguely Dylan-esque at the heart of The Black Angel’s Death Song, but by the time Cale had finished with it – alternately strafing it with screeching, insistent viola and hissing into the microphone in lieu of a chorus – it sounded, and still sounds, unique.

19. I Found a Reason (1970)It is one of the ironies of the Velvet Underground that the most forward-thinking, groundbreaking band of their era could occasionally sound like old-fashioned rock’n’roll revivalists. Buried on side two of Loaded was one of the loveliest of Lou Reed’s loving homages to doo-wop, complete with spoken-word section.

18. Some Kinda Love (1969)Musically straightforward, sensual in tone, Some Kinda Love is a complex business, part seduction soundtrack, part refusal to be hemmed in by standard categories of sexuality – “no kinds of love are better than others … the possibilities are endless / and for me to miss one / would seem to be groundless”. Killer line: “Between thought and expression lies a lifetime.”

17. European Son (1967)European Son isn’t a song so much as an eruption. It sounds like a band overturning the established order of rock’n’roll, almost literally: after two brief verses, it bursts into thrilling frantic chaos with a verbatim crash, like the contents of an upended table hitting the floor.

16. Rock & Roll (1970)It is hard to see Loaded’s driving, joyous hymn to music’s redemptive power – “her life was saved by rock and roll” – as anything other than disguised autobiography on the part of Reed. The suggestion that music will endure “despite all the amputations”, meanwhile, seems to look forward to his departure from the Velvet Underground.

15. Candy Says (1969)No one else in 1969 was writing songs remotely like Candy Says, a stunning, tender pen portrait of the transgender Warhol superstar Candy Darling set to a gentle doo-wop inspired backing. Its melancholy seems to presage the note Darling wrote on her deathbed in 1974: “I had no desire for life left … I am just so bored by everything.”

14. Sunday Morning (1967)Sunday Morning was written at the behest of Wilson. He wanted a single that might conceivably get on the radio; he got a haunting, melancholy sigh of a song, its battered wistfulness and undercurrent of paranoia – “watch out, the world’s behind you” – the perfect encapsulation of morning-after regret.

13. What Goes On (1969)Morrison maintained that the studio incarnation of What Goes On wasn’t a patch on the live versions the band performed with Cale on organ. Maybe, but the studio incarnation featuring Cale’s replacement, Doug Yule, is great. It prickles with nervous energy, Reed’s guitar playing is amazing, its churning coda takes up half the song and it still feels too short.

12. Femme Fatale (1967)Apparently provoked by the damaged, doomed Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick – with whom Cale had a brief affair – Femme Fatale is as beautiful and fragile as its inspiration. The story of a wary, ruined former suitor warning others off the titular anti-heroine is lent a chilly edge by Nico’s delivery.

11. I Heard Her Call My Name (1968)In the Velvets’ early days, Reed purported to be “the fastest guitarist alive”. A berserk claim, but his Ornette Coleman-inspired solos on I Heard Her Call My Name are some of the most extraordinary and viscerally exciting in rock history, frequently atonal, spiked with ear-splitting feedback and pregnant pauses.

10. Ocean (1969)The Velvet Underground recorded Ocean several times – one version is supposed to feature the return of Cale on organ – but never released it in their lifetime, which seems extraordinary. It is among the greatest of their later songs, its atmosphere beautiful, the epic ebb and flow of its sound completely immersive.

9. I’m Waiting for the Man (1967)An unvarnished lyrical depiction of scoring drugs tied to music on which Reed’s rock’n’roll smarts and Cale’s background in minimalist classical music – the pounding, one-chord piano part – meld in a kind of relentless perfection. Amusingly, there is now a pharmacy at the song’s fabled location of Lexington 125.

8. I’ll Be Your Mirror (1967)A song about Reed’s affair with Nico that could just as easily be about Andy Warhol’s approach to art, I’ll Be Your Mirror is one of those Velvet Underground tracks that makes their initial commercial failure seem baffling. How could a pop song as wonderful as this fail to attract attention? Nico and Morrison on stage at the New York Society for Clinical Psychiatry annual dinner in 1966.

7. White Light/White Heat (1968)A delirious paean to amphetamine, its subject reflected in the lyrics – “I surely do love to watch that stuff tip itself in” – and the turbulent, distorted rush of its sound. The band appear to be barely in control as it careers along; the chaotic finale, where Cale finally loses his grip on the bass line, is just fantastic.

6. Heroin (1967)Heroin was the deal-breaker at early Velvets gigs, provoking a “howl of bewilderment and outrage”. The shock of its subject matter has dulled with time, but its surges from folky lament to sonic riot still sound breathtaking. Oddly sweet moment: Reed’s chuckle as Tucker loses her place amid the maelstrom and suddenly stops playing.

5. Pale Blue Eyes (1969)“High energy does not necessarily mean fast,” Reed once argued. “High energy has to do with heart.” Hushed, limpidly beautiful and almost unbearably sad, Pale Blue Eyes’ depiction of a strained, adulterous relationship proves his point. In its own vulnerable way, it is as powerful as anything the Velvet Underground recorded.

4. Sweet Jane (1970)Sweet Jane started life as a ballad – see the versions recorded live at the Matrix in San Francisco in 1969 – but, sped and toughened up, it became as succinct and perfect a rock’n’roll song as has ever been written, based around one of the greatest riffs of all time.

3. Venus in Furs (1967)For a band who inspired so much other music, the Velvet Underground’s catalogue is remarkably rich with songs that still sound like nothing else; they were as inimitable as they were influential. Venus in Furs is a case in point: umpteen artists were galvanised by its dark, austere atmosphere; none succeeded in replicating it.

2. Sister Ray (1968)A monumental journey into hitherto-uncharted musical territory, where a primitive garage-rock riff meets Hubert Selby-inspired lyrics and improvisation that sounds like a psychological drama playing out between Reed and Cale, all at skull-splitting volume. Fifty-three years later, it is without peer for white-knuckle intensity.

1. All Tomorrow’s Parties (1967)Ninety per cent of the Velvet Underground’s oeuvre consists of no-further-questions classics. The astonishingly high standard of almost everything they did makes picking their “best” song a matter of personal preference, rather than qualitative judgment. So let’s go for Warhol’s favourite, on which the sour and sweet aspects of their debut album entwine faultlessly. The melody is exquisite; the music monolithic and unrelenting, powered by Cale’s hammering piano and Tucker’s stately drums; Nico’s performance perfectly inhabits the lyrics, which turn a depiction of a woman choosing what dress to wear into a meditation on emptiness and regret. It is original and utterly masterly: the Velvet Underground in a nutshell.

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#the velvet underground

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passionate-reply · 3 years

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This week on Great Albums: Ministry’s 1983 debut, With Sympathy! It’s not a metal album, and it’s not even an industrial album--it’s just some damn good synth-pop, despite who made it! Whether you’re curious where Uncle Al got his start and why he hates his first LP, or you just want some excellent New Romantic music, you should check this one out. Full transcript of the video under the break, as always.

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! Today, I’ll be tackling the debut album of one of the best-loved industrial bands--though it actually isn’t all that “industrial.” This is With Sympathy by Ministry, first released in 1983. Ministry are one of those acts that have gone through many stylistic evolutions throughout their career, and if you’re familiar with some of their more acclaimed works, it may surprise you to learn where they started out. While With Sympathy was the first full LP released under the Ministry name, it’s not the very first thing in their discography--that honour goes to the 12” single “I’m Falling,” released in 1981.

Music: “I’m Falling”

With a springy post-punk bass line and a tinny mechanical rhythm, “I’m Falling” is a rough-edged piece of cold wave. It was released on the famous Wax Trax! Records, well-known as the home of many of the most illustrious industrial acts of the 80s and 90s, from Coil and Laibach to Meat Beat Manifesto. But for their follow-up LP, Ministry would work with a major label, Arista, and twist that bass-heavy sound into something with less hiss and more groove.

Music: “Effigy”

On the opening track, “Effigy,” a bright synth line artfully fences an electric guitar riff for dominance, showing the extent to which the sonic blueprint of British New Wave acts like A Flock of Seagulls prefigured With Sympathy. This is an album that could only have been conceived in 1983, in the full flush of synth-pop’s mainstream popularity, and it does feel like a cash-in on the success that imported European synth-pop achieved in the first few years of the 1980s--even in Ministry’s native America.

While I’ve covered some albums with somewhat controversial legacies before, With Sympathy probably sets the record for the work that’s most despised by its own creator: Ministry frontman Al Jourgensen has disowned this album even harder than Ralf Huetter did the Kraftwerk albums before Autobahn, even going so far as to claim its affable, fairly commercial sound was entirely the product of Arista’s executive meddling. As with all legends of how great art was made, I don’t particularly believe or disbelieve this legend, or think it’s possible to know if it’s “true”--I simply present it to you as a piece of context, a myth that informs the history of this work. It’s worth noting that the acerbic, aggressive track “Here We Go” is often held up as a form of evidence for this story.

Music: “Here We Go”

The lyrics of “Here We Go” seem to imply that the song is, itself, intended as some sort of offering to the pop charts, but the confrontational style of the vocals is hard to overlook. I suppose it’s somewhat catchy, but not exactly in the same way that a real hit song is--there’s a certain fetching incompetence behind it, that makes its energy that much more compelling. “Here We Go” was released as a single, but only as the fourth selection from the album to receive that honour. A similar quality of dissonance between words and music can be found on the closing track, “She’s Got a Cause.”

Music: “She’s Got a Cause”

Like so many pop-leaning albums by artists who belong more on the underground side of things, With Sympathy has this constant tension bubbling within, and that crass, subversive industrial mindset is straining within the soft prettiness of its synth textures. The darkly playful “She’s Got a Cause” presents us with a narrator who seems to enjoy an idealized abuse at the hands of their lover, in a manner that’s reminiscent of the common industrial preoccupation with sado-masochism. And yet, it sounds downright bubbly--surprisingly so for a closing track, too. The album’s third single, “Work For Love,” is another that plays with this dysfunctional relationship theme.

Music: “Work For Love”

With tight handclap percussion, a call-and-response hook, and even a rhythm break, “Work For Love” certainly delivers on a “work chant” feel. Like “She’s Got a Cause,” it’s a very fun track, on the surface, but the more you think about its gleeful commodification of love and intimacy, the more sour it seems. Given the expected hard R in “work,” this seems like as good a time as any to note frontman Al Jourgensen’s apparent decision to ape something of a working-class English accent, by far one of the most derided features of With Sympathy. Personally, though I’ve never found this all that offensive--there are many styles of music in which vocalists adopt something of a trade cant, and the conventional twang of country singers is as much of a stylistic convention of the music as country guitar. I tend to see a person’s art as a deliberately crafted creation, where the self might be re-imagined in creative ways, and I think the unrelenting demand for complete “authenticity” from artists is little more than rockist hogwash. But that’s just me.

The cover of With Sympathy is one that really puts the capital-R “Romantic” in “New Romantic.” An artfully splayed hand, with very vampish black nails, gestures ambiguously towards wilting, crumbling red roses, an iconic symbol of the impermanence of youth, love, and idealism. The out-of-focus backdrop for the image might be interpreted as veined marble, adding a classicizing touch, or perhaps a stormy sky filled with lightning, adding to the sense of melodrama. The title “With Sympathy” calls attention to the album’s gothic morbidity in a gleefully tongue-in-cheek fashion, and I wish it weren’t so easy to miss on the cover, placed as red-on-red text in the middle of the roses.

As I hinted at earlier, Ministry have never made anything else that sounds similar to With Sympathy. Their second LP, 1986’s Twitch, is a marked sonic departure, featuring harsh, mechanistic industrial assaults. An extremely different album, for sure, but one that I also like quite a lot, in its own way! By the 1990s, Ministry would adopt an increasingly guitar-driven sound, eventually blossoming from industrial into full-blown heavy metal--a transformation that makes With Sympathy look even more bizarre in the context of their catalogue.

Music: “Over the Shoulder”

While I’ve provided a lot of contextual information about With Sympathy, I do want to mention that when I first discovered this album as a teenager, I didn’t know much about industrial music at all, let alone Ministry. And I loved the album! At the end of the day, I think With Sympathy is a very enjoyable New Romantic album, in a vacuum, and I’d recommend it to anyone who’s interested in early 80s synth-pop. Don’t let those later metal albums scare you away from some damn good pop.

My favourite track on With Sympathy is “I Wanted To Tell Her,” the album’s second single. It gets off to a great start, playfully introducing us to an impressively groovy bass guitar, and features a duet between Jourgensen and one Shay Jones, who’s also credited as a co-writer on the song--the only writing credit on the album besides Jourgensen. While Jones would later release some house singles under her own name, she seems to have been a session musician at this point in her career, but does an astounding job for a hired gun. The instrumental of “I Wanted To Tell Her” is almost identical to a bonus track from the “I’m Falling” single called “Primental,” albeit with a bit more studio polish--but that extra bit of professionalism, and its superbly bitter and bitchy duet, push it over the top for me. That’s all for today--thanks for listening!

Music: “I Wanted To Tell Her”

#music #ministry #al jourgensen #album review #album reviews #great albums

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sonicreferencephotos · 3 months

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Valentine's Amy; Sonic Speed Simulator

Disclaimer: No reference images posted to this account are intended as endorsement of Sonic Speed Simulator.

#sonicreferencephotos #sonic reference #3d #sonic speed simulator #sonic fashion catalogue #valentine's amy #amy's wardrobe #amy rose

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caveatauditor · 4 years

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Best albums of 2019

I am a strong believer in belated music lists. Hindsight! The past year was stressful for me even before COVID-19 broke, and my favorite music was on average noisier and more irritating than usual. I find comfort and excitement in a mischievous sensibility; if music as chaotic and unpleasant as Jpegmafia’s can hold together, maybe there’s hope yet.

1. 100 Gecs, 1000 Gecs

I’m addicted to everything that I see, yeah! Including screamo death growls, Auto-Tuned cackles, comically heavyhanded drops, pop-punk bangers in disguise, secretly tender love confessions, insanely catchy hooks, and flimsy guitar trash. This marvelous album throws every absurd pop trope of the past decade into a kaleidoscopic blender, spitting out a misshapen musical wind-up toy that never stops exploding and recoagulating, falling down a flight of stairs and revealing a new ghastly face with each bounce. Taken as some musical equivalent of shitposting by writers who think irony and sarcasm are the same, it’s a pop mindfuck that computes emotionally, as awkward kids and/or evil spirits of chaos Laura Les and Dylan Brady make their voices big and ugly and demented because that’s how they feel. Anyway, shitposting is its own species of rock & roll.

2. Taylor Swift, Lover

To be straight is for experience to confirm expectations. Taylor Swift has written about the delight of watching fantasies fulfilled (“Today Was a Fairytale”), renewed (“Begin Again”), or constructed (“Wildest Dreams”). Even when putatively rejecting conventional heteromance, she also sneakily reconstructs it by using its same vocabulary (“Speak Now”). Her best songs address not just desire but the stories we tell about desire, the moments when dreams and reality converge. But Lover is the first time she’s written about the delight of watching experience surpass expactations, the moment when fantasies are gleefully, unexpectedly discarded for something better (“I once believed love would be burning red, but it’s golden” is a lyric whose emotional force requires no familiarity with her catalogue). It radiates calm, a long exhaled breath after years of drama. She made a monogamous maturity move her queerest album, and the colorful electronic beats sound so pretty in the afterglow.

3. Lana Del Rey, Norman Fucking Rockwell

A quietly hysterical collection of observed Hollywood singer-songwriter fictions, played on the piano by a glamorous lady of the canyon who has just shooed guests out of her shag-carpeted parlor and drawn her nicotine-stained curtains after watching California tumble into the sea. In the same year hating boomers became mainstream, the year’s most critically acclaimed album was also a tribute to the most boomerific of rock critics. Greil Marcus, of course, whose taste has never before been so exquisitely pandered to, and I think that’s beautiful.

4. Blueface, Dirt Bag

Blueface doesn’t rap off beat, it’s the beat that can’t keep up. Or as Blueface himself puts it: “I’m literally talking in this bitch and it’s still knockin!” Or as Greg Tate puts it in “The Persistence of Vision: Storyboard P”: “At moments of revolution in artistic form, innovation frequently involves discarding flashy displays of technique. The reduction of ostentatious moves in favour of subtler ones is often read as laziness or limited ability (Flyboy 2: 86).”

5. Jpegmafia, All My Heroes Are Cornballs

Jammed up by jerky segues and pauses, constantly shifting to the next random thing in an endless procession of abrasive diversions, this experimental rap clusterbomb fashions a music of dynamic impatience, wrenching ugly harmonic convergence from the splattering of keyboard doodles, industrial crunches, electronic glitches, roaring guitars, death-factory sirens, repressed shrieks, goopy fusion keyboards, smears of electronic color. Jpegmafia’s rhymes compute mainly as yet more barrage, more proper nouns competing for your attention, but there’s a mischievous energy in his voice that adds a crucial smidgen of humanity. If this music seems the product of online information overload, it’s also the sound of working in the gig economy and/or the service industry, where “directed attention fatigue” has become a cautionary buzzword. My headaches feel like “Rap Grow Old & Die x No Child Left Behind”.

6. Otoboke Beaver, Itekoma Hits

Hardcore punk as hardcore comedy. Rage channeled into hyperactivity. Gnarled riffs and howled tantrums played at violent speed. Keening voices letting loose because they can’t hold the noise inside. Tension and release games crammed with sonic jokes. Tempo changes and dynamic jerks that seem tokens of the band’s impatience but in fact work as tension-building devices, with explosive kickback later--or now! Dissonance as byproduct of acceleration. In the playful intricacy of their group shout-singing I hear the Raincoats too. Angry giggles. Boom!

7. Kim Gordon, No Home Record

Lacking the guitars of her former bandmates, she threw a wall of synthesized barbed wire around some of her meanest basslines ever and made something unprecedented, for her and Sonic Youth--electroindustrial, basically, riding a bass rumble so deep it overpowers the music. The spoken pieces here (“Don’t Play It”, “Cookie Butter”) initially recall her willful avant-filler on A Thousand Leaves and NYC Ghosts & Flowers; then you notice how much more brutally these tracks bring the noise.

8. Kankyo Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980-1990

Billed as ambient but sprightlier than the aesthetic that term suggests to an American audience, this two-hour set captures a moment in Japanese music history when the influence of Erik Satie and John Cage intersected with new ideas about architectural acoustics, inspiring a craze for minimalist electronica designed to peacefully fill a space (as in-store music for Muji, say). Lent contemporary relevance by the influx of chill lo-fi hip-hop beats to study to as well as the vaporwave-derived fascinations with banality and nostalgia, it’s considerably more beautiful than those lineages would imply, as tranquil and friendly as a book of nature poems. These pieces abound with cute tunelets, yet derive their spacious charm from nonmelodic elements--bells, pitched percussion, and the recorded outdoors: running water, chattering birds. Unlike most ambient music, they are not self-contained; when played outside, the synthesizers merge with the sounds of the city.

9. Teejayx6, The Swipe Lessons

By styling himself as an expert scammer, Teejayx6 invents a new internet-era edition of gangsta macho: he’s a master criminal, king of the deep web, fluent in cryptocurrency, relying on his wits to stay ahead of the online piracy brigade. Don’t cross him, lest he steal your grandmother’s social security number. Over darkly stylized beats, his chattering, perpetually surprised flow enters a realm of formal delight accessible to only the most playful. When he hits you with the requisite “All my fans, I really wouldn’t even scam you, I was just playing,” he acknowledges the figurative nature of the game.

10. Clairo, Immunity

A queer adolescent musical diary, tracing the highs and lows of a conflicted relationship that ends ambiguously. Rostam’s production lapses into self-parody exactly once, with the harpsichord flourishes on “Impossible”; otherwise the smoky bedroom-pop shimmer is flawless. “Sofia” exists for inclusion on romantic playlists.

#favorite albums #best of 2019 #100 gecs #taylor swift #lana del rey

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joemuggs · 4 years

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Kranky by Name...

Listening to the new Windy & Carl album I was reminded of the enduring greatness of the Kranky label, and that led me to dig up this piece I wrote, originally for the eMusic site, in 2011. There’s a ton of good music here.

Kranky's great skill is escapology; it is practically defined by its ability to evade definition. If there is received wisdom about the Chicagoan label, it's as a home for abstracted guitars, moody soundscapes and occasionally spiky electronic beats: all very serious, very studious, very intense. And maybe when Bruce Adams and Joel Leoschke founded it in 1993 it could be pegged as a relatively straightforward experimental-leaning indie label – but with each release it slips under, around, and away from standard categories. “Post-rock” doesn't capture the sheer variety of its guitar-based output, “ambient” is far too vague a term for its more textural releases, and “electronica” can't even come close to describing its more far-out sonic experiments. And despite its own claim to have “a very specific aesthetic” there is variety – such variety – in its catalogue. For every jittery and discordant Nudge record, there's Tim Hecker one that washes over you with waves of bliss; for every Charalambides creeping around disturbing corners of rare mindstates, there's an Out Hud that leaps out at you with vim, vivacity and a spring in its step. What unites them is a sense of switched-on intellects, outsider intelligences seeing what can be done with sound without getting sucked into academic self-regard – but the sounds themselves ebb and flow into new shapes with almost every release. 18 years into its existence, Kranky dares you to try and pin it down.

ESCAPING INDIE ROCK: Labradford 'A Stable Reference' 1995

A Stable Reference by Labradford

Kranky Records began in 1993 with Labradford's 'Prazision' album – a great and unique album, but still recognisably rooted in the same indie-rock soil as the likes of Spacemen 3 and Galaxie 500. The perhaps ironically-titled 'A Stable Reference', however, represented a complete untethering from these reference points, an abstraction and release from rock tropes that – paradoxically – helped make much clearer what “a Kranky record” was. Infused with the most sinister atmospheres of Ennio Morricone and Popol Vuh soundtracks, it is by turns claustrophobic and sweeping in its scope, but always brooding, revealing its dark ideas at its own pace. The term “post-rock” seems almost laughably prosaic next to these strange maps of unknown emotions, but it does describe the way this record marked a real escape from standard structures for the guitar-centred band. Its influence on the releases that would follow is clear: not in its sound, but in the careful balance between freedom and focus that it set up.

(See also: Windy & Carl 'Depths', Spiny Anteaters 'Current', Dadamah 'This is Not a Dream')

THE MULTI-FACETED: AMP 'Stenorette' 1998

Stenorette by Amp

Some of Kranky's acts are as indefinable as the label itself, as perfectly illustrated by the loose-knit AMP. Based around the core of British duo Richard Walker and Karine Chaff, the band evolved rapidly through experimental rock styles until this album, made in collaboration with Robert Hampson of Loop/Main and beat programmer Olivier Gauthier, which takes a completely magpie approach to genre. From the Sonic Youth guitar clang of 'You are Here' to crystalline piano pieces like 'Songe' and 'Just-Ice', meandering analogue synth trickles to dubbed-out breakbeats, completely abstract drones to practically jaunty songs, 'Stenorette' pulls together dozens of disparate elements – yet they never feel chosen arbitrarily just for the sake of diversity, but rather are selected entirely according to the musical logic of the album. That it avoids sounding like some kooky postmodern collage is impressive; that it shows a coherent and compelling personality of its own is little short of a miracle.

(See also: Keith Fullerton Whitman 'Playthroughs', Deerhunter 'Microcastle / Weird Era Cont.')

THE ELEMENTAL SYMPHONY: Godspeed You Black Emperor! 'Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven!' 2000

Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven by Godspeed You! Black Emperor

This is the big one. Originally releasing vinyl only on their Constellation label, the intense Canadian collective GYBE! found a simpatico home with Kranky to reach out to wider audiences, in particular with this glorious suite. Over four 20-minute tracks, they redraw the rule of structure for the rock band format, paced with impeccable patience as they build from delicately sketched frameworks, sometimes with spoken narration, to vast climactic plateaux of guitar distortion surrounded by the swooping orchestral lines of the Silver Mount Zion instrumentalists. Laden with meaning to be unpicked and decoded, the record expresses everything from political fortitude and cosmic awe to utter desolation, sweeping the listener along in a slowly-changing but unstoppable drama of absolutely staggering scale.

(See also: Stars Of The Lid 'The Tired Sound of Stars Of The Lid')

KRANKY GETS ITS GROOVE ON: Out Hud 'S.T.R.E.E.T. D.A.D.' 2002

Street Dad by Outhud

With all its strangeness and exploration of the darker crevices of the subconscious, it could be easy to categorise this as a label for wallflowers. But Kranky knows how to dance, never better shown than on the two albums by Out Hud. This, their debut, came out just as LCD Soundsystem were bursting onto the scene and !!! (who share three members with Out Hud) were finding their groove; disco-punk was the sound of the moment. But true to Kranky style, this album has a deeply psychedelic, improvisatory feel – like a more discofied Gang Gang Dance, perhaps – that makes it stand out a mile from its contemporaries. Despite the kookiness of track names like 'Hair Dude You're Stepping on my Mystique', the snaking grooves, acidic keyboard sounds and genuinely dubwise FX mark this out as a very serious piece of dancefloor art.

(See also: Fontanelle 'Style Drift', Jessamine 'Jessamine', Strategy 'Drumsolo's Delight')

FRACTURED PSYCHEDELICISMS: Charilambides 'Unknown Spin' 2003

Unknown Spin by Charalambides

Whether you call it “free folk”, “music of the new weird America” or just good old fashioned freakouts, there's no doubting that the music of Tom and Christina Carter comes from a very psychedelic place. Allied to the loose movement that includes Sunburned Hand Of The Man, MV&EE, No-Neck Blues Band etc, Charilambides make a more strung-out noise than most of their contemporaries, the sound of people unafraid to explore their inner landscape, however scary it might become. Sometimes loose and discordant to the point of complete meltdown, sometimes coagulating around recognisable guitar solos that unfold like they've escaped from a Jefferson Airplane jam, these four tracks – especially the half-hour title number – are spacey, spooky and very, very weird indeed.

(See also: Tom Carter 'Monument', Christina Carter 'Electrice')

INNER AMBIENCE: Pan American 'Quiet City' 2004

Quiet City by Pan•American

Some of Kranky's greatest releases are those that dissolve rhythm and float free into wide open imaginative spaces. Certain acts, like Ethernet, work entirely with electronics, but more often, as with Pan American, they will blur the label's rich traditions of processed guitar drone with musique concrète, ambient and even new age music to make elegantly layered sounds one can get completely lost in. But this is not music to switch off to and doesn't offer the anodyne comfort of “chillout”: as the title perhaps suggests, 'Quiet City' invites contemplation and exploration of its spaces, but like any city, while it is complex and beautiful, there is dirt and threat here too. Like sitting outside in chilly dawn air in the aftermath of a chaotic night or on the morning before a life-changing decision, it feels like it exists outside of the usual routine of things.

(See also: Tim Hecker 'Ravedeath, 1972' / Ethernet '144 Pulsations of Light' / White Rainbow 'Prism of Eternal Now' / Windy & Carl 'Songs for the Brokenhearted' / Keith Fullerton Whitman 'Multiples', Aix Em Klemm 'Aix Em Klemm')

PARALLEL WORLD POP: Atlas Sound 'Logos' 2009

Logos by Atlas Sound

Just as we all sometimes need a danceable rhythm, once in a while even the most dedicated noisenik or experimentalist secretly likes to hear a sweet melody – and Kranky provides that too, whether it's the mutant disco-pop of Out Hud's second record or the sweet hymns of Low. Alright, we're not talking Katy Perry here, but records like 'Logos' still shamelessly deal in the pleasure principle and instantly-recognisable songs and are passionately loved for that. The presence of Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier and Animal Collective's Noah Lennox (aka Panda Bear) shows the territory this record is operating in, with plenty of references to psychedelic pop and Krautrock of the past all put into a kaleidoscope and reflected into new technicolour patterns. There's nothing facile or zoned-out about it, though – this is the gimlet-eyed and singular vision of Deerhunter frontman and “true queer art punk” Bradford Cox, and it exposes new intensities and weirdnesses with every play.

(See also: Low 'Secret Name', To Kill A Petty Bourgeoisie 'The Patron', Deerhunter 'Spring Hall Convert', Out Hud 'Let us Never Speak of it Again')

#kranky #post rock #ambient #disco punk #experimental music #experimental rock #psychedelia #indie

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fluidsf · 5 years

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Fluid Label Focus on Quantum Natives 5

J. Ka Ching: Another Vanishing City

Cover by J. and awe IX

Catalogue number: QNR026

Reviewed format: review copy of 320kbps/48kHz MP3 album as kindly provided by Quantum Natives

Welcome to the new review in the Fluid Label Focus series on the Quantum Natives label in which today I’m reviewing their most recent release, the album Another Vanishing City by J. Ka Ching. As always the album’s download includes all album tracks as MP3s, this time in 48kHz for better sound quality, as well as the cover artwork and also lyrics and credits text files. Indeed, you guessed it, this is one of the few song-based releases I’m reviewing on this album and Another Vanishing City does have quite a poppy sound to it, albeit with a quirky personality through energetic bursts of synths and Chinese influences in the instrumentation, but all about that in the next paragraph as I’ll first talk a bit about the album cover artwork. The album artwork is by J. Ka Ching (Jevon Voon) and awe IX and features a nifty collage like image of a Chinese style mountain landscape consisting of two different images of this landscape in monochrome layered over each other, with the background image seemingly showing an “older” image of the mountain than the more refined centre image. J. Ka Ching’s artist name and the album title feature on the cover in true Quantum Natives fashion, in heavily stylised graffiti like type that also has this wild post-internet alien feel to it but could also look a bit like a “remixed” version of Chinese characters. A very nice recognisable cover and overall it quite matches the Chinese aspects of this album’s sound as well. So indeed, let’s have a look at this 25 minute album’s 9 tracks now.

As I mentioned Another Vanishing City is pretty much a song driven album, though the tracks on the album are mostly quite short with the songs being mixed with shorter instrumental pieces making the album feel like a short soundtrack in a way. The lyrics of the songs themselves are quite abstract though noticeably emotional and a bit dramatic but in a good honest manner. As my listening manner is often leaning more on the sound and vibe of the music itself however, I’ll focus on the vocal performances and music itself which is definitely good. J. Ka Ching’s vocals are, while being noticeably auto-tuned, quite good with the emotions within the lyrics coming through clearly even with all the vocal effect processing. But what I noticed in particular, besides the vocals is that J. Ka Ching has quite a wild way of creating his music, mixing recognisable Deconstructed Club, PC Music synths and Asian influences together but in a way that jumps around in unpredictable enjoyable ways. You’re never quite sure what’s going to happen next and besides the songs the melodies on Another Vanishing City are quite aleatoric and abstract at times. The chaotic edge of J. Ka Ching’s music does make the music a notch disjointed at times, with the instruments and sound effects being on the edge of falling out of the tracks’ structures but this is definitely saved by J. Ka Ching’s excellent feel for refined production in his music, always letting the layers of sound and instruments interlock with each other in a pleasant way that’s not overly noisy. Looking at the separate tracks on Another Vanishing City, starting with See No Faces, which features a calm first half and an energetic explosive second half. The first half of this track features J. Ka Ching’s vocals over a mixture of Asian mallet instruments, liquid sound effects, choir samples, modulated synth chords and punchy sub bass. The melancholic sad music of the first half follows a nice polyrhythm in its melodies which leads directly into the more active second half. The second half has quite an explosive Deconstructed Club sound to it, with plenty of thunderous stuttering compressed drums and explosion sounds, squeaky PC music synth leads as well as a mixture of Asian mallet instruments and synth sounds. This then follows into second track plurrRealityz, Tio’tia:ke. Definitely one of the stronger tracks on this album plurrRealityz, Tio’tia:ke features a melodic and rhythmic abstract made up of a variety of sources, Asian instruments, vocal sample chops, quirky synth stabs, EDM bass kick samples and manipulated percussion and sound effects, in its organic wildly evolving shape it wonderfully describes what could be a calm mountain landscape in Japan, sunlight overflowing the trees and a lake nearby. Afterwards Yearning 4 The Ideal follows which has a more straight song form with more upbeat vocals and plenty of PC Music elements in the synth, beat but again there’s also plenty of sweet Asian instruments in the mix and the wild vocal manipulations add a great layer of quirkiness to the piece. Details like the ever shifting click Trap hi hat patterns and chopped up guitar give the music that bit extra that elevates it above other PC music related music. The melodies are simple but the execution of sound play, composition and of course J. Ka Ching’s energetic vocals make this a great fun track to jam to but its layering also rewards deeper listening into the soundscape of the piece. Afterwards we have two short pieces, the first of which is 客家 Guest Families, which is practically an a capella piece (not counting the segue interlude), there are some sweet harmonies in this one which are overdubbed by J. Ka Ching himself and the melodies are very catchy and well written. A great little song. Afterwards we have the instrumental track All Ghost’s Fear the Rooster’s Crow, which has a sweet early morning ambience to it, emitted through the warm tones of a mixture of Eastern instruments, honky tonk piano and funky drum hit samples, which do give the piece a playful abstract edge. The honky tonk piano recording in the background seems to be delayed a bit, its microtonal shifts in tone sounding a bit like distant car klaxons, a great subtle touch the music which enhances that early morning vibe. The Smell of Boiling Rice starts with a really lush melodic soundscape continuing that early morning ambience featuring a great guzheng performance by Xing Ru Zhong backed by vocal drones, explosive drum hits and squelchy synth effects which morphs into a rather bizarre circus like jumpy waltz rhythm melody which much poppies and full of PC music sounds particularly in the synths. The drum patterns are really wild and quirky, very nice, but it’s good that this bit is not longer as it contrast quite a lot with the lush ambience of the first half. Nexopias of Our Forgotten Ancestors follows with once again plenty of craziness in the composition and sound work but it’s one of the tracks where the organised chaos of elements works the best. The noisy groove mixing heavily percussive drum patterns, squeaky PWM synth, vocal chops is both catchy and energetic and has a clear focus in its progression and melodies. The guitar solo by Inland Island (which is a band, but there’s no specific credit for who plays the guitar in the credits text file) also adds a surprising Rock element to the piece which works well moving to the last part of the track in which the music strips itself back to the jumpy percussion and a bit crushed marimba melody. Then on Skid Swan Song we have a Vocaloid like voice singing the song over abstract metallic Asian style staccato synth melodies which leads to final track I’m Trying to Remember the Hue of the Sunlight. This is again a song with J. Ka Ching’s vocals, very PC Music like in this case with the poppy instrumental backing and squeaky energetic fat synth leads, the quirky layering of sound effects and guzheng performance definitely do give it that extra element of originality that I like about J. Ka Ching’s stronger tracks on Another Vanishing City. Indeed when he’s connecting his wildly maximalist approach to electronic music with a smoothly flowing composition and some restraint that keeps the music from going overboard with ideas that distract and disrupt the continuity of his music J. Ka Ching delivers a great mixture of atmospheric soundscapes, PC Music influenced songs that feature some great inspired compositional and sonic ideas that give the music a great conceptual coherency, especially on this album.

To conclude this review I would say that with Another Vanishing City, J. Ka Ching is on the way of shaping a personal style through his music that combines the best influences of pop inspired experimental music styles and Asian themed soundscapes with his excellent attitude to going all out with his quirky imagination in the rich production of the music. While I do feel that J. Ka Ching can work a bit on keeping the flow of his music consistent in its structure, Another Vanishing City is definitely a great enjoyable album as it is. I am definitely looking forward to seeing J. Ka Ching’s music grow even more on future releases but for now I recommend you to check out this album for some varied good creative vibes radiated through J. Ka Ching’s colourful music.

You can get the Quantum Natives free download version of this album via this Mediafire link here: http://www.mediafire.com/file/65u338hskidedi6/J.Ka_Ching-_Another_Vanishing_City__%2528QNR026%2529.zip/file

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freersounds · 5 years

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Special Request - Offworld

Offworld is fantastic. It makes you ask yourself why Jam & Lewis never signed to Metroplex and why Juan Atkins never followed Kevin Saunderson into the realm of chart topping Techno-Pop or produced his own R&B influenced concept album. Luckily for us, Paul ‘Special Request’ Woolford decided to do it himself. Woolford is a maverick, who follows his own path. He is driven by an infectious enthusiasm and a true love for making music.

I’ve been following the career of Paul Woolford since his earliest releases, which came out at the turn of the century. Since then, he’s made dark and groovy Deep House as Bobby Peru, mind benders as Erotic Discourse, piano twinklers and tough clubfloor material under his birth name and rib shattering amen smashers as Special Request. Offworld may be another Special Request album, but this one is away from the rave and the D&B pirates that inspired the project in the first place. Instead, this one is inspired by Electro, early Detroit Techno and smooth R&B. By extrapolation, it is also inspired by space. The early releases from Juan Atkins’ Metroplex label in the mid 1980s looked to UFOs and beyond reality to create a futuristic model of electronic music. Electro bathed in Techno. Techno bathed in Electro. At the same time, this LP is inspired by the smooth and one could argue futuristic R&B of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who sprinkled their magical dust on the likes Alexander O’Neal, Janet Jackson and a cast of thousands during the 1980s and 1990s. Therefore, Offworld is a much smoother ride than the Vortex, Belief System and Soul Music Special Request LPs. It is closer to the synthetic intricacies of the recent Bedroom Tapes album, but it is still a different beast entirely. It is also far removed from the full on Techno he made for Planet E in 2011. Here, Woolford manages to get that soulful Electro and latent Techno groove just right. These are new tracks that embrace the past but are still futuristic in their own special way. 237,0000 Miles features reverberating synth movement, popping electroid percussion and smooth electroid vocals that become robotic and effected later on. Offworld Memory 3 is all glowing keys, jagged electroid beats, cut up pleasurable vocals and satisfying synth lines.

And, it turns out that the original press release premise of “What if Jam & Lewis signed to Metroplex?” is just part of the story. The album finishes with an epic Special Request Offworld remix of The Grid’s 1990 Balearic dreamer, Floatation. Now, where does this fit in? It has nothing to do with Techno, Electro or US R&B, but like all of those styles of music, it is a record that Woolford listened to when he was growing up. Floatation was originally produced by David Ball and Richard Norris as The Grid and remixed to great effect by Andrew Weatherall and Norris. Woolford explained on a recent BBC Radio 1 Residency show that Richard Norris asked if he’d like to remix any of The Grid’s back catalogue and he chose Floatation because it was one of his favourite records. Despite the difference in musical styles, Woolford’s remix doesn’t seem completely out of place as a closer to this album and it provides a great way to finish proceedings at a walking pace. Clocking in at almost thirteen minutes, this remix breaks down the original elements and reshapes them in a dramatic fashion. String and synth washes tease the inimitable melody, whilst almost bleepy keys and spoken vocals that weren’t there originally set the scene. The original vocals have been slowed down, becoming mostly fragments that take on an almost erotic quality, whilst later on that original timeless melody gets its opportunity to shine. Woolford masterfully ends proceedings by replaying another version of the melody over those bleeps, spoken vocals and an echoed drum arrangement.

This album is an absolute beauty. Offworld is a past informed future dwelling slice of sonic entertainment. It is the perfect answer to the more obtuse Special Request material and an LP that demands repeat plays.

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#Paul Woolford #Special Request #Jam & Lewis #Metroplex #Detroit #Electro #Techno #R&B #The Grid

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josefinatrice7-blog · 5 years

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Free Royalty Free Music — Fugue

Few music genres carry as much romanticism and nostalgia as Sixties surf rock. The primary notable effort to generate electronic music was made by Thaddeus Cahill at the flip of the 20th Century, who converted electrical indicators into sounds utilizing rotary generator and telephone receiver. He called his invention telharmonium. Luigi Russolo, an Italian futurist painter, proposed the substitute of old music with the music produced utilizing instruments reflecting current know-how. He built a mechanically-activated noise instrument called the intonarumori. Laurens Hammond invented the Hammond organ within the Nineteen Thirties, which produces a harmonic content material which doesn't diminish as the player goes up the keyboard. So much is made from the Blur vs Oasis rivalry that ran throughout the peak of Britpop and it is certainly true that they were two of a very powerful bands of the decade. Blur's spectacular back catalogue boasts a wealth of indelibly British songwriting with a few of the wittiest lyrics of the 1990s, and in addition among the easiest (see Tender). Damon Albarn would go on to create music with Gorillaz and pursue quite a lot of other intriguing projects, however the true star of the present was Graham Coxon, http://www.audio-transcoder.com/ who remains one of the most criminally underrated British guitarists of the 20th century. And then after I heard jazz, I heard these very complicated, refined rhythms, this very subtle concord, and it was primarily instrumental. So, it was complicated to me and, actually, it was a turnoff at first, simply because I didn't perceive it. But I used to be fortunate sufficient to have knowledgeable folks, knowledgeable people around me that sat me down and said, Jae, look, there's a technique to the madness, you simply have to be patient. And really, they turned me onto a unique way of listening to music. Based on this distinction between thicker and thinner musical works, Baugh is flawed to distinction rock music and European artwork music by saying that rock music requires far less faithfulness" to the music being carried out. It is definitely true that performances of Respect" will fluctuate tremendously in their performance preparations and particular realizations. The place Redding is the one vocalist present on his 1965 recording of it, Franklin's options backing vocalists. The place Franklin spells out the phrase respect," Redding doesn't. Both Redding and Franklin carry out the identical song, and they produce equally faithful or authentic performances of the same musical work regardless of their very different displays of it. Their interpretative freedom is because of the truth that widespread songs are thin with respect to work-constitutive properties and never as a result of the performance issues greater than the work that is being performed (Davies 1999). Because the ethnographer and cultural theorist Sarah Thornton has observed, the area in which digital music was skilled by followers within the Nineteen Seventies was simply as important because the music itself. The discotheque, later shortened to disco, was a place where new electronic dance records have been performed by a DJ and fans might dance to the music. This was an area freed from the constraints and expenses of having a live band the place know-how reigned supreme. These dance-centered environments were the forerunner of what would change into rave culture and membership culture. This is one other genre that people mislabeled as deep home. Again, I don't know why as a result of it actually sounds nothing prefer it. In any other case, Tropical Home is enjoyable, bright, and great for summer (or escaping the depressing winter). Unfortunately, producers have begun to reap the benefits of the simplicity of the genre identical to they did with Future Home, and are making repetitive, boring, and formulaic music. It is all starting to sound the identical and is tragically predictable, therefore I see it dying out in 2015. The most tough problem in answering the query of how music creates feelings is more likely to be the truth that assignments of musical components and feelings can never be defined clearly. The solution of this downside is the Idea of Musical Equilibration. It says that music cannot convey any emotion in any respect, but merely volitional processes, the music listener identifies with. Then in the means of figuring out the volitional processes are colored with feelings. The same happens when we watch an thrilling film and establish with the volitional processes of our favorite figures. Here, too, just the process of identification generates emotions.

Nietzsche apart, philosophy of music has been dominated by the view that the very best music is autonomous and formally advanced (John Dewey is almost alone in defending the vitality of common artwork throughout this time period. Sadly, Dewey said very little about music.). As just lately as 1990, philosophy of in style music consisted of variations on a single theme. Philosophers defended the dual assumptions that common music is actually different from serious" or art music, and that the former is aesthetically inferior to the latter. Consequently, most philosophers who bothered to discuss popular music targeting identifying the aesthetic deficiencies inherent in such music. The blues offers a broad canvas on which to paint one's musical ideas. There may be more time (measures) to develop thematic concepts. There is also more time between the chord modifications of the fundamental harmonic progression. Due to the variety of harmonic substitutions and passing chords that have change into part of the fashionable jazz lexicon, there are numerous extra scale and notice choices out there to outline the concord of the moment. Usually, these harmonic substitutions will not be performed by observant rhythm sections till they're first implied by the soloist. It requires a radical knowledge of jazz idea and a keen ear to make the most of the ever-changing harmonic context that may occur in the blues. It has been stated that there aren't any wrong notes" when improvising on the blues. This is somewhat of a fiction, for in the blues there are all the time higher" notes with their implied harmonic substitutions obtainable at any given time. In numerous the electronic dance music of the final decade-plus, most popular music genres 2017 the emphasis has been extra on the beat and the bass than anything, and on creating sonic mayhem, whether it is a mainstream act like Skrillex or somebody extra experimental like Oneohtrix Level Never. And if the results aren't bombastic, then they may be one thing like the minimalist techno coming out of Berlin, which largely eschews melody. However a look back at Jamie Principle and Frankie Knuckles iconic home monitor Your Love " also exhibits the value of a terrific melodic hook in creating a lasting dance record, but also a song that can get people transferring on the dance flooring.

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thesinglesjukebox · 5 years

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BLACKPINK - KILL THIS LOVE

[4.43]

All these comparisons and I'm just hearing "I'm An Albatraoz"...

Alfred Soto: Horn charts that evoke M.I.A. and "The Mickey Mouse Club" theme don't kill my love -- the compulsory good cheer does. [4]

Katie Gill: It's a testament to the state of pop music that halfway through this amazingly cheesy, outright stadium rock song, my mind was just an uninterrupted stream of "YESSSSSSS LET'S KILL THIS LOVE, COLORS AND NEON AND BBBRRAPP BBBRRAPP NOISES" like it's a middle school pep rally or a Lisa Frank backpack funneled directly into my brain. In true Blackpink fashion, the song outright falls apart near the end, but there's a marching band! I love marching bands! This is so much fun that I've kind of stopped caring that the song itself is just 'alright'! [7]

Alex Clifton: The beginning is electric. The ending is phenomenal, albeit short--the final thirty seconds of "Kill This Love" are some of the most thrilling I've heard in pop music all year. Jennie and Lisa bring the heat with their raps. "Let's kill this love!" is a great thing to yell at Coachella. And yet I'm so annoyed with the way Jisoo and Rosé's sung bits feel slotted in; they really slow down the forward momentum of the song. 4Minute played with tempo much better with "Hate"--it lulls you into thinking it's a slow song before bursting in with a chorus you want to yell. I'm so frustrated because I think that "Kill This Love" is a good single, but it could've been lifted to "great" with a few structural adjustments. [6]

Iris Xie: What the hell! During the process of composing this song, did Teddy and Bekuh Boom listen to Red Velvet's "Really Bad Boy," and then decided to make Jisoo work harder by singing in her limited range and smashed the end result into their first discarded draft of "Ddu-du Ddu-du", which is really just a re-interpretation of Dua Lipa's "New Rules"? The only thing that would make this song worse is the fact that he combined both the Star Wars Marching theme song with a strange hook mutation that combines 2NE1's "I Am the Best's" "Bam ratatata tatatatatas" with f(x)'s "Rum Pum Pum." The difference is that those two songs were going for a specific vision and mood, while this is a befuddled mess. The all-English chorus is Kesha's "Die Young" reduced to a cyanide pill, the generic chorus yell of "Let's kill this love!" is unsettling but perfect for their upcoming Coachella set, Lisa is doing her best Migos impression, Rose perfectly slots into the trend of indie dance-pop singers like Maren Morris with her pitchy and pressured vocals, Jennie does her best impression of being a badass, Jisoo's parts remain forgettable build-ups, and the horns are peppy "Black Parade." All together, they're trying to go for emotional stadium presence, a sticky dance routine, a catchy hook, and BLACKPINK IS IN YOUR AREA!! But in flipping on and off so many times in trying to establish its numerous images, "Kill This Love" speeds along and runs out of time and crashes into its sudden ending, resulting in a dazed and incomplete feeling, which is disappointing because it could have been a fantastic combination if executed well. I usually like how K-pop pulls in so, so much from the pop atmosphere and sometimes makes something new and wild out of it with sharp precision, but "Kill This Love" is what happens when there's no vision, all ambition, and significant confusion. Maybe if I was working underneath a CEO that is part of a completely terrible organized crime scandal, I'd be confused and exasperated too. Unfortunately, "Kill This Love" is beyond messy and uninspired, to the point of it being a statement of burnout on the frail attempts of trying to make Blackpink actually have a distinct sound. [3]

Maxwell Cavaseno: Blackpink are not pitiful per se, but they are to be pitied despite all their success. Ultimately all they are ever expected to sonically return time and time again to the notion of K-Pop as abrasive challenges of the supposedly tame and stale world of pop. The 2NE1 criticism is cheap and old but ultimately true because they are saddled with the same expectations and obligations that the group they were modeled after likewise languish under. Worse yet, this is a role that other groups are fulfilling all the time with more aplomb and effectiveness; specifically G-IDLE who even in their efforts as a Fake Group perfectly understand how to do what's expected of them and deliver something with some bite. "Kill This Love" is bafflingly hollow. There's no real chorus, verses, bridge, nothing. Even Lisa's rap bits sound like the barest afterthoughts. Everything about the girls remains oblique and devoid of personality and instead all you get is a synth-horn that's meant to sound like something off the first SD Laika EP yet summons a real wet noodle of a drop from the Scylla & Charybdis that is Teddy Park these days in that you're ultimately getting sucked into nothingness. At the rate this group goes, I'm fully prepared to end up depressed at the mere thought of a new Blackpink song. [0]

Will Adams: A martial drum 'n' brass drop that's a less catchy "Ddu-Du Ddu-Du," a breakdown that's only interesting because it quotes N.E.R.D. by way of Q-Tip, and overall forced sass: consider the love killed. [4]

Iain Mew: The song is a derivative mess and makes no attempt to hide it. It's anchored by the brutal synth blare, pushing at the limits of what a sound in a pop song which approximates to a real instrument can be. It's as if when Tim Wright had made the Lemmings soundtrack at the last minute to get around copyright issues he hadn't had to work with ancient Galop Infernal and London Bridge, but was instead gifted rights to the YG catalogue and "London Bridge." In context of how hard that goes, the abandon with which the chorus hits the self-destruct button is just right. [7]

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#Blackpink #pop #kpop #music #music review #writing

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