A few albums recently listened.

atoms for peace - amok

incredibly boring. thom yorke has turned into a full bore parody of himself. i used to be the biggest radiohead fan, posting on various forums in the late nineties and into the early part of oughts, sharing live versions of songs that would eventually appear on kid a and amnesiac, deconstructing every little thing the band did, every sound on every album. i still think yorke can write a great tune, and i kind of like the eraser, if only for the first two tracks and cymbal rush. i remember being told that thom yorke and radiohead make depressing music, that it's just wailing over a few skittery beats and keyboards, and i always argued that yorke's best songs (lucky, pyramid song) were life affirming and visceral. and they were. unfortunately, everything he writes now blends together into a kind of soup, and now it really is depressing music for teenagers. and i don't even know why this is called "atoms for peace", it's just another solo album.

 

hal blaine - psychedelic percussion

awesome. experimental drum album from the late sixties, sounds almost like squarepusher.

JK Flesh (Justin Broaderick and Prurient) - Posthuman: I gotta say this album is awesome. Less harsh noise, more kind of a mix of industrial, noise and dub but it's all still pretty noisy and Prurient's elements are definitely there. Great stuff, I'll probably be giving this a lot of rotation in time to come.

 

Mutilation Rites - Empyrean: Seriously good black metal EP, highly reccommend it for those into that sort of stuff, yeah the band's name sounds like another excercise in tryhard metal brutality but this is quality stuff.

  On 3/1/2013 at 5:57 AM, ghOsty said:

Autechre - Exai: I think we're all under the general consensus this album is amazing, I could easily see this becoming one of my favs in their catalog

 

Atoms For Peace - Amok;Good stuff, kinda does sound like The Eraser 2, but that's not necessarily bad, I wish Flea's presence stood out a little more. Great stuff though

 

Darkstar - News From Nowhere: Interesting album, takes kinda a more indie route than that first one, almost reminds me of Seefeel a bit in parts

 

Aesop Rock - Bazooka Tooth: One of his earlier albums, probably one of his more abstract releases

 

Kylesa - Spiral Shadow: Psychedliec sludgey goodness, gotta love the double drummer thing they got going

Kylesa is awesome, really want to catch them live one of these days. Only listened to Time with Fuse its Worth and Static Tensions. I think my friend said spiral shadow is kinda shoegaze-esque, which would probably sound really interesting

  On 3/5/2013 at 6:53 PM, Danny O Flannagin said:

Kylesa is awesome, really want to catch them live one of these days. Only listened to Time with Fuse its Worth and Static Tensions. I think my friend said spiral shadow is kinda shoegaze-esque, which would probably sound really interesting

Idk if I'd say it's shoegazey but it's definitely a little less heavy, and a lot more psychedelic than most of their other stuff, it's good stuff

Optiganally Yours - Exclusively Talentmaker: The instrumentation of this album was made with disc-based keyboards. I really love the sound of the Optigan. So many loungey beats and melodies can come out of it. If I had found this album in high-school I would have been all over it. Themes of introversion and heartbreak and all that. I can still put myself into those shoes though, so I suppose it works for me. Instrumentation-wise, this album is beautiful. The song "Held" has a fantastic high "violin" part. Makes me swoon.

 

 

Portishead - Third: I think this is my favorite album by them, I always fluctuate between this one and the self-titled. The droney depressing production and the departure from Trip-Hop (for the most part) really makes it stand out on its own. I've probably listened to We Carry On at least 50 times. 10/10

 

Junichi Masuda - Pokemon Red/Blue OST: I've always been astounded by how catchy and full things songs sound, yet there are no beats whatsoever. I dug out my Pokemon Master Trainer board game and played it with friends recently, using our modified rules set. We'd play the battle music when we'd try to catch a pokemon and so on. Nerdy good time.

 

Matthew Friedberger - The Diabolical Principle: Four 20 minute tracks consisting of a mixes of the songs found in his recent 8-album "Solos" series (which I subscribed to). There are some beautiful moments from a mixing point of view (nice transitions and so on). Nice set-back music. I really recommend this album to anyone who hasn't listened to Matt previous.

 

My girlfriend has fallen in love with the Japanese New Wave bands I've been obsessing over (especially Picky Picnic). I'm so happy.

deutsche elektronische musik 2 - experimental german rock and electronic music 1972-83: exactly what it says on the label, gorgeous 2 disc set of crazy warm electronic synth treated rock muzik. think along the lines of can, neu! and krafwerk as well as some guys who were probably just two doors down the studio where the likes of peter thomas was doing his library treatments. in fact, this is kinda similar to that parry compilation public-info put out last year except it occasionally takes detours into different directions like pastal folk (like on 'in a sacred manner' by gila) or new age ('Ja Sie Sollen Gottes Kinder Heissen Agnus Dei' by popol vuh). and when things go library, they discard the cheesy disco and plug in the heavy psych rock.

 

also worth noting: it's well over two hours (and there are two of these in the market right now), because most of the songs like to get a really good workout, and to be honest, so does your brain.

Steve Roach - Low Volume Music - best discovery lately.

Joel Tammik - Eluline

 

Aril Brikha - Departure in Time

 

Milieu - Beyond the sea lies the stars

 

eels - Electroshock Blues: This album was created after E's sister committed suicide and his mother passed away in the same year. As a result, the album is more depressing than their usual output (though he stays optimistic). It's a beautiful listen, and executed wonderfully in their accessible yet unique style. 8 or 9 or something decent out of 10.

 

The Caretaker - Extra Patience (After Sebald) & Selected Memories from the Haunted Ballroom: Extra Patience (After Sebald) is great if you're a Caretaker fan boy. SMFTHB is a lot better than I expected it to be, since it was made somewhat earlier in his career (1999). The usual gloomy ballroom music and a few gritty tracks that remind me more of his work under "The Stranger". I definitely recommend it if you're a fan of Kirby's work.

 

Odd Nosdam - if grill du rot & vol. 7.1: Two short 15-minute EPs, consisting of tracks from his old releases, and several tracks that I hadn't heard before (dunno if they're new or just unreleased). Either way, they're both free, so head over to bandcamp and git yurself a cappy. http://nosdam.bandcamp.com/

Submotion Orchestra - Fragments - 7/10

Robert Glasper Experiment - Black Radio Recovered The Remix EP - 8/10

Grischa Lichtenberger - and IV [inertia] - 9/10

Ulrich Schnauss - A Long Way To Fall 7.32/10

Various - EDM A2 8.19/10

Autechre - Exai 9.01/10

Fieldtriqp - Hidden Tracks 8.31/10

Ochre - National Ignition 7.49/10

Fieldtriqp - Old Haunts (Expanded) 8.33/10

Fieldtriqp - People Damage (Expanded) 8.32/10

Kettel - Unreleased 2002-2012 7.03/10

Edited March 14, 2013 by Ifeelspace

  On 3/14/2013 at 6:50 AM, Murveman said:

eels - Electroshock Blues: This album was created after E's sister committed suicide and his mother passed away in the same year. As a result, the album is more depressing than their usual output (though he stays optimistic). It's a beautiful listen, and executed wonderfully in their accessible yet unique style. 8 or 9 or something decent out of 10.

 

Love this album.

Some days ago I listened latest Karin Park album, called "Highwire Poetry", released in 2012. It was almost the first time I listened her and I have to say it impressed me, her characteristic voice, a part of sounding surprisingly as Karin Dreijer's voice, mixes great with the dark electronics of the songs, although a bit histrionic for me. It's a mix of The Knife/Fever Ray + some Röyksopp tunes. Here's one of the songs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fgFkAQ0AM4

This particularly reminds me of Röyksopp.

jason lytle - dept of disappearance

some really strong tracks but as a whole, this is pretty weak. your final setting sun is great, could easily see that on a grandaddy album but it's also extremely dark and fatalistic. biggest problem with lytle's post-grandaddy music is his resignation. if he doesn't really want to make music why should i listen? hopefully we'll get another album on par with sophtware slump or under the western freeway, i think he's still got a great album in him.

soul jazz presents country soul sisters the rise of women in country music 1952-74: well, this one was kinda disappointing (or maybe i'm just not that much into country music) but almost all these songs are very well known or not that special- perhaps for say 'harper valley pta' and '

'- then there are the obvious choices like ' ' and 'if it ain't love' and a pre-requisite dolly parton track. so unless you're completely oblivious about the golden age of country music and the women involved, i'd say it's pretty safe to bypass this release

The Field - Looping State of Mind: way late on this, and The Field in general, but this is a great album. hypnotic at times, particularly the title track and 'Arpeggiated Love'. A+

 

Isis - Live VI: this gets plenty of love on here, but this really is an incredible live album, without doubt the best in the series. Maria Christopher's vocals on this version of 'Weight' are just fucking perfect.

 

various, but predominantly Elliot Goldenthal - Heat soundtrack: i originally got this off my dad, but this soundtrack is killer in my opinion. it helps that the film is amazing, too, i guess. this album collects Goldenthal's original compositions, some of which are performed by the Kronos Quartet, and combines it with non-original productions from Brian Eno (the song playing during the famous bank robbery and shootout), Einsturzende Neubauten ('Armenia'), Terje Rypdal and others. even the two contributions from Moby are excellent in my opinion - a cover of Joy Division's 'New Dawn Fades' (unfortunately edited) and 'God Moving Over the Face of the Waters', which plays over the closing credits. really enjoyable CD! http://www.discogs.com/Various-Heat-Music-From-The-Motion-Picture/master/129714

tod dockstader - recorded music for film, radio & television vol. 1 & 2: mordant music released the first volume last year and just recently chucked the 2nd out. this falls into the early electronic sound spectrum except it's probably a little more polished structure-wise and edited to work as library music originally put out on the boosey & hawkes label back in the 80s.

 

despite the "new packaging" and remastering a lot of these tracks are really boring- occasionally you get to hear something interesting (like 'pond dance', 'black hole dropout' and 'sundrift' on the first volume or 'snowbell waltz', 'tictac' and 'boingo background' on the second) but everything else functions more as a sonic history of electronic music rather than entertainment

The CD that comes with The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

Nice to listen to when you're doing stuff and you want to listen to something but don't actually have to hear everything that's going on.

 

Donuts - J Dilla

Super awesome. I can't even think of anything to say other than that it's super awesome.

 

Volta - Björk

Pretty cool, though I still hate Declare Independence, but I like how it's like a journey around the world. Her being tired of the urban live and coming across several things. Even the more 'boring' songs are awesome, because the actually carry a story.

 

My own EP, Algol Fornax EP - 3849

Even though it's not done [need one more track] I always nice to listen to something you made yourself while on the train and discover something you can't remember putting in the track.

Shadowfax-Shadowfax

 

Been listening to it a lot lately. Only previews though. Just ordered Shadowfax-Shadowdance on cassette for 8 cents. Can't beat that. Actually it was 9 cents.

Gandalf - Fucking Gandalf.

 

So addictive. The krautrock meets synthpop meets r&b meets chillwave meets shoegaze meets black metal meets industrial meets dark ambient drone meets garage rock/post punk is just kinda cool I guess. Album of the year, assholes. The 8 track was only 5 cents.

Edited March 26, 2013 by Candiru

white zombie - astrocreep 2000

i love this shit. trashy in all the right ways. been blasting this and the jesus and mary chain album "honey's dead" while driving. surprisingly similar aesthetic on some of the songs, especially reverence and sugar ray on honey's dead, which both sound like proto mid 90s white zombie tunes.

tyler the creator - wolf: tyler the creator doing odd future versions of rap songs that inspired him using the eminem/stan strategy. could not make it past track 7 (featuring frank ocean) due to repetitive nature of this theme.

 

junior vasquez - voguing & the house ballroom scene of new york city 1976-96: if you've seen the documentary

then you might be familiar with what voguing is. this is a collection of the quintessential voguing music from someone that sounds like they'd be an authority on the subject.

 

while some of the tracks are just free form dance workouts- most are remixes of house tracks i've never heard of while others are even loser interpretations of other songs with the occasional slow jam added in to (i suppose) give dancers a minute to catch their breathe- and it's over 3hrs of this kind of thing. some of the tracks are nice- most of the others are not.

Dayum, Nebraska. You've been getting your music history on.

^^^ you damn skippy