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What have you been listening to this week?
What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)
Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.
You can make a chart if you use last.fm:
http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/
Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.
The past month or two have been very good to me in terms of newly-released music, so I'd like to share some of my findings with all you good people.
PoiL Ueda - Yoshitsune
Wild avant-prog by the French band PoiL, seamlessly combined with Japanese traditional music courtesy of Junko Ueda. This is their second album this year and just as vibrant and off-the-wall as their first, full of really strange rhythms, technically impressive performance, and unsettling atmosphere.
Lalalar - En Kötü Iyi Olur
This is the kind of thing I would expect to hear at a rave somewhere in the seedy depths of Istanbul - highly danceable synthwave (bordering on darkwave) with traditional Turkish elements. For instance, there are microtonal folk scales, electric baglama, and a musky baritone vocal performance, but these are balanced by synthesizers and propulsive rhythms.
Vertebra Atlantis - A Dialogue with the Eeriest Sublime
Italian blackened death metal from the illustrious 'I, Voidhanger' label, by the same guy behind Cosmic Putrefaction and The Clearing Path. Lots of grimy tremolo, blast beats, and guttural vocals, but also a strong vein of prog-metal/orchestral components that to me are somewhat reminiscent of Opeth.
Don Kapot - I Love Tempo
I have no doubts about this bands love for tempo - touching on influence from krautrock, free jazz, ethio, no wave, afrobeat, and assorted experimental genres, this album is by turns fast, groovy, and tricky, delivering fun, acrobatic riffs at impressive speed. The lineup and aesthetic are often pretty minimal (only 3 band members) but can be surprisingly aggressive (albeit fun).
New Age Doom & Tuvaband - There Is No End
A collaboration in ur-psychedelia, featuring Canadian experimentalists New Age Doom and Norwegian indie singer Tuva Hellum. Cavernous soundscapes and smoky, exotic riffs create a soundtrack for tripping or lucid dreaming. There is a really diverse set of instrumentation here too.
Marina Herlop - Nekkuja
Really inventive electronic music that pairs Marina's peculiarly crooning voice with all sorts of sampled instrumentation. There is a fascination here with plucked strings and pianos, but they are twisted into all sorts of unusual shapes while retaining a certain delicate quality that makes this music to be meditated over, not something to dance to.
Azmari - Maelström
An immediate classic in the field of ethio-jazz, where baritone sax, flute, vintage electric piano, and organ weave slinky melodies around restrained funky rhythms. It's all very in touch with the psych rock side of things too, with lots of delay, reverb, and various filters producing dreamlike desert vibes.
Florid Ekstasis - Trepanning
Highly experimental dissonant death metal, with sprawling, long-form song structures and a semi-improvised approach. The rhythms here are all super interesting and off-kilter - the man behind this project also runs the 'Metal Music Theory' YouTube channel and it shows.
Max Cooper - Motif
Electronic music that skirts the boundary between techno and drum-and-bass. The breakbeats often diverge from the typical pattern though, instead coalescing into a stumbling triple meter or echoey, swingy funk. Kathrin deBoer provides vocals on several tracks as well, providing an ethereal upper layer to the intense rhythmic explorations.
Sven Wunder - Late Again
I'm tempted to label this kind of music 'aggressively normal' - a fusion of light jazz, mid-century orchestral pop, and library music that tugs at deeply ingrained musical vocabulary that you perhaps did not realize you even had. It's lush and evocative of crisp evenings (as the title suggests), but minimal in a way that brings background to the foreground.
Rile - Pessimist
Metallic hardcore whose sound is in touch with both the raucous noise of sludge metal and the complicated riffs of mathcore. Plenty of tracks have that thuggish, smash-something energy you'd get from, say, Cult Leader or Trap Them, but the drumming is especially technical, while conversely there are a few passages that have a somber, atmospheric quality to them as well.
oohh I really like Marina Herlop. Great find! Reminds me of Björk a bit but also Alice Coltrane and Angel's Egg.
Sven Wunder is also very nice. Thanks for sharing
Racetraitor, Disrupt, Closet Witch, and a bunch of powerviolence / grind / hardcore stuff- especially that which is political/social in its commentary. It matches the internal anger I have about all of our current ills in the world and helps me process it in a way that gives me some fire/strength to want to fight instead of the usual despairing helplessness. Sometimes I need that. Sometimes hearing and seeing others fight, discuss, and resist gives me an extra mental push.
Also realizing I accidentally replied to last week's thread with this week's listening habits. Oops. To summarize- the above + RTJ/Killer Mike, Aurora, Ren and my usual library-on-shuffle + new music research.
[Neoni sisters] (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQJ-a2IzCJ-gwlHvqvOWGhw) are enjoyable to listen to. Their lyrics can spew fire, not to mention their incredible sync. Darkside, Weirdo, Hypnotized, Sanctuary are my frequents.
[Jim Yosef] (https://www.youtube.com/@JimYosef/videos) with Scarlett have also energetic music that gets my blood pumping. Full Moon and Storm Chaser are my current liking from them.
[Model - Pembe Mezarlık] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ7LJ9nYKU8) And this is for the chills and lowering my "mood". You might not make much out of it if you don't know the language, but the vibe is unchallenged.
Here are some tracks that stood out to me this week:
I have listened a lot to these two albums :
Tchami - Year Zero
Habstrakt - Heritage
Melanie Martinez’s album, Portals, has bbeen on constant repeat. I love it!
I’ve been listening to the same thing I usually do, but for anyone else who likes LoFi as much as I do, here’s my playlist that’s starting to get close to the limit that Spotify playlists allow… total duration over 270 hours, and over 7,000 songs so far. And no, I don’t think I’ve listened to every song yet — I bulk-added probably the first 60% of it by cannibalising other lists.
It’s going to continue growing and changing, so if you like the playlist as-is, I recommend making a copy of it for yourself so it doesn’t drift away from what you like.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6IlTk3zznDQURe1LTLhVCF?si=pXolZfwfS22ANBtRIaFJgw
Spiritbox - The Fear of Fear EP on repeat
(except Cellar Door, not for me)