AlbumLove (December 2023): 1995-1999
Time Period: 1995-1999
Choose one album
that you love
that you think deserves more love
Tell us what it is, and why.
Additional Details
Why AlbumLove?
In this day and age, algorithmic recommendations for music are easy to come by, and it's trivial to seek out new music that interests you by searching online. AlbumLove offers an opportunity to sift through music loved by others, including those who might have divergent tastes from you. Think of this as an opportunity to listen outside of your comfort zone, with music that you know someone else adores, from a small pool of thoughtful hand-selected options.
What do I post?
Any album that you love and that you feel deserves more appreciation. There are no restrictions on genre, year, or anything else, and nothing is “too popular” or “too niche”. If you think it needs more love — for whatever reason — then it’s welcome in AlbumLove.
Name the artist and the album, and then, most importantly, share what you love about the album. It could be the music itself, but it could also be your associations with it -- maybe the album reminds you of someone you love, or you saw the band live and got a new appreciation for the studio songs.
Also, commenting on others' recommendations is encouraged! If you love something that someone else shared, let them know!
Do I have to listen to what everyone else posts?
Nope. You don't have to listen to anything if you don't want to. This is about creating a menu of options that people can explore as they wish.
Can I post more than one album in a month?
Nope. Limit one! This helps us be more selective about what we choose, as well as preventing the threads from getting flooded with too many contributions to keep track of.
Why albums and not songs/artists?
I like albums. :)
Seriously though, I feel like it's a very different thing to like an album as a whole versus a few songs or just an artist's general vibe. I like the idea of quantizing music for appreciation in the same way we might do with books or movies.
What about EPs?
Fair game!
Bittová & Václavek - Bílé inferno
(1997, Czechia, avant-progressive folk)
Two evocative vocalists with their instruments of choice (violin and guitar) and some 20th-century Czech children’s poetry make for a charming, quirky, and uplifting non-English folk with a lot of ethnic pizzazz to it. So let’s all put on our masks and enjoy the playful compositions that unfold here. It’s not as weird as people say, but it’s cute.
Nice. Very soothing.
Bonus point for non-English vocals (:
Foreign female folk is my bag.
Sigur Ros - Ágætis byrjun (1999) at this point they are decently well known and have had their music in films and TV. When this album was released they weren't well loved in their homeland but their previous album caught the ears of people overseas and this album launched them. Mixing elements of post-rock, classical, and minimalism while having many different styles on their tracks. If you never checked out their back-catalog, or their later albums, all are worth a listen.
Squarepusher - Feed Me Weird Things
I was introduced to IDM/braindance (I prefer the latter term) by Aphex Twin, but while Richard D. James was a synth guy through and through, Squarepusher was a bassist first, electronic guy second early on. This shows in Feed Me Weird Things which represents his vision for the simultaneously ambient and frenetic styles of IDM that came to age in the mid-Nineties. Squarepusher's major influence is jazz, which was why he programmed drums to play over, and he came to involve synths and do his own thing.
This album created a love of ambient music and reinforced every love I picked up from Aphex Twin's earlier break-oriented works. It also made me a fan of Squarepusher, I basically bought into his project after hearing this the first time a decade ago.
Notable tracks:
Squarepusher Theme opens in this wild, wide-open jazz chord phrasing, he brings his crafty bass and drum programming in for a few bars, holds back, and gradually just lets the drums loose in this beautiful, jazzy, swelling composition that smoothly progresses from section to section, re-grounding itself periodically, and breaking away at the end with a flourish.
Dimotane Co exemplifies what it is to be a Rephlex Records artist: At times uncomfortable, probably breakbeat or acid techno influenced, but likely both. Its departure from the first few tracks but shows this side of Squarepusher, and exemplifies a springboard from which he jumped in later works, I think.
Theme from Ernest Borgnine is an example of the IDM/braindance concept pushed to an ambient extreme with an emphasis on the breakbeats that are equally important as the melody. It's a long, beautiful piece that is both placid and unrelenting, just marching on while it gently pulls you along for the ride. It's also my favorite track from the album.