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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!
Feel free to give recs or dicuss anything about each others' listening habits.
You can make a chart if you use last.fm:
Harry Callaghan's Portal covers. Most of his covers are songs from Nightmare before Christmas.
What I like most about his songs is obviously the connection to Portal, but also how well he implements it. From using the original voices, up to managing to change the original songs to electro music.\
He also does some Portal Animations which you should definetly check out, especially when you played the Portal games.
5x5 - I guess I'll talk a little about some of these, though I don't have too much to say. Most of my art consumption for this past week has been books and video games.
NONE OF THIS IS REAL - So like a few of these tracks are absolutely otherworldly life-changing musical moments that I'll never forget, and a lot just passes right by without me noticing. Dunno how to feel about that overall, but it's something I feel everyone who cares about music at all should hear.
Drake's new album Scorpion is dull and bland to a degree I didn't even think was possible from an artist who has at least had a few good hooks per project in the past. It's an awful record and deserves the hate it's getting.
Peghead is just some generic 90s alt rock / grunge and I don't even remember how I found it. Not good at all, but I felt bad being the first person to rate it below a 7/10 on RYM.
Turns out I already knew all the worthwhile songs from Finally Rich. That was a bit of a let-down, but at least I got to hear "Love Sosa" and "I Don't Like" again...it's been a while.
I recently found a new love for Hosianna Mantra. I was never much of a fan before, but on my most recent listen the sheer beauty of it all just took over my brain. I still have some problems with it (the production on some tracks is awful), but I'm definitely much more of a fan than I used to be.
Also lmao Blonde gets on there just from me replaying Solo (Reprise), I do not like that album.
New Gorillaz Album, which is quite nice especially after the previous disappointment.
New Soulwax album very interesting take on the essential mixes (listen to the first track for a better explanation)
Altın Gün Super groovy Turkish pop, it's fantastic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J5-57lRxAM
5x5
Drake - Scorpion - I really really don't like this. It's incredibly bland-sounding to me, Drake sounds like he's phoning every line in and is incredibly bored with it, Jay-Z's part sounds similar, there's cheesy things like the samples of girls talking about him on Instagram or something. Absolutely do not like.
Cloud Nothings - Attack on Memory - Probably my new favorite thing to come out of indie rock in the 2010s. Delicious post-hardcore influenced emo with Albini doing engineering.
The Avalanches - The Album (Since I Left You) - Still one of the best albums ever made.
Astrobrite - Whitenoise Superstar - Idea: take noisy shoegaze and drench it in so much reverb that it's like hitting your face on a solid brick wall. I like it.
Through the Sloe - Through the Sloe - Korean slowcore that needs more listens to digest. Parts of this are really pretty but I don't really know how I feel about it as a whole.
Hey glad you liked it! I've been listening to CHVRCHES on repeat all week, practically. It's been constantly running through my head.
I've been really into the song Vanity Pail Kids off the newest Broken Social Scene album. Mouth guards of the Apocalypse is good too, but Vanity Pail Kids has been the standout song for me this week.
I've been listening to a lot of 70s Japanese music. One of my favorites is Kazemachi Roman by Happy End. My favorite two songs of this album are by far Kaze wo Atsumete and Natsu nandesu. Both convey a certain "airy" and laid back sort of feeling. Even the title *Natsu nandesu means something like, Well, it's summer (don't know Japanese, but most translations I've found say something like that). Apparently the album is about Tokyo before the 1964 Olympics and the changes they brought, so with that in mind while listening the feeling and tone matches up pretty well.
I've been taking a trip back to my teens via the self-titled Third-Eye Blind album. All solid tracks, but today's favourite is "The Background."
I've been listening to The Black Tower (2017) by an indie metal act from Sweden called Sons of Crom. If you guessed that the band's themes are drawn from Robert E. Howard's pulp fantasy, have yourself a cigar. While the vocals are a bit uneven, being weaker in some songs (like "Fall of Pandemonium") than others (like "Black Wings on High"), the music is consistently powerful and well-orchestrated.
This week I have really only been listening to two albums.
High as Hope by Florence and The Machine. It's not quite as epic and soaring as her previous stuff but it's stripped back, close, personal sound is a nice change. Welch's writing is as good as it's always been, but she's in a more reflective mood for this album which again is a nice change.
I'm All Ears by Let's Eat Grandma. This is an amazing piece of work. LEG have been making music pretty much since they could walk, this is their second album and they're still only 19. While they've always been sonically experimental in the most wonderful way, this album has tighter production and much better lyrical work. I'm really annoyed I couldn't get to their launch party which was on this evening a few miles from where I live but I had other commitments. Very much recommended. Even Pitchfork were complimentary
Spent some time this afternoon listening to a new disc: The Charles Pillow Large Ensemble - Electric Miles. It's music from the early '70s Miles Davis albums like Bitches Brew and On The Corner, rearranged for a big band. It definitely has a contemporary jazz/funk vibe, not nearly as swampy as the original recordings, but still very cool and ambitious. Trumpeter Tim Hagans gets a lot of solo time, and saxophonist Dave Liebman (who played on On The Corner) makes a guest appearance.
Here's the first track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phyPMYoJVQo
I have been listening to Now, Now, amongst other things, recently, and this track is on repeat in the radio station of my skull, lately.
I traveled this week and that made me get out my nice headphones. That led to me running around in big headphones and listening to full rock albums for the remainder of the week, while doing things like weeding.
The Mars Volta | Noctourniquet
The Mars Volta | Frances the Mute
The Mars Volta | Deloused In the Comatorium
2 of my top tracks: Inertiatic ESP, Roulette Dares - but loads of other good tracks there.
At the Drive-In | Relationship of Command
For me, some tracks aged really well, some did not.
Jane's Addiction (Live)
Sometimes called "XXX," it was their first release. The last three tracks all flow together and are pretty darn timeless.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience | Axis: Bold As Love
Pixies | Surfer Rosa (Remastered)
One of my personal top 3 albums
Interpol | Turn On the Bright Lights
edit: I'm just going to keep editing this