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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 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.
I've just discovered that I've had "discuss" written as "dicuss" on every one of these until now. oof.
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5x5
I've been mostly focused on movies lately, but I have a few new (to me) things here.
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harunemuri
Aaaah I'm so happy I've found this! The album is just oozing creativity and fun and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Awesome noise poppy cute wonderful Japanese stuff. She's rapping sometimes? There's so much energy and it's just great. I'm still reeling from this one but it's one of only a couple times this year that a new release has truly gotten me excited, and I've heard most of the things that the nerds have been hyping up. This is so much fun and I'm pumped to see where Haru Nemuri goes from here.
Music For Commercials
The existence of this record is just amazing to me. Despite being the kind of music that vaporwave samples, warps, and generally mocks, this sounds more like a vaporwave record itself. I bet if you were really into this in '87, you were super pumped when the whole vaporwave thing popped up. Also these are just good tunes, the vaporwave connection is just what makes this thing so weird to me.
Trips und Träume
This is such a cool psychedelic folky thing with some hints of krautrock and I think it deserves a lot more attention. Plus, look at that fucking cover! Real trippy and interesting.
Things that I find boring or grating in a way that I don't think is worth commenting on beyond this
Die Lit, Sen, Redemption, EVERSINCE, Elephant, diary 001
harunemuri: Not all the songs are my kind of music, but I enjoyed quite a few of them :) Some songs remind me a lot of Moe Shop (especially the rapping), and maybe a bit of fusq.
Music For Commercials: Wow, I'm surprised this is from 1987, I wouldn't be able to tell if you told me it was a modern vaporwave album! Was this kind of music ever popular around the time, or was this album just ahead of it's time?
It appears that Music For Commercials only really achieved its popularity through its relatively recent rediscovery, so near as I can tell this in particular was just a particularly forward thinking version of that time and place. Watching some of these old ads, you can hear similarities, but nothing else has the unique spins on the aesthetic that Music For Commercials (and later vaporwave) do...at least to my ear.
Sounds pretty fresh but I fear I might get tired of it pretty fast.
A lot of Hop Along. I discovered them last week, and I can't get enough. Lead singer's name is Francis something. I may have spelled that wrong, but her voice and delivery is great.
Here's one song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMAZYt8zu30
Also, some Little Dragon too this week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFLrDrn6kEQ
I think I'll post the Little Dragon in its own post.
Edit: some not a some
Yeah, I posted the song I did, but I don't think it's the best intro to them.
I keep going back to the 2015 Tiny Desk they did.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFGnkbZ3fLE
Their newest album is great and so is Painted Shut. Haven't heard the earlier stuff with just her.
I caught a set from the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra at the world-famous jazz club The Village Vanguard on Monday. Amazingly, it was my first time at the Vanguard. I finally corrected that long-standing omission from my NYC live music diet.
For those don't know, the Vanguard Orchestra started in the mid-'60s as the Thad Jones / Mel Lewis Big Band. When Jones left in the late '70s, it became the Mel Lewis Big Band, and then the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra after Lewis's death in 1990. The band has appeared at the Vanguard every Monday night since 1966!
Cool, I didn't know about that last.fm chart generator.
Here's mine for this week: https://i.imgur.com/LWoMXe8.jpg
5x5
DJ Spooky - Songs of a Dead Dreamer - Absolutely blew me away. I don't really know how to put how much this impressed me into words, but it's such an incredible listen with some of the most interesting uses of sampling that I know of.
Pale Saints - The Comforts of Madness - Decent noisy shoegaze/dream pop that just kind of falls flat because I can't get down with the production. Sounds decently pretty otherwise.
Dr. Dre - Compton - My new favorite Dre album by quite a bit. Packed with so many artists showcasing themselves and hitting their on just about every part. Only brought down by the Eminem track, which I often just want to skip entirely.
Putting this one at the bottom in case some people want to wait for the actual release and I couldn't find out if there's in-line spoiler syntax.
Animal Collective - Tangerine Reef - It leaked and it's pretty much an extension of Hair Cutter. There's pleasant parts of it and it does the neopsych-influenced underwater theme decently, but I feel like it's not really that great. Avey's voice just clashes with the instrumentation and other stuff that's going on when he speaks and it feels like it meanders more than it has an actual goal. Definitely not Painting With 2.0 at least.
I've been listening to some Flight of the Concords. They're a comedy rock duo from New Zealand and their music is actually really good (besides being hilarious.)
Here's some of their songs:
https://youtu.be/_ozSSseCh3U
https://youtu.be/EuXdhow3uqQ
I'm more the kind of person who sits on an artist for months and months before slooooowly moving onto the next one, rather than someone who listens to something new every week. Every time I see this thread I want to comment but I know I'd be repeating myself a lot, so I'll just make one comment for now and then come back once I'm onto something new.
I'm currently on my way out of my Carly Rae Jepsen phase. She's really become my favourite modern pop artist by far. Her latest album Emotion and its follow up EP are great fun, both largely inspired by Cindy Lauper-style 80s pop. Her lyrics are also simple but very effective if you ask me, she pretty much only ever writes about boys and heartache, but she nails that "thrill of the hunt" kind of feeling when you're into someone. I highly recommend her to any pop fans who haven't given her a chance yet.
Tame Impala has been my jam lately. Which is strange, given how I usually listen to more traditional rock. They're super vibe-y, though. It's a shitty descriptor, but it fits best I feel
Currently listening to a lot of stuff by Shylmagoghnar
Definitely not for everyone, unless you are partial to Atmospheric black metal with both raw and melodic undertones!
More accessible, and what I really dig on long runs is God is an Astronaut. I love this track in particular... multi-layered, instrumental post-rock of the highest caliber.
Aziza Mustafa Zadeh - Dance of Fire
Best contemporary pianist & composer I know, can't get bored of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRLIowtn1J0
I've dug out the album Liebe ist für alle da by Rammstein just two days ago (not having listened to them for 2+ years) after having read they were in a studio in France this spring recording their new album.