This is Album of the Week #19 ~ This week's album is Portishead - Portishead

Year of Release: 1997
Genre(s): Trip Hop
Country: United Kingdom
Length: 50 minutes
RYM | Listen!

Excerpt from Vulture:

The album makes total sense, but how does it sound? One could argue that Portishead can be more admirable in theory than in practice. Created in direct opposition to the twinned principles of quick profit and easy pleasure, it’s a masterpiece of painful rigor. With the exception of “Undenied,” the album’s exhilarations, though plentiful, are inseparable from its harrowing politics and embattled nature. Utley’s riff on “Cowboys” is fit to saw through steel; Barrow’s beat on “Elysium” counts its measures with an alarming or bomb-adjacent urgency; Gibbons’s voice, shorn of comforting accompaniments, is charged with a kind of grievous purity throughout, reaching heights of agony unheard on Dummy.

Discussion points:
Have you heard this artist/album before? Is this your first time hearing?
Do you enjoy this genre? Is this an album you would have chosen?
Does this album remind you of something you've heard before?
What were the album's strengths or weaknesses?
Was there a standout track for you?
How did you hear the album? Where were you? What was your setup?

--

Album of the week is currently chosen randomly (via random.org) from the top 5000 albums from a custom all-time RYM chart, with a 4/5 popularity weighting. The chart is recalculated weekly.

Missed last week? It can be found here.

Any feedback on the format is welcome ~~

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.

This is Album of the Week #18 ~ This week's album is Canserbero - Muerte

Year of Release: 2012
Genre(s): Conscious Hip Hop
Country: Venezuela
Length: 70 minutes
RYM | Listen! (Album.Link)

RYM review by ligetifan137:

When you go to Venezuela, caserbero is everywhere you go. His mark not only on the Venezuelan rap scene but worldwide is so tangible it's almost impossible to process he is gone. The power with which he delivers each line, with so much anger as he describes such raw descriptions of daily venezuelan life is haunting, it's so poetic yet so realistic. He was very well read, which can be seen all through out the numerous references of various thinkers as well as laying a very grim philosophical and political groundwork present all around Venezuela. The concept of this album functions perfectly, each song flows so nicely and feels very natural. Even though the beats can be a but repetitive and under produced, they are so overshadowed by his performance you almost forget they're there: it's as if he's speaking to you face to face. A legend to many, gone too soon. Rest in peace

Discussion points:
Have you heard this artist/album before? Is this your first time hearing?
Do you enjoy this genre? Is this an album you would have chosen?
Does this album remind you of something you've heard before?
What were the album's strengths or weaknesses?
Was there a standout track for you?
How did you hear the album? Where were you? What was your setup?

--

Album of the week is currently chosen randomly (via random.org) from the top 5000 albums from a custom all-time RYM chart, with a 4/5 popularity weighting. The chart is recalculated weekly.

Missed last week? It can be found here.

Any feedback on the format is welcome ~~

This is a thread to discuss 2024 releases that have recently arrived on our doorstep, or been announced for the future. Feel free to share albums, singles, EPs or reissues that have caught your eye and interest, or share your thoughts about any new music that you've had the chance to listen to this week.

Discussion Points

Is there anything you've been looking forward to listening to?
Any releases that have surprised you?
Have you listened to any new music recently? What are your thoughts?
What have you enjoyed from these artists in the past? How does their latest work compare?

~~ Feedback on the format welcome

All parents please report back. My children lost their damn minds.

Link

For best effect, followup with:
Rednex - Cottoneye Joe
The HampsterDance Song
Eiffel 65 - Blue

Also known as : Half of a middle school dance playlist from the 90s. Just need Macarana and Mmm Bop to wrap it.

This is Album of the Week #17 ~ This week's album is Wormrot - Voices

Year of Release: 2016
Genre(s): Grindcore
Country: Singapore
Length: 26 minutes
RYM | Listen! (Album.Link)

Excerpt from Angry Metal Guy:

Natural though it may be, there’s something very special about how Voices draws from outside the walls of grindcore. It’s adventurous but just sounds so… obvious. This is just the sort of thing Wormrot do: write so well, perform so tightly, that whatever they’re doing just seems inevitable. Effortless, perhaps. Voices is loud, violent, and brutal, but it also restrained, as if measured in micrograms of controlled adrenaline and delivered intravenously. Like last year’s offering from Beaten to Death, this is a unique and immensely enjoyable take on grindcore that’s a true flame-bearer of the genre and won’t be wanting for love on the year-end lists of the abrasively inclined.

Discussion points:
Have you heard this artist/album before? Is this your first time hearing?
Do you enjoy this genre? Is this an album you would have chosen?
Does this album remind you of something you've heard before?
What were the album's strengths or weaknesses?
Was there a standout track for you?
How did you hear the album? Where were you? What was your setup?

--

Album of the week is currently chosen randomly (via random.org) from the top 5000 albums from a custom all-time RYM chart, with a 4/5 popularity weighting. The chart is recalculated weekly.

Missed last week? It can be found here.

Any feedback on the format is welcome ~~

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.

I recently bought a banjo and have started the journey of learning how to play. It's my first instrument but I have been having a blast so far, which got me wondering — what have you all been playing recently? This is not a reoccurring post, but maybe it could be, so let's use this as a place to talk about music-making related things: what have you been practicing, what techniques are you stuck on, what have you been playing around with, etc? Feel free to share or ask for advice.

I typically listen to music and discover new music through YouTube, but the gradual creep of ads and the possibility of videos being deleted in the future has made me interested in building up a personal library of tracks on my own computer instead of streaming.

What do you use to manage your songs, and buy songs when you find ones you like?

My main computer runs Debian so I'd prefer Linux compatible options, but I'd be interested I hearing whatever other people use regardless.

This is Album of the Week #16 ~ This week's album is Coil - Love's Secret Domain

Year of Release: 1991
Genre(s): Industrial
Country: United Kingdom
Length: 61 minutes
RYM | Listen! (Album.Link)

Excerpt from The Quietus:

... the combined musical impact of Love's Secret Domain remains undiminished: a sonic world erupting with mind-spinning ingenuity, that beneath its surface strangeness, holds more hooks and grooves than a Cenobite's playroom. As always with Coil, however, Love's Secret Domain is about more than music; it's an exploration of what it meant, in 1991, to be a deeply inquisitive consciousness, all channels on, all bandwidths open, trapped in a human body and surrounded by the joy, anger and madness of existence. It's a palimpsest of an incredibly potent time for London's underground cultures, a mindmap of spaces, now largely lost ...

Discussion points:
Have you heard this artist/album before? Is this your first time hearing?
Do you enjoy this genre? Is this an album you would have chosen?
Does this album remind you of something you've heard before?
What were the album's strengths or weaknesses?
Was there a standout track for you?
How did you hear the album? Where were you? What was your setup?

--

Album of the week is currently chosen randomly (via random.org) from the top 5000 albums from a custom all-time RYM chart, with a 4/5 popularity weighting. The chart is recalculated weekly.

Missed last week? It can be found here.

Any feedback on the format is welcome ~~

This is probably a niche subject, but here we go. The album version of Protect Ya Neck is censored and I hate how it was done. Luckily we have Protect Ya Neck (The Bloody Version) from the single. I don't like all of this version, so I took my European remaster and edited it all to replace the >drrrrtttt< with the swearing.

Today I got the Music on Vinyl release from 2009 and liked it enough, I figured I'd patch it. When I brought it into Audition I noticed that the audio was inverted.

Is there any reasoning behind this?

I’ve been getting back into guitar playing and trying to have more focused practice when I play each day. I wouldn't call myself a "beginner", but I don't think I'm near the "intermediate" stage yet. I know chords and power chords and can transition between them pretty easily. I've been working on figuring out CAGED shapes, but still really struggle with playing scales and "solo-ing"...partly because (1) I have tried exploring music theory and "learning the notes on the fretboard", but it hasn't clicked for me yet, and (2) my fret fingers feel sluggish and don’t seem to move across the fretboard with the ease that I seem to have when switching chords.

That said, I’m feeling pretty discouraged right now. Looking for some “pick me ups”, so to speak. And wanting to learn to play a few songs all the way through so I can feel more confident in my ability to actually play a song. But I don’t really want to get hung up on a difficult “solo” or a bunch of individual fretting stuff yet.

As I thought about making this post, I figured it might be useful to also ask about some "beginner tips" on how to best stay motivated to stick with learning, practicing, and playing the guitar. If I'm going to keep this up, I want to really invest in it and stick with the guitar. Here are some additional questions/thoughts to hopefully trigger a discussion.

Fellow guitarists:

• What has helped you in the past?
• What helped you get over the "discouraging" first steps of guitar playing and keep at it?
• What were some of the first songs you were able to learn to play all the way through?
• How did you learn the notes on the fretboard?
• How did you learn to play different chords all around the neck?
• What would you say to your younger self to help encourage them to continue pushing through the sticking points of guitar?
• What was the "key" to getting guitar playing to "click" in your brain?

Looking forward to seeing what advice fellow players can offer! Everyone's musical journey is different, and I am interested in learning how you learned to get to where you are now!

I've been spending a lot of time working on developing my singing voice, and I'm starting to push into a loud, yelling voice at the upper end of my register. It sounds awesome, but it kind of hurts and makes me wonder if this sort of thing is sustainable long-term.

Someone like Dave Grohl (great example of the type of vocals I'm trying to emulate) seems to have made a career singing like this, so I'm pretty sure there's a way. I guess I'm mostly wondering if there's any sort of "progression" or way to do it properly vs improperly.

Does it get easier? Will my vocal chords adapt? Mostly I'm just wondering if I can keep doing this without sacrificing vocal range in the future.

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.

This is Album of the Week #15 ~ This week's album is Mew - Frengers

Year of Release: 2003
Genre(s): Dream Pop
Country: Denmark
Length: 48 minutes
RYM | Listen! (Album.Link)

Excerpt from Drowned In Sound:

On the cherub face of it this album is a soaring, triangle tapping, kitten cuddling, debut; Mew have playground innocence down - lunchbox in hand, toothpaste on tie and scabby knees, all set for a day of holding hands with the pigtailed girl. Mew could market this to my 6-year old cousin to dance around to whilst munching her Sugar Puffs, and they'd sell a billion. Pop is Universal... aaaaaaah, that's the cookie, that's what everyone has forgotten!

Discussion points:
Have you heard this artist/album before? Is this your first time hearing?
Do you enjoy this genre? Is this an album you would have chosen?
Does this album remind you of something you've heard before?
What were the album's strengths or weaknesses?
Was there a standout track for you?
How did you hear the album? Where were you? What was your setup?

--

Album of the week is currently chosen randomly (via random.org) from the top 5000 albums from a custom all-time RYM chart, with a 4/5 popularity weighting. The chart is recalculated weekly.

Missed last week? It can be found here.

Any feedback on the format is welcome ~~

Harmony does something to my brain than I can't explain but it's like a short cut to, well, I dunno, but something good.

I'd really like your suggestions for harmonies that create emotional response.

Sorry for dumping a huge number of links here. Here are two favourites:

Picforth, In Nomine a 5.

and

Cork Sacred Harp - "47b Idumea"

Here are some examples: (and now that I post them, I realise some of them aren't really harmony proper, so I'm not sure what I'm asking for)

Irish lilting in harmony

Beloe Zlato - "За тихой рекою" (beyond the calm river?), and a better but more noisy version Белое злато - "За тихой рекой" (Белое злато / Beloe Zlato / White Gold -- I don't know anything about this group and if I'm posting Russian propaganda please let me know because I don't want to be doing that)

Mamas and Papas - "California dreaming", "Here in my arms" (although Ella Fitzgerald's version is much much better), "Safe in my garden" (especially the bit around 1:50 building to 2:15)

Sacred Harp choirs. Sacred harp and "shaped singing" is how you teach people to sing if they can't read music. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape_note](Wikipedia has a good explainer). They start with a verse of the soh, lah, ti, fah sounds so people know the tune and rhythm and then they launch into it. I'm not religious (in a quiet, polite, respecting other people's religions kind of way) but they turn out a great tune sometimes. Henderson, Texas - Sacred Harp 463: "Angel Band", Austin, Texas - Sacred Harp 463: "Angel Band", Unknown - scacred harp 463: "Angel band". Camp Doremi Europe 2015 - Sacred Harp 117 "Angel Band". I've dumped four of the same song so you get a feel for differences in pace, in size of congregation, and skill of singers. The acoustics of these rooms suck, and even skilled professional sound engineers are going to struggle to mic up these rooms and get good output, but I like the fact that every consumer grade mic and recording equipment is just OVERLOADED TO ALL HECK.

More sacred harp. Texas - Sacred Harp 505 "Cleansing Fountain". The lyrics are really something.

Irish sacred harp, and this is the one I really want to share because my word they mean it: Second Ireland Sacred Harp Convention - "47b Idumea" there's a woman really singing. I love love love this. There's also Cork Sacred Harp - "Come thou fount"

It's not just vocal harmony either. Lankum, NPR Tiny Desk Concert, "The Wild Rover" just builds and builds layer upon layer. (And "Bear Creek" does something similar, with more joy. The Mary Wallopers - "Frost is all over" have something going on underneath this romping joyful noise and I think it's the sneaky "Banish Misfortune", so here's a version of that Sorcha Ni Scolai - "Banish Misfortune" and it's all amazing but there's a tiny bit at 1:19-1:25 that gets right into my brain.

Sometimes it's just a big crowd. From a comment by @jgb I found this Welsh National Anthem just before Wales beat England. Here's a Welsh flash mob Cor Meibion Male Voice Choir - "Bread of Heaven"

And I think it's not just "harmony" proper that I'm thinking of. A bit of nice tune in the middle of near chaotic noise is nice. So, for an example, listen to all of this The Incredible String Band - "The Mad Hatter's Song" and stick with it, because at 3:40 they suddenly drop into this very short, but very sweet bit of nice tune. And that "I am the archer, the lover of laughter, and mine is the arrowed flight; I am the archer and my eyes yearn after the unsullied sight" is lovely.

I'm listening to a bunch of music from the 1500s, and especially In Nomine. The strings sliding all over the place is amazing to me. In Nomine À 5, "Seldome Sene" · Christopher Tye · Jordi Savall, In Nomine À 5, "Rachells Weepinge" · Christopher Tye · Jordi Savall, In Nomine IV A 6 (Strogers) · Hespèrion XX · Jordi Savall, Youtube have given this weird artwork Picforth, In Nomine a 5.

Inspiration came when I was listening to Busy Signal - One More Night, a half-cover of the Phil Collins original. Reggae and dancehall have a lot of examples like this but it's usually interpolating or covering the chorus rather than the entire song.

So, which do you know? If you could post links for both the cover and the original, that'd be ace. I'd say sampling in hip-hop usually doesn't qualify here, unless there's clear conceptual connection to the original song beyond just the beat.

Also, if anyone suggests the Chet Faker version of No Diggity, I will start a riot in here.

Savannah Locke’s “Oh Holy Night” has a vocal quality that I’ve heard many times before in other songs and I was always curious what it was called, as well as the general EQ settings to reproduce it.

I name this song because I feel like it’s a very over the top example that I first heard over the holidays on a random playlist. I can only describe the vocals as “paper-like”. The style is folksy but it’s that particular sound of the vocals I’m interested in identifying.

Also, if there’s a particular nomenclature to these different types of styles or a glossary of some kind I’d appreciate it.

Full disclosure: I’ve sat behind a mixing board as an enthusiast but am no means educated beyond lows, mediums, highs.

Many thanks in advance!

Hi all,

I've been interested for a while in learning to play banjo. My first exposure to it was listening to bluegrass, but recently I have gotten very into Celtic and Irish music, and I think I would most enjoy learning to play by playing that style. Hence I am interested in Irish banjo, which I have come to understand is a bit different. I have a few questions that I was hoping someone here could answer. I don't play any other instruments and I'm interested in this just for fun.

• My understanding is that the typical Irish banjo player plays a tenor banjo with 4 strings. However I see some variation between 17 and 19 frets. Does anyone have some insight into the difference here, and which might be preferred?

• How hard would it be to learn other styles if I start with a 4 string? Is it like going from playing bass to guitar? Is 4 string typically seen as easier to pick up? I like Celtic music but not totally sure I want to be "locked in" to that. But then again, maybe that would help to be a bit more focused.

• To get specific, I am thinking of buying this as a beginner banjo. I'd be surprised if so, but does anyone here have experience with this brand, or else have other recommendations?

Like I said, I am a total beginner in that I've never played any instrument. So on that note, if you think I'm asking the wrong types of questions, I'd want to know that too!

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.