#Vocal Dissonance (trope)

[inspectorspacetimerevisited]

It’s weird to see one of the programme’s actors turn up on an American series or film,

with an American accent and his/her voice is so much deeper!

[gengor]

So I like bcs and brb a lot but it’s kind of been bothering me that I haven’t seen much talk about this in regards to either show bcs or brb and I’m not the best person to elaborate on this but I do wanna talk about the way the show writes it’s Latino characters and follows up on them in bcs. 

I’m not gonna get into all the ways breaking bad uses Mexican culture in offensive ways to show Walter’s dissent into dangerous territory bc im hoping that this is obvious to most people. What I am gonna talk about is the way bcs fails to respond to this criticism in a meaningful way. 

So better call saul is a show thats essentially about exploring nature, nurture, and one’s own free will over the person they choose to become. It’s about humanizing Saul into someone we can understand and empathize with. In the time in Jimmy’s life when he was trying to improve as a person he had his brother bait him and manipulate him into committing felonies bc he wanted to feel superior. People in his life drilled it into his brain that he was incapable of being honest so why even bother? The phrase ‘he was born like this’ gets used more than a few times. The show also gives a lot of character work to Mike as well. And although Mike was never painted as malicious he can be incredibly indifferent to the pain of other characters. Bcs let us see emotionally heavy scenes with him where he’s more vulnerable than he ever was in breaking bad. So theres an established pattern of adding more complexity to one of the one-dimensional ‘bad guys’ of breaking bad by making them act differently than how they would in breaking bad. Can you see where I’m going with this?

Rewatching the show after I’d already seen it gave this weird thematic dissonance to way the show reintroduced any Salamanca character. Like as soon as we see Tuco we as the audience are supposed to be in on the joke. Like…Oh, we know that guy already. And of course, the show plays with the audience already knowing Tuco while Saul doesnt to dangle the high stakes of the situation in front of us for drama. Because we as the audience know that Tuco is and probably always was hot-headed and violent to satirical degrees. Other characters even chime in to reiterate that Tuco was always like this. Every single Salamanca family member is treated this way.

 And bc of the way bcs is trying to redeem and humanize it’s previously established white characters just makes this kind of even worse than breaking bad to me. Bc people were vocal about how breaking bad employed a lot of anti-Latino tropes within its writing so you'd think that bcs would try and take this opportunity to amend the writing a bit right? 

You could argue that this is what Ignacio’s character is supposed to do for the show. He’s a Jessie parallel. He’s not really a bad person he’s just incredibly in over his head. And while I do appreciate his presence in the show and like him I feel like it should have been more than just him. 

By far the biggest missed opportunity here to me was the lack of humanization that Lalo got. And I get he’s popular, I feel like that mostly due to how Tony Dalton played him in a very charismatic way. But god he was such a missed opportunity for a thematic follow-through. The way other characters talk about the Salamancas is exactly the kind of predetermination the show is trying to critique with jimmy. When Ignacio is roped into spying on Lalo to aid Gus in killing him he goes in already being incredibly suspicious of Lalo due to his family. He has reason to want this guy to be evil since he’s got to help kill him to save his own skin and his father's. He not only assumes this guy is evil based on his family, he /needs/ Lalo to be irredeemable. Then you're telling me that against all themes and narrative storytelling devices Lalo is just conveniently the guy he assumed he would be. Like, imagine if Lalo got to be a Jimmy parallel, a guy who’s acting out the role people assume he's supposed to fill bc no one thinks he can be anything else. Not humanizing Lalo and ignoring the potential to explore and humanize any other previously established or mentioned latino characters…its like the show is breaking its own thematic statements in order to keep the racism. 

[twopoppies]

ooh… the satellite analysis made my brain so happy! a musical “trope” harry used throughout harry’s house is a contrast between his vocal style and the music/production, and it worked so well for an introspective work.

when I first heard as it was, I was grabbed by how different harry’s vocal style was. very soft and short, like he’s unaffected, or like he’s trying to keep his emotions in check. but the instrumentation is fast paced, surging past him. at the end of each chorus, quietly in the background, is crashing cymbals— a great auditory signal, as if there are alarm bells ringing in the back of your head that you’re ignoring. the tension between his unaffected vocal approach and the anxious lyrics+music reaches a peak at the bridge, and finally resolves with the bursting final chorus. brilliant!

keep driving is another one where the music adds a LOT. you first get the inkling something’s off in the chorus; the “small concern with how the engine sounds” is punctuated with a dissonant chord, shocking you out of the laidback groove. then the infamous bridge— as the lyrics move from sunglasses and breakfast into political turmoil and drug use, harry’s vocal style remains unchanged, but a guitar “revs up” and the background synths build and build, like you’re headed towards disaster while harry ignores it all and “keeps driving”. (harry’s love of conflict avoidance… at least he’s self aware?)

finally, satellite! the most extreme use of this trope. one of my favorite details is that the lofty, detached vocals of chorus remain even as the song “spins out” into a supernova towards the end, but the background vocals are him belting as hard as he can. it’s the perfect tension of a person saying “don’t worry! just waiting for you! take your time!” while his internal voice is screaming for somebody to just DO something.

all this to say, Harry’s House has very well thought out production, musical, and lyrical choices, and makes the album so much greater than the sum of its part. So glad award shows are now taking note of harry’s musicianship!

Yes yes yes!!! I love all of this so much. His songs are wildly layered and so interesting and every time I listen I get some new tidbit I hadn't noticed before. Thank you so much for this.

in reference to this

[unusualindigo]

12, a trope you're really into right now?

It's a mix of vocal dissonance, size difference, scent, and master and servant swirling in my head to the tune of Dark Sun Gwyndolin and a pyromancer.

[pony-central]

TV Tropes That Apply to Sick Boyfriend

Potty Failure - it is heavily implied that he wets himself based on his D Side counterpart

Vocal Dissonance - his voice is way different in the mod, having a more deeper tone, possibly to mock how the voice acting in SpongeBob SickPants isn't that great

Adaptational Personality Change - This version of Boyfriend once killed his ex-girlfriend out of jealousy. He then returned to his normal friendly state once the deed was done

A Day in the Limelight - he's the only one who sings in the SickPants week

Vomit Indiscretion Shot - he is prone to this. Even his game over screen has him tossing his cookies

Ambiguously Bi - he is bisexual, as he's been seen dating DrugFriend in the past, and they both even got married

Cat Face - at one point, pause fast enough at the end of his right sprite, and he will make a cat face (IOW, a cat mouth)

Ax-Crazy - he killed his ex-girlfriend out of pure jealousy,sadness and rage

Back From the Dead - although he did drown, the toxic waste found at the bottom of the ocean revived him, and made him swim (and breathe) underwater

Bathos - despite how menacing the mod is at times, Sick Boyfriend is the more silly singer out of all 24+ Boyfriend variants

Berserk Button - Sick Girlfriend is a massive one for him. Also, don't hurt DrugFriend in any way, or show him Among Us memes

Big Damn Heroes - his opponent is SpongeBob SickPants, whom he defeats during two rap battle songs

Big Eater - in one Lost Media pic, he did a Mukbang

Nausea Fuel - his appearance in the first cutscene has him throwing up on SpongeBob SickPants. His Game Over screen has him throw up when he loses a rap battle, and his right sprite has him holding up a cup of his saliva

Bring My Brown Pants - he pees himself in fear after seeing Sky in 3 Boy Bondin, and he also does this in A Boy Gotta Work/Working DrugFriend to "refresh his memory"

Anything Can Be a Weapon - his microphone may be busted, but it was able to pack a serious punch against Sick Girlfriend

Crossover - in one comic, he entered the Garfield universe, much to Jon's chagrin

Cruel and Unusual Death - fail to complete "Stomach Flu" or "Shark Hunt", and Sick Boyfriend throws up on the spot

Curbstomp Battle - Take a guess

Precision F Strike - whenever he loses a game of Flappy Bird, Sick Boyfriend loses his temper and goes on a swearing rant, using the F word multiple times in one sentence

Technicolour Weirdness - his miss sprites have a green tint instead of a purple one

Epic Fail - Sick Boyfriend once tried to follow Sick PonyCentral's recipe on her green pizza, with DrugFriend throwing up all over the couch as a result of the green food colouring overdose

Everything Trying to Kill You - SpongeBob SickPants tried slashing Sick Boyfriend apart with his spatula

Flipping the Bird - he sometimes gives Sick Girlfriend the middle finger during their arguments

Prone to Tears - literally

Sensitive Guy and Manly Man - the Sensitive Guy to DrugFriend's Manly Man. Sick Boyfriend will usually start crying at the smallest things

The Ditz - Take a wild guess. He's usually doing things without thinking twice

Suddenly Voiced - the second SickPants week cutscene has him saying "Well, at least I'm still alive" before getting eaten by a shark

I Ate WHAT?! - he once ate DrugFriend's socks on two slices of bread, thinking it was a sandwich. He was drunk that night, and he only realised his mistake once he pulled a string of thread out of his teeth

Long-Lost Relative - Pépé Bubbles from Bubbly Bikini Boatin is revealed to be Sick Boyfriend's half-brother

Minor Injury Overreaction - This happens every time he gets a flu shot

Why Did It Have to be Snakes?! - Sick Boyfriend is afraid of needles, blood and lightning strikes

My Name Is ??? - his name is revealed by his father to be Kevin

Oh, Crap - he has this reaction whenever a dangerous threat arrives at the town

Red Oni, Blue Oni - the Blue to Sick Girlfriend's Red. Emphasised further by their hair colours

Screams Like a Little Girl - he does this whenever he sees a needle, blood or if he hears a thunderstorm and sees lightning. He also screams whenever he hears fireworks

Adaptational Ugliness - Sick Boyfriend and his cousin Dave Sides (D Side Sick Boyfriend) are both given messy hair, ripped hats and visible gums, even obtaining a dull colour scheme and derpy eyes. His appearance has remained the same throughout all of the updates

Ship Tease - in the beginning of his Twitter journey, he was shipped with DrugFriend as a silly thing. Overtime, the ship became a PonyCentral Canon thing, thus the name given to the pairing was known as ShrugFriend

Shirtless Scene - he is shown shirtless on a trip to the beach, and when he was playing strip poker with his friends

Too Dumb to Live - despite hardly dying in the PonyCentral Canon Universe (PCU), his death in the second cutscene of SickPants week is due to him not noticing the shark beside him

Trademark Favourite Food - anything fried chicken related, and anything sweet

Adorkable - he has his moments of adorableness

[sixwingedknight]

What wild spirit could thrive on such pain?

[Note: This review was originally published on Cohost.]

So a friend recently supplied me with a new CD - one of my favorite all time records, What Passes For Survival by Pyrrhon. For those not in the know, Pyrrhon is a rather unique technical death metal band for their dissonant and winding songwriting that often takes advantage of massive, layered soundscapes. What Passes for Survival is their third, and, in my opinion, best album, released in 2017.

This record is aggressive, it is unbelievably dissonant and chaotic, and above all else, it is angry. Justifiably angry. Even in its quietest moments ("Tennessee" and "Empty Tenement Spirit") there is a constant undercurrent of cynical anguish, thick enough to dig into with a shovel and pulsing with frustrated life. It, however, varies deceptively in how it chooses to express its frustrations, thanks in part to the band's expert usage of motion and avant-jazz inspired breaks in the chaos, all for the sake of unnerving, atonal guitar soloing and incredibly tasteful interplay between the bass and the drums.

If one wanted a straightforwardly angry track, look no further than "Goat Mockery Ritual," a scathing attack on aspects of modern metal culture and the tropes contained therein ("Not Nazis, just into the aesthetic, for this pleases the dark lord"). If one wanted a track of a more complicated, multifaceted frustration, "Tennessee" is a shining example to point to, with its leaden, distinctly doom metal inspired stride that slowly builds into their typical chaotic anger as the vocal performance becomes more and more unhinged, adding to the sense that an untold trauma was inflicted on the subject as the story is being told. "They took more than time from you, down in Tennessee."

An important underlying cause of this anger is the state of Capitalism and the harsh emotional beating existing under its boot inflicts. "The Happy Victim's Creed" is an unambiguous takedown of modern work culture, "The Invisible Hand Holds a Whip" speaks of the machinations of billionaires and how they control the world, "Empty Tenement Spirit" is an expression of anguish over the reality of being a worker in the face of climate change, and, above all else, "The Unraveling" is a mournful farewell to the American dream, masked behind the typical cavernous well of anger this band draws from. "Oh, it's too fucking sad. We gave up what we had... all that life, wasted on the living, and we, the dreamers, lost to the dream."

Beyond themes, the actual playing is incredibly tight and commanding, with each articulation choice seeming precisely calculated to a fine, unyielding point, digging into the songwriting and having it bleed its finest red. If any other band had written this album, I'm not entirely sure they could have performed it this convincingly. I didn't fully understand just how good each member of the band was on first, or second... or, frankly, fifth listen. Each instrument knows exactly when to phrase their sections in a more subdued way, when to amp up the chaos and create more noise - something that can't fully be conveyed on notation. When the music is this cacophonous, how you choose to track it becomes just as important as what was originally written.

That isn't to say the writing isn't special on its own - this album is some of the finest avant-garde music I have ever listened to. Special attention is paid to making sections that are memorable and worm their way into your ears well after your most recent listen. Part of this is the motion, driven equally by all four members. Special mention in this regard goes to drummer Steve Schwegler and his mastery of dynamics and sticking, selling the parts he's playing under all the more.

Each and every instrument, however, has something to add to the conversation, between Doug Moore's positively unhinged screaming and just-barely-melodic singing, Dylan DiLella's atonal soloing and chord work, and Erik Malave's fluid switching between holding down the rhythm in the chaos and playing tasteful countermelody to all else happening. What sells this is the album's frankly amazing production - it's one of the quietest death metal masters I've listened to, with mixing I'd honestly call black magic - every instrument is coherent, whether screaming discordantly or speaking in firm, frustrated tones. There is not an ounce of wasted space in this record's forty-five minute runtime, each second having crucial information to the overall message.

If you're looking to get into more avant-garde heavy music, I cannot recommend What Passes For Survival enough. I first heard it a year after it came out and have been coming back to it over and over and over again. It's a masterclass in creating music that breaks the rules in all the right ways, and it's massively influential on me as an artist.

[dustedmagazine]

Bungalovv —Visited By Strangers (Genome 66.6Mbp)

[GNM029] Bungalovv - Visited by Strangers by Bungalovv

Argentinian producer Pablo Betas AKA Bungalovv ends his latest release with the title track, a plangent evocation of the isolation in which these seven tracks were recorded. Mixing percolating synths, off-kilter percussion and random electronic intrusions with barking dogs, the chattering of children and the sounds of wind and rain, “Visited by Strangers” evokes a womblike indoor existence, the pull of the outside world, inviting but vaguely threatening, and those moments of unexpected interruption whether welcome or not. The musical palette and its anthemic undertones are warm, as Betas works big statement tropes on a very human scale. The builds and drops, the celestial chords, the acoustic guitars and classical flourishes sound designed for proclamation but hit small and intimate. At times it feels like we’re about to experience the outbreak of a stadium ready anthems but instead he pulls back, opting for subtle subversion to create a series of vignettes in which the world feels closed in but each tiny break in the time soup attains significance and demands attention.

For the first time Bungalovv works with singers and his incorporation of voice tends to the spectral and splintered. At first there seems a disconnect between his instrumentals and the vocal tracks. On  “Behind the Storm,” he layers Argentine vocalist Catnapp’s auto-tuned vocals over scraps of atomized R’n’B and found sounds that ebb and flow like wavelets at low tide. In “Forget My Eyes,” Turkish singer Pervin Güzeldere AKA Okay Vivian whispers over strums of guitar, shards of piano and piercing high frequency effects. Both cuts are full of disrupted introspection with harsh textures that emphasize the fragility of voice.

 While his instrumentals more are expansive, his collaborations with Colombian artist Efe Ce Ele and German American producer Avernian also embrace the dissonance of familiarity and strangeness. The plucked strings that open “Glued Armor” give way to expansive swells of synth, but the ear is drawn to queasy rolls that underpin the track. That sense of unease repeats in the gamelan euro disco of “Sharing Spells.”  It evokes a world where people, having retreated into their own heads, must renegotiate the compromises of social interaction. Visited by Strangers was born of isolation but Bungalovv keenly evokes most strongly the euphoria and dread of those first stumbling steps back to civilization. 

Andrew Forell

[waywardstation]

the wild dissonance between how i percieved gaeric and how the game shows how he is is... so wild and also. entirely my fault tbh

because i somehow missed completely the hints at him being the least open of his clan and the more distrustful of outsiders with calaba (might have been helped by the fact that he is seen affably talking to the player and mai in the multiple outbreaks quest, even giving them some sticky globs he bought from choi - now with proper context its clearly a bit of a character arc for him as he interacts positively with people he actively and vocally didnt want anything to do with at first, but i didnt catch that) and instead focused like a laser beam on his protectiveness of Avalugg, who is a Giant Fucking Turtle Table that could easily level a mountain and also currently in an extremely dangerous state of Heightened Strength, Mass, And General Wrath

it made me think of him as a bit of? a very emotional guy? thinks with his heart before using his head in a passionately protective sense, even and especially when it comes to vaguely terrifying beasts who could kill him. yes he will fistfight a healthy angry Glalie but also if another equally angry Glalie is wounded/sick his stupid extremely toned heartstrings will be tugged and he will try to bring the fucking thing back to health as it tries to eat his entire arm. yes he is losing blood he will handle it later, now please pass me that medicinal leek while i pry these frozen maws over with my feet so that i can shove it down its throat to stop its whooping cough

however. with this clearer knowledge. it would be sort of funny if he indeed started off distrustful of ingo and maybe even thinking him to be a monster or pokèmon until the poor guy got rammed in by a beast and keeled over, at which point gaeric went OH FUCK I CANT JUST LET HIM DIE and whoops hes attached to him now ah damnit

You know, same here OP haha!! I’ve played through the game twice but that segment didn’t really stick with me (probably because it’s a cutscene right after you quell Lord Avalugg and I’m still sort of frazzled after that haha)

Also a lot of media I’ve consumed like fics and comics and artwork sort of depict him that way too, working off his protectiveness with Lord Avalugg, exploring who he was as Irida’s mentor, or even emphasizing him to be the equivalent of a gym bro with his workouts haha. Not bad at all, they just emphasize parts of his personality that we’ve seen! I just haven’t happened to see anything that focuses on the dialogue that Gaeric was the most hesitant of all with the protag and wondered what they were, so I sort of forgot about it.

But yes!! He does appear to grow past that very quickly with his content in the daybreak update, and I love that. It does help show why he became Irida’s mentor too; he’s very kind-hearted, just cautious (and now I am wondering if this caution and hesitance to new things is part of why Irida also learned towards “old-fashioned” methods familiar to the clan at first too; did Gaeric’s own behavior rub off on her during his guidance?) But Gaeric seems like a genuinely kind person and will put his all into the people and things he cares about! (Which makes me also think it’s why he allowed us to confront Avalugg despite his beliefs against it, for Irida’s sake)

And Gaeric doing dramatic 180°s in situations will probably always be funny. Going straight from “this guy’s uhhh weird don’t help him” to “HURRY HELP HIM FASTER” is a favorite comedic trope of mine haha

[cristalconnors]

BEST ALBUMS OF 2020- #20-11

20. Rough and Rowdy Ways, BOB DYLAN

On the expansive, wordy Rough and Rowdy Ways, every last line is packed with layers upon layers of meaning. Dylan’s thrillingly dense poetry has a startling directness to it, floating atop delicate, meandering blues and old school rock and roll, the simplicity of which emphasizes the simple power of Dylan’s songwriting. Listening to “I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You,” I’m the gentleman hunched over the jukebox, getting up close to the speaker and swaying softly, lost in the music.

19. RTJ4, RUN THE JEWELS

It’s only fitting that Run the Jewels would reemerge in the summer of 2020, a season of demonstrations against police brutality and institutional racism unprecedented in their scope. Killer Mike and El-P’s righteousness and urgency are invigorating and remarkably focused here. It makes you want to put your mask on, make a sign, and take to the streets.

18. SAWAYAMA, RINA SAWAYAMA

The strange, singular intersection that Rina Sawayama’s sound sits at- the girl who’d never miss TRL but looked forward to Ozzfest all year- calls on the disparate influences of her youth to unpack generational trauma and her sometimes tumultuous relationship with her family. Despite the prickly themes, SAWAYAMA maintains a determinedly cheery exterior, juxtaposing pop tropes with probing, often self-critical observations with an admirable frankness. 

17. Send them to Coventry, PA SALIEU

Pa Salieu’s wonderfully immersive vision of Coventry hypnotizes with its deceptively simple, lush beats paired with Salieu’s rather complex cadences. His flow has remarkable shape to it, showcasing his accent and asking his listener to pay as close attention to what he’s saying as to how he’s saying it. His voice is an instrument and he’s in full command of it here.

16. WHAT WE DREW 우리가 그려왔던 , YAEJI

Yaeji’s first full length doesn’t sound like what you might have expected from her if you first became aware of her back in 2017 with the infectious “raingurl.” This is more languorous and strange, in turns elegant and silly. It’s clear she’s vastly expanded her songwriting tool kit and the results are ravishingly distinct. No one else is making anything remotely like this.

15. The Passion Of, SPECIAL INTEREST

Electropunk at its most deliriously frenzied, gorgeously dissonant, and visceral. There’s not only urgency but also purpose, both of which are foundational to effective punk, which too many people forget. It’s relentless, but The Passion Of also happens to be beautiful. The textures Special Interest are able to conjure from the marriage of their synths and guitars are unexpectedly divine without costing the album its edge. 

14. Shabrang, SEVDALIZA

The songs on Shabrang are often parables, flowery in language and elliptical in meaning. By every metric, this is music that should sound esoteric and inaccessible, but the effortless blending of Persian sounds with aughts pop sensibilities is breathtakingly effective, allowing the intricate textures of the (impeccably produced!) music to roll out slowly and methodically, perfectly in concert with Sevdaliza’s heady, uncompromising songwriting. 

13. Phoenix: Flames Are Dew Upon My Skin, EARTHEATER

Folk is allowed to sound like this? Symphonic textures that suddenly give way to industrial, skittering, bubbling synth that’s rendered so intricately you feel like you’re listening to ASMR? Vocals that bend and crack and wail and whisper, sometimes all in the span of seconds? How often do you hear something that sounds this distinctly new?

12. Man Alive! KING KRULE

Not exactly breaking new ground for King Krule, but why wouldn’t he return to the well that bore the sublimely guttural, jazzy landscapes of The OOZ? If anything, Man Alive! is more clear headed and focused than that album was, buffing out the more tedious, experimental edges in favor of even more intricately nuanced textures and fascinating introspection. 

11. Microphones in 2020, THE MICROPHONES

That Phil Elverum would revive his The Microphones moniker in 2020 is surprising, but also kind of isn’t. In a year that has brought upheaval and unwelcome change to all of us, for Elverum it comes on the heels of a tumultuous half decade that included the death of his wife and the quick dissolution of another high-profile marriage. By now, he’s as much of a pro at taking the punches life throws at us as anyone. I guess it only makes sense that he’d look back to beginning of his artistic journey and try to figure out how he got to where he is now. It’s thrilling to listen to him try to make sense of it over the course of one 45-minute long song that is perhaps his most personal outing in a repertoire that was already remarkably intimate and diaristic.

MORE READING:

#30-21, TOP 10

[demonfox38]

Okay. Made it through the last season of Netflix's "Castlevania" interpretation. Thoughts are below the cut.

I've often thought of this series as the exploitation version of "Castlevania," and hiring Malcom McDowell confirms that.

Although, I find it hilarious that both Malcolm McDowell and Patrick Stewart have ended up voicing the same character. I'm sure there's a "Star Trek Generations" joke to be made in there, but I'm not Mike Stoklasa.

Also, I was cracking up a bit when Varney's plot twist happened. Mostly, because it came off a bit Skeletor-esque in vocal performance.

Also, also—laughing that the final boss went the "Castlevania: Lament of Innocence" route despite barely touching on that game's plot.

Animation had its ups and downs with this season. It seemed like there were some frame issues (not enough inbetweening.) I do appreciate how they incorporated more of Alucard's SOTN animations into his fights, however.

Additionally, some of the fight scenes' pacing seemed to have issues, particularly regarding weapon recovery.

The whole bit with St. Germain was off. Like, he's a weird asshole in "Castlevania: Curse of Darkness", but he's more of a weird asshole there in the same way that casually encountering "Doctor Who"'s Doctor would also be strange. Not a straight up villainous boob. Kinda makes sense thematically to have another character who is willing to do horrible shit for their lost loved one, but the series honestly did not do a good job establishing her. Like, did she even have a voice actor? Or a name? All I'm saying is it was much easier for outsiders to get the Lisa revenge thing Dracula had going.

Also, how dare you joke about not being deaf and then have a villainous monologue, TV show.

Greta's a good girl. Well, outside of being an occasional homewrecker. Point is, she's competent and trying her best to save people in a bad situation, and anyone having issues with her is not to be trusted in the same way that you don't trust people who don't like Rochelle from "Left 4 Dead 2."

Look at me. Do not trust people who do not like Rochelle from "Left 4 Dead 2." Yes, her writing could have been better, but she's still a viable character. Let people Thunder Child their ships on the rocks of your better self. Got me?

Also, y'all really need to embrace more polyamory. Or understand the fact that Alucard's not going to love just one person in his life. Dude lives to be at least 600 in the game's timeline. For a dude who loves humans, constricting him to just one who may live to be 100 at best is cruel.

There are some interesting philosophical dialogues going on here, but I can see where some people may lose their patience for them. Considering one of Castlevania's most popular memes is a philosophy debate, you're just gonna have to suck that up. My personal favorites included the topic of acting versus reacting, as well as having agency in one's story.

Striga's battle theme was cool, but otherwise, the music was forgettable. Yes, that is a sin. Punishable by Death? In this series, maybe!

The gore's still over the top. Which, okay, fine. There's a bit of that in game. It's just generally a bit more reserved with it or uses it in crucial boss fights.

RIP doggie.

The Targoviste plot's a bit of a wash, but it doesn't feel as useless as Trevor and Sypha's previous plot predicament. It's just nothing of a surprise, considering how many times the writing has played the "authority figures are useless" and "dark secret surprise" tropes in this series. Like, Greta being reliable is actually more surprising than anything with this plot.

I cannot emphasize enough how boring I found Carmilla's interpretation and plot arc. You guys could have had a giant, naked lesbian riding a skull and spewing magic at people while her cat-eared girlfriend jumped them for extra damage. But no. Vanilla lady with a scarlet sword for you. So long. Farewell. Auf Wiedersehen. Good night.  

Gotta say, as much of a deviation from his source character as he is, Isaac really turned out well in this series. He's definitely evidence that you don't always need to stick to source material.

His Abel is fucking sick, dude. Way to go, king.

Also, I was expecting more violence from Hector this season. Oh, well. At least he got a teeny bit of a spine.

Look. I'm not an alchemist by any means. I'm just a bit baffled by this season's emphasis of obtaining a Rebis. Like, any time the game series has talked about the Magnum Opus of Alchemy, it's more been in pursuit of making a Philosopher's Stone (or at the very least, a Crimson Stone, as seen in "Castlevania: Lament of Innocence.") Pulling a Rebis out of the aether is…well. Could have been more interesting than it was. I mean, it was a bit nightmarish, but it really didn't do much.

Sypha's really never getting back to her family, is she?

Love the idea that the cross subweapon is basically a fancy chakram.

GERGOTH. BUDDY. FRIENDO.

Really appreciating the monster variety in these last two seasons. I mean, that's a big selling point of the "Castlevania" games. Not so much vampires standing around and bickering in dick-waving contests.

Breaking out of the bullet points to hit on the big subject of this season—that is, the ending being surprisingly happy.

There's been a lot of shit that's happened over the last few years. Obviously, a pandemic. Konami's run by pricks. Then, there's the situation with the allegations of sexual coercion with Warren Ellis. Additionally, the terrible ending of "Game of Thrones" likely impacted how this season was developed, considering it seemed to be chasing its progression in construction. (I mean, look at Carmilla and Daenerys.) I don't know how many people were happy with the last season of "Castlevania," but from my POV, it double-tapped itself in the foot with the way it pushed simultaneous sex and violence in its last two episodes. My point is, there was little taste for additional darkness, considering everything that has been happening. Society is drained.

A happy ending was what people really wanted. And man, did this pull through, in that regard. But, there's a conversation to be had in if this swerved too far or if it violates some artistic integrity to give people what they want. So, let's have it.

Look. Man. Have you seen a "Castlevania" ending? When you do it right, it's crumbled castles and rainbow-colored skies. If you do it really right, it results in a pretty girl holding the main character's hand. There is happiness in these games. Hope. Forgiveness and redemption. If this is supposed to be any bit an accurate interpretation of these games, it absolutely should end in such a joyful fashion. (Okay, maybe giving Dracula and Lisa a second honeymoon at the end was a bit much, but I get where people would want that.)

Did some items need to be addressed more? Absolutely. Alucard staking people and Hector getting sexually coerced into servitude are some pretty big topics to just wave away. (Oh, shit. That second part is even worse now with what Ellis was allegedly doing, isn't it?) I suppose I'm just glad the series didn't go full Sephiroth with Alucard. And at least Hector finally took some stand in his situation, even if it wasn't the bombastic, hateful revenge I'm used to seeing from this character in other stories.

I think the creators of this series were trying to save this show from the fate of "Game of Thrones." (To some extent, perhaps the "Voltron" re-interpretation as well.) There's so much media out there anymore that if a production team doesn't nail the ending, their creation gets wiped out of the collective consciousness. To that extent, I think the creators were successful in saving their series. Did it do damage to itself in yanking out of its construction and themes? A bit. But, in doing so, it pivoted back to being more like a proper "Castlevania" product. (And of course, by proper, I mean anything ignoring "Lords of Shadows." God, people need to stop chasing other products when developing "Castlevania" stuff and just let the series be as it is.)

I am very curious as to how much of this season was part of an original draft and how much was revised in backlash to everything that has happened. It doesn't seem like Trevor was intended to survive, but to some extent, Sypha had to. (I mean, until she has a kid, anyway. See "Lords of Shadows" series for dickery regarding that.) I'm also wondering if there was more intended for the Carmilla subplot, as much as the series was banging on about her invading locations. I'm not even sure St. Germain was intended to be a villain all along. Getting into a bitchfight with Death? Sure. Doing what he did here? That's a weird arc, dude.

If you come away from my POV with anything, it should be this: GO PLAY THE GAMES.

Do it. Do it, you ghouls. Go to the Steam store and download the "Castlevania Anniversary Collection." Boot up your PS3 or 4 or 18 or whatever and get "Symphony of the Night." Throttle Nintendo's stores until "Aria of Sorrow" or "Dawn of Sorrow" or "Harmony of Dissonance" or whatever rattles out of their moldy pockets. Find a ROM. Find an ISO. Just play a game. Especially, one of the ones made before 2010.

"Castlevania" as a game series isn't about hordes of vampires dick-waving at each other or edgy swearing or being grim and dark. Some of that stuff's there, sure. But, at its core, it's what game developers created when they looked at Universal Monster Movie creations and went "That's cool. Let's fight that!" It's a series about pushing technology in MMC chips to make rich, vibrant music. It's about flourishing artwork and layers of sprites dripping particles and gore onto players. It's sober and goofy and very pro curry.

The thing is, "Castlevania" players have their own unique connection to the series. We're the weirdos you see clapping their hands when a mutilated dinosaur shows up on screen. It's not because the monster alone is cool. It's that we've fought and struggled and bodied that thing through several floors like a goddamn "X-Men: Children of the Atom" stage. It's kicked our asses. We've kicked its ass. We've got a connection to it that you just don't get from passively watching it barf lasers through a computer monitor or TV screen. Like, you know how people go, "Well, the movie wasn't as good as the book?" It's obnoxious, sure. But, those who read the source materials have to go to the effort of constructing their own sets and people to understand what's happening. In a similar fashion, game players build up their own skill set to reach that next rung.

Maybe you don't always get a payout when you invest your resources into something. But, there is a sense of accomplishment, seeing what you can do.

There's a reason this series got an adaptation. I mean, outside of Konami's head executives wanting easy money. "Castlevania" is a fantastic video game series. Has it got a few problems? Oh yeah. Especially after outsourcing and pachislot machines became all the rage. But, there's a reason Simon and Richter Belmont are playable in "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate." There's a reason I spent a significant amount of time playing these games and writing or drawing fanworks for it. These games are wonderful. Beautiful. Difficult, but inspiring. Reasons I will still bang on about them decades years down the road.

When I get exasperated by layers of angst and edge lord content this Netflix series generated, I want you to know why. The roots of this show are good games held captive under poor management. Some people on staff know this. I wish they had more scenario and writing control. But mostly, I don't want to shit on them or their work. (Well, other than perhaps the obvious target.) I just want you to see what I love in these games.

And also to watch Crashervania. Because that's legit.

[smokeybrand]

Mutiny

I’m not a fan of Joe Rogen. I find a lot of what he says to be problematic as f*ck but the way he says it, is FAR more damaging. Dude pushes some wild, dangerous, nonsense under the guise of “free speech”, disingenuous “debate”, and insidiously leading questions. Rogen is the Frat Boy version of Tucker Carlson in a lot of ways and that sh*t just doesn’t appeal to me. Beta males who think too highly of themselves listen to this due and take him seriously. These are people who are not self-actualized, who’s entire personality is based on their car or their sneakers or some other superficial bullsh*t they confuse for a personality, and that’s what Rogen’s entire show is; Superficial bullsh*t. So when he pushes dumb-f*ckery like “Don’t get the shot if you’re young and healthy”, these idiots who are either teenagers or have the mentality of teenagers, f*cking listen and we have a spike in cases. Because Joe Rogen said so.

The other day, this asshole bought into that whole “White Fear” sh*t, talking about how the Straight White Male is the most persecuted demo in America and i just groaned. This is the same exact sh*t Carlson does on his show, verbatim, just slightly less racist. It’s the current strategy of what is fast becoming the American Fascist Party, Republicans. It’s hypocritical f*cking nonsense and i hate it. How the f*ck would Joe Rogen, a Straight White Male with a whole ass podcast, be silenced or censored or persecuted/ He’s a multi-millionaire with one of the most popular platforms on f*cking Spotify. How the f*ck would any White person, especially Straight White Males, get silenced in the US? The bones of this country are built to uphold a very specific form of White Supremacy. Hell, cats talk about all these rights and liberties but, in the very beginning, those rights were only extended to White Male Landowners; basically Rich White Men, and guess who the f*ck Joe Rogen is? The constitution had to be amended to include every one else which means this country was designed to be a haven for objective White Supremacy. The fact that they replaced Straight with Rich is just a misnomer used to broaden that division and you have assholes with real audiences buying into that dangerous bullsh*t, disseminating that poison to their followers. And they just drink that persecution complex kool-aid, up. It’s f*cking absurd.

The irony in all of this is the fact that the country is getting younger and browner. Statistically, by the time Gen Z’s kids come of age, we’ll outnumber White people. The margin will be slight but they’ll be the overall minority in this country and that’s why we have all of this fear-mongering and treasonous tantrums. That system the Founding Fathers built to protect their power, is falling apart. It's all a matter of time. Why do you think they're fighting so hard to keep DC and Puerto Rico from becoming actual States? I can guarantee those cats who signed the Constitution never anticipated the influx of melanated people over the years, interbreeding with their lily White sensibilities, or the homogeneity desegregation would bring to society or the way Black culture ended up shaping the entire American zeitgeist or how the Internet just blew the doors off any illusion US citizens had about our true status in the world at large. I was born in 1984. Ten years before i existed, the South was still heavily segregated. My generation, the Millennials, were the very first to be completely free from the social consequences of the Civil Rights Movement. We were far enough removed from that to just see people, not race. I was exposed to so many more cultures, religions, and people, as a kid, than my ma had been when she was young. It wasn’t like, all of a sudden, we were singing kumbaya together, but it was definitely a start, one that has only gained more and more momentum as the Generations who came after mine, started coming of age in a world whose borders are just ceremonial at this point because of the Tech age.

I met my chick and made friends across the globe in a chatroom. One of my closest friends lives in New Zealand. Another stays in Finland. My birthday twin lives in England. She’s a year older than i am and has a beautiful family. My Puerto Rican sister met her dude around the same time i met my chick. He’s from Alabama. She moved from the island to be with him and they've settled down in Georgia where they share a beautiful daughter. My best friend became so close with an Asian girl from Australia, that he adopted her as his own sister. They spoke at least twice a week for the next fifteen years, all the way up until he passed away. The world is much smaller, much clearer, than it has ever  been before, and it turns out that it’s full of color. Color these Straight White Men are, apparently, terrified of. That’s got to be it. That’s got to be why they’re throwing these big ass tantrums and constantly fear-mongering about it. I don’t understand. When Brie Larson said what she said, it was the truth. There are THOUSANDS of films about White dudes you can watch. The entirety of film history is Straight White Males. What is so bad abut getting some chicks or People of Color or some LBGTQ representation in a few leads? Why can't we have strong Black performances in movies where we don't play the “magical Negro” or f*cking Slave? Why can't we have an all Asian cast when the principals aren't constantly fetishized? What is so terrible about giving a role to a Muslim that isn't linked to some ridiculous terrorist trope? Who’s really offended by this and why are they so goddamn fervent about it? Straight White Males, bud.

It’s because their grip on the reins is slipping. The power and the privilege they’ve had for so long, too long, is started to tip in the other direction. The playing field is, ever so slowly, evening out and these Straight White Males are losing their sh*t. They’ll talk about “being racist against white people” and “it's fine to interview everyone but hire cats who are qualified” with one breath but then absolutely savage voting rights directly focused on crippling the Black vote and desperately cling to the idea that 45 still deserves to be president, even though a steady stream of his criminal incompetence has been flowing out of the the White House since he’s left. The level cognitive dissonance is f*cking hilarious. It’s as bad as the GOP complaining about “cancel culture” while literally silencing Liz Cheney. Are you f*cking kidding me? I gotta sit here and listen to a very vocal minority complain about the direction of the MCU because they’ve decided to add a plethora of female and POC roles going forward into Phase Four. They keep asking “who's this for?” and it's obvious it's for everyone, not just Straight White Males. That, to them, means it's going to be bad. Just because the focus has shifted from three White dudes in leading roles, suddenly the MCU has lost it's way. It’s like, all of a sudden, just because the MCU wants to represent their audience as a whole, not just a narrow and shrinking part of it, we’re not supposed to trust in Feige anymore. Are you kidding me? The Green Knight is slated to be another massive hit for A24. The cat who wrote that film was bounced from studio to studio because he created that story specifically as a vehicle for Dev Patel and no major studio wanted to make it with him in the lead. Dev Patel is a f*cking Oscar winner and a brilliant actor but this movie, draped in surreal and beautiful imagery, driven by a visceral, bloody, focus, wasn’t going to get made because the lead this plot was specifically written for, happens to be brown. But Straight White Males are the ones being silenced? Okay, bud.

Joe Rogen is a symptom of a greater problem and it’s the problem of White Fragility. White Fragility fuels the worst of our society. It's the genesis of racism and bigotry. It drives Nationalism and is fertile ground for cults of personality which blossom into whole ass dictatorships. These motherf*ckers are in they’re feelings and will burn this country to the ground if it means they will stop getting their way. Brie Larson calls out the ridiculousness of the race bias in Hollywood? They attack. Arizona flips Blue because Indigenous people and Black folks come out to vote in droves? Voter fraud and four recounts, one months after the election has been called and Biden has already taken office. Jordan Peele says, out loud, to the entire country, that he’s not interested in telling stories with White people in the lead? Shadow banned from Hollywood. Dude was the toast of Hollywood after Get Out and Us. He said what he said and cat's been trapped behind the camera as a Producer ever since. It’s nuts because these people complaining about how hard it is to be and how unfair the current social climate is to Straight White Males, have called Twatter NPCs whiny, SJW, children, for years. Bro,you’re the same, just racist! You are the Trump to their Obama. You are the thermodynamic reaction to their Civil action. You assholes are arguing the same merit, just on the opposite ends of the spectrum so, if they’re whiny assholes, wouldn’t you have to be, too? The only difference is that the Twatter assholes have a zeal for inclusion while you Rogen Bros have a penchant for White Supremacy and, given the choice, I'd have to agree with the Blue Checkmarks in this regard.

Straight White Males have had the run of this country since before it was a country and look what they’ve done with it. Look where we are, right now, in the year of our lord, 2021. This is as far as we have come under their stewardship. It’s time for a new captain, i think. Sorry if that hard truth hurts your feelings. Now please steer us away from those very obvious rocks. I’d rather not violently crash into that reef and sink into a watery grave before we can get our hands on the wheel to right this ship, all because you assholes are in your feelings, thank you.

[1albumaday]

2020

2020

The Chats - The Clap

Easy-peasy punk rock album 

Loving - If I am only my thoughts

Charming sun-dappled folk-pop, clean, gentle melodies

Steve Spacek - Houses 

iPhone/iPad recorded, latino and jazz accented dance/house beats

Ghali - DNA 

Total Flop and failed expectations. Mishmash of bland and frivolous lyrics and arrangements.

King Krule - Man Alive!

Alienating, violent, romantic, anguishing, doomed, noir / jazz, post-punk, soul, dubstep, electronic, garage rock, hip-hop

Justin Bieber - Changes

Disappointing comeback - boring r&b with zero sex appeal and cheesy lyrics and all-the-same songs

Guided by voices - Surrender your poppy field

Unusual time signatures, song lengths, and baroque-prog structures - mature rock and sometimes pixie / 80s dreamy

Corrections - Simply Activities

80s new wave and post punk nostalgia - cheesy vocals at times - first half more solid than second

Swim Mountain- If

A lovely mix of indie and funktronica, synth pop, r&b

Caribou - Suddenly

Sly and sofishticated sound design flits between uk garage disco and more - some tracks way less strong than others

Grimes - Miss Anthropocene 

Mix “Ethereal nu metal”, ambient, dance, electronic, drum’n’bass, country - is violent and dark but sexy, delicate and dreamy

Porridge Radio - Every Bad 

A dissonant lush indie rock sometimes dreamy sometimes dark and ironic with mantra-litany dusky lyrics from peaceful to desperate

Four Tet - Sixteen oceans

Wind instruments, synths and drum patterns gradually fade to calming ambient sounds, intense and meditative but also danceable and powerful

Kamaiyah - Got it made

Short, stripped-down, bubbling keyboards and drum-machine handclaps. NO current rap trends. windows-down bass-rattle record of one person’s confidence in her own sound and charisma

Poolside - Low season

Funk percussions, retro synths, pop and disco influences + indie vocals

Morioh Sonder - Is this psychedelia?

Surf pop and psych rock, dreamy post punk influences, danceable and whimsical 

KEYAH/BLU - Sorry, I forgot you were coming 

Perfect blend of rap, rnb, experimental pop, dark rhythms textured electronics, intimate tales 

TOPS - I feel alive

Pop, radiant and 80s romantic with a contemporary experimental palette

The Chats - High risk behaviour 

Classic old-school pure punk / cheerily undemanding fun

NIN - Ghosts V: Together

Buzzy ambient, melodic hooks, emotional palette of sounds 

NIN - Ghosts VI: Locusts

Together’s opposite, anxiety-inducing, despairing horns, breathing and devouring sounds.

Roger and Brian Eno - Mixing Colours

Feels like a balm for these anxious times

Fiona Apple - Fetch the bolt cutters

Handclaps, chants, makeshift percussion, echoes, whispers, screams, breathing, jokes, dog barks, rattling blues. Contains no conventional pop forms. freeing and powerful. 

The Weeknd - After Hours

Satisfying collision of new wave, dream pop, R&B, synth-pop nostalgia

BC Camplight - Shortly After Takeoff 

Jazzy eighties rock with some icy funk and electronic pop, painfully personal and uneasy but so self-deprecating it speaks like your best friend

Rone - Room with a view 

Deft splicing of beats-based electronics and dance music with classical influences. 21st century baroque chords, snatches of conversations, speeches, children’s voices

Other Lives - For their love

Bluesy acid-rock, dreamy meditation sounds, eerie string-crescendos, music for the afterlife

Lil Uzi Vert - Eternal Atake 

Drill-influenced rapping, melodic crooning, trends-aware hip-hop beats, untouchable pop sound production

Squarepusher - Be up a hello

Frantic breakbeats littered with echoes of classic jungle, hardcore, and drum’n’bass, ’90s drill’n’bass, glitchy 8-bit chaos

The Orielles - Disco Volador

Cosmic, playful, funky dreamy indie pop, shuffling organs, woozy guitar, shimmy-shimmy hand percussion

Portico Quartet - We welcome tomorrow

Perfect dreamy sequel of ‘Memory streams’

Charlie XCX - how i’m feeling now

Quarantine creation / 2020 romance manifesto of club-pop, trap, k-pop, video game sounds, fuzzy synths and crackling bass

Holy Fuck - Deleter

Trippy, psychedelic tapestry of euphoric escapism, ‘90s dance, glitchy beats, airy vocals, experimental electronics 

Luge - Luge

Energetic and playful avant-garde and quirky math rock, zolo? 

Good With Parents, Triple Stephens - Comments & Reflection

Playful indietronica synth pop + classical instruments 

Wishing - None of this was your fault 

Lo-fi indie, ambient, slowcore w/ fragile lyrics 

Bibio - Sleep on the wing 

Indie folk treated like ambient / a gorgeous soundscape of strings, guitars and flutes, feelings of loss, hope and escape. Perfect picture of tranquil countryside memories

Piotr Kurek - A Sacrifice Shall Be Made / All The Wicked Scenes

Electroacoustic experimental, meditative-ritualistic atmospheric music / conceived for theatrical performances 

Military Genius - Deep Web

Meditative ambient, retro-futurist soundscapes / hypnagogic pop, dark, abstract and mysterious / early ‘70s folk interjecting jazz-brass sections 

Jockstrap - Wicked City

Melancholy waltz and winsome ballads, fluttering strings, soft piano glissandi mixed with gnarly and distorted hip-hop beats, buzzing guitars and synths / cherubic vocals, pcmusic-style manipulated at times

Georgia - String Token 

Experimental ambient electronic, minimal, melodic, futuristic, hypnotic and grim

EVOL - Madball Manners

Lingering experimental rave electronic, hardcore, techno 

Upsammy - Zoom

Playful, sampling, abstract IDM, ambient techno, melodic and rhythmic, surreal, futuristic, sparkling synths and billowing pads

Tomasz Kunicki - Muzyka dla Świątyń

Playful and abstract IDM, glittering synths, obscure pads, glitchy and bleepy

Tomasz Kunicki - The sound is gone, where did it go, I have no idea

Very bassy and very dubby IDM, atmospheric ambient and loopy electronics

Kate NV - Room for the moon

80s new wave, progressive electronic, synth pop, cornucopia of melodies and genres. Wriggling synths, chirping flutes, warm baselines, jazzy sax, woodwinds, marimba. Russian girly vocals cartoon theme-song-like.

Khruangbin - Mordechai 

Psychedelic / funk rock with some soul, dub, lounge, poolside disco - exotic and atmospheric 

Dalai Lama - Inner world

Chanted mantras rhythmically woven into wafting new-age flutes, chimes, strings and free-form guitar picking. 

K-Lone - Cape Cira

Tropical ambient house, warm, lush, soft. Zen yet bouncy rhythms. Digital and analogue recordings, at times feels like you’re underwater. 

Arca - KiCk i

Experimental industrial club rhythms with reggaeton and folk influences

The Beths - Jump Rope Gazers

Sleek and personal indie rock, romantic ballads, more sentimental and slow than the previous album

J Lloyd - Kosmos

Tasteful soul and funk pop in 25 tiny tracks, charming low-key, rich textures, good vibes

Julek Polsk - Tesco

Dissonant, ominous, dense, post industrial ambient, noise, sound collage, deconstructed club music

Taylor Swift - folklore

Folk/chamber pop, indie folk, bittersweet, mellow, melancholic ballads

Bill Callahan - Gold Record 

Contemporary folk, warm and deep vocals, pastoral, peaceful and melancholic 

Mura Masa - R.Y.C. 

Indietronica, post-punk revival, catchy indie/synth pop, early 2000 EMO, lots of hip collabs

Fontaines D.C. - A Hero's Death 

Post-punk, indie rock, art punk, gothic rock, raw deadpan male vocals, darkish and melodic

RAMzi - cocon 

Tribal House, ambient dub, balearic beats, downtempo, hypnotic and tropical 

Auguste - Indust 

Experimental ambient electronic + field recordings, glistening and splintered sounds 

Paul Blackford - Betamax

Dreamy and hypnotic trip hop, downtempo, synth wave

A.G.Cook - 7G

49-track archival collection of sketches, cover versions, volatile lab experiments, divided into 7 discs. a glimpse at the whirring cogs beneath hyperpop’s pristine casing.

Clap clap - Liquid Portraits 

Experimental musical tapestry and collage / high-energy concoction of unpredictable and wavy rhythms, exotic vocals and heavy, relentless bass and drums / UK Bass, ambient dub, footwork + far-flung field recordings

E.M.M.A. - Indigo Dream 

Progressive electronic, ambient house / 80s melodic atmospheres, goosebump-inducing synths, whimsical melodies and classical leanings

Leif - Music for screen tests 

Performed live @ Barbican as a 54min session ambient / drone film soundtrack (Andy Warhol's Screen Tests)

Crack Cloud - Pain Olympics

Post/art/dance punk, experimental rock - energetic, anxious, apocalyptic, dark, male vocals

Document - A Camera Wanders All Night 

Post-punk, noise rock, past-hardcore, distorted and raw male vocals

Keisuke Matsuda - Clumsily Back Up

Experimental electronic with playful hummed vocals, lo-fi beats, melodic, youthful, dreamlike

Coi Leray - Now or Never

Gen-Z superstar, melodic flows, bouncy trap, energetic killer lyrics 

The Ophelias - For Luck

Artful, string-laden indie-pop EP, grungy dream-pop, a quarantine remake and a Joni Mitchell cover

Romare - Home

Deep house, UK Bass, groovy and detailed sonic palette + soul and funk influences - dancefloor highs and after party wind-downs

Mulatu Astatke, Black Jesus Experience - To Know Without Knowing 

Ethio-Jazz, Cuban, funk, reggae workout + rapid-fire rap or Afrobeat drums 

Good Doom - Spider Temple Valley

Experimental psych-wave, gentle and peaceful lo-fi, dreamy and oozy with flute, sax and field recordings

Ralph Kinsella - Abstraction

Dark ambient experimental / instrumental electronic

IDLES - Ultra Mono

Post-punk, garage punk, hardcore, noise rock, raw male vocals, dense, energetic, angry, political

Mild Orange - Mild Orange 

Alternative, Indie rock, dream pop, 

Skinshape - Umoja

Experimental psychedelic rock - afro beats - afroswinig - funky - world music

Vulfpeck - The Joy of Music, The Job of Real Estate

Mixed bag of funk, jazz, soul, self-indulgent? classical reworks, progressive electronic, melodic and uplifting, groovy drums and bass lines 

OPN - Magic OPN 

Manipulated and sequenced archive radio and sounds collages as interludes, uncanny processed voices, poppish trope ballads, art pop, sentimental and surreal, dense, progressive hypnagogic electronic and more

Pa Salieu - Send them to coventry

Combined dancehall, Afrobeats, hip-hop and grime. Scattered drums, stop-start energy, handpicked words and rhymes. skips from trap trills to baile breakdowns.

Mama Ode - Tales & Patterns of the Maroons

Classic hip-hop album with jazz, funk, blues and reggae influences. Creole Sega Rap Roots music, afro-drum patterns and grooves

Tony Allen, Hugh Masekela - Rejoice

Live sessions of unique fusion of afrobeat and swing-jazz with lyrics in English, Yoruba and Zulu 

Miley Cyrus - Plastic Hearts

Pop rock, 80s synth-rock, grit and freewheeling sense of fun, rough-hewn panache of vocal performance, bittersweet eclectic and sentimental / collabs with rock idols

2019 

LCD Soundsystem - Electric lady sessions 

Live recording with some new wavy covers 

Harry Styles - Fine line 

Not catchy / mediocre pop 

Boothe - 8 or 9 Walled Room

10 minutes of playful electronic and soft vocals

Good with parents - Good with parents 

Clever indietronica synth pop, fun + ironic + millennial + sax 

Taylor Skye - Kode fine & sons 

Synth, beats and pop vocals 

Famous - England 

Wonky pop punk mixed to electronic sounds and raw spoken vocals

Orville Peck - Pony 

Simple pop rock Johnny Cash style ballads and 80s

Sassy 009 - Kill Sassy 009

Distorted electro pop with strong vocals + post-punk notes

J-Walk - Mediterranean Winds 

Jazzy electronica with glassy synth pads cheesy and chilled out

Mattiel - Satis Factory 

Punky garage rock strong female vocals

Ross Backenkeller - Come Around

Country dreamy and melancholy guitar and vocals 

Legss - Writing Comedy 

Art rock and a dark underbelly of post-punk + topnotch spoken track and electronic sounds

BEA1991 - The Lost Demo EP

Trip-hop with Bjork-style vocals

BEA1991 - Brand New Adult 

Chamber folk and yacht rock meld with R&B and trip-hop

Matt Maltese - Krystal

Lo-fi flowy bedroom pop breakup album

Faye Webster - Atlanta Millionaires Club

Folk-pop, mellow and melancholy soul with an r&b tinge

Infinite Bisous- Period 

Soothing and warm bedroom night album 

Achille Lauro - 1969

Trap changed into rock with romanticised lyrics 

Jerkcurb - Air Con Eden 

Indie-psych and retro Americana, atmospheric, sensitive, wobbly

Octo Octa - Resonant Body

Breakbeats and house bangers

ALASKALASKA - The Dots 

Jazz fusion, disco rhythms and high-gloss art rock

Orphan - Yijoda

Glitchy and sharp electronics + ambient-atmospheric sounds

Honeymoan - Body

Avant-garde pop tapestry of beats and synths with playful vocal

U-Bahn - U-Bahn

Traditional new wave DEVO-moulded, Hypnagogic pop, art-punk, some vaporwave synth sounds

Hail Conjurer - Erotic Hell

Obscure and raw Finnish black metal 

Ride for revenge - Chapter of alchemy 

Quality black metal with long and short tracks pretty smooth 

Boys Age - Neverchanging, Neverending 

Lo-fi, slow-tempo, soul, r&b, mellow tracks with sad very low vocals

MorMor - Some place else 

Indie-pop with sweet synths and delicate vocals 

Felicita - hej!

Overproduced pop dance hits broken down into harsh and jarring staccato melodies, hissing ambient and screams

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Ghosteen

Endlessly giving and complex meditation on mortality and our collective grief, scored by synths, pianos, and electronics

Portico Quartet - Memory Streams

Ethereal keyboards, hypnotic grooves, layered post-rock textures mixed with electronic, ambient and magnetic jazz build-ups

Charles Rumback + Ryley Walker - Little common twist 

Mellow and pastoral folksy guitar melodies and soft drums + ambient tones, drone electronic

Shadowax - Nikolai Reptile

Effervescent techno and mutant bass jams

The Rhythm Method - How do you know I was lonely?

Ostensibly witty and warm pop songs from hip hop to indie and electronic about romance and millennial youth

Martin Dupont - Accident of Stars

80s kinda goth new wave full of electronics, guitars synths and clarinets

Raime - Planted

Latin American and Chicago footwork influences merged with alien sounds, half-heard voices, dark and rhythmic bass and percussions

Sunn 0))) - Pyroclasts

Sunn 0))) - Life Metal

Slow-motion drone feels like a religious ritual / pipe organ and cello, guitars webbing together the space between notes

Special Request - Vortex 

Breakbeat barnstormers and house epics, with room for bleep, electro and gabber

Caterina Barbieri - Ecstatic Computation

Oscillating sequencers, rhythmic pulsations, cascades of synthesiser melodies echoing dance music/new age

Battles - Juice B Crypts 

Playful electronic wizardry, dense array of beats, bleeps and squelches, loopy keyboards and guitars, ecstatic vocals

Haruomi Hosono - HOCHONO HOUSE

Home-recorded aesthetic, funk shaped into minimalist space-age lounge music 

Florist - Emily Alone 

Thoughtful, calming and melancholic, full of hushed, enveloping guitar sounds and gentle vocals

Spencer Radcliffe - Hot Spring 

Alt-country, indie falk americana, very relaxed,pastoral and wry poetics

Ciamkam - Play-doh Dog 

Noise ambient / screeching, dissonant, surreal, ominous 

Equiknoxx - Eternal Children 

UK soundsystem style, reggae groundings, earthy dancehall with a vast range of puzzling vocalists

Eh hahah - Fissure

Experimental deconstructed electronic, sound collage, glitches and post-club music

Upsammy - Wild Chamber 

Lucid shades of IDM, bleep techno, perky synths and frazzling hi-hats, polyrhythmic drum patterns

Otik - Blasphemy

Fresh, vibrant, dark experimental club music, techno + dance + electronic 

Shanti Celeste - Tangerine

Tech / ambient / deep house, breakbeat, rhythmic and mechanical yet dreamy 

Bez - Banki Mydlane

Dream pop, shoegaze, noise pop, space rock, reverberated female vocals + spoken word

Yu Su - Roll with the punches 

Ambient dub, downtempo, tribal ambient, sampling, mellow, atmospheric with female vocals

Drive45 - Dried up 

Bitpop, Artpop, indietronica, quirky and playful, androgynous vocals 

Lala &ce - Le son d’apres 

French hip hop, trap, cloud rap, alternative b&b, dancehall / sparse dark and ominous, warm female vocals

Leif - Loom Dream

Tribal ambient / ambient techno + field recordings / pastoral, ethereal, atmospheric 

deathcrash - Sundown (a collection of home recordings)

Slowcore, drone ambient, post-punk, fragile male vocals

FEET - What’s inside is more than just ham

Post-punk, indie-rock, dance-punk, sarcastic, playful, technical, male vocals

Coi Leray - EC2

Trap, hyphy, pop rap

Ariwo- Quasi 

Dub techno, afro-cuban jazz, ambient techno, chants, programmed beats, pulsating relentless rhythms and percussions, loud sax

Floating Points - Crush

Strikingly melodic and elegant, cinematic, frantic and distorted rhythms, shuddered synths, vibrant breakbeats, sampling, UK garage nodding

Jacques Greene - Dawn Chorus

Bittersweet, sad but triumphant, mix of experimental electronic and lightweight techno + field recordings, hazy sampled textures, distorted drones + disco house + percussions + spoken word

Men I Trust - Oncle Jazz

Indie electronic, minimal, chillout downtempo, dreamy female vocals, jazzy

Raveena - Lucid 

R&B, soul, experimental, pop, groovy, jazzy and dreamy, with some field and spoken words recordings

2018

Shit and Shine - Very high 

Lazy hippie funk with slowed rnb vocals 

Saloli - The deep end

New Age-inspired delicate only-synth music 

Adrianne Lenker - abysskis 

Guitar and sweet and warm vocals 

Ever ending kicks - Ideas relayed 

Sweet lo-fi similar to the previous two 

Negative Gemini - Bad Baby 

Solid synth pop with dreamy intimate vocals

Okay Kaya - Both

melancholy bedroom-pop sarcastic and harsh lyrics

Trust Fund - Bringing the Backline

Witty yet melancholy self-aware pop-rock

Jockstrap - Love is the key to the city 

A fusion of Bossa Nova, 1930s Disney-esque orchestra, and coarse electronica

Noah Cyrus - Good Cry

Pop and rnb debut album with a bit of gospel and melancholy

Carla dal Forno - Top of the pops

Alternative indie electronic, subtle instrumental backdrops with plaintive vocals

Lala Lala - The lamb 

Alternative/Indie rock with grunge tones and personal and warm vocals

Diamond Thug - Apastron

Progressive but dreamy pop, graceful vocals

Denh Izen - Storage Solutions 

Dark and charming sounds with warm and distorted vocals, desperate but calm

Imperial Triumphant - Vile Luxury 

New York Jazz mixed with top-notch black metal great for a sci-fi dystopian movie - especially Cosmopolis

Oliver Coates - Shelley’s on Zenn-La

Beat-oriented electronic music, sublime cello and synths

Dylan Carlson - Conquistador

drone-metal imaginary Western mostly solo electric guitar

Project Pablo - Come to Canada you will like it 

Dozy laid back deep house with  jazzy chords and subtly swinging drums

Ryley Walker - The Lillywhite Sessions 

Dave Matthews Band tribute with proggy folk, primitive guitar, free improv, Chicago jazz-rock on darker tones 

Grouper - Grid of Points

Empty room, piano and voice slip through your fingers like water

Kali malone - Cast of Mind

Glacial synth tones mapped to acoustic woodwind and brass 

Likes - New Pedal

Short tracks of fun glitch / hypnagogic pop

Jake Tobin - Fifth Thought

Fun and whimsical take on classical sax sounds and guitars

Jake Tobin - 135

Avant-prog / jazz fusion / romanticism / off-kilter melodies / psychedelic chords with the emotion and aesthetic of bedroom pop

Twig Twig - Darkworld Gleaming

Experimental pop, whimsical instrumentation, lo-fi uplift, beats and loops

George Clanton - Slide

Cult 2020s electronic born from vaporware influences mixed with whispery chillwave and downtempo R&B, feels like a 90s rave in an open field, no irony

Good Doom - Mood Life

Unique, very chill, dreamy sound, incorporates world music, trip hop beats, lo fi bedroom pop, krautrock and noise

Ex:Re - Ex:Re

Husky and mellow ambient pop, dream pop? Lethargic and melancholic 

Zaumne - Emo Dub

Minimalistic ominous and repetitive ambient house with ASMR-like spoken words

Ehh hahah - And the weather so breezy, man, why can’t life always be this easy?

Progressive experimental electronic, deconstructed club music, EDM, bubblegum bass, playful yet dark

Kate NV - для FOR

Progressive electronic, ambient, new age, minimalist, surreal, otherworldly and playful. wet, fleshy bleeps; bubbly, liquid noise

Leon Chang - re:treat

Mellow lo-fi hip hop, downtempo, electronic, future bass, sampling 

Coi Leray - Everythingcoz

Pop rap, trap, hyphy tunes, powerful + well produced 

Domenique Dumont - Miniatures de auto rhythm 

Sophist-pop, balearic beat, chillwave, dreampopish, soft female vocals, lush, summery and rhythmic

Big Joanie - Sistahs 

Pretty standard textbook indie-rock, post-punk with female vocals 

Darto - Fundamental Slime 

Haunting and spacious, deep male vocals, intriguing eerie melodies, dream state lullabies + sax and spoken word bit

Old Maybe - Piggity Pink 

Chaotic post-punk, unusual time signatures, strong shouted female vocals

Brad Mehldau Trio - Seymour Reads the Constitution! 

Elegant and melodic modal jazz - post-bop album, fragmented but coherent, ever changing time signature and tempo

2017

Ross Backenkeller - Bardo

Folk indie guitar melodies with honest and gentle vocals

Maruego - Tra Zenith e Nadir

Italian trap with disillusioned and ironic lyrics + cool collabs

Nervous Condition - Untitled 

Forceful drums, wails of sax and commanding vocals - mix of experimental rock, post-punk, no wave, jazz

Powerplant - Dogs Sees Ghosts

Synth punk, garage punk fast and fun

Wool & The Pants - Wool & The Pants

Experimental r&b / soul / hiphop vibez pretty smooth and lo-fi

TOPS - Sugar at the gate 

Soft rock tunes, vintage atmosphere, fuzzy, honey-dipped songs 

Slothrust - Show me how you want it to be 

Covers album with grungy sounds and good arrangements 

Rone - Mirapolis

Misty synths and heavy bass lines, dreary and melancholic industrial electronics, packed with doomed vocals of all sorts of guests. 

Ada Babar & Kasra Kurt - Nino Tomorrow

Weird pop and experimental DIY with MIDI keyboards and guitar, playful lyrics, video game menu music

Good Doom - New Shapes for you

Evocative, dreamy and atmospheric melodies, warm at times, chilly, spooky, grungy, dark at others, synth buzzes, glitchy drums

Phoebe Bridgers - Stranger in the alps

Atmospheric ballads for sad times, deeply personal stories of heartbreak and loss 

Florist - If Blue Could Be Happiness

Indie folk, soft and atmospheric, pure gentle quiet and soft female vocals about understanding light and darkness. Swooping guitar, dots of piano notes, gentle beats that recall Simon and Garfunkel

Wishing - Heat Death 

Ambient pop, lo-fi indie beats w/ soft vocals that make you feel things you haven’t felt in a while

Martyn Heyne - Electric Intervals

Ambient in the broadest sense, calm instrumental downtempo guitar-centric with electronic flourishes

Equiknoxx - Colón Man

Vivid and tactile masterful sound design, syncopated loops, wonky and scintillating rhythms 

American Pleasure Club - I blew a dandelion and the whole world disappeared 

Lo-fi acoustic guitar with raw male vocals

Andrea Laszlo De Simone - Uomo Donna 

Progressive pop, baroque/psychedelic pop + field recordings / bittersweet and pastoral 

Drive45 - Have you seen me? 

Bitpop indietronic, glitch pop, sequencer, dance pop

Drive45 - System Format

Bitpop indietronic, playful video game sounds

Leon Chang - bird world 

Bitpop electronic, sequencer, videogame music, future bass / uplifting mellow and playful 

dynastic - SPACE/SUMMER 

Glitch hop, electronic bubblegum, kawaii future bass, mellow and uptempo, cheesy sax, chaotic sounds + dance floor dnb

Darto - Human Giving 

Spacey experimental electronic mixed with post-punk, warm tones, 80s synths, soft melodic vocals + spoken bits

Pregnant - Duct Tape

Indie/art/soft rock, electronic, brilliant pop tunes, dreamy yet rhythmic

2016

Ever Ending Kicks - Music World

DIY colourful dreamy hazy songs 

Mild Eye Club - Skiptracing 

Low-key folk dreamy with 60s 70s vintage links

Loving - Loving 

Easy and dreamy pop melodies, wavy, warm and mellow

Lala Lala- Sleepyhead 

Alternative/Indie rock with grunge tones and personal and warm vocals

Gruff Rhys - Set fire to the stars

Soundtrack to the homonym 2014 film set in the 50s - soft romance rock, jazz-inspired, elegant and familiar

Oliver Coates - Upstepping

Deep house, techno, footwork blended with sharp and experimental classical strings 

Garden Center - Garden Center

Erratic pop music, fun and playful electronic sounds, silly vocals

Raime - Tooth

Ominus and gloomy sound of dub, electronic and post-rock / stripped down to the flesh 

Amiina - Fantomas 

Violin, cello, drums, percussion, metallophone, harp, ukulele and electronics fused in a contemporary classical post-rock gentle melody-focused experimentation

Jake Tobin - Sorta Upset

Short tracks of experimental rock, avant-prog - eclectic and dissonant, technical and manic

Jake Tobin - Accidentally on Purpose

Post-modern experimental pop, jazz influenced sounds, off-kilter saxophone, silly humour 

Vanishing Twin - Choose your own adventure

Swathes of percussion, exotic drum beats and funky guitars merge into a cosmic blend of reverberating bleeps with jazz skits / heady voyage across sound influences

Good Doom - Hug

Good Doom - Naps

Both off-beat lo-fi with a rock twists, spacey, fuzzy, grainy sounds

Zeal & Ardor - Devil is fine

Top notch black metal merges African-American spiritual slave music and some electronic beats and sounds

Shield Patterns - Mirror Breathing

Haunting vocals and sensual cello, clarinet and piano, all wrapped up in ethereal synths

Ashley Henry - Ashley Henry’s 5ive

Complex and uplifting post-bop jazz, imaginative flare, delicate and soothing piano

Florist - The Birds Outside Sang 

Lo-fi indie, ambient-dream pop,sparse, minimalist keyboard leads bordering on chilly drones + intimate and personal songwriting

CBMC - OOR

Acustic lo-fi bedroom pop with an airy tone and somber feel but still feels fresh and lighthearted 

Told Slant - Going By

Slowcore indie pop/folksy emo, ‘intimate spaces in which small town kids write memories of touch, togetherness, loss, love, depersonalisation’

Kate NV - Binasu

Art pop, progressive electronic, sequencer, joyful grooves but also atmospheric and ethereal sounds, eclectic and dense, melodic female vocals

Zaumne - Przezycia

Minimal ambient techno with a couple of spoken word bits 

Mauno - Rough Master

Enticingly and eclectic indie rock, smooth vocals, strings and moody guitars, delicate piano, powerful drums

Susso - Keira

Tribal house, tribal ambient, folktronica, Mande music, rhythmic and powerful chants

Phern - Cool Coma  

Psychedelic pop, lo-fi, mellow and playful 

Hellier Ulysses - Ulysses Hellier 

Experimental rock, math rock, jangle pop mixed with post-punk, technical, lo-fi, uncommon time signatures

Brad Mehldau Trio - Blues and Ballads 

Deceptively sweet-sounding jazz album, songs are played with variations and every phrase is a cliffhanger - gracefully executed + bonus of my fav song <3

2015

Adeodat Warfield - Pacific, Missouri 

Synth pop with electronic beats, vaporware notes

Ross Backenkeller - Rare Please

Folk indie guitar melodies with honest and gentle vocals

Grimes - Art Angels

Immaculate and authentic, synthetic and unreal but also super pop, folk, and dance / POST-art pop?

Jake Tobin - Third and Fourth Thoughts

Short tracks of weird avant-prog where the vocals follow the melodies all the time

Florist - Holdly

Vocals move slowly and sweetly through gentle meditation sound and soft guitars

Starry Cat - Starry Cat

Indie pop, lo-fi indie, wavy and shaky, bitter-sweet and personal male vocals 

CBMC - FOOTWEAR

Acustic lo-fi bedroom pop with a somber feel but still feels fresh and lighthearted nearly asmr-like vocals 

Wishing - To Forget

Lo-fi indie slowcore, fuzzy synths + acoustic sounds mixed with short electronic tracks / lyrics are whispered and very intimate 

Oren Ambarchi - Live Knots 

Two very long live recorded tracks of propulsive drumming full of tensions and releases + droning notes, plucked strings and mournful guitar 

Juxta Phona - we will not be silence 

Ambient, electronic, minimal melodies over crisp, tactile beats

Khruangbin - The Universe Smiles Upon You

Psychedelic / Funk rock, rhythmic and jazzy, tropical warm and peaceful

Red Sea - In The Salon 

Indie experimental rock, psychedelic pop, math rock, melodic yet uncommon time signatures 

Eyeliner - Buy Now 

Synth-pop/funk - vaporwave / instrumental, melodic, uplifting, lush, futuristic / great bass lines! 

2014

Ricky Eat Acid - Three love songs

First half found sounds, experimental electronics, fuzzy piano loops. Second half IDM beats and keys, choir-like vocals / “might be the sound of music having a dream within a dream about music”

Jake Tobin - Torment 

Jake Tobin - Life as a Clerical Error

Weird dissonant mix of avant-prog, art punk and jazz fusion but in an amazing way

Richard Dawson - Nothing Important 

Brittle, crudely amplified nylon-string acoustic guitar, experimental drones, folk sketches, imitation field cries, and free jazz diversions

2013

Ever Ending Kicks - Weird priorities

Sentimental chill instrumental and colourful with gentle vocals

Gruff Rhys - American Interior

John Evans-themes concept album - witty folk oriented retro-futurist music 

Michael Andrews - Spilling a rainbow

Well-crafted pop tunes, nostalgic and lighthearted memories of folk rock with a dash of avant-garde electronic haze

Pill Friends - Blessed Suffering

Lo-fi indie/emo noisy and raw with existential and stark male vocals 

2012

Told Slant - Still Water

Lo-fi/bedroom-punk with folksy guitars and delicate vocals as if they could break down in tears at any moment

2010

Hype Williams - Find out what happens when people stop being polite and start gettin reel

Ypnagogic vortex of incredibly canny hard to pinpoint music with distorted spoken vocals

Zach Hill - FACE TAT

Constant restless drumming, squiggly melodic instrumental hooks, mosaics of disconnected noises, fuzzy sounds and vocals

2008

Amplifier Machine - her mouth is an outlaw

Half-improvised ambient - drone - experimental - electronic - post-rock

E. Bandel, Victory & Good Hunting - s/t

Classical, piano, folk, melancholic, haunting

2007

Seabear - The ghost that carried us away

Indie/folk multi-instrumental dynamic floating sound, warm melodies, calm and gentle vocals

HEALTH - HEALTH 

A masterful noise/experimental rock with elements of post-punk, drone and electronic - disorienting rhythms, tempo-shifting, noisy outbursts

2005

The Darkness - One way ticket to hell

Hard / glam rock ballads and pop tunes 

2004

The Emperor Machine - Aimee Tallulah is hypnotised 

Mix of electro euro disco, post-punk, krautrock, sci-fi scores, jazz-funk. Thick dance rhythms and mind-altering synths

2002

ESG - Step Off 

Sweet soul with a punk attitude, jazzy sassy vocals

Hella - Hold your horse is 

Non-stop, indie-audio assault / Nintendo music / midi and electronic beats / head-spinning leading drums, very fast guitars

1998

Eels - Electro-Shock Blues

elegantly sad grief and death themed album, deeply personal, yet brilliant pop tunes, post-grunge, jazzy arrangement, archive sounds, electronics

Duster - Stratosphere

Bashful slowcore lo-fi experimental space/indie rock

1975

Bobbi Humphrey- Fancy Dancer 

Funky jazz with forms of world music, soul, club music and pop

1973

Kevin Ayers - Bananamour

Progressive pop, art rock with mix of soul, r&b, reggae - choirs and country type ballads

1972

Kevin Ayers - Whatevershebringswesing

Experimental new age prog rock, semisweet tunes, lighthearted, skewed sounds

1970

Kevin Ayers - Shooting at the moon

Experimental, progressive, avant-garde, rock with jazz influences, sound recordings, excellent songwriting

[dustedmagazine]

Roland Kayn — Reversioni Comprimati (Reiger Records Reeks)

Reversioni Comprimati by Roland Kayn

Roland Kayn’s work is continually and wonderfully confounding, not least in the way he names his work. Look at this title. Does “Reversioni” imply something of a returning, a backward glance? The more we learn about Roland Kayn’s huge archive, especially from such a narrow time period, the more it seems as if each piece is a vast interconnected revisitation of his earlier work. Only the modes of construction and execution vary.

The sound of tape manipulation unifies this 36-minute miniature. Listen to the beautiful minor chord at 10:50 and how its speed suddenly ratchets up beyond all recall a moment later. Having heard it, the sounds immediately preceding and succeeding it are given fresh context. The mid-spectrum climax at 15:01, thunderous in its impact, bears further witness to the aesthetic governing this work’s construction. More pointillistic manifestations lead toward the 20-minute mark and flank the liquid major chord at 22:35.

The standard Kayn tropes are here in force. The sounds are glittery and grungy by turn, while consonance and dissonance can switch places in the blink of an eye. Timbres are deliberately obscured, unlike in other contemporaneous (2004) pieces, where sounds are laid basically bare. Above all though, those moments of instability so much a part of Kayn’s later work, the sudden heart-stopping removal of carpet from underfoot, govern the piece’s trajectory. Listen at 33:24 to scale the heights of vertigo-inducing pitch shift, but that’s just one of the more extreme and prolonged examples. It’s a constant, just as much a staple as those sounds in constant flux and return.

Where does it all come from? In most electroacoustic music, even when obfuscation occurs, the sound sources are fairly close to identifiable. One of the marvels of Kayn’s work is its timbral consistency, whatever the sound sources happen to be. Reverb-drenched, dynamically extreme and eschewing any conventional narrative form, there is no doubting the composer for a moment. In this case, there’d also be no doubting the compositional provenance. The process seems as unconcealed as do the orchestral and vocal sources of other works, or sections of larger works. Is it really possible that such a simple rule, or model, could manifest such a complex story?

Marc Medwin

[paulisweeabootrash]

Pokémon 2.B.A. Master

I stumbled across a piece of weeb trash media I had heard of, but neither attempted nor expected to find.  And it’s a bit different.  Today, my friends, we are not doing an anime or manga, or even another novel.  We’re doing a tie-in music album, a American blatant cash-grab based on a Japanese franchise.  Oh no.  Oh yes.

Pokémon 2.B.A. Master (1999)

As a young weeblet, I was a regular watcher of the first two arcs of Pokémon (Kanto and Johto).  It was in both weekday and weekend timeslots, and never seemed to be broadcast in any sensible order, but I nonetheless watched it frequently and enjoyed it no matter how many times WB decided to rerun episodes I’d already seen.  At some point, this CD came out, and I remember seeing ads for it when it was new.  There were even televised music videos for a few of the songs, broadcast as a segment called “Pikachu’s Jukebox”. I never saw a copy of the album in person, and never expected to. Maybe it was one of those that you had to order by calling some number?  I don't remember (or, frankly, care enough to look it up).  Anyway, I recently encountered this in the small music section of a used book store, and I figured "why not?"  And the obvious answer is "most of the contents".

The cover, in addition to using proud and unironic Comic Sans for the subtitle "2.B.A. Master", boasts that the album contains both "Music From The Hit TV Series" and "10 Brand New Songs!"  The former refers obviously to the main theme of the show and every child's favorite mnemonic device, the PokéRap (or “PokéRAP” as it’s spelled for some reason?), but I'm not sure what the third song from the show is.  And again, I don’t care enough to look it up.  The important thing is, John Loeffler wrote all of them, and apparently an absurd number of other Pokémon-related songs.  The "Brand New Songs!" here are mostly new to me, and they’re... a doozy.  Except for the songs from the show, plus “Double Trouble” and maybe “Misty’s Song” if I want to be very generous, I am tempted to suggest you could get a similar musical experience in a shorter time by putting on an episode of Pokémon, playing a mix of Milli Vanilli and Boyz II Men songs over it, and banging your head against a wall.

1. Pokémon Theme

We begin with the extended version of the classic theme, this is a sure dose of nostalgia for anyone who watched the show.  It sounds, considering the release date, a little outdated — I get kind of a "Beat It" vibe, not from the melody, but from the instrumentation, combining 80s-gated drums and searing electric guitar.  But the theme, already one of the few TV themes out there I find enjoyable and not instantly forgettable, extends to a full length surprisingly well, avoiding getting boring or devolving into complete idiocy with lyrics.  I actually like this song as a song, and you can’t convince me otherwise.

2. 2B A Master

The instrumentation in this track is absurdly 90s, and again kind of Michael Jackson-y, but is interesting and varied, especially in the sudden attention-grabbing rhythmic change accompanying the line "the greatest master of Pokémon".  It shows better restraint in its use of things like record scratch noises and basslines running parallel to vocal lines that I find get really old really quickly.  I actually, on the whole, enjoy this song and think the music could have been the basis for something great.  “Could have” being the keyword.  Lest you think I'm going to give a rosy, loving review of this album, no, it quickly gets bad.  Some of the lyrics feel like such forced attempts to get Pokémon references in that I am embarrassed on behalf of the people stuck singing and rapping them, 20 years later.  It’s a waste of what could’ve been a fun funky song.  (Incidentally, why is the title of the song punctuated differently from the title of the album?)

3. Viridian City

The slide downhill continues.  What the hell is this song?  The lyrics are only marginally less stupid than the previous track, the music sounds like a keyboard "dance" preset, and it has a weird rapped/spoken "echoing" of sung lines it’s incredibly hard to imagine anyone ever liked.  Ugh.

4. What Kind of Pokémon Are You?

Third time's the charm, I guess?  After the previous two tracks tried and failed to force Pokémon-related lyrics that just don't work, this one at least manages to fire off a series of type-related puns.  The music, however, turns back towards gratingly boring (and for some reason, the bridge comes thisclose to ripping off "Eye of the Tiger"?).  Actually, no, hahaha, the lyrics remain very stupid, I think I'm just getting "ground down by a Marowak" by how bad the preceding tracks were.

5. My Best Friends

The parts move in unison too closely for my tastes, the lyrics are bland, the vocal arrangement makes it sound downright inappropriately dramatic, and what’s up with the bridge that veers off into doo-wop?  The main thing this song has going for it is the vaguely pleasant piano part in the verses, which really appeals to me (it sounds familiar, although I can’t place what specifically it reminds me of).  The melody of the chorus sounds even more familiar — so familiar in fact I'm starting to wonder if it's a copyright-violation-skirting ripoff of something famous. But otherwise, this is a solid “meh”, sounding like a boy band song that would only briefly have made the charts.

6. Everything Changes

And now we're back to impressions of Michael Jackson.  This one's instrumentation and mood and even bits of the melody are so him that I could almost believe you if you told me this was an outtake that didn't make it onto Bad. (Although the singer sounds less like Jackson the longer the song goes on.) The lyrics, although vaguely applicable to everything, are a welcome change from the previous few tracks by not feeling like Pokémon has been painfully shoehorned in... up until the part where a clip from the show plays during a break between choruses.  Ugh.  Could you really not come up with a better way to make this into a distinctly Pokémon song?

7. The Time Has Come (Pikachu's Goodbye)

Yuck.  The sentimental ballad (I want to call it a “power ballad”, but I’m unsure what exactly counts as one), as a general rule, is a fire hose full of melodrama best used for comedy.  I don't understand how songs like this have ever been taken seriously.  I would expect to hear this as the ending theme to a movie that tries to be a tragedy but can’t quite pull it off.

8. Pokémon (Dance Mix)

I assumed from the title that this was a remix of the theme song, but instead, it's just sort of a filler track...  It makes almost no impression on me at all, although I do enjoy the intro’s use of "backward-sounding" and morphing synths.  Otherwise, this is another track that sounds like it uses keyboard preset backgrounds.

9. Double Trouble (Team Rocket)

Okay, look, I can’t rate this one fairly.  The longest-running fandom-related internal conflict of my life has been whether I'd rather be James or have James as mai hasubando, and I love Team Rocket in general as comedy relief villains.  I used to enthusiastically perform their ridiculous introductory speech with a friend from band camp (I am even more of a geek than you thought).  This song actually bothers to be more specific in terms of its Pokémon subject matter, meaning this is finally a song about Pokémon rather than just a generic pop song with Pokémon flavor, and it uniquely is performed by voice actors from the show, namely those who played Jesse, James, Meowth, and Giovanni.  It really grates on me when the VAs talk over the singers, but unlike some of the other songs, it feels like it builds up and goes somewhere.  We have at least broken free from the boringness of the last few tracks, with almost industrial percussion and chromatic and sometimes dissonant bass and synth lines that really make it a solid villain song, even though it has a hokey “rap written by people who haven’t actually listened to any rap” feel.  And James’s absolutely ludicrous laugh will absolutely alienate who isn’t already a fan of the character, and most people who are, too.

10. Together Forever

The “disappointing imitation of Michael Jackson” theme returns, this time mostly in the voice.  It especially pops out at me with the pronunciation of "friend" as "fraynnnndah!".  Unfortunately, rather than trying to imitate Jackson’s songwriting again, this song seems to want to rip off Stock Aitken Waterman.  And it succeeds at that, too well, as it somehow manages to outcompete a song those writers wrote for Rick Astley to be the worst song with this title.  Also returning here: the use of clips from the show to clumsily force an otherwise generic song to be Pokémon-related.  Hooray.

11. Misty's Song

Huh.  Now this one is interesting.  Buried deep in the album, we get something from a character POV that doesn’t just set trivia or quotes from the show to music.  Yvette Laboy does a believable job filling in as the singing counterpart for Rachel Lillis's speaking voice for Misty, and I just don't find it nearly as ridiculous as the other ballads on the album, for some reason. It even portrays a tsundere as insecure rather than just an obnoxious walking trope!  Sure, it's not great, but it's not bad either, especially after the other attempted ballads on here.  Until you remember that it's a 14-year-old singing a love song to a 10-year-old, which... ick.  It could've been sweet if put in the mouth of another character with a more age-appropriate relationship. Anyone want to rerecord this as “Kaname's Song” or something?

12. PokéRAP

Oh, educational rap.  Why?  It’s just unbearably cheesy and doesn’t seem to have had much thought put into it, as a general rule.  And this song is no exception.  Sure, I guess it has value as a mnemonic exercise (and it does a decent job of that, as anyone who still has large chunks of it memorized can tell you), but no value as music.  It often doesn’t even come close to rhyming where you’d expect it to, and it's obvious that Loeffler et al weren't sure what to do with a few of the names at all — Grimer and Chansey have egregious pauses after them, for example, and Omastar is stretched across space enough for two or three names for no good reason.  It is broken into convenient-sized stanzas that are only somewhat awkwardly forced into the established meter, but that meter has a too-regular feel, bouncing like a musical Superball, that even I, someone with no particular knowledge of nor interest in rap, recognize as being cheesier than Vanilla Ice.  It also hasn’t aged well.  The sung parts have absolutely no dynamic range and stay at MAXIMUM DRAMA LEVEL at all times.  Over the past 20 years, the lyrics have also become obsolete due to the many additional generations of Pokémon media and consequently much longer list of Pokémon to memorize.  Those topics have been covered in excruciating detail by Brian David Gilbert, who is much cleverer than I am, and yes, I do highly recommend sitting through that entire half-hour video.  All I can really add to that is, it's considerably less annoying than certain other mnemonic songs I was exposed to growing up. A bad song, unless you’re viewing it through sheer unfiltered silliness?  Yes.  A surprisingly catchy song that was a good marketing move?  Also yes.  And 20+ years later, I still can't avoid laughing at the way he says "Wartortle".

13. You Can Do It (If You Really Try)

The album could've gone out on that upbeat note, but no, they had to go for another overblown ballad, this time trying far too hard to be inspirational.  The plus side is, it's not yet another generic 80s/90s pop song.  The minus side is, it sounds like something that would be playing on the PA in a church thrift store.  Or a fake ad on an episode of SNL.  I do not feel empowered by this level of unironic encouragement.  I just feel like my eyes are rolling so hard they'll fall out.  Its only saving grace is that it’s somehow not the most irritating inspirational ballad from the late 90s that was used in connection with a geek-magnet TV show.

Overall... Although I want to describe the music as being "generic" — and it is full of the tiredest parts of 80s and 90s music, wandering from orchestra hits to record scratch noises to cutesy synthesizer "dings" to what seem to be several different singers' bad Michael Jackson impressions — some of it is actually interesting!  See, no matter what impression you got from what I said above, I don’t categorically hate this style of music.  I made multiple comparisons to songs from Thriller and Bad because I think most of the songs on those albums are examples of how to do this genre very well.  But 2.B.A. Master doesn’t just lag because I’m comparing it to widely-beloved albums.  Writing this review actually sent me introspecting for quite a while about what music I enjoy and why.  And I realized, many of the cheesiest and most flawed aspects of this album are also present on less-acclaimed albums I enjoy very much, like the niche The Golden Age of Wireless by Thomas Dolby and the virtually-unknown Playgrounds ‘n’ Glass by Urban Blight.  But, while Dolby’s music often has the same cheesy synthesizer voices and lack of dynamics or has weirdly melodramatic moments, it’s also often clearly experimenting with particular effects and techniques, and his lyrics have evocative images or stories that make the songs really engaging.  And, while Urban Blight’s lyrics are often cliche-ridden or downright idiotic, the 80s/90s pop music instrumentation and style elements are varied and used with... for lack of a better term, more discretion, I guess?, which makes me feel like their songs are building to something musically.  Well, except the song “Favorite Flavor”, which is just garbage.

The point is, while neither of those examples is a great album (at least not to my taste, which I freely admit colors this), they are both still good.  Unfortunately, while some songs on 2.B.A. Master approach goodness, they are the exception, not the rule.  Most of the music is simple and predictable and seem to use the more grating tropes of the time like orchestra hits and record-scratch noises just because they can, and most of the lyrics are less "song about Pokémon" and more "attempts at being vaguely inspirational with Pokémon references forced in uncomfortably".  Some of the songs are enjoyable in a "this was an earnest attempt” and/or guilty pleasure sort of way (and I unironically like the B-52s, so believe me, I know "this was an earnest attempt” and/or guilty pleasure music), but there’s very little on here I’d actually call good.  The best track here musically, “2B A Master”, is wasted on blah lyrics, and the one that most accomplishes the goal of being a song about Pokémon, “Double Trouble”, suffers greatly from its speaking-over-the-singers vocal performance.  All I can say is, I’m glad I got this album used.

-----

W/A/S Scores: 3/0/7

Weeb: The lyrics require some prior specific knowledge of the Pokémon anime to not be completely baffling, but Pokémon is probably the most well-known and well-entrenched Japanese franchise on this side of the Pacific, and other than that, it’s decidedly American, or at least decidedly within the musical cultures of Western Europe and the Anglosphere.

Ass: No.

Shit: AAAAAAAAH.  Okay, okay, no, seriously, there are a few good points, but it’s at best average-quality 90s pop with a veneer of Pokémon over the top.

-----

Oh Weird: While writing this and hunting down appropriate links, I was surprised to see how many uploads of, and even covers of, songs from this album there are on Youtube.  I assumed this album was a more or less forgotten piece of bad 90s media, but apparently it’s one with a significant fanbase.

Oh Cool: Maddie Blaustein, the original English-language voice actress for Meowth was also a comic editor and writer for both Marvel and DC and the Creative Director for the Weekly World News. Oh, and she was intersex and, according to one of the sources cited by the Wikipedia article, bi.

Oh No: Educational rap is still a thing, and there are resources to make your own.

[thesinglesjukebox]

FKA TWIGS - CELLOPHANE

[8.38]

Oh do the feelings keep coming...

Ashley Bardhan: Oh my God. [10]

Abdullah Siddiqui: After the intricate chaos of M3LL155X, this feels like a departure. The turbid production has been stripped away to give way to a sense of self-assurance and emotional honesty. Compositionally, she's not trying to be too clever, but in typical Twigs fashion every element is a few degrees off-kilter: the subtly manipulated piano, the lightly distorted basses, the weird beatbox loop. I get honest-to-god chills when she breaks out of her trademark whispery falsetto into a fuller, rougher tone; the mixing on her voice is organic and dry, and not saturated with effects and harmonies. It's an evolution but it still delivers all of the things that made me an FKA Twigs obsessive in the first place. I'm intrigued to see what this new era brings. [9]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: There's almost nothing here other than Twigs's voice, expanding and contracting with her grief and desperation until you, the listener, are subsumed within its organic logics. There's paranoia and longing and pleading all wrapped up in her voice, so deeply tied that even if I couldn't comprehend the words she was singing I would still have a shocking awareness of what she feels. "Cellophane" is a song of resignation, but it's beautiful in its defeat, like a clear spring day after the end of the world. [10]

Joshua Copperman: I have spent several weeks, on and off, attempting to find who mixed this song, with no luck. I'm just going to assume it's FKA Twigs as well, because she is so in command of the song that even if she didn't co-produce or write it (she did), it's all hers. One of my favorite tropes is when lyrics pull the song with them - it's the way Janelle Monae uses her compression, or Mitski compares herself to a geyser as horns and strings go flying. FKA Twigs doesn't do that, but her vocals control the song anyway when she goes "I tryyyyyy..." and booming, slightly dissonant synths rise behind her. Then the decrescendo at "when you're gone, I have no one to tell," which is a fantastic line. I love the bathos in "they're watching us, they're hating" at the end, as the song awkwardly peters away. If "Cellophane" initially seems like the pivot to Serious Music that got Kesha flack on "Praying," there is more than enough weirdness to ensure this is an FKA Twigs song. But the vocal sound, heavily compressed and breathy yet light on Melodyne artifacts, brings me back. If she didn't have a hand in mixing it, my fixation on the technical aspects is not a knock on her: a vocal sound is nothing without its vocalist. [10]

Alex Clifton: "Cellophane" is terrifying with its emotional honesty. As soon as FKA Twigs's voice leaps up to a higher register -- why don't I do it for you? -- something inside me breaks. It's like someone whispering her darkest secrets to you in the middle of the night, but you just don't have the right words to respond. I kept waiting for "Cellophane" to explode into a more grandiose arrangement, and I'm really glad it doesn't, mostly because Twigs's vocals provide all the fireworks we need. It makes it all the more heartbreaking. [8]

Alfred Soto: The need expressed is sincere but the rather barren arrangement offers no complement. Admiration, not affection. [4]

Will Adams: There's a particular horror in realizing that a failed relationship is as much a public spectacle as it is intensely personal. At the start, FKA Twigs directly confronts her lover -- "why don't I do it for you?" -- but by the end, she can't help notice everyone who's watching, waiting for everything to crumble. The crux of the song is the midpoint, "all wrapped in cellophane," as the song crackles and warps, constricting her in the material as that realization snaps into place. It's devastating but cathartic, the same way it sometimes feels best to just bury your face in your hands and cry. [7]

Vikram Joseph: Breathtakingly intimate, perpetually on the verge of disintegrating into some kind of cosmic dust, "Cellophane" feels too fragile for this world, held together in a delicate equilibrium between beauty and harshness, between love and decay. FKA Twigs's vocal is astonishing; by turns heartbreaking in its restraint and showstoppingly expressive, it reminds me of iconic performances by Karen O on "Maps," or Anohni on "Hope There's Someone." There is so much desperation here; the intensity of her feelings for her lover, set against the centrifugal force of her circling self-doubt, anthropomorphised as a group of silent, malevolent onlookers ("waiting, and hoping I'm not enough"). How could anything this beautiful not be doomed? [9]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[cristalconnors]

BEST SONGS of 2019

20. “MOTIVATION”- Normani

“Why would we ever do something instead of falling into the bed right now?”

Watching the 2019 VMAs, it was easy to feel despondent about the current state of mainstream pop. And then Normani descended from a basketball hoop, breaking up a string of lifeless performances of cookie-cutter top 40 with a preposterously physical tour de force that harkened back to an era when pop fame felt like something closer to a meritocracy, when talent mattered more than spectacle. It felt like a major arrival: at last another pop goddess that truly had all the goods. The public may not have caught up to her quite yet, but “Motivation” is a statement of purpose for Normani: I’m here, I’m very fucking talented, and I’m not going anywhere.

19. “SO HOT YOU’RE HURTING MY FEELINGS”- Caroline Polachek

“I cry on the dancefloor, it’s so embarrassing”

The charms of “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings” are seemingly endless. First, there’s that title that makes you chuckle the first few times you hear it. Then, there’s the pre-chorus that title is effortlessly plugged into: a crystal clear image of lovelorn insecurity placed atop a sublimely simple melody that builds into a harmonious, show-stopping chorus. But the song’s zenith has got to be that bridge, marrying a mind-bending, distorted vocal solo that more closely resembles electric guitar with the singsongy refrain “show me your banana,” effortlessly striking a balance between the highbrow and the silly, casting Polachek as the carefree pop diva she perhaps always should have been.

18.“WAY TO THE SHOW”- Solange

“Candy paint down to the floor”

“I want it to bang and make your trunk rattle.” I think about that quote a lot when listening to “Way to the Show,” the grooviest track on When I Get Home- the one whose meandering funk bass line and countless key changes build to an explosion of synth runs and gun cocking, showcasing Knowles’s growth as both a songwriter and curator of mood as she crafts a singularly hallucinatory, heavenly vision of Houston and the sounds that raised her.

17. “WONDER BOY”- ARTHUR RUSSELL

“I’m a wonder boy. I can do nothing”

The back catalogue of notorious perfectionist and genreless chameleon Arthur Russell is so vast, so varied that even 27 years after he was taken from us, we’re still being treated to new material. Every single song of his that’s been released posthumously, including all 19 tracks of Iowa Dream, feel like their own revelation, each of them a uniquely dazzling bucking of all your expectations of what a song of his should sound like. “Wonder Boy” is unique in how tidily its melancholy, frosty images of impermanence sum up the tragic story of Arthur Russell the man- the brilliant artist who never found success and only ever managed to put out a single album while he was alive- the wonder boy who could do nothing.

16. “I THINK OF SATURDAY”- Moodymann

“I called you on Thursday... I called you on Friday...”

“I Think of Saturday” starts simply enough, listing the days of the week almost as a gimmick, evoking soul and early rock filtered through a house lens, until halfway through the song when the beat drops away, introducing a brief sample of Joe Simon’s “With You in Mind” that’s followed by the reintroduction of the beat, but now accompanied by a recurring distorted, dissonant chord that reframes the song as a sinisterly rousing account of unrequited desire and delusion that refracts itself over and over again. 

15. “SOFIA”- Clairo

“I think we could do it if we tried”

The opening bars of Clairo’s “Sofia” sound like a really good Strokes knock off, but the song quickly reveals itself to be something vastly more interesting, unfolding itself steadily over the course of three minutes as she and producer Rostam Batmanglij subvert well worn pop tropes to craft an exquisitely textured, soul-baring, and ultimately hopeful anthem for young wlw everywhere.

14. “LARK”- Angel Olsen

“What about my dreams?”

Olsen’s widescreen, abstract vision of a break-up song is thrillingly unbound from the constrictions of song structure and narrative, favoring instead the visceral power of strings and drastic dynamic contrast to craft a symphony in miniature, a “journey through grief” as Olsen herself describes it, that announces the bold, panoramic vision of her fourth album.

13. “WALK AWAY”- (Sandy) Alex G

“Someday I’m gonna walk away from you. Not today...”

“Walk Away” evokes the sense of being trapped, stuck in a cycle of recognizing unhealthy relationships or habits and being unable or unwilling to do anything about them, looping the simple two line refrain over and over and over again to weave a hopeless, woozy tapestry of crunching beats, acoustic and electric guitar, mournful piano and harpsichord, and distorted vocals.

12. “THIS COUNTRY MAKES IT HARD TO FUCK” (BJÖRK REMIX)- Fever Ray

“That’s not how to love me!”

Björk isolates the most memorable line from Fever Ray’s “This Country”- “this country makes it hard to fuck!”-and explodes it, distorting it and stretching it across a fearsome sample of the droning, discordant flutes from “Song of the Alféreces and Dances of the Chinos,” evoking a kind of tortured funhouse mirror image of the current state of reproductive rights that rightly recasts Fever Ray’s song as a horror film.

11. “ABOUT WORK THE DANCEFLOOR”- Georgia

“I was just thinking about work the danefloor...”

“About Work the Dancefloor” is Georgia’s ode to the cathartic, restorative powers of the dancefloor, where your worries fall away as you melt into the crowd and language abstracts itself, as evidenced by that perplexing chorus that doesn’t seem to mean anything- and why should it? When you’re lost in her pounding bass and gurgling synths, that incoherence is strangely comforting. You can cast whatever meaning you want onto it and work through it physically, together. 

10. “GONE”- Charli XCX & Christine and the Queens

“I try real hard, but I’m caught up by my insecurities”

The jelly squiggles that criss-cross Charli XCX and her collaborator’s faces on the artwork released for the singles from her latest album Charli suggest a kind of symbiosis, a cosmic intertwining of sorts. But only “Gone” achieves a true melding of the minds, where Charli and Chris’s best and boldest instincts collide, complimenting one another seamlessly in this dizzying vision of insecurity and isolation that unravels into a stunning pop abstraction. 

09. “CELLOPHANE”- FKA twigs

“Why don’t I do it for you?”

Usually for FKA twigs, more is more. Her songs are busy, even the slower ones, packed to the brim with glitches, unusual rhythms, and a million little details that pull attention, giving them texture and making them extremely immersive listening experiences. “Cellophane” pares those idiosyncrasies back. They’re still there, but the focus is twigs’s voice, which bends and cracks and really emotes in a way we’ve never heard. Her voice is naked and unvarnished, allowing her to be truly vulnerable in a way we’ve never heard either, and it’s heartbreaking. 

08. “CINNAMON GIRL”- Lana Del Rey

“If you hold me without hurting me, you’ll be the first who ever did.”

“Cinnamon Girl” is the culmination of every other ballad she’s ever written. They were practice and this is the real deal- a painterly missive on tumultuous love that reads like a pained confession whispered in confidence, something Lana’s always done well, but her composition has never been so exquisite or immersive, so beautifully in concert with her poetry or her velvet voice, or so flawlessly constructed, effortlessly building toward a show-stopping finale that asserts Lana as the postmodern princess of Americana.

07. “COOKIE BUTTER”- Kim Gordon

“Industrial...metal...supplies...”

“Cookie Butter” has got to be the most stunning showcase of the power of Kim Gordon’s voice, as she drags out some vowels, muffles others, attacks consonants and bends words until they don’t sound like words anymore, all atop a trance inducing beat drives towards the song’s unlikely climax- Kim Gordon saying “cookie butter” in the most impossibly distinct way you could imagine that carries the weight of an EDM drop, leading the track into it’s disorienting second half that both clarifies and obscures the half that came before it. Haunting and addictive. 

06. “CATTAILS”- Big Thief

“You don’t need to know why when you cry.”

To hear Big Thief talk about the process of writing and recording “Cattails” on their episode of the Song Exploder podcast, one is struck by how organic it was. Adrianne Lenker describes it as a “magic wind” that swept through the studio, the song kind of falling out of them in one take. That sense of life comes through in the song, the simple, sublime repetition, bounce, and build of it sounding like a transmission from deep within the soul, a cosmic image of nostalgia and grief that is as cathartic as it is heavenly.

05. “GOD CONTROL”- Madonna

“I think I understand why people get a gun.”

“God Control” is ostensibly about gun control, though you’d be forgiven if you had a hard time discerning what exactly she’s trying to say. Like some of her best work, it’s provocative and maybe a little empty, but damn if it isn’t supremely interesting and compelling as hell. Madonna taps into a sense of apocalyptic malaise and skepticism of authority that feels at times remarkably in tune with the public consciousness, at others a grotesque caricature of it, to uniformly fascinating results as she spins a deranged disco yarn that, once those swirling strings hit, is downright euphoric. 

04. “GOLD TEETH”- Blood Orange, ft. Gangsta Boo, Project Pat, & Tinashe

“We gon’ rumble in this ho!”

Blood Orange takes Project Pat’s “Rinky Dink II/We’re Gonna Rumble” and explodes it, gifting it both playful levity and added depth with a rollicking beat minor chord synths respectively, effortlessly criss crossing Hynes’s many disparate strengths and interests in the most effortlessly rousing and joyful track in his entire ouevre, elevated by the powerhouse Three 6 Mafia reunion verses of Gangsta Boo and Project Pat himself.

03. “INCAPABLE”- Róisín Murphy

“I don’t know if I can love, in all honesty.”

“Incapable,” Róisín Murphy’s virtuosic disco epic, stops time. That indelibly simple bass line loops over and over and over again until you’re lost in it, the song slowly building itself on top of it, adding claps here, hi hat there, rising towards a stunning sequence backed by whooshing synths where the song really comes alive, where an almost boastful breakup anthem morphs into a glamorously melancholy self-indictment in which she ponders that maybe it’s her there’s something wrong with, creating a dazzling dichotomy between the pitfalls of introspection and the bliss of the dancefloor.

02. “MOVIES”- Weyes Blood

“The meaning of life doesn’t seem to shine like that screen.”

“Movies,” appropriately, plays out with a big screen gloss. Those arpeggiated synths feel like they’re slowly expanding as Natalie Mering coos atop them, wondering how if movies are fake, how come they’re more real than anything in real life? As the synths suddenly give way to frenzied strings, the song splits itself open, giving itself over wholly to the melodrama, the sweeping enormity of feeling that Mering so masterfully conjures as she longs for the vitality, the simple answers, and the meaningfulness of movies.

01. “DO YOU LOVE HER NOW”- Jai Paul

“There’s a time for everything.”

On June 1, 2019, when I first read the news that Jai Paul had released new music, news so momentous it was accompanied by a red “breaking news” banner on Pitchfork’s home page, I immediately found my headphones and sequestered myself. I knew whatever I was about to listen to would require my undivided attention. Quite frankly, I was shocked it existed at all. After the notorious, devastating leak of his music in 2013, he’d exiled himself so thoroughly that it was easy to believe he was just gone forever. But here it was, the second coming- two (2!) new songs, effectively doubling the amount of  (completed) material he’s released in an official capacity. 

Pressing play, I was a little nervous that it wouldn’t live up to my expectations, that it might somehow diminish the work of his that I’d loved so much, that changed the way I think about pop and R&B. That didn’t end up being a problem. While “He” is excellent, “Do You Love Her Now” is maybe the most stunning piece of music he’s ever written. Billowing, moseying guitars provide the heartbeat for what starts as a straightforward, sublimely simple send up of 60′s and 70′s R&B. But this Jai Paul we’re talking about, and nothing he does is simple. Nuances and complexities creep out organically from the fabric of the song- synths whiz in and out, harmonies soar to the forefront of the soundscape seemingly out of nowhere and fall away just as suddenly, crafting an immersive, richly textured listening experience that is unpredictable, washing over you like a wave, building, cresting, and crashing over and over again.