#also 'abra' just sounds stupid as shit | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

scoutshonor56 · 5 years ago

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HOCUS POCUS!

Pick a card, any card…

Snape, visibly losing patience: “All right…”

Little Donny Dumblefuck: “Five of clubs!”

Snape: “Holy Hufflepuff, are you kidding me!? Are you fucking kidding me!? Even Weasley can manage this one for Slytherins sake!”

Little Donny: “OK, OK, let me show you the three cups and a chestnut…”

Snape: “You tried that one yesterday and I gave you three chances! Exactly what can you do?”

Little Donny: “Well, I can make really stupid people believe anything I say…”

Snape: “Oh really – and what is the incantation may I ask?”

Little Donny: “Fake News!”

Yes, Little Donny wasn’t much of a wizard, and failing that, a pretty inept and lazy magician, but he was blessed with a really stupid and gullible audience.

I knew we were in trouble early on in this nightmare administration when I first heard blond bimbo/magician’s assistant, Kellyanne Conway, use the phrase “alternative reality” - as in dual reality. Now there’s a concept you don’t often hear mentioned outside of science fiction or quantum physics.

But that’s all a little complex for the simpleminded, so like with so much about this merry band of fumblefucks, they had to dumb it down – hmmm, we need a catch phrase, something simple that even he can remember…GOT IT! FAKE NEWS!

Now most aspiring despots worth their salt, past and present, follow the first rule of creating an autocracy: control the media; the message to the rabble. And when dealing with people a little smarter than the Trumpkins, you go with the direct approach: achieve military authority and neuter the free press by force, leaving only one unified, state run media outlet to carefully craft and control the propaganda machine (see N. Korea).

Aww jeez, that sounds like a lot of work though - let’s just try this: whenever the king hears something he doesn’t like, something critical, or other than outright praise for his greatness, he simply says “FAKE NEWS!”

“Hmm, I dunno… you think they’ll buy it? Is anyone really that stupid?”

“Come on! Have you seen this crowd? Hell yes they’ll buy it!”

You can pick any of countless times over the last three and a half years that this has been proven true, so today let’s stick with the current topic on everyone’s mind – the Covid-19 virus.

Last week I read a sadly horrifying and grim editorial by Timothy Egan in the NY Times (you know, that “failing” news outlet), which pretty much could be viewed as a report card on the U.S. response to the virus so far, and how our once great nation is now viewed by the rest of the modern world - I highly encourage you to read it. Among the statistics sited:

Within 1.3 million reported cases, the United States, just 5% of the world’s population, has 33% of the sick. As we approach 100,000 deaths, we’re also at the front of the pack in that catagory.

Globally, the average death is 34 people per million. In the United States, it’s more than six times higher – 232 per million.

By the end of April, new cases in S. Korea were down to less than 10 a day. In the United States at that time, the pandemic raged at a daily rate of more than 25,000 newly sick.

And yet, here in the United States we spend more on health care, per capita, than any other modern, developed nation.

Brief interlude here: even as I typed this recap, I thought, looking around today and reading the news - can we really still call ourselves the “United” States?

But that’s another story – meanwhile, this cheap shyster with clown hair and more than a few parts loose in his dusty cranium continues to insist his government has done a “spectacular job” with the Covid-19 pandemic. “And I’ll tell you, the whole world is excited watching us because we’re leading the world.”

What – in doing a shitty job?

So again I have to ask myself, as I have so many times during this sham of an administration: “How does he perform and maintain this level of mind control without some mass hypnosis, or serious pharmaceuticals in the drinking water?” How could anyone continue to put their faith in this petulant, narcissistic moron who at any given moment can state that “I never did that”, or “I never said that”, when every one of these incidences of ignorance and buffoonery are filmed and recorded, broadcast for all to see daily? You’re the fucking president, not the schoolyard gossip. Everything you say and do concerning this country is recorded! No, this isn’t an episode of one of your reality shows, where we can creatively – and I mean creatively - make sense of it later in the editing suite.

Throughout most of January, Captain Assclown wasn’t even mentioning the virus, until finally, on the 22nd, when he proclaimed “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine.” By mid-February it became something that “will go away by April”, magically dissipating like old snow with the spring warmth. On the 24th it was “Very much under control in the USA…” He also tweeted, “Stock Market starting to look very good to me!” While addressing a group of African American leaders at the White House on the 27th, he once again turned into a mystical Nostradamus, saying, “It’s going to disappear. One day – it’s like a miracle - it will disappear.”

In Charleston, N.C. on the 28th, at his last Trumpapalooza RA-RA Rally (before the shit really hit the fan and lockdowns started) his rabid, red meat crowd was told the whole thing was simply the latest hoax, perpetrated by the Dems to finally bring him down.

“Watch the tiny hands closely – nothing up my sleeve, aaaaand Abra Cadabra, GONE!”

Watch out though, remember who’s driving the car! Hang on! In mid-March famous demolition derby driver Donny Crash, who insists on not wearing a helmet, comes out with this head-spinning, WTF gearshift moment: “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.”

Sigh - you can’t make this shit up.

How about a current assessment, Crash? Glad to! Just last week (May 8) Donny tells the press, “I feel about vaccines like I feel about tests. This is going to go away without a vaccine. It’s going to go away and we’re not going to see it again.” Wow…

Is there anything this sack of soggy, mashed French fries with clown makeup could say that would make his followers pause and think, “Hmmm - I don’t know about that one…”? If he said the Earth was flat, would they believe it?

Oh, never mind – we all know the answer to that.

This goes way beyond loyalty to a person or a party; it’s much closer to zealous and blind religious fealty. This high priest of pandemonium and bullshit once again has absolutely no plan or clue; he makes decisions about this country like he’s approaching an All-U-Can-Eat fast food buffet: “Let’s see, gimme a Whopper first, and one of those fried pies! No, nope, I’ll take the bucket of chicken with the mashed potatoes! Nooo, wait a minute! Give me the jumbo McDonald’s fries, yeah, that’s it! DOH, I changed my mind, I want the McNuggets first! Yeah, gimme the McNuggets! OH, OH, what are those, over there behind the chicken!?”

His thoughts randomly bounce and pop around erratically in his head like farts in a bathtub. His brain is a broken pinball machine with a dozen paddles and no hole.

And I can think of no better example of his fans than a quote I recently read from washed-up actor who hasn’t been in a decent movie since 1972’s “Deliverance”, Jon Voight – who surprise, surprise was last November awarded the National Medal of Arts and National Humanities by the White House. That’s right my feeble-minded minions – say something flattering about me and you might just get a shiny prize! Or maybe even a job on my team! For some reason there always seems to be an opening…

So let’s crack that Trump loving skull, raise the hood, and take a peek at the gears, hoses, wiring, and pistons that drive your average everyday Trump acolyte:

“We see President Trump as a magnificent soul, raising up this nation… He will go down as the historic president of this millennium. He will be etched in stone with a gold medal, a hero and a president of the United States who won the battle. The war of 2020. He is Donald Trump. God bless.”

I rest my case.

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insanelyhealthy-blog1 · 7 years ago

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Tornado

English

Tornado that's what you are, because I say it? Because of the way you drag me to you. We both know that you only do it because I give you the pleasure that she does not give you, instead I do it because I'm just a fool who likes to make you suffer and does not seem to worry I should get away from you but it is impossible. What have you done? Magic? Black magic that must be. Please let me go and I do not want to be under your spell, you hurt me, you are a simple lover of cold heart and you make me suffer so much. Because you're all I need, but you just say wait and I wait like a complete idiot, all for you because of the person who makes me suffer. You know what I want, you know what I need with all my soul, honey, I want to make love but you are just looking for pleasure. And even knowing that perfectly I crawl to you to fall back into your clutches, and I hate that, I hate you, damn lover of cold heart and I hate being just a toy that gives you pleasure, you make me suffer so much love. I hate you because every time I seem to free me from your spell you come back like a fucking tornado taking me back to you. You take advantage of that I'm just a fool, because you know what I want, I just want to make love. But you only make me suffer and I hate that but what I hate the most is that despite everything with a single call from you I forget everything, and here I am one more night in front of your door, waiting for you to open. . For any other person I would not wait, but you and you stupid spell keeps me here, standing, waiting for you to open the door, I feel like a dog waiting for its owner to let him in. And maybe because I'm just a pet for you, and believe me it does not bother me you have all the power of my being even if I do not want to admit it, with a simple click you would have me at your feet, but you do not see it, you do not notice it and that It makes me suffer, you make me suffer, but I'm still here. Waiting to make love, even if you see it only as sex, I make love to you honey and maybe, that's why you also need me, because you will not find another man that makes you feel or loved you in the same way. And I love that because you have also fallen in my spell, and that comforts me, because I know that in some way, we are bound by the spell of the other. Because I need you, and you need me. But at the same time we are looking for different objectives but always with the same goal, to give ourselves pleasure, while I show you all the love I feel for you, and you pretend to have it or that makes me feel your attitude, you want me to believe that only you enjoy for pleasure. But I know that deep down this feeling is reciprocated, so it seems to you if we stop pretending that we do not need each other and you surrender completely to me as I give myself to you? Why? Why are not we simply together and merged into one being? without you just let me show you the love that I have for you, god you are a fucking thief, you stole my heart practically forcing me to love you. And the move gone perfect and fucking great because I'm in love with you, and I do not even know why, I should not be, you hurt me, you're like a drug, I'm addicted to you but you hurt me so much and the time you feel so good I know it's almost stupid to keep trying to have your love but I'm still here and I do not regret anything. Please tell me, tell me, what do I have to do to you love me? I just want you to you love me, what the fuck do you want me to do? What do you want me to do to make you completely mine? Is not enough with everything that I show while I have you under me? I know you feel the same as me when we do it. I know you feel all the feelings I want to convey to you with each touch, because you also transmit the same feelings to me, that burns me, every caress, every rose of yours, tells me so many things, they yell so many things to me, and that makes me damn crazy , drawing me back here every damn time, even if I do not want to, my system needs you. Shit I would do everything for you, I would lose my pride, I could steal a bank and I would give a shit, because you got me, like a fucking fool for you and your damn spell. But I do not care, because I'm in love with you, I'd even sell my soul to the devil himself if loving you was a sin, because yes, it's my only sin and everything so that you would only give me one chance, but you do not do it, You do not see anything I want to show you and that hurts me, but here I am, like a stupid puppet who loves his ventriloquist. Pretending that I do not care about anything, because deep down I want to feel like this, as if I did not care, but when I'm trying to believe it and make a wall you come with just a kiss or a simple touch you knock it down, without leaving even a single a trace, I only want your love, I already gave you everything of me, but you used all that to create a voodoo doll or a puppet with which you control me, with which you drag me to you, but you know it's the worst ? That I leave you, because there is nothing that I would not do to have your love, so that you are completely mine, because I want you to be mine, I do not give a shit that sounds selfish but I love you for me and that's why I'm still here like your dog waiting for you to decide to give me the opportunity to show you everything I would do for you. If only you knew, you would call me crazy but what do you think? The only medicine for me "disease" is you ...

ok I do not even understand English at all but I wanted to publish it in English also so I use the translator so I'm sorry if there is something wrong written or something that offends jeje the translator can be very treacherous xd is also in Spanish if not they understood and they want to translate you clear if it is that someone sees this

Español

Tornado eso es lo que eres, porque lo digo? Por la manera que me arrastras hasta ti. Ambos sabemos que solo lo haces porque yo te doy el placer que ella no te da, en cambio yo lo hago porque solo soy un tonto al cual te gusta hacer sufrir cariño y no parece preocuparte debería alejarme de ti pero me es imposible. Que has hecho? Magia? Magia negra eso debe de ser. Por favor déjame ir ya no quiero estar bajo tu hechizo, me haces daño, eres un simple amante de corazón frio y me haces sufrir tanto. Porque eres todo lo que necesito, pero tú solo dices que espere y yo espero como un completo idiota, todo por ti por la persona que me hace sufrir. Tú sabes lo que quiero, tú sabes lo que necesito con toda mi alma cariño, yo quiero hacer el amor pero tú lo único que buscas es placer. Y yo aun sabiendo eso perfectamente me arrastro a ti para caer de nuevo en tus garras, y odio eso, te odio a ti, maldito amante de corazón frio y odio ser solo un juguete que te da placer, me haces sufrir tanto cariño. Te odio porque cada vez que parezco líbrame de tu hechizo vuelves como un puto tornado llevándome de vuelta hacia ti. Te aprovechas que soy solo un tonto, porque sabes lo que quiero, yo solo quiero hacer el amor. Pero tú solo me haces sufrir y odio eso pero lo que más odio es que a pesar de todo con una sola llamada tuya me olvido de todo, y aquí estoy una noche más frente a tu puerta, esperando a que me abras. Por cualquier otra persona no me quedaría a esperar, pero tú y tú estúpido hechizo me mantiene aquí, parado, esperando a que abras la puerta, me siento como un perro esperando a que su dueño lo deje entrar. Y tal vez porque eso soy para ti solo una mascota, y créeme no me molesta tienes todo el poder de mi ser aunque no quiera admitirlo, con un simple chasquido me tendrías a tus pies, pero no lo ves, tu no lo notas y eso me hace sufrir, tú me haces sufrir, pero sigo aquí. Esperando a hacerte el amor, aunque tú lo veas solo como sexo, yo te hago el amor cariño y tal vez, es por eso que también me necesitas, porque no encontraras a otro hombre que te haga sentir o te amé de la misma manera. Y eso me encanta porque también has caído en mi hechizo, y eso me reconforta, porque sé que de alguna manera, estamos atados por el hechizo del otro. Porque yo te necesito, y tú me necesitas. Pero al mismo tiempo nos buscamos con diferentes objetivos pero siempre con el mismo fin, darnos placer, mientras yo te demuestro todo el amor que siento por ti, y tu finges tenerlo o eso me hace sentir tu actitud, me quieres hacer creer que solo lo disfrutas por placer. Pero sé que en el fondo este sentimiento es correspondido, así que te parece si dejamos de fingir que no nos necesitamos y te entregas completamente a mi como yo me entregue a ti? Porque? Porque no simplemente estamos juntos y nos fundimos en uno solo ser? sin tan solo me dejaras demostrarte el amor que te tengo, dios eres un maldito ladrón, Robaste mi corazón prácticamente obligándome a amarte. Y la jugada te ha salido perfecta y jodidamente genial porque estoy enamorado de ti, y ni si quiera sé por qué, no debería estarlo, me haces daño, eres como una droga, soy adicto a ti pero me haces tanto daño y la vez me haces sentir tan bien. Sé que es casi estúpido que siga intentando tener tu amor pero todavía sigo aquí y no me arrepiento de nada. Por favor dime, dímelo, que tengo que hacer para que me ames? Yo solo quiero que me ames, que mierda quieres que haga? Que quieres que hagas para que seas completamente mío? No es suficiente con todo lo que demuestro mientras te tengo debajo de mí? sé que sientes lo mismo que yo cuando lo hacemos. Sé que sientes todos los sentimientos que te quiero transmitir con cada toque, porque tú también me trasmites los mismos sentimientos, eso me quema, cada caricia, cada rose tuyo, me dice tantas cosa, me gritan tantas cosas, y eso me vuelve malditamente loco, atrayéndome de vuelta hasta aquí cada maldita vez, aunque no quiera, mi sistema te necesita. Mierda haría todo por ti, perdería mi orgullo, podría robar un banco y me importaría una mierda, porque así me tienes, como un maldito loco por ti y tú maldito hechizo. Pero no me importa, porque yo estoy enamorado de ti, hasta vendería mi alma al mismísimo diablo si amarte fuera un pecado, porque si, es mi único pecado y todo para que tan solo me dieras una oportunidad, pero tú no lo vez, tu no ves nada de lo que quiero demostrarte y eso me hace daño, pero aquí estoy, como un estúpido títere que ama a su ventrílocuo. Fingiendo que no me importa nada, porque en el fondo quiero sentirme así, como si no me importara, pero cuando estoy por creérmelo y logro hacer un muro vienes y con tan solo un beso o un simple rose lo derribas, sin dejar ni un solo un rastro, yo solo quiero tu amor, yo ya te di todo de mí, pero utilizaste todo eso para crear un muñeco de vudú o un títere con el cual me controlas, con el cual me arrastras hasta ti, pero sabe que es lo peor? Que yo te dejo, porque no hay nada que yo no haría para tener tu amor, para que seas completamente mío, porque eso quiero que seas mío, me importa una mierda que suene egoísta pero te quiero para mí y es por eso que sigo aquí como tu perro esperando a que decidas darme la oportunidad de demostrarte todo lo que yo haría por ti. Si tan solo lo supieras me tacharías de loco pero que crees? La única medicina para mí “enfermedad” eres tú…

tal vez no sea lo mejor que leas xd ni lo que este mejor redactado pero si lo terminaste gracias

#Escritosmalosperoconsentimiento

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theworstbob · 7 years ago

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yellin’ at songs: weeks 28 & 29

thoughts on the songs that debuted on the billboard charts of 7.19.1997, 7.26.1997, 7.21.2007, 7.28.2007, 7.22.2017, and 7.29.2017.

spoiler: that too many songs

Week Twenty-Eight

7.19.1997

17) "Gotham City," by R. Kelly

There is nothing of value to be said here, especially by me, who enabled the monster for so long. There is nothing in this song that could justify the lives he's ruined. I hope his body rots worse than his soul.

19) "Whatever," by En Vogue

This is a lovely palette cleanser! A fairly groovy R&B tune by a known entity, not particularly deep and focused solely on being a joy to listen to. Washes the bad taste of the men we watched do harm right out of our mouths, and it leaves us ready to dive back into music we like from uncomplicated humans who DON'T have actual sex slaves!

47) "Take it to the Streets," by Rampage ft./Billy Lawrence

This was pretty okay. Rampage is Busta Rhymes' cousin, so that's neat for him. What a boon that must have been for him in his career. I -- I'm sorry, the big 1997 project is over, and now 1997 is just a fact of everyday life and not a fun treat for us, and now everything feels like an obligation instead of a delight. Or maybe these songs are just enh, I don't know, anyway, next we have a selection off a shitty rock band's worst album, hoo boy, really getting excited for 1997's first week as a YAS regular.

57) "Last Night on Earth," by U2

This is a U2 single. They made a video for it. They have a VEVO and an official account, a U2be if you will, and that music video they made for this song is on neither. All I can find are unofficial uploads. The views on these uploads don't appear to crack the 500,000-view barrier. Even people who LIKE U2, whose job or hobby involves promoting and sharing U2's music would rather not think about this song. Nor should they, it's a dumb song no one should like, but man, if people who like this dumb band aren't into it, what hope did this song have with me?

70) "Four Leaf Clover," by Abra Moore

I shouldn't be the one to feel the instinct to teleport on seeing an Abra, but here we are. 1997 picked a hell of a week to have its worst week, y'all. I timed this poorly.

79) "When You Talk About Love," by Patti LaBelle

A fun way to set expectations for a song is to see what other auto-complete results pop up when searching for the song. One of the ones for this was "zumba." I can hear that. This is a song fast enough to exercise to, but doesn't go hard enough to inspire you to do actual exercise, you just stay with the DVD you found at Target with the fun name. I feel like I should be more into a Patti LaBelle song than I currently am, but I am for some reason in no mood to 1997 right now! It's head of the class but not graduating with honors.

83) "Up Jumps the Boogie," by Magoo & Timbaland ft./Aaliyah & Missy Elliott

It's interesting that Billboard gave Magoo top billing over Timbaland! It's weird that I never hear Magoo brought up when they talk about Timbaland, but I'm excited to h -- wait. ...Wait, is that... OK, no, okay, Magoo? Magoo. You had to know you were awful at this, right? You had to know you had no chance to succeed, that you would be transcended. Oh, Magoo, I am so sorry that this is your life. Anyway, Timbaland! This is dope. I have my issues with Timbaland's sound in 2007, but Timbaland is yet to drown in excess, this track has a nice build to it, and I have enough nostalgia that I am willing to forgive any amount of Magoo if it means a Timbaland/Missy collaboration. But Magoo is just unbelievably bad. They made a version of this song without him, right? It'd be a travesty if they didn't. Like, Magoo is keeping this song out of the Top 20.

91) "I Say a Little Prayer," by Diana King

I bet a "Say a Little Prayer" cover had some novelty value before American Idol kind of ruined covers of standards for the rest of the world. Like, I've heard enough versions of "Say a Little Prayer" in this lifetime that I didn't need this reggae version intercut with scenes from a romantic comedy. She does have another single called "Shy Guy," though. She and I have the same favorite Super Mario Bros. 2 enemy! That's one thing I got. Ugh, heck next week, TAKE ME 2007. I AM READY TO LOVE YOU AGAIN. TAKE ME INTO Ywhat do you mean "love theme from transformers"

7.21.2007

68) "You Know What It Is," T.I. ft./Wyclef Jean

T.I. claims, "I had the album of the year, Grammy or not." At first blush, this may seem overly boastful; after all, it's been established that T.I. may not be one of the 100 greatest rappers of all time, and T.I. never quite had the superstar power of a Kanye or a Kendrick or the type that usually wins the award. But the 2007 field for Best Rap Album was actually sorta weak. You have a Ludacris album with zero signature hits, which is notable given that Ludacris is the Foo Fighters of rap, an album from Pharrell that is only there because Pharrell made it, and albums from Lupe Fiasco and The Roots that were never going to win but do let the Grammys signal to their audience that they know what's up. Plus, 2006 in general was a shitty year for rap. You'd have to really stan for OutKast or Jay-Z to defend Idlewild or Kingdom Come, and apart from Food & Liquor, there aren't any classics bubbling just under the mainstream. Much in the same way 1989 was the best pop album of 2014 because everyone else's albums sucked, T.I.'s King was the best rap album of 2006. Unless you're into the Jeezy album or the Rick Ross album. Maybe those? I don't fuckin' know, I don't know history, this song is OK.

85) "LoveStoned," Justin Timberlake

Kind of unpleasant going from fun and actually composed music from Timbaland to "here's a thousand noises I slapped together TURNED TO ELEVEN" Timbaland. See, look at that, it has been like fifteen minutes, and I'm already nostalgic for the '90s. Only '90s kids will remember when Timbaland didn't make confusing music.

86) "Before It's Too Late (Sam and Mikaela's Theme)," The Goo Goo Dolls

Hey, remember in YAS '90s when I lamented the death of the soundtrack? Sure would be nice if we could pinpoint the exact moment the soundtrack cut died, the one soundtrack cut that ruined the commercial viability for future soundtrack cuts to come. Might be an interesting quest to take, to find the last soundtrack cut! Anyway, love theme from Transformers love theme from Transformers love theme from Transformers love theme from Transformers love theme from Transformers love theme from Transformers love theme from Transformers love theme from Transformers love theme from Transformers love theme from Transformers love theme from Transformers love theme from Transformers love theme from Transformers love theme from Transformers love theme from Transformers love theme from Transformers love theme from Transformers love theme from Transformers love theme from Transformers love theme from Transformers love theme from Transformers love theme from Transformers love theme from Transformers love theme from Transformers love theme from Transformers love theme from Transformers

93) "Cupid Shuffle," Cupid

/went to bed at midnight /had a day at work where he said zero words to people /rough bus ride home /faced with 30 pop songs /plus self-imposed deadline /slumped over on desk /twitching more like... /labored breathing stupid shuffle /ugly crying that sounds like coughing

94) "Tough," Craig Morgan

It has been nearly two weeks since I've heard a country dude. I'm not even going to count the three country dudes I heard during YAS97, because one was George Strait and that treacly-ass nonsense about how daughters are awesome or whatever is about as country as a skyscraper. Not that this goes that much harder, it's a song celebrating a mother's toughness (which is honestly about as feminist as country gets), but you can really hear the difference in production values in country dude songs between 1997 and 2007. Songs get built better in the modren era, and while this eventually leads to the trashification of country, and also this song is cheeseball as hell, this is so much better to listen to than that Bros Brothers track.

95) "Everyday America," Sugarland

Songs like this are uncomfortable to contend with in an age where billionaires co-opt this sentiment to trick America into plunging itself into a totalitarion nightmarescape. This is a song that plays during the preamble to a rally where a man yells at you that the best way to save this version of America which never existed is to strip yourself of health care and just spray poison straight into the sun so that billionaires can pocket an extra $50k. I'm sorry, Sugarland. Usually I don't get in this mood, but this is 2017 we live in, and also all the things I said in the Cupid section.

99) "Misery Business," Paramore

I can hear the criticism of this song as something somewhat unfeminist, but expecting any 19-year-old to walk this earth cognizant of all social issues and doing their best to fight them is stupid. 19-year-olds should be making songs about some asshole what stole their boyfriend. It kinda sucks she used the word "whore?" But we all said shitty sings when we were 19. Most of the shit I said is archived on Facebook, and Hayley Williams has the singular misfortune of having her problematic years attached to THIS SONG WHICH GOES HARD AS HELL AND IS A POP/PUNK MASTERPIECE. This song rules. It's childish in all the right ways, and I'm always gonna have that nostalgia blind spot for it. Heck you for trying to ruin it with valid points about the song's less-than-chill attitude towards gender roles, just sit back, dawg. It could get worse. Remember when R. Kelly had a top 20 hit in this post?

100) "Guys Like Me," Eric Church

In the sense that this built a foundation on which Eric Church built up enough clout that he earned the creative freedom to make "Mr. Misunderstood," this song is worthwhile. In every single other sense, I can't believe I expressed something like positive thoughts about modren country music.

7.22.2017

(70) "Mi Gente," by J Balvin & Willy William

I was stoked to jump back into 2017 with some Latin pop. I've been down with this Latin pop revival (insofar as Latin pop needed to be revived (it was still thriving just not in the states (like duh))), and I was stoked for this song, but the translation shows that this is a song about how good this song is. I mean, hey, I've heard worse, but that doesn't mean we can't do better than this. Still, I like that fun kazoo noise, and this song has as much a right as any to shout about how good it is. Not a classic, but we ragequit this project after DJ Khaled took the top song, so hey, we're already doing better!

(78) "Rake it Up," by Yo Gotti ft./Nicki Minaj

Having heard every rap song that hit the Hot 100 from January through July 1997, I can confirm that literally all but one rapper in 1997 was better at the act of rapping than this Yo Gotti character. I have no nostalgia goggles for '90s rap, I am completely ignorant of any rap history that didn't make it to Shea Serrano's Rap Yearbook, I literally just mainlined the entirety of 1997 rap, and I can state from a position of authority that Yo Gotti is garbage to listen to. He has an advantage on Magoo, I am not here to engage in hyperbole, but he is worse at this thing he is being paid to do than all that preceded him. Nicki has a fun verse, her verses are usually fun, but this dude is awful. I'm supposed to think this is rap after having heard the "Not Tonight" remix? Come on, man.

(85) "Bodak Yellow," by Cardi B

I picked up Gangsta Bitch Music Vol. 1 based on the recommendation of a basketball podcast, and I was impressed. I thought there was a lot of potential there, and I'm glad to see it's getting harnessed into something. I might've picked a better person to mimic than Kodak Black, but I'm not gonna complain about a solid song. "Said little bitch/You can't fuck with me if you wanted to/These expensive/These is red bottoms, these are bloody shoes." I kinda fucking love that. Like, just casually letting you know she's already stomped on people. I'm into this. I hope she gets to do something less derivative in the future.

(87) "Who Dat Boy," by Tyler, the Creator ft./A$AP Rocky

I will never complain about Rocky in any situation. I actually haven't listened to... gosh, anything Tyler's made since Goblin. I think that's understandable, what with Goblin being terrible. But this is really cool. This isn't as Adult Swim as the Odd Future cohort can get. It still sort of sounds weird for weirdness' sake, but there's focus, there's actual dedication to making this sound like the nightmare Tyler thinks his head is. Plus, Rocky. I like that guy. Not bad! That counts as high praise, given my history with Tyler, the Creator.

(89) "Heartache on the Dance Floor," by Jon Pardi

he's not even a good singer. there is nothing about this dude's voice that is pleasant to hear, it sounds like an imitation of better singers, like what if you replaced everything that gave chris stapleton's voice depth and clarity and distinctive tone and replaced it with gross goat sounds. he has a range of "the note he sings in this song." fuck this dude and fuck everyone that ever believed in him.

(99) "Extra Luv," by Future ft./YG

Did... Did Future take inspiration from his collaboration with Calvin Harris? Because I don't think I've ever grooved this hard to a Future song. I don't think Future has ever made a song to be grooved to. It's usually music to make you run through a brick wall or music to contemplate every dark thought you've ever had, never a song that just exists for the sake of being fun to listen to. Like, did Future just go into the studio with Calvin Harris and just have his mind blown, like, "Wait, music can sound like THIS? I gotta try this shit out! Hot damn! This is a game-changer!" Still some sadness, it's about a woman loving how rich Future is and not Future himself, but it's packaged so differently from the rest of Future's stuff and I'm so thrilled if this is the direction Future will take with his next five albums!

Who won the week?

While we would like to give 2007 a shout-out for the individual achievement of Paramore, man, the rest of 2007 is horrible this week. 1997 and 2017 don’t fare a ton better; 2017 at least gives us three tracks that are interesting and, given how salty and/or burnt out I am, are probably a lot better than I think they are in my current mental state. It’s 2017.

Week Twenty-Nine

7.26.1997

31) "Someone," by SWV ft./Puff Daddy

Very nice work! Bob exclaimed, stirring himself from the Soulja Boy Tell'em passage he was writing because he doesn't need to listen to "Crank Dat" to know how "Crank Dat" makes him feel. You girls sure rocked the house! he said, wondering why he admitted he was looking past this song and not giving it the fair chance he gave other songs before it. Bob doesn't know what's happening in this paragraph, and while Bob would like to start over, he won't, because he wrote all these words, and deleting them would mean having to write more, y'know?

32) "I Can Love You," by Mary J. Blige ft./Lil Kim

A'ight, if you're gonna make me listen to this much R&B in one sitting, I appreciate that you're gonna give me something close to a standard. One day, man, I'm gonna get familiar with Mary J. Blige, and this song is a reminder of all the great things I'm missing out on, like I'm in a world right now where I'm not sure where this song ranks in the Mary J. Blige canon but can be absolutely certain it's not in the top tier. I'm gonna get to it, I've got other shit to work through but I swear, I'm gonna get to it. Gosh, I'm like seventy-five seasons behind on R&B musc.

57) "To the Moon and Back," by Savage Garden

...This could've stood to be a tad more dramatic. Like, I don't know, I'm trying to evaluate this song on some unspecified criteria, I lack the capacity of language to be writing these posts in the first place, I have no idea how to tell you what I'm looking for, but this song sounds like it's on this middle road between "beautiful subtle ballad" and "epic overblown power ballad," and I wish it would just choose a side, ever give me all the emotions or try to get at one specific emotion. It's alright, I didn't want to switch the YouTube video off, it just feels like nothing.

85) "(Freak) And U Know It," by Adina Howard

I've used the words "trash" and "garbage" a lot over the past week, because those are accurate descriptors of certain kinds of '90s music, but we also need to acknowledge when "trash" is a positive virtue. This song is trashy in all the right ways. It is completely unconcerned with engaging with the listener intellectually, focusing instead on the private parts, which she would very much like to freak. While sometimes it's disheartening when someone we know can do better doesn't try to do better, this song wouldn't work if it were concerned with anything but the basest desires. You should generally want something that is worth thinking about after you finish the song, but sometimes, you want a sexy voice over a funky bass line asking if you wanna go down.

7.28.2007

47) "Crank Dat (Soulja Boy)," Soulja Boy Tell'em

This song is a singular achievement in American culture, and the day it was brought to our attention is the day we were alerted to the meaning of life.

100) "Never Too Late," Three Days Grace

YAS ALT-HISTORY: if everything went according to plan, I was going to pretend "Never Too Late" didn't exist and make Soulja Boy Tell'em take on the offerings of 2017 on his own, the last Spartan warrior screaming at the cloud of arrows. You can't know anything close to the disappointment I felt in the twenty seconds it took me to scroll from 47 to 100, getting more and more excited for the Soulja Boy Tell'em vs. The World narrative, and then finding, of all songs, this buttrock ballad, here to ruin everything, here to drag Soulja Boy Tell'em down. Like, Three Days Grace was one of the better buttrock bands; "Animal I Have Become" is legit, and the entire One-X album is the best thing any buttrock band put out, but this ballad sorta blows, and it completely ruined what should have been Soulja Boy Tell'em week. I can't forgive this song for doing that to me.

7.29.2017

(23) "The Story of OJ," by Jay-Z (35) "4:44," by Jay-Z (47) "Bam," by Jay-Z ft./Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley (51) "Family Feud," by Jay-Z ft./Beyonce (55) "Kill Jay-Z," by Jay-Z (56) "Smile," by Jay-Z ft./Gloria Carter (63) "Caught Their Eyes," by Jay-Z ft./Frank Ocean (86) "Moonlight," by Jay-Z (90) "Marcy Me," by Jay-Z

Jay-Z is great and 4:44 is great and all of these songs are great and 2017 has pulled off two wins by cheating. Like, if there's one thing I learned from 1997, it's that, when Drake gets 20 songs on the chart, he's taking those spots away from weird and/or wonderful songs by artists that will never hit again. I can't stop thinking about "Fulton St." two or three days after hearing it, but if it happened to drop one of those weeks an AAA artist dropped an album in 1997 and the Billboard chart was using the formula it is today, I wouldn't have heard it. That's not to say these songs aren't great, it's just an unfortunate quirk of these modern times, that Jay-Z gets nine hit songs and someone smaller is gonna lose their shot at something like notoriety.

(33) "Bank Account," by 21 Savage (94) "Famous," by 21 Savage

has this dude ever felt an emotion? i dunno, it's entirely possible i didn't feel like paying attention, but both of these songs were rapped in the same passive tone, never changing, just a voice maintaining at some level of chill without acknowledging anything like a feeling. which is impressive, if the goal is to get people to listen and never stop listening, this is the voice you need to perfect, this is a voice that can lull you into a trance where you wake up two hours later and realize you've listened to two of this dude's albums, but i know i have to hit skip at the end, and it's so fucking boring DO SOMETHING

(25) "Praying," by Kesha

Kesha went through a lot to make this song, and, as is stated, she has been through hell, through no end of pain and torture the likes of which no one should ever have to know. I can respect that.

(52) "Sorry Not Sorry," by Demi Lovato

I'm into Demi Lovato. I'm into shallow fun pop songs. I hated every second of this. Here's my conspiracy theory. I mentioned 1989 when discussing T.I. What if there's a conspiracy going on to make all pop music sound really shitty so that, when Tay Tay releases her album, she doesn't have any insurmountable hills to climb to claim Album of the Year again? (Yeah, DAMN. happened, but To Pimp a Butterfly was better than 1989. Didn't stop the Grammys!) Like, I'm into everything Julia Michaels has done, and I'm gonna love any album she releases, but she's not on that level. Selena Gomez is doing fun stuff, but she needs one more "Bad Liar" if she wants to hit that level. We're apparently not into Lorde anymore, we're finally over Katy Perry, no one else seems to be willing to release an album, I mean, Tay Tay's gonna take another weak year and use it to trick people into thinking an A- album is an A+. Big Machine somehow ruined this song, and we need to figure out how deep this goes.

(89) "Glorious," by Macklemore ft./Skylar Grey

I am as interested in Macklemore without Ryan Lewis as I am in six untoasted hot dog buns.

(91) "Get Low," by Zedd & Liam Payne

Oh good, the EDM dudelords are starting to rip off Calvin Harris' funky sound. Great. Look what you did, "Slide." (And to some extent, we should hold "Run Up" responsible, except "Run Up" is perfect and you never gave it a chance.) Now Zedd thinks he can make a shitty summer song. I didn't want to hear what Zedd thought summer sounded like. Turns out Zedd thinks summer is good! What a bold take, never saw that coming.

(92) "Fetish," by Selena Gomez ft./Gucci Mane

pop music is bad and i should not have added more of it to my weekly routine. "you've got a fetish for my love." that's fucking stupid. like, see! we had two decent songs from selena gomez, then this tanks her momentum! we're setting up for another year where tay tay takes a bye into Album of the Year consideration, and it won't even be as good as Red. she'll take her special brand of adult top 40 and amaze people who haven't heard a good song in weeks. man. what an unfortunate week to attempt to pull a double shift. the right thing to do would be to go to tumblr and say i'm cranky and need more time, but despite how bad the weeks were, i think i have some solid jokes. also, we got to think about jay-z for a few seconds! that was nice. thank you for making music this year, jay-z, i truly appreciate the work you put into making this post not a chore.

Who won the week?

It is kind of cheating to roll out a classic rap album, especially when the rest of 2017′s offerings were so enh. (I might like 21 Savage more if I weren’t so over everything.) But 1997 and 2007 don’t bring much to the table, either, and I can’t help how the charts get made. 2017 wins another one, which actually puts it ahead in the season standings: 2017: 11 1997: 10 2007: 8 Next week, 2007 rolls out High School Musical 2 and Billy Ray Cyrus against “Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems,” which I think is going to go very well for 2007! 2017 will likely feature that shitty bro country dude’s attempt at being Chris Stapleton. Congratulations, 1997. (Hey, Bob, when you gonna do 1987, it only m)NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

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tinymixtapes · 8 years ago

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Feature: 2017: First Quarter Favorites

Three months in, and we haven’t destroyed ourselves! To celebrate this achievement, we’re once again sharing our favorite releases from the last few months. A lot of it is pretty heavy, focusing on grief (Mount Eerie), cruelty (Lawrence English), and self-loathing (Xiu Xiu), with other fun stuff like ritual guitar abuse (Skullflower) and the glowing horror of reanimation (Rashad Becker). But we also loved everything from urban gallery funk (Cybervision Simulcast) and philosophic horse opera (Sun Araw) to playful Afromutations (Riddlore) and pop so sugary sweet it’ll rot your teeth (Charli XCX). Something for everyone. ;) Since these quarter lists are more informal than our year-end features, the shortlist before the list proper is equally important (especially Dasychira’s Immolated EP, which got a lot of love since assembling this list). Check ‘em all out below, and maybe see you in another three? Shortlist: Moon B’s Lifeworld 2: Udaya, nekomimi + luvfexxx, LUVISCOLD, Sophiaaaahjkl;8901’s Toilet Abstraction Tapes, Gabor Lazar’s Crisis of Representation, Darren Keen, It’s Never Too Late To Say You’re Welcome, Mega Bog’s Happy Together, Tonstartssbandht’s Sorcerer, Dasychira’s Immolated, Drake’s More Life, William Basinski’s A Shadow in Time, Roc Marciano’s Rosebudd’s Revenge, Future’s HNDRXX, Blanck Mass’ World Eater, and PAN’s mono no aware compilation. --- Mount Eerie A Crow Looked At Me [P.W. Elverum & Sun] I can barely listen to A Crow Looked At Me, an album with little room for novelty, one I’m sure Phil Elverum never wanted to make. Death is the least novel thing in life, but it makes a novelty out of what never was before. Phil (who I feel maybe too close to now) makes white noise of branches, canyons of grocery store aisles, a sunset of what is not dust. He doesn’t have to make meaning of Death, because words become futile when confronted with something so simple and absolute. His grief seems just to be here, contained by the same microphone as guitar, the way someone who dies just can’t be. I don’t think music had ever made me cry only for someone else, but none of this sounds like it was made for anyone but Geneviève and himself. He says he doesn’t want to learn anything from his wife’s death, but by the time you’ve shut your eyes for 40 minutes, alone with the creaking floor and counted days and Pacific birds and spoken dreams, I can’t imagine not coming away with (something) more. It’s springtime. –Pat Beane --- Riddlore Afromutation [Nyege Nyege Tapes] The modest genius of Riddlore’s Afromutations, the January offering from Ugandan cassette label Nyege Nyege Tapes, stems from a certain perspectival grace. A longstanding figure of the Los Angeles hip-hop underground, Riddlore is known first as an emcee and second as a beatmaker. Afromutations sees the artist sketching a playful, iterative bass style drawn from samples of African field recordings, a hauntological gesture that in less subtle hands might fall into a self-serious wormhole. The tape’s beauty is in how the timbral mood of the samples gesture at and usher into place the recombinant scaffolding of the relatively untreated percussion, like how the choral tension that opens “Bakka Pygmies Riddim” blossoms into an eerie kuduro strut. Elsewhere, on “Afroed” and “The Crush,” drums and overlapping harmonies flange into natural psychedelias. Riddlore’s agenda-absent play allows the samples to mutate freely, and Nyege Nyege serves an adept platform for the project. –Nick Henderson Afromutations by RiddloreAfromutations by Riddlore --- The Necks Unfold [Ideologic Organ] To unfold, usually, is to grow, to expand; to sprawl. On their 19th release, The Necks have instead tightened their improvisational nous to four standalone pieces, invoking the mysticism of Cusanus: “unfolding is enfolding.” These anti-compositions unfold insofar as they protrude into space-time and become of-the-world, cosmological chaos and all; they enfold into the broader scheme of the album, all unified through the articulate chops of Messrs Abrahams, Swanton, and Buck. Between balance and imbalance, serenity and turbulence, the respective instrumental forces of the players here circumnavigate these side-long miniatures with microscopic focus and reticence, in characteristically Necks-ian fashion. And, even when compared with classics past, there’s no compromise on ambition, not a single wasted moment. Such is the dynamism of Unfold; what initially struck as blissful stasis, best suited for gazing into the pale blue yonder, gently opens up — and, yeah, unfolds — to yield four of the most self-contained, wholly busy musics that 2017 has had to offer thus far. –Soe Jherwood Cybervision Simulcast Sewer City [H.V.R.F. CENTRAL COMMAND] Sewer City kicks up all the residual funk of an urban galley. Where oil encrusted kebab meat sweats on rotation, busted street lights stutter into the night, and ripple-rich puddles highlight the only natural quality to animate the scene, as thick droplets of rain are spat down from the stubborn grey heavens above. Cybervision Simulcast drape this grizzly vision through the innards of a pitch-black bypass drenched in alarms, sirens, and ricochet. Everything points to a breakdown or dysfunction, as this bleak snapshot of municipal decay melts to nothingness through our slime-smeared fingers. But those signals of distress are incorporated within the process, and they are not to be heeded for what they might otherwise signify; they orchestrate the bass-inverted crank that punctuates the residue of samples, synths, and storyline. To suggest that this grizzled and failing image results in a perfect album would be distasteful — obscene, even. And yet, that’s precisely what’s happened every time I’ve taken the plunge so far. There is no light at the end of this tunnel. Let’s keep it that way. –Birkut SewerCity by Cybervision SimulcastSewerCity by Cybervision Simulcast --- Charli XCX Number 1 Angel [Asylum] Out of the cold dark dust, the Number 1 Angel spreads her wings for Utopia, so emotional and so sugary sweet it’ll rot your teeth. After one of the strangest ascensions (“I! Don’t! Care!”) in the pop industry, Charli XCX is thriving. VROOM VROOM’s EUREKA! production was Charli at a 100% synchronization rate, and now she’s spun a 40-minute pop slipstream, an outside World of babygirls and babyboys. The PC Music crew sheds some of the hyperreal, sourcing Charli’s charisma and songwriting prowess to shoot for real stars: color-coded bangers, sweatsoaked and tearstained, a clarity of vision that at once opens avataric and musical possibilities in the channel of Rihanna and Kesha. The party’s enfolding. Number 1 Angel is Charli’s every intuition refined in hi-fi, the best-yet gateway for anyone not already along for the ride. Ten songs for one night. Glitter in your underwear, left on red. Let’s ride! The closing trilogy of features (Uffie, ABRA, cupcakKe) is fucked-up perfect. Each outrunning the last, headfirst till the 90s bubblegum pops. The synths kick up cinnamon for a minute-long Secret Mix outro. Inextinguishable, enlightening. It’s Charli, baby. –Pat Beane [pagebreak] --- Various Artists Club Chai Vol. 1 [Club Chai] When you’re in the right club, with the right music, with the right crowd, you can feel your body. You’re present in it, in its creases and protrusions, in its decorations and accoutrements, in its movements and vibrations in space, in its careful caressings and navigations around and through other bodies. You can feel it as something fluid, the cells and lipstick and lungs and heels and bass and drugs and genders and hi-hats and drifting and splitting melodies and languages morphing the movement of your limbs into a movement of potentials. You think, “I am in this body and I am feeling these other bodies and I know that this body can be something else, it can be what it wants to be, it can be what it doesn’t want to be, this shell is the end and the beginning and I am going to be fucking gorgeous.” Club Chai is a loose collective of queer and trans club DJs and producers out of Oakland pushing that continuum into the right-now-right-now-right-now of sonic uncertainty, gender uncertainty, national uncertainty. And it feels right. –Jeffrey Dunn Rovinelli Club Chai Vol. 1 by Club ChaiClub Chai Vol. 1 by Club Chai --- Lawrence English Cruel Optimism [Room40] I consider myself an optimist, but I haven’t always been positive. My sense of trust in goodness has grown as I’ve unpacked how cynicism has poisoned many of my relationships (with partners, with friends, with art). Then again, being an optimist, as Louis CK once asserted, means being stupid. There’s a delicate balance between being confident in humanity’s potential for good and accepting humanity’s cruelty as simply the cost of business. Lawrence English’s latest release is music for contemplating what’s writhing around deep in humanity’s psyche. Its requiem is solemn, because nobody’s sense of “goodness” has won yet, its negative drones promising because they still have matter to vibrate through. Cruel Optimism is nominally a meditation on how human desire often breeds cruelty at humanity’s own expense, but as a sound work, it is also a reminder that optimism, shed of its colonizing skin, can overcome cruelty. –Jackson Scott Cruel Optimism by Lawrence EnglishCruel Optimism by Lawrence English --- Quelle Chris Being You Is Great, I Wish I Could Be You More Often [Mello Music Group] In college, a friend of mine had a line that went something like, “Your shit is wacker than the ‘you’ that every rapper writes about.” Although I can’t remember exactly how it went, or if it was ever even put to record, I always thought that was so dope: taking aim at the proverbial second person by acknowledging its ubiquitous metanarrative; uplifting recorded battle rap by breaking its third wall. Doper still, the idea that an omnipresent, sucker MC named “You” might actually exist. Being You Is Great, I Wish I Could Be You More Often complicates the above concept by incorporating hip-hop’s superego, the proverbial I, and framing that id character as both a role model for personal success and a self-destructive nemesis. Like “Who Am I” as a slapstick comedy about the creative process. –Samuel Diamond Being You Is Great, I Wish I Could Be You More Often by Quelle ChrisBeing You Is Great, I Wish I Could Be You More Often by Quelle Chris --- Sun Araw The Saddle of the Increate [Sun Ark/Drag City] The Saddle of the Increate shuffles the few short steps across from Belomancie’s chambers of internal refraction to twitch and twinge its way through into the shining territory of the lonesome whippoorwill — outdoors, that is. Well, at least there’s a pedal steel or two, a cactus, and a 10-gallon hat — it’s a [“psychedelic”] philosophic horse opera, tough as an actor, distracted but gruffly tender, especially in its latter sections. There’s a space and a half between every point; we can give names to/for every constellation, a classical reference or two even, but it’s still… complex — and how is the soul (your soul) distinct from its powers anyway? Spatially disorienting, temporally atomistic, concrete in image, plastic in execution: seven lampstands have become seven horses (and four hats, a head of cattle, one bowl, etc. etc.). Like pulling a wishbone with yourself, be 100% ready to spit in the skillet. –Michael J --- Graham Lambkin Community [ErstSolo/Kye] As Jackson Scott so rightly put, Graham Lambkin’s Community is “a document of what a community can create without dictating what a community should entail; it is evidence without the arrogance of conclusion.” Not community, but the evidence of community. In fact, the trace audible evidences of sound becoming located in new environments is exactly what establishes Lambkin’s practice and medium — a medium that so mysteriously auditions sonic evidence into richly communicative listening spaces. In Community, we are bathed by this evidence, in communion with it; it is threaded inside of the spaces we inhabit, our daily lives and interactions — those already in articulation. Voiced as such, the album is a masterclass in Lambkin’s quotidian character, flattened into a natural, weathered state close to the void — close to how impossible and brilliant our communities are. It reminds us that our communities exist often without us, within and without our human attempts to locate them. –scvscv --- Camedor En Ut / Alba [Debacle] The scoff that is heard ‘round the world at any mention of “world” music may not be the constructive criticism the catch-all term deserves, but it is the noise necessary to make a greater point. But may we suggest replacing that negativity with a positive denotation? Enter Camedor’s debut 12-inch, which is the sound of the world sucked into a wormhole wherein time, space, and location matter little. In a nutshell, it represents the “new” idea of world music, where we no longer place such a limiting genre marker on what is music now easily accessible to all. Both songs borrow from mid-century composers (including a “cover” of Terry Riley’s “In C”), but also pull everything out of the grab bag of motorik, drone, and pop. José Orozco Mora has layered it all into a wondrous noise that may heavily borrow from Western tropes and styles, but is music from parts (un)known. You may not catch much Berber or Aboriginal influence, but what matters is how Mora’s Camedor speaks to building bridges between cultures through music. It’s a shared form of expression, and the joyous, raucous nature of En Ut / Alba is a celebration of worlds colliding into symphonic harmony. –Jspicer En Ut / Alba by CamedorEn Ut / Alba by Camedor [pagebreak] --- Skullflower The Spirals of Great Harm [Cold Spring] The Spirals of Great Harm has a clear lineage in the Skullflower discography. It’s a step beyond Strange Keys to Untune Gods Firmament (also a double album) and Taste the Blood of the Deceiver, though it follows a similar trek down the left-hand path. Played at a low volume, its minor key melodies and themes are apparent enough, but turn it up and its lacerating feedback has a much harsher effect. Bower and collaborator Samantha Davies (the only other constant in the modern Skullflower lineup) unleash hell through ritual guitar abuse. Outsiders may not readily understand how much different this album is from 2014’s dragon-themed Draconis, but to longtime admirers, it’s a step away from that album’s meandering psych, the style of which Bower used to reserve for his Sunroof! project. Kneeling in worship at the altar of the underworld, stacks of amplifiers in tow, Bower and Davies have crafted another indispensable addition to their canon. –Joe Davenport --- Xiu Xiu FORGET [Polyvinyl] Pray for Xiu Xiu. As many of their contemporaries have either faded from the record and/or embraced a life as background material for iPod commercials [ed: NO SHADE ON IPODS], Jamie Stewart’s long-running project has — like unchecked tooth decay — only deepened with age. Delivering maybe their most “accessible” album since formative hit Fabulous Muscles (a record whose key lyric was still “Cremate me after you cum on my lips”), FORGET brings all the self-loathing, harsh sarcasm, wonky instrumentation, and harrowing Dennis Cooperisms we have come to depend on from the Xiuverse. Whether you love it or not, Stewart and his gang have sustained a distinct interpretation of the world through what can feel like a lifetime’s worth of trend-shifting; for this alone, the band’s persistence should be cherished. That FORGET is one of their best albums to date is a surprise and a delight, the sign of a legacy act finding new life (the light, New Order-echoing “Get Up” is an album highlight) and handing us a deceptively poppy, booby-trapped gift to both longtime fans and newcomers. –Dylan Pasture FORGET by Xiu XiuFORGET by Xiu Xiu --- Rashad Becker Traditional Music of Notional Species Vol. II [PAN] Rashad Becker is a musician who is known for mastering other musicians’ work. His operation at Dubplates & Mastering is prolific and now famous in the world of experimental and electronic music, its most recent accomplishments including masters of The Necks’ Unfold, Visible Cloaks’ Reassemblage, and the great new PAN compilation Mono No Aware, but probably the most adventurous and distinctive of the records Becker has engineered of late is his own. He makes music with the freedom of a person who spends a lot of time thinking about the relationship between music and media of expression. PAN officially describes Becker’s Notions as “synthesized sounds that appear to exist hauntingly physical,” alluding to the tension between creativity and materials that enters always into the musical imagination, the tension that Becker gets paid to negotiate on artists’ behalf. The physical “haunts” music, not as an antagonist as if all music were not physical at least in origin, but because of what is risked, what is lost, and what is made when music passes from one physical medium to another, as in the representation of the rapid movements of a trombone’s bell as bumps on a slab of vinyl. Where his first volume of Traditional Music was a bit more self-similar, built from the whirring of buglike tensions and releases, Becker’s second effort explores the glowing horror and breath of reanimation. With species even more personable and diverse than those of its far-out predecessor, Traditional Music of Notional Species Vol. II is nothing short of an event in electronic music. –Will Neibergall Traditional Music of Notional Species Vol. II (PAN 74) by Rashad BeckerTraditional Music of Notional Species Vol. II (PAN 74) by Rashad Becker --- We’ll See x Treece (Prod Hyro) Constructions Tape [SWMS/Self-Released] Drizzy Aubrey may be hip-hop’s new international playboy, assembling identities like a collector on safari, but the UK hip-hop and grime scene has been strong for a while now. We’ll See and Treece, along with lo-fi necromancer Hyro, present an alternative to the rude glitz of Skepta, a drowsy, dour romp through England’s South West and Manchester, tagging walls, popping pills, and trading deft, witty wordplay. There’s something theatrical, entrancing about the scenes on Constructions Tape, and they fade in and out of view like fragments from a VHS tape in a Buckfast bottle. Hyro is as much a character as the MCs — the beats on “SNES-CD” and “Krylon” are loose and minimal. “Rizla” is a stunning example of his sizzling, ambient lo-fi technique. The drugs are the same, the liquor is the same (the slang a little different). For those who find it hard to relate to life on the other side of the Atlantic, you can dig the lads’ antics in a tape-length music video, which explores the highways, fallow fields, and windy beaches of Britain. We’ll See and Treece are practically alone in the entire piece, ghosts in a glittering, unforgiving city. –Ross Devlin Constructions Tape by We'll See x Treece (Prod Hyro)Constructions Tape by We'll See x Treece (Prod Hyro) --- Jon Mueller dHrAaNwDn [Rhythmplex] Jon Mueller’s dHrAaNwDn is deep and resonant, each quadrant of the 2xLP package filling a distinct void. Mueller is adept at bending innovative recording techniques to fit his drum-offs, and this might be one of his most elaborate schemes. The excerpts found on the wax were captured by a full mobile studio at the historically cogent meeting house of the Shaker Historical Society in Albany, NY. And if you’ve ever been to Albany (as I have, a ton), you know there’s an odd artistic energy enveloping the overlooked city. Using the cavernous environment to its aural advantage, dHrAaNwDn sprawls its percussive attacks out evenly, the dank toms thumping, jumping, and bumping. It’s akin to those loooong rows of files I used to sleep amid when I worked at a complex housing warehouses full of legal files: orderly, sequential, and all-encompassing in its grandeur. dHrAaNwDn hits harder than a drone-out and more comprehensively than the huge push of air that accompanies an explosion, the sound waves bouncing rustically off the “wood and white walls” of the house. So much more to say, so little space; white vinyl, only 200 copies, no digital version, gorgeous artwork, Mueller exploring yet another avant avenue that no one thought to truss. –Grant ‘Gumshoe’ Purdum --- Amnesia Scanner AS Truth [Self-Released] AS Truth provides a severely ungrounded experience. Leitmotifs abound (water, club, shifter, voice, trepan), Amnesia Scanner build a dizzying piece that is colossally unfathomable yet pragmatically short — done before its working becomes cruel. Living in the tiny turns and rarely caring for much larger than that, AS Truth is the pregame and the function (the buzz and the twitch [the trepanation across the nation (the boogie and the drop) that burrs the hole] that feeds the demon) that wakes you up. I love this album, and OK, in case you’re wondering, I found this for you: this. I guess the surgeon is “actually a quack” but look at him, funny guy. Oh, and apparently this guy trepanned himself. Only later do we find out that ~no~ he didn’t. –Ben Levinson AS TRUTH (MIXTAPE) by Amnesia ScannerAS TRUTH (MIXTAPE) by Amnesia Scanner [pagebreak] --- LAMPGOD GOD SHIT EP [Self-Released] “Hey: what’s happening?” is the sound, and it’s me looking for the voice source. “How y’all doing?” (really though how am I doing?) and I can’t put my finger on it (can’t touch a sound, Frank, duh.) What’s means? Someone put some solid white lines between lanes (as if you could keep things separate, as if we all moved in one direction at a time), someone ripped up all the pavement (“‘cause I’m negative”), killed all the streetlamps (“and I’m dark”) some LAMPGOD blows up the means and throws up me. Cause when you wrap all the pavement ‘round your waste, you get GOD SHIT, the influence of ecstasy of ecstasy. Can’t touch a sound, and in this dark, I don’t want to not resolve: “We gotta help each other out, man, renourish the soil.” It’s soil or soul, this driving both ways. It’s GOD SHIT, the garbage divine, the that that’s happening. –Frank Falisi LAMPGOD - GOD SHIT EP by LAMPGODLAMPGOD - GOD SHIT EP by LAMPGOD --- Dale Cornish Cut Sleeve [Halcyon Veil] Room to think is never enough space as you’ve imagined. And Cut Sleeve is just extra for “t-shirt.” So breathe. So much area to cover. So here we have Dale Cornish satirizing modern house music. Beyond that, the Winnipeggian is using Cut Sleeve to comment on a variety of “scene” motifs that continue with the club-politics of Halcyon Veil (i.e., queer culture, auteur vanity, architectural ouroboros, etc.). Only this time, Dale Cornish provides a brooding outsider mentality, blending dark alley grime and abstract dancefloor narration, settling Cut Sleeve in light of summer nights partying in the park, in a ditch or pond, and never quite coming back into reality as before. Ever. –C Monster Cut Sleeve by Dale CornishCut Sleeve by Dale Cornish --- HIRS YØU CAN’T KILL US [Get Better] The pink and purple hue line-blocking the resistant and persisting declaration in bold white-as-day fuck-you lettering YØU CAN’T KILL US. Through the five-track, five-minute EP and 100+ shows through LGBTQIA spaces and hundreds of tracks, HIRS have made further ground down the chaff of their enemies and turned the opposition into dust under their boot. And though they’ve already released a split with LIFES in dedication to all their lost friends, TRANS GIRL TAKE OVER 2K17, and an underheard release called MAGICal/WANDerful (from which all money made goes directly to Morris Home), we keep dedicating our five minute breaks at work to it. It’s raw and fervent, tearing the stitches out from the seams of their oppressor and dividing it among the trans community, leaving a powerful, anxious, angry, passionate residue that we will never wash off. –Monet Maker YØU CAN'T KILL US by HIRSYØU CAN'T KILL US by HIRS --- Dedekind Cut The Expanding Domain [Self-Released] $uccessor’s scion in every way, The Expanding Domain is simply the planar enlargement of Dedekind Cut’s starkly heterogeneous sound. Chimerizing practically every experimental electronic form one can imagine, each track blooms from chill aestivation into confounding calyces of spiraling noise and hyaline synths. Likewise in ontogeny, The Expanding Domain maintains a perennial coiling and uncoiling, as the final cut, “Das Expanded, Untitled Riff,” gives way to the EP’s opening in “Cold Bloom.” His strength is in grafting his raging and rimose rhythms to the divaricate New Age and ambient sounds his newest project has embraced. Simultaneously serrate and undulate, his sonic palette (complemented by the likes of Elysia Crampton, Dominick Fernow, and Mica Levi) unnerves and calms. The static-wreathed stabs of “LiL Puffy Coat” float atop a ponderous plod and the crushing-crushed breaks of the title cut find balance from a languishing wash and a hint of melody. It feels complete and self-sustaining yet always groping outward toward more. A sonic inflorescence, The Expanding Domain is the further coil of the tendril, the greater spread of the rhizome, the deeper growth of the genet. –Cynocephalus "The Expanding Domain (ded005)" EP by Dedekind Cut,"The Expanding Domain (ded005)" EP by Dedekind Cut, --- Pinkcourtesyphone Talk The Pleasure Out of It [Champion Version] Minimalist and ambient music are the aural equivalent of abstract art. Maligned by the uninitiated for their perceived simplicity (read: boring, easy to cobble together) when in actual fact anyone who has ever tried to paint an abstract on canvas finds quite quickly how difficult it is to decide what to put where — or more specifically, what not to put almost everywhere. And therein lies the art. Pinkcourtesyphone is fast establishing a reputation as the Mondrian of music minimalism. With so few concepts and sounds throughout Talk the Pleasure Out of It, it’s breathtaking how much emotion and mood is packed into this all-too-brief EP from the opening bars. –Marty Slattery talk the pleasure out of it by PINKCOURTESYPHONEtalk the pleasure out of it by PINKCOURTESYPHONE --- Demdike Stare Wonderland [Modern Love] Demdike Stare’s first album since 2012, Wonderland produces prismatic color from a grayscale jungle, crosshatching inert beat blocks and blunt chords into tight, combative spaces in order to glimpse a few seconds of beautiful moiré. Between stark silences and loud silver smacks, loose atoms offer subtle signs of life, suggesting endless, complex revisions — small but seminal shifts into new structures, trickled off from the eroding monolith of “industrial” and fully escaped from the aesthetic trappings of “hauntology.” Fans of past records will recognize the esoteric sampling and tough breaks (especially if they’re fans of the Testpressing series), but the level of abstraction on display is newly inspired, with new rhythms and juxtapositions hinting at new modes of expression at every turn. At its core is a pure love of creation, boundless energy picking up inertia amid extreme restraint, transforming all the techno it touches. The humanity is there, but it’s hidden, in corners and in shadows, as still as can be, confident someone will eventually find it anyway. Stay active. –Adam Devlin http://j.mp/2o8xWPc

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