#art proggy

[dragon-ducky]

I get bored at work sometimes

Have a smol Leo head surrounded by bad puns

Also DANG whiteboard art is hard

[baylardian-1]

the new uniforms are a little tight >___>;;;;;;

[martianbugsbunny]

’Kay so Lobo and I are on the outs at the moment bc his eyes are really goshdarn hard to shape but here’s the proggy so far!

Next step is probably attaching the hand to the scythe blade, that to the robe, and then sticking the toe-claws on the other foot! (notice I am avoiding the face lol)

[aspiringhorrorauthor]

My toxic textile artist trait is thinking I can take up and be just as good at any craft I see made in a video online

[go-go-devil]

Analyzing the Mouthwashing Cast by Their Assumed Preferences in Prog Rock

Swansea: Your average senior prog rocker. It's not his absolute favorite genre, but he enjoys a good amount of the classic 70's bands (and occasional obscure curve balls like Crack the Sky and Klaatu) without much interest for where the genre went afterwards. As long as the instrumentation and singing don’t sound "too goddamn weird" for his tastes he'd be willing to give any classic-sounding prog band a shot. Would certainly get into a LONG conversation about his feelings on Dark Side of the Moon and Leftoverture if he's in a good enough mood... or when he gets drunk enough.

Daisuke: Out of the whole crew, he's actually the most well-versed in the genre; from the 70’s and beyond. A combo of him inheriting his parents' CD's and also utilizing online music forums to take him down all sorts of prog and jazz fusion rabbit holes to find good job hunting music that certainly won't distract him at all! Generally prefers listening to individual songs rather than full albums since sometimes he just doesn’t have the patience to listen to multiple long songs back-to-back, but he certainly has a good variety of proggy songs under his belt. Definitely the only one who's ever graced the Tulpar knowing who Kenso or Liquid Tension Experiment are.

Him and Swansea's shared love of Yes is one of the very few music overlaps the two share, and his gushing about how awesome they are are some of the only times he’s able to break the ice around his boss and have a genuinely good-natured conversation with him.

Anya: To immediately assume that she wouldn't know a single thing about progressive rock would be a highly reductive line of thinking. Sure if asked about her favorite prog album she’d probably just say Hounds of Love, but that alone would not be enough to fully analyze the depths of her very specific tastes in the genre. In her pursuit of picking albums solely for the sake of their “vibes” she has ended up gaining a love for artists like Art Bears, Neu!, FM, and National Health (the latter she thought would be great to listen to while studying for her nursing exams). She has songs from Robert Wyatt’s Rock Bottom abruptly stationed between electronic ambient and pop songs on her mixtapes, her favorite Peter Gabriel album is Up, and she would be surprised to learn that Sally Oldfield’s brother also made a few of his own albums.

Suffice to say, if she ever tried to seriously focus on expanding her prog horizons the results would be GLORIOUS!

Curly: Unfortunately, the captain is this ship is the saddest case when it comes to knowing any prog rock. It's honestly quite tragic. He truly thinks that any 8-9 minute track is "pretty long" for a song and would be baffled to learn that Genesis wasn't always just an 80's pop rock band. The only Pink Floyd album he has ever listened to in-full is A Momentary Lapse of Reason, and his favorite song on it is "Learning to Fly." While his willingness to learn more about the genre prevents him from being a total lost cause, the captain still has a LONG way to go before he can even reach noob status.

Jimmy: There are exactly two paths that he could take on this subject...

The first (and most merciful) would be that he's just as lacking in knowledge of the genre as Curly and only ever listens to the same five power metal bands he likes during his weight-lifting sessions.

The second path would be that he does have a fair enough knowledge of prog rock and is just about as insufferable as one would imagine. We’re talking the full-mile here: Flexing on how cool he is for all of the “deep” albums he listens to, telling the guys long, drawn-out about all the incredible trips he’s had while listening to them in his “man cave” back on Earth (while failing to mention how smoking weed actually makes him paranoid instead of relaxed), quoting Frank Zappa lyrics to Anya then immediately quipping about how she just "wouldn't get" them, relating very closely to Pink from The Wall without the smallest speck of self-reflection as to why that might be. All that kind of bullshit. Fucking PRAY he never discovers Zeuhl music.

[outinthewastes]

So happy to see string theory still updating <3 Been reading since 2016 and love coming back to see fresh pages, your art always amazes and inspires. Years ago, you posted a link to some music that was something Orville might jam out to. It was a german, synthwavey cosmic-sounding vinyl piece that was like 40 mins long, I think it had two guys siting in front of a blue wall and bunch of synthesizers? I've been losing it trying to find it. Any chance you recall the name?

I found the post you're referring to, I think, but unfortunately the video was gone and past me didn't write down what it was in the post and current me has NO IDEA :(

way to go past me. I have no idea, I'm so sorry. I looked through all my youtube playlists and yeah. It's gone.

Here's something else that's maybe cool too that Orville would love

dear future me: this is Jürgen Ecke – Sound-Synthese

also Argo - Šviesa, more of a proggy 80s disco but he'd still love it, he can be versatile.

He also loves punk music, there's a Feeling B poster in his little lair on the same page as a Kraftwerk poster haha

[anti-psycomics]

DAY 24: HELIOS

Personally I think this is my favorite one I've made so far and I have a LOT to talk about with it. First off, the musical reference

The prompt (and image for that matter) is a reference to track 9 (The crucifixion of Helios) off of the album Praise the sun god, a dark souls jazz album(?) I don't know if it's actually dark souls related. The album is great to put on in the background for some chill vibes while you're doin stuff. And I realize at this point I'm starting to sound like the guy who's only ever listened to prog rock but I get some proggy vibes off of this one along with the jazz and ambient type stuff.

Ok, second part is the actual art itself. I had this drawing idea in my head since before inktober because the title "The Crucifixion of Helios" just conjures such a vivid image in my head. And to help with constructing that vision, I used the inspiration of an art piece that's I've been thinking about for like. 2 years at this point

THIS IMAGE IS NOT MINE

Ok right off the bat I wanna say I'm sorry because I forgot what the artist's tumblr was, I don't know how to reverse image search and "fiend" doesn't really give me a lot to work off of. So Fiend, if you're out there I'm sorry for posting your cool ass art without tagging you because I lost your tumblr to the sands of time. Also thanks for making this image it's really inspired my art over the last year

This image fuckin' rules and has served as an inspiration to both day 24 and Solos, god of energy.

In my original pencil-on-paper drawing solos also had those spirals on the body but that was scrapped because I couldn't get it to look right lol. I'm probably gonna end up redesigning solos at some point and I think I'm gonna reuse a few elements for my helios image when I do

[minstrel-in-the-gallery]

Hi! Thanks so much for following my blog lol always great to have a new follower

I know like next to nothing about Jethro Tull (I did see that one Polyphonic YouTube video on the cover art for their album Thick as a Brick tho) but I discovered your blog from the Rocklemania 2024 competition and that propaganda you made of the main Jethro Tull guy (can’t recall his name) who plays the flute in his ridiculous little outfit with the codpiece utterly captivated me so I knew I had to follow your blog

I’ve been getting more into prog rock lately (mom was always a big fan of Yes and ABWH, that kind of introduced me to the concept) mostly Pink Floyd and early Genesis, so learning more abt Jethro Tull from your blog will be interesting!

(Are you still doing the thing where you give people a Jethro Tull song based on their vibes?)

Hello! And good to meet you too :D

Im beyond honoured lol, it’s nice to know my terrible and frantic tull propaganda did some good for the Tull community 🙏🙏 (will never not be miffed king crimson won that). The flute playing woodland sprite is Ian Anderson, and he indeed is very captivating but that may or may not be and evil spell. Codpiece mandatory! He has so many little weird eras complete with terrible outfits, I love him so much (And yes, thick as a brick album cover is totally amazing hehe)

It’s awesome to hear that you’re getting into prog, cause it’s such a fun genre! If you’re into it, I recommend Thick as a Brick and A Passion Play as they are the most proggy from Tull 😌 and also, if you want to learn anything specific totally send in an ask :D

And I totally am!! Send in an ask and I shall give you a song if you wish😁😁😁 happy tull-ing!

[moriche]

What's your fav animal group? What's your fav animal? (Does not need to be in the same group as Q1. Could be mythical too!)

Any hobbies outside of writing/art?

(„• ᴗ •„)

Aaaah these are such lovely questions <3 Thank you so much for asking - I've ended up writing a HUGE wall of text in response! My favourite animal group is definitely birds. My dad used to keep birds when I was young, so I grew up with 'em, and currently my family owns a pet budgie! We used to have two, but one (the blue) sadly passed away recently.

As to favourite animals in particular: I love parrots and corvids (clever birds, those!); vultures; many sea birds. Oystercatchers are so cool and make such a unique sound! Favorite mythical ones include, of course, the Roc - but my favourite mythical animal is the mušḫuššu. It's a hybrid dragon-like animal from Mesopotamian mythology that I first encountered in 2008, when I visited the Pergamon museum in Berlin. It's depicted on some of the panels on the Ishtar Gate, for example! I bought a figurine of it back then and I've always been very much fascinated by the creature since.

(image from wikipedia) As for other hobbies! I fear a lot of it is various forms of art 😂There's a lot of broader artsy stuff I dabble in like painting or photography - I've been blessed/cursed by a need to create that never really shuts up. I like to read, but I never seem to get around to reading as much as I want to. I read both fiction and non-fiction. For fiction it's generally fantasy or historical novels, for non-fiction it's also a lot of history but I also enjoy a good, well-sourced longread or piece of journalism. (And ever since Miniche became old enough to truly enjoy books, I find myself reading a ton of Miffy 🤣) Gaming's another favourite. I've adopted TES and Morrowind as my main fandoms, but I've been big into World of Warcraft in the past and have picked it up during the last year again. I also really love sandbox games, and if they're overcomplicated or janky, in some cases that's all the better. I put lots of hours in Rimworld, and my one beloved game that really scratches the right itch for me is Kenshi. The masochist in me enjoys classic roguelikes too - I'm proud of actually finishing a legit run in Ancient Domains of Mystery (ADOM). Recently I've been playing Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead - it's freeware, it's janky, it's hard, it's ridiculously in-depth, I've been save-scumming aplenty, and it's tons of fun. When it comes to sports, I enjoy swimming and walking/wandering as a way to stay moving and fit.

Oh, and music! I could talk for hours about music. I'm kind of a metalhead, but I also listen to a broad amount of genres as long as it vibes right with me. Lots of moody, dark stuff, music that's proggy/post/ambient/triphop/gothrock, a dash of jazz, a dollop of classical, a pinch of minimalism, a huge topping of soundtrack. My current fave niche genre is (instrumental) jazz metal - been listening a fair bit to Five the Hierophant, Animals as Leaders and Exivious lately!

[docilepillow]

MARCH 2024 MEDIA DIARY 2

I ran out of embed space on the first post i had slotted in for this!!! So i'm making two posts!!!!!!! They belong together!!!! Okay!!!!!!! PIZZA TOWER < this game is soggy goop >

Even though I cleared a good portion of this game nigh a year ago now, i still feel compelled to put it on my media diary now, as i've only just got around to finishing the game properly! I believe the point i dropped off the game before was at Pig City, which, i think , is kinda understandable given how big that level is, but, was probably a real bummer for the whole of my friend group who were super into the game when it was new and i probably missed out on talking about it alot with them... POOP!!!! just because this game is popular enough to actually warrant talking about it with my friends later, instead of saying stuff like how i enjoyed the silly cartoony art stlye and the games general charm, im just going to post a level tier list i made the second i beat the game at like near midnight kinda hazy-minded without thinking on it too hard without thinking too deeply in a way thatll be completely inflamitory bc im mostly satisfied with the experience i had and dont really feel the urge to P rank anything --

The stats are saying my total hours round up to 6 hours 50 and pepinno is pointing at me Aughh

My , , Errr, " CRITISISM " of this game is that the funny pizza man is a little, erm, STICKY? Kinda gross. a little weird. Partially my fault. I'm sowwy. I'm not very good at this game but i absolutely respect everyone's opinion on it . Go watch my friend @shoppncart's speedrun, by the way, it's cool :

Speedy! THE MARIO MOVIE < the bario boooby geheheheheheheh >

this is probably a tired opinion but since i was subjected to this movie for the fifth time in a voice call my take is thaat this is probably more enjoyablel then the safeass illumination film. like. yea. that films probably objectively better but. id rather watch something thats an actual adaptation. like this movie. where basically nothing mario happens outside names . Aw. i honestly think this movie has intrigue to it genuinely maybe im saying this bc its one of the movies ive actually watched repeatedly before, like roger rabbit, but i think the history behind this movie and the old anamocity turned-endearment are what make it worth watching. that and its a little goopy You Guys Wanna See Some MM2 Proggys? not a new piece of media technically but ive been playing a fuckton of MM2 recently still as of the end of the month and its absolutely dominating my time as of late, and i kinda wanna show off a small amount of the progress ive made on it, as much as the world map, at least --

It's a media diary. it exists to document MY gaming life. Deal. anyway in regards to it i'm almost finished with the world 4 castle, which is crazy, because before i hadn't even finished world 2, but now i got all of this creative energy in me... If i finish this soon enough, i'd be able to upload it on NSO, so keep your tumpler eyes peeled, mutrals :J I personally like it because theres a theme of aescending on the world map. The space theme in this looks the best, i think.. THE ALCHEMY OF US - HOW HUMANS AND MATTER TRANSFORMED ONE ANOTHER < what the fuck ????? a book ??????? >

yea thats right im reading books this ones actually pretty good apparently a 2020 bestseller though im not in the habit of reading those often so i'll just have to take their word for it on that aspect. i think lifes all about trying new things so around halfway through the month i picked up this cool book i found at my library and got a library card. After reading through it all, i think anecdotally that this book is a very neat read. theres a few sentences that're a little offputting to my young mind but overall the book is filled with alot of cool insight i reccomend checking out if youre the boooky type of person! i think its very good and im glad i picked it out :) i donnu how many of these will be going onto my media diary in the future or anything , but maybe i will if i end up reading more! I'll have to make it up to a friendd for waiting till now to put up something i read here first before that thing she likes. oops.

Volp. OUTSIDE of the traditional media format again, also, are things i largely started on this month but don't think i'll be making all too much more progress in, or if i'm unsure i'll finish what i was doing all in one month- CASTLEVANIA THE ADVENTURE- REBIRTH

POINT OF DROP OFF - STAGE 4 END BOSS REASON BEING - UMMM SORRY I GOT DISTRACTED AND DIED TOO MUCH

castlevania rebirth is a really really cool game. its really cool and im not typing this as fresh as everything else because it was something i picked up for one big sitting earlier in the month. i probably couldve finished it at any point during the week, but simply was too distracted and wanted to do other stuff. It's very cool though, i love the vector sprite art, and there ARE silly stock sound effects everywhere, which is always a big positive for me . I mostly just like how snug the wii classic controller is , and this is a cool game to play it with considering its one of the only non virtual console or old game collection style games available for wii in this exact style ( Not counting the good handful of games that choose to use the wiimote on its side instead. )

over all ill probably sit down and finish this someday soon i just gotta like find time for it whenever next my wii u is plugged in ( it fights for an hdmi slot with my switch and ps4 all the time...! ), and ill probably end up trying to play punch out wii at the same time, given one doesnt dominate my attention over the other. From my understanding they're both short, though, so it shouldnt be too big a deal or obstacle no matter how long i put this off. RANDOM TERRARIA PLAYTHROUGH terraria playthru 1million

ii just really want to see the new terraria update Waaaah... i stopped having fun because i self imposed myself to not use setbonus armor sets at the part of the game where that stops being acceptable anymore so im stopping i think i did get to make another terraria pet though that makes me happy POINT OF DROP OFF - the mechanical bosses

also the most recent thing is

i got too tense and needed to excuse myself after like an hour 30 i cant take too much tension in movies i was really uncomfortable and had to leave to take a breather bc the main character gets put in a really really shitty situation and it was getting hard to watch for my autistic ass

thats enough i think thanks for coming see you next month lol

[dragon-ducky]

Risetober Day 4: Amulet

Had to jump on the “I Might Be Invisible But I Still Look Good” train

Fic is by @dandylovesturtles and is seriously amazing, go check it out!

Hands are the bane of my existence

[baylardian-1]

i love philippa and amelia so muuuuchcghhhgg ;___; <3

they're sisters who fight a lot through the years and can come across as polar opposites in most areas, but they know each other better than anyone else and would do anything for one another.

things of note i guess is like, i imagine amelia as being the braver of the two, always the one to take initiative in dire situations while they're young and aboard voyager, and even into their teens; where philippa, especially when she's younger, relies on her sister's decisiveness. i think philippa's more prone to hesitate on making a decision where amelia acts more impulsively, but it comes across as bravery to pip. in actuality philippa's probably just contemplative and reflective, but it feels like being frozen by fear when she's younger. ummmm and a silly little thing from when theyre older is that amelia drinks coffee despite loathing its taste, and philippa LOVES coffee like her mother but drinks tea whenever she's around kathryn and amelia out of spite lol (she comes out of the closet as an avid coffee drinker eventually but she hates the association of her mother's taste in beverages for a while).

[solradguy]

hey 7oby! any good heavy metal recommendations?

Always. I've been listening to a lot of 1970s-early '80s stuff again so I hope that's alright.

Mad Max's s/t (also sometimes titled Heavy Metal?) is really good. They're basically impossible to find anything about because of the movie series so here's their Discogs page. I like the last track on this album the most, Wheel of Fortune.

Heroes, Saints, & Fools - Saracen - Kinda proggy British heavy metal. By no standard to which I am capable of articulating, this album is great for driving around to. Slow, classic, heavy metal. Like ice cream made with real fresh vanilla beans. The album's title track is my favorite; the voice augmentation and story the lyrics tell remind me of one of those early 2000s point-and-click adventure games.

Uriah Heep - Demons & Wizards - 1970s English prog/heavy rock (it's proto-metal, ok??). I loooove the lyrics to this album so much. Pure optimistic fantasy nonsense. And that Roger Dean album art? Iconic. It's hard picking a favorite track off this one but it's probably either Traveler in Time or Rainbow Demon. I want this on vinyl really bad.

Thundersteel - Riot - I may have shared this one on here before but it's Riot so I can share them again. It's American 1980s speed metal. You know, from that comic:

Anyway, this is a great exercising album. It's fast, but it doesn't slap your brain around. I don't have a favorite track, the whole album is like a single favorite track to me. It's great. This is the band with the album art that often has a cute fuzzy seal on it or a jacked as hell seal anthro. They reincarnated as Riot V in the mid-2010s.

[reckonslepoisson]

Plastic Death, Glass Beach (2024)

Got to admire this sort of move, which will appease fans of the vibe and ethos of Glass Beach’s first album but not those who were specifically in it for the genre or scene. Instead of sounding like an art school Jeff Rosenstock, Glass Beach attempt hyperactive, colourful, shiny, slightly proggy alt-rock, often veering off towards sounds and styles previously ruled by the likes of The Dismemberment Plan and Radiohead.

Pick: ‘coelacanth’

[burlveneer-music]

Mad Ship - Time Shift - proggy fusion & improv from Poland, RIYL RareNoise, Rune Grammofon

MAD SHIP explores the forefront of modern jazz, asking the question: What's the next step? Kuba Wójcik's group plays music that is free-spirited, concrete in form, and filled with original ideas. The musicians —Tomasz Licak, Grzegorz Tarwid, and Krzysztof Szmańda—collaborate to create fresh, unique soundscapes, delving into unexplored musical spaces. The results are delightful and surprising. Kuba Wójcik - guitar, electronics Tomasz Licak - tenor and soprano saxophone, Grzegorz Tarwid - grand piano, synthesizers Krzysztof Szmańda - drums, percussions All music by Kuba Wójcik except: „Carnival Diet” & „Stream” by Grzegorz Tarwid No.1,4,6,8,11,12 - improvisations - concept by Kuba Wójcik Cover Art by Ada Zielińska Produced by Kuba Wójcik

[rabbitechoes]

january is usually a pretty meh month when it comes to bunch of great records dropping, but this january might be an exception. plenty of amazing new albums here! especially that new glass beach record which i can already tell is going to be in my rotation for a long time to come. anyways, here are my thoughts on all the albums listed above! to check out my thoughts on some of the songs that dropped this month click here!!! also feel free to follow me on rate your music and twitter <3

plastic death - glass beach

🥇 ALBUM OF THE MONTH

◇ genres: indie rock, art rock, progressive rock I was very unfamiliar with glass beach. I was kinda aware of them, but never really got a chance to dive into the band's music. The hype both leading up to the album and from the first initial impressions of it when it dropped made me check this out. I'm so glad I did. Usually, I'm a bit weary of sprawling, genre-bending albums, but glass beach manages to execute it so perfectly. The band takes inspiration from tons of different places, most notably Radiohead with a lot of art rock instrumentation throughout as well as some of the vocal performances. These never come off as super derivative or anything, at least to my ears. The band manages to take these sounds and shape them into something uniquely theirs. Across the little over an hour runtime glass beach masterfully showcases their strong suits. Very rarely did this album ever lose my attention or ever feel disjointed. Each song had at least one "oh, I wasn't expecting that" moment too. Pretty much every sonic detour the band takes here is a welcome surprise. From the power pop stylings of "puppy" to the screamo-inspired vocals on “slip under the door", this album is full of so many surprises. Lead vocalist and multi-instrumentalist J is a key reason why these shifts work so well. She's able to adapt her voice perfectly to everything. From the relatively smaller-scale catchy indie rock or the more grand proggy moments, they're matching it so well. The other members of the band also obviously deserve massive props for this as well. Pulling off an album this ambitious is a tall task, but even after multiple listens, I'm blown away at how cohesive it all sounds. plastic death is one of the finest rock (for lack of a better descriptor) albums in recent memory. I didn't even properly get into how great the lyricism is or just how good the band is at crafting memorable hooks. There is so much to love about this album. Hopefully I'm not speaking too soon, but I can see myself loving this more and more in future listens as the year rolls on. I'll probably also end up giving this a proper, in-depth write-up when it comes time to compile my favorite albums of the year list. I really wanna dive into the lyricism on the album because I think it’s really interesting, but I do need more time with it. Anyway, this album is great!

listen here: Apple Music Spotify Bandcamp SoundCloud YouTube ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Wall of Eyes - The Smile

◇ genres: art rock, post-rock

Not too long after The Smile's debut record, we're getting the follow-up. A lot of the things I loved about A Light for Attracting Attention also apply to Wall of Eyes. It sounds like Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood are having fun making music again. That's not to say the last Radiohead record was bad, I think it's a masterpiece actually, but there was grief and pain around every corner. It feels like they found the fun in making music again once they teamed up with former Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner and formed this band. The sounds featured on both The Smile records are a bit different than what you would hear from any of their previous work. As a MASSIVE Radiohead fan, this is so exciting. Hearing them dive into post-rock, math rock, krautrock, and many different other sounds is so cool. Are they the best representation of all these sounds? Not really, but there's just an air of excitement surrounding these songs. It feels like they're just following what feels right. The soft, bossa nova flavoring of the title track is a good example of that. Yorke's vocals just kinda bounce along in a very satisfying way. Lyrically the song doesn't exactly grab you, but it just feels so good. "Under Our Pillows" is one of my favorite tracks here and is one where you can hear the Krautrock influence. There are so many cool things the band explores here that it's hard to list all of my favorite moments. I love hearing them explore sounds that wouldn't be found on a Radiohead album. My favorite track here is "Bending Hectic" by a pretty wide margin. That's not a knock on the record at all, it's just a testament to how amazing this track is. When it first dropped last summer, I was obsessed with it, and hearing it in the context of this record makes it that much better. This was a really great album!

listen here: Apple Music Spotify Bandcamp SoundCloud YouTube ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

ORQUÍDEAS - Kali Uchis

◇ genres: contemporary R&B, latin pop

Like a lot of people, my first introduction to Kali Uchis was through Tyler, the Creator's Flower Boy. Her amazing feature on "See You Again", the album's biggest track, was incredible and one of the most standout things about the entire album. From there I listened to Isolation and have been keeping up with her new releases ever since. She has been incredibly consistent both with her English language albums and her Spanish albums. This new record is one of the latter and it honestly might be my favorite album of hers to date. Everything about this album is just intoxicating. From the hazy opener, "¿Cómo así?, to the bolero stylings of "Te mata", this album just pulls everything off so well. We also have her signature dreamy vocal delivery throughout and it's so beautiful. Most notable on the second song "Me pongo loca." She enlists the help of some other big Latin musicians here and their presence is very welcome here. I was especially impressed by Peso Pluma's feature on the third track. Overall, ORQUÍDEAS might be Kali Uchis' best record to date. Incredibly consistent, excellently produced, and so much fun to listen to.

listen here: Apple Music Spotify Bandcamp SoundCloud YouTube ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Obsidian Wreath - Infant Island

◇ genres: screamo, post-metal I always feel the need to make a disclaimer that I feel out of my depth when discussing metal or most other subgenres of it. No matter how much I explore this sound I always feel like I'm on the outside looking in. Anyway, the point is, I don't think I'm the right person to go to for metal opinions. However, I really enjoyed this new Infant Island record. The band shifts from thundering instrumentation with growled vocals to lush, almost atmospheric instrumentation at a moment's notice. I find myself being a big fan of the albums in this genre that offer a decent amount of variety in the instrumentation. It gives the album so much more depth and texture. The musicianship on here is really impressive, but I have to give a special shoutout to the band's drummer. He's doing some crazy things on this album and it made all of these tracks that much more compelling. The lyricism here is what you would expect, but they're delivered in such a way that hits hard. The moments where the band shift into a more blackgaze sound are particularly arresting. I thought this was really good and I enjoy it more every time I revisit it.

listen here: Apple Music Spotify Bandcamp SoundCloud YouTube ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━��

Bicycle - Patricia Taxxon

◇ genre: IDM I'm not super familiar with Patricia Taxxon's music overall. I enjoyed Agnes & Hilda a decent amount, but besides that, I'm kinda clueless. From what I can gather, she's a pretty prolific artist with a ton of different projects to her name. After hearing Bicycle, I might be so inclined as to dive into some of those projects! There are some really cool and unique production choices here. Like the metallic clicks on the opener interwoven with some nice synths. That dynamic appears all over the album come to think of it. Thin-sounding snaps and crackles acting as the anchor of the track while something wild happens above it. "Frat Claws" is a great example of this. They also work well on the excellent closer "I Do." It's very lush and ties the album up in such a nice way. My only issues are that sometimes that sound would wear thin for me and the non-instrumental tracks didn't interest me all that much. I do appreciate the direction Taxxon was trying to take them in though. Check this one out if you like cool electronic music or if you're a furry (i may be both or neither, i'll never tell!!!)

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Keep It Goin Xav - Xaviersobased

genres: jerk rap, cloud rap, plugg

I found out about this mixtape from the really interesting Pitchfork review of the project by Alphonse Pierre. The way Pierre wrote about it had me interested even though I'm not really familiar with the jerk rap or the plugg scenes of hip hop. Fortunately, I found a lot to enjoy with this mixtape. The production choices were really interesting and created a cool dynamic with Xavier's often lackadaisical delivery. Sometimes that kind of style would wear thin for me, but I can see that being a me thing. This could be the perfect "vibe" album for some.

It's hard to single out a specific track for that reason. Everything kinda flows together in both good and bad ways. The just under 30-minute runtime works in the project's favor because of that. Xavier is really good at making earworms though. The hook on "Ascend" was stuck in my head for days after listening. Not every track has one of those super memorable hooks, which is disappointing, but plenty do. Overall, I didn't adore it as much as Pierre did in his review, but this is one to check out. I feel like Xavier has a ton of potential and is definitely someone to keep an eye on in the future. 

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Little Rope - Sleater-Kinney

◇ genre: indie rock To preface this, I adore Sleater-Kinney. Their run of albums from Dig Me Out through The Woods is some of the finest indie rock of all time. The band went on hiatus following that record and then returned in 2014 for the run they're on currently. I've heard very mixed things about these post-hiatus albums overall, but I hadn't heard any of them until Little Rope. I enjoyed some of the singles leading up to this record, like "Hell" and "Say It Like You Mean It", but the rest of the album fails to keep that energy going. It isn't a BAD album by any means, it's just ... fine. Occasionally good, but mostly fine and nothing more. You will get some glimpses of their former glory, but they just never take these songs in any new directions. Even the tracks I mentioned earlier don't really live up to the standards set by their best work. They still get super fuzzy and noisy, but they lack the immediacy and the tension of like "The Fox" for example. It feels like they're going through the motions, which sounds fine if you don't think about it too much. A bit disappointed by this one, but with its brief runtime it's worth a shot.

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It's Sorted - Cheekface

◇ genres: geek rock, indie rock, new wave

I feel very conflicted about this album, to be honest. Everything on this album is painfully witty. Everything is a joke in some way which gets so exhausting. Most of the songs here are charming and well-performed, but you have to be very, very funny to pull off a full album of this stuff and I don’t think Cheekface pulled it off here. I understand that’s a very subjective thing and if you dig this late-millennial style of humor you’ll probably get a kick out of this!

Some of these songs are pretty amusing though. I really like “I Am Continuing to Do My Thing” which features a jerky, new-wave rhythm to it which I had fun with. I also enjoyed "Popular 2" which has a bit of a power pop thing going on. Most of these songs are structured decently well, but it's just the lyrics that make me roll my eyes. A good bit of this album meditates on fame and success which does provide a sense of cohesion, but I just find it hard for me to really connect with these songs. I realized a few songs in that I'm probably not the target audience for this. I'm sure if I was like 30 or so I would have a ball with this album, but as it stands now I would much rather listen to a They Might Be Giants album if I wanted to scratch the itch this record is attempting to. 

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New Last Name - Courting

◇ genres: post-punk revival, indie rock

This is such a big step down from their last album. I only heard the single "Flex" going into New Last Name and it's easily the best track here. The rest of the album features the big choruses reminiscent of 90s alt-rock hits that were present on both the band's previous album Guitar Music and the aforementioned "Flex", but unlike those most of the songs on the whole are just one big mess. The verses usually sound bad, both because of the off-putting production and the weak writing. One of the worst offenders here is "We Look Good Together (Big Words)" which sounds like they're doing a parody of The 1975 and I really don't like The 1975!!! That track features one of the few forays into indietronica territory and it never sounds very good. Even if the song structure and almost everything else is lacking, the band can still pull off a really good chorus here and there. The problem is they aren't worth sitting through the rest of the tracks to get through. Besides "Flex", I did find some enjoyment in "Emily G" and the last two tracks. Mostly because they reminded me of their last album. I'm all for bands evolving and trying different things, but New Last Name just feels misguided. Hoping they can come together for a better follow-up.

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Saviors - Green Day

◇ genres: alternative rock, pop punk

Green Day has been in a very rough spot for quite a while now. They've been seemingly unable to recapture that "magic" that was present in their earlier work. They've been failing at diving into new sounds, failing to rehash the old ones in an interesting way, and failing to make a single great cohesive album ever since like 2009. Coming on the heels of perhaps their worst record to date, Father of All, the expectations for this album were in the mud and that's putting it nicely. Fortunately, this isn't the band at their worst, but it might be the band at their most boring. The instrumentation is a return to form compared to their last record, but that comes at the cost of rehashing old ideas. There are some decently clever songwriting moments here and a lot of the big choruses are enjoyable enough to at least remind me why middle school Caleb loved this band so much, but even that works against the album's favor. Why would I listen to this if I was in a Green Day mood and not Dookie or American Idiot or Insomniac? I will say there is some really good stuff here. "Dilemma", "Look Ma, No Brains!", and the title track are highlights and some of the best stuff they've done in years. 

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Letter to Self - Sprints

◇ genres: garage punk, post-punk Let me preface this by saying that I think Sprints has a ton of potential. Unfortunately their debut, for the most part, doesn't capitalize on that potential. This is for a variety of reasons. For starters, the production of this record really doesn't do them any favors. The songs that SHOULD have a punch don't have any whatsoever. The noisy guitars lack the bite that they should have and mostly just kinda whimper along. The vocals are mixed decently, but they still sound far too clean for what I think the band was going for. Another big issue is the actual songs themselves. They're either complete non-starters, or they abruptly end as they're picking up steam, or they drive a hook straight into the ground. The second track "Heavy" is a key example of a song being cut off way too abruptly. It's one of the standout tracks on the record, but it definitely still had some legs. "Adore Adore Adore" is pretty easily the biggest highlight here. It's groovy, the vocals are good, and the chorus is satisfying ... more of this, please!!! I wanted to love this album, but it has way too many flaws. Still, I have high hopes for the Dublin rockers. Saddle them up with a better producer for the next one and see how it goes!!!

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INSANO - Kid Cudi

◇ genres: pop rap, trap

I really want the best for Kid Cudi. Man on the Moon: The End of Day is legitimately one of the most influential hip hop records of the 2000s. You can hear its influence throughout the 2010s, especially in the emo-rap scene. Unfortunately, pretty much every record he's released since then has been a massive step down from that record (besides the relatively big bright spot in KIDS SEE GHOSTS). INSANO continues that trend, but to an almost embarrassing degree. He enlists DJ Drama to try and hype these tracks up, but even he can't save this thing. The production and beats on this album are the exact opposite of what the album title suggests. They're so painfully boring and Cudi's writing here is, as I said earlier, embarrassing. Cudi proudly raps on the opener "Why they love these raps, haha, to most of these lames I'm Papa." which is just so fucking embarrassing. That's the one word I can use to describe this record. I hope the next one will be good, but judging by this album and his track record overall, that doesn't seem likely.

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