#im not a particularly good writer you might've been able to tell by now lol

[frankbedbroken]

stuff i've listened to recently, volume 1

it's been almost a full month since i've properly sat my frank ass down and listened to any full length music projects, stuff for university has been kicking my ass in that regard, so i want to try and keep myself consistently listening to new stuff weekly or biweekly by writing some stuff here. this first instance is mostly gonna be me catching up with music from this year that i wanted to listen to but couldn't get to beforehand, but in the future there's probably gonna be some stuff from my infinite backlog which will bring some more variation in terms of release date and all that. this type of post is gonna be extremely long and a chore to read, so beware.

kfc murder chicks - kfcmc (2022) industrial metal digital hardcore, industrial hip hop

this name will probably ring a bell if you remember that whole "erratas" arg thing back in like 2019, whole thing was essentially a marketing scheme for dj rozwell and this project of his, not unlike how iamamiwhoami got big back in the early 2010s, although with a bit more emphasis on internet culture and mythos, as expected from the aesthetics that the group's going for; i should probably look the whole thing up again, it's been a while since i've looked into it and i'm only going through surface level memories and all that. anyhow, kfcmc appears to be their second lp, after a string of several eps in 2021 and another one this year, and this is also my first proper encounter with a kfc murder chicks project, as my only prior experience beforehand was two loose tracks (operator and rage), and i kind of was expecting the sound from those two songs: very distorted and aggressive hip hop beats with offkilter sampling and an underlying rock and metal influence, think techno animal by way of alec empire from atari teenage riot. while there's a couple of tracks here that veer towards that sort of sound and they're very solid on their own right, namely in the second half (soylent and nuclear age are the clearest examples of this), most of this definitely hones in heavily on the metal aspects, which i'll admit it's a whole musical paradigm i'm not super knowledgeable on aside from a couple of projects here and there, but this is an approach to metal and rock that i definitely do enjoy. heavy on the guitar riffs but also very heavy on distortion and aggression, with a lot of electronic elements that i'm more accostumed to and that work very well with the industrial sound that's constituent to this album (it's worth mentioning that this is obviously not a thing unique to this album, us and them by godflesh and the rise of nightmares by the blood of heroes also take this approach and i've ended up really enjoying those projects as well, perhaps that's the lane i should go with if i want to get more into metal); several moments here stand out as very interesting to me in that regard: the glitched out drum breaks on the opener dune, the pounding midtempo bass rhythm straight out of a gesaffelstein or rezz tune and the synth breakdown with the preset from t99's anasthasia (one of my favourite old school synth sounds) in halo, and id with incredibly violent, hard hitting drum snares that you would hear in a limewax track. also there's a track called my ballz. type i love my ballz in the chat if you love your ballz. it's a short project, running at not quite half an hour with nine tracks though that's probably helpful to its replayability and all that, but yeah, pretty solid stuff, need to get onto checking some of their previous material, but i'd definitely reccommend this if you're into machine girl at their heaviest sounding, or if the blend of metal, hip hop and electronic as a whole sounds interesting to you.

favourite tracks: halo, id (feat. sam shadow), soylent

bleep bloop - frame (2022) hybrid trap deconstructed club

bleep bloop, alongside other artists like noer the boy and little snake, have this way of really pushing the envelope when it comes to production in the realm of edm trap and us dubstep (some call this blend slimepunk, others lump them together into the umbrella of "bass music", both terrible categorizations i feel but then again it's a style that is certainly hard to pin down to one specific name), being able to create very singular sounds and textures and rejecting the more conventional structures of that scene, while still maintaining that hard hitting edge. i'll admit i haven't delved much into bleep bloop's back catalog either, but i did listen to the ep he dropped back in 2021 called revenge, which features two tracks i liked quite a lot: wrapped in flame, a facemelting banger of a track with piercing synth stabs and an absolutely crushing bass drop, and do it on the dancefloor, which is a track that embraces the more aggressive and industrial side of hip hop in the vocal performance and general aesthetic, and also features really heavy production work with some sections taking cues from halftime dnb and others from digital hardcore, coming together into a track that manages to be very out there in terms of songwriting but also very hooky and catchy in my opinion. there's a lot of things being thrown in the melting pot that bleep bloop is cooking in (omg like the funny thanos picture wow), and this is also seen in this project here. very glitchy and offkilter song structures and sounds, a diverse array of influences from very different places (according to the bandcamp page, the opening track, coyote howl, takes inspiration from mike patton's fantômas project in its vocal style, while also namedropping tom waits and fiona apple as general points of reference for the vocals in general; also worth mentioning is the track i never told you my name which has a very rough and heavy reggaeton beat, not unlike some tracks off another life by amnesia scanner, alongside these macabre, whisper-like vocals in its buildup) and just a general devil-may-care attitude in regards to creating music. while this is all well and good, and certainly speaks to bleep bloop's skills as a producer, i wasn't quite as compelled as i would've liked. sure, there's definitely moments that were quite attention grabbing, the opening track is impressive as it leads from this ritualistic vocal delivery in the buildup (i would say there's some sort influence of metal, but i wouldn't be able to tell you what type exactly) to this absolutely massive and pounding beat drop, and poison sweetroll is the closest this comes to sounding bright and cheerful, think of iglooghost's sound but turned slightly awry, it works very well. that said, there's also some parts i didn't latch onto as much and didnt quite work that well for me, while the vocal approach works great in coyote howl, i don't think i never told you my name fares as well for me, it's got a very interesting beat, i'm a sucker for industrial reggaeton, but i'm not too fond of the vocal style unfortunately. it's for sure an interesting listen as a whole, anything with this sort of production is bound to turn some heads in one way or another, but i'm left feeling like i could've liked this a bit more. might grow on me with relistens, we'll have to see.

favourite tracks: coyote howl, poison sweetroll, hammer and serpent

piri & tommy - froge.mp3 (2022) liquid drum and bass uk garage, alternative r&b

when talking about the recent wave of pop/r&b/soul artists incorporating elements of drum and bass and breakbeat to their music, i feel like there's three key artists that are worth mentioning: first off is obviously pinkpantheress, who catapulted the sound to the mainstream by flipping the ever classic circles by adam f into a longing r&b juggernaut with silky smooth vocals that have become a trademark of hers as she grows exponentially more popular overtime; second is nia archives, whose sound reaches far more towards the underground as she majorly takes cues from jungle and has more influences of soul than other artists in the scene, creating a niche that satisfies those with a knack for vocally lead jungle and atmospheric drum and bass, while still keeping a lot of the traditional sounds and styles from said genres; and third is vocalist and producer duo piri & tommy, whose main appeal has been taking in the more mellow, polished and laidback sounds of liquid drum and bass with a bright and cheery pop vocal delivery that pretty much seems designed to be the sound of the summer. as such, this whole mixtape pretty much functions with this modus operandi in mind, delivering a fair amount of solid liquid tracks, but also a couple of 2-step/uk garage crossovers here and there. the most apparent highs are definitely the singles, there's a reason why both soft spot and beachin got as big as they did, they're just impeccably written songs (aside from that one line in beachin about how she "got him bussin, he makin some mayo", didnt need to hear that one) with insanely catchy hooks and melodies; other stand outs that come to mind are can we with drum programming and sounds that wouldn't be out of place in a late 90's moving shadow track, and also the opener silver lining with a more slowed down and meditative breakbeat approach. the ukg tracks are also pretty solid, player 2 is pretty remarkable with its influences of french house in that filtered synth melody and also the only track where tommy villiers brings his own vocals to the table. it's generally a very enjoyable project all around but i can't help but feel that it doesn't quite reach the highs it set up with the singles throughout the course of the album; part of this i think has to do with the production, it feels somewhat anonymous in the sense that for the most part the instrumentals aren't super memorable, they could use with some more different synths or drum samples here and there that don't make them feel like they're subordinate to the vocals. i'm aware that tommy is at least familiar with some of the more modern developments in dnb and jungle, shouting out people like t>i or sherelle in some of his mixes, so this could all be easily remedied in future developments from the duo. there's a lot of potential for greatness, and they've already been able to make some very impressive and memorable songs, so it's all a matter of seeing how they progress from here and what else can they bring to the table. it's solid, overall.

favourite tracks: beachin, silver lining, soft spot

pongo - sakidila (2022) kuduro afrobeats, kizomba

got this one through a recommendation on twitter, mostly piqued my interest because i was already familiar with one song from hers, quem manda no mic from 2019, which is an energetic and lively tune led by an incessant saxophone melody that immediately brings up urban nightlife to mind, paired against an insanely catchy and inviting vocal performance from pongo herself, and also i had seen a short clip of her performing alongside buraka som sistema in a boiler room set and it was absolutely hype, so i figured this was worth a shot. to understand the foundations this album is built upon, one has to have a slight familiarity with the current sounds and scenes of african electronic music, specifically angola, the country pongo was born in: kuduro, the main genre represented in this album, has origins tracing back to the 1990s, going through several transformations and variations in terms of sound and subject matter until its eventual spread to europe and the usa in the late 2000s, thanks to acts like the aforementioned buraka som sistema from portugal; also worth mentioning is kizomba, a genre that stems from semba (a form of non-electronic, guitar led dance music from angola) but with slower rhythms and a mostly romantic subject matter and aesthetic, in a certain way similar to the different developments of samba (which would make sense considering both genres share the same origin) and axé in brazil. kuduro and kizomba have seen several developments and offshoots in recent years, the latter one especially as it has veered into a more electronic sound and has spawned different subgenres, with the portuguese label príncipe discos serving as the epicenter for said developments. outside of angola we have the recent surge of amapiano, a subgenre of house that combines piano melodies that you would typically hear in deep house with rhythmic influences from gqom, a south african electronic offshoot with stripped back yet hard hitting production and percussion, and we also need to mention the worldwide phenomenon that has been dancehall and its derivates in the last few decades, specifically the afrobeats sound pushed by nigerian artists like wizkid and rema in the last couple of years that has been influencing several artists in the western mainstream.

this is, evidently, just scratching the surface of a whole cultural paradigm, although it might seem a bit of an excessive explanation all of a sudden, but i feel like it's at least necessary to know the basics of all these different musical styles, because they are all represented in this album in several ways. the album kicks off with more laidback afrobeats and kizomba grooves in tracks like doudou and hey linda serving as the foundation for a melodic, softer performance from pongo, in comparison to the heavier, more energetic kuduro of songs like amaduro and wegue wegue (a rework of her 2008 track with buraka som sistema of the same name) in the second half of the record; in the midst of this duality, you get some sunkissed amapiano in the form of só amor and an almost reggaetón beat with some influences of tarraxinha (a slow-tempo offshoot of kizomba) in the track pica. the modus operandi through this album seems to focus in on several different musical styles being interwoven by pongo's vocal performance, making for a consistent project that showcases the cutting edge of african electronic music and pop/r&b in a significantly enticing manner. that being said, i'm gonna admit i came into this with the wrong mindset probably, i was sort of expecting something a lot more hard-hitting and energetic, so i was a bit taken aback by the laidback, chilled out sound of the first half of the record. don't get me wrong, the tracks themselves are definitely very solid, só amor especially with its inviting amapiano grooves and a sentimental and comforting vocal performance from pongo, it's just not what i was picturing in mind considering the small snippets of her that i was familiar with. she ends up delivering stuff along those lines anyhow, with the four-track run at the end being particularly of note, with very energetic production and vocal delivery, as well as the only two vocal features on the album from titica and mosty, who hold their own very well in their respective verses. it's an overall solid experience, functioning as a sort of "state of affairs" for the african musical scene with its versatility in sound but also as a proper introduction to an artist brimming with talent and ambition and a sign of bright things to come in her future, developing and forming her sound in a myriad of possible ways. as of right now, still, it's a very well rounded, worthwhile project.

favourite tracks: wegue wegue, só amor, goolo (feat. mosty)