#not to mention it's from the same band that wrote a ballad about a double agent that at some point disguised himself as a mini carrot

[mothocean]

Im legit so sad there's some songs I want to show to ppl but i cant bc they're not in English

[dustedmagazine]

Listed: Colin Fisher

Photo by ilyse krivel

Toronto-based multi-instrumentalist Colin Fisher is on a constant quest for the ecstatic through sound. His journey has taken him in many directions, from the math-rock inspired group Sing That Yell That Spell, to the fiery free improvisation duo Not the Wind, Not the Flag. As a band leader, his free jazz quartet released the white-hot Living Midnight for Astral Spirits in 2020, about which Derek Taylor wrote, “Passages of ruminant restraint alternate with excoriating blasts and outbursts, but the means always remains intelligible and momentum driven whether full-steam or incremental.” Solo, Fisher has recently wafted in a more contemplative direction that might see him associated with the new age revival, but this work is as exploratory and engaging as his most spirited improvisational outings. Here, he lists some of the pieces within which he experiences the sublime.

Jean-Pierre Leguay — Chant d’Airain

Some of my first experiences with the sublime in music were in church. I abhorred being in church (and would even attempt to hide to avoid attendance) but at the end of service the organist played as the congregation filed out. The selections were usually secular and I can remember my rapt attention. Not because of some aesthetic taste but because I was having a physical/biological response to the sounds. Being in the resonant chamber of the cathedral provided a fully immersive experience. Rather than suggest whatever music was being played at the time I’m going to fast forward to my mid 20s… While in the same church, I heard the principal organist of Notre Dame improvise with some Messiaen-symmetrical ideas that lifted me out of my corporeal form and left me sobbing in a church pew at the very church I would have done everything in my power not to be present in as a child. The organist was Jean-Pierre Leguay.

Ravi Shankar — At Monterey Pop

An early transmission from what seemed like outer space at the time, as a young child I heard the sounds of Ravi Shankar and Alla Rakha live at Monterey Pop (my parents had this and the record with Yehudi Menuhin.) Ravi is far from my fav Hindustani musician or sitarist, of which I have innumerable favorites now. But I’m particularly enamored with Vilayat Khan after reading his biography, The Sixth String of Vilayat Khan, a couple of years ago. Pandit Pran Nath is also a huge inspiration.

Polvo — Cor-Crane Secret

Without sifting through the rubble of my punk/hardcore teens (which was totally legit inspirational beauty, from Minor Threat and straight edge to grunge, etc.) I want to highlight a band that literally changed my life in my mid to late teens. When I first heard Cor-Crane Secret by Polvo, I didn’t realize that music like this existed. It gave me permission to go on long wonky improvisational explorations — endless melodies and whammied chords that would go on for hours sometimes. I also got to see them on the Today’s Active Lifestyles tour when I was 18, totally life changing.

Ornette Coleman — The Shape of Jazz to Come

The next stage I’ll focus on has a little more girth: my introduction to jazz/free jazz/improv/fusion. I think I first discovered this music by accident. I remember seeing a clip of Monk on the news the day he died. I was much younger, and I thought to myself “this music is like an alien transmission!” But I put that away in the vaults for a couple of decades. I also remember seeing a clip on TV of a soprano player at a jazz fest in Toronto, playing the craziest shit I’d ever heard (once again on a news program,) but had little-to-no context. The clip lasted probably 10 seconds but felt longer and I remember thinking something like “this is more punk rock than punk rock!” hahaha. So, there was a hunger there that I needed to satiate. But I had no access to any recordings where I lived. I remember reading books at the library about jazz history and the only CDs I could borrow were Manteca or big band music. I had to imagine what Song X sounded like for the time being. Ornette’s The Shape of Jazz to Come was one of the first albums I actually bought, and it was more magical than any description could possibly illustrate. As pedestrian as this may seem to everyone now, it was another life changer for me. I can remember late nights sitting by myself, probably super high on good weed, listening to “Lonely Woman” and weeping.

John McLaughlin — Extrapolation

In my early days of discovering jazz, I also came across the music of John Mclaughlin, initially via Mahavishnu Orchestra. His whole profile as a guitarist was incredibly inspiring for me — someone who had an equal footing in jazz, Flamenco, Indian classical music and fusion — a model for what I could become as a player (although I don’t think our styles are really even that comparable.) One of his albums that I think is maybe overlooked in his career is Extrapolation which has an incredible lineup and the compositions are incredible.

John Coltrane — Interstellar Space

In considering this list I’m realizing there’s no way I can touch on all the music that has shaped me. But there is an album that’s shaped a great deal in terms of how I play and in what seems to be my favorite type of collaborative setting — the duo. Interstellar Space is an absolute masterpiece. Everything feels raw — the intensity, the interplay, the emotion. As much as I love so much of John Coltrane’s music, there’s something about this record that was akin to hearing punk music for the first time. There’s an immediacy to expression and interaction. And it was something that felt available to me (certainly not his virtuoso chops, which felt otherworldly — an unscalable monolith.) The direct communication between two people was a revelation and the content of this music felt like something I could mine for the rest of my life.

The Ivo Perelman Trio — “Cantilena”

Fast-forward another few years or more and I had travelled with some good friends to NYC for I think it was the JVC Jazz Fest. We wanted to see MMW play (of whom I still think Friday Afternoon In the Universe is a perfect album.) While we were there though, we saw so much beautiful music that blew me away. The most significant for me though, was catching the last 10 minutes of a set by the Ivo Perelman trio in Tribeca somewhere (the trio was with Jay Rosen on drums and Dominic Duval on bass, who I played with several years later. RIP). It was electrifying. I was moved enough to go and talk to him after and he gave me an unmarked demo tape of Seeds, Vision and Counterpoint. There’s a track on the album called “Cantilena” and it really drops into this heavy space for around 10 minutes that gives me the chills every time I hear it. There is this free lyricism that is still absolutely elating to me. I love his playing and he’s still probably my favorite living saxophonist.

Marilyn Crispell — Vignettes

Masabumi Kikuchi — Out of Bounds

Using lyricism as a segue it brings me to the music of Marilyn Crispell, especially her albums Amaryllis,Nothing Ever Was Anyway, Vignettes and many others. She has a mode of free ballad playing that is absolutely transcendental. I will also mention Masabumi Kikuchi in the same breath. I find the desire more and more to play with a similar intention even though I rarely find myself in the context to do so.

Jute Gyte — Birefringence

A total shift from this narrative of discovery and development is metal music. Something I’d been listening to since my teens and getting hip to some cool thrash music through Canadian band Voivod, particularly the album Dimension Hatröss. I've continued to follow the music and all of its various subgenres and have so many favorite picks, but I’ll choose just one and it’s a total mindbender. Jute Gyte’s Birefringence actually eclipses easy category and you really just need to experience it.

Giacinto Scelsi — “Uaxuctum”

Catherine Christer Hennix — “Blues Alif Lam Mim In The Modes Of Rag Infinity/Rag Cosmosis”

My last pick is another double pick (I know I’m cheating) because it relates to the power of music and ties it into the first selection. Another current, among many, of musical obsessions is “new music.” But when I heard Giacinto Scelsi’s music for the first time it surpassed all of my previous notions about what was possible with composed music — it felt like music from an ecstatic vision. Even as I listen to the track now, it immediately accesses some occult realm of sublimity that feels similar to the music I first heard in church but with an unbridled intensity and depth.

Another more recent selection that fits into this category — but that is different in that it embraces a sort of stasis rather than dynamic movement — is the music of Catherine Christer Hennix. If you don’t know her, she’s a deep well of musical/mathematical/spiritual inspiration for me. Another music without a real equivalent in this day and age — something that echoes ancestral currents as well as the vibration of the cosmos itself. Thanks for reading/listening. Peace be with you. xoxo

[musicollage]

Atlas Sound. Logos, 2009. Kranky (USA) / 4AD (UK). ( Lyrics & Music – Bradford Cox )  ~ [ Album Review |   1) Pitchfork  +  2) Pop Matters  + 3) Drowned In Sound  +  4) NME  + 5) Prefix Magazine  ]

1) As we've gotten to know Bradford Cox over the last couple of years through shows, interviews, and blog posts, one of the Deerhunter frontman's most appealing qualities is his deep and nuanced appreciation of the music of others. Some musicians listen to records to see how they work, check out the competition, or trawl for ideas; by all available evidence, Cox feels records, deeply. If he was born without musical gifts and couldn't sing or play an instrument, one can imagine him working at a record store, amassing an enviable collection while driving people on a message board crazy with the sureness of his detailed opinions. Whatever you think of his exploits as an indie rock media figure, Cox's music fandom is easy to identify with and also offers a portal into his own work.

Atlas Sound, Cox's solo alias, in one sense serves as a sort of laboratory for figuring out what makes some his favorite music tick, away from the expectations of his main band. Two collaborations on Logos, the second Atlas Sound full-length, are excellent examples of how music listening can be absorbed into original work. First is "Walkabout", a track Cox wrote and recorded with Noah Lennox from Animal Collective, whom Cox got to know during a European tour. Though Cox's music shades dark and Lennox's is often flecked with uncertainty and doubt, "Walkabout" is the sunniest pop tune of either of their careers. Coasting on a buoyant, twinkling keyboard sample, it is a starkly catchy and irresistible, a clattery post-millennial Archies tune that straddles perfectly the border between simple and simplistic. Interestingly, it also sounds very much like a Panda Bear tune.

Then there is Lætitia Sadier of Stereolab, who wrote the lyrics and sings lead on Logos' "Quick Canal". The song opens with some gorgeously textured organ chords and soon a steady-state beat and drums rise up in the mix, setting the kind of relaxed-but-propulsive neo-krautrock scene that Stereolab perfected very early on. Here Cox gets to play the part of the late Mary Hansen, adding "la-di-da" trills behind Sadier as she intones phrases in her unfailingly lovely, for-the-ages voice. He even throws in a "Jenny Ondioline"-style rupture about halfway through, sending the track into a breathtaking shoegaze section for its final four minutes, wherein it floats magisterially on a pillow of shifting guitar feedback. "Quick Canal" is almost nine minutes long and it doesn't waste a second.

On these tracks, the confidence Cox shows in melting his aesthetic into the soundworld of other musicians is striking-- both are unqualified successes, very different from each other but among the best things Cox has ever done. But they also sound a lot like the music his collaborators are known for. Cox's sympathetic support and sense of how to construct songs with others suggests a desire to expand the parameters of what Atlas Sound can be. And given his willingness to let others take the microphone on an Atlas Sound project on these cuts, I can't help but go back to Cox's words on Logos before the album was released, which suggested that this was to be less introverted and that was "not about me."

And then I remember that the cover of the album consists of a photo of Cox with his shirt off and the lyrics in the first two songs start with the word "I", which suggests that we probably shouldn't take these statements very seriously. While the songs may or may not be "about" Cox in the strictest sense, the overall vibe is at least as introverted as 2008's Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel, and every note bears the same signature. With its strummed guitars, hushed double-tracked vocals, and tunes more reliant on ambiance and feel than melody or rhythm, Logos feels every bit as diaristic and personal, but with Cox, that's a plus. At this point, we're not looking to this guy for commentary on the outside world; we want to hear him wrestle with private demons in the sanctuary of his bedroom, bathing every sound in reverb to give the illusion of space and as a sonic balm against loneliness and figuring out how to make music as affecting as the stuff he loves to listen to.

So tracks like "The Light That Failed", "An Orchid", and "My Halo" (the latter two, though different in tone, are further entries in Cox's growing line of melancholy waltz-time shuffles) function primarily as the kind of eerie, blown-out mood music he has become very good at. They are amorphous sketches that still manage to convey feeling, capturing the sort of sad, exhausted, and fragile emotional state that is Cox's area of expertise. "Shelia", a taut pop song with a great chorus hook, is a change-up, though the repeating refrain "No one wants to die alone" fits with the rest of the record's themes. And "Washington School", with its dissonant chime of metallic percussion that sound like gamelan or evilly out-of-tune steel drums, contains the record's most interesting production, with thick drones reminiscent of Tim Hecker and menacing rhythm track.

So some things are different, some are the same, but all of it works well together. It's true that every time Cox ventures out of his comfort zone on Logos, you wish that he'd go even further and embrace extremes-- of tunefulness, tradition, noise-- that don't necessarily come to him naturally. He may yet take a big leap with Atlas Sound, but here the steps away, though rewarding, are tentative. For the rest of the record, Logos feels familiar and assuring, another affecting dispatch from a corner of indie music that is increasingly starting to seem like one Cox pretty much owns.

2) Take a quick gander at Deerhunter's discography and you'll notice a clear stylistic trajectory. From the confrontational noise of "Turn It Up Faggot" to the ambient preoccupations of Cryptograms to the straight-up indie-pop of Microcastle/Weird Era Cont., it's plain to see that as the band has evolved over time, its songwriting has increasingly tended toward the more accessible end of the spectrum. Unsurprisingly, it appears that Bradford Cox's other songwriting vehicle, Atlas Sound, is following a similar arc. On Logos, his second album under the Atlas Sound moniker, Cox provides us with 11 songs that are far less insular, though no less dreamy, than those he has penned in the past. While his fractured compositions still evoke the myth of the bedroom pop auteur, the songs on Logos sound considerably more refined than the lo-fi sketches being churned out by many of his peers. This, as it turns out, is a very good thing.

  To wit: "Walkabout", the track that had the blogosphere buzzing with anticipation for the better part of the summer. Built around a squelchy organ sample lifted from the Dovers "What Am I Going to Do", the song simultaneously recalls both the acid-tinged psychedelia of Black Moth Super Rainbow and the technicolor pop of Brian Wilson. Of course, it's impossible to mention "Walkabout" without acknowledging its co-creator, Noah Lennox, a.k.a. Panda Bear. In many ways, "Walkabout" bears Lennox's fingerprints more than it does Cox's, with Lennox's wistful vocal harmonies echoing throughout the track's four-minute runtime. It's easy to see why Cox chose to leak "Walkabout" well in advance of the release of Logos; bright, bubbly and infinitely catchy, the song perfectly captures the mood of a fleeting summer afternoon and stands as one of the year's best singles.

   "Walkabout" is obviously a standout, though it's also an outlier when approached within the context of Logos. While some may feel as if they've been misled, the good news is that the rest of the album is no less rewarding, if not quite as instantly gratifying. Take, for example, the opening suite that leads up to "Walkabout". Pitting disjointed acoustic guitar strums and distant, reverb-soaked vocals against a backdrop of aqueous noise, "The Light That Failed" succeeds at drawing the listener in while still keeping her at arm's length. "An Orchid", meanwhile, presents the listener with a dreamy ballad that feels like an indistinct outline for a Deerhunter song. Cox's vocals and the song's guitar hook are buried just deep enough in the mix to force the listener to dig a little. When "Walkabout" finally hits, it feels like a reward well earned.

  Luckily, "Walkabout" isn't the only nugget of pure pop bliss to be found on Logos. "Shelia", a disarmingly straightforward slice of jangly college-rock, proves hard to shake, with its Pixies-esque melody and sun-bleached three-part harmonies. Lyrically, the song serves as a world-weary rejoinder to the sweetly nostalgic refrain of "Walkabout" ("What did you want to be / When you grew up"), with Cox explaining, "No one wants / To die alone", before promising the song's titular subject, "We'll die alone / Together." It sure goes down easy, though.

  Cox has publicly acknowledged that Stereolab were his favorite band in high school, so it should come as no surprise that given the opportunity to collaborate with Lætitia Sadier, he puts his best foot forward. On "Quick Canal", he lovingly builds up and tears down a cathedral of sound for Sadier to inhabit, layering a deep bass groove, tambourine hits and a wall of gently panning organs atop a steady, shuffling beat. Midway through, the song falls apart, briefly taking a detour into glitchy noise before giving way to a squall of fuzzed-out guitars. Try as Cox might to obfuscate the vocals, however, Sadier's voice proves indefatigable. To her credit, she sounds right at home here, bouncing her voice off of the song's jagged edges to produce a track that's equal parts haunting and triumphant.

  With regard to electronic composition, on Logos Cox sounds more confident than ever before. Samples and electronic instrumentation form the underpinnings of many of the album's songs, though not to conspicuous effect. Penultimate track "Washington School" illustrates this point better than perhaps any other on the album. Opening with a loop built from fragments of a minor key piano line, the song soon piles on a pounding, bass-heavy beat, chimes and a playful synth line, blossoming into a full-on folktronica number that recalls Four Tet circa Rounds. Somewhere in the distance, Cox's disembodied voice rings out: "Shine a light / On me."

  If Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel was the product of Cox's willful isolation, then Logos is the sound of the auteur stepping outside of his bedroom to engage the world outside. Though it cedes little of the hazy delivery that made Let the Blind… so compelling, Logos brims with a wide-eyed energy all its own, conveying a palpable sense of optimism that's all too rare in Cox's oeuvre. This isn't too surprising when one considers the circumstances; the path that led Cox to the album's creation -- globetrotting tours with his idols, collaborations with some of the most distinctive voices in indie rock -- is the stuff of dreams for hermetic music nerds. Perhaps that's why Logos sounds as vibrant as it does: it's the result of Bradford Cox living out his dreams rather than just dreaming them.

   3) One of many unsatisfactory things about end-of-decade retrospectives is that musicians are rarely so accommodating as to plot their careers in nice, convenient ten year cycles. Nonetheless, that’s how posterity tends to remember them, regardless of finer details. Thus the Kinks are Sixties artists, the Clash a Seventies act, Talk Talk an Eighties band, Nirvana from the Nineties, and you’d comfortably stick a punt on The Strokes and Sufjan Stevens ending up defined by this decade we’re exiting.

  But what of Bradford Cox? Even if you were aware of Deerhunter's raucous 2005 debut ”Turn It Up Faggot” at the time, you're a wizard or a liar if you foresaw how their frontman was going to fill the years 2007 to 2009. That is to say: three Deerhunter albums (‘tis a fool indeed who views Weird Era Cont. as anything other than a record in its own right), two EPs, and a solo project as Atlas Sound that’s yielded God-know-how-many free downloads, as well as last year's Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel, and now – an epic 22 months later - Logos. That all of this bar the odd freebie has been good to exemplary is simply astonishing, and points to an artist whose profligacy and cult popularity has him nicely set up to be a defining artist of the next decade.

  And yet... anomalous as ”Turn It Up Faggot” may seem, such scabrous origins are indicative of a palette that has been cooling and quietening ever since Cox first intersected with the limelight. The soundbite-friendly ‘ambient punk’ aesthetic never really lasted beyond Cryptograms, with Microcastle canning the abrasiveness in favour of reasonably straightforward shoegaze set off with dreamlike Fifties flourishes. Having arrived at something like a commercial sound, another artist might have stopped there; however, Cox has ploughed right on through, this year’s Rainwater Cassette Exchange far and away Deerhunter’s most introverted work, a retreat into quiescent childhood reverie.

  Logos has much more in common with Rainwater... than Let the Blind..., for the most part ditching the dissonant electronics in favour of delayed acoustic guitars and old-time pop structures. On the face of it, it sets out Atlas Sound’s stall as simply being whatever Cox may do sans Deerhunter. Yet in a way the 'ambient solo project' tag still kind of makes sense. Strictly speaking ambient music is defined not by instrumentation, but by its evasion of the consciousness. Whole swathes of Logos are blurred and indistinct - technically melodic, hooky songs treated and delivered in such a way that they all but self-negate, leaving nothing but fleeting impressions: the winsome viola that arrives in ‘Attic Lights’, just as Cox mutters ”maximum pain, maximum effect”; the gay singer’s unsettling yearning for traditional marriage on ‘Sheila’ ("we’ll die alone, together"); the barely discernible mantra ”all is love” that briefly ghosts through ‘Washington School’.

  This might sound like a way of romanticising an unmemorable album, but that's far from the case. These songs are bunched together into two dreamy, fog-like passages that serve as a backdrop for a handful of the most tangible tunes Cox has ever written, soaring atmospherically above the misty dreampop. Opener ‘The Light That Failed’ roots itself in the consciousness through eerily torpid glitching, Cox’s disconcerting use of something approaching a falsetto, and the doomy langour of its titular lyric. It sets up an album that frequently drifts into disquieting areas, yet never quite follows through on this early moment of dread. Indeed, delightful Panda Bear hook up ‘Walkabout’ serves as definitive proof that the light hasn't failed at all. While much of Cox’s early pop obsession speaks of a desire to creep out of the now entirely, ‘Walkabout’ is far more tangible and good natured, thanks largely to Panda Bear’s high, comforting tones and the appropriation of the hook from actual vintage Sixties pop gem ‘What Am I Going To Do?’ by The Dovers. Ironically for a song built around a 40-year-old tune, nothing, else on Logos has ‘Walkabout’s immediacy, though the excellent title track comes close, a rattling Strokes-alike number slightly removed from the world by Cox’s arsenal of floaty FX.

  As we’ve known ever since last year’s leak of the Logos demos, the centrepiece is the eight and a half minute, wholly electronic ‘Quick Canal’. Though tamed a little from the leaked 13 minute instrumental, this more mannered, Laetitia Sadier-sung incarnation is a better fit here, and still towers above the skyline. The Stereolab singer adds an inescapably Enya-ish quality to the gentle early stages, but by the time the song’s swooshing, snowy motorik has kicked into full gear she fits in immaculately, an aloof Old World passenger on a song charged with haughty European electronica. It perhaps doesn’t sound so jaw-dropping as it did in isolation, but a lot of that can be attributed to an intentional effect of the surroundings. Those short, subliminal songs serving to filter away reality and focus, like half remembered dreams that leaves the senses baffled and feverish.

  Logos is a gorgeous, hallucinatory and somewhat sickly outing. While there's every chance he'll wrong foot us, and soon, this record is entirely in keeping with the increasingly self-erasing route Bradford Cox has taken as a musician; it's hard to stifle a shudder at that blanked out cover image. Maybe Cox will go on to be a star next decade - he's a gregarious, prolific man liked by critics. But listen to his music, and that doesn't feel quite right. Maybe he'll become an icon. Or maybe he’ll finally make his escape from our timestream entirely, leaving us to wonder if he was ever there at all.

   4) Much like Starbucks, Bradford Cox has become a ubiquitous presence. What with his work with art-rock outfit Deerhunter, his involvement in Karen O’s official soundtrack for Where The Wild Things Are, and now this, his second solo offering under the Atlas Sound banner, you’d be forgiven for thinking that such familiarity will start to breed contempt. But you’d be way off the mark.

  There are two things you should know about this unlikely lo-fi hero of gangly deportment (he has Marfan Syndrome, a genetic disorder that stretches his limbs and strains his heart) and a girlish speaking voice (the affliction for this is yet uncertain). Firstly, it is impossible to dislike him (just see Wayne Coyne’s spoof argument with him on YouTube, branding Cox a “dick”). Secondly, his creative output has proved him to be one of – if not the – most forward-thinking and inspiring musicians of our generation.

  So, as Cox takes time out from Deerhunter, along comes ‘Logos’. Less of an experimental minefield than its predecessor, ‘Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel’, it sees Cox weave in and out of dream-like sequences, such as the sombre ‘The Light That Failed’ and ‘Quick Canal’, the latter featuring the sweetly masculine vocal of [a]Stereolab[/a]’s Laetitia Sadier; while ‘An Orchid’ pitches in as the aural equivalent of a David Lynch storyboard, guided along with looped noises and whimsical vocals.

  It’d be easy to overlook Cox’s lyrics when the soundscapes are this rich and ornate, but there’s a delicate exploration of the most human of sensibilities and yearnings on ‘Logos’. He opens up the emotional vaults on ‘Sheila’, pining softly that “no-one wants to die alone… we’ll die alone together”. Likewise with ‘My Halo’, where Cox reveals “My halo burned a hole in the sky/My halo burned a hole in the ground… so I wait for polarity to change”. There’s much warmth and playfulness to be found here too, the unfeigned honesty and childlish desires expressed on ‘Walkabout’ – featuring the falsetto of [a]Animal Collective[/a]’s Noah Lennox – with its lyric “What did you want to see?/What did you want to be when you grew up?” being a case in point.

  Cox may have tagged Atlas Sound as just another side-project, but ‘Logos’ is a clear indication that his solo creative output is just as richly rewarding as what came before.

   5) For a project originally started as a way for Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox to give a voice to his despairing isolation (he records completely alone) as a teenager, Atlas Sound is starting to sound like an arena-filling, widescreen pop project. Logos, Cox’s second proper solo album, takes the dense, gray worlds of Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See, But Cannot Feel and puts them through a rainbow, delivering a splendid album.

  If there’s one word to describe Logos, it’s “watery.” And in that regard, Logos shares a lot in common with Merriweather Post Pavilion (and Deerhunter’s Rainwater Cassette Exchange from earlier this year). Both albums trade in dreamy avant-pop landscapes buoyed by soggy atmospherics. “Criminals” sways like a shipping vessel in choppy seas, while the album’s great closing third (“My Halo” through the title track) sounds like it was transmitted from that underwater base in the third season of Lost. Cox is still reliant on the general ambiance that envelops his solo work, but here he’s willing to let his vocals float above the mix. And while musically this is brighter, he’s still all Debbie Downer. Old standby lyrical tropes of growing old (on “Sheila” Cox sings “we will grow old” like he’s reassuring someone else), loneliness (“Attic Lights”) and lost hope (“The Light that Failed”) show up repeatedly, and he still sounds like he’s on his deathbed when he sings.

  But for an album created largely by one guy alone in his room, the guest performances shine the most on Logos. Stereolab’s  Lætitia Sadier wrote the lyrics for “Quick Canal,” a sprawling, shoegazey track that never loses its motorik motion, peaking repeatedly in its eight minutes. The bubbly “Walkabout,” the high-profile track with Animal Collective’s Panda Bear lives up to all the hypertext spilled about it this summer, delivering the best of both Panda Bear’s effervescent youthful innocence and Cox’s wistful yearning.

  Logos, while just the second solo album from the frontman for a band of marginal fame, represents the latest and greatest chapter in Cox’s ride to indie stardom. He rose to prominence mid-decade as a confrontational trickster riding blog-hype (circa Cryptograms), continuing with a solo album to build his brand (Let the Blind), an indie-rock masterwork (Microcastle) and a solo album of nearly as high repute (Logos). As for what’s next, Cox has remained mum (though Deerhunter might be taking a hiatus), but with Logos, he ensures we’ll all be waiting.  

[smolie]

in december i wrote a 2020 year music review for myself that i intended to post here BUT...because i was infamously restricted twice last year, i didn’t bother since you wouldn’t be able to read it anyway because it was not possible to view my blog hjfdhfd

now that my restricted era is (hopefully forever) over i just want to post it here for the sake of completion since i want to do the same thing this year

this is really long so if you actually read it ... idk you are insane in the membrane and i love you... but i genuinely don’t expect anyone to read this hjfdhjf i just like reflecting on the music i have listened to and be able to look back on what i enjoyed in certain stages of my life! okiiii bye 💗

january

mac miller - circles (album) it’s a bit funny that i worried putting my thoughts down about this album and now it turns out to be first on the list, chronologically of course … oh bittersweet irony </3 listening to this album is such a double edged sword, either way i am always hit with a truckload of feelings when i turn to this release.

this album came to me in a time of my life where i was slowly but surely sliding down towards rock bottom again just after i got out of it and thought i was okay. the times i’ve listened to this crying in the bathtub with a glass of wine….girl let’s not lol…. it’s almost strange how much i can relate to the thoughts another person brought to paper. the comfort this album brings me is otherworldly, i feel so understood by mac’s words and it’s my go-to “wallow in self-pity for a bit then come out stronger than before” album. then again, i feel a little sting when any of mac’s songs come on shuffle. a friend of mine said she cannot listen to artists who have passed because it feels too strange and most of the time i agree but this time, it’s so so different. this album would have been mac’s salvation, i can feel it. everything would have been a bit brighter and lighter for him after this, it would have had to be. i feel like i would do him a disservice if i did not listen to this album, so i will cherish this final gift from him as his legacy and my comfort. i miss him incredibly and am all the more thankful he shared his heart with us.

album favs: circles, good news, surf

tiny meat gang - broke bitch (single) MAN I TELL THAT BROKE BITCH IF YOU WANNA GET IN TUNE BETTER CHANGE YOUR WHOLE PITCH LIKE WOAH !!!!!!!!!! did that give you whiplash? hehe funny to say this about a song called broke bitch by a duo called tiny meat gang but this song actually means a lot to me! it came out shortly before their show in berlin and i almost exclusively listened to it on my 7+ hours train ride from one side of the country to the other to see my meat boys. this played out of the fat ass speakers at the venue when they stepped on the stage and i will never forget meeting them :’) also the song fucking slaps obviously

february

loona - [#] (mini album) ah yes, the most controversial loona release to date! i’m not gonna lie and say this sounded anything like i expected it to. but also, i have come to terms with the fact that loona release noise music now and personally i am here for it. why not did not have the endless energy of hi high or otherworldly vibe of butterfly, but it’s a hype song and i am always there for hype. i also have to say the b-sides were not as strong for me as on previous releases but i think i have to come to peace with the fact that loona will never top their debut mini for me. though if i can wish for one thing…… let loona have title tracks with a chorus in 2021? pls? crumbs?

album favs: so what, oh (yes i am)

tame impala - the slow rush (album) *lights cigarette* i’m listening to pretty underground music….i don’t think you’ve heard of this band….they are called tame impala *intro of the less i know the better starts playing* yes i am a basic white bitch and listen to like 3 alternative bands but damn i listen to them religiously. like any other basic bitch on this planet i found out about tame impala through the less i know the better and checked out their music. i wasn’t too much into this album as i was into currents but towards the end of the year, i was in a moody alternative music slump that took me back to this album and i like it a lot more now! most importantly, tame impala fulfills my primitive urge to listen to songs that exceed the 4 minute mark. something clicks in my brain when i see a song that is like 6:34 and chances that it ends up as one of my faves on a album are high. i enjoy tiktok like everyone else but this trend of 2:50 long songs needs to be stopped immediately.

album favs: borderline, lost in yesterday, it might be time, is it true, posthumous forgiveness

honorary mentions: onlyoneof - dOra maar, everglow - dundun

march

nct 127 - neo zone (album) ah, yes. the album that fundamentally changed me as a person <3 i’ve been listening to nct for a while, matter of fact i checked my top tracks 2019 playlist on spotify and cherry bomb was on there lol. i remember trying to get into them in 2018 when they released their regular-irregular album but the endless member & unit concept scared me off, so i only listened to a handful of songs without looking into them march 2020, the fateful month in which they released kick it and screencaps of jaehyun’s sexy ass tiddies in the kick it mv landed on my tumblr or twitter and i HAD to look up who this man is…...remember when i thought jaehyun was my ult for like, 2 weeks? me neither, johnny suh only in this house <3

anyway, i checked out this album and by god, is this pure kpop perfection. last time i listened to a god tier no skip album like this was … maybe the perfect red velvet? hype songs, well crafted ballads, love songs that make me wanna learn the lyrics, genuinely fun and interesting pop songs, this album has it all. somehow, the way this album is crafted greatly reminds me of brown eyed girls’ sound-g, it has the same vibe, concept and mix of genres to me, i’m not entirely sure how to explain. anyway, this album is one of my favorites of all time and even though i’ve obsessively listened to it (lastfm says 1.4k scrobbles as of today, december 7th…) i am still not tired of this. i recommend this to anyone who loves kpop tbh, you will have a good time with this!

other than being just a musically solid album, the emotional ties i have with this are …. isabel stop making albums your emotional support 2021 challenge. i’ve listened to this release all spring lockdown, this basically played at every waking hour for all of march and april. the promotion time of this era and lockdown are deeply intertwined for me and so i am always remembered of all the nct content i consumed during that time which inevitably cheered me up so much. this album really means a lot to me :’)

album favs: kick it, mad dog, love song, boom

honorary mentions: itzy - wannabe,

the weeknd - after hours (album) my dear melchanoly, was one of my favorite releases of 2018, so i had been desperate for a new release by abel and boy did he not disappoint. the perfect thotty, dirty emo 80s, making it clap while crying in the club album! this is a no skip from top to bottom and all i can say is that the grammys can go to hell <3 abel aoty! there is really not much i can say about this album, the flawless production, lyrics and sound speak for themself. my only criticism is that i feel overwhelmed by 14 songs, especially when some of them are really long. a few songs greatly overshadow the weaker tracks on the album for me but i still love this to death.

album favs: escape from LA, blinding lights, after hours, faith

dua lipa - future nostalgia (album) after the weeknd’s masterpiece of an 80s inspired pop album i was really looking forward to this. i greatly enjoyed the pre-releases, i played don’t start now and physical up and down, they are still some of my favorite songs released this year! when i first listened to the album i really liked it, songs like boys will be boys or pretty please sound like fillers to be but the rest is solid. yet a month after release you couldn’t catch me listening to this and i cannot even really tell you why. i think it was a combination of the following: 1) i greatly overplayed dsn and physical to the point where i didn’t want more of the pop 80s sound that the album has 2) there were other releases at the time that caught my attention and interest more like neo zone or after hours 3) dua herself….girl….she really gave it her all this year to make herself as unlikeable as possible. nationalist propaganda and the constant traveling during a fucking pandemic were really the kicker. i can barely stand seeing her on my instagram feed anymore, much less listen to her album. her having the nerve to go “we’re in a pandemic lol” when people asked about an animated music video …. if you don’t shut the hell up lmao … also, she takes the crown for the corniest album opener of all time. i nearly closed spotify when i heard future nostalgia (the song) lmao

album favs: don’t start now, physical, levitating, hallucinate

honorary mentions: megan thee stallion - savage

april

apink - dumhdurum (song)

listen, i’m not gonna sit here and pretend like this mini album interested me in the slightest but god, the title is such a banger.i’m so sick, eung eung and dumhdurum are a holy trilogy that i will defend until the end of time! i really hope apink stick to this mature, elegant concept, it suits them so well and goes well with their new sound. come back soon queens <3

rina sawayama - xs (song) i feel like i’m gonna catch some hands here … xs is an absolute banger, the guitar riffs and disruptive sounds really get me going every damn time! but the rest of the album … tell me why it doesn’t catch me?! i literally cannot explain. i need to take an hour, sit down and do nothing but listen to the album from top to bottom once again and see if my thoughts change but right now i only care about xs.

chungha - stay tonight (song) drama! vocals! dance break! choreography! this release served it all. i listened to this obsessively during the time of the release and it still holds up today. can we talk about the run chungha had with gotta go > snapping > stay tonight? lord have mercy.

honorary mentions: april - lalalilala, nct dream - ridin’

may

lady gaga - chromatica (album) the immense disappointment i have in this album is tough to put into words lol. any other artist might have gotten away with this release but gaga having the discography that she has, well … she doesn’t get away with it. this has underwhelming all over it. i enjoyed the pre-releases and my hope was high but the rest just doesn’t live up what i expected, i can’t even say why. it’s just underwhelming pop for someone of gaga’s calibre. i listened to this album during release week and then never again till december to write this list and i can see why.

album favs: rain on me, sour candy ft. blackpink, stupid love

baekhyun - delight (mini album) it’s confession time … this is a name i never would have expected on any of my music lists to end up. exo has always been one of those boy groups i casually listened to. i greatly enjoy their title tracks and a handful of side tracks, i have a few members that i keep an eye on more than others but that’s about it. baekhyun was never one of those members i had any interest in, matter of fact i always thought he was kinda vanilla and boring 😭 i didn’t even plan on listening to this release if it wasn’t for his association with superm and thus nct, so i gave it a shot and we have no choice but to stan. his voice is like butter and can cut sharp at the same time, his versatility is insane. i dived a bit more into baekhyun related content and he is so likeable, it’s almost ridiculous. this production is absolute god tier, not a single skip on this mini. late spring/early summer i had this weird urge to listen to songs with mellow voices but still a banger instrumental and i wholeheartedly blame this release. matter of fact, this album is so good, i had to buy a physical copy. Y’ALL. THIS IS A BIG DEAL. i haven’t bought a kpop album of anyone that’s not holy top 3 (brown eyed girls, loona, nct) in like … idk, 5 years?! baekhyun’s impact. i’m a fan now <3

album favs: candy, r u ridin’?, love again

ak aussenkontrolle - in meinem benz (song) this … is very unrelated to this entirely list but i had to put it on here. i miss my ex boss and our 3 hour drives to meetings in the south of the country where we would blast trashy german rap music </3

nct 127 - neo zone: the final round (repackage) *airhorns* REEEPACKAGE TIIIIIME!!! my first nct era that i experienced from start to finish! i remember watching nct 127’s beyond live with luna where these mfs performed punch and we finished the concert having no idea what this song sounded like. the structure is so unusual and the intro catches me off-guard every time just to hype me up beyond compare. not gonna lie, the fact that johnny has exactly one (1) line hurts but! it’s my favorite line of the entire song! possibly related to the fact that it’s his line but let’s ignore that ….

album favs: punch, make your day

kim woo seok - red moon (song) i’m not even gonna lie to you. i have not a single idea who this man is. you could put him right in front of me and i wouldn’t know … all i know is that he has a banger song. i saw him perform this on a music show that i watched for nct and i ended up loving the song … thanks for your service sir, whoever you are ...

june

stray kids - go live (album) 2020 was kind of the year of boy groups for me, i’m so sorry … stray kids promoted simultaneously with nct 127 so i ended up hearing their title track and holy hell, is that a song. god’s menu is hype from start to finish. it reminds me of good ol’ 2nd gen noise boy group song a lá b*g b*ng fantastic baby. just pure hype and fun noise. i am forever grateful to witness the birth of the line cooking like a chef, i’m a five star michelin. the title track impressed me so much that i ended up checking out the entire album which i rarely ever do with boy groups and what is even rarer is that i enjoyed the b sides lmao!!! it’s not an album that i would put on and just enjoy from start to finish but it has some really solid tracks! this release made me want to keep an eye on stray kids, they seem like a really fun bunch.

album favs: god’s menu, TA, airplane

seventeen - left & right (song) the boy group run continues … same thing with stray kids, seventeen promoted during punch era so i heard their song while watching some music station show for nct and i heard this and was sold. solid, fun pop with the catchiest pre-chorus in history and a banger chorus. i listened to the entire mini and can’t say it really caught my interest so this is a title track only release for me.

dishonorary mentions: twice - more & more (i hate this song so much lol)

honorary mentions: ryu sejeong - tiger eyes, monsta x - fantasia, chloe x halle - do it

july

irene & seulgi - monster (mini) this is a weird release because it’s good. the title track is fun enough, the b sides are dope. but my issue with this is that it’s nothing new. this sounds exactly like a red velvet release. i get that they didn’t want to a  joy, seulgi, irene, yeri release only and went for the sub-unit route instead, but why not be experimental and stray away from the usual sound of the group? also, whoever made monster and not naughty the title track deserves to be spat on. at least the choreography here is more interesting and “experimental” for kpop standards. also, why only a seulgi solo and no irene? i have no idea how reveluvs reacted to this release but this has rushed written all over it.

album favs: monster, naughty (i’m counting this to the mini idc), uncover

exo-sc - 1 billion views (mini) doing my part as a filthy casual exo listener. this release goes in the same category as baekhyun’s delight where i like the album so much that i HAD to get a physical copy. i don’t know what they put in the title track for it to be so diddly darn addictive but it clearly worked. the only bad thing about this release is how criminally mismanaged it was by sm, when i get you lee sooman ...

album favs: 1 billion views, on me, say it

baekhyun - garden in the air (song) i told you i’m a loyal baekhyun fan now <3 king releases and i listen, that’s just how it goes now! this is a cover of a boa song and i really love his version. there is not much to say except that it’s a really smooth song and his voice absolutely carries the track. i enjoyed this much more than i thought i would!

hyoyeon - dessert (song) YOU KNOW WHAT I DESERVE??? DESSERT!!!!!!! *insert tik tok challenge here* imagine if miryo featured on this instead of the ethnic hip girl … why can’t we have nice things. anyway, a banger!

johnny - sunny side up episode 1 set (spotify playlist, actual set) johnny being the skilled, talented, multi-faceted king that he is has been dj-ing since before debut (not me acting like i was around at that time lmao) and thus he decided to bless our quarantined, lockdowned asses with an online dj set! that was the most turned up sunday morning i ever had in my entire life. this set kicked off an edm/house/techno affinity that i had for the following couple of weeks. this set is an absolute banger, i would go insane to this in the club. he has an amazing ear for transitions and drops and i still just put on this set on the regular when i have cleaning to do or so. he could fill the void that rona and thus no clubbing in 2020 left in my heart and i’m so happy he decided to share this with us <3 now … john … sunny side up episode 2 pspspspspsps

honorary mentions: gfriend - apple, jessi - nunu nana

august

cardi b ft. megan thee stallion - wap (song) late summer 2021. we are vaccinated, icu beds are free, barely any new cases, clubs are open, this song plays and i can finally make it fucking clap.

troye sivan - in a dream (mini album) a cute mini album! nothing life-changing or as exciting as previous releases but easy (haha!) to enjoy. i really, really enjoy easy, can always count on troye for a dreamy sound.

album favs: easy

honorary mentions: itzy - not shy

september

wonho - love synonym pt. 1: right for me (mini album) honestly? i know like, 3 monsta x songs. i never bothered to get into them and maybe i never will, but it was difficult to ignore the whole wonho & monsta x mess that went on. i have absolutely no memory of why i decided to check out this release, i guess i was curious what he was going to do and … i was positively surprised lol. open mind is the exact time of song i had been so desperate all summer (remember mellow vocals with banger instrumentals? yeah) and uhm … can’t ignore the obvious … mr wonho is fucking fine. sir, you just gained a fan … now, where is love synonym part 2?? huh?????

album favs: open mind, i just, losing you

joji - nectar (album) this one is on tiktok. i heard gimme love in a bunch of tiktoks and had to look up the song and here we are. what an album! it came right as seasonal depression started to hit and accompanied me for a good chunk of autumn. at this point one has to ask if joji can ever really miss? the entire album is a no skip, it’s almost difficult to narrow down my favorites if my favorites weren’t so damn god tier!!!

album favs: gimme love, ew, tick tock, pretty boy, your man

super m - tiger inside / 100 / drip (songs) okay, listen. technically tiger inside & 100 were already released in august. instead of those three songs i was gonna write about the entire album until i realized i really don’t give a fuck about it 😭 i really only care about those three songs. and YES, i unironically like 100. is it a good song? no. but neither is jopping and that fucking bangs. i don’t turn to superm for life-changing, profound music, i turn to them for a good time LOL and that’s what they deliver every time! that being said, taeyong’s VROOM VROOM, UHMM UHMM, GRRRAHHHH verse is life-changing and profound! speak your truth king! also i wish drip was a b side for nct 127 that song is so damn sexy

taemin - never gonna dance again act 1 (album) this isn’t kpop, this is taemin pop. taemin never misses and the fact that hw*s* won dance performance over taemin is a literal hate crime. i will never forget the industry for this daylight robbery … anyway, nice album!!!!

album favs: criminal, black rose, waiting for

stray kids - in life (repackage) *airhorns* REPACKAGE TIIIIME 2.0!!!! i was on the edge of my seat waiting what stray kids were going to deliver after i greatly enjoyed god’s menu. i was still not over listening god’s menu when the repackage came out so i didn’t listen to it right away and now i greatly regret the few days i could have listened to back door earlier </3

album favs: back door, any

jackson wang - pretty please (song) i’m not gonna pretend like i ever listened to a song by jackson ever before. he is short king from got7 in my head and that’s all! i don’t even remember why i listened to this song but all i know is that it slaps severely. i love the wong kar wai inspired music video and the choreography is fun too! i’m gonna check out more of his music <3

honorary mentions: fromis9 - feel good, knk - ride

october

blackpink - the album (album, duh) i don’t even know what to say about this … this might be the weirdest release on the list for me. there are song i absolutely fucking hate (ice cream …) and songs i get my life to (pretty savage) on here and the discrepancy just gives me massive whiplash. i would never put this album on and listen to the whole body of work, i just cannot with the brain damage it gives me. i am still stuck in 2016, begging for bp to release music like whistle/boombayah/stay/playing with fire but i think i need to give up on that wishful thinking … i am just grateful we a got a title track with actual lyrics in the chrous for once.

album favs: pretty savage, lovesick girls

nct - nct 2020 resonance pt. 1 (album) this era was … a ride. nct 2020 happening was near inevitable but with covid it got pushed back so far, i started to believe it wasn’t even going to happen. i was semi-terrified of what was going to happen during a comeback with 21 (now 23!!) member group since i only experienced nct 127 comebacks so far and uhh … a LOT happened lmfao but let’s keep this about the album … i had no idea what was going to hit me. johnny having effectively 3 lines in nct 2018 did not give me much hope and after he got denoted to no line treatment in punch again, i was ready to not even have any expectation but this release changed everything. make no mistake that most of my favorite songs are units with johnny, we knew that was gonna happen lmaooo they dropped the teaser video for misfit and i thought i had my favorite song in the bag and then faded in my last song happened. y’all. JOHNNY SINGS? LIKE? ACTUALLY SINGS? DOESN’T GET FORCED TO RAP OR TALK-SING? MY MAN’S VOCALS??? OH MY GAAAAHD! this song is dramatic, theatrical, emo, it serves vocals and rap, it has catchy english and korean lyrics, this is THE song, the ULTIMATE song. i love this song so much, i want to belt it on top of my lungs in the pouring rain. apart from fimls, i also loveeee misfit, that was to be expected after i was going completely insane over the track video. johnny has like 3 lines but again they are iconic (WARNIN’! NCT WE MOBBIN’!) and i just enjoy the track too much to be upset over that. nectar. holy fuck. nectar!!!! wayv never disappoints with their thotty songs, they now have an absolute god tier hoe-ly song trinity with love talk > bad alive > nectar. the first chorus and hendery’s first verse (CHOP CHOP CHOP!) get me every time, this song is so insanely good i am severely upset i cannot sing along to it :( music, dance has nct 127 written all over it in bold letters, it’s so inherently 127’s sound!!!! i love this song so much, it’s so fun, upset and has massive dance-ability, i wish we had gotten a stage for it but i guess you can’t have everything in life </3 make a wish……………………………..the cursed unit. i don’t want to say anything about this except that, unfortunately, the song is fun and i enjoy it. the end. overall, this album is so insanely solid. i know i talk about my favorites A LOT but i genuinely do not dislike a single song on here, this is an absolute no skip album! that’s it. see you for resonance part 2!!!!!

album favs: FADED IN MY LAST SONG !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, misfit, nectar, music dance, make a wish

loona - 12:00 (mini album) controversial loona release 2.0! i don’t know what it is, but somehow they managed to lace the words di da dam di dam di dam dam dam dam di dam (yeah) with pure crack. i fucking love why not, i would even go as far to say it’s my 2nd favorite title track. that is right, i think it’s better than butterfly (btw: hi high > why not > butterfly > so what). so much was strange this comeback, from the inexplicable concept + teasers, the outfits, the styling (yves….i mourn your hot girl era) but the title track is just SO good, SO fun, SO catchy that i am willing to ignore it all. i also enjoy the b sides much more than on #, they are much more memorable to me. and now … HASEUL RETURN…………….i purely live to see the next loona comeback at this point

album favs: why not, voice, universe

twice - i can’t stop me (song) thank fuck twice released a good song this year. if more & more had been the only 2020 release, that would have been the real tragedy. not gonna lie, i still haven’t listened to the full album, it just keeps slipping my mind. but! i’m going to! until then i’m gonna bop to i can’t stop me.

ariana grande - positions (album) the way this album has people upset is so funny. i am a huge dangerous woman fan myself, it’s my fave ariana album to date but she has said repeatedly that this is not the sound she is striving for. now she has her coin and can do whatever she wants in music and if that is r’n’b then fuck! we have to live with it! lmao! i can live with the sex theme of the album because it’s delivered in a fun way? but it’s getting a bit old...if the next album is about riding dick only too idk how much i would enjoy that. i would probably always come back to ari because i like her voice so much but girl, there are other topics to sing about, i promise! anyway! i like this album, it’s one of those where i can hit shuffle and enjoy it in the background while doing other stuff.

album favs: positions, 34 + 35, love language, my hair, pov

tiny meat gang - sofia (song) ayyy, it’s my meat boys :’) ending the year the same way they started it, with a banger! i absolutely love the guitar instrumental, the melancholic love song type sound paired with the theme of singing about loving a robot … yup, that’s creativity and talent right here! this makes me so freaking desperate for a new ep and i genuinely have no idea how far or close we are to one but!!! i am always waiting!!!

noel - push (ep) this is something i absolutely did not expect. noel (of tiny meat gang!) released his first ep ever and i was absolutely wowed. noel has it all, the voice, the talent, the creativity and all it took him was the confidence to finally put something out and i’m so happy he did. he gets real personal on bus back, more than ever before and i always get a bit emo listening to this track </3 this man is gonna go places and i’m so happy to witness his journey.

album favs: crow, head sunk, bus back

honorary mentions: sam smith - diamonds

november

taemin - never gonna dance again act 2 (album) i’m gonna say it. idea is better than criminal. the chorus drop???? when he goes MY AH AH  MY AH AH MY AH MY IDEA MY MY IDEAAAAAA A-A-A A-A-A???? bitch … tell me you can sit still, i won’t believe you. i like part 2’s title track more, but part 1’s b sides are more interesting to me. either way, taemin delivered as expected!!

album favs: idea, impressionable, exclusive

nct - nct 2020 resonance pt. 2 (album) part two, baby! we made it! part 2 had more mellow, ballad-y songs with my everything, i.o.u. and all about you, overall less drama than part 1 but i still enjoyed it. work it is one of those controversial songs where you despise it with your entire being or you defend this top tier noise till the end and i am absolutely the latter. the agony of not being able to listen to it and seeing the timeline so divided nearly killed me, but i have concluded that people who hate work it have never felt joy in their life <3 honestly my opinion cannot be counted because i eat up anything johnny participates in … biased ass… what i’m not gonna talk about is resonance (the song), this absolute mess of a “remix”. the audacity sm had to release this as a single is insane. anyway!! this era was a rollercoaster ride. all the interactions truly made me interested in members of other units more. hendery (the rise and fall …), yangyang my beautiful son, jeno aka blue hair guy, chenle the chaos kid and xiaojun after he made make a wish his bitch in particular! all the interactions between the units were so fun to witness and it was fun while it lasted but i am … so glad it’s over lol. i miss nct 127, i miss some peace, i hope the boys get to rest for a bit and so does my bank account.

album favs: work it, 90s love, i.o.u., raise the roof

miley cyrus - plastic hearts (album) not in a thousand years would i have expected a miley release to be on here. this girl does everything to be absolutely unlikeable in my eyes but after severely banging out to her heart of glass cover, i was really excited for this and it did not disappoint. what is disappointing is that it took her so long to find a sound that fits her like a glove. i believe many people miss out on this release after her previous history and i nearly would have done the same. this alt/rock influenced pop does her voice so many favors and i really hope she sticks to this direction, i love this album greatly!!

album favs: heart of glass, midnight sky, night crawling ft. billy joel, wtf do i know

kai - kai (mini album) just. imagine debuting with an album like that. lol. what a god tier big dick move. we all knew whatever this release was gonna be, above all it was going to be sexy and boy were we RIGHT!!!! mmmh is exactly as thotty as i needed it to be and the b sides give me everything from r’n’b to trap. i love this release and i love that it’s only the beginning of kai! like!! he is only gonna gain even more experience and become even more powerful!! what the fuck!!!!!

album favs: mmmh, ride or die, hello stranger, nothing on me

honorary mentions. gfriend - mago

december

nothing? wtf?? 😭 no interesting release happened,,,,half the time i listened to christmas songs anyway lol

pre 2020 releases i only found this year

mgmt - little dark age (album, 2018) & oracular spectactular (album, 2007) another tiktok serve. i found little dark age through a tiktok trend and ended up really liking mgmt. they fit perfectly into my autumn/winter moody alt/rock mood that i had going on and i’m happy they have so much more music that i can check out!

artist favs: little dark age, electric feel, time to pretend

tame impala - currents (album, 2015) everyone’s favorite basic alt bitch album! i enjoyed this more than the slow rush for a good chunk of time, it also fit right into my alt rock autumn mood. i really love this album, like previously mentioned it has my favorite long ass tracks on there but also a good amount of short or medium long tracks. i’m still busy enjoying currents and the slow rush but i can’t wait till i finally take the leap to dive into their other releases because i’m loving everything i’ve heard so far.

album favs: the less i know the better, let it happen, new person same old mistakes

joji - ballads 1 (2018) after liking nectar so much, checking joji out was a given and i just love this album. only when i listened to this i realized i heard slowly dancing in the dark a few times on tiktok lmao that cursed app man … i would say i love nectar a bit more but this is still a fantastic album!!

album favs: slowly dancing in the dark, attention, test drive, yeah right

jus2 - focus (mini album, 2019) in my “mellow moody bangers” phase i was scouring playlists for more songs and i think i found focus on me first which fitted right into the niche i was looking to fill and i ended up enjoy this whole release! only later i realized this is a sub-unit from got7 lmao how come i enjoy solo or unit releases by got7 members but their group discography never interested me? anyway, very sexy ep!

album favs: drunk on you, focus on me, love talk

knk - sunset (song, 2019) part of my mellow bangers playlist. very sexy, i can imagine this as a runway song! i have no idea who knk are but given the fact i enjoyed two of their songs so far maybe i should look into them lol

baekhyun - city lights (mini album, 2019) i am repenting for my sins of missing out on baekhyun releases by consuming his music at an exorbitant rate. un village is one hell of a title track that i didn’t appreciate before, but i feel like in 2020 my music interests started to vary and i love the groovy r’n’b and string sound of this song so much. i also love stay up to death, the vocals baekhyun serves here are unreal. his BABY WE CAN STAY UP!!!!!!! gets me every single time!!!! what a mini!

album favs: un village, stay up

mac miller - swimming (album, 2018) i’ve listened to this album before 2020 but i had the urge to put this on here. this is going to sound so corny, but if i had to pick one song to be my life’s title track, it would be ladders. the hope this song gives me is unreal, it feels like a light at the end of the tunnel. this album is so fantastic, i love the upbeat instrumentals paired with sometimes gloomy lyrics are so incredible, mac was truly one of the greatest artists of our time. this album is  so outstanding and i miss him every day.

album favs: ladders, jet fuel, 2009, self care, perfecto

doja cat - hot pink (album, 2019) i can never decide if i like doja or not but the album slaps lol that’s it come on tiktok queen

album favs: say so, juicy, like that, streets

my fav 2020 playlists

slapping mellow

neo culture technology

malcolm

why go to therapy when this playlist exists?

top songs 2020

(by spotify)

[nerdygaymormon]

On twitter you mentioned you were making a song list for Pride. What's on your playlist?

Everyone has their own list of songs, but here’s my Pride playlist. This includes songs by LGBT performers, gay anthems, songs that are about LGBT topics & people, and songs that if you squint they speak to the queer experience. And many of these are great songs for dancing, which makes sense as even today most of the specifically-queer spaces are bars and dance clubs.

1939 - Over the Rainbow : Judy Garland - “the dreams that you dream of […] really do come true.”  When homosexual acts were illegal – the term “friend of Dorothy” was underground slang for a gay man.

1964 - Don’t Rain on my Parade - Barbra Streisand - We do like great big colorful parades, don’t we. Please don’t rain on those parades. The song is about how we got one life and so live it with gusto, do the things you most want to do. I’m holding my own parade and nobody is going to rain on it.

1966 - You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me : Dusty Springfield - The singer proclaims she’ll take whatever she can get from the object of her love. Generations of closeted women & men could identify with that. “You don’t have to say you love me, just be close at hand. You don’t have to stay forever, I will understand”

1969 - Make Your Own Kind of Music : Mama Cass - The message is about taking pride in your uniqueness and individualism

1975 - Dancing Queen : ABBA - This is a story of a 17-year-old girl on a nightclub dance floor, lost in the music and the moment. Of course, “queen” has a different meaning in the queer community and so this is often sung tongue-in-cheek. Over the years, queer acts like Erasure covered ABBA’s songs, and their songs were featured in several movies that appealed to gay audiences, making ABBA icons in the community.  

1977 - I Feel Love : Donna Summer - A song about loving your body and your desires, a powerful sentiment for people whose attractions were once seen as deviant. Try to listen to this song and not feel like dancing.

1977 - I Will Survive : Gloria Gaynor - You can imagine marginalized people asking the same questions in the song: “Did you think I’d crumble? Did you think I’d lay down and die?” The gay community has embraced lyrics that are a declaration of pride “I used to cry / But now I hold my head up high.” Even after decades of progress, many LGBTQ+ people still have to deal with daily assaults on their personhood & “I Will Survive” remains relevant.

1978 - Don’t Stop Me Now : Queen - Essentially the song is just a man intent on having a wild night out and inviting the rest of us to come along for the ride or else get out of his way. The love interests flip between male & female and back again, which makes sense since Freddie Mercury was bisexual.

1978 - Y.M.C.A. : Village People - Very fun song. The lyrics make me think of young gay teens being kicked out of their homes by their parents, many of whom migrated to big cities like New York. The YMCA’s provided shelter for them.  “Young man, there’s no need to feel down. I said, young man, pick yourself off the ground. I said, young man, ‘cause you’re in a new town. There’s no need to be unhappy.” And of course, the lyrics hint at all the gay activity, too. “You can stay there, and I’m sure you will find many ways to have a good time. It’s fun to stay at the YMCA. They have everything for you men to enjoy. You can hang out with all the boys.“ 

1978 - You Make Me Fee (Mighty Real) : Sylvester - The singer is black, gay and some form of gender queer and sings the song in falsetto. The words about feeling real, those mean something to people who had to come to terms with who they are.

1979 - Go West : Village People - This song imagines a utopia free of homophobia and discrimination. It’s a song of queer community & spirit, and we’ll do it “Together!”

1979 - Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) : ABBA - is about a woman alone in an apartment watching television late at night as the wind howls outside. She says, “Gimme, gimme, gimme a man after midnight.” A sentiment many a gay man could sing along with. 

1979 - We are Family : Sister Sledge - The song has a message of unity, and gay people often have to build a chosen family, and this song fits that.

1980 - I’m Coming Out : Diana Ross - Yes, this song is about that kind of “coming out.” The lyrics also are about being your truest self and throwing aside shame’s shackles.

1981 - Tainted Love : Soft Cell - The gay experience is not all about empowerment & acceptance. Sometimes it’s about a narcissist who breaks your heart. This song coming at the start of the AIDS crisis came to represent some of the angst that was part of gay life. “Once I ran to you, now I’ll run from you.”

1982 - Do You Really Want to Hurt Me : Culture Club - Boy George wrote the lyrics about his relationship with the drummer Jon Moss. They had an affair for about six years that was kept hidden from the public, and George often felt hurt and emotional. The concept of the video is about being gay and victimized for your sexuality. It shows Boy George getting kicked out of different places in various historical settings. In the courtroom, the jurors are in blackface to show the bigotry and hypocrisy of the many gay judges and politicians in the UK who’d enacted anti-gay legislation.

1982 - It’s Raining Men : The Weather Girls - Super campy song, ridiculous words, but it’s sung fearlessly with vocal pyrotechnics that take the song over the top in the best possible sense. Yes, what gay boy didn’t wish it was raining men?

1983 - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun : Cyndi Lauper - This song is about breaking the rules, letting go, being free and being visible. And yeah, lesbians wanna have fun.

1983 - Relax : Frankie goes to Hollywood - At a time when gay sexuality was still mostly communicated via clever allusions and nonsexual portrayals of gay people, “Relax” was a song about sex—and despite the video being banned by the BBC and MTV—was the biggest pop song in the world.

1984 - I Want to Break Free : Queen - He’s complaining about the person he’s with, wants to break free from the person’s lies. And when he is free, “life still goes on,” only now he can’t get used to living without this person. The video is a parody of U.K. soap opera Coronation Street, which has the entire band in drag, Freddie Mercury as a housewife. Seeing them in drag, of course, gives it a queer vibe. The video was banned in the U.S. 🙄

1985 - You Spin Me Round : Dead or Alive - The singer is queer and singing a love song, the New Wave music is hot, and this is an iconic classic of the 1980’s

1986 - True Colors : Cyndi Lauper - The song is about seeing who someone really is and loving them for it. And it doesn’t hurt that your “true colors are beautiful like a rainbow”

1987 - Faith : George Michael - The song, about declining hookups and patiently waiting for a more meaningful connection, portrays a balancing act with which gay culture has long wrestled.  “Well I need someone to hold me but I’ll wait for something more. Yes, I’ve gotta have faith” is just as meaningful today in a culture searching for love while swiping left.

1987 - It’s a Sin : Pet Shop Boys - This song is about a person’s lifelong shame and guilt, presumably for being gay. “For everything I long to do, no matter when or where or who, has one thing in common, too. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a sin”

1987 - Always on my Mind : Pet Shop Boys - This is a remake of an Elvis song, but they dropped the references to a girl, making it ambiguous the gender they’re singing about. 

1988 - A Little Respect : Erasure - Singer Andy Bell was one of the first openly gay pop stars to actually sing about queer romance. In this song he’s calling to a lover not to leave and asks the question, “What religion or reason could drive a man to forsake his lover?“ 

1989 - Express Yourself : Madonna -  It’s basically about standing up for yourself in a relationship. Don’t go for “second-best” just because he treats you nicely in bed, but then is never there when you need him. So why is this in my Pride playlist? The music video!

1989 - Part of Your World : Jodi Benson - This song is from Disney’s The Little Mermaid, Ariel rejected traditional marriage partners and wants to marry a human against her father’s wishes. She dreams of being a part of the human world. For a long time the LGBT community has wanted to pursue romance & marriage with whom we want and belong to & be welcomed by society. 

1990 - Vogue : Madonna - “Look around: Everywhere you turn is heartache.” That’s not exactly a fluffy opening for a dance-pop song—and that’s the point. This is still the time of America’s AIDS crisis, and this song is inspired by New York’s gay ball scene. This song wants you to put away the heavy stuff for a little while and get on the dance floor.

1990 - Freedom! ‘90 : George Michael - This song is cleverly about 2 things. One is about his career–the breakup of Wham! and then the success of Faith, and how he’s tired of being pushed around by his label so he’s taking control of his career and telling people to disregard the pop imagery of his past. It’s also about him wanting to come out of the closet regarding his homosexuality, “There’s something deep inside of me, there’s someone else I’ve got to be.” It would be almost another ten years before he was publicly out.

1990 - Being Boring : Pet Shop Boys - “When you’re young you find inspiration in anyone who’s ever gone and opened up a closing door,” I believe this is talking about being in the closet and the hope that comes from people who’ve come out. The final verse, “Some are here and some are missing in the 1990’s,” AIDS wiped out much of a generation of gay people in the 1980’s. Now he’s grown up and out of the closet as “the creature I was always meant to be.”

1990 - Gonna Make You Sweat : C+C Music Factory - Fun dance song. In a 1997 episode of the The Simpsons, a steel mill turns into a flamboyant gay club when this song comes over the loudspeaker

1992 - Constant Craving : k.d. lang - She had been a country singer, but came out as gay and released this song. Every lesbian knew exactly what k.d. was craving. There weren’t really any other lesbian pop stars who had come out. 

1992 - This Used to be my Playground : Madonna - This song is about losing childhood innocence and gaining responsibilities. The song came to be seen as an ode to gay friends who died during the AIDS crisis, and the loss of innocence that epidemic caused.

1992 - The Last Song : Elton John -  A young gay man dying of AIDS. The young man’s father “disowned” his son when he learned of his homosexuality only to overcome his homophobia when he learns that his son is dying and he has little time to spend with him. This one makes me cry.

1993 - Go West : Pet Shop Boys (a remake of the song by the Village People) - This song imagines a utopia free of homophobia and discrimination. It’s a song of queer community & spirit, and we’ll do it “Together!”

1993 - Come to my Window : Melissa Etheridge - Melissa put the rumors to rest by publicly coming out and then released an album titled “Yes, I Am.” This song from the album is about a love that’s steeped in secrecy “come to my window, crawl inside, wait by the light of the moon.” Certainly many gay people know about keeping a love on the down low. The song’s bridge really voices what a lot of queer people feel: “I don’t care what they think, I don’t care what they say. What do they know about this love, anyway?”

1993 - Supermodel : Rupaul - His debut single introduced much of America to “sashay/shantay.” RuPaul used this breakthrough hit to become the first mainstream-approved drag queen.

1995 - I Kissed a Girl : Jill Sobule - An honest song of yearning, confusion, and freedom

1996 - Fastlove : George Michael - A guy was in a committed relationship, didn’t work out and now he just wants to not worry about love. “Had some bad love, so fast love is all that’s on my mind.” But even as he’s saying he’s seeking a casual hookup, keeps saying he misses his baby, being with someone he loves would be his preference.

1997 - Together Again : Janet Jackson - The album notes included: “I dedicate the song ‘Together Again’ to the friends I’ve lost to AIDS.” It’s a sweet song with hopeful words. “Everywhere I go, every smile I see, I know you are there smilin’ back at me”

1997 - Man! I Feel Like a Woman : Shania Twain - This is about going out, letting down your hair and having a good time. Message is she loves being a woman. “The best thing about being a woman is the prerogative to have a little fun.” My queer friends who identify as women love feeling like a woman. 

1998 - Believe : Cher - Whatever happens, you’ve gotta believe there’s something better coming. It’s about strength and power and hope. And the fact that it’s not always easy to be who you are.

1998 - Reflection : Christina Aguilera - This song is from the Disney movie Mulan. It’s about others not know the real you, which means the lyrics can also fit the experience of being in the closet. “Look at me. You may think you see who I really am, but you’ll never know me. Every day it’s as if I play a part.” The song also was adopted by a lot of trans people to say how they feel on the inside doesn’t match how they look on the outside. “Who is that girl I see staring straight back at me? Why is my reflection someone I don’t know?”

1998 - Outside : George Michael - George Michael was entrapped by police committing a lewd act in a public men’s bathroom in Los Angeles under suspicious circumstances. The video mocks the way queer men are held to different standards about sex. Straight rock stars screw groupies in bathrooms all the time without police interference. 

1998 - It’s Not Right But It’s Okay : Whitney Houston - “I’m gonna be okay/ I’m gonna be alright” shows a certain defiance & determination to go on that strikes a chord with LGBT people

1999 - When She Loved Me : Sarah McLachlan - This is from Toy Story 2, if you remove the idea this is about a toy, the lyrics are about a woman reminiscing a past female lover.

2001 - Androgyny : Garbage - I think this song has two messages. First, don’t dismiss people who don’t fit traditional gender roles. The other message is about trans individuals who “can’t see the point in going on,” they’re reminded that “nothing in life is set in stone, there’s nothing that can’t be turned around.” “Boys in the girls room, Girls in the men’s room, You free your mind in your androgyny” Trans individuals who were assigned female at birth may consider themselves “boys in the girls room.” Then when they decide to present themselves as male, others may consider them to be “girls in the men’s room.”

2002 - Beautiful : Christina Aguilera - This song affirms those who feel they don’t fit in. The video includes young people with body issues, a goth punk, a (biological) man putting on women’s clothes and two guys kissing in public. “I am beautiful no matter what they say. Words can’t bring me down.” But songs can lift you up, and this one does.  

2005 - Hung Up : Madonna -  It’s about living your best life and not wasting anymore time on men who wont call you. And it has that synthesizer riff from ABBA’s Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)

2005 - Proud of Your Boy : Clay Aiken - This song was written for Aladdin. The words make me think of coming out and wondering what your parents are going to think and can you make your parents proud.

2006 - And I’m Telling You : Jennifer Hudson - This song is about an underdog, and being LGBT makes us underdogs in our heteronormative society. “And I am telling you that I’m not going.” I’m going to be here and I’m going to thrive, I’m going to be me and you’re going to see me and “You’re Gonna Love Me.” Those lyrics remind me about coming out and getting to be who you want to be, no matter what anybody tells you.

2006 - I Am What I Am : Ginger Minj - this song is from a broadway show about drag queens. The message is you only get one life so take your shots, whether or not they succeed, it’s better to live your life as who you are

2007 - I Don’t Dance : Corbin Bleu, Lucas Grabeel - This song from High School Musical 2 is a where Chad, co-president of the drama club, is trying to get Ryan, co-president of the basketball team, to “swing” to the other side, if you know what I mean. The scene in the movie is about playing baseball, and at the end of that shot, the two of them are sitting together wearing the other’s clothes. Guess Chad got Ryan to swing.  

2009 - Bad Romance : Lady Gaga - First, it’s gender neutral so any of us can sing without translating pronouns. Second, it’s about loving someone completely, including the “bad” parts, “I want your ugly, i want your disease.” Third, Lady Gaga showed up to the 2010 MTV Music Awards w/ four members of the U.S. military who had been discharged or resigned because of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. When she went on stage to receive the Video of the Year award for “Bad Romance,” Gaga had changed into the now-infamous “meat dress,” as a way to show her anger about the military’s anti-LGBTQ policy. “If we don’t stand up for what we believe in and if we don’t fight for our rights, pretty soon we’re going to have as much rights as the meat on our bones,” she later explained to Ellen DeGeneres.  

2009 - If I Had You : Adam Lambert - I love how the beginning sounds like the singer is going out to a gay club “So I got my boots on, got the right amount of leather, and I’m doing me up with a black color liner, and I’m working my strut.” Not the way we usually hear about a guy getting ready for a night out  

2009 - Whataya Want From Me : Adam Lambert - I wonder if this song references when he was figuring out his sexuality with words like “Yeah, it’s plain to see, baby you’re beautiful and there’s nothing wrong with you. It’s me, I’m a freak.”

2010 - All the Lovers : Kylie Minogue - A feel-good dance track about love. The video has people strip down to their underwear, form a pyramid and begin kissing. All sorts of people kissing, very pansexual.  

2010 - Raise Your Glass : P!nk - The song is a call to the underdogs of the world, the “loud and nitty-gritty dirty little freaks,” to ignore convention and just let loose. 

2010 - Firework : Katy Perry - She’s saying everyone is a firework–an ordinary, ugly, or insignificant wrapping but when the right situation arises, like a flame to a fuse, they ignite and show how amazing, extraordinary, and beautiful each one of us is. No wonder it’s loved by the queer community, once we let out what’s inside us, others will see we’re bright and beautiful. I will always think of being at Pride and a preacher guy spewing hate had entered the grounds and people formed a circle around him and sang this song, and many others joined in until security removed him, it was beautiful.  

2010 - Dancing on my Own : Robyn - It’s a break up song. “Somebody said you got a new friend. Does she love you better than I can? There’s a big black sky over my town.” But with a great dance beat like this, it’s a sure bet Robyn won’t be dancing on her own for long.

2010 - F**kin’ Perfect : P!nk - With all the negative messages we grow up hearing about our gender identity or sexual orientation, it’s so affirming to hear “Don’t you ever ever feel like your less than, less than perfect”

2010 - Grace Kelly : MIKA - While there aren’t any direct mentions of sexuality, this song is very much about how people have judged MIKA for being flamboyantly himself

2010 - Teenage Dream : Glee Cast - This song sung by one boy for another was a big moment on a big TV show.

2011 - We Found Love : Rihanna - Finding love in a hopeless place, for many queer people can mean what it’s like to be in a heteronormative society. Or also that hard transition to accept & love yourself, and imagining going from that to someone finding and loving you.

2011 - Americano : Lady Gaga - The song is about the unjust laws that exist in America, particularly regarding immigration and gay rights. She sings of a scenario in which she meets a girl from east L.A. (heavily Hispanic population) and falls in love with her but can’t marry due to the laws prohibiting gay marriage, “we fell in love but not in court.” As to the “I don’t speak your Americano/Languageono/Jesus Cristo” I think that’s refusing to use the type of rhetoric that is used to justify the laws.  

2011 - Born This Way : Lady Gaga - Many songs hint at queer identities and acceptance by using metaphors, but not this one, it is direct. “No matter gay, straight, or bi, lesbian, transgender life, I’m on the right track, baby, I was born to survive.” 

2012 - Let’s have a Kiki : Scissor Sisters -  A drag performer heading to put on a show but when she arrives at the club it’s been shut down by the police. Instead she calls up a friend and announces we’re coming over and having a kiki.

2012 - For All : Far East Movement - As the fight for marriage equality was taking place, this song’s lyrics meant a lot. “Love is for all. Life is for all. Dreams are for all. Hope is for all. Feel the love from everybody in the crowd now, this is for y’all, this is for all.” The video intersperses some uplifting words from President Obama. 

2012 - People Like Us : Kelly Clarkson - the song is about all the people who are brave enough to challenge the social norms to bring about changes in the world. These words in particular strike me: “this is the life that we choose” and “come out, come out if you dare,”

2012 - They Don’t Know About Us : One Direction - The song is about how people tell a couple they shouldn’t be together, that their love isn’t real. Sound like something a queer couple might hear? In the song, no one can stop them, they’re together for life. And people thought this song might have been hinting about Larry Stylinson.

2013 - Closer : Tegan and Sara - Not many bands are made up of twin lesbian sisters. This song is really cute. The lyrics are about the anticipation before the kiss, before anything gets physical. It’s a love song that conjures adolescent longing, And it’s cherishing that gap between anticipation and release—asking to be closer, not touching. And it seems to speak to that particularly queer feeling of wanting someone you know you may never get.

2013 - Brave : Sara Bareilles - she wrote this catchy song of courage as a love letter to a friend who was struggling to come out as an adult.

2013 - Follow Your Arrow : Kacey Musgraves - “kiss lots of boys – or kiss lots of girls, if that’s something you’re into,” pretty remarkable to be included in a Country song

2013 - Same Love : Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - I have a nephew who got called gay for wearing stylish clothes, being neat, and interested in art & music. He had a hard time accepting that his uncle (me) is gay because of his experience, and it made me think of this song.

2013 - She Keeps Me Warm : Mary Lambert - A beautiful song about how women can love each other, protect each other and want each other. And the lyrics “not crying on Sundays” I think means not believing the damning words preached by religion about being gay

2013 - Really Don’t Care : Demi Levato - The video starts off with Lovato expressing her support for the LGBT community and saying that “Jesus loves all.” After that, the music starts and Levato is seen singing at a Pride parade.

2013 - Q.U.E.E.N. : Janelle Monáe - The title is an acronym for Queer, Untouchables, Emigrants, Excommunicated, and Negroid. The song is about the empowerment of oppressed people. Monáe uses a question-answer format to explain stereotypes, misconceptions, and oppression.

2013 - Girls/Girls/Boys : Panic! At the Disco - This song describes a love triangle between a boy and two girls, and the boy is being played off against a girl for the other girl’s attention.

2014 - Break Free : Ariana Grande - Her older brother is gay and she grew up around his friends, she’s an ally. And the words of this song, “I’m stronger than I’ve been before. This is the part when I break free ’cause I can’t resist it no more” has the theme often found in gay anthems, that things are tough, but I’m tougher and going to make it.

2014 - Sleeping with a Friend : Neon Trees - Glenn Tyler says he was thinking of a straight friend when he wrote this (but used female pronouns in the song). It’s an unusual love song because it’s a cautionary tale of hooking up with someone you’re close with.

2014 - Sissy that Walk : Rupaul - a perfect walkway song for all those drag queens and any of the rest of us who want to flaunt it

2014 - Put ‘Em Up : Priory - The song begins with a religious mom saying her queer kid has some kind of sickness. But who gives anyone the right to judge another’s lover?

2014 - Rise Like a Phoenix - Conchita Wurst - This song is about combating prejudice and the judgement of others in modern society. Conchita won Eurovision wearing a gown, makeup and a beard.

2015 - Cool for the Summer : Demi Levato - She is curious and has a woman she’s gonna spend the summer exploring with. “Got a taste for the cherry and I just need to take a bite.”

2015 - Heaven : Troye Sivan - Troye sings candidly about what it’s like for a religious teenager to come out as gay, about the struggles coming to terms with your sexuality. “Without losing a piece of me, how do I get to heaven? Without changing a part of me, how do I get to heaven? All my time is wasted, feeling like my heart’s mistaken, oh, so if I’m losing a piece of me, maybe I don’t want heaven?” The video features footage from LGBTQ protests throughout history.

2015 - Youth : Troye Sivan - It’s a really beautiful song about giving the best years of yourself to someone you love. 

2016 - Alive : Sia - The song is about someone who had a tough life, but is like, “I’m still breathing.” It is the personification of power.

2016 - Boyfriend : Tegan and Sara - This song tells the exhausting story of someone you’re basically dating, but they won’t come out in the open and admit it because they’re scared, confused, and insecure about their sexuality.

2016 - G.D.M.M.L. Grls : Tyler Glenn - Despite his best efforts to make church work, it didn’t work out because God Didn’t Make Me Like Girls.

2016 - Genghis Khan : Mike Snow - This video surprised me the first time I watched. It’s a James Bond-type hero & villain who fall for each other.  

2016 - The Greatest : Sia - Dedicated to the LGBT community in the wake of the Pulse shooting, Sia begs us to not give up and to follow our dreams.

2017 - Bad Liar : Selena Gomez - the video portrays a love triangle (with each character played by Selena)–a curious high school student, seductive gym coach and male teacher. Towards the end of the video, the high school student sings the line, “With my feelings on fire, guess I’m a bad liar,” as she looks at a photo of the gym teacher. It’s a scene that shows the fear of acknowledging and declaring our sexuality—a moment of many a queer experience.

2017- If You Were Gay : San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus - This song is from the musical Avenue Q. This choir’s performance of the song is delightful. 

2017 - This is Me : Keala Settle - The song from The Greatest Showman sings of resilience in the face of hardship — which, after all, is what Pride is all about. “Another round of bullets hits my skin. Well, fire away ’cause today, I won’t let the shame sink in”

2017 - You Will Be Found : Ben Platt - This song from Dear Evan Hansen means a lot to me. There’s a gay teen who posted a question on Tumblr, I responded, and together we’ve been through a lot, suicidality, helped him with coming out and nerves about a first love. He says this is our song because I found him. But for everyone, this song is hopeful that when you need it, someone will be there for you.

2017 - 1-800-273-8255 : Logic - This is a song about a closeted guy who is suicidal and calls a help line. The operator wants him to be alive and helps save him in that moment.

2017 - Bad at Love : Halsey - Halsey flips through all the guys and girls she’s dated in an attempt to understand why she hasn’t yet found love. Queen of bisexual relatability!

2018 - A Million Dream : P!nk - this song from The Greatest Showman is about the power of positive thinking, faith and believing in your dreams. For queer people, it’s a reminder that we are building a better world.

2018 - All the Things : Betty Who - This is the theme song for the wildly popular Netflix show Queer Eye.

2018 - Never Been In Love : Will Jay - It’s such a great bop and I have loved Will Jay since his IM5 days, and this seems perfect for my ace/aro friends. “I’m not missing out so don’t ask me again. Thanks for your concern, but here’s the thing, I’ve never been in love and it’s all good”

2018 - Make Me Feel : Janelle Monáe - Sexuality is simply how a person makes you feel, regardless of gender. The music video for ”Make Me Feel” features Janelle crawling between women’s legs and grinding up on both a male and female love interest under bisexual lighting.

2018 - Promises : Calvin Harris, Sam Smith - a glittery homage to vogueing and drag ballroom culture in the music video.

2019 - You Need to Calm Down : Taylor Swift - an entire verse that’s literally about going to a Pride parade.

[a-silent-symphony]

Interview with vocalist and bassist Marko Hietala

GOING SOLO

Luxi: When did you get the idea to make a solo album some day? I bet this has been bubbling in your mind for many years, correct?

Marko: Yes, that's true. I have always had countless ideas for songs that I have come up with over the years. Some of them have gone missing or may have been modified over time.

When Nightwish decided to take a break from everything, it gave me the chance to start working with these ideas. I called Tuomas (Wäinölä, guitar) and Vili (Ollila, keyboards) well before the break and told them about my ideas for a solo project. They were interested and here we are now. I have known the guys for more than 10 years, I would say. They have a background in Rock bands and they have an open mind and open ears for music in general, so working with these lads was a no-brainer. I had a bunch of stuff already written; choruses, rhythmic parts and stuff, but I must give a lot of credit to my band mates for shaping them in to the vision I had been thinking of for this album. They gave their own input on certain soundscapes and brought in diverse things. Honestly, they were a huge help getting this album completed in the way I envisioned. Without them, this album would not have turned out as great as it did.

Luxi: Were these guys your primary choices or did you have a list of musicians that you wanted to go through to see who was available?

Marko: I had been thinking of a small bunch of musicians that I'd like to do a solo album with, but these fellows were always at the top of my wish list so to speak. Also, when Tuomas suggested that we hire Anssi (Nykänen) behind the drum kit, knowing he's a big fan of John Bonham, I was sold. This band needed a pair of heavy hands behind the battery and he was in in no time.

Kai Hahto (Nightwish, Wintersun, etc.) was originally interested in doing this project with us as well, but he had his house project going on at the same time and unfortunately he also hurt  both his wrist and back a little bit, preventing him from playing drums for a little while.

ARD PROG?

Luxi: Yes, I remember him telling me about this episode at a festival where we met. For people who have been following your doings with both Tarot and Nightwish, this solo album may surprise them a bit if they are expecting it to copy any of your previous works. While I listened to Pyre of the Black Heart, I found a wide range of influences on the album, from more progressive moments to softer ballads to more rocking numbers and so on.

Marko: Yes, there are quite a lot of things going on in these songs, but I would say perhaps Progressive Rock is the genre that's closest way to describe it due to different style and sound combinations. However, what we tried to avoid like the plague was making the songs sound too artsy-fartsy or too calculated just to get a "progressive" tag hung on our songs. For us it was very important to have catchy choruses and melodies in these songs and some people may even think, "Hey, this is an almost dancable stuff..." [*laughter*]

Luxi: Unlike Rush or Pink Floyd that may demand some unorthodox choreography from a dancer's legs, I am afraid...

Marko: Haha... Every bassist should be well aware of what some bottom end bass tones can do for people's hips... ;o) [*laughter*]

Luxi: If we sink into the lyrical world of this album, how much does it reflect your own inner feelings and thoughts?

Marko: There are quite a lot of personal things on both solo albums, the Finnish (titled Mustan Sydämen Rovio) as well as the English version. As it's said, truth shall set you free. If you can carefully read the symbolism that's been used on both versions of the album, I am sure listeners can catch some of the thoughts and feelings that I have bled into the lyrics. Nowadays we are kind of living life on the edge, without thinking about how we should balance our life between staring at our cell phones and the REAL life that's outside of it. Rudely said, we tend to stare at all these simulations of life through our cell phones more than living this life that's surrounding us, which is just sad in so many ways. Technology is a great thing and I love sciences, but we humans should embrace the real side of life as well and not just live life surfing in the wonderful world of social media.

Luxi: Being more humane, without letting technology's wonders enslave us too much, is the key for living...

Marko: Yes, that's right. We should remember we have this planet which is still full of all kinds of beautiful wonders.

COMING OUT FROM THE PROTECTIVE SHELL—OR STAYING THERE?

Luxi: As solo works can be really personal, do you believe you have a sort of inner mechanism that doesn't let you bring out all of your deepest feelings and thoughts out, naked and unfiltered?

Marko: Hmmm... That's a tough question. If a listener gets that kind of feeling solely based on some lyrical content on the album that I would hold myself back lyric-wise, then it must be subliminal for me. I mean, if there are some topics out there that I want to include in my lyrics, that also kind of challenge me in one way or another, then I want to see if I can take on this challenge and overcome it.

One of the challenges for me has always been how to be as open and be honest and truthful about the way I want to express myself. If there's something there that makes me cautious, then I am doing some careful research on why those things make me a bit cautious. And if there's nothing I should be worried about, then I just go with it and express my thoughts very openly. It's as simple as that. For example, that's what happened with the song "Voice of My Father", in which I openly talk about the things we, as this prevailing generation of people, leave for future generations, both good and in bad.

Luxi: But sometimes, if you dig too much, you can actually be pretty vulnerable and feel even threatened if you are too straight about things via your lyrics, right?

Marko: Yes, that's all true, of course. This is also something I have thought myself, that if I am too open about things I may sing, who would like to harm me or act intimidating toward me due to my lyrics, am I perhaps digging my own grave by saying things a bit too straight? I would say to the latter; not really because I think it's more about protecting your personal being than anything else. Should I care if I said something corny or childish in my lyrics? Do people laugh at me if I said this or that? Should I be afraid of peoples' reactions if they attack me due to expressing myself in a cryptic way that might be (mis-)understood different ways? Hell no, I don't think I should be afraid of it at all. This is something I have gotten over.

Luxi: Besides that, we should remember that a certain level of cheesiness has always been a part of Metal music, in one way or the other?

Marko: Of course, it is. I have pondered this many times because many hit songs have this almost too-corny-to-be-good aspect that people tend to like. Sometimes it works, sometimes not so much and many times there may be an absolutely brilliant idea behind a song that is watered down due to reaching this thin line when things simply don't work. But when you get to know your limits of when something is only corny but not overly corny, the result can be absolutely fantastic.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PERFORMING IN FINNISH VS. PERFORMING IN ENGLISH

Luxi: It's not so often that an artist makes a solo album in two different languages, like you did with this one. Was it something that you originally planned from the beginning or did this idea grow little by little? How you express yourself using the Finnish language for Finns obviously has a different approach compared to using English for them, I suppose?  

Marko: Yes, it is all true what you just said. There certainly is a difference when singing in Finnish for the Finns versus using another language for them. For me, it was relatively easy to do this solo album in two languages, keeping in mind my wife is non-Finnish, plus it's no-brainer for me to switch from Finnish to English either as I am using both languages constantly, almost half-and-half.

And yeah, like you mentioned, it's a plain fact that when I sing in Finnish for the Finns, I am sure they can assimilate my lyrics easier than English.

Anyway, the reason I eventually decided to record both the Finnish and English versions of the album is actually very simple; I had written lyrics both in Finnish and English. I simply could not make up my mind which language I should use so I made a compromise and released it both in Finnish and English. Besides that, it was fun to do this album in both languages. By singing in English, commonly known as the worldwide Rock 'n' Roll language, you can reach millions while singing in Finnish you can reach, if you will, one isolated northern tribe known as The Finns.

Luxi: Doing albums in different languages is not common so obviously there was a lot of work involved...?  

Marko: Yeah, it was quite a bit of work indeed, but it was all worth it. I mean, I was fascinated by the contrast between these two languages and how they both would work on the album. There were, of course, some challenges for me to translate from Finnish to English—and vice versa—to get the meaning right. Some translations were easy to do, but some took more time. I remember killing time travelling one spring and summer by plane, sitting for long hours and figuring out whether this or that lyric line would make sense and rhyme. In fact, I wrote a lot this way, both in English and Finnish. Some lyrics were pretty complicated and needed more work. Some for the English version of the album were completed just when we were about to begin the process of recording the English version at the end of last summer. I wanted to have Troy (Donockley, Nightwish) double-check some of my lyrics to be sure there wouldn't be any double meanings in my lyrics because they might sound odd or just hilarious if written in the wrong way.

THE IMPORTANCE OF FINDING LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE

Luxi: Were the other guys on the same page with your ideas right off the bat?

Marko: I was actually pretty surprised that they understood how I wanted this album to sound. Of course, there were a few longer discussions there when we had reached a crossroad where we didn't quite know which direction this or that song should take. We were working our asses off to make the songs sound right to each of us, really pushing hard in the direction we wanted them to go.

At the end of the day, it was worth all the hard work. Each of us in the band was happy with how the songs turned out, thinking they sound pretty darn unique and original.

Luxi: This may be a silly question, but which language version of the album is closer to you personally when thinking of all the musical nuances, colours, soundscapes, etc.?

Marko: Well, let me put it this way; for me, the closest songs, without exception, are the ones in the language I wrote them. On this record, I translated about six songs from Finnish to English and four were translated from English to Finnish. Then I have some raw material still left that is just waiting to be finished, probably 2021, who actually knows?

Luxi: Before you booked the studio time for these recordings, did you have the whole song palette completely ready or did you finish some songs in the studio?

Marko: No, no... We had all the songs demoed already, so we knew how the album would sound when we went to Sonic Pump Studios to record it. We used very organic methods to record the songs. You know, bass, drums, guitar and our keyboard player, Vili, had some demo versions already done for this session. We played the instruments as live takes that also gave a more authentic feeling to the songs. Out of all these takes we just put them together the way that everyone was happy with. For example, I played my bass all at once and Tuomas did the same with his rhythm guitar and that was it. Our main intention was to have the album sound as organic as possible; make it sound like a real live band effort instead of making it too clinical and stuff.

"THIS MELODY IS KICKING MY HEAD..."

Luxi: Promotion means everything in today's rough music business and making videos has become an integral part of it. How did you end up choosing the song "Stones" for the first video?

Marko: I had a vision for this song in my head well in advance because I think it has a pretty addictive chorus. From what I can remember, this song was born two years ago when I was still touring with Nightwish. I was singing and demoing parts of that song backstage. Then one day, when we were travelling by bus, our manager Ewo Pohjola, who had just woken up, walked in the bus looking sleepy and wearing only pants while humming a catchy melody line. At the same time, Tuomas (Holopainen) came in to get his morning coffee and said, "that melody has been in my head the entire night...and blame it on that guy!", while Ewo still kept on singing the same melody over and over again.

Anyway, this catchy melody line stuck in my head as well, and... here we are... ;o)

Luxi: Talking about playing live, this is your very first gig here in Lahti, Finland, for your solo band, sort of the premiere for your solo tour in Europe. Feeling nervous?

Marko: Perhaps just a little bit. I am hoping I don't fuck up my lyrics too much, haha!! The day after tomorrow I should be playing a gig in Hamburg, Germany, so let's hope everything goes smoothly on this tour, too.

Luxi: Have you received any information on how well your solo album has been received in Europe? Have you read any advance album reviews?

Marko: I am afraid to say that I really don't follow social media sites much. However, my wife and some of my friends have told me the album has gotten pretty nice reviews in the media already. I myself have googled some reviews and am glad it's got some very good ones, 8 out of 10, 9 out of 10 and the like, so that makes me honestly happy. It gives me a feeling my band mates and I did something right. I have been doing some interviews as well, phone interviews and stuff, and many have mentioned they did not expect as diverse and all-around good album, so I am grateful for all this positive feedback.

Luxi: When I read some of these reviews, almost every one of them states loud and clear that it's great to hear you use your whole vocal range and I fully agree that there truly is a lot of soul to your vocals.

Marko. Thank you. Naturally when you do a solo album, it's way easier to not hold your horses in this type of project, as say, singing in my main band Nightwish, in which there's always been this some sort of "the beauty and the beast" thing between Floor and me vocally.  

Luxi: What are your personal expectations from the crowds in Europe?

Marko: Hmm... hard to say because the type of stuff we do is pretty marginal after all. It's kind of hard to predict how many people will attend our gigs, so in that sense everything's still a bit of mystery to me. But as long as we can entertain people on this tour, then there's not much to complain about really, I guess. We know we have a diverse set, from some headbanging stuff to more atmospheric and emotionally moving stuff. We already tested the more atmospheric stuff last summer, just to see if we were able to hypnotize our target audience and damn, it worked. It all comes down to how it's performed, how convincing or entertaining you can be and so on. On our summer tour this year when we performed these songs in Finnish, it seemed to work well for people. Let's hope this English-sung material will go down with the audience nicely, too.

Luxi: Obviously this kind of stuff should draw very different people to your gigs, from the old school Uriah Heep/Deep Purple generation to younger Nightwish fans, and such.

Marko: Yes, that's what I was thinking, too. But you never know what's gonna happen. This reminds me, was it Tina Turner who made her first solo album at the age of 45, and became a world-famous star after that? I am 54, but it's only a wishful thinking that the same would happen for me as well with my solo career, haha!

OF MEET & GREET AND V.I.P.      

Luxi: What about these Meet & Greet sessions? Do you feel like they are necessary or do you see them more like a mandatory thing to do for the fans who want to get close to you, take some pics and autographs, and share even a few words with an artist and/or band members?

Marko: I have to say they have been more or less a neutral thing for me. I happen to know many musicians really do not care for them, but then this other part of them feels it's necessary to do them because it's a part of today's business so to speak.

For me, however, the coolest situations always tend to happen if you meet your fans simply by accident; on some random street or somewhere else but just by accident. I remember this type of meeting with a fan when I was in Brazil, spending time on a little island with my wife. We were on the beach and I had just come out of the water and then this guy appeared saying, "What's your name? Are you THAT Marko?!" Of course he wanted to remember this meeting by taking some pictures with me and telling me, "This is the best day of my life", and so on.

This is something that I love, making people happy this way, with just a little effort from my side.

Luxi: If I can ask, what's your opinion about the V.I.P. packages that include things like going to see soundchecks, special Meet & Greet sessions with band members and a chance to travel to some ranches of their idols, staying overnight there, plus having a breakfast/dinner/etc. with your target of worship?

Marko: Haha... Regarding Nightwish, this has always happened in a smaller scale for us really, but I believe in America we have done that kind of stuff probably more than anywhere else, having these smaller scale V.I.P. options available for them. Our fans mainly have wanted to pay for the opportunity just to meet us; to get a few shots taken with us and to share a few words with us naturally, too. But what's certain, we haven't arranged any special all-inclusive hotel weekends for our fans, or shit like that.

[*laughter*]

But I do understand that if the fans are dying to meet their favorite artists/musicians and are also willing to pay for this privilege, then why not. In some sense, a little bit exaggerated perhaps, these fans partly pay our tour buses with the money they have reserved for this V.I.P. option.

GOING SOLO—FUTURE PLANS

Luxi: Changing the subject, I am curious to know if there might be some continuum to your solo thing, if Nightwish takes a break from touring/recording again in the future? Do you have half-finished stuff that's waiting for the right time to get finished?

Marko: In fact, I do, and some good stuff that's just waiting for better days to get completed. I have a few good ideas that I'd like to finish someday. It's kind of amazing for me to think backwards that I have reached the point of having my first solo album done finally, after leaving all of my other commitments behind for a little while. After rehearsing and working with two bands for gigs and in the studio, making three videos, several photo shoots, gigs and more rehearsals—all kinds of different comings and goings, I found it nice to take a break of two months and clear my head and recharge my batteries under the Brazilian sunshine. After the break, I did the "Heavy X-mas" tour in Finland, which lasted two weeks but was still a relaxing and nice thing to do. I did not feel it demanded much from me; it was more like a gathering of old friends.

Anyway, this break did me some good because it got my creative juices flowing again. I am what I am. Obviously, I tend to have this some sort of inborn mechanism that seems to get my brain working; coming up with new lyrics and grabbing my guitar and start jamming.

Luxi: You are not the kind of person who wakes up in the middle of night with a cool idea or melody line somewhere in the back of your mind that simply needs to be saved right away?

Marko: Fortunately, this has not happened to me for a long time. I remember when I was younger, I may have woken up due to some band's song not leaving me alone in the middle of my sleep. By the next morning, I had no remembrance of it at all. My mind was totally blank when the morning came.

Luxi: Alright, I think that's all I had in mind for this interview... wait a sec. I have just one extra question for you if you don't mind. As you know, cover bands like Sapattivuosi that you also were a part of once (a Finnish band doing Black Sabbath music in Finnish) have always been popular projects over the years. I was wondering if you have heard this Russian Nightwish cover band called Nevski & The Prospects that seems to be a highly popular band up here in Finland. I mean, they have a gig coming up in Oulu, Finland, on April 10th—and surprisingly, it's a sold-out show...

Marko: Ah, yeah... I suppose I have heard of people talking about quite a few times before. Hmm... Some people are saying that their music may be the closest thing to Nightwish's own stuff, and claim they probably sound even more like Nightwish than Nightwish themselves... [*Marko has a very suspicious grin on his face*]

Luxi: Okay then, now that's interesting. Thank you, Marko, for your time and best of luck for your tonight's show here in Lahti.

Marko: Thank you.

[trespeak]

What's your favorite house album?

Wow, that’s a toughie. Might just have to give you a list instead.

This ended up being pretty long so I’ve put all the big descriptions I wrote for each of ‘em under the cut, but here’s the gist:

Daft Punk, Discovery (2001)

Kaskade, Fire and Ice (2011)

deadmau5, For Lack of a Better Name (2009) and 4x4=12 (2010)

Phantoms, Phantoms (2017)

Justice, † (2007) 

Lazy Rich’s singles

Porter Robinson/Virtual Self – Spitfire (2011) and Virtual Self (2017)

I like a lot of deep house and electro house, so most of my picks here are within either or both of those subgenres (as well as progressive house, in deadmau5′s case).

For more of my thoughts (and there are many!), see below.

Daft Punk, Discovery (2001)

Accept no substitutes. For Guy-Manuel de Homem Christo and Thomas Bangalter, making quality tunes seems to just be second nature. Their second album replaces the underground, city-street feel of Homework with a shiny, discotheque-ready sound that stands on the shoulders of giants but does so as a means of updating and widening the reach of their own influences (with “Harder Better Faster Stronger”’s use of “Cola Bottle Baby” as a perfect example thereof). My favorite track on the record, “Digital Love,” perhaps only barely qualifies as house, but between the earnestness of the vocoded lyrics and the heart-stopper of a guitar solo, I don’t even mind – who cares about genre conventions when you’re a smitten robot? It’s utterly brilliant and its era exists as the gold standard for many DP fans, myself included among them.

Kaskade, Fire and Ice (2011)

Ryan Raddon’s seventh album and the one I hold the most nostalgia for. An ambitious effort on Kaskade’s part, Fire and Ice is a double album, with original tracks on one side and remixed, chilled-out versions of the same songs on the other (geddit?). The ICE mixes are something of a mixed bag, with some having more reason to exist than others, but the Fire side of the album earns it a place here on its own, with Skrillex and Raddon giving us their own brilliant take on a classic track from Guy Manuel de Homem Christo on “Lick It,” as well as the smooth vibes of Ryan’s collaboration with his band Late Night Alumni and Inpetto on “How Long.” Another standout track: “ICE,” a big, bumping jam Ryan made with Dan Black and Dada Life.

deadmau5, For Lack of a Better Name (2009) and 4x4=12 (2010)

Oh, Joel. These days he’s earned a controversial status as full-time internet troll alongside his career as a musician, but he’s still had a palpable impact on the industry at large (pop juggernaut Marshmello more or less owes his entire career to the allure of the man in the cute mask, and while Daft Punk did it first, Mello’s own interpretation is particularly and explicitly influenced by the way deadmau5 did it). These two albums dropped when I was twelve/thirteen and still opening my eyes to the wide world of electronica, and I think they’re particularly significant as the point where I went from being a casual fan of it to a devotee, sparking an investment in the Scene® that I still have to this day. The degree of control Joel flexes over his work at its peak was unprecedented for the time and still holds up now – “Strobe,” the album closer on For Lack Of, is particularly notable in how it makes ten minutes feel like no time at all in how it builds and shifts with just a few simple, powerful elements in play at a time. “Ghosts ‘n Stuff” earned Joel and vocalist Rob Swire a crossover hit, and “Raise Your Weapon” stands as an early illustration of what the North American take on dubstep would sound like in the years to come. 

Phantoms, Phantoms (2017)

Kyle Kaplan and Vinnie Pergola’s debut record is a clever mission statement for their work. Their deep house tunes are infused with pop sensibilities, placing them in company with contemporaries like Jamie xx and Disclosure as house DJs making an effort to bridge the gap between the radio airwaves and the dance floor. My favorites include “Just a Feeling” with Verite, a modody track called “Downtown,” and the utterly brilliant “Need You Closer,” a collab with Hayley Kiyoko that easily converted me into the Church of Lesbian Jesus. (Their recent work is also worth a nod as well – they’ve been building up singles to drum up interest in a new EP, including one of their best tracks to date, a driving progressive house tune called “Designs for You.”)

Justice, † (2007)

Gaspard Auge and Xavier de Rosnay’s debut record remains their best. There’s so many iconic tracks on this one: The slick vibes of “Genesis” and “Newjack,” the ever crowd-pleasing “D.A.N.C.E.,” the pumping “Phantom” and its sequel, the nu-disco sleaze of “DVNO”, and the ear-splitting delight of “Waters of Nazareth.” The record earned them a positive, if daunting, comparison to fellow French house pioneers Daft Punk, and while their work on it shares an obsession with taking diverse samples and reconfiguring them into their own image, Justice’s fascination with the macabre aesthetic of 70′s horror films and the rock ‘n roll ethos of T. Rex earned them a distinct spot in the pantheon of electronic acts with this record (as well as its followup, the different-but-still-great Audio, Video, Disco).

Feed Me - Feed Me’s Big Adventure (2011) and Calamari Tuesday (2013)

Jon Gooch was one of the earliest musicians to emerge under deadmau5′s mau5trap label, and still shines as one of its leading acts today (High Street Creeps, released earlier this year, has jams for days). While he started his career making drum ‘n bass tracks as Spor, the bulk of his work since 2009 has been under the Feed Me alias, where he’s dabbled in all manner of electronic but mostly hews close to the realm of electro house. Gooch’s experience in making complex tunes meant that Feed Me came out swinging, with tracks like “Grand Theft Ecstasy” and “Muscle Rollers” exhibiting a confidence and technical skill from the outset that most producers would kill for on their first record. By the time his first proper full length released two years later, he’d developed a consistent feel that made collaborations with indie bands (”Love Is All I Got,” with Crystal Fighters) and soulful singers (”Last Requests,” with Jenna G) feel as natural as hard-hitting bangers (”No Grip” and “Death by Robot”). Mix in a little bit of both and you get “Ophelia,” a anthemic ballad made with YADi – my favorite song from the record, and a earworm that still sticks with me six years on. Love, don’t let me drown…

and some honorable mentions!

Lazy Rich’s singles! Richard Billis is a Canadian DJ who retired from producing tunes in 2017, but for the decade or so he was releasing music, the electro house singles he released were nothing short of iconic. Songs like “Blast Off” (with Hirshee and Lizzie Curious) and “Flash” (with Hot Mouth) are energetic, breezy and danceable. There’s nothing quite like a good Lazy Rich drop; his beats hit the dance floor with the weight of a truck, and have a sonic diversity among them that would predict the electronic scene’s shift toward the dynamism of future bass. It makes me sad that we won’t get any more of them, but Billis left behind such an evergreen catalog of singles that it’s hard to be down for very long. (I used to use his remix of Zedd’s “Stars Come Out” as a theme song of sorts on an old website where you could be a DJ with your friends. The fond memories are strong with this one.)

Porter Robinson/Virtual Self – Spitfire (2011) and Virtual Self (2017) – Leave it to Porter Robinson to carve out a completely separate musical persona just to hearken back to his halcyon days as a young producer. My initial introduction to him was just after he’d emerged from the hands-up scene, while he had his eyes set on stardom through what he called “complextro,” and it was surprising to find that his work not only lived up to its genre classification but actively carved out a market for its sound, even before Porter had dropped an album. If the dubstep and house feel of Spitfire was a revelation, the DDR vibes of the Virtual Self EP are a revitalization; similar in ethos, but with an owned, Serial Experiments Lain-styled technological aesthetic. Porter does a lot of work to keep the two projects separate (even going as far as to delineate live shows between the aliases), but rather than fragmenting his work the distinction only ends up strengthening his catalog, in much the same way Jon Gooch’s work as Feed Me complements his earlier collection as Spor.

JOYRYDE’s singles and upcoming album - John Ford Jr. is an English DJ who knows what he likes: fast cars, bumping house beats, mean-muggin’ rap jams, and making tunes that blend all of the above in one way or another. His JOYRYDE project is only a few years old, emerging in 2016, but it’s very much the culmination of years of diggin’ in the crates and building a sound that blends the hip-hop influences of trap with the boogie-bounce sensibility of house. No sooner is this evident than the “parental discretion is advised” warning (and subsequent punchy opening bars) that welcomes you into “HOT DRUM,” though his other tracks (including “MAXIMUM KING” and the Rick Ross-assisted “WINDOWS”) share that kinetic energy. He’s one to watch!

Also worth your time:

Oliver’s Mechanical EP and their album Full Circle

Mord Fustang’s All Eyes On… compilations

Botnek’s singles from 2016 onward

Chris Lake’s releases with his label Black Book Records

Self Help by Walker and Royce

pretty much everything by Ellie Herring and Chrissy (Murderbot)

Fantasmas by Zavala

anything Wolfgang Gartner has made (particularly his early 2010s singles)

That’s all I got for now. If you made it this far, you’re an angel. Thanks for indulging me :)

[justasmallbloginabigklainefandom]

Rec This Thing: Panic! At The Disco Pray For The Wicked Europe Tour at AFAS LIVE

Panic! At The Disco Pray For The Wicked Europe Tour at AFAS Live 

My story: Look, in the span of less than a year I became a huge fan, so when they announced their show at AFAS Live, I was in.

Story: It’s a concert.

Rating (1 to 10): 10

Why?: After Hayley, and Troye, it was time for Panic! and lemme tell you something.

This was my favourite.

Once again, I was on my way to Amsterdam with Sammy in tow. We originally planned on going with Maikel, but tickets were sold out in seconds and he didn’t manage to grab them.

The road towards Amsterdam was wonky due to a possible terrorist attack in my country and due to faulty trains. On our way, we met up with two strangers who were also on their way to the concert. We talked about fake vegan burgers and airport security fails and of course Panic! At The Disco.

We parted ways at the entrance. It was packed. We were lucky we got there after the doors opened, because the line was so damn long that they added a second line. That line also happened to be shorter. That was our line. We still queued for a small half hour (and the police kept driving by because... y’know... possible terrorism) (it really was a terrible day for my country).

We bought merch and I got the long sleeved white shirt with High Hopes lyrics and then it was time to find a spot in the venue. Eventually, we got great balcony seats. Third row, close to the middle aisle. We had an amazing view.

*record scratch*

Wait. Hold on? You’re telling me that you could’ve found a standing place almost up front, like you did with Troye Sivan’s concert, and you didn’t?

Nope. I didn’t. For a few reasons actually:

We didn’t have to use the wardrobe.

The show was a very visual show and you could see it best from the balcony, since you could see the entire stage.

After all, Sammy and I are relatively small, so we wouldn’t be able to see shit unless we were completely front row.

I don’t like being stuck in crowds.

And the crowd was massive. It’s really confusing, cause both Troye and Panic! played sold out shows at AFAS Live but Panic!’s crowd was double the size. Ever since it got announced that Panic! got AFAS, I was very confused, because if you look at other venues of the PftW tour, they have massive venues sold out. Panic! easily could’ve played Ziggo Dome or whatever, but nope, they got AFAS. Hmmmm.

Anyway, I did consider going all the way up front so that I could hopefully give Brendon an ace flag to wear during Girls/Girls/Boys, cause that would mean the world to me, but the cons outweighed the pros and besides, I have nothing to complain about my seats. 

Especially now that I’ve seen YouTube videos from the people down at the standing room. It got hectic and loud and woah, at least I could still hear Brendon Urie himself.

The opening band was A R I Z O N A. The band, not the state. They’re from New Jersey. I wasn’t familiar with them, but by now I’ve listened to their entire discography and they’re good.

Then, it was time for an half hour long break and it was time for people to get annoying. Yup, as I mentioned, I had a great seat on the third row on the balcony. I was the first seat of that row, so no one blocked my view. It was wonderful.

But during A R I Z O N A’s set, people started leaning against the banister (is it called a banister?) of the balcony and people were crowding the steps in the aisle, aka people were blocking our views.

Sammy and I got so pissed.

Luckily, we weren’t the only ones cause the man in front of me actually told some people to leave, because they were blocking our view, but the moment those people left, new ones arrived.

So yeah, Sammy and I were pretty annoyed and then the countdown started, so we had a “well, shit, if we have to” moment, but three minutes before Panic! came on stage, security wiped the entire aisle. Everyone had to go all the way to the back to stand there behind the rows of seats.

A part of me felt a bit bad that all those people got pushed to probably the worst places in the entire venue, but man, on the other hand, Sammy and I were so damn glad.

And so, the countdown counted down (wow) to zero, while Toto’s Africa was playing, and the show started. I actually took a small video of all numbers and I put them together in a complication, excluding Girls/Girls/Boys and Bohemian Rhapsody. Those were long enough to have videos of their own.

Now, if someone’s reading this (hi), get something to drink cause this is gonna get long. When I talk about concerts, I write down the entire setlist and my thoughts on the performances, and wow, Panic!’s show was almost two hours long. 

How long? Well, someone put the full show online and it’s 1:48:20 long.

So yeah, the gorgeous purple lights turned on and Nicole (I’m gay), Mike, Dan, the horny boys and the wicked strings (I’M GAY) started playing and then Brendon arrived to start off with...

F**k A Silver Lining: We had one of those smaller stages (cause again, Ziggo Dome who??? I don’t know her!) so all those extras like Brendon jumping out of the stage didn’t happen. Luckily, the wonderfully beautiful visuals and lights were there. Silver linings came out of cannons and the show started. It was a beautiful sight, although it took me a while to realise that the images on the projections were supposed to be “motherfucking” cherries, not dicks.

Don’t Threaten Me With A Good Time: Ah yes, Brendon Urie showing off his vocal range by singing random parts in falsetto. I love it and I sang along.

Ready To Go (Get Me Out Of My Mind): So delighted to hear this one, since it’s my favourite V&V song and once again, Brendon killed everyone with those high notes. They also put Mike in the spotlight, and it wasn’t the last time they did that during the show.

Hey Look Ma, I Made It!: Ah yes, Beebo. He actually showed up before the countdown. He was just chilling on stage. Anyway, I fucking loved the song.

LA Devotee: Nicole and Mike got front stage and bam LA Devotee, my favourite song from Bachelor, started playing. It was awesome.

Hallelujah: The girls in front of us lost it when the first note started playing. Brendon did his classy falsetto again and it was great.

Crazy = Genius: Hey look, fire. Anyway, this song is amazing and is it underrated? Idk? I love it so much.

The Ballad of Mona Lisa: People went apeshit when the first notes started playing. I really liked it.

Nine In The Afternoon: Where did Brendon go? Oh, he’s at the piano, aka it’s time for Nine In The Afternoon. I loved that you could hear the strings at the end so clearly.

One Of The Drunks: Ah yes, they added this song for the second leg and boy am I glad they did, since I absolutely love this song.

Casual Affair: Wow, okay. The visuals and the lights were amazing in every damn song, but Casual Affair had by far one of the best. AFAS Live became a big laser show. And nearing the end, a laser circle appeared on stage and Nicole and Mike joined Brendon in the circle. And then Brendon started singing very, very high. Probably the highest notes he’s had all evening. I was in absolute awe.

Vegas Lights: I am also so happy they did this song. I’ve loved it ever since I first listened to it and the energy in the room was so high.

Dancing’s Not A Crime: Annika from Plurk said that this song was so much fun live, and I am inclined to agree with her. This was so much fun! They did change the lyrics from “MJ up in the clouds” to someone else and the ending was also done in falsetto, which was great. Yup, yup, yup, Annika was right.

This Is Gospel: Brendon got a guitar and it was time for This Is Gospel. Now of course, this song is great and the added high notes were wonderful, but the very end was the best. After the song ended, Brendon, Nicole, Mike and Dan just jammed for one whole minute. Just music. I knew it was coming, so I filmed it.

Death Of A Bachelor: No surprise here, but Brendon told everyone he wrote it because he wanted to be Frank Sinatra. Since this is a smaller venue (... still... why...), he didn’t have to do the Death Walk, which is a good thing. It was just him and the horny boys on stage and the funk part was so much fun. Heh, horny boys. What a great pun.

It was time for a silent moment. The horny boys left the stage and Brendon started talking about he tried to learn Dutch at 3AM but he couldn’t get very far. Well, he got “Hartelijk bedankt” and “Ik hou van jullie allemaal”, and he thanked Google Translate. Anyway, he moved to the piano and he talked about how he hated it that his mum tried to teach him piano, but that he learned this song. The wicked strings returned and he started playing.

I Can’t Make You Love Me/Dying In LA: In the middle of the song, it transitioned into Dying In LA. Again, smaller stage (wtf), so the whole floating piano thing wasn’t there, but the music was obviously the same.

The Greatest Show: From a slow piano ballad to BAM this. I was not as disappointed by Panic!’s version of The Greatest Show as others, but I definitely agree that the song is much better live. Brendon sounded a bit raspy, which was great. He’d been raspy the entire show and it was great, but here it was amazing.

Girls/Girls/Boys: YES. IT’S TIME TO GET GAY. THE ONE I’VE BEEN LOOKING FORWARD TO. Sure, I didn’t get to show off my ace flag, but Brendon still got flooded by flags, including 2 pan flags, 1 bi flag, and 1 trans flag. He commented on how it was the most flags he’s ever gotten. I saw even more flags in the audience, so he didn’t even get all of them. The Panic! Hearts were lovely, even though there was no rainbow. There was no assigned seating, so colours were everywhere. I had an orange heart and Sammy had a blue one. It still rained glitter and I almost cried when the rainbow love banner appeared. After the song, the rainbow laser lights appeared and Brendon gave a small speech. I want to relive this moment again.

King Of The Clouds: Smoak clouded (pun intended) the stage and it was time for King Of The Clouds. Not much to say, apart from the usual: it was great and the visuals were beautiful. The purple/green/blue colour scheme at the end was mesmerising.

High Hopes: CAN I JUST SAY THAT THAT MOMENT WHERE THE WICKED STRINGS BEND BACKWARDS IS ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MOMENTS EVER? And also, oh boy, there were some high notes at High Hopes.

Miss Jackson: Brendon lost his golden jacket and Miss Jackson started playing. He did a backflip as well.

Roaring 20s: Another song that got added for leg two and just like One Of The Drunks, I welcome this change. Yup, I was one of those “*shoves 20$ to Brendon* Add Roaring 20s to the setlist!” people. NOW ONLY THE OVERPASS AND OLD FASHIONED LEFT.

Bohemian Rhapsody: How can you not sing along with this song? It’s iconic. I love the “ending”, so I filmed that (see link above). It’s 3 minutes long.

Emperor’s New Clothes: This is the one song in all of Panic!’s discography that I have mixed feeling about. Like, there are some songs I just dislike, and some I like, and some I love. But this song? Bruh idk. I sing along from the top of my lungs, because I like the energy, but do I like the song? Well, this time I fucking did cause it was a blast to hear it live and the lights were beautiful.

Then it was time for the encore. Some poor unfortunate souls behind us left. I heard another woman saying: “Don’t ever do that. Oh, this is so stupid.” The band slowly came back to the stage and Brendon lost his shirt.

Say Amen (Saturday Night): HE HIT THE HIGH NOTE HECK YEAH. I LOVE THIS SONG.

I Write Sins Not Tragedies: Ah yes, Sammy’s favourite song, since it’s a banger according to her. Well, she’s right. I am kinda glad that Brendon didn’t ask an audience member to sing with him.

It was time for the last song. Brendon said that he’s not the smartest guy (”I didn’t even go to college”), but that he knows that everyone is important due to, well, biology. He gave one of those inspirational celeb speeches about how everyone is important to him, but also to themselves. We were all born as winners, and that stuff.

Victorious: I knew they were going to end with Victorious and it’s the perfect song to end the show. It rained confetti and it was time for them to go. I didn’t want it to end.

They all waved goodbye and Mike and Dan threw stuff to the audience (probably guitar picks and those things). The girl in the seat behind me dropped her heart before Girls/Girls/Boys and she couldn’t find it. I found it after the show. I wanted to return it, but she was already gone, so I now also have a yellow heart.

And yeah, that was it.

Overall thoughts? Well...

I can’t go into detail about the visuals, but they really added something to the overall experience, so I actually recommend getting a seat that allows you to see the full stage in its glory.

Also, Sammy said: “I can no longer listen to the recorded versions now that he’s added all those amazing high notes” and that’s a big ass mood.

To quote Sammy some more, she said something about the beautiful intermission instrumentals between songs and how she’d even buy an album filled with those. That is also a big ass mood.

To continue this trend of quoting Sammy, I agree with her that watching Brendon dance was so much fun. I like that he’s having fun.

Anyway, it was time to go. Some girls complimented me on my ace flag, which was so fucking cool. Just like with Troye, the train station was flooded and there were still many flags.

Sammy and I got the train back home and we briefly saw the girls from before, so I said hi.

And that was it. What a day.

Recommend?: Please.... I want to do this again... oh god....

[redsoapbox]

28 BANDS / WHAT HAPPENED TO MY TIPS FOR THE TOP?

 18 months ago, in an attempt to nudge the redsoapbox blog outside of its comfort zone, I spent many a long hour trawling the internet in search of up and coming artists with the potential to make an impact on pop culture. 28 bands (click the archive link to find the original article) featured acts from the blog’s base here in Wales, from many other parts of the U.K. as well as musicians from America, Canada, France, Sweden, New Zealand and Finland. All manner of genres were included - from country, soul and easy listening to indie-noir, psych-funk and art-punk. Some artists were easier to identify than others - Liz Brasher, for example, seemed an obvious star in the making, while others, such as Turku’s Those Forgotten Tapes, had yet to play even a single gig!  

So, how have they all fared? Well, as might be expected, it’s something of a mixed bag. There have been successes - one artist appeared in an Academy Award-winning musical, another in a long-running BBC soap, national album prizes have been won and summer support slots with Dylan and Neil Young secured. There have been dispiriting failures too  - one or two bands have barely gigged, some have remained unsigned (though in many cases they continue to self-release sublime music) and one group folded straight after an excellent debut album.

Taking the artists in the original order in which they were featured, here’s an update on progress made -

Hand Habits

Meg Duffy released sophomore album Placeholder in January 2019 to widespread critical acclaim. Pitchfork said it best, describing the album as a ‘bucolic mix of pleasing melody, soft guitars and gentle vocals’.

Boy Azooga

It’s been a massive year for the Cardiff combo. Storming singles “Face Behind Her Cigarette” and “Loner Boogie” secured the band a spot on the cult show Later... With Jools Holland and a record deal with Heavenly followed. The band’s debut album (One) (Two) (Kung Fu) won the 2018 Welsh Music Prize (for which I was a juror) and the group has recently been confirmed as support for Bob Dylan and Neil Young gigs later in the summer. I interviewed frontman Davie Newington for New Sound Wales last year  http://www.newsoundwales.com/interviews/boy-azooga-interview-by-kevin-mcgrath/

Liz Brasher

As mentioned in the intro, North Carolina’s Liz Brasher seemed an obvious choice in the ‘next big thing’ stakes. In 28 bands, I predicted a ‘tidal wave of hype’ would greet the release of her debut album. I wasn’t kidding, either, with  PopMatters declaring Painted Image to be evidence that Brasher is ‘one of the next thundering and commanding voices of soul music’.

Liz Brasher live

Family Jools

A run of exceptional tunes through 2016 - 2018 including “Get Off”, “Fallacy” and “Don’t Know” was supposed to lead to a debut album by the end of last year. The departure of Jack Hawkins (guitar) was the first outward sign that the project was in danger of veering off the rails and there is no sign at present of that elusive album. Another fine single “She’s a Mother” surfaced a few months back and exactly five hours ago they band have announced a forthcoming single by the name of “California Sun”. I’m still a true believer, though. You can find my interview with the band via the archive link. 

There is a Family Jools gig available here https://bndrmusic.io/

Sarah Munro

Sarah released a fine sophomore album Angel Road in June last year and, somewhat bizarrely, turned up busking outside a hospital in the long-running BBC soap Holby City which aired in February.  

Armstrong

The fact that I became somewhat smitten with Armstrong last year will be no secret to readers of this blog. That this fellow Welshman’s incredible music had hitherto escaped me boggled the mind somewhat. Discovering timeless albums like “Under Blue Skies” and “Songs About The Weather” gave me one hell of a kick. In an interview I conducted with Julian Pitt (the sole member of Armstrong) for Wales Arts Review in April last year, the singer/songwriter was excited about a planned re-release of Under Blue Skies (with a whopping 8 extra tracks!) and his continuing work on a brand new album Happy Graffiti. Anyone who read the interview closely, though, might have been a little worried about how long those projects might take to come to fruition. Happily, I can confirm that the sterling efforts of The Beautiful Music and Country Mile Records have borne fruit, with Under Blue Skies available to order from the following links

http://thebeautifulmusic.com/

http://www.countrymile.org/Releases/Armstrong/armstrong.html

You can read the interview here -

https://www.walesartsreview.org/interview-armstrong/

Keeva

While the much-hoped-for album has yet to materialise, there was a richly tender EP Four Sad Songs and a Ballad to cling on to in the meantime. Keeping my fingers firmly crossed that an album is just around the corner.

The Salient Braves

Aside from a single track,“Slob,” released last July, all seems deathly quite. I assume the Braves continue ‘pissing into the indie wind’ as their twitter profile proudly boasts!  Until we hear anything new then, we’ll just have to resort to re-playing the majestic Delusions of Grandeur over and over again. Believe me, that’s no hardship!

https://thesalientbraves.bandcamp.com/

Estrons

Local favourites with a fantastic live reputation, Estrons released a corking debut album You Say I’m Too Much, I say You’re Not Enough to huge approval and then promptly split. They made their mark though, 2015 single “Make a Man” should be on anyone’s shortlist for best song of the twenty-tens.

Thou Swell

Absolutely fell in love with the demo version of “What’s Your Name” that appeared on Soundcloud in December 17. There was a smattering of London gigs in the first half of 2018 and the promise of a live EP, but everything has gone worryingly quiet since.

https://soundcloud.com/user-911275129

The Regrets

Seattle’s pristine purveyors of jangle pop released a new EP, Endless Desire, which featured five frothy tracks including the rather marvellous “Under a Sideways Moon”. 

 https://wearetheregrets.bandcamp.com/album/endless-desire

Head Noise

Mitch Tennant’s electro art-punks continue to battle Welsh music establishment indifference. A sequence of intriguing EP’s has been met with stunned silence. Hopefully, a debut album, due before the year's end, will finally break down some of these artificial barriers. As Mitch himself often says, ‘D.I.Y or Die, Baby!’. 

Head Noise

You can read my interview with Mitch here

 https://www.walesartsreview.org/interview-head-noise/

Jade Jackson

Jackson’s sophomore album Wilderness earned across-the-board critical acclaim on its release last month with American Songwriter complimenting the singers ‘tenacious honey-and-grits voice’. Opinion former’s No Depression called it the same way, highlighting Jackson’s ‘warm, confident vocal delivery’.

QTY

The band seem to have disappeared from all thing social media!  Still, we’ll always have the eponymous debut album!

HOTEL LUX

Hotel Lux’s latest single, the stunning “English Disease”, had more than a dab of Robert Lloyd about it. If Hotel Lux can measure up to theNightingales, then you won’t hear me complaining. Set to play Cardiff’s Swn Festival in October, where I can get a closer look at them. 

Hotel Lux  

Cozy Slippers

Seattle’s three-piece Cozy Slippers released a cracking EP Postcards last April and are set to follow up with a new single “A Million Pieces” for German independent label Kleine Untergrund Schallplatten on the ninth of August. The band has also confirmed that plans for a U.K. tour are in the pipeline.

https://cozyslippers.bandcamp.com/album/postcards

Common Holly

The band is about to launch it's Back From the Dead’ tour later this month, taking in Toronto and Winnipeg along the way before hopping across the border to support Mauno on their short American sojourn.

BUZZARD BUZZARD BUZZARD

An enforced name change saw Cardiff outfit Buzzard triple their moniker in an unfortunate start to Tom Rees’ campaign for superstardom. Rees aims pretty high, recently telling N.M.E. that the combo’s single “Late Night City” made him cry in a way that only “Wichita Lineman” ever had before. Fresh from playing the BBC Introducing stage at Glastonbury, the band are set to release a new single “Love Forever” later this month. Mark them down as potential world-beaters!

Nervous Dater

The band is currently opening for Los Campesinos! on their ‘Save America Tour’. If you haven’t invested in their spiky Don’t be a Stranger album, then why the hell not? 

The Greek Theatre

As recounted in the original 28 bands blog, Swedish duo Sven Froberg and Fredrik Perrson wrote an entire series of albums and then decided on a date for their break up all within weeks of their formation in 2009. So far, the Greek Theatre masterplan has yielded two sublime albums Lost at Sea (2013) and Broken Circle (2017). I have struggled in vain to discover when the next record is slated for release, all to no avail. We can only assume that their surreal plan is still in force and that a third album is on the way! 

oblong  

Andrew Clement, Hwys Grav and Rob Daniel should apply to join the magic circle forthwith. The Llanelli post-punk band’s trick of conjuring up two feisty, furious and humorous albums Brilliant...Gwd (2017) and  Hollulluog (2019) in double-quick time deserve the respect of their musical peers.

https://oblong1.bandcamp.com/

The Glad Machine

Nothing to report here, save for the release of a Christmas single “Days Gone By” and, wait a mo, a brand new single released this very day (5th of July). Just going to take a listen.......be back soon!  Okay, the song is called “Virginia” and sits pretty neatly alongside the material from their debut album - file under thumping, melodic American rock.

Illuminati Hotties

The Hotties’ terrific debut album Kiss Yr Frenemies, the sound of which is described as “tenderpunk” by the group’s sole permanent member Sarah Tudzin, was rapturously received by the music press. Pitchfork, in particular, was persuaded, claiming that “every emotional abrasion and pang of longing on Kiss Yr Frenemies is conveyed with just the right mix of sadness and acerbity”.

Somehow

Erwan Pepiot’s tantalising description of the Somehow sound - ‘halfway between Joy Division and Belle and Sebastian’ should grab the attention of even the most jaded pop music consumer. The duo’s brand new single “Shut Your Eyes and See” certainly lives up to the billing. A new album, Low Tide, will be released on October the 25th.

Somehow

Crystal Furs

Having released a new album, Pseudosweet, in January, the band seems to have successfully overcome the departure of lead vocalist Amanda Hand (now fronting electro-pop combo Big Heaven). 

Jetstream Pony

A rip-roaring EP, Self-Destruct Reality, captured the group on top form. A new song “Mitte” has just been demoed and is a forerunner for an album release later on in the year. 

Sandra’s Wedding

The band’s debut album, Northern Powerhouse, is a certifiable classic of indie-pop. An album for the ages! How to follow that? - with a corking EP Good Morning, Bad Blood which builds the anticipation for a much-anticipated sophomore album.

Marlon Williams

William’s sophomore album Make Way for Love racked up three New Zealand music awards, but perhaps the most surprising development among the 28 bands featured here was Marlon’s role in Bradley Cooper’s Oscar-winning remake of A Star is Born.

Those Forgotten Tapes

I’ve left the most disappointing news until last. Sadly, Those Forgotten Tapes have put their rock ‘n’ roll project on indefinite hold. When I interviewed the Finish combo shortly after blogging 28 Bands, the group was in the midst of recording a debut album and there was a real air of optimism around. Following the interview, I kept in touch with Jari Oisalo, the driving force behind TFT, but as time went by without any word of an album it became clear that something had gone awry. Without breaking any confidences, there have been health issues which contributed in large part to the dissolution of the group. Jari intends to remix the four recorded TFT tracks (which you can hear below) and has hopes that a TFT album will see the light of day at some point.

In the meantime, Jari has recorded an album Tahtijuttuja as Salainen avaruusohjelma (Secret Space Program), there is a link below to their track “Buffalo” as well as resuming work on a shoegaze album under the moniker Tyynyt. You can listen to their track Pusuudelleen, reviewed positively in the N.M.E back in the day, below.

https://soundcloud.com/thoseforgottentapes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd91VstQyWk

https://soundcloud.com/solinarecords/tyynyt-pusuudelleen

A number of the acts featured here are reviewed/interviewed in Pop Hack, my debut collection available now via Amazon Kindle and are included in my Spotify Pop Hack playlist (see the archive link for details) while I have also created a brand new 28 bands’ Spotify playlist which can be can be accessed here -

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5tKzsqVHGTQZzZVUDkxlGd?si=F1G7ZFTRTI2SXJ1uBOo_gg)

[gwynnew]

'Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas' turns 40: An oral history of Jim Henson's holiday Muppet musical

‘Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas’ (Photo: Sony Home Pictures Entertainment/ The Jim Henson Company)

When it comes to Christmas specials, either Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas is among your favorites, or you haven’t seen it yet.  Jim Henson’s captivating musical, starring an ensemble of delightful Muppet critters, has never attained the holiday ubiquity of, say, A Charlie Brown Christmas (with which it shares a gentle humor and sincerity) or the subsequent The Muppet Christmas Carol, releasted in 1992, two years after Henson’s death. For years, it was impossible to find on home video. Nevertheless, Emmet Otter and his friends have maintained a devoted fanbase since their special first aired in December 1977, a following that’s bound to grow now that a 40th anniversary edition of Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas has been released on DVD.

The 53-minute film tells the story of Ma Otter and her son Emmet, who live a simple but joyful life by the river in Frogtown Hollow.  With Christmas around the corner, mother and son know that they’re too poor to buy each other gifts, so each secretly enters the Frogtown Hollow talent contest in hopes of spending the prize money on Christmas.  Emmet, with his woodland friends, forms the jug-band of the title, but must ruin his mother’s income-generating washtub to make a washtub bass; Ma decides to perform a song, and makes a similar, O. Henry-esque sacrifice. When the talent contest takes a surprising turn, Ma and Emmet think all is lost — until they receive the best Christmas gift they never expected.

In addition to being a heartwarming piece of entertainment, Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas was a landmark film for the Henson Company. More cinematic and ambitious than any of the Muppets’ previous television projects — with full sets, animatronics, and puppets custom-built for the story — the special paved the way for Henson-produced feature films like The Muppet Movie and The Dark Crystal. Even as he moved onto bigger things, Emmet Otter remained a favorite project of Henson’s throughout his life. His collaborators, including Muppet performers Frank Oz and Dave Goelz and songwriter Paul Williams, still feel the same way. As Goelz told Yahoo Entertainment, Emmet Otter “got right at the essence of Jim’s philosophy — the decency, the sense of giving. And we need that more than ever these days.”

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas premiere, Yahoo Entertainment had a conversation with Oz and Goelz (soon to be reunited onscreen in director Oz’s documentary Muppet Guys Talking), who spoke together for the first time about their Emmet Otter memories.  Yahoo also talked to Williams, who shared the stories behind timeless songs like Ma Otter’s ballad “Our World.” Here is the oral history of Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas, from three of Henson’s closest and most devoted collaborators.

Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas (Photo: Sony Home Pictures Entertainment/The Jim Henson Company)

Jim Henson and his crew shot Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas in Toronto in March 1977. (The Muppet Show had premiered five months earlier, and Henson’s puppets were still best-known as residents of Sesame Street, then in its eighth season.) The hour-long film, based on a children’s book of the same name by Russell and Lillian Hoban, was adapted for the screen by Muppet Show writer Jerry Juhl.  To write the songs that were crucial to the musical story, Henson approached singer-songwriter Paul Williams, one of The Muppet Show’s early guests and the writer of contemporary radio hits like the Carpenters’ “Rainy Days and Mondays” and Three Dog Night’s “An Old-Fashioned Love Song.”

Paul Williams: I just hit it off beautifully with Jim and with the Muppeteers right from the start. I loved their humor. I love that there was kind of a dark edge to them, with all the bright and sparkly stuff they were doing. But Jim said, “We’re gonna do a special based on a children’s book called Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas.” And he also mentioned that down the line, they were going to be be tackling their first feature-length motion picture, and that he thought this would be a great introductory thing to see how well we worked together. It was interesting because the kind of music that it required was very different than anything I’d ever done.  It was what I would refer to as “Americana.” 

All of the characters in Emmet Otter’s world, more than 30 including non-speaking roles, were played by six puppeteers, Henson included. Frank Oz, the Muppets’ star performer, puppeteered Ma Otter — but unusually, the man behind Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, Bert, Grover, and Cookie Monster was dubbed with the voice of another performer, singer Marilyn Sokol.   

Frank Oz: I would be thrown in jail if I tried to sing those songs. Songs that beautiful needed a beautiful voice; it was always intended that way. I just performed it with the dialogue live, and then in post-production Marilyn put her voice in. But Marilyn had already recorded those songs, so on set I could sing to Marilyn’s tempo and feeling and everything. And she was a beautiful singer. 

Watch Ma (voiced by Marilyn Sokol, puppeteered by Frank Oz) and Emmet (Jerry Nelson) perform ‘Ain’t No Hole in the Washtub’:

Dave Goelz, best known for the character of Gonzo, had just recently become a Muppet performer. He started out as a builder in the creature workshop, where he built several of the puppets for Emmet Otter. In the special, he played Wendell porcupine, Emmet’s slow-witted but lovable best friend.

Dave Goelz: Wendell Porcupine was a breakthrough for me at the time, because I’d only done one season on The Muppet Show and I was really a beginner. And I had some success with that character just ad-libbing in the studio. You know, Wendell had a crush on Emmett’s mother. He just loved her and he wanted to spend time with her and it was all kind of strange. But that was just off-camera.

Oz:  And can I say, since I did the mother: I don’t think that obsession was truly platonic.

Goelz: [laughs] I wasn’t gonna go there.

Oz: No, Wendell was a great character, Davey. I love Wendell. He’s so pure. 

Rounding out the cast were fellow Muppet performers Jerry Nelson, who played Emmet; Richard Hunt, who played Emmet’s bandmate Charlie; and Eren Ozker, who played the minor female characters (and had been the only female performer on the first season of The Muppet Show).  All of the performers played multiple creatures; for example, every performer in Emmet Otter’s cuddly jug-band doubled as a member of their ill-mannered rock-and-roll rivals, the Riverbottom Nightmare band.

Goelz: In the bad guy group, I had this catfish. And I had fun doing the fish because we built a squirt mechanism into him so he could spit water. That was his wise-guy thing. Frank’s was that he was extremely tough, his word was law. [laughs] And it was just fun to do these idiots.

Oz:  My guy [Chuck] — he was the leader of the group. In high school, you know when you’ve got the bad guy everybody follows, and he’s a guy who just is so cool? I saw him that way. He reminds me of guys in high school that I was scared of. [laughs]

Goelz: Oh yeah, absolutely. “I’m not hungry, I’m huuuungry.” [laughs] Oh, I loved it. Frank oftentimes will find a moment like that, and it will just be a standout in a whole television show or film. In Muppet Christmas Carol, it was Sam Eagle talking to young Scrooge about a career in “business.” The obscene lust that Sam Eagle had for “business!” Just finding those little moments that you never, ever forget.

Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas (Photo: Sony Home Pictures Entertainment/ The Jim Henson Company)

The songs in Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas are meant to sound like timeless American standards, songs that Ma Otter and her family would have been singing for generations. A few titles were suggested by the book, but the majority were invented from scratch by Paul Williams, who found working with Henson and the Muppets to be uniquely inspiring.

 Williams: There’s such an amazing energy that you get working around Jim. I think the more calm you are, the easier the flow of the creative source. If I get tense and say, “Oh my god, I gotta finish this,” things slow down a little bit. But if you can stay as relaxed as Jim seem to be? The songs just poured out of me.

Oz: Paul got the spirit of Muppets and Jim. Not everybody can, you know? People don’t often get the fact of the sense of purity and the sense of play and the sense of integrity of character. They sometimes, as an adult, try to make things clever or funny. But Paul just approached it the same way Jim did, and we did. He had that ability to, in a way, be one of us in the musical realm.

Williams: I think the big mistake that a lot of songwriters make when they’re writing for a musical is to try to write a hit song. And I never did that.

Goelz: But you know, he wrote this lovely song “Barbecue” — “Barbecue lifts my spirit, I swear it never fails” — you know, it made me want barbecue whenever I heard it. And then he turned right around and created this incredible spiritual, “When the River Meets the Sea,” that seems like it’s been around forever. It’s so eternal and it’s so profound. I used to sing it to my kids every night when we put them to bed.

Watch (from left) Harvey Beaver (Jim Henson), Charlie Muskrat (Richard Hunt), Emmet Otter (Jerry Nelson), and Wendell Porcupine (Dave Goelz) sing ‘Barbecue’:

Williams: I remember eating barbecue, and that I would always get it under my nails. I think maybe the first line I got was, “The sauce mama makes’ll stay there forever if you dare to get it under your nails.” And I think that because I was such a middle-of-the road writer, writing for the Carpenters and Three Dog Night, that that first line is very personal: “When you meet somebody who don’t like soul food they still got a soul, and it don’t mean that you ain’t got rhythm if you don’t like rock and roll.” There’s probably a little bit of something defensive in that about, no, I’m not part of the Laurel Canyon, Crosby-Stills-Nash-and-Young crowd, or that hardcore rock-and-roll, Rolling Stones music is not what I wrote. But just because I don’t write rock and roll doesn’t mean that I don’t have a soul. [The next line is] “If your taste’s like mine you like cider not wine” — which is interesting because I’m 27 years sober now, but at the time I definitely preferred wine. But I thought, it’s for the kids. 

Oz:  The music was just the most beautiful stuff. Paul’s written other stuff for us and it’s beautiful, but somehow this is really extraordinary.

Williams: I love the way that “Our World” and “Brothers” come together at the end. You know, I’m an old hippie. In the ’60s I was up in San Francisco with flowers in my hair like everybody else was, and my love beads and my tie dye T-shirts and camouflage pants and work boots and long hair and a top hat with a feather in it. So “Our World” is very, very much in that spirit. It’s a little hymn, you know? It’s like a little hymn. 

Watch The ‘Our World/Brothers’ medley from ‘Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas’:

When characters perform songs in the story, they actually “play” their individual instrument parts. The tracks were pre-recorded, so they weren’t making the music live — but the Muppeteers put enormous effort into getting it right.  

Oz: We all worked hard on that. If you look at Wendell playing the jug — Davey got that jug track, and he rehearsed that jug track alone. I got the washtub track with a single string. We each got our own part and rehearsed it, and then when it was mixed together, we knew our parts. And we always took pride in the fact that we didn’t fake all that stuff; we really rehearsed that very well. We’d do that for The Muppet Show too.

Emmet Otter was a labor of love for all involved, but days of shooting with puppets could be repetitive and tedious. This is illustrated, hilariously, by an outtake reel of a single shot included on the DVD. (Watch it below.) In the 10-second shot, Ma (Oz, pre-voice dubbing) and Emmet are standing outside a music store that is being trashed by the Riverbottom Nightmare band. A drum is supposed to come rolling out of the door and land in front of them. When the drum doesn’t land in the right place, Henson resets the shot again, and again, and again, a total of 33 times, while the puppeteers ad-lib between takes.

Oz: The drum rolling was classic. I remember we rehearsed it. Jerry and I were underneath the set, just like all the other performers, so we’re in two holes. And in the rehearsal it landed beautifully, perfect  — so we thought, we’ll do it again. It must have been 30, 40 takes? But Jim would not give up. We’d be there all day long.

Watch The outtakes reel for the drum-rolling scene:

Goelz: That’s the thing that differentiates the Muppets: nobody else is crazy enough to do this.

Oz: It’s true. These days you have CG, and it’s just not as much fun because you can always throw money at something and do it. But when we did it with Jim it was real time. And so you had to be a little bit crazy – and Jim was, in that regard. He would just do anything. And I think Davey’s right, nobody actually understood the depth of experience we went through to fulfill Jim’s vision.

Goelz: That commitment is so deep and so persistent. It was actually a lesson about life, too, for me anyway. I went on from there and I thought: If something’s really important, you do whatever it takes.

Oz: What was funny to me was, that take was like shooting dice. There’s no way you could control that drum! [laughs] It was just blind faith that it would do it again.

Goelz: It’s probably worth saying that Frank and Jerry were in a lot of pain during that, because underneath that set, when you have your arm stuck in a hole, there are all these beams that go right through where your head is supposed to be. And so your head can’t be where it normally is on your shoulders; you have to put it off to the side somewhere. And it hurts like crazy. And when you go over and over like that for as long as that was, you’re in a lot of pain. And in spite of that you have to perform; you have to compartmentalize it.

Oz: And that’s what we learned from Jim. And Dave does the same thing and Richie Hunt did the same thing — all of us did the same thing, where I say, we just sustained the pain to get the performance. All of us did.

Goelz: And at the same time, Frank was still throwing in ad libs after every failure. 

As a puppeteer, Goelz had his own unique physical challenge on Emmet Otter set: performing the catfish in a full tank of water during the Riverbottom Nightmare Band’s performance. (Watch it below.)

Goelz: That was a scary thing, because the set-up was, the fish tank was built into the set. It had a hole in the upstage side, away from the camera, and a wetsuit arm glued securely into it so you could fill the tank with water, put the arm inside the wetsuit on, and then somebody would put the puppet on your hand. And I was sitting on a forklift truck; there was a palette on a forklift truck that held me at the right height so I could put my arm into this tank. I remember just the whole time I was terrified that somebody might come along and turn the switch, and if that palette went down, my arm would just be cut off like a guillotine! [laughs] I think Frank knew that and he really loved it.

Oz: I love anytime when somebody else is in pain. Sure. [laughs]

Goelz: Especially me, for some reason.

Oz: Oh there’s many reasons.

The Riverbottom Nightmare Band performs their signature song. Performers include Dave Goelz as the catfish dancing in the water tank and Frank Oz as lead singer and keyboardist Chuck. 

Though filled with old-fashioned charm, Emmet Otter actually employed a savvy blend of age-old puppetry techniques and cutting-edge animatronic technology. Engineering wizard Franz “Faz” Fazakas, a frequent Muppet collaborator, designed the rowboat that could be steered along the set’s 50-foot river, and rigged versions of Ma and Emmet that could be operated via remote control while they were on the water. 

Goelz:  The boat was super high tech. The radio-controlled Emmet and the radio-controlled boat worked together so Emmet could row it around, just like a real rowboat.

Oz: And while the boat was being rowed around, Ma could be singing, because of the remote control. However, when it got into a closer shot, Jim just put the boat in front of the river — so we’re on the studio floor, and the camera’s shooting at us past the river in the background.

Goelz: For close-ups, they wanted to use hand puppets for better manipulation than you can get with a remote control figure. Same thing was done in The Dark Crystal actually, same exact technique.  But then on the same shoot, we also had puppets marionetted. So occasionally in long shots, you’d see Emmet walking across this big wide shot as a marionette. And that was very primitive; they looked pretty silly walking along with their feet kicking out as they walked. But to me it’s all part of the charm. I just love that it’s that way.

‘Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas’ (Photo: Sony Home Pictures Entertainment/ The Jim Henson Company)

Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas premiered on Canadian television in December 1977, followed by an HBO premiere in 1978 and a network premiere on ABC in 1980. The critically acclaimed special provided a groundwork for the Muppets’ feature films, which took Henson’s detailed world-building, groundbreaking special effects, and Muppet-specific cinematic techniques to a new level.  Williams went on to write songs for The Muppet Movie, The Muppet Christmas Carol, and the 2008 stage adaptation of Emmet Otter. The tale of Frogtown Hollow continued to hold a special place in the hearts of those involved — including Henson, who included one of Emmet Otter’s songs in the musical program he designed for his memorial service (held in New York City on May 21, 1990, five days after his death).  

Williams: The last thing that I ever expected was to hear “When the River Meets the Sea” at Jim’s funeral. It was an especially emotional moment in the funeral for me. But I think that the songs in Emmet Otter, and the way that Emmet Otter rolled out, is exactly what Jim wanted. I think it’s a gorgeous little jewel of the Muppets at their best.

Oz: If people made Emmet Otter these days, they would make it for little children. We never made it for children. We just did it for ourselves, and so we enjoyed it for ourselves.

Goelz: None of us talked about it — especially Jim — but I think that this show represented Jim’s philosophy very accurately. And I think in all of our work, a part of it may have been that we were trying to show a world the way we’d like the world to be.

Oz:  It’s such a chancey thing that Jim always did, which is take a chance on real purity and sweetness. We don’t want cloying, we don’t like cute — but sweet is legitimate. And Jim just went for it.

Goelz: You know, we just did two shows with the Muppets at the Hollywood Bowl back in September. They were literally like these long, extended Muppet Shows. And we had packed houses, eighteen thousand people in the audience. You could just feel their hunger for decency, and innocence and whimsy. The world really wants that right now.

Watch Ma Otter sing ‘When the River Meets the Sea’: 

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:

‘Labyrinth’ Turns 30: Brian Henson Shares Memories of David Bowie, Jim Henson, and the Grouchy Goblin Hoggle

Frank Oz admits ‘it hurt’ to give up Muppets, says they’ll never be as ‘touching and soulful’ (exclusive)

‘Princess Bride’ at 30: Cary Elwes on the scene he dreamed up, his battle scar, and those extreme fans

[dustedmagazine]

Dusted Mid-Year Exchange: 2018, Part 2

Part two covers mid-year favorites from H. C. McEntire to Yuzo Iwata.  If you missed part one, check it out here.  

H.C. McEntire — Lionheart (Merge)

Who recommended it? Justin Cober-Lake

Did we review it?  No. 

Ben Donnelly’s take: 

 Country music likes to provide bona fides in the lyrical details. Be it bad boy specifics of a truck model or coffeehouse ballads spiked with animal bones and rusty weathervanes, the singer signals that they know life out on the dirt roads. What's striking about Lionheart is how it delves into the particulars of a North Carolina life, from textile miles to chicory and gardenias. Indeed, nearly every song mentions the local flora, yet such details fall into place incidentally. McEntire describes places where nature is growing over every outbuilding and brick alley. There's a sense of discovery in theses settings where relationships with friends, family and a lover play out. All those vines were too common to notice until now, when love and the gratitude that follows make the mundane vivid.

McEntire longs for the present moment perfected, not a past reconstructed, and that's why her rootsy details don't have anything to prove. She’s comes to this twang a decade after playing the knotted indie rock also endemic to the region, a style that leaves nary a trace musically here. When she sings “I’m the clown who feeds the crows,” she’s both a figure in her natural habitat and someone who knows the other locals are smirking and murmuring, as she wanders on her own.

 Efrim Manuel Menuck—Pissing Stars (Constellation)

Pissing Stars by Efrim Manuel Menuck

Who recommended it? Jonathan Shaw

Did we review it? Yes. Jonathan said that a “mind-scrambling collision of plasticized media culture and geopolitical rapacity provides the thematic impetus for Pissing Stars.”

Bill Meyer’s take:

Words and notes are mere platforms; it’s the blasted, low-definition, high-contrast sound of Pissing Stars that hits you first and leaves a mark. Menuck (founder of Godspeed! You Black Emperor and Silver Mt. Zion) uses grimy sonic filters to amplify an emotional anguish whose extend deeper than the current geo-political situation. The album’s organizing preoccupation is a love affair between TV personality and an arm dealer’s coddled son, which caught Menuck’s attention when he was in his teens (he’s well into his 40s now).  The songs address love and money, and the impossibility of redemption and the yearning to transcend that impossibility, not as binary relationships but as far boundaries of a vast and incomprehensible field.  Menuck sounds broken and partially remade, awash in sounds made to match.

  Mesarthim — The Density Parameter (Avantgarde Music)

The Density Parameter by Mesarthim

Who recommended it? Ian Mathers

Did we review it? Yes Ian admired the way that Mesarthim, “seesaws from something even the staunchest, pettiest gatekeepers would have to admit are metal, to sections featuring patterns and instruments that, in a different context, would make perfect sense at a rave.” 

 Eric McDowell’s take:

“Safe to say that black metal’s got what it takes to make innocent listeners uncomfortable: the corrosive distortion, the pummeling drums, those terrifying roars — not to mention all that netherworldly symbolism, mythology and branding. But if Mesarthim’s keeping somewhat more experienced listeners (Bandcamp dabblers, Dusted midyear exchange reviewers) on their toes, it’s not because they’re doubling down on those tropes. It’s because they take such a free hand with gestures to genres that seem to take the legs out from under their black metal persona.

 Not to overstate the case: The music on The Density Parameter, the Australian duo’s third full-length, is plenty dark and crushing. But then there are the unsettling touches — the synthetic arena-rock drums and boxing-movie-montage keys of “Ω,” the bleeding-heart strings of “Transparency” or the ghoulish club beat of “74%.” To say that Mesarthim sounds like a band bored with convention is really to say that they sound pumped about the possibility of subverting it. And when they want to indulge, they can do that, too, as they prove in the album’s final overpowering minutes.  

  Roscoe Mitchell and the Montreal-Toronto Art Orchestra—Ride the Wind (Nessa)

Who recommended it? Derek Taylor

Did we review it? Yes. Derek said: “Flimsy idiomatic descriptors like jazz, classical and the like are irrelevant to the proceedings, replaced by the umbrella adjectival phrase of organized and energized sound.”

Jonathan Shaw’s take:

Adequately describing music this enormously complex, aesthetically confrontational and confident requires a technical vocabulary and understanding of jazz history that this reviewer lacks. For this 2016 set, Mitchell wrote and worked and played with the 19-piece Montreal-Toronto Art of Orchestra. Their varied instrumentation and dexterous, evocative playing create some dizzying experiences: see the transition out of the choppy clatter of “Splatter” into the lyrical grace of the first few minutes of the title track. From staccato, oddly percussive reeds to undulant brass and strings—it’s a sharp and then gorgeous progress.

A couple reference points occur: Mingus’s orchestral and ambitious Let My Children Hear Music (1972), especially the whirling, swirling “The Shoes of the Fisherman’s Wife Are Some Jive-ass Slippers”; “A Brain for the Seine” (1969), a long composition by the Art Ensemble of Chicago, in which Mitchell has been a key player throughout its long and bewilderingly experimental existence. Those dates invoke the high point of the American free jazz avant-garde, and few personages loomed as largely, or productively, in that period as Mitchell’s.

That begs some questions: Can we still have an avant-garde in the early 21st century? Can a figure as established and prominent as Mitchell produce authentically avant-garde art? If the avant-garde is thought as a political and historically specific phenomenon, likely not; the postmodern and late capital have reduced those possibilities all but completely. But if by “avant-garde” we mean a style, and a style specific to jazz, then this music carries its mark and its intensity. It’s also lovely and bracing to hear Mitchell work through a new arrangement of “Nonaah” here, a song that recalls the mid-1970s cultural environment of its original composition and appearance in Mitchell’s oeuvre. The song caps this set, and in doing so insists that we hear history at work. Thanks, Derek, for recommending this stirring and provocative recording.

 Kacey Musgraves — Golden Hour (MCA Nashville)

Who recommended it? Patrick Masterson

Did we review it? No.  

Derek Taylor’s take:

“Jazz is dead” — it’s a declamatory provocation at once reductive, alarmist and cavalier that’s been floating around for the better part of a half-century, uttered by the idiom’s traditionalists, progressives and detractors alike. The same fatalistic phrase could equally and erroneously be applied to country music. Twenty-nine year old Texan Kacey Musgraves isn’t exactly a corrective to that combative line of thought and her brand of musical expression is fraught with certain stylistic choices (concessions?) that appear cardinal in this age of Country Music Awards commodification. But embrace of pop conventions has always been efficacious strategy going back to Countrypolitan, Western Swing and even The Singing Brakeman.  

Golden Hour, Musgraves’ fourth album, is reportedly a reflection of recently-found, matrimony-rooted optimism, audible in the gilded acoustic guitar melodies that serve as the skeletal frames for the songs around which a warm-blooded corpus of lap steel, banjo, drums and noninvasive keys is fleshed. Her voice is a modest wonder, musing on solitary afternoons leavened and enriched by the safety that comes in knowing that loving companionship is the current and foreseeable norm or using the kitschy metaphor of a “Velvet Elvis” to elucidate her lover’s left-of-center appeal. Apart from others of her age and ascendant success, she seems to cotton that the gifts of prosperity and stardom need not come through the mercenary espousal of whatever pop chart-calibrated admixture the A&R suits and million-bean counters deem worthy of exploitation.

  Olden Yolk—S-T (Trouble In Mind)

Olden Yolk by Olden Yolk

Who recommended it? Ben Donnelly

Did we review it? Yes. Jennifer Kelly said, “The vocals slide over one another like colored transparencies, creating shifting shades and moods.”

Ian Mathers’ take:

“Je suis les enfants/in the barrel of a gun” is a heck of a way to open an album, and the mix of the slightly sinister and the slightly baroque carries throughout the first Olden Yolk record. Which means, yes, building on that proud legacy of twee bands not afraid of the Velvet Underground, and I see those Clientele comparisons and can agree with them too. At points though I also think of early, spikier Go-Betweens. All of which is to say that the considerable charms and pleasures of Olden Yolk are coming from a distinct and well loved (if sometimes underestimated) lineage. There are discernible traces of psych-folk, jangle-pop, even a bit of the tang of the garage in there, but as with any act producing music worth paying attention to, here all those referents are just attempts to point at the contours of the very specific, individual thing Olden Yolk are doing. Whether it’s the brasher likes of “Esprit de Corps” or the lovely eternal sigh of “Gamblers on a Dime” or especially the forbidding sprawl and tangle of the closing “Takes One to Know One,” Olden Yolk build on the past with such verve and panache they never feel of the past.

  John Prine — The Tree of Forgiveness (Oh Boy)

Who recommended it? Isaac Cooper

Did we review it? Yes, Isaac said, “Prine finds his warmest balance yet between boundless empathy and joking detachment.”  

Eric McDowell’s take:

Portrait of the artist as an old man, the cover of John Prine’s first album of original music in 13 years says it all. He looks a bit tossed around, sure, but sly as ever. He’s surrounded by darkness and wearing black, but his face glows. Perhaps he’s “seeing the light,” but he’s gazing right at us, eyes skeptical, mouth ready to crack an acid joke.  

On The Tree of Forgiveness, Prine’s intimate and gruff voice doesn’t so much guide us from light to dark as show us their inseparability. Often they’re embodied in the figures and narratives characteristic of Prine’s music. There’s the down-and-out beggar of the trucking-on opener, “Knockin’ on Your Screen Door” whose family “up and left me / with nothin’ but an 8-track / another side of George Jones.” On “The Lonesome Friends of Science,” there’s the poor washed-up Pluto, “once a mighty planet there / now just an ordinary star / hanging out in Hollywood / in some old funky sushi bar.” While other tunes have an earnest tenderness that makes us want to pin Prine himself as not only their singer but also their subject — the strings-saturated “Summer’s End” or “Boundless Love” (“If I came home, would you let me in / fry me some pork chops and forgive my sins?”) — that risky move is no more tempting than on the closer, “When I Get to Heaven.” “I’m gonna get a cocktail / vodka and ginger ale / and I’m gonna smoke a cigarette that’s nine miles long / I’m gonna kiss that pretty girl / on the tilt-a-whirl / yeah, this old man is going to town”: The plan feels pure Prine, but it’s also sketched as a sing-along, inviting us to share in the fantasy.  

If everyone’s already pointed out that Prine’s always been this way, singing with wit about old age and death and wearing black since the early days, then I guess he’s done his job.

Alasdair Roberts, Amble Skuse & David McGuinness — What News (Drag City)

What News by Alasdair Roberts, Amble Skuse & David McGuinness

Who recommended it?

Bill Meyer

Did we review it? Yes. Bill Meyer said, “Turns out, the news is that Roberts has made the most unabashedly gorgeous record of his career.” Bryan Daly’s take: This inspired trio has shepherded both the songs and the traditional instruments on which they were played from deep in the past and conveyed them to the present, with all the care and fortitude it took to deliver news through the wild countryside in the age when they were written. An old Britain comes vividly alive not only because of the scholarly work that has been done in presenting them faithfully, but also because of the emotions that streak these songs with color. After spending some time with these characters in the world where they live and die, casual understanding of the song's history and meaning becomes insufficient. Digging through the archives for context becomes its own rewarding pursuit. But just as digging through the archives these days can mean typing few words into your phone, the world is another place from when these songs were written. Amble Skuse's subtle weaving of shifting modern noise provides the most sublime moments throughout, like the ambiguous but familiar clacking that opens the album. Is it a camera? A typewriter? A horse? What news is being prepared? Lest we forgot we haven’t slipped into the times when these songs were first sung, a familiar hiss and static of the current grounds us in the now.

Alasdair's ageless tenor also plays well against McGuinness's period instruments (grand piano, dulcitone), illuminating timeworn themes like betrayal and confused notions of honor. Characters are portrayed with such sensitivity that the dust that might have gathered on their stories has been shaken off in travel through time. When the players imbue such reverence for presenting the past as is done here, songs arrive freshly felt. The news travels fast, even through the space of hundreds of years.

 Caroline Rose — Loner (New West)

LONER by Caroline Rose

Who recommended it? Justin Cober-Lake

Did we review it? No

Patrick Masterson’s take:

Loner leads off with a song called “More of the Same,” but such a description could hardly be less apt for Caroline Rose’s third full-length. In the wake of 2014’s I Will Not Be Afraid, Rose took her catchy but simple country-tinged folk, her insecurities and her formidable wit and lathered a thick coat of synth-tinged pop on it. Press materials cite Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears as inspirations, both of which seem like more than lip service (check the FutureSex/LoveSounds vibe of “To Die Today” and, well, this cover of “Toxic”), but perhaps the most clear pop parallel is on the significantly altered (and, hence, appropriately titled) “Soul No. 5,” where her shog-off attitude toward admirers recalls Nicki Minaj or peak-era Ke$ha before she dropped the dollar sign: “I like to hit ‘em and quit ‘em / That’s just my style,” she shrugs with flair.

Bang, bang and away she goes is right: Whether it’s this kind of forthright pop approach or something more serious (and seriously invested) like “Jeannie Becomes a Mom” – I’m still thinking about how she ends with “Now you’re in real life” reverbing out to the point that you can barely understand it before metaphorically clarifying right at the finish – and closer “Animal” or even the funny, cringe-worthy cat-call escalations of “Smile! AKA Schizodrift Jam 1 AKA Bikini Intro,” every song on here moves at a swift clip to showcase some point along the spectrum of Rose’s talent. Call in Britney, call in Ke$ha, call in Angel Olsen, call in The Replacements — none of it seems quite sufficient. Caroline Rose is a league apart and better than she’s ever been.

 Salad Boys — This Is Glue (Trouble in Mind)

This Is Glue by Salad Boys

Who recommended it? Jennifer Kelly

Did we review it? Yes. Jonathan Shaw said, “The contrast of blithe pop with alienated, distraught lyrics is nothing new. This record reinvests that contrast with liveliness and complication.”

Patrick Masterson’s take:

The cover to This Is Glue is almost comically accurate, an album of pastel shades. Listening to “Blown Up,” which kicks off Joe Sampson’s 12-song, 45-minute-long sophomore LP under the Salad Boys name into gear with a propulsive indie-rock fling before segueing into “Hatred,” which… sounds like anything but, gives you the two major speeds of the record in just about nine minutes. So yeah: The Christchurch, New Zealander loads up on soft-baked indie jangle like it’s 1986. In one of Dusted’s first reviews this year, Jonathan described it as “compulsively listenable from the jump,” which is nearly as damning as it is praising. Put it on! Forget it’s on! And on and on and on.

But look at the album art closer and you’ll see the bright speckles of red and that smear of darkness to the left – there’s more going on than initially meets the eye. Same goes for the music; working harder to hear the details rewards multiple plays. Stuff like “Psych Slasher” or “Under the Bed” are fairly overt hits, sure, but there’s also “Scenic Route to Nowhere,” where Sampson’s accent is most evident and there’s this almost Oneida-esque stretch at three-quarters distance; the über-jangle of “Exaltation”; the frontier strings in “Dogged Out”; and “Right Time,” which had me remembering some of my earliest indie-rock encounters listening to 3WK and realizing I had no idea what I didn’t know. Trouble in Mind tells me these lyrics are “more claustrophobic and yearning” than 2015’s more upbeat Metalmania, but the way Sampson barely ever rises above an inside voice even at full emoting had me focusing harder on the guitar tones, frankly; in this way, Salad Boys’ closest analog to me isn’t whatever I forgot from the Left of the Dial box, it’s another Antipodean group increasingly lost to the salads of time: Ides of Space. I mean that as a compliment, and I almost never give stuff like this compliments. Eat up.

 Tove Styrke — Sway (RCA)

Who recommended it? Ian Mathers

Did we review it?  Yes, Ian called it, “ a perfect sparkling little showcase for how much the craft and delivery of this kind of pop song can matter.”

Jennifer Kelly’s take:

Um, yeah, Swedish electro-pop, not my favorite. Ian’s right, though, Styrke is good at what she does, imbuing glossy, focused-tested beats with soft, engaging humanity. “Sway,” one of the singles, has a big sweeping chorus, a sugary blast of “Swaa-aa-aay” that could melt the hardest heart, while “Say My Name” slathers staccato rhythms with giddy female empowerment. Styrke’s girlish voice has a nice touch of vulnerability to it, shading marketable hooks with recognizable human feeling. Production is immaculate, meticulous, air-tight, engineered for maximum impact. You could do worse, obviously. But really, when so many good, less commercially viable bands are vying for your attention, why spend time on stuff that’s doing just fine without you?  

 Yuzo Iwata—Daylight Moon (Siltbreeze)

Daylight Moon by Yuzo Iwata

Who recommended it? Bryan Daly

Did we review it? Yes. Bryan said: “these are deeply thrilling guitar-driven instrumentals with the room-live warmth and sense of play found on the Matrix Tapes, and mentally chasing a melody on any of these songs captivates fully.”

 Jonathan Shaw’s take:

It’s hard to know if “Gigolo” intentionally alludes to “Gigolo Aunt,” one of the most coherent songs on Syd Barrett’s eponymous final record of studio material. But Yuzo Iwata’s delightful tune has the same lively, blithely bouncy quality as Barrett’s, and it plays a similar role on Daylight Moon. “Gigolo” is a space of unadulterated joy on a record that’s otherwise redolent with more difficult feelings. The difficulties are suggested by variations in tone; the record’s instrumentation is invariably simple, with Iwata backed by a straightforward rock combo. That anchors the record in a consistent sonic vocabulary. But Iwata’s playing projects the record onto multiple emotional planes: the meditative lilt of “Up on a Dragonfly”; the foreboding, spaghetti-western shamble of “Border”; the gently somber “Goodnight, Daylight Moon.”

The most intense sounds on Daylight Moon assert themselves on the fuzzily metallic “Drone Beetle” (recorded in 1999, unlike the other songs on the LP, which date from September 2015), and on “Daylight Moon II,” easily the record’s most incendiary performance. It’s got an aching, terrible beauty, and it feels like the fiery catharsis that offsets the goofball charm of “Gigolo.” Both songs are terrific, but “Daylight Moon II” is more vividly present, Iwata’s soloing seeks transcendence. It gets there. I wish it were here longer.

[yourfavouriteadventurer]

Music Review: The Beatles' "White Album"

If you know me personally, you know I love The Beatles. And if you are “too young” to know who The Beatles are, well I’m not going to scream at you right now, but I will say that I’m sixteen and am a bit of a Beatles’ fangirl. Today, we will be looking at The White Album, released in 1968, The Beatles’ third to last album released as a band, but we will also give you listeners some history about the album and how it came to be, but I suppose for our younger audience, it’s proper etiquette to present some background on the band themselves.

The Beatles or The Fab Four were a group of lads from Liverpool, England that became a huge hit during the British Invasion. They started as a small band called The Quarrymen that performed lots of Elvis covers and some original songs at night clubs in Germany. They then moved back to England to get even bigger shows until 1964, where they were booked to perform on The Ed Sullivan Show, kicking off the British Invasion as we know it, as well as paving their way through the hearts of millions, including myself. Overall in their career as a band, they released twelve studio albums, twenty-two singles, and won twenty-five various grammy awards. They split in the April of 1970, releasing their last album a month after, but being in The Beatles’ helped kick off each member’s solo careers as musicians.

The White Album showed us the boys’, now men’s, different tastes in music. They blossomed into something completely different around the time they released Rubber Soul, but it wasn’t until The White Album that they captured their separate styles and compiled them into an album. This change was evident in every member of The Beatles, but was more vivid in the music of both John Lennon and George Harrison. John was basically just mentally gone, mainly because of all the drugs he was into, but who wasn’t doing some form of drug in the late 1960s? Lennon’s drug addiction was apparent in “Happiness is a Warm Gun”, which talks about his sexual relations with his second wife, and “Revolution 9”, which we will talk about in a bit.

George Harrison didn’t really have many of the songs that he wrote debuted until this album, but during the recordings of The White Album, he started recording with a variety of different artists and bands, a couple of whom were Chris Thomas, who played piano and organ for “Savoy Truffle” and “Long, Long, Long”, and Eric Clapton, who played lead guitar for “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. It was apparent in 1966 that Harrison was mentally separating from the group, with him wanting to stop touring and make more albums, but the history in this album really shows that divide starting to form in the band.

Speaking of an unspoken divide, during the recording sessions of The White Album, there was a portion where Ringo Starr, the drummer for The Beatles, just quit the band and didn’t come back for a week. Ringo mentioned the week he quit in The Beatles Anthology, saying: “I left because I felt two things: I felt I wasn't playing great, and I also felt that the other three were really happy and I was an outsider. I went to see John, who had been living in my apartment in Montagu Square with Yoko since he moved out of Kenwood. I said, 'I'm, leaving the group because I'm not playing well and I feel unloved and out of it, and you three are really close.' And John said, 'I thought it was you three!' So then I went over to Paul's and knocked on his door. I said the same thing: 'I'm leaving the band. I feel you three guys are really close and I'm out of it.' And Paul said, 'I thought it was you three!' I didn't even bother going to George then. I said, 'I'm going on holiday.' I took the kids and we went to Sardinia.”

Ringo came back to open arms and George Harrison even decorated his drum kit in flowers for him, and the creation process for The White Album started again! This is absolutely one of my favourite albums by The Beatles. Not only is it their biggest album, with two double-sided records, but it’s their rawest album yet. Everyone’s tastes are in this. George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, John Lennon’s “Julia”, Ringo Starr’s “Don’t Pass Me By” is always a good laugh, but the real beauty is Paul McCartney’s “Blackbird”. It’s definitely one of their more well-known tunes, but I love how beautiful that ballad is, which is why it gets song of the week. Rather difficult to play on guitar, it’s truly a classic from The White Album, especially because it was all Paul. Paul singing, Paul playing the guitar, and Paul keeping time by tapping his foot. If you haven’t heard that song before and you enjoy acoustic music, definitely give that a listen.

The White Album is also unique for not identifying with just one specific genre, but many! Of course, you have your classic rock and pop in the album, but “Helter Skelter” is far away from either of those genres. “Helter Skelter” actually brought some metal into the album and really surprised me when I first gave it a listen. The rest of the album is nothing like “Helter Skelter”, and historically, this song and the album itself come to be a bit shocking, thanks to a guy by the name of Charles Manson.

Manson and his “family” committed several gruesome murders in LA in the late 1960s, including the murder of a popular actress by the name of Sharon Tate. Charles Manson is an dark, mentally ill man that believed The White Album had some biblical meaning behind it. There’s even a Wikipedia page of all of Charles Manson’s “translations” to every song on The White Album. In his trial in 1970, he actively made references to The White Album, as well as the Bible’s Book of Revelations. Charles Manson’s definition of the song “Helter Skelter” is a bit gruesome as a whole, saying that it was discussing a racist Armageddon, with whites against blacks. In reality, the British definition for “helter skelter” is a slide. It’s literally a slide that they have at British fairs.

The album has its weird spots and weird songs, obviously, with the second weirdest being “Revolution 9”, as I mentioned earlier. It’s a bunch of sound clips that John Lennon tied together in an attempt to make something in a music/art experiment called “musique concrète”, which was mainly something Yoko Ono wanted. No surprise. I won’t get into too much into detail, just because this piece is a bit odd, but there are some really weird conspiracy theories revolving around “Revolution 9”. If you choose to read more on Beatles conspiracy theories, start with the “Paul is Dead” conspiracy. Just brace yourself ahead of time.

While The Beatles’ history can get strange in certain spots, their music is still the best out there. If you haven’t listened to any of The Beatles albums before, I wouldn’t recommend starting with The White Album, just because it’s a variety of their works and is not a straight shot into one genre. If you are more into pop music, I definitely suggest to start with their earlier works. Meet the Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, anything pre-1965. If you are more into rock music, that’s where I would suggest anything post-1965. “Helter Skelter” is the closest you’ll get to them playing a song in the metal genre, sadly. Sorry! The first album I would suggest to the average rocker would be Abbey Road, another one of my personal favourites. It was the first vinyl record I got and I still have it. Remastered, in mint condition, sounds absolutely gorgeous. Let It Be is also a great album, even though it is their last album released as a band. It’s got some slow rock jams and ballads, but they are classics for obvious reasons.

The White Album may not have as iconic of a cover as Abbey Road does, but it was obvious that a lot more effort was put into The White Album compared to the other eleven albums that The Beatles released during their career. My vinyl of The White Album came with a poster and the back of the poster has the lyrics to every song on the album. It also came with portrait shots of all of the bandmembers. (George has never looked hotter, and I have seen A LOT of pictures of George Harrison. Don’t get a girl started.)

From the craziness that happened in the studios to the stupidity that happened once The White Album dropped on our shores, and let us not forget the drugs, The White Album is still by far one of the best Beatles albums. I give it a 10/10 for its diversity, but also for its incredibly ridiculous, dramatic and yet interesting history. None of today’s trash can top their iconic masterpieces.

Works Cited

"The Beatles (White Album)." The Beatles Bible. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Jan. 2017. <https://www.beatlesbible.com/albums/the-beatles-white-album/>.

"Helter Skelter (Manson Scenario)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 12 Feb. 2017. Web. 30 Jan. 2017. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helter_Skelter_(Manson_scenario)>.

Lipton, Dave. "That Time Ringo Starr Temporarily Quit the Beatles." Ultimate Classic Rock. N.p., 22 Aug. 2015. Web. 30 Jan. 2017. <http://ultimateclassicrock.com/ringo-starr-temporarily-quits-the-beatles/>.

[loudgentlemenfire]

New Post has been published on https://www.hcdistro.com/store/notekillers-ny-times/

Notekillers in NY Times

Revival for the Notekillers, Still Noisy After All These Years

By SARAH GRANT APRIL 14, 2017

David First, in his Brooklyn apartment, led the noise-rock band the Notekillers, who played the New York music scene in the late 1970s and early ‘80s. Credit Demetrius Freeman for The New York Times

  The student and the teacher faced each other on plain black foldout chairs. It was past 9 on a windy night, and this was David First’s last guitar lesson of the day. The student, Karen D’Ambrosi, a shy 28-year-old marketing manager at Etsy, began strumming one of Mr. First’s electric guitars. He joined in, gently plucking a melody over her chords.

In the next room, Mr. First’s wife, Mira Gwincinska Hirsch, listened in the dark, eating a piece of pumpkin pie. A small table lamp illuminated a jasmine flower in a red vase.

The scene was surprisingly tranquil considering that Mr. First, 63, is something of a lost noise-rock legend. In the late 1970s, his avant-rock band, the Notekillers, performed at clubs that now exist only as urban myths, like CBGB and Hurrah. Their songs were fast, jagged and wordless. They shared stages with volatile performers from Glenn Branca to the Misfits.

Before the lesson, Mr. First sat at his kitchen table with a mug of piping tea, clearly aware that his sedate appearance — cargo pants, button-down shirt, tea — belied his punk credentials.

But evidence of Mr. First’s rock ’n’ roll past abounds in his third-floor walk up in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Every wall seemed to be adorned with a Notekillers concert poster, and the group’s record covers were mounted on bookshelves. Their single, “The Zipper,” turned out to be pivotal for a band that went much further than the Notekillers.

“‘The Zipper’ was one of the Top 10 documents for me at the time,” Thurston Moore, singer and guitarist for Sonic Youth, said in an interview recently. “It was emblematic of the guitar music that inspired me. I mean, this guy was shredding like Hendrix.”

But in those pre-internet days, the Notekillers’ obscurity wasn’t a badge of honor. It was proof to the band that it had failed. One day in 1981, after four years together shuttling back and forth from the Lower East Side to their native Philadelphia, the trio (Mr. First, along with the bassist Stephen Bilenky and the drummer Barry Halkin) took the New Jersey Turnpike home and gave up on the New York music scene.

Photo

Mr. First performing at the Roulette in Brooklyn. “For 25 years, I just thought we had no impact,” he said of the Notekillers. “So to find out that we had a major influence — let alone on Sonic Youth — that was pretty huge.”CreditDemetrius Freeman for The New York Times

“We really weren’t connecting with people,” Mr. First said impassively.

Now, more than 30 years after inspiring Sonic Youth, the Notekillers are coming somewhat closer to having a moment.

The past 12 months have been a kind of renaissance for Mr. First, who released two solo records in addition to a new Notekillers album. He has just returned from performing at the Tate Modern in London as part of an exhibition of the experimental artist Phill Niblock. And he just released an album of pop songs, under the name Star Ballads.

“I’ve always thought David was one of the most underrated musicians,” said Kyle Gann, a Bard College professor and composer, who befriended Mr. First after years of covering his live performances for The Village Voice. Mr. Gann’s son, Bernard, formed the metal band Liturgy after taking guitar lessons from Mr. First. (He also plays bass on the Star Ballads record.)

“David’s music is amazing,” said Mr. Gann, who included Mr. First in his book, “American Music in the Twentieth Century.” “It’ll start strangely out of tune and then it just goes haywire in slow and gradual ways. He’s made the hair on the back of my neck stand up many times.”

Recognition was a long time coming, but one day Mr. First woke up and his fate changed.

About 15 years ago, Mr. First got a phone call from Barry Halkin, the drummer in the Notekillers. The glossy British music magazine Mojo published an article about the musicians who inspired the guitar innovations of Sonic Youth. Among more celebrated favorites, Mr. Moore singled out the Notekillers.

“Honestly, I assumed it was a mistake,” Mr. First said. But he sent a note to Mr. Moore, just to double-check.

The astonishment was mutual.

“I was blown away when David emailed me,” Mr. Moore, 58, said with boyish exuberance. Mr. Moore immediately wrote back and offered to release a Notekillers compilation on his own record label.

Photo

Notekillers circa 1979. From left: Stephen Bilenky, Barry Halkin and Mr. First. CreditBarry Halkin

“For 25 years, I just thought we had no impact,” Mr. First said. “So to find out that we had a major influence — let alone on Sonic Youth — that was pretty huge.”

Mr. First rang his former bandmates to gauge their interest in playing again. The drummer had become a successful architectural photographer. The bassist designed custom-made bicycles.

“I said to them, ‘Maybe the world’s finally ready for us.’”

The compilation Mr. Moore released in 2004 catalyzed the Notekillers’ reunion after 23 years. They released a record in 2010 (“We’re Here to Help”) and another last year, “Songs and Jams Vol. 1.”

The Notekillers — all of whom are 63 — now do gigs at Brooklyn sites with rock bands half their age.

“To think that we’re still doing this at all,” Mr. First said, his voice trailing off. “Not to mention doing it better than we did it the first time, is still unreal to me.”

Mr. First grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in Philadelphia. His parents encouraged him creatively by letting his band, three Grateful Dead-worshiping teenagers (who later became the Notekillers), rehearse in their basement. By 1976, the Notekillers, already entrenched in Philadelphia punk clubs, were drawn by New York’s thriving avant-garde music scene.

But they found the downtown scene was difficult to crack.

“Back then, nobody really knew how to play guitar in a traditional sense,” Mr. Moore said. “And if you did, it was an anomaly.”

Photo

Mr. First giving lessons to Karen D’Ambrosi at his apartment. He has worked quietly as a guitar teacher since the Notekillers disbanded. CreditDemetrius Freeman for The New York Times

Before forming Sonic Youth, Mr. Moore said that his band, the Coachmen, also failed to emerge from the same scene.

By 1984, the Notekillers were over, and Mr. First relocated permanently to Manhattan, working part time as the manager of a cookie store in Midtown. He paid $75 a week to live in a transient hotel, chaining his guitar to his bed before going to work.

A year later, he was laid off from another job, as the manager of an ice cream shop. This was not a setback but a windfall. During six months of paid unemployment, Mr. First finally had time to do music full time, playing solo and with other ensembles he formed. And, critically, he amassed a cadre of students to teach guitar for extra cash when necessary. He never worked a 9-to-5 job again.

As a free musician, Mr. First has flourished. Now he is considered a beacon of futuristic sound among experimental composers.

Though much of his music is heavily electronic, at a recent performance at the Roulette theater in Downtown Brooklyn, Mr. First switched among very traditional acoustic instruments during a suite of improvisations: a crimson sitar, a scalloped-neck electric guitar from Vietnam and a harmonica (just the regular kind). His ensemble partners were equally diverse: a violist, a trombonist and a percussionist.

“People who know me in these contexts would be very surprised to find out I’d been in this crazy rock band,” Mr. First said.

As are his students. Today, Mr. First composes and records from his Greenpoint apartment thanks to an amalgam of creative grants and commissions. Through it all, he has maintained his side gig as a guitar teacher.

Ms. D’Ambrosi, the Etsy employee, asked Mr. First for guitar lessons through a mutual musician friend five years ago. “I remember seeing on Facebook that he was in this band, but we didn’t really discuss it,” she said. “We just play Bob Dylan and Neil Young.”

A version of this article appears in print on April 16, 2017, on Page MB1 of the New York edition with the headline: SNoisy After All These Years. Order Reprints