#this album is very sweet. kimya seems nice

[tooblindtizzy]

i don't know if uhm you heard of mitski or Kimya dawson but Millie as a Kimya Dawson album OR MK as a mitski album

runs off

slowly but surely getting back into these again, got that many more redraws in my procreate folders

(og album under the cut)

[rockandrollportlandor]

ROCKET 3 - What’s the Frequency?

Local singer-songwriter Ramune Nagisetty fronts Rocket 3, a breezy, totally charming indie pop group that seems more criminally underexposed each year remain aware of them. Their new record, "What's the Frequency?", comes out today. Rocket 3’s music is sweet and cute and light, despite the pain and need often expressed in the lyrics. It’s so candy-colored and bouncy it’s tempting to call it twee, but there’s a maturity belying the impression of innocence here. At moments on this EP, entitled “What’s the Frequency?”, Rocket 3 sounds like some funny mix of 00’s “freak folk” icon Kimya Dawson, whose songs littered the “Juno” soundtrack, and the contemporary indie pop heavyweights Alvvays, whose romanticism evokes a post-adolescent whose heart is burning, but whose toes are also frozen solid by an Ontario winter—a.k.a. being old enough to know better. But Ramune doesn’t convey the same irritating preciousness that Dawson does; nor does she possess the pleasurably crushing emotionality of Alvvays. Rocket 3’s music exists on a small scale—catchy, effortlessly enjoyable, simple and direct. Like a non-bipolar Daniel Johnston, she invokes an anxious innocence dreaming of love—“You are my favorite everything,” she sings on “Favorite Thing”, and I have to say I don’t know many people who could pull off such a sweet lyric and not come off as cutsey in the worst way. Even when she sings of a breakup on “Giving Up”, it’s hard to believe her—the music is just too happy—she can’t stop writing sweet tunes. I could almost imagine some of these songs being radically-reworked in their arrangements, but preserved in their essence, and being sold to Carly Rae Jepsen or somebody like that. Fortunately, that will never happen, but Rocket 3’s songs, co-written on this album by Ramune and bassist Kenneth Faust, have, in their own way, the same ruthless devotion to pop essentials as those of the great techno-pop svengalis who dominate the Clear Channel radio. “What’s the Frequency” is a nice sounding album, clear, warm, and up close. Ramune’s voice sounds cherubic, her slight rasp and tonal roundness well-captured, barring some moments where a pitch corrector of some kind is disruptingly evident. Her voice, humble, steadfast, slightly overwhelmed, always sighing a little, is a kind of inverse strength, conveying emotion through gentleness instead of power—if you’ve ever seen me sing, you’d know why this is almost exotic to me. Arrangements are simple but effective, with some clutch moments of bass melody and a bit of sax here and there to spice things up. Purity is a quality I personally value highly as a listener, although I couldn’t exactly specify further what I mean by “purity”. Intention, sentiment, performance… I’m always looking for people who seem to be being themselves, I guess—if you’re playing a character, it’d better be pretty outrageous one. Rocket 3 isn’t a band that makes grand gestures or shifts paradigms. They’re just a charming little indie pop group doing their thing very very well, and I’ve never heard them do it better than here. Sometimes an ice cream cone is just an ice cream cone, but it’s just as welcome at the end of a summer day.