#two star & the dream police

[sleepyghostmp3]

Mk.gee - ROCKMAN fan art animation

[somethingxxweird]

[bangers2]

Weekly Music Roundup 28/6/24 :)

Heya! I've had a lot more free time lately to listen to some new music, so I'm going to be sharing what I listen to each week through a Friday Tumblr post. I'm aiming to listen to an album (or EP, compilation, DJ mix, etc etc) a day, and this week my schedule wasn't perfect, but I found a lot of great stuff nonetheless and want to talk about it!

Look at this pic I took omg. just wanted 2 share ^_^

Tinashe - BB/ANG3L (2023)

I'd always been aware of Tinashe, but hadn't taken the time to deep dive into her discography until she dropped the Nasty remix EP (JANE REMOVER REMIX????). "Nasty" is a banger obviously, but a lot of stuff on BB/ANG3L is excellent as well! She traverses so many genres with ease and excels at each of them. This is such a diverse showing, and it's very concise as well, having a runtime of just 20 minutes. I feel like anyone can find something they vibe with on here. Personally, my favourite track was "Gravity," a song with gentle vocals juxtaposed with a bit of a breakbeat moment. I always love a breakbeat and was shocked to hear one on here. Overall, BB/ANG3L was short enough to leave me wanting more, but in a good way. I hope that she builds upon this sound and vibe with her next album! I'm super excited to listen to Quantum Baby and listen to the rest of Nashe's discography.

Jane Remover - jane_remover_heatwave.zip [NTS Radio] (2024)

Real ones know that I am Jane Remover's no.1 fan. That is a vast exaggeration, but I love her music to bits and greatly enjoy these DJ sets she does. Each one has a different vibe and the ones she's been doing lately have been my favourites ever. The mixing is immaculate and the tracks she mashes up are always so unexpected but go so well together. I really loved heatwave, especially the mashup between her song "Lips" and the Carti song "Different Day." So damn hard. These sets are always the highlight of my month and always become mainstays in my DJ mix rotation. Give it a listen!

Mk.gee - Two Star & the Dream Police (2024)

I was a little intimidated to listen to Mk.gee (Mike Gordon), since I've heard so many great things about him. However, I heard "Are You Looking Up" in Jane Remover's new DJ mix and fell in love with it instantly. The guitar playing intrigued me since it sounded so...different to what I'm used to. The control Mike has over his instrument is phenomenal and allows him to create these really unique sounds and textures. There's a wonderful energy to all of these songs that I can't quite place. Due in part to the interesting guitar sounds, but also the really distant-sounding vocals, nostalgic melodies, and bits of noise peppered about, this album vaguely reminds me of something that would be heard in an empty building. Not the backrooms or anything, but like...a quiet mall in the suburbs. Is that weird? Probably. On songs like "Candy" the melodies sound really 80s to me for whatever reason, and...I don't know. The nostalgia? Regardless of whether I've placed the vibe or not, Two Star is a wonderful collection of hopeful, sweet guitar melodies interspersed with little bits of noise. I need more people to get on the Mk.gee train RIGHT NOW. What are you even doing with your life if you haven't listened to this? I can seriously see Mike becoming an all-time great.

lil hero - pawwwfect! (EP) (2023)

Okay, this is another one I found from Jane's set. "big flirt" is such a bop, and it sounds kind of familiar to me (upon further research, the song went viral in 2022 ish...I have no recollection of that year tbh.). It's a song that instantly puts a smile on your face with its sweet bubblegum production and wonderful vocals. This whole EP sounds like bright pink. There are pitched-up samples, bouncy uptempo grooves, and cute lyrics about falling in love all across pawwwfect, and I eat that shit up. I need lil hero and PinkPantheress to collab; I feel like that could change my life. All in all, it's a great 16-minute project that makes me feel like a...chihuahua in a pink purse. Which is exactly how I want to feel. Excited to hear what lil hero does next! :3

Radiohead - In Rainbows (2007)

I've definitely listened to In Rainbows before but I don't think I ever properly digested it. It's an overwhelming album to take in upon first listen. I revisited it a couple days ago after not really liking it the first time I listened to it, and needless to say it clicked for me. I still need to listen to this a couple thousand more times to really get it, but as of right now I think In Rainbows is an excellent and innovative record that is as thought-provoking lyrically as it is gorgeous sonically. The whole album made me feel like I was spinning. I don't know why or how, but I physically felt sort of dizzy, like the world was trembling around me. Strange how music can do that. It's magic.

Not on free Soundcloud smh

Jelani Aryeh - The Sweater Club (2024)

I got this album in my Apple Music (do NOT judge me or you're BLOCKED. STOP IT.) recommended before it came out and was really drawn to the album art. As the no.1 "person lying on grass" fan and president of "person lying on grass" NATION I was intrigued, but also had absolutely no idea who Jelani Aryeh was hahah. I presaved but didn't listen to any of his discography and just listened to it when I realized it was out. The Sweater Club is a wonderful collection of indie pop jams that are warm and summery. The art matches the music super well - I felt like I was lying in the grass on a breezy summer morning as I listened, and am definitely turned on to more of Jelani's music now. Holy shit this was such a gorgeous record.

Kevin Abstract - Blanket (2023)

I listened to this at like...2 am and have no recollection of it, other than that it was filled with jams. I really liked "The Greys." Will probably have more to say about it after another listen hahaha.

Couldn't find this on Soundcloud, sorry!

Okayyyy and that was every album I listened to this week! (minus the relistens...which there were many of lol.) I hope you enjoyed reading my little ramblings and I hope you have a great week to come :)

Now i am going to sleep. In the morning i will listen to tonight's new releases. Today is stacked tbh

[kosite]

mk.gee - dazed autumn 2024 impossible issue

[chroniclesofnadia111]

💫💫💫💫✨✨✨✨

[asteticas]

#NOWPLAYING | MK.GEE — TWO STAR & THE DREAM POLICE - LP.

DATE | FEBRUARY 9, ℗2024.

#ASTÉTICASradio

[august-sysex]

mk.gee live for jil sander FW24

[dreampoliced]

changed my username bc the whole “kingsnara” thing was getting a little too 2017 for me. also bc i fucking love mkgee lol

[escalenas]

Oh, my love Oh please, put me out I believe that you owe me this time Can't believe how you killed me tonight I'm taking all my love

Mk.gee - Dream police (Live)

[celticanglopres]

Mk gee - I Want (Official Audio)

[pl4ycousin]

mike at home, 2023 (bradleyjcalder)

[sinceileftyoublog]

Mk.gee Live Show Review: 10/3, Vic Theatre, Chicago

Photo by Will Shaw

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Two Star & The Dream Police (R&R), the debut studio album from L.A.-based singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Mk.gee, feels like an album of endless possibilities. Its palette--effected guitars, metallic drum machines, rubbery synths--creates a wholly abstract sound, but one with enough up-front elements to wake you from the dream. The first time I listened to it, I was reminded of albums like Frank Ocean's Blonde and Bon Iver's 22, A Million, because they all share not an aesthetic (though individual moments are similar) but a penchant for world-building, the type with the potential to grow beyond the album's initial release.

Indeed, live, the world of Two Star & The Dream Police expands exponentially. Last Thursday, Mk.gee played the Vic Theatre in Chicago, performing the entirety of the album, but in a different order just as cohesive as that of the record itself. He entered on stage obscured, the light show not yet kicking in. Mk.gee is Michael Gordon, but he's the type of artist who could ostensibly operate in anonymity without it being annoying, toeing the line between the mysterious and the uncanny. As such, it felt appropriate that the crowd screamed not at the sight of the artist, but the opening disintegrating haze of "Dream police". If you were going in cold, you might hear his strong vocals delivering yearning lines like, "I'll bleed tonight / She lit the world on fire / The dream police is alive," atop stadium-sized heartland rock replete with chintzy synths, and think the song was once part of the soundtrack to an 80s road-trip movie. Such is the magic of Mk.gee and his ability to tap into the blurry years gone by.

Then, he broke character, screaming, "CHICAGO!!!" The same way the sound of a piano or saxophone on Two Star & The Dream Police can ground you, Mk.gee reminded the crowd that he was Michael Gordon. It bears saying that throughout the show, both the impressionism and rawness expanded. Like Adam Granduciel of The War on Drugs, Gordon knows the power of a well-timed vocal whoop when playing a nostalgic-sounding song, like "How many miles". The light show often moved in sync with the music, giving noodling songs like "Breakthespell" a tactility it lacks on the studio version, making you aware of how the band pulled back parts piece by piece. Really, the lights often clued you in to the tone Mk.gee was going for. On "Little Bit More", a song that somehow combines a sea shanty sway with a guitar funk bounce, the lights looked like the extension of the table hosting all of Zack Sekoff's sample pads and sequencers, as if to suggest that the sounds you were hearing were conducted in a lab for maximum induction of awe. Truly, every time Sekoff triggered the occasional blast of distortion, the high teenagers behind me screamed, "What the fuck?!?" as if they couldn't believe what they were hearing. For the record, I was screaming it in my head.

As much as Mk.gee is occasionally flashy (the prickly, disjointed guitar solo on "Candy" comes to mind), their live show had me thinking that never has a band (Gordon, Sekoff, guitarist Andrew Aged) done so much work to create a vibe. In the hands of lesser musicians, the sheer number of samples and effects would come off as braggadocious maximalism. During Mk.gee's show, on the other hand, nothing included was superfluous. The hissing drums, riffs, and vocals--themselves an instrument--on "You got it" combined for the most satisfying Hornsby-indebted slow jam since "Beth/Rest". The strobe-lit industrial drums and auto-tuned vocals added a tongue-in-cheek temper to "New Low", a song that chides artists who try too hard to be someone else. Even the fact that Mk.gee played "DNM" a whopping five (!) times total, three during the main set, and two during the encore, seemed to serve to emphasize that you, too, probably had it on repeat the first time you heard it. Each time the band began it anew, Gordon looked over his shoulder and screamed, "ZACK!", an instruction to Sekoff to begin its swollen drum introduction; the audience sang along, "Never want to talk about it, how come? / Never want to talk about it, with no one?" louder with every instance.

It seems almost unfair to say that Mk.gee's show at the Vic was the best I've seen all year, and if I had to rank it, I might consider it the show of the decade so far. At the risk of sounding like an insufferable hippie, the show was an experience, one that constantly defies easy categorization and your expectations. When the band closed with an absolutely cheap-sounding instrumental cover of Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" that also seemed to adopt the melody of Andrea Bocelli's, "Con te partirò", I laughed, but I also realized that the heel turn was more emblematic of Mk.gee than any of the Dream Police songs. He's always got one foot planted in the past, but he's always one step ahead.

[joni-witchell]

Holy shiiiiiit...this MK. gee album is...it's insane

[reckonslepoisson]

Two Star & The Dream Police, Mk.gee (2024)

Mk.gee comes highly praised by Eric Clapton, and that’s impressive! After all, the last guy to get major praise from Clapton was Enoch Powell – and better yet, Mk.gee’s tunes aren’t even vaguely problematic. Instead, they’re gently but thoroughly inventive croonings, these songs’ trick (and there is only really one trick) being that they’re a little disorientating, both distant in their cavernous echoes and intimate in their emotionality. Sort of liminal.

Pick: ‘Alesis’