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declanlikesmusic · 1 year ago

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Today's Listens: Episode 005

August 10th, 2023

So I'm writing this one the morning after and that makes it seem like I didn't have time to write because I was busy that day, but the truth was, I was on a day off and I wanted to marinate on my thoughts before putting pen to paper before, oops, my mood soured at the end of the night. Hopefully I'll get back on track in the coming days, or else I might end up having to skip days for this. Yay.

Just a content warning. At least one of the album covers here has depicted nudity, with a particular instance needing to be censored. I'm using a censored cover art sourced from Spotify, yet I don't even know if that's gonna be enough for this to fly under Tumblr's radar. Let's hope.

Infinity Frequencies – Between two worlds (2018)

I started yesterday off with an Infinity Frequencies album. This artist may very well be argued as being one of, if not the greatest broken transmission producer working today, but I was hesitant to go back to this one in particular. Namely because, on previous listens, the record felt a little too ambient and sparse to really captivate me. Luckily, since my last checking-out of this album, there was this phenomenon I call the Pad Chenningtonification (patent-pending) where a popular YouTuber shouts out a record that is not the artist's best work and it becomes commonly seen as their best work. Yay. Luckily I was fresh off of finding out that their 2015 album Into the light was way better than I initially thought it was, so I got to this one with an open mind and was treated to an experience that was only just barely consistently great. This is still not their best album in my view, but I'm glad that I can at least say I pretty much loved my experience here. Check this out, but also check out Computer Death and Into the light and I guarentee, you will find yourself a fan of InFreq at the end of the day.

7.5 / 10

Highlights: Under the city, Replica encounter, Between two worlds, Synthetic remains, Obsolete request, The time that remains Unraveling

Xepter Rose – Selenitic Landscapes (2014)

This one's a little random, but if you know death's dynamic shroud in any capacity, you'll be surprised to find that one of the members James Webster has made some ambient music on the side! Just as the trio were taking off, he made a pretty decent progressive electronic experience. I'm a little biased because I really loved his Virtual Utopia Experience visual thing, but two of the best tracks here show up on that movie as well and of course, they're great here. Aside from those two and Clock Tower Ruin, I cannot say that I am fully enamoured with this one. It's often sprawling and sparse in a way that doesn't flatter it all too much for me. That said, if you like modern synth ambient music, I'd give this one a shot. I already like it, but you might love it more than I do.

7.0 / 10

Highlights: Meteor Storm, Perpetual Twilight, Pottery & Stairs, Clock Tower Ruin

Magdalena Bay – mini mix vol. 3 (2023)

I wanted to cover more music from the current year, so I rolled upon this tiny mixtape from the rising pop duo Magdalena Bay. I wasn't expecting too much out of this one, just a one-off of decent tracks, but I found myself really in love with this one! It comes off as a mini mix, duh, of new material and they're all blended together very seamlessly while still coming across as their own songs! From the underrated intro to the simultaneously catchy and almost ascendent run of cuts by the end, they've knocked this one out of the park! It's not much (again, mini) but if you need a pop palette cleanser for just a quarter of an hour, this will undeniably satiate that for you!

8.2 / 10

Highlights: Slug Song, Top Dog, Tonguetwister

Torn Hawk – Through Force of Will (2014)

This one comes from an artist that always allured me from the mysterious realms of hypnagogic pop and specifically this tape and its glitchy cover art ripping an iconic still from a movie, I can't tell which. We have elements all over this record that primarily pull from outsider house and some of the tracks here are honestly great. They don't seem that captivating at first, but as they draw on, they start to become hypnotic. I really dug this one. I don't think every track works for me, this one again straddled the line between like and love for me, especially with the ambient cuts, but if you're already a fan of hypnagogic pop and want to dive in further, I'd totally suggest this one!

7.5 / 10

Highlights:

HELLCOM – ACID MP3s (2016)

Here's where things start to turn sour for me. I adore HELLCOM, I really do. His two concept albums under this alias, spanning mere months between eachother, are among the most creative, captivating and awe-inspiring vaporwave albums in the Business Casual catalogue! I'd recommend them to anybody, even non-fans of the genre who've already dipped their toes in. However, as a big fan of the format of DJ mixes, rating the two that he's put out before moving on to HDMIRROR are difficult. Timestamping this one specifically was particularly hellish; there are tracks listed that I'm convinced don't show up here, so that made rating this nearly impossible. I pushed through it though, but not without a little bit of a headache. His plunderphonic electropop and EDM sensibilities shine through here, but in the most surreal, glitch-centric ways possible that I struggle to fully recommend unless you huge fans of those sounds. Try it at your own risk; I liked it, but the more I thought about it, the less sense it just made for me.

7.2 / 10

Highlights: She Doesn't Mind, Hunter / N-Trance Forever, TIll I Come (Remix), Everytime

Xiu Xiu – A Promise (2003)

I've always been torn on Xiu Xiu. They have albums that I fully love and I'll get to those when I do, but the reason why I haven't covered them yet was because I was very hesitant to find the right time and mood for their sophomore effort that I remembered really liking but also not knowing why. I bit the bullet and just decided to finally go for this and I really don't think this was ever meant for me. I think I was lying to myself then. Don't get it twisted, it's obviously good, but it is surreal and incredibly depressive. It's often sparse in ways that, again, don't work for me, but it can also be very noisy in ways that just don't capture me. The whole thing is completely unhinged and that's no thanks to the themes of suicide throughout that just really disconnect me from the experience. I at least appreciated the Fast Car cover and how the record was trying to start out, but as it went on, I almost stopped respecting it entirely. This is purely for fans of experimental and post-industrial music that enjoy records that are this sad and intense to listen to.

6.4 / 10

Highlights: Sad Pony Guerrilla Girl, 20,000 Deaths for Eidelyn Gonzales, 20,000 Deaths for Jamie Peterson, Fast Car

Deftones – Around the Fur (1997)

By this point, I felt like I was ready for pretty much anything after that, so I thought: fuck it, why not tackle some metal? Nu metal specifically. We have Deftones' sophomore album here, I've already enjoyed other work of theirs, especially Ohms, so what could go wrong here? Well, it definitely sounds good. The recording quality is about as good as what you'd expect from any popular subgenre of modern metal. The performances are tight as well, they honestly put a lot of thought into the energy of the record. So what gives, how come I don't love it? Well, you see, they have to be songs. This is why metal struggles a lot for me, it hardly finds any hooks or riffs that function as hooks or riffs. One of the only moments that were at all memorable to me was the first ten seconds of it and I only know it because I know it was used as a sample; I don't love this riff! The only other thing I remember was the closing track and it's pretty cool use of back-and-forth backing vocals. I found that to be cool! Otherwise, this just functioned as a metal album to me and I can sadly say not much more. If you like metal, go for it, but that's not for me.

6.4 / 10

Highlights: My Own Summer (Shove It), Mascara, Around the Fur, MX

3RA1N1AC – H1551NG PRI95 1N 5TAT1C COUTUR3 (1996)

So, how could my evening get any worse? Well, you see, I was approaching my 1,337th rating at this time, my leet rating as I was anticipating. I was given Hissing Prigs in Static Couture by a few friends and it looked like a perfect match for it! However, I am, as the doctors would say, an R slur and briefly missed that milestone when I heard Around the Fur. I didn't want to let that slide, so I cheated by swapping these two albums' placements, but I'm still gonna talk about this after Around the Fur because this was just not a good end to my night. I expected a pretty loud, semi-raucous, energetic and wild listen of a rock & punk and I'm glad to say that I've got it! But in a way that was not very good to me. At first, I thought this record was gonna be okay; not for me, but an enjoyable & worthwhile listen nonetheless, but um. It didn't even last long as that for me either. This listening experience was constantly diminishing returns and I'm too tired even now to fully express why, other than the noises, the instruments, the melodies and especially the vocals got more and more grating with each and every track. I thought by the start, I was merely losing interest and getting tired, but at a certain point, this album just lost it. By the end, this came off as completely obnoxious and irritably annoying. I know I disappointed my friends with that, but that's just how it felt to me. I'm sorry, but the way this closed my night was a complete letdown and while you're likely to enjoy it more than I do, I'd personally steer clear of it unless it interests you.

4.1 / 10

Highlights: 1ND1AN POK3R (PART 3), PU55YFOOT1N'

So yeah, I'm sorry to rant, but that sucked. I couldn't muster up writing any of that until the following morning because I was just having a hard time comprehending how sour I felt by the end of this. I want to make it clear, this is not to the fault of any of the musicians and it's definitely not the fault of the people that recommended them either. This was all just me and not having good ears. Overtime, I've started to realise that my wishlist was looking less and less appealing as I've knocked more ratings out. I don't think I'm gonna purge it, but I might just try to clean it up at some point and realise where I've gotta draw the line for some of these artists, because over 750 of them unfathomable at this point. I'll see ya next time.

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