Music

August 29, 2023

Oneohtrix Point Never - Nil Admirari

Good god. Okay, first of all, GOOD FUCKING GOD. Holy fucking shit.

As an opener track I think this is the greatest. Listen... this was my first impression of Oneohtrix Point Never. The first song I ever heard from him. And by God am I glad. This song... this fucking song. It- ugh. Like, Jesus, man...

It opens on some loud, distorted, glitchy screams before transitioning into erratic, cacophonous percussion layed on top of a loud, bombastic, but strangely pretty-sounding synth. And it keeps going. It keeps fucking escalating. There's no room to take breaks, there's no room to breathe, it's just SCREAMING, it's screaming and it's the synth and it's the percussion and the screaming and the synth and everything on top of it and the screaming and all the weird sounds being made and the glitching and the way everything starts to fuck up and the way everything is fighting for attention and how it all comes crumbling down... and there's no room to breathe, there's no room to take breaks, the synth is gone for the most part and all that's left is this, this ominous sound that reminds me of pots being hit but tuned to some sort of weird melody, and now there's a weird distorted guitar thing being played on top of this and the synth is getting louder and it's getting raised up an octave and it's getting higher pitched and it's playing that same melody over and over and the glitchy percussion is back and it sounds like a washing machine and the synth is getting overpowered by the percussion and the synth, I thought I heard the synth from before just now but maybe not, and it REALLY sounds like a washing machine now, there's a lot of beeps playing at this point and everything is fighting for attention once again and it's weirdly quiet now, but there's a weird static in the background and everything is still glitching like shit, and now... the screaming is back and now the percussion is on top of it and so is this droning synth and it's all on top of each other and the scream keeps looping - is that dude okay? - and now it's making a chord and now it's fading out and... oh. It's over. The song is finished.

It's like death. Everything that could go wrong is going wrong. Everything's fucked up and you're trying to fight it. And at some point you let go. And it fades to black. This is controlled chaos. This is a method in the madness. This is beauty in dissonance. This is what Everything sounds like to me. This song, to my ears, sounds like the culmination of all that there is. It's amazing. It's fucking beautiful. It's total sensory overload like I've never heard it before, but it... it's really powerful in a way that I can't put my finger on. The only thing I've heard that I can think of that might come close to this is Better Without The Head from Wolfshirt. It's just really, really fucking pretty. This song is beautiful. Amidst all of this madness and insanity there is something to be taken from this, there is some reprieve to be found. That loud, distorted synth and the overpowering screams come together to create this symphony of complete and utter chaos and derision that somehow manages to be profoundly beautiful and meaningful. There's no way that I can think of to describe it other than that. Those first few seconds alone describe it all. This first song remains my favorite song by OPN and my new favorite opening track. It's amazing and visceral and vivid and panic-inducing and calming in a way no other song that I know of seems to match. This is what Everything sounds like.

August 9, 2023

Oneohtrix Point Never - Ezra

My Oneohtrix Point Never obsession started last week. I have never been happier to listen to music. It is certainly rather nice to take a break from the unhealthy amounts of braindance I listen to as Autechre has completely won over my heart ever since that last post in April (jesus christ). LP5 has replaced or at least tied with Kid A as my favorite album of all time. It is masterful. Except for Melve. I don't really like Melve. But this isn't about Autechre or Radiohead, this is about Oneohtrix Point Never! So what's this about? What's so special about this song? Well, there's a certain thing that happens a minute in – just listen, you'll probably know what I'm talking about – that sounds fucking fantastic. Like, okay, I have a lot of favorite parts of songs that sound really good on their own despite being relatively short lived, short lived enough to the point where they're not the entire song; the understated melody near the end of Rushup i Bank 12 by The Tuss, the intro to I'll Be Alright by Passion Pit, the pretty little cadence (or whatever it is) that plays on the piano in Sit Down. Stand Up by Radiohead right before the final part of the song starts, and the beautiful-sounding string/synth symphony that comes in at the middle of The Whether Channel by Oneohtrix Never. But about that last part, OPN has a lot of really good small parts of his music that just appear and disappear and this one is no different. The minute mark sounds fucking amazing. It sounds like something I've heard before. It sounds extremely fucking invigorating in a way no other song does. It made me wnat to go back and revive this piece of shit blog just so I could write about it. It's THAT GOOD.

April 30, 2023

Autechre - Rae

My Autechre obsession started last week. I have never been happier to listen to music. It started with Amber – I'm guessing I just didn't have time for Incunabula at the time – and continued onto LP5 where it ended with a pause. Amber was okay, Tri Repetae was fantastic, Chiastic Slide was underwhelming but still good, and LP5 was perfect, fucking perfect, in every sense of the word. I don't think I've ever listened to an IDM album more ingeniously composed and masterfully crafted than LP5. Every part of it is pristine. It is so loaded with emotion behind the intricate drum rhythms and synths that when I got to Rae part of me thought I might cry. I didn't, but it was still incredibly moving. This... song, is melancholy, it emanates hope but also despair, it is perfect from start to end. It starts with the chords overlaid over fast, yet calm, drum samples with a distorted kicck? something? Hitting something, compliments the drums. Autechre has always been really, really good with chords and braindance; Clipper is a defining example of this. Around two minutes and thirty seconds in, the strings get introduced, a perfect instrument to act as the perfect addition. It makes the entire song. And then the song rids itself of its frantic drums, and almost takes a sigh of relief, and transitions into a calmer interlude where the strings take centre stage. This is the disdainful part, but it really depends. Every instrument here starts to play a bigger role in the song. Every note that is played on them is meaningful and perfectly gloomy. They are interspersed among each other ingeniously. They compliment every single one of each other. It's like a group of people, or a group of somethings, looking out for their own, singing a symphony of grief. It's like something has happened, and this is the aftermath.

It has, above everything, become one of my favourite songs of all time. Actually? Fuck it. Kid A isn't my favourite album anymore. LP5 is. I had no idea what I was missing. LP5 is so unbelievably amazing, masterfully crafted and everything. The first impressions of this album are fucking amazing. Acroyear2 is, on its own, genuinely brilliant and wonderfully energetic. I have never been blown away by an album on first listen more than I have with LP5. I haven't felt like this since the opening four notes to Everything In Its Right Place. Confield is next. I'm taking a break from this album binging to just appreciate what I've got here. The reviews for each album are here, if you need them:

• Amber (1994)
• Tri Repetae (1995)
• Chiastic Slide (1997)
• LP5 (1998)

April 9, 2023

Thom Yorke - Not The News

Binged Tomorrow's Modern Boxes, then I binged Anima. What a wonderful, depressing Easter. I first heard this in the short film that aired on Netflix. I was the only one in my family that watched it. Nobody else was really into it. It's really only my mum and dad who are big into Radiohead. Everyone else in my family is meh. If they were there they would have loved it. It was a very odd film, but it was a good kind of odd. I liked it very, very much, the cinematography was great and Thom's acting was perfect, although you can't call it acting much. Not The News played in this one. I liked it. Back then I was a motherfucker. I had only listened to Dawn Chorus. Some months passed and I listened to another Dawn Chorus (the Boards of Canada one). And then, like, a week or two passed and I listened to all of Anima. And I listened closely, I didn't just leave it in the background and zone out like I do usually. I think both Tomorrow's Modern Boxes and Anima are wonderful, brilliant pieces of work - masterpieces, even - that deserve more recognition.

Who are these people?, Im in black treacle, Cue sliding violin, in sympathy ... It starts off rather simple at first, like most of Thom Yorke's solo work, but it's a bit different because it's not just a bunch of synth chords but rather these layered spacy beeps and shit that shouldn't sound good but they do. And it's a very eerie and foreboding song, I think, but not in the sense that some of the more melancholy songs are, it has more of a sense of clarity that tempers it a bit but I think that makes it better. And then 2:28 comes around and everything changes. WHAM! Orchestral synth evil wizard shit happens in the background, and it suddenly becomes this large-scale symphony of, cue sliding violion , in sympaathy ... Im not running, enough of broken glass, and then it finishes off on these vilions and it sounds like it's about to be REAL SHIT, but alas, it really isn't, but that's okay. The next song is really, really good, so it makes up for it.

March 24, 2023

Carpenter Brut - Le Perv

Do I even have to explain my fucking reasoning behind this? Answer: no. Fuck you.

March 22, 2023

Thom Yorke - Interference

It was just after the previous post that I decided to go out and get some of Thom Yorke's solo work. I had previously listened to some songs off of The Eraser and Tomorrow's Modern Boxes (specifically The Mother Lode), but at some point I just decided to get Tomorrow's Modern Boxes and ANIMA and listen to them the whole way through. I do this with the logic that, somewhere, in my vast library of studio-quality music sitting on an external hard drive, my new favourite song is there, just waiting to be listened to. It gives me the drive to sometimes just kick back and turn on an entire album and just listen to it as I do my work. I usually do this as soon as I get an album, and I end up taking away new favourites from it that I then play repeatedly for the years to come.

Interference is absolutely no different. This beautiful, solemn melody so wrought with apathy and helplessness for the direction we as people are steering towards – there's a message here, and it's one that resonates with me on so many levels. In all of this song's gorgeous simplicity there is something to take away here amidst all the ominous synths and eerie vocals. And I love that. For the amount of songs I listen to that are these intricate, chaotic, finely-crafted spiderwebs of sound, with all these punchy percussion sequences, I still appreciate the songs that are simple down to their core; that don't bother creating something so bombastic and overwhelming, instead opting for something much more personal and down-to-earth. I don't think there's anything wrong with either approach. I think a mix of them is perfect! But it's spending so much time with this braindance, IDM, whatever you call it, that makes me infinitely appreciate music that is so much simpler.

Tomorrow's Modern Boxes, in my eyes, is a severely underrated piece of work. It is foreboding in its dread and atmosphere, so upfront about its honest message but not enough for you to notice it immediately. You still have to think. There was this period between In Rainbows and A Moon Shaped Pool where it looked like Thom underwent a complete transformation. Going from this, funny little fellow with a bit of a beard and regular looking hair, to the same guy... but almost unrecognisable. Like, his hair is longer, MUCH longer, and he's got this very irregular looking beard now, and honestly it makes him look completely deranged. But I love it. I love it because it's like, this perfect statement of... him. When I, God forbid, listen to Pablo Honey (I Can't actually sounds pretty good but if you told me it was Radiohead I wouldn't be able to believe you for shit), I see some silly twat with blondish-yellowish hair and cool funny sunglasses. But when I listen to this stuff? And A Moon Shaped Pool? I see Thom Yorke how he is now. He, along with everyone else in the band, is completely different from how they were decades ago when they started the one band that managed to steal my heart in such a profound and impactful way, not because of their crazy-sounding art rock, but because of their ability to change willy-nilly. To just, go against the norm, and experiment. To fucking experiment. Something nobody ever does nowadays. They're a constantly-changing band that will be completely different three years from now than they have ever been these past... what, 30 damn years?!

In the future, we will change our numbers and lose contact. Because these God damn hunks of junk that we hold in our hands seems to be the lifeline for every single social connection we have nowadays. And everything is falling apart, and no one is truly happy anymore except for those that are dying, and all this shit is collapsing under the weight of our own stupid technological advancements done purely out of our own desire to rid ourselves of this fear of the unknown and find some way to answer everything so that one day we may be truly happy and experience true joy and euphoria, ridding ourselves of anxiety and fear and becoming one with the universe and having everything be just ok. And it's going to happen. And I don't have the right to interfere.

March 20, 2023

Crystal Castles - 1991

As I sit here, procrastinating on school work for days on end, I start to realise the beauty of Crystal Castles. A band, of which I admire so much, is one whose debut album I've rarely even skimmed. So what gives? Am I a phony? Well, no, I've just been too busy listening to (II) and Amnesty (I) (expect a song from that album to be listed here soon) to pay attention to this debut album which, according to its status as the first album the duo released, should mean it's inferior and dissimilar to things they outputted at a later date. Right? Um, yes, it is quite dissimilar to future music the duo worked on, but that doesn't undermine it in any way. In fact, I think this album is better than what they had been churning out years later. It evokes a much more potent sense of nostalgia and retro-ish-ness than their new stuff. Sure, Year of Silence and Kept is great and stands out on its own as a fantastic work of art, one that sounds a lot more modern and fleshed out, but Crystal Castles retains a feeling of genuineness and innocence that later albums seem to have lost like shed skin. This album is different. Like, it mainly utilises chiptune synths rather than regular, high-fidelity ones seen starting with (II). The melancholy ballad performed by Alice Glass at the end, featuring, like, NO electronic instruments, further adds to the "personal" feeling this album emanates when compared to the duo's other work. Also, it sports album art which is a lot more... original and less confusing. Like, okay, (II) is a photo of somebody's son (yes, that's a guy) standing near the photographer's deceased mother's grave. (III) is that one photo of a guy's mother holding him as he suffers the effects of tear gas, with some editing done to make it much more mysterious. Amnesty (I) depicts Bolivian Mennonites which... is its own can of worms. But Crystal Castles'? It's just... Kath and Glass standing in front of a garage door with their heads hanging. Sure, it's not as arresting as the other covers, but it's still just as iconic and emits a much more personal and forthcoming vibe than all the other covers do. Like, this isn't an orchestrated cobbling-together of music. This is a compilation of singles that performed well, unreleased demos, and SOME new content. This is as homemade as it gets. I should mention, in line with these consistently grim album covers, the album was originally going to have a cover depicting Madonna but... like, all beaten up and shit. I think it's a good thing that never came to fruition.

Exposition over. What of the song? Well, it's in line with what a lot of the other songs are: very nostalgic, simplistic, and upbeat. After going through a whole damn conga line of brilliant peppy tracks Air War, Courtship Dating, and Good Time, we're greeted with a reprieve of sorts. One that doesn't bother to offer confusing, ambiguous lyrics - the first song on the album to have no vocals, in fact. It's short and it's simple. It knows its purpose, and it's here to act as a happy interlude. Gladly, I say! 1991 is a perfect title for a song as potent with nostalgia and glee, consistently reminding me of Phoenix's 1901, which gives me similar feelings but is compounded by the fact that I listened to Phoenix as a kid. I did not listen to Crystal Castles as a kid. However, I still find this song to give me a sense of déjà vu, if nothing else.

Here I am, spending 30 minutes writing an exposition but giving barely any attention to the song itself. I think reviewing a song from an album I've already talked about is going to kill me. Plop! Dead.

January 17, 2023

batta - chase

Talk about good first impressions, holy shit. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure's OPs have always enamored me just as much as the wonderfully impressive animations that are paired with them. It started with the bombastic and retrospective intro of Phantom Blood and then carried into Fighting Tendency with its bedazzling and retro-esque flashy colours and 3-dimensional choreographed scenes. The punchy animation of the Stardust Crusaders intro is nothing short of a brilliant introduction to the part that would change the rest of the series forever, and the quality only heightens from there! Admittedly, I stopped my obsessive binge near part 3. I was sixth grader with a small-ass head and I think I just got bored with it and the fear of any graphic shit that might have appeared in front of me. It's whatever! Nowadays, I don't watch anime like, at all. The only one I watched recently was Neon Genesis Evangelion, and it is easy to tell I was fucking obsessed with it (still am). Regardless, anime isn't something I'd willingly... participate in. Like, watch or anything like that. It's not my kind of thing, and I feel like for the most part I've grown out of JoJo's. I still find a lot of fun in it and there is clearly a lot of love that goes into it, but I don't know if I can devote so much time into watching it.

Oh, there I go again, trailing off. Here, I'll split the background information up into a separate paragraph and talk about the song in this paragraph. Right from the get go this song is bombastic and rowdy as hell and I LLLLOVE IT!! The overbearingly badass shredding of that electric guitar is everything. Oh, and the vocals fucking rock too! And so does the album art! And so does the KICK-ASS SOLO THAT STARTS AT, LIKE, 1:10 OR SOMETHING. IT IS FUCKING BLISS, but the kind of bliss that's not like, SAW II or anything. More like... the kind of bliss you get as you're throwing people into meat grinders or something.

Cool cat photo by the way.

December 30, 2022

Ex Aquis - Feral Devotion

I've always loved PURE LIFE since their Ambient Punk Vol. II compilation (you can likely see the inspiration on my logo), so I came into this expecting something on par with - or better than - what I had listened to previously. Upon listening to the first track alone I was quickly blown away. God-damn, first of all, it's an Evangelion-inspired compilation. Seeing as I just finished the entire series (original TV show, The End of Evangelion, the four Rebuilds), having this be released immediately after was nothing short of perfect and made me realise that I'm not the only stupid nerd in the world who likes the franchise. Upon first listen, ignoring the soundbite from that one scene where Shinji masturbates over Asuka's hospitalised body (really gross), I fell in love immediately. I've listened to some of these artists before, as most of them are on Ambient Punk. Ex Aquis is no different - he collaborated with CRYOSAUNA on BBPIB which is a brilliant song in and of itself - so I came in with really high expectations, and they were immediately met. The indistinct vocal chops and bassy overlapping synths compliment each other so well and make the first minutes of the album alone already incredibly alluring. Admittedly, I bought this album without even listening to it; I usually don't buy on impulse, but my expectations were THAT high for the contents of the compilation. It was a wise purchase. A stellar way to kick off a brilliant little followup to a previous album I haven't listened to yet, but intend to...!

December 27, 2022

MGMT - When You Die

Maybe it's the resounding confidence he tells the devotee to "go fuck yourself" with. Maybe it's the weirdly serene but also trippy and cacophonous strings. Maybe it's the unintentional(?) hilarity in him saying he's MEAN, and he's EVIL. Maybe it's the weird laughter that plays after GETTING SHOT IN THE HEAD WITH A GUN. This song is such an enigma to me. I've known about MGMT for a while now, before all the Little Dark Ages. Yes, I was quite fond of the few singles that brought them critical acclaim when I was a youngster. I still am very fond of those old tracks! The only thing that's changed is Kids terrifies me to a much lesser degree nowadays. I still don't have the guts to watch the music video for it, though, mainly because I'm preoccupied with listening to the music in the background, on loop, constantly, until I get bored or annoyed. No, really, you should see my last.fm feed. It is a NIGHTMARE.

December 25, 2022

Interpol - PDA

Merry Christmas, you magnificent bastards. Here's a song that I've actually known and enjoyed for a long time; about a year, I think. As such, I have a lot more "nostalgia" for it. Not heavy nostalgia, but I still have some memories associated with it. I won't let that taint this review, though. In fact, I'm quite lazy today! I'll be quick. The song begins. Paul Banks starts talking about how yours is the only version of his desertion that he could ever subscribe to. I think that the way this song starts could not be any better. Beyond the drums, it begins with a guitar chord that isn't sad or anything. It's moreso really serious and disdainful. And the vocals that kick in later complement it greatly. For a brief moment the tonality of his voice doesn't change while the chords in the background do change, creating a really nice effect of almost-conflicting notes that feels like it should sound wrong, but it actually sounds fantastic. I should also direct attention to this song's music video. Something about it... the constant vignette, the way the characters are 2D in 3D environment and move quickly and erratically, it just goes perfectly with the song in a way no other music video really does. I remember disputing the lyrics on a Genius page for the first verse. He says "I'm raking all around me," but apparently according to Genius it's "raping all around me." Like... doy??? Apparently, the Japanese lyric booklet said "RAPING," therefore it has to be that (even though Banks clearly makes a K sound)! Whatever. I think this song evokes a complicated emotion that is a weird mix between positive and negative and is nothing short of sublime. As with most of Interpol's songs, I have absolutely no idea what the fuck the lyrics mean.

December 24, 2022

Aphex Twin - Cliffs

Wow! It's Richard D. James! Of course this gets a spot. In fact, this got a spot as the OFFICIAL theme of Christmas Eve! May your winters be filled with existential dread and may your presents be filled with drum machines. Except, in this track, there aren't any. I love Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Vol. II because of how much it deviates – to this day, even – from the work he usually does. It's a testament to his great variety when he can release a metal-as-hell gut-crushing soul-grating song like Come To Daddy (Pappy Mix), and an eerie, nigh-drumless soundscape like Cliffs. The album's music spans from calm, resonant, and melancholy soft chords to Hell, and for the first track on the album, it does a great job introducing you to what you're getting into. It's a mix of the isolation a track like Stone In Focus gives off, along with the eeriness and paranoia of Trees. Like many other tracks, it's a simple chord progression looped constantly, but it's layered with unnerving vocal chops that sound so strange they elicit a practically indescribable emotion. Ah-ah-ya-ah-ya-ah-ya-ah-ya-ah is repeated at least fifty times throughout the track and yet the strange feeling the sample gives never quite wears off. It is such a beautiful track and a perfect opening to one of the most stunning and genius albums of all time.

December 23, 2022

The Tuss - Rushup I Bank 12

Just like the last time, last.fm gave this to me. I got to it a bit differently; instead of using the list they give you on the homepage I just asked the website to give me a playlist of my recommendations. It's not very common I fall in love with a song immediately. In fact, with most songs I come to adore, I tend to really dislike them at first. I believe that to be a mark of a good song. Pop songs are good at first but then grow annoying after a short time. I'd like to think that better songs have the opposite effect. Surprisingly, though, this was an edge case. I loved it immediately, and chose it as the song of the day only a few minutes after hearing it at 11PM. I've always been fond of Richard's work from his distant ambient soundscapes to his grating percussion-laden electronic hellscapes (Cliffs and Come to Daddy (Pappy Mix), for example). But something about this just sounds much more approachable. A problem I always have with braindance is that listening to a new song can really be a mixed bag as the chances of you liking the song immediately or after some time is practically unpredictable. I think the mark of a good braindance song, then, is if someone with a lot of dabbling in the genre can immediately appreciate it upon first listen. Even other artists like Autechre and Boards of Canada still rubbed me the wrong way upon first listen to some of their tracks. I did eventually learn to like them, but it took some time. Am I a true fan? Or am I a phony??

December 22, 2022

SebastiAn - Kindercut

Wow! It's French house! Of course this got a spot. In fact, this got a spot as the first song of the day ever. The main appeal from this song, to me, comes from its simplicity. The one sample – taken from Wild Cherry's Are You Boogieing Around On Your Daddy – is repeated almost ad nauseam. It balances itself out, though. Other various instruments chime in and out at various parts throughout the song, so it never really grows to annoy you. Besides, the sample is perfect for this combination of instruments, I think. It kind of evokes a sense of nostalgia within me, and I have no idea why. It might be the subtle melodic "chimes" in various repetitions of the main sample throughout the song. Regardless, this sounds like something I've definitely heard before, and if it weren't for the cover art I'd be glad to show it to my parents. But they're all Christian.