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betweenthetimeandsound · 3 years

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Three Minutes to Eternity: My ESC 250 (#160-151)

(Author's note: Sorry about it being a couple of days late--I wanted to rest a bit--which I will do again because we hit the top 150--and had to download quite a bit for the gifs. Please enjoy this bunch, though!)

#160: Dihaj -- Skeletons (Azerbaijan 2017)

“When we hook up it’s fantasy We’re just like alchemy I’ve never been so ready”

I completely neglected Skeletons during the contest, as I didn't listen to it beforehand and didn't watch songs 12-17 when watching the grand final live. Along with "Grab the Moment" that year, it sandwiched a horrendous stretch of songs in #13-16.

Despite this, I listened to it a lot afterwards. It’s equal parts intriguing and mysterious, especially with the almost-nonsensical lyrics with interesting images. I always imagined a concept film in which the main character meets a potential love interest in a night club, only to go too far and almost kill him.

The atmosphere the staging created was a bit strange, in that it incorporates masks and a world inside a school chalkboard. For each of these aspects, Skeletons is my favorite Azeri entry ever—it stands out in a unique way because of its eccentricity.

Personal ranking: 5th/42 Actual ranking: 14th/26 GF in Kyiv

#159: Tommy Seebach -- Disco Tango (Denmark 1979)

“Hun er en stjerne på et dansegulv Slår John Travolta i en rock ‘n’ roll På diskoteket ta’r hun kegler, og der ka’ man se Dem stå i kø og skæve, hver gang hun gør sin entré”

“She’s a star on a dance floor Beats John Travolta in a rock ‘n’ roll At the disco she’s scoring, and there you see Them queue up with an eye on her, every time she enters”

Disco and tango are two genres you don’t expect to work together, despite them being so fun to dance to. Despite this, Tommy Seebach makes it sound natural. There’s a bit of adjustment needed when listening to it, but it’s equally flirty and groovy all at once, as one gets to know the many quirks of the song.

The live performance definitely elevates it--not only with Debbie Cameron's enthusiasm (she would come back two years later with Tommy in a bigger part), but also because of the orchestration. The mix with strings and castanets in the chorus was definitely the best part and gets me shaking.

It’s different for Denmark, but definitely a song you should put in a disco (*clap clap*) from time to time!

Personal ranking: 3rd/19 Actual ranking: 6th/19 in Jerusalem

#158: Poli Genova -- If Love (Were) a Crime (Bulgaria 2016)

“Unafraid, never fade When it’s dark we illuminate”

Bulgaria’s comeback after a two-year hiatus sees them with a hyper energetic pop song with an uplifting message. While it seems like a simple one at first, the diverse Eurovision community can embrace it for its openness and determination. The great production upholds this gem, and the lighting on stage adds to it, especially in the end.

Poli definitely makes this song come to life with her vocals and her upbeat personality, making it shine even more! (And I did like her costume--not something for everyday-wear, but definitely one fitting the song and a bit avant--garde too). Compared to her first entry, which fights against those who put her down in a pop-rock way, she delivers with fun.

And they got their first qualification in nine years and a start to a nice run of entries as a result.

Personal ranking: 5th/42 Actual ranking: 4th/42 GF in Stockholm

#157: Athena -- For Real (Turkey 2004)

“All I know is you don’t want to be part of the crowd Realise yourself You say it but don’t feel it, what you sayin’ has no meanin’ Don’t hide your soul”

For their host entry, Turkey brings upon Athena, a ska-punk (and former metalcore) band with this bouncy song. And it’s such a great one—filled with energy and fun. A bit different from what we expect from Turkey, but it shows what their music industry could bring.

It's lively and fun, with Gokhan leading the charge with his presence. At times, he shouts more than he sings and it seems like he didn't dress up for a more formal event. That said, there's still a lot of charm in "For Real's" performance, ranging from the sharks in the background to the "Hi mom!" and the peace jacket. It comes along in an eccentric package, and makes for a solid predecessor to their rock-based entries four years later.

And it definitely hints at being oneself, which celebrates individuality in a fun way.

(Plus, that's the reason why my top three in 2004 isn't the actual top three. Haha)

Personal ranking: 3rd/36 Actual ranking: 4th/24 in Istanbul

#156: Katarína Hasprová - Modlitba (Slovakia 1998)

“Láska kráčam údolím sĺz A len ty môžeš zmierniť môj žiaľ Túžim sa dotknúť tvojich pier, tvojich rúk Prosím vráť sa mi, nevzdaj sa nás”

“Love, I am walking the valley of tears Only you can get me out of misery I long to touch your hands, your lips Please, come back, do not give up”

A comment on the interwebs suggested anybody who has Horehronie as their favorite Slovak entry has never listened to this. I could understand why people would gravitate towards the former, but this stands out more for me (and not just because of the religious title).

The introduction reminds me of “Kiss From a Rose”, which here, is less meant to be about plagiarism and more about the 1990s feel of it. Musically, it takes the same medieval elements from other 1990s entries, but it tells a different story, one about trying to fix a relationship on the rocks. It builds well, going from an otherwise delicate ballad to something more explosive when one gets into the chorus. The orchestration really helps it too!

Modlitba got six points from Croatia...and then nothing else. It's still a shame it did so poorly, but as a potential nul-pointer too? Sad.

Personal ranking: 4th/25 Actual ranking: 21st/25 in Birmingham

#155: Melovin -- Under the Ladder (Ukraine 2018)

“Nothing but your will sets you on fire Fire lasts forever...”

The song that inspired a fervor from Melovin’s fans, including me! While I’m not as enthusiastic as them, I still love this song—it's pulsating and intense, with quite interesting lyrics about getting up again(with some enunciation issues). There was a point where the song got a musical revamp, and I feared it would make the song worse, but fortunately it kept the whole thing intact with a few production changes.

Melovin proves he's a talented showman, and seeing the stairs go aflame made me smile (even though I preferred the effect more on his Vidbir performance; the flaming LEDs really helped there). Good thing the televote swooped in, because last place in the jury vote feels really wrong (though it could be because of said pronunciation).

Plus he has some good post-Eurovision songs—check them out! My favorite is З тобою, зі мною, і годі.

Personal ranking: 6th/43 Actual ranking: 17th/26 GF in Lisbon

#154: Joci Papai -- Origo (Hungary 2017)

“Be kell csuknod a szemed Úgy láthatsz meg engemet Hogy meghódítsd a szívem Ismerned kell lelkemet”

“You need to close your eyes So you can see me To conquer my heart You have to know my soul”

While Az en apam (#240) touches me more than Origo, one can’t deny this is the more creative song. It combines not only Romani influences, but also a dark pop foreground which allows them to shine.

In addition, the lyrics are absolutely masterful—they are rooted in Joci’s story and packs a punch in the message. It's tells of a relationship with someone who doesn't accept him for who he is (cursing her forever as a result), along with how Joci grew up and used music as a weapon for himself and his people. He's a compelling storyteller, and you can tell he sings it from the soul.

Combined with a compelling rap and a neat violin instrumental, you get a completely unique experience.

Personal ranking: 4th/42 Actual ranking: 8th/26 GF in Kyiv

#153: Blanche -- City Lights (Belgium 2017)

“All alone in the danger zone Are you ready to take my hand?”

Blanche had quite the journey in Eurovision--first her song gets released, and immediately becomes a contender. Then she has problems performing in shows and during rehearsals, at which the odds star dropping like flies. Then her semi-final performance was notably wobbly, but she still qualifies and places fourth.

Despite the staging errors (I would've personally have made the lighting gold rather than natural-colored), it was fully deserved and I think it was better than the eventual top three.

The vibe of this song reminds me of walking down the streets of Tokyo, because of the visuals involved. Everything is in a rush, but one's not sure There’s also tension, because of the dark electronic sound that dominates it. Despite Blanche’s nervousness on stage, it worked well with the song—it amplified the sensation of walking down a wire and wondering if the relationship will work. A startling entry from Belgium and one that really strikes at modernity.

Personal ranking: 3rd/42 Actual ranking: 4th/26 GF in Kyiv

#152: Frances Ruffelle -- We Will Be Free (Lonely Symphony) (United Kingdom 1994)

“Welcome to the land Where all our dreams are planned And fighting is a thing to do...”

The first of the UK’s attempts to modernize the contest in the 1990s, it’s a cool, funky song with interestingly-written lyrics. Someone compared the chorus to a protest slogan for social justice movement, but the rest of the song discusses a complex relationship. The opening lines are a highlight in particular, and everything flows fantastically.

A few bits of the live-performance went out of hand, like with the orchestration and Frances’ vocals, explained by how she was bopping up and down and was told that she needed to keep that down. As a result, she couldn't focus on her vocals and they turned out a bit sharp at times.

That said, she had a pretty dress and charming look about her. And while it placed in the top ten, I think it should've done better.

Personal ranking: 4th/25 Actual ranking: 10th/25 in Dublin

#151: Sebalter -- Hunter of Stars (Switzerland 2014)

"I state my heart has been well trained I’m gonna be your candidate I am the hunter and you are the prey Tonight I’m gonna eat you up"

This word-salad of a song makes it quite hard to choose a good lyric, as it has a bunch of nice lines but almost no meaning to them. Reading them again, it seems like one is trying to get his affections to like him, to no avail, unfortunately.

But beyond that, we get a fun and wholesome song, which features a prominent banjo and even a violin solo! From the opening melody I can't help but smile, or even whistle along at points (everytime the latter synchronizes, I feel a bit of accomplishment). It's a bit more folksy than what the contest oriented on the time (slickly produced pop with a bit of dubstep), which makes it even more special.

Finally, we have Sebalter himself, who really carries his own song! Not only is he quite good-looking, but also very charismatic and knows how to have a good time. While Swiss entries have become better known since then, you can't replicate Hunter of Stars; it's too special!

Personal ranking: 5th/37 Actual ranking: 13th/26 GF in Copenhagen

#eurovision song contest #esc 250 #esc top 250 #esc azerbaijan #esc denmark #esc bulgaria #esc turkey #esc slovakia #esc ukraine #esc hungary #esc belgium #esc united kingdom #esc switzerland #vintage eurovision #three minutes to eternity

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totalvibration · 4 years

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55 Albums Released in 2019 That Splash Oat Milk In My Earl Grey

This year felt like slo-mo, a holding pattern and a fast-forward button stumbling towards unknown ends. I spent the early months in paternal bliss and sleep deprivation, caring for my newborn daughter, then spent the rest of the year running to slow down… to make the most of small moments with my family, to juggle that thing every lifestyle magazine calls the work-life balance, to know when I need help and being willing to ask for it, to making priorities with loved ones.

Also, after years of oolongs and a staunch no-milk-in-tea-except-milk-teas policy, I started putting honey and oat milk in my Earl Grey, an old tea standby that's felt warmly familiar in colder months. Similarly, I dug my heels into familiar-to-me gnarly metal, deep drone and abrasive punk this year, uninterested in poptimist takes on indie-rock. In an effort to maximize more time with new family and less with bulls***, I leaned hard into my Viking's Choice column at NPR Music (which went weekly!) to shout out underground debauchery and beauty to anyone who would listen.

Below are 55 albums (and a few reissues and archival releases) that hit me in different ways over 2019. No ranking, just links out to Bandcamp where available. They come paired with emoji because that's a thing I do on Twitter.

See also:

Viking's Choice: The Year In The Loud And The Weird (my annual year-end episode of All Songs Considered)

20 Punk Albums Released In 2019 That Flip Eggs, Pick Up Chains

20 Metal Albums Released In 2019 That Bluurgh Over Sick Riffs

A nine-hour playlist of 2019 jamz

But first, some stray thoughts:

Ta-Nehisi Coates' still-ongoing Captain America run has been extremely rewarding. A beloved superhero comes to terms with the line between patriotism and nationalism as Coates underlines that American progress often comes from reluctance.

Daniel Warren Johnson's Murder Falcon spoke to me not only as a metalhead who loves cartoonishly kick-ass violence, but also as a dude with a tender heart… that final issue still gets me in the feels.

Krzysztof Kieślowski's Three Colours is secretly a trilogy of movies about the loving, painstaking process of creation, specifically music. I'd never seen any of them until paternity leave (and a sleeping baby) gave me hours to binge long-neglected to-watch lists. In 1993's Blue, in particular, a composition mirrors the grief of Juliette Binoche in an exquisite performance.

Tiny Desk concerts I produced for NPR Music in 2019: American Football (with a children’s choir!), Thou, Erin Rae, Carly Rae Jepsen (sort of), Jimmy Eat World and Mount Eerie (videos coming in 2020).

There’s a gallery at Glenstone, a truly stunning museum experience, that’s literally just a room full of books, a sculpted wooden bench and a large window that looks out on the rolling hills of Maryland. I could spend hours there.

The second season of KCRW's Lost Notes, hosted by Jessica Hopper, built episodes like albums, sequenced with eureka moments throughout. See: the story of a teenage Farsi New Wave sibling duo and a difficult and necessary reassessment of John Fahey through the women in his life.

High Spirits (May 7, Atlas Brew Works) is such a force for good. Heavy metal singalongs about love, friendship and positivity. I feel like this band needs to tour with Sheer Mag to be fully appreciated by an unknowing audience.

Has your baseball team ever won the pennant with the sleeping baby on your chest? So many silent screams of joy in our household as the Nats not only won the National League, but the whole dang World Series. I haven't lived in a city/state with a baseball team that's gone to the World Series since 1995.

Circuit Des Yeux's Haley Fohr (Dec. 5, Hirshhorn) tuned her voice to feedback hum and the rest that followed felt like a wordless eulogy for 2019. I felt renewed by it.

I can't think of a prettier song released in 2019 than "This Time Around" by Jessica Pratt. It is saudade whispered into the wind.

This was my Linda Ronstadt year. Heart Like a Wheel, Canciones de mi Padre, her records with the Stone Poneys — the Queen of LA, with a voice that both bursts out of and melts into dusk, softened the edges of long days with an equally adventurous and easygoing spirit.

🚙 Petrol Girls, Cut & Stitch: In 2019, it was crucial — life-affirming and -saving, even — to make your own noise. "This is the sound / It moves in our bodies / It passes through time / Brings what came before us," Petrol Girls' Ren Aldridge screamed at the top of a turbulent punk record filled with compassion. That boundless philosophy resonated with me this year — to listen and absorb more deeply, to excavate the traces of memory in music.

👽 Blood Incantation, Hidden History of the Human Race: Simultaneously exists in the gaping maw of death-metal tradition and the galaxy brain of its future.

💾 Kali Malone, The Sacrificial Code: Seeks the solemnity of the drone in the pipe organ, but leans into the vulnerability pushed through the air.

🕹️ billy woods & Kenny Segal, Hiding Places: An album-length self-excavation that crawls through moldy memories in a brutal poetry that is at times darkly funny but mostly wrestles with personal and societal truths that'll leave you touched, shook.

📟 Holly Herndon, PROTO: One of our deepest thinkers went to the past to make music from the future.

🚨 Rakta, Falha Comum: Creepazoid emanations from a subterranean plane.

🐣 Sunwatchers, Illegal Moves: Ecstatic protest music summoning the beauty and rage of Alice Coltrane, Sonny Sharrock, Rhys Chatham and Hawkwind.

🏞 Bill Orcutt, Odds Against Tomorrow: The most engaging, radical, but surprisingly accessible solo guitar album of the year. Bill Orcutt's ragged-yet-tender guitar skronk gives shaggy texture to rapturous melodies.

🍕 Control Top, Covert Contracts: This hits some dance-punky Erase Errata sweet spots for me, but with the technical finesse of a power trio.

🚟 Real Life Rock & Roll Band, Hollerin' the Spirit: Applies minimalist techniques to rumbling, dueling guitar histrionics with a reckless, but locked-in energy. Never woulda thunk American Football and Henry Flynt could hoedown together.

🐠 Caroline Shaw & Attacca Quartet, Orange: Balances austere beauty with rumbling earth. Riveting music for string quartet.

💥 Mdou Moctor, Ilana (The Creator): Where ZZ Top bombast, Black Sabbath riffs and Tuareg trance rhythms swirl into an acid-rock stomp.

👑 Vagabon, Vagabon: Goes so many places, yet always returns home.

🎭 JPEGMAFIA, All My Heroes Are Cornballs: A neon-freaked feast blasted in slow mo and fast forward all at once.

🌆 Denzel Curry, ZUU: Dude's a metal rapper without a metal band, but if he ever started one, I'm down 100 percent.

💨 Whistling Arrow, Whistling Arrow: An avant UK supergroup of prepared guitar, violin, electronics and hypnotic percussion drinks deep of dark lagers and mossy earth.

🐸 101 Notes on Jazz: Things are getting hard around the boloney hole...

🐳 M. Sage, Catch a Blessing: Warm, fuzzy world-building from blocks of sound stretched and warped into a new nostalgia.

🚇 Mizmor, Cairn: Deliberate and patient in its annihilating pace; lumbering, yet regally melodic riffs echo into a chasm of feedback.

🌅 Takafumi Matsubara, Strange, Beautiful And Fast: Next-level grind from the Gridlink mastermind and friends. While No One Knows What the Dead Think picked up where Discordance Axis left off, Takafumi Matsubara shreds into the future.

🐎 American Football, LP3: A reunion that keeps on giving and growing. Impressionistic in its quietly bursting arrangements and attuned to the individual talents of its vocal guests, especially that stunning duet with Hayley Williams.

🔋 v/a, Seitō: In the Beginning, Woman Was the Sun: This compilation does for modern Japanese women in experimental music what P.S.F.’s Tokyo Flashback comps did for the Japanese psychedelic scenes of yore.

👗 Carly Rae Jepsen, Dedicated: Didn't hold together as much as I wanted, or play like E•MO•TION's late-night mixtape, but every time one of its singles popped up on a friend's playlist -- "Julien," "Want You in My Room," "The Sound" and especially the slow-burn synth-pop exhaustion of "Too Much" -- I'd think, "Carly Rae Jepsen is the Queen of the Song I Needed Right Now."

🌕 Rong, wormhat: Just bonkers. Boston's Rong channels the joyous chaos of Japanese punks Melt-Banana and the aggro skronk of Brainiac with a tad of Deerhoof's weirdo-pop hooks.

✊🏿 Sounds of Liberation, Sounds of Liberation / Unreleased Columbia University 1973: Free jazz and funk band deep in spiritual grooves. Killer performances all around, but such a trip to hear more from young vibraphonist Khan Jamal during his Drum Dance to the Motherland era.

🐬 Great Grandpa, Four of Arrows: If Sixpence None the Richer made an emo record, but only had Return of the Frog Queen on the mood board.

📳 Sarah Louise, Nighttime Birds and Morning Stars: One of my favorite guitarists right now. Digitally processes melodies and single notes in an electronic elation landing somewhere between Robert Fripp, Alice Coltrane and Terry Riley.

📮 Sarah Hennies, Reservoir 1: An immersive sound cycle in constant motion, a quiet rumble that slowly transforms in and out of a glorious clatter.

👣 Psychedelic Speed Freaks, Psychedelic Speed Freaks: Munehiro Narita essentially picks up where High Rise left off, still plays the guitar like it's about to blow up.

🍩 Town Portal, Of Violence: Most instrumental post/prog-rock puts me to sleep, but this Danish trio illustrates just how dynamic and sound-rich this music can be.

🛀 Jim O'Rourke, steamroom 45: An electronic excavation from the deep abyss. The 37-minute "Sigaretstraat" is a master class in patience, dynamics and sublime dissonance.

🎀 Cristina Quesada, I Think I Heard a Rumor: Multi-lingual, ultra-chic dance-pop with super-smart synth arrangements. Think: Tiki drinks and mod dresses.

⏹ John Luther Adams, Become Desert: Truly time-less music; as in, music without time.

⏏ Julia Reidy, brace, brace: Late night, longform excursions that offer an alternate Blade Runner soundtrack with frenzied 12-string, fuzzy synth glossolalia and an Auto-Tuned bummer haze.

🚞 A Million Dollars, I Love Your Voice and I Love You: Weird and warped twee-pop that woulda headlined Silent Barn.

📠 Priests, The Seduction of Kansas: Truth-telling and truth-seeking through a mangled disco haze and bleak New Wave romanticism.

🏭 Werner Durand with Amelia Cuni and Victor Meertens, processions: Majestic drones capture an undulating wonder with enveloping somnolence.

🎳 Sheer Mag, A Distant Call: The denim-and-leather-jacket-wearing standard bearers of truly independent rock and roll double-downed on their sound, but opened their hearts a bit more.

📒 Susan Alcorn / Joe McPhee / Ken Vandermark, Invitation to a Dream: Illuminates the flickering motions of exploration.

😱 Serpent Column, Mirror in Darkness: Pitch-black metal chaos with forceful melodies twisted into the tableau. Honestly? Deathspell Omega but skramz.

🏅 Pernice Brothers, Spread the Feeling: Joe Pernice digs into his '80s record collection to return with some of his most delicately written, winsome guitar-pop in years and tons of one-liners: "Love is a shoeless charlatan, a silver-tongued huckster with a sadist’s lipless grin."

🍓 Kalie Schorr, Open Book: Whip-smart, hook-twanged country-pop raised on MTV2 pop-punk and Sheryl Crow.

📀 Angel Olsen, All Mirrors: In a year where we lost Scott Walker, this felt like a torch passed from 1969.

😪 Mount Eerie, Lost Wisdom pt. 2: Phil Elverum draws us in evermore, revisiting a beloved album, mode and collaborator (the remarkable Julie Doiron), and molding them into his ever-changing songwriting and circumstance. Contains the most tender couplet of the year, which I'll carry with me always: "If ever the bonfire that I carry around could warm you again / I will be out here in the weather for you glowing."

🙉 75 Dollar Bill, I Was Real: Serious hypno-grooves from these drone excavators.

👢 Karen Marks, Cold Cafe: The early '80s artist behind the Sky Girl comp's broodiest track gets a few more songs of existential synth-pop and jangly post-punk. Just wanna put them on mixtapes for friends.

🍻 Haunt, If Icarus Could Fly: Synthesizes an earnest, studied love for '80s heavy metal with tons of guitar harmonies and can-crushing anthems, yes, but also a ton of heart.

🍖 Bob Dylan, The Rolling Thunder Revue: The strangest, most mystical and wild Dylan persona in all of its face-painted glory.

🌹 A Pregnant Light, Broken Play: Damian Master's endless creativity and shameless bravado coalesce into a rugged beauty. As always, riffs for days.

🦄 Fire-Toolz, Field Whispers (Into the Crystal Palace): Clashes New Age synthscapes, clubby raves, jazz fusion and metal shrieks into an idiosyncratic master's pure creation.

🌇 Maria W Horn, Epistasis: Quiet, yet forceful acoustic elements are wrapped in the sinews of technology to blur composition. A stirring mix of icy string drones and minimalist piano.

🐲 Soul Glo, The N**** in Me Is Me: Distills the rage and terror of living in America while being black with blunt force.

🍢 Mára, Here Behold Your Own: Snapshots of a time before parenthood rendered in garbled organ, ambient guitar loops and echoing lullabies. Felt this one deeply.

🚙 The Go-Betweens, G Stands for Go-Betweens: The Go-Betweens Anthology - Volume 2: There's a live KCRW version of "Quiet Heart" that just absolutely destroys me. Deeply thankful for the presentation and preservation that's gone into these box sets.

😈 Bat for Lashes, Lost Girls: A coming-of-age concept album about a teenage vampire gang that was somehow severely overlooked. Some of Natasha's most tender songwriting and a rich synth-pop world that'd make M83 jealous.

#2019 in music

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seasurfacefullofclouds1 · 5 years

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sea, I remember u've talked abt what we could expect from lt1 genre-wise, I tried to find it on ur old blog but the search is off so the only way I can look for ur posts is infinitely scrolling on the sidebar in a very unproductive way, so I'll just ask you here. I'm a sucker of indie bands like Louis, I love music that not over-produced or too polish, just raw and natural. It'd be so lovely just to see him try it out on lt1 if that's possible? not necessarily the full album, few tracks will do

Hi!

I’ll have to fix the old blog. It should be completely searchable; sorry about that.

There is a good reason why the 1D boys like the music they heard from their parents’ stereos when they were young— and it’s a scientific reason. It’s the reason why we all prefer music we heard from ages 14-24 (not because any generation has better music, but because of biology):

"Fourteen is a sort of magic age for the development of musical tastes," Daniel J. Levitin, a professor of psychology and the director of the Laboratory for Music Perception, Cognition and Expertise at McGill University, told the New York Times. "Pubertal growth hormones make everything we're experiencing, including music, seem very important. We're just reaching a point in our cognitive development when we're developing our own tastes. And musical tastes become a badge of identity."

The music 14-year-olds listen to helps them define the boundaries of themselves and their friend groups. Scientists have actually drawn up quantitative measures that can anticipate an individual's musical preferences based on their personality traits. Peter J. Rentfrow and Samuel D. Gosling from University of Texas at Austin have found, for example, that those with more rebellious natures and higher degrees of "self-perceived intelligence" gather around the irreverent aggression of groups like the Dead Kennedys or Death Grips. More agreeable, social and attractive people tend latch onto more popular styles with wide appeal, like Madonna, as the research mentions, or a more modern-day equivalent like Jessie J, Ariana Grande or Nicki Minaj.

[[MORE]]

•

So there we are. Louis, with his self-aware natural intelligence and his social attractiveness, was attracted at a young age to a blend of indie and pop. Makes sense.

In 1D, Louis experimented with musical structures that were succinct and percussive— like No Control and Little Black Dress— almost like punk, or spoken word. He also helped to write ballads that had clever, heartfelt imagery, like Strong and Home.

As a solo artist, Louis has expressed his preference for narrative voices, songs that tell a story, and are anecdotal in structure. You can see this in his selection of 28 songs: strong storylines, succinct imagery, common, everyday, relatable, heartbreaking experiences. It is the ethos of punk that emotions experienced by the common people (working class youths) can be profound and universal. Grief, joy, guilt, shame, distrust of authority, and love know no social bounds. This approach fits with his goal to tell his story as a chronological autobiography.

So it would make sense that the music he makes takes from the bands that express this ethos best (and are his favorite): the northern English bands without excessive polish, that sound raw and gritty. The Strokes, The Libertines, The Fratellis, Arctic Monkey, The Streets. These were bands active in Louis’ adolescence. Alex Turner, in particular, is one of the all-time best lyricists of rock music (and Alexa Chung’s ex-boyfriend). His lyrics are both narrative and poetic, natural and clever and beautiful.

However, given Louis’ time in One Direction, he is well-verses in pop production. Louis also has a little insecurity about his pitch, and that pushes him sometimes to overproduce the songs with too many digital effects. To me, this marred Just Like You.

The production of Miss You and Two of Us, I thought, were perfect. The vocals were sharp and clean, and the instruments were crisp and big. He used expensive recording equipment and the engineering was top notch.

I’ll be honest. The way things look right now, I’m not sure there is going to be an album. Not this year but ?🤷‍♀️ maybe not ever as a Syco artist. I think it’s possible that it will drag out to next year when he may be let go as an artist because he has not fulfilled his contract, probably at some loss to him. I think he will be allowed to release songs in dribbles, but the career will never be what it could have been.

#louis tomlinson #1 july 2019

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onestowatch · 5 years

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How Los Retros Turned ‘70s Jazz Into Your New DIY Indie Obsession [Q&A]

Photo: Ross Harris

Los Retros is proof that the only thing you need to make a great record in the modern age is a living room, some instruments, and a fire under your ass. Mauri Tapia, the mastermind behind Los Retros, writes and records all of his music from his parents’ home in Oxnard, California (a city that has also served as an incubator for artists like Madlib and Anderson .Paak.) Despite the barebones setup, Tapia manages to create recordings that paint a vast expanse of sound and color.

For the last few years, Tapia has been touring with a recurring cast of individuals around Southern California, spreading the gospel of his music and recording yet more songs from Oxnard in between shows. With the release of Los Retros’ debut EP, Retrospect, on June 21 via Stones Throw Records, the public outside of the Golden State gets to experience Los Retros’ unique sound for the first time.

It was Ones to Watch’s distinct pleasure to sit down with Mauri Tapia to talk DIY recording, sources of inspiration, and turning a ride to a show into a marriage.

OTW: When did you start writing music, and how did that evolve into Los Retros?

MT: Well, uh, I don’t actually write most of it down; I just kind of form it and do it, it’s all memorized. I didn’t have access to any recording software until I was about 15, and that’s when I started really recording audio for the first time. At first, I just tracked guitar, then eventually drums, and yeah it kind of developed from there.

OTW: Your music has a very distinct feel that blends American indie/pop with Latin elements. Who are some artists that influenced the development of your sound?

MT: My parents for a long time when I was a little kid would play a lot of Spanish rock bands, some of those were, like, Los Freddys, Los Terricolas, Los Ángeles Negros, and so on. I never really cared for the sound until I got older. You know, maturity. I think a lot of those songs were in my head, just thinking about them and remembering all those moments, and I was like, “Hey that sounds like something cool that I’d like to make.” So I took some of those songs as a sort of reference to what I started making. Some of the others, like two on the album are kind of influenced by this dude named Tonetta. The whole album is actually a twist on a lot of stuff I listen to – it is original, but definitely reflects what I was listening to at the time. I recorded the album two years ago, actually, and I just finally decided to release it.

OTW: You took the inspiration for your moniker from a Chilean band called Los Ángeles Negros that has been active since the 70s – can you dig into this connection a little deeper?

MT: Yeah. So our project actually used to be called what the album is called, Retrospect. That was the original name, but there was already a band with that name, and we didn’t want to get sued, you know? We thought, “Alright, let’s switch it up.” I wanted to keep Retro in there because that’s just something that, like, maintains with our whole reality. And I thought, I lot of those bands I grew up with have “Los” in their name, and in English the same for bands like The Strokes. Actually, somebody on my live channel mentioned the name Los Retros and I was like “You know what, that’s a pretty cool name,” so I just kept it and here we are.

OTW: With the DIY approach you take to recording your music, do you face any interesting challenges translating the pieces to a live show? How do you adapt your music for a live setting where you can’t play drums, guitar, and bass all at once?

MT: Well, like I mentioned I write – well, not write down but you know what I mean – come up with the tunes, you know, record them, mix them. When we perform I have several friends that play with me. My little brother plays with me now and my wife does too, actually. And my friend who’s been there since the beginning playing bass. I guess that’s what makes it Los Retros.

OTW: I want to congratulate you on your debut EP that just dropped last month, Retrospect. How did you choose the six songs that would be featured on the project? Did you take anything in particular into consideration when choosing the play order?

MT: Kinda. So me and Wolf, the founder of Stones Throw, we hang out every now and then and we would always change it up. We had a bunch of other songs that we thought about putting on the album but we just thought these ones were better. We never really talked much about the order, we sat down and picked it in maybe, I dunno, four or five minutes. We thought, well, let’s put “Last Day On Earth” at the end, because you know the “last day” implies the end. The first couple songs are all about my wife. But the truth is, I don’t think it really matters what order its in. We just kind of threw it together.

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OTW: A lot of your songs involve complex chord structures, and I’m told that you play every instrument featured on each track. How did you go about learning all these instruments?

MT: I started playing guitar when I was eight. I eventually got my own guitar at 11, and really started getting better at it. My school had this after school program called Rock Band, and me and a friend would go there, and I just had access to so many more instruments there than I had at home. So I just played around with anything I could get my hands on. I picked up a bass and tried some bass lines, which is actually pretty similar to guitar. I eventually got on the drums around 8th grade. I didn’t get my own drum set ‘til about a year and a half ago, actually, but I’d always play whenever I was at school. Then three and a half years ago I got my first keyboard, some people on YouTube started sharing my music and all that. Around that time I started getting into a lot of old bands from the 70s, kinda started playing around with the chords they were using, and it all developed from there as I found my own sound.

OTW: What is your favorite story behind one of the tracks on Retrospect?

MT: Yeah, the song “Friends.” It’s about my wife. So long story short, I didn’t have a ride to show one day. I was kind of acquaintances with this girl, we had talked a little bit in the past, nothing too special. Then I invited her to one of my shows, and *laughs* I didn’t necessarily lie, but I said I didn’t really have a ride, since the car my drummer was taking was too packed with gear for me to fit. So she gave me a ride, and we ended up becoming friends for a pretty good while, you know, and there was definitely something there. So I wrote this song and figured I’d show it to her, and she’d have to do something about it, so… yeah, now we’re married.

Photo: Ross Harris

OTW: You’ve developed a devoted following in your native Southern California and have played shows all around the region. As your career continues to develop, where are some areas that you want to tour? Do you have any bucket list venues?

MT: Hmm, I don’t know, I haven’t really though about it. I just wanna go play places where people will watch me. If I had my choice I guess I’d like to play in Japan, I’ve always been interested in Japanese 70s funk stuff. Honestly, New York sounds cool, too. I’ve only left California once when I was about two years old. I went to Mexico. But now the laws are a little different regarding specific people and my parents can’t go back, and for me I’d rather visit with my parents than go by myself. I don’t really have any bucket list venues. Maybe some cool back yards – I like intimate shows, haha.

OTW: Assume next year you could support any artist on an international arena tour – who would you want to support and why?

MT: Well, if he could even still play, I’d say this dude Alain Mion. He was a composer for this soul-jazz band called Cortex from the 70s. He’s probably almost 80 though. Roy Ayers too, but I know he was just hospitalized, so that would be tough. Really any of those old funk guys, because that’s the sort of music I wanna be making. It’s a long shot but maybe George Clinton, though I know he’s retiring pretty soon.

OTW: Clearly you have the chops to do great things on your own – but if you had the opportunity to collaborate with any active artist, writer, or producer on a project, who would it be and what sort of project would you undertake?

MT: Well actually, I’m collaborating with one of the best right now, Steve Arrington. I wish I could give you more details on that project right now, but I can’t.

OTW: Who are your Ones to Watch?

MT: Huh, I don’t know, I listen to a lot of old music, haha. He’s not new, but I think people should know about Alan Hawkshaw. Brian Bennett, too. Oh, and Bill Evans. There you go.

#los retros #mauri tapia #interview #soul #jazz #indie

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grantsalley217-blog · 5 years

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On The Anniversary Of The Day Disco Died, A Look At How Other Widespread Music

Many musicians select to release their songs under Inventive Commons licenses , which give you the authorized right to do issues like use their music in your movies. My favorite style of music is country. I really like singing country music. Carrie Underwood is my favorite country singer. She is the one who made me fall in love with country music. She like several country singer has the voice to mesmerize you. Nation could be the treatment to any feeling you've gotten in the intervening time. Wong recruited individuals who grew up listening primarily to Western in style music. And then he chosen one other group of individuals — Indian People- who grew up listening to each Western music and the standard music of India. Our free beta model allows you to easily launch your music on Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, Amazon Music, Google Play, TIDAL, Pandora, Deezer, and Napster with none upfront charges or charges. hooplandin - bootemporary modern music that ases extra rock music that meled by a extra metallic and rock music from the Japan. Contemporary steel that originated in Christian themes popunar and metal techno track the cleat music with a distorted drum beat to dishonest and pop music. Pop is brief for widespread, and it is remained the defining time period for the ever-altering music favoured by the general public. Although not specifically applied until the middle of the 20th century, pop music as such might be traced by just a few decades earlier than that. Huge Room Home is the ‘pop music' of our technology. This Düsseldorf outfit had been one of the important bands of the Neue Deutsche Welle scene, a musical genre that choked on its own huge success in the early Nineteen Eighties. Music for good people who actually, really hate their exes. The highway to 500 Days of Summer season is paved with good intentions. When you maybe have the audacity to say that, perhaps, possibly, the scene is probably not as progressive as it thinks , you'll get dying threats for days. Empire wears an anorak.

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While you talk about Garth Brooks' album gross sales, platinum" doesn't do them justice. Garth is the primary artist in historical past—in any genre—to obtain seven diamond awards for seven albums certified by the RIAA for 10 million album sales every, and he stays the most effective-promoting solo artist in U.S. history certified by the RIAA with over 138 million album sales. He has acquired each accolade the recording trade can bestow on an artist, including being inducted into the Worldwide Songwriters Hall of Fame in New York, the Nashville Songwriters Corridor of Fame, Country Music Hall of Fame and the Musicians Hall of Fame. In 2016, he gained the CMA Entertainer of the 12 months award for a report fifth time. It's not good to be Garth it's grrrreat. While Christian rock (and Christian music generally) is often seen as a lyrical fashion quite than a genre, a lot of it seems so spinoff and comparable. Many well-liked bands in this style, like Third Day, sound identical to a Christian Nickelback. I wish that extra non secular musicians had been willing to open their horizons and experiment extra. At The Los Angeles Film School, you'll gain insight into the development of the digital dance music business through our Associate of Science in Music Manufacturing program. Our program offers priceless coaching in music composition, digital music production, mixing and mastering, music copyright and publishing, exposing students to the newest tendencies in the music trade, from manufacturing to composition. This line of research implies a minimum of two common hypotheses about the overall trajectory of the popular music system: 1) an increasing complexity of genre categorizations over time, and a couple of) as genre-based mostly boundaries of classification techniques break down, genres are replaced as signaling mechanisms by different social indicators of taste and desire. Or, put another approach, some recent work in sociology—not to mention Lester Bangs and Bruce Springsteen—(implicitly) point towards a hypothesis concerning the contemporary construction of popular music genres: as genre boundaries become more absolutely porous, and genre as a signaling machine to audiences and industries grows increasingly unimportant, there must be giant and rising domains of free interchangeability in musicians' number of genre mixtures in defining their very own work. Nation - Specialists assume that it emerged from music of the USA. Just like the blues music, the tunes function a easy association. The songs are sung utilizing instruments equivalent to electric guitars, banjos, harmonicas and fiddles. All things, good or bad, must come an finish, and music trends aren't any exception. Welcome to , and immediately we'll be counting down the Top 10 Music Genres That Died Out. For this record, we're trying at the most significant musical genres to ever burn out or fade away. By far probably the most revered opera singer of all time for good reason. Maria is the soprano who had it all: an important voice, thrilling stage presence, and ultimate musicianship.

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laramccullough1-blog · 5 years

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Pop Music In America

Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell feels that the present music scene is ailing and believes that his band's first new album in sixteen years could also be just what the doctor ordered. But for all the different ways black culture is flexing its affect within the trendy pop sphere, as ever, pop's utilitarian center remains caucasian. The singles that make their way into historically white spaces still mostly relegate black artists to a featured credit in the event that they're included in any respect. Notice that Put up Malone, G-Eazy, and Machine Gun Kelly have labored their means into heavy rotation as lead artists while Quavo, SZA, and 21 Savage solely cross over as friends on songs that tend to gentrify black stylistic parts into snowblind oblivion. The week HUMBLE." hit #1 on the Sizzling one hundred, it did not even crack Billboard's Mainstream Prime 40 chart , which tracks high-forty radio airplay. The identical scenario occurred with Unhealthy And Boujee" — you couldn't escape it, besides by tuning to a pop radio station. Khuri sees the disappearance of dissent in music from a singular position. His Palestine-American upbringing (his mother and father are Palestinian refugees who emigrated to the United States from Lebanon) informs the band's lyrics. However Khuri also has an academic's understanding of politics. He graduated from Harvard's Kennedy School of Authorities with a master's, and his wife worked within the Obama White House as a speechwriter. But within the final couple of years, this framework has been nearly fully dismantled, owing in large part to the widespread adoption of streaming. What have been once regarded merely as pop subgenres — Okay-pop, Latin lure, melodic hip-hop and extra — have grow to be the center of the dialog.

In music of this type we discover not solely essentially the most good show of technic, however an ever growing feeling for musical beauty. Allied to this was a rudimentary taste for real looking results, taking form in an attempt to echo the sounds of nature and of human life, at first purely imitative, as in Gombert's musical imitation of hen calls and Jannequin's well-known Bataille de Marignan," and afterward extra inventive, as in Luca Marenzio's lovely madrigal, Scaldava il sol," with its chirping grasshoppers, or his still more beautiful Strider faceva," with its imitation of shepherd's pipes, or the quite a few cuckoo" items by English composers, in which the chicken's cry is used as a particular musical motive with admirable impact. Listeners love a superb Pop song and radio loves to play them. Whether you want to pitch your songs to established artists in the Pop discipline or sing them yourself, writing a modern Pop Music, business Pop song with hit-single appeal means writing a song that listeners can determine with and radio will want to play. Media and TELEVISION reveals like Star Search are partly guilty for brainwashing the general public to overvalue superficial elements (for instance, a performer's seems to be and operatic vocals) somewhat than high quality of music. I can't see them signing a younger Cat Stevens or Joni Mitchell in the present day and giving such an artist an investment in money and time. They appear to be targeted on finding the subsequent Taylor Swift or Justin Beiber. I used to be born in 1997 so I can't converse solely to pop music from before my time, however I am able to take heed to it. And I do assume that pop music, while nonetheless basically the same in the 70s and 80s, was objectively higher again then than it is at present. I believe it is extra natural and less studio pushed, although studios have been undoubtedly a serious part of the music industry for the reason that 1950s actually. I also think listening to people play music and principally writing their own songs is much more genuine than listening to adolescent models sing the identical four chords to a music they did not write that has been edited drastically. Expertise has driven numerous music to be extra generic and formulaic. Nevertheless it's also performed a number of good for the business by opening up tons of latest potentialities. In an unguarded interview with New York Magazine , Jones, eighty four, known as The Beatles "no-playing motherfers", accused Jackson of plagiarism, and stated trendy pop music producers were "lazy and grasping". Within the late Fifties, a new blues type emerged on Chicago's West Facet pioneered by Magic Sam , Buddy Man and Otis Rush on Cobra Information 99 The "West Side sound" had robust rhythmic help from a rhythm guitar, bass guitar and drums and as perfected by Guy, Freddie King , Magic Slim and Luther Allison was dominated by amplified electrical lead guitar. 100 one zero one Expressive guitar solos were a key function of this music. So you simply discovered that your favorite pop act does not share your politics, or that they've stated something hateful a couple of marginalized group of individuals, or that they've a historical past of sexual misconduct, or that they've a history of bodily abuse, or that they've a historical past of each, or all the above. The genre that put New York Metropolis on the map. For every Moldy Peaches, there were 1,000,000 Elefants, The Fevers, and stellastarrs. Briefly the musicians of New York Metropolis felt the anticipatory ecstasy of residing in Seattle in the 90s. Then we went again to tending bar. Because the bands on this genre turned an increasing number of fashionable, the time period eventually widened to additionally embody every main-label rock group it was OK to not actively hate. Music of the 1950's reflected the beginnings of major social adjustments on the earth and within the US, particularly. Rock 'n' Roll, R&B, and traditional pop dominated the charts while radio and tv connected the nation in our musical tastes and exposed the nation to a better variety of artists and styles. Some of the first major superstars of music emerged from this decade with individuals like Elvis Presley dominating the airwaves and the minds of younger ladies. For those who play acoustic rhythm guitar, take heed to guitar-pushed hits by John Mayer, The Script, or Phillip Phillips. Play together with the recording till you can comfortably play the rhythm by yourself, then write to it. Or check out the current Top 20 Pop hits or High 20 Adult Contemporary hits for grooves you possibly can recreate on guitar or keyboard.

Hadiq Kiani made her debut in Adnan Sami& Zeba Bakhtiar starrer "Sargam" in 1995 which became an exceptional hit and the music album of the movie was a chartbuster in Lollywood High 10 (PTV), Yeh Hai Filmi Dunya (NTM) and FM channels. However Hadiqa continued her music profession extra as a pop artist as a substitute of a play again. Her albums "Raaz, Rung and Roshni" offered thousands and thousands and made her an ultimate feminine pop star after Nazia Hassan. In 1997, Hadiqa grew to become the second worldwide female singer on the earth to be signed by Pepsi Pakistan. A lot of the experience listening to music — gospel and in any other case — is feeling it, catching the spirit. Earlier than Franklin starts the title track, the Rev. James Cleveland asks for a witness. Then Franklin takes over. It is simply her voice, the reverend on piano and a testomony to the extraordinary: I used to be blind, and now I see. The experience of its overwhelming you occurs whether or not a survey of music folks deems it canonical. But when canons are being shaped and published, why not embody this one alongside the standard suspects — your Sgt. Pepper's" and Rubber Soul" and Freeway 61 Revisited" and Pet Sounds"? Wonderful Grace" is a landmark, too. You do not want a listing to inform you that. God knows. But that is not fairly enough.

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recentanimenews · 5 years

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INTERVIEW: Zack Davisson on Cosmic Horror and the Reality of Translating Manga

Dark Horse recently released Gou Tanabe's excellent H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness manga, which features translation work by Zack Davisson. We had the fortunate opportunity to fire some questions in Zack's direction, so read on for some insight into the world of manga translation, supernatural scares, and more!

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With Gou Tanabe adaptations like this, you're working from an English source as viewed through a Japanese author's lens. How did this affect your approach to translating At the Mountains of Madness?

Its been interesting. I work on the book with Lovecraft’s text right next to Tanabe’s. I use both an English and a Japanese version so I can see what specific phrases Tanabe intended to preserve, and what he changed. If he used Lovecraft’s language, I try to replicate that. If he wrote something entirely new, then I work to make it fit in and look seamless.

It’s a somewhat time-intensive method that I haven’t done for any other project, but I think it is worth it to get it right.

Were you already a fan of the source material?

Oh, absolutely. Looking at my shelves right now I have five complete collections of Lovecraft’s stories. I have the Arkham House editions, the S.T. Joshi annotations, and then fancy shelf decoration leather-bound volumes by Easton Press, Folio Society, and Gollancz.

I’ve been reading Lovecraft most of my life. I saw Michael Whelan’s amazing painted covers and convinced my mom to buy me the Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre paperback when I was probably far too young. Or maybe just the right age.

The sense of dread in Lovecraft's work can be difficult to get across in adapted form. What do you think makes Gou Tanabe's take on the material so special?

I think it is the fact that Tanabe takes the source material absolutely seriously. He approaches it with gravitas, free from modern “takes” or “spins.” In modern times Lovecraft often descends to parody or “Lovecraftian” where they do the August Derleth thing of taking his characters and writing new stories void of the original intent or nuances.

Tanabe is the visionary director who says, “Hey! I’ve got an idea! Why don’t we stage Hamlet as Hamlet? Exactly as written? Not as a clever spin on corporate culture or boy bands or something like that? Just, as intended. Even in period costume?”

Tanabe also has a grasp of mood, which is essential to Lovecraft. And pacing. And his art is simply phenomenal.

Beyond Tanabe, do you have a favorite take on Lovecraft? Are there any films or other forms of media you think have come close to capturing the essence of his horror?

Before Tanabe I would have said my favorite was Richard Corben’s comics. Although he very much made “Richard Corben comics,” his vision of Lovecraft was truly frightening on the page. No one does that grin of madness like Corben.

For films, I can’t think of a single one that does it right. I love radio plays, however, and the Dark Adventure Radio Theater does excellent adaptations. I buy everything they make.

Can you talk about your own encounters with the supernatural? How have they informed your work on titles like At the Mountains of Madness?

I hold that it is perfectly acceptable to believe in weird things so long as they are of no consequence. I have had a Loch Ness Monster sighting and gone hunting for mysterious ghost spots in Japan… Including my own house. I lived in one of Japan’s notorious jiko bukken haunted apartments.

I like the idea of there being mysteries still in the world. I think it helps to believe in the supernatural at least a little bit in order to work in the genre effectively. When I am working on things like At the Mountains of Madness, I buy into them completely and allow myself to be amazed.

What scares you more, ghosts or the notion of greater cosmic horrors?

Definitely ghosts! I love Lovecraft, but I find cosmic horror to be too grand to be truly terrifying. Horror is personal. Sitting home alone in my own house, in the dark, working away and feeling that tingling feeling on the back of my neck that someone is standing behind me will always be more frightening than mythological scale frightmares.

You've worked on plenty of titles I think it's safe to say many would consider dream projects, from the works of Go Nagai to Shigeru Mizuki, Satoshi Kon, and beyond. Do you have any favorites, and are there any specific authors or series you're still dying to tackle in the future?

It’s true. I’m fully aware I’ve been blessed in my career. I started out with a very specific agenda, of artists I wanted to work on and works I wanted to translate. When I finished Leiji Matsumoto’s Space Battleship Yamato I realized that I had accomplished them all. I had a bit of a crisis of purpose because… what then? Do I just start translating stuff I have no passion for just to cash a paycheck? That didn’t seem very fun.

Fortunately, with artists like Gou Tanabe I was able to find new passions. I’d never seen Tanabe’s work before Dark Horse hired me for The Hound and Other Stories, but now I want to work on everything he does. Discovering new favorites is the best feeling. And there are still piles of Shigeru Mizuki comics for me to tackle!

What is the most misunderstood aspect of translation?

That we are technicians instead of artists. Translating is writing. Plain and simple. I translate, and I write my own books, and they come from the same part of my brain.

Translation is like performing a cover song. My voice is never going to be the same as the original. There will be personal nuances and variations, turns of phrases that I will never be able to entirely mask. So, it’s a matter of making my cover version as good in its own right as I possibly can.

It seems it's only been in recent years that translators have been more thoroughly and visibly credited for their work. Do you think the manga industry in particular is in a good place now as far as this is concerned, or is there more to be done to convey just how much influence a translator has over the final product?

Strangely enough, the opposite is true. If you look at the early days of manga the emphasis was on the translator. People like Rachel Thorn and Toren Smith were getting cover credit. My own idea on this is that manga was still strange, so companies wanted to put “English names” on the cover to dilute some of the “foreignness.” They also were having well-known comic writers like Lein Wen and Marv Wolfman doing adaptations.

Then, when manga took off and TokyoPop boomed, things flipped. Manga artists themselves became the superstars and translators were hidden to prevent any perceived barrier between reader and artist. Readers didn’t like the idea that they were reading a translator’s dialog, not the author’s.

I think things are settling into a better equilibrium now. Manga artists SHOULD be the superstars—they absolutely are; but readers should be aware of how much the individual translator affects the experience. There still is a way to go before we get there. One of my proudest accomplishments was getting translators listed on the Eisner Awards as part of the creative team.

Now we need to get manga letterers credit.

I won't ask you to break down your personal process—you did a fantastic job of that in your TCJ article a few years back—but has it changed at all since then?

Thanks! And now, my process hasn’t changed much. Translation for me is intuitive. I absorb the original, process it emotionally, then think about how to portray those emotions in English. It's not a logical process.

Is there any advice on the industry or translation work you wish you could go back in time and tell your younger self?

Hmmm…. Start earlier. I wish I had been brave enough to have been an exchange student in high school. Knowing my interests, some of my teachers encouraged that but I was too scared to step away from friends and family and everything I knew.

It took until my 30s to say, “fuck it” and throw away everything I knew to jump on a plane to Japan. And then I didn’t get into translation until I was almost 40.

Working in comics was always a dream of mine, and it took me quite a while to find my niche. Things have worked out well, so I can’t complain too much.

Are there any manga out right now (besides your own) that you're particular excited about?

Like many who work in creative industries I find I have less and less time to just be a reader. But I always try to keep up on a few things. Recently I finally tackled the mountain that is Lone Wolf and Cub, and I am hooked. One of the best things I have ever read. Classics like that are classics for a reason.

I also wait hungrily for any new volume of Delicious in Dungeon.

Thanks for taking the time to do this, your work on At the Mountains of Madness is fantastic. Do you have any parting words for aspiring translators out there?

Thanks! My main advice is to move to Japan. I don’t think I could have the life and career now if I hadn’t taking that plunge. I spent seven years in Japan, and that gave me the skills I needed to translate professionally. Jump into the deep end! You never know what is waiting for you!

***

If you want to see a sample of Gou Tanabe's work, check out our preview pages for a peek into At the Mountains of Madness.

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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mcdowelldolan2-blog · 5 years

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Rock And Roll God: Learn Perform Bass

On a recent episode of the overall game show "Jeopardy," would like a super the categories was California. Most on the answers concerned particular cities in that state, and I was really able to answer the easier ones. One of the other answers required perception of a particular song about California. I knew the tune in the hint, however i also began to recall other songs that mentioned the state of hawaii of California in their titles. https://www.nlfab.com In my view, singular most important biggest intent behind startup failures on the internet is a lack of real new technology. Changing the user interface, and adding just a few features doesn't compensate for not being there first ("me too"). Essential biggest reason is involving focus. Combining the features of several successful products will not assure success ("something for everyone"). I'm not sure about you, but areas incredibly powerful to fully grasp. What you'll notice is everyone is always, ultimately or another, constantly doing persuade additional. Even infants negotiate and persuade parents to give them, hold them, read to them, etc. That's all fine and dandy, but exactly how should we use these psychological triggers to create a bunch money? 14. Children can be allergic to just about anything, from food to clothing to looks. Allergic reactions develop into dangerous, in accordance with how bad it definitely is. Find out what your child is allergic to in order to avoid giving it to your them. In today's modern world, there is hardly after for relaxing and doing the exhilarating. People are always busy with their work. So for people that are music lovers and get time to hear their favorite music, the headphones are their best companions during your the travel to. Headphones are really even the actual crowded place, while are usually in their work all alone, or addressing the files or round the computer. If you use the headphones if at all possible not disturb other people around both you and also maintain your privacy. Potentially also double while an individual playing video games. The mobile lovers adore it as these are adjustable head band microphone and headphone combo and even feature volume control. The pinnacle phone price varies down to the brand name and features. But - a line of work. now that's something long term. A business is not short lived, and cooked. It's evergreen. It's ongoing. And your mindset and how you treat this Advertising and marketing Avenue for riches rather paramount in my opinion. 15. Mosquito bites can disturb a child, causing allergic reactions, irritation, and skin breakouts. hey can also spread diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, and dengue. So be absolute to use mosquito nets reliably. You can ask your child's doctor about using bug repellent backyard. Most consumers are afraid from the they discover if can't be take time to look inside. Let me tell you from first hand experience it's rarely as bad as you think it will be. After a few days or weeks you stop hearing the voices that run like broken records through your mind about mistakes have got made, regrets you have and impulsively you notice that voice remains and you open until the smallest details around you.

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more--than--music · 5 years

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2018 Albums of the Year

Here’s my albums of the year. 2018 has been a brilliant year for music, and so I thought I’d lay out my favourite albums, and the reasons why they’re my favourites.

10: Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Sex and Food

Kicking the list off at ten, we have the fourth full-length project from the New Zealand lo-fi psychedelic group Unknown Mortal Orchestra. An album that calls to mind at various points dusty late 70s grooves, 80s synth work and yet very modern production sensibilities, Sex and Food bounces between deeply introspective balladry, and funky danceable beats. A sure step forward for a band that only looks to become more experimental as time goes on.

9: Ben Howard – Noonday Dream

The Devon based singer-songwriter gives a compelling vision of the future of indie-folk with this transient and supremely accomplished set of songs. Taking a further stride away from the straightforward acoustic sound of 2011’s Every Kingdom, Noonday Dream shows an artist unafraid to utilise aspects of electronic and ambient music into his soundscapes, resulting in a transcendent, elegant, and above all beautiful set of tracks. The opening duo of Nica Libres At Dusk and Towing The Line are a particular high point.

8: Thom Yorke – Suspiria (Music for the Luca Guadagnino Film)

Surprisingly his first ever venture into soundtrack work, Thom Yorke’s masterful score for the Luca Guadagnino film of the same name could be in this list simply on the strength of its lead track; Suspirium is an otherworldly waltz, a spartan piano line presided over by Thom’s instantly recognisable vocals. But it is the deeper cuts for which this album earns its place; Open Again begins with a fingerpicked guitar progression that grows into a monolithic walk to the gallows and then fades out once more. A master at the height of his powers.

7: Sports Team – Winter Nets

Undoubtedly the least well-known name on this list, the debut EP from the London-based indie-pop outfit Sports Team has been one of my most played records yet this year. A cerebral mix of Jarvis Cocker-style lyricism preoccupied with the minutiae of suburban life, and pitch perfect indie rock arrangements teetering on the edge of chaos, this shows talent beyond their years; the only EP on this list, these five tracks managed to catch my attention early on, and have stayed with me through the year. Ones to watch.

6: MGMT – Little Dark Age

A name I would not have expected to see on this list at the start of the year, the comeback from the early 2000s electro-pop group is unexpectedly brilliant. Far from the runaway chart success of singles such as Electric Feel, Little Dark Age is full of tracks that could have been pulled from the dusty archives of pretty much any 80s synth bands, but combined with so many left-field production choices, and lyrics that belie a dark sensibility beneath the bright instrumentation, this album becomes a very mature release indeed. The single, Little Dark Age, is just magic. I can’t wait to see what comes next.

5: Car Seat Headrest – Twin Fantasy

Bringing us into the second half of this list is Will Toledo’s project Car Seat Headrest, with a rerecorded, remastered version of his 2011 breakout album Twin Fantasy. Toledo’s DIY ethos calls to mind contemporary Kevin Parker, of Tame Impala, although the two go about their self-imposed individualism rather differently. Toledo’s recordings retain the lo-fi teen emotion of the original Twin Fantasy, while adding the production sensibilities of Toledo’s later Car Seat Headrest ventures, resulting in such a dizzying barrage of pitch perfect indie ballads that display mature, incisive and insightful lyricism. The peaks of the album slip off the rails in the most glorious way, and culminate in simple, honest, and resounding emotional resolutions. Few albums so perfectly capture the teenage experience... a brilliant achievement.

4: Father John Misty – God’s Favorite Customer

It will come to no surprise to those of you who know me that Josh Tillman has made his way into this list; I have been following Father John Misty since last year’s existential crisis of an album, Pure Comedy. But God’s Favorite Customer is an entirely different beast- aside from the single, Mr Tillman, the typical luscious arrangements of a usual Father John Misty album are conspicuously missing here. Gone are the chamber pop orchestras and parlour ballads; here is FJM with an acoustic guitar, a month’s stay in a hotel room, and some utterly shattering songwriting. Tillman has abandoned his lofty perch overseeing the human condition in favour of personal, painful lyrics that dissect a failing relationship in real time. Many of these songs are addressed to, or from the perspective of, Josh’s wife, Emma, and the narratives are as autobiographical as ever. But the key here is that Tillman has ceased to be just an observer of the phenomena he comments on; in God’s Favorite Customer he has no choice but to experience them from the inside, and it makes for devastating listening in places. However, Misty has not abandoned all hope; closer We're Only People (And There's Not Much Anyone Can Do About That) ends the album with a remarkably beautiful and optimistic look at humanity, and leaves you ready to emerge from the hotel room, blinking against the sunlight, into the outside world.

3: Blood Orange – Negro Swan

London born producer, multi-instrumentalist, and general prodigy Devont Hynes, has outdone himself on his fourth project under the moniker Blood Orange; Negro Swan represents exactly the kind of progressive song writing Hynes is so sought after in the pop world for, and brings together a beautiful collage of sounds and textures to produce an album that is so of the moment, it feels like a time capsule of today. Swan embraces diversity, revelling in a celebration of sexuality and identity that feels almost carnival-like in its embrace of so many aspects of modern R&B and Hip-Hop. On what other album can you find Puff Daddy monologuing about his own fear of being loved? This whole project is filled with moments such as this, with trans black activist Janet Mock providing a loose narrative thread tying the album together. But for me, the true highlight of this album is Hynes himself; a young black artist showcasing a striking talent that simply refuses to obey the laws of genre or society. The musical prowess on show is undeniable; in particular, Hynes’ guitar work is so accomplished, tracks such as Charcoal Baby are sheer joy to listen to because of it. The vocals on this record are equally impressive; comparisons will undoubtedly be drawn to Prince, although personally I see Hynes as akin to Frank Ocean, both showcasing a new vision for R&B in the 21st century, and Swan feels in many ways a sibling to Ocean’s 2016 album Blonde, in its transient nature and almost soundscape-like mixture of sounds and feelings. Negro Swan is a glorious celebration in which all expression is embraced, and no identity is off-limits. This is what all modern R&B should aspire to.

2: Arctic Monkeys – Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino

Those monkeys, eh? Four years after their last studio effort, with each member having done something entirely different (and accomplished, see Alex Turner with The Last Shadow Puppets, and Matt Helders on the latest Iggy Pop record) with their sabbatical, no one quite knew what shape their return would take. Recorded in London, Paris and Los Angeles, the sixth album from the band synonymous with early 00s indie could have taken quite a number of directions; furthering the slick arena rock of AM, delving deeper into the baroque pop offering the Last Shadow Puppets pursue, or perhaps even a return to their raucous indie rock roots. Naturally, they did none of the above. The first sign of their step in a different direction was a video they posted in mid-April, announcing a return with an eerie synth line and a fuzzy guitar lick; in hindsight it was the perfect segue into the TBH&C era, both a nod to the leather-clad rock of AM, and yet the space-age synths and fictional space resorts of Tranquility Base. And when the album did come? Oh boy. I’m not sure a release in 2018 divided fans quite like the Monkeys’ did. I’ve heard it variously described as “sheer genius”, “derivative retro nothing” and “f*cking lift music”. It really was that polarising. I’m sure that from its spot on this list you can guess which camp I fall into. From the go, the surreal lyricism of Alex Turner is front and centre, and the record is all the better for it. From surreal references to Kubrick film techniques, and obsession with sci-fi jargon, to ridiculous pastiches of Hollywood clichés, critics weren’t short of liner notes to unpick. But the key for me was the way that the album, as all great sci-fi does, comments on modern life through the lens of futurism, while also keeping you scratching your head the whole time. Furthermore, the actual songwriting is as good as ever, with Turner making a tune about a less than perfect review for a taquiera on the moon into the rhythmic centrepiece of the album. I do have to confess, I am slightly biased; I’m a lifelong AM fan, and I did see this performed live, which only deepened my admiration of it but truthfully- listen to this album. Then listen some more. And then some more again. Because when it clicks, you won’t experience anything else even remotely like it all year.

Bonus Round

These are albums that I discovered in 2018, but weren’t released this year… they deserved recognition along with the rest of these projects.

5: Frank Ocean – Endless

Frank Ocean is one of, if not the, best and most innovative artists working in modern R&B. That much is undisputed. But until 2018, despite being a huge Frank Ocean fan, I had neglected his 2016 visual album, Endless. Perhaps this was due to laziness, not having Apple Music, or perhaps it was because for me it was vastly overshadowed by the release of the seminal Blonde a few days later. Or maybe I simply thought a visual album wasn’t worth my time. Whatever the reason, I was a fool to overlook it. Endless is an ethereal journey through Ocean’s psyche, with a vast soundscape of beautiful, flowing synths and guitars. Furthermore, Endless features some of Ocean’s best rap work since Channel Orange. A truly beautiful project, and Higgs is, for me, Ocean’s most devastatingly sad track… further evidence that Frank doesn’t put a foot wrong.

4: Leonard Cohen: Songs Of Leonard Cohen

In 2016, the music world lost one of its most treasured talents, in the form of Leonard Cohen. However, although I have always been aware of Cohen’s work (Hallelujah, his inspiration of Nick Cave, The Last Shadow Puppets’ Is This What You Wanted cover), I had never taken the time to sit down and immerse myself in his work. Well, I was very much missing out. His cinematic, confessional storytelling, and his instantly recognisable voice and manner, mean that his songs are almost exactly the type of ballads I love, and Songs is his finest work. From start to end, you see the world through Cohen’s eyes. A poet.

3: King Krule: The OOZ

King Krule (real name: Archy Marshall) is a divisive artist; many see him as a visionary, however he is also, to many (including my dad) just “the one with the awful voice”. To me, Krule is a fantastic lyricist and producer, with an instantly recognisable sound. From the moment you enter The OOZ, you are in Marshall’s world, a London of grimy concrete and eerie loneliness. However, there are moments of beauty among the sluggish, smog-filled music; Slush Puppy, despite descending into madness near the end, is a really quite endearingly desperate performance. Cadet Limbo also shows off Krule’s more jazzy influences, and is all the better for it. A view into the future of singer-songwriting.

2: Father John Misty: I Love You, Honeybear

Josh Tillman has already featured on this list once, and it’s no secret I think he’s one of the best artists working today. However, until this year, I had never given his 2015 romantic opus, Honeybear, a proper listen. I was turned on to Misty by his 2017 work Pure Comedy, and after an existentialist view on all of Humanity, a romance album seemed like a step back, so I didn’t give it the time it deserved. How wrong I was. Honeybear is a beautiful, tender, and being an FJM record, deeply satirical and funny, look at love, relationships, and society. It features lush, beautiful arrangements, and gorgeous melodies, all delivered with Misty’s characteristic tongue-in-cheek smirk. Not one track on the album is dead space, and there are several high points, right from the start. Favourite for me is I Went To The Store One Day, which is a simple, yet incredibly beautiful and moving ballad to close the album. Stunning stuff indeed.

1: Everything Everything – A Fever Dream

I’ve known of Everything Everything for quite a while now, but in early 2017 I was gifted tickets to see them on their A Fever Dream tour, and it absolutely blew my mind. EE have crafted brilliant electronic indie music in the past, with catchy melodies and odd, skittering rhythms. However, A Fever Dream builds on this in the best possible way, building on their electronic sound and adding an even more fiercely of-the-moment view on songwriting. One of the highlights for me was Jonathan Higgs’ vocals, which electrified the music with a fierce intellect, and sparkling melodies. An ecstatic blend of so many musical styles, which results in a fantastic album. A masterpiece for today.

Okay, finally the main event. My album of the year 2018 is…

1: IDLES – Joy as an Act of Resistance.

Here we are then. Number one spot. And again, if you know me, you know there could never really have been any other album here. I first discovered IDLES earlier in the year, riding off the success of their breakout debut album Brutalism, an unstoppable punk locomotive of an album, with guitar and bass lines that are so, well, brutal, that they break down the door and hold you at gunpoint until you sit up and pay attention. This band is the perfect voice for austerity Britain, more mature than Slaves, more relevant than Sleaford Mods, and yet they walk an incredibly fine line. It’s almost impossible to define until you hear a band that possess it, but they simply make. So. Much. Sense. Joe Talbot talks with such a fiery intensity that it’s impossible not to listen, and an eloquence that is so often missing from punk. He’s so likeable, and oddly enough for punk, easy to listen to. However, don’t mistake that for the album lacking brutal riffs. Because it has those in spades. From the opening bass rumble of Colossus, JAAAOR picks you up by the scruff off your neck, and doesn’t put you down until the last manic notes of Rottweiler fade away. This is a rock record that defies rock, a punk record that doesn’t define itself as punk, and a political statement that bases its politics on the phrase “Love yourself.” This provides an infectious alternative to the toxic masculinity of so much mainstream rock, and a uniquely vulnerable take on an incredible variety of issues. Beginning with an immediate left-footing with Colossus, the album the catches its witty and caustic stride with Never Fight A Man With A Perm, going from strength to strength the whole time. I’ve never quite identified with a track lyrically as much as I’m Scum, a rallying call for liberals everywhere: “I'll sing at fascists 'til my head comes off, I am Dennis Skinner's Molotov / I'm lefty, I'm soft, I'm minimum wage job”and erupting into the chant of “this snowflake’s an avalanche”. It goes on to postulate about not caring about the next James Bond, as “we don’t need another murderous toff”. The next track is the joyous Danny Nedelko, an ode to Talbot’s friend, and frontman of Heavy Lungs, Danny Nedelko. It’s a quite magnificent celebration of immigration and diversity, and embodies the sentiment of the album as a whole quite simply with a roar of “Unity!”. Potent stuff. The next highlight (or rather lowlight) for me is the one-two punch of June and Samaritans. June is a singularly moving ode to Talbot’s stillborn daughter, building all the time to a non-existent crescendo, and repeating the six-word mantra “Baby shoes, for sale. Never worn.” Incredibly painful, raw and poignant; you feel as if you’re witnessing a moment that you really shouldn’t be, a would-be father grieving at the bedside. It then transitions into Samaritans, an anti-toxic masculinity manifesto, furious in its denial of male stereotypes: “Man up, sit down, chin up, pipe down”, and building relentlessly to sheer ecstasy of the decree: “I kissed a boy and I liked it”. Powerful, powerful stuff. Track eight, Television, is pinned down by a juddering riff complimented by the incredibly able drumming of Jon Beavis (a very much unsung hero of the group), and a wonderful self-love mantra. Moving on, Great is an anti-Brexit track than manages to reveal the hypocrisy of nationalism without ever moving into preachy politicism, which is Talbot’s greatest strength; he can make any point sound like the simplest and most honest declaration ever. Gram Rock and Cry To Me are witty, and the least overtly political tracks of the album; but even these apparent low points aren’t by any means stale, quite the opposite. Every moment of this record fizzes with energy. Finally, Joy rounds off with the magnificent Rottweiler, a searing discrediting of the UK media, ending in the wheels coming off as the tension built throughout the 42 minutes comes to a chaotic end, with Joe yelping “Unity!”over and over. I have one final thing to say about Joy; it’s production is pristine throughout, with clarity in even its most chaotic moments. This is my record of the year, because I feel no other record held my attention so completely, and was so representative of the sentiment of this year. Pure joy.

Well then, thanks for sticking with me. 2018’s been a belter of a year for music, and I can’t wait to see what 2019 brings.

#2018 #albums of the year #unknown mortal orchestra #ben howard #thom yorke #sports team #mgmt #car seat headrest #father john misty #blood orange #arctic monkeys #idles

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The Top Albums of 2018 (So Far)

I think I say this every year but fuck it – the music 2018 has blessed us with in its first six months has been extraordinary. With all the insane shit happening around us and to us in this day and age, it feels like music is the only sane thing we have. So below we have our top 20 favorite releases of the year thus far. If you can’t find something to love on this list then you just aren’t trying hard enough – this is an eclectic list that encompasses multiple genres and styles. I can’t wait to see what the next six months brings to our ears. Note: You can share your own list in our music forum. The Top Albums of 2018 (So Far) 1. Brian Fallon – Sleepwalkers Brian Fallon came up in the New Jersey punk scene writing nostalgic rock songs about ferris wheels and that old house in Asbury Park and sleeping on the beach. He did it all so damn well that his band, The Gaslight Anthem, famously earned the Springsteen seal of approval. Fallon is a Jersey boy through and through, which makes the idea of his new departure of a solo record—an organ-led, British-invasion-influenced solo record recorded in New Orleans—so fascinating. That he completely pulled it off, continuing his incredible hot streak of albums that began with 2008’s The ’59 Sound, proves that Brian Fallon is among America’s greatest living songwriters. Following his solo debut, 2016’s great if slightly by-the-numbers Painkillers, Sleepwalkers feels far more confident and mature, as Brian Fallon stretches his skillset into a dozen interesting new territories. The NOLA flavor shows up when Fallon experiments with sultry new rhythms in “Come Wander With Me” and the horn-driven title track. “Forget Me Not” references the Beatles in the bridge to signal to listeners that, yes, this is a ‘60s pop song. There is a sizable dose of Pearl Jam in the grungy guitar tones on “My Name Is The Night (Color Me Black),” and there is just enough Barry Manilow flavor in stadium-sized ballad “Etta James,” which sounds like if “Mandy” were performed by a guy with neck tattoos. Still, despite the rampant experimentation, Sleepwalkers is as cohesive a record as we’ve come to expect from Fallon over the past decade, making it one of the most exciting moments in his impressive discography and one of 2018’s most well-crafted records. [JB] 2. The Wonder Years – Sister Cities “I feel like if you’ve been following The Wonder Years, this is where it’s been going,” frontman Dan Campbell states in the teaser trailer for Sister Cities, and he’s spot on. This is the band’s most dynamic album yet, which says a lot considering how much the band has grown with every release. “Raining in Kyoto”, one of the heavier songs the band has written, introduces the central theme of the record, which is that no matter how far apart we may be physically, we’re all connected by our shared humanity: “an older man stood close by and smiled at me / I rung the bell like he did, I told you I’m sorry / a makeshift funeral, I tried setting you free.” On the other side of the world during his grandfather’s funeral, Campbell found solace in a place that didn’t share a spoken language, but a language of grief and love. The album’s closer, “The Ocean Grew Hands to Hold Me,” is The Wonder Years at their most vulnerable: “when I was in shambles / when I got too weak / the ocean grew hands to hold me.” The song, and the album as a whole, is about darkness and loss, but it’s also triumphant. It’s about realizing that our individual struggles are our collective struggles. At our lowest points, our humanity—the ocean—lifts us up and carries us home. [SS] 3. Kacey Musgraves – Golden Hour While Kacy Musgraves is a country artist, it’s hard to characterize Golden Hour as a strictly country album. She’s been bending the genre since her release of Same Trailer Different Park in 2013. Honestly, it doesn’t matter to me what genre Golden Hour is placed into because it’s just a good album. Some song on the record (“Slow Burn,” namely) require warming up to them before you can enjoy them in the full context of the album, but I didn’t mind giving this a few spins before it sank in. “High Horse” is a catchy tune and it’s not the only one on the record. With each song, you get the sense that Kacey just wants to do her own thing without focusing on what it’s going to be labeled as. Her personality shines through and that’s what makes this album a fun one to listen to. [DC] 4. Spanish Love Songs – Schmaltz Spanish Love Songs are a band that play a particular brand of denim-jacket-punk that feels informed in equal parts by Against Me!…As The Eternal Cowboy and “The Authority Song” by John Mellancamp. Many of their songs contain lyrics where lead vocalist Dylan Slocum fears out loud that he will be killed in an act of random gun violence. This is to say that Spanish Love Songs are an American rock band. Schmaltz is greater than the sum of its parts. At first take, Spanish Love Songs sound a lot like The Menzingers, but that comparison is far too simple to leave unexamined. Compared to the Americana-influenced punk bands that preceded them, Spanish Love Songs’ choruses are more immediate with a notable to well-crafted vocal melodies and the inclusion of synthesizers to punch up the pop elements. The vocals are more frantic and anxious, as Slocum agonizes about the intersection of the aging process, the death of loved ones, and the definite timeline of his own life. Sure, the music Spanish Love Songs make may sound familiar, but the band have nailed the execution to the extent that Schmaltz is handily one of 2018’s most exciting releases from a new band. [JB] 5. Now, Now – Saved Every once in a while the perfect album seems to come along at the perfect time for me. I hear it, it just clicks, and it becomes not only my soundtrack for a few weeks, but my soundtrack for the year. Right now, that’s been the newest album from Now, Now. I find myself returning to Saved when I’m looking for a pick-me-up, when I’m looking to get into my feels on a late night, and when I’m just trying to zone out after a long day at work. The kind of album that just feels perfectly made for where I’m at and what I’m looking for from a record right now. I’m a sucker for pop-music that retains a strong emotional resonance. For music that is full of huge choruses and melodies while maintaining an emotional core. By and large, I think that’s the thread that’s followed me through my entire musical journey. It’s what really draws me to music in the first place. As we reflect on the albums that have made the first part of the year so special for us, I think about what’s going to stay with me through the rest of the year as well. I’ll be playing “SGL” while the sun’s out all summer, listening to “Knowme” as the leafs start to change colors, and have “P0WDER” on repeat in my headphones by the fire this winter. It’s an album for all seasons, for all moods, and it’s been my runaway favorite of the year so far. [JT] 6. Pianos Become The Teeth – Wait For Love After spending the last three Pianos Become The Teeth records recounting the life, love, pain, and loss of his father from multiple sclerosis, the band’s latest album Wait For Love features frontman Kyle Durfey exploring his own fatherhood, as he got married and had a child after finding some sort of closure on 2014’s Keep You. Wait For Love isn’t a happy record nor a sad record – it’s a realistic one that beautifully and painfully captures all the intoxicating highs and devastating lows of being a husband and father. The record is as emotionally complex as you’d expect from a Pianos record, but Durfey’s melodies have never been more powerful, surrounded by the band’s increased gracefulness in their musicianship and enhanced by David Haik’s pulsating and brilliant drumming. From the initial euphoric wave of “Fake Lighting” to the gorgeously intense closer “Blue,” Wait For Love is bursting with some of 2018’s most heartfelt, vulnerable tracks as Pianos Become The Teeth earnestly march into the next exhilarating phase of their career. (DB) 7. Pusha T – DAYTONA It’s been a long season for hip-hop, filled with new releases and controversy in equal measure. While many have taken Kanye West to task for his inane infatuation with Trump and a number of right-wing pundits, there was a certain curiousness ascribed to the announcement of his ambitious Wyoming Sessions. West set out to release five G.O.O.D Music albums within a month, and while ye may be polarizing enough to finally keep some listeners from buying into the producer’s schtick, the first release of these sessions, Pusha T’s DAYTONA, may be the best of the bunch. DAYTONA is as close as it gets to an instant classic, and the publicity surrounding the release, for better or worse, fuels that fact. In some ways, DAYTONA is exactly what we’ve come to expect from Pusha T – that is, luxury drug raps – but in another way, the album pushes new boundaries for the rapper. From the melodicism of opening single “If You Know You Know” to the stunning guitar samples on “The Games We Play” and “Santeria,” King Push manages to mix more braggadocio and quotables in just seven tracks than most rappers are capable of in an hour-plus. [AM] 8. Hop Along – Bark Your Head Off, Dog There is no voice in modern rock and roll as unique and indescribable as Hop Along’s Frances Quinlan. A constant see-saw between something beautiful and ugly, she undertakes a variety of different approaches, as if her voice is assuming a different character each time. And it’s so very apparent on the band’s incredible third album, Bark Your Head Off, Dog – a record that encapsulates a catharsis in the most imperfect yet perfect ways. Tracks like “How You Got Your Limp” and “Not Abel” prove that you don’t need to be abrasive to be impactful, each song channeling the tender yet spastic density of the band’s music. Bark Your Head Off, Dog may be the most visceral record of 2018, innately sticking with you long after the final track has finished playing. [DB] 9. Father John Misty – God’s Favorite Customer Josh Tillman is one of the most divisive voices in indie-rock, for reasons that are clear, but also somewhat silly. It seems many can’t stand the performer’s growing penchant for satire and theatrics, and if that’s the case, many will rejoice upon hearing his shortest and least ironic offering under the moniker yet. Taking sonic cues from his entire discography, God’s Favorite Customer is a piano record, a comparatively minimalist affair that often bursts into lavish compositions that would make a Beatle blush. Rooted in heartbreak and isolation, Gods Favorite Customer offers the unique songwriting chops fans have come to love as well as an unbridled and often bleak look at this particular songwriter’s process. An album of pleas, Tillman chastises himself on “Just Dumb Enough to Try” (“But I’m just dumb enough to try/To keep you in my life/For a little while longer”), but also switches places with his partner on standouts “Please Don’t Die” (“And honey, I’m worried ’bout you/Put yourself in my shoes/You’re all that I have/So please don’t die, wherever you are tonight”) and “The Songwriter.” Saving its least performative bits for the B-side, God’s Favorite Customer is the unfortunately common high point of an artist’s career mirroring a low point in their personal life. [AM] 10. Jeff Rosenstock – POST- If Jeff Rosenstock’s We Cool? is about the internally-directed disquiet that comes when an anxious person starts noticing the aging process, and if WORRY. is about the externally-directed disquiet that comes when an anxious person decides to get married and settle down in a troubled political climate, POST- is about that same anxious person trying their absolute hardest to keep it together in the era of Donald Trump. While POST- doesn’t shake up the WORRY. sound all that much (discounting some experimentation with longer song structures in the opening and closing tracks), Rosenstock has clearly gone through significant changes since Inauguration Day. Specifically, he’s writing from a much lower place. While Jeff postured himself as the flag-bearer in the movement against all that is fucked up in the world on WORRY., POST- finds the singer full of anxiety and paranoia with nothing but questions to offer. Did my friends and neighbors vote for him? How can I speak out against this? Is there really any point in doing so? Can I start a new life in Australia or something? And while “Let Them Win” doesn’t begin to start answering these questions, it does present the only possible conclusion, the only mantra that feels within reach: no matter how bad things get, we’re not gonna let them win. [JB] 11. Fall Out Boy – MANIA If you could put me in a time machine that looks like a DeLorean and shoot me back to the release of Fall Out Boy’s Take This To Your Grave, and let me tell myself that in 15 years the band would still be going strong, and, in fact, may have just released their best album? I’d probably believe time-traveling-Jason. I’ve always believed that this band is special and it’s thrilling for me to watch their career unfold. The constant has been the band’s ability to write very good songs. They’ve walked through a variety of different genres and branched out their sound, but I’d argue that the the underlying “Fall Out Boy-ness” has always remained. (Uh, ditto for people arguing about them on my forums.) MANIA has quickly grown to be one of my favorite Fall Out Boy albums. I’m drawn to this brash confidence I can feel in the songs. It’s got a pulsing soul that reverberates through a razor-tight 36 minutes. Between foot-stomping choruses and soul-baring ballads, it’s the amount of pure fun that I find in the album I’m drawn most to. In a world that feels more hellish each day, there’s a comfort to this record. I’m not surprised this band is still cranking out great songs all these years later, but I’m always pleasantly surprised when I not only find something to like, but something I genuinely want to listen to. Well done you little pleasing purple record you. [JT] 12. Lord Huron – Vide Noir Lord Huron, the indie rock group from Los Angeles, have had quite a few years to grow into their trademark sound of atmospheric landscapes and wandering journeys. Vide Noir, the third studio album and their first on a major label, was mixed by Dave Fridmann (Tame Impala, The Flaming Lips) and self-produced by front-man Ben Schneider, in which he has crafted his early career masterpiece. Schneider recently credited this album to a new habit of taking nighttime drives around LA and the “search for meaning amidst the cold indifference of the universe,” according to his recent social media posts. This album in particular speaks to the late night journeys that Schneider had become accustomed to and takes the listener on a rewarding path of self discovery. Lord Huron are at their most comfortable when they experiment with these sonic landscapes and there’s plenty of this apparent on this LP. [AG] 13. Caitlyn Smith – Starfire Some artists just have those voices that you can’t deny. You might not usually listen to the genre they hail from, and you might not even love the songs, but you can hear them sing and understand why people love their music. Adele is one of those artists. Chris Stapleton is one of those artists. Jeff Buckley, when he was alive, was one of those artists. And Caitlyn Smith is one of those artists, too. For my money, Smith’s debut, titled Starfire, is one of the two or three most well-sung LPs of the decade so far. I’m guessing that one listen to the theatrical tour-de-force “East Side Restaurant” will be enough to tell you why. While Smith’s voice is the centerpiece, though, Starfire is what it is because of the songwriting. Smith has been waiting for this moment for a long time, releasing a series of EPs and writing songs for everyone from Garth Brooks to Dolly Parton to Meghan Trainor and John Legend. Starfire encapsulates that long-haul story into a record about chasing a dream until it breaks your heart—and then chasing it even harder. Songs like “Don’t Give up on My Love” and “This Town Is Killing Me” ache with the sting of everything you sacrifice when you gamble your life on a fool’s hope of music industry success. “They buried my granddad without me/’Cause I was out on the road at some one-off show in Tupelo/And I can’t take that one back,” Smith sings in the latter. Starfire is an album built on a lot of miles, a lot of lonely nights in shitty motel rooms, and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. You can hear every ounce of what the journey cost in the songs, so when Smith belts something like the rafter-shaking key change at the climax of “Tacoma,” it feels like nothing less than a triumph of the human spirit. [CM] 14. Camp Cope – How To Socialise and Make Friends There’s a renaissance of primal, emotionally-charged punk rock coming out of Melbourne, Australia right now (roo-rock?) and the all-female Camp Cope is leading the charge. Lead singer Georgia Maq started as a solo artist, but added Kelso Hellmrich and Sarah Thompson to great effect on their second studio album, How to Socialize & Make Friends, a loose reference to the classic Dan Carnegie self-help book published in the 30’s. Maq is equal parts sincere, sarcastic, bitter, and brazen singing about gender politics (“And all my success has got nothing to do with me/Yeah, tell me again how there just aren’t that many girls in the music scene”) and just surviving in a world not built for sensitive people (“But sometimes it’s hard to go outside/And I’ve been driving way too much/I’ve been too lazy to fix my bike”). Her beautiful banshee scream is reminiscent of Hop Along’s Frances Quinlan’s, but nothing about Camp Cope is purely derivative. Now in their prime as a band, they have created a place for themselves all their own. [DK] 15. Underoath – Erase Me The first time I heard “rase Me, I was let down—but somehow totally vibing with album standout “No Frame.” And then I listened again. And again. The songs started wiggling their way into my head. And then I listened again. The next thing I knew, I was belting every song for weeks on end. I’d trusted Underoath for fifteen years, and they delivered again, despite my initial reaction. Listening to an album “freed from religion” was listening to the catharsis of a man not afraid to address God from a place of vulnerability and honesty unafraid of how he was perceived in the asking, conquering the addiction demons of his past, and coming to a new sense of identity—all while exploring new avenues of sound for the band. Some defined these new sounds as selling out—and while I would’ve preferred more “Hold Your Breath”-type songs to “Rapture”-type songs—I’m all for bands writing what they want to write. This will never be remembered as their greatest album, but with enough time, it becomes an intensely personal album if you let it. The soaring chorus of “In Motion” or the absolutely crushing bridge of “ihateit” spoke directly to my life experiences. Spencer sang words echoing the thoughts I’ve kept on scraps of paper only I see. When I come to music, I just like to be seen. Thirteen years after “Young and Aspiring” changed my life, Underoath still makes music that sees me. And I still see them. I’m so happy for the continued success and happiness they’ve found along the way. Erase Me is an album about the journey, and I’m already excited for what the destination of a next album promises. [GL] 16. Soccer Mommy – Clean Perhaps no other artist understands coming of age in the 2010s the way Soccer Mommy’s Sophie Allison does. Her first proper full-length, Clean, displays her knack for chronicling the uncertainties of young love, feeling misunderstood, and avoiding one’s parents in a way that feels far more mature than the subject matter would suggest. Take “Flaw”’s honest retelling of a relationship gone sour, culminating in the self-aware line: “I choose to blame it all on you, ‘cause I don’t like the truth.” Or listen to the rollicking, defiant single “Your Dog,” a screed against a controlling boyfriend that turns into a positive affirmation of her autonomy. It’ll be exciting to watch Allison grow, but for now, Clean is a hell of a first step. [ZD] 17. Animal Flag – Void Ripper Animal Flag’s latest full-length, Void Ripper, is aptly named. It’s the band’s darkest and heaviest release yet, and the music is every bit as crushing and apocalyptic as Matt Politoski’s lyrics behind it – lyrics like, “everyone I know will die” and “life is short, it always ends.” While Politoski’s lyrics are admittedly depressing, they’re also his most personal and thought-provoking yet. He and the rest of Animal Flag have torn through the void, and what they discovered on the other side was something beautiful. [ZD] 18. Frank Turner – Be More Kind Frank Turner is an Englishman, dutifully touring his way around the world and then back again, racking up a whopping 2,202 shows under his belt. So if anyone knows what might help our country right now, it’s probably the very world-weary Frank Turner. On Be More Kind he prescribes one part decency (“Be more kind, my friends/Try to be more kind”) , one part rage (“Let’s make America great again/By making racists ashamed again.”), and one part persistence (“Put on your brave face, honey, your brave face/It’s funny how fear can bring your focus in tight”). It’s a winning formula and the subject matter forces Turner to slow down in way he’s never done before. He leans in hard on the end-of-the-world theme with titles like “21st Century Survival Blues” and “Making America Great Again,” but mostly gone are the fast guitars and punk power chords, replaced instead with sensitive acoustic strumming and even, on standout track “Blackout”, a clubby dance beat. Turner crafts a surprisingly mellow, insightful album, one that feels, more than ever, like one he’s been wanting to make. And if takes an Englishman with four chords to save our country, well, we’ll take it any way we can get it. [DK] 19. The Republic of Wolves – Shrine After my first listen of Shrine I knew that this was a very special record. On their 3rd LP The Republic of Wolves return to their roots. This record delivers an album full of dynamic dark alt rock songs that are sure to fill a void for some. Lyrically, Shrine is a concept album that centers around Japanese folklore while still touching on relatable themes such as heartbreak (Birdless Cage) and spiritual conflict (Bask) . One of the album’s highlights is the centerpiece “Dialogues,” which takes the listener through a musical journey of both loud and soft dynamics, while also containing a call back a track on the bands first LP “Monologues.” The production on shrine is fantastic and contains some of the best guitar tones I’ve heard this year. This record delivers on many layers and is a must listen for fans of dynamic alternative rock. [Teebs41] 20. Turnstile – Time & Space If you’re looking for 2018’s most wild ride look no further than Turnstile’s Roadrunner Records debut, Time & Space. Blending the perfect mix of shout-along choruses, super groovy musicianship, and just the right amount of heavy to get the pit moving (thanks to Will Yip’s crisp production), the Baltimore quintet is the most exciting and unique band to emerge from the hardcore scene in years. “Generator” flows like an out-of-body experience, elevating above any and all distractions, while the fuzzy crunch of “Moon” features a guest turn from Sheer Mag’s Tina Halladay and the blistering “Right To Be” features added production from none other than Diplo. Clocking in with 13 tracks at just under a half hour, Time & Space proves that the tired ideas of what hardcore should be will not stop Turnstile from getting freaky and releasing one of the best albums of the year. [DB] Contributor Key * [CM]: Craig Manning * [JT]: Jason Tate * [AM]: Aaron Mook * [SS]: Scott Surette * [ZD]: Zac Djamoos * [DC]: Deanna Chapman * [DB]: Drew Beringer * [AG]: Adam Grundy * [GL]: Garrett Lemons * [JB]: John Bazley * [DK]: David Kallison Contributor Lists Jason Tate * Now, Now – Saved * Fickle Friends – You Are Someone Else * Fall Out Boy – Mania * Half Waif – Lavender * Brian Fallon – Sleepwalkers * Dessa – Chime * The Neighbourhood – The Neighbourhood * Kacey Musgraves – Golden Hour * Natalie Prass – The Future and the Past * Pennywise – Never Gonna Die * Janelle Monae – Dirty Computer * Soccer Mommy – Clean * Spanish Love Songs – Schmaltz * Nathan Gray – Feral Hymns * Illuminati Hotties – Kiss Yr Frenemies * The Republic of Wolves – Shrine * Lykke Li – So Sad So Sexy * The Longshot – Love is For Losers * Annie-Marie – Speak Your Mind * Tonight Alive – Underworld Drew Beringer * Father John Misty – God’s Favorite Customer * The Wonder Years – Sister Cities * Hop Along – Bark Your Head Off, Dog * Turnstile – Time & Space * Petal – Magic Gone * Self Defense Family – Have You Considered Punk Music * Beach House – 7 * Pianos Become The Teeth – Wait For Love * Sleep – The Sciences * Tiny Moving Parts – Swell * Jeff Rosenstock – POST- * Culture Abuse – Bay Dream * Rolling Blackouts C.F. – Hope Downs * Dance Gavin Dance – Artificial Selection * Wax Idols – Happy Ending * Now, Now – Saved * Hurry – Every Little Thought * Drowse – Cold Air * Wye Oak – The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs * Anthony Green – Would You Still Be In Love Adam Grundy * Lord Huron – Vide Noir * Middle Kids – Lost Friends * The Aces – When my heart felt volcanic * CHVRCHES – Love is Dead * The Neighbourhood – S/T * Moon Taxi – Let the record play * Car Seat Headrest- Twin Fantasy * Kendrick Lamar/VA – Black panther soundtrack * Brian Fallon – Sleepwalkers * Senses Fail – If there is light… * Dashboard Confessional – Crooked Shadows * Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night sweats – Tearing at the Seams * Arctic Monkeys – Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino * The Voidz – Virtue * Underoath – Erase Me * Superorganism – S/T * Ben Howard – Noonday Dream * Pennywise – Never Gonna Die * Father John misty – Gods favorite customer * The Longshot – Love is for Losers Craig Manning * Caitlyn Smith – Starfire * Kacey Musgraves – Golden Hour * Tenille Townes – The Living Room Worktapes * Dawes – Passwords * Brian Fallon – Sleepwalkers * Donovan Woods – Both Ways * Field Report – Summertime Songs * Brothers Osborne – Port Saint Joe * Steve Moakler – Born Ready * Dierks Bentley – The Mountain * LANCO – Hallelujah Nights * Ashley Monroe – Sparrow * Brandi Carlile – By the Way, I Forgive You * Courtney Marie Andrews – May Your Kindness Remain * Parker Millsap – Other Arrangements * The Dangerous Summer – The Dangerous Summer * The Church Sisters – A Night at the Opry * Snow Patrol – Wildness * Ashley McBryde – Girl Going Nowhere * American Aquarium – Things Change Scott Surette * the wonder years — sister cities * the republic of wolves — shrine * pusha t — daytona * dance gavin dance — artificial selection * hop along — bark your head off, dog * jeff rosenstock — post- * pianos become the teeth — wait for love * turnstile — time and space * cardi b — invasion of privacy * soccer mommy — clean * jpegmafia — veteran * tiny moving parts — swell * the dangerous summer — the dangerous summer * senses fail — if there is a light, it will find you * pennywise — never gonna die Deanna Chapman * Kacey Musgraves – Golden Hour * Hidden Hospitals – Liars * Marian Hill – Unusual * Caitlyn Smith – Starfire * Brothers Osborne – Port Saint Joe * The XCERTS – Hold On To Your Heart * Brian Fallon – Sleepwalkers * Hurry – Every Little Thought * Elder Brother – Stay Inside * The Longshot – Love Is for Lovers Zac Djamoos * Spanish Love Songs – Schmaltz * The Wonder Years – Sister Cities * Soccer Mommy – Clean * Animal Flag – Void Ripper * Camp Cope – How to Socialise and Make Friends * Long Neck – Will This Do * awakebutstillinbed – what people call low self-esteem… * Pianos Become the Teeth – Wait for Love * illuminati Hotties – Kiss Yr Frenemies 1 * Mighty – Mighty * The Republic of Wolves – shrine * No Thank You – All It Takes to Ruin It All * Black Foxxes – Reidi 14. Runaway Brother – New Pocket * Speak Low If You Speak Love – Nearsighted * Jeff Rosenstock – Post- * Toy Cars – Paint Brain * Late Bloomer – Waiting * Barely Civil – We Can Live Here Forever * Casey – Where I Go When I Am Sleeping Aaron Mook * Caroline Rose – LONER * Porches – The House * Father John Misty – God’s Favorite Customer * The Sidekicks – Happiness Hours * Pusha T – DAYTONA * Beach House – 7 * American Pleasure Club – A Whole Fucking Lifetime of This * Donovan Wolfington – Waves * Kraus – Path * Mount Eerie – Now Only Chrisanne Grise * Brian Fallon – Sleepwalkers * Franz Ferdinand – Always Ascending * Lord Huron – Vide Noir * Florence and the Machine – High as Hope * Leon Bridges – Good Thing * David Byrne – American Utopia * Father John Misty – God’s Favorite Customer * Frank Turner – Be More Kind * The Longshot – Love is for Losers * Kate Nash – Yesterday Was Forever David Kallison * Camp Cope – How to Socialize and Make Friends * Brian Fallon – Sleepwalkers * Spanish Love Songs – Schmaltz * Sorority Noise – YNAAT * Frank Turner – Be More Kind * Hop Along – Bark Your Head Off, Dog * illuminati hotties – Kiss Yr Frenemies * Coach Phillips – Learning How To Swim EP * Pelafina – Sorry In Advance * Wonder Years – Sister Cities * Tiny Little Houses – Idiot Proverbs * The Penske File – Salvation * Childish Gambino – “This is America” single * Juice WRLD – Goodbye and Good Riddance * Pllush – Stranger to the Pain * Nahan Gray – Feral Hymns * Animal Flag – Void Ripper John Bazley * Spanish Love Songs – Schmaltz * The Wonder Years – Sister Cities * Staten – I don’t want to be alone anymore * Now, Now – Saved * Pusha T – Daytona * Brian Fallon – Sleepwalkers * Kevin Gates – Chained to the City EP * Kississippi – Sunset Blush * Janelle Monáe – Dirty Computer * Hop Along – Bark Your Head Off, Dog * The HIRS Collective – Friends. Lovers. Favorites. * Jeff Rosenstock – POST- * A Will Away – Hear Again EP * J Cole – KOD * Saba – Care For Me * Tiny Moving Parts – Swell * Courtney Barnett – Tell Me How You Really Feel * Cardi B – Invasion of Privacy * Animal Flag – Void Ripper * Zaytoven – Trap Holizay Garrett Lemons * Underoath – Erase Me * The Wonder Years – Sister Cities * Beyonce & Jay-Z — Love Is Everything * Jeff Rosenstock – POST- * The Weeknd – My Dear Melancholy * Cardi B – Invasion of Privacy * Frank Turner – Be More Kind * Shawn Mendes – Shawn Mendes * Dashboard Confessional – Crooked Shadows * Pianos Become The Teeth – Wait For Love * The Dangerous Summer – The Dangerous Summer * Senses Fail – If There Is A Light… * The Republic of Wolves – Shrine * Brian Fallon – Sleepwalkers * Kacey Musgraves – Golden Hour * Janelle Monae – Dirty Computer * Migos – Culture II * Now, Now – Saved * Justin Timberlake – Man of the Woods * Pusha T – Daytona Ryan Gardner * The Wonder Years – Sister Cities * Spanish Love Songs – Schmaltz * Kacey Musgraves – Golden Hour * Pianos Become The Teeth – Wait For Love * Now, Now – Saved * The Sidekicks – Happiness Hours * Brian Fallon – Sleepwalkers * The Dangerous Summer – The Dangerous Summer * Underoath – Erase Me * Turnstile – Time & Space * Soccer Mommy – Clean * Harms Way – Posthuman Tommy Monroe * Pusha T – Daytona * Anne-Marie – Speak Your Mind * Charlie Puth – Voicenotes * Cozz – Effected * First Aid Kit – Ruins * Vance Joy – Nation Of Two * Princess Nokia – A Girl Cried Red * Fall Out Boy – Mania * Camila Cabello – CAMILA * Jay Rock – Redemption * Beyoncé & Jay-Z – Everything Is Love * Janelle Monáe – Dirty Computer * Cardi B – Invasion Of Privacy * Royce da 5’9 – Book Of Ryan * Migos – culture 2 * J. Cole – KOD * The Dangerous Summer – The Dangerous Summer * Julie Bergan – Turn On The Lights * Kids See Ghosts – KIDS SEE GHOSTS * Kanye West – Ye Aj LaGambina * Now, Now – Saved * Pianos Become The Teeth – Wait for Love * Kacey Musgraves – Golden Hour * Animal Flag – Void Ripper * Hop Along – Bark Your Head Off, Dog * Brian Fallon – Sleepwalkers * Jeff Rosenstock – Post- * Tiny Moving Parts – Swell * Fall Out Boy – Mania * MGMT – Little Dark Age Eric Wilson * Kacey Musgraves – Golden Hour * Brian Fallon – Sleepwalkers * Mayday Parade – Sunnyland * Camila Cabello – Camila * Mike Shinoda – Post Traumatic * Fall Out Boy – MANIA * Mat Kearney – Crazytalk * Dashboard Confessional – Crooked Shadows * Tonight Alive – Underworld * State Champs – Living Proof --- Please consider supporting us so we can keep bringing you stories like this one. ◎ https://chorus.fm/features/articles/the-top-albums-of-2018-so-far/

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fugandhi · 6 years

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DREAM MACHINE or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Frequency

Some time ago, I had recently come across Matthew & Doris Melton and their music. After being immediately impressed and totally jammin’ to their very catchy songs (and totally awesome music videos) - I came across this particular video regarding Tuning Frequencies.

I have been somewhat aware of the importance of Frequency & how living beings are effected by Sound (due to other personal research in my life), however, this was the very first time I had ever seen people deliberately tuning their instruments for a purpose (other than playing in tune).

I highly encourage anyone who has yet to consider tuning to 432hz to consider it - I had already began my own efforts like months and months ago and I absolutely notice a difference in my guitar’s sound and tonal vibrations (100%). Of course, I didn’t adjust my tuning until AFTER I already began working on my current album, “MASS HYSTERIA!” and had already released a few songs (LOL).

Needless to say, my first album will have more than one type of tuning frequency in it, as my currently released songs are in the standard 440hz, although I think I may just leave it that way. I don’t mind having the variety (it’s such a GREAT reason to have more than one guitar available Hahaha), plus, one day I may totally just change it all to 432hz, so we’ll see what happens.

Dream Machine is AMAZING. Their sound is something very familiar, but totally new and exciting. “The Illusion” is a fantastic piece of work - and I think it’s even more charming & sweet that Matthew and his wife, Doris, are in the band together and they are phenomenal Independent Thinkers (they have posted some very well-thought & well-presented videos on their Youtube channel for anyone who isn’t familiar; taking on a lot of topics that most would shy away from/Brave & Bold opinions to say the least). They are a very powerful couple.

I admire these people and their work very much. Although I may not have the exact same opinion or life-experience or musical expression - I still think it is important for more and more people, just like Matthew & Doris, to truly explore the opportunities for Independent Thought as well as Independence as it stands in this modern-day America.

I don’t openly endorse anyone else’s ideology, however, I do very much enjoy listening to the opinions or life-ponderings of others who have something to say other than mindless, shallow, meaningless bullshit. I truly enjoy Matthew’s point-of-view on how a lot of musicians/bands/anyone relevant to the Music scene seem to have some type of “Death Cult” Mentality. It’s so true.

I completely agreed with when he said that it seems like people look down on people (such as myself) who are musicians that simply want to be in a functional relationship, and have a healthy & happy family rather than wanting to look and feel “cool” all the time, focusing primarily on their image & ego (and pretty much having like a Nihilistic view on not only their own lives but possibly the greater whole - just for said person to feel like they’re “legit” or have some type of sick “street cred” or superiority for basically being unhappy & alone). Doris has a very excellent take on the hypocrisies of fellow immigrants, herself having come to America as an immigrant, and also her educational presentation on Slavery (Matthew & Doris are both astoundingly intelligent and I believe their hearts are sincere).

KiMMM! & I play music that is not commercially-accessible and it’s too unorthodox and too outrageously uncompromising in our expression for the mainstream. The average person who doesn’t necessarily have any point-of-reference other than the very typical (and boring might I add) Mainstream type of Band or Musician (I think it was the late Jimmy Lee Lindsey, Jr. who said “Why do the boring and typical 9-to-5 with Music?”) may only have the taste developed for the more polished and cookie-cutter kinda studio sound (Which usually sounds like Money took a Dump into a Computer and then a guy who is programmed by the latest Top 40 nonsense may or may not say “Hey, More Heavy on the BASS - that’s what Everyone Else is Doing” as I hurl in dismay).

It’s a shame that music, especially Rock Music (which is like the quintessential sound of Rebellion), has become Mind-Numbingly Family-Friendly. The more upsetting fact is that the majority of rock music that is celebrated with cult-like followings are like these really just negative, demonic-sounding SHIT that makes me wonder What The Fuck Happened to MUSIC. I’m like, uhhh, so when did Rock music get so SLOW and HEAVY (and also kinda Evil)? - I need my music hyper-active and electrifying - And why does everyone everywhere wear like all-black clothes? It’s like every single rock band, and if you have ever flipped through like a magazine or even just looking at videos online - everyone is like depressed, gloomy, angry, growling, or way too fashionable, and I’m like yeah dude I see why no one wants to listen to rock n’ roll anymore because I’m like uhhhhh...What happened???? All the best stuff is done by independent talent. This is why the music industry has been failing for well over a decade now. It’s all a Business with deadlines and suits to pay (or a guy in his favorite band’s tee wearing all black clothing of course).

With the passing of time, and the natural way of the world - More and more people, musicians, married couples, or Whatever - will continue to break the mold of expectations that has been seemingly sustained by Corporate interest (or flat-out Supply & Demand). The status quo of the music industry is (and will continue to be) dismantled and redefined by such underground/Independent/non-conforming acts such as Dream Machine (and a TON of other musicians out there who deserve more listeners & recognition).

I am a firm believer in supporting good music and good productions - Especially Independent Artists. I do run my own ship (so-to-speak), however, I believe that everyone deserves to set sail when it comes to life’s expression (and discovery). I have a sort of delinquent theory that EVERYONE in the entire world could find that one instrument that speaks to them (despite how obscure), and in my very flimsy theory - Everyone (YES Everyone) can have their own Band to express their story. I know it’s like a super-duper far-fetched theory, but like, I developed it when I was a teenager in my music program in high school. I believe there is an instrument for everyone, it’s just a matter of opportunity and circumstance to present itself to each said individual in the world. I truly believe it. I don’t enjoy hearing people say “I don’t have any musical talent” or “I can’t play anything, I’m not a musician” - In my humble opinion, these types of cannot-do attitudes are what allow such restrictions & limitations of the self (unless if someone is like no seriously I can’t because of whatever reason).

I believe everyone has the gift of music in the heart & soul, and even if someone is musically unable to play an instrument - they could at least sing or hum along to join the song. As I’ve said before, the power of music is essential, it is fundamental - it does not require anything more than a soul that wants to sing (despite the tuning). Paying greater attention to such fine details as which frequency an instrument or band or album is in tune with may encourage the listener in ways beyond our full understanding (especially since sounds can heal people).

Off of my soap-box (haha). Enjoy this video, and consider the possibilities. I encourage you.

-ATOMIK 1

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