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#in another life this was a vaporwave album cover
fuzzyghost · 10 months
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Susan Crosland - Dangerous Games (Russian cover)
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nurvuss · 3 years
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The Slow Cancellation of Island Time: Paradise Killer and its Hauntological Roots
Paradise Killer is an immediately familiar experience: every bit of it can be recognised from elsewhere. It is a collage in video game form, borrowing liberally from Grasshopper's Kill the Past series (cheekily commodified in-game as the refreshing beer "Kill the Thirst") and psychopop murder mystery DanganRonpa, stylised in pastel vaporwave aesthetics: a genre wholly dependent on duplication. Barry "Epoch" Topping's city pop/yacht jazz-inspired soundtrack immediately echoes the YouTube algorithms of those of us ruined by Mariya Takeuchi and Toshiki Kadomatsu, though it is original and sample-free.
One might see these numerous references, homages, and borrowings and accuse Paradise Killer of unoriginality, but the borrowings are the point: Paradise Killer is the Ur-hauntological adventure game, with each of its disparate parts key to its whole.
Beyond the limits of reality exists the Island Sequence: a pocket dimension ruled over by a cadre of immortal narcissists called The Syndicate. Ostensibly created as worship to the Syndicates' many eldritch Gods, it's essentially an eternal vacation home. Beachfront living and luxurious cocktails for the immortals, while the Citizens—regular humans who've been trafficked across dimensions—are forced into gruelling slave labour to keep the Islands running. It's always a temporary arrangement; every thousand or so years, the Island falls prey to demon invasion, requiring the creation of a new Island, the migration of the Syndicate, and the slaughter of the Citizens to appease the Gods' wrath.
Paradise Killer opens on Sequence 24 as it begins to wind down, as all Sequences do. Preparations are being made for Perfect 25, an idealised "Forever Island" supposedly immune to demonic influence. Just as migration begins, tragedy strikes Paradise: the High Council have been slaughtered in cold blood, throwing 24 into lockdown and disarray. Investigator Lady Love Dies, previously exiled for 8000 years after falling prey to demonic seduction, is brought out of retirement by the Syndicate's judicial body to solve the case. The player, as Lady Love Dies, scours Sequence 24 for clues, meeting the larger-than-life Syndicate members, and looking for holes to poke in their testimonies when it's time to hold court.
Sequence 24 is a dreamlike hodgepodge of spatial design: a tropical beach resort punctuated by realistic Japanese danchi-style public housing, as well as surreal pyramids, temples, and ziggurats. The landscape is bathed in different shades of neon, as modern architecture combines with Doric pillars and ancient sculpture. Any screenshot is a potential vaporwave album cover. It's also a profoundly lonely experience; each of its characters are spread far apart from each other, occupying their own luxurious "Generation Me" living quarters. Lady Love Dies wanders across the island alone, music fading in and out the closer the player is to a radio tower. What results is an empty shell of a city, a hyper-stylized monument to hedonistic ambition and hubris.
The vaporwave influence is far more than a stylistic choice: a simultaneous celebration of a mythologised recent past, and a critique of the continued failures of capitalism, Paradise Killer's style is key to its themes. It is no coincidence that vaporwave is preoccupied with 1980s Japan, the height of the bubble economy before it burst in 1991, resulting in the economic downturn of Lost Decade—which, as of 2021, has continued as The Lost 30 Years. Like a wistful snapshot of an 80s metropolis, Sequence 24 is a wonderpark; a collection of non-places. As the late cultural theorist Mark Fisher would write in his 2012 essay "What is Hauntology?", "[non-places'] resemble one another more than they resemble the particular spaces in which they are located, and [their] ominous proliferation is the most visible sign of the implacable spread of capitalist globalization. The disappearance of space goes alongside the disappearance of time: there are non-times as well as non-places." Paradise Killer, similarly, is wholly unstuck from time: the Syndicate have successfully dragged out their late 20th century summer vacation for thousands of years, but it is not enough: perfection must be endless.
Echoing any economic bubble, every Island Sequence has been a profound failure, setting up Perfect 25 to be a fiction within the game's own fiction. The Syndicate gaze foolishly to a past that never existed, believing they're looking to a bright future. Paradise's late capitalism has lasted thousands of years, and it's set to continue brutally and unabated—always somebody else's fault, the self-absorbed death drive of the Syndicate will march on.
Paradise Killer is a visually enticing adventure; the surface-level beauty of Sequence 24 eroded with each new allusion to the utter bleakness that is the prerequisite to its existence. A world of multicoloured plastic shit, the vacation spot that's a “““nice place””” but you wouldn't want to live there—unfortunately, thanks to neoliberalism, we already do.
Hey, at least you can pick your favourite product.
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curious-minx · 3 years
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Notable 2020 Video Game Soundtracks That Can Be Enjoyed As Standalone Experiences
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Video Game Music is gaining recognition, with many soundtracks receiving vinyl pressings, orchestral concert reviews, and an increasing presence on music streaming platforms such as bandcamp and Spotify. We’re also witnessing the uprise of indie video game development teams where games are being made by the sort of passionate type of game designer that takes soundtracks seriously.  Soundtracks by small teams of developers such as Celeste, Undertale, Disco Elysium, Hollow Knight, RuneScape, and Lisa: The Joyful are titles with soundtracks that easily stand up against the likes of bigger budget productions made by reliable sources of video game music like Square-Enix and Nintendo.
2020 is no exception in terms of having one of the biggest budget soundtracks around with Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which builds upon a legacy of industry-standard-creating soundtrack work. Taken as a whole, Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s soundtrack is clocking in at over 8 and half hours of music. The soundtrack has three composers with the Beethoven of video game music, Nobuo Uematsu, most notably coming out of retirement to get the job done.  Here are some other amazing 2020 video game soundtracks more conducive for standalone background listening:
TETRIS EFFECT by HYDELIC 
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Genres: EDM, Ambient Pop and straight up Ambient 
Describing this album makes me feel like I’m some sort of burnt out fanciful raver, head permanently lodged in the clouds. The level of giddy technicolor enthusiasm rivals that of Icelandic Sigur Ros frontman Jonsi, but if he wanted to keep his post-rock firmly planted in the outdoor music festival on Mars territory. Despite the album’s notable two hours runtime, each and every song feels like its own uniquely crafted composition, no repetitive motifs or nostalgia-baiting.
There is unfortunately still a Tetris movie in some sort of shaggy state of development in Hollywood right now. The movie is being billed as a dull biopic about the creator of the Tetris game. Whereas listening to Tetris Effect you imagine a Tetris movie directed by someone more fitting like the Wakowskis. Tetris Effect’s opening song “Connected (Yours Forever)” is a bonafide vocal pop song, like a more sugary CVRCHES-style cooing of the lyrics:
“I’m Yours Forever
There is No End in Sights For Us,
Nothing Can Measure the Kind of Strength Inside Our Hearts,
It’s all connected we’re all together in this life, don’t you forget it
We’re all connected in this”
Try your best not to imagine a cast of Hollywood’s most beautiful plucky orphan mutant misfit youths using the power of Tetris to heal a broken and dying planet!
Notable Track: Next Chapter
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HADES by DARREN KORB
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Genres: Progressive Metal, Folktronica, Folk Metal, Dimotika, Greek Folk Music
Darren Korb has become one of the most notable video game composers of the past decade. Korb, an integral member of the Supergiant family, continues to outdo himself with each and every soundtrack. Bastion and Transistor originally found Korb creating a niche for himself with downtempo folk-infused electronic soundscapes and even some vocal pop with collaborator Ashley Barrett. Hades is an altogether different beast for Korb, who much like the developers of Hades, have found themselves at the height of their powers.
Korb also contributes vocals on this album, and I can say without hesitation that these are some of the nicest vocals I’ve ever heard from a video game music designer, because video game musicians are bonafide musicians.The album clocks in at two and half hours and separate from its game is still an absolute thrill ride.
Notable Track: In The Blood
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DEFECTIVE HOLIDAY by MECHATOK
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 Genres: Ambient Trance, Balearic Beat, Progressive Electronic, Nature Recordings, Spoken Word, New Age
One glance at the album artwork is all it took for me to know that I must listen to this album. Defective Holiday is an indie walking simulator that is explicit about its intentions: a lightly interactive one hour experience. This soundtrack clocks in at only 31 minutes and it is purely the most conventional album in terms of length.
Last week in late November, Mechatok announced a collaboration with one of the leading zoomer Swedish cloud rap mavericks Bladee, the cofounder of the Drain Gang. Last month gives a pretty clear picture of what kind of circles Mechatok is floating in on. Highly online gonzo vaporwave maestro James Ferraro is another apparent influence on this soundtrack, especially regarding the way the sinister mundane dialogue is woven into the soundscape. There’s one particular track on the Defective Holiday OST, “Rescue Shot Buibo”, that is adorned with standard trap-style drum fills that give the album a shot of energy before wandering back off into the haze. This soundtrack and video game is all about the pure vibe and aesthetic nature that are currently trending in these extremely stressful times.  In a time where all of our holidays were defective from the very start, I think the casual walking simulator will remain a genre high in demand. I have a feeling we’re going to hear a lot more from this empathetic young German.
Notable Track: Valley
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Last of Us II by Gustavo Santaolalla, Mac Quayle (and Ashley Johnson)
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Genres: Ambient, Cinematic Classical, Dark Ambient, Spanish Folk Music 
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The Last Of Us is a horror game where the music itself is arguably playing a critical character role, which can only be expected billing two titans of audio visual soundtracks. Of course Academy Award winner Santaolalla knows his way around a soundtrack. Wielding a resume of astonishing versatility in various TV and film projects, he might have found his higher calling in not only video games but in the horror music canon. Last of Us is an extremely emotional series, and with the wrong soundtrack, the experience could become insufferably bleak. The occasional  splashes of color and light are what make this soundtrack so unsettling and eerie. Not since Silent Hill 2’s Akira Yamaoka has there been such an effective standalone horror video game soundtrack experience. No wonder Gustavo Santaolalla is one of the only video game composers integral enough to the game to warrant a cameo banjo-playing character model based off of him.
As if having one major composer from prestigious TV and movies wasn’t enough, Mac Quayle, composer of the whole Mr. Robot series, contrasts against Santaolalla’s acoustic contributions. The soundtrack itself is sequenced in a way that switches between the two composers. “The Cycle of Violence” composed by Quayle, a track that more than lives up to its name, is immediately followed by Santaolalla’s somber “Reclaimed Memories.” This dance between violence and heart is what the Last of Us excels at as a franchise, and that is why this soundtrack is an effective stand-alone experience.
The only disappointing part of the soundtrack is that Ashley Johnson, voice actor of Ellie’ three songs, is not included in the game’s official tracklist. Ellie’s “Take On Me” a-ha and “Future Days” Pearl Jam covers have made a little history by being the most powerful songs sung by a video game character. When Ellie sings and plays on her guitar they aren’t some little Easter egg idling moments to provide levity for this heavy revenge horror story. These songs are used to make some of the strongest character development choices made by a video game character seen in recent years. Ellie is joining a small club of singing video game characters alongside Parapa the Rapper and  maybe the cast of obscure Atlus title Rhapsody: Musical Adventure.
Notable Track: Unbroken
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Persona 5 Royal Straight Flush Edition by Shoji Meguro 
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Genre: Acid Jazz, Alternative Rock, Alternative Metal, Lounge, Jazz-Funk 
This is one of those soundtracks that, much like Nobuo Uematsu’s work in Final Fantasy, is really the heart and soul of the entire Persona franchise (and his work in the adjacent Shin Megami Tensei universe is equally as noteworthy). Persona 5 Royal finds Meguro making his most complete, funky, and otherworldly opus that sounds like no one else in the biz.
You will find many people online scouring message boards, subreddits, bandcamp features, and Yahoo Answers looking for more music like Persona 5. Outside of Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater, how many other games are packed to the brim with truly foxy songs!? Persona 5 could not predict how badly the title “Throw Away Your Mask” would age, despite the game being more than ahead of its time with the majority of NPCs wearing PPE. Be a good Joker, put on your mask and keep chasing Meguro’s acid jazz-infused dragon through many more semesters to come.
Notable Track: I Imagine
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Streets of Rage 4 by Olivier Deriviere & Various
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Genres: Electro House, Nu Jazz, Synth Funk, Acid House 
Composer Olivier Deriviere is a living definition of a video game soundtrack journeyman. He has a career stretching back to the early 2000s working on notable big budget titles like the divisive 2008 Atari fifth Alone in the Dark installment and Remember Me, an unsung buried gem from the PS3/360 era Capcom title. Remember Me is where Deriviere’s electronic leanings started becoming especially prominent in his sound. On the Streets of Rage 4 soundtrack Deriviere has completely come into his own element, developing a whole new sense of campy playfulness.
Electronic French House music can be a divisive genre. For every Daft Punk commercial success there is a band that ruffles feathers like Justice. I sense a strong presence of late departed French House titan Philippe Zdar of Cassius as well. If you’d played this soundtrack for me out of context, I would have guessed an obscure voguing tape from the 80s or a really talented mysterious DJ set. Instead, this is a sequel to a classic beat em up franchise that left a portion of players disappointed by the game’s four hour playtime. The soundtrack is over an hour and fifty minutes long of high octane House music bliss. Much like the Tetris Effect soundtrack, it is truly impressive how much depth these tracks have when they could have easily been nostalgic recycled beats. Sometimes a game’s soundtrack can offer more post game enjoyment than an actual game.
Notable Track: Chill Or Don’t
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Hylics 2 by Chuck Salamone & Mason Lindroth 
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Genres: Experimental Rock, Neo-Psychedelia, Hypagogic Pop, Stoner Rock, Jazz-Rock
A soundtrack that comes closest to capturing the experience of hearing the Earthbound or Katamari Damacy soundtracks for the first time. The Hylic indie RPG series is a wonderful and strange beast that is ready to frolic and show its playful side. Hylics is a part of a recent uprising of indie games being developed on the RPG Maker software. 2020 year has left us all with variations of the same stressed out adjectives: Weird. Messed Up. Surreal.
Why not listen to an album from a game that is the perfect embodiment of that surreal mantra? Step away from your computer, draw a bath, and put this album on. Thank me later!
Notable  track: Xeno Arcadia
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Ultrakill: Infinite Hyperdeath (Act I Soundtrack) by Heaven Pierce Her aka game developer Arsi “Hakita” Patala 
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Genres: Drum and Bass, Industrial Metal, Ambient, Progressive Metal, Acidcore 
Nothing says “modern indie game development” more than a game built completely from the ground up by one person. Ultrakill’s developer “Hakita” is one of those kindly folkloric DIY figures that make video games such an extensive art form. The game is a painstaking gloriously bloody ode to Dooms of yesteryear but with plenty of its own fine tuned style. The perfect soundtrack for when you’re painting your personal Hell a darker shade of gore, but also would really like to kick your ass into shape if you need an adrenaline boost to your Quarantine blues.
Notable Track: Panic Betrayer 
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Risk of Rain 2 by Chris Christodoulou
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Genres: Progressive Rock, Space Rock, Space Ambient,  Post-Rock
Something about the country of Greece brings the best kind of futurism out of the country’s composers. Christodoulou’s Risk of Rain 2 soundtrack is no Bladerunner knock off. This soundtrack for the colorful sci-fi indie rougelike is punchier and less nocturnal than your typical synth-heavy sci-fi soundtrack. Risk of Rain is one of the more successful Kickstarter series around and has the best quality an indie game can have: it feels like a labor of love on all fronts. There’s no reason a rougelike like Rain of Ruin or Hades needs a soundtrack this good, but Christodoulou casts a spell with his electronic-driven prog rock that makes you want to keep respawning. A huge missed opportunity if Christodoulou does not get to soundtrack an earnest sci-fi action-adventure for even big screens. Oh! This soundtrack also features some spoken word segments from Werner Herzog; what more do you need to know?
Notable Track: The Rain Formerly Known As Purple
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Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus by Guillaume David
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A big debut project from an up-and-coming composer Guillaume David. Prior to the making of this soundtrack, David was a video game voice actor who worked on a Resident Evil Devil May Cry crossover voicing the character of “Hunk.” Warhammer 40K might become a franchise that more people will care about solely based on the quality of this installment’s soundtrack. When you see the title Warhammer 40,000, what sort of sounds come to mind? If you guessed “Neo gothic cyber Gregorian chants that seamlessly melds the ancient and futuristic”, you would be correct. A turn-based action game could possibly fall into dull territory, but with a visual identity as strong as Warhammer 40K  melded with a suitable musical atmosphere, the action and world becomes irresistible. This soundtrack is a brisk 56 minutes and the other soundtrack on this list with a more conventional runtime. Not a second is wasted on this dynamic and fantastical soundtrack. Prior to hearing this soundtrack I had no intention of ever looking into playing a game based off of something as convoluted as Warhammer 40K, but now I very much want to know what these robot priests are about. That’s the magic of a quality soundtrack.
Notable track: Millenial Rage
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Honorable Mentions:
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Happy Listening! 
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amoveablejake · 2 years
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Album Of The Week: ‘Late Night Delight’by Luxury Elite and Saint Pepsi
Stand out song: ‘All Night’.
1986 was quite the year for Planet Earth. The nuclear reactor exploded at Chernobyl, the Challenger also caught ablaze, Oprha’s show debuted and the ‘Hands Across America’ project that is features in the film ‘Us’ happened. These events in their own way changed the world and in doing so they made people all over this planet stop what they were doing and take in what was unfolding in front of them for better or worse. However, despite the potential iconic and history worthy stature of the aforementioned events, something else happened in 1986 that really leads the year to be held in very high regard. In 1986, a man wearing a black suit whilst playing the piano tried to sell America McDonald’s. He did it all whilst wearing sunglasses, sunglasses that adorned his moon for a head. Perhaps one of the lesser talked about McDonald’s advertising characters, a dinner party conversation that I’m sure we’re all regularly having, Mac Tonight was a staple of the late eighties late night fast food advertising circuit. The thing is though, a figure of perfection like this couldn’t last forever and despite a couple of brief appearances in adverts over the proceeding twenty years, Mac never truly came back. That is, until he was adopted by a community that recognised him for the deity that he is. 
Is it any surprise that Mac Tonight, a corporate advertising figure based on lounge singers in eighties California, has become a staple of the Vapourwave world. I don’t think so. If there was a Vapourwave mascot or at least a piece of iconography that is tied to the genre it would either be the Flowershoppe Renaissance bust or Mac and my money is on Mr. Tonight. And one such album that his likeness adorns is the incredibly well worked ‘Late Night Delight’ from the minds of Luxury Elite and Saint Pepsi. This is an album that if you saw a photograph of Mac Tonight and then heard this record you would say, oh yes thats his soundtrack right. Thats to say, its a smooth, laid back, calming, seductive (maybe I’m in too deep with Mac) look at a genre that is constantly evolving. One of the things that always draws me to Vaporwave or rather keeps me firmly in the clubhouse is that a lot of Vaporwave records focus on a certain feeling or trying to create soundscape for a certain feeling of nostalgia. They can be ultra specific with casino lounge music being one notable source of inspiration or they can be a bit more general with sun soaked visions of Miami. ‘Late Night Delight’ walks the line between being very detailed and creating an air of reminiscence for a certain atmosphere. Again here is another example of me feeling nostalgic for a time that I wasn’t a part of but that only goes to show what the album is able to accomplish. As it draws you deeper into its track listing you fall into eighties visions of malls and driving by the beach. Tracks like ‘Tonight’ immediately put you in your own coming of age film as the album inplants itself into your memories. And really, thats one of the biggest strengths of an album like this. Its so good and reminiscent that it tricks you into thinking that the songs are attached to memories you had before you even heard the record. Its a catch all for feelings that you had long ago, that you’re having now and that are yet to be felt. 
Mac Tonight may only be a fleeting piece of pop culture, if that, however, in an age of recycling it does make me happy to see that he has found a new life being used on countless record covers for albums that in many ways mimic the food that he is being forced to use his artistic talent (Too much for a fictitious moon man?) to sell. McDonald’s and many fast food outlets in general are great homes for nostalgia and warmth. And yes, you can argue all day about their value and their worth to society but the fact of the matter is that they’re here and they are a part of oh so many memories. And those memories of driving past a McDonald’s (or fast food chain of your choice) in the dead of night coming back from a trip or wherever you may have been are the sorts of feelings that are drawn upon on ‘Late Night Delight’ as like with the meal that you picked up, you enjoy a piece of something that doesn’t last too long but whilst it does you’re lost in that moment and the infinite nostalgia of it all which is constantly falling in on itself with Mac Tonight serenading us at the centre of it all. 
I’m in too deep. 
-Jake, a man who has suddenly gotten very into Formula One, 21/03/2022
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quantumlasange · 3 years
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A more refined and accurate version of my top 50 Albums of all time in no real order. This time I’m gonna go into some more detail for my choices.  So if you wanna read that it’ll be after the line break.
1. Graceland - Paul Simon. This is the only album I have on CD, Cassette and Vinyl. It’s honestly a perfect album. I don’t really like ‘That Was Your Mother’ on it’s own but when hearing it as part of the album it’s great.
2. Abbey Road - The Beatles. My favorite Beatles album and I love how the B-side is knows as The Abbey Road Medley. It also has Ringo’s only Drum Solo in the entire Beatles catalog and we all know Ringo is the best Beatle. I have it on Vinyl.
3. In Step - Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble. Stevie Ray Vaughan is by far my favorite guitarist of all time. Every track on this album kicks ass and he put his heart and soul into every note he played. I have it on Vinyl.
4. Brothers In Arms - Dire Straits. Over all a great little rock album. I find a lot of the songs to be comforting in their own way,  like “So Far Away” and “Brothers In Arms” are very comforting to me. I have it on Vinyl.
5. Winelight - Grover Washington Jr. By God this album is fucking Sexy, like holy shit. This is a more recent listen but I was missing out just listening to “Just the Two of Us” (Featuring Vocals by Bill Withers).
6. Watching You Watching Me - Bill Withers. Nelson George said that this album was I quote "full of little pleasures" and he’s damned right. There is not a single song on this album I don’t like, by far my favorite R&B album of all time. I have it on Vinyl.
7. Future Development - Del the Funky Homosapien. My favorite Hip Hop/Rap album ever. Del’s flows and rhymes are on point throughout the whole album.
8. Spontaneous Inventions - Bobby McFerrin. A live album that you wouldn’t think was live since there’s little to no crowd noise. A great Vocal Jazz album showcasing how Bobby McFerrin can use his voice as an instrument all it’s own. I have it on Vinyl.
9. Squeeze Box: The Complete Works of "Weird Al" Yankovic. This is kinda cheating since it’s a Box Set of every album Weird Al made and an extra album with unreleased stuff. But I can’t choose just one Weird Al album so this will have to do.
10. The Wall - Pink Floyd. This whole Album really resonates with me and helped me understand my depression after I dropped out of college. It really has a place in my life. I have it on Vinyl.
11. Kilimanjaro - The Rippingtons. A fantastic Smooth Jazz / Jazz Fusion album. I really like Jazz Fusion and this is a great example of it.  I have it on Vinyl.
12. Dreamland - Black Box. An Italo house/Eurodance album that’s my favorite in the whole house genre. Some great dance tracks on this. I have it on Vinyl.
13. Tourist in Paradise - The Rippingtons. This album came out right after Kilimanjaro and is another great example of Smooth Jazz Fusion. I have it on Vinyl.
14. Teddy Pendergrass - Teddy Pendergrass. His debut solo album and a fantastic piece of R&B. It also has the  greatest break-up song ever “I Don’t Love You Anymore”. I have it on Vinyl.
15. S.O.S - The S.O.S Band. Their first album, a disco album that came out in 1980 after disco died in the USA. Was really big in Nighclubs and is a good album aside from "S.O.S. (Reprise)" which just sucks.  I have it on Vinyl.
16. Purple Rain - Prince. This album is great. The guitar solo on “Purple Rain” is so good it could bring peace to the world.  I have it on Vinyl.
17.  Feels So Good - Chuck Mangione. A fantastic Smooth Jazz / Easy Listning. album "Hide and Seek (Ready or Not Here I Come)", “Feels So Good” and "The XIth Commandment" are just outstanding. I have it on Vinyl.
18. Elementary - Wah Wah Watson. Melvin M. Ragin’s only solo album. This is pure Jazz Funk at it’s best. I’ve used this album cover as an Icon online for years, I love it. I have it on Vinyl.
19. Rumours - Feetwood Mac. There’s only one track on this album that I don’t like and it’s "Oh Daddy”. I feel like that song just brings the whole album down emotionally. Other wise this albums pretty damn good. I have it on Vinyl.
20. Deltron 3030 - Deltron 3030. Del the Funky Homosapien, producer Dan the Automator, and DJ Kid Koala made a fantastic Hip-Hop/Rap opera Concept album. The story of a city in the dystopian year of 3030. 
21. Kisses on The Bottom - Paul McCartney. I caught this at like 2am on PBS' Great Performances one night in like 2013 maybe 2014 and fell in love with it. It’s mainly songs Paul McCartney grew up listening to and he wrote 2 songs in that style and it’s great.
22. Listen to the Scatman - “Scatman” John Larkin. Did you know that Scatman John was a legit Jazz Piano player? This album is just full of fantastic jazz and one kinda out of place dance song.
23. Loop Daddy II -  Marc Rebillet. Sure this is more of an EP but I put a whole Box Set on the list so shut up. Every song is a pure sexy dance groove. I love it.
24. Places and Spaces - Donald Byrd. This is 100% Pure Trumpet Jazz-Funk. This album fucking slaps hardcore. The way Donald Byrd plays the trumpet and flugelhorn is magical.
25. Whenever You Need Somebody - Rick Astley. Not only does this album have the Meme hit "Never Gonna Give You Up" it has a very heartfelt version of "When I Fall in Love". Every song is a mad banger. I have it on Vinyl.
26. Mint Jams - Casiopea. Casiopea makes some great Japanese Jazz Funk Fusion and this is by far their best album. I love me some Jazz Funk Fusion and some of the best stuff came out of Japan in the 80′s.
27. Hi-Five Soup - The Aquabats.  A great New Wave album that kids will enjoy. The Aquabats got more child friendly since they got a kids TV show but this album does have my boy Strong Bad on it. I have it on CD
28. Myths, Legends and Other Amazing Adventures, Vol. 2 - The Aquabats. An earlier Aquabats album since it’s a bunch of unreleased stuff and B-sides. “Pizza Day” speaks to my soul. I have it on CD
29. The Dance - Dave Koz. One of the first Smooth Jazz albums I ever listened to, it really helped me get into Smooth Jazz which lead me to my love of the Smooth Jazz and Jazz-Fusion. I have it on CD
30. The Corner Grocery Store - Raffi. This is an album form my childhood. I still have my VHS bootleg of Raffi on Broadway from when I was a kid. This album has my favorite song sung by Raffi, “Anansi”. 
31. Led Zeppelin 2 - Led Zeppelin. My favorite Zepplin album. “Moby Dick” is my favorite song off the album even if it’s just a big ass drum solo.  I have it on Vinyl.
32. Darkside of The Moon -  Pink Floyd. This is what I consider to be Pink Floyd’s most Jazz-Rock-Fusion oriented album. The whole albums flows together into a great soundscape. I have is on Vinyl.
33. Random Access Memories - Daft Punk. I find this to be a concept album about how Daft Punk is a pair of Robots. Part of it seems like that with the album title being a close reference to Random Access Memory aka RAM and the song title "Motherboard". A lot of the lyrics in the album make me think it has some kind of concept but that’s just me. I have this on CD
34. Thriller 25 Super Deluxe Edition - Michael Jackson.  This was the first CD I remember buying with my own money I got it at FYE. I only really listened to the songs that originally came on Thriller and not the new 2008 versions of the songs.
35. Can’t Get Enough - Barry White. This album is sexy as fuck, god be damned if you listen to this and not get turned on even slightly.
36. Larry Carlton Plays the Sound of Philadelphia. This is a great full of classic Philadelphia R&B as preformed by legendary session guitarist Larry Carton. He plays all the songs in a very Jazz like style that I just love.
37. Pure Pure - Moe Shop. A fantastic little Dance/Electronic EP. I like to call it a Future Funk EP but it’s in that vain of Vaporwave and Future Funk which are both good genres.
38. The Soundtrack to Mulan. Mulan is my favorite Disney animated movie so of course the soundtrack is on my list. I have this on cassette and it’s one of the two tapes I always listen to on long walks.
39. Every Breath You Take: The Singles - The Police. This is my other go-to cassette to listen to on long walks. This is basically the greatest hits of The Police but it’s fantastic.
40. Head Hunters - Herbie Hancock. I told you I liked Jazz-Funk Fusion right? This is perfect example of the genre made by the fantastic Jazz pianist and composer Herbie Hancock.
41. Marcos Valle - Marcos Valle (1983) Marcos Valle released a self titled album in 1970 according to Wikipedia, but I’m talking about the one from 1983. A great Brazilian Disco/Dance Bossa Nova  Samba mix album with some great dance-able tunes.
42. Homestar Runner Original Soundtrack Volume 1 (Songs, Background Music, Jingles, and Worse).
43. Homestar Runner Original Soundtrack Volume 2 (Songs, Background Music, Jingles, and Worse) .
44. Homestar Runner Original Soundtrack Volume 3 (Songs, Background Music, Jingles, and Worse) . If I could have all 3 volumes in the "HSR OST Full-On!" playlist from they would all be one entry leaving me a bit more room to play with. Plus the fact that Volume 4, a Limozeen album, a Sloshy album and a Videlectrix album are all planed for release it would help to just bundle all the Homestar Runner music together.
45. Strong Bad Sings (and Other Type Hits). This is the more “Legit”  Homestar Runner Music. I love Homestar Runner and was even featured in the 2018 Fan Costumes video so technically in a way I’m part of the Homestar Runner Cannon.
46. Fallout: New Vegas OST. My favorite Fallout game and I’d be amiss if I didn’t add the soundtrack to my list. One of my favorite games of all time even if I rarely play it.
47. Dinosaur Dracula’s Halloween & Christmas Jukebox. This is another one of those kinda cheating options since it’s two mix-tape type things. If I want to get in the Halloween or Christmas Spirit I can turn one of these Jukebox’s on and not have to worry about searching for mood music. With 100+ songs on each Jukebox I’m guaranteed good music.
48. 3 Hours of Relaxing Super Nintendo Music 1 & 2 - SNES Drunk. This is the music I turn on if I need some chill background noise or need something to fall asleep to. With a total of 6 hours of relaxing music I’m sure to fall asleep or just relax.
49. Xerf's Jazz/Fusion Mixes. So far there are 5 volumes of Japanese Jazz Fusion and like I said I like Jazz Fusion, espicaly Japanese Jazz Fusion.
50. Xerf's Jpop/AOR Mixes. There are thechinly 8 Volumes but volume 3 is just not there probbably due to copywrite. These mixes are more City Pop and older Japanese Pop, Adult-oriented rock, Funk that kinda stuff.
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fire-toolz · 4 years
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My family's beloved 16-year-old Siamese cat, Webley, died in my arms last year. He'd been a sleek fat kitty before he got ill, but he'd lost weight and lost weight till he was little more than a bedraggled shadow. At the end he could barely lift his head, and then the vet gave him the shot and he couldn't lift his head at all. I was scratching his ears as I'd so often done before, and suddenly they dropped, and whatever I was petting wasn't Webley anymore. It's one of the worst memories of my life.
I've been thinking about Webley a lot while listening to the new Fire-Toolz album, Rainbow Bridge, which comes out May 8 on local label Hausu Mountain. Angel Marcloid, a Chicago musician who records as Fire-Toolz (as well as under several other names), made Rainbow Bridge about her 16-year-old cat, Breakfast, also a Siamese, who died in December 2018. The album is an idiosyncratic collage of guttural death-metal roars, electronic bleeps, and vaporwave ambience. Bleak, sweet, and quietly unflinching, it slides back and forth between two emotional poles: one boils with rage and grief, while the other is steeped in a comforting lyricism as gentle as a cat rubbing its chin against your hand. "It's been a while, but I think about her every day," Marcloid says. "I still have moments where I feel her close and I just cry a whole bunch. I've got her ashes two feet from me right now. I have a tattoo of her on my chest. So yeah, I'm happy to honor her in my music."
From as early as she can remember, Marcloid says, music made her feel things "that are just so abstract and visceral and hard to put your finger on." She was born near Annapolis in 1984 to a music-loving family; her parents constantly played CDs of hair metal, the Beatles, and her all-time favorite band, Rush. Marcloid started making little drum sets out of pots and pans almost as soon as she could walk.
Her first public performance was when she was seven. Her parents knew a local bar band, and she sat in with them to play drums on a cover of the Black Crowes' "Hard to Handle."
"This is a smoky bar, women showing their boobs and stuff—it was not an environment for kids!" Marcloid says. "But I sat down with the drum kit and we played the songs, and they were just amazed. They were looking back at me while we were playing, like, 'Holy shit! This kid's actually keeping time!' I'll never forget walking off that stage, and all these drunk, smelly adults cheering me on, and a couple of people just gave me money. 'You're awesome, kid! Here's 20 dollars!'"
Marcloid soon taught herself to play guitar and bass too, and her musical interests expanded. As a child she had a formative late-night exposure to Morbid Angel's 1993 video for "Rapture" via MTV's Headbangers Ball, and soon she was also listening to jazz and electronica. She performed in several short-lived bands, and in the late 2000s she launched her own label, also called Rainbow Bridge. Through it Marcloid released cassettes and CDs by other musicians, as well as a blizzard of her own music under various names—including ambient acoustic music as the Human Excuse, punky dream pop with the trio Shadow Government, and electroacoustic noise as Water Bullet.
Marcloid came to Chicago in 2012 to move in with a girlfriend, who owned several cats and had just adopted Breakfast. Like most Siamese, Marcloid says, Breakfast "has always been a little strange." She was neurotic and disliked the other cats, and she never really warmed up to Marcloid's partner. In fact she only had one clear favorite. "She took to me immediately," Marcloid says, "and always wanted to be on me and just wanted to spend all her time with me." When Marcloid and her partner split up, there was no question who Breakfast would go with. The kitty ended up spending most of her life in Marcloid's bedroom to avoid other cats. "The rest of the house was just scary for her. There were too many other cat smells," Marcloid says.
"On the one hand, it may seem weird or maybe even borderline cruel to keep a cat in a single bedroom for their entire lives. But that's what she wanted; she was happy."
Marcloid has featured Breakfast in tracks throughout her oeuvre. "Spirit Spit" from the 2017 album Drip Mental (Hausu Mountain), for example, is a short wordless suite in which Marcloid imagines the usually shy Breakfast grown adventurous enough to go exploring in the house during a storm. The track opens with Breakfast engaging in some Siamese vocalizing and squawking, with thunder in the background. The rest of the narrative unfolds through auditory cues. "She comes down to the basement and turns on her ancient computer, which dials in to AOL," Marcloid explains. "Then she puts on a Telepath CD, which is a vaporwave artist that I absolutely love. You can hear the CD drive opening, you can hear the Telepath song start. And then she types some stuff and is meowing. And then she turns off the computer and goes back upstairs."
In 2018 Breakfast began to go into kidney failure. She was constantly peeing in Marcloid's room, and she wasn't eating. Eventually she was so uncomfortable and miserable Marcloid had to euthanize her. "And that was just so fucking traumatic for me, and so emotional," Marcloid says. "It really energized the search for truth and meaning that I had already begun years ago."
Marcloid began making Rainbow Bridge during Breakfast's illness. The title isn't just a callback to her record label (which she folded around five years ago) but also a reference to contemporary folk mythology about a rainbow bridge that, in Marcloid's words, "our pets either cross when they die to go to the other side, or they go there and they wait for us." The cover art, by Marcloid and Jeremy Coubrough, shows a Siamese cat sitting in a green field with her back to the viewer, looking at the prismatic steps of a bridge that leads upward into a kind of bloated growth of exploding colors.
The chaos of different hues fits the Fire-Toolz aesthetic. As Hausu Mountain cofounder Doug Kaplan puts it, "There's just nobody else that sounds like this, and there will never be another. Each track goes a billion different places but has a strong sense of oneness." Marcloid's other projects often follow particular rules or fit into particular genres; Mindspring Memories, for example, is mostly slowed-down and otherwise manipulated smooth-jazz samples. A recent album under the name Path to Lobster Believers is tape-collage improvisation. But with Fire-Toolz, Marcloid says, "Anything goes. It's a no-rules catchall; everything reports to it. It's the top of the pyramid."
The violent shifts in tone and genre on a Fire-Toolz track often feel exuberant and playful. On Rainbow Bridge, though, they create splatters of emotion: nostalgia, confusion, loss, hope. The opening track, "Gnosis .•o°Ozing," starts out as ranting death metal, with Marcloid screaming distorted, virtually indecipherable lyrics: "Arms wrapped in neon like a warning / A rainbow bridge unfurling / And now I lay listening to nothing / I feel my organs locking up."
By the second verse, she's superimposed smooth-jazz keyboard flourishes atop the noise, so that it sounds like the metal is battling easy listening, anger struggling with happier memories. "Layers in grief not unlike stages of passing / There are many / Not too many / Not so much."
The video for the song "Rainbow ∞ Bridge," created by Marcloid with Armpitrubber (aka Christine Janokowicz), provides an intense visual analogue for the music's smeared palette. This song too starts with a death-metal feel, pairing double kick drum with Marcloid's throat-tearing vocals. "Please don't be mad that I cut your cord / Fear lodged in my gums / Pressing into my face with fingerlike force / Breakfast!" she yells, as images of the kitty strobe and dissolve into colors, lights, emojis, a door opening, SpongeBob screaming. Tinkly new-age keyboard ambience plays over purple clouds and the on-screen words "Heaven! They say I can sit and soak you up." A guitar solo fit for a classic-rock ballad cuts through the shifting landscape, and then the song briefly fades into ambience as Breakfast romps across the screen and dissolves. It's a vision of a loved one disintegrating, perhaps into nothing, perhaps into memory or heaven, while pain and happiness alternate in spasms of glitches.
"Heaven has no location," Marcloid howls near the end of the track. That's a statement of spiritual hope; heaven is everywhere, Marcloid believes. "It's not any particular place. It's something that is all-encompassing," she says. "I think that it's everywhere and everything. It's the flow of life." You can hear that hope on tracks such as "⌈Mego⌉ ≜ Maitrī," which is all gentle surging keyboards and pattering electronica, encouraging you to gently drift into an ether of soft fur and purring.
A heaven without location can also simply be a heaven that doesn't exist, though, and that fear and doubt is also part of Rainbow Bridge. On the jittery "Microtubules," a throbbing beat loops around and around as Marcloid asks, "Were you afraid of crossing?" It's an unsettling question: of course she'd worry about a cat who never wanted to leave the bedroom going off on a long journey alone.
"When Breakfast was sick, anxiety was a huge, huge part of it," Marcloid says. "And even after she passed, and I knew that there was nothing to be done, there was still so much anxiety. I became frustrated because I wanted to know where she was, if she was anywhere. I just want the truth. I don't even care what it is, even if the truth is we're all just dead, and that when my body stops working, it's completely over."
Marcloid finished Rainbow Bridge months ago, and of course she didn't know it would be released at a time when anxiety, uncertainty, fear, and isolation would be so pervasive. In the context of a pandemic, the album seems even more relevant, not just because of its grief but also because of its prescient reminder of the importance of pets: during the stay-at-home order, animal adoptions have broken records as humans turn to cats and dogs to keep them company, and keep them sane, in isolation.
Marcloid adopted another cat herself after Breakfast died, and she now has three. "It's incredibly comforting to have them during a time like this," she says. "They're a solid rock for me to lean on. Especially lately, because they just don't fight with themselves. They're just such simpler creatures, and they're so much more connected to reality than any human could possibly be because of how complex our lives are. When they're in pain, they'll react—they won't like it, but they don't conceptualize and theorize about it. They don't get into this existential dread. They're just in pain, and they just want the pain to go away. That's all it is. It's that simple. We are just hopeless cases in comparison."
Marcloid's music, for all its genre shifts and chaotic oddness, can also reach for that kind of simplicity of thought and emotion. The six-minute instrumental "Angel (of Deth)" is elegiac, oceanic Muzak—a soundtrack to play while the waves roll in, or while watching a kitty sleep. At its conclusion the track breaks up into electronic blips and warbles, as though the world were coming apart and something else were wavering into existence behind the static.
"It's a mystery because we don't know," Marcloid says. "So I have to love and honor that mystery. I don't even know what God is, or if God exists, but whatever it is, that's what I love." Marcloid's tribute suggests that cats may know more about love than we do. They trust you even at the end, to help them die. Rainbow Bridge is not just a eulogy but an expression of hope that they'll lend you a paw in turn when your time comes. It's a comfort to think that when you start up those stairs, there will be a small someone to show you the way.  
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amoebo-id · 4 years
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a o t d !!!
no more than 1 release per artist to keep it interesting. selection and ranking is arbitrary and would prob be wildly different if i did this tomorrow. also i only went down to #42 cause everything after that didn’t feel like real aotd status - at least as far as the specific relationships i built over the past 10 yrs with the music i was listening to
#1 laurel halo quarantine
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nobody did machine-body dialectic like laurel halo in 2012. i loved everything else from her this decade too but every time i listened to Carcass it made me leave my body physically. absolutely unreal album art too
https://laurelhalo.bandcamp.com/track/carcass-2
#2 e+e the light that you gave me to see you
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2012 was a good year. pop/ambient/noise/radio-dj-tag sound collage ascended to spiritual intensity. makes you feel like a child experiencing awe. also fire-gut used to have probably my favorite music video ever but i think it’s gone now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p-SSuwW9cw
#3 ilovemakonnen 5
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not to be confused with Drink More Water 5, this one’s from 2010 during his mostly-forgotten diy outsider-pop phase. off-key singing and amateur beats and the sheer absolute joy of making cool songs. all 5 are perfect
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORKpg_-z0Mk
#4 macintosh plus floral shoppe
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would’ve made top 10 on album art alone. music, aesthetics, and cultural impact are inseparable here but going back to the album reminded me just how engaging its 2010s-updated chopped-and-screwed sound is, musically not just conceptually
https://vektroid.bandcamp.com/track/420
#5 jason lescalleet this is what i do 17
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hard to pick a favorite from jason lescalleet’s semi-monthly document of his electroacoustic / field recording / tape loop practice but i’ve cried to multiple tracks on tiwid 17 so it gets the nod. couldn’t find any of them online so here’s something else of his
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t33x8OOm68E
#6 barrio sur बड़ा शोक (heart break)
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dedekind cut guy’s weird one-off side project ended up being my favorite thing to come out of the last few years’ obsession w cowboy/western/country music/aesthetics. pure mystery
https://soundcloud.com/user-366783613/redemption-7inch
#7 cities aviv come to life
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i think maybe people thought cities aviv was just another no-flow pseudo-”conscious rap” type rapper in 2014 but actually this album is nuts. hyper-energetic vaporwave rap? what if death grips were happy? idk
https://citiesaviv.bandcamp.com/track/url-irl-2
#8 beach boys the smile sessions
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this cool fresh 1960s rock myth arrived fully formed and way more fun than the other ones. brian wilson’s concepts and songwriting got so unwieldy we had to wait 50 years to hear the sessions. i don’t care about conversations about his genius or whatever these songs kick ass
https://oldmasterpainter.bandcamp.com/track/surfs-up
#9 mindspring memories & intl. debris international memories
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did this really only come out in 2017? i feel like i’ve been listening to it since i was born. tangential lateral kind of wormhole out of vaporwave into two meditative spiritual infinite-feeling loops that perfectly complement each other
https://noproblematapes.bandcamp.com/track/sad-horizons
#10 nyege nyege tapes sounds of sisso
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absolutely obnoxiously insanely high energy high pitch high bpm dance music. i can’t believe this isn’t what people mean when they say future bass. set me down the path of historical and contemporary non-”global north” ideas about dance/rhythm/bass which i’m still on
https://nyegenyegetapes.bandcamp.com/track/mshamba-video-mster
#11 blithe field face always toward the sun
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the most gorgeous implementation of the sorta-ambient guitar-looping vignette aesthetic. is this a real trope or did i listen to this album so much i convinced myself it was a thing? for me this is the sound of what its like to feel completely content with life and at ease in the moment
https://blithefield.bandcamp.com/track/zen-den
#12 anohni hopelessness
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listening to this album and singing along while driving my car made me feel absolutely disgusting. unbelievable hooks, grossly hi fi sound design, and overblown drama add up to imo a scary effective type of explicitly political or ‘protest’ music
https://anohni.bandcamp.com/track/drone-bomb-me
#13 21 savage, offset, & metro boomin without warning
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why is these 3 pop stars’ vaguely halloween-themed one-off collab my favorite trap album? 21 savage, offset, and metro boomin were all wildly corny in different ways but everything was perfectly balanced. i hope metro boomin makes like one seriously ambient album next decade
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWv-bR_X-VM&list=PLC1uUM4twa8i6zsD_Sn1LRUq4vhl_PLCx&index=11&t=0s
#14 laura les big summer jams 2018
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‘crying in the club’ type bangers with no fear of ugliness and no fear of beauty and no fear of wildly unfashionable tropes like skrillex-y dubstep and guitar solos. so much input from other trans/queer artists it felt like a big t4t party
https://osno1.bandcamp.com/track/the-river-feat-scum-yung-skrrt-and-99jakes
#15 triad god nxb
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the other triad god tape from 7 years later is just as good. what was this man doing in the intervening time? i just imagine him riding london public transit while it rains or something. i love knowing that most of his cantonese spoken-word/rap parts are insults and jokes rather than like, melancholy observations
https://soundcloud.com/hipposintanks/triad-god-remand
#16 dj koze knock knock
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what if pop music sounded like this? somehow every song on here is wildly danceable, wildly sing-alongable, and also wildly detail-oriented. feels like a transmission from an alternate present where things are okay
https://djkoze.bandcamp.com/track/club-der-ewigkeiten
#17  ocora world of traditional music
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box set of “world music” recordings from the label that french electronic composer pierre schaeffer started in the 1950s as a project to teach people in rural west africa how to dj. ethnography can be a fucked up idea but afaik ocora is one of the good ones and if you can sorta try to disengage from the tropes/cliches that get imposed on it, the music is phenomenal. hard to find a track specific to this box set but here’s another from the label
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJm8rn6gW5I
#18 oneohtrix point never replica
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opn feels like an artist i’ve ‘grown out of’ i guess but samples never felt more alive or more dead than they did on replica. set a template for the kind of melancholy ‘soundscape’-y vibe that i spent years trying to find more of after
https://oneohtrixpointnever1.bandcamp.com/track/power-of-persuasion
#19 rihanna anti
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the most perfect imaginable pop album. i keep trying to move it higher up. i almost put club chai vol 1 on this list purely cause of the Woo remix but then i remembered the original is better
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dDCUKElEwk
#20 colleen a flame my love a frequency
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colleen’s ultra deadpan singing and wriggly rhythmic synth put me in a trance. everything sounded dry as hell even though it was covered in reverb. i think maybe some people were put off by the corny song names and lyrics
https://colleencolleen.bandcamp.com/track/separating
#21 dj paypal drake edits
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back when drake seemed like a sorta-shitty dude rather than seriously creepy, dj paypal used the power of footwork to expose both the melancholy-ambient modality and the serious-bass-music modality latent in his voice and beats
https://mallmusicinc.com/track/brand-new
#22 huerco s. for those of you who have never (and also those who have)
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not really as ambient as it first seems imo, but rather like a really intense focus on what we mean when we describe things as ‘static’ or ‘dynamic’. i know it’s corny but i wanna say these tracks are fully both and fully neither
https://brianleeds.bandcamp.com/track/promises-of-fertility
#23 girls rituals reddishness
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for a track so deliberately shitty-sounding I Know had no right to be so fucking danceable. persona and production synthesized into the only ‘singer-songwriter’ music i could really get into
https://temporaryenjoyment.bandcamp.com/track/i-know
#24 chromatics kill for love
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fakeass 80s retro melancholia digitized and pushed so far past pastiche it turned into pure slime. the phone call in There’s A Light Out On The Horizon came straight from the void
https://soundcloud.com/johnnyjewel/chromatics-kill-for-love-album
#25 actress ghettoville
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the only genuinely post-apocalyptic music. specifically the postapocalypse in wall-e but if there was no wall-e to clean it up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcCPdfUFq6k
#26 playboi carti die lit
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every beat on this album was reducible to a 4-second loop that perpetually demanded its own repetition and playboi carti somehow knew exactly what to do with them
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2pjiKmhlAI
#27 charli xcx vroom vroom
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the charli xcx that came after this was fun, but there was black hole levels of power compacted into when she said vroom vroom on Vroom Vroom
https://soundcloud.com/vroomvroomrecordings/charli-xcx-vroom-vroom
#28 pacific breeze: japanese city pop, aor & boogie 1976-1986
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it’s kind of amazing to think that this compilation only exists because vaporwave aesthetics made ‘japanese grocery-store kitsch from the 80s’ a marketable thing in the us. anyway every single one of these is an absolute bop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl91bvEKj20
#29 young thug barter 6
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i can’t get enough of listening to young thug’s voice. i’ve seen his rhythmic-melodic-textural sensibility described as virtuosic and i don’t know really if that term means anything but it feels right to me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg9ZxQKSDuw
#30 magic eye babylon
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smeared dreamy lo-fi guitar music w wistful buried melodies pushed to an extreme. every song sounded the same and i wish there was more than the one cassette
https://magiceye.bandcamp.com/track/flame
#31 tirzah devotion
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you could say this was ‘stripped down’ r&b but i think more accurately what separated it was that every sound stood exactly and only for itself
https://tirzah.bandcamp.com/track/basic-need
#32 mount eerie clear moon
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it’s amazing how well mount eerie navigated the move from a lo-fi sound/mode/affect to a hi-fi sound/mode/affect. clear moon wasn’t his first attempt but it was the one that most embodied the feeling of the new possilibities that had been opened up
https://pwelverumandsun.bandcamp.com/track/through-the-trees-pt-2
#33 kelela aquaphoria
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this mix was such a good idea it immediately seemed shocking nobody else had tried afaik. and kelela executed it so well you forgot the tracks already existed in other contexts
https://soundcloud.com/kelelam/aquaphoria
#34 james ferraro skid row
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not sure what it means that the only james ferraro i really love is also the one i think of as the least abstract/conceptual. his recited lyrics had a rare spoken-word-poetic power
https://breakworldrecords.bandcamp.com/track/to-live-and-die-in-la
#35 salyu x salyu s(o)un(d)beams
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absolutely unbounded sense of joy and creativity and possibility hovering between bangers-lite and ‘soundscape’-y electronic manipulation
https://soundcloud.com/snouu/salyu-x-salyu-s-o-un-d-beams
#36 dj rashad just a taste vol 1
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double cup got all the press but it was so smoothed-over it could never have done something as absurdly beautiful as Ghost or even Go Crazy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZuHPAbte9U
#37 yves tumor serpent music
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i’m sorta put off by the high-gloss sheen of music like this but serpent music somehow had the right combination of total cohesion and a ridiculous density of impactful moments
https://soundcloud.com/pan_hq/yves-tumor-the-feeling-when-you-walk-away-pan-73?in=pan_hq/sets/yves-tumor-serpent-music-pan
#38 maral mahur club
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lo-fi beat collage elevated to something that could actually genuinely be called world music
https://astralplanerecordings.bandcamp.com/track/avesta-khani-reggaeton
#39 lucki ecks watch my back
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did not expect this super low-stakes sadboy trap to end up on this list but i love his min-effort flow and somehow every beat is exactly the vibe even when the tracks aren’t volume balanced
https://soundcloud.com/boob7/leave-wit-you-prod-plu2o-nash-clams-casino?in=boob7/sets/watch-my-back
#40 arca stretch 2
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not sure why i get more out of arca’s nonsense broken-beat non-rap than any of her later projects
https://unonyc.bandcamp.com/track/tapped-in
#41 klein only
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a new way to do fucked up noise w pop leanings. ‘audacitycore’
https://klein1997.bandcamp.com/track/pretty-black-2
#42 city arcadia
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another mysterious transmission, this time w lots of harp
https://soundcloud.com/halcyon-veil/city-arcadia
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vapormaison · 4 years
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4 Future Funk Releases Deserving of a Vinyl Press
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As 2020 looms, I inevitably start thinking about filing for tax returns. Maybe that’s a symbol of the rote, misery-inducing modernity of twenty-first-century life — but I’m trying to take it as a positive this year. Getting some cash back from the Internal Revenue Service means more disposable income to drop on vinyl. While I’ll be spending quite a bit more on Japanese ambient wax this year, I’ll be ear-marking a fair share to go into vaporwave and future funk releases.
With the platform that I have currently, it’s now a definite responsibility to identify some gems that deserve a label to step up and put together a killer release on wax. With the social reach that I’ve gotten in just two months of somewhat milquetoast long-form reviews, it’s honestly a bit insane — but I’m also insanely thankful. I certainly wasn’t expecting over 400 followers from Japan when I’m publishing in English, so — ありがとうございました!
Hi-fi appreciation tends to cross artificial barriers of language and nationality.
Over the past five days I’ve compiled a pretty exhaustive list of 100 digital-only and digital/cassette releases that I’ve streamed the most over the past year. To suss out which releases sounded best for hi-fi consumption, I decided to test them on my two Christmas gifts this holiday — A Cambridge Audio 851N network streamer/pre-amp and a pair of new “anniversary” JBL 4312 Mk2 speakers powered by my vintage H/K 700 series Amp. While most of the list slapped on this new kit, there were four releases that I felt were truly deserving of getting a wax treatment in 2020. These are, in effect, the ones I’d be a guaranteed buyer of. Here they are:
Marsy + HER by Marsy
Admittedly, I stumbled on Marsy’s work just by scrolling through the list of releases through Bogus Collective, which over the course of 2019 has rocketed to the top of my list of favorite digital labels for discovering new artists. While this is of course a fine way to discover an artist — I’m stunned that I didn’t first encounter Marsy’s work on the two most visible channels for future funk discovery and appreciation — Artzie & Real Love Music. Unfortunately Real Love and Artzie haven’t been keeping up with their releases, with the most recent video on youtube from either curator dating back to November 2018. While I do get a deja vu feeling with Marsy — as in, I must have seen them on these platforms before -- perhaps with actually being cognizant, an artist of this caliber should be all over those channels on a basis at least roughly corresponding with their releases.
Do better, fellas!
Marsy’s most recent work is an absolute banger with one of the widest mixes I’ve listened to this year. The JBLs absolutely ate up the rich bass and low-range in most of Marsy’s tracks, and for a moment I had to ask myself how this release was sitting around as a digital-only. This is just one of those funky profiles made for vinyl. That being said, 7 tracks seems a bit light for a twelve-inch LP, so if I was advising a label (happy to do this pro-bono!) I’d maybe pair this album with another robust, high-energy release from Marsy: 2018’s 5-track Her EP, which coincidentally has one of my favorite individual future funk tracks (愛のFantasy) and absolutely brilliant cover art.
 Star Virgin -- サクラSAKURA-LEE 
I’m going to go on a soapbox for a moment here: I don’t like Qrates. I’ve bought from Qrates campaigns before and often find their wax brittle and their presses tinny. Now, there are a whole host of reasons why this could be the case — vinyl necessitates a much longer production line — and this inevitably creates errors. But these errors should be corrected by someone in a quality control department. And if you talk to any of the major labels, relationships with QC/QA people are some of the most essential recipes to a good physical release. This is in effect the primary function of a physical-oriented underground label: ensuring a proper quality press by ordering tests, and keeping limited back stock in case there’s some kind of slip-up. Qrates campaigns don’t offer this in sufficient degrees — and as a result makes a lot of potential buyers feel insecure.
This all said, Sakura-Lee’s unsuccessful Qrates campaign shouldn’t be seen as a lack of desire to support a proper wax release of their iconic Star Virgin release — I genuinely think it’s regarding people’s reservations about dropping $30 or more for vinyl of potentially mediocre quality. Ultimately, this is where labels should step in, build up some buzz, and provide a modicum of quality assurance to truly finalize that sale. I’ve talked to a lot of audiophiles who would love the hear tracks like The Sweet Escape and Feelings with the warmth of vinyl. Sakura-Lee’s sound is so unique and so well-suited to the format. As an owner of the Star Virgin minidisc, I can certainly attest to the quality of that release and the great sound it’s produced on my hi-fi. But minidisc is cold. Crisp, but cold. Star Virgin is musical joie de vivre -- it has all the energy of life itself, and contrasts with the almost archival and clinical nature of the minidisc format. In my view, there’s no doubt that with the right master and press, this would produce an otherworldly sound worthy of its title once it finds its way onto wax -- hopefully in 2020!
Kween Pepsi -- Jesse Cassettes 
Latin future funk is the warmest of all future funk. This is partially because us Latins (your humble reviewer is named Sebastião, after all) are the warmest people in all the world. It stands to reason then, that vinyl, music’s warmest medium — is a natural fit for for the funkiest of all music. I first discovered Jesse Casettes on the Eternal Vibes compilation, which is a compilation full of warm, Latin sounds and Jesse Cassette’s contribution to it was my absolute favorite. I’ve been a huge fan of their work ever since. 
Kween Pepsi is a masterwork that toys with a good speaker’s treble response like nothing else I’ve listened to. Only a few future funk artists can reach this level of playfulness on the high end — Night Tempo, Cosmic Bae, and a few others. But almost none sound quite as fun as Jesse Casettes, and none sound as polished and well-mixed. Kween Pepsi hits you with banger after banger, and the Seikomart tape was already a commercial success. It stands to reason that Kween Pepsi could get a nice master and fly off the market, giving audiophiles another grail on vinyl that stands out as one of the genre’s finest albums of the decade. Bringing it into the next with a new physical seems like a great idea. What DJ wouldn’t want to drop the needle on a track as well arranged and layered Osaka Fall Season Nights and let their system shine?
Miss — Flammy
Real Love beat me to the punch very recently by featuring Flammy on their channel, but Flammy is still an under-appreciated artist that I’m hoping to see 2020 herald big things for. I’ve always appreciated their deeply creative sampling, and their mixes consistently sound rich and full on every hi-fi system I play them on. I happened upon “I bet my girlfriend is chinese and aesthetic” (a title very real for me as my girlfriend is both chinese and aesthetic) back in early 2018 and was instantly impressed on how it made my KEFs absolutely werk in spite of my stodgy old British floor-standers never receiving vaportrap/future hop with very much vigor.
After kind of losing track in the waves of new releases over the past year or so, I re-discovered their work this month after Miss released, and their mixes, creative micro-sampling (City Hunter, anyone?) have been just as rich and rewarding to both my system and my ears as on that initial listen. As I said earlier, I genuinely think this Lille, France-based artist is on the verge of a blowup, and when that happens I want to make sure my childish ranting of “I want this on vinyl!” is heard sufficiently by whatever label steps up to the plate. My suggestion: maybe get this EP on a 10-inch.
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dilettantereviews · 5 years
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Due to some personal circumstances, finishing this list took longer than I’m proud of, but I hope it’s worth it.
Isolation by Kali Uchis- This was a hard album to write for, not because of the quality (obviously), but because it’s so all over the place and hard to classify. I first paid attention to her through an ONTD original about pop stars with personas, then I thought of her as an indie pop girl, and her collaborations with rap and Latin artists make me compare her to women in R&B or urban music as well. But she’s just Kali. People always talk about “it took Ms.Nancy 8 years for her debut but it’s iconic!!” but for Kali I definitely feel it. The psychedelic baroque intro alone lets you know that you’re about you go on a journey of an album. Songs like Miami, Tomorrow, and Your Teeth, My Neck (and I guess Just a Stranger) all talk about the uncomfortable intersection between wealth and desire, while songs like Dead to Me (lol) give some brevity and energy to this album. For critics who think she can’t sing, Killer has a great Winehouse-esque performance. The album cover looks like a Prince Protege vanity set fantasy painting.
Joyride by Tinashe- Tinashe had a weird 2017, with Flame flopping, Light Up the Sky dropping, and a bizarre Taco Tuesday outing (why?!?! They said it was a networking event, but for who? The girl has more collaborations than all the different companies Pepsi distributes for), but her 2018 was better. We got a random HQ picture that turned out to be the first cover for a tringle that lead to Joyride. She answered many questions like yes, she did need to use legal options to release Joyride, and no, she didn’t like Flame. She release a great pop album that is a little Frankensteined together but you can still use all the songs. Although things seem murky now, I feel that Tinashe will keep giving us great, unique music. Personal favorites include No Drama, Faded Love, No Contest, and Ooh La La.
Caution by Mariah Carey- I keep seeing people mention that this is their first Mariah album, which is appropriate, because this feels like a new beginning for her. It’s my first Mariah album too, but I’ve seen one Popjustice member say that this is her only album where she mainly sings in a lower register and where the background instrumentals are darker electronics. I’ve heard that Me.. I am Mariah at least tried out new things, but this incorporated everything successfully. I’ve never really listened to Mariah before because I just figured it would be mostly ballads and midtempos, but this album kept things unique. Highlights include GTFO, A No No, Giving Me Life, and Portrait. This album is the sonic equivalent of putting your favorite Bath and Body Works moisturizer on, making a warm drink, and hiding under a weighted blanket, and who doesn’t want that in a year like this?
Take Me to the Disco by Meg Myers- People say that there are too many meaningless buzzwords (true) but I don’t think alt vs indie rock is one of those. Indie is generally minimal and guitar based but alt is left of the middle rock and expansive. Meg went for category 2. Following her great debut album from 2015, she went for a bigger, better, and darker sound this time. It reminds me of Tori (Tear Me to Pieces and Jealous Sea sound very Choirgirl), PJ, Trent, and the Smashing Pumpkins. Take Me to the Disco is a nice ballad that starts out the album, which doesn’t prepare you at all for Numb, the following track. Done and Funeral are also strong. Listen if you’re tired of slackers in music.
Childqueen by Kadhja Bonet- If music indicates mood, I don’t know what Spotify premium subscribing, Allmusic reading, time travelling aliens would know about 2018. Sure, there were some political albums, but I feel like the pace of crappy events was faster than (High quality) political music. Even on a personal level, 2018 wasn’t ridiculously iconic or anything for me, and I was still petty and had grudges to work on. That being said, I have no clue how psychedelic music became big for me this year. We had Moodoid, Melody’s Echo Chamber, The Internet (sort of), and Dita Von Teese. But my favorite is perhaps Kadhja Bonet, whose theatrical sounds are like the score to an old Disney movie. Mother, …, and Second Wind are great. Bonus EP was released this fall.
so sad, so sexy by Lykke Li- I haven’t really listened to Lykke before, so I figured her pop reinvention was a good time to get into her. This album reminds me of Nelly Furtado for indie songwriting but with hooks. Although sometimes the trap parts are a little awkward (use vaporwave instead!), this was a good reinvention. My favorites include Two Nights featuring Amine (he is NOT a rent a rapper!), Jaguars in the Air (you and me we’re psychedelic!), and of course, sex money feelings die. I would love a Jessy Lanza remix album commissioned.
Silk Canvas by Vanjess- Everyone loves whisper registers and high pitched whisper singing in R&B (Diana Ross, Janet, Aaliyah, Ciara, Cassie, Tinashe) but what I really love is a deep voice (or at least one that sounds a little raspy). Vanjess joins Her, Total, and T Boz and even The Weeknd in the deep vocals crowd. Don’t mark these Nigerian princesses as spam, just give them a stream, no bank accounts required. I like that they have a better understanding of making a cohesive album with different genres and still staying in a certain vibe instead of doing the same song 12 times. Even their remix EP gets that. Control Me and Addicted, the big singles from this album, are good symbols for their moody R&B sound but they have more than that. Touch the Floor is more uptempo in the vein of Kaytranada, as are the excellent Through Enough and Another Love. My Love reminds me of Aaliyah’s One in a Million. The One picks up where the 80’s revival trend left off, but improves on the synth funk sound. Even Cool Off the Rain, a 2 minute interlude, is worth listening to.
7 by Beach House- I don’t know what made this album click with me. This is my 4th album for Beach House, so I thought I just wouldn’t get them by now, I listen to dream pop and shoegaze enough where I thought I’d like any vibey music. This album didn’t reinvent the wheel but it has warmth to it, without losing their signature ‘when your arm has pins and needles and you need to wiggle yourself to a healthy blood circulation again’ sound. Favorites include Lemon Glow, Black Car, Dark Spring, and Girl of the Year. I also recommend Wax idols and Pinkshinyultrablast if you’re looking for more shoegaze..
Dita Von Teese by Dita Von Teese- This was always going to be a niche passion project by a burlesque artist, so I don’t think it was ever going to set the charts on fire, but not even the internet cared about this? If you miss Lana’s old Hollywood glamour, you should check out this album. It mixes 60’s psychedelics with electronic music to create a perfect loungy sound. I’m not saying I’m those “I miss 2012 Lana!!” but I stuck with her through her Old Hollywood Jackie Kennedy Born to Die phase, her 60’s Manson Girl Ultraviolence cult phase, her 50’s (?) maps to the stars Honeymoon, and 70’s singer songwriter Lust for Life phase, so I was excited to see what other incarnations we would get. Would we get a full on spaced out culty version of Honeymoon? An 80’s Midwest goth album? A late 90’s vaporwave mixtape? Okay, most of these are just words thrown together that nobody would want, but Dita’s album had the concept and the execution there, all it needed was the audience. The French songs have a certain sadness in them. I like Bird of Prey and Dangerous Guy as well, but the whole album is well produced and beautiful sounding, so you should listen to it if you just want some easy listening that’s riskier than most of pop and alternative’s current artists.
Black Panther- Yes, this should count as an album. I’ve seen people treat The Hunger Games soundtracks (yes, those movies didn’t spontaneously appear on TNT one day) as real albums and stan Lorde’s vision for it. I’ve seen people stan the soundtrack for A Star is Born, like it’s a real Lady Gaga album, but Black Panther is where y’all draw the line? Okay. Aside from the breakout single, you get a good vocal performance from SZA, a top tier Jorja Smith song, the best flute performance of 2018, and the downtemp Seasons. That a random soundtrack can have that much cohesion is good for Kendrick Lamar but bad for other artists.
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kuciradio · 5 years
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As 2018 is coming to an end it’s time to reflect on this amazing year for new music and artistry. KUCI is a diverse group of DJs and we are proud to represent all genres of music. I have finally put together our Top 10 albums of 2018 along with some honorable mentions towards the end accompanied by some lovely words written by our fellow DJs. We can’t wait for what 2019 brings for us and continue tuning in on kuci.org or 88.9 FM if you’re in the Orange County area. Have a safe and happy new year!
1. Mitski - Be The Cowboy
“Mitski Miyawaki’s powerhouse voice resonates with a haunting clarity on her stunning masterpiece Be the Cowboy. She creates entire worlds and characters out of pieces of herself, from paranoid, awkward women who yearn for traditionalism and some idealist version of what life or love should be (hello “Lonesome Love”), to cowgirls who can do it all on their own. From sorrowful to triumphant, Mitski colors the spaces in between from soul-bearing ballad “Geyser” to unforgettable dancing-alone-in-your-bedroom anthem “Nobody.” (Sophie Prettyman-Beauchamp)
“This album was so personal and raw and I also liked how the songs flowed well on this album.” (Heidi Barragan)
2. The Internet - Hive Mind
“I can't talk about this album without mentioning how mad I am at myself for missing the tour. Syd, Pat, Steve, Matt, and Chris, The Internet, are prominent figures of musical evolution; this speaks volumes and not just because they got their start with Odd Future, a hub of avid freeform artists. If you’re inclined to believe what I believe, Ego Death is a heartbreak album and Hive Mind is loaded with recovery anthems and passionate songs to share with your new partner who is not a rebound. Across the timeline, the sounds change from R&B and Hip-Hop to Funk and Soul; but what captures my attention the most, from Ego Death to Hive Mind, is the way a facade is casted aside. Hive Mind is just so sincere and therefore, perfectly fitting for being a part of my top three.” (Thorson Munoz)
“[This album] is a very funky album with heavy tones of R&B. The Internet does not disappoint with their funky sounds, which can be heard on “La Di Da”. Overall the album has powerful baselines, thanks to the amazing Steve Lacy, and groovy beats backed by Syd’s smooth vocals. It is hard to listen to this album and not dance along to it.” (Melissa Palma)
3. Kali Uchis - Isolation
“Colombian singer Kali Uchis’ long-awaited debut album is a high-production value journey into her uniquely sultry, dreamy world of R&B. The songstress’s silky voice pushes boundaries of various genres, from bossa-inspired intro “Body Language” to the Amy Winehouse-esque “Killer,” each track better and more of a banger than the last. Isolation features artists like The Internet guitarist Steve Lacy, British soul success Jorja Smith, and reggaeton icon Reykon. Uchis also recruited her friends Tyler, the Creator and legendary bassist Bootsy Collins for the hit single “After the Storm,” a follow-up to her and Tyler’s song “See You Again” from his 2017 album Flower Boy (supported by a stunningly whimsical music video by director Nadia Lee Cohen). The producer credits are just as stacked, including the likes of Thundercat, BROCKHAMPTON’s Romil Hemnani, Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, and Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn. Uchis proves herself as the new sound of pop, never veering from her originality that made her a Soundcloud sweetheart.” (Sophie Prettyman-Beauchamp)
4. Janelle Monae - Dirty Computer
“She’s such an intelligent creative weirdo and I LOVE HER. Not to mention her oozing femme POWER.” (Naseem Eskandari)
“About the moxie I mentioned earlier, this emotional rollercoaster has an abudnace of it and I cannot get enough! Cover to cover this album packs a punch, and as the visual companion--which brought me to tears--would suggest, this entire album is a celebration of deviant bodies and identities. This album contains the perfect ratio of soft and tender tracks and upbeat exciting ones so its no wonder why NPR named Dirty Computer their number one of 2018.” (Thorson Munoz)
5. Anderson .paak - Oxnard
“Sometimes artists, after huge successes, feel that they need to make music that sounds just like their previous work to gain the same traction, but really the true artists are the ones that stay honest and true to their creative ability - their sound moves through life with them.” (Naseem Eskandari)
“Anderson .Paak, to me, is responsible for every playlist I've ever built that revolves around driving in Los Angeles with the windows down, no matter the time of day. However, I don't drive a convertible, so instead I honored Venice and Malibu using my radio program, Detours. Not only am I excited to honor Oxnard as well, but Oxnard was built for driving; this is evident after listening to "Tints", the first release, and "Headlow". This album, just like Malibu, is masterful; the only difference is that Dr. Dre stepped out of the shadows and was a feature. Oxnard is beyond incredible and worthy of it's legendary features, Snoop Dog, Q-Tip, and Kadhja Bonet, to name a few. I'm really excited for what will likely be Anderson .Paak's next Grammy nomination.” (Thorson Munoz)
6. Blood Orange - Negro Swan
“AMAZING production, amazing narrative!!!!!!!” (Angel Cortez)
“Dev Hynes never fails to make master pieces of albums that narrate the experience of marginalized people in an oppressive and toxic environment. Hynes brings together artists as big as ASAP Rocky to smaller artists of equal talent such as Steve Lacey creating a beautiful medley of indie hip hop to soul and funk.  Coupled with interviews, Hynes is able to make this album a personal experience for the listener. For me it always feels as though he is singing to me personally, something that not many artists are able to do.” (Kelsey Villacorte)
7. Kevin Krauter - Toss Up
“Toss Up has to be my personal #1 favorite album of 2018 by Kevin Krauter who began making music apart from lo-fi dream pop band Hoops in 2015. Toss Up was released this past summer and was the perfect album to listen to during warm summer nights and has carried through to the end of the year as a comforting reminder of those warm times during these cold nights. It has that dreamy, nostalgic feeling, something that you would listen to as you’re reflecting on the tender moments of your life. Krauter mixes vaporwave-esque sounds with sweet ballads with no one song sounding like the other.” (Kelsey Villacorte)
8. MGMT - Little Dark Age
“MGMT's come-back album is focused, synthy, and fresh. Without abandoning the dark undertones present in their older albums, this album reflects the band's personal growth and resonates with fans, old and new. Tracks like TSLAMP and Little dark Age are some of my favorites!” (Angelica Sheen)
“MGMT has maintained their status as an alternative staple and has since transformed their sound into something more experimental since their debut album Oracular Spectacular. MGMT did not disappoint and gave us an album that went from the weird wii-fit/dystopian vibes of She Works Out To Much to 80s dance of Me and Michael to another sweet ballad titled Hand It Over which is super reminiscent of the ending/title song of their second album Congratulations. MGMT never fails to write well thought out lyrics that all almost feel like their own story. All in all, they did not disappoint and this is exactly the kind of MGMT album I was hoping for after a 5 year hiatus.” (Kelsey Villacorte)
9. Ian Sweet - Crush Crusher
“Jilian Medford refines IAN SWEET’s sound and practices self-care on sophomore album Crush Crusher, her most intimate release yet. Medford rediscovers her identity as she considers how much of herself she has forgotten while preoccupying herself with being a guardian to others (she warbles “The sun built me to shade everybody” on “Holographic Jesus”). Ever poetic while satisfyingly straightforward, she notes that “It’s been too long since I let myself cry about something that wasn’t even sad” on the pummeling single “Spit.” She coos, squeaks, and screams in perfect, dissonant harmony over her guitar’s cathartically melancholic reverb. IAN SWEET remains a perfect contradiction that only grows sweeter.” (Sophie Prettyman-Beauchamp)
10. Parquet Courts - Wide Awake!
“This band's genius shows through with every new release. Wide Awake throws all of their influences together and expels energetic funk beats with poignant, dark, and brutal lyrics that are especially political. The juxtaposition of these themes with upbeat and optimistic instrumentals speaks to their compositional talent, making it a fan favorite. AND THEY USE COWBELLS.” (Angelica Sheen)
Honorable Mentions:
Glenn Crytzer Orchestra, "Ain't it Grand?"
This album couldn't have been better aimed at me if the band had come and asked me what I wanted to hear.  A modern swing-style orchestra performing both classic tunes from the 1930s and modern pieces written in the big band style.  The ensemble playing is tight, the solos just exactly right, and the production quality a lot sharper than any of the original Duke Ellington recordings.  Top notch stuff. (Michael Payne)
The Vaccines - Combat Sports
"The Vaccines brought back the spirit and energy of their debut album but with a new twist when they released their 4th album early in 2018. Get pumped up with the "I Can't Quit" and "Nightclub" or settle down with  "Maybe (The Luck of the Draw)" or "Young American". The Vaccines perfectly embody the sound and snark of the '70s and '80s artists of which their influenced while still creating a modern feel of the 2010's. My personal favorite off the album "Out on the Street" definitely a treat live! Over all Combat Sports is an excellent album and what we needed in 2018." (Stacey Brizuela)
Cobra Man - Toxic Planet
“Los Angeles local duo Cobra Man blows it out of the water with their sophomore album that carries the heart and groove of something you'd hear out of '84. It is indeed one of the best albums of the year because it utilizes one of the most underrated instruments in the game, the saxophone.” (Spartacus Avina)
Nu Guinea "Nu Guinea"
Heaven & Earth by Kamasi Washington is an album that’s loud and bold in both sound and vocals. A lot of the album often creates an ethereal effect with the heavy instrumentals ascending into a grand peak, most notably heard on “Street Fighter Mas”. The vocals on the album accompany the instrumentals in their same form, loud and climaxing. Listening to this album is like a rollercoaster with its thrilling jazz sounds. (Melissa Palma)
Drug Church - Cheer
Mac Miller - Swimming
“The tragic beauty of this album speaks for itself. Mac was such a raw and very real individual and it reflects in his music the way that many others cannot replicate. May he rest in peace - I hope the next life will be better for him.” (Naseem Eskandari)
Thank you to all the amazing DJs who submitted their Top 10 list of 2018! I am super glad to have been part of an amazing and diverse radio station for this past year and this is only a small piece of what our DJs music tastes are like here. I hope everyone has an incredible and safe New Years Eve and a happy 2019 :)
-Kelsey Villacorte (Music Director)
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ipodclassic160gb · 6 years
Text
2017 Year End Music List
Hello and welcome to another installment of my annual album/song of the year lists. It was a rough year! Thank you for reading I love you so much.
20. Fleet Foxes - Crack-Up
I never liked Fleet Foxes. I always thought they were the product of an NPR think tank (just like Wilco or Neko Case). But I gave this album a shot and it really did it for me. The music is just so lush! My only issue with it is that you kind of have to give this album your undivided attention and listen to soak in all of the details. You can also file this one under “albums that sound like their cover art”
19. Colin Stetson - All This I Do For Glory
Every release from Colin Stetson is remarkable in it’s virtuosity and sheer innovation. No other artist on this planet can do what he does with just a saxophone. However, since Vol 2: Judges his work has been a lot of the same. It might just be me, but I felt like this release changed up his formula just enough to make this some of his best music yet.
18. Blanck Mass - World Eater
I think any album by a member of Fuck Buttons has a certain loudness requirement it has to meet to be considered as part of their body of work. While I don’t think they’ll ever match the pulsing wall of buzzsaw distortion that was Street Horrrsing, this album takes me to that same musical realm.
17. Jlin - Black Origami
THIS ALBUM IS BATSHIT FUCKING CRAZY. It sounds like the drumline from the movie Drumline and a West African drum circle playing together but they’re both are performing on computer instruments. These songs absolutely refuse to be background music. There were moments on here that left me with my jaw dropped, just staring at the speakers because I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
16. Vince Staples - Big Fish Theory
Big Fish Theory is a great example of an album where the risks pay off and Vince Staples feels like the only rapper capable of putting it together. The production is pretty out there and not only does Staples make it work, he makes himself at home in it. Even with producers like SOPHIE (if you had told me even a year ago that I would hear Kendrick Lamar rap over a SOPHIE beat I would have called you crazy), this album is West Coast to it’s core.
15. (Sandy) Alex G - Rocket
This album is honestly kind of a mixed bag, but the good songs are great and led me to listen to listen to other a lot of older Alex G. So I figured it was worth including in this list. To me, his music falls into the space somewhere between This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About and Either/Or.
14. Mastodon - Emperor of Sand
Since no one else is saying I’ll go ahead and say it: Mastodon is STILL COOL and this is by far their best album since Crack the Skye
13. Ross from Friends - You’ll Understand/Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes
Lo-fi house gets a bad rep because it’s bandcamp music made by enigmatic producers with funny names and is basically just an offshoot of vaporwave. That being said, lo-fi house is at the very least more functional than straight up vaporwave music and honestly…what’s wrong with funny names? 
12. Sheer Mag - Need to Feel Your Love
I love this band. They make such PERFECT and AUTHENTIC sounding 70′s rock. Do you remember The Darkness??? I liked The Darkness when I was A Teen but you could always tell that they were copying from someone else’s playbook. With Sheer Mag, I feel like you could put their music on a playlist right next to a Thin Lizzy song and no one would think anything of it.
11. Thundercat - Drunk
To me, this is Thundercat finally hitting his stride. The shorter songs suit him well and keep the album from getting stale. A lot of artists this year tried to capture the essence what it’s like to live in such buck wild times and a lot of them fell flat . This album captures that essence without even trying.
10. Visible Cloaks - Reassemblage
You know how you go back to look at the music you listened to the most over the past year and it’s like...what is this album I listened to like 100 times apparently? And it’s that album you would always play while riding public transit to help you relax and zone out? That’s what this album is and it’s really good
9. Power Trip - Nightmare Logic
Easily my favorite metal album in years. Not a moment of filler. This is music to punch people in the face to. 
8. Kelela - Take Me Apart
After seeing Kelela play the side stages at virtually every festival I’ve been to in the last four years I am really happy to see her blowing up from this release. The central theme of this album of yourself apart and putting yourself back together after losing someone hit EXCRUCIATINGLY close to home for me this year. 
7.  Charli XCX - Pop 2
Turning her back on the Iggy Azalea paycheck money to work with a set of producers who make music that sounds like you’ve wound up on the WRONG part of the internet solidifies Charli XCX as one of the realest artists working in pop music today.
6. Kendrick Lamar - DAMN.
This album is the last nail in the coffin of every rapper that is not Kendrick Lamar. It solidifies him as the peerless, undisputed heavyweight champion of rap music (honestly…the second half of “DNA” alone accomplishes this). It’s been such a gift to watch Kendrick make his way to the top.The only thing that worries me is that now that he’s at the top where can he go from here?
5. Mount Eerie - A Crow Looked at Me
One of the most gut-wrenchingly sad albums I have ever heard. What sets this apart from other albums about death is the specificity. It is an unadorned look into what someone goes through when someone they love dies. I think I’ve been able to make through the album start to finish a total of two times
4. Fever Ray - Plunge
What makes this album great is that it carries the same political themes brought forth on The Knife’s last album into a more refined and structured space without it sounding any less bizarre. No other lyric better summarizes the current global political climate than “THIS COUNTRY MAKES IT HARD TO FUCK”
3. St. Vincent - MASSEDUCTION 
I wouldn’t say that it’s St. Vincent’s best work by any means. However, there’s a handful of songs on here that just fucking GET to me. A lot of people seem to view MASSEDUCTION as this fun and sexy album but to me it’s just overwhelmingly sad. Yes there are some fun latex BDSM moments here, but they exist in the context of an album about loss and addiction. I don’t think I’ve ever cried at a concert as hard as I did when I heard this album performed live.
2. JAY-Z - 4:44 
This is one of the best albums of Jay-Z’s entire career. The real hero of this album, however, is No I.D.’s production. The "doing everything as big as possible” sound of Jay-Z’s other recent work only seemed to make him sound older. On this album, over slower more soulful beats, he sounds more in his element than he has in years. Jay-Z if you are reading this I do NOT forgive you
1. SZA - Ctrl 
If I could give AOTY specifically to the line “why you bother me when you know you don’t want me” I would. I connected so much with the loneliness and the uncertainty and the self doubt that lives at the heart of so much of this music. This is one of those albums that I will carry with me forever because it will remind me of a specific part of my life that was bad. And I’ll go back to listen to it later and I’ll be brought back to that time but I’ll miss it for some reason. Does this happen to anyone else? There’s a lot of music that takes me back to specific BAD moments in my life and makes me miss those moments. Hopefully that is normal.
Songs of the Year:
Lil Uzi Vert - XO TOUR Llif3
(Sandy) Alex G - Bobby
Carly Rae Jepsen - Cut To The Feeling
Anamanaguchi - Miku (NES Version)
The War On Drugs - Thinking Of A Place
The National - The System Only Dreams In Total Darkness
Gorillaz - Hallelujah Money (ft. Benjamin Clementine)
Cardi B - Bodak Yellow
Japanese Breakfast - Road Head
King Krule - Dum Surfer
Lorde - Green Light
Kelly Lee Owens - More Than a Woman (Aaliyah Cover)
Radiohead - I Promise
Payboi Carti - Magnolia
Lizzo - Truth Hurts
Thundercat - Show You The Way (ft. Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald
N.E.R.D. - Lemon (ft. Rihanna)
yaeji - raingurl
Arca - Piel
Calvin Harris - Slide (ft. Frank Ocean and Migos)
(2017 Overall Playlist) 
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onestowatch · 4 years
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The 15 Most Important Albums of the 2010s
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From emo lofi vaporwave to another genre category that I cannot tell if Spotify is making up just to mess with me, music in the 2010s sounded more varied than ever before. Artists, mainstream and bedroom-produced alike, gave way to strict stylistic and genre conventions, ushering in a generation of music that is best described as multi-hyphenate. So, rather than end the year and decade fighting amongst ourselves as to who did what best, we wanted to take the time to reflect on a collection of albums that stood out amongst their cohorts.
These are 15 of the most important albums of the last decade. Without them, the 2010s would have sounded and looked a whole lot different. 
Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly
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The idea of choosing a single Kendrick Lamar album as his most important body of work can at times feel like a fool’s errand. How do you deny the raw, unfiltered power of Section.80? The haunting reality of good kid, m.A.A.D city? The beauty found in the unexplored notes of untitled unmastered.? The life lived and lost in DAMN.? Maybe it is a fool’s errand, but To Pimp a Butterfly arguably saw Lamar at his peak, reigniting hip-hop’s long-held love affair with the sounds of funk, soul, and most notably, jazz through a story that explores themes of African-American culture, institutionalized discrimination, and racial inequality.   
Mac DeMarco - 2
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By no means did Mac Demarco invent indie music, but modern-day indie music would likely not sound or look the same without him. The release of his 2012 sophomore album 2 arrived as a collection of lofi soft rock jams, but it was the standout single “Ode to Viceroy” that really cemented his place as indie music’s cool uncle. And while albums like Salad Days and Another One would see him refining his trademark sound and exploring weightier themes, it was 2 that paved the way for both DeMarco and for indie music to flourish in the coming years.
BTS - Love Yourself: Tear
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A lot came and went with the 2010s, but few things brought as much staying power as K-pop. Now one of the most successful commercial genres in the world, it was BTS that served as the initial test to see if K-pop could really leave its impact on Western audiences. First making their debut in 2013, it was their 2018 concept album Love Yourself: Tear that would earn them their first spot atop the US Billboard 200, as well as making them the first Korean act to ever have an album top the Billboard charts. BTS kicked off K-pop’s global takeover in glorious fashion.
Kanye West - YEEZUS
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By all accounts, YEEZUS is not Kanye West’s best album, of his career or this decade for the matter. But what it is, is the start of a figure who, for better or worse, grew beyond the realm of rap superstar and into a larger-than-life figure. YEEZUS was the beginning of a decade that would see West pushing the boundaries of his artistic genius, his role as a public figure, and questioning whether society was willing to and should separate the man from the art, the genius from the person.
Flume - Flume
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The 2010s marked an electronic music boom. With festivals, from Coachella to Lollapalooza, booking more and more DJs each year, skeptics hailed it as a bubble soon to burst. In reality, it was more of a fizzle that saw EDM carving out its own seemingly-permanent niche in the music landscape. Amidst that boom, we were introduced to one Harley Edward Streten. More popularly known as Flume, his 2012 debut solo project launched his career and ushered in a wave of more subdued, adventurous future house.
ANHONI - HOPELESSNESS
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No album touched upon the atrocities of our war-torn reality quite like ANOHNI’s 2016 debut album HOPELESSNESS. Produced by Oneohtrix Point Never and Hudson Mohawke, HOPELESSNESS is a dark experimental electronic project that does not shy away from its difficult subject matter. Rather, it parades them for all to see in haunting, angelic fashion. A world on the brink of an environmental crisis, drone warfare under the Obama administration, capital punishment, and constant government surveillance all lay the groundwork for one of the most provocative and important protest albums of the 2010s.
Frank Ocean - Blonde
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Plain and simple, there is no creative out there like Frank Ocean, and his sophomore album Blonde may just be the best album of the decade. Blonde saw an Ocean unrestrained, freed from an unsavory record label deal and genre conventions. Not quite an R&B or pop album, Ocean’s sophomore effort is akin to gently floating through the inner-psyche of this idiosyncratic creative. From unexpected voicemails to space-age melodies that drift into nothingness, Blonde is Ocean’s best work to date and a high point for music as a whole.
Lil Peep - Come Over When You’re Sober, Pt. 2
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The world has not been kind to emo rap or its brightest stars. 2017 saw the loss of Lil Peep. 2018 saw the loss of XXXTentacion. And most recently, 2019 saw the loss of Juice WRLD. Come Over When You’re Sober, Pt. 2, the first posthumous and final album from Lil Peep, is a heartbreaking portrait of the star that could have been. More than anything, it sounds like the beginning of a dialogue we need to start having about how do we help and protect artists at their most fragile and broken?
Grimes - Visions
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Grimes gave credence to the term bedroom pop before it become a hackneyed blanket term for indie pop as a whole. Before she was an art pop purveyor or dating a tech mogul with dreams of space travel, she was an artist out of Montreal who found her footing going viral on Myspace. Blending the leftfield pop approach of Björk, experimental electronica honed during her time spent playing raves in Canada, and a knack for Logic, we were gifted with Grimes’ 2012 breakout project Visions and its alien hit “Oblivion.” It is difficult to imagine 2019’s wave of bedroom pop and anti-pop existing without Grimes’ Visions to demonstrate the worlds you can create within your cramped bedroom walls.
Tyler, the Creator - Flower Boy
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If not for the release of IGOR, Flower Boy could have easily stood the test of time as Tyler, the Creator’s magnum opus. An earth-shattering project that saw Tyler examining themes of isolation, identity, and his own sexuality, it felt like listening to the birth of a whole new artist. And in many ways, it was. Flower Boy was Tyler’s first step into exploring the limits of his creative depth, sonically and artistically. This was the birth of one of the most innovative and fascinating creative minds of our generation.
Billie Eilish - WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP WHERE DO WE GO?
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Billie Eilish may just be the most famous person on the planet. The pop prodigy had the eyes of the world on her before she turned 18. Suffice it to say, it would be an understatement to say that the pressure and expectations surrounding her debut album were monumental. The result? An immaculately produced piece of dark pop that saw a Takashi Murakami collaboration and proved pop stars are getting younger and younger and better and better.
88rising - Head In The Clouds
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Hybrid management, record label, video production, and marketing company 88rising is bringing Asian voices into the mainstream. A powerhouse of creatives that features the likes of Joji, Rich Brian, NIKI, Higher Brothers, AUGUST 08, and more, 88rising is a veritable cultural phenomenon. That growing phenomenon was captured in full on their debut crew album, which demonstrates the collective’s range across R&B, hip-hop, and beyond. Head In The Clouds is an embodiment of the exact kind of Asian representation we need to be seeing in the music industry at large.
Beyoncé - HOMECOMING: THE LIVE ALBUM
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Beyoncé’s Lemonade may be her opus, but HOMECOMING is her raison d’être. Recorded live at Coachella in 2018, the live album signaled a landmark in black excellence. HOMECOMING: THE LIVE ALBUM is the sonic telling of the black college experience, the story of the first black woman to ever headline America’s largest music festival, and an ongoing chapter of the power of black feminism. Beychella was awe-inspiring and nothing quite captures the historic experience as excellently as HOMECOMING: THE LIVE ALBUM.  
Chance the Rapper - Coloring Book
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There is no denying that streaming is king. Whether that means the end of artists being able to make a living from their music is still out for debate, but one artist in particular who has benefited from music’s streaming globalization is undeniably Chance the Rapper. Releasing all of his projects either free on Soundcloud or as digital-only mixtapes, Chicago’s native son may just be the only reason the aforementioned Soundcloud still exists. And while Acid Rap first illustrated exactly what Chance could do on his own, it was Coloring Book that finally made the music industry at large pay attention, netting him the first-ever streaming-only album to ever win a Grammy.
BROCKHAMPTON - SATURATION III
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The Saturation trilogy is the story of how a group of teenagers went from meeting online over a shared love of Kanye West to becoming America’s favorite boyband. It is a trilogy of unabashed creativity paired with an unmatched drive that showcases BROCKHAMPTON at their highest and lowest. The pinnacle of this journey arrives in the conclusion and ensuing climax that is SATURATION III, which turned the cult sensation into an international one. Now, with 2020 around the corner, the departure of Ameer Vann, who adorns the cover art of each part of the trilogy, Saturation stands as a crystallization of the journey BROCKHAMPTON has taken to make it to this point.
Additionally...
Various Artists - 7-Inches for Planned Parenthood
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The most important albums are those that leave their mark long after a single listen, whether that be in their lasting influence or through a salient, real-world impact.
This project is a chance for artists and fans to take meaningful action to protect access to health care for millions of women, men and young people. We hope to further Planned Parenthood’s mission to build a world where we all have full control over our own bodies and can determine our own destinies - regardless of race, immigration status, socioeconomic status, gender identity, or sexual orientation. It’s writers, artists, musicians, comedians, visual artists, and other public thinkers - all making something together in support of health care and human rights.
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curious-minx · 3 years
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25+ Album Covers That Should Be Made Into Funko Pops
Pop til you drop Funkoids, because black metal institution and number one threat to bats: Black Sabbath have joined the Funko Populous!  As a Music Fan, tune chaser, melody makers and connoisseur of pop and circumstance I  want to implore Funko Pop to take more risks. I know that Funko Pop is already greasing up the popper to churn out Nirvana Nevermind Babies funko or McFleetwood’s dangling Rumor orbs, but please consider some of these other iconic Album Covers. I don’t want to be caught dead or alive with a basic funko pop collection! 
Let’s take a look at an album gallery of some classics and underground gems. In my deep dive through the towering Brian Wilson’s Ghost Archives I found that jazz has some of the best album covers around. Don’t be greedy Rock n Rollers! 
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Minutemen’s Double Nickel on The Dime - Mike Watt’s Rearview Window eyes 
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2.  Cleveland Eaton’s Half and Half -  Winged Buffalo Deity 
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3. Talk Talk’s The Party’s Over - Face Face 
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R.I.P. Mark Hollis. Miss him all the time and what better way to remember him and his music’s legacy by a cheeky wink to their poppier heyday? ;)
4. Frank Ocean’s Blonde - Blondie 
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What other Funko Pops could possibly carry themselves with this much dignity and grace? A lot of these Funkos could learn a thing or two from Frank and say more with less face.
5.  Supertramp’s Breakfast in America  - The OJ Waitress 
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I know some of you NeoFunkophytes out there may only envision Funko Pop’s without mouths, but Funkos can pout and salivate and makes all sorts of faces now! So why not take advantage of this expanded emotional range by honoring the likeness of one of the most eager to please members of the American workforce? Looking forward to see what Laura Dern does with the role of the Supertramp Waitress in her upcoming one woman experience: Dern Tootin...basically an agonizing walk to say that the woman on this cover looks a lot like Laura Dern around the eyes.
6.Violent Femmes’  Mary Nohl’s Hallowed Ground Statue
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A Funko Pop sovereign for your twisted hillbilly goth kids  and non-ironic zealots in your life! Untapped Potential Market If There Ever Was One!
7. Iglooghost’s  Little Grids-  Mamu Garden Sprite 
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8.  Barbara Streisand’s Encore - Leisurely Hotel Hostage 
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Make sure you put all your kids to bed and tuck your pets inside their thrones, because what I’m about to tell you will be devastating! Can you believe that the Great Dame Babs does not have a her likeness of her image engravened and immortalized in Funko form? Let’s fix that with honoring the time our Funny Girl recorded a Willy Wonka duet with Seth Macfarlane.
9.  Raphael Saadiq’s Stine Rollin - The Whole Dang Crowd 
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Tag yourself Funko Pop! style! I’m clearly the bee hive side eyeing queen.
10.  The Caretaker’s  An Empty Bliss Beyond This World  - Death Ball 
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11.  the Horrors’ V -  Fleshies
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One huge problem I have with Funko Pop other than that they have been the driving factor in most of my divorces is that they only have one face. You buy a Funko pop you get the single face the Funko pop comes with. Show a little faith and save your wallet for a Funko Pop made up of many faces!
12. The Weather Report - Heavy Weather - The Flasher 
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How doesn’t this slick Weather peeper not have an entire franchise that get’s canceled and reboots that are kicked around various networks but never really sticks. Today’s forecast Funko Pop fever is here to stay no matter how many other idols and icons protest against them 
13. Dee D. Jackson’s Cosmic Curves - Disco Fingers Jackson 
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Some heroes wear capes, but my heroes wear capes and have disco fingers.
14. Deerhoof’s Milk Man -Titular Milk Man
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15. Lou Reed’s Ecstasy 
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Another musical legend that is missing from the pantheon of Funko Poppers needing proper representation. 
16. oxy Music For Your Pleasure  - Pleasure Panther 
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17.  Vampire Weekend Contra  - Karen
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Break out the legal team Vampy Weekend because we’re taking the Contra lady to court to get her turned into a Funko Pop.
18.  Earl Sweatshirt - Some Rap Songs -  Blurry Early 
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Is my vision failing? Am I dying?! No! It’s just my new Some Rap Songs blurry Earl funko pop
19.  Tyler, The Creator’s Flower Boy Flower Man
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You knew this one was coming. If you’re surprised then you better be asleep behind the wheel.
20.  Devo’s Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo’s  Bizzaro Juan Chi-Chi Rogers 
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You would have thought the good people of Everett Washington would have been saturated in Devo Funkos, but no! I do agree that making a standard energry dome wearing Mothersbaugh would be too obvious, too safe. Q: Are we not timeless pop culture artificats? A: We Are Funko!
21. Sonic Youth’s EVOL - Lung Leg 
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Evol is represents an eras where the Youths were starting to going Pop! Take this idea and run it on the expressway to yr skull!
22.  Grime’s Art Angels - Art Angel
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Sentient manic pixie Canadian c apparently really despises this album. I think I am starting to understand why that is, it’s because those funk-holes didn’t call our upcoming hyperlink Overlord c Grimes! 
23.  Macontish Plus’ Floral Shoppe - Vapor David 
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Get with the times Funko Pop! Millenials! Zoomers! Xers! Boomers! Doesn’t matter who you are, there’s a spot for you in the vaporwave. 
24.  Charles Gayle Trio’s Streets’- Streets The Clown(2012)
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Do you hate clowns? Place a saxophone in a thoughtful clown’s arms and you may reconsider this. Funko Pop’s clown car is full to the brim with all kinds of creepy killer clowns 
25. Bruce Hornsby’s Spirit Trail - Uncle Charles Hornsby
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Let’s face it, eventually we’re going to need a Brexit collection and what better way than honor Bruce Hornsby’s Uncle Charles. Can we start a Charles Hornsby cigarette challenge an anti-smoking pro vaping campaign that will make the world a better place. 
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Algorithm Burn! 
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fluidsf · 5 years
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Sonic Picks 19 woopheadclrms: vs o.t.O.g.l (2018) Reviewed format: Digital Album on Genot Centre Yes, I'm back already with a new review from a release on Genot Centre in my Sonic Picks review series. Included in the package of the review copy of the cassette tape I reviewed yesterday were again 5 download codes for other releases on the label so I'm obviously checking all these out and giving them a review too. Today's release is this great album by Japanese artist woopheadclrms, titled vs o.t.O.g.l, released in 2018 on Genot Centre. The version I'm reviewing here is the Digital download which features the album cover in good resolution as well as the 15 album tracks in 24-bit/48kHz high resolution files. Indeed at 37 minutes long, the album's music is spread over many short pieces like that but they work rather well playing one after another so the album is a good continous listen. vs o.t.O.g.l is like many contemporary post-digital, online samples inspired Sound Collage / Plunderphonics albums quite an odd, maybe at times "alien" listen. But that is actually exactly the aspect I like so much about this kind of experimental music nowadays. At times it's hard to follow if there is much "rational logic" at all in the music, but this makes it all the more free and associative in nature. With the collages and manipulations of field recordings, voice samples, music element samples and samples of full tracks creating atmospheres and experiences rather than traditionally composed or produced music. The album kicks off with short interlude track I'm which features a Japanese female singer, singing acapella, pretty nice. This flows into Empire of Shopping mall, a track that features hilarious contrasts in dynamics and a quirky and hilarious combination of samples, including Trump randomly. Most shocking for most people who listen to this for the first time will be the sudden screams after the peacefull intro. The piece is filled with cool details, in the stereo panning, peaceful New Age vibes, synth quirks floating all around. Indeed it's really impossible to name all details per track, so I'll showcase some impressions in the way. Fun piece. Then we have Blindness?? which is especially nice for its diffuse sound signature with many mechanical sounds and field recordings as well as constantly warbling synths, and sudden tension at the end. The harpsichord intro is also a great wacky part to start with, as a fever dream the music on this album keeps messing with my mind with all its strange juxtapositions of sound and music but also all the details I can actually distinguish in woopheadclrms' music, it is definitely pleasant music tho, very peaceful in a way. Hane then is a short piece of high pitched tinkling, stuttering and stuttering synths, harp and cymbals, mysterious. Meaning is filled with interesting dissonances, sawtooth synth warbles, ethereal synths, tinkling pianos and crackling sounds. Feels quite like a peaceful place yet there's some kind of strange steile vibe about this place you can't quite place, again, mystery. The "ready or not" sample at the ending is also quite hilarious. Indie juxtaposes mangled drums and electric guitar with samples from a heart monitor in a hospital and wacky synth effects, strange kind of vibe of sonic creatures moving around the space. Then on Killer F we have what sounds like a psychedelic piece of abstract music based around the "cool factor" of some online radio station. Again, the samples "the coolest station online" add quite a comic effect to the whole and with nicely weird pitched vocals the track is quite surreal sounding. Then we have Open it, close it, break it, cry which opens with a primary school alphabet lesson and then moves into quite peaceful Japanese sounding ambient music with traditional instruments, very relaxing and soundtrack like piece, life is good vibes. While we're onto the relaxing vibes, the only slightly weak point of this album is that the tracklist features quite a lot of relaxed pieces and there's few tracks with more extreme dynamics and climaxes. This makes the overall dynamics and progression of the albun feel more like constant ambience, which is definitely pleasant to listen to and all the tracks are great music but it makes the album feel a bit less coherent with the jumps into sudden intensity in some pieces. It's more like a collection of seperate pieces in this way. Fill then, is a musical abstraction of flowing water with jolly synth but also plenty of cool filtered low kick effects, good stuff. The sky is a mirror of endless mind features a lot of high pitches stuttered sounds and squelchy manipulation, quite tense sounding too, the music sounds like futuristic odd industrial processes in action, curious stuff. School is another track being so densely packed with sounds and details I'd say that as an impression it felt as a both comic as well as tense experience with the rising synth tone siren appearing ocassionally but also hinting at the sonic bombardment and chaos that'd happen if all advertisements, stores and anything else in a city would actually make sound. The blend of commercial messages and human sounds often makes our own life sound like semi-artificial already, even if there's still plenty of "real things" in our life that aren't purely there because of good marketing. Calculation & Taste is a more classic styled Sound Collage piece with plenty of looping in the voice samples, creating rhythms out of a woman's and boys voice. Only you brings us to a magical world of safe and carefree life as filtered through the abstracted lens of a Japanese cheesy TV serial drama full of glassy pad sounds, flutes, quite but also dissonant tones and mangled field recordings, sounds good. Selfie is a bit like lo-fi office muzak samples mixed with field recordings of a nice meeting of friends or colleagues, leaning a bit towards Vaporwave aesthetics but more cinematic sounding. Weather channel imagines a world in which the Weather channel is the only TV channel available. It's all you need in fine TV enter and infotainment enjoyment, bringing you metereological goodness 24/7 as well as original weather based dramas full of mood swings due to occasional rain and a kids TV section with the finest jungle exploration TV shows all without ever actually having to face the weather outside. Great ending of this album too. vs o.t.O.g.l. by woopheadclrms is a nicely relaxing album of post-digital Sound Collage / Plunderphonics goodness. While the dynamics / progression in the listening experience by the tracklist might be a bit spotty the music itself is great. I particularly recommend this to listeners interested in both ambient and experimental sound collage music as it's both atmospheric and experimental without being purely abstract. This is also a rather original sounding album in the contemporary digital experimental aesthetics with its many clearly distinguishable details and less club based sound. So a great album to check out definitely. Digital Album is available from the Genot Centre Bandcamp page here: https://genot.bandcamp.com/album/vs-o-t-o-g-i
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stacyswirl · 5 years
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IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN!  HERE IS MY TOP TEN ALBUMS FROM 2018!
By midway through the year, I knew who would be in the top 3, and that it would be difficult to order them.  Ordering 4 through 10 was faster and easier than any list ever has been before.  But those top 3, so difficult.  Here are some thoughts on each. in ascending order.  MUCH TEXT TO FOLLOW.
10: Muse - Simulation Theory I just got this album a few weeks ago.  It's not super amazing, but is definitely loads better than their last album, 2015's "Drone".  I like the '80s synth stylings, especially on the opening and closing tracks.  Plus, just look at that amazing vaporwave album cover. A favorite: "The Void" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztnEjj5WW8k
9: Cut Chemist - Die Cut Cut Chemist hasn't put out a proper album since 2006!  This album is pretty scattershot, but it has some great tracks.  It's basically a mid-level DJ Shadow album, with some trippy dance tracks and some fun hip-hop songs.  But since Shadow himself hasn't put out a decent album since 2011 this was plenty welcome. A favorite: "I Got a Weapon" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTPQI2_N2cI
8: Charlie Puth - Voicenotes A newcomer to my lists!  I first heard his song "How Long" in 2017, and loved it, but there was no album yet!  Finally, he put out a full-length and it is wonderful.  This is just a sexy album, full of amazing basslines and syncopated beats.  The real standout track is "Attention".   A favorite: "LA Girls" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW3Than5jrs
7: Aurora - Infections of a Different Kind Another newcomer!  Her first album from 2016 was such a big hit in our household, but I think we found it slightly too late to chart, so to speak.  Phoenix discovered this elfin performer, and within a week we got to see her in concert.  This new album is much shorter than her first, and so far not quite as amazing.  But I know it has hidden depths that will reveal themselves over time. A favorite: "Forgotten Love" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPUFd7cv9q8
6: Death Cab for Cutie - Thank You for Today I've been on a bit of a Death Cab kick for a while, since falling especially in love with their last album, 2015's "Kintsugi".  This is a very soft album, but with some good rhythms and melodies that do the perfect mixture of lull me and keep me interested.  The opening song "I Dreamt We Spoke Again" has a very Post Service feel to it. A favorite: "I Dreamt We Spoke Again" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aZUgUii4Sk
5: Metric - Art of Doubt Metric has been a favorite of mine since I discovered Broken Social Scene in 2007 along with all their related bands.  Their last album, 2015's "Pagans in Vegas" was a disappointment, I never really got into it.  This one's really good though, it has the perfect modern Metric sound, cold and electronic yet enveloping and organic at the same time.  Very good stuff. A favorite: "Now or Never Now" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC8MfulGMXE
4: The Decemberists - I'll Be Your Girl I have not loved a Decemberists album this much since 2009's #1 "Hazards of Love".  In late 2017 they put out the first single from this album "Severed" and I was blown away by their use of sythesizers, it was completely different than anything they'd done before, and I listened to it over and over.  When the album proper dropped it was a somewhat slow burn for me at first, nothing on it was as immediately catching as Severed.  But over time it has become a huge favorite.  Much of the album has an electronic texture, either subtly in the background or front and center.  One of my favorite songs, "Cutting Stone" sounds much like a classic Decemberists folksy ballad, but there's not a guitar anywhere, its all synths.  Also, a special shout out to "Rusalka, Rusalka/Wild Rushes", it sounds like a Hazards of Love b-side. A favorite: "Cutting Stone" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfRwOyBWUsk
3: Dessa - Chime Dessa has shared my "top favorite band" spot with Silversun Pickups for several years now.  Her last two albums took my #1 spots in 2013 and 2010.  Chime is at first a bit of a departure, but is also just a natural extension of where she's been heading for years.  It has genuine pop music on it, and she sings much more than raps on the album as a whole.  She changed her sound, she changed her look (went blond and curly), and I love it all.  I was at first disappointed at the lack of hard hip-hop bangers (outside of a couple near the beginning of the album) but have made peace with that because of how much I love the rest of the album.  Also: I read her book of personal essays "My Own Devices" which was really good, and informed me about many of the emotional behind the scenes-ness to much of her music.  This album is so great, and if it weren't for the next two albums, it would have taken #1 easily.   A favorite: "Jumprope" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc7lGAssa1I
2: A Perfect Circle - Eat the Elephant This is one of those glorious returns.  APC hasn't put out an album since 2004's "Emotive", and that was honestly barely an album.  2003's "Thirteenth Step" was their last true album, and it is still a huge favorite of mine.  So it's been roughly 15 years.  In that time, singer Maynard James Keenan has put out a wealth of music, mostly under his Puscifer solo band name.  Some of that music has been beautiful and amazing, but no full album has been that great.  Billy Howerdell, former Tool guitar tech turned musical-side of A Perfect Circle has put out an album under the name Ashes Divide, and it was decent.  But the magic that is A Perfect Circle has been distinctly missing that whole time.  "Eat the Elephant" (a reference to destroying the republican party) is great from start to finish.  It is dark and challenging, atmospheric and beautiful.  It stands beside their older albums as a true equal and I couldn't be happier with it.  I thought for the longest time this would garner #1 this year, it completely deserves it.  A masterpiece. A favorite: "Disillusioned" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u05S9cq2bLY
1: Mike Shinoda - Post Traumatic This one's difficult to talk about.  In 2017, the singer of Linkin Park, Chester Bennington, killed himself.  LP had been a favorite band of mine since high school, I hadn't loved all their music throughout time but always loved them as a band.  It was really rough for me, definitely the most I'd been affected by a "celebrity death".  Mike Shinoda, Linkin Park's resident rapper and production genius had always been my favorite member.  In January 2018 he put out three songs, with appropriately low-budget filmed-at-his-studio-selfie-style videos that granted an intense and personal look into his life and feelings over the last months.  I listened to those three songs over and over, they made me cry many times.  In June he put out a full-length album, that began with those three songs.  The album ranges from specific and personal to broad and emotional.  There are a few great guest artists, including Chino from the Deftones and last year's surprise #10 singer K. Flay.  The production on the album isn't overly flashy but it has that Mike Shinoda sound that I've loved for years.  I used a huge amount of these (and Linkin Park) songs in my recent sync of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which proved their impact on me.  The album is raw, unpolished, and uncompromisingly emotional.  It's personal significance is what put it at #1. A favorite: "A Place To Start" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eijqQgC2S-g
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wa-liu · 5 years
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Assignment Part 3:Artist Statement for Web Arts Artefact
Shooting with Drama Queen APP OLDV. A retro video camera has many special effects of nostalgia. As when I was a child, I pretended to have low pixels, and BGM was also retro. In the 1980s, I thought of the dance recently performed by Japanese female high school students.
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The word Nostalgia is composed of νόστος, which means " returning" and " returning" in Greek, and ἄλγος, which means " suffering". If literal translation is based on etymology, it should be translated as " pain of returning". For Italian painter George de Chirico in the early 20th century, it seems to me appropriate to use this word to describe the artistic movement of " Metaphysical art" he founded. Chirico believes that art works should be free from the shackles of human nature and go back to the childhood perspective associated with dreams. However, human beings are limited by time and space, so time and space misplacement is the way to achieve this return. In chirico's works of art, appreciators can always glance at the clue of " returning" mission through the expression of space-time misplacement.
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▲ Giogio de Chirico, The Solitary Archaeologist, 1937.
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▲ Macintosh Plus, 「フローラルの専門店」, 2012.Floral Shoppe, by Macintosh Plus
This presentation reminds me very easily of " Floral Shoppe" released by Macintosh Plus in 2011. Apart from the fluorescent green words and patterns, the album cover is also composed of three unrelated elements: Apollo gypsum head portrait, a false river view and a black and white grid pattern extending far away. In the pink background, these three objects are slightly weird, but they have a wonderful sense of harmony.
Vaporwave was born in the early 10' s of this century, microgenre. The word was first used to describe an electronic music genre, which mainly sampled popular music pieces from Europe, America or Japan from the 1980s to the 1990s, then slowed down, cycled, made old and stylized, presenting a retro and lost look. Some critics described it as a combination of " chopped and screwed plunderphonics" and " nihilistic easy-listening", which embodies two characteristics of steam wave music: the processing of space-time misplacement ( predatory acoustics lies in directly using other music works as the basis of new works; Fragmentation and distortion create a sense of antiquity and confusion ) and confusion in the face of reality ( the nihilism of songs is based on insight and reflection on reality ).
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▲ MacPlus91, Vaporwave, 2016-2017.VAPORWAVE
Therefore, Vaporwave also bears the brand of " pain of returning", which is especially obvious in the visual art of steam wave.
Artists place the newly eliminated " antiques" in the same virtual, false color and cyberized space as those ancient aesthetic benchmarks that have undergone vicissitudes, as if they were two monuments in the retrospective process. However, people's inner pain and confusion in the face of reality have also been strengthened in the visual art of steam waves - the time and space constructed by steam waves is not a dream presented by chirico, and it does not even allow you to interpret it, thus missing the metaphysical meaning. On the contrary, it randomly piled up Chinese characters and pseudonyms, cursors and popup windows, and even deliberately handled Lo-Fi, which in my opinion is also the reason why Vaporwave is often associated with glitch art ..
Vaporwave has always given me the feeling of combining surrealism with retro, so I have used some shooting software to mix up some trivial things in my life, like a narrative diary of another style to record my life.
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