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kamus15 · 3 years

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Heartbreak Weather 2021 Review*

Heartbreak Weather sound takes me to pop-rock elements where 1D left off, somehow Niall manages to put his on twist on it rather than sounding repetitive or following a certain formula. He found his own voice and niche in his first album and now with his second release, he explores further into lusting and one night stands with strangers. It shouldn’t be shocking on how we hear about his romantic escapades throughout the album and how much he yearns for company and also explores into self-doubt, vulnerability, and being young. Without further ado, let’s break into the album track-by-track:

1) Heartbreak Weather We start off with the title of the album, in this song, Niall tells us how sad and lost he was before meeting this girl whom he now shares a room in a hotel, we can pretty much tell that the girl is the one that takes initiative into this swift hook up as they undress each other and can’t wait to find each other wrapped in arms, legs and bedsheet. Poor Niall, you were probably coming off from a dry-spell and this is all you needed to breathe new energy into your life. The instruments played throughout this song are chill and have this Caribbean-tinged arrangements that makes the song feel rather relaxed despite Niall pleas of desperation and how lonely he must have felt.

2) Black & White The typical perfect song for a wedding. Oh yes, Niall narrates how he pictures himself growing older with who knows, maybe the girl on track 1? It’d be impossible to keep track of how many girls Niall must have dated since 1D began. It’s somehow cheesy but not enough for the whole song not to turn into a cheesy festival.

3) Dear Patience This is such a heartfelt song, where we see Niall talking to inner (younger) self. In a path to self-discovery, it’s easy to get lost in the process, and find it hard to hear your own voice. It’s very refreshing to hear Niall being so honest with himself and admit that he’s had his setbacks, just like any of us. During the song, he pleads for more understanding, to come to terms with being more *pun intended* patient.

4) Bend The Rules This has a rather interesting question-and-answer section where Niall wonders what his partner has been up to, even though he gives us a vague idea that he suspects of cheating, yet he knows there’s no proof and he might be seeing things. The song itself drags on quite a bit for my liking, however, it’s great to hear the vulnerability in his voice. Mr. Horan once again shows off his cleverness with his songwriting on this track.

5) Small Talk We’re back to the one-night stand, hook-up type of songs! We get it Niall, you like to drop your pants faster than a skyrocket! In this song, we hear how much Niall has been craving it and thinking it about it. With this type of song, in my mind, it would be perfect to play on a sleazy bar where you go to pick up your latest tinder hot date. Nothing new we haven’t seen before. Just shut up and F me

6) Nice To Meet Ya *Dua’s voice* One look at the lyrics it’s all it takes to figure out that this Irish leprechaun is either thinking about getting laid or having a nice Guinness stout in his nearest bar. I do like the fact his voice sounds different in this song, I can’t quite describe it, but it does remind me somehow of what brit-pop sounded in the late nineties. Niall becomes the second member of One Direction to dabble in French (cou, cou!), although I can’t see how taking your hot date to the sea will keep her warm. But, alas, I do see an effort in this song for creativity.

7) Put a little love on me This song screams Disney-ballad to me. It’s very syrupy and Niall’s vocals showcase quite some emotion as well. It sounds like something One direction would have put out during their peak. I do appreciate that Niall pushes his vocal range a bit further here.

8) Arms of a Stranger Unsure how to feel about this track, other than it’s a filler track.

9) Everywhere Niall can’t escape this girl who keeps turning up in every single corner he turns to, is he a victim or a perpetrator? The song sounds a bit bland and generic but works for the album body of work.

10) Cross your mind Ahh! at last, we have hit the summit of the record! This is my favorite track of the album and I’d definitely sing my lungs out on a karaoke night! It’s such a shame this wasn’t chosen as a single, because it’s a very catchy song. Niall tells us in this song he can’t let go of a girl that brings heart ache to him, he knows that she is toxic to him, yet, he doesn’t mind as long as she comes back to him. Leaving me in pieces, but I swear it's worth it every time, very clever Niall !!

11) New Angel 1D - Hey, Angel HS - Only Angel NH - New Angel What’s the obsession behind angels? I wonder who will be next in mentioning an angel in their solo albums. Nice song.

12) No Judgement Niall encourages the listener (or rather his lover du jour) that they don’t have anything to prove to be with him, since they are at a point where he is comfortable with that person. it’s nice to hear that Niall’s personality really comes through in this song, the man is simple, give him a golf cart full of equipment and a pint of beer and you have yourself a happy man! sonically, this sounds something Ed Sheeran would’ve put out (Shape of you says hello!), but it’s refreshing nonetheless that Niall makes this song his own.

13) San Francisco A bittersweet song. Can’t say much other than Niall shows how much hurt and PAYNE his last relationship in California has caused him, during his time in the Golden state.

14) Still The closing track, very interesting and quite intriguing that N. Horan/NHHQ chose to close this album with this particular track. The beginning of the song reminds me in a strange way of H. Styles “Canyon Moon”, notice how also towards the end of the song, Horan tells us everything will be alright.. sounds familiar? Harry on Fine Line’s closing track also conveys the same message, could this mean that in the near future there could be a Horan/Styles collab? Who knows! I’m exited regardless, their future seems very promising for both! Closing Remarks : The album works quite well as a body of work, Niall is very cohesive throughout the album with its themes and lyricism, I definitely hear his personality and drive in this songs. From track 1 to track 14, Niall had a hand in writing all songs, which I do appreciate in today’s music, he’s very relatable, his music gives anyone easy access to anyone without going deep for mixed messages or having the FBI decode hidden meanings, yes I am looking at you Harry Styles.

I give this album a solid 8/10 stars.

Disclosure : I do not own any images, music, lyrics alluded on this post. This is merely my take on one of today’s Pop music superstars latest to-date release.

#niall horan #heartbreak weather album #one direction #solo #albumreview #2021review reblog

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thelittlesttimelord · 4 years

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The Littlest Timelord: The Fall of the Eleventh Chapter 5

TITLE: The Littlest Timelord: The Fall of the Eleventh Chapter 5 PAIRING: No Pairing RATING: T CHAPTER: 5/? SUMMARY: Elise Smith is now a teenaged Timelord. In addition to losing the Ponds, the fields of Trenzalore are calling. But first they have to figure out exactly who Clara Oswald is.

[A/N - I’m back! We had a lot of work done to the house this week, so I’ll hopefully be writing all weekend.]

Elise groaned and sat up.

Rory suddenly jumped up and looked around. “Oh! Elise!” He gently helped her up. “Are you okay?”

“I think so.”

They were surrounded by Daleks.

Elise’s heartrate started to speed up, but she pushed her fear down. Now was the time to be brave.

Rory approached one and touched it, but nothing happened.

“They’re deactivated. Good,” Elise said, “Come on.”

Rory pulled out his pen light and they ventured into the asylum.

They entered a chamber filled with Daleks.

Rory approached one and turned its head to examine it. When he let go, its head turned back.

“Rory…” Elise warned him.

He stepped back and accidentally kicked a piece of metal.

This caused the Dalek’s eyestalk to start to glow. The Daleks around them started to come to life. “Eg-eg-eg-eg-eg-eg-eg,” the Dalek stuttered.

“What? Sorry, what?” Rory asked.

“Eg eg eg eg eg eg eggs.”

“Eggs? You mean those things?”

“Rory!” Elise snapped. They needed to get out of here before the Daleks powered up completely.

“Eggs!” the Dalek said.

“I don't…I don't know what you want. Those things. Are those things eggs?” Rory pointed to the round casings on the floor and picked one up. “This? You want this?” He offered it to the Dalek.

“Egg. Stir. Min. Ate.”

Rory dropped the casing as the Daleks around them echoed their phrase.

“Run!” Elise yelled and grabbed Rory by the arm.

The Dalek fired at them, but just missed them. They dodged blasts as the Daleks continued to scream at them.

Oswin’s voice came over the PA system. “Run! The door at the end, run for it. They're waking up, but they're slow. The door at the end. Just run. Now! Now! Now!”

Elise and Rory ran for the door. It rose up just enough for them to slide underneath it. It closed behind them. Elise and Rory panted in relief.

“Thanks,” Rory said, looking at Elise.

“You’re welcome.”

“You know…you sounded a lot like your father.”

Elise smiled. “Thank you.”

“So, anyway, I'm Oswin. What do I call you?” the woman asked.

“Er, I can't remember. Er, Rory.”

“I’m Elise,” Elise told her, “Elise Smith.”

“Lovely name, Rory. First boy I ever fancied was called Rory,” Oswin said.

“Okay…” Rory said, clearly still in shock.

“Actually, she was called Nina. I was going through a phase. Although Elise is pretty name too and look at those blue eyes!”

Elise blushed.

“Just flirting to keep you cheerful,” Oswin told them.

“Exterminate. Exterminate!” came through the door.

“Er, okay, any time you want to start flirting again is fine by me,” Rory said.

Rory and Elise were walking down a corridor when Rory’s flashlight started to flicker.

Elise pulled out her sonic screwdriver and soniced the flashlight.

“What are you doing?” Rory asked her.

“Hopefully making the batteries last longer.”

“Hey there, Blinky boy and Sonic girl,” Oswin said.

“If it's a straight choice, I prefer Nina,” Rory told her.

“Loving this. A nose and a chin. You two could fence. But I would give anything to get lost in those blue eyes of yours lovely.”

Rory and Elise looked slightly uncomfortable with the flirting.

“There's a door behind you,” Oswin told them.

The door rose and Elise and Rory ran into the room. There was a large round platform in the middle.

“In there, quickly. Okay, you're safe for now. Pop your shirt off, quick as you like.”

“Why?” Rory asked, starting to take his jacket off.

“Does there have to be a reason?”

“Why are you and Amy breaking up?” Elise asked Rory, “You love each other.”

“You noticed that, huh?”

Elise rolled her eyes. “Of course I noticed.”

“It’s complicated, Elise.”

“I wouldn’t understand right?”

Rory sighed. “That’s not what I meant. Marriages aren’t easy. Look at River and the Doctor.”

“They make it work.”

“Some marriages just don’t.”

There was a loud explosion and the whole room shook.

“Oswin?” Elise asked.

“What was that? That was close,” Rory said.

Elise and Rory ran out into the chamber again.

“Oswin? What happened? Who killed all the Daleks?” Rory asked.

The Doctor walked through the smoke, carrying Amy. “Who do you think?” The Doctor carried her into the teleport room and laid her down on the pad.

“Will sleeping help her? Will it slow down the process?” Rory asked.

“You'd better hope so because pretty soon she's going to try and kill you,” Oswin said.

“Amy,” the Doctor cooed, stroking her hair.

“Ow,” Amy groaned.

“Amy. You still with us?” “Amy, it's me. Do you remember me?” Rory asked.

Amy’s hand shot up and slapped him. “She remembers me.”

“Same old Amy,” the Doctor said, jumping to his feet.

“Do you know how you make someone into a Dalek? Subtract love, add anger. Doesn't she seem a bit too angry to you?” Oswin asked.

Amy sat up. “Well, somebody's never been to Scotland.”

“What about you, though, Oswin? How come you're okay?” the Doctor asked, “Why hasn't the nanocloud converted you?”

“I mentioned the genius thing, yeah? Shielded in here.”

“Clever of you. Now, this place. The Daleks said it was fully automated. Look at it. It's a wreck.”

“Well, I've had nearly a year to mess with them, and not a lot else to do.”

“A junior entertainment manager hiding out in a wrecked ship, hacking the security systems of the most advanced warrior race the universe has ever seen. But you know what really gets me about you, Oswin? The soufflés. Where do you get milk for the soufflés?” The Doctor turned to his daughter and companions. “Seriously. Is no one else wondering about that?”

“No. Frankly, no. Twice,” Rory told him.

“So, Doctor. I've been looking you up. You're all over the database. Why do the Daleks call you the Predator?” Oswin asked.

“I'm not the Predator, I'm just a man with a plan,” the Doctor said.

“You've got a plan?”

“We’re all ears!” Rory said, ready to get off this planet.

“There's a nose joke going if someone wants to pick that one off,” Amy said.

“In no particular order, we need to neutralize all the Daleks in this Asylum, rescue Oswin from the wreckage, escape from this planet and fix Amy and Rory's marriage,” the Doctor told them.

“Okay, I'm counting three lost causes,” Amy quipped, “Anyone else?”

“Oswin, there's a Dalek ship in orbit.”

“Yes. Got it on the sensors,” Oswin told him.

“The Asylum has a forcefield. The Daleks upstairs are waiting for me to turn it off. Soon as I do, they'll burn this whole world and us with it. So, Oswin, my question is this. How fast can you drop the forcefield?”

“Pretty fast. But why would I?”

“Because this is a teleport. Am I right, Oswin?”

“Yeah. Internal use only.”

The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and soniced the pad underneath Amy. “I can boost the power. Once the forcefield is down, I can use it to beam us right off this planet.”

“You said when the forcefield is down, the Daleks will blow us up,” Rory told him.

“We'll have to be quick, yes.”

“Fine, we'll be quick. But where do we beam to?” Amy asked.

“The only place within range. The Dalek ship.”

“They'll exterminate us on the spot.”

“Ah, so this is the kind of escape plan where you survive about four seconds longer?” Rory asked.

“What's wrong with four seconds? You can do loads in four seconds. Oswin, how fast can you drop the forcefield?”

“I can do it from here, as soon as you come and get me,” she said.

The Doctor stood up. “No, just drop the forcefield and come to us.”

“There's enough power in that teleport for one go. Why would you wait for me?”

“Why wouldn't I?”

“No idea. Never met you. Sending you a map so you can come get me.”

“This place is crawling with Daleks,” Rory told her.

“Yeah. Kind of why I'm anxious to leave. Come up and see me sometime.”

The Doctor and Elise walked over to a screen to study the map.

“So, are we going to go get her?” Rory asked.

“I don't think that we have a choice.” The Doctor walked over to Rory and handed him the button to teleport. “Okay, as soon as the forcefield is down the Daleks will attack. If it gets too explody-wody in here, you go without me, okay?”

“And leave you to die?”

“Oh, don't worry about me. You're the one beaming up to a Dalek ship to get exterminated.”

“Fair point. Love this plan. What about Amy?”

The Doctor went underneath the platform to wire it up to the device Rory was holding. “Keep her remembering, keep her focused. That'll hold back the conversion.”

“What do I do?” Amy asked.

The Doctor popped up behind her. “You heard what she said. They're subtracting love. Don't let them.”

The Doctor stood up and Elise followed after him. “What are you doing?” he asked her.

“Coming with you, of course.”

The Doctor sighed. “Elise…”

“I am not staying with the fighting married couple. I already have to listen to you and mum.”

“Hey! I didn’t start that fight.”

“No, your stupidity did.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “You really are your mother’s daughter.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

#eleventh doctor #eleventh doctor fanfiction #eleventh doctor imagine #doctor who #Doctor Who fanfiction #doctor who imagine #amy pond #amy pond imagine #Rory Williams #rory williams imagine #asylum of the daleks #the littlest timelord #the littlest timelord: the fall of the eleventh

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rorykillmore · 4 years

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so today is @tailsthesales and as a birthday fic he requested a piece fitting tails into a transformers au! so. i gave it my best shot. imagining tails & co as autobots was actually EXTREMELY fun. this is idw-verse (fitting, i figure,) aaaand takes place directly after the dark cybertron arc where shockwave has almost destroyed all of reality, just for a point of reference.

so happy birthday, giz!!! i know we are all experiencing some rocky times right now, but i hope you manage to enjoy it. <3 you have been such a consistently warm and engaging presence in my life in all the time we’ve been friends and co-admins, and i endlessly appreciate how quick you are to support my ideas and encourage my writing. hopefully this fic serves to do the same for yours, because i can’t WAIT to see more of tails in the future!!

“Ha. Sonic? Slow down? The war may be over, the universe may have almost ended, and Megatron may be an Autobot, but some things still are never gonna change.”

“Alright, alright, alright. Head count. Everyone sit down for a head count.” Rodimus raises his voice to be heard over the crowds, and seems... honestly, rather taken aback when people actually listen. “...Okay, one: wasn’t expecting that to work. Two: there are way too many of you to actually count, so nevermind.”

Tails actually hears Knuckles snort. “And this is what happens when you slap ‘Prime’ on the end of your name and call yourself a leader.”

“Hey, come on, cut him some slack,” Sonic says, astoundingly cheerful for someone who is presently laid out on a portable operating slab. But then, he’s always been unflinching about putting his life in Tails’ hands. “He did just help save the universe.”

“We all did,” Knuckles grumbles.

“I don’t see too much damage,” Tails reports, trying to distract them both with some good news. “That Ammonite’s shot totally missed your transformation cog, which is great! This coulda got ugly.”

“Have I told you lately how much I love your bedside manner?” Sonic chuckles, looking up at him. “But thanks, Tails. Close me up and lets get back out there! I’m sure there’s a lot of injured Autobots who could still use our help.”

The three of them - as Ratchet, the medic Tails looks up to most, once said - make quite a team. Sonic is a racer-turned-Autobot-frontliner who likes to play the hero nearly as often as Rodimus does (Tails supposes that might be why he’s so quick to defend him), Knuckles is an ex-Wrecker who joined up with them during his quest to lead a life with less... well, wreckage (not that they always avoid it), and Tails himself is a helicopter bot and a medic who just recently completed his training. Together, they form Team Sonic (after some mild debate between Sonic and Knuckles -- which Tails had stayed out of, because he just didn’t think “Team Tails” had the same ring to it), and they’ve stuck together since even after the war officially ended.

Tails definitely isn’t complaining. They’re stronger together -- and war or no war, the universe still needs their help!

...As recently evidenced by, uh, Shockwave trying to destroy it. Thank Primus they all got out of that one okay, Sonic’s minor interior injuries aside.

He closes Sonic up once everything is back in working order, and predictably, the former racer is back on his feet in an instant. Tails has never exactly known him to be the patient type.

“Try and take it easy for a little while, just in case,” he warns gently regardless.

Knuckles barks out a laugh. “Ha. Sonic? Slow down? The war may be over, the universe may have almost ended, and Megatron may be an Autobot, but some things still are never gonna change.”

“Megatron is a... what?” Tails turns to him, optics bright with disbelief, certain he must have misheard. Even Sonic stops dead in his tracks, waiting for the punchline.

Knuckles shrugs, almost uncomfortably. “Just a rumor that’s going around.”

Tails has to admit, it’s not a very plausible rumor. The feared leader of the Decepticons? The guy with the body count in the billions? An Autobot?

Sonic crosses his arms. “Unbelievable. People will say anything.”

“Everyone here accounted for?” Ultra Magnus’s voice booms above them as his rounds finally bring him to their group. Tails straightens up instinctively and gives Magnus a quick salute for good measure, since, well. That’s the kind of thing Magnus appreciates.

“Yes sir! Sonic had a gunshot wound, but it wasn’t serious.”

“Tails patched me right up, as per usual,” Sonic asserts, giving Tails a quick, confident smile that has Tails beaming back at him.

Ultra Magnus seems satisfied by that report. “Very good. Listen,” He pauses, turning to scrutinize Tails specifically, and Tails goes still. “Optimus wants to speak to you.”

There’s a moment of silence as the three of them take that in.

“Prime?” Knuckles finally and impulsively blurts out.

Ultra Magnus gives him a deadpan look in response. “Do you know another Optimus?”

None of them do, of course, but Tails can’t help but share in Knuckles’ confusion. Why would Optimus Prime want to speak to him? If there’s a de facto leader of their little team, it’s Sonic, after all.

But when he turns to meet his friend’s gaze, Sonic is staring somberly but encouragingly back at him, and Tails takes heart in his silent show of support. He turns back to Magnus carefully. “Er, sure, Ultra Magnus. Sure thing. Um -- now?”

“Whenever you have a moment.” Ultra Magnus ticks their names off on his datapad and starts to move on. Then he pauses, glancing shortly over his shoulder. “I wouldn’t keep him waiting.”

Tails is pretty sure Magnus didn’t mean for that to sound as ominous as it did. A good sixty percent of what comes out of Magnus’ mouth is, notoriously, unintentionally ominous just by virtue of him having absolutely no sense of humor (not that Tails would ever say that to his face). He looks back at his friends again. Knuckles shrugs, and Sonic gives him a thumbs up.

“You guys’ll be okay?” Tails still asks just to make sure.

“Golden,” Sonic assures him. “Go on and see what the big guy wants. We’ll wait for you.”

Tails takes heart in knowing he doesn’t have to question that for a second.

When he finds Optimus, though, he looks more... harrowed, somehow, than Tails expected. Maybe it’s just that Tails is used to him looking so unshakable, though comparatively, Optimus still looks a lot less shaken than the rest of them. It makes Tails wonder what really did happen with Megatron.

Then again... the battle hadn’t been easy on any of them. It’s not a stretch to say that there’s probably not an unshaken ‘bot among them.

“Sir?” Tails greets, standing to respectful attention none the less. “You wanted to see me?”

“Yes, Tails. Thank you for lending me a few moments of your time. I know you must want to be with your team right now.” Optimus pauses, and Tails tries not to waver under his scrutiny. “Are they all alright?”

“We’ve had worse scrapes, sir!” Tails assures him, and then winces a little, because that makes all the lives that have just been lost seem horribly trivial. “ -- I just mean! We were lucky, this time. Sonic got shot, but I patched him right up.”

Optimus nods slowly. “Ratchet tells me he commends you on your medical skill.”

It takes a second for that to sink in. “Commends -- ?” Tails stumbles over his own words. Ratchet? The Ratchet? The Autobots’ most famous and accomplished medic? If-Tails-Had-A-Hero-Besides-Sonic-Himself Ratchet?

“Oh,” is all he ends up saying,and he winces immediately and tries to amend: “Wow. That’s... quite an honor, sir.”

“Well, he isn’t one to give out easy praise.” Optimus’ tone sounds a little warmer now. “Which is why I had... hoped to ask you for a favor.”

Name it, Tails wants to say, whatever you need! But, he reminds himself, that’s not exactly his call to make. Sonic is the de facto leader of their team, and even if Tails was to act individually, he... wouldn’t want to do it without consulting his friends. Still. To even be asked, by Optimus Prime no less, is...

It’s...

“What is it?” Tails asks, focused and somber.

Optimus barely hesitates, in a way most ‘bots wouldn’t recognize, in a way Tails only just manages to catch. “The war may be over. Shockwave may be gone, and the threat he posed along with him, but... I fear there are dangerous days yet to come.”

It’s not exactly reassuring. Tails represses the urge to shift his weight nervously. Is there some lingering threat Optimus is still worried about... ?

“Will you stay here on Cybertron?” Optimus finishes his request finally. “At least for the duration of Megatron’s trial?”

“Megatron is -- going on trial?” Tails blurts out before he can stop himself. Again, he thinks back to Knuckles’ rumor.

“He says he plans on pleading guilty. If that proves true... it won’t be a long one.”

The list of Megatron’s crimes is so immeasurably extensive that Tails understands the worry of the alternative. To contest each and every charge could take years.

And, after all, it’s Megatron. It’s not unreasonable to wonder if he has something else up his sleeve.

“But want to account for every possibility, in the meantime,” Tails provides, nodding to himself.

“At the very least, some of the Decepticons won’t stand for it. Ratchet wants as many medics on standby as possible. And... I wanted to request you specifically.”

Tails’ spark feels like it’s fizzling in his chest. “...Why?”

“Because you’ve held onto your kindness, all this time,” Optimus replies heavily. “And I think we’re about to need a lot of that.”

It should make Tails swell with pride. But for a moment, it only makes him sad. What will become of them now, their kind, who have only ever known war with one another for millions and millions of years?

But whatever the future holds, Optimus needs him today. Resolutely, Tails answers, “I’ll have to ask my team. I dunno what the plan was, as far as staying on Cybertron goes, but... if Sonic thinks we’re needed here, I’m sure he won’t say no.”

“Thank you. Even just for considering the request,” Optimus’ gratitude is resolute, and Tails can’t help but smile in response. “You know where to find me, whenever you’ve made your decision.”

“We won’t keep you waiting long,” Tails promises, and giving him a wave, turns to make his way back to his friends. In a way, maybe it’s a good thing they already have another mission ahead of them. Primus knows none of them have ever been the type to stand still.

#fic #also: tails is a medic because i figured that'd be a good translation of his mechanic skills #if he were. you know. a robot. who works on other robots.

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taww · 4 years

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First Take Review: Audiovector SR 6 Avantgarde Arreté Speakers

As previously chronicled, a move to a new residence last year challenged my undying devotion to 2-way monitor speakers. Though I had two great ones at my disposal - the Silverline SR17 Supreme and Audiovector SR 1 Avantgarde Arreté - asking these relatively compact speakers to fill a large living space with the weight and scale of a symphony orchestra was unreasonable. I needed something that could move more air, but far too many big speakers I’ve heard sound slow, discombobulated or opaque vs. a quality 2-way. Enter the Audiovector SR 6 Avantgarde Arreté (USD $25,000), which confidently assured me of no such compromises during an audition at Audiovision SF. After a bit of listening to some alternatives and the requisite spousal approval, I traded in the SR 1’s and placed an order for a pair of SR 6 AA in piano black with the intention of keeping these as my long-term reference speakers. I’ve logged about 3 months with them and while they’re still taking their sweet time to break in, it’s time to gut check: are they turning out to be everything I had hoped they would be?

Related Reading

Quick Take: Audiovector R 3 Arreté & SR 6 Avantgarde Arreté

Breaking in a Big Speaker: Week 2 with the Audiovector SR 6

Acoustically Treating Side Reflections: Even Better and Not as Hard as You Think

Design & Setup

IMO this is a gorgeous speaker that looks impressive in a room without being dominating - sleek and elegant, with pleasing proportions and a beautiful finish. While our room is a good size, it is an all-purpose living space for my wife and me plus our two large-ish dogs, and there was no way audiophile speakers with a large footprint or funky aesthetics would ever set foot in our home. The Audiovector was a relatively easy sell to my wife and there have been zero groans or offhand remarks about its size or appearance, which makes it an unmitigated success. The magnetically-attached grills are wonderfully crafted, muting the technical look of the baffle during more casual listening, snapping on and off with precision and sticking together for easy storage. The sound isn't bad with them on either - fractionally less open and bright, which is actually kind of nice for background music.

Full-range speakers can be tricky to position to balance bass response with soundstaging, but in my room I’ve found the SR 6 AA to be very easygoing. Thanks to a combination of front-firing ports, bottom-firing compound woofer and careful bass alignment, they work remarkably well close to the wall. I currently have them with just 50cm (20”) of clearance behind them, and I have yet to pick up on any port noises. Yes, the soundstage would be even deeper if I pulled them out further, but it’s still quite satisfactory and the bass is nicely filled out without any boom whatsoever. As with the SR 1 Avantgarde Arretés, I find the sweet spot to be a bit narrow - sound is good off-axis, but you really need to be centered precisely for the image and soundstage to lock in. This is in contrast to traditional 2-way monitors from e.g. Silverline Audio or Role Audio that disappear in your room with little effort and are fairly forgiving of listening position.

Sensitivity is specified at 92.5dB/watt @ 8 ohms, quite good for a dynamic speaker. Sensitivity ratings can be deceiving (measurement methods are not rigorously standardized) but the SR 6 AA certainly puts out noticeably more sound per watt than the 90.5dB-rated Silverline SR17. I haven't seen an impedance plot or minimum impedance spec but it seems pretty easy to drive, with all of my amps sounding open and unstrained. With pop or orchestral material at moderately high volume levels I could get the bias meter on the Pass Labs XA30.5 to wiggle the tiniest bit, indicating the peaks were surpassing the 30-watt Class A bias range, but just barely. While the speakers can clearly take a lot more power (I would have loved to have the 300wpc Bryston 4B Cubed around), a quality amp of moderate power rating (e.g. 50 watts) but enough current to feed the 4 drivers should have no trouble. The Pass sounded great, I love the 55-watt Valvet A4 Mk.II monoblocks on them, and right now the 50-watt Gryphon Essence is singing away.

The Sound

Listening to the SR 6 AA strikes me as the audio equivalent of stepping into something like a big smooth Mercedes S-class, only to find it as lithe and responsive behind the wheel as a Lotus Elise. But step on the accelerator, and sure enough you will hear and feel the grunt of a big bi-turbo V-12. And most of all, it’s fun. Like a car that beckons you to drive it, there’s an aliveness and energy to the SR 6 that compels you to listen to as much music as possible. I could listen to record after record all day and night and never stop.

Coming back to less-fanciful analogies, I love how the SR 6 has all the coherence, focus and speed of the best 2-way monitors, then adds low-frequency power and dynamic ease without any sort of compromise that I can discern. At first I was a bit concerned with the 350Hz crossover point between midrange and woofer - right in the D to A string range of the violin - but I honestly can not hear it at all. The compound bass system also seamlessly integrates from 80Hz down, and all I hear is a very continuous presentation with consistent speed, articulation and tonality. This is extremely rare in my experience - many big, expensive and elaborate speakers have had some sort of discontinuity that bugged me.

Coming back to the 2-way comparison, I am missing absolutely nothing about my previous monitor speakers. The SR 6 has even more midrange focus and resolving power than its excellent little sibling, the SR 1 Avantgarde Arreté, while sounding less dry and analytical. Much of this can be attributed to the fullness of the lower midrange which puts more meat on the bones of everything. It’s not overtly warm, but has just the slightest bit of extra juice to give pop tunes great bounce and string sections lovely lyricism. My wife noted that orchestral melodies sounded particularly mellifluous and alluring.

This brings me to another point: the SR 6 simultaneously strikes me as tremendously transparent, neutral and precise, but also possessing character. It's very hard for me to describe it any one way because the common sonic labels - warm, analytical, fast, full, forward, laid-back, smooth, sharp - just won't stick. Depending on the associated gear, setup and recording, any of those above descriptors could be applied to a very subtle degree, but switch up the source material and a different set of adjectives come to mind. Going to another abstract analogy, it reminds me of a delicious mineral water - so clean and crisp and pure, but not totally flavorless. The SR 6 is never bland to my ears; sure, a bad recording still won't sound great, but the presentation never falls flat. It has a fun and engaging take on music, perhaps due to just a hair of judicious boost somewhere in the midrange, that isn't dead-on neutral, but subtle and musically consonant. This is what I find most fascinating about Audiovector's tuning vs. other ultra high-end marques such as Magico or YG Acoustics, which can be breathtakingly transparent to the point of sounding flavorless, and incredibly demanding of source material. In those special moments with the right setup and recording they certainly could scale to greater heights of realism than the SR 6, but the Audiovector just sounds consistently natural and satisfying to me.

A few words on what this speaker is not. While it certainly qualifies as full-range, it does not have an overtly “big” sound. You won’t get the same sort of easy, larger-than-life presentation that a large-woofered speaker in a more classic mold (think a big old JBL with 15” woofers, or a top-end model from PBN or Legacy Audio) will give you. If you want Louis Armstrong to sound like he's sitting in your lap, or you’re trying to reproduce a club environment in your living room, there are better speakers for that. Bass extension is deep and powerful, but the quality of the bass that stands out is that it’s always focused - pitch, timing and weight are precise and balanced. It will convincingly represent a symphony orchestra, and the throbbing bass line of Billie Eilish’s Bad Guy will have you bouncing in your seat, but it’s not shake-your-walls, send-you-into-intestinal-distress kind of bass. It is easily the most detailed and revealing speaker I have had in my room, but it is never hyped-up, instead laying the music out for you to inspect at your discretion. The superb Audiovector AMT tweeter has a lot to do with this - it is free of the typical resonant modes of most dome tweeters and has resolving power well above the audible range, with none of the peakiness of metal domes that can go from vivid to fatiguing over time. There are designs with more natural warmth, that can make a female vocal sound more magically in-the-room and human - Silverline and GamuT are two superb marques that come to mind - but they might not be as neutral and versatile across many genres of music.

The Audiovector is much more precise and adaptable than speakers which blow you away with a particular aspect of their performance. It is the sort of sound that may not stand out as much in 3 minute sound bites at an audio show or dealer, but is more accurate and satisfying in the long term. And I appreciate how it effortlessly fills my open space with sound, but never overpowers it. This is a remarkably lifestyle-friendly speaker by high-end standards and I could see it working very well in a more modestly-sized room, though if you have a small room you are probably better off saving some money on the R 3 Arreté and putting the funds towards upstream gear.

The Take

As you can probably guess, I'm liking the Audiovector SR 6 Avantgarde Arreté a whole lot. A big speaker is always a risky proposition - you never know if it'll work in your room, reproducing a wider range of frequencies means more things to critique and potentially bug you, and of course there's the financial outlay. But so far, other than the need for extended break-in time, there have been zero frustrations and only delights in my experience.

As I write this, I'm listening to a lovely record of Bruckner 9 by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra with Daniele Gatti (Qobuz 24/96, Tidal MQA) at moderate volume. And I honestly have nothing to observe or say about the speakers because it just sounds good and right and I'm enjoying the performance. It's a total system effort of course, with contributions from PS Audio, Furutech, Audience and the transcendental Gryphon Essence pre + power amp, but as a music lover first and foremost I can think of no higher compliment for the Audiovector SR 6 Avantgarde Arreté.

#audio #audiophile #stereo #hifi #speakers #audiovector #highendaudio #review #firsttake

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 5 years

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Spider-Man: Carnage in New York Thoughts

I’d actually recommend checking this out!

I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect out of this novel. Carnage is such a simplistic character that a whole novel about him as the main antagonist was something I wasn’t sure could work. And yet for the most part it did.

Because this a story most people aren’t going to have easy access to I’m copying in the plot synopsis as provided by the marvel.wiki:

Dr. Eric Catrall flees carrying a briefcase containing a vial of "trigger" serum - a chemical compound that induces violent insanity in anyone exposed to even trace amounts. Pursued by a pair of FBI agents, he's cornered in an alley but is rescued by Spider-Man - who had been on his way home from attempting to spy on a local mobster.

Spider-Man returns home to his wife, Mary Jane, and tells her about his altercation with the feds. Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Aunt May, who tells Peter that she is three months behind on her payments for her house and that unless she makes the payment the following day it will be repossessed. Despite himself and MJ not being financially well-off themselves, Peter promises to help May any way he can, and agrees to accompany her to the bank.

At the supervillain prison known as the Vault, rookie Guardsman Craig Lynch taunts Cletus Kasady. The serial killer responds by unleashing his symbiote and transforming into Carnage, terrifying Lynch.

Going to the Daily Bugle Building to investigate Catrall the following day, Peter listens to J. Jonah Jameson and Robbie Robertson discuss the Bugle financing the "Feed 'Em All" event - an initiative to feed the homeless - about to take place in Central Park. On his way out, Ben Urich informs him that Cletus Kasady is being brought back to New York, where an experiment is going to be performed to separate him from his symbiote and kill it.

At a diner, Eric Catrall orders breakfast and overhears the news regarding Carnage, realizing the experiment could potentially render the trigger serum inert. He is cornered by the two FBI agents, but the owner of the diner confronts them with a shotgun and lets Eric flee.

As the Guardsmen fortify a derelict highschool in Brooklyn in order to prepare for the experiment, Spider-Man travels to the school in case Carnage manages to break free, feeling responsible for the monster's very existence due to having brought the Venom symbiote to Earth. As the experiment begins, Eric Catrall infiltrates the building by pretending to be one of the employees and then tosses the briefcase containing the trigger serum into the blast. This shorts out Carnage's containment unit and Spider-Man intervenes and fights Carnage before the Guardsmen open fire with their flamethrowers and sonic cannons. When the smoke clears, Carnage has escaped, and Eric Catrall is gone.

Catrall is eventually found by the police, having been intimidated by Carnage into revealing what the trigger serum is capable of. On the verge of a nervous breakdown, Catrall tells Spider-Man that he'd accidentally invented the trigger serum while working at the Lifestream Technologies tech firm, but after realizing the CIA intended to weaponize it he destroyed his notes and stole the only sample. Tearfully apologizes to Spider-Man, Catrall begs him to stop Carnage. Panicking about Carnage having escaped and being in possession of the trigger serum, Peter almost forgets his promise to help Aunt May, forcing Mary Jane to step in and cover for him. On the day of the Feed 'Em All, Carnage attacks a penthouse party just outside Central Park and slaughters several of the guests, declaring his intent to poison the food being served with the trigger serum. The gory aftermath is caught on one of the cameras filming the event. Seeing Carnage has Catrall's briefcase, Peter sets out to stop him.

Seeing the news coverage, Dr. Catrall - on the verge of a breakdown - attempts to escape police custody to stop Carnage and is fatally shot, dying peacefully as he decides to leave everything to Spider-Man. Spider-Man arrives in time to save one of the party guests from being thrown to his death, mocking Carnage about how poorly thought-out his plan is, since no-one would be stupid enough to eat food he'd openly tampered with. Carnage decides to massacre the assembled people the old fashioned way, attacking Spider-Man; but is defeated when Spider-Man electrocutes him, forcing the symbiote to recede into Cletus' body.

After Cletus is arrested and returned to the Vault, MJ commiserates with Peter over Dr. Catrall's death and Aunt May reveals she traded her wedding ring to pay off her debts. To prevent the trigger serum from falling into the wrong hands again, Spider-Man travels to Four Freedoms Plaza and turns it over to Mister Fantastic, who promises to find a way to safely dispose of it.

I want to first of all talk about a few of the things that don’t work about this story as there aren’t that many.

The least of these is that Spider-Man’s defeat of Carnage was somewhat underwhelming. In part this is due electrocutions at best slowing Carnage down a bit and nothing more, a fact seen in ASM #363, the culmination of his debut arc.

However more significantly its the fact that, whilst far from a dues ex machina, in a novel surely the resolution to the central conflict should come from an element pre-established earlier in the novel. Sure, access to high dosages of electricity is perfectly plausible in New York city, but it seems something more satisfying as the resolution of a comic book storyline (particularly a done-in-one) as opposed to an entire novel.

A more significant critique pertains to Mary Jane.

MJ in this novel is at an odd crossroads with the writing.

It’s not so much WHAT she does or even how the story utilizes her but rather the presentation of her in the role.

I’ve no problem with MJ and Peter being in love, talking lovingly to one another, having sex or MJ worrying about him.

It’s hard to put into words but...well actually the words are exactly the problem. The prose used to describe MJ, her and Peter’s feelings for one another, her dialogue for me at least went a step too far into overidealization. It went into ‘isn’t it awesome Spider-Man has this sexy, loyal wife whom he has regular sex with’. I mean the last few lines of the novel pretty much leave you off with the fact that Peter got laid. And I use that term particularly. It’s not ‘Peter AND MJ had sex’. It’s ‘Peter got his way’, which sounds inadvertently sinister out of context, but what I mean is that the story places the emphasis upon Peter’s gratification over the fact that he gets to have sex with MJ, rather than being more equitable I guess. I don’t even mean the story was OBLIGED to have such a final line give balance to both characters, just like...more balance maybe.

I dunno, maybe this is just a me problem as I wasn’t fond of the presentation of the romance stuff in the Darkest Hours either.

I guess what I’m after is for them to reign in prose wherein poetic praise it heaped upon MJ, either in her looks or in her personality, in the context of how that makes her such a wonderful wife. Maybe communicate those sentiments but be more subtle and restrained about it. Again, maybe that’s just a me thing and I’m using comic book Spider-Man as too much of a framework for reference.

This isn’t to say Peter Parker’s Perfect Wife is ALL MJ amounts to in this novel. They do give her flaws in regards to feeling bummed about being out of work and have her ultimately resolve the B-plot. She does this by pawning her wedding ring in order to save Aunt May’s house. On the one hand, this does rather play into MJ as the perfect idealized wife, but on the other hand she’d have gone out of her way to help Aunt May regardless.

Speaking of that B-plot, I’ve got some mixed feelings regarding it. In an ongoing kinda sorta soap opera like Spider-Man having subplots ticking along is just fine, and they do not HAVE to reconnect to the main plot necessarily. But I feel in a self-contained novel subplots should either play into the resolution of the main plot or vice versa, or at the very least a character shift should result from one or the other that then plays into the main plot/subplot.

Here though, whilst homelessness is a plot element of the story and Aunt May is literally going to lose her home, it’s presence in the novel serves to at worst pad it out, and at best feels kind of....mandatory.

Like in a Spider-Man novel set in this time period, you’d expect MJ and/or Aunt May to show up and for there to be normal life drama for Peter to deal with alongside his Spidey life, drama that is probably negatively impacted by being Spider-Man.

And if this was like an annual, a one shot, or even a 2-3 part arc of ASM, that’d be fine. Here though in a novel...ehhhhhh...The kindest interpretation is that it exists to give MJ something to do but really the story could’ve been tweaked to give her something else to do (say have May work at the shindig for the homeless people*) or you could’ve omitted MJ and May entirely and supplanted their scenes with more development for Carnage, Peter or Doctor Catrall.

It’s not BAD per se, but it is a weakness. Compare and contrast to the Darkest Hours novel wherein the subplot regarding MJ learning to drive wound up being integral to the defeat of the villains.

Now I do not want to give the impression this novel is bad. It isn’t on balance.

In the grand scheme of things it’s a fun, not too long, Spidey adventure.

I’ll not talk too much regarding the audio nature of this production beyond saying that the narrator of choice was a huge improvement over the narrator of the Darkest Hours and particularly shone in the role of Carnage.

Speaking of Carnage, I spoke up top about how it’d be tricky to make him support a whole novel to himself, even one of this size.

But the story knew what they were dealing with, likely because Carnage’s co-creator David Michelinie provided an outline for the story and thus knew with Carnage less in more.

Indeed there are a grand total of just 4 scenes featuring Carnage at all in the whole novel. His introductory scene, the scene where he escapes, the scene where he ambushes the cocktail party and the final showdown.

It’s nicely succinct. One scene to set him up. One scene to let him out. One scene of him doing what he loves and one scene where he is stopped.

By making the Doctor Catrall storyline in-essence the main story for the first half of the story and then having Carnage basically hijack it thereafter, it allows the novel to organically have a full three act story without overusing Carnage. Catrall’s trigger serum is also a thematically appropriate plot device in a Carnage storyline as it in essence is a shortcut to achieving the world of violent chaos he longs for.

Not only is Carnage used well in the plot but he’s also well characterized. Perhaps due to the narrator’s vocal performance, Carnage genuinely feels scary in this novel, no more so than in his opening scene. Whilst obviously written long before this storyline, it’s reminiscent to me of his presentation in Absolute Carnage, where he is a pure horror monster through and through.

I don’t really have much else to say about this novel.

It’s not got as much meat to it (in any sense) as Darkest Hours did, but that doesn’t make it a bad read.

If you like Carnage and want a nice simple story of him being bad and Spidey stopping him, pick this up.

*I know when this novel was published Aunt May had yet to be associated with FEAST, but the reason everyone loved that direction for her was because it made the utmost sense. Having May work at the shindig would’ve better tied the plotlines together, amped up the personal stakes and spoken to who May as a person is. This is an elderly woman who’s willing to help the homeless even as she herself is at risk of losing her own home.

#spider-man #Spider-Man: Carnage in New York #Carnage #Carnage Symbiote #Cletus Kasady #Peter Parker #Aunt May #May Parker #mjwatsonedit #Mary Jane Watson #Mary Jane Watson Parker #mj watson #david michelinie #Dean Wesley Smith #Byron Priess

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fluidsf · 6 years

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Fluid Label Focus on CRÓNICA 015 RAN SLAVIN: BITTERSWEET MELODIES (2016) Reviewed format: free review copy of Limited-edition CD album as kindly provided by Miguel from CRÓNICA Today I'm back with a Fluid Label Focus on CRÓNICA on this blog. And I've got an excellent album by a familiar name for you. This is the album BITTERSWEET MELODIES by RAN SLAVIN, released on CRÓNICA in 2016. Miguel was so kind as always to send me a review copy of the Limited-edition CD version which comes with some lovely artwork by RAN SLAVIN himself. This Limited-edition CD comes packaged in a two panel gatefold cardboard sleeve on which you can find the cover artwork on the front, album credits, tracklist and copyright info handwritten into the artwork on the back. The spine lists the same info as on the cover in text as well as adding the full CRÓNICA name and year of release.The inside of the sleeve features some gorgeous photography blended with layers of painted washes of colour that give the artwork a surreal look. The CD itself is housed in a flap on the right panel and features the CRÓNICA logo, catalogue number, artist name and album title and CD logo on a blue circle background which is cut off slightly to reveal a metallic edge of the CD around as a border. Before listening to BITTERSWEET MELODIES, I've revisted RAN SLAVIN's 2004 release on CRÓNICA, Product 02 which featured a pretty varied selection of pieces, often with a cinematic sound created by layers of vinyl music samples, glitch elements and electro-acoustic manipulations. BITTERSWEET MELODIES (which was compiled from musical material that was originally intended for a release on th Mille Plateaux label) finds RAN SLAVIN working with a similar approach but with more subtle and slower progressions embedded in the 12 compositions on the album. Indeed most of the 12 tracks have a more "song-like" atmosphere in them but composed as melodic washes of multi-layered cinematic soundscapes that all fade out, like a collection of melodic memories, moving towards a more rhythm based sound towards the end of the album. BITTERSWEET MELODIES starts with SATURDAY'S DATES, a piece that admittedly takes some time to get into. Built around an evercontinuing synth drone, the piece features lo-fi crushed glitchy percussion that recalls early 90's IDM / Braindance percussion. The progression of the piece is very subtle with only slight changes in the percussion and melodic background over it's 6:09 length, the extra notes added over the drone in the second half as well as changes in the sound of the percussion do add some nice evolving elements to the piece however. It's definitely very trance-like in nature so in that sense it works well. Then we have CATEGORY: MURDERED ENTERTAINERS which has a kind of "late night café" ambience to it, created out of (mostly) jazzy vinyl music samples as well as some Middle Eastern samples which add some film soundtrack like surrealism to the mixture, feeling like waves of music coming through the open door of this late night café. RAN SLAVIN varies the melody he's created using the samples in a very fun rhythmic manner and the vinyl crackle and bell samples all add there own kind of little details of "percussion" to the music. The dissonant combinations of music samples do however also add a sense of mystery to the piece which adds a good dose of intrguing to the music, very nice. On DISRUPTIVE LOUNGE, SLAVIN moves into more abstract glitchy territory with more manipulation of the vinyl samples, weird squelchy pitch shift effects and crackles. Indeed referring to the track title, it's a bit like multiple record players in a lounge have started to take their own lives and freely manipulate whatever music they are playing in strange quirky ways, sounds very fun. FAKE SUNSETS is an extended sonic vignette build up of a stuttery drumloop over which Middle Eastern music samples and sharp synth notes are laid creating an ambience that feels both meditative and alien at the same time, intriguing sonics in here. On DUBAI DAWN we have vinyl samples with similar Middle Eastern strings but the sound of this piece is much more abstract with the samples stuttering, tumbling and glimmering around the sonic stage. Combined with crystallized samples and choppy female voice samples an atmospheric space is created that is very much Glitch based but in which the melodies from the Middle Eastern music still resonant and create an ever continuing loop of one point in a musical piece like freezing a moment in a situation in time and magnifying all the details in the environment around you. The heavily chopped drums that pop up at some point in the second half are even a bit reminiscent of Breakcore but in a very subtle way. SAD BUT TRUE is a piece that reminds me more of Product 02 in its style, a continuous kind of droning stream of layered melodic fragments and glitches combined with crackles like lo-fi sea waves and tense mysterious tones. The piece holds a continuous feeling of uncertainty that is made more "human" through the glitchy textures by the piano samples. Mellow "hollow" glitchy samples in the second half form stabs that subtly reference Dub Techno too however, making the piece also feel a bit like a leftfield beatless atmospheric Techno track too. Very intriguing again. SINATRA WAS HERE features some hilariously off the wall Plunderphonics techniques that come straight out of the blue. It is indicative of the more light hearted sound this album has at times compared to the more diffuse / abstract Product 02 release. The piece follows a pretty simple structure, being based around a looping Latin American music samples that is layered with all kinds of other quirky maninpulated music samples, some pitch shifted, some chopped up heavily. The main returning phrases in the samples are Latin American melodic patterns performed on guitar that perfectly fit the main loop. The piece as a whole is an enjoyably odd musical collage but the slight roomy sound to the music still adds a cinematic edge to the music that SLAVIN's music often has. THE PINEAPPLE ASSASSIN moves into more Techno influenced territory with a low bouncy kick and filtered subdued vinyl samples and mechanic crackles and rhythmic structures. Subtly evolving in waves, the music reminds me of Jan Jelinek's turntable works but with the mysterious melodic edge SLAVIN's like to use. The music is calming but never without its hidden secrets. COLLAPSING MELODY features some classic styled abstract swirling Glitch work accompanied with subtle repeating music samples laid on top of what sounds like the field recording of a quiet almost empty café. A nice shorter piece with plenty of enjoyable sonic manipulation within. On FAST MOVING CIRCUMSTANCES we have a lo-fi Downtempo groove combined with swirling streams of music samples, again with prominent bell sounds. The piece has a minimalist Techno feel to it too and the swirling phaser effect on the samples gives the music a deep and trippy feeling. A hypnotic entrancing piece of music that also carries mystery and an intriguing "nostalgic" vibe within it. Desert New Buildings has a lot of Techno in its sound signature with 4x4 drum patterns giving the music a strong drive and the sharper, more hi-fi sound of the samples makes this quite a jam really. A very fun mixture of intriguing music samples and a fat driving beat. DISCREET FEATURES ends the album with an equally driving Techno vibe and actually feels a bit like what the "hi-fi" version of a Lo-Fi / Outsider House track could sound like. The metallic drums, Dub Techno styled melodic samples of especially the first half recall that sound, in the second half however the music moves into a more subdued wave of filtered droning music samples. The samples recall material used on Product 02 and RAN SLAVIN seems to be particularly fond of bells and harp music samples but fortunately it feels rather more like music from an alternate universe rather than recycled material. The intriguing filtered music loops, rhythmic crackles carry that sweet sense of mystery in it that I really love about RAN SLAVIN's music so it's a great ending to this album. BITTERSWEET MELODIES showcases RAN SLAVIN more easy going and at times less abstract sound, with a more prominent focus on melodic and rhythmic structures that feel very organic and human. The 12 tracks all subtly evolve in waves of enjoyable melodies and grooves that are both calming and inspiring the imagination. I would definitely recommend this album not only to fans of SLAVIN's other music and cinematic experimental music but also listeners who are into the more underground, Dub or minimalist styles of Techno with a strong sense of inventive sound design with a personal touch. Fans of Glitch and Turntable music will definitely find a lot of enjoyment in this album as well, so I highly recommend you to go check this out. Limited-edition CD album is available from the CRÓNICA Bandcamp page here: https://cronica.bandcamp.com/album/bittersweet-melodies

#limited edition #cd #album #Crónica #2016 #turntable music #glitch #downtempo #plunderphonics #ambient techno #Ran Slavin #bittersweet melodies #fluid label focus #underground music #experimental music #album review

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another-music-page · 6 years

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Malibu by Anderson .Paak

https://open.spotify.com/album/4VFG1DOuTeDMBjBLZT7hCK

The Bird

The Bird sets the tone early for the rest of Malibu. The production is influenced by R&B, soul, and funk, which is recurrent throughout the album. The subject matter is that of .Paak’s early life, which allows us to start relating to him. This song introduces his high-pitched voice which is soft and soothing over equally reserved production. Finally, it introduces us to the Free Nationals, Anderson .Paak’s band, and shows us that they are more than capable of producing music that is both enjoyable and interesting to listen to. This song is meant to ease the listener into the album, and it does a great job.

Heart Don’t Stand a Chance

The first measures of Heart Don’t Stand a Chance are a polar opposite to the feel of the previous track. The song opens with cymbals and triplet drums, which are played by .Paak himself. This is followed by dissonant keyboard chords over the opening stanza until the clouds part and the song’s production becomes a more straightforward funk groove. In between each verse, the dissonant chords come back for the chorus, and after the second verse, the song gives way to a psychedelic bridge, which ties into the various drug references in the song, including the line, “You’re talking with the blunt in your hand/Won’t you pass that?”. The drug references will come back later in Malibu, most overtly in the song Come Down. Lyrically, this song sees .Paak flirting with a woman that shows up throughout the album (I’ll refer to her as The Girl), saying that her “heart don’t stand a chance” of ignoring his charm. However, the stereotypical pickup line of “Am I dreaming?” in the second verse takes on new meaning when we consider the drug references throughout the song and the album overall. Personally, this is one of my favorite songs on the album. The main production is extremely laid back and easy to nod your head to, but it’s contrasted with the choruses and bridge, which lend a new, interesting musical aspect to the song. While The Bird does a good job introducing Malibu, Heart Don’t Stand a Chance is how we know this album won’t be one to gloss over.

The Waters (feat. BJ The Chicago Kid)

The Waters again departs from the previous track. The first two tracks on Malibu highlight .Paak’s singing, whereas this song focuses on his rapping, sing-song as it may be. The track showcases some of the best lyricism on the album, especially during the second verse. The production on The Waters also stands out; it was done by the famed artist, Madlib, who is perhaps most famous for his work with MF DOOM under the duo name Madvillain (although Madlib has worked with many famous artists, including J Dilla, Talib Kweli, and Freddie Gibbs). The connection between .Paak and Madlib is that they were both born and raised in Oxnard, California. Finally, the chorus is sung by BJ the Chicago Kid, and it reads “Stepped in the waters,/The water was cold/Chilled in my body/But not in my soul”. This could be interpreted as a reference to baptism; the cold water chilled his physical self, but his soul was enriched. This interpretation is backed up by the starting line of the second verse, heard immediately after a chorus: “I bring you greetings from the first church of Boom Baptists”. This line also is an example of .Paak’s wordplay: “Boom Baptists” is a reference to “boom-bap” drums, characterized by the hard-hitting low end and high end drum sounds, which can be heard in the song, making this line self-referential. The overall tone of the album continues on The Waters, even if it is a bit of a musical departure.

The Season | Carry Me

This double feature starts with The Season, a one-verse song produced by 9th Wonder, mainly focusing on .Paak’s come-up. His journey from nobody to celebrity is illustrated in lines like “Went from playing community ball to balling with the majors” and “Don’t forget that dot, nigga you paid for it/I spent years being called out my name”. The “dot” referenced in the latter line is the dot in front of “.Paak”; he’s reminding us to remember every little detail about him, even the seemingly unimportant dot in front of his last name. Carry Me transforms the track from a braggadocious look at .Paak’s past to a more introspective one. This song highlights his love for his mother, even during her time behind bars, but it also reflects on the fragmentation of his family life, especially during the second verse. The line “When I look at my tree, I see leaves missing/Generations of harsh living and addiction” summarizes his home life pretty well. The “tree” represents his family tree, and the “missing leaves” are family members that .Paak has lost over time, including his father, who is just one of many of the “generations of harsh living and addiction”. Overall, The Season | Carry Me is a look at Anderson .Paak’s rise to prominence, and the dichotomy of two songs in one shows the two sides of this coin: braggadocio in The Season and introspection in Carry Me.

Put Me Thru

Put Me Thru is a welcome change from the previous song’s slower tempo. It starts with quarter note piano chords and then the bass and guitar come in, making for an extremely danceable funk-inspired beat. It is also the second song so far on Malibu that refers to and addresses The Girl, the other being Heart Don’t Stand a Chance (HDSAC). On HDSAC, .Paak’s encounter with The Girl is one of flirtation; he’s trying to convince her to enter a relationship with him. With Put Me Thru, however, he’s now in the thick of the relationship with her; the first line, “Why the hell would you run this game?”, makes it seem as if we’ve caught them in the middle of an argument. Throughout the first verse, the woman appears to be not what .Paak bargained for, but it’s then revealed in the chorus that he puts himself through this: “There I go, volunteering, punish me/Self-inflicted pain”. Another dimension of the relationship is shown, however, in the short interlude between the previous track and this one, in which a self-proclaimed masochist is interviewed, stating simply, “I like pain”. Masochism is the M in the sex practice of BDSM, and .Paak revealing that the pain is “self-inflicted” means that now Put Me Thru can be viewed through two different lenses: 1) that .Paak is fed up with what she puts him through and/or 2) that .Paak knows what he’s getting himself into, and even though it’s painful, he enjoys it.

Am I Wrong (feat. ScHoolboy Q)

Am I Wrong starts off similarly to Put Me Thru; both with heavy-hitting drums followed by ambient chords. The middle of the song also breaks into a more psychedelic bridge during ScHoolboy Q’s verse. (Most likely, the connection between .Paak and Q came through mutual friend and collaborator, Dr. Dre.) This song is about the importance of living in the moment. This is done through more superficial snap judgment and introspective thought, like with The Season | Carry Me. The 1st refrain is as follows: “Am I wrong to assume/If she can’t dance, then she can’t ooh?” This is the snap judgment; he looks at a girl, most likely in a club, sees that she can’t dance, and immediately concludes that she can’t “ooh”, which is, in this case, a euphemism for having sex. However, the next refrain reveals a little deeper meaning, “I never wanna waste your time, my life/So precious, is yours, is mine,/And look at the time, my God”. The reasoning for his snap judgment isn’t as superficial as it might have seemed originally; he knows that time is running out on life for all of us, so why not live in the moment and use our lives to the fullest of our abilities? The first line heard in the song is “Why lie?” and I think this line means “Why lie to ourselves that we have an unlimited amount of time?” Am I Wrong explores why we should live for the moment at all times, even if it sometimes seems judgmental or disrespectful.

Without You (feat. Rapsody)

This is the third song directly addressing The Girl from previous tracks Heart Don’t Stand a Chance and Put Me Thru. It appears as though .Paak and the woman have reached a stage of reconciliation as evidenced by the chorus: “With all the kissin’, the touchin’, the bitin’, the tuggin’/You know, you know I love what you do/And all the spittin’, the cursin’, the fightin’ the fussin’/You know I’m only fuckin with you”. .Paak then ends the chorus with the line “No bullshit, I’m nothing without you.” Through the flirtation on HDSAC, the argument on Put Me Thru, and, to a certain extent, the club scene on Am I Wrong, he knows that, at the end of the day, he’ll still be nothing without her. Without You also features Rapsody, who is continually becoming one of my favorite lyricists and rappers in current music, and her feature does not disappoint. As this song is directly referencing The Girl, she could be being portrayed by Rapsody here, but it’s truly up for debate. The song goes back to the more laid-back vibe of Carry Me and HDSAC, and the way that both artists flow over the sparser production of this song easily makes it one of the most enjoyable songs on Malibu.

Parking Lot

Sonically, Parking Lot is probably the most interesting track on Malibu. It starts off softly with a droned note that gradually gets louder, before giving away to a psychedelic rock beat. Then, .Paak’s soft, soothing vocals, reminiscent of those on The Bird, come in, and we start to hear the anecdotes about some of his favorite moments that have happened with friends and significant others. He stresses the importance of the moment, rather than the location: “I don’t remember the parking lot/I just remember the song we sang”. The various mentions of “my love” throughout the song suggest that this could be another reference to The Girl .Paak talks about throughout Malibu. The most intriguing part of this track, however, is the instrumental: the upbeat (ish) tempo of the drums contrasts with the ambience of the arpeggiated synth to create an overall track that never gets old. (Fun fact: Parking Lot really never did get old. It was written as long ago as 2013, whereas Malibu was released in 2016.)

Lite Weight (feat. The Free Nationals United Fellowship Choir)

Lite Weight has the most overt drug reference on the album so far, and it’s also the most lyrically straightforward track thus far. The song consists of a chorus and a bridge repeated throughout, so lyrically, there’s not a lot of substance to the song. This track is interesting in that all the factors of it (the dance-hall type beat, produced by critically-acclaimed electronic producer KAYTRANADA, and the voices which overlap and intertwine throughout the song) work in harmony with one another to create the overall atmosphere of a party. The party/drug reference during the lyrics is best illustrated in two places; the first being the last lines of the chorus: “There’s no reason to be afraid/No time to be lite weight”. meaning they have a low tolerance for substances, whether it be alcohol or drugs; .Paak is saying that the party they’re at yields no time for being light weight. The last reference is during the outro, in which two people are talking about getting a light and a toke. Lyrically, Lite Weight doesn’t bring anything breathtaking to the table, but the party atmosphere created by the factors of the track working together is definitely worth noticing.

Room in Here (feat. The Game, Sonyae Elise)

Room in Here has a much more lo-fi feel than the previous track. Hard-hitting, boom-bap drums combine with a piano loop reminiscent of a smooth jazz song to create a song with the same laid-back energy as Without You or The Bird. This song is also clearly addressing a woman, evidenced by lines like “Take a look at that moon, bout as bright as your eyes”, but it’s not addressing the woman that .Paak talks about throughout Malibu; rather, it seems to be more of a pickup song, like Heart Don’t Stand a Chance. The lyrics to this song represent .Paak’s own pickup style: assertive but not aggressive, concise and to the point, leaving no room for misinterpretation. Room in Here is not the typical pickup track, however. .Paak and The Game both talk about how the woman in question deserves more than the usual line, that she deserves someone who actually puts in the effort to pick her up, rather than someone who would just use a generic line and then move on to the next girl if that didn’t work. .Paak saying that there’s “room in here” could also be referring to the fact that there’s only enough room in his heart for him and her, no one else. Overall, this track is a laid-back, lo-fi groove with a message that women deserve more effort than the typical pickup line.

Water Fall (Interluuube)

This track, as the title (kind of) suggests, is an interlude. It’s initially unclear why the parenthetical part of the title is “interluuube” rather than “interlude”, but when the song starts, we very quickly find out why. This song is an overt reference to the female orgasm, which is proven implicitly and explicitly. Implicitly, .Paak is not the first person to use the phrase “waterfall” to refer to an orgasm; Beyonce did it on her song “Rocket”, found on her 2013 album “Beyonce”. Also, the chorus of Water Fall specifically says “As soon as I break down the wall/I’m riding the wave of your waterfall”, “wall” referencing the vagina, which was also done on Kendrick Lamar’s 2015 track “These Walls”. More explicitly, .Paak says just before the chorus “But I know that I’m the only one who makes you cum”, which is pretty self-explanatory. Water Fall is the most overtly sexual song on Malibu, and this isn’t only shown by the lyrics, but also by the corresponding instrumental.

Your Prime

Before now, whenever I looked through this album trying to remember which tracks to listen to by themselves rather than with the album as a whole, I almost always looked over Your Prime, and after listening to it again, I really shouldn’t have. This song takes a little while to, for lack of a better phrase, warm up, but after this minute-long period, this song has the most satisfying beat drop on Malibu. The beat to Your Prime is half-swung and syncopated, and this elaborate beat is overlaid by a simple quarter-note piano riff, making this beat both accessible and interesting. Lyrically, this track is another reference to The Girl, specifically talking about her age; college, meaning that the age gap between .Paak and The Girl is rather big. Lines that reference her college age include “She live on a beautiful campus” and “She told me everybody close to her age is full of mad shit/I said, “Baby girl, you ain’t even old enough to be jaded””. There are also more references to how compatible .Paak and the girl are, an idea that carries through from the previous track, Water Fall (Interluuube), specifically “Opposites attract, I swear we a magnet”. Overall, Your Prime speaks on the age of The Girl referenced throughout Malibu and her compatibility with .Paak, and does so in one of the grooviest ways on the album.

Come Down

First off, Come Down has one of the best basslines I’ve ever heard in my life, bar none. When I heard it for the first time after the declarative “Y’all niggas got me hot!”, I had to stop what I was doing. The bassline, and in turn, the overall track, is reminiscent of not only ‘70s funk, like Parliament or Funkadelic, but also of other more recent funk tributes, particularly Kendrick Lamar’s King Kunta, which also has a hard-hitting bassline and a chant-like chorus. This track is undoubtedly a party, but underlying the upbeat sound of Come Down, there’s a troubling scene unfolding: “You, drank up all my liquor, come on/What I’m supposed to do now?/And you talking all that shit, now come on/You gon’ have to back it up”. These lyrics, along with the rest of the chorus, suggest that .Paak is overwhelmed by this party and is trying to recover, or come down, but that the other partiers won’t let him. This interpretation is backed up by the music video: it shows Anderson .Paak performing this track at a party; in the background, however, there are fights going on, one person even shown being carried across the screen unconscious. It ends (ish) with .Paak himself collapsing. Come Down is one of the most enjoyable tracks on Malibu, and it gets even more replayable when you start to analyze the lyrics.

Silicon Valley

If Water Fall is the most overtly sexual song on the album, then Silicon Valley comes in a close second. It’s also one of the most comedic songs on the album, including clever wordplay (All of that ass you carrying/You gotta be shitting me), the fact that he says “tig-ol-bitties” five times in the song, and the funny conversation between him and The Girl toward the end of the track, ending with her saying “Can you fuck me already?” However, like Come Down before it, there is an underlying message beneath the cruder sexual language. The final lines of the chorus are “Open your heart/What’s behind them tig-ol-bitties?”, making this track an interesting look at the different aspects of a relationship; there can be a sexual attraction along with a desire to know the woman on a more personal level. The wordplay of this track doesn’t stop with the lyrics, though; the title, Silicon Valley, is a reference to the fact that The Girl has breast implants (made of silicone), and the “valley” is the space between them, her heart. This track is a typical R&B instrumental about, on the surface, how great The Girl’s breasts are. However, going past the explicit sexual language, Silicon Valley is a song about Anderson .Paak knowing The Girl on a more personal level.

Celebrate

The message of this song is beautifully simple: “Let’s celebrate while we still can”. Celebrate is a reminder to appreciate life as much as you can while you can, from the small things to the bigger things. .Paak celebrates seeing his son “in the likeness of a full-grown man”, which can’t be taken for granted in Oxnard, CA, which has a higher violent crime rate than the average in the US. .Paak growing up in this environment makes him appreciate his son still being with him (as shown in the music video for Bubblin, Anderson .Paak’s latest single). He also celebrates his come-up through the music industry, which he does on multiple tracks on Malibu. However, the first verse sees .Paak appreciating, and in turn, telling us to appreciate perhaps the most mundane thing of all: being alive. And while being alive can be taken for granted very easily, he reminds us that it’s important sometimes to sit back and admire what we have, and the simplicity of the instrumental helps to drive this point home. Celebrate is a straightforward track about appreciating what we have while we can, and the enjoyable, simplistic nature of the song only adds to the ease of understanding the message.

The Dreamer (feat. Talib Kweli, Timan Family Choir)

The Dreamer is a tribute to the rise through the hip-hop community that .Paak and many other artists like him went through, and the track features two major nods to overall hip-hop/R&B culture. The first nod is the Talib Kweli feature, Talib Kweli being one of the most recognized MCs in hip-hop history. He’s very well known for his solo work, but also for his collaboration with Mos Def on the album Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star. The inclusion of a hip-hop legend like Talib Kweli is a tribute to the “dreamers”, the kids who dream of being household names. The second, bigger nod to hip-hop/R&B culture is the feature used on the track. The track featured on The Dreamer is a song by The Mohawks called The Champ. This song has been sampled by a multitude of artists, including Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Big Daddy Kane, De La Soul, Mary J. Blige, Aaliyah, Mobb Deep, Eric B. & Rakim, Ariana Grande, PARTYNEXTDOOR, Logic, Migos, and Frank Ocean. Undoubtedly, all these artists were dreamers at some point or another, taking this track full circle; The Champ has been sampled by dozens of dreamers, Anderson .Paak being one of them, and now he’s writing a song to inspire other people like him to fulfill their dreams. The Dreamer is a nice way to end Malibu; it acknowledges and celebrates .Paak’s rise to fame, while also trying to encourage other people to hopefully do the same.

CONCLUSIONS

Malibu is an album that blurs the lines between hip-hop and R&B, taking inspiration from both genres. There’s a loose narrative of Anderson .Paak meeting The Girl and eventually entering a relationship with her, but it doesn’t take over or suffocate the album. Overall, Malibu takes influence from many styles of music: funk, R&B, soul, hip-hop, and even at times, psychedelic rock, but it never feels out of place. Many artists take an album in different directions, and yet, when Anderson .Paak does it, it produces an extremely cohesive project with ambition and nuance. There are playful songs and serious ones, laid-back songs and up-tempo ones, but overall, Malibu is a very well-put-together boundary-pushing R&B album that deserves more than one listen.

Favorite songs (in no order): Heart Don’t Stand a Chance, Come Down, Your Prime, Without You (feat. Rapsody), Celebrate, Parking Lot

OVERALL RATING: 8.1/10

#music #anderson paak #album #album review #music review #malibu

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firefield · 4 years

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Metrobolist (2020)

Nine Songs By David Bowie

Remixed by Tony Visconti

The Width Of A Circle is an epic track - a track you might find used as a centerpiece rather than a leadoff, and I think part if it’s power is the decision to put it right at the front and see if it can swallow the listener whole. If it succeeds, you will probably love the record in its entirety. Tony’s approach to this new from-the-ground-up mix of TWOAC feels very Led Zeppelin to me, the snare drum has a wicked snap to it, the toms are rolling and kinetic, the cymbals are wider-panned and shimmery. Ronson’s left channel guitar gets an amplitude boost and some added crunch - you get a better sense of the amp and the electricity he’s pushing. You get a better feel for the acoustic right channel guitar too. The soundstage seems left pretty well intact, which tells me this remix project will be generally faithful to the original mix. Aww man. That transition at 4 and a half minutes in is swirly-sweet. You can tell a lot of work went into the drums and cymbals mixdown, and this is proving to be a pattern with TV’s remix work - Space Oddity and especially Lodger. Well, that was a sampling of thunder. Like his remix of Space Oddity, this new mix feels very “of it’s time” so far and I’m really glad for that. I didn’t expect Tony to strangle 1970 out of it - but it’s still really satisfying to hear his maturity and resistance to 2020 studio gimmickry. I’d bet a mortgage payment TV and DB discussed this extensively before David passed.

All The Madmen

Whoa. I’m so used to hearing that distant acoustic guitar slowly pan from left to right that it’s wild to hear it announce the song so resolutely. All the guitars sound *really* good here. I’m still getting a better sense of Ronno’s guitar tone than in the original mix and it’s awesome. Nice reversed reverb trick there. Interesting - overall there is less abrupt panning changes - things are more locked into place... the Moog strings aren’t stabbing into the left channel and a little less “twisted carnival,” and the closing band vocal coda doesn’t snap from Right-To-Middle-To-Left. It’s nice to hear this more “traditional” mix, sonically speaking, of such a deep and personal track.

Black Country Rock is thick. The guitars are better defined and snakelike. Wonderful detail and separation in all the guitar parts. Bowie’s lead vocal and all layers are a definite improvement over the original mix down. The ending coda is a bit more manic with DB doing some atypical ad-libbing and Tony channeling a future Mike Garson with some piano pounding.

After All on Metrobolist is not a new mix and uses the 2015 remaster - there was some confusion about that. At first we heard there may be missing tapes, and then we heard he didn’t want to touch it and felt it sat nicely on Metrobolist as is. Turns out it does sit well, as the vocal treatment has a similarity to All The Madmen, a delicate and intimate feel to it.

Running Gun Blues

Whoa! Okay then. Gone is the folksy, dude strumming 8 feet behind you sound of the acoustic guitar and here it is, confident and noticeably louder... and WHAT? Gone is the cavernous drum hit and... it’s almost like a gunshot/bomb explosion traveling across a flat landscape... LOL and wow again - the Moog synth’s amplitude is pumped into alien movie B-roll territory mimicking a Theramin-in-your-face... this is going to be wild. Arguably one of DB’s most openly violent songs, this has hints of Tony’s remix work on the harder rocks tracks of Space Oddity. Hell, the drum work sounds fantastic, these guitars... very well done. Fatter, more wall-of-soundish. Again with that mimicking of shots or bombs. Excellent remix.

Savior Machine

Holy shit. That was incredible. I couldn’t even write anything down as I was so captivated by what I heard. This remix is absolutely incredible, and the song itself is elevated because of it. This is the most “aggressive” remix I’ve heard so far on Metrobolist, and amazingly it feels the most true to the tone and feel of the Man Who Sold The World. It attacks at you more, evangelistic in its delivery. Comparing directly to the 1970 mix, the original feels sedate, even slightly unsure of itself. Good Lordy. I love hearing work like this from talented audio engineers. It’s like TV found the tiger at the core of Saviour Machine and let it out to show you it’s teeth in your blank, dumb face. Ronno was a damn brilliant guitarist and this piled-on, urgent ending of this track could go on forever as far as I am concerned. Fucking marvelous.

“I need you flying, and I’ll show that dying

Is living beyond reason, sacred dimension of time

I perceive every sign, I can steal every mind.”

She Shook Me Cold

Well now I am *amped* to hear how Tony treats this odd song after that train blew through. Hello Jimi Hendrix. Heavy as lead. Soundstage is wider with a cavernous middle that Bowie haunts almost alone, to grab the golden hair of virgins, head smashing, brains blowing, merciless crushing of... things. The drums have a lot of motion around the perimeter, cymbals swirl... the band feels like they are giving the singer a wide berth to have this violent encounter , and that disassociated center feels appropriately menacing. I love that moment at about 2:48 where Tony and his bass just say fuckit and fall right off the cliff and let the drums and guitar tangle in the dirt without him. Excellent, skillful audio engineering from Tony here.

The Man Who Sold The World

Another jolt - gone is the extreme panning of the guitars, washboard percussion is toned down, and very noticeable changes in the drum sound and the drum arrangement itself. Some nice added vocal delays in the chorus, but tasteful. I have to say, unlike these other tracks, this *is* actually a more modern mix and doesn’t feel (to me) to be “rooted in 1970.” Ahhh... really nice clarity of the backing vocal layers in the coda. Yeah, so I enjoyed that. It does stand out a bit from the tone of the rest of the record - similar to how TV’s remix of the Space Oddity track itself has a bit more of a modern feel than the rest of the remixed Space Oddity record. It sort of reaches a bit into the future... you can almost hear 90’s David performing this song in this way. This mix could divide opinion.

The Supermen

Well by now, it’s pretty clear the dark place Tony will place this great album closer based on all we’ve heard so far. This was one I was very excited to hear because there is so much to work with, and you can place your bets heavily towards the drums getting a lot of attention. Quick aside; how unique is Bowie as a vocalist? This is unreal. “A chance to die, to turn to mold.” I can hear entire genres of music that will be “created” in about 10 to 15 years fueled by performances like this. Well that was jaw-dropping. I love the original mix - it’s wide channel separation just feels perfectly *odd* but mixing choices like that can result in a loss of midrange raw power. Listen to how Visconti handles the guitars as they slam into “and gloomy browed with superfear” - extraordinary. And as expected, this drum mix is just unreal. A beautiful choice of reverb and EQ. And we even get a David Bowie chuckle at the end of all that intensity to remind that he really was a bit of a goofball at heart.

Another success overall in my opinion. Tony is proving himself absolutely faithful to the spirit of these tracks - not an easy thing to do with all that possibility laid out in sound before you as you recreate such an iconic work. This remix falls in the middle as far as “differences” go; with Maslin’s Station To Station and Scott’s Ziggy at the more subtle, academic end, and TV’s Space Oddity and Lodger at the other. It serves to shine a brighter light on the individual performances and how they all interlock together, as well as celebrating Bowie’s extraordinary gift of songwriting. A good remix can make the very, very familiar feel exhilarating and at the same time comfortable to hear. Tony Visconti has done it once again and David and Ronno would have *loved* this work too.

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fuse2dx · 4 years

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May ‘20

Prequel Story of Detective Saburo Jinguji - Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz

What a title. Ludicrous as it may seem, there is some value in closer observation though, as this is the same series that has previously reached the west under the ‘Jake Hunter’ name. This time however, it is labelled as ‘alternate’ Jake Hunter - so alternate that they’ve written an origin story and have taken to keeping the protagonist’s original ‘Saburo Jinguji’ name through to the English version. Sorry Jake, old boy.

It's still a story-driven title, one which has you jumping into Saburo’s shoes, back from Japan to New York to investigate his own grandfather’s murder. This has you revisiting the last case he’d been working, meeting with his friends and contacts, as well as catching up and reminiscing with pals from when you were last in the city. It's not too over-dramatic with its moment-to-moment story telling, and a lot of its bigger surprises are telegraphed a bit too openly, but the story is capable and enjoyable at least.

The visuals are quite unique, and are definitely one of the more noteworthy elements of the package. The environments appear to have been shot with a 360 degree camera, then filtered to shake out some of the detail. Characters sit on top of this as 2D cut-outs, stylised with distinctive but quite charmingly sketchy linework. It's not Rembrandt by a long shot, but at its better moments it does have a fairly unique, somewhat impressionistic look to it, while still providing the functionality to look around a scene fully for yourself.

Some of the rest of the design is much less effective; one example being the 'mind tree' - intended as a physical manifestation of deductions made, instead looking like alphabet soup. There’s a lot less thought in the audio stakes too - a lot of the tracks are not only re-used, but hinge on very short loops that permeate through a number of scenes without a concern for listener fatigue. The default volume for your button presses are bafflingly loud in the mix too, but at least this can be fixed from a visit to the options menu.

If the series were to continue and build on it, there's some decent foundations laid here. Some localisation issues - a number of very odd translation choices, and a space after every apostrophe being a particularly torturous error - and what is generally quite a brief and low-key story does leave this a little flat though.

The Missing: J. J. Macfield and the Island of Memories

I swear I’m not picking games to play based on ridiculously long names, but here we are. SWERY is a designer who's very quickly established himself and his own voice in game-making, and even in what's arguably a more confined genre, he's still found plenty of opportunity to bring buckets of personality.

While a platform game at heart, it's more puzzle-based than anything - think more Abe's Odyssey or Flashback, rather than Sonic the Hedgehog. There’s a very striking duality to it too; conversation threads managed through your phone paint the picture of your character as a normal girl interacting with her friends, family, and tutors, whereas the gameplay in the forefront sets about immediately to paint a more nightmarish, decidedly macabre relationship with the world around her. There's a pretty serious story underpinning all of this which develops as these two worlds converge, and although it does remain fairly abstract, it does warrant a cautionary note. As J.J, the consequences you suffer are brutal, but not just when you fail, rather as mandatory puzzle-solving tools. Being electrocuted, burnt, dismembered and the like are necessary steps in precise sequences you need to execute perfectly to proceed. Perform one step incorrectly - which you will - and it's back to the start to repeat the self-abuse all while enduring its accompanying screams and suffering.

It's a surprising and thoughtful game - certainly a lot deeper than you might assume from a cursory glance at it - and although not an unreserved recommendation, is definitely a standout title in terms of ambition to do something different.

The Stretchers

There is something very strange to me about a Nintendo-published game having such a quiet reception. I remember The Stretchers cropping up on a Nintendo Direct one time, but aside from that I feel like there's little noise being made about this, when it's the kind of charming, family-friendly, couch co-op game that perfectly fills a space in the Switch's library.

You can, like me, an idiot, play this game through in single player. Your two paramedics are controlled by each side of a single controller, making this the perfect game for those who love to pat their hat and rub their belly simultaneously. Things may start easy enough, and even when the challenge ramps up, it's imposed more through diminished rewards rather than hard stops. But what I imagine to be a much more sensible option is the two-player setup, where each player takes on the role of one paramedic, and the challenge of co-ordination becomes more about talking, and I assume, mind-reading. The same relationship-ruining potential from Overcooked is here in spades.

In short, there's a hokey villain going about town, using his inventions to confuse people and have them lie about in a daze, and your typical assignment has you drive to a location, avoid various obstacles, load folks up on your stretcher, and cart them back to the hospital for fixing up. It'd perhaps be a serious affair, if the ambulance didn't handle like something out of Crazy Taxi, the obstacles weren't total slapstick, and every mission isn't bookended with your radio handler dropping puns like a writer's room full of dad joke enthusiasts.

In short, it's a lot of fun. If you have someone to play this with, you should.

A Short Hike

Just as with any kind of media, wider context is important when talking about games. This might not be the place to deep dive on the state of the world right now, but I feel a fair summary is that 2020 hasn't been a great year for many of us humans. Playing it today, A Short Hike feels like the right game for a wrong time.

It sees you taking a break on an island where your aunt works, and many other people (read: animals) visit, whether it's to paint, make sandcastles, or even run a race. The one thing you're missing - mobile phone signal - may come across a little incongruous from this idyllic getaway, but don't worry about that for now, and instead just let it do its simple job of pointing you to the mountain atop the island. Exploring various nooks and crannies, meeting people, and helping them along their way grants golden feathers which in turn allows you to traverse further - jumping more, climbing higher. More poignantly, they'll also have charmingly open little snippets of conversation to share with you. It's a really beautiful little microcosm of positivity - carrying the kind of whimsy that I imagine folks similarly look to the likes of Animal Crossing for. It's not a long or particularly arduous affair, but the struggle in making it to the top of the mountain, and the little celebrations I enjoyed on the way back down were the kind of life affirming shot in the arm that I didn't even realise I needed.

Dragon Quest

Yes, that one. It's probably important to state up front that I played the Switch version, as it's pretty clear that there are a lot of efforts in the name of modernisation which are more likely to upset fans than please them. Environment art has remained in its original format, whereas your character has shirked his pixelised warts in favour of a HD paint-over, for instance. There's a pretty obvious clash as a result, but at the same time, if you've never played it before and don't have a chip on your shoulder about accuracy, you may find this totally serviceable. Giving us nice HD enemy sprites may even make this an upgrade, even. So, I'll leave the comparisons for those who care enough to research them elsewhere, and instead let's talk about the game.

For something that's nearly as old as me, what feels like the biggest note to lead with is that with expectations set appropriately, it's still very good, and very playable. While a lot of important RPG standards weren't set till years after it, there are plenty of others which were likely quite groundbreaking as they stood here. I may be somewhat speculative on exact details there, rather than having the complete history of the genre mapped out - particularly given this is a revised edition - but I hope you can let that slide. So yes, a single party member with no personality to speak of following a very linear series of events may not be what folks expect today, but if you can understand that things happen over time, then there's a perfectly functional, plenty charming turn-based RPG at the heart of it.

Talking to NPCs might not be everyone's favourite favourite way to while away time, but once you realise they often tell you things of value and aren't just padding things out, you soon start to re-acquaint yourself with these less bombastic rhythms. Being far more vocal than your own character, this more recent translation has been given room for these village-dwelling NPCs to take on a bit of character too. The attempts at aping certain dialects may raise a smile, but similarly might frustrate if you're approaching this with English not being your mother tongue. Back-tracking and moving about the world is relatively painless, mainly on account of spells that do just that, and though yes, you'll likely need a spot of grinding here and there along the way, it's still short enough (about ten hours) to never get too arduous.

Thinking about the first games I played, then the first RPGs of this nature, when I played them, their relative levels of sophistication... it all highlights to me just how special this would have been to anyone who was there for this all the way back in '86. The start of an empire for good reason.

Dragon Quest II

... and here comes the sequel. The same pre-amble applies here; I don't really have the frame of reference to talk about pros and cons of the port here, so I'll be trying my best to think around that instead.

Straight off the bat though, you notice a lot of the big changes are incremental. Rather than one hero, you set out with three. Rather than fighting enemies one at a time, why not a whole handful? Dragon Quest ++ could be just as apt a title, particularly given the big change with the make-up of your party is the distribution of roles (the internet informs me this is the only DQ game where your main character has no spell casting capability) rather than the introduction of actual characterisation. That's not to say it's not lacking in charm - by jove guv'na, there's more of this bleedin' accent bizniss - along with Akira Toriyama's still-strong menagerie of monster designs.

It's a little bit longer, quite a bit bigger - heck - you even need a boat to get around it. Given the story is a continuation of the first game, albeit years later, there's even the opportunity to revisit areas from the old game on top of all of the new. This may all make things sound boring or derivative, but no, let's not get away from the fact that this is still plenty competent and enjoyable. The series may not have blossomed fully yet, but it's still an improved version of an already enjoyable game.

Dragon Quest III

Ok, NOW we're talking. Going between these games in a short space of time allows for some pretty conveniently direct comparisons - though I'm sure in future it'll also frustratingly blend them all together in my head too. Despite this, the jump between titles here is far more significant, and in almost every way for the better. That generational leap into 16 bit territory does wonders on all fronts; treating you to a slick intro (complete with graphics!), bigger and more detailed environments with a night/day cycle, more distinguished instrumentation in the soundtrack, and the doors blown wide open for the game to deliver a much bigger and less linear journey through the story.

The class system has seen a major upgrade too, and while you have autonomy on the makeup of your party, as well as the ability to later on mix and match abilities to make some wicked powerful allies, there is still the slightly disappointing note that as a result, these are total nobodies as far as the story goes. But overall things are just so much better; the game is much longer, yes, but it's also got so much more breathing space for there to be variation in how you tackle things and in what order. Minor discoveries and secrets can be found that are now just far enough off the given path that they do actually feel special. Personally, I've a huge sense of nostalgia for this era of games, and to tap into one that I missed at the time, and to still find it quite so fresh, was a pretty great feeling. Before anyone asks: no, I'm not playing DQ IV any time soon.

Blazing Chrome

Let's start by being nice and labelling Blazing Chrome as a homage. If you've played the Contra games of the 90s, you'll recognise this very quickly, and in fairness to the game, it's not as if they're trying very hard to hide it either. The first level is a particularly unsubtle attempt to ape the opener from Contra Spirits, that unfortunately felt off by just enough for it to throw me. Out of necessity the sprites are bigger and more detailed, but the stage itself doesn't tap into the essence of its inspiration quite so well, rather decidedly plain and restricted. Later stages thankfully get a bit (not much) more colourful and ambitious.

Contra's never been famous for its ease, and here the moment-to-moment is just as merciless. Reckless play is punished quickly, and knowing what's coming is an advantage, but still one that's easily squandered if you don't time things quite right. So yes, your stock of lives is very easily depleted, yet the continue mechanism to balance this is overly generous - bringing you back to a recent checkpoint rather than pushing you to crack the level in one shot. Assuming you're willing to put aside that shameful credit-feeding chip on the shoulder, the game ends up being tackled in small sections, which although cheap, can still be quite tough in the later sections.

It clearly likes Contra's set pieces too - there's a few biking sections, some vertical auto-scrolling, a pseudo-3D on-rails bit - and while they're not all quite as enjoyable as one another, they're all reasonable enough distractions. It's clearly operating within guidelines not to do anything too fancy that doesn't fit its 16 bit aesthetic, but it also likes trying to replicate the moments and their graphical techniques that made games at the time special - bosses swoop by in full 'Mode7' style, and speeding through stages on a bike is accented by parallax-scrolled landscapes whizzing by in the background.

It's a fun, short game to breeze through that does perhaps lean a bit too hard on nostalgia to get the most out of it. Crucially, it's not as good as the titles it apes either, but it does serve as a convenient reminder of why they're great.

Cytus α

Good rhythm games tend to be fairly openly structured - play what you want, maybe get better at them, have fun. It's a core loop that can make good ones particularly addictive, and it's also why I find myself so dismissive of new ones that don't do anything inventive, or improve what's already out there. In this case, sorry, I'd sooner be playing Ouendan (or Elite Beat Agents).

In fairness to Cytus, I've done it a total disservice by playing with a controller, rather than undocking the Switch and tapping the screen as it so clearly intends - a bar would move up and down the screen in metronomic fashion, with the player tapping and dragging at circles rhythmically as they overlap. Whereas in my defence, I didn't fancy inflicting such intensive jabbing at the system, nor was the game ever particularly up-front about how it'd intended for me to play. Music choices are obviously entirely subjective, so I'll just settle for saying it's got a reasonable range of tracks that cater most regularly for electronic, dance-y numbers, that grabbed me rarely. It does borrow some music I knew I enjoyed from DJ Max - which seemed a good in-road, but sadly just highlighted it again; I'd rather be playing these songs in a different game. There's also a very in-depth but totally ridiculous story about AIs that I tuned out from in record time, but it does make for some neat key art that reminds me of the video to Bjork's 'All is Full of Love'. The actual UI sticks to a fairly minimal and monochrome theme, but during songs you're left with little more than a washed out background image while you play. It shouldn't be, and isn't important, but it's just another slightly lacking aspect of the game.

I've also still not found time yet for Voez or Deemo. Sorry, Rayark.

The Red Strings Club

Cyber-punky, drinks-serving talk 'em up. My mind expected VA11-HALL-A, and while they both do a great job serving up a tonne of cool-as-heck atmosphere, it's a much less passive ride here. There's some beautiful music; somewhat jazzy but sombre as heck piano scores the opening perfectly, but rather than just letting these moods wash over you too long, Red Strings Club drags you quickly in. The cyberpunk themes may not be anything new - a body-modifying big corporate is looking to modify existing products and over-extend its reach in the hope of enhancing human happiness - but it services the story as a backdrop quite neatly.

As a short game with a considered cast of characters, the fact you step into the shoes as a number of them as the story moves on allows for a very direct presentation of cause and effect. There's set pieces that are impactful, and real successes and losses to experience within them that weigh heavy as you carry on through. Donavan, the informant-slash-bartender, serves drinks that align to, and send his patrons down a particular emotional route. Make them feel a certain way, and they may get loose lips on certain topics - or they might shut up entirely. The game does a great job of drawing you into these conversations, giving you real cause to stop and think, highlighted in particular when you're then grilled afterwards to see just how much you grasped about them. Not just whether you understood the information exchange at face level, but also the sub-text of how they felt towards you, what's driving them, who they trust, and so on. At another point, a particular line of conversation steered into one character playing devil's advocate on one issue to the point that they ended up labelling my answers as being hypocritical - and damnit, they weren't wrong. Being both insulted and charmed at the same time was a strange feeling.

The story does a lot in such a short space of time, and is particularly rewarding given there were so many clear branching paths along the way. Somewhere between buying this and starting to play it, I forgot that it was from the team responsible for Gods Will Be Watching. I originally wrote a bit about that in 2016, and while flawed, it stayed with me as something I really enjoyed long after I sat down with it. I'm really pleased with this as their next move - it's just as considered and thoughtful, but without the balls-hard outer layer to bounce off. I think it's pretty special. Bravo.

#saburo jinguji #daedalus #the missing #j. j. macfield and the island of memories #the stretchers #a short hike #dragon quest #dragon quest 2 #dragon quest 3 #blazing chrome #cytus α #the red strings club

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theparaminds · 5 years

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For Yuki, this is the shifting moment. This is the moment where the gear teeth align in his favor. It comes after the passing wave of his 18th birthday, a time of solidified adulthood, as well as after an enlighting collaborative experience. In many ways, you could say he’s beaten the final boss to the video game that was his adolescence. But then again, most successful games have a sequel.

Being a New Zealand based producer, it was quite the culture shock to be called towards Los Angeles to work with Jaden on his new album ERYS. He admits it being a slight drowning sensation, one where he could’ve gone under at any moment. His few moments with his head above water were life-altering, no doubt, but it was still a deep end without an eventual bottom.

But he survived. He swam. He succeeded.

And thus he stands now 18 and fearless. If someone else’s deep end cannot swallow him, then his own never will. He stands upon the horizon of a new album, one that explores the sinking sensation, but also the beauty within our head emerging periodically to smell the air of enlightenment.

And while he would’ve never told himself to do so, he is encouraging all to jump into their own deep ends, whatever it may be. He only does so because he knows that we will learn to swim before we drown. He knows we can break our environmental and mental shackles. He knows we can all be free.

Our first question as always, how’s your day going and how have you been lately?

My day today has been uneventful in a good way. Right now I’m very busy but very stagnant. There's a lot going on in preparation for big things but I feel like I’m not moving at all. It’s the busiest I've ever been while simultaneously having the most free time in my life.

And what does stagnation mean to you and what does it mean in your life currently?

The things I’m working towards aren’t within reach yet. I’m working towards a visa and it's a very slow process, I feel like all this crazy stuff is happening but it's not affecting my life directly right now. The great things aren't able to materialize yet.

What do you think, right now, is your most overwhelming and intense feeling within daily life? The one that hits most constantly.

If there was a couple, I’d say the feeling of being disconnected because I left LA and I feel left out from what's going on there. And a nervous excitement, a positive anxious feeling.

Do you feel emotionally whole within yourself or is there something you feel you're still looking for?

I think I'm pretty content with myself but I’m trying to be better at being me. I want to be able to learn to let things go and grow up. I’m in the last quarter of growing up. I feel I grew up very early and now I'm just learning all the little things, hence the album title. I honestly think once that’s done a lot will fall into place.

Well, let's talk about that album while you mention it. You’ve been working on it for a good minute now, but when did you realize you needed to start upon it and when did you feel it important to put yourself towards the turbulent process of an album?

When I went to LA I started working on an EP. I put a lot of my time into that over a few months and it didn't really stick with me so I scrapped it. I felt I hadn’t made a project in a long time so I was more excited to make music than ever. And especially working on ERYS was a whole other break of not being able to fully just do my work. So, I was bursting at the seams to express what I felt. It was the right time to focus on this project as I had so much to say. It is so draining to start an album because once you're in you can't stop unless you give up, which I hate doing.

Through the work what is that you needed to express and say and even currently what are you trying to externalize?

I think perspective is a big thing. I feel like all though this crazy stuff is happening a lot of it doesn't matter. I feel like a lot of artists feel very hopeless. Growing up is obviously a huge theme. Letting go of things and moving on from mistakes. Figuring out who you are. The album is pretty much just growing up, I think.

Let's compare honesty then, how much more honest do you feel is in this project more so than your last and do you think that's something you've gotten better at?

I think I'm definitely more honest in this project just due to being older. I got thrown in the deep end a bit with the whole LA thing. I think I was forced to adapt very quickly because I dropped out of school at 17 and then started living on my own in a whole new city with a new way of life. People drove on different sides of the road. People talked differently. I had to grow up to mentally survive. I feel like I’ve been the same mentally from 14 to 17, I’ve been the same since I became a teenager. But since becoming 18m and being an adult, it's the right time to express something completely new on this album.

Did you feel like 18 was a number that resonated with you as a sort of shifting moment in realizing this is the beginning of something more legitimate?

Definitely, I always used to say I wanted to be 17 forever because then if I kept getting better at music, I can be the gimmick artist who’s young and talented. But there's so much I don't know about life that I actually now want to grow up and learn about it. 18 was the moment that I can stop giving myself excuses about being immature and I can finally force myself to grow up. After years of finding yourself, 18 is a year where you can finally start to implement it to make your life the best it can be.

Well what does that implementation look like for you and what are the ways you've done so?

I think to make mistakes and coming back from them. Trying to move on and focus on myself more. I'm trying to take time out of my day to make me happy more and to not be focused on negative energy. I've learned that while music makes me so happy, I have to give myself the time to do nothing or watch a movie, collect magazines or buy some stupidly expensive candle.

Then is happiness what matters to you above all right now? Or is there another goal and milestone to grab as well?

Happiness and being sane through the ups and downs, no matter what’s thrown my way.

In your project right now, what are the technical changes you've made and the developments you’ve made into your sound and actual technical ability?

Going into the professional aspect of music with Jaden seriously opened my eyes up to new techniques and work ethics. I think I can flesh out my ideas ten times more than I could before. The production is better and my song ideas are better. This album is experimental, I fit so much into a song without making it feel crowded and it feels much longer as a song than the actual runtime. Pushing things sonically to where I'm overloaded but then refining it later. I feel I looked at this project like my Cherry Bomb, which is my favorite project, and asked myself how could I do my own “Cherry Bomb” album, relative to my discography. Taking the idea of going wherever I wanted but making it easy to listen to.

Well, the interesting thing with Cherry Bomb is that it’s an album where if you took all of Tyler's discography and laid it out in a line you can point at that as the shifting moment. So how do you feel you want everything to look after this shifting moment for you and what do you want it to lead towards?

I think there's a lot of music that sounds the same in the whole DIY bedroom artist scene and I feel like there's a stigma that comes with that. There’s the assumption that nobody has the resources to execute anything “professional” sounding or cleanly executed. so there's a stigma where it’s ok if it sounds like shit because it’s an independently released “bedroom pop” song. I want to make the cheapest but also the most luxurious album. I’m taking care to set up my mics and instruments properly, organize my files better and plan more. I’m also not mixing the album myself. Even just outsourcing work is something that a lot of independent musicians won’t do because they want to rep the “I did it all myself” title, shout outs to James Rim, my mentor, and engineer for this album, he’s so talented and amazing at overseeing things and being a huge enabler for me. . I want this to be a shift for me and others where we don't have to have a label budget but we can still push it to another level of musical expression. I want it to be a point where I’m serious about making the best music possible from my bedroom without the limitations.

You've been talking about growing up and youth but that's very familiar in the subgenres you're saying you want to break out of. Do you feel there are themes beyond those you want to touch on but maybe haven’t fully experienced yet?

I think I don't even know yet. I tend to talk about what's happened lately and it's an album about recent ideas like my stress from LA and social anxiety, but that I'll grow out of. I guess we'll just have to see. Every six months for me is a new phase.

Do you break your life into eras and phases?

100 percent, yes.

What’s this era called then?

The ‘be free’ era. All my friends are working towards their own projects and are stressed and happy and sad but we’re all very focused.

So what does it mean to be free to you, you've also called it in the past ‘being free like Paris Hilton’. What is that concept in your mind?

The ‘be free’ side is being the most stressed you've ever been and getting to the point of breakdown but then releasing something beautiful or having something happen in your life and to just move forward. And the Paris Hilton side of it comes from the second version of Nikes off Blonde where this rapper raps in Japanese and says be free like Paris Hilton. I interpreted it is that she's this figure that embodies Hollywood and has embraced it and loves the red carpet, but she talks about feeling lonely and lost and not having a purpose and that she's missing out.

It's almost like Jim Carey said he wants everyone to be rich and famous so they can learn it’s not the answer to their problems.

Exactly and that's the Hollywood thing where there's dark Hollywood and the glamourous Hollywood coexisting.

You did spend a good amount of time in LA and for anyone who didn't know you worked closely with Jaden and worked heavily on ERYS, and you said it opened your eyes to the technical side and that it was a turbulent time, but what was the biggest lesson from the time working on the project as a whole?

I think the biggest lesson I learned was, as corny as it sounds, to believe in yourself. It's about telling yourself that you're special and knowing it and being proud of ourselves. I went into the studio as an underdog with these amazing producers, I had to use that energy to perform and succeed.

Does that mean to you that this journey in music is not about self-validation but more about fulfillment and building yourself and finding personal answers?

I think the thing for me is to achieve my goals and its above all being able to be in a happy state and constantly create.

Of the last year as a whole, what memory means the most to you and is one that stands out the most?

I was going to go on a tourist visa to LA to meet people but on the way, I went to Vancouver and I met Seungjin, the best human being on planet earth. I was so happy and I had shit going before I left but it really cleaned my whole palette. When I got back to LA I was feeling pretty hopeless and I was so close to giving up, but last minute I met Jaden and it all just steamrolled from there. Shit gets bad in life but how bad is it actually? I have a roof over my head, friends, supportive parents, clothes and food and water. Once you break it down and realize all the small stressful shit in your life means nothing, you start to appreciate the stuff that matters

So it was happiness instead in the mundane in life and the simplicities of daily existence?

Exactly, it was realizing that shit sucks in the moment but we always get over it. It always moves on.

On top of Seungjin and that friendship, this ERYS project was a lot of collaboration and you also work with a lot of other talented artists in your scenes, but what does it mean to you to be collaborative and how did you put yourself into that space?

I think it's about removing the selfish side of it, we all want to make something sick and be successful, but realizing we’re not here to just make a beat and then have our name on it but instead to help someone else shine, to help Jaden shine in this case.

What artists right now do you think you would be able to accentuate the best?

Lil Uzi Vert because when he gets a producer that makes him shine it's not even fair how good it is. I want to get on some K-Pop shit as well.

In your career and most of all through creation as a whole, what is that you’re trying to achieve as an overarching mantra?

I want to inspire people like I was inspired by people like Tyler and Earl and Mac Miller. I want to be the next generation' inspiration so I can create hope, even if it’s small.

So is part of it trying to create a wave?

Not even a wave, even just one kid stuck in their hometown having my songs give them the confidence is all I want. I want their lives to be lived to the fullest. There's a generation of genius kids stuck in the grinder, I want someone to make the decision about what they want to be and not what their parents want.

In your eyes, what does it mean then to be a hero or is that a concept that is overdone in art and music?

No, I think it can exist through both of those, I think as long as it’s positive. If you try to be a hero, super hard, you'll never be one. If your motives are pure and authentic you can harness that and you can teach and inspire others. Tyler’s focus was never to change LA, he was just being himself and the rest came. People will come when they come, the money will come when it comes.

How do you feel that right now your music is impacting others and how do you notice it daily?

It's crazy because looking back I’d never thought anything would ever happen. It's back to that sense of hope, even when things are slow, realizing that what you're doing means something to someone out there whether you know it or not. It's so crazy to even think about.

Going into the rest of this year and beyond, what’s your biggest goal and necessary milestones?

To release my album, and on top of that, my goals are literal such as getting my visa and living in LA. But above all I want to be free, that’s what it’s all about.

Do you have anyone to shoutout or promote? The floor is yours.

All of my friends: Maxwell, Luke, Tom. James Thorington, he’s crazy. And Seungjin. Seungjin is the man. The amazing producer, engineer, and mentor: James Rim.

Follow Yuki on Instagram and Twitter

Listen on Spotify and Apple Music

Words and interview by Guy Mizrahi

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recommendedlisten · 7 years

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Did 2017 suck? On a collective level, the short answer is “yes,” but make no doubt about it -- Music as our always reliable creative backbone and support system through these troubled time had an outstanding year. There were so many great albums coming from every direction of the sonic spectrum that if this year’s list had 20 more spots to give, it would have been easy to fill each and every one of them. We got the best out of everything this year: Familiar favorites continuing to excel at what they do, reunited comeback surpassing expectations, breakouts from new artists who are just getting started in writing their own legacies, guitar rock far drom dying, the two best young rappers once again dueling it out for the throne, and others who focused their energy and voices to resist, preach change, or at least try to make sense of this world. We escaped it together. We got our hearts broken together. We holed up in our heads together. We got angry together. We grieved together. We found hope on the other end of darkness together. The 30 Best Albums of 2017 are just as much a part of us as we are them.

30. Liars - TFCF [Mute Records]

In Liars’ world, nothing is ever as it once was, and no greater are those words true on the band’s eighth full-length TFCF. It’s the first album where the outfit is now working entirely through the creative psyche of founder Angus Andrew since the dissolution of his partnership with its other primary creator following the promotion of 2014′s laser raver Mess, and with that, Andrew uses TFCF as a formal vessel to mourn that loss through Liars’ endlessly shape-shifting body. Its minimalist shift is jarring when held against the band’s latter outputs where dance mechanics and electricity ran through in no short supply, and no turn is ever predictable. In a sense, this feels like Andrew reclaiming a sense of his own identity through the sonic outlet he has poured two decades of exploration into, and while the listen harbors an underlying trepidation in going at it alone, it’s also an adventurous fresh start for the revered noisenik’s work that reminds us why we signed up to tag along for the journey to begin with.

29. Charlotte Gainsbourg - Rest [Because Music]

One of the most peculiar angles to observe about Rest, Charlotte Gainsbourg’s third proper studio effort and first since 2011′s excellent Beck-assisted effort IRM, is that it’s a grief album that sounds nothing of darkness, and dances in the face of death. While the background context of much of it has been discussed by Gainsbourg herself (her half-sister and photographer Kate Berry passed away in 2011,) the actress / musician has surrounded herself with fellow French sound designers Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo of Daft Punk and producer SebastiAn in a manner that outlines her catharsis in neons and clean-lined synthesizers that, even for a mpm-Francophone-fluent listener, feel robust with life. Ultimately, the album isn’t so much about how death has taken its toll, but rather been pushed far enough away from Gainsbourg to a point where it can co-exist with the honors of what we must appreciate living for as well. So is the mark of an artist who often deters from cliché, and instead poses a challenge to procenceptions.

28. Spencer Radcliffe & Everyone Else - Enjoy the Great Outdoors [Run for Cover Records]

In short, Spencer Radcliffe is an anomaly. The multi-instrumental songwriter has quietly become some of your favorite artists’ favorite artist for years now thanks to his treasure trove of self-released efforts and experimental oddities strewn across BandCamp, but ever since he signed with Run for Cover Records to release 2015′s proper debut full-length Looking After, that sense of stability has wrangled in the eccentricities going on his head without trampling them. On Enjoy the Great Outdoors, Radcliffe’s friends help bring his sound outside of the metaphorical bedroom, and the result is a long, winding day trip journeyed on ragged guitars, grumbling percussion, and high as a kite existentialism appropriate for coastlines drives, camping retreats, sand-sprawled beach days, or maybe just a lazed nap in the backyard hammock. It’s music for a mindset rather than a concrete destination.

27. Japanese Breakfast - Soft Sounds from Another Planet [Dead Oceans]

Michelle Zauner has traveled across the entire universe of sound at a speed faster than light to evolve to the point where she is today as an artist. Psychopomp, last year’s debut album from her band Japanese Breakfast, was a promising reintroduction to the singer-songwriter we had once known as the lead vocalist for the Philly indie punk outfit Little Big League. It carried the weight of a heavy mourning sound on airy vestiges of dream-pop while embossing Zauner’s penmanship, and on its follow-up Soft Sounds from Another Planet, it’s as if that gauzy cloud has drifted out of view. What we see is a vivid realization of the wonders in her art, traveling across a galaxy of sound where crystallized synth-pop, big romantic ballads, and grizzled indie rock can coexist without impinging upon each others comfort zones. Zauner may have put herself in the storyteller’s chair of writing a sci-fi love story with this effort, but it turns out that no matter the medium, those emotions are universally binding.

26. Margo Price - All American Made [Third Man Records]

Midwest Farmer’s Daughter, last year’s debut effort from outsider country songwriter Margo Price, wasn’t just a breakthrough by merit of putting in a decade’s worth of starving artist work in someone who never folded under the weight of rejection, but also because it was a survival story that sang the life out of hardships faced in between, lending credence to her “authenticity” as a genuine country songwriter in the process. Following the 2016 election, the stories behind this year’s sophomore follow-up All American Made didn’t take as much time to collect themselves as she flips her perspective onto world where women still are fighting for respect and equality, or there’s a need to advocate action rather than thoughts and prayers for the country’s undercut farming industry, all scribed in wry one-liners and a modern spin on traditionalism. If you want an accurate picture of what your neighbor is up against, Price is the precisely the hard-working voice to make that call for empathy.

25. The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die - Always Foreign [Epitaph Records]

The World Is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die have done everything in epic proportions since a creative big bang placed them in the music universe. 2015′s excellent sophomore outing Harmlessness delivered an ambitious self-care guide vesseled in mythological folk tales and song sequences that borderlined a night at the indie-emo opera, but with it pondered where the CT collective would go after climbing Everest. The answer is back down to Earth, as their third studio effort Always Foreign is the band’s most compact work to date, refining their songcraft with sharpened hooks and trimming away the meandering excess without necessarily watering down their epic appeal. Yet, what a scary, alien place this world they’ve gravitated back down to has become since their last chapter. If Harmlessness fought to make space for a sense of humanity in every particle of light in our bleak, existential throes, Always Foreign is defined by leader David Bello accepting that most everything around us is going to remain terrible despite us naïve hopefuls’ best efforts. Drastic turns to brazen righteousness just may be the survival tactic needed to see us through to tomorrow.

24. Vagabon - Infinite Worlds [Father / Daughter Records]

Brooklyn’s best kept secret weapon is now the world’s to share. Following the release of a coupling of demos and an EP, Cameroon-born and NYC-based songwriter Laetitia Tamko, b.n.a. Vagabon, and her debut full-length Infinite Worlds collects her migrated experiences alongside the boundary-less perspective of the indie rock universe. It’s title is an ideal descriptor of its sound, as the listen is a layered lo-fi adventure of electric guitars and bedroom synths that not only defines the DIY songwriter’s own possibilities to create for herself, but for a scene stymied by monotonous representation. As a black female voice in a densely white scene, Tamko’s pursuit for the authentic and her own identity despite those odds steers the wheel away from sonic predictability. She’s demonstrating with effect how outside exposure doesn’t necessarily have to lead to a total reconstruction of the home’s foundation. A fresh coat of paint will do.

23. Ratboys - GN [Topshelf Records]

In the soil of the indie rock underground, a new crop of alternative takes on country continues to sprout. The Chicago duo Ratboys wear their threads well, sounding simultaneously scrappy and well-collected from the inside, especially in the latter through the songwriting prowess of vocalist Julia Steiner reflecting as much of her own personal experiences into their songs as she does the emotions connected to them. Their 2015 debut AOID safely laid the groundwork for their brand of twangy indie rock, and here on GN, they continue sculpting their identity in a grainy field quickly saturating itself of Saddle Creek-era devotionals by telling stories that only Steiner, alongside primary cohort and guitarist Dave Sagan’s scene-setting assists, can. Every step along their long and winding journey yearns for the close comfort of home – seemingly eternally out of reach – giving the listen a wistfully warm undercurrent that makes for a pretty good imitation of it.

22. Kindling - Hush [6131 Records]

It isn’t easy being an indie rock band who has to follow in the footsteps of a very distinct Western Mass pedigree. The outside world still compares every band from the area to the ‘90s alternative lineage of Dinosaur Jr., the Pixies, and Sebadoh with boxed-in sonic schematic assumptions. The Easthampton quintet Kindling certainly love their reverb, but on their sophomore breakthrough Hush, they have created a shoegazing sonic boom in the valley that stays loyal to the area’s legacy of loudness while putting their own stamp of hardcore influences on an otherwise lush atmosphere of rock. There are just as many moments throughout the listen that double as invitations to the pit as their are celestial drifts, with guitarists Gretchen WIlliams and Stephen Pierce’s dueling vocals becoming part of its soundscape at every turn. Sure, there are its flickering moments of golden age alt-rock stomps and whirring shoegaze in its booming production courtesy of Justin Pizzoferrato (Dinosaur Jr., Speedy Ortiz), but Kindling is pushing those sounds into a new direction that leaves the past in star dust.

21. LCD Soundsystem - American Dream [Columbia / DFA Records]

James Murphy has realized that putting the final nail in LCD Soundsystem’s coffin didn’t have to be a thing if he didn’t want to, or because it’s how other artists did their business, and that only he could decide under what terms their story ends. What LCD Soundsystem has become during the in-between on American Dream is a timely and necessary comedown of their catalog’s euphoria during these anxious times does not hurt either. If 2010′s This Is Happening was the sound of hundreds of black and white balloons falling from the rafters of Madison Square Garden in a swan song of celebratory fashion, then American Dream is hearing each one of them attempting to crawl toward your feet before they deflate and shrink to the floor in one of their last moments of exhale. It’s a darker and heavier album compared to the confetti and disco ball flashes of the past, with the blue skies and puffy white clouds on its cover offering a patronizing oppression -- Quite literally the new age sounds of death from above.

20. BROCKHAMPTON - Saturation II [Empire / Question Everything, Inc.]

As usual, the discussion around hip-hop this year will mainly revolve around Kendrick and Vince as two of the year’s biggest standouts once more, but the cross-country collective known as BROCKHAMPTON have secured their place as the rap game’s biggest breakouts. Saturation II isn’t even the only album they’ve put out this year – it’s the second in a trilogy that began in early summer and will be imminently concluding with a third installment – but it’s the effort that has rightfully caught buzz beyond the Internet forums where this self-professed “American boy band” joined forces. If their end game is world domination, then their brand of pop-infused, Kanye-worship hip-hop is good way to get there, and it doesn’t hurt that the team effort of every member bringing a different story to the table makes Saturation II play like a non-stop assembly line of crew anthems.

19. Moses Sumney - Aromanticism [Jagjaguwar]

After years of relentlessly molding his craft of experimental electronic soul, Moses Sumney finally puts the finishing touches on his wondrous cynicism with his debut full-length Aromanticism. The album has the characteristics of an album that appeals to emotional masochists, but it’s when Sumney creates these temporal flickers of light within his sound where even the darkest paths of the rabbit hole uncover a beauty in the despair. Radiohead, Bon Iver, and Sufjan Stevens have centered entire careers on existentialism with more elements, built for larger stages, yet Sumney proves here that he needn’t expand much beyond his natural body to achieve this. It can feel almost uncomfortably voyeuristic, as if we’re privy to an intimate encounter, except Aromanticism is the opposite of that: A quiet cry into the infinite, hoping patiently that some day someone reaches back.

18. Big Thief - Capacity [Saddle Creek]

If you want to sit down with a few good stories mired in truth, tragedy, and fiction, then Adrienne Lenker is your best summer read. Last year, the Brooklyn-based songwriter turned the music world’s ear her way when she and her band Big Thief released their promising debut Masterpiece astutely in the right avenue of ramshackle indie rock on Saddle Creek, and its sophomore follow-up Capacity builds on the upward interest by penning several new chapters of prose haunted by the past and subtly beautified by the ornate features of folk rock. It’s by no means in comparison to the rest of summer’s sounds a booming listen, but is its own force of nature that forces you to hang onto Lenker’s every word with full attention to reap its riches. City slickers often make great escapes to seek out this kind of peace and quiet in retreats, but Big Thief’s solitude finds its way to you without ever leaving home.

17. Kelela - Take Me Apart [Warp Records]

Kelela has been an influencer in spilling a dark wave from the dance and R&B undercurrent into the collective mainstream conscious since appearing virtually out of nowhere in 2013. Through mixtapes and EPs, her futuristic style wrapped grime, dubstep and modern techno’s rattling walls around her sensual moves and ethereal vocal presence, and finally, on her debut full-length Take Me Apart, her hallucinogenic formula of R&B pop becomes more lucid than ever as Kelela continues to mutate every influence since the days of growing up (as she puts it) “in the ’burbs listening to R&B, jazz and Björk” and beyond together. Her art of seduction has also moved onto a universal plane here as she navigates the messy world of late night hookups, drunken texts in the early hours of a restless post-breakup, and eventually, moving on for the better. While still soft and pillowy, Kelela’s voice has never sounded in such focus as it does here, which is to say her intentions gleam through the soundboards loud and clear.

16. Jay Som - Everybody Works [Polyvinyl Records]

The work of 22-year-old Melina Duterte exists in its own space, because that’s exactly where it was born. As a fledgling songwriter living on the outskirts of the Bay Area, she began recording music under the online name-generated moniker Jay Som over the course of the past five years, haphazardly posting them onto her BandCamp page without caution before peaking the interest of venerable indie rock label Polyvinyl Records. On her debut full-length Everybody Works, she puts in the effort of tenfold humans to deliver an album so rich in dream-pop textures and visceral fuzz rock that she’d have you believing more warm bodies were standing right next to her during its recording. And yet, despite Everybody Works many layers, her proper introduction bares the markings of the warm insularity of the bedroom where Duerte recorded every instrument on her own doing. It’s filled with enough tenderness to compliment its intentionally rockist ways, bringing to the forefront a unique, introverted identity that blurs the line drawn between proper studio mechanics and the magic of homespun spaces.

15. The National - Sleep Well Beast [4AD]

The National are one of the most consistently great indie rock bands to survive the NYC Aughts scene and all of its history that has for the most part become anecdotal enough to fill up the pages of Lizzy Goodman’s Meet Me In the Bathroom. Consistency can be its own trap, however, as it can lead down the road of creative sameness,but their seventh full-length Sleep Well Beast feels like a needed shock to their system even if so much of it tip its hand to what made their early catalog bold. There’s Matt Berninger and his wife Carin Besser reconnecting his prose with matters of lovers’ quarrels and commitments, and just the right amount of darkness swallowing up the night that has become synonymous with the National’s relationship with the city. Funny how they actually had to flee the city to record the album, and that wilderness experiment is what ends up feeding Sleep Well Beast its electricity as the quintet refit their machine with artificial limbs and heartbeats. For the National, success in grandeur is in the way they convey intimacy.

14. Converge - The Dusk In Us [Deathwish Inc. / Epitaph Records]

Holding The Dusk In Us up against any of Converge’s other albums results in this one joining the superlatives of added consistency as one of the strongest catalogs reigns in the hardcore and metal scene, and how they’re a thousand miles away from their nearest peers. Their 9th full-length in particular excels in the way that the Boston heavyweight’s brawny existential substance injected into each track isn’t due to the concept itself or focusing on a certain aspect of their sound, but instead embracing each member’s strengths and ability to bring out the best in what they’ve collectively refined as singularity when in each others’ presence for the past 27 years. According to frontman Jacob Bannon, not even parenthood or aging have changed the way he and his ‘mates approach writing songs in the wide eyed way they did when they were just kids, since this listen transcends those notions as a timeless anomaly of hardcore perfectionism. If anything, time only serves to emboss Bannon’s scrapes for meaning or light in an increasingly dark world despite the burrowing anxiety of breakdowns they flail into.

13. The War On Drugs - A Deeper Understanding [Atlantic Records]

By design, A Deeper Understanding, isn’t actually all that difficult to understand. For years, the War On Drugs’ mastermind Adam Granduciel has been perfecting his craft as a new age highway vagabond by bridging the gaps between classic heartland rock and synthetic pastures, and on his Philly band’s major label debut for Atlantic, he comes closer than he ever has to getting that formula entirely right. Those years on the independent scene seamlessly flow from their tributaries into the mouth of high end studio precision – Not that much of a departure from where 2014′s craft beer classic Lost In the Dream left off, but rather a widescreen continuation of its colors with more lucid light and memory behind them. Whether your journey leads you down winding mountain roads or a stretch sandwiched between endless field, A Deeper Understanding can make each of those landscapes bolder, and even if life doesn’t take your there physically, Granduciel’s music still has that power to.

12. Slowdive - Slowdive [Dead Oceans]

The challenge facing a reunited Slowdive two decades since their last record is how a band of their legacy status goes about reinventing the wheel of a genre they helped mold, but has since seen its shape stretched to a breaking point. . Previous to Slowdive, their only attempt at transformation came with the divisive electronic experiment and initial death knell in 1995′s Pygmalion, but the modern age is more open-minded to these kind of creative risks. While Slowdive orbits closely to the cosmic tour de force of their debut classic Slouvaki with greater consideration to concentrating its deeper impact, the album indulges in the dense atmospheric properties of its genus offshoot post-rock, while other moments point to how without Slowdive, there might not be a Radiohead. A formidable comeback is one thing, but Slowdive proves the band’s legacy has not only withstood the test of time, but that they’re active participants in keeping it alive better than where they left it.

11. Girlpool - Powerplant [ANTI-]

Before the world got big on them, Girlpool were just two teenage friends and budding songwriters sitting in a bedroom with a guitar and a bass, wide-eyed with ideas, but not really sure where any of them would lead them. That tiny childhood bedroom where Girlpool, now out of the teenage woods, came to life is no longer big enough to fit all of their world experiences and emotions resonating in daily lives, yet on their sophomore effort Powerplant, they’re able to add more substance to their minimalist sound without necessarily squeezing small-spaced intimacy completely out of the picture. The project is still primarily the vehicle of Harmony Tividad and Cleo Tucker, but this is the first effort that includes built-in drums by Miles Wintner as well as an added supply of electricity in the studio that makes that tiny room style of theirs boom from wall to wall. If their music was a thing of line drawings and outlines before, then Powerplant paints the world around them in full technicolor with a sound that comes through the speakers as wholly three-dimensional.

10. King Woman - Created In the Image of Suffering [Relapse Records]

Bay Area artist Kristin Esfandiari has been refining her brand of doom and gloom for years in a duality between her metal band King Woman and her shoegazing solo outfit Miserable. Each of those facets play an integral part in turning a confident new corner, however, for the former on their immaculately grim debut full-length Created In the Image of Suffering. In our current political climate, it’s a resistance necessity, as Esfandiari heaves a wrecking ball into patriarchal tropes and theological repression. She damns humankind’s origin folklore into a sludgy, gauzy hell, and reconceives it through the womb of terrifying transcendence. This listen scrapes into bone and marrow under sunburned skies as much as it does ominous thunderclouds, and ushers in King Woman as the new savior of a world whose limits stretch well beyond metal boxes, making for the year’s top honor in its class of heavy.

9. Lorde - Melodrama [Republic / Lava Records]

Lorde still had almost half a decade left on the clock as a teenager when she released her breakout debut Pure Heroine, and that reminder brings with it the realization than not even all of the fame and accolades coming at her fast could protect her from a growing pain so pedestrian as young love and heartbreak, presented with #nofilter on Melodrama. The few, improvable criticisms of Pure Heroine barely exist here. Where that album’s highlights were in its low sizzle stunners of teenage festival anthems, Melodrama has something different going for it altogether in its post-breakup party night concept that strings the narration along from start to finish through a synesthesia of sound and color wired with vivid detail. These sensory synapses wouldn’t be set off without Lorde’s lyricism, as her past work’s vaguely universal themes of being a shoulder-shrug millennial give way to hyper-specificity in both pain and recovery. 20 is a beautiful age to start seeing the world for what it really is, and we’re lucky to be living it through Lorde’s eyes.

8. Julien Baker - Turn Out the Lights [Matador Records]

Julien Baker probably sees her growing position as a patron saint of sadness as a shared experience of universal catharsis much like how we are expected to grieve and deal with personal traumas in our own way. Listening to her sophomore effort (and first for Matador) Turn Out the Lights indeed does sound like an emotionally wrenching experience for an artist to undertake in the studio in the way she leaves no naked thought uncovered from our ears, but that she has managed to take the foundation of what was otherwise a skeletal sound on her 2015 debut Sprained Ankle and transform it into a fully fleshed body that hits our souls with deeper impact is her super power. Her songwriting style remains largely cavernous by treating her electric guitar like a strummed acoustic, occasionally allowing the organ hum and piano keys sink, but the inclusion of Sorority Noise’s Cam Boucher on clarinet and saxophone can transform a song like “Appointments” from a soft hymn into a therapeutic gospel post-rock symphony. Elsewhere, she crafts explosive self-care ballads or relies on Camille Faulkner's strings as turnbuckles while wrestling with life's big questions. It's impossible to find fault in Turn Out the Lights, considering the depth in Baker's EQ's through song is a gift that helps us all cope, too.

7. Sorority Noise - You’re Not As ______ As You Think [Triple Crown Records]

Sorority Noise are a rock band shoved under the emo banner, probably because they talk about the quiet things few have the guts to spill in public out loud. Life, in reality, is filled with messy moments, and they’re at the forefront of an incredibly diverse fourth wave landscape that’s carving out their own space in the modern indie rock cannon proper for coming of age discussions on existentialism, sociopoltiical issues, self-care, and in the Connecticut quartets case on You’re Not As ______ As You Think, a skeptical faith, grief and death. Here, they’re tempering pop-punk riffs into wall-scaling post-rock climbs, puddling effects, and echo chamber vocals that dissect complex spiritual dialogues in light of life’s murkier moments. There’s no social taboo too fearful to tackle with humility here, and they’re all framed inside of quotables and sing-a-longs that will undoubtedly be tattooed into the memories of listeners for years to come. If this isn’t an ideal way to pay your final respects, then nothing else is.

6. PRIESTS - Nothing Feels Natural [Sister Polygon Records]

PRIESTS burst onto the scene back in 2014 with an EP entitled Bodies and Control and Money and Power, and forcibly stated their intentions on taking back the second and fourth words specifically in regards to inalienable human rights. That being said, the D.C. quartet’s full-length debut Nothing Feels Natural wasn’t something immaculately conceived as soon as the country woke up on November 9th to the American nightmare ahead. Its themes are subjects that needed public outcry all along, and yet, are made all the more critical in dialogue as we stand here in discontent today. Yet, Nothing Feels Natural does more than just protest status quo and rail against systematic injustices. Every great once in a while, the punk scene is in need of a new voice of wreckoning to kick it upside down, and PRIESTS’ fluid cross-style of sounds in the realms of existentially exhaling post-punk or cantankerous free jazz make Katie Alice Greer’s incendiary statements all the more evident.

5. Kendrick Lamar - DAMN. [Aftermath / Top Dawg Entertainment / Interscope Records]

To Pimp a Butterfly placed Kendrick Lamar on a pedestal as not only a savior to the rap world, but one wielding his power for greater purpose in calling out the country’s unresolved racism. DAMN. is past the point of addressing the problem, though, and now that Lamar’s focus has been broadened, he’s doing what we already knew him to be, and that’s humblebragging as the self-proclaimed best living rapper right now. There is no distinguishable commitment to a particular vibe on this outing, as DAMN. is more of a singles-driven affair where instead of one story bleeding from one track into another, you get 14 versions of K-Dot that stand on their own while still piecing together a bigger picture, neatly tied together by the bookends of the Top Dawg origin story from beginning to end. In between, Kendrick is switch-hitting between shutting down his critics and sinking his teeth deep into his own dark existentialism. He’s just a man after all, who realizes his life and success is a gift not to be taken for granted granted, and on DAMN., Lamar ensures every moment counts.

4. Paramore - After Laughter [Fueled by Ramen]

Paramore’s 2013 self-titled effort was a surprising reboot that saw the band growing up with tough love realizations. It was also the moment they began finding their own lane in the music universe at large with a sound that was as striking as Hayley Williams’ dye job thanks in part to working with atmospheric alt-rock producer Justin Meldal-Johnsen (M83, Nine Inch Nails.) Despite its success, life hasn’t gotten any more fun for the pop-punk survivalists on After Laughter. The band may have made amends with original drummer Zach Farro, but it’s an effort standing in the shadow of loss following the messy departure of bassist Jeremy Davis and Williams’ crumbling marriage. The business of being celebrity is hard times, and here, Williams lets out one deep sigh in widescreen format filled with arena-ready pop-rock she and her ‘mates only began to experiment with four years ago. It’s committed fully to the sparkle and shine of what they always were, except now they’ve figure out a way to glow without resorting to being fake happy.

3. (Sandy) Alex G - Rocket [Domino Records]

It should be maddening to listen to an artist trying to be too many things at once, but it’s what has made the career of prolific Philly songwriting wunderkind Alexander Giannascoli so enthralling. As (Sandy) Alex G, his many releases over the years have been a grab bag of indie rock and esoteric influences that when hodgepodged together somehow shape themselves into a semblance of sounds that makes sense together as much as they do apart, and on Rocket, the variations are more abundant than ever. The end result is the songwriter’s most collected release while establishing him as one of his generation’s ebst musical multi-tasker. Heard here in his indie rock fashion line is wearing everything from country, hardcore, to his brand of Frank Ocean-endorsed bedroom pop convincingly, and at this point, it would actually be a letdown at this point if he didn’t pander toward these patterns criss-crossing into one another while creating these strangely beautiful moments of parallel. A world where (Sandy) Alex G didn’t do that would just be too grounded, and Rocket is proof that he is meant to be far out orbiting the Earth.

2. Vince Staples - Big Fish Theory [ARTium / Blacksmith / Def Jam]

Over the last three years, Vince Staples has either released a mixtape, EP, or full-length album that have turned all ears inside and out of the hip-hop world in his direction. He has in jest referred to the movement going into his sophomore follow-up Big Fish Theory as “Afrofuturism,” referencing a millennium from now as its sonic starting point, but being the humblebragger who leaves any assessment in his listener’s hands, the thought of putting any kind of label on it would be a failed attempt at restraining its orbiting persona. With his stock continuously on the rise, Staples is in the moment here, ruminating from within the id against a corrupt world as his backdrop, putting every word to pen as if it’s his last and his legacy depended on it. He’s at the cutting edge with where hip-hop is headed, working with LA beat scene wunderkind Zack Sekoff on a majority of the LP’s tracks, a few twisted ventures with pop deconstructionist SOPHIE, as well as bass-heavy DJ duos GTA and Christian Rich. If you were to remove the rhymes, you’d still be left with a fashion-forward avant techno album, but alas, Staples puts the boom and static on the same level as his ego, and we get the year’s most adventurous foray from rap music.

1. Zola Jesus - Okovi [Sacred Bones Records]

Zola Jesus returned to her haunted home Sacred Bones for her fifth and career-best full-length Okovi, and the road leading her there has been a long and winding one. Her dark art began forming in the corners of noise and industrial gothic pop in the late Aughts, and after attempting a pop crossover with it on 2014′s Taiga, her experiment in grande ambition has done nothing but inform her method in writing an album that puts every facet of being onto the same soundscape. Here, she uses that unbreakable foundation to process a series of heavy life-altering events in a manner that only Nika Danilova can when it comes time to holding our existence up to questioning. On paper, conversations on illness, death, and depression can sound incredibly grave, but even in life’s darkest moments, Danilova’s siren calls amid ornate transcendentalism finds a way to the light, and it’s that journey filled with agony that makes Okovi – the Slavik word for “shackles” – a visionary breakthrough. It’s a reminder than regardless of how overwhelming and even terrifying it can be just to be alive, life would be taken for granted if it weren’t for pain reminding us to live it to the fullest. In 2017, we may have let our nihilistic fears shake us, but we also fought for every ounce of hope as well. No other album embodied that struggle better than Okovi.

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airadam · 4 years

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Episode 133 : The Struggle Continues

"Why you think Bobby and Huey P were heat holding?"

- Toki Wright

It's been a very up and down month, which I imagine isn't at all a unique experience. This episode reflects some of that, marking the eleventh birthday of the podcast while also recognising the incredible Black Lives Matter street protests that have been taking place over the last few weeks. The selection takes that as the main theme, and I think it's a solid mix that you'll enjoy - and one where almost everyone will learn one new track at least.

By the way, today would be a good day to arrest the murderers who killed Breonna Taylor.

Twitter : @airadam13

Twitch : @airadam13

Playlist/Notes

Cappadonna : Splish Splash

I'd been thinking about doing that little doubles manipulation and scratch on a mixtape for about twenty years - no exaggeration! Cappadonna blew everyone away with his debut on Ghostface's "Winter Warz", and his debut LP "The Pillage" was highly anticipated by Wu fans. I think it's reasonable to say it maybe didn't live up to the outsized expectations, but there were a few standouts and for me, this was one of them. Only a short track, but Tru Master's beat is solid and Cappa knows what to do with it.

Jay Dee : Fuck The Police (Instrumental)

Love this beat, Dilla had these drums banging right through the speakers. This 2001 single-only release is a classic in Dilla's catalogue, written after suffering one of many incidents of police harassment in his hometown of Detroit. It was slated for the long-shelved "The Diary" album, but MCA records didn't want the heat and so it got the release as a 12" on Up Above Records. A must-have, in my opinion!

N.W.A : Fuck Tha Police

The iconic anthem. This is the track that got a group of young (Eazy-E, at 25, was the oldest) Black men from Compton and Los Angeles onto the radar of the FBI, and into an indelible place in music history. I've only played Ice Cube's verse here, as I wanted to blend into the next cut which carries on in the same sonic vein. I figure every listener already knows this track well, or should be putting "listen to Straight Outta Compton" on their homework lists immediately!

B.Dolan ft. Toki Wright, Jasiri X, and Sage Francis : Film The Police

I only stumbled upon this one this month, and it's so perfectly fitting that there's no way it was getting left out of the selection. Just because of the length (it's around six minutes long, as is the NWA track before), I omitted Jasiri X's verse, but of course it's on the full version on the "House of Bees, Vol. 2" album. Dolan is an MC out of Rhode Island, while Toki Wright is from Minneapolis - home of the late George Floyd. This is a great re-working of "Fuck The Police" in an era-appropriate way; while almost all of us walk around with pocket video cameras today, the Rodney King tape was notable not for the violence, but the fact it was recorded.

EPMD : Give The People (Remix)

The original version of this track as heard on "Business As Usual" lifts the groove from the O'Jays "Give The People What They Want" heavily, but this version de-emphasises it and piles in enough other samples to give a lawyer a heart attack! I personally prefer this mix, which is a bit less obvious (and harder to find). Lyrically, the track is primarily about the difficulties Hip-Hop had finding acceptance in the era in which it was recorded, but with a sprinkling of the wider politics in there, and the perfect title, I thought it was a good one to go with.

The P Brothers : Across The Planet (Instrumental)

This track turned up for me while undertaking my vinyl digitisation project, and with The P Brothers, the quality is always going to be there. The veteran Nottingham crew are responsible for some of the most uncompromising material ever to emerge from these shores, and this track is no exception. The vocal version on the 12" single features Imam T.H.U.G on the mic, with a heavy Cappo track on the flip. The Akala sample I laid over the top came from his brilliant two-part IG Live session which you can find here and here.

Above The Law : Freedom Of Speech

The 1990 "Livin' Like Hustlers" LP is arguably one of the greatest "gangsta" albums of the era, and some of that was because they comfortably covered different topics and sounds without it ever sounding forced. Uptempo here - by modern standards - Cold 187um and KMG (RIP) ride a classic Myra Barnes sample (it's out there, I'm not snitching) and talk about the atmosphere of censorship that was around Hip-Hop, as well as the role of parents. Definitely check the album if you don't already know it.

Saigon : Shok TV

Dug this DJ Shok-produced cut out from its place on "The Best of Saigon, Pt. 2" to take a position in this month's selection, "Hill Street Blues" sample and all! Saigon has always had a social/political streak in his content, coming from a very street perspective, which I think comes across in this very short track. A 2003 recording, this preceded his long-awaited debut LP by eight years - when you listen to both, you can hear how he refined his style without drastically changing it.

Apple Juice Kid : Protest

A fitting pick from an album about a very different revolution, in Egypt in 2011 - seems an age ago already. The "Beats of a Revolution" album is still available on Bandcamp, and as a free download you really can't go wrong.

Anderson .Paak : Lockdown

Big new single that captures so much of what's been going on this year. The Black Lives Matter protests and the violent reply of the state would have been incredibly significant on their own, but at the same time as the coronavirus pandemic...your grandchildren will be asking you about what it was like to survive these times. This timely track is one where it's worth seeing the video as well.

Mobb Deep : U.S.A. (Aiight Then)

It's been three years since Prodigy passed so I totally wanted to drop one of his records here - my first thought was "Real Power Is People", but in the end this quasi-unity track from "Murda Muzik" was a better sonic fit. It's actually got a little bit of a club feel to it without pandering, and was definitely a welcome inclusion on the LP. This was also a single release with "Spread Love" on the flip, which is pretty much the other end of the goodwill spectrum, don't be fooled by the title...

Sampa The Great : Final Form

"The Return" is a wicked album with an array of styles, but this was the first track many would have heard - Sampa stamping her authority on a beat based around the same break as Ghostface's "Be Easy". Silentjay is on production, taking that sample as a base but building out from there, and Sampa gets very busy with it.

X-Vandals : A Poem For Black Boys

I happened across the "The War of Art" album when I got it from one of the crew in Spanish Harlem at a Tools of War park jam a good few years back! It's taken me a while to find just the right spot for one of their tracks, but this is perfect. The production is courtesy of Johnny "Juice" Rosado (who did scratches for Public Enemy for many years), and the bulk of the vocal is a sample he laid in - the voice and words of the poet Nikki Giovanni, with a dark and sardonic poem of resistance.

Ta'Raach : Yeah! (Instrumental)

It's been a long, long time since I played the vocal version on the show, so I think it's fair enough to drop Ta'Raach's ill instrumental here! If you see a copy of the 12", definitely pick it up.

Public Enemy : State Of The Union (STFU)

Unless I'm very much mistaken, this new single is the first beat DJ Premier has ever done for Public Enemy - two iconic forces combining at last! It should be obvious for anyone who knows about PE at all that conscious and rebel music has been their lane from the very start, and so this is very much in keeping with their long and storied history. Chuck D may be very much an elder statesman but that voice and that message are as raw as ever! You don't need to go to the usual download sites to get this one - go straight to the Public Enemy website for the real.

Waajeed ft. Tiombe Lockhart : The Overtaking

Detroit comes to the selection a second time (after Ta'Raach) with the ominous opening track from the excellent "The War LP". It grinds along with almost a slow dark metal vibe, and Tiombe Lockhart creeps in and out as the voice of the people.

DJ Vadim ft. Phi-Life Cypher : Ghetto Rebels

I had completely forgotten about this one, and I don't know how, because this is killer. The basslines (there are several, at different points) will have your system under pressure, then Phi-Life just drown you in a lyrical tidal wave. It's unusual to hear Hip-Hop coming from a Rasta perspective, but you can definitely hear it in their words. DJ Vadim's "U.S.S.R. The Art of Listening" features some very serious production, and is available used for a very reasonable price either as a download or on the used market on CD.

Gang Starr : Riot Akt

Tucked away on the back half of "The Ownerz", the last Gang Starr LP to be released during Guru's lifetime, we find this dose of reality. Guru's message of focusing on the real threats and drawing together to protect the community may have been written in 2003, but is 100% on the nose right now. Everything down to the militarised police, tear gas, and corruption are the things that have been the case for years, but in the last few months we've seen them in HD and on social media.

Enes Suleman : Lo Quiero Todo (Instrumental)

From the instrumental version of the "StreetSoul", the Spanish producer out of France comes with a banging beat - check the original LP release to hear it with the featured MC Drako on the track.

The Impressions : We're A Winner

An uplifting, motivational song to close the month, and one which was an anthem of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. This pre-dates tracks like James Brown's "Say It Loud", and was a trailblazer in being as straightforward a statement of Black pride and the righteousness of the struggle as it is. Curtis Mayfield, the frontman of The Impressions, wrote this track after the concept came to him in a dream. When it came time to record, the group brought a live audience into the studio to give it extra flavour - I think you'll agree, it really adds something. This was a big single that was also the title track to the first of two 1968 albums by The Impressions, and deserves to be heard in full here.

Please remember to support the artists you like! The purpose of putting the podcast out and providing the full tracklist is to try and give some light, so do use the songs on each episode as a starting point to search out more material. If you have Spotify in your country it's a great way to explore, but otherwise there's always Youtube and the like. Seeing your favourite artists live is the best way to put money in their pockets, and buy the vinyl/CDs/downloads of the stuff you like the most!

Check out this episode!

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ugdigital · 8 years

Text

[THE STAGE] MEELAH WILLIAMS [ @itmseelah ]: STRENGTH OF LOVE

It’s so wonderful to reconnect with Meelah Williams. As most know, Williams has been venturing into the world of acting over the past few years, and she’s now taking a lead in The Baz Brothers production, Strength of Love. It’s an amazing story of love, forgiveness, and all the craziness that can happen in between. Strength of Love will be showing Valentine’s weekend in Griffin, GA.

We took some time to chat with Ms. Williams about her role in this stage play, and what the world can expect from her first leading role.

U.G. Digital Mag: I’m most grateful to you for a few things; one for you sharing your time with me today. Also, you were a tremendous part of our first issue. I’m always forever thankful to you.

Meelah Williams: Thank you for the opportunity. I’m grateful that you even gave me that platform.

U.G. Digital Mag: So we’re together for Strength of Love, but before I even start, I have to get your thoughts on the New Edition movie, considering how instrumental Michael Bivens was in the careers of 702.

Meelah Williams: It really is outstanding. I’ve only seen two parts so far, but the actors have done an amazing job. The actors were spot on. I was there for some of it, but to see it on television, it’s refreshing to see the other side of the industry. A lot of people who want to do this often forget about the other side. It’s not always the glitz and glamour. It’s refreshing that they opened themselves up and allowed them[the actors] to be there with them. I had no idea that they went through all the things they did. It was like 1996 for the Home Again tour. We were clueless to a lot of what happened behind the scenes, but there were times when we definitely felt the tension.

U.G. Digital Mag: When you mention how spot on they were, the kids were really amazing.

Meelah Williams: I know, right?

U.G. Digital Mag: The one who play Mike looked just like him.

Meelah Williams: Isn’t that crazy? I asked where did they find that kid. He had that same swag, cocky arrogance, and the whole Boston swag. Clearly Mike and everyone was instrumental in picking the characters that played them, but it’s amazing they found someone so close. Those kids did an amazing job. The casting for Brooke Payne as well, which was the guy from the wire, Wood Harris. I've got to catch up with part 3 now.

U.G. Digital Mag: It’s funny because my son is 10, and he’s enamored with the movie.

Meelah Williams: I’m disappointed I missed last night, but I will definitely catch it.

U.G. Digital Mag: So Strength of Love, it’s such an amazing story. I saw the first run of it last year, so it’s good to see it back. How is it for you to come in this time around?

Meelah Williams: First, I’m just humbled and flattered for someone to reach out and ask of my interest. It’s always a blessing after all this time that people still call and seek my talent. Everyone has been so welcoming. I knew Chandra Currelley because I worked with her for Kandi Burruss’ A Mother’s Love. I was so excited to see Mrs. Chandra again. She’s always great, professional, and so cool. The woman knows what she is doing. I look at her like an auntie. She’s so magical, and anytime I’m in her presence, I’m in awe. She’s so multifaceted. I have to see one of her shows because I love jazz. She’s like someone you’ve known for years. When you go into an ensemble of new people, you never know how it will be. The directors and writers are so chill and laid back. By the second or third rehearsal, they were like family. They’re serious too, but they know how to have fun and make you feel comfortable.

U.G. Digital Mag: There's something special about The Baz Brothers. Chandra is amazing too, and her background with S.O.S. Band is something else.

Meelah Williams: Listen! That’s good music.

U.G. Digital Mag: But it’s just knowing all she’s done and how humble she is, and how welcoming she is. She’s simply amazing. You have a family of people for sure.

Meelah Williams: I’m so grateful. The opportunity is so cool. It’s my third stage play, but the first time I’ve been a leading character. It’s humbling, and exciting to pursue something like this. It’s a blessing to get the acting chops going and the blood flowing. It’s a different level of entertainment coming from the music world.

U.G. Digital Mag: You character has so much depth. How was it to tap into that?

Meelah Williams: It’s interesting because I had this conversation with my mother. It can be very draining at times. That goes for acting in general because you have to morph into these characters and tune into that space. Every nuance and characteristic that your character embodies, you have to align with that. After tomorrow, we’re no longer called by our real names. I have to get into that zone. Her story is so deep, and it’s deep to have to go there. You have to tap into things that may be uncomfortable from your own life and path. You have to find something that’s parallel in some sense to help you convey the emotions. I didn’t know it would be this deep. If that’s what it takes, then let me do this. It’s all in being an actor.

U.G. Digital Mag: Everyone is looking forward to it. What are your hopes for the three days?

Meelah Williams: I hope that those who come out, whether it’s to see me, someone else, or they're just interested, are satisfied. I hope they enjoy everything they see and are not disappointed in my acting, or on any level. I hope they see my passion, and know that I’m working to take this to another level. This is just the beginning.

U.G. Digital Mag: Again, I think you’re so amazing with this. I’ve followed since 702. I’ve watched the R&B Divas, and could really appreciate how you stuck to your guns in terms of portrayal, and what people saw in you. You protected your image, and that was major. Thank you for that.

Meelah Williams: I appreciate that. It’s hard. Unfortunately, the business has changed so much from the time 702 came out until now. The values are different, with social media, and reality shows. If you are someone who’s wholesome, or “a good girl”, you come off as boring, dull, and as having no personality. If I’m not flipping over a table, cursing someone out, or just being flat out ignorant, I have no personality. I have layers to me and I’m complex. I just want to be decent on television because it’s how I was raised. Does that mean I can’t defend myself in a situation? Of course not, but will I be confrontational? That’s not my way. I thank you for acknowledging that though.

U.G. Digital Mag: There’s more who look for what you offer than there are who look for the craziness. It doesn’t seem so at times, but there are.

Meelah Williams: It’s frustrating because I have ratchet tendencies (laughing). If you take me there, for instance about my son, or my family, you’ll see the turn up. I’ve been taught to be classy. I am human though, and don’t always know how to turn the other cheek, but I try to be pretty chill. I plan on doing reality TV again, maybe if I have creative control.

U.G. Digital Mag: I would love to see it. The last time we spoke, we talked a lot about your foundation. I would love to see more about that.

Meelah Williams: Thank you! Yes. That was the other thing with my story line on R&B Divas. We touched on it, and I guess that was the basis of it, but I wanted to focus more on that. Moving forward, there have been some ideas out there. I’ve been approached, being an autism mom.

U.G. Digital Mag: There’s so many people who deal with it [autism], but you touch a lot of people with your story and they really benefit from it.

Meelah Williams: It needs to be talked about more. I respect everyone’s wishes because I too wasn’t sure in the beginning if I wanted to put it out there. It’s definitely private and personal. They have that right, but those of us who do want to talk, I think we should. A lot of parents don’t know how to handle it. It’s not an easy thing or a walk in the park. There’s several levels, even mild levels. It’s challenging, but life has challenges. I think it would be cool in the African Amercian community to touch on it, even with mental illness. We don’t touch on it much. We just sweep it under the rug. Unfortunately, where there’s no communication, other issues arise. It’s like, this could be prevented if we just talk about it.

U.G. Digital Mag: Can you talk about other things you’re working on or have coming up?

Meelah Williams: I actually just signed a record deal with Soulstar / E1 music. This will be my solo debut album. It feels like I’ve been doing solo music for a while and I’ve had singles here and there, but this will be my first body of work.

U.G. Digital Mag: Knowing of Soulstar, and your music, you’re in the perfect place. They can really get it out there.

Meelah Williams: Thank you so much. It’s a good feeling to be in this space with complete and creative control. I can zone out and figure out what I want to do sonically. A lot of people still don’t know who I am. It feels good to create a project that is all me. I just started recording a few weeks ago, so I’m in the very beginning stages. I’m not rushing it, but it may be around late summer or the end of 2017. I’m looking for a super successful album. It’s still so premature that I don’t even have a title yet.

U.G. Digital Mag: People like myself, and your entire fanbase, knowing you have something coming, it’s more than enough for us. You gave us “Give It to You” a few years ago, and then it was like OK, we’re waiting.

Meelah Williams: I know. I was kinda teasing y’all a bit (laughing), with Stupid in love, a great single written by TC, but I just do a little bit to hold y’all over (laughing).

U.G. Digital Mag: Well we’re waiting patiently [laughing]. How can everyone keep up with you online?

Meelah Williams: All my social media handles are @ItsMeelah for Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. It’s the same for my website [www.itsmeelah.com], but I’m revamping everything. I’m under new management, with a new label, new "er’thang (laughing). I don’t have a snapchat, and don’t y’all come for me (laughing). I think I’m the only one in the world who don’t have one.

U.G. Digital Mag: I’ll keep it real with you. I can’t get with it [Snapchat]. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing [laughing].

Meelah Williams: We’re neck and neck. I’m already giving y’all all of me in three other places, what more do you want? [laughing]

U.G. Digital Mag: It’s crazy. I can’t figure it out, but my ten year old has it down to a science.

Meelah Williams: At least Instagram tried to help us out. It’s all inclusive there. Y’all wanna see what’s up with me, follow me on Instagram. I also recently added a camera crew to my team, so I’ll be in the studio today, and you’ll see some things on my YouTube channel, eventually maybe even a webisode.

U.G. Digital Mag: People look forward to it. Thank you again, so much for today, for our first issue, and everything.

Meelah Williams: I’m so happy I was able to help.

#Meelah Williams #Strength of Love #Baz Brothers

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