What are you listening to now? : Non-metal Edition

Armand Hammer - We Buy Diabetic Test Strips (2023)

Genres: Experimental Hip Hop, Abstract Hip Hop

This has got to be the most intriguing hip hop album I've ever heard so far, and I'm only six tracks in.  if this keeps up, it'll be a shoe-in for my list of 500 perfect albums.  Having said that, I still wouldn't put it anywhere near as high as Exmilitary, but maybe in the same league as The Money Store.  The weird thing is that despite having the same general song lengths as the Harem, the songs on this album don't feel too short, probably because there's more to this songs in their short runtimes whereas Harem should've been stretched out some more for the atmospheres to live up to their full potential.  I guess the songs here are just generally living up to that potential in such short times.  Not always, but mostly.  Trauma Mic deserves another minute.

Gil Scott-Heron - Relfections

Genres: Soul, Soul Jazz

I need some more soul and jazz in my top 1000.  A fifth of it is metal, so I've been looking for albums that are gonna blow me away.  I already tried a jazz album by Andrew Hil and the fourth DIM release and neither made the cut.  In fact, 8/10 is very underwhelming when I'm looking to improve a top 1000 of 9.6's or higher.  Finally I was getting impatient and started a couple of albums that were dragging on until I came across this.  Storm Music is a pop reggae soul hybrid with a lot of authenticity and spirit, but Grandma's Hands is just owning the intro with its unique and spiritual atmospheres that are unlike anything soul's given me.  Right now I'm on the third track, Is That Jazz.  The evolution of this album's "sound" is challenging and never fully consistent, but Gil's persona brings it together as he's known for being extremely eclectic.  I've already given perfect ratings to Pieces of a Man and his live album with Brian Johnson.  I guess this is Gil's attempt at saying "I can do anything," and for the most part, he's succeeding.  Even if the sons aren't always brilliant, he's making up for it in successful variety.  After this I think I'll head towards more Terry Callier.

I've had quite the busy day for albums.

Joni Mitchell - Hejira: 90

McCoy Tyner - Enlightenment: 96

Tim Buckley - Goodbye and Hello: 99

Revisted Testament - The Legacy: 96

And now to end the musical day with a long-needed replay of Trans Europe Express by Kraftwerk.

I'm gonna spend the day checking out 2024 albums and a few from Adrianne Lenker.  I've already checked out a few albums by her band Big Thief, so I might as well, considering RYM's going nuts over her new solo album.  Problem is, I'm not really fond of the genre tagging of her solos albums:

Contemporary Folk, Singer-Songwriter

Indie Folk

I've heard a million albums with this kind of genre tagging before, and the only two who ever amazed me with such a simple and east concept as a person with his/her guitar are Leonard Cohen and Michael Chapman.  Even Johnny Cash had to go into a little alternative rock territory with American IV to spice it up.  Even the Mountain Goats struggle to amaze me.  So I'm gonna check out a few of her albums first and then head to her 2024 album and EP and see if they live up to the hype.

Autechre - Chiastic Slide (1997)

Genres: IDM

I was taking inventory of my highest-rated artists on my log and found that I had only heard three Autechre albums, and one of them was pretty underhwelming.  It's time I got through some of the others.  Confield was a bit repetitive for my liking, and LP5 needed a little more mutation, so I'm really hoping one of these other albums gives me that creative burst I found with Tri Repetae.  The first song was a very glitchy and proggy piece which built itself on a balance between consistent vibe and mutation.  And this second track is a noisy drone two-minute piece that bears a similar effect to MBV's Touched when going through Loveless.  And this third track keeps the weird glitchy behavior going, but despite its speedy activity its BPM is slow and its backdrop is tame.  I'm heavily reminded of that awe-inspiring handling of electronic in OPN's Replica, but with a slight Kid A touch.

Moody Blues - To Our Children's Children's Children (1969)

Genres: Prog Pop, Prog Rock

This is an oddball for me.  In its foreground of poppy (and maybe even syrupy) simplicity and lushness, it's an unpredictable and astral collection of care and complexity masquerading as another pop rock album.  The atmosphere are obviously the focal point here, which allows the compositions to achieve a careful and slightly teetering balance between conventional and inventive, as if it's that ONE album that can appeal to both the radio and experimental markets.  It's so weird because every TECHNICAL flaw I can think of is justified by its opposer: the conventionality is justified by the experimentation and vice-versa.  Despite its love of poems and ballads, these ballads connect perfectly with faster-paced rockers, but it's so lush that it almost feels about as "rock" as a dream pop album.  The technical apsects of my brain are locked in place, trying to sort out what I just heard.  Every time I want to complain about something that doesn't feel fleshed out, I find a way to justify it.  Moody Blues may have created the perfect example of how to do a "pop" album right, how to keep it simple and complex at the same time with the finest balance between the two I've ever seen.  But before I assign a numerical rating, I'm gonna compare this to In Search of the Lost Chord.  I just need some time to flesh out my opinion and I'll need another example from Moody Blues to help.  The only thing I'm sure about is that it's not as good as Days of Future Passed.

Time to go back to some krautrock.

The Grateful Dead - Live Dead (1969)

Genres: Psych Rock, Jam Band

Years ago I spent three days in a row listening the the 2005 compilation album Fillmore West 1969: The Complete Recordings.  Some of the songs on Live Dead were there with a different mix and different track times, but I figured since I already heard five of the seven songs by technicality on Fillmore West 1969, it would be weird to technically go back to these tracks on a different album.  Nevertheless, as a music buff, it's the first live jam album by the world's foremost jam band, and the truth of the matter is that it's still a very different album for having a different mix and a different tracklist, so I'll get through it.  After this, I'll check out Grateful Dead's Europe 72.

Btw, while listening to that live Can album, I read a good third of a gift that my grandmother got me: Song of Kali by Dan Simmons.  I'm begging any metalheads here to make a psychedelic doom album out of it.

ONE MWOOOR THING!  I made my decision about that Moody Blues album.  98.5.  While I admire the balance between simplicity and complexity with slight teeters into each other, I felt like the more simple songs were still a little too simple, being a couple verses and choruses without a lot of imagination.  Even MJ had imagination.

Chelsea Wolfe - She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She

Genres: Darkwave, Post-Industrial

The album is like a combination of Portishead and Lingua Ignota, but the lack of a backing rhythm makes it feel emptier than a great album should, so 8/10.

Couple of punk bands have new albums this year: Alkaline Trio and Strung Out, so I'm gonna check them out before heading to the new Vampire Weekend.  They say this might be their best.

Gonna end my lengthy music binge today by checking out a few of the works of Roc Marciano, starting with his debut.  I'm not really into this one as much as RYM seems to be.  He's got decent beats with a strong urban vibe, but the songs don't really progress and kind of drag on.  On top of that, I don't think much of Roc's rhymes.

Sentries - Snow as a Metaphor for Death (2024)

Genres: Noise Rock, Post-Hardcore

I listened to their previous two EP's and their debut album before getting to this one.  So far, this is their best effort.  2024 has been a good year for new efforts by improving bands.  I also checked out works by Brittany Howard and Mannequin Pussy, and they're joining the collective here.  Even though these guys aren't making a super hardcore album, and it's kind of light in that regard, there's still an excess amount of ferocity here, like these guys overdosed on methylene blue.  There isn't a lot of genre diversity here in comparison to their last two albums, as the switches between punk, post-punk and rock are very tame.  But this is also an improvement over previous albums as the weirdness and inventiveness no longer messes with the flow, allowing the more creative aspect to be focused solely in the layouts.  So the overall effect is pretty solid, if not ever reaching great heights.

For anyone who's not part of the NUWRLD Mix Club, Deaths Dynamic Shroud has American Candy on YT right now.  I don't think it's gonna stay, so grab it before it goes away.

Beautiful stuff.  The whole thing is about slow, catchy atmospheres.  It's great music for relaxing and reading, or in my case writing.  Kinda like a mix between Tim Hecker and Flaming Lips.

Kali Uchis marathon today.  Isolation is blowing me away.  It's like a modern, atmospheric mix of Amy WInehouse and Caroline Polachek.

Kamasi Washington - Fearless Movement (2024)

Genres: Jazz Fusion, Spiritual Jazz

What in every fuck is happening?  Why is this year so insanely good?  Over the last week I found three albums from this year alone that completely bewildered me in their inventiveness, consistency and personality.  First was the new St. Vincent, which saw her going into alternative industrial and leaving behind the noisy indie pop for her first five-star, then Full of Hell reinvented grindcore for a testament to their already mighty abilities.  Then this bad motherfucker shows up in his magnificent garb and lowly bellows, "Stand aside, Butch."

Spiritual jazz and jazz fusion are my two favorite jazz forms, so I'm already convinced I'm gonna enjoy this.  The 85-minute runtime originally made me think it might be a little overong, but that only affected the two-and-a-half hour The Epic by a little bit.  This album overcame it by going into incredible new territory for spiritual jazz players and making it feel so natural through one strict and strong rule: Afro-Americana.  There are spiritual pieces with JAZZ RAP going on here, and it's not only surprising but fitting.  The whole album is like this, drawing me into different kinds off worlds with moods blasting from every corner, be them smooth soul-influenced slow walks down the urban streets, complex but catchy ascensions to heaven or even somewhat folksy journeys into space.

2024 is a crazy year.  Everybody's putting out albums that are all over the genre spectrum, which seriously risks a broken flow, and I'm aware of this an acknowledge it when it happens.  But the output this year is incredible so far, and right now Kamasi Washington's Fearless Movement has replaced the new St. Vincent for my AOTY.  God, this album did things to me with both modern and classic sounds that came together in the freshest and coolest ways.  Maybe if it were a little shorter (not that it wasn't already perfect), it would've dethroned Karma as my top spiritual jazz album, or even In a Silent Way for my top jazz album period.  I'm actually hoping Kamasi does this someday, although making an album more fresh and spiritual than this is going to be an intimiating challenge.

Gonna finish off the albuming tonight wwith another KW: Harmony of Difference.

Maybe if it were a little shorter (not that it wasn't already perfect), it would've dethroned Karma as my top spiritual jazz album, or even In a Silent Way for my top jazz album period.

Quoted Rexorcist

For the record, "In A Silent Way" is my favourite release of all time for any genre... period.

For the record, "In A Silent Way" is my favourite release of all time for any genre... period.

DAMN, boy!  I never thought it would "have to be a metal album" or anything, since my number one isn't metal either, but I'm happy to hear it's In a Silent Way.

Bram Stoker's Dracula - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1992)

This was a birthday gift from my appropriately named cats Vlad and Mina.  Each year , my wife challenges herself to buy me one vinyl record that she thinks I will like. Before now I have ended up with Asphyx records, ambient Nordic albums and now a movie soundtrack.  She has been spot on with each release and this one keeps her golden run going.  Dramatic and theatrical with a constant sense of underlying tension and darkness.  Might get round to watching the movie at some point.

Just now saw this post.  Have you seen the movie yet?  It's one of my personal favorites, Reeves aside.

wdym Reeves aside, that's honestly one of the reasons to watch the movie imo

Bram Stoker's Dracula - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1992)

This was a birthday gift from my appropriately named cats Vlad and Mina.  Each year , my wife challenges herself to buy me one vinyl record that she thinks I will like. Before now I have ended up with Asphyx records, ambient Nordic albums and now a movie soundtrack.  She has been spot on with each release and this one keeps her golden run going.  Dramatic and theatrical with a constant sense of underlying tension and darkness.  Might get round to watching the movie at some point.

Just now saw this post.  Have you seen the movie yet?  It's one of my personal favorites, Reeves aside.

I'm gonna review a really weird album today.  And I'll explain why in the first paragraph.

Pizzamachine - Pizza Ex Machina

Genres: Trap Rap, Crunkcore, Electronic

Secondaries: Industrial Hip Hop, Trap Metal, Abstract Hip Hop, Electroclash, Techno

I do not like crunkcore, I do not like trap rap, I do not like cloud rap, and I do not like electroclash.  I like industrial, I like hardcore hip hop and to an extent I like abstract hip hop and techno.  Bits and pieces of all of these make up this surprisingly beat-driven experiment in arguably the worst music genre in existence (based on common ratings): crunkcore.  I mean, it's hard to take a guy called "Pizzamachine" seriously, right?  But I was curious about the modern state of crunkcore and decided to check if anyone was doing it in 2024.  RYM chart, 2024, crunkcore, found his albums had a few five-star ratings.  So my first thought is, "That's probably because the artist or artists rated it themselves.  But, there's a chance it'll be good."  With the exception of drugs, I don't knock things until I try them.

But yeah, I checked the raters, and pizzamachine's been giving his own stuff five-stars.  I didn't even publicly rate my own novel when I published it.  I consider that cheating.

These beats actually make me FEEL.  There's a deeper core here than what's expected from 99% of crunk, and with this robotic and industrial sound getting into some properly clunky and unexpected places, it gives me the feeling of a robot desperate to know if it has a soul.  Even when it goes into weird, somewhat humorous lyrics such as on its title track, the rhythms work and the instrumentation is legit amazing.  I found myself deeply intrigued by what this guy was doing.  Maybe he's just making fun of pizza, and maybe it's a deep metaphor for something.  Wouldn't doubt if it was both at once, considering how amazing the beats were.  Even more simple songs which are largely made up of a noisy beat and lyrics have a tendency to progress the emotional core of the song.  And even the screams feel professional.  Screams in hip hop generally don't work in the long run, but the screams here came the same devastation you'd find in an extreme metal album, and they're mostly used as an atmospheric background instrument rather than a prime focus, allowing the soul to bear the same level of focus as the instrumentation.

Now allow me to overreact a little.  The songs don't all share the same damn tempo and vibe.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to find trap albums that don't do that?  Even good ones?  Trap rap is a genre I use to fill my "worst album" lists.  This album is all about creativity, and this album replicates that, especially when songs next to each other having the same tempo feel like two very different siblings in the same family.  I mean, we get vibes of Denzel Curry and Kraftwerk here.  There's even a straight-up techno song 20 minutes in.

This is the first time I've ever been flat-out intrigued by crunk of any kind.  I normally listen to crunkcore to fill up worst lists just like trap, but this album is justification for both of those genres.  This experiment could've been an absolute mess of the worst influences ever, and it ended up being soulful, consistent and addicting.  Kinda like when I tried Alani's Cosmic Stardust, I thought it would either be a sugarfest like the crappy Space Coca-Cola or surprisingly good.  Like Alani, Pizza ex Machina is no sugarfest.  It's all taste.  I don't think I want to just slap a perfect rating on it yet, though.  I need to hear some other albums by this guy first.  But it's safe to say that this album meets a great deal of my standards for perfection.

I always knew somebody might end up making a great crunkcore album someday, I just didn't know it had been done yet.

Pizzamachine - Sorry Haterz

Genre: Crunkcore

I decided to go all the way back to this guy's debut (like four albums but one year ago) right after being astounded by his album Pizza ex Machina.

This is obviously a parody of this specific type of music, not the kind of thing you listen to on a regular basis.  The comedic lyrics are simply just talking about wanting ice cream.  It might be an innuendo, but nothing "sexy" seems to happen other than just the title, Ice Cream Slut, which means the guy's just making fun of crunkcore.  The next track: crunkcore revival, showcases a use of synthwave beats and blasts of noise to create an actual atmosphere, and it's actually a decent jam.  Not a lot of swear words, either, which means Pizzamachine is aware that the overuse of vulgarities killed the genre.  That's why he makes fun of the overuse of the f-word by making that the focus of the next song, while still having a slick and groovy electronic beat behind him.

Unfortunately, the fact that these songs attack crunkcore simplicity by commenting on it is also part of its downfall.  The album might be "using" the flaws artistically, but that still means the flaws are there to a noticeable extent.  The beats might be well done, but the rhythms and lyrics never once amaze me.  On top of that, unlike the album I just reviewed, most of these songs are the same tempo and sometimes the same vibe.  Eventually the album bored me.

Well, better than standard stuff, but still kinda lame.

51/100

Beyonce - Renaissance (2022)

Genres: Dance-Pop, House, Contemporary R&B

it's so weird how much she's grown as an artist since her Destiny's Child days.  it's like The Flaming Lips in the sense that their heyday came way later.  Beyonce knows how to stay relevant and how to grow as an artist.  Renaissance is basically a testament to everything she's tackled before but with a freakishly consistent vibe.  The album takes little bits of various genres and maintains a very cool presence by allowing the instruments in each song to be both complex and yet not so melodic.  The melody is handled by Beyonce and the backing vocalists 80% of the time, and it always works well-enough.  Although, if you're addicted to melody, you might find an occasionally empty feeling if the technicality doesn't impress you.  But boy does the presence of this album assault you.   In fact, I'd even say that All Up in Your Mind, in its two-minute fifty-second runtime, is one of the best things Beyonce has ever done, and it wasn't even a single.

So far, this is Beyonce's strongest studio album, still falling second to her live album, Homecoming.  The unexpected switch to house allowed her to maximize her experience, even if this is a little overlong, I found myself placing it in the high 97's on my chart.

So the world's going crazy over this new K-pop album called Dall by ARTMS.  I don't discriminate, and they've only got the one album, so what the hell, right?  As far as K-Pop goes, its exact genre is more than standard.  It's made up of all the same elements of thopse before them: dance-pop and con-R&B switching, synthpop, electropop, alt-pop and future bass.  Nothing special, right?

Wrong.  These ladies' voices go fantastically together.  Their harmonics are out of this world.  On top of that, the songs are uber catchy, have memorable melodies and each song feels a little different.  I'd even go as fare as to say that Candy Crush feel's like a very artistic take on your average vaporwave EP, and it fits.  Some of these songs just make you wanna jump up while others are smoother than raspberry chocolate mousse.  If it weren't for the fact that the genre choices are uber-standard, I'd give it a ten.  But right now, I'm having difficulty deciding if it's a 9.0 like Last in Line or a 9.5 like Holy Diver.

Deadmau5 - Random Album Title (2008)

Genres: Prog House, Tech House

This is where I'm getting serious about exploring house.  Deadmau5 is a seriously popular name in the genre, and apparently he pioneered a sound or two everyone wanted to emulate.  I hoped this album lived up to the hype because I heard some very mixed things about Deadmau5.  His debut, Get Scraped, was a pretty cool one that proved that Deadmau5 knew how to work around various genres while maintaining a consistent flow, with genres including house, techno, IDM, breakbeat and a little trance.  Unfortunately, his second album, Vexillology, through ALL OF THAT out the window and was just a bunch of repetitive and empty house tracks with some interesting beats.  This third album is considered one of his big ones, so I was gripping the idea that it would be his best like a vengeful maniac squeezing another man's crotch.

Now we start off with a couple of decent tracks that go hand in hand, an opener and a follow up.  I have to say that I didn't really care for the way the follow-up copied the previous track's sound at first, but after thirty seconds, new effects and a heart monitor sample or two made it more like a sequel song than anything, justifying the decision.  But the album gets good on track 3, Slip, where its poppy but experimental riff screws with the 4x4 tempo of the beats to create a poppier brand of Trout mask Replica appeal.  Sure, it's repetitive.  But the sci-fi expands into more Vangelis-style and video game territory with Some Kind of Blue, which both slams and relaxes with its complex and eclectic approach to house simplicity.  So I'm sitting here on track four thinking, "This album's getting a little better with each track.  Please tell me it keeps doing that."

Next is Brazil (2nd Edit), which rings of the ibiza trance sounds of acts like Chicane while still remaining a Deadmau5 song.  its rhythm is both repetitive and complex, and the atmospheres are quite pretty.  So after five tracks, its progression as a continuous tempo seemed to be justified at the time.  But in the case of Alone with You, it started out cute and pretty with a nice charm to it, but it's not the kind of song that needs to last seven minutes doing it.  It should've just been four.  And after that came the popular one from the album and a staple of his career, "I Remember."  This one's more trance-oriented, and is the first to include singing.  It had an extremely simple beat and some pretty singing, and that was it for the first two minutes when I thought to myself, "this better pick up soon or I'm gonna be really disappointed."  And before I knew it, I was HALFWAY DONE WITH THE SONG.  The song pretty much lasted that way throughout the whole nine minutes, which spelled bad omens for when I realized it might be the same with Strobe.  EDM or not, creativity is practically a virtue to me.  The album has plenty of consistency, but without creativity as well, it's not gonna get super high points from me.

The next two tracks are a short orchestral variation and a normal variation of "Faxing Berlin," which somehow manages to be repetitive and unimaginitive at two minutes each.  This hinted to me that the meat of the album was spent.  "Not Exactly" spent a full minute out of eight just going about a simple beat before finally going to some new rhythmic sounds, still largely relying on playing the same sound over and over again four times a second.

The variations are often really slow-moving and add very little that hasn't already been heard on the album.  Was I really supposed to sit through all eight minutes of that?  Thankfully, "Arguru" was able to come in and save the day.  The main riffs were experimental, and various sounds and techniques were utilized to keep it a pretty strong track throughout.  It's trance-like, techno-like and purely Deadmau5 all at the same time.  Might be my favorite track on the album.  And finally, the deciding factor: "So There I Was."  Started typically with a noirish feel and more lacking melodies, so I was forced right back into Vexillology.  Two minutes in it starts to play with a hypnotic rhythm a little, and it certainly makes things better by adding a little glitter to this noirish track, but that's only for a little bit.  Otherwise, it's another repetitive song.

Final consensus: it's got more creativity than Vexillology in the first half, but it steers back into typical house territory in the second.  This big giant is alright, but nothing compared to the debut.

67 / 100