What are you listening to now? : Non-metal Edition
The Magnolia Electric Co. - "The Magnolia Electric Co." (2003)
The debut album from this Buffalo-based project fronted by Jason Molina of Songs: Ohia fame. It takes an alternative/country rock sound & has some truly devastating song-writing on it. It's not all gold but there's easily enough quality & integrity in this release to warrant repeat listens from this ol' metalhead with the highlights shining like a beacon. A really enjoyable change of scenery.
I think you might really dig this Xephyr.
New Order - "Technique" (1989)
The Manchester alternative dance gods' highly acclaimed fifth album used to get played at messy early morning after parties all the time back when I was a DJ in the 2000's. It sounds pretty dated these days & is probably a little too jangly & uplifting for my taste too. Still... undoubtedly a very important record for the dance scene at the time.
Orbital - 30 Something (2022)
Like me a bit of Orbital every now and again so happy to have found (another) compilation of remixed tracks this morning to compliment the sunny weather. Lots of errands to run in the car today and now I have Spotify back working on my phone again I will be listening to this most of the afternoon.
Haha, I've heard of RuneScape but not played it. In fact, I tend to stay away from MMORPGs due to my obsessive personality (I prefer to devote my obsessive tendencies to Metal Academy). I think the clan and clan symbols we've created could be applied to lots of games, including Warhammer. Undead would be The North. Demons The Horde. Robots The Sphere. etc. Although you could argue that the Elves and the Undead should both belong to The North.
Actually, I've not told anyone this yet, but I based a lot of my design for this site on the Magic the Gathering card game. I started by trying to attach metal genres to the five colors of magic (below), but soon realised that it was impossible to snugly fit them into five clumps. I even dabbled with the idea of having clans and sub-clans, but that quickly became too complicated. You have no idea how long it took Daniel and I to agree on the clans the way they are. I'm pretty happy with them, particularly as no-one has questioned our decisions. The only thing that bothers me is that The Gateway, The Sphere and The Revolution are extremely difficult to attract new members for. There are a few obvious reasons for that, but I don't think the site would have worked if we just started throwing the likes of Metalcore, Industrial Metal and Alternative Metal into other clans. Hopefully we find some passionate fans of those styles of music.
I thought about the idea of assigning magic elements to the clans last night. I'm kinda of a graphic design nerd myself, and much of that was influenced by the Pokemon type symbols in the card game.
The Fallen: Darkness
The Gateway: Water (mostly thinking along the color)
The Guardians: Light
The Horde: Earth
The Infinite: Space
The North: Forest
The Pit: Fire
The Revolution: Wind
The Sphere: Thunder
I deliberately left out a "metal" element for obvious reasons. Besides, this is a second draft and I'm not sure I'm happy with it, but that's a whole different discussion.
As for my non-metal album: Will the Circle Be Unbroken by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, 105 minutes of bluegrass music.
Lil Data - "Folder Dot Zip" (2019)
Experimental electronica/IDM from Iceland. It seems to often be labelled as "algorave" which refers to electronic dance music where the producer gradually changes the sounds using random software changes & this results in a pretty chaotic outcome that doesn't appeal to me much. I mean I love my dance music but a big part of that is the controlled & structured changing of the musical landscape over time which enables you to get into a groove over a long period. This style doesn't ever allow me to get comfortable & there's nothing physical happening to my body as there's no consistent beat or themes. I struggle to think of who this music is tailored towards really. Is algorave really anyone's favourite style of music? I doubt it very much.
Tyshawn Sorey - "Pillars" (2018)
A 230 minute epic three disk set of randomly performed CD-length conducted improvisation pieces that offers a few nice deep & minimal moments but ultimately make very little creative sense so it gets pretty bored very quickly.
Various Artists - "Tuva, Among the Spirits: Sound, Music and Nature in Sakha and Tuva" (1999)
A nature recordings compilation that had its moments but ended up being a bit dull.
I found myself on an Embryo binge today, since I'm in need of a bit more jazz fusion.
Ichiko Aoba - "0" (2013)
Chilled-out Japanese contempary folk with super-sweet female vocals. It was well up to the task on a lazy Saturday afternoon.
Viktor Vaughn - "Vaudeville Villain" (2003)
If you dig 90's hip hop with great flow like Wu Tang Clan or GZA/Genius then this beautifully produced East Coast record from MF DOOM should be right up your alley. The beats are fantastic & the song-writing is really consistent.
Coil - "Horse Rotorvator" (1986)
Highly-regarded industrial music from London with all sorts of influences floating around from Kraftwerk to Nick Cave to Dead Can Dance to new wave. It's definitely a case of art over substance at times but it's certainly an intriguing listen.
An outside-world friend of mine showed me this song. It's not metal but it's really kick-A:
Pixies should never be something that interests me in theory but I think I was programmed to enjoy "Doolittle" after being force fed it by a mate during high school. Now I find that whenever I revisit it I get into it more & more. I've even been known to do a laid back acoustic cover version of "Silver" at parties. I'll go with a 3.5/5.
The story of my musical life. My top 100 even had a drone album at one point, and I hate most drone.
Right now I'm on a very rare blues binge. Yesterday pretty much all I listened to was classic Piedmont era artists like Big Joe Williams and Sonny Terry. I'm planning on some Howlin' Wolf today.
Black Claw - Alone in a Dying World (2021)
Black Claw play, in their own words, dark and dirty death country and that pretty much sums them up perfectly. I loved their previous album, Thieving Bones and even managed to track down and buy a CD copy from Russian label Der Schwarze Tod. There is a real sinister atmosphere to their bluegrass-derived country tales of horror and Reverend Black Claw has a genuinely disturbing growl. This seems like the sort of album that Leatherface and his family from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre might have made whilst ripped to shit on moonshine. I don't know if blackened bluegrass is a thing but it damn well should be!
4/5
Here's the opening track f you're intrigued as to what they sound like:
For a country album that is a VERY metal album cover.
The second of the four Mississippi John Hurt studio albums, and based on what people say, the worst. I wanna like the Piedmont stuff, but most of the artists play a bunch of songs that sound the same, and it gets tiring. So far, the best I've heard is Roustabout by Charlie Parr and I just scratched the surfact of Piedmont blues.
Robin Roelofs - Fulfillment
Genres: Pop Rock, Power Pop, Acoustic Rock
I'm currently focusing on both blues and artists I've checked out once or twice but haven't thoroughly explored, so indie artist Robin Roelofs is next. He's got a lot of self-released albums. He kinda reminds me of Billy Cobb, but with less self-parody. So far this one's pretty good. He slightly rings of different stuff, blues, Springsteen, a dash of Weezer, but he's got his own strong personality. There aren't any really any standouts and the lyrics aren't that new, but it's a consistently fine piece with a lot of decent songs. 7/10.
Sons of Kemet - "Your Queen Is A Reptile" (2018)
The third album from this London-based afrojazz outfit & I don't mind it. There are certainly some tracks that I enjoy more than others but when they hit on something great they really capitalize on it with some wonderfully intuitive group collaboration. It certainly made for a worthy accompaniment to cleaning the house & playing with the kids this morning.
"The Threepenny Opera [Off-Broadway Revival Cast]" soundtrack (1954)
Another one for playing with the kids. Didn't interest me much but the kids seems to find old musical soundtracks fairly calming which can only be a good thing when my six-year old daughter is quite sick.
Big fan of the Sons of Kehmet album, I definitely need to go back to that one. It was brought up in an album-club type thing a few years ago and I got a ton of listens out of it; it hit the right spot for someone who doesn't listen to too much jazz overall. I think the only problem with the album's full runtime is that a few tracks feel derivative of others, but like you said it's still a great time.
La Lupe - Two Sides of La Lupe
I had a sudden urge to listen to obscure Latin soul. No joke.
Cusco - "Apurimac" (1988)
I thought we'd go for some soothing Andean new age music for our family picnic in the park. Little did I know just how cheesy it could get though. This fairly well known release (from a German artist strangely enough) is nothing short of fucking awful!
Elvis Costello with Burt Bacharach - "Painted From Memory" (1998)
Some really smooth adult contemporary pop music that's gone down very well for a cool Saturday morning house cleaning session.
I didn't realize Michael Chapman died last year.
The Flaming Lips - "The Soft Bulletin" (1999)
Some poppy neo-psychedelia to keep me interested while I play with the kids & do some housework on my Sunday morning. It's not really my thing as it's a little too quirky & happy for my taste & is more of a pleasant background distraction than being genuinely engaging but fans of this sort of thing will no doubt love the shit out of it.
For fans of MGMT, Dorgas & Animal Collective.