I feel like a bit of a scrub having listened to so little new music this year, but I'm still banking on Perdurance and The Glowing Man being up there by year's end.
I like Skepta, Chance is interesting, Aesop is always a good time, and I really want to educate myself about J Dilla, so they're all on the list. I've also been meaning to listen to the new Ehnahre for months and months, among a number of other recent releases I have queued on my iPod for assessment.
Slow is by Starflyer 59. Unless someone else I don't know about also put out an album by that title.
It'll probably be my personal album of the year, but that's to be expected since they're my overall favorite musician, and it's been three years since their last album, and this is probably their most creative thing since 2008 or so (I don't feel like looking up when Ghosts of the Past and Dial M came out).
So I just listened to The Drones' Feelin' Kinda Free and, my god, it's fantastic.
For one thing, it answers my open question of what a post-punk revival fueled by This Heat would sound like, but it does so by preserving that band's consummate originality, knack for hooks, and above all, their matching their bold, radical sounds with bold, radical politics. This is a very smart, angry record on so many levels and I fucking love it to bits, just on the first listen.
You see they're called the Drones because actually it is you, the listener who are the drone. You listen to this music and it makes you explode from rage, adn makes you rebel atainst the capitalism mega-system that is our daily lives.
Jane, are stepping on my enthusiasm intentionally or what?
This is a really good record, and I think that (outside of hip-hop, funnily enough) genuinely good political music is really hard to find, so I'm psyched when I do. And This Heat are one of my favourite bands of all time, so the similarities are kind of a big deal for me.
That doesn't matter. I've been up all night because of stressful reasons and also a terrible sleep cycle and I don't appreciate the whole implicit making fun of an earnest expression of enjoyment of a thing I enjoyed. OK? :/
Omara Portuondo and Eliades Ochoa (Cuban musicians, some of the few surviving members of Buena Vista Social Club) are playing a show here in SA tonight. I'm looking forward to it.
The show was amazing. Eliades started it off, and he was backed by percussion, maracas, bass, piano, and two trumpets. They played a good variety of styles and plenty of instrumental solos without becoming overwhelming. Then Omara came on, and she and Eliades performed one duet together. Then Eliades stepped off and Omara's backing band (piano, bass, drums, percussion) stepped in. Omara's set was... I don't know if it was faster, but it was definitely more intense, overall. The pianist got to show off a little bit more, and he killed it. The crowd ate it all up—this was in a concert hall, but they still spent more of Omara's set dancing in place than sitting down. Then Eliades and his backing band came back on, and all the musicians played on the last few songs.
I'm impressed that they only played two Buena Vista Social Club tracks all night, and the rest of the show was material from their solo careers. And holy carp, it's been nearly 20 years since that album came out.
I feel like I get what my problem with Hans Zimmer is now.
I can't really remember what most of his songs sound like, to be honest. They try hard to be epic and sweeping in scale, but don't focus at all on memorability. I can hum the Elfman Batman theme on a whim, but I only remember the Dark Knight theme because of some montage parody.
I feel like I get what my problem with Hans Zimmer is now.
I can't really remember what most of his songs sound like, to be honest. They try hard to be epic and sweeping in scale, but don't focus at all on memorability. I can hum the Elfman Batman theme on a whim, but I only remember the Dark Knight theme because of some montage parody.
I haven't watched that review in over a year, but I think that the bulk of his argument is that most of the people bitching about how Lou Reed sounds on the album have zero familiarity with his most recent work and are consequently judging it from the wrong perspective; and that the actual *playing* on the album is better than anything Metallica had done in years at that point. Which are fair, I think.
most of the bitching wasn't about Lou, it was about how hilariously unsuited Lou's lyrics are to Hetfield's voice/delivery.
also the drums sound like Lars was just kinda jamming aimlessly, and the guitars seem to exist just so support the vocals. which would be fine i guess, if it werent for the problems outlined in the first point here.
Listening to the album, it's really obvious what happened: Lou wanted crazy-intense, crushing guitar and drum work to underpin this album idea he had, and he had enough clout that he could get whoever he wanted for the project, so rather than grab some session musicians or whatever, he just grabbed the biggest band name possible, even though when you get down to it Metallica really couldn't effectively deliver what he wanted at all, because what was asked of them was so far outside of their wheelhouse. Sure, it pushed their boundaries, but this really isn't somewhere anyone wanted Metallica's boundaries to be pushed to
...you know who would have been good people to tap for Lulu? Stephen O'Malley and Balázs Pándi.
Honestly, I still haven't gotten around to listening to it myself, beyond a few fragments here and there which weren't anywhere near so shockingly bad as I was lead to believe, bad production aside. But I believe you, and I am curious as to what would've happened had Reed gone with a more suitable set of players, particularly given what he'd been able to do with other configurations of truly strange musicians (The Raven and so forth).
thats the thing you dont think it's shockingly bad, and then Hetfield busts in and belts out SMALL TOWN GIIIIRRRRRLLLLL and you are unable to think of anything other than Metallica's rendition of Whiskey in the Jar and you just are utterly incapable of taking any of it seriously
I don't think Fantano was addressing the metal crowd so much as the obnoxious wannabe hip indie crowd, who I recall did indeed whinge quite a bit about Lou's voice and performances.
(To whom I reply, "Have you heard a single Lou Reed album later than New York? Later than Growing Up in Public? How about Coney Island Baby? God, have you even heard Coney Island Baby? God.")
On that note: I need to listen to more Lou Reed in general. The man was a really interesting songwriter and I just haven't really given enough of his material a proper listen in a long, long time.
So, I'm listening to Alchemist's Jar of Kingdom, and I'm thinking, "Hey, the ideas and the playing here are great, but the mixing is kind of shitty," and I don't remember what I've heard from the album sounding this muddy and unbalanced in retrospect but I'm not sure. So I look up a review of the album, and at the end there's a note that the original master of the album from 1993 is fairly rare, but that's not such a bad thing because the mixing is lousy and the band completely remastered it five years later.
Alchemist were (are?) an Australian avant-garde psychedelic/progressive death metal band. They're... difficult to describe.
Like, right now there's a distorted bassline, a blast beat, really fast acoustic strumming, and what might be a banjo, and that's given into a breakdown with slow phased fingerpicking on said banjo and wacky spoken word.
Comments
Frank's album is out on Friday. At fucking last.
And, impressively, I only recognise maybe a third of those artists.
For one thing, it answers my open question of what a post-punk revival fueled by This Heat would sound like, but it does so by preserving that band's consummate originality, knack for hooks, and above all, their matching their bold, radical sounds with bold, radical politics. This is a very smart, angry record on so many levels and I fucking love it to bits, just on the first listen.
Jane, are stepping on my enthusiasm intentionally or what?
This is a really good record, and I think that (outside of hip-hop, funnily enough) genuinely good political music is really hard to find, so I'm psyched when I do. And This Heat are one of my favourite bands of all time, so the similarities are kind of a big deal for me.
I'm just being cranky and I was trying to use this thread for its intended purpose and then jokes and I don't know how to process that.
Anyway they don't sound like my thing (mixed to negative on political music), but something I'd be appreciating it for what it is and how it works.
also the drums sound like Lars was just kinda jamming aimlessly, and the guitars seem to exist just so support the vocals. which would be fine i guess, if it werent for the problems outlined in the first point here.
Listening to the album, it's really obvious what happened: Lou wanted crazy-intense, crushing guitar and drum work to underpin this album idea he had, and he had enough clout that he could get whoever he wanted for the project, so rather than grab some session musicians or whatever, he just grabbed the biggest band name possible, even though when you get down to it Metallica really couldn't effectively deliver what he wanted at all, because what was asked of them was so far outside of their wheelhouse. Sure, it pushed their boundaries, but this really isn't somewhere anyone wanted Metallica's boundaries to be pushed to
...you know who would have been good people to tap for Lulu? Stephen O'Malley and Balázs Pándi.
metal people are generally used to craggy-sounding speak-singing
(To whom I reply, "Have you heard a single Lou Reed album later than New York? Later than Growing Up in Public? How about Coney Island Baby? God, have you even heard Coney Island Baby? God.")
Guess what version I'd picked up? :D
Like, right now there's a distorted bassline, a blast beat, really fast acoustic strumming, and what might be a banjo, and that's given into a breakdown with slow phased fingerpicking on said banjo and wacky spoken word.