24 March 2023
- And Also The Trees - Virus Meadow
- And Also The Trees - The Millpond Years
23 March 2023
- Pete Namlook - Silence III
22 March 2023
- Slim - Slim 0097
- "Idyll"
- YS - Perfumed Garden
- "Secret Isle"
21 March 2023
- The Church - After Everything Now This
- See?
- "Chromium"
- The Church - Persia
- "Volumes"
- The Church - Pangaea
19 March 2023
- Bill Laswell and Tetsu Inoue - Cymatic Scan
18 March 2023
- Lull - Cold Summer
- Chi - Chi
- Mathias Grassow - The Fragrance Of Eternal Roses
- 62 Eulengasse - 62 Eulengasse
- Tricky - Maxinquaye
- Metamatics - SpookTinselShoal
17 March 2023
- Another Fine Day - Life Before Land
16 March 2023
- Ditto - In Human Terms
- Kit Clayton - Nek Sanalet
- Never heard any of this aside from "Aspoket" (a track which I still can't decipher, though I came close this time. Something about mosquitoes?). Great example of non-traditional, off kilter dub techno with still some hints of that delay-rich goodness. Also, pretty cool that this guy is from Illinois!
- "Nuchu" (great, but wild choice for an opener)
- "Aspoket"
14 March 2023
- Robert Rich - Electric Ladder
- "Shadowline" (Love the e-bow)
- "Aquifer"
- "Never Alone"
- I was attracted to this for its similar cover art to Somnium and Perpetual.
- Hoshina Anniversary - Nihon No Ongaku
- I.F. - I.F. 2
13 March 2023
- RAMZi - Hyphea
- X.Y.R. - Pilgrimage
- I first listened to this in really late 2020, a few months after its release, but it made no impression on me. I like the type of ambient that takes cues form "world" music (i.e., vague mishmash or aboriginal music) but instead of repetitive conga thumping, it's this psychedelic bath of sound with many layers. This actually reminds me of Cluster's live performances, specifically their U.S. live album, and of course CHI. It has that spacious live recording atmosphere.
- Robert Rich - Electric Ladder
12 March 2023
- Cuushe - Waken
- Cabaret Voltaire - Dekadrone
11 March 2023
- Some of Starflyer 59 - Fell In Love At 22. Good B-sides, except for "Samson", which is one of my favorite rock songs ever.
- And Also the Trees - (Listen For) The Rag and Bone Man
- "A Man With A Drum"
- "The Beautiful Silence"
- Sunny Day Real Estate - How It Feels to Be Something On
10 March 2023
- Lull - Way Through Staring
- I had overlooked this on my original Mick Harris / isolationism phase, but it's as good as Cold Summer or Continue. I also fell asleep to Like A Slow River.
- Man, I need to start listening to isolationism again....
9 March 2023
- Minilogue - Blomma
- "Everything Is All You've Got"
- "Mellan Landet"
- "E de nan Hemma?"
- "Evaporerar ut fran sitt Gomstalle"
- Spring canon. Almost in league with the best stuff on the FAX label.
- Oneohtrix Point Never - Memory Vague
- Caboladies / Oneohtrix Point Never - Split
- cv313 - Plays Sequential Space
- I fell asleep about an hour into it, but it's more of the same...
- The Higher Intelligence Agency & Biosphere - Birmingham Frequencies
8 March 2023
- mu tate & X.Y.R. - Interior Music 011/012
- Minilogue - E de nan Hemma?
7 March 2023
- Charlemagne Palestine - Strumming Music
- Kemistry & Storm - DJ-Kicks
6 March 2023
- Rei Harakami - Unrest
- Susumu Yokota - Grinning Cat
- Roovel Oobik - Popsubterranea
- "Komik Kapital Kaput"
- "Finger On The Trigger, Transfigured"
5 March 2023
- Bare Minimum - Can't Cure The Nailbiters
- I've been seeing this album around RYM for a while, originally in TwiceStyle's ratings. It isn't very distinctive, kind of vanilla, but it has this subtle anxiety that I dig and isn't overly dramatic. It brings to mind Ewa Braun's Stereo, and like that album tends to ride along on its grooves without really saying anything. Even Jeremy Enigk's cameo flashes by without fanfare, folded into a bed of tense guitar strumming and bass that tone bend up and down uneasily. Between the longer, the quieter tracks - "Clanking", "Luchuk", and "6" - and the subdued ragers (set to Brian Speckman's best Billy Corgan impression) such as "Downing-Dolly" and "Your Bravo", the former are my picks.
4 March 2023
- The Church - Hologram of Baal
- "Great Machine"
- "Tranquility"
- I'm glad to see The Church matured. I really dig the space and waves of sound on tracks like the aforementioned, and "Glow Worm". I might end up doing a discog dive (post-Starfish).
- Perispirit & Brendan Murray - Untitled
- The Church - Bastard Universe
- The Church - Magician Among the Spirits
- "It Could Be Anyone"
3 March 2023
- Mick Karn - Titles
- Main - Haloform
- Big Black - Headache
- Contrary to my expectations, this was pretty accessible, almost fun. It's harsh, sure, but it's much more a traditional hard rock piece than I'd expect from an album packaged in a body bag, distributed with a poster of a man with his head sawed in half, and released by a band that is Big Black. But really, if you work past the power tools, they're a lovable, friendly, fun rock band down at heart.
2 March 2023
- Hovercraft - Akathisia
- Peter Christopherson - Time Machines II
- Schema - Schema
- Way noisier than I expected.
1 March 2023
- Casino Versus Japan - Casino Versus Japan
- It's funny how CVJ made this after discovering Boards of Canada, yet it barely sounds like BoC, but then his two subsequent albums, released two and four years later, are the ones that got panned by some reviewers as BoC clones. It's amorphous blurs of what is barely recognizable as techno; the synths are there, the beats are there, the occasional sample is there, but they fall in and out at random, barely harmonizing and following any path. If an album of techno tracks were a finished puzzle, this is just after the pieces were poured out of the box and spread on the table.
- Minutemen - The Punch Line
- First full Minutemen release for me (I actually listened to fIREHOSE a few months ago). Now I realize how much of an immediate inspiration these guys must have been on those mid-'80s SST fellows and Homestead acts. Those skittering, nervous ones that traded in hardcore menace for country twang and whimsy.
- The Supreme Dicks - The Unexamined Life
- Intense, smoldering, weird
- "The Forest Song Or Especially When The October Wind With Frosty Fingers, Punishes My Hair"
28 February 2023
- Bark Psychosis - Scum
- Nth listen and now recognizing the beauty of the guitars. Before it was the bass and drums, specifically the awkward drum beat closing out the last ~6 minutes of the piece, now hearing that euphoric outro for the complete change in mood the shimmering wall of guitars create. Now reading about plants that have cells with sharp crystals that plunge into the mucosa of any beast that comes along and tries to eat them. Plants, too, that have microscopic needles attached to microscopic hairs on their leaves which spike the skin and inject it with a cocktail of irritants that produces simultaneous burning and itching sensations.
26 February 2023
- Robert Hood - Nighttime World Vol. 2
- "Still"
- "After Hours"
25 February 2023
- Shame - Food For Worms
- Rei Harakami - [lust], again!
- "Grief & Loss"
- "After Joy"
- "First Period"
- "Lust"
- Tortoise - TNT
- "Swung From The Gutters"
- "In Sarah, Mencken, Christ and Beethoven There Were Men And Women"
- "Jetty"
- "TNT"
- Alpha - Come From Heaven
24 February 2023
- Casino Versus Japan - Go Hawaii
- "It's Very Sunny"
- "Local Forecast"
- "Late For School"
- More Yo La Tengo miscellanea. Some track off of Popular Songs, including the phenomenal last three. "The Fireside" is so soothing. Awkward sequencing on that album, huh? Duration-wise, I mean.
- Rei Harakami - [lust]
21 February 2023
- Revisiting Caustic Window and some of ...I Care Because You Do.
- Parts of Yo La Tengo - From A Motel 6 EP and Pram's North Pole Radio Station.
20 February 2023
- Over the past few days of my involuntary computer holiday, I enjoyed going through my "outro" playlist (a playlist of tracks I find relaxing for their lengthy instrumental and/or repetitive outros), some stuff I haven't heard in years, a bit of Plone's For Beginner Piano, and some of my old favorites. I've been on a really big slacker/indie rock kick lately. Spring is coming, so I'll probably be in the mood for Boards of Canada and assorted downtempo soon. Maybe some Ozric Tentacles, who knows. Maybe I'll relisten to that Casino Versus Japan album...
- Matrix - Isthmus #Fast
- One of the more unconventional entries in the Chain Reaction catalog. "Blue Film 2" is like a distorted loop from a film soundtrack set to a staticky rumble that is barely perceptivle as a beat. The main track is very bassy and even more minimal, consisting of hardly more than a kick drum stutter, a scraping snare, and a distant shimmering for ambience. On "Zkj", a clockwork beat is joined by various effects resembling steam-powered machinery, and in its second half, a a melancholic drone. It's quite different from the usual "4/4 and delayed organ chord" type of dub techno you usually find, and for that it's up my alley.
- blue smiley - ok
- blue smiley - return
- Pulsr - Sent
- Submersion - Deluge
- Gimmick - News From The Past
17 February 2023
- My Morning Jacket - Chocolate And Ice
- Ewa Braun - Sea Sea
- Telstar Drugs - Telstar Drugs
16 February 2023
- Lucette Bourdin - Rising Fog
- Windsor For The Derby - Calm Hades Float
14 February 2023
- Ought - Sun Coming Down
- Madrugada - Industrial Silence
- Kevin Braheny Fortune - Perelandra Dawn
- Ami Shavit - In Alpha Mood
13 February 2023
- The Sea and Cake - Nassau
- Expectation: boring instrumental jazz/math/post-rock. Reality: melodic, jaunty indie rock with variety. I do like when a few instrumentals are thrown in among vocal tracks though.
- York Redoubt - Cheap Funerals
- Joni Mitchell - Hejira
11 February 2023
- Trixie's Big Red Motorbike Peel Session
- Going to listen to their compilation too. I just relistened to "A Splash Of Red" and suddenly realized how good it was. Great guitar and bass.
- Elysian Blaze - Levitating the Carnal
- Daddy's Hands - Daddy's Hands
- Sneaker Pimps - Bloodsport
- Much better than it's made out to be. It's pretty good. Kelli is the better singer but Chris isn't a terrible one.
- "Sick"
- "Black Sheep"
- "Grazes"
- Alpha - Come From Heaven
- It's real nice to just drift through as a whole, but the only track that stands out specifically is "Sometime Later".
10 February 2023
- Luxurious Bags - Frayed Knots
- "Eyes Tell Me, Hands Tell Me"
- Dean Roberts - Be Mine Tonight
- Yo La Tengo - This Stupid World
- "This Stupid World"
- "Tonight's Episode"
- I'll be returning to this.
9 February 2023
- Bathory - Bathory
- Bathory - Blood Fire Death
- "For All Those Who Died"
- Celtic Frost - To Mega Therion
- "Fainted Eyes"
8 February 2023
- Various - Wound Without A Tear (2/2)
- I like the ambient dub stuff but the vocal shit is annoying.
- "Drawn From Sleep"
- "Rounded"
7 February 2023
- Blind Idiot God - Blind Idiot God (2/2)
- "Wide Open Spaces"
- "Subterranean Flight"
- Nina-Noho - Ambient Classics 1990-1992
- Various - Wound Without A Tear (1/2)
- Sounds From The Ground - Luminal
- Various - Still In My Arms
6 February 2023
- Listened to half of the Blind Idiot God s/t. I'm a fan of Martin Bisi's production style: spacey, reverberating drums and guitar that's a droning stream of noise.
- Oh yeah, I also listened to most of A Minor Forest's Inindependence. I've like "Look at That Car, It's Full of Balloons" for a while, but never heard the rest of the album. It's a bit by-the-numbers math rock, very 1998, but not bad. Also, I didn't know there were vocals!
5 February 2023
- The Chi Factory - Red Lantern at the Kallikatsou (2/2)
- Autechre - elseq 1
- Dream Dolphin - Cloudy Sky, Rain and the Rainbow
- Portishead - Dummy
4 February 2023
- Listened to a bunch (all) of the B-sides from The Church's Starfish.
- First disc of Antarctica - 81:03. It sounded more wintry, almost pathetic with the hiss of my old boombox.
- Autechre - Chiastic Slide
- This is funner than I used to give it credit for. Really, all their late-90s stuff is, before they started to space seriously out, though I like some of their later stuff. And I'm no one to complain about inaccessibility, since "Rettic AC" and "Hub" are my favorite tracks here. I really need to listen through elseq and the sessions again...
- The Chi Factory - Red Lantern at the Kallikatsou (1/2)
3 February 2023
- Asmus Tietchens & Vidna Obmana - Asmus Tietchens. Vidna Obmana
2 February 2023
- Asmus Tietchens - Nachtstucke
1 February 2023
- It's a snowy, blue-tinted morning and I'm listening to Four Tet's New Energy. Between the Navy Yard buildings, I can see orange through a break in the clouds on the horizon.
- Zammuto - Solutiore of Stareau: Disc One
- Moose - Suzanne
- Tadashi Kamada - After Music
- I dig this ominous crusty cassette drone. On the shorter tracks, synths warble and whine and create something almost resembling a melody, a la M.B., while tracks like "Shadow", "Dim Consciousness" "Factory" are totally mechanical and amusical - industrial in the truest sense of the word.
31 January 2023
- The Declining Winter - Goodbye Minnesota
- Walrus - Hukari no Kakaera
- 2nd listen in a little under 3 years. Reminds me of Boris, very noisy, I like the first track.
- Heard a Lush show from April 1988, one with Meriel Barham as lead singer (didn't know any recordings with her existed!). She has a good voice that I didn't really recognize listening to Pale Saints. It fits their spunky early stuff well. I also didn't realize they started out as kind of a punk band. I read in Miki's memoir that Chris Acland's background was in punk, which explains why a lot of their early songs were so jumpy.
- Chamber Music Ensemble Kukuzel - Early Chants of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church
- "Bulgarian Lament"
30 January 2023
- Morton Feldman - Crippled Symmetry
- Luigi Tozzi - Deep Blue: Volume 2
- Air - Moon Safari
- "La femme d'argent"
- "Sexy Boy"
- Apart from the opener, this is less soft/loungey than I remember it being, but it's still good.
- Orlando Consort - The Rose, the Lily & the Whortleberry: Medieval Gardens
- Currently obsessed with "Rose, Liz, Printemps, Verdure".
29 January 2023
- Fluxion - Perspectives
- Fluxion - [spaces]
- "Decay Section"
- Four Tet - Sixteen Oceans
- I think the day this came out I was working in a garden near Wilmington, a pleasant sunny spring morning in a pretty garden, shaded by tall trees...
- Earth To Infinity - Earth To Infinity
- Kimitaka Matsumae - Space Ranch
- "Galactic Bone"
28 January 2023
- Coil - How To Destroy Angels
- Hood - The Cycle of Days And Seasons
- Guillaume Dufay - Missa Sancti Iacobi (Cappella Pratensis)
27 January 2023
- Cranes - Particles and Waves
- Ryuichi Sakamoto - Smoochy
- "Rio"
26 January 2023
- Blueboy - The Bank of England
25 January 2023
- Iasos - Jeweled Space
- Twa Toots Peel Session
- "Yo-Yo"
- The Smiths 1986 Peel Session
- Stump 1986 Peel Session
- Syd Barrett Peel Session
- New Order 1998 Peel Session
- Electro Hippies 1987 Peel Session
24 January 2023
- Spectrum - Soul Kiss (Glide Divine)
- Good.
- Eliane Radigue - L'ile Re-Sonante
23 January 2023
- desert sand feels warm at night - New World Disciples
- Emily A Sprague - Hill, Flower, Fog
21 January 2023
- Dopplereffekt - Cellular Automata
20 January 2023
- Giuseppe Ielasy & Andrew Pekler - Holiday For Sampler
- Flying Saucer Attack - Instrumentals 2015
- I used to fall asleep to this in early 2017 or so. Listening to it now at a higher volume, I'm surprised at how noisy it is.
19 January 2023
- Ryuichi Sakamoto - Sweet Revenge
- "Sentimental"
- Flying Saucer Attack - Peel Session 1996
- Ryuichi Sakamoto - Sweet Revenge
- Flying Saucer Attack - Beach Red Lullaby
- Flying Saucer Attack - Sally Free And Easy
- Flying Saucer Attack - Crystal Shade
- "Distance"
- Movietone - Mono Valley
18 January 2023
- Roman Poirier - Plage Arriere
- Ametsub - The Nothings Of The North
- Blithe Field - Face Always Toward The Sun
- Syrup USA - All Over The Land
- Strafe F.R. - Octagon Sphere
17 January 2023
- Laura Nyro - Eli and The Thirteenth Confession
- Aloof Proof - Expo One (Limited Exposition 1994)
- Ryuichi Sakamoto - Thousand Knives of Ryuichi Sakamoto
- "Plastic Bamboo"
- "Das Neue Japanische Elektronische Volkslied"
- HASYMO - The City Of Light / Tokyo Town Pages
- "Tokyo Town Pages" ambient version
- The Music Tapes - The Orbiting Human Circus
- I seriously can't believe this is 6 years old next month.
- .O.Rang - Spoor EP
16 January 2023
- Rainer Bruninghaus - Continuum
- Polvo - Today's Active Lifestyles
- "Thermal Treasure"
- "Sure Shot"
- "My Kimono"
- .O.Rang - Fields And Waves
- Growing on me. "Moratorium"
15 January 2023
- Sourin - Sourin
- The Raymond Brake - Never Work Ever
- Karate - The Bed Is In The Ocean
14 January 2023
- Tram - Heavy Black Frame
- "Nothing Left To Say"
- The Raymond Brake - Piles Of Dirty Winters
- "Philistine"
- "Slink Moss"
- "Whistler"
13 January 2023
- Coroner - Grin
- "Status: Still Thinking"
- "Caveat (To the Coming)"
- Cafe Tacvba - Reves
12 January 2023
- R. Andrew Lee - November Pt. 3 (Dennis Johnson)
- Bluetile Lounge - Half Cut
- Certainly not my first listen. Glad to see people give a shit about this band now.
- "Shifty"
- "Liner"
11 January 2023
- R. Andrew Lee - November Pt. 2 (Dennis Johnson)
- Still can't listen to this without constantly thinking of W.
- Bluetile Lounge - Lowercase
- My >10th listen. Used to sleep to this once upon a time.
10 January 2023
- Rune Bagge - Pink Dreams
- Bad Sector - Kosmodrom
- "Orbiter"
9 January 2023
- 2350 Broadway - 2350 Broadway 3
- Not disappointed!
- Red House Painters - Shock Me EP
- Money Morning - Corporate Karma
7 January 2022
- Spacecraft - Evening Star
- Hideki Matsutake - The Fantasia "The Invitation To The Stars"
6 January 2023
- R.E.M. - Chronic Town
- Still on the fence with this band, leaning towards dislike, but I liked this more than I expected to.
- Tomasz Stanko - Suspended Night
- Dean Blunt - The Narcissist II
- Dean Blunt - Black Is Beautiful
5 January 2023
- Dark Sky - In Brackets
- I don't know about this outsider house stuff.
- Mik Keusen - Blau
- Gunnar Haslam - Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom
- Raphael Anton Irisarri - The Unintentional Sea
4 January 2023
- fIREHOSE - If'n
- Quiet Evenings - Patience Folding Waters
- Element Kuuda - Flight
- Troum & All Sides - Shutun
- Rumbling, geological drone, atypical of Maeror Tri / Troum. Not really a fan.
- Equations of Eternity - Veve
- Pretty much just beats and incessant dubby basslines. Kind of lacking, monotonous, though I may find myself revisiting it, who knows...
- Markus Mehr - Off
- Kenny Wheeler / Lee Konitz / Dave Holland / Bill Frisell - Angel Song
3 January 2023
- Lush - Spooky
- It's very possible that I like this more than Gala.
1 January 2023
- These Trails - These Trails
- Transient Waves - Transient Waves
- "Soulspace"
30 December 2022
- The Durutti Column - Without Mercy
- Six Finger Satellite - Law Of Ruins
- "Fall To Pieces"
- "Sea Of Tranquility"
- Am I becoming more sensitive to screechy guitars or is it just this album?
- I'm alone at home tonight. I played Yume 2kki and then listened to Pram's "Sunset International" in bed but turned it off because I was still creeped out by Yume 2kki.
29 December 2022
- Arjen Schat - Solstitium
- SPK - Leichenschrei
28 December 2022
- Flowchart - Cumulus Mood Twang
- I can't tell whether this is brilliant or obnoxious. "Another Word Explodes"
- Talvin Singh - OK
- It's been about 8-9 years since I first read of this album (around the time I first explored Portishead's Dummy, Bjork, and other assorted '90s electronica masterworks, but I never gave it a shot in full until now as the South Asian influence scared me off (not for racist reasons, I swear; it just seemed gimmicky). I enjoyed the title track, "Vikram the Vampire", now I'm going through some of the bonus tracks. Also, I can't find the Japanese bonus track, "Wrist Flick", anywhere, not even on file sharing platforms. If I weren't destitute I would indulge my music creep impulses and buy a copy of the Japanese CD to rip.
- Flowchart - Tenjira
- The Apartments - A Life Full Of Farewells
- "She Sings To Forget You" (nice rendition of "Goodbye Train")
- "Not Every Clown Can Be In The Circus"
- Air - Premiers Symptomes
27 December 2022
- HTRK - Psychic Lilac
- HTRK - Death is a Dream
- HTRK - Over The Rainbow
- Aiko Shimada - Blue Marble
26 December 2022
- Jon Bernoff & Marcus Allen - Breathe
25 December 2022
- David Sylvian & Holger Czukay - Plight & Premonition
- Sylvian discog exploration incoming...
- Diskette Park - Deepfall
24 December 2022
- Columbia Masterworks "Music Of Edgar Varese" compilation
23 December 2022
- Pete Namlook - Season Greetings - Winter
- Surprised this is from 1994, as it sounds different from the psychedelic trancey stuff he was making back then.
- The Jean-Paul Sartre Experience - The Size of Food
- Mars - 78
- "The Immediate Stages of the Erotic"
- "Puerto Rican Ghost"
22 December 2022
- Terekke - YYYYYYYYYY
- Japan - Obscure Alternatives
- Aquarium / deepspace - Midnight At The Tokyo Central
- Fishmans - Long Season
- Suso Saiz - Nothing Is Objective
- "Nothing Ends 2018"
21 December 2022
- Tu M' - Monochromes Vol. 1
- R.E.M. - Fables of the Reconstruction
20 December 2022
- Fabulous Diamonds - Plain Songs
- Emil Richards - New Sound Element Stones
- Pink Industry - Who Told You, You Were Naked?
19 December 2022
- Tonstartssbandht - Petunia
- "What Has Happened" is glorious psych corniness.
- Bruno Pernadas - Those Who Throw Objects At The Crocodiles Will Be Asked To Retrieve Them
18 December 2022
- Eric Vann - Water World
- Invisible Toy - Sketches in Crayon and Ink
- Still don't know whether this is a hoax or legit but I'm leaning towards legit. It's good! I like that weird new age-tribal-ambient-jazz stuff. Only evidence I've found of this band existing prior to this year is this review from 2001 noting that Ceramic Metropolis album is from 1999. Michael Yoder seems to be legit, but why hasn't any of his music been available anywhere before this year?
- Also, I seem to be on an obscure psych pop / early electronic / Italian library kick right now.
- Daniela Casa - Societa Malata
- Cecil Leuter - Altitude 3000
- Taiga Remains - Thereafter
- Daniel Arfib - Le Souffle du Doux
- Agitation Free - 2nd
17 December 2022
- Oren Ambarchi/Johan Berthling/Andreas Werliin - Ghosted
- United Bible Studies - The Return Of The Rivers
- Brian - Understand
- Os Mutantes - Os Mutantes
- Diego Hernandez - Radiofonia
16 December 2022
- Michael Hoenig - Departure From the Northern Wasteland
- Jack Frost - Jack Frost
- Kim Cascone - Cathodeflower
- Zoat-Aon - Star Autopsy
15 December 2022
- Greg Foat - Psychosynthesis
- The Go-Betweens - Spring Hill Fair
14 December 2022
- DJ Shadow - What Does Your Soul Look Like?
13 December 2022
- Klaus Schulze - Trancefer
- Klaus Schulze - Ballett 3
- Ash Ra Tempel - Ash Ra Tempel
12 December 2022
- Carla dal Forno - Look Up Sharp
- Maxime Denuc - Nachthorn
- Ashra - Blackouts
- Lotus Parts 1-4
11 December 2022
- Rowland S. Howard - Pop Crimes
- Yukihiro Takahashi - Once A Fool...
- Popol Vuh - In Den Garten Pharaos
10 December 2022
- Florian Fricke - Kailash
- Popol Vuh - Affenstunde
- "Dream Part 49" - where are all the other parts?
9 December 2022
- Onna Kodomo - Syuuka
8 December 2022
- Autechre - NTS 4
7 December 2022
- The Young Gods - Heaven Deconstruction
- Classic. "December"
6 December 2022
- "Blue" Gene Tyranny - Out Of The Blue
- True Widow - Circambulation (again)
- "CREEPER"
- "S:H:S"
- "FOUR TEETH"
- Languidity. Reminds me of the days of the Eclipse soudtrack and afternoon car rides.
5 December 2022
- Carbon Based Lifeforms - Twentythree
- Cuushe - Butterfly Case
- "Lost My Way"
4 December 2022
- Takashi Kokubo - Barcelona Gaudi no yume
3 December 2022
- Variant - Inception [cv313 Rewire]
2 December 2022
- Roy Montgomery - Temple IV
- I listened to this a few times in early 2017.
1 December 2022
- Susumu Hirasawa - Ice-9
- James Blake - CMYK
30 November 2022
- Sines Of Exquisite Pleasure - Modular Systems
- This seems to have just appeared on the internet last month. It's pretty good. I wonder what other good stuff has been left behind because nobody's taken the initiative to digitize and share it. Or is it another one of those fake reissues of a supposedly lost album that was actually just recorded?
- Susumu Hirasawa - Siren
- "Nurse Cafe"
- Dalis Car - The Waking Hour
- Basically everything I loved about Japan: weird synth noises, minimal percussion, and Mick Karn's melodic bass, but with Peter Murphy's vocals (which I like). I didn't realize Dalis Car was like this; I ignored them expecting was some bland flavor of post-punk. The only deficiency, compared to Japan, is its lack of Richard Barbieri.
- "Create and Melt"
- "His Box"
- "Moonlife"
- "Cornwall Stone"
- Dalis Car - InGladAloneness
29 November 2022
- Soda Stereo - Sueno Stereo
- "X Playo"
- Susumu Hirasawa - Technique of Relief
- "Gardener King"
- "Ghost Bridge"
- Put this off for a while 'cause I thought it was a synthpop album from the '80s. Not that that's bad, just I've heard too much of it. I'm impressed. It reminds me of Taeko Ohnuki's Lucy, specifically because of the percussion. Kind of an epic tribal classical sound. Next up: Siren and probably more P-Model besides Potpourri.
- Jonn Serrie - And The Stars Go With You
28 November 2022
- Tholen - Sternklang
27 November 2022
- Harold Budd - The Pavilion of Dreams
26 November 2022
- Harold Budd - Abandoned Cities
- Jon Hassell - Dream Theory in Malaya: Fourth World Volume Two
- Finally got around to this. I like the cameo of Brian Eno's "Shadow" in "These Times".
- I Break Horses - Warnings
25 November 2022
- HTRK - Marry Me Tonight
- "Fascinator"
- "Your Mistress Turns To Dust"
- Tocotronic - K.O.O.K.
- I wasn't expecting to like this, as I'd heard a few tracks from Wir kommen... and wasn't impressed. It's sort of monotonous, but groovy. Most tracks have pretty much the same rhythm, and that strummed clean guitar, but it's somehow diverse. The title track, "Let There Be Rock", the instrumental "Tag Ohne Schatten" are fun.
- Bark Psychosis - Codename: Dustsucker
- What an atmosphere this album has. Listening to "INQB8TR" feels like being on a sedative.
- Laraaji - Universe/Essence
24 November 2022
- Komeda Quintet - Astigmatic
- After Knife in the Water
23 November 2022
- Roedelius - Wenn der Sudwind weht
- Yas Kaz - Jomon-Sho
- Pretty good. This got reissued about two years ago so I kept seeing it around, but I never tried it.
22 November 2022
- All Natural Lemon & Lime Flavors - Turning Into Small
- Can't help think of Weird NJ and all the creepy shit that's in the forests near where this band formed. I also can't think of another band from north of Newark that's worthwhile.
- All Natural Lemon & Lime Flavors - All Natural Lemon & Lime Flavors
- Haven't listened to all of this today, just a few tracks including "Saturn Jig", which is great.
21 November 2022
- Prefab Sprout - Jordan: The Comeback
- "Wild Horses"
- "Moondog"
- Collide - Chasing The Ghost
- "Transfer"
19 November 2022
- Gorky's Zygotic Mynci - Introducing Gorky's Zygotic Mynci
- "Merched yn Neud Gwallt eu Gilydd"
- The Beau Brummels - Triangle
18 November 2022
- Artur Pizarro - Mompou: Piano Works Vol. 1
- I also listened to Part 1 of Dennis Johnson's November, and it kept reminding me of "W" by Codeine.
17 November 2022
- David Darling - Journal October
- Intense cello music. Pretty damn good, way better than anything else I've heard by him.
16 November 2022
- Gigi Masin & Alessandro Monti - The Wind Collector
- Bun/Fumitake Tamura - Bird
- Hum - Downward Is Heavenward
- "Afternoon With The Axolotls"
- "Dreamboat"
- "If You Are To Bloom"
- "Comin' Home"
15 November 2022
- Xela - For Frosty Mornings And Summer Nights
14 November 2022
- Coil - Black Antlers
- Sun Ra - Lanquidity
12 November 2022
- Boards of Canada - Random 35 Tracks
- "Audiotrack 04B" sounds like HTRK.
- Boards of Canada - The Half Asleep Mix
"Concourse"
10 November 2022
- dEUS - The Ideal Crash
- "Instant Street"
- This will probably grow on me.
9 November 2022
- Sad Lovers and Giants - Headland
8 November 2022
- Holy Other- Held
- Emma Ruth Rundle - On Dark Horses
- City - City
- I feel like this would sound Italian even if the lyrics weren't in Italian.
- Andrew Thomas - Fearsome Jewel
7 November 2022
- Mirko Uhlig - The Nightmiller
- Heprcam - Cohcox
- "Hypericum"
- "Ring VEX Remix"
6 November 2022
- Not Drowning, Waving - Claim
- "Willow Tree"
- "Maroon Rust"
- "Yellow Earth"
- "Terra Nullius"
- "Claim"
- When I listened to this for the first time years ago I dismissed it as an example of the boring amalgam they call "world music", albeit more rock/pop-oriented. It's more than that. This is a kind of unclassifiable rock-adjacent creature that is surprisingly nuanced, both musically and in its theme of Australian colonialism. Opener "Willow Tree" is an almost whimsical exploration of outback nostalgia; "Fishing Trawler" is a funky number with watery guitar, thumping piano, and a deep, melodic bassline; "Thomastown" and "Terra Nullius", both piano-led minor-key numbers, are the darkest and loss-ridden Claim gets. Conversely, "Wobble" is so playful as to feature Looney Tunes voices (even if in an ironic way, perhaps), while "Palau" (the only song here one might consider "world music", as it is driven by hand percussion and flutes) has a vigor no other song here matches.
One of Claim's distinctive features is the peculiar depressive murk that seems to pervade it. The ambient closer "Claim" is this mood in pure, distilled form: a traditional Australian sound palette complemented by a dark underside, as if providing a response to the overly optimistic rainsticks and kokopeli-branding of contemporaneous "world" music.
- Low - Double Negative
4 November 2022
- The Jesus And Mary Chain - Darklands
- "Darklands"
- "Deep One Perfect Morning"
- "April Skies"
- "Happy When It Rains"
3 November 2022
- Everything But The Girl - Eden
- "Tender Blue"
- "Crabwalk"
2 November 2022
- Sketch Show - Loophole
- I thought this was some obscure Russian IDM duo through the first ~15 minutes. I didn't realize this was basically YMO, but when I did I took much more interest in it. I would've found out eventually...
- "Chronograph"
31 October 2022
- Arovane_Phonem - AER (Valid)
- Arovane - Tides
- Thrill Of The Pull - Green To Red
- Janet Jackson - The Velvet Rope
30 October 2022
- Curium - Bism
- Pub - Summer
29 October 2022
- Omicron - Acrocosm
28 October 2022
- Another Fine Day - Life Before Land
- The Ecstasy Of Saint Theresa - Free-D (Original Soundtrack)
- Age - The Orion Years
- Gets better towards the end. I like the sample on "Big E".
27 October 2022
- Cranes - Population Four
- More straight-up rock than their first two albums. Also, listening to this I realized how romantic a lot of Alison Shaw's lyrics are. I hate to admit that I barely pay attention to the lyrics, but with a voice like that, guitars like that, keyboards like that....
- μ-Ziq - My Little Beautiful
26 October 2022
- Luke Slater's 7th Plain - My Yellow Wise Rug
- "Boundaries"
- I like Slater's more downtempo tracks, and this one has a few of them.
- Minnie Riperton - Come To My Garden
- Nice voice and harmonies. Kind of a '70s lounge feel to it.
25 October 2022
- Depeche Mode - Music For the Masses
- I've had their song "Halo" stuck in my head all morning. I like how "Pimpf" is completely stylistically different from the synthpop yet if fits in with the album. Now that I think of it, a lot of DM's stuff from this era has that dramatic quasi-classical flavor.
- "The Things You Said"
- "Never Let Me Down Again"
- "The Things You Said"
- "Pimpf"
- μ-Ziq - In Pine Effect
- "Roy Castle"
- "Within a Sound"
- "Melancho"
24 October 2022
- Burial - Streetlands
- Relevant listening for this rainy day.
- Solotape - ESX-1
- After several days, I've finally finished Lycia's The Burning Circle And Then Dust. I enjoyed it, and for such a long album for a band whose style has been pretty consistent between albums, it didn't feel "samey" or repetitive. I liked "Pray", "Resigned", and "The Burning Circle".
- μ-Ziq - Brace Yourself
- Cranes - Loved
- This is good. I forgot how noisy this album is. Some of the guitar is just filthy. "Shining Road" is great, of course, and I like the ominous "Bewildered", the title track, and the spoken word on "Lilies".
22 October 2022
- Takagi Masakatsu - Pia
- I do like a lot of this album. I just realized this is the guy who made Kagayaki and Eating 2.
21 October 2022
- I'm trying to buy everything I like from the artist. I am trying to avoid a dependence on convenient streaming services where I can listen to most anything whenever I want. It's not really an ethical objection to this format so much as a feeling that a complete lack of format-imposed moderation cheapens my listening experience. It's hard to explain. Of course, this would make listening to the thousands of individual songs whose respective albums I don't enjoy as a whole tedious and a waste of money....
20 October 2022
- S-Core - Pretension
- Heard some of John Lee Hooker's It Serve You Right To Suffer. I dig it.
19 October 2022
- It's been about 10 months since I discovered In Excelsior Dayglo by Christmas. This album is insane and it has become one of my all-time favorites.
- In late October I am morally obligated to start listening to Lycia and Cocteau Twins. I have also ordered The Cure's Wish off Ebay. Not the new deluxe edition, though, even though I really dig Lost Wishes.
- Considering seeing Ichiko Aoba at Union Transfer next week. Junior Boys are gonna be there in February and I'm set on going.
- Index ID - Expedition
- Nona Hendryx - SkinDiver
16 October 2022
- The Cure - Bloodflowers
- I really liked this. These past few days was my The Cure re-discovery period.
- Gilla Band - Most Normal
15 October 2022
- RYM review of UO's Supersonic Storybook:
Around The Supersonic Storybook, Urge Overkill had this strange hard rocker image that seemed to imitate no '70s rock cliché in particular. A photoshoot had Roeser, Kato, and Onassis holding liquor while adorned in velvet jackets and jewelry, while on the cover of the album Kato and Roser grin smugly, effortfully cool, slightly androgynous and vaguely aristocratic.
Though they are directly connected to the Albini-Touch and Go-noise rock-sphere of the early '90s, Urge Overkill don't fit in with that crowd, at least in the eyes of critics and fans of that music. You won't see them mentioned in reviews of Polvo or Cows or Butthole Surfers reviews or listed on noise rock charts. They don't get mentioned alongside The Jesus Lizard or Don Cab or Silkworm. People actually seem to hate them. Even Albini later denounced them (alongside Smashing Pumpkins), calling them posers in so many words, though he would later retract this charge. Perhaps a partial explanation of their reputation is the fact that they were fairly mainstream compared to these other bands, but even having been signed to Geffen and had a song (a Neil Young cover) featured in Pulp Fiction, nobody seems to talk or know about them. I was familiar with Albini's projects and the Touch and Go roster for at least 5 years before I even heard of them. UO weren't exactly indie, weren't exactly cock rockers, but whatever they were, there apparently wasn't a place for it when they were around.
Though musically similar to other Touch and Go bands, UO were far, far removed from these bands in spirit. Someone remarked that they have a KISS attitude, which they certainly do, and if you like dark, gritty, doomy rock by emotionally unstable people, this is a dealbreaker. They weren't complex. Roeser and Kato weren't nervous wrecks and, though they touched on serious topics ("The Candidate", "What is Artane?"), they easily balanced these moments out with stupidity: Nash Kato's ridiculous "announcer" voice leads the call-and-response sections of "The Kids Are Insane" and "Bionic Revolution", making the former song an anthem that is both fitting and unfortunate as the opener; "Today is Blackie's Birthday" is literally a celebration of their then-drummer's birthday, the lyrics either cute or beyond annoying depending on your mood, though there's some sweet guitar parts and a driving rhythm.
The Supersonic Storybook It's a positive album with dumb hard rock riffs, with the occasional dissonance, "angularity", and appreciation of space of the early-'90s noise rock classics. However, it is not intelligent, dark, or artistic, and you may get the impression that their rock image - their attitude - is sincere after all. Kato and Roeser sound at least twice their age. I think they're kind of cool.
- "The Kids are Insane"
- "The Candidate"
- "Today Is Blackie's Birthday"
13 October 2022
- Ichiko Aoba - 0
10 October 2022
- Virtual Dream Plaza - Infinite Desire
- Erik Satie - Vexations
8 October 2022
- .O.Rang - Fields And Waves
7 October 2022
- Kammarheit - Asleep And Well Hidden
6 October 2022
- Klaus Wiese - Klangschalen Meditation
- Hooverphonic - The Magnificent Tree
3 October 2022
- Echo & The Bunnymen - Ocean Rain
- "Silver"
- "The Killing Moon"
- "My Kingdom"
1 October 2022
- Jedi Master - Space Ambient Mix 1 - Across the Universe
- Akufen - 03 04 05
- The Blue Nile - A Walk Across The Rooftops
29 September 2022
- D'Angelo - Brown Sugar
- Tyler, The Creator - Igor
- Sly & The Family Stone - There's a Riot Goin' On
27 September 2022
- Move D & Benjamin Brunn - Let's Call It A Day
- "C-Sick"
- The Ex - Turn
- "Ask The Painters"
- Savage Republic - Jamahiriya Democratique et Populaire de Sauvage
- Tried Tragic Figure after this but it's mostly "we're tribal people!" type noodling.
- "Spice Fields"
26 September 2022
- Maxwell - Embrya
- ""Matrimony: Maybe You""
- D'Angelo And The Vanguard - Black Messiah
- "Sugah Daddy"
- Erykah Badu - Mama's Gun
25 September 2022
- Richard H Kirk - The Number Of Magic
- Fleetwood Mac - Fleetwood Mac
- "Rhiannon (Will You Ever Win?)"
24 September 2022
- Saccharine Trust - Paganicons
23 September 2022
- The Cure - Seventeen Seconds
- Listening to to "A Forest" driving down Cohawkin Rd, summer 2015
19 September 2022
- Brother Blue - Royal Secret
19 September 2022
- Jean-Michel Jarre - Waiting for Cousteau
- "En Attendant Cousteau"
- Vinyl version had this track at 22 min. Yeah, vinyl is so great when you either have to truncate good tracks or turn over the record partway through.
- Clinic - Walking With Thee
- Electrelane - The Power Out
- "On Parade"
17 September 2022
- Jeff Greinke - Over Ruins & Moving Climates
- Jeff Greinke - Wide View
16 September 2022
- Klaus Schulze & Pete Namlook - The Dark Side Of The Moog 3
- The Dark Side Of The Moog Featuring Bill Laswell - The Dark Side Of The Moog IV
- The Mars Volta - The Mars Volta
- Consider Suicide - Nattmelankoli II
15 September 2022
- Abul Mogard - Above All Dreams
14 September 2022
- Various - Pop Ambient 2021
- Dinosaur Jr. - Where You Been
- "Start Choppin"
- Mecano - Untitled
- !!! - Louden Up Now
- !!! - Myth Takes
- "Yadnus"
- "Bend Over Beethoven"
- Junior Boys - Begone Dull Care
13 September 2022
- Mecano - Autoportrait
12 September 2022
- Pete Namlook & Various - The Ambient Gardener · Winter
- Junior Boys - So This Is Goodbye
- It turns out trying to find someone's house in one of three large Texas cities using only a 20-year-old photograph of their front yard alone is pretty hard.
- G.R.I.T. - Expanse
- Various - Pop Ambient 2007
10 September 2022
- Oval - Szenariodisk
- Christie Front Drive / Jimmy Eat World - Split
9 September 2022
- Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 - I Hope It Lands
- Ilkae - Light Industry +
7 September 2022
- American Football - American Football (LP3)
- "Uncomfortably Numb"
6 September 2022
- Kali Malone - Living Torch
- Pontiac Streator - Sone Glo
- Alio Die - Spirals Of Light
- Marble Sky - The Sad Return
5 September 2022
- Soichi Terada - Asakusa Light
- Sun's Signature - Sun's Signature
4 September 2022
- The Air Was Thick - Prototype 1.0
3 September 2022
- Omicron - Acrocosm
- Arctic Hospital - Neon Veils
2 September 2022
- Omicron - Acrocosm
30 August 2022
- Dinosaur Jr - Bug
- "Yeah We Know"
- Driss Bennis, Swoze - NetworksVeils
29 August 2022
- Nina Nastasia - Riderless Horse
28 August 2022
- Various - The Throne Of Drones
- Bowery Electric - Lushlife
- "Soul City"
- "Lushlife"
- "Floating World"
- Vanishing Twin - Ookii Gekkou
0 - Olento
30 August 2022
- Dinosaur Jr - Bug
- "Yeah We Know"
- Driss Bennis, Swoze - NetworksVeils
27 August 2022
- Shogun - Nautilus EP
- Sundur - Somewhere There's Music
26 August 2022
- Yoshinori Sunahara - Lovebeat
- Eno Moebius Roedelius - After the Heat
25 August 2022
- Goldmund - Corduroy Road
24 August 2022
- Abfahrt Hinwil - Links Berge Rechts Seen
- MPU101 - MPU101
- Thom Brennan - Shimmer
- Peter Murphy - Cascade
- "Huuvola"
- Felt - The Strange Idols Pattern and Other Short Stories
- Felt - The Splendour of Fear
- Felt - Let The Snakes Crinkle Their Heads To Death
August 2022
- Jurg Frey - I Listened To The Wind Again
- Paul Motian - I Have The Room Above Her
- New World Science - Osmos (Movements)
- Abfahrt Hinwil - Links Berge Rechts Seen
22 August 2022
- Polypores - Hyperincandescent
21 August 2022
- Chihei Hatakeyama - Dark River
- Oophoi - Time Fragments Vol. 1 - The Archives 1995/1997
- Isabel's Dream - Monomara EP
- Windy And Carl - The Dream House / Dedications To Flea
- Tetsu Inoue - Organic Cloud
20 August 2022
- Plastica - New Model Sex
- Kind of a Russian Seefeel? I like this.
- Chihei Hatakeyama - Dark River
16 August 2022
- Paik - Satin Black
- Ramleh - Hole In The Heart
- "Do Not Come Near"
- A Beautiful Machine - Home
15 August 2022
- Pteranodon - Pteranodon 2
- Volplane - 1997-1999
14 August 2022
- Baby Formula - Baby Formula
- "Sextant"
- Bright - Bright
- Pteranodon - Pteranodon
- The Jesus and Mary Chain - Honey's Dead
13 August 2022
- Brijean - Angelo
- "Shy Guy"
12 August 2022
- A Day In The Park - A Day In The Park
- Tetsu Inoue - Low and Slow
11 August 2022
- A Day In The Park - A Day In The Park
- Four Tet - Mango Feedback
9 August 2022
- Ovlov - Am
- "Moth Rock"
- "Where's My Dini?"
- "There's My Dini!"
- For Against - Echelons
8 August 2022
- Kairon; IRSE - Ujubasajuba
- "Valorians"
7 August 2022
- The Dandy Warhols - Dandys Rule OK
- Colfax Abbey - Drop
- Bleach - Snag E.P.
6 August 2022
- The Dandy Warhols - Dandys Rule OK
- Eryka Badu - Baduizm
- "Apple Tree"
- "Drama"
5 August 2022
- The Boo Radleys - Everything's Alright Forever
- Difference Engine - Breadmaker
- Deconstruction - Deconstruction
4 August 2022
- Tokyo Shoegazer - Moonworld Playground
- Underground Lovers - Leaves Me Blind
- "Ladies' Choice"
3 August 2022
- The Lassie Foundation - California
- Ulver - Perdition City
- "Tomorrow Never Knows"
- "Hallways of Allways"
- Code - The Architect
2 August 2022
- Stella Luna - Stargazer
- The Naked Souls - Two and One
- Lift To Experience - Lift To Experience
- Ulver - Perdition City
1 August 2022
- 154 - Strike
- Tetsu Inoue - Yolo
- I took an accidental nap to this. It's really good. More similar to Inland than to the glitch stuff he was doing in the early '00s. I was expecting another Waterloo Terminal.
- Asobi Seksu - Citrus
- This album's infectious energy that brightened my miserable rainy Monday afternoon. The first time I heard this was early summer 2016, I think, and I found it through Asian Shoegaze back when it was called Japanese Shoegaze. "Strawberries", "New Years", "Thursday", and so on...
- Tool - Opiate
July 2022
- Baxter - Baxter
- Biosphere - Substrata
- Tosca - Osam
- Res - How I Do
- "Golden Boys"
- "They-Say Vision"
- "How I Do"
- Sittin' Back
- Jon Hopkins - Opalescent
- Haruka Nakamura - Twilight
- Agitation Free - Malesch
- Ash Ra Tempel - Schwingungen
- Ash Ra Tempel - Ash Ra Tempel
- Variant - Vortexual [Inception] [CV313 Rewire]
- Ashra - New Age Of Earth
- ASC & Inhmost - Dimensional Space
- ASC & Sam KDC - A Restless Mind
- ASC - Truth Be Told
- Simon & Garfunkel - Sound of Silence
- John Prine - John Prine
- Neil Young - After The Gold Rush
- ASC - The Outer Limits
- ASC - 1138
- Republika - Nieustanne Tango
- The Temptations - 1990
- Autoclave - Autoclave
- Emmylou Harris - Wrecking Ball
- Yagya - Sleepygirls
- Chrome - Alien Soundtracks
- Seth Troxler - The Lab 03: Continuous DJ Mix Part 1
- Yagya - Rhythm of Snow
- Sun Electric - Present
- The Chameleons - Strange Times
- PsysEx - Polyrhythm_system Exclusive Message
- Altus - 24 Hours
- Snoweffect - Desktop Caffeine
- Altus - Winter Embrace III
- Jptgrimm - Gramessteig
- Kevin Wood - Sacred
- Altus - Winter Embrace II
- Various - Portals (A Kosmiche Journey Through Outer Worlds And Inner Space)
- Sloan - Twice Removed
- "Loosens"
- "Worried Now"
- Porcupine Tree - Lightbulb Sun
- Porcupine Tree - In Absentia
- Barre Phillips - Three Day Moon
- Porcupine Tree - Stupid Dream
- Autolux - Transit Transit
- "Transit Transit"
- "Census"
- David Darling - Cycles
- Terje Rypdal - Descendre
- Pola - Pola Meets Lyrica
- Yasume - Where We're From The Birds Sing A Pretty Song
- Eberhard Weber - Fluid Rustle
- Milton Nascimiento - Minas
- Idrissa Soumaoro & L'Eclipse De L'I.J.A. - Ampsa: Le tioko-tioko
- Macaroom - Inter Ice Age 4
- El Polen - Fuera de la ciudad
- Ben Bondy - Camo
- "Idyll"
- "Secret Isle"
- See?
- "Chromium"
- "Volumes"
- Never heard any of this aside from "Aspoket" (a track which I still can't decipher, though I came close this time. Something about mosquitoes?). Great example of non-traditional, off kilter dub techno with still some hints of that delay-rich goodness. Also, pretty cool that this guy is from Illinois!
- "Nuchu" (great, but wild choice for an opener)
- "Aspoket"
- "Shadowline" (Love the e-bow)
- "Aquifer"
- "Never Alone"
- I was attracted to this for its similar cover art to Somnium and Perpetual.
- I first listened to this in really late 2020, a few months after its release, but it made no impression on me. I like the type of ambient that takes cues form "world" music (i.e., vague mishmash or aboriginal music) but instead of repetitive conga thumping, it's this psychedelic bath of sound with many layers. This actually reminds me of Cluster's live performances, specifically their U.S. live album, and of course CHI. It has that spacious live recording atmosphere.
- "A Man With A Drum"
- "The Beautiful Silence"
- I had overlooked this on my original Mick Harris / isolationism phase, but it's as good as Cold Summer or Continue. I also fell asleep to Like A Slow River.
- "Everything Is All You've Got"
- "Mellan Landet"
- "E de nan Hemma?"
- "Evaporerar ut fran sitt Gomstalle"
- Spring canon. Almost in league with the best stuff on the FAX label.
- I fell asleep about an hour into it, but it's more of the same...
- "Komik Kapital Kaput"
- "Finger On The Trigger, Transfigured"
- I've been seeing this album around RYM for a while, originally in TwiceStyle's ratings. It isn't very distinctive, kind of vanilla, but it has this subtle anxiety that I dig and isn't overly dramatic. It brings to mind Ewa Braun's Stereo, and like that album tends to ride along on its grooves without really saying anything. Even Jeremy Enigk's cameo flashes by without fanfare, folded into a bed of tense guitar strumming and bass that tone bend up and down uneasily. Between the longer, the quieter tracks - "Clanking", "Luchuk", and "6" - and the subdued ragers (set to Brian Speckman's best Billy Corgan impression) such as "Downing-Dolly" and "Your Bravo", the former are my picks.
- "Great Machine"
- "Tranquility"
- I'm glad to see The Church matured. I really dig the space and waves of sound on tracks like the aforementioned, and "Glow Worm". I might end up doing a discog dive (post-Starfish).
- "It Could Be Anyone"
- Contrary to my expectations, this was pretty accessible, almost fun. It's harsh, sure, but it's much more a traditional hard rock piece than I'd expect from an album packaged in a body bag, distributed with a poster of a man with his head sawed in half, and released by a band that is Big Black. But really, if you work past the power tools, they're a lovable, friendly, fun rock band down at heart.
- Way noisier than I expected.
- It's funny how CVJ made this after discovering Boards of Canada, yet it barely sounds like BoC, but then his two subsequent albums, released two and four years later, are the ones that got panned by some reviewers as BoC clones. It's amorphous blurs of what is barely recognizable as techno; the synths are there, the beats are there, the occasional sample is there, but they fall in and out at random, barely harmonizing and following any path. If an album of techno tracks were a finished puzzle, this is just after the pieces were poured out of the box and spread on the table.
- First full Minutemen release for me (I actually listened to fIREHOSE a few months ago). Now I realize how much of an immediate inspiration these guys must have been on those mid-'80s SST fellows and Homestead acts. Those skittering, nervous ones that traded in hardcore menace for country twang and whimsy.
- Intense, smoldering, weird
- "The Forest Song Or Especially When The October Wind With Frosty Fingers, Punishes My Hair"
- Bark Psychosis - Scum
- Nth listen and now recognizing the beauty of the guitars. Before it was the bass and drums, specifically the awkward drum beat closing out the last ~6 minutes of the piece, now hearing that euphoric outro for the complete change in mood the shimmering wall of guitars create. Now reading about plants that have cells with sharp crystals that plunge into the mucosa of any beast that comes along and tries to eat them. Plants, too, that have microscopic needles attached to microscopic hairs on their leaves which spike the skin and inject it with a cocktail of irritants that produces simultaneous burning and itching sensations.
- Robert Hood - Nighttime World Vol. 2
- "Still"
- "After Hours"
- Shame - Food For Worms
- Rei Harakami - [lust], again!
- "Grief & Loss"
- "After Joy"
- "First Period"
- "Lust"
- Tortoise - TNT
- "Swung From The Gutters"
- "In Sarah, Mencken, Christ and Beethoven There Were Men And Women"
- "Jetty"
- "TNT"
- Alpha - Come From Heaven
- Casino Versus Japan - Go Hawaii
- "It's Very Sunny"
- "Local Forecast"
- "Late For School"
- More Yo La Tengo miscellanea. Some track off of Popular Songs, including the phenomenal last three. "The Fireside" is so soothing. Awkward sequencing on that album, huh? Duration-wise, I mean.
- Rei Harakami - [lust]
- Revisiting Caustic Window and some of ...I Care Because You Do.
- Parts of Yo La Tengo - From A Motel 6 EP and Pram's North Pole Radio Station.
- Over the past few days of my involuntary computer holiday, I enjoyed going through my "outro" playlist (a playlist of tracks I find relaxing for their lengthy instrumental and/or repetitive outros), some stuff I haven't heard in years, a bit of Plone's For Beginner Piano, and some of my old favorites. I've been on a really big slacker/indie rock kick lately. Spring is coming, so I'll probably be in the mood for Boards of Canada and assorted downtempo soon. Maybe some Ozric Tentacles, who knows. Maybe I'll relisten to that Casino Versus Japan album...
- Matrix - Isthmus #Fast
- One of the more unconventional entries in the Chain Reaction catalog. "Blue Film 2" is like a distorted loop from a film soundtrack set to a staticky rumble that is barely perceptivle as a beat. The main track is very bassy and even more minimal, consisting of hardly more than a kick drum stutter, a scraping snare, and a distant shimmering for ambience. On "Zkj", a clockwork beat is joined by various effects resembling steam-powered machinery, and in its second half, a a melancholic drone. It's quite different from the usual "4/4 and delayed organ chord" type of dub techno you usually find, and for that it's up my alley.
- blue smiley - ok
- blue smiley - return
- Pulsr - Sent
- Submersion - Deluge
- Gimmick - News From The Past
- My Morning Jacket - Chocolate And Ice
- Ewa Braun - Sea Sea
- Telstar Drugs - Telstar Drugs
- Lucette Bourdin - Rising Fog
- Windsor For The Derby - Calm Hades Float
- Ought - Sun Coming Down
- Madrugada - Industrial Silence
- Kevin Braheny Fortune - Perelandra Dawn
- Ami Shavit - In Alpha Mood
- The Sea and Cake - Nassau
- Expectation: boring instrumental jazz/math/post-rock. Reality: melodic, jaunty indie rock with variety. I do like when a few instrumentals are thrown in among vocal tracks though.
- York Redoubt - Cheap Funerals
- Joni Mitchell - Hejira
- Trixie's Big Red Motorbike Peel Session
- Going to listen to their compilation too. I just relistened to "A Splash Of Red" and suddenly realized how good it was. Great guitar and bass.
- Elysian Blaze - Levitating the Carnal
- Daddy's Hands - Daddy's Hands
- Sneaker Pimps - Bloodsport
- Much better than it's made out to be. It's pretty good. Kelli is the better singer but Chris isn't a terrible one.
- "Sick"
- "Black Sheep"
- "Grazes"
- Alpha - Come From Heaven
- It's real nice to just drift through as a whole, but the only track that stands out specifically is "Sometime Later".
- Luxurious Bags - Frayed Knots
- "Eyes Tell Me, Hands Tell Me"
- Dean Roberts - Be Mine Tonight
- Yo La Tengo - This Stupid World
- "This Stupid World"
- "Tonight's Episode"
- I'll be returning to this.
- Bathory - Bathory
- Bathory - Blood Fire Death
- "For All Those Who Died"
- Celtic Frost - To Mega Therion
- "Fainted Eyes"
- Various - Wound Without A Tear (2/2)
- I like the ambient dub stuff but the vocal shit is annoying.
- "Drawn From Sleep"
- "Rounded"
- Blind Idiot God - Blind Idiot God (2/2)
- "Wide Open Spaces"
- "Subterranean Flight"
- Nina-Noho - Ambient Classics 1990-1992
- Various - Wound Without A Tear (1/2)
- Sounds From The Ground - Luminal
- Various - Still In My Arms
- Listened to half of the Blind Idiot God s/t. I'm a fan of Martin Bisi's production style: spacey, reverberating drums and guitar that's a droning stream of noise.
- Oh yeah, I also listened to most of A Minor Forest's Inindependence. I've like "Look at That Car, It's Full of Balloons" for a while, but never heard the rest of the album. It's a bit by-the-numbers math rock, very 1998, but not bad. Also, I didn't know there were vocals!
- The Chi Factory - Red Lantern at the Kallikatsou (2/2)
- Autechre - elseq 1
- Dream Dolphin - Cloudy Sky, Rain and the Rainbow
- Portishead - Dummy
- Listened to a bunch (all) of the B-sides from The Church's Starfish.
- First disc of Antarctica - 81:03. It sounded more wintry, almost pathetic with the hiss of my old boombox.
- Autechre - Chiastic Slide
- This is funner than I used to give it credit for. Really, all their late-90s stuff is, before they started to space seriously out, though I like some of their later stuff. And I'm no one to complain about inaccessibility, since "Rettic AC" and "Hub" are my favorite tracks here. I really need to listen through elseq and the sessions again...
- The Chi Factory - Red Lantern at the Kallikatsou (1/2)
- Asmus Tietchens & Vidna Obmana - Asmus Tietchens. Vidna Obmana
- Asmus Tietchens - Nachtstucke
- It's a snowy, blue-tinted morning and I'm listening to Four Tet's New Energy. Between the Navy Yard buildings, I can see orange through a break in the clouds on the horizon.
- Zammuto - Solutiore of Stareau: Disc One
- Moose - Suzanne
- Tadashi Kamada - After Music
- I dig this ominous crusty cassette drone. On the shorter tracks, synths warble and whine and create something almost resembling a melody, a la M.B., while tracks like "Shadow", "Dim Consciousness" "Factory" are totally mechanical and amusical - industrial in the truest sense of the word.
- The Declining Winter - Goodbye Minnesota
- Walrus - Hukari no Kakaera
- 2nd listen in a little under 3 years. Reminds me of Boris, very noisy, I like the first track.
- Heard a Lush show from April 1988, one with Meriel Barham as lead singer (didn't know any recordings with her existed!). She has a good voice that I didn't really recognize listening to Pale Saints. It fits their spunky early stuff well. I also didn't realize they started out as kind of a punk band. I read in Miki's memoir that Chris Acland's background was in punk, which explains why a lot of their early songs were so jumpy.
- Chamber Music Ensemble Kukuzel - Early Chants of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church
- "Bulgarian Lament"
- Morton Feldman - Crippled Symmetry
- Luigi Tozzi - Deep Blue: Volume 2
- Air - Moon Safari
- "La femme d'argent"
- "Sexy Boy"
- Apart from the opener, this is less soft/loungey than I remember it being, but it's still good.
- Orlando Consort - The Rose, the Lily & the Whortleberry: Medieval Gardens
- Currently obsessed with "Rose, Liz, Printemps, Verdure".
- Fluxion - Perspectives
- Fluxion - [spaces]
- "Decay Section"
- Four Tet - Sixteen Oceans
- I think the day this came out I was working in a garden near Wilmington, a pleasant sunny spring morning in a pretty garden, shaded by tall trees...
- Earth To Infinity - Earth To Infinity
- Kimitaka Matsumae - Space Ranch
- "Galactic Bone"
- Coil - How To Destroy Angels
- Hood - The Cycle of Days And Seasons
- Guillaume Dufay - Missa Sancti Iacobi (Cappella Pratensis)
- Cranes - Particles and Waves
- Ryuichi Sakamoto - Smoochy
- "Rio"
- Blueboy - The Bank of England
- Iasos - Jeweled Space
- Twa Toots Peel Session
- "Yo-Yo"
- The Smiths 1986 Peel Session
- Stump 1986 Peel Session
- Syd Barrett Peel Session
- New Order 1998 Peel Session
- Electro Hippies 1987 Peel Session
- Spectrum - Soul Kiss (Glide Divine)
- Good.
- Eliane Radigue - L'ile Re-Sonante
- desert sand feels warm at night - New World Disciples
- Emily A Sprague - Hill, Flower, Fog
- Dopplereffekt - Cellular Automata
- Giuseppe Ielasy & Andrew Pekler - Holiday For Sampler
- Flying Saucer Attack - Instrumentals 2015
- I used to fall asleep to this in early 2017 or so. Listening to it now at a higher volume, I'm surprised at how noisy it is.
- Ryuichi Sakamoto - Sweet Revenge
- "Sentimental"
- Flying Saucer Attack - Peel Session 1996
- Ryuichi Sakamoto - Sweet Revenge
- Flying Saucer Attack - Beach Red Lullaby
- Flying Saucer Attack - Sally Free And Easy
- Flying Saucer Attack - Crystal Shade
- "Distance"
- Movietone - Mono Valley
- Roman Poirier - Plage Arriere
- Ametsub - The Nothings Of The North
- Blithe Field - Face Always Toward The Sun
- Syrup USA - All Over The Land
- Strafe F.R. - Octagon Sphere
- Laura Nyro - Eli and The Thirteenth Confession
- Aloof Proof - Expo One (Limited Exposition 1994)
- Ryuichi Sakamoto - Thousand Knives of Ryuichi Sakamoto
- "Plastic Bamboo"
- "Das Neue Japanische Elektronische Volkslied"
- HASYMO - The City Of Light / Tokyo Town Pages
- "Tokyo Town Pages" ambient version
- The Music Tapes - The Orbiting Human Circus
- I seriously can't believe this is 6 years old next month.
- .O.Rang - Spoor EP
- Rainer Bruninghaus - Continuum
- Polvo - Today's Active Lifestyles
- "Thermal Treasure"
- "Sure Shot"
- "My Kimono"
- .O.Rang - Fields And Waves
- Growing on me. "Moratorium"
- Sourin - Sourin
- The Raymond Brake - Never Work Ever
- Karate - The Bed Is In The Ocean
- Tram - Heavy Black Frame
- "Nothing Left To Say"
- The Raymond Brake - Piles Of Dirty Winters
- "Philistine"
- "Slink Moss"
- "Whistler"
- Coroner - Grin
- "Status: Still Thinking"
- "Caveat (To the Coming)"
- Cafe Tacvba - Reves
- R. Andrew Lee - November Pt. 3 (Dennis Johnson)
- Bluetile Lounge - Half Cut
- Certainly not my first listen. Glad to see people give a shit about this band now.
- "Shifty"
- "Liner"
- R. Andrew Lee - November Pt. 2 (Dennis Johnson)
- Still can't listen to this without constantly thinking of W.
- Bluetile Lounge - Lowercase
- My >10th listen. Used to sleep to this once upon a time.
- Rune Bagge - Pink Dreams
- Bad Sector - Kosmodrom
- "Orbiter"
- 2350 Broadway - 2350 Broadway 3
- Not disappointed!
- Red House Painters - Shock Me EP
- Money Morning - Corporate Karma
- Spacecraft - Evening Star
- Hideki Matsutake - The Fantasia "The Invitation To The Stars"
- R.E.M. - Chronic Town
- Still on the fence with this band, leaning towards dislike, but I liked this more than I expected to.
- Tomasz Stanko - Suspended Night
- Dean Blunt - The Narcissist II
- Dean Blunt - Black Is Beautiful
- Dark Sky - In Brackets
- I don't know about this outsider house stuff.
- Mik Keusen - Blau
- Gunnar Haslam - Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom
- Raphael Anton Irisarri - The Unintentional Sea
- fIREHOSE - If'n
- Quiet Evenings - Patience Folding Waters
- Element Kuuda - Flight
- Troum & All Sides - Shutun
- Rumbling, geological drone, atypical of Maeror Tri / Troum. Not really a fan.
- Equations of Eternity - Veve
- Pretty much just beats and incessant dubby basslines. Kind of lacking, monotonous, though I may find myself revisiting it, who knows...
- Markus Mehr - Off
- Kenny Wheeler / Lee Konitz / Dave Holland / Bill Frisell - Angel Song
- Lush - Spooky
- It's very possible that I like this more than Gala.
- These Trails - These Trails
- Transient Waves - Transient Waves
- "Soulspace"
- The Durutti Column - Without Mercy
- Six Finger Satellite - Law Of Ruins
- "Fall To Pieces"
- "Sea Of Tranquility"
- Am I becoming more sensitive to screechy guitars or is it just this album?
- I'm alone at home tonight. I played Yume 2kki and then listened to Pram's "Sunset International" in bed but turned it off because I was still creeped out by Yume 2kki.
- Arjen Schat - Solstitium
- SPK - Leichenschrei
- Flowchart - Cumulus Mood Twang
- I can't tell whether this is brilliant or obnoxious. "Another Word Explodes"
- Talvin Singh - OK
- It's been about 8-9 years since I first read of this album (around the time I first explored Portishead's Dummy, Bjork, and other assorted '90s electronica masterworks, but I never gave it a shot in full until now as the South Asian influence scared me off (not for racist reasons, I swear; it just seemed gimmicky). I enjoyed the title track, "Vikram the Vampire", now I'm going through some of the bonus tracks. Also, I can't find the Japanese bonus track, "Wrist Flick", anywhere, not even on file sharing platforms. If I weren't destitute I would indulge my music creep impulses and buy a copy of the Japanese CD to rip.
- Flowchart - Tenjira
- The Apartments - A Life Full Of Farewells
- "She Sings To Forget You" (nice rendition of "Goodbye Train")
- "Not Every Clown Can Be In The Circus"
- Air - Premiers Symptomes
- HTRK - Psychic Lilac
- HTRK - Death is a Dream
- HTRK - Over The Rainbow
- Aiko Shimada - Blue Marble
- Jon Bernoff & Marcus Allen - Breathe
- David Sylvian & Holger Czukay - Plight & Premonition
- Sylvian discog exploration incoming...
- Diskette Park - Deepfall
- Columbia Masterworks "Music Of Edgar Varese" compilation
- Pete Namlook - Season Greetings - Winter
- Surprised this is from 1994, as it sounds different from the psychedelic trancey stuff he was making back then.
- The Jean-Paul Sartre Experience - The Size of Food
- Mars - 78
- "The Immediate Stages of the Erotic"
- "Puerto Rican Ghost"
- Terekke - YYYYYYYYYY
- Japan - Obscure Alternatives
- Aquarium / deepspace - Midnight At The Tokyo Central
- Fishmans - Long Season
- Suso Saiz - Nothing Is Objective
- "Nothing Ends 2018"
- Tu M' - Monochromes Vol. 1
- R.E.M. - Fables of the Reconstruction
- Fabulous Diamonds - Plain Songs
- Emil Richards - New Sound Element Stones
- Pink Industry - Who Told You, You Were Naked?
- Tonstartssbandht - Petunia
- "What Has Happened" is glorious psych corniness.
- Bruno Pernadas - Those Who Throw Objects At The Crocodiles Will Be Asked To Retrieve Them
- Eric Vann - Water World
- Invisible Toy - Sketches in Crayon and Ink
- Still don't know whether this is a hoax or legit but I'm leaning towards legit. It's good! I like that weird new age-tribal-ambient-jazz stuff. Only evidence I've found of this band existing prior to this year is this review from 2001 noting that Ceramic Metropolis album is from 1999. Michael Yoder seems to be legit, but why hasn't any of his music been available anywhere before this year?
- Also, I seem to be on an obscure psych pop / early electronic / Italian library kick right now.
- Daniela Casa - Societa Malata
- Cecil Leuter - Altitude 3000
- Taiga Remains - Thereafter
- Daniel Arfib - Le Souffle du Doux
- Agitation Free - 2nd
- Oren Ambarchi/Johan Berthling/Andreas Werliin - Ghosted
- United Bible Studies - The Return Of The Rivers
- Brian - Understand
- Os Mutantes - Os Mutantes
- Diego Hernandez - Radiofonia
- Michael Hoenig - Departure From the Northern Wasteland
- Jack Frost - Jack Frost
- Kim Cascone - Cathodeflower
- Zoat-Aon - Star Autopsy
- Greg Foat - Psychosynthesis
- The Go-Betweens - Spring Hill Fair
- DJ Shadow - What Does Your Soul Look Like?
- Klaus Schulze - Trancefer
- Klaus Schulze - Ballett 3
- Ash Ra Tempel - Ash Ra Tempel
- Carla dal Forno - Look Up Sharp
- Maxime Denuc - Nachthorn
- Ashra - Blackouts
- Lotus Parts 1-4
- Rowland S. Howard - Pop Crimes
- Yukihiro Takahashi - Once A Fool...
- Popol Vuh - In Den Garten Pharaos
- Florian Fricke - Kailash
- Popol Vuh - Affenstunde
- "Dream Part 49" - where are all the other parts?
- Onna Kodomo - Syuuka
- Autechre - NTS 4
- The Young Gods - Heaven Deconstruction
- Classic. "December"
- "Blue" Gene Tyranny - Out Of The Blue
- True Widow - Circambulation (again)
- "CREEPER"
- "S:H:S"
- "FOUR TEETH"
- Languidity. Reminds me of the days of the Eclipse soudtrack and afternoon car rides.
- Carbon Based Lifeforms - Twentythree
- Cuushe - Butterfly Case
- "Lost My Way"
- Takashi Kokubo - Barcelona Gaudi no yume
- Variant - Inception [cv313 Rewire]
- Roy Montgomery - Temple IV
- I listened to this a few times in early 2017.
- Susumu Hirasawa - Ice-9
- James Blake - CMYK
30 November 2022
- Sines Of Exquisite Pleasure - Modular Systems
- This seems to have just appeared on the internet last month. It's pretty good. I wonder what other good stuff has been left behind because nobody's taken the initiative to digitize and share it. Or is it another one of those fake reissues of a supposedly lost album that was actually just recorded?
- Susumu Hirasawa - Siren
- "Nurse Cafe"
- Dalis Car - The Waking Hour
- Basically everything I loved about Japan: weird synth noises, minimal percussion, and Mick Karn's melodic bass, but with Peter Murphy's vocals (which I like). I didn't realize Dalis Car was like this; I ignored them expecting was some bland flavor of post-punk. The only deficiency, compared to Japan, is its lack of Richard Barbieri.
- "Create and Melt"
- "His Box"
- "Moonlife"
- "Cornwall Stone"
- Dalis Car - InGladAloneness
- Soda Stereo - Sueno Stereo
- "X Playo"
- Susumu Hirasawa - Technique of Relief
- "Gardener King"
- "Ghost Bridge"
- Put this off for a while 'cause I thought it was a synthpop album from the '80s. Not that that's bad, just I've heard too much of it. I'm impressed. It reminds me of Taeko Ohnuki's Lucy, specifically because of the percussion. Kind of an epic tribal classical sound. Next up: Siren and probably more P-Model besides Potpourri.
- Jonn Serrie - And The Stars Go With You
- Tholen - Sternklang
- Harold Budd - The Pavilion of Dreams
- Harold Budd - Abandoned Cities
- Jon Hassell - Dream Theory in Malaya: Fourth World Volume Two
- Finally got around to this. I like the cameo of Brian Eno's "Shadow" in "These Times".
- I Break Horses - Warnings
- HTRK - Marry Me Tonight
- "Fascinator"
- "Your Mistress Turns To Dust"
- Tocotronic - K.O.O.K.
- I wasn't expecting to like this, as I'd heard a few tracks from Wir kommen... and wasn't impressed. It's sort of monotonous, but groovy. Most tracks have pretty much the same rhythm, and that strummed clean guitar, but it's somehow diverse. The title track, "Let There Be Rock", the instrumental "Tag Ohne Schatten" are fun.
- Bark Psychosis - Codename: Dustsucker
- What an atmosphere this album has. Listening to "INQB8TR" feels like being on a sedative.
- Laraaji - Universe/Essence
- Komeda Quintet - Astigmatic
- After Knife in the Water
- Roedelius - Wenn der Sudwind weht
- Yas Kaz - Jomon-Sho
- Pretty good. This got reissued about two years ago so I kept seeing it around, but I never tried it.
- All Natural Lemon & Lime Flavors - Turning Into Small
- Can't help think of Weird NJ and all the creepy shit that's in the forests near where this band formed. I also can't think of another band from north of Newark that's worthwhile.
- All Natural Lemon & Lime Flavors - All Natural Lemon & Lime Flavors
- Haven't listened to all of this today, just a few tracks including "Saturn Jig", which is great.
- Prefab Sprout - Jordan: The Comeback
- "Wild Horses"
- "Moondog"
- Collide - Chasing The Ghost
- "Transfer"
- Gorky's Zygotic Mynci - Introducing Gorky's Zygotic Mynci
- "Merched yn Neud Gwallt eu Gilydd"
- The Beau Brummels - Triangle
- Artur Pizarro - Mompou: Piano Works Vol. 1
- I also listened to Part 1 of Dennis Johnson's November, and it kept reminding me of "W" by Codeine.
- David Darling - Journal October
- Intense cello music. Pretty damn good, way better than anything else I've heard by him.
- Gigi Masin & Alessandro Monti - The Wind Collector
- Bun/Fumitake Tamura - Bird
- Hum - Downward Is Heavenward
- "Afternoon With The Axolotls"
- "Dreamboat"
- "If You Are To Bloom"
- "Comin' Home"
- Xela - For Frosty Mornings And Summer Nights
- Coil - Black Antlers
- Sun Ra - Lanquidity
- Boards of Canada - Random 35 Tracks
- "Audiotrack 04B" sounds like HTRK.
- Boards of Canada - The Half Asleep Mix
"Concourse"
- dEUS - The Ideal Crash
- "Instant Street"
- This will probably grow on me.
- Sad Lovers and Giants - Headland
- Holy Other- Held
- Emma Ruth Rundle - On Dark Horses
- City - City
- I feel like this would sound Italian even if the lyrics weren't in Italian.
- Andrew Thomas - Fearsome Jewel
- Mirko Uhlig - The Nightmiller
- Heprcam - Cohcox
- "Hypericum"
- "Ring VEX Remix"
- Not Drowning, Waving - Claim
- "Willow Tree"
- "Maroon Rust"
- "Yellow Earth"
- "Terra Nullius"
- "Claim"
- When I listened to this for the first time years ago I dismissed it as an example of the boring amalgam they call "world music", albeit more rock/pop-oriented. It's more than that. This is a kind of unclassifiable rock-adjacent creature that is surprisingly nuanced, both musically and in its theme of Australian colonialism. Opener "Willow Tree" is an almost whimsical exploration of outback nostalgia; "Fishing Trawler" is a funky number with watery guitar, thumping piano, and a deep, melodic bassline; "Thomastown" and "Terra Nullius", both piano-led minor-key numbers, are the darkest and loss-ridden Claim gets. Conversely, "Wobble" is so playful as to feature Looney Tunes voices (even if in an ironic way, perhaps), while "Palau" (the only song here one might consider "world music", as it is driven by hand percussion and flutes) has a vigor no other song here matches. One of Claim's distinctive features is the peculiar depressive murk that seems to pervade it. The ambient closer "Claim" is this mood in pure, distilled form: a traditional Australian sound palette complemented by a dark underside, as if providing a response to the overly optimistic rainsticks and kokopeli-branding of contemporaneous "world" music.
- Low - Double Negative
- The Jesus And Mary Chain - Darklands
- "Darklands"
- "Deep One Perfect Morning"
- "April Skies"
- "Happy When It Rains"
- Everything But The Girl - Eden
- "Tender Blue"
- "Crabwalk"
- Sketch Show - Loophole
- I thought this was some obscure Russian IDM duo through the first ~15 minutes. I didn't realize this was basically YMO, but when I did I took much more interest in it. I would've found out eventually...
- "Chronograph"
31 October 2022
- Arovane_Phonem - AER (Valid)
- Arovane - Tides
- Thrill Of The Pull - Green To Red
- Janet Jackson - The Velvet Rope
- Curium - Bism
- Pub - Summer
- Omicron - Acrocosm
- Another Fine Day - Life Before Land
- The Ecstasy Of Saint Theresa - Free-D (Original Soundtrack)
- Age - The Orion Years
- Gets better towards the end. I like the sample on "Big E".
- Cranes - Population Four
- More straight-up rock than their first two albums. Also, listening to this I realized how romantic a lot of Alison Shaw's lyrics are. I hate to admit that I barely pay attention to the lyrics, but with a voice like that, guitars like that, keyboards like that....
- μ-Ziq - My Little Beautiful
- Luke Slater's 7th Plain - My Yellow Wise Rug
- "Boundaries"
- I like Slater's more downtempo tracks, and this one has a few of them.
- Minnie Riperton - Come To My Garden
- Nice voice and harmonies. Kind of a '70s lounge feel to it.
- Depeche Mode - Music For the Masses
- I've had their song "Halo" stuck in my head all morning. I like how "Pimpf" is completely stylistically different from the synthpop yet if fits in with the album. Now that I think of it, a lot of DM's stuff from this era has that dramatic quasi-classical flavor.
- "The Things You Said"
- "Never Let Me Down Again"
- "The Things You Said"
- "Pimpf"
- μ-Ziq - In Pine Effect
- "Roy Castle"
- "Within a Sound"
- "Melancho"
- Burial - Streetlands
- Relevant listening for this rainy day.
- Solotape - ESX-1
- After several days, I've finally finished Lycia's The Burning Circle And Then Dust. I enjoyed it, and for such a long album for a band whose style has been pretty consistent between albums, it didn't feel "samey" or repetitive. I liked "Pray", "Resigned", and "The Burning Circle".
- μ-Ziq - Brace Yourself
- Cranes - Loved
- This is good. I forgot how noisy this album is. Some of the guitar is just filthy. "Shining Road" is great, of course, and I like the ominous "Bewildered", the title track, and the spoken word on "Lilies".
- Takagi Masakatsu - Pia
- I do like a lot of this album. I just realized this is the guy who made Kagayaki and Eating 2.
- I'm trying to buy everything I like from the artist. I am trying to avoid a dependence on convenient streaming services where I can listen to most anything whenever I want. It's not really an ethical objection to this format so much as a feeling that a complete lack of format-imposed moderation cheapens my listening experience. It's hard to explain. Of course, this would make listening to the thousands of individual songs whose respective albums I don't enjoy as a whole tedious and a waste of money....
- S-Core - Pretension
- Heard some of John Lee Hooker's It Serve You Right To Suffer. I dig it.
- It's been about 10 months since I discovered In Excelsior Dayglo by Christmas. This album is insane and it has become one of my all-time favorites.
- In late October I am morally obligated to start listening to Lycia and Cocteau Twins. I have also ordered The Cure's Wish off Ebay. Not the new deluxe edition, though, even though I really dig Lost Wishes.
- Considering seeing Ichiko Aoba at Union Transfer next week. Junior Boys are gonna be there in February and I'm set on going.
- Index ID - Expedition
- Nona Hendryx - SkinDiver
- The Cure - Bloodflowers
- I really liked this. These past few days was my The Cure re-discovery period.
- Gilla Band - Most Normal
- RYM review of UO's Supersonic Storybook:
Around The Supersonic Storybook, Urge Overkill had this strange hard rocker image that seemed to imitate no '70s rock cliché in particular. A photoshoot had Roeser, Kato, and Onassis holding liquor while adorned in velvet jackets and jewelry, while on the cover of the album Kato and Roser grin smugly, effortfully cool, slightly androgynous and vaguely aristocratic.
Though they are directly connected to the Albini-Touch and Go-noise rock-sphere of the early '90s, Urge Overkill don't fit in with that crowd, at least in the eyes of critics and fans of that music. You won't see them mentioned in reviews of Polvo or Cows or Butthole Surfers reviews or listed on noise rock charts. They don't get mentioned alongside The Jesus Lizard or Don Cab or Silkworm. People actually seem to hate them. Even Albini later denounced them (alongside Smashing Pumpkins), calling them posers in so many words, though he would later retract this charge. Perhaps a partial explanation of their reputation is the fact that they were fairly mainstream compared to these other bands, but even having been signed to Geffen and had a song (a Neil Young cover) featured in Pulp Fiction, nobody seems to talk or know about them. I was familiar with Albini's projects and the Touch and Go roster for at least 5 years before I even heard of them. UO weren't exactly indie, weren't exactly cock rockers, but whatever they were, there apparently wasn't a place for it when they were around.
Though musically similar to other Touch and Go bands, UO were far, far removed from these bands in spirit. Someone remarked that they have a KISS attitude, which they certainly do, and if you like dark, gritty, doomy rock by emotionally unstable people, this is a dealbreaker. They weren't complex. Roeser and Kato weren't nervous wrecks and, though they touched on serious topics ("The Candidate", "What is Artane?"), they easily balanced these moments out with stupidity: Nash Kato's ridiculous "announcer" voice leads the call-and-response sections of "The Kids Are Insane" and "Bionic Revolution", making the former song an anthem that is both fitting and unfortunate as the opener; "Today is Blackie's Birthday" is literally a celebration of their then-drummer's birthday, the lyrics either cute or beyond annoying depending on your mood, though there's some sweet guitar parts and a driving rhythm.
The Supersonic Storybook It's a positive album with dumb hard rock riffs, with the occasional dissonance, "angularity", and appreciation of space of the early-'90s noise rock classics. However, it is not intelligent, dark, or artistic, and you may get the impression that their rock image - their attitude - is sincere after all. Kato and Roeser sound at least twice their age. I think they're kind of cool.
- "The Kids are Insane"
- "The Candidate"
- "Today Is Blackie's Birthday"
- Ichiko Aoba - 0
- Virtual Dream Plaza - Infinite Desire
- Erik Satie - Vexations
- .O.Rang - Fields And Waves
- Kammarheit - Asleep And Well Hidden
- Klaus Wiese - Klangschalen Meditation
- Hooverphonic - The Magnificent Tree
- Echo & The Bunnymen - Ocean Rain
- "Silver"
- "The Killing Moon"
- "My Kingdom"
- Jedi Master - Space Ambient Mix 1 - Across the Universe
- Akufen - 03 04 05
- The Blue Nile - A Walk Across The Rooftops
29 September 2022
- D'Angelo - Brown Sugar
- Tyler, The Creator - Igor
- Sly & The Family Stone - There's a Riot Goin' On
- Move D & Benjamin Brunn - Let's Call It A Day
- "C-Sick"
- The Ex - Turn
- "Ask The Painters"
- Savage Republic - Jamahiriya Democratique et Populaire de Sauvage
- Tried Tragic Figure after this but it's mostly "we're tribal people!" type noodling.
- "Spice Fields"
- Maxwell - Embrya
- ""Matrimony: Maybe You""
- D'Angelo And The Vanguard - Black Messiah
- "Sugah Daddy"
- Erykah Badu - Mama's Gun
- Richard H Kirk - The Number Of Magic
- Fleetwood Mac - Fleetwood Mac
- "Rhiannon (Will You Ever Win?)"
- Saccharine Trust - Paganicons
- The Cure - Seventeen Seconds
- Listening to to "A Forest" driving down Cohawkin Rd, summer 2015
- Brother Blue - Royal Secret
- Jean-Michel Jarre - Waiting for Cousteau
- "En Attendant Cousteau"
- Vinyl version had this track at 22 min. Yeah, vinyl is so great when you either have to truncate good tracks or turn over the record partway through.
- Clinic - Walking With Thee
- Electrelane - The Power Out
- "On Parade"
- Jeff Greinke - Over Ruins & Moving Climates
- Jeff Greinke - Wide View
- Klaus Schulze & Pete Namlook - The Dark Side Of The Moog 3
- The Dark Side Of The Moog Featuring Bill Laswell - The Dark Side Of The Moog IV
- The Mars Volta - The Mars Volta
- Consider Suicide - Nattmelankoli II
- Abul Mogard - Above All Dreams
- Various - Pop Ambient 2021
- Dinosaur Jr. - Where You Been
- "Start Choppin"
- Mecano - Untitled
- !!! - Louden Up Now
- !!! - Myth Takes
- "Yadnus"
- "Bend Over Beethoven"
- Junior Boys - Begone Dull Care
- Mecano - Autoportrait
- Pete Namlook & Various - The Ambient Gardener · Winter
- Junior Boys - So This Is Goodbye
- It turns out trying to find someone's house in one of three large Texas cities using only a 20-year-old photograph of their front yard alone is pretty hard.
- G.R.I.T. - Expanse
- Various - Pop Ambient 2007
- Oval - Szenariodisk
- Christie Front Drive / Jimmy Eat World - Split
- Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 - I Hope It Lands
- Ilkae - Light Industry +
- American Football - American Football (LP3)
- "Uncomfortably Numb"
- Kali Malone - Living Torch
- Pontiac Streator - Sone Glo
- Alio Die - Spirals Of Light
- Marble Sky - The Sad Return
- Soichi Terada - Asakusa Light
- Sun's Signature - Sun's Signature
- The Air Was Thick - Prototype 1.0
- Omicron - Acrocosm
- Arctic Hospital - Neon Veils
- Omicron - Acrocosm
30 August 2022
- Dinosaur Jr - Bug
- "Yeah We Know"
- Driss Bennis, Swoze - NetworksVeils
- Nina Nastasia - Riderless Horse
- Various - The Throne Of Drones
- Bowery Electric - Lushlife
- "Soul City"
- "Lushlife"
- "Floating World"
- Vanishing Twin - Ookii Gekkou
0- Olento
- Dinosaur Jr - Bug
- "Yeah We Know"
- Driss Bennis, Swoze - NetworksVeils
- Shogun - Nautilus EP
- Sundur - Somewhere There's Music
- Yoshinori Sunahara - Lovebeat
- Eno Moebius Roedelius - After the Heat
- Goldmund - Corduroy Road
- Abfahrt Hinwil - Links Berge Rechts Seen
- MPU101 - MPU101
- Thom Brennan - Shimmer
- Peter Murphy - Cascade
- "Huuvola"
- Felt - The Strange Idols Pattern and Other Short Stories
- Felt - The Splendour of Fear
- Felt - Let The Snakes Crinkle Their Heads To Death
- Jurg Frey - I Listened To The Wind Again
- Paul Motian - I Have The Room Above Her
- New World Science - Osmos (Movements)
- Abfahrt Hinwil - Links Berge Rechts Seen
- Polypores - Hyperincandescent
- Chihei Hatakeyama - Dark River
- Oophoi - Time Fragments Vol. 1 - The Archives 1995/1997
- Isabel's Dream - Monomara EP
- Windy And Carl - The Dream House / Dedications To Flea
- Tetsu Inoue - Organic Cloud
- Plastica - New Model Sex
- Kind of a Russian Seefeel? I like this.
- Chihei Hatakeyama - Dark River
- Paik - Satin Black
- Ramleh - Hole In The Heart
- "Do Not Come Near"
- A Beautiful Machine - Home
- Pteranodon - Pteranodon 2
- Volplane - 1997-1999
- Baby Formula - Baby Formula
- "Sextant"
- Bright - Bright
- Pteranodon - Pteranodon
- The Jesus and Mary Chain - Honey's Dead
- Brijean - Angelo
- "Shy Guy"
- A Day In The Park - A Day In The Park
- Tetsu Inoue - Low and Slow
- A Day In The Park - A Day In The Park
- Four Tet - Mango Feedback
- Ovlov - Am
- "Moth Rock"
- "Where's My Dini?"
- "There's My Dini!"
- For Against - Echelons
- Kairon; IRSE - Ujubasajuba
- "Valorians"
- The Dandy Warhols - Dandys Rule OK
- Colfax Abbey - Drop
- Bleach - Snag E.P.
- The Dandy Warhols - Dandys Rule OK
- Eryka Badu - Baduizm
- "Apple Tree"
- "Drama"
- The Boo Radleys - Everything's Alright Forever
- Difference Engine - Breadmaker
- Deconstruction - Deconstruction
- Tokyo Shoegazer - Moonworld Playground
- Underground Lovers - Leaves Me Blind
- "Ladies' Choice"
- The Lassie Foundation - California
- Ulver - Perdition City
- "Tomorrow Never Knows"
- "Hallways of Allways"
- Code - The Architect
- Stella Luna - Stargazer
- The Naked Souls - Two and One
- Lift To Experience - Lift To Experience
- Ulver - Perdition City
- 154 - Strike
- Tetsu Inoue - Yolo
- I took an accidental nap to this. It's really good. More similar to Inland than to the glitch stuff he was doing in the early '00s. I was expecting another Waterloo Terminal.
- Asobi Seksu - Citrus
- This album's infectious energy that brightened my miserable rainy Monday afternoon. The first time I heard this was early summer 2016, I think, and I found it through Asian Shoegaze back when it was called Japanese Shoegaze. "Strawberries", "New Years", "Thursday", and so on...
- Tool - Opiate
July 2022
- Baxter - Baxter
- Biosphere - Substrata
- Tosca - Osam
- Res - How I Do
- "Golden Boys"
- "They-Say Vision"
- "How I Do"
- Sittin' Back
- Jon Hopkins - Opalescent
- Haruka Nakamura - Twilight
- Agitation Free - Malesch
- Ash Ra Tempel - Schwingungen
- Ash Ra Tempel - Ash Ra Tempel
- Variant - Vortexual [Inception] [CV313 Rewire]
- Ashra - New Age Of Earth
- ASC & Inhmost - Dimensional Space
- ASC & Sam KDC - A Restless Mind
- ASC - Truth Be Told
- Simon & Garfunkel - Sound of Silence
- John Prine - John Prine
- Neil Young - After The Gold Rush
- ASC - The Outer Limits
- ASC - 1138
- Republika - Nieustanne Tango
- The Temptations - 1990
- Autoclave - Autoclave
- Emmylou Harris - Wrecking Ball
- Yagya - Sleepygirls
- Chrome - Alien Soundtracks
- Seth Troxler - The Lab 03: Continuous DJ Mix Part 1
- Yagya - Rhythm of Snow
- Sun Electric - Present
- The Chameleons - Strange Times
- PsysEx - Polyrhythm_system Exclusive Message
- Altus - 24 Hours
- Snoweffect - Desktop Caffeine
- Altus - Winter Embrace III
- Jptgrimm - Gramessteig
- Kevin Wood - Sacred
- Altus - Winter Embrace II
- Various - Portals (A Kosmiche Journey Through Outer Worlds And Inner Space)
- Sloan - Twice Removed
- "Loosens"
- "Worried Now"
- Porcupine Tree - Lightbulb Sun
- Porcupine Tree - In Absentia
- Barre Phillips - Three Day Moon
- Porcupine Tree - Stupid Dream
- Autolux - Transit Transit
- "Transit Transit"
- "Census"
- David Darling - Cycles
- Terje Rypdal - Descendre
- Pola - Pola Meets Lyrica
- Yasume - Where We're From The Birds Sing A Pretty Song
- Eberhard Weber - Fluid Rustle
- Milton Nascimiento - Minas
- Idrissa Soumaoro & L'Eclipse De L'I.J.A. - Ampsa: Le tioko-tioko
- Macaroom - Inter Ice Age 4
- El Polen - Fuera de la ciudad
- Ben Bondy - Camo