Journal
31 December 2024
- Sonic Youth - SYR 1: Anagrama
- Listened to after both versions of "The Diamond Sea" - the Destroyed Room version while trying to take a nap before leaving the house, then the Washing Machine version while driving down 295. Was driving by Delaware City Refinery during the last half of "Mieux: De Corrosion", as some storm clouds rolled in from the southwest. The droning cacophony of feedback really fit the landscape of pipes and spewing smokestacks. Turns out that entire area just smells like gas. How do people work (or live) there?
- Yo La Tengo - From A Motel 6
- Rare example of a rock EP where all tracks - the main song, the cover, the remix of the main song, and the B-side - are all great. Longtime favorite.
- Also listened to some Rainer Bruninghas on the way home from the Delaware canal. The last song I listened to this year ended up being "Your Voice" by It's Immaterial.
- Total Blue - Total Blue
- Novisad – Seleya
- Boards of Canada - Hell Interface
- I like the very intense IDM rendition of "Trapped".
- Back half of Elysian Fields' Bleed Your Cedar. "Parachute" is beautiful, but most of this album is pretty straightforward rock, which this band doesn't do nearly as well as their slow, dreamy cabaret-ish stuff.
- Mario's Mystery Meat OST. Can't believe this is over 4.5 years old now. I'm also a little embarrassed that I find this to be very nostalgic. "Viridian City Theme", "Beyond The Deep Blue Sea".
- Dada – Jyo
- Interesting. I can hear some Popol Vuh in this (specifically, there's a bit of "Dream Part 49" in "Udonbara", the whining synths creating a similar ominous atmosphere), as well as K. Yoshimatsu's Spherical Voyage in "Yuuen - Inraku - Gaki" (the expressive guitar over a minimal, thumping beat). I even hear some Pink Floyd in this too. Glad I found it.
- Excepter - Throne
- Glifted – Under And In
- "The Scare"
- Ali Akbar Khân – The 80 Minute Râga
- Roxy Music - Stranded
- "Mother Of Pearl"
- Hisao Tanabe - Music of East Asia
- Abyuse - untypeable shit, pretty good!
- Seefeel - Squared Roots
- Giftpia Soundtrack
- This is the soundtrack to a Japan-exclusive Gamecube game that's consequently pretty obscure to non-Japanese speakers. I don't know anything about it other than the fact that it is some sort of Animal Crossing clone and that there's some sort of radio mechanic similar to Grand Theft Auto. If that's true, it explains why there's a bizarre mixture of styles here: ambient-glitch, trance, jazz, traditional Japanese music, rockabilly, some hilariously bad post-grunge, etc. In fact, besides the two aforementioned tracks, a lot of this stuff is actually pretty bad, and there's basically no info about most of these artists online. I discovered this through Snoweffect's Desktop Caffeine, whose opening track "Icicle" (which - I also learned - samples that South Park episode with Robert Smith, so if you're playing this obscure game you may well hear the screams of South Park characters at some point; I wonder if this was a copyright issue, either for the release of the original track or its inclusion in the game?) appears on the tracklist, and unfortunately isn't accompanied by anything of a similar style other than Yuko Kazo's "Pop Error". So, overall, it's a generally mediocre soundtrack for a game I (and anyone else who don't understand Japanese) will most likely never end up playing.
- Aphex Twin - Collapse
- XOR Gate - Conic Sections
- "Major Axis", "Minor Axis".
- Cranes - Cranes
- Miranda Sex Garden - Fairytales Of Slavery
- Fonica - Ripple
- Max Tundra - Mastered by Guy at The Exchange
- "Acorns", "Labial".
- James Ferraro - NYC, HELL 3:00AM
- Finished second half of Blue Shift Emissions. "Breathe Between Sleep".
- Listened to half of Blue Shift Emissions before falling aleep on the couch.
- HTRK - String Of Hearts EP
- Giovanni Lami - Bias
- James Ferraro - Rerex 1
- Started out real annoying, got better as it wore on and on.
- Dean Blunt - The Narcissist II
- James Ferraro - Last American Hero
- 3 Chairs - Three Chairs 3 (1/2)
- James Ferraro - Far Side Virtual
- Spacetime Continuum - Emit Ecaps
- 3 Chairs - Three Chairs 3 (1/2)
- Vim! – Perpetual Autumn EP
- James Ferraro - Night Dolls With Hairspray
30 November 2024
- Scanner & Kim Cascone - The Crystalline Address
- James Ferraro - Cold
- Shinichi Atobe - Butterfly Effect
- Finished off Virtual Dreams II (Ambient Explorations In The House & Techno Age, Japan 1993-1999), think I started it yesterday morning?
- Kim Cascone & Scanner – The Crystalline Address
- 7 Angels 7 Plagues – Jhazmyne's Lullaby
- Don't care for the Scooby Doo vocals but three are some compelling instrumentals.
- Various – Nowhere Rain
- COIL - Is Suicide A Solution?
- Hiemal - Dernier Crépuscule
- Aphex Twin - drukQs
- Holy shit, the ambient and piano pieces on this are great. Though I didn't like them when I used to listen to this as a teen, I am appreciating (really enjoying) the drill n bass stuff as well. I didn't much care for this album but listened to many of the tracks quite a lot, so it's got a warm nostalgic feel to it, but I'm really enjoying it in itself for the first time. And I think it's legitimately heartwarming that he incorporates his family into his music.
- Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works Vol. 2
- And who can go wrong with SAW II?
- Various – Nowhere Rain
- Last third of Cranes - Self-Non-Self.
- Cranes - Wings of Joy
- Tears For Fears – Songs From The Big Chair
- "Shout", "Listen".
- Cheju - Homecoming
- A pretty slice of ordinary IDM.
- Mount Kimbie - Crooks & Lovers
- "Mayor"
- Porter Ricks & Techno Animal - Symbiotics
- "Phosphoric", "Anthrazite".
- Croatian Amor - The Wild Palms
- Zenith - Zenith
- Quite comfy actually. "Aura"
- First 2/3 of Cranes - Self-Non-Self.
- Cranes – Espero
- This band is so much weirder than people give them credit for.
- Cranes - Inescapable
- Spacetime Continuum - Sea Biscuit
- Good, pretty much what I was expecting.
- Inade - Aldebaran
- Spacey dark ambient, not the kind you can climb inside and drift off to. Often noisy and vaguely industrial.
- Bola - Soup
- Enjoyed. I recall putting this on a few years ago (I probably heard of him through Artificial Intelligence II) and it not sticking.
- Hoedh - Hymnvs
- R. Andrew Lee - November Pt. 4
- R. Andrew Lee - November Pt. 1
- CV & JAB - Klima
- Netherworld – Mørketid
- "Mørketid" , "Jøkul".
- Saphileaum – Exploring Together
- Spring Heel Jack - 68 Million Shades.....
- 冬派 - moya
- Igneous Flame - Nyx
- Diatonis - The Convolving Universe
- Lowlife - Diminuendo
- "Tongue Tied And Twisted", "Off Pale Yellow".
- 아버지 - 흰색 죽음
- "감기"
- Spacetime Continuum - Flurescence
- Alio Die - Incantamento
- Pteranodon - Pteranodon
- Hooverphonic - The Magnificent Tree
- I've decided I don't really like this band at all after their first album and maybe some stuff off Blue Wonder Power Milk. The music is fine but mostly inoffensive, occasionally saccharine and verging on Disney-ish, but for some reason the thing that really rubs me the wrong way is how they put the singer front and center on almost every one of their releases, while the two people who actually write and compose the music are just generic NPC-men placed in the background, a typical move for bands with some average looking guys and one pretty woman (thinking about Slowdive in particular as another band that used to do that). Geike Arnaert doesn't even have a particularly compelling or unique voice either (her voice is pretty much identical to that of Liesje Sadonius), or general presence for that matter.
- Al Gromer Khan & Klaus Wiese – The Alchemy Of Happiness
- Two German ethno-ambient guys going for an Americana thing here? Predictably middlingg, not too bad but just sounds like a Wiese or Grassow drone album with some redneck guitar haphazardly thrown in. The guitar is sharp and mixed loud so it ruins the atmosphere the drone otherwise creates. And airy drones with choral voices don't really evoke summery heartland landscapes, I'm sorry to say.
- Mathias Grassow – Alchemystery
- Second half. Album is prety sick! (I'm busy here at work, you know?)
- Ujjaya - The Master of Crossroads
- Burial - Kindred
- Listened for first time since like 2016, and even then I didn't enjoy it like when I first heard it in 2014. Surprisingly liked it a bit better this time around.
- Cosey Fanni Tutti - Time To Tell
- Listened to the CD reissue, all tracks except the title track (which wasn't even on the Flowmotion cassette anyway) while reading the Flowmotion booklet. Reading about Cosey and Gen's performance art (or experimental theatre, I guess, if you don't like the term performance art) I feel like such a philistine, not that I don't appreciate art performances or installations like theirs, but I doubt I'd be able to sort the good from bad. With gritty transgressive multimedia works like these, I'm perennially conflicted as to how to judge it and what I'm supposed to be looking for and taking away. At least sitting on my ass in front of my laptop, that is; perhaps I'd have to have been there.
- Angel 1 - Terra Nova (second 1/2)
- "Humanitarianism"
- Luke Slater's 7th Plain – My Yellow Wise Rug
- Sandalphonic - Nectarine Waters
- Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man - Out of Season
- "Sand River", "Spider Monkey", "Drake".
- David Morley - Stardancer EP
- "Frozen"
- Dron - Parsec
- "Rem"
- Angel 1 - Terra Nova (first 1/2)
- Loop - Heaven's End
- I had a dream I was really enjoying this album so I decided to try it. Surprisingly good, though it relies too much on acid rock cliches which tends to make many of the songs sound the same. OK, yes, very real, very feel. "Forever".
- Tetsu Inoue & Jonah Shark - Electro Harmonix
- Haroumi Hosono - Mercuric Dance
- Half of Matthias Grassow's Alchemystery.
- Algebra Suicide – The Secret Like Crazy
- Decent instrumentals, but my usual gripe with spoken-word music, sometimes with exception but applicable to this album, is that I can't see a connection between the music and speech. "Let's Transact".
- Maju - Maju-1
- "Facing Backwards", "Sending A Signalling Glance", "In Mist".
- Maju - Maju-2
- "Yawning In An Afternoon's Monotony"
- Half of Maju-3.. Kind of fell off on this one into droney, nondescript ambient.
- Jeff Greinke - Cities In Fog 2
- R. Andrew Lee - November, Part 2
- R. Andrew Lee - November, Part 3
- Zainetica – Weightless City
31 October 2024
- Lambent – These Days
- "Windless Harbour"
- Monoceros – When I Was A Child I Wanted To Be An Astronaut
- Silent Scream - Demo 1981
- m² – Kopyright Liberation
- Gigi Masin - Wind
- Forgot how good this was. Only ever paid attention to the first 3 tracks. Very much a fall-winter evening album.
- Byul.org -월간뱀파이어 네번째호 ‘.mp3’
- Fergus Jones - Ephemera
- "Heap"
- Most of that fucking Malcolm Middleton album.
- Gigi Masin - Wind
- Dub Tractor - More or Less Mono
- Not really into ambient-glitch with acoustic guitar. Kills the atmosphere somehow.
- You Isihara - Formula (title only)
- Cathode – Special Measures
- Byul.org - 월간뱀파이어 다섯번째호 ‘지혜롭고아름다운사람을포기하는법’
- Autechre - Anti EP
- Vessel - Dreaming in Pairs
- Pretty good.
- Vessel - Resist
- Alice Donut – Revenge Fantasies Of The Impotent
- "Rise To The Skin" is great.
- Squarepusher - Hard Normal Daddy
- Slowly realizing that the synths, textures and melodies alike, are sublime; SP had an ear for ambience and tune to back up hectic drums that paralleled RDJ. It's taken me so long to understand why people call it "atmospheric" drum and bass.
- Aphelion – Zugzwang
- I.S.O. - Gravity Clock
- I.S.O. - I.S.O. [2003]
- Thoughts On Air - Lazy Haze
- Women - Women
- "Black Rice", "Flashlights".
- Cindy Lee - Diamond Jubilee
- Telstar Drugs - Telstar Drugs
- Telstar Drugs - Sonatine
- Susumu Hirasawa - Techinque of Relief
- Stereolab - The Groop Played Space Age Batchelor Pad Music
- Spacetime Continuum - Flurescence
- Enjoyed, put me in a '90s IDM mood this morning.
- B12 - Time Tourist
- Reagenz - Reagenz
- Pete Namlook & Lorenzo Montanà - Labyrinth
- Henry Kawahara - Shaman Digital Mushroom
- Reload – A Collection of Short Stories
- "Ehn", "The Enlightenment".
- About half of Sound-Dust.
- About half of Mondo Tempo.
- Buddhastick Transparent / Something in the Air - "Λ" - White Ambient #11
- Put at ease on this "crisp" fall afternoon, keep almost falling asleep but having to set an alarm for the boiling potatoes. This put me in the mood for Konrad Schnitzler's Grün, which the first track vaguely resembles but is identical to in structure. Man, I love extremely repetitive electronic music. Second track is perfect. I made some excellent garlic mashed potatoes after this.
- Konrad Schnitzler – Grün
- "Bis Die Blaue Blume Blüht"
- Some of Darkstar's North, some of PJ's Vs., and then got really obsessed with "When Love Breaks Down" and listened to about half of Steve McQueen.
- Stereolab - Simple Headphone Mind
- 2015
- Buddhastick Transparent Featuring Something In The Air – "Λ" - White Ambient #11
- This is pretty good, especially the second track. I wonder if this is the same Something In The Air as before.
- About half of Craw's S/T. I can't help but laugh at the vocals/lyrics, but man does this album fucking drag.
- Terje Rypdal / Miroslav Virous / Jack DeJohnette - To Be Continued
- Something In The Air - Something In The Air
- Thought this was one of those Japanese '90s post-ambient house acts a la Dream Dolphin, but it's actually Danish quartet who released this album in 1993 and nothing else. One guy made some new age under the name Rishi, one is the guitarist of an apparently pretty popular Danish pop rock band, another is a Eurodance producer, and the singer isn't much active elsewhere.
- Overcome with the urge to listen to "Even Flow" after I got home at 10pm. Probably haven't heard this song since 2011 or 2012, and I hated PJ for a while, but it makes sense that I'm listening to this now.
- Another fucking unpronounceable EP by that fucking unpronounceable Four Tet alias.
- X.Y.R. - Fruity Loops Series Vol. 1 "Exotique Waves"
- Prefab Sprout - I Trawl the Megahertz
- Listened to the title track at work the other day. Like the instrumentals, don't like the spoken word.
- Bill Rieflin / Robert Fripp / Trey Gunn – The Repercussions Of Angelic Behavior
- Gordian Knot - Gordian Knot
- "Srikara Tal"
- Akio / Okihide – Scratches
- Devin Townsend - Addicted!
- I like how epic this is. "Ih-Ah!.
- The Go-Betweens - Spring Hill Fair
- "Five Words", "The Old Way Out", "You're Never Lived", "Part Company", "Slow Slow Music", "Draining the Pool For You".
- Dories - Stripped
- Gretchen - Oblique Contours
- Gretchen - Gretchen
- Condor44 - Hush & Vane
- Live Skull - Live Skull EP
- Gretchen - Gretchen
- Telstar Drugs - Endless Straight
28 September 2024
- John T. Gast - Sinead Memory Tape
- Steve Roach - Shadow of Time
- Steve Roach - Eclipse Mix
- Fantastic Explosion - Fantastic Explosion
- Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85-92
- Christian Love Forum - X-Nihilo
- "Black Hawk Dawn"
- Toshifumi Hinata - Reality In Love
- Steve Roach - Possible Planet
- s k y 空 - b e f o r e 前
- Inoyamaland – Music for Myxomycetes
- John Abercrombie - Characters
- Terje Rypdal, Miroslav Vitous & Jack DeJohnette - Terje Rypdal, Miroslav Vitous & Jack DeJohnette
- Vladislav Delay - Multila
- Swirlies - Brokedick Car
- Phew - Vertical Jamming
- Useless - Useless II
- Four Tet EP with unpronounceable title under an unpronounceable alias
- Do Make Say Think - Do Make Say Think
- Bruce Gilbert - This Way
- Brainworlds – •••••
- Earn - Hell On Earth
- Twells & Christensen - Coasts
- Kwajbasket - Fireside Chats
- Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Floating Weeds
- A Produce - Smile On The Void
- Color Status - Sunset
- Mirror To Mirror - Throw Away The Key
- Labradford / Stars of the Lid - The Kahanek Incident Vol. 3
- Labradford Peel Session 1996
- Balam Acab - See Birds
- Desert Sand Feels Warm At Night - 水に流す
- F.X. Randomiz - Goflex
- Alex Cortex - Laconic
- James Johnson - Entering Twilight
- Mathias Grassow - The Fragrance of Eternal Roses (except for title track)
- Windy & Carl - Antarctica: The Bliss Out Vol. 2
- Poison Damage - KSA
- Khotin - New Tab
- Shorelights - Bioluminescence
- Steve Roach - Immersion: Two
- Most of Ismistik - Remain
- HTRK - Venus In Leo
- And the NTS mix of all those VIL demos. Happy 5 years of this amazing album!
- Listened to The House of Love a ton, had "Feel" and "High In Your Face" stuck in my head all day. Chris Groothuizen is an underrated bass player.
- CiM - Reference
- Pauline Anna Strom - Trans-Millenia Music
- So good. Surprisingly sharp and clear (my layman vocabulary) for something so underground. Lots of forgotten cassette-exclusive stuff of this ilk, but this stands out. One that's playing at 44m "Spatial Spectre", "Virgin Ice", "Gossamer Silk".
- Prefab Sprout – Jordan: The Comeback
- "Looking For Atlantis", "Wild Horses", "Jordan: The Comeback", "Moon Dog".
- Sneaker Pimps - Splinter
- "Curl", "Flowers and Silence".
- Ride – Smile
- I believe this is the first time in my 10 years of being a fan of this band that I've actually sat down to listen to their first 2 EPs. I didn't not enjoy it. Drums sound like shit though. "Silver".
- Supreme Beings of Leisure - Supreme Beings of Leisure
- Manitoba - Start Breaking My Heart
- "Brandon"
- The House of Love - Babe Rainbow
- "High In Your Face", "Cruel", "Crush Me", "Yer Eyes".
- Seefeel - Everything Squared
- Knapsack - Day Three of My New Life
- The House of Love - The House of Love
29 August 2024
- David Torn - Cloud About Mercury
- Etelin - Patio User Manual
- Emerald Web - Valley of the Birds
- Sasha Matson - Steel Chords / I-5
- Nico - Desertshore demos, or "Original Conception", whatever that means
- I've never heard the finished album, decided to listen to this first. It's funny hearing a German lady in, what, 1969 say "It's just a demo". "The Falconer".
- X-TG - Desertshore
- Aki Tsuyuko – Ongakushitsu
- Various - Net17
- Found this super obscure comp while searching for more Haroumi Hosono deep cuts in the vein of N.D.E.. Ironically, the only download of this I can find on the web omits the Hosono Track, "esc", which I'm assuming is a shortened version of that track he did with Atom Heart and Tetsu Inoue. Some stuff I'd expect to hear alongside a '90s Hosono track; mostly unremarkable downtempo new age background music. "Memo Flora" is good.
- Suzanne Ciani - Buchla Concerts 1975
- Second listen since around it came out. Provoked by that clip featuring Suzanne Ciani explaining the Buchla from that PBS show.
- Robert Rich - Long Tail of the Quiet Gong
- Happy birthday Robert Rich!
- Haroumi Hosono - Mercuric Dance
- "Fossil Of Flame ~ Fifty Bell-Trees"
- Various Artists - Future Music (FOA)
- "Ether Vibes", and that slow track with spring peepers.
- Kemistry & Storm - DJ-Kicks:
- Terekke - Plant Age
- Cranes - Future Songs
- "Fragile", "Flute Song", "Sunrise", "Driving in the Sun".
- Yellow Swans - Going Places
- Don't really like this in in itself except for "Limited Space", but it's good for blocking out the shit they play at the gym.
- George Clanton - Slide
- Bloodthirsty Butchers – Kocorono
- Dave Lunt - Now Silent
- I live within walking distance of where this was recorded. In fact, I regularly walk in the same neighborhood, a few streets over. I wonder if this is the closest an album I've listened to has been made to where I live.
- Frodus – And We Washed Our Weapons In The Sea
- Finished from 15-16 August. "The Earth Isn't Humming", "Belgian Congo", "There Will Be No More Scum", "Red Bull of Juarez".
- Sonic Youth - Spinhead Sessions
- Fragment - Unknown
- Neutrino - Motion Picture Soundtrack
- "Back to the Map"
- Half of µ-Ziq - Bluff Limbo
- Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine
- Got a sudden and mysterious urge to listen to this. First time in maybe a decade I listened to the entire thing.
- Combustible Edison - The Impossible World
- "Laura's Aura", "20th Century", "Tickled To Death".
- Tuxedomoon - Time To Lose
- Seam - Kernel (except for "Driving the Dynamite Truck", which I heard a few days ago).
- "Sweet Pea". I wonder if I've heard anything by Seam on the radio or Music Choice. Maybe it just sounds so much like all that typical angsty '90s alt rock that my memory can't tell the difference.
- Elements of Need - Elements of Need
- Red Stars Theory – Life In A Bubble Can Be Beautiful
- "Parts Per Million"
- Venn Rain - Humming Hills
- Brian Eno - Ambient 4: On Land
- Suzanne Kraft – What You Get For Being Young
- Google Earth (?), James Riotto & John Vanderslice - Street View
- E - Complications
- "Acid Mantle", "Contagion Model".
- Jim Haynes - Telegraphy by the Sea
- Death Cult - Death Cult
- The Mob - Let the Tribe Increase
- Violeta de Outono - Violeta de Outono
- "Declinio De Maio", "Sombras Flutuantes".
- Gimu - A Season In Your Soul
- Cows - Daddy Has a Tail!
- Loidis - One Day
- Tuxedomoon – You
- I'm at work and I enjoyed this. It must be good, right? "2000".
- Dim - Dim (2023 shoegaze thing)
- Lush's Cookie, which is strange for being basically just the b-sides of the "Desire Lines" and "Hypocrite" singles. Not big on any of these except for "Undertow (Spooky Remix)", which I believe the band used as walk-on music at some point while touring for Split. I don't care really for the drippy chamber-ballad stuff they were doing around this period.
- Lush - Spooky
- Steve Roach - Atmospheric Conditions
- E - Living Waters
- "Living Waters" sounds like a title track.
- Vito Ricci - Web 1
- Pretty good. Wouldn't have guessed this was a ~77yo career composer.
- Robber Robber - Wild Guess
- It's not everyday that I listen to a new album reviewed by Pitchfork and it turns out to be pretty good. Not even BNM! "Machine Wall".
- K. Yoshimatsu - Spherical Voyage
- K. Yoshimatsu - Fossil Papillon
31 July 2024
- Steve Roach - Quiet Music 2
- Enjoyed. This sounds like some of his later stuff. And it makes me think - ambient music ages much more slowly than rock and pop.
- Vanishing Twin – Ookii Gekkou
- The Jesus Lizard - Goat
- Henry Kawahara – The Sound Of Illusions
- Henry Kawahara - Sound LSD: Subliminal Sex
- The track "Uranium" by TFUL282 randomly appeared in my main playlist this morning, without any action by me. How weird is that?
- Henry Kawahara - Cybernetic Defiance and Orgasm: The Essential Henry Kawahara
- "Destination of Endorphins"
- Henry Kawahara - Bamboo Garden
- Lorad Group - Sul Tempo
- Pretty good, despite the hoax. Perfect for a cool, sunny morning at home. "Flirti di notte", "Lavoro Quotidiano".
- Donato Dozzy - Plays Bee Mask
- Summer '19 nap music.
- Robert Rich - Electric Ladder
- "Sky Tunnel"
- Steve Roach - Slow Heat
- Henry Kawahara – Shaman
- Blazer SoundSystem - Blazer Sound System
- Poison Damage - KSA
- Wow! I really liked this. Almost music.
- Nearly God (Tricky) - Nearly God
- Gah, maybe I'm just in the wrong mood but this is annoying as hell. Tricky goes on and on with his hardened-but-sensual-man-of-the-streets shtick, whatever he croaks in his fatigued, breathy voice echoed by Martina Topley-Bird, a dynamic that'd be more likeable if it wasn't already done a few times on Maxinquaye. The instrumentals are best on "Poems" and "Make a Change", where the already slow trip hop groove is slowed to a molasses drip, on the latter accompanied by solemn violins and sampled guitar. "Poems" is mostly great for its Terry Hall feature, his portrayal of a disillusioned lover simultaneously devastated and acrid. The three vocalists on this track are backed by an awkward, hobbling beat and eerie whine, eventually joined by a pleasant acoustic guitar vamp. The instrumental is great until it abruptly fades into.... a man yelling followed by the half-first second of "Strugglin'"? The passage is only about 25 seconds long but it's pretty irritating and amateurish. Is it meant to symbolize something? The other Terry Hall track, "Bubbles", has good lyrics, but the instrumental being so similar to "Suffocated Love" is off-putting, as is Tricky's obnoxiously overaffected voice. He's so exhausted from life on the streets he can barely muster the energy to do the vocals, how poignant. "Keep Your Mouth Shut" and "Together Now" are annoying. "I Be the Prophet" isn't too bad if you look past the cheap-sounding instrumental and by-the-numbers Tricky-Topley-Bird duet. "I Sing For You" has a great minimal instrumental with pleasant vocals, and we get a well-deserved break from Tricky. "Yoga" is mostly Björk with Tricky kind of hidden in the mix, so it's good.
- Craven Faults - Erractics and Unconformities
- FSA Peel Session
- "I Can Take You To The Sun"
- Picture Music - Picture Music
- Steve Roach - Structures From Silence
- The Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity
- Earth Crisis - Firestorm
- Venn Rain - Place In World
- Kane Pour – Wand In The Beak Of The Yellow Bird
- Wang Wen - Eight Horses
- Been in the mood for this kind of melodramatic post-rock lately. Was into IV in college, never got into this one, but I recognize the first track. Probably going to explore this band a little more.
- Wipers - Is This Real?
- "Standing on the stairs, cold, cold morning"
- Hermit - Frequence Eater
- Macaroom - Burning Chrome
- "Hole", "Burning Chrome".
- Phil Struck - QTT5
- OMD - Dazzle Ships
- Monster Magnet - Dopes To Infinity
- "Dopes To Infinity", "Negasonic Teenage Warhead".
- Huerco S. – For Those Of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have)
- Steve Roach - Core
- Yura Yura Teikoku - Hollow Me / Beautiful
- "Good Morning Let's Do It Again", "Tender Animals", "Lonely Satellite", "Dekinai", "Hollow Me".
- Most of Orange Cake Mix - Silver Lining Underwater
- '80s New Age cassette music, but it's the late '90s and it's on CD. "Bird Song".
- uon - uon
- Polykroma - Radiaphane
- Volplane - 1997-1999
- Southpacific – Constance
- "E10 @ 182", "Instrumental".
- Enno Velthuys – A Glimpse Of Light
- Why the fuck did I delete this from my library?
- Fields of the Nephilim - Elizium
- Plastica - New Model Sex
- Rainsoft - Nature Resonance
- Dim - Stereo 45
- Spring Heel Jack – 68 Million Shades......
- "Midwest", "Suspensions", and more!
- Peace Orchestra - Peace Orchestra
- Odd Nosdam – Burner
- Wasn't expecting this to have so much...drone. I see why BoC like this guy.
- Kuniyuki Takahashi - All These Things
- "All These Things"
- F.U.S.E. - Computer Space
- K. Yoshimatsu - Spherical Voyage
- How To Destroy Angels – How To Destroy Angels
- NIN with female vocals. First listen since 2014 or so. "Fur-Lined", "The Believers".
- Dim - Dim
- Hideki Taniuchi & Yoshihisa Hirano - Death Note Original Soundtrack
- Takes a lot of cues from IDM. "Death Note".
- Steve Roach - Quiet Music 1
- Medicine - The Buried Life
- 2016
- Dirty Three - Dirty Three [1995]
- K. Yoshimatsu - Sepia Reminiscence
- Kind of getting into this guy. I liked Spherical Voyage. But yesterday I listened to most of Marine Crystal, and honestly, it's kind of grating and monotonous. It's relentlessly jolly, and despite the DIY presentation it seems like just a shallow city pop album about island getaways and what not. There's something unsettling about that '80s Japanese summer aesthetic that the vaporwave generation and its offspring crave. K. Yoshimatsu and the Japanese artists I've heard can't really pull off that carefree feel; it still feels austere, like a vacation between clean white tiles and an overcast sky. It feels like pictures in a magazine, straining for everything to be perfectly colored and symmetrical and synchronized. "A dull paradise..." What is meant to be frivolous rings differently on a noisy 40 year old cassette that probably only a couple hundred people heard during its first 3 decades; at least the obscurity of Spherical Voyage befits its lonely sound.
- Rainer Brüninghaus – Freigeweht
- Love the ECM records with ominous synth arpeggios and a lonely atmosphere. Think these are a particular characteristic of Brüninghaus' LPs. "Freigeweht".
- Coastal - Coastal
- From the NTS U.S. shoegaze mix.
- Centaur - In Streams
- Listened to half. I understand that it's not a Hum album, it's a whole new band, it's lighter, it's marginally more eclectic, there's there's acoustic guitars, etc. But it just sounds like a Hum album. It's Hum in 2002. It's the same overall muddy sound. The drums sound exactly like Bryan St. Pere. The bass does some interesting stuff but it's much too quiet in the mix to notice. I'm not trying to shit on this album, I swear. There's a song that starts shortly after the 15 minute mark, beginning with warped dialogue and featuring a keyboard interlude, that I'm currently enjoying.
- Airiel - Winks and Kisses
- An old friend. "Liquid Paper", "Kiss Me Softly", "Airtight Angels", "Where It Belongs".
- Hum - Puppets / Aphids
- Circus Mort - Circus Mort