[rayword45]

Day 17: &&&&& by Arca (Album Choice: Arkuski)

Ugh, I give up on pronouncing anything.

So, 5 second research shows this guy is Venezuelan, he's on some no-name New York label, and he was a producer on Yeezus. I hate Kanye but I'm not judging this guy at all for that, I still listen to Daft Punk after all. His styles according to Tiny Mix Tapes (who I don't care for nor particularly abhor) are "dub, hip-hop, ambient, found sound". The fact that Tiny Mix Tapes gave it that high of a rating isn't so much worrisome as, eh... Their taste often times seems to be DELIBERATELY as hipster as possible. When I say that, hopefully you know what I mean because I'm not trying to come off as narrow-minded. I mean they try HARD to come off as hipsters sometimes. But let's what this is.

Oh yeah, right, the pledge.

Day 3 of the pledge: I woke up, and immediately almost relapsed. This is not fun. To compare a different man's struggles, I watched the Super Jizz Me series of videos from YouTube user dcigs, AKA the Angry Black Man. His challenge was considerably different, because mine is no porn, not r/nofap. I don't think r/noporn is a very well-known subreddit. Anyways, he lasted 9 days. Many of his fans took the challenge at the same time as him, and over 250 people failed with him and admit it, and who knows who didn't admit it? That does not bear well for me. This is tough stuff. Music takes it off my mind so let's listen.

Soundcloud comments are hilarious in how incredibly stupid they come off sometimes, and... What the hell is this shit? This seems to be music deliberately made with the ugliest sounds ever. This music (and the guy's website) reminds me of Off The Air, that [adult swim] show which is just a bunch of trippy videos and pictures thrown together. The style of the Soundcloud website makes it RIDICULOUSLY difficult to comment on any individual tracks, but that's okay every track seems to get the same basic idea across. Every track is a short (24 tracks, less than 25 minutes) snippet of bizarre tones, chirpy/glitchy noises, low bass and really strange drum tracks. This whole mixtape is really strange.

I turned off the air conditioner 16 minutes into the mixtape to hear better. But I turned it back on in about 15 seconds because it's too damn hot.

So yeah, this is one hell of a mixtape. I can immediately see why Tiny Mix Tapes loved this shit. I have no comparisons to make to any other music, but honestly that's because I'm not really into this kinda music. I've said that for like 5000 of my reviews. Go watch Off The Air. This mixtape is like an episode of that show converted into audio format expanded to 26 minutes. I really can't describe or criticize this music at all. It's not traditionally catchy or traditionally melodic, and it doesn't make for good background music AT ALL, but it is some truly unique stuff I'll give it that.

Hey, wanna hear something funny? Uh, I don't when the mixtape ended. Because after it ended Soundcloud immediately started playing other Arca tracks and I wasn't paying much attention. So this isn't a very fair review, but screw you I make my own rules.

3 words: Trippy. Weird. Pitchfork.

Best Track: How the fuck am I supposed to know that?
Rating: 5/10