Daily Music Reviews (Summer Challenge)

Re: Daily Music Reviews (Summer Challenge)

yo I highly recommend listening to good kid m.A.A.d city by kendrick lamar, definitely gonna be considered a classic in 5-10 years

Re: Daily Music Reviews (Summer Challenge)

nuh-uh
Section.80 all the way

Re: Daily Music Reviews (Summer Challenge)

section.80 was good but then he read a few books on storytelling and released m.A.A.d city

Re: Daily Music Reviews (Summer Challenge)

Requesting that you listen to The Hass Effect by Electrocado.

Re: Daily Music Reviews (Summer Challenge)

1. Yes, I am 15.
2. I don't look for anything specific. If anything, I'd like the requests to be as eclectic as possible.
3. That's a good idea, I think I'll do that now.

Re: Daily Music Reviews (Summer Challenge)

Day 41: Donuts by J Dilla (Album Choice: Lord of Sushi)

For the last album of this streak, I went with an instrumental hip-hop album. Sort of cheating but whatever. J Dilla was a hip-hop producer and rapper who was (according to many) fairly influential on hip-hop production. He died in 2006 of Thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (a blood disease). This was his last album, released 3 days before his death, recorded mostly in a hospital using a sampler and stack of records. I'll be doing at least a brief comparison to Nujabes, since they're always compared for having the exact same birthday, making very good beats and being dead. And on a bright note, I recently upgraded from two dollar headphones to five dollar ones! Now, onto the music.

Only one track is above 2 minutes, but there are 31 tracks. That's a lot of beats. But such short lengths are probably a good idea. Such a rapid-fire approach allows him to get a lot of ideas through the course of an average-length album, and never does the album feel draining (at least not, holy crap, I'm already 11 tracks in?) partly thanks to the short length of each song. Had these songs been extended unnecessarily (or to make them the length of an average rap song) they might have felt repetitive. Instead, each track feels like a piece of a large suite, and while I wouldn't say the tracks flow perfectly into each other they do compliment each other well. The main flaw in such an approach is that I believe I'll need to listen to this more than once to fully wrap my head around this album, but that's okay. If anything I'll say my first thoughts and go back to it again (is that cheating?). On the beats themselves, for the most part they're heavily sample-based (duh) and that's done very well especially considering the limitations of the recording process. Throughout the entire album you can often hear the crackle of vinyl, reminding you of the recording set-up consisting mainly of vinyl records (and a sampler). And the samples themselves are mixed very well, sometimes left basically untouched, other times chopped and screwed so much they're completely unrecognizable (not that I know many of the records being sampled here). I'm also fond of the fact that it begins on Donuts (Outro) and begins on Donuts (Intro). Gives it a book close-and-open feeling (since they contain the same sample at the end/entire track) and gives me a reason to listen to it on loop, which is something I feel I should do soon.

Obligatory comparison to Nujabes that I promised. This guy is a lot less jazz-based and his slapdash approach is different from the instrumentals on Metaphorical Music which were considerably less energetic and more instrument-based rather than samples. Whereas Nujabes gave me a lounge-y, chillout feeling these beats seem more energetic, more party-like. Overall I'm drifting towards Nujabes but like I said, I want to give this album more time so I can fully wrap my head around this. This is an album that is begging for multiple listens.

So, yeah, I liked this album, quite a bit. However, the approach to tracks here means there's a lot to wrap your head around in such a short time, almost like an aural overload. The whole thing seems like a suite almost, as if it's begging to be listened to in one sitting. I wouldn't mind if this was released as one long 45 minute track (similar to Lysol by the Melvins or Delirium Cordia by Fantomas) because I'm pretty sure this album is meant to be listened to in such a way. Then again, I could be wrong considering individual beats were re-used later on. Either way, I'll give this a recommendation and sooner or later I'll come back to this and see how my opinion changes over several listens.

Re: Daily Music Reviews (Summer Challenge)

Day 42: The White Apple by Of Verona (Album Choice: SkullDevil217)

Correct formatting is of Verona, actually. One thing I've never really tried to understand is all the bands with of (insert word(s)) as their name, like of Montreal, of Mice And Men, and there are more that I can't remember right now. I don't understand the point of this, it just makes formatting look stupider. Also, these bands all vary in quality so I have no expectations low or high for this album. This band is described as electro pop and art rock. Neither are genres I am particularly fond of nor are they genres I have a huge disdain for. Yep, no expectations what so ever.

This voice reminds me of some other band but I can't put my finger on it. Let's see if I remember. Also this first track seems way more accessible than any "art rock" album I've ever heard. Also I'm obviously not sure if this first track is too similar to the next few tracks, but if it is, the weakest point is songwriting because these lyrics seem like any generic love song. 4 tracks in, Dark In My Imagination kicks the ass of any other song thus far, solely due to it's darker sound. Mildly darker sound. In fact I shouldn't call it a stand-out, I just like it a tad bit more. The title track, The White Apple, is the longest track on the album and as someone who (like usual) hasn't been paying attention, I like it. This is an actual standout track for me, it starts kinda ballady (or did it, I kinda forgot) but as I drifted out, somehow I got a circus-y sound in my ears, back to ballads. I don't mean circus in a goofy way, that's the only way I can describe it though. The last track is the second longest song and... It's quite similar to every other electro pop track here. I didn't have much to write about this album nor did I have much time, I've got a plane to catch in the early morning tomorrow.

Since I should sleep soon, I shall summarize my thoughts quickly. I like this girl's voice, and the electronic backing isn't bad at all (I also like how the drums rumble in the background). My main problems would be with the lyrics, which seem all like fairly bland love poems (I'm not looking very deep into this), and the fact that the whole album doesn't really have any moments of mindblowingly amazing bits. That's a common problem with me it seems, but that's what I say. The whole thing streams through without much more besides similar-to-each-other electro pop tracks (with a bit of glitch or rock here and there) and some ballads. Nothing to really break the mold here. The melodies are good though, this isn't a bad album at all.

And if I didn't write enough today, I'm going to deliberately choose a longass album tomorrow (which I have not done yet) to kill time while on a plane.

Re: Daily Music Reviews (Summer Challenge)

Day 43: This Binary Universe by BT (AlbumChoice: Crazyjayde, noname219)

I partially lied yesterday. I said I would choose a long album to kill plane time, but the loudass engine means it wasn't exactly a good spot for audio analysis. Maybe if I spent money on noise canceling headphones instead of going to Five Below. But anyways, I'll stick to half my word and choose an album over 70 minutes. This is 75 minutes of ambient glitch and orchestra music. One thing I've realized is the difficulty of reviewing electronic albums. You can't typically comment on lyrics and songwriting, you have to focus a bit more than mindless/in-your-face rock music and you can't mock the band players' lack of skill. Oh well. Before I started reviewing things, 10 minute plus tracks seemed a bit more daunting. But now I've reviewed songs from 25-63 minutes, making this seem a bit more accessible. Since I've gone from Eastern to Central time that's about an extra hour of time to slack off and then rush!

This album is meant to be heard in surround sound but I'm listening in stereo. I've listened to Zaireeka mixdowns so I'm assuming this isn't too much of a problem. The first 2 tracks begin similarly (start with ambient soundscapes, add glitch noises and build from there) but they sound quite different (something I wasn't entirely expecting) as neither track is quite repetitive (something I definitely wasn't expecting). Through the addition of orchestra and heavily manipulated instruments and toy sounds there's a lot of turns and changes throughout each track. Dynamic Symmetry for example with ambience layered with glitch, but gets more and more complex, and then it morphs somewhere around 6 minutes into jazzy big band, then hip-hop beats, then breakbeat! It may just be the drums because I'm surrounded by noisy relatives but it sure sounds different. And The Internal Locus features the orchestra that was somewhat absent before, then turns into industrial, then dark ambient. I'm surprised how much shift is in this music, though the emotion stays fairly bleak throughout (that's actually a good thing, remaining static). Interestingly, the longest track, See You On The Other Side, seems to be the one with the least amount of variety, consisting mostly of the usual ambience and glitch with toybox and piano with guitar patterns occasionally strutting in. This isn't to say there isn't variety, which there is such as when the bass thickens around eleven minutes in, but it seems a tad bit simpler. And because I always comment on the final track like the unoriginal lazyass I am, I take back whatever I said about simplest track. This is a very barebones track, piano and oceanic sounds. It's a very relaxing, fitting closer. What a bland sentence.

So I did end up choosing a long album yet I didn't say much about it at the end, mostly due to noise from relatives. Nonetheless, I give this a full recommendation. I'm either fooling myself or there are a lot of influences in this music, jazz, breakbeat, Indie rock, orchestral, experimental, industrial, neo-classical, and the ones listed on Wikipedia. And film score music, I didn't mention that this guy did some film scores in the intro. The lushly textured instrumentation and orchestra and complex, shifting song structures make this a very interesting listen that's surprisingly accessible despite not having a single song that's short enough to fit on a 45. I want to watch the short films that are meant to accompany this release to see what they're like and how they compliment the music. And I want to listen to it in surround sound, same with Zaireeka.

Re: Daily Music Reviews (Summer Challenge)

OH CAN I RECOMMEND MORE AMBIENT MUSIC.

La Barca by Tomas Koner. Wonderful mix of field recordings and ambiance.

Re: Daily Music Reviews (Summer Challenge)

Please, recommend some fucking albums

Day 44: The Hass Effect by Electrocado (Album Choice: smartdude1212)

I don't feel like writing much today, yet I chose a longer album again. Oh well.*Electrocado is two guys from Sydney, Australia who mix together all*sorts of electronic music together like breaks, glitch, psytrance and ambient. More importantly, they have a very clear affinity for avocados, as shown by*their band name, album name and artwork. To be honest, with song names like*The Lo-Fi Blues and The Jolly Frog I was hoping for something more*along the lines of Beck or Ween, but hey, at least it isn't*crunkcore! This was another free download at their Bandcamp, so I can safely say that if I don't like this album I still recommend you give it a shot.

Well, after what I pretty much completely expected out of the first track*(avocado references and at least two electronic genres, in this case ambient and glitch) I'm happy to report that The Lo-Fi Blues is at least partially accurate in its title, which features a beat-up sounding acoustic guitar in the beginning that is manipulated a few times throughout the song. Does that qualify as folktronica? (Plectrum, on the other hand, contains nothing that makes me think of a plectrum except maybe staccato sounds.) Other then that, it's mostly bass-heavy electro music. And I'm drifting towards track-by-track so let me stop while I'm ahead. The majority of*this album seems to be mostly made up of electro and glitch hop (or whatever*bass-heavy genre I'm not listing that doesn't end with "step") with maybe a few things thrown in to spice it up. It pretty much succeeds in both aspects for the most part, though to be honest a few tracks can get a tad bit repetitive (as is the nature of many types of electronic music). One thing I like is the usage of manipulated vocal samples about avocados. Because I'm hungry, and it makes the music sound as if they aren't taking themselves too seriously. And 12 Oz. Mouse samples both furthers that thought and increased the awesome factor (though I don't understand why they would call this track The Jolly Frog instead of something about mice or sharks). And SGC2C too! The amount of respect has gone through the roof. Yet I have nothing else to say, and no real comments on the last track. This may be the worst review I've done thus far.

This might be the worst review I've done thus far. So let's conclude it with some padding. Today I played a Pump It Up machine for the first time in many, many years. It's a load of fun but I suck really bad because there are pretty much no machines in Massachusetts. I also saw a bunch of redneck chicks fail at DDR and that's my mini-review of Tilt
Arcade in some crappy Houston mall. This album is one I can't comment much on. I enjoyed it for the main show of electro music and the genre shifts, but mostly for the [adult swim] references. I'll give this a recommendation, which gets bonuses because you can download it for free.

And I think my review of Until The Quiet Comes was much worse.

Re: Daily Music Reviews (Summer Challenge)

plis review my album :'(

I decay into a spiral of unending sadness every day this isnt reviewed

Re: Daily Music Reviews (Summer Challenge)

I've got a few suggestions:

Frog Pocket - Gonglot
Tapage - Fallen Clouds
TechDiff - The Black Dog Released
Entity Netlabel - Vortex

Re: Daily Music Reviews (Summer Challenge)

approved

Re: Daily Music Reviews (Summer Challenge)

Koner gives boner, good stuff indeed.

I haven't seen these reviewed so I'll recommend:

-Nothing Lasts, But Nothing Is Lost by Shpongle
-Tryshasla by Secede
-We Stay Together by Andy Stott

Really solid reviews all around so far by the way. Enjoying it

Re: Daily Music Reviews (Summer Challenge)

+1 infected mushroom... unf
<3