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Artifakt - Artifakts II
funked up psytrance with serious balls and boatloads of intelligence. dark, dirty, funky, ass-shaking psychedelic madness. the album is put together with a beautiful flow from track to track, and is filled with stuff that just wants to dismantle my head and put it back together different. I've heard this guy play on a big system many times and omg!
Four Tet - Everything Ecstatic
despite thinking that the last three tracks suck, everything that comes before is pure genius. a total breakaway (except for one track maybe) from his previous style (he had a previous style? lol.) 'sun, drums and soil' sounds like it was played by a live band of slightly crazy jazz musicians, and has a dynamic range missing in much electronic or rock music - it starts off quietish and crescendos towards the end. 'high five' and 'smile around the face' are just blissful.
Boards of Canada - The Campfire Headphase
the perfect example of what they have been doing all along. everything crystallizes beautifully on this album. I thought their last two contained patches of brilliance, but also patches of dullness. This album is more like the 'in a beautiful place e.p., which was only let down by the last track being a twee generic electronic ditty, easily forgiven in light of the beauty of the 3 preceding tracks. 'peacock tail' and 'slow this bird down' are two of the simplest and most beautiful pieces of music I have ever heard.
Cocteau Twins - all of their less goth stuff
I like their goth stuff. but I find myself not much interested in that style anymore, so I prefer Treasure/Victorialand on for listening these days. I have everything except their last couple of singles. what to say? beautiful jangly music with usually incomprehensible lyrics. they had a style all their own. bands like the cranberries always reminded me a bit of them (though I never liked the cranberries. pleasant pop doesn't do it for me, unless it's something like the Cardigans, speaking of which)
The Cardigans - Life, First Band on the Moon and Gran Turismo
silly happy sounding pop with usually subtly dark lyrics. They did 2 covers of Black Sabbath. 'Iron Man' and 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.' But sounding like silly happy pop songs. beautiful stuff.
System of a Down - Hypnotize
I'm trying to get into this. I have and love all the previous ones. Mezmerize took 3 listens to properly appreciate. Except Lost in Hollywood, which I still don't like for the same reasons I have yet to like this one: really excellently played and sung but perfectly middle of the road heavy metal. This is not what I would have expected from them. Sure there are tempo changes and everything sounds cool, but one track sounds like a seventies rock track, another sounds like straightforward thrash. Only one or two tracks have anything that stands out and says System of a Down, instead of Talented But Unoriginal Sounding Metal Band.
On the strength of the previous four albums, I'm refusing to give up on this one just yet.
Tori Amos - From The Choirgirl Hotel
Having gone off her for years, I was given this by a girlfriend last year, and fell in love with the first track, Sparks. Powerful and emotional, it sucks me in and makes me feel, I don't know what, not sad, not happy, but something melancholy and hopeful at the same time.
The rest of the disc is generally great and not typical Tori as I had expected (part of why I gave up on her was that her sound did not seem to advance at all over her first three albums, and I expected she was a good musician who had one idea, and had played it out. Choirgirl Hotel proved me wrong.)
Murcof - Martes
I like IDM (even if I think the name is stupid and inappropriate) but have never been into "glitch" music. Some Autechre (brilliant as they are) goes over my head for the same reason John Cage does. It seems to be more about intellectual excercise than music. I believe all good music should have an effect on you beyond any intellectual effect. In fact, overintellectualising can be problematic (a friend dislikes boards of canada solely on the basis that their music does not meet his criteria of complexity. of course, the simplicity is part of their style, and without it they would be a different band entirely.)
ah, yeah, tangent there. I was explaining why I like Murcof. Beautifully crafted glitch music with orchestral samples. He has a talent for timing and for making stark electronic soundscapes seem, if not human, perhaps humanoid. minimal, haunting, and to me unforgettable. the first time I heard this album I was immediately immersed within it.
most "glitch" music does not have this effect on me. It seems more like an experiment for the mind, and not for the senses. If I wanted that, I'd read a textbook on music.
Shpongle - Nothing Lasts But Nothing Is Lost
downtempo psychedelic latin world dub. or something. another album created with a flow, so much so that listening in any order other than beginning to end sounds so wrong, even if you disregard that the tracks are lightly mixed into one another. when I listen to this I forget what track I am on very quickly and listen to it as a single album, same as I do with albums such as Lifeforms (Future Sound of London.)
I don't generally listen to the downtempo side of psychedelic music, as it is generally very generic and hasn't progressed since 1995, but this band is an exception.
nothing radical there, I guess, but that's what's spending the most time on my speakers at the moment. |
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