Songs That Shape a Life: YorkeDaddy Gets Personal

~~butthead aka 216~~ · 02-25-2014, 04:55 AM

I believe it was you who played Chvrches in Plug once or twice and I remembered being impressed. If you could recommend a handful of songs, I'd like to really give them a listen.

YorkeDaddy · 02-25-2014, 07:10 AM

Ohhhhh yeah, prepare to be amazed.

All four of these songs are just about flawless imo:

YorkeDaddy · 02-27-2014, 06:52 PM

Brian Eno

He may not have dominated by top 100 albums list, but in terms of overall bodies of work and influence on me, there aren't many out there that rank higher than Brian Eno. Let's take a look at some of my favorite albums by the genius:

Another Green World

Pretty close to perfect. Before this record, Eno's music still had a semblance of pop/rock to it, and this album still carries over some of those elements a little bit in tracks like "St. Elmo's Fire" and "I'll Come Running," and Eno's classic charm and pleasant voice make these tracks works well. His lyrics are whimsically funny as usual and add a gentle wit to these tracks.

However, where the album really shines is in some of the early examples of dark ambient, and they are simply excellent. Tracks like "In Dark Trees," with it's almost tribal-like dark beat and discordant ambiance is just beautiful and rather ahead of its time. This album is a huge influence on me and was revolutionary. Other great tracks include "The Big Ship" and, frankly, the entire second half of the album is just incredible.

Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks

My favorite dark ambient album, for sure. It came after Ambient 4/Dark Land and isn't quite as dark as that one, but what makes this album shine to me is the unique variety it brings to the table. Getting Daniel Lanois to play country-inspired guitar for "Silver Morning", "Deep Blue Day" and "Weightless" was brilliant and makes this one of the coolest ambient albums ever released.

Neroli

Now, I love Taking Tiger Mountain and Here Come the Warm Jets, but what has really made Eno such a legendary figure to me is his work with ambient music. His music is some of the most calm, beautiful things I've ever heard, so I have to pay respects to my favorite of his pure ambient albums. This album is just one song really, and I would be lying if I said I listen to this on a regular basis and with my undivided attention, but in terms of music that I listen to just for the simple calming effect, there is nothing better. It's so simple yet so serene. I can just close my eyes and let my consciousness float with the music. It's really a great album to experience rather than simply listen to.

Now, I find practically everything Eno's made to be spectacular, but these are just three of my favorites and three of the most influential to me when it comes to my own artistry, so if you've never heard Eno, you'd be doing yourself a favor to at least check out Another Green World!

~~butthead aka 216~~ · 03-03-2014, 02:44 PM

Just wanted to say that I listened to the Chvrches songs you posted and liked them so much that I went ahead and just listened to the whole album. It's interesting to me because it's electronica music or whatever, but it's not uptempo music that I'd hear at the club. And the girl's voice is awesome too. Good call.

YorkeDaddy · 03-13-2014, 04:53 PM

^ No problem bro, glad to hear you liked it!

In Other News:

Do you like ambient music?

If so, nothing would bring me more joy than hearing your opinion on this. I haven't been on MB much in the past month or so because I've been going through some difficult stuff, and I translated all of that into this album. I tried to make it personal and emotional despite being void of lyrics, and I experimented a lot for the sounds I made. It's the last ambient album I really plan on making, since this is two releases already in 2014, but if you're going to listen to anything I've made then I want it to be this.

Wordless | Daydream Society

Hopefully I'll get to updating this journal some more. We'll see.

YorkeDaddy · 03-31-2014, 02:37 PM

I don't know why I do things like this, but sometimes I'll get an idea and once I get started there's no stopping me.

So with that, here's a Google doc with every single album I have in my library that I've listened to more than a couple times accompanied with a rating out of ten. This was a fun little project that took me about a week as I was re-familiarizing myself with some of the albums.

The results of this project are quite a bit different than my "favorite" albums list because there's a far more subjective element to that. With this list I was trying to be as objective as I could.

Albums that got a 10/10 are bolded.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...2c&output=html

Some stats:
10/716 got a 10/10
74/716 scored a 9 or higher
60/716 scored lower than 5

YorkeDaddy · 04-06-2014, 09:49 PM

I've done several mini-reviews lately, here's a few:

Nickel Creek - A Dotted Line

Sometimes albums have a strange familiarity, as if tapping into an untapped beauty that you always knew was in your heart but was struggling to be recognized. Sometimes an album confuses you and frightens you by surprising you at every turn; you’re just not sure what to expect next. You’re not sure if you’re going to cry or be tapping your feet to a catchy tune. This album gives you all of these experiences in a work that’s not quite cohesive but certainly a varied journey worth experiencing.

Described as “progressive bluegrass” but encompassing far more than just that, this album gives you something new at every turn. They don’t wait long to overwhelm you with extraordinarily full vocal harmonies and some ambitious, meaty string instrumentation. These are some talented musicians, without question. More than once I was taken aback by the sheer intricacy of some of the guitar work on this album. The instrumental third track, “Elsie,” is gorgeous by any standard and features some utterly masterful musicianship. Nickel Creek doesn’t want you complacent, however, and stuns everyone with “Hayloft,” the fifth track that comes from way out in left field with strange, almost punk-like lyrics and a discordant chord progression which is far unlike the mostly catchy first four tracks.

Nickel Creek shows an impressive ability to take typical bluegrass conventions and mold them into a unique experience unlike almost anything I’ve heard, so much so that you can go from sassy punk-pop to stunning acoustic folk in an instant, but I can guarantee the entire experience is thoroughly enthralling. Whether you enjoy bluegrass or don’t, this is an accessible yet amazingly rewarding listen that almost anybody will enjoy. A simply excellent record.

Score: 9/10

Bombay Bicycle Club - So Long, See You Tomorrow

Here we have one of those bands that consistently shows that they have great ideas but sometimes not the greatest execution. Historically, Bombay Bicycle Club has made it clear to everyone that they could write some catchy songs, but they couldn’t escape the trap that indie pop bands typically fall into: the tracks just don’t have much substance. This album even serves as a bit of a change of direction for the London-based band, drawing many influences from the electronic genre. There’s some very impressive production to admire here, but too typically the band settles for typical synthpop fare, and they don’t flex their songwriting muscles much like they have in the past with excellent tracks such as “Shuffle” and “How Can You Swallow So Much Sleep” on 2011′s A Different Kind of Fix.

Jack Steadman’s vocals are nice but he often becomes another high-pitched Chris Martin/Thom Yorke imitation. You might find yourself tapping your feet to the simple anthem-like tunes like “Carry Me,” but there’s just very little here that serves to separate Bombay Bicycle Club from every other indie pop band right now, which is quite unfortunate given the promise this band has shown in the past. An obvious low point to me is the attempt at trip-hop in track 4, “Home By Now,” with a bluesy piano riff that just isn’t cohesive at all with the rest of the tracks here. It stands out, but not in a particularly good way.

You’re in for some pretty harmonies and some catchy tracks, but you’re not in for anything that will change your mind about a genre or this band, and for that it’s easy to be disappointed with the route Bombay Bicycle Club has taken. There aren’t really any risks here despite the fact that they’ve changed their direction. They transferred from a genre without a lot of variety to another genre without a lot of variety, and I can’t help but feel like the band could have been much more ambitious at this stage in their career.

Score: 6/10

Mac DeMarco - Salad Days

Almost every review of this album will start off with an off-hand comment on DeMarco’s persona as a “slacker” or “hipster,” but I’m not here to discuss any subjective faults in a man that has clearly found the formula for pretty guitar pop. Every song is so effortlessly delivered and drenched in a hazy atmosphere that feels haunting despite his infectious hooks.

There’s a strong Beatles influence evidence in these melodies, and just like those boys from Liverpool, DeMarco can definitely write a catchy tune. On the track that’s by far most likely to hit college radio stations across the country, “Let Her Go,” DeMarco’s pretty falsetto utters “If you love her, let her go” over and over again, creating a strange dissonance that works well in contrasting the seemingly joyous feel of the melodies.

The highlight of the album, “Let My Baby Stay” is a steady, slow folk pop tune, mixing strange chords with strange percussion but a gorgeous, masterful melody. If anything can be said here, it’s that DeMarco has a talent for twisting typical indie pop fare into a truly interesting album. If there’s anything holding it back, it’s the lack of variety, and when there is a variety we’re treated to strange attempts at Joy Division-esque new wave that just don’t work (“Chamber of Reflection”). All in all, this is one of the better releases of 2014 so far.

Score: 8/10

ThePhanastasio · 04-06-2014, 10:18 PM

I'm checking out that Nickel Creek album right now. Your write up made it sound great. I'm not disappointed. Good stuff.

YorkeDaddy · 04-08-2014, 05:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ThePhanastasio

I'm checking out that Nickel Creek album right now. Your write up made it sound great. I'm not disappointed. Good stuff.

Glad you liked it! I really thought it was excellent. When I have the time I want to check out the rest of the discography.

YorkeDaddy · 05-01-2014, 12:05 PM

Oh, hello there. I decided to resurrect my journal and take a break from making every member on MusicBanter hate me because I think a like system would make the place seem friendlier and one-word/gif posts are stupid. Crucify me.

Actually, I'm going to dwell on that for a bit. Anyone that's known me for my entire stay on MusicBanter knows that things are different now than they used to be, and it sucks that no one cares enough to find out why I act the way I do, and instead people just like to assume I act the same way on here as I do in real life. If you make those assumptions, you're an idiot.

But it's true that my life seeps into my internet persona, and that's why the way I've acted has changed so drastically from when I was first here until now. However, one thing needs to be clear: on MusicBanter, I'm YorkeDaddy. In real life, I'm Bryan. On MusicBanter, I can let out my frustrations with life by acting out in ways that I can't in real life. You may call it petty; I call it the only way I know how to cope.

So that brings me to the point of this journal entry. I'm sure everyone knows I make a lot of music, both for my band cloudcover and on my own under the alias "Daydream Society". Creating music is basically my only passion, the only thing I really ever turn to when I don't know what else to do with myself. And I'm here to talk about my proudest musical composition. It might not be the most aesthetically pleasing thing I've ever written, but it conveys the emotion I was trying to convey better than anything else I've done.

So, here it is:

https://soundcloud.com/daydream-soci...n-a-bleak-room

I've always thought (and been told) that I have a proclivity for songwriting. I can't get in other people's heads, but as far as I can tell I'm a little different. When I'm in a certain state of mind and I close my eyes, I subconsciously hear sounds in my head. That probably makes it sound like I should be in a mental institution, and maybe I should. Regardless, I often have trouble conveying the sounds in my head because I admittedly don't know a lick of music theory or how to transcribe the melodies/sounds that are playing. I'm not sure if I'm making sense, but hopefully someone sticks with me here.

How about some backstory: I'm a college student living in a studio apartment. That means that I live in a room, with a small closet that's stacked to the ceiling, a "kitchen" (it's hard to really even call it that), and a bathroom with a shower that you have to adjust every ten seconds unless you're a fan of ice cold/searing hot showers. We have one window that looks directly at a concrete wall. Sunlight doesn't pour in at all. I live in this room with my girlfriend, meaning there's two people's worth of stuff in here, which results in there being no walking space whatsoever besides a little path that goes from the door, around our bed into the kitchen, and into the bathroom.

I hate this place. I hate everything about it. In February, I broke two ribs and had to quit my job at a gym and I haven't been able to find another since. Because of this, my girlfriend works two jobs to afford rent all the while going to classes. So while I'm not at class myself or hanging out with friends on the weekends, I'm sitting in this room, alone, feeling like the walls are closing in on me every second. Sometimes I feel like I can't even breathe in here. This is what has driven me into a deep depression.

Yeah, there's that word. I'm a Psychology major dealing with depression in maybe the most pathetic way possible: being a troll on an internet forum. Now that that's established, let's get on to the actual song. The previous two paragraphs are the best way I could ever describe the feeling I was trying to convey. Just a deeply hopeless feeling at all times, having to lay on a shitty futon because there's nowhere else to sit in the entire apartment (literally). I can't even get to my piano without moving stacks of stuff out of the way, and it's not because we're slobs; it's because we have two people with quite a lot of stuff packed into an apartment that's smaller than most people's master bedrooms.

The song starts off with a deep, rumbling ambiance. It's unnerving and dark. After about 10 seconds is an extremely strange synth that I will never be able to recreate. Here's a weird thing I do when I make electronic music: I don't save my work. I don't want to go back to it. I'll work on a song for about three or four hours and call it quits. The erratic, electrocuting synth in this song is completely bizarre but works so perfectly for what I wanted. Someone on Reddit described it as waking up, getting on a computer, getting yelled at, playing video games, and repeating the process over and over in a sad, dreary, never-ending routine that drains ever ounce of humanity you had.

The static-y ambiance and noise guitar at the end is the perfect way to top off the song. It sounds so sad to me. Maybe it doesn't to you, but it just feels so chaotically bittersweet. I'm almost tearing up listening to this song and writing about why I wrote it and how it came to be.

I don't expect anyone to sympathize or even care about this, especially after all the confidence I had left was stabbed in the heart by Roxy giving me the only "meh" I've ever seen in all my days of plugging when I played this song, so I get it. It might not be that special to other people, but I think I really made something beautiful and from the heart here. Some might not believe that electronic music can have emotion, but I think that's absurd, and I can assure you that there's more emotion poured into this song than half the songs out there.

04-06-2014, 10:18 PM	#28 (permalink)
ThePhanastasio Killed Laura Palmer Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: Ashland, KY Posts: 1,679	I'm checking out that Nickel Creek album right now. Your write up made it sound great. I'm not disappointed. Good stuff. __________________ Phish: Studio Discography Reviewed 100 Albums I Heartily Recommend My last.fm It's a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken Perhaps they're better left unsung

02-25-2014, 04:55 AM	#21 (permalink)
~~butthead aka 216~~ Account Disabled Join Date: Jun 2013 Location: freely swimmin thru the waters of glory much like a majestic bald eagle soars thru the skies Posts: 1,463	I believe it was you who played Chvrches in Plug once or twice and I remembered being impressed. If you could recommend a handful of songs, I'd like to really give them a listen.

03-03-2014, 02:44 PM	#24 (permalink)
~~butthead aka 216~~ Account Disabled Join Date: Jun 2013 Location: freely swimmin thru the waters of glory much like a majestic bald eagle soars thru the skies Posts: 1,463	Just wanted to say that I listened to the Chvrches songs you posted and liked them so much that I went ahead and just listened to the whole album. It's interesting to me because it's electronica music or whatever, but it's not uptempo music that I'd hear at the club. And the girl's voice is awesome too. Good call.