Let's Build Loren (the albums that have shaped my life)

Mondo Bungle · 11-13-2016, 06:12 PM

For whatever reason I've only been doing one album for an artist, but I think Voivod might have to have two with this and Killing Technology.

I wouldn't rank Nothingface as my number one favorite of theirs, but oddly enough I think it's the one I listened to most. It's also the first I heard, and it was so delightfully zany that it instantly stamped itself right onto my brain. Complicated as well as catchy, jazzy and thrashy in all the right places. This album here definitely gave me a hankering for more technical music like this, then Coroner, Artillery, Mekong Delta, Heathen, Sadus, etc

It sounds so fresh and original every time

Mondo Bungle · 12-01-2016, 09:55 PM

bored again

Even if Boards of Canada were the first electronic musicians I started listening to regularly, it was this album that made ne think "Jesus **** what all can even be done within electronica?"

And the answer would be: a lot

This is pretty big album packing some pretty big music. Amazingly glitchy and original, super technical and inventive stuff. IDM is a pretty interesting style when you consider this and all the other main stuff like Autechre and Squarepusher. It's very very complicated, intricate, and I'd wager total spastic nonsense for some people hearing it for the first time. I never exactly knew what to make of the tag "intelligent dance music", but whatever. Calling this dance music is kind of a stretch IMO, the dancers must have some interesting moves. Some of it, like this here, is often a barrage of angular electronic and atonal melodies, highly complex drum patterns that are probably incredibly tedious to produce, and a variety of outside/experimental elements, classical music seems to be prevalent.

The arrangements on this album come straight from the deepest and most inaccessible caverns of human imagination. No ideas are ever repeated, just total bleepy jackhammering, combined with classical like string/piano/whatever arrangements.

Very interesting music, but it always had me wanting more, wanting to hear everything you can possibly do with it. With these impossible blasts of eccentricity, pretty much never sounding like the last, the possibilities do stretch far

Mondo Bungle · 12-12-2016, 12:51 AM

Couldn't imagine life without this album, probably wouldn't even wanna try. It makes me feel great in so many ways.

A relative obscurity in the world of music, this is a perfect little expression of various waves if the 80s. You know, synthwave, cold wave, minimal wave, new wave. It carries a cold and oddly isolated feeling, probably from the whole space theme. It's quite a unique record honestly, there's odd folk elements here and there, and overall it's just very esoteric and meaningful. Every song is a classic in my mind and I couldn't rightfully name any standouts. It's short and oh so sweet, I wish I could thank Solid Space personally for their sole album, because I know it's had a big impact on my life.

Mondo Bungle · 12-12-2016, 04:56 PM

Canvas - Lost in Rock

Can't say I've known this album for all that long, but it's been a staple since my very first listen, and is possibly my all time favorite hardcore type album. Just calling it hardcore is downright criminal though. It's an arttastic bag if mathcore/weird avant-gardecore, noise, electronics, and anything else weird they want. As time passed and I listened more, it kept getting more and more solid and appreciated. At first you'd probably think it takes way too many left turns to nowhere, and just waddles around in bizarre puddles in the street, but I started to appreciate it all. The longer I listened the more everything synergized. It's most likely a grower, no matter how much like it at first already. It takes a lot to sink in.

This guy's full throttle screams are absurd.

Mondo Bungle · 12-14-2016, 05:47 PM

I'm a huge Deep Purple fan and this is my favorite of theirs. It seems so overlooked in comparison to Machine Head and In Rock and stuff, but I think this is top notch material and some of my favorite old school hard rock/metal ever put to tape. It's also the first full album I heard from them, and I've wrecked the CD since.

From raging rockers like the title track, to longer and more progressive suites like "Fools" (my absolute fav) and "The Mule", to a fun little ditty like "Anyone's Daughter", everything is a winner. It might be that compared to an album like Machine Head which is played and worshiped like hell, this just sounds a lot fresher, but I dunno. I think it'd be my favorite either way. So many inventive ideas put into here.

Mondo Bungle · 12-14-2016, 10:35 PM

Though not a love at first listen, I can say with truth that it is now one of my most beloved albums, and easily one of the best of its time.

It is a difficult album in a bunch of different ways. Difficult to categorize, being a shoegaze/post punk blueprint dripping with noise/drone, post rock, and even black metal guitar. Difficult to digest, being a majorly long double album. Difficult to digest... again, but musically this time, a very demanding work. And emotionally, it's a heart wrencher.

But once I felt it all, this album definitely showed itself as an awe inspiring work. You can hear just how much soul was poured into this.

The piano motif right before that extreme dynamic blast some halfway or whatever into "Earthmover" is hands down one of music's crowning achievements

Mondo Bungle · 12-14-2016, 10:51 PM

I wrote something nice and gay on Gridlink's Facebook page a while back and was just gonna paste, but I couldn't find it. Basically it was just a thank you for existing and doing what they did in the short time they were around.

It might seem odd to be so moved by a grindcore album, but this one did it, and it's been real important to me. Long ago while the innate grindcore maniac within me was just beginning to show itself, I happened upon Gridlink and tore it wide open. The album cover was so intriguing, I thought "Amber Gray by Gridlink... What could this be?"

What I heard was definitely a surprise, but it was also a total revelation. In just 10 minutes this album shredded any preconceived notions of extreme music to bits, and then again like 4 times over. And it was fresh. I knew about Gridlink before Discordance Axis, and though both are amazing, Gridlink holds the top spot in my heart. They've since released basically my three favorite grind albums of all time, and I hold them in very high regard.

Mondo Bungle · 12-15-2016, 07:36 PM

This is responsible for at least three of the greatest pop songs ever, and is absolutely infectious all the way through.

I <3 <3 <3 "Boys", "26580", and obviously "Kids in America". Just one of my top new wave albums with astronomical replay value

Mondo Bungle · 12-15-2016, 08:10 PM

I love this album but whatever

Ol’ Qwerty Bastard · 12-15-2016, 08:29 PM

gridlink are legitimately the best grind band I've ever heard. idc what anyone says they're the ****.