This aggressive performance music and sound expression is one in a long tradition of compositions that try to push the sonic boundaries of what can be done but a much smaller list of successful attempts at the same goal. Going anywhere new is worth the journey but going somewhere totally ****ing awesome for the first time is the experience that validates your exploration. If you’re such a listener, that wanders down dark tunnels hoping there’s something out in the cold abyss walk this way. You’ve found an worthy attraction on this long and often alienating and sad adventure. It’ll be waiting for you.

https://brianleeds.bandcamp.com/

Some of you know I’m big fan of ambient music as a genre and a record doesn’t have to be elite to borrow some of my time and even my love. Like most genres ambient music can tap on different emotions and moods. But unlike most, not all, but most genres, the crème de la crème is rooted in a pleasant ambiguity. I read this elsewhere but it can be as non-distracting as you like as well as engaging as you like. Honestly, it’s not easy to talk about ambiguity. Probably because it’s so ambiguous. But still in that cloud cover the best stuff is still music and hangs its hat on melodic hooks. They might be made out of sound helium but they’re in there. This is great music, differentially great, because at the core there’s clever sound progression, which is really another way of saying it’s melodic.

https://lawrenceenglish.bandcamp.com...ry-photographs

https://cdn.wallpaper.com/wallpaper/...hotographs.jpg

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/david-l...old-factories/

https://memorynumber36.bandcamp.com/...ywood-medieval

I think a lot of MB folks would go in for this one if you gave it a listen. This received love from alternative press music critics. Hauntological slightly vapor LA infused ambient. It’s a smooth hip listen.

https://mjguider.bandcamp.com/album/precious-systems

This debut that was met with some critical love but very little popular support was actually one of the best shoegaze records of 2016.

I’ve mentioned before that the Deutsche Grammophon label carries tremendous weight with me and this unassailable record is fantastic example of why. It’s one of the best modern classical releases of the 21st century thus far. Icelander, Jóhannsson, borrows from great traditions but doesn’t bind himself restrictively to anything. This music is way beyond those 20th C parameters. This is the work of a composer striking out independently to appeal to our comfortable but wistful ways. There’s plenty to read about the inspiration and why the title and so on but to me this is the soundtrack of beautiful glacial waterfalls that only exist because it’s our time to die.

https://andrewpekler.bandcamp.com/al...stes-tropiques

Tristes Tropiques is an exotic beat centered fourth world recording by Soviet era Uzbekistan born recording artist Andrew Parker.

https://www.residentadvisor.net/imag...drewpekler.jpg
https://img.discogs.com/QfT3NgDqATi7...-5038.jpeg.jpg
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His family managed to successfully flee Soviet oppression and emigrated with political asylum to sunny California the land of Ronalds Reagan & McDonald’s

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where he became intensely obsessed with Slayer. His frightened parents relocated the family again, this time to Germany

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where he fell into the alternative rave/dance music seen that eventually matured into the experimental dance if you wanna record that brought us here. A sonically dense entertaining record that uses the beat to good effect.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...rens_cover.png

Sirens (Nicolas Jaar album)

2016

Front Row Seat to Earth has attracted a lot of genre tags but one I haven’t seen is soft rock and really think that’s what this is. The kind of soft rock that can be rebranded as yacht rock. Let me be clear that means quality. The critics have high praise for this record and rightfully so. It’s not lost in a nostalgic bubble. It’s rightfully 2016. But it sits comfortably with the melodic sensibilities and gorgeous productions that made driving in the seventies with the radio on so delicious.

AS is a beat oriented electronic album that would probably clear the club but for good reasons. It’s not my genre expertise but I get there’s something uneasy and high quality going on here like the molly being a bit more than you bargained for and you can’t find your ride.

awesome!

Yeah. It’s a really intricate jam.
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Savage Mode is a triumph built on the legacy of Future, who makes an appearance, and proof that in 2016, Atlanta, Georgia was the cultural epicenter of the universe. The obsession with tongue twisting intricacies is gone but the complete embrace of bleak hopelessness and brutal nihilism is in full effect. Why has the vanguard of black culture gone from the hope and spirituality of 1960’s free jazz to complete and utter despair? Because after fifty years of struggle the chances of a real ghetto success story are worse than ever, even among the most talented in the hip hop community. Prison and murder is always lurking. The sheeted ghosts and white devils still make the rules.

https://biosphere.bandcamp.com/album/departed-glories

Departed Glories is dark ambient program music by Norwegian composer Geir Jenssen set in Russia. Cold. Vast. Empty. Frozen blood in the soil. The taiga teeming with life. The frozen lungs of our planet. Perhaps the Russia that can only really be seen by a Norwegian.

Although Köner has received a fair share of recognition this 2016 release seems to have slipped under the radar. He’s been at it a long time and Tiento de la Luz - google translates it as “touch of light” and according to the label website, “A tiento is a form of keyboard music that originated in Spain in the mid-15th century.” https://denovali.com/thomaskoner/ - some of this is very melodically expressive and relatively much more accessible in a manner that reminds me of more pared down Sigur Rós but other parts a very stark, spare, and abstract. Recognition or not this is a top 2016 release from an unassailable composer who claims that music does not exist.

https://astrangelyisolatedplace.band...-infinity-room

36 has been one of my favorite go to ambient artists for the past few years and with almost 80,000 monthly listeners and tracks with over 5 million plays on Spotify I’m not alone. It seems to have been accomplished by the brute force of the quality of his music because their web presence in minimal. TIR is a 2016 release in accordance with my current Freak Fighter theme but 2020 was a fantastic and prolific year for this artist. He has been chosen for the curated Lava Lamp playlist on Spotify which certainly helps his numbers. He’s not a radical ground breaking pioneer but he’s the type that does what he sets out to do extremely well and any fan of ambient music is doing themselves a disservice if they don’t add this guy to their listening rotations.

https://ryanteague.bandcamp.com/album/site-specific

Ambient jazz fusion played by an actual band which includes a bass clarinet, fluegelhorn, cello plus electronics and percussion. This is another one that’s incredibly good and under the radar.

Lisbon based Clean Feed Records might be the best jazz recording label of the last twenty years and this under appreciated masterpiece is a great example why. Parker, in his early 70’s at the time is one the great jazz heavyweights who refuses to retreat so long as there is breath to be breathed into his tenor. The younger Hawkins, who has a fantastic resume his damn self, brings glory to an instrument I’m always excited to see in the band, the Hammond organ. Personally, I love the duet format, especially with instrumentalists like this who are incredibly intuitive and make beautiful use of the extra sonic space.

https://cleanfeed-records.com/produc...tarts-to-rain/

Another fantastic duo spreading free jazz glory on Clean Feed Records. While not as renowned as the duo above these two also have impressive resumes especially the senior Butcher who has even more tonal space to move playing with just percussion. This will not disappoint.

Saumur is an unusual mellow record that’s pretty hard to label but I’ll go with instrumental ambient jazz indie. If you’re familiar with Henriksen, and he’s a good musician to get to know, his stamp is certainly on this. If you’re looking for some good sounds to kick through covid winter evenings that won’t scare your cat this a winner.

Strange City is the obvious and correct pick for the best and most important pure noise record of 2016. It’s a Lawrence Taylor type of tackle to seriously take on and reinterpret the music of Sun Ra and I’d be dubious of all but a select few artists who would dare to try. I learned from reading the pitchfork review something I probably should’ve been able to piece together myself from the album’s title: that this record is composed from very rough and chaotic samplings (spiced with Merzbowisms) from two classic Sun Ra masterpieces:


Magic City is an homage to Sun Ra’s hometown of Birmingham, Alabama and Strange Strings is “a study in ignorance” where Sun Ra gave his band a bunch of stringed instruments they had no experience with.

Sandoval has a perfectly constructed singing voice putting her in the elite of the elite a la Sinéad O'Connor and Beth Gibbons of white pop stars. Her beauty and that voice... I saw Mazzy Star in their prime in Portland... it takes about a thousandth of a second before your heart is entirely surrendered and you know beyond any doubt that you’ll always be relegated to second best at best. In short, it’s painful to see something so beautiful. A heaven that’s not for your.

The songs on this records still have to be good but Sandoval’s voice is the real attraction and it is indeed flawless. The songs are great, too.

The album clocks in at 58:56. It ranges from very good to great. If it was trimmed to just the greatness it would be unassailable. I know in the digital age it’s hard to forfeit very good material but editing is still an essential process.

https://catswithhats.bandcamp.com/album/universe-i

https://i.postimg.cc/430y5g7n/F1-E04...7926-D0-D6.png

Hidden opens with an unexpectedly traditionally melodic pipe organ sound that folds into something resembling a Hammond in the style of early pioneer sci-fi film soundtracks. I imagine that the title refers to the possibly hidden nature of earth in this corner of the Milky Way somewhere in this gigantic expanding universe.

The longest track, We Are Moving has some hints of a bowed instrument and introduces distortion as an effect that’s a common refrain through the record. There’s a musical theme reminiscent of recent drone releases on top of electro-acoustic sounds. At about the halfway point a clear loneliness of space theme is introduced. I imagine it’s a sonic homage to the earth and us upon our planet orbiting a star that’s orbiting a black hole and thus the name.

An Indecipherable Mess reminds me of The Grand Vizier’s Garden Party, Part 1: Entrance / Part 2: Entertainment / Part 3: Exit. The song is divided into sections marked by an abrupt click. Sounds like the strings of real piano being strummed.

Once astronauts leave the earth’s orbit the space between earth and Mars isn’t black it’s gray. There’s too much sunlight to see the stars until, if things someday go as planned, the night sky is viewed by human eyes on Mars. That’s what The World Turned Gray is about to me: loneliness finally giving way to curiosity.

Spiraling Inward brings to mind the following Rush lyrics Eternal Soundscapes is another undeniable space track. Perhaps a statement that our presence is eternal if only an eternal part of an unknown history.

And finally with Between the Fog we seemed to be returned to the universe inside our own craniums. Coming full circle to the albums origins the sounds of an acoustic instrument returns and it’s the least emotionally vague music yet. Sorrow guides the listener into the finale.


Cats With Hats are a great band deserving of far more recognition.

https://lorenconnorsnyc.bandcamp.com/album/untitled

A masterful slow paced avant-garde guitar duo. Ethereal. Ghostly.

5/5 Highest Recommendations

fyh is considered a demo release by sm from when she was a teenage student at NYU recently transplanted from Tennessee. There’s no “potential” because it’s fully mature developed excellent song writing. As you probably expect if you haven’t heard her it’s indie rock or twee. She’s a non-pretentious lover of pop music and that’s what she created here. It’s a collection of great pop songs. Catchy pleasant clever well-crafted hip and fun. It’s great. She’s great. Lovely music.

https://michellezauner.bandcamp.com/album/psychopomp-2

Pp is a very sincere highly emotive art-pop record. Like most other great pop records from this era the irony and exaggeration barriers are stripped away in favor of vulnerability that dares to make really great honest art. This is another 2016 gem that deserves all the praise it received and more.

Oh nice, I cried to Color Theory like the little indie pop bitch I sometimes am, I'll have to check this one out

NT is a very solid indie folk record that completely hangs its hat on solid song writing and an excellent gentle singing voice. It’s not really like Cat Poweror Lois but I can see it setting well their fans. It’s a pleasure to pluck a gem out of bandcamp like this that is very sorely under appreciated especially considering what a rare skill the ability to write good stripped down folky pop song is. Millions try and fail where this is complete success. Recommended.

https://shelterpress.bandcamp.com/album/zauberberg-2

Like the more popular Gas album by the same name this too is an homage to the novel. Z is an hauntological release determined to only be made by sounds available during the time of the novel. Z should have tremendous appeal to fans of The Caretaker. If you like ambient, dark ambient, or hauntology I strongly recommend checking this out.

Oh great, I love the Magic Mountain. Listening to it now, it's nice. Like the early 20th century coming at you through a fog

Preciate the comment sister

Next review:


First and foremost I want to get this out of the way. This album is ****ing unassailable. The lack of recognition for this album, this artist, the entire Houston scene is straight ****ing bull****. Paul Wall played a pivotal role in the Houston Swishahouse scene which is one of the most important revolutionary artistic movements of the last fifty years. And ****ing of course I choose the chopped version. Talk about drug music! Limit pushing black hole insanity borderline death drug use. But one thing that is often overlooked about the whole Screwston scene is how soulful it is. Isaac Hayes is buttered all over this music. **** a hip hop fan who’s not down with this scene.

https://meineheimat.bandcamp.com/album/album

This is an eclectic mix of world music sounds (I know that’s literally the most vague musical distinction there is but this is just like eastern foreign except in on an alternative earth) and it kind of reminds me of both Pram and LiLiPUT. It sounds a lot like you might imagine it will sound upon seeing the cover. It’s cool.

Vocal looping and synthesizer textures provide the sonic landscape for this 2016 highlight. If you like ambient music and beautiful and perfect vocalizations this is a no brainer. Sorry if this is just a blurb. What can I say? Just listen to it if you haven’t already.

5/5 unassailable

Pulled a Pitchfork here. I was totally wrong about this one.

https://naomimoonsiegel.bandcamp.com/album/shoebox-view

https://www.freejazzblog.org/2016/11...-2016.html?m=1


http://naomimoonsiegel.com/fullbio/

She certainly did her part proving her point with this excellent record. Never pretentious or over-extended, song after song it hangs its hat on solid foundations, and flawless execution. It’s a great listen. It sets a great mood, the musicians are all top shelf, it’s engaging, and even though it’s not pioneering it carves out a niche that should please any jazz fan.

It’s very easy to take Mr. Young for granted so many albums in. He’s been all over the map but somehow sticks to his roots at the same time. He obviously gets his love but while the critics go bonkers for absolute trash by Dylan there’s sometimes only grudging respect that Neil Young’s entire discography runs from very good to unassailable. Maybe you need another Neil Young record in your life maybe you don’t but this is a very good record by an unassailable artist.

I mean you gotta be a pretty damn serious deep dish Neil Young fan to grab this one when you need a live fix but it’s still ****ing brilliant. After the Gold Rush is tied with only Dark Star as a song that I can never get too many versions of from the same artists. Like I can listen to Summertime and Old Man River all day but by different artists.

Revisiting this album I have to say I really love this and I also love the production. Gotta come clean and correct myself on this one.

Funkadelic-Maggot Brain
 

Released one year after the "feedback drenched" (wikipedia) Free Your Mind..., Maggot Brain continues the spiritual struggle that the album set out to define. The opening of Free Your Mind... began with a drug soaked insistence that spiritual freedom was necessarily intertwined with freedom of the body. This most likely had something to do with the hard and especially heavy funk that characterized the grooves on that record: Eddie Hazel's guitar is heavily distorted and the treble frequencies sound like they are turned to the max; the drums are loud and pound like something off a Led Zeppelin song; the vocalists all cry and shriek in furious ecstasy about the disenchantment of city life, gangs, economic participation, and cheap sex. Like Karl Marx, as well as some sort of spiritual guru, George Clinton (no not the president) observed the sickness around him and the confusion it produced about the Mind, Spirit, the self, and reality. Clinton and co. seem to also be critical of institutionalized religion and it's infatuation with other realms. He proclaims: "the kingdom of heaven is within", not the kingdom of heaven is achievable only through death. Rather, that the social ails of the time are the evil keeping their lives from being a heaven on earth.

These themes and concerns all return in Maggot Brain, but the overall tone of the album is arguably more desperate, cynical, and angry. Though the previous album was also very ambiguous (especially the closer "Eulogy and Light"), the album cover is the most telling difference. Free Your Mind... is a sky blue cover with a woman appearing to physically surrender to spiritual ecstasy while Maggot Brain is all black with the title written haphazardly and has a woman (possibly that same woman from the previous album) buried in the ground with only her head exposed so she can let out a cry of pain, fear, or any combination of those with other things. While the previous album was an introduction to the spiritual struggle, Maggot Brain seems to signify the war wounds (psychic or otherwise) that were made since then. Hence the album closer "Wars of Armageddon", an open jam with background noises such as a crying baby and a cursing man, the focus being the man whose inability to tolerate the crying child is taken as evidence of warped priorities (not necessarily by the man alone).

The other most obvious instance of the slight darkening of the mood is the ten minute long guitar epic that is named for and begins the album. "Maggot Brain" is the album's, as well as Eddie Hazel's, defining moment. It begins with the sound of a machine gun shortly followed with George Clinton reading the following:




These lyrics have a sense of urgency. There are allusions to death all over it. Whether it be from the maggots in the mind of the universe or from the sensation of drowning. The harsh emotions these images evoke also confuse the listener. Is this a literal death? A spiritual death? Or both somehow? Today, academics (which are slowly becoming a dying breed--if not something else), talk of post-humanism. George Clinton seemed to be concerned about something similar and he pleads we heed his words: "come on maggot brain". Also, drowning in one's fecal matter is also not the best way to go. It is humiliating and disgusting. You don't need to try it to know that. From the first song we learn that the maggot brain in question is all who approach this record without an immediate understanding of George Clinton's concerns and hopes. He has his doubts ("Can you Get to That") and even offers solutions ("You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks") in terms that are supposed to sarcastically resemble the "life of credit" that characterizes the sick he sees surrounding. He doesn't think much of drugs apparently ("Super Stupid"), probably thinks of them as Marx did (opium for the masses--or was that religion?), but thinks they are okay in moderation(?) ("Hit It and Quit It"). "Back in Our Minds" is a compelling track because it seems to represent a state in which the problems of society are solved:



But the music is wacky. It's actually kind of Zappa (someone Clinton was fond of). It may also supposed to represent drunkenness. Avoiding typically heavenly metaphors that are riddled with historical racism and antipathy towards the body (that's not very funky). Or it may be something else. I'll leave it to the listener to ponder this.

Musically, Maggot Brain sounds a lot more sophisticated than it's predecessor. It seems less like a Rock-funk record focused around very loud guitar riffs and noisy sound fx. The band jams better and the songwriting is more varied in it's emotional breadth and effect (especially considering the two albums are very similar). Eddie Hazel solos ALOT more on Maggot Brain, which is a good thing because so is he. He's rock in the tradition of Hendrix and Led Zeppelin: heavy blues influence with a noticeable preference for danceable grooves. The solos themselves are danceable too not just the fact that they accompany the very funky rhythm section. The editing seems better too. More focused and intentional. Instruments used to represent crazed psychological states are clever. Overall, you'd be simply incorrect to call this a bad record. You don't need to subscribe to the spiritual Marxism to appreciate it either. It's well made and showcases a very good band with very good musical sensibilities.


Tracklist:
1) Maggot Brain
2) Can You Get to That
3) Hit It and Quit It
4) You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks
5) Super Stupid
6) Back In Our Minds
7) Wars of Armageddon

Rating: 5/5

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggot_Brain

Freak Fighter by THE SHRINE
 

Freak Fighter is quite simply a hilarious bit of trash metal/skate metal. They remind me of Angry Samoans but with a better ear for song structure and musicianship. Musically, the song sounds like a theme song to some TMNT/Toxic Avenger cartoon series. It's about one Freak Fighter who was "born in a hospital" and "will always remain". He is generally speaking a badass out to paint the town red and "doesn't care what you are good for". The lyrics are set to music in the form of punchy pre-punk revival power chords with splashes of computer-like guitar licks and feedback thrown in for "good taste". After the second chorus there's a ripping guitar solo that volleys off the robot-noise guitar licks that infest the rest of the song. The vocalist has this not quite but almost douche(ish) hardcore vibe that resists the urge to go full on hardcore so as to keep the hit TV theme vibe alive (all without sounding cheesy). Well worth a listen. :clap:

Paul Wall!