from freak fighter to lamp lighter

OccultHawk · 01-16-2018, 06:26 PM

The Blue Hour by Frederico Albanese

Soft instrumental piano driven neo-classical compositions by the Italian composer. Albanese has no axe grind and no point to prove. Melodic and slightly modal. Goes well with pasta dishes and red wine I can’t afford. Recommended.

OccultHawk · 01-17-2018, 01:02 PM

Spoiler for album art:

Phantom Circuits by Dave Luxton

Space ambient in the vein of Cluster.

https://wayfarerrecords.bandcamp.com...antom-circuits

Spoiler for artist:

Nice digs.

Machine · 01-19-2018, 11:42 AM

There's really no artist like Sam Ray for me. The love/hate relationship I have with his music is completely unmatched by any other artist. I absolutely loathe what his music is, I hate what it means for rock music, I hate the ideology of emasculation that his music encapsulates, I hate the sloppy production for the sake of looking cool, I hate the sloppy playing because he couldn't be ****ed to do another take. So why do I keep coming back to his music? I could pontificate and psychoanalyze myself for hours, but that's not really what a review is about now is it? The simplest answer I can give is that when I was a teenager I was a lot like Sam, an insecure, emasculated, loner who wanted nothing more than to sit in his room and make ****ty demos that no one would ever hear. Now that I've grown up a bit I'm no longer that person, but his music still brings me back to that time, and while yeah it wasn't my proudest era of my life it happened to be when I was discovering music of this nature. When I put on a song like "give me back to the sky" I can't help but scream those awful emo lyrics at the top of my lungs everytime, yet I completely dismiss the music as being childish. It's some sort of cognitive dissonance that at some point I'm gonna have to reconcile. So what does all of this have to do with Big Joyous Celebration, the fact that this is the first time I'm even mentioning the album should be a hint... I love this album, but I ****ing hate it. It's The Big Joyous Celebration, Let's Stir The Honeypot is the last studio album by the band Teen Suicide (who are now being called American Pleasure Club, but it's almost an entirely different band anyways; more on that later), released in 2016 it's a pretty landmark album in the "lo-fi" indie/bedroom pop scene. Instead of short songs and a short runtime, we have a collection of 26 tracks clocking in at nearly 70 minutes. No one had really done an album in this style quite like this before Sam (with the exception of Car Seat Headrest and his 2 hour long demo quality albums), I remember initially hearing this and being blown away by consistency of the tracks. The first 3 tracks we're this triple threat knockout with production levels rivaling those of a mainstream band, and while the rest of the album was much more inconsistent in it's production I was mainly blown away by the amount of good tracks. The album quickly went into heavy rotation for me, I was constantly listening to songs like Alex, Just A Pop Song, Pavement, Falling Out of Love With Me, and Just A Pop Song on repeat, I was consumed by the record for a good half of a year. By the end of the year despite having some of the best ****ing albums I've heard to come out EVER (2016 was a wonderful year for music), this Teen ****ing Suicide album was still at 11 for me. I, however, seemed to be in the minority, with most calling it a sprawling mess and even a snoozefest... BAH they just didn't understand the genius of this... right? Well looking back about 2 years later, they we're right. The album starts off ridiculously strong with the 1,2,3 punch of Living Proof to title track to Alex, but after that the quality sort of takes a nosedive. I can attribute this to one thing in particular, the goddamn production. Jesus H the production job on this album is one of the worst I've ever seen in my life. Songs like Obvious Love, V.I.P, Neighborhood Drug Dealer, etc. are plagued with some of the muddiest most frustrating production of all time. His singing is the biggest culprit of this. Completely off key notes, and terrible autotune are all over this thing, which leads me to believe one of three things... either he couldn't be asked to do another take because that's just not cool, he rushed the record out, OR (and this could very easily be it) he was so lazy that he just took a bunch of demos from the last couple years and stapled it together as an album. I fear that it's number 3 mainly because this album is mood deaf. Big Joyous Celebration is a cluster****, to put it nicely. One moment you think you're listening to a professional rock band and the next song could just as easily be a rough piano demo, and then maybe a glitch pop track, and then a professional rock band that just decided not to go to the studio that day, and then some lonely indie folk guys song that for whatever reason made it on the album. I know that was rambling, but it kinda drives home the main problem with this album. IT DOESN'T KNOW WHAT IT WANTS TO BE. This album has the biggest identity crisis I've ever seen, and that just doesn't make for a good listening experience. Now here's the part of the review where I tell you why I love this album. So this thing has some of the best goddamn indie songs ever written. To this day Alex is still amazing, Pavement is still catchy as all hell, It's Just A Pop Song is beautifully layered despite the terrible production, Big Blue Pickup Trunk is so wonky and fun and I could go on and on. Sam has an exquisite musical pallet, his chord progressions are so wonderfully unique and his arrangements are completely their own thing. This single man has written so many indie classics at this point it's hard to even name them all, when he wants to he can play the **** out of a guitar and he can produce up their with the best of them. To me nothing showcases this better than the opening track Living Proof, the arrangement is so lovely and full, the production is colorful, the performance is lively, and the guitar solo legitimately shreds man. This is why Sam pisses me off so much, instead of putting the time and effort to make an entire album like this he ****s out this massive amount of material that just kinda sits there, he didn't DO anything with the songs. If he we're to read this I already know what this response would be... "lmao you're just an idiot", "you're so young haha", "HATER", he's so juvenile when it comes to improving himself and it just becomes frustrating to be a fan of his. He constantly ****s on his fans, he acts like a retard on social media, he makes 0 progress on any of his albums they all retread the same ground, and his music combined with all of this becomes tiresome to listen to. It's why I stopped being a fan, but I'll always love some of his work. It's impossible to navigate.

And that's why It's The Big Joyous Celebration, Let's Stir The Honeypot is one of the most frustratingly lovable albums of all time. I give this album a 5/10, but this isn't an indifferent 5/10, it's something I just equally love and hate, and I don't think anything can amend that.

OccultHawk · 01-19-2018, 12:03 PM

Fantastic!

There you have it, brought to you by Lamp Lighters Productions, the finest review of It's the Big Joyous Celebration, Let's Stir the Honeypot ever written!

OccultHawk · 01-20-2018, 08:43 AM

Spoiler for album art:

Spoiler for another picture:

Chapa Quente by DJ Marfox

Afro-Portuguese club music from Lisbon.

The ethnic flares hold one’s attention. Fun and interesting. Worth checking out.

OccultHawk · 01-22-2018, 05:40 PM

the river by ethel and robert mirabal

A 4th World fusion between Native American trad and string quartet.

Who might enjoy this?

Fans of Carlos Nakai, Kronos Quartet, Vashti Bunyan, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Huun-Huur-Tu, Dead Can Dance, William Ackerman

Worth checking out

OccultHawk · 01-26-2018, 03:08 PM

An Anthology of Occasional Pieces, Pt. Four by Simon Rackham

Beautifully understated piano pieces. Although this is most likely to be labeled minimalism a lot of it is really neo-Impressionism. Reminds me of one of my favorite composers Charles Thomlinson Griffes. InnerSpaceBoy, if you’re reading this I’m pretty ****ing sure you would love this.

5/5 Stars

OccultHawk · 01-28-2018, 06:35 PM

A Seat at the Table by Solange was ranked 2016 AOTY by Pitchfork, Spin, and Vibe.

It’s boring, uninspired garbage. Such a fantastic year and this is the best some professional critics can find. It’s incredible. Why do people who don’t like music listen to music? Go watch Judge Judy or whatever.

OccultHawk · 02-02-2018, 06:37 PM

No Perfect Wave by C. Diab

https://injazerorecords.bandcamp.com...perfect-wave-2

Spoiler for album art:

2016 Drone Masterpiece

The greatest bowed guitar music ever made.

Spoiler for photo of artist:

OccultHawk · 02-03-2018, 06:00 PM

Spoiler for huge image of artist:

suspended within peter phippen rahbi crawford

True blue new age no bones about it.

Female spotted hyena genitalia

Quote:

Female spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) are the only female mammals that lack an external vaginal opening. Mating and birth take place through a urogenital canal that exits at the tip of a hypertrophied clitoris. This ‘masculine’ phenotype spurred a search for an alternate source of fetal androgens. Although androstenedione from the maternal ovary is readily metabolized to tes- tosterone by the hyena placenta, formation of the penile clitoris and scrotum appear to be largely androgen independent.

In common parlance hyenas don’t have c unts. They have six inch c lits that look like dicks and squirt out baby hyenas. Their labia are sealed inside a scrotum.

To mate the males have to sheath their penis into the clitoris. I assume this feels amazing for both parties but damn if that ain’t tricky.

01-16-2018, 06:26 PM	#311 (permalink)
OccultHawk one-balled nipple jockey Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Dirty Souf Biatch Posts: 22,006	The Blue Hour by Frederico Albanese Soft instrumental piano driven neo-classical compositions by the Italian composer. Albanese has no axe grind and no point to prove. Melodic and slightly modal. Goes well with pasta dishes and red wine I can’t afford. Recommended. __________________ 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Member of the Year & Journal of the Year Champion Behold the Writing of THE LEGEND: https://www.musicbanter.com/members-...p-lighter.html

01-17-2018, 01:02 PM	#312 (permalink)
OccultHawk one-balled nipple jockey Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Dirty Souf Biatch Posts: 22,006	Spoiler for album art: Phantom Circuits by Dave Luxton Space ambient in the vein of Cluster. https://wayfarerrecords.bandcamp.com...antom-circuits Spoiler for artist: Nice digs. __________________ 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Member of the Year & Journal of the Year Champion Behold the Writing of THE LEGEND: https://www.musicbanter.com/members-...p-lighter.html

01-19-2018, 11:42 AM	#313 (permalink)
Machine moon lake inc. Join Date: Oct 2014 Location: Detroit Posts: 2,125	There's really no artist like Sam Ray for me. The love/hate relationship I have with his music is completely unmatched by any other artist. I absolutely loathe what his music is, I hate what it means for rock music, I hate the ideology of emasculation that his music encapsulates, I hate the sloppy production for the sake of looking cool, I hate the sloppy playing because he couldn't be **ed to do another take. So why do I keep coming back to his music? I could pontificate and psychoanalyze myself for hours, but that's not really what a review is about now is it? The simplest answer I can give is that when I was a teenager I was a lot like Sam, an insecure, emasculated, loner who wanted nothing more than to sit in his room and make ty demos that no one would ever hear. Now that I've grown up a bit I'm no longer that person, but his music still brings me back to that time, and while yeah it wasn't my proudest era of my life it happened to be when I was discovering music of this nature. When I put on a song like "give me back to the sky" I can't help but scream those awful emo lyrics at the top of my lungs everytime, yet I completely dismiss the music as being childish. It's some sort of cognitive dissonance that at some point I'm gonna have to reconcile. So what does all of this have to do with Big Joyous Celebration, the fact that this is the first time I'm even mentioning the album should be a hint... I love this album, but I ing hate it. It's The Big Joyous Celebration, Let's Stir The Honeypot is the last studio album by the band Teen Suicide (who are now being called American Pleasure Club, but it's almost an entirely different band anyways; more on that later), released in 2016 it's a pretty landmark album in the "lo-fi" indie/bedroom pop scene. Instead of short songs and a short runtime, we have a collection of 26 tracks clocking in at nearly 70 minutes. No one had really done an album in this style quite like this before Sam (with the exception of Car Seat Headrest and his 2 hour long demo quality albums), I remember initially hearing this and being blown away by consistency of the tracks. The first 3 tracks we're this triple threat knockout with production levels rivaling those of a mainstream band, and while the rest of the album was much more inconsistent in it's production I was mainly blown away by the amount of good tracks. The album quickly went into heavy rotation for me, I was constantly listening to songs like Alex, Just A Pop Song, Pavement, Falling Out of Love With Me, and Just A Pop Song on repeat, I was consumed by the record for a good half of a year. By the end of the year despite having some of the best ing albums I've heard to come out EVER (2016 was a wonderful year for music), this Teen ing Suicide album was still at 11 for me. I, however, seemed to be in the minority, with most calling it a sprawling mess and even a snoozefest... BAH they just didn't understand the genius of this... right? Well looking back about 2 years later, they we're right. The album starts off ridiculously strong with the 1,2,3 punch of Living Proof to title track to Alex, but after that the quality sort of takes a nosedive. I can attribute this to one thing in particular, the goddamn production. Jesus H the production job on this album is one of the worst I've ever seen in my life. Songs like Obvious Love, V.I.P, Neighborhood Drug Dealer, etc. are plagued with some of the muddiest most frustrating production of all time. His singing is the biggest culprit of this. Completely off key notes, and terrible autotune are all over this thing, which leads me to believe one of three things... either he couldn't be asked to do another take because that's just not cool, he rushed the record out, OR (and this could very easily be it) he was so lazy that he just took a bunch of demos from the last couple years and stapled it together as an album. I fear that it's number 3 mainly because this album is mood deaf. Big Joyous Celebration is a cluster, to put it nicely. One moment you think you're listening to a professional rock band and the next song could just as easily be a rough piano demo, and then maybe a glitch pop track, and then a professional rock band that just decided not to go to the studio that day, and then some lonely indie folk guys song that for whatever reason made it on the album. I know that was rambling, but it kinda drives home the main problem with this album. IT DOESN'T KNOW WHAT IT WANTS TO BE. This album has the biggest identity crisis I've ever seen, and that just doesn't make for a good listening experience. Now here's the part of the review where I tell you why I love this album. So this thing has some of the best goddamn indie songs ever written. To this day Alex is still amazing, Pavement is still catchy as all hell, It's Just A Pop Song is beautifully layered despite the terrible production, Big Blue Pickup Trunk is so wonky and fun and I could go on and on. Sam has an exquisite musical pallet, his chord progressions are so wonderfully unique and his arrangements are completely their own thing. This single man has written so many indie classics at this point it's hard to even name them all, when he wants to he can play the out of a guitar and he can produce up their with the best of them. To me nothing showcases this better than the opening track Living Proof, the arrangement is so lovely and full, the production is colorful, the performance is lively, and the guitar solo legitimately shreds man. This is why Sam pisses me off so much, instead of putting the time and effort to make an entire album like this he s out this massive amount of material that just kinda sits there, he didn't DO anything with the songs. If he we're to read this I already know what this response would be... "lmao you're just an idiot", "you're so young haha", "HATER", he's so juvenile when it comes to improving himself and it just becomes frustrating to be a fan of his. He constantly **s on his fans, he acts like a retard on social media, he makes 0 progress on any of his albums they all retread the same ground, and his music combined with all of this becomes tiresome to listen to. It's why I stopped being a fan, but I'll always love some of his work. It's impossible to navigate. And that's why It's The Big Joyous Celebration, Let's Stir The Honeypot is one of the most frustratingly lovable albums of all time. I give this album a 5/10, but this isn't an indifferent 5/10, it's something I just equally love and hate, and I don't think anything can amend that. __________________ boost my ego listen to me stroke my delay pedal ever wanted to hear death grips songs... but they're acoustic? me neither.

01-19-2018, 12:03 PM	#314 (permalink)
OccultHawk one-balled nipple jockey Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Dirty Souf Biatch Posts: 22,006	Fantastic! There you have it, brought to you by Lamp Lighters Productions, the finest review of It's the Big Joyous Celebration, Let's Stir the Honeypot ever written! __________________ 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Member of the Year & Journal of the Year Champion Behold the Writing of THE LEGEND: https://www.musicbanter.com/members-...p-lighter.html

01-20-2018, 08:43 AM	#315 (permalink)
OccultHawk one-balled nipple jockey Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Dirty Souf Biatch Posts: 22,006	Spoiler for album art: Spoiler for another picture: Chapa Quente by DJ Marfox Afro-Portuguese club music from Lisbon. The ethnic flares hold one’s attention. Fun and interesting. Worth checking out. __________________ 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Member of the Year & Journal of the Year Champion Behold the Writing of THE LEGEND: https://www.musicbanter.com/members-...p-lighter.html Last edited by OccultHawk; 01-20-2018 at 09:13 AM.

01-22-2018, 05:40 PM	#316 (permalink)
OccultHawk one-balled nipple jockey Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Dirty Souf Biatch Posts: 22,006	the river by ethel and robert mirabal A 4th World fusion between Native American trad and string quartet. Who might enjoy this? Fans of Carlos Nakai, Kronos Quartet, Vashti Bunyan, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Huun-Huur-Tu, Dead Can Dance, William Ackerman Worth checking out __________________ 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Member of the Year & Journal of the Year Champion Behold the Writing of THE LEGEND: https://www.musicbanter.com/members-...p-lighter.html

01-26-2018, 03:08 PM	#317 (permalink)
OccultHawk one-balled nipple jockey Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Dirty Souf Biatch Posts: 22,006	An Anthology of Occasional Pieces, Pt. Four by Simon Rackham Beautifully understated piano pieces. Although this is most likely to be labeled minimalism a lot of it is really neo-Impressionism. Reminds me of one of my favorite composers Charles Thomlinson Griffes. InnerSpaceBoy, if you’re reading this I’m pretty ****ing sure you would love this. 5/5 Stars __________________ 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Member of the Year & Journal of the Year Champion Behold the Writing of THE LEGEND: https://www.musicbanter.com/members-...p-lighter.html

01-28-2018, 06:35 PM	#318 (permalink)
OccultHawk one-balled nipple jockey Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Dirty Souf Biatch Posts: 22,006	A Seat at the Table by Solange was ranked 2016 AOTY by Pitchfork, Spin, and Vibe. It’s boring, uninspired garbage. Such a fantastic year and this is the best some professional critics can find. It’s incredible. Why do people who don’t like music listen to music? Go watch Judge Judy or whatever. __________________ 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Member of the Year & Journal of the Year Champion Behold the Writing of THE LEGEND: https://www.musicbanter.com/members-...p-lighter.html

02-02-2018, 06:37 PM	#319 (permalink)
OccultHawk one-balled nipple jockey Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Dirty Souf Biatch Posts: 22,006	No Perfect Wave by C. Diab https://injazerorecords.bandcamp.com...perfect-wave-2 Spoiler for album art: 2016 Drone Masterpiece The greatest bowed guitar music ever made. Spoiler for photo of artist: __________________ 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Member of the Year & Journal of the Year Champion Behold the Writing of THE LEGEND: https://www.musicbanter.com/members-...p-lighter.html