Failure - Fantastic Planet [Alternative/Space Grunge]

Like many other snake people, the last five to ten years or so have been a gradual rediscovery of the 90s for me - I used to hate Smashing Pumpkins, wasn't big on Nirvana, wouldn't go near the R&B scene, and the electronics and graphics cultures being mined recently for vaporwave A E S T H E T I C seemed tacky and useless. That being said, I rediscovered the sad, bittersweet, heavy, and distorted sounds of alt and grunge bands (among other things) and it really scratched a good musical itch. But by now I naively thought I had juiced the 90s and early 2000s for everything I wanted until I found this album. It's one of those serendipitous records that fills a psycho-emotional desire that had been scraping around inside me all this month.

I first listened to "Another Space Song" and I immediately fell into it - the bass growling and elevating the guitars and vocals into a wide and washed out soundscape swirling around your head like a heavy opiate. The vocals are perfect, that bittersweet whisper resigning at the end of each phrase, but still gently holding onto the note like an abandoned wild animal.

More so than any album out of this genre and decade I've heard, Fantastic Planet, completely fills my ears and mind - slow, plodding, reflective, complacent, visceral, and just absolutely thick. What makes it more impressive is: 1. They're a three piece band, and 2. Ken Andrews and Greg Edwards produced this album (as well as their previous two) on their own. To me the album is excellent, and three songs on it - Another Space Song, Saturday Savior, and Stuck On You - absolutely floor me.

If you haven't already heard, or if you're in a somewhat sad mood, take a lil listen...

cTrix - A for Amiga [Chiptunes/90s]

Inspired to supply musicological discourse once again by the powerful retro force that is A for Amiga. Australian musician and producer cTrix has clearly mastered a long lost art within the fuller spectrum of chiptunes; as opposed to emulating early Nintendo or Atari sounds, cTrix uses that OG desktop computer - the Amiga 500. The 500 was used to digitally process and produce a lot of electronic music during the 90s, and cTrix milked the Amiga for all the nostalgia it had. Not only did he use original Amiga trackers but also ran the audio through several vintage outboard hardware racks, and then dubbed each track on 2" tape, giving the album as heavy a 90s analogue sound as you'll hear in 2014. A for Amiga came out in December of 2013 but cTrix was writing and producing material that eventually became A for Amiga since 1993.

Each track is rich, catchy, jamming, nostalgic, and just plain refreshing - please to be listen!

My trends in music

Today happens to be my 365-day non-death anniversary, so in honor I'll share some of the various new things I've been listening to a lot lately. Generally, I like to plunge myself into another world of music until I really, fully understand it, and consequently, enjoy it to the fullest.

So right now I've been listening to a lot of math rock/DJ entstep, pop and punk from the 90s, and American folk music from the fifties.
The first is a fast paced genre based on metric modulation, complex harmonic structure, and death metal. Often involving algorithm-based drum patterns, it's a very cool genre to me because it combines the pop-like qualities of regular progressive rock with a Bach-like precision that makes it very fun to listen to. I recommend bands Uneven Structure, Chimp Spanner, The Algorithm, and Circles.

The next is sort of a nostalgia trip for me, but I've been attempting to remove the music from nostalgia and see what it's all really about. Specifically, I've been listening to Aaron Carter, Blink-182, Simple Plan, and N*sync, as well as a few other similar such musicians.

And the last is really just things from this page http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/2691/folkessential1.jpg (thanks /mu/ essentials). My favorite has got to be Odetta, a black woman with an amazing voice. Just listen.