YT//ST - Yamantaka//Sonic Titan [psychedlic rock/experimental art]

A beautiful album yes yes. Canadian experimental and performance art collective with an album that sinks deep into the ocean. Anthemic waves of sound and voices turning over and over itself, a smooth and well-formed expression of subtle things and just-out-of-sight things; a packaged pulse that opens up like a flower, but then seals itself as if being clogged. Would like to listen to this album tumbling down from the stratosphere.

Favorite songs: Queens, Reverse Crystal // Murder of a Spider, Hoshi Neko

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!

Phurpa - Trowo Phurnag Ceremony [Tibetan Ritual Music/Throat Singing]

"Bon," is, at least in the context of Tibet, an ancient religious practice that is said to extend its history to well before the existence of Buddhism (17,000 years ago), but is now considered one of the two main types of Tibetan buddhism today. Either way the music is haunting, exactly the kind of music you'd expect from ancient shamanistic rituals: long pulsating drones, strange tweedly wind instruments, big drums, and completed by some damn wizard outfits. I believe the music speaks for itself, but it just goes to show how history and religion can lead you to some pretty interesting music.

Here's a little bit of "HUUUH HUUUUUUUUH HUUUH"



And here's a little bit of "HOOOOOOOOO fweedleedleed HOOOOOO"

More Recent Trends in Music

Again after a somewhat large hiatus, I return providing a lot of the music that's been on my mind recently in short succession.

Most recently, two absolutely brilliant mixes just came out within the last few weeks on Diplo's radio show Diplo and Friends. Namely the RL Grime (aka DJ Clockwork), and the Norweigan DJ/Producer Cashmere Cat. Both mixes are superlatives in modern trap music, seamless and expansive, both of which can be found below.




In addition to this, I've been fawning my way through the world of blues, R&B, and soul - as they are all interrelated in such a beautiful way unique to culture from whence they came, and there is so much to be understood about the role emotion plays in music just by listening. I can't really give you a good example of the entirety of the genre, but the best way to get into it is to study the whole lineage, and to just jam out...

Diplo - Mix for SwayinInTheMorning (Trap/New Release)

Diplo does not disappoint yet again with the most recent mix he did for Chicago-based radio show SwayinInTheMorning about two weeks ago. Maybe I haven't been keeping up with Diplo enough, but I'm pretty sure that he just started releasing trap tracks - usually producing moombahton and neato world music mashups. But he has bought into the mainstream at this point, and if I were to analyze this latest mix like it were a book, it would be a brilliant satire. The genre of trap itself is absurd and I believe that it exists only to get people pumped up and encourage sex on the dance floor.

The word trap actually originates from Atlanta, Georgia meaning to acquire wealth in the context of drugs. This on its own is interesting because of course trapping, beyond the slang, refers to laying down traps to catch small game. Specifically I find it interesting that the drug dealing culture would be as whimsical to adopt this term for selling narcotics. From this, it only makes sense that the genre would be very whimsical.

And although the linguistics are interesting, just listen to it and realize that you're not really supposed to think about it.

Miniature Tigers - Tell It to the Volcano (Indie Rock/Pop)

This could very well be one of the catchiest albums I've ever listened to. I've known about this Brooklyn based Indie band for a while, but it's become clear to me only recently what this band really specializes in: making catchy songs. They have a really effective formula that is to say - it's all very upbeat, sing-song, and rhythmic; the lyrics are goofy and catchy, fun to sing along with and just listen to; and its full of chromatic twists and turns that give it almost a Broadway feel. I haven't actually listened to any of their newer albums, but I'm always very intrigued when an album fills a specifically niche so perfectly. I've also found that because of simple and accessible tonalities of all the melodies that this whole album is great for practicing singing harmony.

Give it a listen, memorize the lyrics accidentally, find yourself humming it all the time:

We Butter the Bread with Butter - Der Tag An Dem Die Welt Unterging [German deathcore]

I have a suspicion that most deathcore bands don't actually take things seriously, they're just full of energy and happen to like deathcore - not necessarily depressed and evil people like some might believe. We Butter the Bread With Butter is a good example if you didn't already gather from their name alone. Originating in Lubben, Germany, We Butter the Bread with Butter combines traditional deathcore elements with melodic, electronic music characteristics. In fact, the band originally started with only two people as a joke, but gradually grew into a serious project and added enough members to make a full band. They now have several albums out, although mostly in German, there are a few Western gems like World of Warcraft and I shot the Sheriff. 

Although this probably isn't exactly an entry-level deathcore band, if you find yourself intrigued by the undeniable irony, try listening to this song Der Kleine Vampir, which means "The Little Vampire" in German and is named after a series of popular children's books.

John Cage, Infected Mushroom, and Sounds (John Cage, Electronic)

I realized something recently, in my month long hiatus of packing, vacations, and assorted activities, which is music is fundamentally about something simpler than harmony or rhythm - and that is sound. Music is, of course, the various ways of organizing various sounds, which means that any sound is musical: the sound of a car turning on is musical, the sound of clothes rustling, the sound of a door slamming, or a distant splash of water. This is where a lot of musicians that seem so esoteric and frightfully post-modern seem to draw their some of their brilliance - in the use of sound as an elementary constituent element of their music.

John Cage explicitly believed something similar - his music is all rich with various klings, klangs, beeps, and buzzes. The turning of a dial on an old radio to hear the varieties of static, as well as banging cans together and dropping various instruments into other instruments. Similarly, the Israeli electronica group Infected Mushroom uses all sorts of amazing and specially constructed electronic sounds. They work in a specially designed studio so that there is almost 0 Db of background noise; they put all their computers in soundproofed cabinets and the walls are lined with spiked foam to absorb sound. They infuse a lot of Hebrew and Eastern European melodies into already very solid electronic dance music, and then they really make it their own style by hand crafting each bass kick, lead synth, and stab etc. into a very engaging and trancey musical experience.

It seems to me that the successes of these two, among which I have to cede Cage as the superior, is due to their attention to sounds at the start. And, especially in the case of Cage, how this can be an almost philosophical statement about music. So the next time you hear something you think is pretentious and stupid, think about how those pretentious hipster snobs actually created all those random boings and chongs and you'll perhaps find something worth listening to in that.

http://grooveshark.com/#!/artist/Infected+Mushroom/2590 - Check out anything on Army of Mushrooms
http://grooveshark.com/#!/artist/John+Cage/5422 - Take a look at any of his Constructions

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.