Recent Albums

[JennyDog]

Thread for just posting an album you've listened to lately, preferably new ones .

• <a href='https://dazeyandthescouts.bandcamp.com/album/maggot' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Dazey and the Scouts - Maggot</a></li>
• <a href='https://blackbirdraum.bandcamp.com/album/destroying' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Blackbird Raum - Destroying</a></li>

Dazey and the Scouts I discovered through a friend, and Blackbird Raum through a Spotify playlist of folkpunk essentials.

Dazey and the Scouts feels like a kind of flirty/edgy extension of girl rock, and they actually have a Plumtree cover at end of the album, it's pretty fun! As far as I can tell, they're a band that did a few shows, published an album, and then broke up into a number of different bands with a much strong pedigree. There's a bit of a history here <a href='http://allstonpudding.com/an-oral-histo ... he-scouts/' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>here</a>.

Blackbird Raum shown up in the context of Folk Punk but it honestly feels like an accidental inclusion in it, it almost reminds of pirate music or a much bleaker version of Gogol Bordello that talks about killing your landlord, but the vibe I got was of a group more interested in a kind of hazy mythological place than the Seattle busking they came from. But I think I'm making up stuff based on misheard lyrics and album art.

[maru]

preferably new ones .

Aw man. I'm screwed.

I'm looking through my lists and ... my latest albums for April have been focused on... Steely Dan. I haven't heard any of it before! Honestly! I began with <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ueivjr3 ... hf4_QN5chy' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>The Nightfly</a> and then listened to Aja. And then besides that it's ... <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqyrPjF ... 9uIGFsYnVt' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Pygmalion</a>. Lots and lots of Pygmalion.

I wanna listen to what you posted. So I will.

[watermoon]

i couldn't sleep a couple days ago, and i fell into the trap of checking my phone after midnight and saw an email saying that strawberry hospital just released a new album. sorta. it's just a compilation of most of their previous work, plus a single new song. edition of 100, $20 plus $10 shipping.

i thought about buying it then, but then felt like it could wait until morning, but then remembered that their stuff sells out weirdly fast now and so i might not even get the chance. so i bought it, $20 plus $10 shipping. i didn't check to see if it sold out the next day, but it's definitely sold out now.

this is probably a findom relationship, and them being really cute doesn't help me beat the allegations.

---

aside from that, this month i ended up being led (back) down the japanese shoegaze rabbit hole, though i have no complaints:

• monocism - 風光 (2019): slightly mathy, rather beautiful. the shoegazers all gather round to talk about their attachment disorders and how they use warm drones to cope.
• Homecomings - Homecoming with me? (2014): oh my god it's the most adorable album title and it tastes so sweet like that knockoff cinnamon toast crunch
• ・・・・・・・・・ - 「 」 (2018): idol culture both fascinates and scares me…

And then besides that it's ... Pygmalion. Lots and lots of Pygmalion.

one day i'll finally graduate past listening to souvlaki over and over again and give pygmalion another go. i'm still not even sure if i even like souvlaki… it's just on rotation in my car and every time it comes around i feel like i want to listen to it again. and, is this love? when you just want to spend time with her?

[sarah]

This week I've been listening to a lot of the album ??? by MyGO!!!!!, a fictional band from the anime of the same name (which is also great). It's a classic J-rock type thing with some <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ-OebTVyvk' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>heartbreaking spoken word sections</a> and some <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kZBuzsZ7Ho' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>killer hooks</a>. I can't get these songs out of my head.

preferably new ones .

Aw man. I'm screwed.

I'm looking through my lists and ... my latest albums for April have been focused on... Steely Dan. I haven't heard any of it before! Honestly! I began with <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ueivjr3 ... hf4_QN5chy' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>The Nightfly</a> and then listened to Aja. And then besides that it's ... <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqyrPjF ... 9uIGFsYnVt' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Pygmalion</a>. Lots and lots of Pygmalion.

I wanna listen to what you posted. So I will.

Aja is great! It and The Royal Scam are my favorites of the Dan I've heard so far. I still need to check out The Nightfly.

[sinku]

And then besides that it's ... <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqyrPjF ... 9uIGFsYnVt' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Pygmalion</a>. Lots and lots of Pygmalion.

im also super screwed i only listen to old shit. i really like souvlaki. i havent listened to pygmalion but ive heard its way better and more essential as far as shoegaze goes.

ive listened to a lot of random emo stuff and post-hardcore lately;
<a href='https://hecticfire.bandcamp.com/track/the-sting' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Candidate</a> are like uncanny valley emo, its got the screaming but the production and vibes are wrong, it hits more like slint or something and its got these tape loop parts that are weird, and they really have good control over dynamics and harmonies. sucks they didnt make anything else. see also <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oHouRb6zW4' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>State Route 522</a>.

but ive also been listening to a fair amount of indie rock, <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9oE9IAO6rk' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Sebadoh</a> and <a href='https://dinosaurjr.bandcamp.com/track/the-lung-2' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Dinosaur Jr.</a> and <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoqjYPyy_Rc' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Guided by Voices</a>. sorta lofi lots of melodic sensibilities and interesting harmony.

[watermoon]

back at it again with some stuff i've liked these past couple weeks:

Tsukasa Itou – Sayonara Con-nichiwa (1982)

this whole thing confounds me (affectionate?). a very young idol singer with a really cute voice that can't quite hit the notes, singing in front of instrumentals that range from standard synthpop to doo-wop throwback to just utterly unhinged. and it has a weirdly stacked songwriter credit list? ryuichi sakamoto wrote a song for it?! mariya takeuchi wrote the one about having a pajama party?!!

Usagi-chan Superstar!! Vol.0001 (2002, Compilation)

if someone told me in the '90s that all music in the 2000s sounded like this, i would've been so excited and then so disappointed once the nu-metal started rolling in.
this is exactly what i want and what i've spent so long looking for… this kind of spacey dancepop melts my heart. i listen to something like talking of girl and i feel like i've come home to my future.

Red Go-Cart - skip and make it flower (1999)

though if you were to tell me that this came out in 1999 i'd find it hard to believe, since this is much more reminiscent of a very straightforward kind of lo-fi guitar pop that i thought died out after the eighties – think shonen knife perhaps. but it's so sunny and speedy and cute that it makes me think that we should've never left the style behind…

also that album title is sooo adorable!~

[maru]

ryuichi sakamoto wrote a song for it?! mariya takeuchi wrote the one about having a pajama party?!!

Sakamoto was kind of everywhere for pop music in the 80s, I think. I love the production work he did on <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I59jlc7E4Cg' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Mari Ijima's Rosé</a>.

[watermoon]

Sakamoto was kind of everywhere for pop music in the 80s, I think. I love the production work he did on <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I59jlc7E4Cg' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Mari Ijima's Rosé</a>.

holy shit that groove…
and yeah i can definitely see that, so maybe i use credits like that as a metric of an idol's industry connections, and how much of a push there was to have her succeed. i have no clue if this is accurate or fair.

[meri]

lots of interesting albums this year.

- cold visions by bladee was a long-awaited return to emo. i don't think his new stuff has been as reproachable as most but there's the chuuni in me that wants to indulge a little in being evil.
- tital memory exo by iglooghost sweeps me into the ocean. i think this is him at his best. thank you for being a silly sea creature.
- britpop by a. g. cook confirms to me that he's still got it.
- sophomore slump callitrope by stomach book was introduced to me by my girlfriend. emo ska rock? idk what to call this. uniquely 23nd century hyper music. it can only exist right now. it's pretty evocative in the way that this kind of 'direct' art is not usually. it strikes a chord in me, or maybe i just heard it at the right time. not every song is a favorite but i'm swept with it just a little.
- deathbrain dropped "a slice of life" this year which is more of the same. some singles rolled up into the album. it goes on a little too long, but the production is ever great, if a little repetitive. new songs are good.

[maru]

Continuing my basic spree, I've been listening to Television's <a href='https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=O ... g4uJDo_DNQ' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Marquee Moon</a> recently. I think what happened was, I was relistening to a lot of Interpol and I was reminded that I had heard Television a few times and should do it again. So I did and it was just like ... this time it wasn't "music" in abstract, it connected with me. So much post-punk owes itself to this record. It feels downright timeless sometimes. The vocal delivery is crazy and organic and emotive, but without being melodramatic; it's more somewhat theatrical. So instead of Interpol taking these staccato guitars and applying the Joy Division vocal treatment on crazy lyrics, it's more like these little stories told between amazing guitar lines.

[JennyDog]

Current new listens:

<a href='https://thebrobecks.bandcamp.com/' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>The Brobeks: Violent Things</a>: one of the panic at the disco performers earlier solo project, a lot of fun. They currently head up <a href='https://idkhow.bandcamp.com/' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>I don't know how but they found me</a>, which I hand't realized released more than a few songs. It's definitely emo but doesn't want to call itself emo, its a ton of fun, a few songs don't really vibe but I really liked it.




<a href='https://jukeboxtheghost.bandcamp.com/al ... let-ghosts' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Jukebox the Ghost: Let Live and Let Ghosts</a>. I saw them for the first time on an album tour where each night they were doing an album show for each of their earliest albums, they have incredible stage presence and sort of MC'd themselves and gave running talks about how they composed it, or how one of the singers met his wife, and so I got a T Shirt and gave it a listen. It's a pretty odd album because half of it is a concept album about the apocalypse, and the other half jaunty rock-piano love songs. I think the band changed up their stuff a lot, but they still are producing music and touring.

[maru]

Oh God, I have another one actually: <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJMqq8a ... aHVyc3Q%3D' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Earth is Big by Logan Whitehurst and the Junior Science Club</a>.

I listened to Logan's music a lot when I was younger — he had only just died (2006) and so the community of people around Lemon Demon had a bit of a mythology about him. And he has a lot of hallmarks that people sort of associate with Neil, so it made sense.

I think his music really holds up; I think calling it novelty is a bit reductive. It's playful, eccentric, hopeful stuff. I find it really fun to go through and there's always tons of tracks on each record. Track after track of lo-fi cassette goodies, you know?

[spellbook of fate]

one new one and one old one. ive got other new stuff to hear but i wanted to get this down at least

Lives Outgrown by Beth Gibbons: this one is pretty good but not great. i can respect her want to not sound exactly like portishead circa 15 years ago (sounds dreary!) and i think she mostly accomplishes that. theres some wonkiness though. the first track is a good example of this, that one to me feels hokey in the same way like, a Sad Song for the new The Last Of Us would. its bad enough that it put me on guard for the rest of the album, which was better and mostly pretty good. but the impression had already been made. unfortunate.

Atomizer by Big Black: kicking myself for not really listening to steve albini deeply until he had already died. my excuse is im often fickle for no real reason and the best i can do is fix my mistakes as they happen. i cant really say much about this beyond its excellent for the reasons people have been saying for almost 40 years now. he was really one of the greats.

[sinku]

Atomizer by Big Black: kicking myself for not really listening to steve albini deeply until he had already died.

do yourself a favor and check out <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiEjRLmSLp0' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Shellac</a>, which was what he did afterwards. even released an album something like a week before he died.

yesterday I listened to <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=papQ7OOyqAA' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Deserve</a>, by Weed. it hits a good spot as far as harder, girthier shoegaze that doesnt sleepwalk.

last week I listened to <a href='https://survivalistdeathcult.bandcamp.c ... phonic-dub' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Radiophonic Dub</a> which is this dub record made by this noise artist i ought to listen to more of, and it draws heavily from his love of 50s-60s BBC studio sound design.

[sinku]

hi all. @maru prompted me to come post what ive been listening to again
siktoe navajoe by protman

very pretty ambient record. protman says its stuff from between 1994 and 2018, but it all consistently feels as if it came out somewhere in the 2001 ballpark. it is very similar to Microstoria by SND, lots of pillowy fluffy synths and static atmospheres but it has a really pleasantly varied sound palette. Apparently it was made with an SK1 and Audiomulch but the yt description says he used trackers too. I reached out on X to ask why the bandcamp version has discrepancies in track lengths and he says its probably because that release has all the crossfades between tracks cut out.

under wartime conditions by the cleaners from venus

super british super jangly lofi college pop rock. its all crunchy high end and tape hiss. i think i prefer 'Living with Victoria Grey' but this is the first record of theirs i listened to so it gets priority, and it doesnt have (many) weird skits like the latter does. these guys really love descending lines. the one on the opener is pretty powerful, but I think this one is a little more representative of what they do... another thing of note, 'lukewarm love song' sound shockingly similar to mac demarco to me. maybe its just the guitar, it could totally be on Two or something. the band were operating close enough to where I live I could realistically take a day trip to go see them, thus the vibe is thus achingly familiar.

Deserve by WEED

i found WEED thru some offhand comment or recommendation on yt or maybe rym that they did a good dinosaur jr impression. idk abt that but this is really good. it sorta reminds me of early MBV just with less lofi production. you can make out what the different guitars are doing, but the production is still chokingly intense, thick and loud.