A place for me to rant, rave, and pretend to know how to write about music. Stick around and I'll try to post some interesting stuff you might not have heard!
With a lot going on in my life lately, I haven’t really had the opportunity to really keep up to date with this blog, which is a shame because it’s something I really enjoy even if only 3 (???) people read it. Paradoxically, I guess I’m here now because there is now an overwhelming amount of things going on in my life right now and I just need a break from it. Anyways, on to the music.
Locus of Control, the third full length album by LA based Lou Breed, is a very, very good album. So good in fact, that I don’t think I should actually recommend listening to this one before the band’s other two albums, Stoned out: Miami Beaches and Stoned Out Two: Morning of the Way to Love. While they are both great albums in their own right, Locus of Control stands head and shoulders above them in just about every right. Stylistically focused, lyrically profound, composed with purpose, the band took every measure to improve on their past releases in as many ways as possible. This much is definitely true- from the band’s own page:
Locus of Control is the first Lou Breed album created as a document of a fully live band. Bass, drums, guitar and lead vocals for each song were recorded together live to an 8-track tape machine. Hopefully tapping into that secret and mystical currents of rock and/or roll that has coursed through all living things since time immemoria.
Lou Breed takes the lo-fi psychedlia sounds from the Stoned Out Albums and trades them in for an extremely high polished, alternative rock groove. The band has brought in the entire ensemble for this one, from trumpets to keys to background vocalists on some tracks. It’s obvious that a lot of effort has gone into each song in during the three years since the release of Stoned Out Two.
If you’re not growing, Well
Maybe you’re dying
I’m not dying, all the time
- Most of the Time
Once again, I absolutely recommend listening to the Stoned Out albums before this one. They’re not bad albums at all, but they are definitely a lot more rough around the edges than Locus of Control. At the same time, if you’re having trouble getting through the drone-ier, fuzzy parts of them, I wouldn’t blame you for skipping right to Locus.
Anyways, that probably more or less wraps up my feelings about this album. I absolutely recommend giving it a listen here at Lou Breed’s bandcamp page. Once again, thank you so much for reading this for whatever reason, and I hope you enjoy the music!
Leonard Cohen died a few days ago. I’ve been trying to find a way to properly send him off here, but I’ve honestly been struggling a bit. He’s been such an influential voice in my life, and I suppose the only real way to do it is to share a bit of his poetry.
Cohen is a poet first and foremost. One of my favourite stories about him is when he said that the only reason he decided to add music to what he wrote was because he thought it would get him more girls!
I’ll be honest, I have a lot of trouble hearing past the melodies of most songs to the lyrics. Not with Cohen though. The man wrote lines which demanded to be heard. He wrote verses that spoke directly to one’s existence. I hold some of the songs on this album, like Suzanne, Stories of the Street, and (one of my personal favorites) So Long, Marianne as the bar at which all lyrics should be held to. They are such masterful pieces of art, so full of honesty and human emotion, that it breaks my heart to think that the mind they came from is no longer with us. I don’t want to draw this out for too much longer than I have to, everything that needs to be said has been by people much more capable then me. Scratch that, everything that needs to be said can be found in his music.
I hope that Cohen finds himself being greeted by Marianne Ihlen and a choir of angels singing Hallelujah. Please, go and listen to the album I’ve posted above. It completely changed everything I thought I knew about song writing the first time I heard it, and if I can share that impact with anyone who might be reading this, then I consider this entire blog a success.
Once again, thank you so much for reading this for some reason, I really hope you enjoy the music!
1. キレイの鍵 (0:00) 2. CATCH! ~Take hold of love~ (4:44) 3. SWEET BOY (8:56) 4. つよがり… (14:02) 5. Monopoly (19:18) 6. HOT SOX (24:12)
Hi y'all, this one's gonna be a bit shorter for a couple reasons I guess, but mostly because I don't even speak Japanese! That's right, today I'm writing about M O N O P O L Y by Kyoko Yamamoto.
Wait no please don't go I promise I'm not a wierdo that's obsessed with Japan and stuff. I swear that it's a genuinely good album in its own rights and I'm really excited to share it. You see, this album has been my ‘White Whale’ for literally almost decade now. What do I mean by that? I mean that I've been on the hunt for this album for nearly half of my life. And now I finally have it. It's mine. I OWN IT. I don't really have much to say about it (because of the whole language barrier thing), but I kind of want to share the history I have with this album and why it matters so much to me.
I guess 8 or so years ago I came across the second track on this album, CATCH! ~Take hold of love~, on youtube while searching for some anime stuff or whatever. I’d never really been into J-Pop back then so I don’t really know why I gave the song a chance, but man am I ever glad I did. There’s just something about the Catch that I fall in love with every time I listen to it. From Kyoko’s frankly Angelic voice to the funky bass line and rhythm guitar in the background, I listened to this song basically non stop for maybe a month. I remember specifically the way the chorus would rise in pitch standing out for me, it was just such a dang catchy hook! I think the last song, HOT SOX, was also on youtube, but it never left the same impression as Catch did. Unfortunately, the dream all ended one day when I searched for the song only to discover that it had been take down. Who could have done this? Why would they choose this song in particular, with its only maybe 200 views, to remove? Since that day, I’ve scoured music forums and sharing sites across the net to find anyone in the dang world who might have heard of the album, but alas to no avail. Anyways, it turns out Japanese Amazon had it the entire time so I just bought it from there, and here we are.
I had never listened to most of the other songs on the album until today, and I was actually pretty pleasantly surprised much I enjoy them all. They’re like a strange mix of 80’s Japanese city pop and 90’s western easy listening songs. A lot of the tracks have the aforementioned funky bass and guitar, but they’re also backed by cool strings and keyboards. Otherwise, they have a bit of that late 90’s, early 00’s radio pop feeling; Think I’m Like a Bird or something to that effect. They have enough neat little hooks to keep them fresh though, and each song feels pretty distinct from the last. The album’s title track, Monopoly, threw me for a bit of a loop actually, I wasn’t expecting to find it as fun to listen to as I did.
Anyways, I’ve decided to go out of my way and post the entire album for you to listen to on Youtube, hopefully ensuring that it will remain on the internet long after the rest of the world is destroyed. Once again, thank you so much for reading this for whatever reason, and I hope you enjoy the music
> ”The Parotid Gland gays it up a bit.” -My good friend Andrew
Singles-
Don’t Vote (For America) - 2:58
Jobs Are For Slaves - 1:34
Moon River (Cover) - 3:22
Punkreviews.org - 2/5
>”Tries too hard”, “Politically Retarded”, “One track is just the third one played in reverse”
Hey this is just a lil fun thing I think I’ll do every once in a while when I see a cool picture that I think would make a good album cover. I hope you like it! Or Don’t.
All credits goes to its respective owners. 0:00 - Brighton Rock 5:10 - Killer Queen 8:10 - Tenement Funster 10:58 - Flick Of The Wrist 14:16 - Lily Of The Va...
Note that this write-up was supposed to be about H.P Lovecraft’s self-titled 1968 album, but it kind of really quickly got out my hands so enjoy this instead I guess.
I’m a little surprised I haven’t gotten a chance to really talk about any kind of classic rock yet. The genre has more or less been my musical home base for about as long as I can remember. After binging out on whatever kind of music might be catching my eye at the time, I sort of always end up back in the same era of 60’s and 70’s rock that seems to be my comfort zone. But it’s hard to write anything new about classic albums; everything that there is to be said about them already has. No one needs me to tell them how amazing, say, A Night at the Opera is, despite how much I might want to talk about Queen. Oh man do I love Queen, They’ve been such a fundamental band for me. Even now, I can remember back to when my brother gave me his copy of Queen’s Greatest hits, which I guess kind of changed me for the rest of my life? I think it must have been the first ‘album’ I listened to from front to back (and then from back to front, and from the middle outwards, and then so on…), and I don’t think I’d ever heard anything quite like it. From the iconic tone on Brian May’s double tracked guitar to John Deacon putting together probably the first bass lines I’d ever noticed in my life (He wrote You’re My Best Friend, Another One Bites the Dust and I Want to Break Free!), the band came into my life like a whirlwind. And then there was Freddie Mercury. I wanted to be Freddie Mercury. I wanted to sing like Freddie Mercury, I wanted to rule the stage like he did. I’d study his tapes like a boxer preparing for the fight of his life, and then I’d perform We Are the Champions at talent shows (At the expense of everyone who had to listen to me) making sure to copy every single one of his moves.
With all that being said, it makes me just a little sad when I realise that not too many people have really given the band’s discography a good listening. I feel like I should emphasise I’m not trying to say this in a condescending, man no one listens to real music anymore, kind of way. A lot of people love Queen, I know that for sure. A lot of people can sing every part of Bohemian Rhapsody by heart but haven’t given a Night at the Opera a chance, with the equally epic and theatrical Prophet’s Song coming just a few tracks before it. Similarly, I’m sure News of the World goes over a lot of people’s heads despite having the band’s two most recognisable songs as the opening tracks. Almost everyone I’ve played the album Sheer Heart Attack are kind of taken aback by just how hard rock the band is, Freddie and his crew absolutely rock out on songs like Brighton Rock, Now I’m Here, and (one of my personal favourite songs) Flick of the Wrist. Again, I promise I’m not trying to be patronising or anything, I just really, really love queen. I would really love if everyone in the world really listened to this really spectacular band. Once upon a time when I was young and stubborn I definitely was a little bit WAY TOO elitist about music, but now I’ve grown up a bit I’ve realised that is no way to spread the gospel.
So if you get the chance, listen at least to the album that I’ve posted above. There are some really gorgeous songs on it, but what makes it great is how well it all flows together, like an opera split into different 13 different little parts. Maybe you’ll like it. Maybe you won’t. It’s okay, I’ll understand. But maybe you’ll fall in love with it, and I think that would be just so neat. Here, I’ll even put a little bit from one of my favourite songs, Lily of the valley:
I lie in wait with open eyes
I carry on through stormy skies
I follow every course, My kingdom for a horse
But each time I grow old
Serpent of the Nile, Relieve me for a while
And cast me from your spell and let me go
-Lily of the Valley
Once again, Thank you so much for reading this for some reason, I really hope you enjoy the music!
Hey I really love this band and I want to do a full write up on Junior Beams eventually. In the mean time check out the rest of their stuff above, it’s really awesome!
Hey, this is gonna be a bit of an interesting one because I am actually listening to the album for the first time as I write this. It feels like I’ve been waiting for Heat Shimmer’s debut album to come out for an eternity now, but in reality it couldn’t have been more than a few months. When I listened to the band’s January Demo for the first time, I was struck by just how well thought out the whole thing sounded for a band that’d never released anything before. Despite that, I had completely forgotten about them by the time they had rolled out their Gently Used single in early October, teasing the release of their self-titled debut in November. Here, their vision really shined through. The lead doesn’t so much sings her lines, but rather howls them discordantly while a jangly guitar echoes in the background of the track. The song just oozes coolness from every riff and bassline. I don’t think I can honestly say I had been this drawn to a track within the first five seconds of its runtime like I had with Gently Used in a long time.
I know I’m not brand new but I’m
Feeling gently used and I
Whisper to you
Use me Use me Use me Used
-Gently Used
So you can imagine I’ve been waiting on this album with bated breath for a while now, and I was absolutely stoked when I refreshed the band’s page and found that they had finally added it to their releases. Now I’m sure you’re wondering, does it hold up? Well from what I can say, yeah I think so, just not in the way I expected it to. The album opens with the same dream poppy, surf-gazey jam that I expected with Soft Serve, but by only the second track it had already diverged into something much more sinister. “Hey, wait a minute,” I had said as Boys on the Run faded in, “This is DOOM ROCK!” Alas, my poor catholic virtues had indeed been exposed to the devil’s melody, the music of stoners and Satanists and my good friend Andrew. With all the heavy distortion and slow head banging that comes with it, much of the first half of the album would fit right on an early Electric Wizard or Pagan Alter album. But then right as I was preparing to sacrifice my first goat, the band goes back to dream pop with Travis the Chimp, and stays there for a few songs before returning to stoner rock with No Tornado. The transitions feel just as abrupt as it was after Soft Serve, and I don’t really know how it makes me feel. I really enjoy all of the songs individually, but as an album I kind of hoped there would have been a bit more cohesion in the end. Like, I feel as if they could have released tracks 1, 7, and 8 with Gently Used separately as their own EP, with the rest of them making up the bulk of another heavier rock focused album.
Does this mean I don’t like the album? Of course not, it has some really fantastic tracks on it and there are some spectacular production values here as well. Amber (Last Name Unknown)’s wailing vocals really shine the entire album through, and I really enjoy how well they complimented the doomy gloomy tracks. In fact, I think the doom tracks in general were my favorite of the bunch; I can get a really a nice, heavy nod going on with most of them. The rest of the band is definitely on point with Madi (Last name unknown) shredding on the guitar, particularly on tracks like Boys on the Run and Gently Used. All in all, I really enjoyed the whole thing even if it could have stuck together a bit better. I could really imagine using a few of the songs on Heat Shimmer to get some people into doom rock, which I think is really cool because it’s seems to be such an intimidating genre for some reason. I definitely see myself coming back the album a bunch in the future.
If you haven’t listened to Heat Shimmer yet, what the heck are you doing the link is right there go click it. Once again, Thank you so much for reading this for some reason, I hope you enjoy the music!
Hey! This is something I think I want to start doing as well for Singles, Splits, and EPs that are just too short for a full music write up. Expect equally pretentious haikus in the future.
Let’s talk about lo-fi music for a bit. If you’re not in to Know(fi), lo-fi more or less refers to music produced at a lower standard of quality than conventional music recordings. A response to the superficiality of the recording industry in the 80s and 90s, lo-fi goes hand in hand with the indie rock boom of the era. Independent artists didn’t need thousands of dollars of recording devices to make music anymore; there was a big push towards making music in your bedroom or in your mom’s basement. Now with the advent of music sharing sites like bandcamp and Soundcloud, I like to believe that the genre is in a golden era. Everyone is now able produce music with a cheap USB guitar pickup and a rockband mic and distribute it at no cost to themselves online, and if it doesn’t sound great it’s okay because we’re lo-fi, right? That being said, I also believe the ease of access has also opens the door for just a lot of, uh, just bad music man. A lot of the times it feels like some bands use the label of lo-fi as an excuse to not put a lot of effort into their music, and the market seems to become saturated by a lot generic, low effort stuff that you have to wade through to get to the good stuff. That’s why Laurel Ave.’s album Gathers Flies sticks out so much to me.
Solemnly scream while you love next to me,
Tell me what they really say, What they mean when they
Say that they love me
-His And Hers
These guys are a band. They compose music, they practice it before takes, and they put a lot of effort into their craft. I had the chance to talk one of the band members on a message board when I first listened to the album, and I was just stricken about how much he seemed to be proud about what he had helped create, and rightfully so. The mixing on this album is fantastic! It never seems like any of the instruments are being drowned out by one another, which is great because then they get playfully flirt with each other on songs like His and Hers and The Devil’s . Laurel Ave. wears its garage and college rock influences on its shoulders, with bands like The Strokes, Blink-182, and Queens of the Stone-age leaving their marks here and there throughout the record. Despite this, the album is it’s own beast and it would be a shame to call it nothing but derivative. Laurel Ave. does lo-fi right by continuing the genre’s DIY spirit in Gathers Flies, putting a tremendous amount of effort into creating a fantastic album without having to break the bank.
If you’d like to check these guys out, click the bandcamp link above! Once again, whoever you are thank you so much for reading this for some reason, and I hope you enjoy the music!
Johnny Goth writes depressing music for depressed people. Johnny Goth is my favourite artist to listen to when I am depressed. I listen to a lot of Johnny Goth.
I originally wanted to do this write up on JG’s debut EP Gray Sky (Which you can listen to here, it’s an amazing album!) but I’ve been a little obsessed with this one lately. Far Away does a lot of what Gray Sky does, but with a lot more confidence and punch. Emotional and visceral, JG writes incredibly honest lyrics about feeling lonely, depressed, and alienated, about trying to find meaning in an empty existence, about trying to find ways to keep dragging yourself forward when there doesn’t seem to be a point. There is no attempt to even hide the existential nihilism found throughout the album, but rather JG brings as much attention to it as possible. In the end though, isn’t that the whole point of the emo rock movement? Rather than burying and repressing these emotions, Johnny Goth embraces them with some kind of suicidal irony, like some kind of bizarro mindfulness meditation session.
i can't breathe, there's no air
i can't find where home is
i don't remember where i live
-aimless
The truth is, wallowing is frankly just really satisfying up to a point. I’ll admit, maybe I wasn’t in the best of places when I was writing this one up, but I feel that being able to acknowledge your emotions, and admit to yourself that they have weight has to be one of the first steps to being able to overcome them. That’s the thing though, you have to get to the point of overcoming them, because it’s a bit too easy to get stuck in a cycle of wallowing.
I guess I ended up just ranting a bunch instead of really talking about the album, but I guess that’s just what this album is to me. It’s almost always one of the first one’s I play when I’m in an awful mood, because it makes me actually pay attention to what I’m unsatisfied with in life for just a bit.
If for whatever reason I somehow managed to make you want to listen to this (Fantastic!) album, check out Johnny Goth’s bandcamp above. Again, thank you so much to whoever might be reading this, and enjoy the music!
Do you remember your dreams very well? Think about how abruptly you’re dreams can go from one situation to the next, from one extreme to the other, and how casual it seems at the time. Dream you doesn’t even usually skip a beat, it just kind of rolls with the punches. “Huh okay I guess this is what I’m doing now.” Says dream you, unfazed by the situation unfolding before them. That is what Joel Jerome’s album Psychedelic Thriftstore Folk reminds me of- the whole experience is very dreamlike, with abrupt changes in tone happening sometimes mid-song with nary a skipped beat. A lot of the songs feel repetitive, but more in a psychedelic, mantric way than a boring way. Jerome chooses to almost chant certain phrases before braking the mantra and exploding into an entirely different song- Particularly in the 7 minute opus that is the closing track, Everybody Wants Somebody. The song is literally just a few variations of a single line before slowing down to a trance and gradually building up to an incredible climax, full of keyboards, electric guitars, and saxophones.
I have all that I need and now that I have it I don't want it anymore
I don't have what I need and now that I have it I don't have it no more
- Everybody Wants Somebody
I once read that the point of psychedelic music was to mimic experience of mind altering substances, and this album definitely sends me on a trip. It’s Psychedelic, it’s folk, but it’s anything but cheap. Joel Jerome puts out a psychedelia album with everything you could want in it- phlangs, reverbs, distortion, wahs, you name it. The entire album is marked by incredible production values and just fantastic composition throughout it’s entire runtime. Psychedelic Thriftstore Folk is definitely a dream to listen to.
Thanks so much for reading, and if you get a chance check out and support Joel Jerome at the bandcamp page above!
It took me a while to decide what I would talk about for my first ever post about ANYTHING on the the INTERNET where ANYONE can read EVERYTHING that I’ve ever posted oh JESUS WHAT AM I DOING
Alright, back on track, The Sunshine Faces. The work of one Noah Rawlings (Who wrote, recorded, and produced the whole thing himself), I suppose that this is the band that started getting me to really reach out of my musical comfort zone. Back in the summer of 2015 I had just broken up with my then girlfriend. I had been spending my evenings (and by evenings I mean from 1-5 AM) wrapped up in a blanket in my room and for some reason I’d ended up on the 4chan Music board. There at the top of the catalogue was a 2015 AOTY thread, with this album right at the top of it, with the tags SHOEGAZE and DREAMPOP. I followed the link and ended up on the very bandcamp page that I’ve linked here. Before My Bloody Valentine, before The Sonic Youth, this was my introduction into fuzzy music and Soundscapes. And what an intro! The melodies are nice and twinkly and atmosphere is like wading through molasses. The lyrics are bittersweet and nostalgic; I’m still a little baby in this world and they make me long for years passed and experiences I’ll never have again. Catfish Donahue in particular gives me a long lost friend kind of vibe, like someone you cared about that’s gone forever.
Kyle, the name sticks in my throat
and I loved you the most
and I’ll miss you the most
-Catfish Donahue
Despite morose lyrics, the album is never really downbeat. In fact, it’s almost always carries on at a nice danceable uptempo pace despite the lyrics crooning on about simpler times. Heck, one of the songs lays dreamy lyrics (fantasising of better, dreamier places than the one in which Rawlings currently resides in) over the melody of The Hustle. Do the Husserl, as the Sunshine Faces version of the song is called, is just as much a depressed, perversion of the original in tone as it is in it’s name, and I love it.
The album can be summed up by it’s 8th track, Ephemeral. People change, nothing stays the same, this too shall pass. Despite that though, this album has stuck with me for two years now and I’ve been through a lot of experiences with it. Getting stranded in a snowstorm somewhere in between Toronto and Niagara, eating and entire cake with my bare hands while tripping out, getting through my first big breakup (Remember, I’m still a little baby in this world). This album has seen me through a lot of highs and lows in a pretty short amount of time, and I sure hope whoever might be reading this enjoys it as much as I do.
Thanks so much for reading this (if anyone did), please check them out above and support the band if you like them!
Have you ever listened to an album and thought, man I could talk about this hour hours?
Hello to anyone who might be reading this, and welcome to my humble little page. Here, I would like to post a (hopefully!) weekly update with an album I’ve recently listened to, or maybe one I’ve enjoyed in the past. Now I really don’t expect anyone to, um, ever actually read anything I post, so I’m considering this as a lil project mostly for myself. Maybe I’ll write something about how I found the album, or the place I was in when I listened to it, I don’t know. The fact that no one’s ever going to read these also provides me a few advantages, like being able to truthfully say stupid things like I thought Beacon was like way way better than Tourist History. Maybe how I’ve never actually listened to a full Led Zeppelin album, only Mothership. Oh wow that felt good to get out there. Anyways, I should also note that I don’t know the first thing about writing critically, writing about music, or writing critically about music. I’m not about to imply anything I say is objectively true, I just wanna write goofy words about sounds I really like.
Well, If you’re still here for whatever reason, I’m sure you’re just itching to hear what I have to say about music. SO WAIT NO LONGER, and scroll on up to my first real post on the album Letting You Know by the Sunshine Faces.
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