#100daysofbandnames

[100daysofbandnames]

Day 5 - Self Esteem Coloring Book

Album Review:

“Self Esteem Coloring Book broke onto the scene in 2017 when Cam Sargent, the DJ and singer behind Camcorder, and Janie Pantolino, the bassist of Say Women Please began dating and shortly thereafter formed their own side project. The group has described themselves as ‘an upbeat brand of depression’ that has found a huge following, first from a series of YouTube videos and finally when the 5-person band began touring, starting at SXSW in Austin, their hometown. Their latest album is, dare I say, slightly less upbeat, but nevertheless will charm current fans and probably create many new ones. It’s been on constant repeat since I received the demo.”

— Andy McCullough, Texas Music Magazine

[100daysofbandnames]

97/100 merriam webstered

“Billing itself as ‘Instrumentals and Acapellas,’ the musical group Merriam Webstered has released a soundscape like none I’ve heard before. Using the human voice as an instrument, the group weaves voices and instruments together in what they assure me is completely non-synthesizer-assisted ways. It feels like they’ve spent a lot of time mixing the tracks, but no — they tell me they were all recorded in locations that were ‘acoustically interesting’ to get the echoes and reverb effects. Be that as it may, I’m enchanted by this amazing opus. If you’re into ethereal ambience (but not synths), listen to this album to see how it’s done.”

— Rhodri Rhydderch, The Guardian

[100daysofbandnames]

96/100 Kimo Kawaii

“It means ‘cute and gross’ in Japanese, but if you’re looking for the gross, you’ll need to understand Japanese to find it on this band’s eponymous album, its fifth since 2011. Otherwise you’ll think Kimo Kawaii is all cute. The band’s five members wear enchanting pink and white outfits and sing with captivating monster headpieces that conceal their identity. It’s all mesmerizingly adorable. Translating the lyrics, however, you’ll realize the songs are super gross (and don’t get me started thinking about how much they must sweat under those masks). With tracks like Brain Worm, Stomach Exploder, No Parachute Big Problem and Dinner or Autopsy? — well, you get the idea. Well done, Kimo Kawaii. I’m going to need to listen to a lot of Babymetal to get your gross songs out of my head.”

— Midori Saito, Eye-Ai

[100daysofbandnames]

95/100 Damn the tomatoes

“Damn the Tomatoes, has done for vegetables what Angry Birds has done for the avian world — absolutely nothing. But it is an entertaining iOS game, and it has its own soundtrack. Unlike Angry Birds, it doesn’t yet have its own movie, and the soundtrack is all instrumental, devoid of any pop stars, and produced in conjunction with the Symphony of Southwest Arkansas. For fans of the original Damn the Tomatoes theme song, so catchy it’s probably going through your head right now, the original track is included at the end. You’re probably just better off pulling out your iPhone and playing a few levels. But hey, good try Tomato Lobby.”

— Creed Saint Bowie, cnet.com

[100daysofbandnames]

94/100 Deep Fakes

“Like Daft Punk, Deep Fakes took their name from a review of their music. ‘They’re fakes, but they’re such deep fakes you don’t mind it,’ laughingly quotes Marisol De León, one half of the group (‘the deep one,’ she tells me). Fusing the much-beloved Mexican Norteño music with techno, the band speeds it up a bit to create a modern yet traditional sound. ‘It’s not Nortec, though,’ De León hastens to tell me. ‘It’s our own thing. And we keep the vocals.’ Thought it’s hard to imagine an audience for Deep Fake’s often 10 to 15-minute tracks, co-founder Adela Vásquez (‘the fake one,’ she tells me) claims they have a large following in Mexico and elsewhere in South America. ‘We’re huge in Buenos Aires,’ Váquez says. ‘We don’t really know why.’ 

— Véronica Pérez, urbanlatino.com

[100daysofbandnames]

93/100 Tall Orange

“A mysterious collaboration of uncredited (and therefore likely high-profile) musical artists has produced this project, Tall Orange, which takes a certain Politician Who Must Not Be Named to pieces in just 10 tracks. Though we’ve already seen a bushel of these types of artistic endeavors, this one deserves special mention just because it’s actually fun, listenable music as well. Imagine yourself bopping along to the title gem, Tall Orange (or, The Return of Taxes): Like a book that should be published / Like a song that should be sung / We need to see those documents / To heal where we’ve been stung / Let us heal, Tall Orange / Let us heal, Tall Orange / Let us heal, Tall Orange / Let us heal, Tall Orange / Orange you glad I didn’t say that again / It’s likely that even a decade in the future none of us will remember the immediacy of the topics each track covers, but at the present moment the time is ripe.” 

— Corey Appleton, The Hill Music

[100daysofbandnames]

92/100 it's not me its ewe

“German rocker Uwe Dittmar has, apparently just for die Hölle of it, released an album for the US market. Correctly foreseeing the difficulty Americans would have pronouncing his name, he’s entitled his project It’s Not Me It’s Ewe. Just exactly how this will help his cause is uncertain, since Uwe (pronounced OO-vuh for the Americans Dittmar was concerned about) is a far cry from Ewe. Certainly a good decision he made was to team up with American rapper I M Sexxxy (‘The third X is silent,’ she tells me) who delivers Dittmar’s so-so lyrics with such confidence and poise that it certainly rescues this otherwise puzzlingly unasked-for album from certain obscurity — and elevates her career. Of course, if you’ve ever heard Dittmar’s singing voice, you’re doubly grateful.” 

— Saskia Jäger, Rolling Stone

[100daysofbandnames]

91/100 Soft Stanley

“Sax virtuoso Stanley Washington wants you to know he can do soft jazz, too. Coming on the heels of a set of experimental albums — Flat Stanley, where he doctored his instrument so that certain notes were slightly out of tune, and is pretty much unlistenable if you have any ear for pitch; the unfortunately named Hard Stanley, where he rocked us as indicated with hits from the 1970s; and perhaps the most interesting of them all, Daft Stanley, where he played all Daft Punk covers — Soft Stanley is a refreshing treat, and will likely sell more units than all his other albums combined. He’s undeniably talented, and I for one am glad he’s finally using his talents for good.” 

— Grier Thorburn, JazzTimes