#conrad amenta

[cokemachineglow]

As a band whose music was basically about how everything is stupid and life isn’t worth living, Nirvana could have negated the importance of the Hall. Instead, the remaining members of Nirvana played some music with Joan Jett, a woman best known for her anthemic testimonial to a love of a thing whose routines she was enacting in the process of professing that love. Nirvana, like Jett, ate their own tail right there in front of everyone, and disappeared completely from relevance once and for all.

http://cokemachineglow.com/features/article-nirvanahalloffame-2014/

[cokemachineglow]

Ultimately, Mercer has only done here what he seems always to strive to do, which is create an unflinching, uncompromising piece of art, and that’s enough to recover, a little bit, the notion of giving oneself wholly and unreservedly and without embarrassment to the experience of art. Carey Mercer’s music rises above the excess, the desensitization, and the cynicism of cool that keeps us from developing empathy with the writer, with our fellow audience members, with critics. Carey’s Cold Spring reinvests some portion of me in the notion that music has meaning, and utility, and can makes things better.

http://cokemachineglow.com/records/frogeyes-careyscoldspring-2013/

[cokemachineglow]

...[I]t turns out they’ve done little more than remove all of those superfluous vocal spots, expanded the running time, and resisted the need to feel these new the spaces unnecessarily. II is allowed to breathe and is, as a result, sleek, efficient, and satisfying. It’s an impeccably produced, thoroughly accessible, and totally meaningless good time.

http://cokemachineglow.com/records/moderat-ii-2013/

[cokemachineglow]

RIYL: brutal honesty; generosity; singers who look like a young Tim Roth in his first starring role as a council estate-born skinhead. http://cokemachineglow.com/records/majicalcloudz-impersonator-2013/

[cokemachineglow]

Conrad explains why he only likes about seven musicians, and they’re all Carey Mercer. http://cokemachineglow.com/records/jennyhvalknife-innocenceshaking-2013/

[cokemachineglow]

Jay-Z's also on there too, or something: http://cokemachineglow.com/tracks/justintimberlake-suitandtie-2013/

[cokemachineglow]

http://cokemachineglow.com/records/masayoshifujita-stories-2013/

One might think that solo performances are antiseptic and overly technical, but Fujita takes the listener through each movement with delicacy and patience, building and ebbing, weaving melodies together in ways that, like the best pop songs, sound totally natural and yet fresh and sentimental.

[cokemachineglow]

Happy new year! Now here's something from 2011 to remind you of what you've begun to lose: http://cokemachineglow.com/records/johannsson-minershymns-2011/