2022 musical recordings

Didn’t realize the SunnO))) album came out.

I was listening to the Daniel Rossen album this morning and was surprised how much I enjoyed it.

new billy woods x preservation album, aethiopes, is a masterpiece

Hell yeah! It’s been a while since I’ve heard a rap album that I actually wanted to listen to again. Really good stuff y’all!

Nick wrote:Didn’t realize the SunnO))) album came out.it.

Pretty wracked w Covid right now and this is nuts listening

The mood Sharon Van Etten has created on her new album is really working for me.

Nick wrote:The mood Sharon Van Etten has created on her new album is really working for me.

Looking forward to sitting with this one on the long work commute.

The latest Arcade Fire is pretty silly and bad, they sort of threw any last ounce of nuanced lyricism out a while ago but I enjoyed the music enough to ignore that. It's all cheesy as hell now, with Win Butler rhyming "Sad" with "Sad", and sing-talking little tidbits like "Let me say it again, no one's perfect". I don't know if members of the band have kids but WE feels like it was written for kids, like 12-15 year old kids.

I enjoyed the energy of the latest PUP album, pop-punk music that doesn't really seem like its trying to be cool still.

Years of bands I love putting out side projects that suck or serve no purpose trained me to just not care about that sort of thing anymore. Probably my loss more often than I'll ever know.

So I didn't care about The Smile when I first heard about it but now realizing what this actually is--Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood writing songs and playing them however they want, not a Radiohead album in name only I guess--and then hearing two tracks on this thing has me super excited for this Friday. "Free in the Knowledge" is one of the most beautiful things they've ever made.

Has the new Kendrick blown your mind

It’s off the chain intense

I think halfway through the year my favorite albums are:

Sharon Van Etten
Cate le Bon
Animal Collective
Angel Olsen
The Smile

Just Mustard - Heart Under

Never heard of this band with an admittedly terrible name. Listened to it because it was liked by a mutual lover of BJ Nilsen - Irreal. This sounds nothing like BJ Nilsen. This album is kinda goth/post punk in tone but the singers voice is pure shoegaze dream pop. It’s like if Bowery Electric went darker and fused more of their last ‘trip hop’ album with the sounds from Beat. Worth checking out if you like gothgaze or dream trip pop, see, I can get it on the genre fun too!

What I've heard this year in chronological order.

I've really enjoyed Mitski over the past few years so I was very disappointed in Laurel Hell when I first listened to it. Just seemed like some unfocused nonsense made under duress. And then I saw her at Pitchfork and I thought I figured out what I was missing. Seems since last time I saw her she's become something of a performance artist, and so I deduced that she, for instance, underwrote the chorus of "Stay Soft" because she was going to fill in the blanks with hand gestures and high kicks at her live show. Not that live show made any of this better, mind you. So I listened to it again at home, and no. That's not what's going on. She indeed made a tuneless, unfocused record, because she wanted to quit music and made this record out of obligation, and it sounds like a chore because for her it was a chore. The only genuine feeling on this record is "I wish I wasn't doing this".

tl;dr This is a Trash It record.

Labyrinthitis has been a perfect thing to listen to when the world has made no sense, which has been pretty frequently lately. Every other lyric on this thing I wanna put on a t-shirt.

Nilüfer Yanya's record sounds a lot like Nilüfer Yanya, which is a good thing as far as I'm concerned, though it sounds like she's been listening to a lot of Radiohead lately (though maybe that's a hard thing not to sound like when you're British an operating in the indie rock sphere). Pitchfork declared the best song on this "midnight sun" when it's obviously the very worst, possibly the worst thing she's ever done, aside from those interludes on the first record I suppose.

Crash is a lot of fun, though the Robin S. sample (between this and Beyoncé I hope she's buying better booze this year) and what amounts to a cover of "September (Cry for You)" as well as the length give it a mixtape kinda feel. I've heard four or five different declarations of what the best song on this is, and none of them are the actual clearly best song on it, "Constant Repeat". I think the failure to come to a consensus points to the fact that there are a lot of really good songs on this record. But also everyone else is wrong.

Beach House sounds like Beach House, and this time there's twice as much of it, so aces as far as I'm concerned here.

Not sure if Ella Mai's album is something you need to rush out and hear but I've been kind of obsessed with it, and it's definitely better than the last one. "Break My Heart" might be my favorite song so far this year.



This isn't my favorite on the record but I think Ned Braden will join me in being disappointed it's not this guy dueting with Ella:



Haven't really digested It's Almost Dry yet but I've really enjoyed playing the "Is this one Kanye or Pharrell?" game with each track. "Just So You Remember" and "Hear Me Clearly" are stand outs, and Pharrell does a nice Swae Lee impression on "Neck & Wrist".

Heard Warpaint do a cool cover of Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes" and decided to chek out what they've been doing lately. And the answer is they're being pretty mellow! An enjoyable record that sometimes almost sounds like R&B-tinged pop, not something to get too excited about. There's a pretty bitchin song about giving birth though.

Could resurrect the footwork thread for this but

Duff... wrote:

Heard Warpaint do a cool cover of Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes" and decided to chek out what they've been doing lately. And the answer is they're being pretty mellow! An enjoyable record that sometimes almost sounds like R&B-tinged pop, not something to get too excited about. There's a pretty bitchin song about giving birth though.

Every now and again I watch YouTube vids of them live, they are great together. I’m not sure what it is about their records (production)? But I can’t get into them. The new one isn’t bad though! I’d love to see them live at some point.

I just got the new Chats album, GET FUCKED, and the cover art on the back is pretty rad

coyote wrote:

Duff... wrote:

Heard Warpaint do a cool cover of Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes" and decided to chek out what they've been doing lately. And the answer is they're being pretty mellow! An enjoyable record that sometimes almost sounds like R&B-tinged pop, not something to get too excited about. There's a pretty bitchin song about giving birth though.

Every now and again I watch YouTube vids of them live, they are great together. I’m not sure what it is about their records (production)? But I can’t get into them. The new one isn’t bad though! I’d love to see them live at some point.

Yeah, something on the record feels like they're at an arm's length. Not bad, just, I dunno.

Love this emo bullshit.

Preoccupations (formerly known as Viet Cong) have released a new album that is very much my thing. Murky post-punk that you can sometimes feel like dancing to. At 38 minutes long it comes and goes at the ideal pace.

Trombone Champ has 25 playable tracks, including 5 original compositions, 1 contributed composition by Max Tundra, and 19 arrangements of public domain music

https://orenambarchi.bandcamp.com/album/shebang

Just got this thing in the mail today… Holy fucking what? If you liked previous Ambarchi palm muted guitaring on Hurbis, Ghosted, etc then you’ll love this. Fans of Future Days era Can must listen immediately. MY HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION

https://caribouband.bandcamp.com/album/cherry

I listened to this album twice today. It is very very good. I haven’t heard an electronic ‘album’ in a while that captivated me as much as this one. The sample style and overall structure of the beats is very reminiscent of the middle 90s American scene, chi, det, nyc. They also sound raw and underproduced and I think that has a lot to do with the fact that he’s using presets. Rather than tweak the sounds, which is what everyone does these days, using the presets gives it the old school edge but still has a modern sound design. Fans of moodyman, DJ Sneak, Jeff mills, Robert hood, or ‘Homework’ would probably enjoy.

1975 is the only good band left

Was just thinking yesterday "Madrox is gonna be psyched".