Music Review Block: 6/18/19

I've been pretty inactive here due to landing an internship down in Mississippi and have little time to dedicate myself to writing full fledged reviews. I become motivated tonight for some intangible reason.

Quasi: R&B Transmogrification Genre: Indie Rock, Noise Pop Year of Release: 1997 Label: Up! Score: 7.5 Quasi has a unique sound in the field of 90's Indie Rock that draws from Elliott Smith vocally, Pavement stylistically, and left-field Noise Pop content wise. Quasi's electronic noodling and love for the harpsichord make the band very distinct and coincidentally one of the most underrated Indie Rock bands of the 1990's. R&B Transmogrification is only a shadow of what would later come for the band with their much more fleshed out 1998 release Featuring Birds. In comparison between the two its easy to see where RBT falls short the first of which is an over reliance on dissonant and slightly chaotic instrumental leads into vocal melody. This does not ruin flow but drags down many great songs into a heap of discombobulation. This is not the case for the majority of the album though which saves it from getting a lower score and perhaps even adds to its character. RBT ultimately provides a blueprint for Quasi going forward into the late 90's. James Ferraro: Far Side Virtual Genre: Vaporwave, Sequencer & MIDI, New Age, Synthpop Year of Release: 2011 Label: Hippos in Tanks Score: 7.5 Vaporwave is seen more or less as a joke of a music genre today. Macintosh Plus has become an online meme and most people have found the genre through various Youtube trends based around the whole aesthetic sense of Vaporwave. Far Side Virtual is no Macintosh Plus or Blank Banshee though-its far more forward thinking. Released during the very first wave of Vaporwave, Far Side Virtual and James Ferraro can both claim to be important cornerstones to the movement. This would hardly be a baseless assertion too and its clearly rooted in reality. The Microsoft Sam computer generated voices on this record, 'You've Got Mail' samples, and on the nose futuristic approach to Electronic music presented on Far Side Virtual really laid the groundwork for what Vaporwave would go on to become. This record is a zany and accelerationist view on interactive electronic music and the result is something worth listening to. Mobb Deep: The Infamous Genre: Hardcore Hip Hop, East Coast Hip Hop, Boom Bap, Gangsta Rap Year of Release: 1995 Label: Loud Score: 9.0 Prodigy may be dead but his influence in modern Hip Hop continues to live on for good reason. The Infamous and Mobb Deep as a whole show why that is. The album is a Hip Hop classic that is truly one of the best offerings the East Coast had in terms of Hip Hop during the 1990's and may be even better than 36 Chambers by the Wu Tang Clan and Liquid Swords. But that's just my opinion. Perhaps the best thing about The Infamous is how serious the record takes itself as an artistic body in such a 3D perspective. The beats are creative, the production is impeccable, and if one could get their hands on an LP of this album one could logically conclude that the record was made from the very same streets of The Bronx that inspired the content of The Infamous . It is a wonderfully immersive album that does not strive for instant gratification. Prodigy and Havoc were both art school students together and this record shows what happens when two great artistic minds pour the soul of the pavement into a Boom Bap record. Ed Harcourt: Strangers Genre: Pop Rock, Indie Pop, Singer/Songwriter Year of Release: 2004 Label: EMI Score: 8.0 Ed Harcourt is perhaps the most underrated British Singer/Songwriter of the 2000's. Many contemporary music critics would tell you that Badly Drawn Boy holds the mantle for "best solo artist vaguely similar to Coldplay" award but sadly these reviewers are misinformed. Ed Harcourt first came to musical prominence with the release of his debut solo album Here Be Monsters in the early summer of 2001. Here Be Monsters was really an exercise in taking the Adult Contemporary sound popularized in America by Duncan Sheik and other grab bag 90's mellow singer/songwriters and Radioheadifying it to a degree. Here Be Monsters as a result is an album which prides itself on playing with wonderful chord progressions, deeply intoxicating melodies, and a sense of a higher artistic aim. Strangers as an album works on some of the flaws found in Ed's debut such as sequencing and creating a more encompassing atmosphere. As a result, Strangers feels like a much more mature album for Ed Harcourt. The production on Strangers is also noticeably more commercial which is hardly a bad thing because it brings out some of the fantastic elements of the guitar playing present with Ed Harcourts early work. Strangers is also a deeply melodic album much like its predecessor although it falls short on offering as many memorable songs as Here Be Monsters. This is where the flaws of Strangers are inherently present making it a less worthy musical experience as Here Be Monsters was. Strangers despite all its successes just feels to like an artistic step back for Ed Harcourt although it's not anything drastic. It's worth a listen if you want to start listening to Ed's discography at its most accessible point though. Melodies Echo Chamber: Bon Voyage Genre: Dream Pop, Psych Pop, Progressive Pop Year of Release: 2018 NEW Label: Domino Score: 8.3 SUGGESTED Bon Voyage is destined to be a Indie cult classic. It is an unconventional and subtly quirky exercise in 'wearing your influences on your sleeves' but adding your own distinct elements to them. Bon Voyage feels vaguely retro because of this , especially when Melody sings in her native tongue-French. The progressive side of this album brings up comparisons to the musical equivalent of the Concorde- Stereolab, and the acoustic tracks that are more subdued bring up comparisons with everything from Bossa Nova and Brazilian MPB style music found on albums like Clube de Esquina ('Visions of Someone Special, on a Wall of Reflections'). Even the trend setting and deeply influential French Pop artist Serge Gainsbourg is payed homage to lyrically and stylistically on Bon Voyage. From the offset the album clearly has its mind set on being different from her only other album-her 2012 self titled debut. Where Melody's debut was a much more lush and free flowing affair without much in the way of song dynamics that could take you out of its atmosphere Bon Voyage is far different. Example number one can be found right off the bat with 'Cross My Heart'. Midway through the song is suddenly changes to pseudo-turntablism psychedelia. Although this makes the song choppy and molded together in an awkward was it shows that Bon Voyage is not just a waltz through the motions. Other songs bring Trap percussion into the mix. If this seems like a strange combination of styles you would be right-it is. That said, it works and it draws the listener in. Perhaps the best song on the album though is the druggy and flowing 'Quand les larmes d'un ange font danser la neige', which is a song that wraps the listener in a drug blanket of stoned out summer bliss. The song somehow manages to mix Shoegaze etherealness in conjunction with French Pop in a way that is perhaps the greatest example of progressiveness of concept on the album. Midway through the song a spoken word sample is thrown into the mix that feels mildly out of place but ends up being a welcomed addition. The song feels like two separate bodies of work connected by a thread of concept and is perhaps the best song of 2018 to date. Melody described this album as a 'little monster' and I'd tend to agree. Although the production on her Self-Titled was far less muddled and clear, Bon Voyage is a far more conceptual album that manages to pack quite a punch in its short 33 minute runtime. Unwound: Challenge for a Civilized Society Genre: Post-Hardcore, Post-Punk, Noise Rock, Math Rock, Art Punk Year of Release: 1998 Label: Kill Rock Stars/ Matador Score: 9.5 The battle between East Coast and West Coast music was not confined to just Hip Hop in the 90's. Post-Hardcore too had a much more indistinct rivalry between East-Coast and West-Coast bands as well. Today this has manifested itself on online forums where fans bitterly dispute who had the better discography of the 90's: Washington D.C's Fugazi or Washington's Unwound. Fugazi may have ultimately become the more critically visible band, but Unwound has a far more consistent and inspired discography that for the most part balanced a fine line between Indie Rock and abrasive Post-Hardcore. Unwound had a deep seated critical mindset towards their contemporaries as well as bands of the past and mixed them together in a way that created a sound that was deeply unique to their scene, and from 1991 to their disbanding in 2001 they released album after album that today could be considered a classic benchmark of quality. Challenge for a Civilized Society is one of those records and is perhaps the most underrated of Unwound's critical run of success. The album is really their first clear entry into the Indie Rock playing field. The album still feels as harsh as its predecessors but there is a notable amount of melodic attention to detail scattered throughout. The album also has a wonderful and energetic flow to it that never stops or lets up. Post-Hardcore operates at its peak efficiency when this is the case (just look at Glassjaw's new album Material Control to better understand this). Challenge for a Civilized Society really sets the stage for Unwound's last album that would come three years later Leaves Turn Inside You, which for the most part dropped the chaos Unwound was known for during their Fake Train years. If anything Challenge for a Civilized Society bridges that gap between abrasive and refined. The result of this is an album that is anything but lackluster and actually revelatory. Sophie: Oil of Every Pearls Un-Insides Genre: Bubblegum Bass, Post-Industrial, Wonky, Ambient Pop Year of Release: 2018 NEW Label: Transgressive/ Future Classic Score: 7.3 My first experience with Sophie was driving back from picking my sister up from swim practice in my moms Jeep. The Jeep had free Sirius radio and typically I would listen to SiriusXMU when I drove the car because they played the latest "hot" Indie. Someone in the studio at Sirius must have slipped their producer some nice drugs or money because I was pretty shocked when I heard the SOPHIE and A.G Cook single 'Hey QT' in between my Mac Demarco and Run the Jewels. I actually thought that the song was a joke. It was so outlandish, so saccharide, so over the top poppy that I found myself hating the living hell out of it but being drawn to it like a moth to a light. SOPHIE has been sort of an attention drawer in recent years much like Death Grips were in 2012. She is an unconventional artist, an outlandish artist, and a deeply inspired artist whether or not you think that accelerationist pop is actually anything inspired. SOPHIE has essentially run the gauntlet the past few years in this growing scene of the music industry, balancing abrasive electronic experimentation with Post-Industrial booming Art Pop all while becoming the de-facto face of A.G. Cook's PC Music label despite the fact that SOPHIE has moved beyond the label. So naturally the hype behind Oil.. would have reason to be so massive. Not only is it the first debut album from this enigma, but it truly represents a coming-of-age milestone for PC Music. Oil... is truly the first long winded attempt at accelerationist pop and that makes it an essential listen for music enthusiasts interested in understanding artist trends in 2018. The Oil of Every Pearls Un-Insides an interesting benchmark album to experience. Starting off on the delicate and 80's Culture Club sensitive love song 'It's Okay to Cry' the listener gets a false sense of security from the impending storm that is 'Ponyboy' and the rest of the album. 'Ponyboy' is probably the closest one can get to Death Grips pop music. It has a melody too it, although that melody is buried under harsh sounds of grinding Electro-Industrial. The rest of the album does pretty well for itself and manages to hold its water quite well-something I did not expect from a SOPHIE full length album. For the most part SOPHIE meanders through abrasive and over the top-poppy songs that stick out in semi-coherent ways, and vocally dubs over a few of them for added effect. This gets slightly old fast and the listener wanting to hear a more dynamic palette of mood from SOPHIE. One thing SOPHIE masters though is attention to texture which is, again, for the most part abrasive and frontal. There is no moment of pristine beauty in the standard definition on this album ('Advanced Falconry' by Mutual Benefit) but there are moments of glitched out bliss throughout. I'd be remiss to not mention how well SOPHIE does ambient music on this album too. The ambient presented here in small bits and bursts manages to settle in like a warm blanket of sound. It's encapsulating and possibly the best use of open space on a full length album like this i've seen. It makes the album almost three dimensional giving it a geographical landscape. SOPHIE had a lot to prove with her debut album and for the most part she passes the bar of excellence with a high degree of confidence. It will be interesting to see what direction she takes her music in from here and if PC music can continue as a sustainable and interesting scene of music with SOPHIE at the helm. SINGLES I'VE BEEN BUMPING The Mayor and The Seizure Pills: Paloalto Also on my Last.fm last week chart you will notice 2000's Californian Indie Pop Paloalto's debut album. This is because I've been really into the song 'The Mayor and The Seizure Pills' off of it. Paloalto in general is an underrated band which conjures up comparisons to everything from Travis to The Bends era-Radiohead, to Eels. If you like deeply melodic Indie Pop/ Pop Rock check this out for sure. Radio King: Curling Color me hyped. I found this song by accident and soon found out not only was it released early June, but this band is releasing their debut album in August. Curing on their Facebook calls themselves a mix between Cosby, Stills, and Nash and Midwest Emo band Cap'n jazz. If this badass comparison is not enough to bump your interest in the band I can honestly say that I think this is the most catchy Indie Pop song since Alvvays' 'Archie, Marry Me'. Check it out. It's on Spotify.