Recommend me some 2022 albums +1000th album halp

[rayword45]

Re: Recommend me some 2020 albums halp

Day 712: Man Alive! by King Krule

Well, preconceptions are usually a bad thing! I haven't listened to, like, more than 2 songs by this guy before today, and I thought not much of them at all. My knowledge of him is basically that he's ginger, and that a lot of white girls in my area who like shit like Drake and The Weeknd tend to swoon over him a LOT so I assumed I wasn't his target audience, and that it'd be some boring whiteboy R&B type stuff. What this actually is is one of the strangest albums I've listened to in a while, especially for someone this big, and I enjoyed almost every second of it. There's almost nothing in the way of traditional melodies that are obvious on the forefront, and both texturally and mood-wise this album explores a LOT. Now I actually want to check out his other work.

When you make assumptions, you're an asshole. Is that the phrase?

Best Track: Underclass
Rating: 8/10

[rayword45]

Re: Recommend me some 2020 albums halp

Day 713: MG Demo Disc by Machine Girl

Outside of one track, which is my favorite, this sounds a lot more like Gemini/WLFGRL era stuff than the later stuff, which is interesting considering how it spans several years of demos but perhaps not all that surprising. Outside of that one track, this ranges from fun bouncy breakbeat type stuff to dull repetitive shallow breakbeat type stuff. I wouldn't call it consistent nor would I expect that, but it's decent.

Best Track: The Windows
Rating: 6/10

[rayword45]

Re: Recommend me some 2020 albums halp

Day 714: U-Void Synthesizer by Machine Girl

I'll open by saying this probably has the weakest opening track of any of their albums since before Because I'm Young Arrogant blahblahblah. But that's not really much of a slight, as those have often been the best tracks and the opener here is still GOOD. As a matter of fact, almost this whole album is good, something I haven't felt like I've been able to say about any of their works prior (I never reviewed WLFGRL or Gemini but I can confirm this is more consistent than the former). Thus it's my favorite of theirs now. Even the dancier tracks don't let up the aggression, leading to a far more cohesive release than anything else they've done thus far. Serious contender for my end-of-year list, as early as it is to say that I've not felt that way about one of their albums before.

Best Track: Devil Speak
Rating: 8.5/10

[mi40]

Re: Recommend me some 2020 albums halp

Day 714: U-Void Synthesizer by Machine Girl

I'll open by saying this probably has the weakest opening track of any of their albums since before Because I'm Young Arrogant blahblahblah. But that's not really much of a slight, as those have often been the best tracks and the opener here is still GOOD. As a matter of fact, almost this whole album is good, something I haven't felt like I've been able to say about any of their works prior (I never reviewed WLFGRL or Gemini but I can confirm this is more consistent than the former). Thus it's my favorite of theirs now. Even the dancier tracks don't let up the aggression, leading to a far more cohesive release than anything else they've done thus far. Serious contender for my end-of-year list, as early as it is to say that I've not felt that way about one of their albums before.

Best Track: Devil Speak
Rating: 8.5/10

i look forward to a WLFGRL review from you someday in the future

[rayword45]

Re: Recommend me some 2020 albums halp

Day 715: Honeymoon by Beach Bunny

All the Facebook music groups I'm in full of neckbeard hipsters that jack off to Fantano's nudes are talking about this artist. I'm completely unfamiliar but that usually doesn't equate to me liking the music beyond a "meh" grade, with some exceptions.

This is not an exception. This reminds me of the time in 2018(?) where Snail Mail and Soccer Mommy were blowing up, and this is better than the former but worse than the latter. Outside of just comparing to other singer/songwriter indie women, this album started off as a lot of bouncy fun with a sensed emotional core, but less than halfway through I was just bored and slightly annoyed. I would probably be nicer right now if it was lo-fi, or if the first 3 tracks didn't just make everything more disappointing after.

Best Track: Promises or April
Rating: 5/10

[rayword45]

Re: Recommend me some 2020 albums halp

Day 716: Be Up A Hello by Squarepusher

Fuck you Squarepusher your not cool because you can make the drums go fast

That meme will never be unfunny to me.

This album is... better than the last release of his I reviewed, but honestly, I still wouldn't call it good. The first two tracks are phenomenal, warm, MELODIC little nuggets of breakcore goodness, then for the rest of the album I guess he was just like "lol fuck melody" with the exception of slow outlier Detroit People Mover and it just sounds like soulless Autechre to me.

But those first two tracks are really, really, really good!

Best Track: Oberlove
Rating: 5.5/10

[rayword45]

Re: Recommend me some 2020 albums halp

Day 717: Mystic Familiar by Dan Deacon

Imtoo drunk to sleep rn to articulate my thoughts but this is REALLY good. I love Off The Air and I love this music because... Fuck itgood just trust me i might elaborate furtherlater

Fuck academia. Bring on the coronavirus.

Best Track: the Arp series or Bumble Bee Crown King
Rating: 8.5/10

[rayword45]

Re: Recommend me some 2020 albums halp

Day 718: WLFGRL by Machine Girl (Album Choice: mi40)

Again, reviewing an album I've heard many times before yet never wrote on because... Idk fuck you

I actually prefer the Demo Disc to this one. This one is... Kinda repetitive at times, and I mean it's consistent but perhaps overly so? Also, the video game atmosphere is cool but can also come off as gimmicky, even though the same influences don't really ever feel that way on their later albums.

There really just needs to be way more groovers in the mix here. More aggression in the aggressive tracks too, but DEFINITELY this needs more groovers.

Best Track: Out By The 16, Dead On The Scene
Rating: 6/10

[rayword45]

Re: Recommend me some 2020 albums halp

Day 719: Massive Oscillations by Waclaw Zimpel

When did I review Zimpel/Ziozek? 2 years ago? Or last year? Or 2017? Ah who gives a shit.

The first track really didn't set the mood right. After something REALLY abrasive, this is more along the lines of the last release I reviewed from this dude, with a sort of pastoral vibe to most of these tracks. I liked the first track, then I liked about half-to-two-thirds of every other track. It's okay.

Best Track: The First One
Rating: 6.5/10

[DeciBel1231]

Re: Recommend me some 2020 albums halp

That's interesting. My opinion on the Machine Girl albums I've listened to is WLFGRL > Because I'm Young > The Ugly Art > U-Void with Because I'm Young being a very close 2nd place.

[rayword45]

Re: Recommend me some 2020 albums halp

Day 720: Funeral by Lil Wayne

I gave Tha Carter V a good review if I recall correctly, and I KNOW I gave Sorry 4 The Wait 2 a shit review. This leans closer to the latter, in that it just sucks. It's way too long, it's way too boring, the features mostly suck, the beats are predominantly horrible, and Wayne himself fluctuates wildly between being an adequate spitter and annoying the everloving shit out of me.

This could be a solid, maybe not great but solid, album if dude just trimmed it into, like, a 10 song collection. It's 2020 man, nobody wants a 75 minute album anymore.

Best Track: Mahogany
Rating: 3/10

[Crazyjayde]

Re: Recommend me some 2020 albums halp

All the Facebook music groups I'm in

Solid ew.

Also that's the wrong Zimpel album (somewhat). There's also a James Holden collab, with some input from Ziolek, which was released not even last week. WAY more lively and engaging.
Glad to see you're still going strong with this. Keep it up fuck college you know the drill have some random recs:

Himuro Yoshiteru - View From Bottom
Innercity Ensemble - IV
Kittens - Tiger Comet
KoMaRa - KoMaRa
R.A.P. Ferreira - Purple Moonlight Pages
Sparklehorse - It's a Wonderful Life [obligatory edit cause I believe this is the one I was most curious about]
Swirlies - They Spent Their Youthful Days...
Winona Forever - Feelgood

[rayword45]

Re: Recommend me some 2020 albums halp

Day 721: Suddenly by Caribou

I really wanted to see this guy live since he was supposed to come around MA some time soon. Fucking modelovirus ruining everything.

Anyways, I just said that, but I can't say I'm super crazy for any of this dude's releases. I still like that one release I reviewed back in 2013 a bit, but it's nothing super spectacular and I've found most of his other releases forgettable. I feel mostly the same about this one, and the touches that are weird just feel out of place (what in the fuck is Sunny's Time?) It's not a bad album, it's actually quite pleasant, it's just mostly bland in a way that I think would translate into a much more enjoyable live show. Compared to Up In Flames this is really lacking in vitality.

Best Track: Ravi
Rating: 5.5/10

[rayword45]

Re: Recommend me some 2020 albums halp

Day 722: Ricky Music by Porches

Spotify recommended this album to me and I'm just gonna say "fuck it". Here we go.

You know, I feel like I would normally like the lo-fi synthy dance-pop atmosphere more than I do right now, but most of these songs just rub me the wrong way and I don't know why. The slow sad sparse tracks especially bore the shit out of me, while also somehow irritating me. Most of the other tracks only do one of those. If every track here sounded the way Madonna does, I would probably LOVE this album. That's a song name, I ain't talkin bout Like A Virgin Madonna fuck anticipating your first time first time is always wack as fuck. Besides that, I strangely enjoyed the short 33 second interlude, and got some pleasure out of the first three tracks.

Maybe I was being harsh earlier, based on second listen the annoyance factor is mostly gone besides those dreadful slow tracks. I'm not in love with it still, it's pretty boring with VERY rare moments within songs (usually closer to the end) that are only slightly enjoyable, but I can't give this a horrible score because I just don't feel that negatively about it.

So we continue the pattern! Also you can probably imagine exactly how I wrote this particular review in bed while multitasking.

Best Track: Madonna
Rating: 5/10

[rayword45]

Re: Recommend me some 2020 albums halp

Day 723: Sixteen Oceans by Four Tet

3 years after his last album, this does nothing to convince me dude is doing anything other than coast by on what he knows. Besides being maybe a little bit less folk-influenced the mood of this album is very similar to New Energy, but there are less obvious highlight tracks and as a whole it feels a lot less inspired. I didn't hate any particular moment of this album, but after the 4th track I'm hardpressed to pick a subsequent highlight. It's not a bad album, once again, this is "pleasantly boring". Not something I'm going to return to much at all, unfortunately, but if you want more Four Tet it's another hour of middling, passable-as-background-noise tracks by him.

Best Track: Baby or Teenage Birdsong
Rating: 5/10