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Nov

2021

Monthly listening, October 2021

Above: Éliane Radigue LOVED: Bonnie “Prince” Billy & the Marquis du Tren – Get on Jolly EP (2000) Harald Grosskopf – Synthesist (1980) Éliane Radigue – Trilogie de la mort (1994) Soshi Takeda – Floating Mountains (2021) Schneider TM – Zoomer (2002) ENJOYED: Martyna Basta – Making Eye Contact with Solitude (2021) Joshua Chuquimia Crampton – Amaru’s Tongue: Daughter OST (2021) Lana Del Rey – Blue Banisters (2021) Markus Guentner – Extropy (2021) review The High Llamas – Cold & Bouncy (1998) More Eaze – Accidental Prizes (2015) PinkPantheress – To Hell With It (2021) Young Thug – Punk (2021)…

Oct

2021

Monthly listening, September 2021

Above: John Lee Hooker wondering where all these guys with beards came from WAS SUPER DOWN: John Lee Hooker & Canned Heat – Hooker ‘n Heat (1971) Leather Rats – No Live ‘Til Leather ‘98 (2021) Lorde – Solar Power (2021) Pendant – To All Sides They Will Stretch Out Their Hands (2021) review The Radio Dept. – Pet Grief (2006) Nala Sinephro – Space 1.8 (2021) WAS DOWN: —-__—___ – The Heart Pumps Kool-Aid (2021) Baby Dee – Regifted Light (2010) Leonard Cohen – I’m Your Man (1988) Coil – The Ape of Naples (2005) Coil – Love’s Secret…

Sep

2021

Monthly listening, August 2021

Above: Bonnie “Prince” Billy. I was introduced to Will Oldham more than 10 years ago live at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, where he strutted about the stage with one hand under his overalls as if itching some Napoleonic skin-rash. My high-school buddies were stupefied, and so was I, but having been initially unimpressed by I See A Darkness I held off on exploring the rest of his work until a few weeks ago. Like Biggie and Yellowman, he’s a supremely weird dude who gets a lot of ass, and while his sexual non-sequiturs are my least favorite part of his work,…

Aug

2021

Monthly listening, July 2021

Above: Sparks, whose unwholesome, Moroder-assisted disco masterpiece No. 1 in Heaven blew my mind this month BLEW MY MIND Sparks – No. 1 in Heaven (1979) LOVED Alice Coltrane – Kirtan: Turiya Sings (2021) review More Eaze – Towards a Plane (2021) Parannoul – To See The Next Part of the Dream (2021) Rắn Cạp Đuôi – Ngủ Ngày Ngay Ngày Tận Thế (2021) ENJOYED John Lee Hooker – Endless Boogie (1971) CFCF – Memoryland (2021) More Eaze & Claire Rousay – An Afternoon Whine (2021) review More Eaze & Claire Rousay / Wind Tide – Split (2020) Oval – Systemisch…

Aug

2021

Monthly listening, June 2021

Above: Nick Cave, whose Boatman’s Call was one of the albums I heard for the first time that I enjoyed most in June LOVED 3MB – 3MB Featuring Magic Juan Atkins (1992) Arooj Aftab – Vulture Prince (2021) Beach House – 7 (2018) Dexys Midnight Runners – Searching For the Young Soul Rebels (1980) Dntel – Life is Full of Possibilities (2001) Haji K. – Black Against an Orange Line (2020) Lisa Lerkenfeldt – Collagen (2020) Lost Girls – Menneskekollektivet (2021) Mister Water Wet – Bought the Farm (2019) More Eaze & Claire Rousay – If I Don’t Let Myself Be Happy…

Jun

2021

Monthly listening: May 2021

Above: “Blue” Gene Tyranny, whose dazzlingly empathetic and spiritual Out of the Blue is the best album I heard for the first time this month. LOVED: Erika de Casier – Essentials (2020) India Jordan – For You (2020) “Blue” Gene Tyranny – Out of the Blue (1978) Julian Lynch – Rat’s Spit (2019) ENJOYED: Marisa Anderson – Into the Light (2016) Chet Atkins & Les Paul – Chester & Lester (1976) Erika de Casier – Sensational (2021) Celer & Forest Management – Landmarks (2018) Guided by Voices – Propeller (1992) Will Long – Long Trax 3 (2020) Loscil – Clara…

May

2021

Monthly listening, April 2021

Above: Julian Lynch. LOVED Bohren & der Club of Gore – Sunset Mission (2000) Celer – Alcoves (2017) Dirty Beaches – Stateless (2016) Julian Lynch – Orange You Glad (2009) Plastikman – Musik (1994) Sonny Sharrock – Ask the Ages (1991) ENJOYED R.L. Burnside – A Ass Pocket of Whiskey (1996) Celer – Vamps (2019) Vladislav Delay – Rakka II (2021) Dry Cleaning – New Long Leg (2021) Field Medic – Plunge Deep Golden Knife (2021) Godspeed You! Black Emperor – G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END (2021) Anne Guthrie – Gyropédie (2021) Françoise Hardy – Ma jeunesse fout le camp…

Apr

2021

Monthly listening, March 2021

Above: Bunny Wailer, whose Blackheart Man is one of those albums I want the whole world to feel what I’m feeling when I listen to. BLEW MY MIND Bunny Wailer – Blackheart Man (1976) LOVED Björk – Vespertine (2001) Buckethead – Colma (1998) Buckethead – Electric Tears (2002) Lana Del Rey – Chemtrails Over the Country Club (2021) F.U.S.E. – Dimension Intrusion (1993) Nick Lowe – Labour of Lust (1979) Plastikman – Sheet One (1993) Max Romeo – War Ina Babylon (1976) Arthur Russell – Corn (2015) Wolfgang Voigt – Gas (2008) Bunny Wailer – Sings the Wailers (1981) ENJOYED Arca –…

Feb

2021

Monthly listening, February 2021

Above: Portland punk legends Team Dresch This month I mostly listened to Loren Connors, Larry Heard, and Sade. One development is that I began appreciating Sade’s Love Deluxe even in spite of “Feel No Pain” and “Pearls,” the daft attempts at social commentary that sunk Sade’s most suave and sonically rich album when I first heard it back in 2016 or 2017. They’re still a thorn in the album’s side, but the seven songs that surround it are undeniable. LOVED: Loren Connors – 9th Avenue (1994) Team Dresch – Personal Best (1995) Larry Heard – Genesis (1998) ENJOYED: The Band –…

Feb

2021

Monthly listening, January 2021

Above: Playboi Carti I didn’t listen to much music this month. What I enjoyed was mostly crude and noisy. LOVED: Playboi Carti – Whole Lotta Red (2021) The Reatards – Teenage Hate (1998) Sunroof – Bliss! (2001) ENJOYED: Frank Bretschneider & Taylor Deupree – Balance (2002) The Caretaker – Everywhere at the End of Time Pt. 3 (2017) John Coltrane – Last Performance Newport 1966 (1966) Joel Shanahan – Frozen Clock Hovering (2020) Buffy Sainte-Marie – I’m Gonna Be A Country Girl Again (1968) Frank Sinatra & Hollywood String Quartet – Close to You (1957) Stars of the Lid &…

Dec

2020

Monthly listening, December 2020––plus all the movies I watched this year for the first time

Above: Nobukazu Takemura, the Japanese composer behind two of the albums I enjoyed most this month. LOVED 2 8 1 4 – Voyage/Embrace (2020) Bohren & der Club of Gore – Midnight Radio (1995). I’ve fallen asleep to this album many times in the last few years, but never have I sat down and listened to its two-and-a-half-hour entirety. It’s equally enjoyable both ways, and being conscious doesn’t necessarily reward this dark-jazz marvel from 1995, built around sparse plumes of bass and piano and a hi-hat tick that doesn’t keep the beat so much as remind us the music is…

Dec

2020

Best albums of 2020

Joshua Chuquimia Crampton – The Heart’s Wash Adrianne Lenker – Songs/Instrumentals Beatrice Dillon – Workaround Shinichi Atobe – Yes Florian T M Zeisig – Coatcheck Mike Cooper – Playing With Water The Necks – Three Chuquimamani-Condori – 3 Demos Sarah Davachi – Gathers Space Afrika – hybtwibt? Bill Callahan – Gold Record Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas – III King Krule – Man Alive! Ana Roxanne – Because of a Flower The Soft Pink Truth – Shall We Go On Sinning So That Grace May Increase? / Am I Free To Go? DJ Python – Mas Amable Julianna Barwick – Healing…

Dec

2020

Monthly listening, November 2020

Above: Bruce Springsteen in Oslo, 2016. Photo by Stian Schløsser Møller. BLEW MY MIND Magma – Attahk (1977) LOVED Mike Cooper – Playing With Water (2020) review Celtic Frost – To Mega Therion (1985) Ariana Grande – Positions (2020) review Portishead – Dummy (1994) Bruce Springsteen – Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978) Bruce Springsteen – The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle (1973) ENJOYED Teno Afrika – Amapiano Selections (2020) Daniel Avery & Alessandro Cortini – Illusion of Time (2020) Brothertiger – Fundamentals, Vol. 1 (2020) Loren Connors – Unaccompanied Acoustic Guitar Improvisations, Vol. 1 (1979) Field Works – Ultrasound (2020) Leandro Fresco & Rafael Anton Irisarri – Una Presencia En La Brisa (2020)…

Nov

2020

Monthly listening, October 2020

Pictured: William Basinski at the Empty Bottle in Chicago For several years now, I’ve been posting monthly roundups of the music I’ve been listening to to my Facebook account. I’ve had a few friends tell me they’ve found new music through these posts, and by posting them publicly on my site I hope to bring my new discoveries to a broader audience. This is a complete list of albums I listened to the first time this month. A note for anyone coming here for scathing takedowns of terrible music: you will rarely see anything in the “Disliked” category, and if…

Sep

2020

Monthly listening, September 2020

Pictured: Harry Nilsson in the 1974 musical Son of Dracula. That’s Nilsson doing the Dracula thing; to his right is Ringo Starr, as Merlin. For several years now, I’ve been posting monthly roundups of the music I’ve been listening to to my Facebook account. I’ve had a few friends tell me they’ve found new music through these posts, and by posting them publicly on my site I hope to bring my new discoveries to a broader audience. This is a complete list of albums I listened to the first time this month. A note for anyone coming here for scathing takedowns…

Aug

2020

Monthly listening, August 2020

Pictured: Mouse on Mars For several years now, I’ve been posting monthly roundups of the music I’ve been listening to to my Facebook account. I’ve had a few friends tell me they’ve found new music through these posts, and by posting them publicly on my site I hope to bring my new discoveries to a broader audience. This is a complete list of albums I listened to the first time this month. A note for anyone coming here for scathing takedowns of terrible music: you will rarely see anything in the “Disliked” category, and if you do, it’ll be something…

Jul

2020

I’ve been dancing my whole life

2019 was the year a lot of people accepted the world was going to end, but in retrospect, it feels as optimistic as the Obama era. Take a moment if you will, fellow Americans, to remember pop music as it stood pre-COVID: Roddy Ricch, Billie Eilish, Norman Fucking Rockwell, Thank U, Next, Lizzo, Lil Nas X, that Jonas Brothers song pop radio pushed to pretend Lil Nas X didn’t exist, Post Malone (who’s hopefully doing better now that he’s not touring). And, of course, “Dance Monkey” by Tones and I. I thought “Dance Monkey” was one of the most annoying…

Aug

2019

What more do you want when the kids run the restaurant?

That Louise Belcher wants to turn the restaurant into a casino is the funniest thing in “The Kids Run The Restaurant,” the 20th episode of the third season of Bob’s Burgers. That might seem odd to anyone who hasn’t familiarized themselves with the show, but the best comedy on Loren Bouchard’s animated sitcom comes once we’ve internalized the characters and understand what they’re doing and why they’re doing it in any given situation. In this case, Bob’s cut his hand and Linda’s driving him to the hospital, leaving the restaurant closed. The kids get mischievous and decide to reopen it…

Jun

2019

Thoughts on “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” (mild spoilers)

– King Ghidorah was the best thing in the movie. I loved the icky head regeneration, I loved the way the heads slither unwholesomely and rear up almost orgasmically whenever it’s about to attack, and I loved how big it is. – I did think, though, that they could’ve taken more of a Jaws approach to it. I understand they’re hesitant because of the backlash to the 2014 Godzilla, and I didn’t have a problem with the other monsters being introduced five minutes in, but Ghidorah is really supposed to be the monster to end all monsters and he was……

May

2019

Review: Prince, “Piano & a Microphone 1983”

This review was originally published on the website of Solace, a clothing brand and culture site that’s since folded, in October of last year. This is not meant to represent my current feelings on the album. I disagree with some of the statements I made here. “Cold Coffee & Cocaine” has grown on me a lot, and I’m not entirely sure the record was released for the reasons I posited in my opening paragraph. I’ve also noticed so, so much more in the dozen or so times I’ve heard the album since writing this review. A more comprehensive review will appear in my…

Mar

2019

Another thing I love about Tierra Whack

Even battle rappers will tell you battle rappers don’t usually make good music. Eyedea fans would disagree, but even “Big Shot,” impressive as it is, hinges mostly on a contest-winning switcheroo. The problem is even though everyone knows guys like Mac Lethal can twist syllables like nobody’s business, they still feel like they need to prove it. Once skill becomes your selling point, it’s hard to sacrifice it for artistry. Which is why Tierra Whack’s music is so impressive. She isn’t a battle rapper, but she’s from the same wheelhouse. She came up with Internet-busting freestyles as Dizzle Dizz, but…

Feb

2019

Daniel’s Faves: The Residents, “George and James”

The joke on George and James isn’t how bad or clichéd or ridiculous the Residents think James Brown’s Live at the Apollo is but how good it knows it is. It assumes you understand what a herculean zenith of showmanship, sequencing, singing, and songwriting that record is. Then it turns down the power. The crowd is suspended in space. James Brown is an arthritic robot. The Famous Flames are squabbling birds. Chords that should be major sour distressingly into minor. The horns are what you hear when your dryer is done. Handclaps are as wet and disgusting as the slap…

Jan

2019

Daniel’s Favorite Albums of 2018

I made a major indulgence in compiling my favorite albums for 2018, which I’ll hope you’ll forgive. I put Piano & A Microphone 1983, the inaugural release from the Prince vault, in my top 10. I debated for some time whether or not to consider it a reissue, but as the music had not yet been released, I ultimately decided to count it as an album alongside newly recorded and released material. I suspect, though this is far from the best thing in the Prince vault, and if a release at this level of quality came out every year we’d…

Jan

2018

Daniel’s 25 Favorite Albums of 2017

Eric Renner Brown from Entertainment Weekly, whom I follow on Twitter, noticed it at about the same time I did: there haven’t been a lot of truly great albums this year, but there have been more good ones than usual. None of these albums are ones I’m unlikely to turn to in the future. Often I get past six or seven on a year-end list and wonder what these albums I’m putting on there even are. I named Vashti Bunyan’s Heartleap my sixth favorite album of 2014, I think, and I haven’t listened to it since at least then. But…

Dec

2017

EXTREMELY SPOILER-HEAVY LAST JEDI REVIEW

The Last Jedi was pretty much what I imagined it’d be, except better. I anticipated it’d start out kind of like The Empire Strikes Back, then go off the rails. I was right—though to be fair I knew it had its share of twists and turns from the headlines of the reviews that’ve come out thus far. The reviews don’t reveal anything more, of course. Most writing on the film so far has been a drag to read, not because of any lack of talent on the part of the writers but because Lucasfilm goes through great pains to avoid…

Nov

2017

40 years of Funkentelechy

Funkentelechy: The Placebo Syndrome, Parliament’s sixth album, came out forty years today. Here are some of my retrospective thoughts on it. About a year ago I played Parliament’s “Flash Light” to a dear friend of mine who likes classic ‘90s rap—probably more than I do—but doesn’t quite share in my love of funk. His reaction was incredulous. “Is Snoop Dogg just ripping off George Clinton?” Well, of course he is. Snoop Dogg was born in 1971, and he grew up with Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic empire as they found new ways to wiggle their wormy tentacles into the pop world. He would have been…

Sep

2017

If you set your mind free, baby…

I never thought of “Starfish and Coffee”—that sweet, mysterious song—as a children’s song until I saw Prince perform it on Sesame Street with the Muppets. It makes perfect sense as one: it’s got a simple melody and silly lyrics, and it’s set in a schoolhouse. I guess its psychedelia was the main reason I never saw it that way. I associated it with something as adult as acid rather than as innocent as a nursery rhyme. But I guess all kids’ songs are kind of psychedelic, and all psychedelic songs are kind of childish. Often explicitly so. The Beatles count three songs…

Aug

2017

Daniel’s Faves: The Beatles, “Let It Be”

It’s common advice among Beatles fans to consider Let It Be the penultimate Beatles album, and Abbey Road the last. The logic is that Let It Be was largely recorded before Abbey Road and finished later by Phil Spector to many fans’ displeasure; Let It Be is a messy document of a band struggling to get itself together, while Abbey Road is the well-deserved finale, with the boys putting aside their differences to make one more like they used to. I’ve always resisted this interpretation. Let It Be is a better ending, and a more honest one. It’s well-known the Beatles…

May

2017

Review: Actress, “AZD”

Finding both sites I wrote for had already reviewed Actress’s great new record AZD, I impulsively decided to submit it for consideration to the Emerald, the paper I wrote for in college. They decided not to run it, so I’ve uploaded it here. (It’s short because the Emerald word count for reviews is between 450 and 550, as opposed to the 500+ and 600+ of Spectrum Culture and Pretty Much Amazing respectively.) ____ The key thing to know about Actress’s fifth album AZD is that it’s an Actress album in the way Splaszh and R.I.P. were and not in the way Ghettoville was. Though it has its defenders, Ghettoville was largely…

Apr

2017

Daniel’s Faves: Marvin Gaye, “What’s Going On”

The vet returns home from Vietnam, broke, bedraggled, traumatized, disillusioned. He’s left a lot of friends behind. They greet him warmly; “what’s happening, brother?” they shout, inviting him to shit, trying to strike up a conversation about football. He’ll have none of it. How could they know what he’s been through? Their chatter dissipates into howls and barks. The vet looks around at what he’s supposedly been fighting for: institutionalized racism, violence, misery, poverty, environmental devastation. Who could think about football? So begins Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, one of the bleakest and most affecting of the ‘70s protest-soul classics, a…

Jan

2017

The Most Entertaining Pokémon Battle On The Internet

Nothing is more inspiring than watching people have fun doing something they’re good at. Lately I’ve been watching a lot of Pokémon battle videos. These videos are always narrated. When the players speak, two things shine through: their personality and their skill. As expected, some players are blue and coarse, straining to be edgier than the game; others are awkward and shy. My personal favorites are star players like Haydunn and Shofu, who talk fast, crack little jokes, and are likable enough I’d want to talk Mewtwo movesets with them over a beer. What astounds me when I watch these videos…

Jan

2017

Daniel’s Faves: James Brown & the Famous Flames, “Live At The Apollo”

Watching James Brown perform is disturbing. To see him stagger back for the second or third round of please-please-pleases is to watch a man in pain; he’s barely able to stand, his face contorted in a grimace, glistening with beads of sweat. There’s something superhuman about him – how can a human do that for so long? Or make such screams? Some performers make their act look easy. Brown makes it look Sisyphean. There’s a scene in Batman v. Superman where Bruce Wayne does pull-ups with cannonballs strapped to his legs. It’s like that. Still, listening back to Live At…

Dec

2016

Daniel’s 25 Favorite Albums Of 2016

Picking an album of the year is an almost religious ritual for me, and sad to say I’ve fucked it up a couple times. I declared Fetty Wap my favorite album of last year – an album which I still love but which fell pretty far down the frequently-played list once Jazmine Sullivan’s Reality Show sank its claws in me. At the time I wrote that list I was freshly in love with Fetty Wap, and that’s the problem. What tops a critic’s list will usually end up being what they’re obsessed with at the moment. If you’d asked me…

Dec

2016

Daniel’s Faves feat. Nathan Stevens: Vince Guaraldi Trio, “A Charlie Brown Christmas”

Nathan Stevens has contributed to PopMatters and Spectrum Culture. He and I are both avowed fans of the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s A Charlie Brown Christmas. He celebrated Christmas growing up; I didn’t. But it turns out A Charlie Brown Christmas speaks to us in similar ways, and that just speaks to the magic of this great album. Here are our respective reviews, which I’ve included as the second installment in my ongoing Faves series. Nathan Stevens: Music is attached to a majority of my childhood memories. Singing in church choirs on Christmas eve, listening to James Taylor as my Dad baked cookies, my Mom and…

Nov

2016

Trump, the other Clinton, and the psychedelic conscience

I recently reviewed the reissue of Bruce Haack’s The Electric Lucifer for Spectrum Culture. I understand why the Canadian label Telephone Explosion decided to reissue it; it’s one of the first psych-rock albums to exploit the then-largely-untapped power of the synthesizer, and early synth music is all the rage these days. But Lucifer is also something far more dated and embarrassing: a peace-and-love album from the ‘60s, where “powerlove” is the only force powerful enough to defeat evil. Now that liberal pop culture has become more aware than ever how complex the underlying issues fueling inequality truly are, I don’t think anyone reading…

Nov

2016

Daniel’s Faves: Parliament, “Motor-Booty Affair”

I’ve decided to start regularly posting reviews of albums I consider among my favorites, seeing as most of the sites I write and have written for emphasize timeliness. I’ve written a few retrospective reviews for Spectrum Culture on albums like Prince’s Black Album and Biosphere’s Substrata, but the opportunity to do so doesn’t come around much. These reviews come out of bursts of love and inspiration. This is my first one, of Parliament’s Motor-Booty Affair. ______ “This fish tale begins where most fish tails end.” George Clinton is a funny motherfucker. It’s hard to imagine anyone in pop better at absurd one-liners (“lemme slide a…

Oct

2016

Stray observations on that “Star Wars” rock band poster

One of my roommates got this great poster for our living room, and it’s given me a lot to think about. 1. The placement of the band members is pretty much perfect. Han’s gotta be the lead guitarist, and every rock band needs a big, tall, strong, silent bassist like Vader. Luke, as the hero-but-not-hero of the movie, is perfect as the overcompensating rhythm guitarist. Leia is the singer, which maybe has something to do with the stereotype that women don’t/can’t play instruments, but then again everyone else fits their instruments so well that I’m not too mad. 2.I have…

Sep

2016

On movies: Tim Burton’s ‘Sweeney Todd’ and the art of worldbuilding

In Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street – which came to Netflix this month – there’s a scene where the young sailor Anthony goes undercover as a wigmaker to smuggle his lover out of a women’s asylum. You see, wigmakers in those days (at least according to the movie and the Stephen Sondheim musical it’s adapted from) went to bedlam to get hair for their latest projects. We see a friendly-looking doctor leading Anthony through a darkened hallway. Quickly we see that each room in the asylum is divvied up by hair color, and clusters of brunettes…

Sep

2016

Boards of Canada’s ‘Geogaddi,’ toy dinosaurs, and the terrifying vastness of the universe

We can never know everything. It’s impossible. As we gaze into forests and walk through city streets, we wonder what’s hidden deep in those woods, why those lights deep in the facades of giant city towers are still on at four in the morning, and we accept we’ll probably never know. We have no reason to know, and we have other things to do. Surely some language must have a word at that sense of regret we feel that what we will have explored, done, learned, and known by the time we die is silly compared to the incomprehensible, awe-inspiring…

Aug

2016

Boris’s “Pink,” high school, and my relationship with heavy metal

I was about 13 or 14 when I discovered the great Japanese band Boris. I found them through their primary influence the Melvins, whom I discovered through Daniel Bukszpan’s Encyclopedia of Heavy Metal – a funny and well-written book I bought more for the pictures and design than the actual music. Yes, I previewed many of the bands Bukszpan championed on iTunes and even bought a track or two from the ones I liked (my limited budget of five bucks per week for downloads prevented me from ever buying full albums, and I was hip on neither Torrent nor streaming). But I…

Jul

2016

Instead of posting music to Facebook to “break the monotony of ugly politics,” let’s share protest songs

“The idea is to fill up Facebook with music, breaking the monotony of ugly politics and negative news. The people who ‘like’ this post will be given a letter of a musician, band or artist and you should post a video of this, including this text on your timeline.” I’ve seen this chain-letter post a lot on Facebook lately. I understand the sentiment. There are a lot of ugly politics and negative news going around, enough that 2016’s already been termed the “Summer of Shit.” Hardly a day goes by without something earth-shatteringly horrible going on, bridged by endless discussion….

May

2016

Yes, Desiigner’s “Panda” Sounds Like Future. But That’s Not The Point

Desiigner’s “Panda”: it sounds a lot like Future, and it’s the biggest mistaken-identity meme since that UB40 song everyone still thinks is Bob Marley. The fact that “Panda” has charted infinitesimally higher than anything Future’s done – yes, even “Jumpman” – adds more fuel to the fire. But “Panda,” both in terms of its structure and what makes it ultimately work, is distinct enough from anything Future’s done as to make it a bit of a stretch to call it a ripoff. For one, “Panda” is more virile than the bulk of Future’s work. Future’s big talent is to make…

Apr

2016

Laraaji Will Make You Rethink “New Age”

Anyone put off in the least by the term “new age” would do well to check out Laraaji. The man’s work and philosophy are firmly new age – for decades, the man born Edward Gordon made a living selling tapes to meditation centers and hosting workshops on the power of laughter. His albums have names like Unicorns In Paradise and Connecting With The Inner Healer Through Music, and half of the latter album is a guided meditation where Laraaji intones platitudes in a sonorous bass voice that would make Morgan Freeman jealous. He’s not here to apologize or make compromises. But Laraaji’s music…

Mar

2016

Only We Can Stop The Tyranny Of PBR&B

The tyranny of PBR&B is coming to an end. For too long has this term haunted discussions of music that pushes the boundaries of contemporary R&B. The term is eschewed by nearly all. But Wikipedia gave it a second life. The genre – if you could call it that, seeing as perfectly conventional acts like PartyNextDoor and Bryson Tiller get saddled with it too – has been referred to as “PBR&B” on Wikipedia for nearly half a decade. I’ve changed it to “alternative R&B” many times only to find it changed back the next day with a warning in my…

Mar

2016

The Case For Extreme Baroque Pop

The term “baroque pop” can apply to a great number of things: the harpsichord-assisted pure pop of the Left Banke, the Zen abstractions of Brian Wilson, the quirky piano pop of Regina Spektor, the orchestral indie of Ra Ra Riot. The desires of three different people who click the “List of baroque pop artists” page on Wikipedia are likely to be very different. For me, I want baroque pop to bend my mind. I want music that aims for transcendence and puts behind all notion of good taste and accessibility in doing so. I want music that smothers itself in…

Feb

2016

The Best Pop Songs On Classic Rock Radio, Pt. 1

I was raised on classic rock and classic rock radio. But anyone who knows me well knows I have a lot of issues with the very rock ideal I was raised on. Rock is conservative, macho, and generally hostile to anyone who isn’t a white, straight male despite having been indisputably invented by African Americans, many queer and female. It holds up a standard of authenticity that ultimately praises fakeness as long as your fake-out is rootsy and manly enough. And, frankly, most classic rock sucks aside from a few established institutions (the Beatles, Pink Floyd, the Stones, Zeppelin, Prince,…

Dec

2015

Daniel’s 25 Favorite Albums Of 2015

I’ve decided to stop doing Top 50 lists. For the last few years, I’ve obsessively compiled a Top 50 albums list throughout the year. But I’ve always had a hard time quantifying the albums down in the lower reaches, those I like and admire but have just enough of a gripe with to make me not want to regularly listen to them. A lot of these albums I never wrote about and thus was unable to give them the slavish attention I give those I review. So the bottom recesses of my Top 50 albums list fills up with albums…

Dec

2015

Discography: Vladislav Delay

Vladislav Delay, born Sasu Ripatti, is one of the most underrated contemporary ambient artists. He’s never gotten rave reviews, largely because critics are still hoping for something else that sounds like his 2000 masterpiece Vocalcity, released as Luomo. Vocalcity certainly deserves every bit of its praise, but Delay’s wealth of ambient albums are not to be overlooked, and some rival Vocalcity in terms of quality. Here’s a quickie guide to his ambient work. (I’ll examine his Luomo and Uusitalo projects in another entry.) Ele (1999). Spanning three songs in sixty-six minutes, Ele has the longest track average of any Delay album…

Nov

2015

Intro to the site/what this blog’s all about

Hi! Welcome to my new website, danielbromfield.com. It should be easy enough to use, but here’s a quick guide to the site content. – Resume is self-explanatory. – Oeuvre is a comprehensive list of the articles I have written. – Portfolio highlights my writing skills in various areas. – Contact contains my e-mail, LinkedIn, and Twitter accounts. As for this blog, I’ll mostly be using it for random “thinkpieces” on music, as well as for reviews and retrospective pieces on works from the past. Most of the publications I write for emphasize contemporary music and would not benefit from my…

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