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What MUSIC are you listening to?
Tanya Tagaq's new album, minus one failed attempt at pop rap, is incredible. I don't feel it's the best thing she's done though. Which many reviewers have said, her last album is about equal with this one but it's still worth some serious time and no one makes albums that sound quite like what she does. It's not easy to listen to but it is very rewarding if you have the patience for it.
Kris Kristofferson: I've been aware of him most of my life but haven't really listened to him that closely. I knew the hits and a few other songs due to covers but recently, thanks to my spotify account, I've listened to a lot more and I'm really digging his songwriting style. This tune in particular, which reminds me a lot of something Leonard Cohen would do, moved me very deeply.
Van Morrison is one of those artists I've always felt never achieved his true potential. I love Astral Weeks but most of his albums didn't really grab me. A couple of weeks ago I started listening to Veedon Fleece and it blew my mind. Easily as good as Astral Weeks, just an incredible album.
I checked out everyone on the Polaris Prize list just for kicks. I didn't love any of it but it was all... good. Grimes new album was interesting in places but then there were these odd changes occasionally to some kind of pure pop aesthetic and it kind of fucked up the flow of the album.
If there are any Ween fans around here I can say that Dean Weens new album, The Deaner Album, is actually pretty damned good. It won't win any new fans but people who like Ween should be on board. Here's a silly little song and video for his lead single Exercise Man.
... and much much more but I'm gonna stop here.
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- Michael Barnes
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Michael Barnes wrote: My kids LOVE Babymetal.
I only discovered them since I saw that they're opening for the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the UK so I decided to check out their videos. The metal is good but it is an awkward and strangely compelling combination.
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It's that classic thing people do in writing where they put opposites together. You don't write about an evil demon... you write about the gentle demon because it draws the reader in more. You don't write about gentle love, you write about the love that will kill me. Babymetal appeals in a similar way. I keep checking it out in hopes I'll find something to like... but I just can't do it. Still, it is fascinating.
Look, I know that the Leonard Cohen is dead threads didn't get anywhere near the traction that Bowie or Prince did....
Fuck you guys!
Listen to his new album. It's goddamn genius. His best work since I'm Your Man (although he's had plenty of good ones in between too).
Check out some of these lines...
I heard the snake was baffled by his sin
He shed his scales to find the snake within
or
They ought to give my heart a medal
For letting go of you
I turned my back on the devil
Turned my back on the angel too
maybe you need a whole song to get it... here's one track from the album called
Steer Your Way
Steer your way through the ruins
Of the altar and the mall
Steer your way through the fables
Of creation and the fall
Steer your way past the palaces
That rise above the rot
Year by year
Month by month
Day by day
Thought by thought
Steer your heart past the truth
You believed in yesterday
Such as fundamental goodness
And the wisdom of the way
Steer your heart, precious heart
Past the women whom you bought
Year by year
Month by month
Day by day
Thought by thought
Steer your path through the pain
That is far more real than you
That smashed the cosmic model
That blinded every view
And please don’t make me go there
Tho’ there be a god or not
Year by year
Month by month
Day by day
Thought by thought
They whisper still, the ancient stones
The blunted mountains weep
As he died to make men holy
Let us die to make things cheap
And say the Mea Culpa which you’ve probably forgot
Year by year
Month by month
Day by day
Thought by thought
Steer your way, o my heart
Tho’ I have no right to ask
To the one who was never
Never equal to the task
Who knows he’s been convicted
Who knows he will be shot
Year by year
Month by month
Day by day
Thought by thought
They whisper still, the ancient stones
The blunted mountains weep
As he died to make men holy
Let us die to make things cheap
And say the Mea Culpa which you gradually forgot
Year by year
Month by month
Day by day
Thought by thought
It's his death album, he knew he was dying, the cigarette on the cover is a sign that he knew cancer was killing him. Go listen to this and get on board with the greatest lyricist our language has ever known (no debate) and the greatest English Language songwriter to ever live (you can debate this one if you like). I've been listening to it over and over again for a couple of weeks now. It's worth it.
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Still listening to Stellardrone a lot at night, but I've gone pretty deep into Perturbator also. I'll leave this here as a sample:
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What is for me is this newly released album of older College tracks. For my dollar, College is still the premier synthwave act and these cuts are exactly what I want. A lot of artists skew a little more complex or pop. College retains that Carpenter/minimalist vibe I appreciate. Definitely evokes that nostalgic, yet new feeling. Great stuff!
vehlinggo.com/2016/12/02/college-valerie-old-tapes-review/
My favorite tracks are 'Des prises', 'Challenger' and 'College', but the lead single is good as well. The video of the abandoned mall is perfect. Would be better if shot at night though...
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I think it's beautiful... slow-danced to a live version with the g/f, it was nice
but here's the thing, in finding this cover, I found another cover of it that I think is also incredible in different ways. So awesome...
man, what a voice. soft, haunting and honest.
how did i not know this song when Peter Gabriel used to do it?
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I thought this stuff wouldn't hold up, especially since I was in my early 20s the last time I heard it. But the shock is that it totally does, even their earliest material. Now I am listening to it with a greater awareness of Chrome, Portion Control, and more experimental, outsider kinds of electronic music and they make more sense than ever. Yet it isn't nearly as harsh or transgressive as it seemed back then. Now, the poppy, hooky elements shine through and it doesn't seem that far removed from Pretty Hate Machine. Or Depeche Mode.
Digging into the records before Goettel died, there is some AMAZING stuff in there. Most of the best you can hear on the singles collection. But "Worlock", "Dig It" (which sounds a awful lot like an alpha version of "Down in It"), "Assimilate", "Testure", "Spasmolytic"...all of that still sounds great. The arrangements are complex, the programming impeccable, and there is some actual songcraft to be appreciated even in their most aggressively unpleasant tracks. I'm actually enjoying it MORE now that the whole goth/industrial thing has gone away.
That Last Rights show was something else. It was all very theatrical. There was a tree on stage with body parts and heads hanging from it, it looked like some kind of GW thing. Ogre would go into this virtual reality machine that had a camera in it close in on his face and he would get attacked by some vague force. He grew extra limbs, there was all kinds of Cronenbergian body horror. At the end, he came out in this big, mutant suit and at the end of the set he somehow got out of it but you couldn't see him leave so it just left the shell of it. It was INTENSE. Live drums, live guitars and all the programming. Lots of psychedelic/cut-up projections. You might compare it to Gwar, but that's kind of stupid because this was something more horror-oriented and serious. My girlfriend at the time hated it all, she was more of a Peter Murphy/Love and Rockets/Siouxsie sort of person. I bought three shirts.
Some of the later stuff, at least the post-millennium records, are actually quite good much to my surprise. There are some really solid tracks on "Weapon", the most recent release. They definitely fit in with the sound from "Vivi Sect VI", "Rabies", "Too Dark Park" and "Last Rights". It still has that Chrome/Portion Control sound that is really key to what they do. There is some cheese-dick industro-metal on a couple of the records I could do without though, but that was on "Rabies" too, really.
Also listening to lots of Laura Nyro. So there's that too.
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Coincidentally, I listened to Weapon today (and it's infrequent that I listen to a whole SP album these days).
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