2020 June Listenings

Freddie Gibbs, The Alchemist - Alfredo

Freddie Gibbs can do no wrong… this is a fact.

Release date: 2020-05-29

[8.6/10]

Teleplasmiste - To Kiss Earth Goodbye

Hauntology music / ambient. Good stuff… FFO Ernest Hood.

Release date: 2020-06-05

[8.6/10]

Vague Imaginaires - L’Île Sous l’Eau

Vibrant ambient / dub techno. Really good.

Release date: 2020-06-10

[8.5/10]

The Soft Pink Truth - Shall We Go On Sinning So That Grace May Increase?

While one could perhaps describe this album as an ambient / electronic release, to be honest I find there to be just too many styles of music packed into these 9 songs such that it’s basically impossible to be pigeonholed into any musical genre. Also you should read this highly entertaining article on n+1.

Release date: 2020-05-01

[8.4/10]

Laura Cannell - The Earth With Her Crowns

Modern classical / chamber music. Fanboying real hard here.

Release date: 2020-06-19

[8.4/10]

Rafael Anton Irisarri - Peripeteia

Ethereal ambient. FFO Gas.

Release date: 2020-05-22

[8.4/10]

Kenny Segal, Serengeti - Ajai

Retro jazz-hop. Kenny Segal is the dude that did the beats on Hiding Places, Billy Wood’s album from last year and an album I enjoy very much. I’ve checked out reviews of Serengeti’s stuff but haven’t really checked him out until now. The rapping is somewhat reminiscent of Milo’s stuff, but the lyrics are more detailed and seems to have a more complete plot going on. Good stuff.

Release date: 2020-04-05

[8.4/10]

Apparat - Soundtracks: Dämonen

Haunting electronica / ambient. It’s got a lot of acoustic instruments on this album and adds to the sometimes dark, sometimes soaring mood shifts very seamlessly.

Release date: 2020-06-12

[8.3/10]

Cucina Povera & Haron - Plafond 6

Cucina Povera’s last album didn’t really impress me all that much, but this one is different. Experimental ambient / electronic music.

Release date: 2020-03-30

[8.2/10]

Wrekmeister Harmonies - We Love To Look At The Carnage

Doom + slowcore… sloomcore?

Release date: 2020-02-21

[8.2/10]

African Head Charge - Churchucal Chant Of The Iyabinghi

Tribal pysch dub music. As good as dub gets.

Release date: 2020-03-06

[8.2/10]

Okkyung Lee - Yeo-Neun

Modern classical. The track The Longest Morning is probably my favorite. Overall the album is quite easy to get into, people who dig small ensemble chamber music would dig this. On top (or sometimes beneath) the chord progressions the cello would occasionally do weird slides across the fingerboard thus creating an unresolved tension in the middle of songs, but the entire album is very melodic and enjoyable.

Release date: 2020-05-08

[8.1/10]

Iszlai - Jazzamped

Jazzy IDM.

Release date: 2020-05-26

[8.0/10]

Mong Tong 夢東 - Mystery 秘神

Psychedelic rock.

Release date: 2020-06-19

I don’t really focus on this kind of stuff lately but this reminds me of a vocal-less Wooden Shjips, the lead guitar playing is almost like what you’d find on a more enjoyable older psych rock mixtape: not a lot of fuzz, just clean playing with tons of delay and wah. The synth doesn’t really remind me of early Taiwanese TV shows, but then I didn’t really get to browse through the channels when I was a kid. Personally I dig the last three tracks more than the first several tracks like Chakra or Jou-Tau, as I wasn’t really that into Indian music and the eerie atmosphere present in these tracks. On the contrary the last two tracks A Nambra and In The K. Court have a pretty strong dub vibe going on. Cool stuff.

[8.0/10]

Thou - Blessings Of The Highest Order

A compilation of all their Nirvana covers.

Release date: 2020-06-05

[7.9/10]

Dom & Roland - Lost In The Moment

Solid drum & bass album.

Release date: 2017-10-05

[7.8/10]

Warmth - Life

Droning lo-fi ambient.

Release date: 2018-08-10

[7.7/10]

Psychic Graveyard - A Bluebird Vacation

Noise rock. FFO Metz and Pissed Jeans.

Release date: 2020-05-22

[7.7/10]

Preservation - Eastern Medicine, Western Illness

A hip-hop album dedicated to Hong Kong and its people… Kinda weird listening to these spoken word samples in Mandarin, but the album overall is a pretty enjoyable experience. Preservation previously made tracks for the likes of Ka, Mos Def and Aesop Rock, and this one more or less has that alternative conscious rap vibe going on.

Release date: 2020-05-29

[7.6/10]

Deena Abdelwahed - Dhakar

Jungle + club + dance. I imagine this would be outstanding club music, but then I don’t club…

Release date: 2020-01-17

[7.6/10]

Sean McCann, Matthew Sullivan, Alex Twomey - Saturday Night

Improvisation / ambient / modern classical. I feel like this kind of release would easily venture into unrestricted, devoid-of-melody free-jazz territory, but then this album actually is anything but that. The instrumentation is in face very coherent - there are actually chord progressions going on in this album, and then there would be instruments leading the melody. Overall the entire album provides a very comforting mood, the most intensive part would probably be the drum roll in the beginning of the first track.

Release date: 1977-11-15

[7.6/10]

Military Genius - Deep Web

An album really difficult to categorize… there are jazz, R&B, ambient, indie rock, folk, pulsating techno tracks on this thing. Pretty insane.

Release date: 2012

[7.5/10]

Plone - Puzzlewood

Happy sounding indietronica.

Release date: 2020-04-17

[7.3/10]

Run The Jewels - RTJ4

The lyrics and theme are very fitting to the current turmoil in the US, or to a general disillusionment about the neoliberal world order, but in terms of musicality not much has evolved from RTJ2, which IMO is their best album yet.

Release date: 2020-06-03

[7.2/10]

Backxwash - God Has Nothing To Do With This Leave Him Out Of It

Horrorcore. Haunting and bleak. Also a bunch of distorted guitars…

Release date:

[7.1/10]

White Boy Scream - Bakunawa

Noise / experimental classical from opera singer. The descriptions on Deathbomb’s Bandcamp page says this album deals with the pre-colonial myths in her home country of Philippines. Didn’t catch that to be honest…

Release date: 2020-11-20

[7.0/10]

Aquarian - The Snake That Eats Itself

Dark techno / IDM / ambient. I like the ambient tracks, but the techno tracks… not as much.

Release date: 2020-01-24

[7.0/10]

Golden Retriever, Chuck Johnson - Rain Shadow

Ambient / drone. Golden Retriever is composed of a synth player and a bass clarinetist, and I think it’s probably better if they decided to do an album all on their own instead of incorporating Chuck Johnson’s guitar playing - he adds too much heavily modulated notes into the mix, making the overall smooth and expansive atmosphere prevalent in this album less focused. It’d probably be great if Johnson does a collaboration with Alessandro Cortini though.

Release date: 2020-05-15

[7.0/10]

Xibalba - Años En Infierno

Old school death metal.

Release date: 2020-05-29

[7.0/10]

Noveller - Arrow

Cinematic music / ambient / soundscape.

Release date: 2012-02-14

[7.0/10]

Zaliva-D - Immorality

Jungle / club.

Release date: 2020-06-08

[6.9/10]

Hideto Sasaki, Toshiyuki Sekine Quartet + 1 - Stop Over

Lounge jazz music.

Release date: 2020-08-25

[6.8/10]

Daniel Davies - Signals

This is like a soundtrack to a nonexistent movie: there are ambient, grandiose rock guitars, plucked folk guitar tracks, electronica and even post-rock tracks on this thing. Daniel Davies worked for John Carpenter on many of the soundtracks of his films, but I feel like while this album isn’t lacking unsettling moments, it kind of lacks that bizarre playfulness atmosphere so prevalent in John Carpenter’s movie OSTs.

Release date: 1982-09-09

[6.8/10]

Tom Misch, Yussef Dayes - What Kinda Music

Jazz / R&B. Yussef Dayes is a helluva drummer, but this album is too polished and borderline artificial. The guitar tones sound like what you’d hear on any random trending guitar player’s page on Instagram.

Release date: 2020-04-24

[6.5/10]

Deerhoof - Future Teenage Cave Artists

Glitchy lo-fi indie rock / experimental pop. I guess I might have already grown out of the genre…

Release date: 2020-05-29

[6.5/10]

Cremation - Dissolution Of Balance

Metallic hardcore. I feel like these bands are more or less trying to recreate the Unsilent Death era Nails sound…

Release date:

[6.2/10]

Squarepusher - Be Up A Hello

IDM. It’s ok but not great.

Release date: 2020-01-31

[6.1/10]

Elisabeth Elektra - Mercurial

Electro-pop. The album cover is way more intimidating than the music…

Release date: 2021-05-28

[6.0/10]

Umbra Vitae - Shadow Of Life

Metalcore. Rather mediocre.

Release date: 2020-05-01

[5.8/10]

Elder - Omens

Very proggy stoner rock. Or just prog rock. Some flashy riffs here and there but overall the songs are all pretty bland.

Release date: 2013-06-14

[5.3/10]

Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery

8 underdeveloped sludge rock / doom-pop (lol) songs in 18 minutes. The slower songs are alright except they’re way too short, and the faster ones have pretty lame big rock drums on them.

Release date: 2020-05-29

[4.2/10]

Car Seat Headrest - Making A Door Less Open

It’s pretty lousy.

Release date: 2020-05-01

[4.0/10]

雨のパレード - Borderless

Sugary sweet J-Pop. I only checked it out for the Dos Monos feature… turns out that was the only track that I could stand. The other songs are just lackluster pop songs. This is a 3.5 solely because the beginning of the Dos Monos feature track is pretty fire.

Release date: 2014-04-02

[3.5/10]

Theseus忒修斯 - 南國再見，南國

Unoriginal. 老婆：「這什麼爛歌…」

Release date: 2020-06-08

個人認為老套到聽不太下去，另外我猜樂團成員應該很喜歡滅火器跟晨曦光廊吧？給個 3 分是因為立意良善，但希望要繼續玩團的話可以多嘗試新的聲音、更奇異的編曲，至於懷舊跟詞彙的堆疊就真的是不要會比較好…

[3.0/10]

Sibylle Baier - Colour Green

Folk. Very minimalistic with respect to instrumentation, and extremely intimate.

Release date: 2006-01-01

[8.6/10]

Ol’ Dirty Bastard - Return To The 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version

Hardcore hip-hop. Feels like dude was just winging it and not giving a damn when he made this stuff, and then the stuff is still super dope…

Release date: 1995

[8.5/10]

Tara Clerkin - Hello

Soothing lo-fi outsider folk. I like it…

Release date: 2012-01-01

[8.4/10]

Gianluca Iadema - Aphàiresis

Minimal house / techno. Pulsating release… looks like Mille Plateaux is back!

Release date: 2019-09-20

[8.3/10]

Shasta Cults - Shasta Cults

Ambient electronic music. FFO Ulla.

Release date:

[8.3/10]

Cranes - Loved

Found through a post in The Flenser Facebook group. Dazzling alternative rock… gothic dream pop.

Release date: 2020-08-04

[8.3/10]

Sister Grotto - You Don’t Have To Be A House To Be Haunted

Man I really dig this kind of stuff… slowcore with classical instruments. Exquisite stuff. The singer is the lady from Midwife.

Release date:

[8.2/10]

Segue - Pacifica

Psychedelic minimal house.

Release date: 2021-05-24

[8.1/10]

Sprain - Sprain

Slowcore / indie rock. The track Deliver Us is pretty rocking, the others are slow Duster-esque jams.

Release date: 2015-10-23

[8.1/10]

Toshiyuki Miyama and The New Herd & Masahiko Sato - Canto Of Libra

Free jazz. Abrasive stuff… love it. Sounds like Imperial Triumphant’s jazz interludes but stretched and extended into proper songs.

Release date:

[8.1/10]

Angel Bat Dawid - The Oracle

Contemporary afro jazz / spiritual jazz. The artist did all the instruments except for the drums on track Cape Town. I feel like this album is very fitting to the current events happening in the US…

Release date: 2010-01-01

[8.0/10]

The Utopia Strong - The Utopia Strong

Electronic music / ambient. This feels almost krautrock-ish. Lots of synth in this album. 裡面有位叫 Steve Davis 的，打撞球打到六座世界冠軍… 猛

Release date: 2019-09-13

[8.0/10]

Jay Glass Dubs - Plegnic

Eerie industrial dub.

Release date: 2010-01-01

[8.0/10]

Sunburned Hand Of The Man - Jaybird

Psyched out lofi-dub. Trippy stuff.

Release date: 2007-04-24

[7.8/10]

Boldy James, The Alchemist - The Price Of Tea In China

I dig The Alchemist’s collab with Freddie Gibbs more. Not to say this is a bad album whatsoever though.

Release date: 2020-02-07

[7.8/10]

Bull Of Apis Bull Of Bronze - Offerings Of Flesh And Gold

Ritualistic black metal. Although this one features some post-rock moments it’s very different from post-black metal style made prevalent by Deafheaven / Alcest / etc, this one is actually grim AF.

Release date:

[7.7/10]

Jay Daniel - Tala

Jazzy house. Kinda like Eric Lau but not as funky.

Release date: 2021-04-21

[7.6/10]

The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy - Hypocrisy Is The Greatest Luxury

Charlie Hunter’s first ever project? His bass playing on this album is super on point. Nice political rap album.

Release date: 1992-01-01

[7.5/10]

Jay Glass Dubs - The Safest Dub

Dub made from Sade samples. Ain’t half bad.

Release date:

[7.5/10]

Aco - Trad

Emotional J-pop. The first half was super dazzling - the first three tracks feature incredibly flashy drums and are fire, but after Teardrop (a Massive Attack cover) it’s just slow rock ballads like those late 90’s early 00’s Japanese pop singers.

Release date: 2001-01-01

[7.4/10]

Interstellar Funk - Caves Of Steel

Electro / techno.

Release date: 2017-06-30

[7.3/10]

Bjarki - Happy Earthday

OK IDM.

Release date: 2019-02-15

[7.0/10]

Mare - Mare

Sludge metal. Kinda like Knut but less mathy and more post-metal-y.

Release date: 2019-03-08

[7.0/10]

Veytra - In Dreamlike States

Blues + prog + stoner + post-rock, all encapsulated in a very modern sounding mix. Not really my jam though…

Release date:

[6.0/10]

Mortality Rate - You Were The Gasoline

Metallic hardcore. Some riffs are pretty thrash-ish and pretty fire, but other than that this isn’t the kind of stuff that redefines a genre or does something completely new. And the metalcore breakdowns and blast beats are pretty meh.

Release date: 2019-05-01

[6.0/10]