Anything On Your Mind?
2018! This year further helped blur my days together, because I started a new job at a certain Seattle tech giant whose name starts with “A” and ends in “mazon Web Services”. I don’t want to go too far into what that was like, but suffice it to say that it was a high pressure job. Among other things, it erased a lot of my creative energy, which can be seen in the fact that I did no game design during the whole time I was employed there. I just didn’t have it in me. I did do a lot of writing for Five Songs while there, but that was about all I could muster. Among other things, the job had me on-call a fair bit of the time, which can really fuzz your brain. Everything from this time period is just kind of blurry, music included.
Looking at the RateYourMusic chart, I have seven of those in the collection. And while we aren’t that far into this general era, it seems like maybe my music knowledge actually turned to crap in 2017 and not 2012, because we’re still not back to where we were back then. Also, this chart doesn’t seem as weird to me as the 2017 chart, so there’s that at least.
What Are You Listening To, Josh?
A sampling of albums that I’m playing regularly, whether older ones or newer ones. Just the things that I think are worth highlighting, and maybe you’d enjoy.
I will say this: there’s lots of fun stuff I could highlight from 2018. Unfortunately, the album I might have liked the most at the time, You Won’t Get What You Want by Daughters, is one I don’t want to higlight due to allegations against the lead singer. I don’t highlight them below, but Thou had an incredible year, with a very good full-length, three EPs, and even a split EP to go with it. It’s all…well, not fun, I don’t think you can ever describe Thou’s doom as fun, but excellent. What else do we have?
The Optimist, Ryan Porter
You know me by now: I don’t know shit about jazz. But also, I love horns. All kinds of brass. So when I see good reviews of a jazz record led by a trombonist, I’m going to be interested. And yeah, this is great. Porter is playing with a pretty big ensemble here, and I like the fullness of the arrangements. As usual, I might be a big dummy so take this recommendation with all the available salt, but I really like it a lot.
Burnt Sugar, Gouge Away
This might be a well-known record, I don’t really know. I feel like it’s certainly well-known among noise rock enthusiasts, but maybe it didn’t get a lot of visibility outside that august group of dorks. I do feel like when their follow-up record finally emerged in 2024, it was a big deal (relatively speaking), which suggests that this record was pretty popular. At any rate, it’s a latter-day noise rock classic, with the band operating in that classic Amphetamine Reptile Records kind of mode. Just listen to “Slow Down” and picture that song appearing on a Dope-Guns-‘N-Fucking in the Streets comp next to a God Bullies track. Needless to say, I think this rules.
Everything’s Fine, Jean Grae & Quelle Chris
Jean Grae and Quelle Chris, both excellent artists on their own and also partners, got together to release a really amazing record. It’s interesting for so many reasons: Grae and Chris have pretty different styles but are able to merge them, there’s a ton of cultural commentary on here that manages to not come across as leaden or preachy, they do a great job of weaving in guest artists including some comedians, there are some found sound bits that almost sound like Negativland, it all just works so well together. It’s a unique record, there’s nothing else quite like it, give it a spin.
Humble Pi, Homeboy Sandman & Edan
I’m throwing in a bonus album here because it was painful to cut it down to just three. This EP is notable because Edan, one of my very favorite producers, doesn’t have that many credits after his 2005 opus Beauty and the Beat. So when this album came out in 2018, it was an event for me. And it didn’t disappoint, Edan still has it, and Homebody Sandman does a fine job on top of the beats.
Screw It, We’re Skipping New Releases Today And Sticking With 2018
Templates and segments are all fine and good, but I want to stay in 2018 and talk about some more records. Who is gonna stop me? You? You’re barely reading this!
I Have Fought Against It, But I Can’t Any Longer., The Body
The Body are one of the most inventive bands around. They’re also one of the hardest to describe, given the breadth of sounds they’ve employed over the years. Add in their frequent collaborations with other bands and they’re difficult to pin down. The only thing you can really say about them for sure is that their music is going to be heavy. Their 2018 release is no exception. I think it can be easy to go pretty far with descriptions with heavy music. Hell, the other day, I described Uniform as “scary”. And, you know, that’s kind of a relative term, I guess. Well, here’s a nice adjective for this record: harrowing. It’s full of eerie samples, dour rhythms, shrieking, and all kinds of other unsettling stuff. It’s all carefully put together to create a very dark space, and it’s just a super impressive record all around. This album sounds like a toothache feels. Nobody does it like them.
Close But No Cigar, Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio
We love funk/soul trios around here, and if they’re from Seattle, you know that we have to bring them up. DLO3 has ties to a bunch of other acts, including the previously covered Parlor Greens as well as the True Loves, who I’m sure will come up at some point. I think you know about what to expect here: instrumental funk and soul with breezy organ, and I suppose there’s no real surprises here. Really, the question is if this stuff will groove. Reader, it sure does. The formula works, and they execute it great here. This is ideal summer music, so put it on and chill out.
Jericho Sirens, Hot Snakes
Yeah, I know, I brought up Rick Froberg the other day but this is my blog so I get to write about whatever I want. And what I want is to pay respects to the last album that Froberg ever put out. Hot Snakes got together again and put out this album fourteen years after their previous (incredible!) record, Audit in Progress. And they didn’t lose a step in the intervening time. This is abrasive post-hardcore, always centered around the dual guitar attack of Froberg and John Reis alongside Froberg’s unmistakable howl. I expect everybody reading this is probably familiar with Drive Like Jehu and Hot Snakes, but just in case, get on it. This album is a perfectly good starting place to the latter band.
Five Random Songs
Yes, it’s the “classic” five random songs format. It’s been told before on this blog many times, but basically, on an old forum, people would post the last five songs their shuffle pulled up. I liked it, so I made it into a blog. And now, here we are.
“…and Still I Wander South”, Knocked Loose
The usual caveat here: genre descriptions are blurry, especially in metal and other extreme music. But: I see a lot descriptions of Knocked Loose as hardcore, and I do not hear that at all. To me, this is very much metalcore to its, uh, core. All the breakdowns and stuff, all the metal riffing, the vocals, all that stuff. It’s metalcore. I’m not trying to be a purist or anything, but if these genres have any use, it’s to help guide people towards similar bands and to help with navigating through underground music. And calling this hardcore isn’t going to help anything! All right, glad we got that straight. Anyway, I bought this because they were getting a lot of buzz and I discovered something important: I’m still not much of a metalcore guy.
“Dreamland (version)”, Bob Marley & the Wailers
Well, that’s some whiplash right there.
“It’s, And’s and But’s”, Jan Jelinek avec The Exposures
Jan Jelinek is a fascinating artist, using samples to build up tracks that make use of glitches and imperfections to construct really interesting music. Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records is a touchstone in electronic music, a genre-setting record that demonstrates how warm record glitches can be. His followup to that landmark record is this one, La Nouvelle Pauvreté, which I think is a little less abstract but no less warm and pleasant. Jelinek would continue to evolve his sound and eventually get pretty far afield, but the early 2000s records from him are all fantastic.
“Aeons of Spiritual Starvation”, Saevus Finis
You wanted some death metal after that fuzzy sweater of a song, right? Go from that kind of soulful thing to eight zillion kick drums and some guy gurgling from his toes? Well, here you go. This is from a 2024 release, and this for sure is death metal, you betcha. Obviously, I like and listen to stuff like this, but I think that it doesn’t work great in a random playlist. It’s hard to get in and out of the right mood like that. Ah well.
“Pizza For Two”, One Groovy Coconut
Oh, fuck off, Plex.
OK, fine: One Groovy Coconut are a forgotten one-and-done band from Moon Ska, with the record coming out towards the end of that label’s solvency. I actually like this record quite a bit - it’s playful and breezy, and it actually reminds me a fair bit of Elvis Costello’s Imperial Bedroom for some reason. So, if “ska but with tasting notes of lush new wave” sounds good, give this record a spin. You know, if you can find it.
Some Better Places To Learn About Music
Check these folks out, you’ll learn more for sure. In no particular order: To The Teeth, Wolf’s Week/Plague Rages, The Devil’s Mouth, Burning Ambulance, Lamniformes Cuneiform, Hex Records, See/Saw.