ASS: Find A Partner!

[Tunco]

The ArchAndroid by Janelle Monáe (recommended by Seneschal)

I can't comprehend how this kind of music is fun to listen to; I've always been repulsive towards this kind of stuff. I tried to approach this album with the least degree of bias possible, yet it's only mediocre at its best.

This is album is a very weird fusion of pop, 'R&B', neofolk and classical music. It's too ornate to appeal to me even at its most simple moments (regardless of the lack of depth the album incorporates). For the sake of not making this review sound like a harangue towards evils of popular culture, I am going to put my hatred towards the artist aside.

The intro creates a good impression (which is soon to be torn apart by rest of the album) and tracks are overall very eloquent, one flows to the next almost seamlessly. [The first half of the album is much better than the latter] It feels like the album is desperately trying to be intricate; inevitably sounding overproduced (it's negligible, though). The one track that stands out is Neon Gumbo.

[unoriginal name]

House Connection² by Bad Boy Bill & Richard "Humpty" Vission [rec'd by sidke in place of nothing from rhekatou (thanks babe)]

I dunno, man. I mean, I appreciate the effort, but I just don't know what to do with an album like this. What am I supposed to be listening to? There's a bunch of different bits accredited to to like 50 different people and I know they're being... mixed or something? And I assume it's supposed to be impressive in some way but all it sounds like to me is a bunch of nearly identical beatscapes with different vocal samples. God, I hate vocal samples. If it were totally "instrumental" I might've at least gotten into some sort of groove with it, but as is I just sorta sat there for 56 minutes and a bunch of sounds happened and then they stopped. I didn't really dislike it, even, it just inspired no opinions whatsoever. Again, though, thanks for trying.


okay there's your fokken review aids but know that i'm doing it because sidke deserves it, despite your cockgoblining

[otters~1]

Oh, right.

Well Rose rec'd me Atomic Soul, an album by Russell Allen from Symphony X. He knew that's not my thing but supposedly the album is more hard rock than metal, so I gave it a try. First couple of tracks sort of reinforced my generally negative expectations -- repetitive, heavy on the noise -- but there were some more rounded songs later on and it faded into a nice background album for playing Oracle of Ages. Might keep it.

Anyway it was nice to give the genre a try (not hard rock, obviously, but hard rock heavily influenced by prog metal and thus not exactly hard rock).

[Seneschal]

I think I'm going to drop out this week what with school restarting and all. I'll edit my review of Donfuy's rec from last week into this post later today.

EDIT: Here it is.

-

Logos by Atlas Sound [via Donfuuuuuuy]

My first experience with Bradford Cox’s side project, Atlas Sound, came last year with the song ‘Te Amo’ from his third album, Parallax. Although I really enjoyed the song, I found the rest of the album rather underwhelming in comparison, so I approached this one with a degree of caution. Luckily, ‘Logos’ is a much more rounded album, with several stylistic diversions that ensure that it never becomes dull.

‘The Light that Failed’ is a gentle introduction to the album that consists of little but a single repeated line faded in over hazy instrumentation. The formula doesn’t change much on the second track, ‘An Orchid’, despite a driving guitar intro which, disappointingly, disappears almost as quickly as it arrives. Like the ambient album I listened to last week, this is pleasant enough to listen to, though not really as engaging as I might like.

The next track, ‘Walkabout’, is one of the highlights of the album, sporting a typically chirpy vocal from Noah Lennox over a bubbling instrumental. Cox himself seems to be mostly absent, to the extent that, out of context, I wouldn’t have hesitated in saying that this was a Lennox solo effort. It’s still a great song, and the deviation from the blueprint of the previous two tracks is exactly what the album needed in my opinion. This willingness to experiment and to tinker about with his style is one of the things I really like about this album, and fortunately his approach has paid off.

‘Shelia’ and ‘Quick Canal’ form the heart of the album, and complement each other well despite being very different. The former bounces along on the strength of its simple, catchy hook (‘Sheeeeeeeelia/Shee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-eeeeelia’) which, like ‘Walkabout’, constitutes one of the brightest, most playful moments of the album.
‘Quick Canal’, on the other hand, is propelled by its pulsating, electronic beat over 8 minutes and never once flags. It reminds me of that Chemical Brothers song where the video showed a view from a train window that kept repeating itself, in that it seems like it was designed to soundtrack a high-speed journey of some sort. It was the track that most engaged me on my first listen, and second time around it cemented its place as my favourite from the album. Wikipedia informs me that the guest vocalist here is Lætitia Sadier, who does a good job of not overpowering the music whilst also not disappearing into the mix.

After the remarkable energy of ‘Quick Canal’ the pace begins to slow down considerably, with the next few tracks returning to the relaxed, enjoyable-but-not-particularly-memorable sounds of the opening pair. Closing track ‘Logos’, however, sends the album out on a high note, backed as it is with a gorgeous, phwooshing melody, though it could perhaps have used a stronger, undistorted vocal from Cox. Still, it’s a great way to cap off a very pleasant album, and one that I enjoyed very much!

Verdict: B+

[aids]

round iv

• xwd >> Rose
• gloomp >> xwd
• Uzi >> gloomp
• ortsz >> flag
• Rose >> ortsz
• Donfuy >> Uzi
• flag >> Donfuy

[yahoozy]

I'll take part next round.

[mediate]

I'll take part next round as well, now that exams are over.

[Rose]

<Colgate> Oh, Aidiera, before I forget.
<Colgate> I'm obviously doing ass this week, but I'm taking next week off. Finals and stuff.
<Colgate> Just that week, though. I'll be back after that.
<xwd> You should make a post in the thread to remind him
<Colgate> http://forum.droni.es/viewtopic.php?f=2 ... 68#p160168

[xwd]

Sinews by White Suns [via gloomp]

This isn't my kind of thing. At all. I mean, there's a crapton of energy in this stuff (you gotta have energy to wail on guitars that fast!) and there's this weird disconcerting mood in everything, but it's more annoying than anything else. It's like, it's either them playing as hard as they can and randomly stopping or it's a build for that or a breakdown from that. And it's all really loud with nothing you can really pick out from it. Nothing's memorable. At all. I mean, I guess that's what it's supposed to be? It's supposed to be this noise that puts on you edge and makes you tense and annoyed and you can't wait for it to stop? Like how the fun in hitting yourself in the head with a hammer is when you stop doing it? I dunno. I really don't.

I like the nonsensical lyrics, though. Talking about weird creepy stuff like flesh and stalactites and drowning. Just randomly being shouted out. It really works in context with all this other noise. It'd be annoying in another context but here it's one of the least annoying parts.

It'd be nice if there was actually some kind of structure other than "big build and then LOUD and then quiet and then LOUD" and there were actually things that were fun to listen to. You know, as a contrast to all this noise. So the noise seems more dark and impressive as a contrast and really freaks you out.

On the plus side, it seemed to start provoking my flight or fight response towards the end. I don't know if that's because I wanted to run as far away from it as I could or because I wanted to fight everything, but my heart was going pretty fast. Mission accomplished, I guess.

>> xwd

http://ilovecopyleft.tumblr.com

[Rose]

Go by Jónsi [via xwd]

Well, um. Sigur Rós is, for all the criticism this will get me, my least favorite post-rock band I've ever heard. So to receive a recommendation for an album by a member of the band... oh boy. Let's just say I wasn't expecting much, and my expectations were largely correct. Just... his voice. His fucking voice. I can't stand it, and the music relies on it far too heavily to ignore. Granted, I didn't hate this to level that I hate Sigur Rós, but I didn't enjoy it aside from parts of Sinking Friendships (mostly the intro, which holds distinction as the one clip of his voice I actually like). I feel like kind of an asshole for only liking one of the three albums I've been given in this thread so far, but I'll chalk it up to coincidence. Writing negative reviews like this is no fun, but I'm not going to try to force myself to like something either.

>> Rose

[otters~1]

This isn't my kind of thing.

cough story of this thread cough

[Seneschal]

This isn't my kind of thing.

cough story of this thread cough

I don't think learning about what kind of music you don't like is a bad thing, though. Anyway, I've been quite happy with my recommendations so far.

On second thought, I think I can balance this and schoolwork, so put me in next week please!

[aids]

round v

• mediate >> Aidiera [-]
• Tunco >> xwd [-]
• Yahoozy >> Tunco [-]
• Aidiera >> gloomp [-]
• gloomp >> Seneschal [-]
• trance >> Donfuy [-]
• Seneschal >> Yahoozy
• xwd >> mediate [-]
• Donfuy >> trance [-]

Check the OP for Last.fm accounts. I hope you all are able to write reviews.

[unoriginal name]

Water 4 The Soul EP by Gramatik [rec'd by UniverseZero]

First off, the mantra of this thread: This isn't really my thing. But it was still pleasant enough. An album (37 minutes is not EP length >:|) of jazzy instrumental hip-hop. I haven't really listened to much instrumental hip-hop because the concept doesn't appeal to me much at all. I can appreciate a great beat, sure, but it's sort of important for me that there's a black guy with gold teeth talking over top of it. Lacking that, I feel like I'm listening to half a song. That was definitely the case for me here. Gramatik can certainly craft a groovy, eminently listenable track, but I they don't really follow any sort of interesting progression. They just kinda go along linearly with a definite verse-chorus-verse-chorus sort of feel, which is not in and of itself is not something that holds my attention.

If you're someone who already likes this stuff, you'll probably like it, but it never rose above pleasant background level for me.

[mediate]

Pamplemousse by The J. Arthur Keenes Band [via xwd]

That was ... interesting. First off, really not my thing. I can appreciate the appeal of gameboy music as a whole, but I'm not a big fan. This was ... unique ... but pretty good. Interesting to listen to. The album starts off with the song "Supplicant," which has a very awesome intro, and caught my attention. It then moves to "Catfish Lagoon," which has a very upbeat style to it. It has a very groovy middle section, which I really enjoyed. All in all, a good song. "Moving to Dispatch," it has a couple of very good solos 1/3 and 2/3 of the way through, which gives it a different feel to it. It's a very good song, and I like the guitar solos. Simple, yet perfect and elegant. It's also one of the longer songs on the EP, clocking in over 6 minutes. All said, very good song. The album ends with "The Boring World of Niels Bohr, "a very upbeat song. It sounds more like a pop song than anything else. It's a strange way to end the album, but strange isn't necessarily bad, is it? All in all, I'd give it a 7.5/10. It's a fun album to listen to (and in my sick state today, at least put me in a good mood, and I can't hate it for that). I enjoyed listening to it, but, again, not really my thing. Though, then again, this entire thread is dedicated to this (and it's a good thing. Sometimes you need to push people outside their comfort zone). Listen to the album here: Pamplemousse by The J. Arthur Keenes Band. Thanks xwd, good recommendation.

[xwd]

No Lights in Our Eyes by Beyond Sensory Experience [via Tunco]

Two weeks, two albums designed to creep me out. Good news, this one's more of the subtle kind of creeping out, it's an album of dark ambient. I hear you can use this stuff to induce bad trips, try it sometime (but not on yourself). At the very least it's not 30 minutes of sporadic flailing on things while screaming so I'm happy. Well, until I start listening to this because dark ambient is not happy music.

This is a subgenre of ambient, a bigger offshoot than arctic ambient, but it's still ambient at its core. This means lots of long humming sounds in the background. And the dark part means that it uses minor keys and weird harmonies to put you on edge. Also floating in there are lone guitars and pianos with heavy reverb and creepy vocal samples you can't quite make out. (I think they're in Swedish? Or Slavic? If they are I wouldn't be able to understand them anyway.) Everything's glazed over with reverb and echo and drenched in darkness. Substrata sounded like everything was covered in ice. This sounds like everything's dead. Lots of blackness with overexposed rays of light dropping down on things. Washed out colors. That's what I'm hearing, at least. Stuff you hear when you're dead.

All this stuff over a long period of time seriously slows you down, slow enough that you might be dead, or wish you were. There's a lot of feeling of death in this. Not the kind of badass death where you explode or cut yourself in half with a chainsaw, the kind you're probably going to have one day, a long, slow, painful one as your body systematically fails on you. A very real kind of death. That makes it way more creepy.

Ambient being what it is, most tracks flow into each other and don't particularly stand out. With that said, there were a few tracks that stood out. Across the Divide and From One Dream into the Next were early standouts. No Lights in Our Eyes really made my skin crawl, as did Long the Night. Standing Silent and its echoing choir was also good, probably my favorite on the album.

Overall, a good album if you want to feel like you're dead for the better part of an hour. It's a fun feeling to experience for a while. A big sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. I liked it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to cheer myself up. There's an acid house album with my name on it.

>> xwd

http://ilovecopyleft.tumblr.com/

[Rose]

^ Best review in this thread yet, because it's the only one that has actually made me want to get the album in question.

[otters~1]

^ Best review in this thread yet, because it's the only one that has actually made me want to get the album in question.

That isn't the point of a review.

[unoriginal name]

the point of a revie is how smarti am

[乳头的早餐谷物]

Pamplemousse by The J. Arthur Keenes Band [via xwd]

That was ... interesting. First off, really not my thing. I can appreciate the appeal of gameboy music as a whole, but I'm not a big fan. This was ... unique ... but pretty good. Interesting to listen to. The album starts off with the song "Supplicant," which has a very awesome intro, and caught my attention. It then moves to "Catfish Lagoon," which has a very upbeat style to it. It has a very groovy middle section, which I really enjoyed. All in all, a good song. "Moving to Dispatch," it has a couple of very good solos 1/3 and 2/3 of the way through, which gives it a different feel to it. It's a very good song, and I like the guitar solos. Simple, yet perfect and elegant. It's also one of the longer songs on the EP, clocking in over 6 minutes. All said, very good song. The album ends with "The Boring World of Niels Bohr, "a very upbeat song. It sounds more like a pop song than anything else. It's a strange way to end the album, but strange isn't necessarily bad, is it? All in all, I'd give it a 7.5/10. It's a fun album to listen to (and in my sick state today, at least put me in a good mood, and I can't hate it for that). I enjoyed listening to it, but, again, not really my thing. Though, then again, this entire thread is dedicated to this (and it's a good thing. Sometimes you need to push people outside their comfort zone). Listen to the album here: Pamplemousse by The J. Arthur Keenes Band. Thanks xwd, good recommendation.

YO PAMPLEMOUSSE I'M REALLY HAPPY FOR YOU AND I'MA LET YOU FINISH BUT COMPUTER SAVVY IS THE BEST J. ARTHUR KEENES BAND RELEASE OF ALL TIME

[Seneschal]

Just to say I'll still be in next round, and my review of gloomp's rec will be up tomorrow. Embarrassing confession time: I was planning to do my main listen last night while lying in bed so that I could focus on the spoken word passages without any distractions, but I actually feel asleep before I finished it (and I should say not out of boredom because I was enjoying it very much) :/ Will try again tonight.

[Tunco]

Touched by Nadja (recommended by Yahoozy)

I have spent first half of this album trying to get into the mood of it; I had a lot of goosebumps throughout the rest of the album when I finally did.

The entire thing feels like it's going to climax any moment but it doesn't, you sit there waiting for it to happen while the drums get more and more deeper and more booming and eventually there's layer upon layer of droning guitar work, creating an undercurrent to all sort of sounds found on the top layer while Earth-esque bass lingers below everything; combined together creating an incredibly abysmal wall of sound which feels like a purposefully-unpleasant mixture of many somber feelings.

Everything slows down at Incubation / Metamorphosis and much more quiet in comparison, sort of like the quiet before the storm, you feel everything going down there in a negligible volume, it builds up and lets it go away numerous times whilst acting like a filter, clearing the sound more and more with each single wave.

Haunting vocals with more layers strike out of nowhere at Flowers Of Flesh, building up and finally climaxing with feelings reminiscent of peace and loss. This feeling oscillates a few times with Untitled before the sound ultimately fades away; makes me wish that that last part was half an hour longer.

[Rose]

^ Best review in this thread yet, because it's the only one that has actually made me want to get the album in question.

That isn't the point of a review.

I don't care what the point is. I'm just saying that I enjoyed it the most.

[Donfuy]

The La's - The La's (rec'd by trance)

(each line represents different occasions on which I stopped doing to write something about this album)
To be honest I wasn't expecting this at all. By this I mean specially his voice, which is interesting.
I've always had this problem when listening to this kind of rock albums: I have big trouble trying to find songs that stand out. Oh hey this "Timeless Melody" actually soundzabit different. In a nice yet a bit cliché way.
Haha, "There She Goes", of course I recognize this. It's such a nice and warm song. Yet it's obvious that it's popularity wore it off a bit :c
It's a fairly coherent album. Somehow reminds of The Rolling Stones, but that's maybe cause I've listened to them recently. This "Looking Glass" is a nice ending.

Final impression: It isn't awful, it isn't great. It's a nice album of a genre I'm not particularly fond of.
Standouts: Timeless Melody, There She Goes, Looking Glass

3/5

[trance]

The Ideal Crash - dEUS [via Donfuy]

What an interesting album! This one is a nice step back from the general rock genre, as it ranges from quiet to long frequently. The opening track, "Put The Freaks Out Front", starts with a low-key guitar, but gradually gets softer. This is great introduction of what will come.

Out of all the tracks off the album, I would put "Sister Dew" at the top of the list. With a relaxing pace, it feels like a song to march to.
Like a lady descending a staircase, "The Magic Hour" emanates a gentle feel with the prevalent acoustics and steady strings.
"Instant Street" provides a different direction with a Wilco-esque banjo melody and is a nice turning point for the album.

Overall, the album shows a different perspective of what rocks bands try to do. dEUS has crafted a masterpiece of which others should partake.

4.5/5