Honestly the first late-stage Coltrane record that I'm not head-over-heels for. I don't know what it is, it's just one 30-minute piece, but something about it just feels like its missing something. I especially adore all the crazy, chaotic Free Jazz and Avant-Garde work of John, but this one just didn't hit me, and I'm not sure why. It gets pretty great towards the last third or so, but the palette and progression of this LP just didn't work for me nearly as greatly as some other pieces of his, ... read more

Weird that all the ingredients required for making In The Aeroplane Over The Sea are already present when listening to On Avery Island, but somehow it just doesn't come together nearly as well as it would just two years later. Neutral Milk Hotel's second LP is in the running for being my favorite album of all time, and definitely my favorite of the 90s, so hearing where they came from on this project makes for an interesting experience, because they mere more adventurous and abrasive here than ... read more

Universal Consciousness is probably my favorite from Alice Coltrane that I've heard thus far, and I'm really glad that the stylistic changes that she made succeeded much more than I could've anticipated. Her last two projects were a lot more pretty, blissfully spiritual and lush, whereas this one goes into a more nuanced and wide-ranging soundscape that feels a little richer and more complex as her releases before. This album is not just darker and a little more chaotic, but it is also more ... read more

[EDIT 84-->89]: Okay I was a little wrong, the more I listen to it, the more I love the sound-palette and experimentation on this record, it's still far from Blonde's perfection but my god are there some highlights on this project. I really love how it somehow merges his atmospheric and acoustic balladry with some more pop-oriented tunes here and there and somehow still keeps it all in the same aesthetic and instrumental tone. Absolutely gorgeous listen, even the more loose moments ... read more

As somebody who still hasn't rated RENAISSANCE on here because I struggled to get through its runtime (despite really liking what I've heard), I'm kind of blown away by how quickly the 27 tracks on COWBOY CARTER fly by; Beyoncé managed to craft a 78-minute long Country odyssey that shifts through multiple phases and many interesting conceptual ideas yet never ceases to lose a sense of cohesion in the process. It's undeniable and common knowledge that she is one of the most meticulous and ... read more

Never really gave Nujabes a shot, not that I expected to hate him or anything, and Lo-Fi Hip Hop is a genre that I really love (despite the massive amount of mediocre artists within it), so I don't know why it took me so long to get here, but I must say that I really loved this. You can totally hear how this influenced pretty much everything in the genre, and all the songs on here are smooth as butter, it's a massage coming from your headphones. Haven't delved into the depths of Instrumental ... read more

Solid as a brick, Gibbs should be in more "greatest alive" conversations for this and Bandana alone. I wouldn't say he is the greatest, but he's certainly in the very upper echelon of rappers, especially for the 2010s. This album has some amazing production, incredible flows and great pen game, the features are also really good. Lots of catchy, hard-hitting and captivating tracks. I can't say I definitively like it more than its follow-up, I've revisited this album over the past 5 ... read more

I knew that nothing could ever top "Songs" for me, but I couldn't be happier with how "Bright Future" turned out; it's an unbelievably powerful and magnificent release, following up an album like "Songs" would be really rough for any musician out there, but somehow Adrianne pulled it off flawlessly. It's a gorgeous listen with some insanely colorful, lush and organic singer-songwriter tunes that are filled with personal and raw verisimilitude, yet also magical and ... read more

This is the second Alice Coltrane album that I've listened to, and similarly to Journey in Satchidananda, it's a very gorgeous and magical listen that is very lush and colorful. Very interesting when compared to John Coltrane's type of Spiritual Jazz, as his music of the genre was often quite abrasive, chaotic and ear-piercing, whereas this is nearly the complete opposite; it's easy on the ears, relaxing and relatively easy to follow, which is no way to say that it is either worse or better, ... read more

I'm a fan of Sonic Youth, not a massive one (just yet), but I really love a lot of their albums, and Kim Gordon has always seemed the heart of that band, even if her contributions weren't necessarily the most essential or singular to the projects. The Collective is such a weird contribution to the current world of contemporary music, basically taking her Noise and No-Wave roots and somehow implementing them into the context of Trap bangers. What's so weird about it is that it is an unlikely ... read more

Hard album/albums to talk about, even harder to listen to (at least towards the end), but an absolutely fascinating release by The Caretaker. I don't think this album needs a lot of explaining, it's kind of like the biggest Ambient, Drone and Sound Collage album of the century, by sheer internet virality alone, and for good reason; the conceptual approach of this album is something unique and brilliant, and I would personally say that it is solidly executed. It is a gimmick, a premise that is ... read more

I have no idea who this artist is, this is the first and only thing I've heard from them, but my god this track sounds incredible. I adore the palette of this track, it's so weirdly warm and fuzzy and yet it has this hard-hitting dance beat that feels despondent and rugged. The emotion is hard to describe. I'm not very familiar with the genre, so maybe there's more like it, but this sounded like something very unique and unlike any music I've heard, to be frank. Honestly one of my most ... read more

Would be a 100 if it had a tiny 30-second Elvin Jones drum solo... that would have been awesome.
*listens to edition i*
*spits out coffee*

Probably a little better than the record he released the previous year, and much more consistent too. Like, the very emotional first six tracks on Night Beat might even be better than a majority of tracks on here, but Ain't That Good News has very few misses unlike the former which was kind of uninteresting past the halfway mark. The first side of this LP is very fun, just a great showcase of how cheeky, charming and sweet the Pop aspect of Cooke could be, and the second half, starting with the ... read more

Such a weird record, not in the sense that there's any actual weirdness on display, but how good it is without ever being flashy about anything. This is a very standard, traditional Hard Bop sound that you could hear pretty much in any 50s Jazz album from your record score when it comes to style and palette, but somehow, Moanin' stands out so strongly. I think it's kind of a perfect record in a sense, I really do. This is, for what it is trying to do, kind of flawless in execution. The tracks ... read more

Rubinstein is a master, Beethoven is a master, don't know how to properly rate classical stuff on this site so I'll just go with a classic 8/10 lol

Some of the Sonatas are absolutely brilliant, some I don't care for, but this is a great collection of recordings.

Really great early Miles compilation record. Not a standout in particular as a whole, but especially during this era, it's one of his best. All pieces on here are very energetic, smooth and well put together, I really think this is one of the most instantaneously enjoyable records of his, and especially that title track or something like Doxy just get me in a way that a lot of mid-50s Davis LPs don't. Obviously not very cohesive, but each track on its own is really solid and offers much quality ... read more

There's a Riot Goin' On is a difficult album. As a direct response to Marvin Gaye's album title "What's Going On", this album functions as an almost bleak answer to that question; it's dark, absolutely devoid of any of the smoothness and beauty that you may find on Gaye's record, not even the qualities that you would find on Sly and the Family Stone's earlier releases, and there's a river of pain running throughout this album that one might not even realize without context and paying ... read more

Small Talk at 125th and Lenox is a very sparse record for Gil Scott-Heron; before the second half of the project, we barely get anything except his spoken word which recites the poetry and a pair of congas to offer a rhythmical framework in order to let it even quality as music. Towards the end of the track list, we got a handful of tracks that broadly resemble what his future musical output would eventually transform into, featuring some piano, singing and a guitar, but the rest of the record ... read more

I've listened to quite a lot of Tim Buckley over the past few months, and this was the one that started it all. I think it was around the beginning of 2023 that I first got interested in him, and this seemed to be the best introduction, but I honestly didn't get it yet. I could rarely hold on to a melody of his, the Jazz instrumentation mixed with the folk-y aesthetic seemed a bit peculiar and challenging, and it went from being catchy to being inaccessibly loose in a manner of seconds. Now, ... read more