A general tip to Internet music aesthetic surfers: If you don't pick up the rough edges of your aesthetic of choice's origin to contrast all the smooth and shiny bits, what else will your work use to stand out from the pack?
EVERYTHING IS SO FUCKING LOUD
The tunes are probably a bit too loose and improvy for the album to truly stand out in the Dwyer catalogue, and purists will probably question the necessity of tempuraing the hell out of the 4-tracker the album was recorded on. All of that still doesn't detract that much from how utterly satisfying it is to listen to. I'm pretty happy to hear that you can slow Coachwhips down to a crawl and give John Dwyer something resembling a decent microphone without ... read more
The sonic equivalent of grabbing a live wire with both hands. In many ways, Ozigiri pulls off a hell of a balancing act here. The album reaches for basically every single impactful and pop culture adjacent electronic music composition technique that can be flattened onto a 4/4 pulse. Rampant plundering of Mick Gordon's DSP library, x5 speed mentasm blasts, djent breakdown death, screaming stadium d&b synth chords like "In Silico" by Pendulum isn't already 20 years old, ... read more
I think the intimate and hushed facade of this album betrays the absolutely overflowing cornucopia of ideas that it is built on. There just seems to be so much here for so many different types of hip hop and r&b listeners to latch on to. Samba applies his own reduction filter to it all, and it almost always comes out on the other side fitting neatly into the album's overall framework, without streamlining the music to the point that it becomes derivative. The second verse of ... read more
Interesting stuff. The intersection between Memphis rap and horrorcore in 2026 is quite thoroughly mapped out. So, burrowing as deep down into a sludge pit of existential dread as this EP does feels like a logical next step. From my limited experience with this niche of hip hop, there seems to be a lot of material covering stories of things that have happened, but a lot less covering WHY they happened. This EP is a bit too short to really get into the weeds on that front. However, the blown-out ... read more
It's almost too on the nose for a band like Sunn O))) to just put Rothko smack in the middle of the cover of their album. 79 minutes, about five chords and not a friend to be had. Even the Black on Grey series felt like less of a slog to get through than this. Then again, I've never been much of a purist.
NR
@doofy was right. It's been a long time since a record that is so unflinchingly materialist (as in pertaining to matter) manages to evoke this many feelings and memories in me. I mostly turned my nose up at Steve von Till's latest album (it has a lot of the same feeling and covers similar themes as this album does), as I do not want humans to resign themselves to being chained to nature and all of the suffering that comes with those chains. This album, though...let's just say it ... read more
Ya call that drum programmin', Mr. Acoustic Techno Machine? Probably should've called up Bjørn Svin for some help tying this Reddit tier rave parody together.
There just isn't a whole lot of meat on the bone here, at least not once you've weathered the main 8-bit arpeggio fire. The framework for the EP itself is not a bad idea, as Japanese DTM scene inhabitants like kamome sano have used it previously to great effect. Unfortunately, unless you underpin said framework with some tangible pop songwriting, it's all too easy to wind up flailing aimlessly on the surface of chiptune aesthetics without making much of a dent. Maybe the next ... read more
More meandering and pedestrian pastoral atmospherics that, unfortunately, cancel out Mike Cooper's sense of the uncanny from his solo works. After having heard Keiji Haino explode into a whirlwind of flowers on "Here" and Mark McGuire successfully compressing the same pastoral joy into song on "When You're Somewhere", this album just feels a bit like never fully taking the training wheels off.
Phew. Another blistering showcase of just how much juice a single formula can net you, similar to "Extra Hard" by DJ Myosuke. Considering how much Japan absolutely loves European continental aesthetics, it's a small miracle that the goth artcore framework Team Grimoire uses here winds up wasting so little of your time. Sure, there's all the organ melodrama and baroque choral excesses you'd ever need, but it's all doled out so precisely and meticulously along super ... read more
Alright, let's break down the menu first:
- "Yudofu" is tofu simmered in konbu broth and served with, in my experience, fairly broth-adjacent condiments like togarashi (chili powder) or just straight katsuobushi.
- "Nikogori" is jellied beef or fish, which simply looks like a remix of aspic to my western palate.
- "Ohitashi" is a selected green vegetable, often from the brassica family, blanched quickly and steeped in dashi (my guess is a fairly light one ... read more
After reading Scalameriya's artist interview for Void+1, I get the feeling that a) the people around him don't have the courage/inclination to tell him "no", or b) he has been told "no" so many times that he produces out of spite and defiance. Unfortunately, when you combine either scenario with speculative art as the main gateway to truth, the resulting artistic expression will very often fall victim to the artist's own bullshit. In this case, ... read more
Oof. A whole hour of shameless sample jacking and amens that were teleported in from 1993. I don't care if twelve dozen bass music critics will go to bat for this. I'm still not buying. There is no reason to chow down on nostalgia bait like this when guys like Tim Reaper and Jack Smooth are still making music.
Another rare full-length offering from a J-core artist where the "I don't actually need more than three minutes" tag doesn't feel that far off. For the most part, Tanchiky seems to both hold onto and dispense with both hardcore and video game tradition in the correct amounts, so that he avoids both lagging behind and running head-first into meme death. It also helps that the guy can write a pretty decent tune (being in a rhythm game scene that overdoses on piano virtuosity ... read more
A 20-minute angst assault that, thankfully, gives you a bit more to work with than a series of machine-gunned power chords. Everything is so loud and peaky that the drops are basically spiking out of the top end of the spectrum analyzer, and Josh Ang gnashes his teeth on mic so furiously that the glimmers of light on "e n d l e s s" work really well in contrast. Why not have Jimmy Kimmel put these guys on next?
I can appreciate that US dubstep producers actually are interested in making some counterweight to their rampaging stadium dubstep dinosaur colleagues. However, I'm also not sure how you would pull this off by taking the sparse and reduced route. The reason for this is that you'll likely end up in the same territory that the bongers in Swamp 81 and Deep Medi Musik already carved out more than ten years ago. This EP, unfortunately, is not much of an exception from that norm.
Almost shockingly danceable for something designated for the most bone-dry end of Berlin's rave scene. Mark N sends his regards.
It's probably good that someone picks up the baton from Deathspell Omega without Mikko Aspa's NSBM baggage. Going by this album, however, it sounds like the members of Veilburner agree too much, or at least, too much to perpetuate the kind of God-Satan dialectic that was showed off on albums like "Paracletus". Instead, you get piles of existential terror and anguish smothered in esotericism. Your mileage may vary, but I just don't find this as compelling as Deathspell ... read more
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Recent Review Comments
On AndrewK's review of American Football - American Football
"I'll have to check this. The fact that you and @doofy ended up on totally different ends on the rating scale, primarily due to the lyrics, makes me curious as to how much they will ultimately end up bothering me."
On Sakuzyo - Food And Musik -Japanese Food-
"@Lagrange Glad I could help! I'm not sure how representative this album is of his usual work, since it's so thoroughly a concept album. However, I do get the impression that a lot of the drama and compositional structure carries over either way."
On š©š¶š¼š¹š¹š®'s review of Pitbull - Greatest Hits
"Haha, I mean, you're reviewing Pitbull. Subtlety is not really on the menu at that point. Same thing for "L'Amour Toujours", really, which is a whole can of worms on its own. I actually don't get the impression that the vocal performance for it was just another calculated pop move. The track just meshes too well with the other lesser-known stuff Gigi was doing at the time."
On Yung Exile - ISMOKEDANOUNCEINSPRINGFIELD
"Ah, nice! Looking forward to going even further down this rabbit hole, then."
On š©š¶š¼š¹š¹š®'s review of Pitbull - Greatest Hits
"This reads a lot like my morbid fascination with the music of Gigi D'Agostino. A complete aesthetic shambles, yet so deliberate that it winds up appealing to a kernel of something personal, somewhere."
On Doofy's review of Everclear - So Much for the Afterglow
"I think I'm one of the few people on here that actually quite likes "El Distorto De Melodica", as I mainly associate it with old skating videos. Everclear were smart enough to not add vocals, as that would likely have turned the song into a RATM lite/nu metal disaster."
On Botched Invocation's review of Hieroglyphic Being - There Is No Acid In This House
"Saw him live just before COVID lockdowns kicked in globally. Can confirm that it hits. The question is just for how much longer, as HB's music springs out of pre-COVID club dynamics."
On Botched Invocation's review of Revenant Marquis - All The Pleasures Of Heaven
"In that case, it's a pretty good album title."
On š¹š¦š£ššš's review of Sachiko M, Toshimaru Nakamura & Otomo Yoshihide - Good Morning Good Night
"@svse Is this album another random algorithm winner? I'm curious as to how this got so much attention on here, considering that it was released in 2004."
On AndrewK's review of Ansome - Knucklehead
"This more or less literally describes how Nasenbluten recorded "Steelworks Requiem". It sounds like a VERY lo-fi version of this EP."
On svse's review of ä»®ę³å¤¢ćć©ć¶ [Virtual Dream Plaza] - ä»®ę³å¤¢ćć©ć¶ [Virtual Dream Plaza]
"If your starting point for ambient music is that it should go somewhere, I think you're at odds with slushwave/vaporwave as a whole. The one-two punch of liminality and familiarity/deja vu is the key driver for the genre, and it only works non-sloppily as long as there is some retention of original retrofuturist critique. I'd argue that VDP is emblematic of the time when that gradually ceased to be the case, simply because the vibe became more important than the message."
On Botched Invocation's review of Boo Williams - The Best of Boo Williams
"Considering how vibe-based music is now, classic Chicago house would be due for another massive algorithmic resurgence, if it was actually concerned with keeping algorithmic pace. It is not, and so we get "Break My Soul" instead."
On Doofy's review of Old Saw - The Wringing Cloth
"Those track titles are tremendous. I hope the music lives up them when I take a listen later."
On homuli's review of Cosmos - Tears
"Looks like Erstwhile has it on Bandcamp, too: https://erstwhilerecords.bandcamp.com/album/tears"
On svse's review of TURQUOISEDEATH - Guardian
"@Gonam I'm not dismissing the album simply due to its focus on style. What's interesting to me is how people who come into drum 'n bass from different backgrounds wind up on either side of the dichotomy, and how this has moved the entire genre further down the highway to high definition (with the problems mentioned in this review being some of the side effects of that)."
On svse's review of TURQUOISEDEATH - Guardian
"@svse Alright then, I'll add that write-up to my list of projects. Need to record and edit some mixes for the summer first, but I'll try to gather some thoughts on this topic after that."
On svse's review of TURQUOISEDEATH - Guardian
"@dreamdesert I'd say the kind that places less focus on escapism and individual validation (not that I'm totally against just making some bangers, of course), and more on rhythmic experimentation and the subsequent exploration of adjacent cultural themes and narratives this gives room for. You can get there in a number of ways, like the Detroit-London connection on the "Naine Rouge EP" by Sinistarr, or "Radio Therapy Pt. 1" by Sci-Clone, which is another showcase for black jazz and improvisational tradition (Nathan Haines comes from a big jazz family). I'd put the guys in Machinecode up there, too. They're usually too concerned with pushing the envelope rhythmically to fall into the "cyberpunk aesthetic" trap."
On svse's review of TURQUOISEDEATH - Guardian
"Nice. I like a lot of these arguments, and you and some other people in the main review thread basically covered most of my thoughts on the album. There's a LOT to say about the 4K Ultra treatment that basically every creative current in drum 'n bass has gone through since the late 90s. In many ways, this album drags ambient and 4/4 jungle kicking and screaming out of the lounge and into the same style-over-substance dilemma. Maybe I should cover that more in detail with a review of my own after all."
On tha138's review of Hacienda - Sunday Afternoon
"Getting a <10 review almost seems better than getting this."
On Botched Invocation's review of Excision - X Rated
"I think Excision was around early enough to see what was going on with the likes of Dub Police and Flux Pavilion across the pond: basically a constant compression and saturation of space, until the pressure gets as intense and ultra-rigid (and ultra-unbearable, depending on who you ask) as it needs to be for the US festival circuit. Since space is finite, working like this kinda feels like a scorched earth approach. Where do you even go after the stadium dust clears?"
On svse's review of ŲÆŲ§Ų±ŪŁŲ“ Ų·ŁŲ§ŪŪ [Dariush Talai] - The Instrumental Radif of Persian Music: Radif of Mirza Abdollah
"Ah, yeah, I'm more willing to buy the argument that we aren't as in control of our tastes as we might think. The way you wrote it initially just felt like getting an entire bottle's worth of blackpills thrown in my face. I mean, why bother criticizing something that's just a vibe anyway?"
On svse's review of ŲÆŲ§Ų±ŪŁŲ“ Ų·ŁŲ§ŪŪ [Dariush Talai] - The Instrumental Radif of Persian Music: Radif of Mirza Abdollah
"If everyone is so boneheaded about music that aesthetic prescriptions are reduced to posturing, and if everyone's tastes are simply arbitrary, what's the point of writing reviews to begin with? Is everyone on AOTY just clout chasing?"
On helix's review of Sachiko M, Toshimaru Nakamura & Otomo Yoshihide - Good Morning Good Night
"Reviews in haiku format? I'm here for it"
On svse's review of Cecil Taylor - The Cecil Taylor Unit
"Dude... You're 20 years old. No matter what shortcomings within the field of aesthetics you may have, I'd strongly encourage you to look at them as unexplored terrain and untapped philosophical potential, rather than a sin that you must atone for. It'll probably make a discussion around the gamification of music and how it skews our perspectives easier to navigate, for instance. Don't get lost in the sauce."
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