Here are a few quickie thoughts about music I’ve bumped into lately.
Morgan Packard, Airships Fill The Sky
Genre: Lofi/SciFi/Ambient/Experimental
This lovely album put a smile on my face from the first track. This guy knows sound. What’s cool, what’s moody, what’s cliche and what’s not. I don’t know anything about Morgan Packard, but I’d buy anything he makes. Subtle beats, unique instrumentation, fx like alien industrial machinery brought into a foley room for a movie soundtrack. Love it!
Serenity Dub 2.1 p.m.
Genre: Electro-dub
Just as advertised by the name, this one’s laid back instrumental dub with all the sharp edges filed off. Compared to the driving beats of Hallucinogen, these guys are sitting in the back seat blowing a spliff. They let the loops play from beat 1 to beat 1000, allowing the electronic and vocal fx drift over the groove like it’s a beach day, every day. Good production.
The Field , From Here We Go To Sublime
Genre : Lo-fi/Instrumental Electro-pop
As close as you’re going to get to remixed Royksopp without the vocals. Love it from beginning to end! Fabulous music and production.
Waldeck, Ballroom Stories
Genre: Nu-jazz
If the first track doesn’t suck you in 160%, there’s something wrong with you. Happy-happy tunes inspired by 1920s jazz grooves. Not a wrong note in the album. Killer production.
Toroidh, Segervittring
Genre: Gothic/Dark Ambient/Martial
You know when you go to a museum and you can do a guided audio tour with headphones? Well, this album would be perfect if you’re doing a tour of Auschwitz. Brooding strings, explosive slow percussion, hellhound horns, death march snare, pitch-shifted speeches and nightmarish choirs. If Mahler is your bubblegum pop, this’ll be right up your alley. Production is top-notch. The mood, unforgivingly bleak.
A Challenge of Honour, Monuments
Genre : Martial/Electro-symphonic
A nice dark ambient with lots of flamming toms, minor key synth-strings and King-Lear-important horns. Gack on the amateurish " Polyphonic Spree " yoga-dude vocals and the samples that aren’t properly EQ-ed into the mix. Because of that, production is spotty.
16volt, Fullblackhabit
Genre: Indie Hard Rock
Mostly straight forward rock, but not afraid of a hard funky beat behind Tony Iommi -que guitar and whispery screamed vocals. Shriekback-ish stadium rock with small club dynamics. Great production.
Slick Idiot, Xscrewciating
Genre: Dance
Some tracks sound like early Yello remixed with crappy disco/pop vocals. Good teen dance music. Excellent production – but often sounds too slick (read compressed) for it’s own good, like it’s made exclusively to keep you on the dance floor at 2:00am.
Deadbeat, Journeyman’s Annual
Genre: Electro-Dub
Dark, low-key dub. The kind of album that you might never notice because it verges on ambient. Great grooves, but somehow it almost seems like it never get’s off the ground. Track 8 broke the spell for me: the intrusive vocals just turns into second-rate stoner reggae. But the rest rubbed me all the right ways. Superb production.