The mind of Mike Kinsella is a place I'd like to visit. I love when bands just throw shit at the wall and see what sticks - a lot as it turns out. Makes you think "Woah... I could make this!" You probably couldn't, but it's nice to dream isn't it.
"The point of What of Our Nature is fundamentally in its lyrics. A protest against capitalism, artificial society, false-American promises and the spiral so many feel in the strange time everyone lives in."
Eastern European post-punk baybeee. It's music for moody forest adventures or late night drives, and thinking about how you're just a point in the timeline of a crumbing society, and the crumbling buildings that watch.
I wanna be Olli Appleyard sooo bad... What can I say I'm a sucker for an album with a stupid amount of lore, and I'm a sucker for a pretty emo boy. And the screams and the silly sounds... oh I love them so.
This album is gut wrenching in every aspect - from the emotional lyrics to the huge orchestral swells. But she's holding your hand throughout all of it, and the all the layering keeps it feeling so warm. Like a nettle blanket.
"A modern and polyphonic exploration of the traditional overtone and throat-singing from Mongolia!" This album is a river; it's an epic. The amount of sounds that I've never heard in this context before is insane.
"an ode to the sacred, yet joyous act of dancing, an album that musically guides you through a night out in the city, from the opening of possibilities as a new evening spans out ahead, to dawn's final hours"
I'd say this is their best album since wildlife. Nobody captures apathy quite like them, and the way they use song and album structure to craft the music around a theme or story is endlessly impressive to me.
Everything I learn about this album makes me love it a little more. It just feels so alive and airy and free, the guitar is beautiful. The lyrics are just as thoughtful and whimsical as the rest of it, and I'm captivated. Plus their name means desert friends.
She's doing everything, and my god does it work well together. Crystallized is an especially great example of her uniquely kind of trippy but super playful production style. And New Way out is also sooo much fun while still brutal.
It always takes a me minute to get into this album, but when Community hits I'm in. Then GZ makes for a crazy one-two punch but honestly the whole album feels like you're being pummeled from all sides. There's a lot of gems here
So I could find barely any Omani music that was available to listen to. This is good. It's nice to listen to. But it's really nothing special
Fuck me this album makes me feel awful. I am so desensitised to harrowing shit in albums, but this one really hits. And god is the description of him in the last track visceral.
I always expect Quadeca to tell me a story; I need to let him build a world around me. It's just layers. Sink into them and crawl around because this is an incredibly produced album and there's lots to find.
Guitar guitar shred shred. But like in an epic way. It's an excellent display of talent. It's a great mix of 80s theatrics, 00s production and angst, and whatever metal viking shit they inhale in Finland.
What can I say Nina Simone is an icon. She's an incredible technical pianist, performer, songwriter, and activist. Usually I consider recommending best of albums kind of cheating but she just has so many frickin gems.
It doesn't make the sun shine, but it does make me notice the sunlight just a little more. It has everything that I love about Loyle Carner - soft voice, introspective lyrics, jazzy instrumentals like gentle waves - it's nice I guess.
It's just very solid rock music. The guitar work is super engaging and catchy, and the baselines are fun (especially in khoeey ankhein)... This kind of rock can easily get repetitive, but the Sufi elements keep it feeling fresh.
Something about this album just takes over my entire body and makes me feel everything and nothing. The lyrics are stupid, his voice is stupid, the instrumentation is fine. But god it's electrifying. Must be witchcraft or something
I cannot express how glad I am that they hired Camille. Her voice can be so angelic, it can be so playful, and it can be brutal. They're so good at structuring songs in a way that elevates them so much, and of course the guitar playing is to die for.
This album is funnn. Sure I didn't look deep enough into all the corners of Japanese music, but you can't say I didn't find a gem. I imagine this is what the Beatles would make if they were together in the 90s.. And in Japan
Aaaa. I love how raw this album is while still being so complex. It feels like it's been ripped right from their soul to cause carnage. "Greep plays with the lyrics like a cat toying with a dead mouse" I live for that
I'm manic - can you tell.. It's just hype. Is it good? I can't tell. I'm too busy being hype.
This has so many instruments and rhythms that my ears have not yet heard and it makes it all so intriguing. This is why we should be listening to music from everywhere because this is so special
This album holds such a special place in my heart. It reminds me of friends, of spring, of how beautiful community can be. It paints a picture of the London music scene which is so vibrant and alive. A lot of love went into this project.
This album conjures the exact same feeling as stargazing in summer. It's dark, but it is warm, and there's a hopefulness that is so beautiful. I Love all the places this album goes.
"The origin of music was rhythm, that's what we were taught." I love the concept of this, and I love the outcome. It's something I'd listen to when making fun breakfast; I wanna dance and just feel the joy of the morning sun. Ya know?
I feel awful,, and I wanna dance. When I listen to this album I feel like I can exist outside of time and space. It's liminal. Not quite goth not quite punk, not quite.. I love the production on this more than anything I think,
I love the world building, and the concepts of a lot of the songs, particularly Crispy Skin. It's full of little nuggets: literary references, fun rhythms, and interesting vocal techniques, but it doesn't have drastic enough highs and lows to make anything really stand out.
The backing vocals are so unique to everything else I've heard, the harmonies are a beautiful touch, and both help the whole thing just feel so full of life. It's a celebration of culture and life, which is reflected in the lyrics, but comes through so well without translation.
This album is everything. It makes me feel the same way as I did when I first heard a lot of my favourite emo albums. It's far from perfect but it also feels so lovingly made and so raw in a way that a lot of pop music doesn't.
For a month that is so devoid of life and emotion and life, this is perfect. It feels like death. It finds the emptiness inside me; fills it, and rots it from the inside. "It's relentless, yes, but it's also calculated"
So Vienna is the classical music capital of the world, but I'm not here to recommend classical music. Apparently the other thing Austria does is electronic music, and this one's pretty fun funky and fresh.
"I want this album to feel like you've gone to space and it's almost identical to Doncaster." I love it when an album feels like a puzzle. I love it when guitarists use loops of hypnotic rhythms over abstract lyrics. I love this album
This album isn't what I am used to and I didn't find it complex enough to massively compel me towards more of it. That said, I think the songs slap, and Twice had excellent chemistry with Megan Thee Stallion.
I love the energy that this album has, and I love the incorporation of Irish folk music, it all just does such a good job of immersing you in the world of Kneecap. "The whole thing sums up the fun and the craic of our gigs."
To the left you will see Katunes which is a monthly album recommendation that I have been giving to my friend Sam for the past 2 years: right is an album from a specific country that gets randomly generated every month; middle is an album that was released the month before; and left is just an album I wanted to recommend. The litte albums on top are ones that I thought about recommending but didn't.
Below you will see the most recent playlist I have made. This one's a princess playlist which I made for a princess party with the help of some of my dearest friends :)