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1albumaday · 3 years

Text

2020

The Chats - The Clap

Easy-peasy punk rock album

Loving - If I am only my thoughts

Charming sun-dappled folk-pop, clean, gentle melodies

Steve Spacek - Houses

iPhone/iPad recorded, latino and jazz accented dance/house beats

Ghali - DNA

Total Flop and failed expectations. Mishmash of bland and frivolous lyrics and arrangements.

King Krule - Man Alive!

Alienating, violent, romantic, anguishing, doomed, noir / jazz, post-punk, soul, dubstep, electronic, garage rock, hip-hop

Justin Bieber - Changes

Disappointing comeback - boring r&b with zero sex appeal and cheesy lyrics and all-the-same songs

Guided by voices - Surrender your poppy field

Unusual time signatures, song lengths, and baroque-prog structures - mature rock and sometimes pixie / 80s dreamy

Corrections - Simply Activities

80s new wave and post punk nostalgia - cheesy vocals at times - first half more solid than second

Swim Mountain- If

A lovely mix of indie and funktronica, synth pop, r&b

Caribou - Suddenly

Sly and sofishticated sound design flits between uk garage disco and more - some tracks way less strong than others

Grimes - Miss Anthropocene

Mix “Ethereal nu metal”, ambient, dance, electronic, drum’n’bass, country - is violent and dark but sexy, delicate and dreamy

Porridge Radio - Every Bad

A dissonant lush indie rock sometimes dreamy sometimes dark and ironic with mantra-litany dusky lyrics from peaceful to desperate

Four Tet - Sixteen oceans

Wind instruments, synths and drum patterns gradually fade to calming ambient sounds, intense and meditative but also danceable and powerful

Kamaiyah - Got it made

Short, stripped-down, bubbling keyboards and drum-machine handclaps. NO current rap trends. windows-down bass-rattle record of one person’s confidence in her own sound and charisma

Poolside - Low season

Funk percussions, retro synths, pop and disco influences + indie vocals

Morioh Sonder - Is this psychedelia?

Surf pop and psych rock, dreamy post punk influences, danceable and whimsical

KEYAH/BLU - Sorry, I forgot you were coming

Perfect blend of rap, rnb, experimental pop, dark rhythms textured electronics, intimate tales

TOPS - I feel alive

Pop, radiant and 80s romantic with a contemporary experimental palette

The Chats - High risk behaviour

Classic old-school pure punk / cheerily undemanding fun

NIN - Ghosts V: Together

Buzzy ambient, melodic hooks, emotional palette of sounds

NIN - Ghosts VI: Locusts

Together’s opposite, anxiety-inducing, despairing horns, breathing and devouring sounds.

Roger and Brian Eno - Mixing Colours

Feels like a balm for these anxious times

Fiona Apple - Fetch the bolt cutters

Handclaps, chants, makeshift percussion, echoes, whispers, screams, breathing, jokes, dog barks, rattling blues. Contains no conventional pop forms. freeing and powerful.

The Weeknd - After Hours

Satisfying collision of new wave, dream pop, R&B, synth-pop nostalgia

BC Camplight - Shortly After Takeoff

Jazzy eighties rock with some icy funk and electronic pop, painfully personal and uneasy but so self-deprecating it speaks like your best friend

Rone - Room with a view

Deft splicing of beats-based electronics and dance music with classical influences. 21st century baroque chords, snatches of conversations, speeches, children’s voices

Other Lives - For their love

Bluesy acid-rock, dreamy meditation sounds, eerie string-crescendos, music for the afterlife

Lil Uzi Vert - Eternal Atake

Drill-influenced rapping, melodic crooning, trends-aware hip-hop beats, untouchable pop sound production

Squarepusher - Be up a hello

Frantic breakbeats littered with echoes of classic jungle, hardcore, and drum’n’bass, ’90s drill’n’bass, glitchy 8-bit chaos

The Orielles - Disco Volador

Cosmic, playful, funky dreamy indie pop, shuffling organs, woozy guitar, shimmy-shimmy hand percussion

Portico Quartet - We welcome tomorrow

Perfect dreamy sequel of ‘Memory streams’

Charlie XCX - how i’m feeling now

Quarantine creation / 2020 romance manifesto of club-pop, trap, k-pop, video game sounds, fuzzy synths and crackling bass

Holy Fuck - Deleter

Trippy, psychedelic tapestry of euphoric escapism, ‘90s dance, glitchy beats, airy vocals, experimental electronics

Luge - Luge

Energetic and playful avant-garde and quirky math rock, zolo?

Good With Parents, Triple Stephens - Comments & Reflection

Playful indietronica synth pop + classical instruments

Wishing - None of this was your fault

Lo-fi indie, ambient, slowcore w/ fragile lyrics

Bibio - Sleep on the wing

Indie folk treated like ambient / a gorgeous soundscape of strings, guitars and flutes, feelings of loss, hope and escape. Perfect picture of tranquil countryside memories

Piotr Kurek - A Sacrifice Shall Be Made / All The Wicked Scenes

Electroacoustic experimental, meditative-ritualistic atmospheric music / conceived for theatrical performances

Military Genius - Deep Web

Meditative ambient, retro-futurist soundscapes / hypnagogic pop, dark, abstract and mysterious / early ‘70s folk interjecting jazz-brass sections

Jockstrap - Wicked City

Melancholy waltz and winsome ballads, fluttering strings, soft piano glissandi mixed with gnarly and distorted hip-hop beats, buzzing guitars and synths / cherubic vocals, pcmusic-style manipulated at times

Georgia - String Token

Experimental ambient electronic, minimal, melodic, futuristic, hypnotic and grim

EVOL - Madball Manners

Lingering experimental rave electronic, hardcore, techno

Upsammy - Zoom

Playful, sampling, abstract IDM, ambient techno, melodic and rhythmic, surreal, futuristic, sparkling synths and billowing pads

Tomasz Kunicki - Muzyka dla Świątyń

Playful and abstract IDM, glittering synths, obscure pads, glitchy and bleepy

Tomasz Kunicki - The sound is gone, where did it go, I have no idea

Very bassy and very dubby IDM, atmospheric ambient and loopy electronics

Kate NV - Room for the moon

80s new wave, progressive electronic, synth pop, cornucopia of melodies and genres. Wriggling synths, chirping flutes, warm baselines, jazzy sax, woodwinds, marimba. Russian girly vocals cartoon theme-song-like.

Khruangbin - Mordechai

Psychedelic / funk rock with some soul, dub, lounge, poolside disco - exotic and atmospheric

Dalai Lama - Inner world

Chanted mantras rhythmically woven into wafting new-age flutes, chimes, strings and free-form guitar picking.

K-Lone - Cape Cira

Tropical ambient house, warm, lush, soft. Zen yet bouncy rhythms. Digital and analogue recordings, at times feels like you’re underwater.

Arca - KiCk i

Experimental industrial club rhythms with reggaeton and folk influences

The Beths - Jump Rope Gazers

Sleek and personal indie rock, romantic ballads, more sentimental and slow than the previous album

J Lloyd - Kosmos

Tasteful soul and funk pop in 25 tiny tracks, charming low-key, rich textures, good vibes

Julek Polsk - Tesco

Dissonant, ominous, dense, post industrial ambient, noise, sound collage, deconstructed club music

Taylor Swift - folklore

Folk/chamber pop, indie folk, bittersweet, mellow, melancholic ballads

Bill Callahan - Gold Record

Contemporary folk, warm and deep vocals, pastoral, peaceful and melancholic

Mura Masa - R.Y.C.

Indietronica, post-punk revival, catchy indie/synth pop, early 2000 EMO, lots of hip collabs

Fontaines D.C. - A Hero's Death

Post-punk, indie rock, art punk, gothic rock, raw deadpan male vocals, darkish and melodic

RAMzi - cocon

Tribal House, ambient dub, balearic beats, downtempo, hypnotic and tropical

Auguste - Indust

Experimental ambient electronic + field recordings, glistening and splintered sounds

Paul Blackford - Betamax

Dreamy and hypnotic trip hop, downtempo, synth wave

A.G.Cook - 7G

49-track archival collection of sketches, cover versions, volatile lab experiments, divided into 7 discs. a glimpse at the whirring cogs beneath hyperpop’s pristine casing.

Clap clap - Liquid Portraits

Experimental musical tapestry and collage / high-energy concoction of unpredictable and wavy rhythms, exotic vocals and heavy, relentless bass and drums / UK Bass, ambient dub, footwork + far-flung field recordings

E.M.M.A. - Indigo Dream

Progressive electronic, ambient house / 80s melodic atmospheres, goosebump-inducing synths, whimsical melodies and classical leanings

Leif - Music for screen tests

Performed live @ Barbican as a 54min session ambient / drone film soundtrack (Andy Warhol's Screen Tests)

Crack Cloud - Pain Olympics

Post/art/dance punk, experimental rock - energetic, anxious, apocalyptic, dark, male vocals

Document - A Camera Wanders All Night

Post-punk, noise rock, past-hardcore, distorted and raw male vocals

Keisuke Matsuda - Clumsily Back Up

Experimental electronic with playful hummed vocals, lo-fi beats, melodic, youthful, dreamlike

Coi Leray - Now or Never

Gen-Z superstar, melodic flows, bouncy trap, energetic killer lyrics

The Ophelias - For Luck

Artful, string-laden indie-pop EP, grungy dream-pop, a quarantine remake and a Joni Mitchell cover

Romare - Home

Deep house, UK Bass, groovy and detailed sonic palette + soul and funk influences - dancefloor highs and after party wind-downs

Mulatu Astatke, Black Jesus Experience - To Know Without Knowing

Ethio-Jazz, Cuban, funk, reggae workout + rapid-fire rap or Afrobeat drums

Good Doom - Spider Temple Valley

Experimental psych-wave, gentle and peaceful lo-fi, dreamy and oozy with flute, sax and field recordings

Ralph Kinsella - Abstraction

Dark ambient experimental / instrumental electronic

IDLES - Ultra Mono

Post-punk, garage punk, hardcore, noise rock, raw male vocals, dense, energetic, angry, political

Mild Orange - Mild Orange

Alternative, Indie rock, dream pop,

Skinshape - Umoja

Experimental psychedelic rock - afro beats - afroswinig - funky - world music

Vulfpeck - The Joy of Music, The Job of Real Estate

Mixed bag of funk, jazz, soul, self-indulgent? classical reworks, progressive electronic, melodic and uplifting, groovy drums and bass lines

OPN - Magic OPN

Manipulated and sequenced archive radio and sounds collages as interludes, uncanny processed voices, poppish trope ballads, art pop, sentimental and surreal, dense, progressive hypnagogic electronic and more

Pa Salieu - Send them to coventry

Combined dancehall, Afrobeats, hip-hop and grime. Scattered drums, stop-start energy, handpicked words and rhymes. skips from trap trills to baile breakdowns.

Mama Ode - Tales & Patterns of the Maroons

Classic hip-hop album with jazz, funk, blues and reggae influences. Creole Sega Rap Roots music, afro-drum patterns and grooves

Tony Allen, Hugh Masekela - Rejoice

Live sessions of unique fusion of afrobeat and swing-jazz with lyrics in English, Yoruba and Zulu

Miley Cyrus - Plastic Hearts

Pop rock, 80s synth-rock, grit and freewheeling sense of fun, rough-hewn panache of vocal performance, bittersweet eclectic and sentimental / collabs with rock idols

2019

LCD Soundsystem - Electric lady sessions

Live recording with some new wavy covers

Harry Styles - Fine line

Not catchy / mediocre pop

Boothe - 8 or 9 Walled Room

10 minutes of playful electronic and soft vocals

Good with parents - Good with parents

Clever indietronica synth pop, fun + ironic + millennial + sax

Taylor Skye - Kode fine & sons

Synth, beats and pop vocals

Famous - England

Wonky pop punk mixed to electronic sounds and raw spoken vocals

Orville Peck - Pony

Simple pop rock Johnny Cash style ballads and 80s

Sassy 009 - Kill Sassy 009

Distorted electro pop with strong vocals + post-punk notes

J-Walk - Mediterranean Winds

Jazzy electronica with glassy synth pads cheesy and chilled out

Mattiel - Satis Factory

Punky garage rock strong female vocals

Ross Backenkeller - Come Around

Country dreamy and melancholy guitar and vocals

Legss - Writing Comedy

Art rock and a dark underbelly of post-punk + topnotch spoken track and electronic sounds

BEA1991 - The Lost Demo EP

Trip-hop with Bjork-style vocals

BEA1991 - Brand New Adult

Chamber folk and yacht rock meld with R&B and trip-hop

Matt Maltese - Krystal

Lo-fi flowy bedroom pop breakup album

Faye Webster - Atlanta Millionaires Club

Folk-pop, mellow and melancholy soul with an r&b tinge

Infinite Bisous- Period

Soothing and warm bedroom night album

Achille Lauro - 1969

Trap changed into rock with romanticised lyrics

Jerkcurb - Air Con Eden

Indie-psych and retro Americana, atmospheric, sensitive, wobbly

Octo Octa - Resonant Body

Breakbeats and house bangers

ALASKALASKA - The Dots

Jazz fusion, disco rhythms and high-gloss art rock

Orphan - Yijoda

Glitchy and sharp electronics + ambient-atmospheric sounds

Honeymoan - Body

Avant-garde pop tapestry of beats and synths with playful vocal

U-Bahn - U-Bahn

Traditional new wave DEVO-moulded, Hypnagogic pop, art-punk, some vaporwave synth sounds

Hail Conjurer - Erotic Hell

Obscure and raw Finnish black metal

Ride for revenge - Chapter of alchemy

Quality black metal with long and short tracks pretty smooth

Boys Age - Neverchanging, Neverending

Lo-fi, slow-tempo, soul, r&b, mellow tracks with sad very low vocals

MorMor - Some place else

Indie-pop with sweet synths and delicate vocals

Felicita - hej!

Overproduced pop dance hits broken down into harsh and jarring staccato melodies, hissing ambient and screams

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Ghosteen

Endlessly giving and complex meditation on mortality and our collective grief, scored by synths, pianos, and electronics

Portico Quartet - Memory Streams

Ethereal keyboards, hypnotic grooves, layered post-rock textures mixed with electronic, ambient and magnetic jazz build-ups

Charles Rumback + Ryley Walker - Little common twist

Mellow and pastoral folksy guitar melodies and soft drums + ambient tones, drone electronic

Shadowax - Nikolai Reptile

Effervescent techno and mutant bass jams

The Rhythm Method - How do you know I was lonely?

Ostensibly witty and warm pop songs from hip hop to indie and electronic about romance and millennial youth

Martin Dupont - Accident of Stars

80s kinda goth new wave full of electronics, guitars synths and clarinets

Raime - Planted

Latin American and Chicago footwork influences merged with alien sounds, half-heard voices, dark and rhythmic bass and percussions

Sunn 0))) - Pyroclasts

Sunn 0))) - Life Metal

Slow-motion drone feels like a religious ritual / pipe organ and cello, guitars webbing together the space between notes

Special Request - Vortex

Breakbeat barnstormers and house epics, with room for bleep, electro and gabber

Caterina Barbieri - Ecstatic Computation

Oscillating sequencers, rhythmic pulsations, cascades of synthesiser melodies echoing dance music/new age

Battles - Juice B Crypts

Playful electronic wizardry, dense array of beats, bleeps and squelches, loopy keyboards and guitars, ecstatic vocals

Haruomi Hosono - HOCHONO HOUSE

Home-recorded aesthetic, funk shaped into minimalist space-age lounge music

Florist - Emily Alone

Thoughtful, calming and melancholic, full of hushed, enveloping guitar sounds and gentle vocals

Spencer Radcliffe - Hot Spring

Alt-country, indie falk americana, very relaxed,pastoral and wry poetics

Ciamkam - Play-doh Dog

Noise ambient / screeching, dissonant, surreal, ominous

Equiknoxx - Eternal Children

UK soundsystem style, reggae groundings, earthy dancehall with a vast range of puzzling vocalists

Eh hahah - Fissure

Experimental deconstructed electronic, sound collage, glitches and post-club music

Upsammy - Wild Chamber

Lucid shades of IDM, bleep techno, perky synths and frazzling hi-hats, polyrhythmic drum patterns

Otik - Blasphemy

Fresh, vibrant, dark experimental club music, techno + dance + electronic

Shanti Celeste - Tangerine

Tech / ambient / deep house, breakbeat, rhythmic and mechanical yet dreamy

Bez - Banki Mydlane

Dream pop, shoegaze, noise pop, space rock, reverberated female vocals + spoken word

Yu Su - Roll with the punches

Ambient dub, downtempo, tribal ambient, sampling, mellow, atmospheric with female vocals

Drive45 - Dried up

Bitpop, Artpop, indietronica, quirky and playful, androgynous vocals

Lala &ce - Le son d’apres

French hip hop, trap, cloud rap, alternative b&b, dancehall / sparse dark and ominous, warm female vocals

Leif - Loom Dream

Tribal ambient / ambient techno + field recordings / pastoral, ethereal, atmospheric

deathcrash - Sundown (a collection of home recordings)

Slowcore, drone ambient, post-punk, fragile male vocals

FEET - What’s inside is more than just ham

Post-punk, indie-rock, dance-punk, sarcastic, playful, technical, male vocals

Coi Leray - EC2

Trap, hyphy, pop rap

Ariwo- Quasi

Dub techno, afro-cuban jazz, ambient techno, chants, programmed beats, pulsating relentless rhythms and percussions, loud sax

Floating Points - Crush

Strikingly melodic and elegant, cinematic, frantic and distorted rhythms, shuddered synths, vibrant breakbeats, sampling, UK garage nodding

Jacques Greene - Dawn Chorus

Bittersweet, sad but triumphant, mix of experimental electronic and lightweight techno + field recordings, hazy sampled textures, distorted drones + disco house + percussions + spoken word

Men I Trust - Oncle Jazz

Indie electronic, minimal, chillout downtempo, dreamy female vocals, jazzy

Raveena - Lucid

R&B, soul, experimental, pop, groovy, jazzy and dreamy, with some field and spoken words recordings

2018

Shit and Shine - Very high

Lazy hippie funk with slowed rnb vocals

Saloli - The deep end

New Age-inspired delicate only-synth music

Adrianne Lenker - abysskis

Guitar and sweet and warm vocals

Ever ending kicks - Ideas relayed

Sweet lo-fi similar to the previous two

Negative Gemini - Bad Baby

Solid synth pop with dreamy intimate vocals

Okay Kaya - Both

melancholy bedroom-pop sarcastic and harsh lyrics

Trust Fund - Bringing the Backline

Witty yet melancholy self-aware pop-rock

Jockstrap - Love is the key to the city

A fusion of Bossa Nova, 1930s Disney-esque orchestra, and coarse electronica

Noah Cyrus - Good Cry

Pop and rnb debut album with a bit of gospel and melancholy

Carla dal Forno - Top of the pops

Alternative indie electronic, subtle instrumental backdrops with plaintive vocals

Lala Lala - The lamb

Alternative/Indie rock with grunge tones and personal and warm vocals

Diamond Thug - Apastron

Progressive but dreamy pop, graceful vocals

Denh Izen - Storage Solutions

Dark and charming sounds with warm and distorted vocals, desperate but calm

Imperial Triumphant - Vile Luxury

New York Jazz mixed with top-notch black metal great for a sci-fi dystopian movie - especially Cosmopolis

Oliver Coates - Shelley’s on Zenn-La

Beat-oriented electronic music, sublime cello and synths

Dylan Carlson - Conquistador

drone-metal imaginary Western mostly solo electric guitar

Project Pablo - Come to Canada you will like it

Dozy laid back deep house with jazzy chords and subtly swinging drums

Ryley Walker - The Lillywhite Sessions

Dave Matthews Band tribute with proggy folk, primitive guitar, free improv, Chicago jazz-rock on darker tones

Grouper - Grid of Points

Empty room, piano and voice slip through your fingers like water

Kali malone - Cast of Mind

Glacial synth tones mapped to acoustic woodwind and brass

Likes - New Pedal

Short tracks of fun glitch / hypnagogic pop

Jake Tobin - Fifth Thought

Fun and whimsical take on classical sax sounds and guitars

Jake Tobin - 135

Avant-prog / jazz fusion / romanticism / off-kilter melodies / psychedelic chords with the emotion and aesthetic of bedroom pop

Twig Twig - Darkworld Gleaming

Experimental pop, whimsical instrumentation, lo-fi uplift, beats and loops

George Clanton - Slide

Cult 2020s electronic born from vaporware influences mixed with whispery chillwave and downtempo R&B, feels like a 90s rave in an open field, no irony

Good Doom - Mood Life

Unique, very chill, dreamy sound, incorporates world music, trip hop beats, lo fi bedroom pop, krautrock and noise

Ex:Re - Ex:Re

Husky and mellow ambient pop, dream pop? Lethargic and melancholic

Zaumne - Emo Dub

Minimalistic ominous and repetitive ambient house with ASMR-like spoken words

Ehh hahah - And the weather so breezy, man, why can’t life always be this easy?

Progressive experimental electronic, deconstructed club music, EDM, bubblegum bass, playful yet dark

Kate NV - для FOR

Progressive electronic, ambient, new age, minimalist, surreal, otherworldly and playful. wet, fleshy bleeps; bubbly, liquid noise

Leon Chang - re:treat

Mellow lo-fi hip hop, downtempo, electronic, future bass, sampling

Coi Leray - Everythingcoz

Pop rap, trap, hyphy tunes, powerful + well produced

Domenique Dumont - Miniatures de auto rhythm

Sophist-pop, balearic beat, chillwave, dreampopish, soft female vocals, lush, summery and rhythmic

Big Joanie - Sistahs

Pretty standard textbook indie-rock, post-punk with female vocals

Darto - Fundamental Slime

Haunting and spacious, deep male vocals, intriguing eerie melodies, dream state lullabies + sax and spoken word bit

Old Maybe - Piggity Pink

Chaotic post-punk, unusual time signatures, strong shouted female vocals

Brad Mehldau Trio - Seymour Reads the Constitution!

Elegant and melodic modal jazz - post-bop album, fragmented but coherent, ever changing time signature and tempo

2017

Ross Backenkeller - Bardo

Folk indie guitar melodies with honest and gentle vocals

Maruego - Tra Zenith e Nadir

Italian trap with disillusioned and ironic lyrics + cool collabs

Nervous Condition - Untitled

Forceful drums, wails of sax and commanding vocals - mix of experimental rock, post-punk, no wave, jazz

Powerplant - Dogs Sees Ghosts

Synth punk, garage punk fast and fun

Wool & The Pants - Wool & The Pants

Experimental r&b / soul / hiphop vibez pretty smooth and lo-fi

TOPS - Sugar at the gate

Soft rock tunes, vintage atmosphere, fuzzy, honey-dipped songs

Slothrust - Show me how you want it to be

Covers album with grungy sounds and good arrangements

Rone - Mirapolis

Misty synths and heavy bass lines, dreary and melancholic industrial electronics, packed with doomed vocals of all sorts of guests.

Ada Babar & Kasra Kurt - Nino Tomorrow

Weird pop and experimental DIY with MIDI keyboards and guitar, playful lyrics, video game menu music

Good Doom - New Shapes for you

Evocative, dreamy and atmospheric melodies, warm at times, chilly, spooky, grungy, dark at others, synth buzzes, glitchy drums

Phoebe Bridgers - Stranger in the alps

Atmospheric ballads for sad times, deeply personal stories of heartbreak and loss

Florist - If Blue Could Be Happiness

Indie folk, soft and atmospheric, pure gentle quiet and soft female vocals about understanding light and darkness. Swooping guitar, dots of piano notes, gentle beats that recall Simon and Garfunkel

Wishing - Heat Death

Ambient pop, lo-fi indie beats w/ soft vocals that make you feel things you haven’t felt in a while

Martyn Heyne - Electric Intervals

Ambient in the broadest sense, calm instrumental downtempo guitar-centric with electronic flourishes

Equiknoxx - Colón Man

Vivid and tactile masterful sound design, syncopated loops, wonky and scintillating rhythms

American Pleasure Club - I blew a dandelion and the whole world disappeared

Lo-fi acoustic guitar with raw male vocals

Andrea Laszlo De Simone - Uomo Donna

Progressive pop, baroque/psychedelic pop + field recordings / bittersweet and pastoral

Drive45 - Have you seen me?

Bitpop indietronic, glitch pop, sequencer, dance pop

Drive45 - System Format

Bitpop indietronic, playful video game sounds

Leon Chang - bird world

Bitpop electronic, sequencer, videogame music, future bass / uplifting mellow and playful

dynastic - SPACE/SUMMER

Glitch hop, electronic bubblegum, kawaii future bass, mellow and uptempo, cheesy sax, chaotic sounds + dance floor dnb

Darto - Human Giving

Spacey experimental electronic mixed with post-punk, warm tones, 80s synths, soft melodic vocals + spoken bits

Pregnant - Duct Tape

Indie/art/soft rock, electronic, brilliant pop tunes, dreamy yet rhythmic

2016

Ever Ending Kicks - Music World

DIY colourful dreamy hazy songs

Mild Eye Club - Skiptracing

Low-key folk dreamy with 60s 70s vintage links

Loving - Loving

Easy and dreamy pop melodies, wavy, warm and mellow

Lala Lala- Sleepyhead

Alternative/Indie rock with grunge tones and personal and warm vocals

Gruff Rhys - Set fire to the stars

Soundtrack to the homonym 2014 film set in the 50s - soft romance rock, jazz-inspired, elegant and familiar

Oliver Coates - Upstepping

Deep house, techno, footwork blended with sharp and experimental classical strings

Garden Center - Garden Center

Erratic pop music, fun and playful electronic sounds, silly vocals

Raime - Tooth

Ominus and gloomy sound of dub, electronic and post-rock / stripped down to the flesh

Amiina - Fantomas

Violin, cello, drums, percussion, metallophone, harp, ukulele and electronics fused in a contemporary classical post-rock gentle melody-focused experimentation

Jake Tobin - Sorta Upset

Short tracks of experimental rock, avant-prog - eclectic and dissonant, technical and manic

Jake Tobin - Accidentally on Purpose

Post-modern experimental pop, jazz influenced sounds, off-kilter saxophone, silly humour

Vanishing Twin - Choose your own adventure

Swathes of percussion, exotic drum beats and funky guitars merge into a cosmic blend of reverberating bleeps with jazz skits / heady voyage across sound influences

Good Doom - Hug

Good Doom - Naps

Both off-beat lo-fi with a rock twists, spacey, fuzzy, grainy sounds

Zeal & Ardor - Devil is fine

Top notch black metal merges African-American spiritual slave music and some electronic beats and sounds

Shield Patterns - Mirror Breathing

Haunting vocals and sensual cello, clarinet and piano, all wrapped up in ethereal synths

Ashley Henry - Ashley Henry’s 5ive

Complex and uplifting post-bop jazz, imaginative flare, delicate and soothing piano

Florist - The Birds Outside Sang

Lo-fi indie, ambient-dream pop,sparse, minimalist keyboard leads bordering on chilly drones + intimate and personal songwriting

CBMC - OOR

Acustic lo-fi bedroom pop with an airy tone and somber feel but still feels fresh and lighthearted

Told Slant - Going By

Slowcore indie pop/folksy emo, ‘intimate spaces in which small town kids write memories of touch, togetherness, loss, love, depersonalisation’

Kate NV - Binasu

Art pop, progressive electronic, sequencer, joyful grooves but also atmospheric and ethereal sounds, eclectic and dense, melodic female vocals

Zaumne - Przezycia

Minimal ambient techno with a couple of spoken word bits

Mauno - Rough Master

Enticingly and eclectic indie rock, smooth vocals, strings and moody guitars, delicate piano, powerful drums

Susso - Keira

Tribal house, tribal ambient, folktronica, Mande music, rhythmic and powerful chants

Phern - Cool Coma

Psychedelic pop, lo-fi, mellow and playful

Hellier Ulysses - Ulysses Hellier

Experimental rock, math rock, jangle pop mixed with post-punk, technical, lo-fi, uncommon time signatures

Brad Mehldau Trio - Blues and Ballads

Deceptively sweet-sounding jazz album, songs are played with variations and every phrase is a cliffhanger - gracefully executed + bonus of my fav song <3

2015

Adeodat Warfield - Pacific, Missouri

Synth pop with electronic beats, vaporware notes

Ross Backenkeller - Rare Please

Folk indie guitar melodies with honest and gentle vocals

Grimes - Art Angels

Immaculate and authentic, synthetic and unreal but also super pop, folk, and dance / POST-art pop?

Jake Tobin - Third and Fourth Thoughts

Short tracks of weird avant-prog where the vocals follow the melodies all the time

Florist - Holdly

Vocals move slowly and sweetly through gentle meditation sound and soft guitars

Starry Cat - Starry Cat

Indie pop, lo-fi indie, wavy and shaky, bitter-sweet and personal male vocals

CBMC - FOOTWEAR

Acustic lo-fi bedroom pop with a somber feel but still feels fresh and lighthearted nearly asmr-like vocals

Wishing - To Forget

Lo-fi indie slowcore, fuzzy synths + acoustic sounds mixed with short electronic tracks / lyrics are whispered and very intimate

Oren Ambarchi - Live Knots

Two very long live recorded tracks of propulsive drumming full of tensions and releases + droning notes, plucked strings and mournful guitar

Juxta Phona - we will not be silence

Ambient, electronic, minimal melodies over crisp, tactile beats

Khruangbin - The Universe Smiles Upon You

Psychedelic / Funk rock, rhythmic and jazzy, tropical warm and peaceful

Red Sea - In The Salon

Indie experimental rock, psychedelic pop, math rock, melodic yet uncommon time signatures

Eyeliner - Buy Now

Synth-pop/funk - vaporwave / instrumental, melodic, uplifting, lush, futuristic / great bass lines!

2014

Ricky Eat Acid - Three love songs

First half found sounds, experimental electronics, fuzzy piano loops. Second half IDM beats and keys, choir-like vocals / “might be the sound of music having a dream within a dream about music”

Jake Tobin - Torment

Jake Tobin - Life as a Clerical Error

Weird dissonant mix of avant-prog, art punk and jazz fusion but in an amazing way

Richard Dawson - Nothing Important

Brittle, crudely amplified nylon-string acoustic guitar, experimental drones, folk sketches, imitation field cries, and free jazz diversions

2013

Ever Ending Kicks - Weird priorities

Sentimental chill instrumental and colourful with gentle vocals

Gruff Rhys - American Interior

John Evans-themes concept album - witty folk oriented retro-futurist music

Michael Andrews - Spilling a rainbow

Well-crafted pop tunes, nostalgic and lighthearted memories of folk rock with a dash of avant-garde electronic haze

Pill Friends - Blessed Suffering

Lo-fi indie/emo noisy and raw with existential and stark male vocals

2012

Told Slant - Still Water

Lo-fi/bedroom-punk with folksy guitars and delicate vocals as if they could break down in tears at any moment

2010

Hype Williams - Find out what happens when people stop being polite and start gettin reel

Ypnagogic vortex of incredibly canny hard to pinpoint music with distorted spoken vocals

Zach Hill - FACE TAT

Constant restless drumming, squiggly melodic instrumental hooks, mosaics of disconnected noises, fuzzy sounds and vocals

2008

Amplifier Machine - her mouth is an outlaw

Half-improvised ambient - drone - experimental - electronic - post-rock

E. Bandel, Victory & Good Hunting - s/t

Classical, piano, folk, melancholic, haunting

2007

Seabear - The ghost that carried us away

Indie/folk multi-instrumental dynamic floating sound, warm melodies, calm and gentle vocals

HEALTH - HEALTH

A masterful noise/experimental rock with elements of post-punk, drone and electronic - disorienting rhythms, tempo-shifting, noisy outbursts

2005

The Darkness - One way ticket to hell

Hard / glam rock ballads and pop tunes

2004

The Emperor Machine - Aimee Tallulah is hypnotised

Mix of electro euro disco, post-punk, krautrock, sci-fi scores, jazz-funk. Thick dance rhythms and mind-altering synths

2002

ESG - Step Off

Sweet soul with a punk attitude, jazzy sassy vocals

Hella - Hold your horse is

Non-stop, indie-audio assault / Nintendo music / midi and electronic beats / head-spinning leading drums, very fast guitars

1998

Eels - Electro-Shock Blues

elegantly sad grief and death themed album, deeply personal, yet brilliant pop tunes, post-grunge, jazzy arrangement, archive sounds, electronics

Duster - Stratosphere

Bashful slowcore lo-fi experimental space/indie rock

1975

Bobbi Humphrey- Fancy Dancer

Funky jazz with forms of world music, soul, club music and pop

1973

Kevin Ayers - Bananamour

Progressive pop, art rock with mix of soul, r&b, reggae - choirs and country type ballads

1972

Kevin Ayers - Whatevershebringswesing

Experimental new age prog rock, semisweet tunes, lighthearted, skewed sounds

1970

Kevin Ayers - Shooting at the moon

Experimental, progressive, avant-garde, rock with jazz influences, sound recordings, excellent songwriting

6 notes · View notes

b-sidemusic · 7 years

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FEATURE:

(FROM THE ARCHIVE - Originally posted in January 2012)

FALLEN HEROES: #1: JACOB’S MOUSE

Jacob’s Mouse were a three-piece rock band from Bury St Edmunds. Between 1990 and 1995, they released three albums, one compilation and a string of EPs, earning high-profile fans in John Peel and Kurt Cobain. For the first in our new series celebrating Fallen Heroes of the local scene, B-Side's Seymour Quigley takes a guided tour of the band’s discography.

Back in the 60s and 70s, Bury St Edmunds town centre was, by many accounts, a little bit rough. Bury had its own musical dive bar, the now partially-demolished Griffin, (which stood half-proudly on the narrow strip of land between Cornhill and St Andrews Street South now occupied by Officers Club and Karooze), where local bands could “cut their teeth” and where on weekend nights and market days, mods and rockers, juiced to the nines on booze and cheap speed, would spill freely out into the marketplace, merrily beating seven shades of intoxicated shite out of each other, the Police and anyone else who happened to be standing around.

When the first wave of punk arrived in 1976-77, with bands like the Sex Pistols and The Clash pushing an agenda of Total Freedom to Express Yourself, it unwittingly helped encourage its weaker-minded disciples to take acting like a total prick in public to its logical conclusion and made punk a cause célèbre for the frothing right wing. So when The Clash visited the Corn Exchange during the Out On Parole tour of 1978 (in the face of strong opposition from the Council), popular legend has it that Bury’s punks, teds, mods and rockers were out in force and that the ensuing carnage saw blood on the streets, property destroyed, general indecency and the overall erosion of society. Whether this was the case or not – by several written accounts, there was no trouble whatsoever, The Clash signed a few autographs and everyone went home happy – so began the start of a Council-imposed 19 year ban on gigs in any public buildings within the town (Conservative towns have a long memory – until 1997, when Councillor Jackie Smith finally broke the embargo with a tentative inaugural BurySound gig, well-meaning promoter after well-meaning promoter found themselves turned away with the mantra, “When The Clash played here in 1978…” ringing in their ears).

So the big names stopped coming to town, the scene dried up, the rougher pubs were shut down, and – as is time-honoured fashion in places where creativity is stifled – Bury became a pub rock bore. Throughout the 80s, a small resistance movement of Goths, grebos and metallers kept the flame of DIY alive with local bands like The Never Never and Cutting Edge trying, but never quite managing, to lift the local scene out of the doldrums of endless cover band hell.

Then, at the dawn of the 90s, something miraculous happened. A group of KEGS students (that’s King Edward VI Upper School to you non-Bury types) – twins Hugo Boothby and Jebb Boothby on guitar and bass respectively, and singing drummer Sam Marsh – inspired by the rumblings of US alt-rock and proto-grunge (Fugazi, Minor Threat, Big Black, Pixies, Hüsker Dü) and the nightly clatter of Radio One’s John Peel show, released a 5-track, 12”-only EP through Liverish Records, an imprint set up especially for the release by much-missed second-hand record shop and local institution, The Record Pedlar. The Dot EP – with its iconic “big black dot” sleeve – didn’t set the World alight, but its mixture of new wave-meets-exploding guitar-meets-shitkicker drums-meets-screaming rage plus violins pricked up the ears of indie (which, in the early 90s, was still short for “independent”) types all over the country. Jacob’s Mouse had, in their own small way, arrived.

The Dot EP was followed in 1991 by the band’s first CD release, 8-track mini-album No Fish Shop Parking. Released on the band’s own Blithering Idiot label, and named in tribute to a chalk-drawn sign outside the Elephant & Castle pub, No Fish Shop Parkingstill sounds, even by today’s standards, absolutely furious. Recorded, like all their output, in a shed in Norfolk, No Fish Shop Parking perfectly encapsulates what it feels like to grow up, burdened by intelligence, in a town like Bury St Edmunds, with all the rage and frustration and inertia perfectly summed up in every seething groove of every twisted song. From opener Tumbleswan, which sees mournful violins collide with triumphant guitars while incomprehensible lyrics spill higgledy-piggledy over themselves, through She Is Dead (only lyrics: “She is dead… now!”), to the syncopated, nonsensical dub-jerk-guitar-aargh of Carfish, to the actually-quite-frightening Justice and, best of all, on the truly phenomenal Twist (written and recorded months before Nirvana unleashed Smells Like Teen Spirit), No Fish Shop Parkingperfectly demonstrates what can be achieved when newly-tapped talent meets genuine, simmering anger, and when Sam screams, “I’M SO CONFUUUSED!” in the dying moments of final, blistering track The Vase, you know exactly what he means.

No Fish Shop Parking earned the band a mountain of hype, a string of high-profile supports with pretty much every big indie band of the day (from the Manics and Suede, to Swervedriver and Th’ Faith Healers, to Babes In Toyland and Nirvana, whose singer – I forget his name – went on record as stating that Jacob’s Mouse were one of his favourite bands), Peel Sessions aplenty and, best of all, a record deal with influential, London-based Wiiija Records (home to Therapy?, Cornershop and, later, BiS).

The band’s first release for Wiiija, 4-track EP Ton Up, was a curious affair, with the band seemingly determined to take relatively straightforward pop songs – Motorspareis pure frantic Hüsker Dü punk, This Room carries a reggae shuffle underneath semi-spoken vocals, Oblong manages to be both obtuse and catchy – but subtly warp the edges, tempering their more rockist tendencies with avant-garde flourishes (most effectively on closer Fridge, which follows a full minute of white noise with a gigantic drum fill and none-more-Sabbath guitars). A minor triumph.

And then came I’m Scared. Their first “proper” album in that it contains 11 songs, I’m Scared marks the moment where Jacob’s Mouse began to decisively sever their ties with the outside World, and began doing exactly as they pleased. So whilst Kettleopens proceedings with a barrage of metallic angst, and album highlight It’s A Thin Sound applies dub grooves to shoegaze guitars, elsewhere things get really weird, really fast: Deep Canvas Lake is ushered along by urgent mandolins; Box Hole contemplates the nature of mortality via ear-piercing treble-shredding guitar; and Coalmine Dig eschews conventional percussion for what sounds like an army of schoolchildren employed to dispatch the contents of the music cupboard with hammers. Take that, woodblock!

If the music press – who generally gave I’m Scared baffled but appreciative reviews – weren’t quite sure what to make of Jacob’s Mouse by this point, the band’s next run of singles did nothing to help press relations. From the point of view of sheer creativity, 1993-94 was a good era for the ‘Mouse, and three EPs (the band having long since decided that nothing appearing on a single should also appear on an album) followed in swift succession: the deceptively poppy, 60s tinged, bass-led and thoroughly splendid Good, followed by the unsettling, down-beat, reverse-guitar semi-folk of Group Of 7, followed in turn by the splendidly-titled and genuinely odd Fandango Widewheels, the verses of which feature the band’s (clearly amused) neighbour reading random nonsense over angry grunge, before an unexpectedly anthemic chorus sees Sam screaming, “Ban the human being! / Kill the bastard!” Decidedly not Oasis.

Although the three EPs seemed, in isolation, somewhat disparate, when collected together and re-released by Wiiija as the 10-track Wryly Smilers compilation, their jointly fractious nature gave the songs a context and some kind of sense. It’s doubtful that there was any kind of masterplan – and, speaking many years later, Sam Marsh has indicated (in an unpublished interview for Mmmmm, Juicy! fanzine) that the band were literally throwing every idea they had down onto tape just to see what happened – but the sheer scope of Jacob’s Mouse’s creativity at this stage was truly astonishing. So whilst, on one hand, Palace – arguably the band’s finest punk moment – is an almost-unbearably exciting barrage of noise, Sag Bag sees dark subject matter (a first-hand account of a road traffic accident ending with the calm observation, “I can see there’s a bone jutting out of me”) grinding against unusual chord progressions and unexpected recorder outbursts, whilst Keen Apple – an impassioned diatribe against an un-named misogynist – comes across like gypsy psychobilly.

And then it all went really weird. In 1995, with Britpop in full swing, UK Indie Nation found itself gripped by a new-found, half-baked nationalistic desire for all things British. Blur and Oasis went head-to-head for the Number One slot as part of a pointless flesh carnival to prove absolutely nothing. Terrible bands called things like Sleeper and Powder were elevated almost overnight from backroom toilet venues to gigantic arena supports, simply on the strength of their hair. More than ever, indie labels were snapped up as credible fronts for the majors and along with the salivating A&R men, the stylists swept into town, dictating a “look”, a “sound”, an “attitude”. And did we mention cocaine? A blizzard of the stuff. A mountain of it. Well, it takes the edge off the smack.

As the music biz types of London and Manchester left their souls in a taxi somewhere between a maelstrom of outrageous fortune and an orgy of self-congratulation, a newly-received wisdom spread through the indie World: That pre-Britpop, everything had, in fact, been shit. All those records you thought you’d like at the time were, it turned out, rubbish. So unless you subscribed wholesale to the notion that only bands pushing an agenda of “Britishness” – Union Jacks, 1966, fish ‘n’ chips, The Beatles, Mary Poppins, cup o’ tea – were any good, and wore the exact clothes sported by Liam, Damon, Louise from Sleeper or one of Menswear, you were, quite frankly, dead in the water. Overnight, mighty bands who’d helped shape the sound of things to come, from Pop Will Eat Itself (who, in the mid-80s, had dared to combine metal riffs with clumsy hip-hop and creative sampling, in the process inventing The Prodigy) to Carter USM (Glastonbury-headlining indie giants whose mixture of clever-clever lyrics, Kylie arrangements and rockabilly guitars influenced misfits like Art Brut, The Indelicates and the Arctic Monkeys) were all but written out of the equation in a Stalinist putsch/proto-New Labourite misconception that the only way to learn from history is to pretend it never happened. There was, literally, no place in the World for a band like Jacob’s Mouse, and Jacob’s Mouse reacted by retreating from the World entirely. And so it was in these jingoistic times that Rubber Room, the band’s 2nd (or 4th, depending how you look at it) and final album, landed to universal bemusement in 1995.

Rubber Room is the sound of a three-piece band falling apart. It makes no sense whatsoever. Every beat of every drum, every distorted vocal, every skewered noise, every incongruous bleep and blatter and skronk that roars out of the speakers is the sound of three people gone completely insane. In terms of pop-gone-wrong extreme mentalness, at its most deranged it makes fellow artistic masterpieces of the era like the Boo Radleys’ Giant Steps and the Manics’ The Holy Bible sound comparatively tame. It is, needless to say, incredible. Of the 12 tracks on offer here, only two – unlikely single Hawaiian Vice and reasonably conventional US alt-thunderer Blither – could reasonably be described as “commercial” in any recognisable sense, but still see their vocals fuzzed up and mixed down so low as to be near-indecipherable. The rest of the album takes in looped keyboard jazz terror (Poltergeist), psychedelic dub grunge (Public Oven), unsettling acoustic/electric guitar trade-offs (Domestic) and, in general, jarring barrages of noise and confusion. But the absolute and inarguable album highlight, suicide note and distillation of all that made Jacob’s Mouse such an intensely wonderful band is Foam Face. Essentially the sound of three people playing three different songs at the same time, Foam Face is, simultaneously, a trance bass groove, a metal guitar workout, a softly-intoned paean to God knows what, and a full-on noise whiteout, culminating in the sound of a lawnmower committing suicide. To this day, no other band on a reasonably large indie label has released anything quite this unique.

By Sam Marsh’s estimation, Rubber Room sold less than a thousand copies; the band called it a day shortly afterwards, and as the 90s rumbled towards their tiresome conclusion (The Verve without Nick McCabe, Stereophonics everywhere, Turin Brakes, the much-vaunted “death” of guitar music as Fatboy Slim conquered the globe), Jacob’s Mouse were all but forgotten. In recent years, whilst one-time peers (and fellow early 90s Peel favourites) Th’ Faith Healers have reformed and found themselves embraced by the ATP set as returning heroes, Jacob’s Mouse have been seemingly happy to let rabid dogs lie. So while Sam has continued to write, record and release music (firstly solo as The Machismos, later with hardcore legends The Volunteers and short-lived dub types The People’s Choice and Zen Reggae Masters), Jacob’s Mouse have remained, for the most part, a footnote in John Peel’s autobiography.

But their influence is out there. The first hints could be seen, 10 years back, in the NME’s tenuous “No Name” scene, with the 80s/90s alt-rock influenced likes of Ikara Colt and, in particular, the mighty Mclusky sporting a distinctly Mouse-esque line in seething bass-propulsion, abrasive guitars and off-kilter lyrics. And on a purely empirical basis, your correspondent has been bowled over in the past few years by the number of music-loving types from all over the UK who, at the mention of Foam Face or No Fish Shop Parking in any kind of “favourite songs/albums” discussion, have responded with some variation on, “Oh my GOD! Jacob’s MOUSE! They were fucking INCREDIBLE!!!” The love is out there, and the love is strong.

Jacob’s Mouse mattered. From a musical point of view, they were a phenomenal band who released a string of incredible, genre-defying, increasingly deranged but always brilliant records, without ever sounding like they were trying too hard. But from a personal point of view, they were important because they demonstrated, single-handedly, that a band from Bury St Edmunds could achieve some degree of success, and make records than truly, genuinely, speak to you about how it feels to be in a certain place at a certain time in your life, with all the uncertainties of what the future might hold. Jacob’s Mouse may never receive the recognition they deserve; but they made the records they wanted to make and, for those who took the time to notice, they made a difference.

The entire Jacob’s Mouse Wiiija back catalogue (with the exception of 'Wryly Smilers') is now available on all major digital platforms.

HISTORY: Formed in the late 80’s in Bury St Edmunds, disbanded in 1995.

PERSONNEL: Hugo Boothby – guitar Jebb Boothby – bass Sam Marsh – drums/vocals

DISCOGRAPHY: The Dot EP (5-track EP, Liverish Records, 1990) No Fish Shop Parking (8-track album, Blithering Idiot, 1991) Ton Up (4-track EP, Wiiija, 1992) Company News (2-track single, Rough Trade, 1992) I’m Scared (11-track album, Wiiija, 1993) Good (3-track EP, Wiiija, 1993) Group of 7 aka Chocolate Cake 100 (3-track EP, Wiiija, 1993) Ton of Scum (2-track single, Wiiija, 1993) Fandango Widewheels (4-track EP, Wiiija, 1994) Wryly Smilers (10-track compilation, Wiiija, 1994) Hawaiian Vice (1-track single, Wiiija, 1994) Rubber Room (12-track album, Wiiija, 1995)

LINKS: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jacobsmouse/ Unofficial MySpace: www.myspace.com/jacobsmouse Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob%27s_Mouse

#feature #features #Jacob's Mouse #from the archive #fallen heroes #seymour quigley

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