The cover art of Mathew Sweet's second Boduf Songs release for Kranky hints that this could be a sequel. The design is of a similar style, but the flowers and people of the old Victorian prints are replaced with more foreboding images. Follow a trail of bread crumbs down a shadowy path into the woods depicted on the cover, and there's that scary thrill of being enveloped by trees, not knowing what will be encountered. The air is so fresh, the ground so soft, but once inside, there are serpents, flies, and poison.
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This latest EP from Freddie Ruppert, aka This Song Is a Mess But So Am I, is captivating from the beginning with its deconstructed beats, rants, and an abundance of distortion thrown in every direction.
I thought I was in for an exciting trip with the first few minutes of this reissue. "I See You Pan" has a fascinating sound: like popcorn popping but all the kernels are made of stainless steel. It is noise but in a quiet and dynamic way. Alas my enjoyment of things wasn’t to last when the vocals and organ arrive.
Joanna Newsom has abandoned the constraints of pop framework and has created a masterpiece for voice, harp, and orchestra. Ys consists of only five songs yet they stretch between seven and 17 minutes, all of which are extensive fairytales without choruses, refrains, and rarely a repeating motive.
Not only can a Various Artist collection succeed thematically, but it can shine due to a curator's impeccable taste, and Imaginational Anthem 2 is a nearly flawless collection. Whereas the first volume featured acoustic guitarists from the past and present, this volume seems more forward-looking, slightly more focused on the newer guitarists who have their future stretching out in front of them.
I strongly feel that Various Artist compilations are both fun and useful but it's always good to have some kind of underlying theme. This one succeeds in concept, and a fantastic concept it is, but the contents end up taking it down a few notches.
As tribute albums go, one dedicated to a painter is not something I’ve encountered before. Being a fan of Francis Bacon, I was very excited to hear this album but alas half of it is useless. The other half though is great although only one of the four tracks really nails the feeling that I get from looking at one of Bacon’s paintings.
Every time I think I’m done with Merzbow he releases an album that grabs me by the face and screams “LISTEN TO ME!” F.I.D. (standing for Fur Is Dead) is one of those albums. It is powerful and burly but surprisingly not as brain drilling as usual. The chaos normally unleashed is instead channelled into a droning, pulsing muscle. This is one of the most exciting Merzbow releases I’ve heard yet.
