Last Album you listened through

The Wedding Present - Seamonsters. This took me a while to get into because I thought the mixture of quiet but dramatic vocals and raw, noisy music (it's produced by Steve Albini, so yeah), but I've grown to like it now. The music fits the generally depressed-yet-vindictive tone of the lyrics perfectly.

LL Cool J - Icon. As I mentioned in the "Now Listening To" thread, I listened to this Greatest Hits Album for the handful of singles I have a certain nostalgia for, but now I think I wanna do some further listening. The overall sound of his old-school stuff appeals to me a lot.

Various - Record Store Day Presents: Coachella. Because it seemed like a good sampler of what the kids are listening to these days. Black Lips, Band Of Skulls, Neon Indian and AWOLnation all seem like artists I ought to look into more, and I also had no idea Jimmy Cliff was still making music.

Earth is the only planet inhabitable by Nicolas Cage.

maudlin of the Well - their first three albums (my Fruit PsychoBells...a seed combustible, Bath, and Leaving Your Body Map). Got them when they were reissued back in '05-'06. Blood Records also just reissued Bath and LYBM with different bonus tracks, along with giving their fourth album Part the Second a CD release, but they're probably all sold out now.

Somehow you know that the time is right.

Prurient, Pleasure Ground—Four solid blocks of unadulterated spookiness, each built around a simple concept extrapolated upon for the better part of ten to twelve minutes. "Military Road" is like a prog-metal anthem systematically stripped of obvious melodic elements; the monolithic synth mantra "Earthworks / Buried In Secret" reaches Glassian levels of hypnosis through repetition; with "Outdoorsman / Indestructible" Fernow fashions the musical equivalent of a Charles Grant story, managing through subtle suggestion to make the sound of a triangle scary; and "Apple Tree Victim" is almost what techno-pop would be if the focus on le petit mort were more aligned with le grand mort... at least, in my sad, sick little world. Not as cathartic as Black Vase or as unsettling as The Black Post Society, but still brilliant.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

Swans: Children Of God

I like it but admittedly not my favourite Swans release, lacks both the ferocious primal nature of Greed or the melodic, fleshed-out atmosphere of The Great Annihilator and the result is a somewhat limp middle-ground. I hear a lot of people proclaim it as their magnum opus but really, aside, from New Mind, You're Not Real, Girl & Like A Drug, I can do without it for the most part :S

yeah man lowercase

No love for "Blind Love"? "Sex, God, Sex"? The title track?

Granted, the Feel Good Now versions of these do qualify as marked improvements, particularly "Blind Love", but still...

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

I like all those tracks but they didn't blow me away like say... "Killing For Company" or "Coward" did. Almost forgot: Trust Me, Blackmail and Beautiful Child are all really good as well. I know Sex, God, Sex is widely considered one of the best Swans tunes but it didn't quite connect with me.

edited 1st May '12 8:28:08 PM by Thwise

yeah man lowercase

I personally prefer the version of "Blackmail" from the single for "A Screw", but it's still a lovely song. "Trust Me" is also wonderful.

edited 1st May '12 8:31:17 PM by JHM

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

Take Care by Drake. I liked it.

edited 2nd May '12 3:20:06 PM by wuggles

Brothers by The Black Keys It's a bit Bar Rock-y for my tastes, but I thought it was good. Howlin' For You has to be the track I enjoyed the most, and Everlasting Light the least.

edited 2nd May '12 4:17:57 PM by Phyi

Wasting Light Foo Fighters

Discovery Daft Punk

St. Elsewhere and Odd Couple Gnarls Barkely

Really excited for the new album form Cee Lo and Danger Mouse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXkI1sTDoEg

Arthur Russell, The World Of Arthur Russell—The best of Russell's avant-disco stuff, along with some of the experimental cello-pop stuff he was working on at the time. (Yes, you read that correctly; he also almost joined Talking Heads.) Though I can understand why he is less well-known than his talent might deserve—the songs structures are extremely curious, even when oriented around a very solid dance beat, and the hooks, while certainly there, are often puzzles in and of themselves—his is still a very worthy body of work, worth checking out for anyone interested in the artier end of dance, the '80s New York scene, or just great understated music in general.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

Vespertine by Bjork. Yeah, I dig the glitch ballad concept but it was bit of a slog to listen to, frankly. It's Not Up To You is pretty great, though.

yeah man lowercase

• The Wall - Pink Floyd
• The Mouse And The Mask - Danger Doom

Marilyn Manson - Born Villain. thoughts here. But the teal deer version = more energy than their past few albums, but the songs aren't really there.

Earth is the only planet inhabitable by Nicolas Cage.

The Beastie Boys - Check Your Head, twice. In honor of MCA of course, but I didn't really intend on listening twice - I listened on my own this afternoon when I heard the news, then someone suggested we use some Beastie Boys as house music later and that was the only album I had on the ipod. It sounded great on the club's system.

Green Day - International Superhits!. For whatever reason, the only album of theirs I've held onto over the years.

Cake - Fashion Nugget. I had the urge to listen a couple weeks ago but didn't find my copy till now.

edited 5th May '12 10:14:47 AM by MikeK

Earth is the only planet inhabitable by Nicolas Cage.

Deserter's Songs by Mercury Rev. Really dreamy and appealing for the first few listens, but over time the magic wore off and it started sounded like a kind of generic psychedelic muzak :(

yeah man lowercase

Choirs of the Eye by Kayo Dot. In retrospect I don't think I "get" this one quite as much as I used to. The heavy sections seem a bit too dense to be able to make sense out of all the layers. I kind of prefer their newer albums now (haven't listened to Gamma Knife yet though, waiting on the CD release), which I guess puts me in the minority. Then again, my not wanting them to just copy maudlin of the Well probably does that too.

EDIT: Aaaaand now I've listened to all their other releases that I have, reaffirming my opinion that I like Coyote and Blue Lambency Downward best.

edited 5th May '12 6:19:54 PM by MasterInferno

Somehow you know that the time is right.

Alice in Chains — "Dirt"

I was (still am, actually) really tired and strung out after my school day and had a listen to the two AIC tracks that I have heard before (Them Bones and Angry Chair, both found through DOOM 2) and then I realized it actually helped me. So on a whim I decided to listen through the entire album (found a great You Tube upload of it) and it became my working music for today's homework.

As for what I think of the album: it's fucking monumental. Maybe it just happened to be a perfect fit for the mood, but aside from some select songs, I think I've never heard an album that's bigger and more epic than this. Musically better and more refined, maybe... but not bigger. This thing is fucking huge and fills your entire world.

Thank you, AIC, for carrying me through this day.

ERROR: Signature not loaded

I seriously think Dirt is one of the greatest rock albums ever.

Most recent listen of mine is Toby Driver's solo album In the L.. L.. Library Loft (yes, the Kayo Dot guy). Four different compositions with based around different themes/concepts:

• "Kandu vs. Corky (Horrorca)" is based around drones and "bell-shaped" instruments like sine waves (even the rhythm follows a bell-curve pattern).
• "The Lugubrious Library Loft" is based on every instrument being played by two people - even the vocals (the vocalists basically go mouth-to-mouth, then one makes a sound while the other moves their mouth around to make the consonants - it's a really cool effect).
• "Brown Light Upon Us" is based on the concept of hearing a performance in another room - you know how sometimes you'll be in a building where a performance is going on in another part of the building so what you're hearing sounds like indeterminate noise to you? Driver took that idea and wrote a piece that's meant to be heard that way - the instruments perform in one room while the recording stuff is set up in another. The weakest track on the album in my opinion, as it feels to me like nothing much really goes on with it.
• "Eptaceros" is based on an extended technique (that's when you use non-standard methods of playing the instrument - think John Cage's prepared pianos) used by Kayo Dot's then-trumpeter. It's really creepy and cool sounding, probably my favorite on the album.

Somehow you know that the time is right.

Half Machine Lip Moves by Chrome. Holy shit. Holy shit. Everything I've always wanted but never thought could really exist in a rock band. Incomprehensibly awesome rants about zombies, nymphos, robots, clones and heaps of pulp-y science fiction material set to a ridiculously hallucinogenic, dynamic and disorientating soundtrack of progressive industrial noise punk complete with drum kits made out of scraps of sheet metal and guitars that more often than not sound like diesel engines.

Sorry, I'm gushing.

yeah man lowercase

Viva La Vida - Coldplay.

The Wall - Pink Floyd

I'm having to learn to pay the price

Tad - Inhaler. They were one of the heavier bands in the original Seattle grunge scene, and like a lot of bands associated with that scene, their only major label album quickly got them dropped when it didn't prove to have any hits. Which is too bad, because I think this album could have caused them to break through commercially at least somewhat - if Helmet's "Unsung" could get a little bit of radio play, I don't see why something like "Leafy Incline" couldn't.

Sonic Youth - Dirty. I didn't like this the first couple times - it was almost too Sonic Youth if that makes sense, and a lot of the Kim Gordon tracks are awfully harsh vocally. I've come around to it, though I still think Goo does a better job of mixing their avant-garde tendencies with more typical alternative rock.

edited 8th May '12 4:50:48 PM by MikeK

Earth is the only planet inhabitable by Nicolas Cage.

Paul Mc Cartney - Flowers In The Dirt. My mom borrowed three seemingly arbitrary Paul McCartney solo albums from a coworker - this, Tug Of War and Back In The US. I wanted to listen to one of the studio albums first, and my options were an album featuring Elvis Costello *

and an album featuring one of the worst number one singles of all time *

Okay, so I've actually never heard more than a snippet of "Ebony And Ivory", but...

, so the choice was clear. I'd say I like a little bit more than half of this album - there are some great melodies on here, and it's interesting that I never noticed how much influence McCartney must have had on XTC 'til I heard his songs with that same kind of ultra-crisp late-80's production some of their later albums had. However, a few too many tracks get too easy-listening-ish for my taste, and there are also semi-awkward attempts at funk ("Rough Ride") and reggae ("How Many People"). Definitely more keepers on there than I thought there'd be though.

edited 11th May '12 12:26:46 PM by MikeK

Earth is the only planet inhabitable by Nicolas Cage.

Reverend Bizarre - In the Rectory of the Bizarre Reverend, the reissue with the Return to the Rectory bonus disc. One of my favorite Doom Metal albums ever. It's like early Sabbath played at half speed - the opening track "Burn in Hell!" even has the iconic tritone riff from Sabbath's eponymous song in it at one point. The Return disc isn't as good, though; it feels more like leftovers that weren't good enough to be on an actual album (which is probably exactly what it's supposed to be anyway), though it does have the stand-out track "The Goddess of Doom", which is basically a shout-out to pretty much every early influential doom band in existence - and, for some reason, Christina Ricci.

edited 11th May '12 12:39:15 PM by MasterInferno

Somehow you know that the time is right.

Ended up kinda listening to a lot today because there was nothing else to do:

Liz Phair - Exile In Guyville. I just really like this album, not a lot else I can think of to say right now.

The Sex Pistols - Nevermind The Bollocks. Suddenly got the urge to listen to this because I heard a local band cover "Anarchy In The UK" (badly). I think this was technically my first 70's punk album - I got into The Ramones first, but only had a Greatest Hits Album, so it doesn't fully count. Anyway, now they're not really near my favorites in the genre, but this is a fun album to listen to nevertheless.

The Better Beatles - Mercy Beat. So, in 1981, four teenagers from Nebraska who were into Post-Punk decided to record a bunch of minimalist, deconstructed Beatles covers using bass, drums, vocals, and a cheap monophonic synth. Two of these covers got released as a single before they broke up, John Peel played said single a few times, and years later interest in them somehow spread around the internet enough for someone to track them down and get all their original recordings out as a 27 minute "album". Better Than It Sounds, at least if you're into things like The Residents. They're probably obscure enough to warrant a sample track, so here.

The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds. Actually, sort of by mistake - it was in my Paul's Boutique case, and the discs themselves look identical if you're not reading the text, so I popped it in the computer, realized I had the wrong CD, then decided I was in fact long overdue for another Pet Sounds listen.

edited 11th May '12 10:48:34 PM by MikeK

Earth is the only planet inhabitable by Nicolas Cage.