August was a fine month – nothing that stood out tremendously this month, but a few super solid releases that have kept my ears happy throughout. I was still reeling from how bad July was music-wise, so some fallout may have carried over here. During this month I had a pleasant Cocteau Twins phase and a reaffirmation that Burial’s Street Halo EP is the best work he’s ever put out. I barely went to any shows, so no big songs I saw live sticking out to me either. Just these few records and a couple of songs keeping me company.
Bodies Of Water – Spear In The City [Thousand Tongues]
A group of actors portraying cowboys get too into their roles and rove out to the desert & make a new civilization.
Brockhampton – Saturation II [self-released]
A group of friends make everyone else on the planet look incredibly lazy.
death’s dynamic shroud – Heavy Black Heart [Orange Milk Records] A virtual community where humans have uploaded their consciences becomes infested with corrupting data, but normal life somehow finds a way to cruise along despite its newly deformed state.
The third entry to the series is going to be a pretty short one, unfortunately. This time I saw California band Weekend, playing their first show in a few years and their only show of 2017. I arrived very late due to many train mishaps, missing the opener and got there to see only about four or five songs of Weekend’s. Still felt like I was part of a special occasion, though.
The lead singer briefly touched upon what the band has been up to over the past few years (their last record was 2013’s Jinx), also that his mom flew out from California to see them play along with various other friends and family who were in attendance, and that he’s been clean from heroin for over a year and that he was unsure for a long time if the band would continue, but was really glad that they were all up and playing together now.
They definitely played with a fierce energy, one that was saved up for one, potentially final show. The songs I did see, like “End Times” above,” were great to hear live after being a fan for almost seven years. They ended things with “Coma Summer,” definitely a crusher to cap things off. That song really reminds me of Have A Nice Life, with all of its wailing into a sea of dark, woozy feedback. A beyond brilliant track. Wish I could have seen more of them!
Morale check: I wrote the second part of this series just a few hours ago and I was feeling fine, but I’ve gone downhill from there pretty fast. With train trouble making me incredibly late to the show tonight, along with the reality of this journey of shows being almost completely a solitary experience slowing dawning on me, it’s becoming more of a chore rather than a fun night on the town. My next show up is Sannhet & Baroness at the Brooklyn Bazaar. Baroness put on my favorite show of 2016, so this should be a necessary jolt I need to get back into things. I’m also going to be there with some friends, so my experience won’t be completely in isolation. There’s also the fear that I’m already too far in my own neuroses to be rescued, which is definitely a possibility, especially with the Mount Eerie show on the horizon. Scary times we live in. Thanks for reading this mess of a series.
We’re onto the second part of this illustrious series of shows – this time with a LATE one. Diet Cig, SPORTS and Ratboys played at Bowery Ballroom on Friday night with a late, late music starting time of 10:45pm. My friends and I later learned the showtime was moved back due to The National throwing their release party there prior. The “shout out to The National for opening up for us” jokes make a whole lot more sense now. Full disclosure, I went to this show because the place I work at ran a radio campaign for Diet Cig, so going with co-workers for free sounded like a fun time. And for the most part, it was!
First up was Chicago band Ratboys, a group I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about from my friends that float around that Topshelf Records / Run For Cover Records circle. They play a kind of indie rock with touches of emo and country… maybe a little twee? Either way, I liked their music and could tell they had a lot of great songwriting ideas in store for the future. Definitely a big sound and the band looked like they were having fun up there entertaining a potentially sleepy crowd.
Next were SPORTS, which were clearly a heavy favorite for the night. People in the audience were going crazy even before they started playing, just setting up & tuning their instruments elicited wild shrieks from the audience. They played a faster breed of power pop with an energy that isn’t quite naive, rather one that relishes in youth. I ain’t even 25 yet and I felt like an old man at this show. Granted, it was probably around 11:30pm at this point and I guess compared to the average audience age, I was a bit high on that spectrum. Their type of power pop/pop punk has never been my cup of tea, except for the first Swearin’ album, of course, but SPORTS definitely touched on things I like from that release. The lead vocals were great, it’s clear the singer has an amazing voice. Lots of really good energy. I hope they continue to succeed!
Lastly there was the main event, Diet Cig, coming on at a bit after midnight. It was my first time seeing them after hearing years of hype around their live show. The hype was definitely real – they put on an electric show. Again, their type of cutesy power pop isn’t totally my thing, but like SPORTS, they had a super devoted group of people there that were going absolutely nuts: knocking each other around, screaming the lyrics, shooting their fists up in the air, the works. I’ve gone to plenty of shows where fans are just milling about, enjoying the music; but these fans were embodying it and letting their real selves go. I think it was the high-kicks that helped it out. It seemed like they were playing for over an hour, so a few minutes after 1am I slid outta there, getting home at around 2am.
Morale check: I’m glad this show was on a Friday, since getting up for a workday and then going to a concert later that night would have been a will-crusher. This show was a big hurdle to clear for the rest of the week, which thankfully is mostly populated with fairly standard shows and set times. I’m a bit deflated today (Saturday), but I’m definitely still going to the show tonight, which is with Weekend and Ice Choir at a metal bar named Saint Vitus. It’s a bit far away, but this is Weekend’s “only show of the year,” so I thought it would be cool to experience that. Make sure to read up on that show tomorrow!
Here’s something I don’t think I’ve done on this blog ever, if not for a long time – a live concert review! I have around 15 concerts lined up for the month of September and I thought it’d be interesting to chronicle my journey throughout the month to write about how the shows were and to gauge how my morale goes throughout the marathon. I feel like this is the most shows I’ve ever been to in one month, so I wonder how I’ll feel by the end of it. Feeling good now, anyways!
Anyhow, Rachel Baiman and Nathan Xander kicked everything off at Union Pool, a venue in Williamsburg. I’m somewhat familiar with Baiman’s music in a somewhat peculiar way – we attended a fiddle camp in Colorado together, all the way back in 2008! I recognized her name when I was looking at upcoming shows last month and decided it’d be good to revisit my roots of good ole Americana and country music, which is exactly what I was treated to.
I only caught the last two songs from Nathan Xander and his band, but it was still real solid and the audience was definitely comprised of highly supportive fans, some of whom became nuisances later on. As someone who doesn’t frequent bars too often, it’s always interesting to me to observe boozebags slump around a bar on a weeknight. I digress.
Baiman sang and switched between violin, guitar & banjo. Her band was comprised of a guitar player & an upright bass player, both of whom had Australian (or Kiwi) accents. The two band players have a band of their own and two times they took the driver’s seat during the show, performing their own material while Baiman played back up on fiddle. I love that about small folk acts – the fact that the rest of the band is likely in another band or has another project, so they bring their own music to the table in a live setting. So inclusive! Can’t not love that.
As a whole, the band played a lovely set of tunes that definitely enraptured the crowd at Union Pool that night. Most songs featured triple vocal harmonies between the band, which were picked up nicely on their retro, stand-up microphone. These were real old-timey songs, but they didn’t feel out of place in this hyper-modern and “cutting-edge” time we live in in 2017. There was a song with a chorus of “fascists, you’re gonna lose” which she got the crowd to sing along with, as well as one about female choice and agency. Of course there were songs about love and loss and all that like normal, but it’s always fun to hear a classic formula put to use in a different context.
After the show I waited to talk to her to re-introduce myself and bond over ~~fiddle camp memories~~ and had to wait for a bit there. Nothing more awkward in my book than being that guy at a show that’s floating around and trying to casually look back and check, waiting to talk to a performer. She did in fact remember me and we briefly caught up on the almost 10 year gap. Not much to say – she’s professionally playing music & I’m out of high school (and college, at that), living in NYC. I’m really glad a decent amount of people showed up – it seemed like not many would before the show. A concert on a Thursday night with a blooming Americana/country band. But people were there! It wasn’t the thinnest show I’ve seen at Union Pool, lemme put it that way.
After day one, morale is good! If anything that got me even more stoked to see more bands of varying sounds. Tonight (Friday, Sept. 8) I’m seeing Diet Cig, a power pop band that’s sure to carry a completely different energy than this one did. Thanks for reading & make sure to keep reading these goofy things as my streak progresses!
Smash cut to a chase scene through dark alleyways, tranquil bathhouses, crowded market streets, studio apartment windows and a thriving criminal underground of a glimmering digital utopia.
I’ve been a fan of the death’s dynamic shroud/.wmv project since his incredible 2015 record I’ll Try Living Like This. For this new one, he’s dropped the .wmv from his name and has definitely straightened up his sound, adding a bit of order to his predominantly chaotic and cacophonous breed of hybrid experimental electronic & “vaporwave.” This song is badass and hits hard. Gotta love that.
I envy all of you that haven’t listened to this record yet, because my first and second listens to this whole album were some of the best music experiences of 2017 for me. You just never know what’s coming and how it’ll all tie together. It’s a wild ride and a huge load – cannot recommend it all enough.
I gotta admit something to y’all: I don’t think I listened to even ten records from July. Maybe I did, but it really seems like I didn’t. I’m struggling to think of things to recommend here. Usually I list at least 10. That seems like a good number, right? This month, I only have four records below. I think listing any more would have been a stretch. Even looking at the stats from this month compared to the others, it’s clear I was preoccupied doing other things:
As you can see, July was by far my sparest month of listening. I didn’t really know what to get into and nothing new was exciting me into the throes of obsession. I was also coming off of the three heaviest months of the year so far, so maybe July was a cool-down month, despite its brutal heat.
Let’s take a look at what I was listening to in July: 1. Beach House (102 plays) [primarily Depression Cherry & Thank Your Lucky Stars] 2. Yaeji (79 plays) [Unlocked my fancy for her self-titled EP & “Guap”] 3. Boat Club (69 plays) [Perfect summer music] 4. El Guincho (65 plays) [Saw him live this month for the first time] 5. Death Grips (55 plays) [Got back into The Money Store] 6. TR/ST (55 plays) [Saw them live near the end of the month] 7. Jessy Lanza (49 plays) [Always listening to Oh No] 8. Laurel Halo (49 plays) [Always listening to Quarantine] 9. TOPS (48 plays) [“Topless” is a great song to walk around to] 10. Japanese Breakfast (47 plays) [Mostly just “Machinist”]
And finally, here are the things that I do recommend you listen to that arrived in July, 2017:
Ross From Friends – The Outsiders [Magic Wire]
After finding a secret club located in the basement of your local video store, you become close friends with the club’s best dancer, but whenever you would run into each other outside of the club, they wouldn’t recognize you.
Star Tropics – Lost World [Shelflife]
The cutest couple the remote, suburban town had ever seen in its 200-year history have a myriad of romantic adventures past curfew, all of which they recount to their friends before class starts the next morning.
Sudan Archives – Sudan Archives [Stones Throw]
Limbs & digits made of wildflowers, skin made of soil, speech of waterfalls, eyes of sunlight, mind like the wind; conversing with the stars and the animals. A being that can disarm you and help get yourself more in touch with your insides.
White Poppy – The Pink Haze Of Love [self-released]
Watching clouds shaped like friends you haven’t seen in a long time drift by.
A person doing data entry in the 90s unwittingly cracks the code of their computer network’s mainframe and is engulfed into a dreamworld of technological wonder.
Looking for some dream pop of the ultra-luxurious and luscious kind? This White Poppy album The Pink Haze Of Love will absolutely be your new fluffy pillow. It harkens back to when that genre tag of “hypnagogic pop” was floating around. As silly as that was, this really does make me think of music that sounds like the most refreshing sleep of your life. Like the kind where you wake up and you feel renewed. It’s lovely. Listen here.
I wasn’t hip on Yaeji’s self-titled EP released earlier this year, but I recently revisited it and I haven’t been able to stop listening. Picture me: a large, awkward, bumbling nerd walking down the streets of Brooklyn, NY. Pretty rough, right? Well I ain’t feeling the heat when I’m listening to this song. It’s one of the coolest things ever recorded. It will transform you into the coolest person on the planet.
You’ll feel like shopping at an expensive clothing store. Or like the song says: wearing all black in the club, sipping on some bud, counting all your guap. Or maybe you’re just like me, walking to work or riding the subway. Anywhere you listen, you will feel the effects of “Guap.”
This song is technically a cover of a Mall Grab tune, but Yaeji breathed a new, silky smooth life into it and improves it in every way. She did the same thing with “Passionfruit” this year as well. How about that? We need more Yaeji in our lives. Please, Yaeji. Help us.
If you know anything about me at all, you know I’m obsessed with comparing and contrasting different years based on their music. How does one year compare with the next? How does my top 10 records from one year compare to the top 10 of another year? I’m also often deeply immersed in nostalgic feelings during the comparison process, as most of the records I organize by year bring me right back to the environment when I was listening to them heavily. This feeling is not unique to me in any way, but I seem to have a very intense memory when it comes to these things. Probably because I’m so motivated to listen to things from the current year, so I often don’t go back to things from the past unless I’m either looking for a nostalgia trip or something really sticks with me.
I wanted to start a series of revisiting years to see how they’ve aged, just in case I’ve found some new, rich flavors that I didn’t pick up on at the time, or found some rotten eggs, stinking up the catalog of that year. I’m starting off with 2013, because over the past few years it’s taken on an interesting legacy in my mind and I’d like to expand on it more.
At the time, 2013 was like heaven on Earth for a music fan like myself. New albums from legendary artists like Boards Of Canada, The Knife, Daft Punk, My Bloody Valentine, Arcade Fire, The Flaming Lips, Kanye West, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Deerhunter, The National and Yo La Tengo? You gotta be kidding me. I was in bliss, feverishly soaking up all these albums the best I could and deeming all of them instant classics. After waiting so long for follow-up albums from these bands, I was certain that they were flawless and that 2013 was the best year in music that I’ll see in a long time. I was even tweeting that hyperbole in March, before most of the really good stuff came out.
There were plenty of new favorites for me this year as well, the main leader of the pack being Arca and everything he touched along with it. His mixtape &&&&& is one of my most-listened to records of all time and his production on is the reason FKA Twigs’ EP2 isn’t far behind that. Other than that, I discovered Kelela, Fear Of Men, Grave Babies, Postiljonen, Ovlov, Speedy Ortiz, Infinity Shred, and a few others. Pretty good finds that have offered me a bit of dividends later on, but I feel like didn’t make as much of a mark as other years’ new artists.
Below you’ll find my Top 50 records from 2013 as I ranked them that year.
A stream of consciousness music blog, active since 2010. Established in Ann Arbor, MI, currently in NYC.
Send me music: warmsubmissions @ gmail
I hope you enjoy your time here.
Join 65 other subscribers
Upcoming Releases:
January 9: Dry Cleaning – Secret Love SAULT – Chapter 1 Winged Wheel – Desert So Green
January 16: A$AP Rocky – Don’t Be Dumb Jana Horn – Jana Horn Julianna Barwick & Mary Lattimore – Tragic Magic SASSY 009 – Dreamer+
February 6: Beverly Glenn-Copeland – Laughter in Summer Daphni – Butterfly Elori Saxl & Henry Solomon – Seeing Is Forgetting Fabiano do Nascimento – Aquáticos Joshua Chuquimia-Crampton – Anata Mandy, Indiana – URGH Puma Blue – Croak Dream Ratboys – Singin’ To An Empty Chair
February 13: Charli XCX – Wuthering Heights Colin Stetson – Nethering Danny L Harle – Cerulean KMRU – Kin The Olympians – In Search of A Revival
February 20: Altin Gün – Garip Apparat – A Hum of Maybe
February 27: Buck Meek – The Mirror Fabiano do Nascimento – Vila GENA – The Pleasure Is Yours Gorillaz – The Mountain Gus Englehorn – The Broken Balladeer Heavenly – Highway to Heavenly LB aka LABAT – Feel So Good Around U Maria BC – Marathon Mitski – Nothings About to Happen to Me Nothing – a short history of decay Shane Parish – Autechre Guitar
March 6: Hater – Mosquito Natalie Jane Hill – Hopeful Woman Resavoir – Themes For Dreams Scout Gillett – Tough Touch Shabaka – Of The Earth Tomu DJ – Antagonist waterbaby – Memory Be a Blade
March 13: Alexis Taylor – Paris In The Spring Bill Orcutt – Music In Continuous Motion Crack Cloud – Peace and Purpose Cut Worms – Transmitter ELUCID – I Guess U Had To Be There James Blake – Trying Times Johnny Blue Skies & The Dark Clouds – Mutiny After Midnight Kim Gordon – PLAY ME The Notwist – News From Planet Zombie Ora Cogan – Hard Hearted Woman Tinariwen – Hoggar
March 20: Avalon Emerson & The Charm – Written Into Changes Chalk – Crystalpunk Colleen – Libres antes del final Grace Ives – Girlfriend Green-House – Hinterlands Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl & Macie Stewart – BODY SOUND
March 27: ADULT. – Kissing Luck Goodbye
Buzzy Lee – Shoulder to Shoulder
Fcukers – Ö Holy Fuck – Event Beat Irreversible Entanglements – Future Present Past José González – Against the Dying of the Light King Tuff – MOO Konradsen – Hunt, Gather Lauren Auder – Whole World As Vigil Lone – Hyperphantasia The New Pornographers – The Former Site Of Pan•American – Fly The Ocean In A Silver Plane Robyn – Sexistential Shinchi Atobe – Silent Way Snail Mail – Ricochet Tom Misch – Full Circle
April 3: Arlo Parks – Ambiguous Desire John Andrews & The Yawns – Streetsweeper Makthaverskan – Glass and Bones A Place To Bury Strangers – Rare and Deadly Sunn O))) – sunn O))) Thundercat – Distracted Wendy Eisenberg – Wendy Eisenberg
April 10: Alex Zhang Hungtai – Dras Cactus Lee – Lee’s Dream Flore Laurentienne – Volume III Jessie Ware – Superbloom My New Band Believe – My New Band Believe Squarepusher – Kammerkonzert WU LYF – A Wave That Will Never Break
April 17: Hollie Cook – Shy Girl In Dub!
Tiga – Hotlife Yaya Bey – Fidelity
April 24: Angelo De Augustine – Angel In Plainclothes Friko – Something Worth Waiting For Gia Margaret – Singing Hrishikesh Hirway – In The Last Hour of Light Miss Grit – Under My Umbrella Quiet Light – Blue Angel Sparkling Silver White Denim – 13 White Fence – Orange
May 1: Ana Roxanne – Poem 1 Hiss Golden Messenger – I’m People Lip Critic – Theft World
May 8: Broken Social Scene – Remember the Humans Chinese American Bear – Dim Sum & Then Some Cola – Cost of Living Adjustment Lykke Li – The Afterparty
May 15: Kevin Morby – Little Wide Open Telehealth – Green World Image
Warm Visions 