Warm Visions’ Favorite 102 Songs of 2012

Posted on December 18, 2012 by Very Warm

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So. If you noticed in the title, there aren’t 100 songs on here like most other lists you’ll find. There’s 102. Why, you might ask? Well because I just couldn’t bring myself to round off the list at just 100. It bore too much on my musical soul. There were just so many good songs this year I didn’t have the heart to leave some of them out. I had a list of about 130 songs that I simply adored, but I whittled it down to 102 while ranking 50 of them as my Top 50. I know there’s something about quality over quantity, but THIS IS QUALITY. All of these songs are some of the best I’ve ever heard. Believe it.

So, in the first 52, it’s just songs that I immensely enjoyed, all of them place in the same position in terms of rank. None of them should rank last or first in the first 52. Just alphabetically. There aren’t any songs anywhere on this list that in your mind should rank as “bad” or “worst” or whatever. They’re great!

In the TOP 50, the songs will be “ranked” in some fashion. They’ve all moved around several times, so the number it’s listed as doesn’t mean much. It mostly depends on what I was feeling at the time. Besides the Top 5, which has been pretty much stable throughout the entire year. So check it out, y’all. You can click the song names to direct you to a Youtube video of the song. Have a good time!

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Warm Visions’ Top 50 Albums of 2012

Posted on December 11, 2012 by Very Warm

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Hey y’all it’s that time of year again. The time that I’ve been waiting for. To release my FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2012! This year was a doozy, in terms of discovering new music and my tastes branching out to styles I had never even considered before. I’ve definitely surrounded myself with people with more diverse tastes in music than my own, which has led me to grow a new found appreciation for styles of music like doom metal, electronic ambient, emo and MORE. Sure, most of the albums on here are mainstream indie material, but I feel like it’s a more varied list than ever before!

I’ve definitely enjoyed this year a lot more than I thought I would. In the beginning of the year I began relationship with an amazing girl (I still am with her, and she’s taught me a lot about music that I’d never think about learning before), I started working at my college’s radio station this summer, I’m becoming more acquainted with those who are in the local music scene, went to CMJ this fall… so many fantastic experiences. I hope 2012 was a great year for you as well, valued readers.

Let’s check this thang out!

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Favorite Albums of 2012: Honorable Mentions

Posted on December 11, 2012 by Very Warm

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Hey there were a lot of fantastic albums this year. Like, a lot. Wow. Crazy. Here’s a list of albums that were all once part of the Top 50 but eventually got pushed out due to albums that had a more lasting effect on me. There are 25 of them. There are about 20 more that I could have included in here, but that would have just resulted in a Top 100. I couldn’t do that. Too much work. These are all super good though, so check them out when you can!

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Glocca Morra – “Y’all Boots Hats? (Die Angry),” Dads – “Get To the Beach” and Twinklecore General

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Very Warm

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AW YEAH SUPER PASSIONATE ROCK MUSIC THAT MAKES YOU WANNA DO FUN AND STUPID STUFF EVEN THOUGH YOU’RE STUCK IN COLLEGE AW YEAH

So that’s about the gist of “Twinklecore” music that I’ve been listening to a lot of recently. It’s full of anthemic verses and lyrics, shouting vocals full of energy and heart, and complex instrumentals, mostly quickly picked guitar melodies with intricate percussion rhythms. It’s really a combination of early emo rock and the super dense elements of math rock. That is, before it goes into a sonic assault against your brain with a wall of sound smashing your ear drum, like many good rock songs do. Yeah, some people might diss on the vocals for being cracky or not very good, but that’s just the live and hearty aspect of them: they didn’t go into a studio and make it manufactured to sound professional, this is raw material.

It’s righteous stuff and I feel like I wouldn’t have been introduced to it if I hadn’t moved to the East Coast, it definitely sounds like being cramped up with a bunch of other twenty-somethings in a small apartment in the big city or in the middle of nowhere being surrounded by people believing that the East Coast is the safe haven for economic stability, when in fact tons of people are suffering out here, too. But they also hold that youthful, angsty energy that comes along with High School or being a social outcast. It’s sad at times, but very powerful. Bands that definitely pioneered the sound for these bands to follow would be American Football, Cap’n Jazz, Joan of Arc and more. So if you like this stuff, you might as well go to the kings of the style.

Phew. Alright. Well, the music is great, anyways. I’m just now getting into this kind of music, so if you have any gripes with my writings, make sure to educate me. Check these two bands, Glocca Morra and Dads, out since they’re going to be on my Top 50 Albums of 2012 list that should be coming out sometime soon.

Have a nice week!

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El Polen – “Mi Cueva”

Posted on November 19, 2012 by Very Warm

I’ve been getting really into world music lately. World music, meaning music that wasn’t made by “Western” culture of the US and UK, is a bit of an ignorant term but it seems like the only blanket term I can label music from Peru, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, Mali, Japan, Vietnam, Russia, etc. Ah well, I’ve found that music from other countries past is a refreshing breath of air getting away from the pop music of today and even most of the stuff I listen to.

Now, getting into this fantastic group: El Polen is a band from the Andes mountains in Peru and they made a wonderful hybrid of psyche/hippie rock that was popular in that time and traditional Andean music. Their songs include instruments like flutes and jangling percussion, they sing in Spanish and the vocals are set in these infectious, layered harmonies. The album, Fuera De La Ciudad, is ripe with sincere energy and raw emotion and is lo-fi in the sense that it was recorded in one take, it’s all very live. There are little fuzzy spots and blips in the recording, but it sounds like the band crowded in one small room with friends and created a work of art. There isn’t a single part of this album I don’t like. It’s warm like a handwoven sweater and feels like a gathering of all your closest family and friends celebrating life with you.

The song that I’ve chosen to showcase is probably the most “Western” song out of the album, featuring a guitar line I’d expect to hear in an old folky song from the 60’s/70’s and a bassline that I’d probably hear in like a soul song by the Temptations or something. There are a few violin solos and they’re really jazzy and sound improvised yet confident. Then the dreamy, harmonized vocals come in and remind me a bit of Beach Boys a bit, a bit of Panda Bear too. Then another violin solo comes in that bounces around in the soundscape like a jovial bride romping around in an open field. It’s a really fun song, much like the rest of the album. So if you like this, you have so much to listen to after that you’ll love. Check out “Mi Cueva” below:

If you loved that, you can download the whole album here

I’ll probably have a world themed music show on WHUS next semester, so watch out for that as well!

Have a great day!

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Air Tycoon – “Space”

Posted on November 12, 2012 by Very Warm

Hey y’all

Hope you’re all enjoying your Novembers, mine has been extremely busy but chock full of absolutely fantastic music. I thought I’d let y’all know about some of it here! What we have first is Air Tycoon, AKA Joseph Garcia, who is a 20-something year old beat maker that crafts druggy, trap-like but very danceable instrumentals that work great by themselves. He incorporates some wonky, 8bit and future garage aspects into his work along with the usual bass & snare backbone of trap instrumentals. This stuff is the bomb, seriously. The songs usually have one really driving part to them while some really cloudy, ambient piece works underneath and even though they’re upbeat, there’s always really chilled out atmosphere for you to rest on.

I recommend you listen to this guys stuff on nice headphones or speakers! Your MacBook Pro speakers will not do this stuff justice. The sample is off of his album “Fuck Everything I’m God” which came out last year. He’s an extremely active artist and has 4 more releases on this year with another coming up I believe. Check it all out, it’s on his bandcamp.

Check it out a sample below and make sure to check out his Bandcamp if you like what you hear.

Have a great day!

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Preslav Literary School – Francis Sirvain Mirkovic

Posted on November 5, 2012 by Very Warm

Another style of music I’ve been dipping my toes into has been the limitless frontier of droning, ambient music. I was mostly introduced to this kind of music through my WHUS radio mentor, Jules , and the previous music director of WHUS, DJ Gumby. I sat in on their show while they played these pieces of music where the song would just go on for so long with nothing really happening, except for noise filtering out of the speakers like a calm, dreamy river. Of course there’s the flip side of dreamy, which is a nightmare: these songs would effortlessly put the listener on edge with dissonant tones and creepy sound effects in the background.

At first I wasn’t really digging these tracks, since mostly at that point I had been listening to pretty maximalist, dancy music, so I didn’t really “get” this lowtempo, more pensive style of music.

That is, until I heard Brian Eno’s “Ambient 1: Music for Airports” which totally turned me around when it came to thoughtful, evocative, ambient music. That album rules. Echoing, minimalistic piano, choral voices, mellow synth tones floating in and out of the soundscape… such a beautiful piece of work, that is. I haven’t gotten a lot of ambient work besides that and a few other things, but this is something that stands out.

It’s two pieces that slowly build into ethereal drones of feathery noise that floats above and around you like a cloud that’s changing colors very slowly and precisely. The first track sounds like how the cover looks, a massive church with high ceilings that make sounds echo into oblivion. It’s a very calming drone, putting worries at ease and your mind on another plane of thinking. It’s very much self-contained, letting the sound echo off the walls of its own creation. However, the second track, Yvan Deroy, is more internally focused and takes the drone outside, adding some variation to the mood of the piece. Both of the tracks are beautiful and I highly recommend listening to them even if you don’t know ambient music that well. It’s a calming experience. Here’s a link to his [Bandcamp](http://preslavliteraryschool.bandcamp.com/album/la-r-flexion-du-tir) so you can stream it! Here’s the first track to listen right now!

Have a great day!

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Dads – “Big Bag of Sandwiches”

Posted on November 5, 2012 by Very Warm

This new record from New Jersey emo duo Dads is really good! I didn’t really know Dads that well before this album, but I’m down to get to know them even more now! Also I haven’t really gotten into the whole “emo” genre as of yet, I’m just now sticking my toes into releases from American Football and Cap’n Jazz. This is definitely a great example of the genre, with interwoven guitar lines, shouting vocals, and an underhanded complexity to the music that is masked by how fun it is. This would be a great band to see at a small house show: I don’t think they could ever play a huge space show. This belongs grounded on the floor with the audience so they can smash eachother around and have a blast.

Have a listen!

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Philip Glass – “NYC 73-78(Beck Remix)”

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Very Warm

YES.

New Beck.

If you don’t know, Beck is my favorite musician. He has been for a good 3 years now. Every time he releases new music I get really, really excited, because it’s good 100% of the time and he hasn’t released a legit “album” since I think 2007 or 2008. He can do no wrong in my eyes. C’mon man. I need a new album. Or at least something of length, not just a single (singles are still widely accepted, though).

SO, when I found out that he put out a 21 minute remix of Philip Glass’ work , I didn’t know what to think at first. JUST KIDDING. I knew it was going to be amazing, and it is. It’s a sonic journey across Philip Glass’ monumental works of minimalism which has been chopped up and put into Beck’s musical universe. This song apparently contains 20 different Glass compositions, all distorted into a beautiful continuum where he puts strains of his own vocals over the loops, along with wispy ghosts of vocals over some nice piano. The movement sways in and out of focus, letting room for occasional interludes to break up the cathedral of ice that Beck has molded out of Glass’ intricate works. It’s a moving experience, the end is totally worth it to stick around for.

Check it out below. It’s going to be on a Philip Glass Remix album featuring Dan Deacon, Tyondai Braxton (presently of Battles), Memory Tapes, Nosaj Thing, Amon Tobin, and many more!

Have a wonderful day, everyone.

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Purity Ring x Danny Brown – “Belispeak II”

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Very Warm

So this is cool.

We already know that Purity Ring songs are pretty OK to be rapped over after hearing many mashups putting A$AP Rocky songs over warped versions of the duo’s dark beats, mostly the mashup done by The Hood Internet, placing A$AP’s “Peso” over Purity Ring’s sped up version of “Obedear,” making a track that’s druggy yet danceable, called “Pesobedear.” Sorta like Four Loko, I guess.

This is next level, though. Danny Brown is rapping a whole new set of verses over this remixed version of “Belispeak” which paints a picture of his difficult upbringing living in inner-city Detroit. Pairing the very dark, towering beats with Danny Brown’s imagery sets the scene for a concrete jungle in which a young Danny Brown is scrounging around for food, because his “belly speaks.” Ah yeah that’s good.

Also some of his verse is autotuned. His voice doesn’t really fit the “autotune” aesthetic, I think his voice is pretty notable on it’s own. They probably did it so it could fit into the song a bit more, but it still sounds a little off. Check it out below, dawgs:

Have a nice day, y’all

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