ELECTRONIC MUSIC IS MY WAIFU IN CASE YOU COULDN'T TEEEEEELL
I've not been keeping a very close eye on electronic music in general this year. By that, I mean I didn't buy Shaking The Habitual, The Inheritors, Tomorrow's Harvest, Immunity or even Exai (shock horror![:O]()
). But my eye has been on Bandcamp, mostly. I have been watching, and observing, and keeping track of all the bloopy shit that I liked the most, and I have compiled it here. And just to take that question out of your mind, no, Random Access Memories will not appear on this list, although I did like it a lot. It just wasn't electronic enough for this list; and after all, this list is meant to be nothing but electronic, isn't it? I think it is. The rules I set for myself in my head state so, anyway.
One last thing: I'm not disqualifying any of these for being short. Several of these releases are as short as 20 minutes long. I don't care, though. If they're worthy of being on the list, they're worthy.
I'm rambling. Let's just begin already.
10. Shinsquish - Vaervaf
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The vast world of music on Bandcamp is much more vast than you'd think. It almost resembles an ocean: just below the surface you find relatively normal fish, with normal fins and normal bodies - the Minecraft soundtrack, or a Monstercat album, for example - but the further into it you delve, the weirder the fish become. Their bodies more warped, their teeth sharper, their scales dappled with patterns never before seen by human eyes. If you go far down enough, you'll find a particularly bizarre, goblin-like, hook-toothed entity. Those familiar with the Breakbit Trench know this creature by the name Vaervaf.
Shinsquish marks the first Vaervaf album I wholeheartedly like. I'm told Greengums was good, but I couldn't make it past the first track, for reasons I don't remember. But this... I can process this. Speaking of first tracks, Put Me In Your Sig was probably the main reason I decided "Let's see what Shinsquish does for me". Funnily enough, this album as a whole does quite a lot for me. The instrumentals are fine, but at the core, this is personality-driven music. By that, I mean the main reason you're listening is because Vaervaf's persona is so abnormal, so unusual that you kind of follow him, tortured melody after tortured melody, as far down the rabbit hole as possible before you can't keep up.
So for me at least, this is one of those albums where the main attraction is the voice. Vaf's voice is - and this is the best comparison I can manage - somewhere between Thom Yorke and Bjork (Thom Bjorke?). There's a kind of fractured beauty in the melodies he writes that reminds me of those two artists, but you can't help but wonder if Vaf is really that similar to either of them. Vaervaf's vocals are a whole new creature entirely.
This spot was originally reserved for Son Lux's album Lanterns, but I like Shinsquish more. Nibble on that, Son Lux! This is the kind of difficult listen you can only find from the more experimental Breakbit artists. It's not for everyone, but who the fuck even is everyone?! It's here if you're up for a challenge.
Best song: Trick question! Put Me In Your Sig is what got me into this thing. I really like the last 20 seconds of innaprot. BUNK has a nice lurch to it. SPOKEEN is the most conventionally listenable song on the album; give that one a shot if you want to lower yourself in slowly.
9. Desire - Spazzkid
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Right! Let's get to something a bit fluffier.
Unlike that other Spazkid, the immature unfunny rule-34 obsessed flash animator who rips directly off of Egorator, Spazzkid is a producer for the label Purrtapes. That's literally all I know about him. I could go and do research on him and his label, but I'd rather talk about his album, and how comfortable and relaxing it is.
It's not just comfortable, though, it's instantly familiar and feels like an old favourite as early as the second listen. The majority of the album consists of pretty, reverb-drenched tracks with just enough sidechain to avoid becoming dull. The way I see it, when you make chilled music, your primary concern is to make it relaxing but still interesting, and Spazzkid has that down to a T on Desire. Kokeshi Doll is like taking LSD and sitting down in the best armchair in the house, only to sink into it and dissolve. Candy Flavoured Lips is like drifting along on an inflatable on the open ocean in the middle of the day. Marquez is like waking up and realising you have the ability to fart rainbows all over the place. Writing about this album is fun. It's an album full of dreamy, deep dubby garage songs, which is reason enough to give it a try. Just sitting down, listening to it to get material to write about it is a very pleasurable experience in itself.
It would have ranked a little higher if it wasn't for Spazzkid's vocals on tracks like Getting To Know You. The vocals fit the feel of the music, but they're a little too limp to command any real presence. His lyrics are also a bit too underdeveloped to really mean much. Candy Flavoured Lips doesn't suffer from that problem. Skymarines' vocals are smooth, dreamy and technically proficient enough to dominate the track. The lyrics paint a much better picture, too (not that I could even hear many of them, what with the lovely reverb the track is drenched in).
Unfortunately this album cannot be downloaded from Bandcamp, as someone at PurrTapes thought it'd be a fantastic idea to only release the album on a limited supply of cassette tapes, which has since sold out. You can still stream it on Bandcamp here, though, and you can find it if you search for it on Filestube.
EDIT: Now I feel like an idiot. Turns out you can download it for 50 cents over here. Dunno how I missed that.
Best song: Candy Flavoured Lips
8. Blank Banshee - Blank Banshee 1
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I haven't been keeping up with vaporwave. Even if I wanted to, I don't think I would be fast enough to keep up with its rapid evolution and constant mutations. This album, for example, marks the moment where vaporwave strapped an 808 to its chest and did its best dubstep impression. Plot twist: it totally works.
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Blank Banshee is an anonymous vaporwave producer (or so he claims - I'm not knowledgeable enough in vaporwave to confirm whether or not the term applies to him). He is one of the only vaporwave-esque producers an uninitiated sucker like me has heard of; the only bigger name that comes to mind is Vektroid.
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He's hit it big with the 90s computer sound, as he's clearly a natural at this sort of thing. Just about every track on here is elegantly composed and enticingly fluid, which Banshee maintains for the whole thing; the benchmark doesn't drop for a second. A lot of the tracks are very similar-sounding, but that only makes it more interesting when a track like Metal Rain flies around the corner and collides with you. It's probably my favourite track on here. That bass just hits you like a bloody wall. Another favourite? Gotta be Eco Zones, which samples Donkey Kong Country's Aquatic Ambience and decorates it with some lovely warped female vocal samples. And Paradise Disc /芸能山城組 is just what it sounds like. If I had to choose a highlight, it's that track.
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But yeah, like I said, I'm having a hard time keeping track of vaporwave. Blank Banshee 1, though, is something I can understand just fine. It speaks of a time when 3D technology was borderline atrocious, yet was put up with because it was the new thing and we just had to have faith in it. The computer technology of the time must have seemed pretty cutting-edge, but time has rendered it tacky and archaic. Yet there was a certain elegance to the design of ancient operating systems and start-up jingles that Blank Banshee taps into perfectly on this thing. It makes for an unusually inspired collection of tracks. Get your obsolete on here and check out the corresponding music videos here. Keep posted! He has only released 5 vids out of 6. We have yet to see what he's about to come out with.
Best song: Paradise Disc /芸能山城組
7. Imperfection - Zelmershead
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Oh God, Zelmershead. There's an act I should've put on my "Favourite Breakbit Albums" list. Truth be told, it was only this year that I managed to get over my fear of Zelmershead enough to properly appreciate the smoky, smoky beauty of their music. If you've heard it before, you're probably nodding your head. If not, you have no idea what you're in for.
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Zelmershead, for those who need an introduction, are a Ukrainian group made up of producer Anton Pokrovsky and vocalist Lin Helly. They make misty, chilling trip hop music that's more true to the dark vibes of Massive Attack than any other group under the "trip-hop" tag.
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Their music has never been more ominous as it is on Imperfection. Anton Pokrovsky is a bloody master producer, and he shapes these gorgeous wisps of songs into monstrous, brooding storm clouds. Lin Helly matches him track-for-track with her dusty, breathy vocals. I feel like I should be naming specific tracks, but every track is top notch. If Imperfection had a flaw, it would be how same-y it is. All of the tracks shoot for the same atmosphere, but they're all so wonderfully well crafted and gorgeous I can't complain for a second.
As for the lyrics? Ehhhh. I want to like them, I really do, but they're unfocused and disconnected and it's hard to really understand what Lin's on about. Her English is also a little shaky, which detracts from the lyrics too. The real strength is how they're performed. Lin's delivery is chilling and subtle, which perfectly compliments the mood of the production. It's hard to argue with music this potent. Imperfection is phenomenal. And as for my slight fear of Zelmershead? I probably won't be shaking it for a while. Develop a new phobia here.
Best song: I guess Fragile, but shit, they're all so good I can barely choose
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6. HyperMedia ~P☯P~ - 회사AUTO
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There's a lot to say about this album. The cover pretty much sums it up.
You won't really be seeing me talk about Vaporwave on this blog entry, or this blog in general, mostly because I don't quite see the appeal behind it, and I don't know enough about it to be able to properly describe any of the Vaporwave ideals or themes here. Maybe I'll get into it in the future, maybe I'll suddenly realise what it's all about overnight, but for the time being, just give me this album. It's all I need from the Vaporwave camp. In fact, fuck Pale Machine, this is an album that may well change your world, or at least your musical perspective.
It's only now I come to write about HyperMedia ~P☯P~ that I'm drawing a big fat blank. This is an extraordinarily hard album to describe. It samples heavily from various forms of 90s synth music, but it's hard to tell where the samples end and 회사AUTO's original synth playing begins. It's hard to say whether or not the whole album is nothing but samples. It's not hard at all to notice how good it sounds, though. Anyone with ears can enjoy this on some level, and I have full confidence in that statement because this is good music in the purest sense of the term. All I can really do is share with you some of my favourite track titles from this album, they'll take you on a ride:
ι αм υ
Glass Ocean ||LOST BOYs||
[[[[[[Futurismo]]]]]]
[Space Child] MR FAO Schwarz
Passion Fantasy 5 (feat. Topaz Gang)
Diamond Ecstasy (feat. ショッピングワールドjp)
X The Sky [CTRL ALT DEL]
☒METALEVEL☒
ωε Я чs
Beautiful.
You can stream HyperMedia ~P☯P~ here and download all 1.1 hours of it here.
Best song: Either Drive Thru 4AM or the oddly fun pulse of [[[[[[Futurismo]]]]]]
5. Pale Machine - Bo En
Originally, Lost Decade by Tofubeats was going to be on this list. Not any more. I soon realised it was waaaay too screechy and cheap-sounding for it to make the cut, although I'd still give it a begrudging recommendation by virtue of pure catchiness. Pale Machine, however, is much sleeker and better produced, so that's what's ending up here.
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I discovered this one from a Saint Pepsi tweet. "You guys NEED this new bo en album. It'll change your world, or at least make you a better person" is what he said. I don't know about thaaaaat, but he's not far off. It's really, really good. It's what happens if you made some J-Pop, but instead of making it as energetic as possible, aimed for making as good an atmosphere as possible. That's what this is. It's music with as much soul as it has energy. It's a little too good for its own good; all I can really do is gush over it, because it has very few actual problems.
That said, the most obvious problem is that the lyrics are very cliched, underdeveloped in some cases, or just don't hold up to the fantastic production. Very few of those lyrics are offensive per say, but when they are... well, take this here:
"I just woke up today
eat my corny flakes for you"
That's just fucking goofy. Corny flakes, indeed.
That said, the track those lyrics appear in is actually my favourite track on the album, in terms of lyrics. It's very optimistic and bubbly at first:
"判で押したように
just a perfect life
まんまるまんまる
pleasure in every move we make
判で押したように
perfect every time
まんまるまんまる
毎回"
And it carries on in much the same mood, until a small middle-8 section, in which our narrator appears to have a small nervous breakdown:
"hold me, I'm a pale machine
life is just OK out here
anyone can see
I'm lonely, with my pale machine
eyes will run with tired tears
living like a dreaaaaaam"
And on the word "dream", the narrative (and music) switches back to this bouncy, happy mood. The contrast between these two very different sentiments is absolutely the best moment on here lyrically. As for the best musical moment on here, all of it is intensely good, but my favourite track is Winter Valentine. Every track on here has one or more "drops", and the drop in Winter Valentine is the dreamiest, most cathartic drop on the whole thing. It just carries this intense bittersweet feeling. It's very potent.
Ok, so other than a few naive-sounding lyrics, this is to all intents and purposes a spellbinding album. If you want to have some fun with Maltine Records' weird website design, you can stream and download it for free here, but if you want to donate some cash-cash-money to Bo En you can find it here.
Best song: Winter Valentine
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4. Alchemy - Willow Beats
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This was one of those albums that I just happened to find by browsing Bandcamp tags and seeing what was popular that that point in time. I'm grateful I managed to find it. I loved it immediately; I linked it to a friend of mine, and he loved it immediately too. Alchemy is from the minds of Australian producer Narayana Johnson and singer Kalyani Mumtaz, and sounds like nothing else I've heard all year. It's a unique body of work that balances creativity and catchiness in near-perfect equilibrium.
When I first listened to it, the song Blue tricked me into thinking this is a chillout album. I was sooo wrong; it's more of a 808-filled, intricately produced, medieval-lore-inspired experience. It still functions much better at being relaxing than most chillout albums, though. I guess the problem I have with the more mellow forms of electronic music is that they suffer from being too polished, and as a result become bland. This album is not really like that. It's jagged, stilted and has an actual pulse (unlike drone music. Ha!) The whole aesthetic is fascinating; the album takes inspiration from Tolkien-esque fantasy, which is something you rarely see in electronic music. And of course, Kalyani Mumtaz's vocals are gorgeous, and really lend themselves to this kind of music.
Things get especially interesting on Incantation. The lyrics on that track are daaaaark. It's a very immaculately constructed description of a ceremony that the protagonist must perform to rid her past of sins. There's nothing too weird about that, but the details about the moon cocooning a "fragile fetus in her swollen cave" and Mumtaz's tense vocal delivery that really bring this track to life. At no point does the character in the lyrics divulge what her sins were, which adds a tangible sense of mystery. It's probably the most sinister track on here - the majority of the songs, Blue in particular, are relatively peaceful and idyllic.
Also, and I absolutely have to gush about this, I really, really dig Johnson's production on this thing. He intricately carves out grooves with his trusty 808 and variety of bubbling sound effects. The melodies are delicate, full of detail and, most importantly, extremely lush. They make the ideal musical background for Mumtaz's lyrics to pirouette upon. One of the most complex releases of the year. Grab this mystic fucker here.
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Best song: Elemental
3. Rewards - Graham Kartna
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Mmmm, this album. Remember in a previous blog entry when I predicted that this would be the best album to be released this year? Well, that didn't turn out to be true. There were two albums this year that I enjoyed more than Rewards, and we'll get to those in due time.
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That's not to diminish this album, though. Rewards sounds as good as it did in May. I think the reason I liked it so much is because of what it represented. It represented Graham Kartna taking his own style and basically turning it on its head. This album's bouncy fun comes from the same place as Children's Music For Big Kids did, but is darker in tone, tighter, and more bizarre. I've already reviewed this album, but I overlooked how chaotic LSTIC.Pal was, with its freeform pitch-bends and messy turntable scratches. Aside from that, I still feel the same way about the other tracks. JPN.HauntedHouse is demented and bouncy. MOONY.MyPrayer is entrancing and glorious. LOC.MapNowhere is still a highlight.
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As I'm sitting here relistening to this album, I'm realising that this is very true to form for Kartna. Where the album succeeds is that it takes the childlike joy of Children's Music and turns it up to 11, adding in a healthy dose of eccentricity for good measure. Where Children's Music was gleeful, Rewards is ecstatic. Where Children's Music was danceable, Rewards is maddeningly so. Where Children's Music was innocent, Rewards is actually rather depraved. Just listen to LOC.MapNowhere to see what I mean. Get your eternal reward here.
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Best song: LOC.MapNowhere i was wrong all along JPN.HauntedHouse is the best song on this thing
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2. Points Of Interest - Glue70
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Goodness motherfucking gracious, this album was exactly what I needed.
So Glue70 has left his "minimalist glitch" sound on the shelf for a while, so he can pursue his dream of making the most catchy house music imaginable. It's a worthwhile endeavour, and while he established his new style last year with Worldwide Digitising, he managed to perfect it just in time for the summer of '13, with the modestly titled Points Of Interest.
When I say "perfected", I mean it. Songs like Casin and These Street Walkers hit you in a very sentimental way, aiming primarily for the euphoria glands but additionally for the feet. These songs are incredibly dancable. Casin in particular is a highlight, thanks to Glue's talent for finding good vocal samples and placing all the bleeps and bloops in the right places.
Ah, but to wax lyrical about the happier songs on Points Of Interest would be doing a disservice to its darker songs, wouldn't it? Points Of Interest is an album of mood swings. You'll be enjoying some of the chillingest use of hip-hop drumloops imaginable (Step Into The Sunshine), and directly afterwards comes At Kins, a disturbing piece of ambient paranoia that's Bitcrushed into oblivion. It almost shouldn't work, but both songs are too good for you to get mad at either of them. But if you want to hear this album's darker songs at their best, you have to check out Quiet Mary Talking and Domestic Silence, two tight, moody tracks from the deepest depths of Glue70's mind.
Any album this well-produced and well-executed is a joy to listen to. Total essential. I highly recommend checking it out on Glue70's Bandcamp page.
Best song: Casin
1. I CREATED PISSCORE - PISS SPEARS
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This is going to seem like the dumbest choice.
PISS SPEARS is Paige Stanley, or hrmnzr, or adrmnzr, or one half of Stab Something. She's a pretty active musician under those names, but PISS SPEARS was the pseudonym I found first. What I found was indescribable. Skrillex careens round a bend and collides into Hatsune Miku, who ricochets off and spears MC Ride, who crashes into LMFAO, who combust and explode as Nicki Minaj speedtwerks her way through the resulting inferno. The air reeks of over-compression. The sound of multiple Amen Breaks is deafening.
Basically Stanley has created (spawned?) a time capsule of the internet's trashier side. Obnoxious pop hits, equally obnoxious vocaloid spammage, goofy Soundcloud files from Radock and friends, NWA and Death Grips acapellas, it's all here. And the weirdest part is that it's pretty entertaining to listen to! If you can get over the fact that this album was painstakingly produced to be crushingly, ear-shittingly bad, the absurdity of it all gets to you. It's honestly pretty hilarious: a well timed JASON DERULOOO sample at the end of the fun alternative to chewing gum that's been hiding under your noses for all these years gets me every time. I know it probably means I'm a pleb with no taste in funnies, but that doesn't stop me.
The really startling thing is that, every once in a while, a song will appear that's actually pretty listenable, like death_grips_is_my_favourite_trap_artist.wav and the long awaited collaboration between skrillex and vektroid (vaporwave like you've never heard it b4), the former making for surprisingly good workout music and the latter combining two genres that really should never have laid eyes on one another. But the real apex (almost typed Aphex there, whoops) of this thing is in the track a witty title for this piss spears song that involves astro kid singing zedd and also skrillex. It pretty much does what it says on the tin. It's only when the drop swings around that you get blasted at full force by piercing, deadly spears of white-hot piss. It absolutely will destroy your ears if you put the volume up too high, so be warned. It's an endurance test, but it will feel exhilarating if you manage to survive it. Your reward? More pisscore.
It's easily the dumbest album the internet has seen for years. No question about that. But everything about it is a joy to witness, from the amazing track titles (FALL INTO BILL NYE) to the sound of MC Ride rapping over J-pop (TAKYARY [DEATH PON]), to sitting back and watching this thing's ascent on Bandcamp's dubstep tag (it got to like #10 for a while). It is both the best thing and yet the worst thing: if intentionally bad music is still bad, this should not exist. But it does exist, so I may as well enjoy it.
I almost don't know what to make of this. It's not a parody, it's barely satire, it's... just pisscore. I just listened to the whole thing to determine whether or not I really like this thing that much, and... yep. I do. Sorry. It is most certainly my favourite electronic album of 2013. Take a laxative and shit yourself all over your favourite couch here.
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Best song: a witty title for this piss spears song that involves astro kid singing zedd and also skrillex
I've not been keeping a very close eye on electronic music in general this year. By that, I mean I didn't buy Shaking The Habitual, The Inheritors, Tomorrow's Harvest, Immunity or even Exai (shock horror
). But my eye has been on Bandcamp, mostly. I have been watching, and observing, and keeping track of all the bloopy shit that I liked the most, and I have compiled it here. And just to take that question out of your mind, no, Random Access Memories will not appear on this list, although I did like it a lot. It just wasn't electronic enough for this list; and after all, this list is meant to be nothing but electronic, isn't it? I think it is. The rules I set for myself in my head state so, anyway.One last thing: I'm not disqualifying any of these for being short. Several of these releases are as short as 20 minutes long. I don't care, though. If they're worthy of being on the list, they're worthy.
I'm rambling. Let's just begin already.
10. Shinsquish - Vaervaf
The vast world of music on Bandcamp is much more vast than you'd think. It almost resembles an ocean: just below the surface you find relatively normal fish, with normal fins and normal bodies - the Minecraft soundtrack, or a Monstercat album, for example - but the further into it you delve, the weirder the fish become. Their bodies more warped, their teeth sharper, their scales dappled with patterns never before seen by human eyes. If you go far down enough, you'll find a particularly bizarre, goblin-like, hook-toothed entity. Those familiar with the Breakbit Trench know this creature by the name Vaervaf.
Shinsquish marks the first Vaervaf album I wholeheartedly like. I'm told Greengums was good, but I couldn't make it past the first track, for reasons I don't remember. But this... I can process this. Speaking of first tracks, Put Me In Your Sig was probably the main reason I decided "Let's see what Shinsquish does for me". Funnily enough, this album as a whole does quite a lot for me. The instrumentals are fine, but at the core, this is personality-driven music. By that, I mean the main reason you're listening is because Vaervaf's persona is so abnormal, so unusual that you kind of follow him, tortured melody after tortured melody, as far down the rabbit hole as possible before you can't keep up.
So for me at least, this is one of those albums where the main attraction is the voice. Vaf's voice is - and this is the best comparison I can manage - somewhere between Thom Yorke and Bjork (Thom Bjorke?). There's a kind of fractured beauty in the melodies he writes that reminds me of those two artists, but you can't help but wonder if Vaf is really that similar to either of them. Vaervaf's vocals are a whole new creature entirely.
This spot was originally reserved for Son Lux's album Lanterns, but I like Shinsquish more. Nibble on that, Son Lux! This is the kind of difficult listen you can only find from the more experimental Breakbit artists. It's not for everyone, but who the fuck even is everyone?! It's here if you're up for a challenge.
Best song: Trick question! Put Me In Your Sig is what got me into this thing. I really like the last 20 seconds of innaprot. BUNK has a nice lurch to it. SPOKEEN is the most conventionally listenable song on the album; give that one a shot if you want to lower yourself in slowly.
9. Desire - Spazzkid
Right! Let's get to something a bit fluffier.
Unlike that other Spazkid, the immature unfunny rule-34 obsessed flash animator who rips directly off of Egorator, Spazzkid is a producer for the label Purrtapes. That's literally all I know about him. I could go and do research on him and his label, but I'd rather talk about his album, and how comfortable and relaxing it is.
It's not just comfortable, though, it's instantly familiar and feels like an old favourite as early as the second listen. The majority of the album consists of pretty, reverb-drenched tracks with just enough sidechain to avoid becoming dull. The way I see it, when you make chilled music, your primary concern is to make it relaxing but still interesting, and Spazzkid has that down to a T on Desire. Kokeshi Doll is like taking LSD and sitting down in the best armchair in the house, only to sink into it and dissolve. Candy Flavoured Lips is like drifting along on an inflatable on the open ocean in the middle of the day. Marquez is like waking up and realising you have the ability to fart rainbows all over the place. Writing about this album is fun. It's an album full of dreamy, deep dubby garage songs, which is reason enough to give it a try. Just sitting down, listening to it to get material to write about it is a very pleasurable experience in itself.
It would have ranked a little higher if it wasn't for Spazzkid's vocals on tracks like Getting To Know You. The vocals fit the feel of the music, but they're a little too limp to command any real presence. His lyrics are also a bit too underdeveloped to really mean much. Candy Flavoured Lips doesn't suffer from that problem. Skymarines' vocals are smooth, dreamy and technically proficient enough to dominate the track. The lyrics paint a much better picture, too (not that I could even hear many of them, what with the lovely reverb the track is drenched in).
Unfortunately this album cannot be downloaded from Bandcamp, as someone at PurrTapes thought it'd be a fantastic idea to only release the album on a limited supply of cassette tapes, which has since sold out. You can still stream it on Bandcamp here, though, and you can find it if you search for it on Filestube.
EDIT: Now I feel like an idiot. Turns out you can download it for 50 cents over here. Dunno how I missed that.
Best song: Candy Flavoured Lips
8. Blank Banshee - Blank Banshee 1
I haven't been keeping up with vaporwave. Even if I wanted to, I don't think I would be fast enough to keep up with its rapid evolution and constant mutations. This album, for example, marks the moment where vaporwave strapped an 808 to its chest and did its best dubstep impression. Plot twist: it totally works.
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Blank Banshee is an anonymous vaporwave producer (or so he claims - I'm not knowledgeable enough in vaporwave to confirm whether or not the term applies to him). He is one of the only vaporwave-esque producers an uninitiated sucker like me has heard of; the only bigger name that comes to mind is Vektroid.
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He's hit it big with the 90s computer sound, as he's clearly a natural at this sort of thing. Just about every track on here is elegantly composed and enticingly fluid, which Banshee maintains for the whole thing; the benchmark doesn't drop for a second. A lot of the tracks are very similar-sounding, but that only makes it more interesting when a track like Metal Rain flies around the corner and collides with you. It's probably my favourite track on here. That bass just hits you like a bloody wall. Another favourite? Gotta be Eco Zones, which samples Donkey Kong Country's Aquatic Ambience and decorates it with some lovely warped female vocal samples. And Paradise Disc /芸能山城組 is just what it sounds like. If I had to choose a highlight, it's that track.
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But yeah, like I said, I'm having a hard time keeping track of vaporwave. Blank Banshee 1, though, is something I can understand just fine. It speaks of a time when 3D technology was borderline atrocious, yet was put up with because it was the new thing and we just had to have faith in it. The computer technology of the time must have seemed pretty cutting-edge, but time has rendered it tacky and archaic. Yet there was a certain elegance to the design of ancient operating systems and start-up jingles that Blank Banshee taps into perfectly on this thing. It makes for an unusually inspired collection of tracks. Get your obsolete on here and check out the corresponding music videos here. Keep posted! He has only released 5 vids out of 6. We have yet to see what he's about to come out with.
Best song: Paradise Disc /芸能山城組
7. Imperfection - Zelmershead
Oh God, Zelmershead. There's an act I should've put on my "Favourite Breakbit Albums" list. Truth be told, it was only this year that I managed to get over my fear of Zelmershead enough to properly appreciate the smoky, smoky beauty of their music. If you've heard it before, you're probably nodding your head. If not, you have no idea what you're in for.
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Zelmershead, for those who need an introduction, are a Ukrainian group made up of producer Anton Pokrovsky and vocalist Lin Helly. They make misty, chilling trip hop music that's more true to the dark vibes of Massive Attack than any other group under the "trip-hop" tag.
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Their music has never been more ominous as it is on Imperfection. Anton Pokrovsky is a bloody master producer, and he shapes these gorgeous wisps of songs into monstrous, brooding storm clouds. Lin Helly matches him track-for-track with her dusty, breathy vocals. I feel like I should be naming specific tracks, but every track is top notch. If Imperfection had a flaw, it would be how same-y it is. All of the tracks shoot for the same atmosphere, but they're all so wonderfully well crafted and gorgeous I can't complain for a second.
As for the lyrics? Ehhhh. I want to like them, I really do, but they're unfocused and disconnected and it's hard to really understand what Lin's on about. Her English is also a little shaky, which detracts from the lyrics too. The real strength is how they're performed. Lin's delivery is chilling and subtle, which perfectly compliments the mood of the production. It's hard to argue with music this potent. Imperfection is phenomenal. And as for my slight fear of Zelmershead? I probably won't be shaking it for a while. Develop a new phobia here.
Best song: I guess Fragile, but shit, they're all so good I can barely choose
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6. HyperMedia ~P☯P~ - 회사AUTO
There's a lot to say about this album. The cover pretty much sums it up.
You won't really be seeing me talk about Vaporwave on this blog entry, or this blog in general, mostly because I don't quite see the appeal behind it, and I don't know enough about it to be able to properly describe any of the Vaporwave ideals or themes here. Maybe I'll get into it in the future, maybe I'll suddenly realise what it's all about overnight, but for the time being, just give me this album. It's all I need from the Vaporwave camp. In fact, fuck Pale Machine, this is an album that may well change your world, or at least your musical perspective.
It's only now I come to write about HyperMedia ~P☯P~ that I'm drawing a big fat blank. This is an extraordinarily hard album to describe. It samples heavily from various forms of 90s synth music, but it's hard to tell where the samples end and 회사AUTO's original synth playing begins. It's hard to say whether or not the whole album is nothing but samples. It's not hard at all to notice how good it sounds, though. Anyone with ears can enjoy this on some level, and I have full confidence in that statement because this is good music in the purest sense of the term. All I can really do is share with you some of my favourite track titles from this album, they'll take you on a ride:
ι αм υ
Glass Ocean ||LOST BOYs||
[[[[[[Futurismo]]]]]]
[Space Child] MR FAO Schwarz
Passion Fantasy 5 (feat. Topaz Gang)
Diamond Ecstasy (feat. ショッピングワールドjp)
X The Sky [CTRL ALT DEL]
☒METALEVEL☒
ωε Я чs
Beautiful.
You can stream HyperMedia ~P☯P~ here and download all 1.1 hours of it here.
Best song: Either Drive Thru 4AM or the oddly fun pulse of [[[[[[Futurismo]]]]]]
5. Pale Machine - Bo En
Originally, Lost Decade by Tofubeats was going to be on this list. Not any more. I soon realised it was waaaay too screechy and cheap-sounding for it to make the cut, although I'd still give it a begrudging recommendation by virtue of pure catchiness. Pale Machine, however, is much sleeker and better produced, so that's what's ending up here.
I discovered this one from a Saint Pepsi tweet. "You guys NEED this new bo en album. It'll change your world, or at least make you a better person" is what he said. I don't know about thaaaaat, but he's not far off. It's really, really good. It's what happens if you made some J-Pop, but instead of making it as energetic as possible, aimed for making as good an atmosphere as possible. That's what this is. It's music with as much soul as it has energy. It's a little too good for its own good; all I can really do is gush over it, because it has very few actual problems.
That said, the most obvious problem is that the lyrics are very cliched, underdeveloped in some cases, or just don't hold up to the fantastic production. Very few of those lyrics are offensive per say, but when they are... well, take this here:
"I just woke up today
eat my corny flakes for you"
That's just fucking goofy. Corny flakes, indeed.
That said, the track those lyrics appear in is actually my favourite track on the album, in terms of lyrics. It's very optimistic and bubbly at first:
"判で押したように
just a perfect life
まんまるまんまる
pleasure in every move we make
判で押したように
perfect every time
まんまるまんまる
毎回"
And it carries on in much the same mood, until a small middle-8 section, in which our narrator appears to have a small nervous breakdown:
"hold me, I'm a pale machine
life is just OK out here
anyone can see
I'm lonely, with my pale machine
eyes will run with tired tears
living like a dreaaaaaam"
And on the word "dream", the narrative (and music) switches back to this bouncy, happy mood. The contrast between these two very different sentiments is absolutely the best moment on here lyrically. As for the best musical moment on here, all of it is intensely good, but my favourite track is Winter Valentine. Every track on here has one or more "drops", and the drop in Winter Valentine is the dreamiest, most cathartic drop on the whole thing. It just carries this intense bittersweet feeling. It's very potent.
Ok, so other than a few naive-sounding lyrics, this is to all intents and purposes a spellbinding album. If you want to have some fun with Maltine Records' weird website design, you can stream and download it for free here, but if you want to donate some cash-cash-money to Bo En you can find it here.
Best song: Winter Valentine
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4. Alchemy - Willow Beats
This was one of those albums that I just happened to find by browsing Bandcamp tags and seeing what was popular that that point in time. I'm grateful I managed to find it. I loved it immediately; I linked it to a friend of mine, and he loved it immediately too. Alchemy is from the minds of Australian producer Narayana Johnson and singer Kalyani Mumtaz, and sounds like nothing else I've heard all year. It's a unique body of work that balances creativity and catchiness in near-perfect equilibrium.
When I first listened to it, the song Blue tricked me into thinking this is a chillout album. I was sooo wrong; it's more of a 808-filled, intricately produced, medieval-lore-inspired experience. It still functions much better at being relaxing than most chillout albums, though. I guess the problem I have with the more mellow forms of electronic music is that they suffer from being too polished, and as a result become bland. This album is not really like that. It's jagged, stilted and has an actual pulse (unlike drone music. Ha!) The whole aesthetic is fascinating; the album takes inspiration from Tolkien-esque fantasy, which is something you rarely see in electronic music. And of course, Kalyani Mumtaz's vocals are gorgeous, and really lend themselves to this kind of music.
Things get especially interesting on Incantation. The lyrics on that track are daaaaark. It's a very immaculately constructed description of a ceremony that the protagonist must perform to rid her past of sins. There's nothing too weird about that, but the details about the moon cocooning a "fragile fetus in her swollen cave" and Mumtaz's tense vocal delivery that really bring this track to life. At no point does the character in the lyrics divulge what her sins were, which adds a tangible sense of mystery. It's probably the most sinister track on here - the majority of the songs, Blue in particular, are relatively peaceful and idyllic.
Also, and I absolutely have to gush about this, I really, really dig Johnson's production on this thing. He intricately carves out grooves with his trusty 808 and variety of bubbling sound effects. The melodies are delicate, full of detail and, most importantly, extremely lush. They make the ideal musical background for Mumtaz's lyrics to pirouette upon. One of the most complex releases of the year. Grab this mystic fucker here.
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Best song: Elemental
3. Rewards - Graham Kartna
Mmmm, this album. Remember in a previous blog entry when I predicted that this would be the best album to be released this year? Well, that didn't turn out to be true. There were two albums this year that I enjoyed more than Rewards, and we'll get to those in due time.
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That's not to diminish this album, though. Rewards sounds as good as it did in May. I think the reason I liked it so much is because of what it represented. It represented Graham Kartna taking his own style and basically turning it on its head. This album's bouncy fun comes from the same place as Children's Music For Big Kids did, but is darker in tone, tighter, and more bizarre. I've already reviewed this album, but I overlooked how chaotic LSTIC.Pal was, with its freeform pitch-bends and messy turntable scratches. Aside from that, I still feel the same way about the other tracks. JPN.HauntedHouse is demented and bouncy. MOONY.MyPrayer is entrancing and glorious. LOC.MapNowhere is still a highlight.
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As I'm sitting here relistening to this album, I'm realising that this is very true to form for Kartna. Where the album succeeds is that it takes the childlike joy of Children's Music and turns it up to 11, adding in a healthy dose of eccentricity for good measure. Where Children's Music was gleeful, Rewards is ecstatic. Where Children's Music was danceable, Rewards is maddeningly so. Where Children's Music was innocent, Rewards is actually rather depraved. Just listen to LOC.MapNowhere to see what I mean. Get your eternal reward here.
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Best song: LOC.MapNowhere i was wrong all along JPN.HauntedHouse is the best song on this thing
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2. Points Of Interest - Glue70
Goodness motherfucking gracious, this album was exactly what I needed.
So Glue70 has left his "minimalist glitch" sound on the shelf for a while, so he can pursue his dream of making the most catchy house music imaginable. It's a worthwhile endeavour, and while he established his new style last year with Worldwide Digitising, he managed to perfect it just in time for the summer of '13, with the modestly titled Points Of Interest.
When I say "perfected", I mean it. Songs like Casin and These Street Walkers hit you in a very sentimental way, aiming primarily for the euphoria glands but additionally for the feet. These songs are incredibly dancable. Casin in particular is a highlight, thanks to Glue's talent for finding good vocal samples and placing all the bleeps and bloops in the right places.
Ah, but to wax lyrical about the happier songs on Points Of Interest would be doing a disservice to its darker songs, wouldn't it? Points Of Interest is an album of mood swings. You'll be enjoying some of the chillingest use of hip-hop drumloops imaginable (Step Into The Sunshine), and directly afterwards comes At Kins, a disturbing piece of ambient paranoia that's Bitcrushed into oblivion. It almost shouldn't work, but both songs are too good for you to get mad at either of them. But if you want to hear this album's darker songs at their best, you have to check out Quiet Mary Talking and Domestic Silence, two tight, moody tracks from the deepest depths of Glue70's mind.
Any album this well-produced and well-executed is a joy to listen to. Total essential. I highly recommend checking it out on Glue70's Bandcamp page.
Best song: Casin
MOST HONOURABLE MENTIONZ
An Obsession With Kit - Graham Kartna
T'was a nice piece of work in its own right, what with the pop sensibilities and the lovely way the chords and melodies fit perfectly without needing to be forced. But if it were either this or Rewards, it's just no contest.
Bye-Product - GIF
This one felt like a younger cousin of Hypermedia Pop. I liked it at first, but too much of it was too ugly and harsh to make it onto the list. I'd be doing it a disservice to not mention the tracks I liked, though, namely Turtle, Rememberrr, Esta, My Heart and EEE.
Sherlock House - Overground
Man, trap is just not my thing. This EP was a pretty interesting take on the style, but overall not quite breathtaking enough for a mention.
Kansas City 7Up - Unsatisfied
If this was a guitar-based music list, this album would have placed pretty high, somewhere like #3 or #2. This is not that list, so it's on the honourable mentions. If you like the kind of psychedelia that only the past seems to be able to offer, you have no excuse not to check this out. Especially Old Ways - that track is lovely.
Hirotaka Shirotsubaki - April
I took a cheap shot at drone music when writing the #4 entry, so this is the part where I drop a quick disclaimer: I don't have that much of a problem with drone music. Some of it is rather good. This EP is a good example of such. It's a little too basic to make the actual list, but over the year it's served as really good music to sleep or do homework to. It's been a good friend to me, it's just not something I could really write about. Check it out all the same.
Disclosure - Settle
This was going to be the only non-independant album on the list, but then I realised it was actually kinda boring. Oh well. White Noise, You And Me and When A Fire Starts To Burn are all quality, though.
1. I CREATED PISSCORE - PISS SPEARS
This is going to seem like the dumbest choice.
PISS SPEARS is Paige Stanley, or hrmnzr, or adrmnzr, or one half of Stab Something. She's a pretty active musician under those names, but PISS SPEARS was the pseudonym I found first. What I found was indescribable. Skrillex careens round a bend and collides into Hatsune Miku, who ricochets off and spears MC Ride, who crashes into LMFAO, who combust and explode as Nicki Minaj speedtwerks her way through the resulting inferno. The air reeks of over-compression. The sound of multiple Amen Breaks is deafening.
Basically Stanley has created (spawned?) a time capsule of the internet's trashier side. Obnoxious pop hits, equally obnoxious vocaloid spammage, goofy Soundcloud files from Radock and friends, NWA and Death Grips acapellas, it's all here. And the weirdest part is that it's pretty entertaining to listen to! If you can get over the fact that this album was painstakingly produced to be crushingly, ear-shittingly bad, the absurdity of it all gets to you. It's honestly pretty hilarious: a well timed JASON DERULOOO sample at the end of the fun alternative to chewing gum that's been hiding under your noses for all these years gets me every time. I know it probably means I'm a pleb with no taste in funnies, but that doesn't stop me.
The really startling thing is that, every once in a while, a song will appear that's actually pretty listenable, like death_grips_is_my_favourite_trap_artist.wav and the long awaited collaboration between skrillex and vektroid (vaporwave like you've never heard it b4), the former making for surprisingly good workout music and the latter combining two genres that really should never have laid eyes on one another. But the real apex (almost typed Aphex there, whoops) of this thing is in the track a witty title for this piss spears song that involves astro kid singing zedd and also skrillex. It pretty much does what it says on the tin. It's only when the drop swings around that you get blasted at full force by piercing, deadly spears of white-hot piss. It absolutely will destroy your ears if you put the volume up too high, so be warned. It's an endurance test, but it will feel exhilarating if you manage to survive it. Your reward? More pisscore.
It's easily the dumbest album the internet has seen for years. No question about that. But everything about it is a joy to witness, from the amazing track titles (FALL INTO BILL NYE) to the sound of MC Ride rapping over J-pop (TAKYARY [DEATH PON]), to sitting back and watching this thing's ascent on Bandcamp's dubstep tag (it got to like #10 for a while). It is both the best thing and yet the worst thing: if intentionally bad music is still bad, this should not exist. But it does exist, so I may as well enjoy it.
I almost don't know what to make of this. It's not a parody, it's barely satire, it's... just pisscore. I just listened to the whole thing to determine whether or not I really like this thing that much, and... yep. I do. Sorry. It is most certainly my favourite electronic album of 2013. Take a laxative and shit yourself all over your favourite couch here.
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Best song: a witty title for this piss spears song that involves astro kid singing zedd and also skrillex