Feb 5

DIIV
Is the Is Are
Feature Track: Mire
Deep Cut: Incarnate Devil
Rating: 3

Sometimes I get a record on in the background and I'll listen to it all the way through, but find it unremarkable. I won't write anything. I'm not out to criticize, I am simply an observer. All seemingly self references to my being "a critic" are purely for entertainment purposes and should not be taken as literal.

So, this is playing through and is pretty unremarkable to me for the first 8 tracks. Somewhere around the aptly titled Take Your Time and the title track Is the Is Are, I felt like I was about to begin weeping.

I found a secluded place to sit and meditate for a moment. I let the record keep playing. The feeling did not go away. I returned to my work. After a few jaw stretches and controlled breathing the feeling was manageable.

My personal life is a little upside-down at the moment and I'm working through some physical rehab for an extremely painful shoulder injury.  I've been doing Physical Therapy 3 times a week for almost two months now.

I'm still in constant pain, but the pain feels like a healing soreness or a deep bruise instead of the increasingly debilitating condition it had become. I keep thinking of the Louie C.K. bit, "It's just something you do now" as I figure out how to incorporate these new exercises and habits into the rest of my life.

I will also admit that the last half of this album very decidedly begins to conjure up Sonic Youth, one of my all time favorite bands. There's a sort of nostalgic feel the sound and lyrics of this album anyway but now I am making real associations with Sonic Youth. Live shows. This one in particular where Sonic Youth opened for Wilco. I attended the show with a lovely young woman. That was in 2003. That was the summer of my youth.

Inside of everyone, there are deep emotions and a complex psyche that begin working the world out in reverse each day.  From the time the mind perceives of itself, in whatever form that takes, all perceptions and understandings of the world are derived from replaying everything that we have ever seen or heard over and over, in reverse. Each moment plays like a sampler. A never ending build up of frequencies that our mind filters into things like clouds, sounds, racoons washing fruit in a stream, etc.

All of this is context to say that music is like a key. The frequencies that get piqued and the way in which they are piqued are as integral to the workings of the Universe (and, thereby, our minds) as a key is to a lock.

If any QED were imagined it would be the idea that it is only our personal psychological barriers that prevent us from using music as a means to scan these frequencies (like a CB). Subjecting the mind to a speaker projecting pure or mixed, pure tones will produce similar, albeit, much more subtle affects.

When the entirety of all music is viewed as a database of "mixed frequencies", one can scan through, using the emotional AND physical properties of the objects in the database to observe and analyze what physical and emotional frequencies are "objectively" resonated in the listener. Is there a song (or "collection of frequencies") that will make you cry or laugh or spit every time you hear it? Is it all related to how some physical membrane vibrates in your ear?

With no real way to measure or quantify such a thing, the only resolution is to attempt the journey on my own. The lotus becomes a fire.

So, I'm getting into the 2nd half of a record that sounds mostly derivative when suddenly I am using all of my will power to continue entering data into a spreadsheet and not collapsing into a weeping heap of broken humanity. On the floor. Under a desk.

Now I'm thinking of these things. They are not new articulations or revelations to me, but all the things in my life are suddenly illuminated in a different light. It is the light of this current set of frequencies as they mix with my moment in time and space.

I favorite a couple of songs. I let the record play out. I can't even remember the name of the band. Then I continue on to Elton John's latest, which I can tell will have nothing said about it, but this.

Lion Babe
Begin
Feature Track: On The Rocks
Rating: 4

Legit pop music. Looks like a duo comprised of a DJ (MPC beat production type stuff) paired with a fierce female fronting vocals. If it is just the two of them making this sound, they are as good of a duo in their element as the White Stripes ever were.

Clear and articulate pop hooks dig in and take hold. Lyrically, this music seems directed towards proud, confident women. It embodies confidence and emboldens a particular strength only accessible to womanhood, but perceivable from all  perspectives.

Just a woman who's made to dance
A girl who shakes when she giggles
Gotta love all the people that I came from
So clap, clap for this
I'm the one that you notice
I'm a lot to get into (oh yeah she is)
They used to stare back
Lookin' at me, they couldn't handle it
That I was unique
Now I don't shy away
I turned out okay
And we all don't need one way to look good

This one is worth checking out if you like pop music, powerful female role-models and creative beat-crafting.

Lucinda Williams
Ghosts of Highway 20
Feature Track: Ghosts of Highway 20
Rating: 3

Sounding like a woman wandering in off the street into a recording studio, Lucinda Williams bares al in this stripped down strictly alternative country. Ghosts of Highway 20 conjurs up images of Springsteen's Ghost of Tom Joad  (2014). I was looking forward to seeing where this was going. Then the only decent Youtube playlist I could find that had this in good quality was DCMA's for every track after this. Welp... moving on.

Scooter
Ace
Feature Track: Don't Break The Silence
Rating: 5


I want to discount this, but I can't. I hate these techno breaks, but the stuff that surrounds it is.. well "fuckin ace.. "

Don't Break The Silence, flirts with American Top 40 Country. The Birdwatcher is infectious even though it is that jacked up hard techno beat.

The MC breaks are dedicated and hard. I'm not in the mood today. Questioning my ability to make choices in life at all if this is what I am doing right now. Then Crazy on. And for :40 seconds I'm back in. this is sweet! Then stabbing horns. Just fucking hammering that 1Khz zone. the breaks in between are nice too. My ears are ringing. I'm seriously not in the mood today. Sorry dudes.

I gave this album a 5 because if you are in a situation where you want to put on some seriously fucked up shit that people probably haven't heard and they like big drops, hard techno and x and stuff, this should be one of your go-to albums this year.

Textures
Phenotype
Feauture Track: Oceans Collide
Deep Cut: Zman
Keep Listening: Timeless
Rating: 5

From one type of Hardcore to another. So begins the trudge. Not that I dislike this kind of music. But it becomes cumbersome after intense listening. I have a few bands that I really do enjoy listening to and Texture could be in that list. They are definitely progressive.

Do you remember when Metallica teamed up with that orchestra and did that all that stuff? Please let this happen one day with Textures and Dream Theater! the break and outro starting at 4:10 on the opening track, Oceans Collide! 

I was raised to believe that if someone created demonic music and you listened to it then the demons would go inside of you and fuck you up and shit. This still terrifies me on some level that makes it difficult to appreciate the technical virtuosity of demons. This leads into the deep philosophical abyss of reciprocating moral pragmatism.

I can't even tell you for sure if this band is advocating devil worship, human sacrifice, baby killing or simply "general thought rebellion". But it sounds terrifying. I have a difficult time believing anyone has time to write, rehearse, record and maintain songs like Shaping a Single Grain of Sand while doing anything except making music. But then again, as the old saying goes, "The Devil is never on stage".

This has got some mean, mean stink on it. And I say that as someone who has been 5 ft away from a shirtless Randy Blythe. Every track. I can't turn it off. I do start skipping tracks towards the end. I'm looking for a calmer plane today. Zman comes along just in time. Clicking clocks leading into the outro track Timeless. A track that begins like a dismantled clock and ends with a the progressive-pop statement of the year. Do not miss this one.

Trixie Whitley
Porta Bohemica
Feature Track: Faint Mystery
Deep Cut: Soft Spoken Words
Rating: 5


I'm humming and singing along as soon as track 1, Faint Mystery begins. There's a good vibe. A nice respite for the ears, as well. Like a bit of ginger between courses. Beautiful changes and great guitar/horn sounds during the chorus of Salt. Closer is a beat that Drake would love to have. Warm bass, resonating subs. These songs are fluid and wonderfully complex in flavor, but it feels a little too long. Hourglass responds with an intriguing groove and a spaghetti western atmosphere and doubles down on a brilliant low horn sound during the big chorus.

The production on Porta Bohemica is adventurous and the songwriting and arrangements are dexterous and magnetic. Eliza's Smile features lyrical guitar that I believe is played by the singer. Powerful. Soft Spoken Words caused me to elicit a sharp cry against my will, like a 'yehaww' kind of thing. The sweet spot of this hook is reminiscent Gangster's Paradise but that is not to say that is derivative. Quite the opposite.  I'm a Trixie fan.

From my perspective, the hits that roll out of Porta Bohemica are no less hard than the hits that come from the previous two artists. They stab at the same spot and light up very similar frontiers in the old brain jelly.

Only one track on this album has over 50K and her most played tracks have only 200 or 300K after a few years. I think this is an artist on the rise. Or at least she should be. The closing track, The Visitor features drastic, crunchy piano chords standing along in space with beautiful vocals. Even without being able to understand all the lyrics, I'm with her the whole way.

the coals of crash and burnmade for [??] and melancholyplayin' in the name of the foolLose thyself in a well of temptationIn a puddle of loveAs I sip from the grounds of mental alienation
I don't need more than what I giveI wanna be with those who know secrets[???]

Wiz Khalifa
Khalifa
Feature Track: City View
Rating: 4

I am a fan of Wiz. He is funny, quick witted and honest. He shows all of this in the intro track BTS, which begins with stereotypical hip-hop machismo bravado shit and then segues into something more of a dave chapelle vibe

My mom didn't raise no fool, nigga
Matter fact, she did (laughter)
My mom raised a fool, nigga (more laughter)
But that don't mean we can't get rich (too rich)
That's what they say

Apparently, He has his last name (and album title) tattooed on his back, just like Steve-O.  And later on City View. 

This shit ain't as easy as it look,  nigga
It's way fuckin' easier (laughter)
Don't get it twisted bitch
But on some real shit tho (laughter)

Cowboy tells a story of a kid that gets stuck in the Pittsburgh hood and does not make it out of the song alive. Retro, dark storytelling.  Call Waiting takes a left turn for a record in this genre and Wiz busts out an actual song (verses, lyrics and traditional arrangement) that could be a 50's R&B hit. It sounds like a love song, but I bet it is about his weed dealer.

I know why I keep thinking of Dave Chapelle and associate Wiz with humor. With every album, he sounds more and more like the 'white guy' character from The Chapelle Show.

Long & Strong.