this year has been pretty great for me, lots of cool stuff i hadnt heard of before and several albums by some of my favorite artists so im cool. and unlike last year the albums by artists i liked are mostly good instead of terrible.

"ahaha fair enough, though cerulean strikes me as prettttty gay too"

yeah i mean its pretty apparent across his discog but i found the lyrics in cerulean ambiguous enough to be pretty universally relatable regardless of sexual preference but obsidian and the new one get a lot less subtle in that regard.

im honestly liking it more on my second listen as well. deffs a headphones album for most enjoyment, the production goes a long way in making up for the most cringey vocals

bumping it up to a 3 for now

Album Rating: 3.0

gotcha

most of the artists i was looking forward to (shabazz palaces especially, whose lese majesty turned from a release i was completely bored by to one of my favorite records ever) dropped duds. last year's nick cave record blew me away and the 2017 stuff i was excited about breifly (king krule, perfume genius, mount eerie, iglooghost, tyler) now sit nowhere close to anything in my top five last year, which is really on me for not searching harder, i guess. probably comes down to cutting myself off of music when i sit down to read something. i jammed a lot of cigarettes after sex this summer and even that record is half skippable for me now. a lot to whine about at least

Album Rating: 3.0

yeah my first listen to this was on headphones and i could tell that that's the ideal method

word. mount eerie is another album like this for me, i think it was important for him to make for his own mental health, and thats more important than me wanting to listen to every mount eerie album on repeat.

i was very disappointed with iglooghost but loved King Krule

Album Rating: 3.0

iglooghost i listened to obsessively for a week and then realized that there really wasn't much going on amidst all the flashy rhythms

king krule i haven't given up on yet but it's so situational (not a bad thing). i've gotten three or so really good listens out of it but haven't gotten back.

i got obsessed with shaking the habitual earlier in the year and am still struggling with the new fever ray because of that, i think. most cases just demand more effort on my part i'd say

"iglooghost i listened to obsessively for a week and then realized that there really wasn't much going on amidst all the flashy rhythms"

as far as genres go, electronic is one of the better genres to get away with 'style over substance' considering the social nature of dance music but yeah iglooghost was certainly hyperchromatic but also about as deep as a petri dish.

"i got obsessed with shaking the habitual earlier in the year and am still struggling with the new fever ray because of that, i think. most cases just demand more effort on my part i'd say"

I think Plunge is similar to Shaking the Habitual in that the emotional impact of the songs and their concepts sometimes take priority over ~sounding nice~ which is something that turns a lot of impatient or casual music enthusiasts off and it was unexpected with Fever Ray cuz her s/t was some of the most easily digestible music shes made since Honey Is Cool was a thing lol. And I appreciate that about it. It is traits that I have been finding in all of my favorite albums recently. I hear it in King Krule and Lapalux new albums too. They are kind of cinematic in the sense that they subvert your expectations with music and make it more visceral. They aren't afraid to get ugly and make you uncomfortable and test your patience. And stuff like that for me is the set-up and story-telling that makes the climaxes that much more gratifying, and the falling action that much more memorizing.

some people dont get that or dig that. some people watch Blue Valentine and say "thats is? wtf?" at the end and others say "FUCKING RIGHTS THATS IT!!!" through a veil of very genuine tears. its like Old Dreams from Shaking too, its not like i would argue that that is a 'good' song, like, i would never ever recommend that song to anyone. but it is an important part of the album that is intentionally placed to create tension and to test your patience. i appreciate that effect much like i appreciated the anxiety that the excruciatingly slow build to the vikings arrival to NA in Valhalla Rising, or David Lynch's career for that matter lol.

im very sensitive to music and film, they are the like only 2 things that make me cry, so stuff like that is just my preference because it is emotionally overwhelming and that to me is when music becomes art

btw have u watched shaking the habitual live yet?

Album Rating: 4.0

On my 2nd listen, and honestly, the sheer amount of gayness on this album is causing me to appreciate it more



He's not holding that aspect about himself back

yes the gayness is there for sure i think we've covered that well

Album Rating: 4.0

It's a shame about that weird album cover though

haha its kind of funny tbh

you can tell he has a playful sense of humour about the themes

Album Rating: 4.0

True, the album is growing on me though, so that's good



I honestly could see myself 4ing it eventually (it's at a 3.5 right now)

i implore you to.

Album Rating: 3.0

i haven't seen the live version yet, no! and i also am a fan of messy, challenging art in general that takes its time and withholds easy climaxes/resolutions. i think my problem is that i've been pouring that energy into places other than music and i'm starting to lose passion for it because of that. film, too in a way - only thing of note i've seen in months is the meyerowitz stories, which was decent, but i really need to just buckle down and watch Raw or Barry Lyndon or Opening Night or really anything dense. I went on a Charlie Kaufman rampage a while back and since then I haven't seen much of anything

dont worry the passion will come back, i move in and out of it too.

but yeah the live shaking the habitual is fucking transcendental