paralogue.org

Thread for just posting an album you've listened to lately, preferably new ones :).

• <a href='https://dazeyandthescouts.bandcamp.com/album/maggot' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Dazey and the Scouts - Maggot</a></li>
• <a href='https://blackbirdraum.bandcamp.com/album/destroying' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Blackbird Raum - Destroying</a></li>

Dazey and the Scouts I discovered through a friend, and Blackbird Raum through a Spotify playlist of folkpunk essentials.

Dazey and the Scouts feels like a kind of flirty/edgy extension of girl rock, and they actually have a Plumtree cover at end of the album, it's pretty fun! As far as I can tell, they're a band that did a few shows, published an album, and then broke up into a number of different bands with a much strong pedigree. There's a bit of a history here <a href='http://allstonpudding.com/an-oral-history-of-dazey-and-the-scouts/' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>here</a>.

Blackbird Raum shown up in the context of Folk Punk but it honestly feels like an accidental inclusion in it, it almost reminds of pirate music or a much bleaker version of Gogol Bordello that talks about killing your landlord, but the vibe I got was of a group more interested in a kind of hazy mythological place than the Seattle busking they came from. But I think I'm making up stuff based on misheard lyrics and album art.

JennyDog wrote:

preferably new ones :).

Aw man. I'm screwed.

I'm looking through my lists and ... my latest albums for April have been focused on... Steely Dan. I haven't heard any of it before! Honestly! I began with <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ueivjr3f8xg&list=PLfGibfZATlGonwDMXhmHWWchf4_QN5chy' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>The Nightfly</a> and then listened to Aja. And then besides that it's ... <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqyrPjFEj9A&pp=ygUPcHlnbWFsaW9uIGFsYnVt' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Pygmalion</a>. Lots and lots of Pygmalion.

I wanna listen to what you posted. So I will.

i couldn't sleep a couple days ago, and i fell into the trap of checking my phone after midnight and saw an email saying that strawberry hospital just released a new album. sorta. it's just a compilation of most of their previous work, plus a single new song. edition of 100, $20 plus $10 shipping.

i thought about buying it then, but then felt like it could wait until morning, but then remembered that their stuff sells out weirdly fast now and so i might not even get the chance. so i bought it, $20 plus $10 shipping. i didn't check to see if it sold out the next day, but it's definitely sold out now.

this is probably a findom relationship, and them being really cute doesn't help me beat the allegations.

---

aside from that, this month i ended up being led (back) down the japanese shoegaze rabbit hole, though i have no complaints:

• monocism - 風光 (2019): slightly mathy, rather beautiful. the shoegazers all gather round to talk about their attachment disorders and how they use warm drones to cope.
• Homecomings - Homecoming with me? (2014): oh my god it's the most adorable album title and it tastes so sweet like that knockoff cinnamon toast crunch
• ・・・・・・・・・ - 「 」 (2018): idol culture both fascinates and scares me…

maru wrote:

And then besides that it's ... Pygmalion. Lots and lots of Pygmalion.

one day i'll finally graduate past listening to souvlaki over and over again and give pygmalion another go. i'm still not even sure if i even like souvlaki… it's just on rotation in my car and every time it comes around i feel like i want to listen to it again. and, is this love? when you just want to spend time with her?

This week I've been listening to a lot of the album ??? by MyGO!!!!!, a fictional band from the anime of the same name (which is also great). It's a classic J-rock type thing with some <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ-OebTVyvk' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>heartbreaking spoken word sections</a> and some <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kZBuzsZ7Ho' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>killer hooks</a>. I can't get these songs out of my head.

maru wrote:

JennyDog wrote:

preferably new ones :).

Aw man. I'm screwed.

I'm looking through my lists and ... my latest albums for April have been focused on... Steely Dan. I haven't heard any of it before! Honestly! I began with <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ueivjr3f8xg&list=PLfGibfZATlGonwDMXhmHWWchf4_QN5chy' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>The Nightfly</a> and then listened to Aja. And then besides that it's ... <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqyrPjFEj9A&pp=ygUPcHlnbWFsaW9uIGFsYnVt' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Pygmalion</a>. Lots and lots of Pygmalion.

I wanna listen to what you posted. So I will.

Aja is great! It and The Royal Scam are my favorites of the Dan I've heard so far. I still need to check out The Nightfly.

maru wrote:

And then besides that it's ... <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqyrPjFEj9A&pp=ygUPcHlnbWFsaW9uIGFsYnVt' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Pygmalion</a>. Lots and lots of Pygmalion.

im also super screwed i only listen to old shit. i really like souvlaki. i havent listened to pygmalion but ive heard its way better and more essential as far as shoegaze goes.

ive listened to a lot of random emo stuff and post-hardcore lately;
<a href='https://hecticfire.bandcamp.com/track/the-sting' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Candidate</a> are like uncanny valley emo, its got the screaming but the production and vibes are wrong, it hits more like slint or something and its got these tape loop parts that are weird, and they really have good control over dynamics and harmonies. sucks they didnt make anything else. see also <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oHouRb6zW4' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>State Route 522</a>.

but ive also been listening to a fair amount of indie rock, <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9oE9IAO6rk' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Sebadoh</a> and <a href='https://dinosaurjr.bandcamp.com/track/the-lung-2' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Dinosaur Jr.</a> and <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoqjYPyy_Rc' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Guided by Voices</a>. sorta lofi lots of melodic sensibilities and interesting harmony.

back at it again with some stuff i've liked these past couple weeks:

Tsukasa Itou – Sayonara Con-nichiwa (1982)

this whole thing confounds me (affectionate?). a very young idol singer with a really cute voice that can't quite hit the notes, singing in front of instrumentals that range from standard synthpop to doo-wop throwback to just utterly unhinged. and it has a weirdly stacked songwriter credit list? ryuichi sakamoto wrote a song for it?! mariya takeuchi wrote the one about having a pajama party?!!

Usagi-chan Superstar!! Vol.0001 (2002, Compilation)

if someone told me in the '90s that all music in the 2000s sounded like this, i would've been so excited and then so disappointed once the nu-metal started rolling in.
this is exactly what i want and what i've spent so long looking for… this kind of spacey dancepop melts my heart. i listen to something like talking of girl and i feel like i've come home to my future.

Red Go-Cart - skip and make it flower (1999)

though if you were to tell me that this came out in 1999 i'd find it hard to believe, since this is much more reminiscent of a very straightforward kind of lo-fi guitar pop that i thought died out after the eighties – think shonen knife perhaps. but it's so sunny and speedy and cute that it makes me think that we should've never left the style behind…

also that album title is sooo adorable!~

watermoon wrote:

ryuichi sakamoto wrote a song for it?! mariya takeuchi wrote the one about having a pajama party?!!

Sakamoto was kind of everywhere for pop music in the 80s, I think. I love the production work he did on <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I59jlc7E4Cg' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Mari Ijima's Rosé</a>.

maru wrote:

Sakamoto was kind of everywhere for pop music in the 80s, I think. I love the production work he did on <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I59jlc7E4Cg' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Mari Ijima's Rosé</a>.

holy shit that groove…
and yeah i can definitely see that, so maybe i use credits like that as a metric of an idol's industry connections, and how much of a push there was to have her succeed. i have no clue if this is accurate or fair.

lots of interesting albums this year.

- cold visions by bladee was a long-awaited return to emo. i don't think his new stuff has been as reproachable as most but there's the chuuni in me that wants to indulge a little in being evil.
- tital memory exo by iglooghost sweeps me into the ocean. i think this is him at his best. thank you for being a silly sea creature.
- britpop by a. g. cook confirms to me that he's still got it.
- sophomore slump callitrope by stomach book was introduced to me by my girlfriend. emo ska rock? idk what to call this. uniquely 23nd century hyper music. it can only exist right now. it's pretty evocative in the way that this kind of 'direct' art is not usually. it strikes a chord in me, or maybe i just heard it at the right time. not every song is a favorite but i'm swept with it just a little.
- deathbrain dropped "a slice of life" this year which is more of the same. some singles rolled up into the album. it goes on a little too long, but the production is ever great, if a little repetitive. new songs are good.

Continuing my basic spree, I've been listening to Television's <a href='https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lU2dllEI8TDoCLDKyhrL6GQg4uJDo_DNQ' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Marquee Moon</a> recently. I think what happened was, I was relistening to a lot of Interpol and I was reminded that I had heard Television a few times and should do it again. So I did and it was just like ... this time it wasn't "music" in abstract, it connected with me. So much post-punk owes itself to this record. It feels downright timeless sometimes. The vocal delivery is crazy and organic and emotive, but without being melodramatic; it's more somewhat theatrical. So instead of Interpol taking these staccato guitars and applying the Joy Division vocal treatment on crazy lyrics, it's more like these little stories told between amazing guitar lines.

Current new listens:

<a href='https://thebrobecks.bandcamp.com/' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>The Brobeks: Violent Things</a>: one of the panic at the disco performers earlier solo project, a lot of fun. They currently head up <a href='https://idkhow.bandcamp.com/' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>I don't know how but they found me</a>, which I hand't realized released more than a few songs. It's definitely emo but doesn't want to call itself emo, its a ton of fun, a few songs don't really vibe but I really liked it.




<a href='https://jukeboxtheghost.bandcamp.com/album/let-live-let-ghosts' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Jukebox the Ghost: Let Live and Let Ghosts</a>. I saw them for the first time on an album tour where each night they were doing an album show for each of their earliest albums, they have incredible stage presence and sort of MC'd themselves and gave running talks about how they composed it, or how one of the singers met his wife, and so I got a T Shirt and gave it a listen. It's a pretty odd album because half of it is a concept album about the apocalypse, and the other half jaunty rock-piano love songs. I think the band changed up their stuff a lot, but they still are producing music and touring.

Oh God, I have another one actually: <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJMqq8auSqo&pp=ygUdZWFydGggaXMgYmlnIGxvZ2FuIHdoaXRlaHVyc3Q%3D' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Earth is Big by Logan Whitehurst and the Junior Science Club</a>.

I listened to Logan's music a lot when I was younger — he had only just died (2006) and so the community of people around Lemon Demon had a bit of a mythology about him. And he has a lot of hallmarks that people sort of associate with Neil, so it made sense.

I think his music really holds up; I think calling it novelty is a bit reductive. It's playful, eccentric, hopeful stuff. I find it really fun to go through and there's always tons of tracks on each record. Track after track of lo-fi cassette goodies, you know?

one new one and one old one. ive got other new stuff to hear but i wanted to get this down at least

Lives Outgrown by Beth Gibbons: this one is pretty good but not great. i can respect her want to not sound exactly like portishead circa 15 years ago (sounds dreary!) and i think she mostly accomplishes that. theres some wonkiness though. the first track is a good example of this, that one to me feels hokey in the same way like, a Sad Song for the new The Last Of Us would. its bad enough that it put me on guard for the rest of the album, which was better and mostly pretty good. but the impression had already been made. unfortunate.

Atomizer by Big Black: kicking myself for not really listening to steve albini deeply until he had already died. my excuse is im often fickle for no real reason and the best i can do is fix my mistakes as they happen. i cant really say much about this beyond its excellent for the reasons people have been saying for almost 40 years now. he was really one of the greats.

spellbook of fate wrote:

Atomizer by Big Black: kicking myself for not really listening to steve albini deeply until he had already died.

do yourself a favor and check out <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiEjRLmSLp0' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Shellac</a>, which was what he did afterwards. even released an album something like a week before he died.

yesterday I listened to <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=papQ7OOyqAA' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Deserve</a>, by Weed. it hits a good spot as far as harder, girthier shoegaze that doesnt sleepwalk.

last week I listened to <a href='https://survivalistdeathcult.bandcamp.com/album/radiophonic-dub' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Radiophonic Dub</a> which is this dub record made by this noise artist i ought to listen to more of, and it draws heavily from his love of 50s-60s BBC studio sound design.

hi all. @maru prompted me to come post what ive been listening to again
siktoe navajoe by protman

very pretty ambient record. protman says its stuff from between 1994 and 2018, but it all consistently feels as if it came out somewhere in the 2001 ballpark. it is very similar to Microstoria by SND, lots of pillowy fluffy synths and static atmospheres but it has a really pleasantly varied sound palette. Apparently it was made with an SK1 and Audiomulch but the yt description says he used trackers too. I reached out on X to ask why the bandcamp version has discrepancies in track lengths and he says its probably because that release has all the crossfades between tracks cut out.

under wartime conditions by the cleaners from venus

super british super jangly lofi college pop rock. its all crunchy high end and tape hiss. i think i prefer 'Living with Victoria Grey' but this is the first record of theirs i listened to so it gets priority, and it doesnt have (many) weird skits like the latter does. these guys really love descending lines. the one on the opener is pretty powerful, but I think this one is a little more representative of what they do... another thing of note, 'lukewarm love song' sound shockingly similar to mac demarco to me. maybe its just the guitar, it could totally be on Two or something. the band were operating close enough to where I live I could realistically take a day trip to go see them, thus the vibe is thus achingly familiar.

Deserve by WEED

i found WEED thru some offhand comment or recommendation on yt or maybe rym that they did a good dinosaur jr impression. idk abt that but this is really good. it sorta reminds me of early MBV just with less lofi production. you can make out what the different guitars are doing, but the production is still chokingly intense, thick and loud.

i've been stuck here for a couple days, trying to figure out how i feel about the opening song on here, but the only concrete feeling i get is that this shouldn't be here. like this cassette art is very adorable, but damn if it doesn't also have that "i made this :)" look to it. but then you put in the cassette, and listen to the first track, and get hit with this densely-arranged belle & sebastian-y jewel of twee pop.



the songs on here would get rerecorded and released on cd later that year (which can be yours right now for only $150!), so i guess it did find a more fitting home for it in time, though the arrangements on those kinda drown out her voice…

im a fan of shudder to think's album Funeral at the Movies and I think it is almost end to end great songs, but, the album they released after it might be better?? I am still digesting it, but Get Your Goat is so weird and unusual with these crazy moments of dissonance but also very pretty harmony and this clean integration of synth stuff very briefly, its so unique. I love it ...

For the past month or so I have been getting up to speed with the american industrial scene: factrix, minimal man, tuxedomoon (as a sort of secondary), ike yard and controlled bleeding.. all good, but my favorite so far might be Robert Turman and his record Way Down. it kinda sounds like a precursor to fourth world magazine/monopoly child star searches spencer clark and by extension the skaters' whole thing. idk though, because the compositional ideas and ideals i think are pretty different and it is maybe more by happenstance it sounds like it was recorded thru an ass than by intention. I could be wrong, though. his wife is in the comments of this yt video maybe!!
https://robertturman.bandcamp.com/album/way-down

Some newer additions I quite like.

Colour Yes by Matthew Halsall — I'm a little stuck on Bill Evans. Modal jazz, cool jazz, slower and atmospheric stuff. This particular record is quite moving, often slow. It's not bopping hard, but Halsall as a trumpeter is beautiful and there's a strangely high amount of harp being used in the interplay between phrases here. Trumpet and harp trade off a lot.

Tokyo Classic by Rip Slyme — Picked up in Japan. I only really knew Funkastic from the Earth vs. Funk animutation video, but a lot of this record is actually a bit more slower and contemplative in its melodies. The uptempo numbers are catchy as hell. As far as Japanese rap goes, I don't necessarily listen to a lot, but Rip Slyme has always appealed to me.

Boo-Boo by Flin Flon — Got on recommendation from sinku dearest, it's grown on me over time. I liked its dry dance punk but eventually came to find the vocals endearing. I can't put my finger on it — why does he sound like Neil Cicierega sometimes? The back half is solid as hell; Virgin Arm, Leading Tickles and Happy Adventure are a great trio.

LC by the Durutti Column — I dug it up after finding it on Wikipedia one day as Eno's favourite record, and the entire record is quite moving melancholic postpunk guitar snippets that still sound modern. Though I think my definition of "modern" is ageing; all I mean is, I wouldn't be surprised hearing some of these melodies off The XX, though their debut was in 2009 or so, right?

Been flipping through a few more records passively. Marking them here because maybe you will want to listen to them!

Musik for Insomniaks, vol. 1 by Mark Mothersbaugh — listened to it in the wee hours and found it intriguing and strange. Almost like Circa 2000 by Deporitaz, though I suppose both are sample-based MIDI tracks. The thing is that a lot of tracks off Musik sound strikingly like SNES soundtrack scores, specifically when you get to the XP tracks. Honestly though, over time I came to really like it. I think Lifelong sticks out to me as a favourite here.

Foam by Ulla — Glitch ambient? Sure is. Kinda reminds me of Fuji Grid TV by Vektroid. Didn't keep this, just didn't stick well. I'm working my way through some of this list, backwards.

cendre by fennesz + sakamoto — Ryuichi Sakamoto did a lot of electroacoustic ambient collabs in the mid-00s. This is one of them. Yet it doesn't really cohere the way a good Harold Budd might or Brian Eno's Installations record did, most recently. It ends up being disparate textures coexisting.

かがやき (Kagayaki) by Masakatsu Takagi — This is top of the charts for New Age! And why is that? It's pretty stuff, but it didn't stick with me at all. Like, I wish I liked this record. I want to be the kind of person who likes this record. But in the same way I don't even really like Studio Ghibli, or Mamoru Hosoda (literally, I think I've seen all his movies and remember 0% of any of them, the worst thing I could ever say) — I don't think I'm going to remember this record at all. It's just like pretty smears on a wall.

Vision Creation Newsun by Boredoms — at least the first third of it. It's a little too intense for me, though it's clearly a really competent and exciting record. The more you look into Boredoms, the more intriguing this record is.

The Ambient Collection by the Art of Noise — I found this at a thrift store and the reviews on rym were good, "better than a compilation" — and it really is! It's a really great mix of field noise, downtempo jams on piano, ambient pieces ... it flows together superbly. The Art of Noise have felt quintessentially British to me — I think of Britain in a crisp clean Gill Sans in this record, the same way I think of Britain's countryside with From Gardens Where We Feel Secure.

I've started just bantering with Seraphine about this stuff and exploring suggested catalogues from there. There's really so much music in the world.

I went down a bit of a rabbit hole today. Paralogue user and friend @meri linked this record, ぱんださんようちえん, of which track 5 is doing its very best impression of the Alien 9 ED. It's kind of ... eclectic, though a few tracks I really liked, and I found that it's the product of a full doujin circle who have various attached records and all of whom seem to ended up getting credits as singers or composers in anime and more JP-centric games (Atelier series, etc) when you look at their respective discographies. The main composer died in 2014, kind of young ...

But then in the reviews I found this RYM user who was going through literally everything bermei.inazawa touched and inadvertently dug up this record, あさやけぼーだーらいん, and it's really pretty when you listen to it, though barely anyone has...

The main singer on it, who's been in these doujin circles for literally 20 years now!, mainly posts as a vtuber playing Pikmin or whatever, to 200 views per ep. And I just wondered what the life is like in these doujin circles ... just putting out this art to an unknown crowd, going on with life. There's so much beauty left undiscovered, beauty other people make in their own time, as side projects, for their own sake...

something old, something new…



“The future? Oh, that happened 20 years ago… don’t you remember?”

ever since i listened to usagi-chang superstar i've been poring through everyone that got a release on the short-lived label, and while i could go on about my feelings for all these albums and the artists who made them, i've become more than a bit fixated on this lovely picopop jewel, composed and produced by the creator of the label himself.

i've always adored the album format for how it can transcend simply being a collection of songs into being an experience in its own right, and suzuki akira absolutely gets this too, from the packaging to the flow between tracks. it's such a lightning bolt from start to finish, taking you by the hand and then dragging you along at 220 beats per minute without looking back.

it's so weird to think of this style as probably retrofuturistic by now, because to my y2k brain this is my future. but hey, i've always been a believer in "the future" as a demarcated imaginative space that one can always return to (fun, aesthetic, inextricably intertwined with the era of its birth) more than the consequence of time continuously ticking along (undefined). and i want this future to be mine. i want to stay in this place forever, glittery and sparkly and bondi blue translucent.

so, definitely a 5.0 if i ever come back to rym.
i wonder if i should…
i have plenty more 2s to inflict on the charts…



https://yusakuarai.bandcamp.com/album/-

speaking of album-as-places, this one has been mystifying me lately… even as someone who has listened to a weirdly large amount of ambient, i'm not quite sure how to place this… perhaps somewhere along the lines of saw ii meets montparnasse meets the OFF soundtrack meets suisou by test_void (do not research) but i think there's something more in here too…

in a just world this would be loved my more people, but i say that about a lot of things, huh?

watermoon wrote:

i wonder if i should…
i have plenty more 2s to inflict on the charts…

I miss seeing those 2s on rym, mizuki ...

I have a few things I've been paying attention to lately:

• I've been playing through How I Loved You by the Angels of Light. I like Swans, but I kind of prefer this low-key Neil Diamond style, this Gothic forlorn atonement. Several different songs on there brought me to tears at various times.
• I checked out the pre-Broken Social Scene KC Accidental records. The second record (6-12 here) is stronger, but the phone call jam on "Kev's Message for Charlie" has a nice atmosphere through those layers.

I gave some time to Techno Animal's Re-Entry and was disappointed. The first half is long and the beats are repetitive, things which I wouldn't ordinarily complain about. If the sampling didnt feel so dated, these detailed and worked over tracks wouldn't irritate me so much. But no, it blusters away for 10 or 20 minutes, track after track, on really lame or nondescript sounds. The second half with all the atmospheres was better, but not by too much. I feel like if I'd listened to this some years sooner I would have liked it much more. I can't even clearly describe it because it fell out of my mind so fast. I have impressions of a lot of dark atmosphere and noise but it blended together into soup. Sadly, that's how I feel about a lot of dark ambient I listen to nowadays. Never goes anywhere, never amounts to much. Bluh.

After that, I listened to the Porter Ricks/Techno Animal split Symbiotics and it was way, way better. I don't know where all this restraint came from. On Re-entry it felt like they were jerking off in the studio for the whole first hour. Or I suppose blazed out of their minds so they just didn't feel the time they were pissing away. Now they know when to stop a track? I feel like I have to fill in the gap between these releases to get the big picture. Either Porter Ricks enforced some ground rules or they simply got better in the four years between these two records. It's thrumming and minimal and bassy and quite unified, I had a hard time telling whose tracks were whose because I got so into it and had some pleasant surprises, Ionic was an especially good track.

Also I dunno if they were in on it but their record Brotherhood of the Bomb released on 9/11. I hope such a coincidence wasnt wasted.

maru wrote:

watermoon wrote:

i wonder if i should…
i have plenty more 2s to inflict on the charts…

I miss seeing those 2s on rym, mizuki ...

I change my ratings a lot on RYM so every time you see a 2 from me, it could always get better ... or worse ... I'll keep you guessing. Re-entry has lost a whole star since I first heard it!

Okay, quick post because I'm astonished I'm finding that a proper new Field Mice record came out in 2022 and I missed it. Specifically Overwintering by Lightning in a Twilight Hour.

LiaTH is Wratten's latest rename after Northern Picture Library, Trembling Blue Stars, but the previous releases he did, the records and EPs, sort of only "hinted" at the personnel? Like who is on these? They sound almost like Field Mice but could be different musicians to fit the mold. But this time you look at the personnel and it's Anne-Mari Davies, Robert Wratten, Michael Hiscock. It's these people who defined the Field Mice sound: romantic, melancholic stuff, basic guitar chording on extremely melodic, high-fret basslines. Hiscock wasn't really in the Picture Library or Trembling era, and it was sort of implied he was around on earlier releases but not clear here too.

But in this record you hear it. This is the Field Mice. This is just straight up the Field Mice. Those guys dominate my listening habits, you know?

nobonoko – Learn to Count with 1 2 3 4 Rainbow (2025)





is this my favorite find of 2025 so far? it's such a lithe little fictional soundtrack, but it's so cute!

in the comments i see more than a few people associating this with frutiger aero aesthetics, which makes sense with its wiiware framing and use of an era-appropriate sound palette, but i honestly taste a lot of mojipittan influence throughout: another edutainment game that's adorable and fun but also one where i get filtered by the time limit after the first handful of stages.

Yuri Kunizane - Summer in Blue (1988)





i'm a lot more likely to revisit an album if there's one song that draws me back into it. here, it's rainbow beach.

i think i prefer my 80s j-pop to be at least somewhat unhinged. i think that's what attracted me to sayonara con-nichiwa, and why that one portable rock music video has stuck in my head since i saw it over a decade ago. this one is a notch tamer than those, but that intro still breaks my brain in a good way.

Rie Tanigawa – Baiser (1991)





and here, the song that brings me back is kugatsu no ame, a beautiful, gentle cognitohazard made just for me.

i see glimpses into a life that i want to believe could've been mine.
i see a sadness that i wish i could've cured, across a rift that i don't know how to traverse.
these thoughts bubble up, and i push them back down again.
and in the distance between us both, i sadly understand…

perfect young lady - PYL 4th SEASON...

latest season from this super cool technopop project. nails the NON-STANDARD era Pizzicato Five sound perfectly, but more lo-fi and hazy. all of their stuff is free on bandcamp. please download them if you read this. it's free.

sinku wrote:

For the past month or so I have been getting up to speed with the american industrial scene: factrix, minimal man, tuxedomoon (as a sort of secondary), ike yard and controlled bleeding.. all good, but my favorite so far might be Robert Turman and his record Way Down. it kinda sounds like a precursor to fourth world magazine/monopoly child star searches spencer clark and by extension the skaters' whole thing. idk though, because the compositional ideas and ideals i think are pretty different and it is maybe more by happenstance it sounds like it was recorded thru an ass than by intention. I could be wrong, though. his wife is in the comments of this yt video maybe!!
https://robertturman.bandcamp.com/album/way-down

I suggest listening to Charles Cohen's A Retrospective comp if you're not familiar. some of the stuff on there w/ drum machines is a bit similar to Way Down except not as harsh fidelity wise. he ended his career in an unfortunate weird craigslist sex soliciting scandal around the time he started to get rediscovered and then he died.

hedorian wrote:

[snip]

I suggest listening to Charles Cohen's A Retrospective comp if you're not familiar.

I will! thank you for the recommendation!

goddammit it happened again. or, it's happening again: this feeling of injustice at beautiful things going so, so ignored…

m-taku – Astral Body (2010)



i've been mainlining this album for the past week, and while i assume i'm on my way to wearing it out, i'm just floored with how slick this one is. the production, the composition… it's all so delicious, and yet the most i can find on it are some middling rym ratings. and once again, i'm made to wonder whether i'm actually the one with bad music taste, or if everyone else is just weak.

stylistically, the piano-led pieces reminds me a fair bit of nujabes' work in e.g. those heard in luv(sic), but the album is quite stylistically diverse throughout.

dreamweaver – Made In Heaven (2020)



i'm bound to always be a sucker for ethereal breakcore, but the song that's stuck in my mind most has been this remix of cyndi lauper's "girls just wanna have fun." the album titles it "the ones who walk in the sun" and i only wish that could be me as well… wouldn't we all want to be, if we had the choice?

but alas, perhaps it's just the way of things that only some of us are made to walk in the sun; for the rest of us, the moonlight is our only friend.

though also, the more i think about it… the more i've started to think that girls just wanna have fun has a pretty smart set of lyrics…

i began churning thru my bandcamp wishlist backlog and finally got to some recent (2022) mu-ziq material. i find mike paradinas' work hit or miss but this was a hit for me. solid modern idm record

https://mikeparadinas.bandcamp.com/album/magic-pony-ride