Yes. Laurel Halo has done two things with this record:
1) She made a record that lives up to the hype I've assigned to her.
2) She made the follow-up to Splazsh that Actress never did.
When I first saw a video about Laurel, I was entranced. She was playing piano as a strange sample looped, and I was immediately excited for her debut release. Last year's Quarantine was just too weird, though. There were many moments that captured my attention like that old youtube video had, but many more where her vocals and song structure just turned me right off.
With Chance of Rain, Laurel has crafted an immersive, hypnotizing techno album that belongs in a club on the moon. It really does feel like a follow up to Actress' Splazsh. If you've heard that record, expect more of the brooding, stuttering, off-kilter dub music, only with more cohesion as an album. If you haven't heard Splazsh... well, get on that.
Chance of Rain is released on Hyperdub, so if you enjoy their weird brand of dubstep/future garage/whatever-other-lame-genre-tag-you-can-come-up-with, definitely check out this record.
Somehow this is the first Tim Hecker release I've ever heard. He's been on my radar for quite a while, and I am regretting not checking him out sooner. Virgins is an excellent record, full of bizarre orchestrations that are simultaneously organic and digital all mashed into one. It's creepy, relaxing, and beautiful--the perfect album for mid-October.
There is a heavy presence of piano on many of these songs, and it kind of makes me think this is what we would get if the song "Replica" by Oneohtrix Point Never were expanded on and made into a full album.
Also, check out that cover art. If that's not the perfect visualization of this music, I don't know what is.
So, I kind of cheated with this album. A couple years ago, I decided to start paying for music. Whenever an album was leaked, I would be tempted to download it. But due to some bullshit sense of morality, I instead waited for the actual release date to get the album legally.
R Plus Seven presented a different challenge. Not only was this my most anticipated album of the year, but OPN albums usually take a good month or so before they fully "click" for me. Which wouldn't normally be a problem, but I have 7 people who read my blog who I just know are dying to hear what I think about the new OPN album. I couldn't force them to wait a whole month to hear my opinion!
Alright... so I just wanted the album as soon as it leaked. Sue me.
Please don't sue me.
Oneohtrix Point Never has had a pretty interesting trajectory over his career. Returnal was full of industrial, synth-based ambient music that sounded like it belonged in the world of Terminator. The clincher that jumped this album up from "good" to "genius" was the first track, "Nil Admirari"; a noise piece so intense that the rest of the album after it is like a cathartic release of euphoria. 2011 saw the release of Replica, full of samples of early 90's commercials spliced together in disjointed ways, yet producing a finished product that was easy listening and challenging all at once.
I'm not 100% sure how the sounds on R Plus Seven were created, but it sounds to me like he almost combined the two ideas of the last two albums. I think it sounds like he played music on a synthesizer, chopped it up into samples, and then created an entirely new piece of music from the scraps.
R Plus Seven is a strange beast. At times, it has some of OPN's most accessible and immediate music. However, most of the songs on here are treated like mini-suites in which you get 3-4 songs all in the span of 4 minutes. Sometimes you can hear a theme between the suites, but more often it sounds pretty random.
Take "Americans" for example. It starts with a playful sample of birds and those laughing Boo ghosts from Mario games (awesome sample) and skitters into an awesome piece with xylophones, harpsichord, synth strings, and synth vocal samples. This fades into a really messy sounding rumbling that is kind of confusing. We then fade into an ambient synth drone, cut off abruptly by the most beautiful moment on the album full of sweeping synth choirs, astral vocal accents, and another xylophone sound. Just as this song is really starting to take flight--it ends.
This album is full of moments like these: symphonic, gorgeous, confusing, and nearly always too short.
One thing I read a lot online when people are describing this album is that this album is a lot like going into a museum of modern art. There's a lot of cool stuff to see, but there's also that weird scribbled drawing in pencil that could have been done by a child. This album feels like an art exhibit. Daniel Lopatin is throwing so many unique and peculiar ideas onto the canvas that it would be surprising if you loved every single moment on this record.
Namely, he uses synth choir vocals in a lot of places, to the point where it really gets corny. Also, "Inside World" is absolute garbage, and "Problem Areas" is mostly annoying.
Aside from that though, I am really loving this album. Like other OPN records, I'll be listening to R Plus Seven and snap out of it only to realize I've been listening to the album on repeat for 3 hours. When I first got the album, I was listening on headphones to "Americans" in awe, only to shit my pants when I opened my eyes and saw my wife in front of my face trying to get my attention.
If you are unfamiliar with Oneohtrix Point Never, I encourage you to check him out with an open mind. His music really has the ability to transport you somewhere else if you let it. If you are familiar with OPN, well... get on that shit, homes.
This new EP is so good! I don't know much about FKA Twigs, but I do know that my favorite producer of the moment, Arca, produced all four songs.
I can't say Twigs has the greatest voice, but her voice definitely blends in perfectly with Arca's out-of-this-world beats. The entire album sounds like it was recorded underwater, and Arca's beats provide the perfect combination of "damn son this is nasty" and "i feel your pain Twigs-bro".
My favorite song off this EP is "Papi Pacify", which sounds like a song Madonna could have made had she continued down the dark-pop path further. Come to think of it, any of these songs would fit in nicely on Bedtime Stories.
Speaking of Arca, his recent mixtape &&&&& is totally free and absolutely worth the download. It doesn't sound as finished as Stretch 2 or EP2, but it has a ton of moments that make you go:
I think my feelings for this album are best described by my real-time reactions to track 1, "Give Life Back to Music". Follow along won't you?
0:00 - What the fuck is this corny ass guitar intro? This is awful.
0:19 - Oh shit, this is an awesome groove. I immediately forgive whatever hell that was at the beginning.
0:50 - VOCODER! I love this so hard! And the melody is pretty good too!
1:23 - Shit is ON! This guitar is fawnkay!
1:55 - Oh. The guitar interlude thing is back. Why. I was jamming.
2:11 - And we're back! Give life back to music! Yeah!
3:00 - Gah. This corny interlude is so out of place and so... bad.
3:16 - Oh yeah! Sounds of people partying. I'm partying. Are you partying? Let's party. I just hope that interlude doesn't come back...
4:15 - Fade out, because this groove will go on forever...
[fin]
Did you pick up on the theme? It was pretty subtle.
This theme of "aw yeah" right alongside of "please stahp" continues consistently throughout the whole album. And it's not like on most albums, where you have songs you want to skip. It's all jumbled up into each song so you have to sit through the bad stuff to get to the good. Thankfully there are some songs ("Instant Crush") that are 100% bad and you can skip those, but conversely there are no 100% great songs that you want to skip to. The strings on "Giorgio by Moroder" are cinematic, the vocoder on "Lose Yourself to Dance" is awesome, the piano and guitar interplay on "Fragments of Time" is really smooth, but each of these songs are ruined by another element. The exhaustingly repetitive synth line on "Giorgio by Moroder", the funeral march pace and lifeless vocals on "Lose Yourself to Dance", and the guy-next-door vocals from Todd Edwards on "Fragments of Time".
Really, all of the guest vocals are pretty bad on this album. When either Guy or Thomas sing through the vocoder, it ironically adds an emotional element that is missing from everyone else's vocal takes.
There are probably two songs I will return to after this week: "Give Life Back to Music" and "Doin' it Right". "Doin' it Right" has my favorite vocal contribution, and the one I was looking forward to the least. Panda Bear just doesn't seem like a good fit within Daft Punk's aesthetic, but this song really surprised me. I will say that the song really feels like the longest intro ever and at the end I am like "NOW LET THE BEAT DROP!" but the song is just over.
Which kind of brings me to my next takeaway: Daft Punk's next tour is going to be AMAZING. Each one of these songs sounds unfinished, almost as if they designed these songs to be sampled again by themselves on their next tour. These songs will really come alive with a 4-on-the-floor dance beat. Just think, Human After All supplied the foundation for some of the best moments on Alive 2007, but was really nothing spectacular on its own...
So, I probably won't be returning to Random Access Memories very often. But you can bet I'll be the first one buying tickets for their next tour.
