Reviews by dohej

Amos Tutola's novel is set in the middle of the traffic between the real world and the mythic mystical world, it's about multiplicity and transformation, hallucinatory subverted expectations and the substances like palm wine that lubricate metaphysical traffic. Taking its name from Tutola, this album is thematically similar - full of polyrhythms and multi-layered pulsating textures that shift and slip as they take shape, funk grooves and afrobeat patterns that hit an infinite repeating delay loop, chants and dream like samples and snippets. It's magical stuff, imaginatively conceived and perfectly executed.

Punk bones but college rock flesh, with jangly REM guitars and horns filling out the glam punk NY Dolls inspired sound, a slacker drawl singing style, and some clean power pop hooks complementing the overdriven four-chord garage rock riffs. Extremely effective straight ahead rock and roll, the less said about that harmonica the better though.

Instantly recognizable thanks to the pairing of Snoop's distinctive flow and Dr Dre's signature g-funk production. Parliament funkadelic really deserves credit for how hard these beats hit! Catchy hits, decent filler, and tons of meme worthy stuff from izzle to bowowow to money on my mind to sippin on gin and juice to what's my name to the swizzley sounds. He'd never remotely reach these heights again - it's hard to imagine that this is the album that's the basis of an insanely enduring 30 year career as a dominant if gimmicky pop culture figure weed guy who'll endorse anything and turn up to any event.

Spikey angular guitar noise, bouncy grinding bass and snarling sarcastic vocals. What a horrible racket! And there's an incoherent mumbling crank drunkenly rambling all over it! Stupid rock and roll perfection.

Worthless pop culture flotsam. The Beatles are already basically just music for children, so why would a kids' show pastiche act of them be anything other than a childish born-outdated disposable bauble?

Long form, patient music that unfolds gradually and experiencially. Gorgeous meditative stuff, it works perfectly to quiet the world and let you focus in and zone out. While the improvisations and melodic flair give you something to pay attention to consciously the the repetitions and drones encourage the mind to wander, a delicate balance of presence and abscence. The drumming and rhythms intensify and relax building and releasing tension.

Ozzy wailing "Oh no, no, please, God, help me" brought an entire genre into being. Taking the blues rock power trio formula of the 60s UK bands and slowing it down, sludging it up, deepening the riffs, magnifying the latent sense of the menace and terror, Black Sabbath create an incredible feeling of ominous doom, of bleak despair, and black magic, capturing the folk horror affect flittering around the margins of late industrial civilzation. Ozzy and Tony Iommi get a lot of recognition, but listenting to this I'm struck by the power of Geezer Butler (who has to be in the bass pantheon with John Entwhistle, Jack Bruce, and John Paul Jones) - just pure thunder coming off his fingers as these basslines rumble down.

An Alice Cooper parody act who took themselves seriously, Kiss always seemed to me like the band from a musical about a hard rock band and this is exactly album that a glam band from a musical would make. Competently made by people who know the genre and know how to take all of the stupid gimmics of a hard rock band and dial them up to 11 for dramatic effect. The only good thing about this is that these songs aren't quite as ground to death by radio overplay as their bigger hits.

Airey upbeat and ambient dreamy indie made for chilled out coffee shop background music playlists - pleasantly woozy and unobtrusive, pretty, light, lush with energy from the bass, style from the synths, and heartfelt earnestness from the vocals - but ultimately kind of boring empty purely mood music.

When Robbie Krieger's snakey Byzantine SG leads, Ray Manzarek's swirling organ take center stage, and Jim Morrison shuts the fuck up and they're actually a decent blues psych band with the classic 60s California sound. The trouble is he rarely does since he's constantly wailing on and on about little girls.

All the talent, production wizardry, and cocaine in the world and this is what he comes up with?

Trancey blues with cool interlocking guitar parts, driving bass and drum parts, and a youthful up-tempo rock energy. Not sure why there's such a boundless appetite for this kind of samey genre in the festival circuit, but it's much more exciting music than dad blues rock, so the more the merrier.

Sick bass lines and ultra tight super compressed clean rhythm guitars bring unprecedented levels of funk energy to the cheesy AF disco beats, corny synths, and schmaltzy strings. The ballads are a huge drag, but there's no beating the uptempo tracks on this for pure dance energy. The songs are all way too long, but that's just to keep the dancefloor pumping.

Madonna suffering from a seriously bad case of the Y2K bug. It sounds like she listened to a bunch of 90s electronic alt rock (Beck, Portishead, Beta Band, Stereolab) and thought, oh I'll have a go at that. The electro pop stuff is pretty solid, if uninspired, high spec dance music as you'd expect from a standard bearer of the genre and some of the chilled out mellow stuff is decent, but what the hell is this acoustic strummy pseudo Sheryl Crow stuff ('I deserve it') and auto-tuned trip hop ('nobody's perfect')?! Awful.

The second album that was ever my favorite album, this is a formative one for forming my tastes and preferences so I'm basically incapable of any critical distance. One thing I'm struck by listening now is how damn good it sounds. It's pretty incredible how cleanly recorded such a dirty band can be and how much difference that makes. The bass comes clanging through powerfully, the guitars are drenched in fizzy distortion but sound sharp and bright, the drums are hard and heavy but all totally distinct, the vocals are screeching and frenzied but stand out crisply in the mix. It means you can turn it up LOUD to get the full effect without it turning into an indistinct muddy mess. It's incredibly ungrungey really. Compare this to something musically similar like Dinosaur Jr or Husker Du who have great songs, loud quiet dynamics, and heaps of distortion, but who's records have a layer of sludge to them making them feel more distant and inaccessible. Nevermind has clean and corporate production that oddly really lets the songs get more in your face and in your head.

A dangerously combustible mix of hair spray, pure cocaine, industrial cynicism, and half remembered Springsteen songs. I've known this album as anything other than a corny joke to bellow along with when it the hits come on the radio - three singalong karaoke mega jams that are undeniably fun despite being way overplayed and incredibly crap. Listening through in full I realize that even the hits are way too long and the joke wears off after the first chorus, but the song keeps going, and goooooooooing. The rest is 80s pop metal filler with an emphasis on the pop - the metal is exclusively the palm muted riffs and squealing pinch harmonics on the guitar. It sucks at such a deeply fundamental it's almost good. Almost...

An album that hits like a big huff of glue. Basic teeny bopper rock and roll played louder faster harder and beyond the competence of the band, so sloppier. Catchy hooks, close harmonies, boundless bounding energy. Very funny how they mix angsty teenage stuff with songs about turning tricks in midtown.

Cinematic crooning with a big orchestral sound, luckily some good warm horns to balance the cheesy strings.so it doesn't get too schmaltzy. Great baritone voice and an impressive performance, but it's pretty boring - drama without fun.

The piano does what you'd expect in a jazz trio, but the drums and especially the bass go way beyond expectations, going nuts, frankly. Group improvisation premised on deep listening, counter melodic interactions and constant manipulation of rhythm and harmony - goes way beyond a rhythm section supporting a soloist. 40 minutes of virtuoso bass playing isn't for everyone, but if it's your jam this is fucking marmalade!

LdR's music dwells in the abject psychosis of Americana, surfing its fantasies and detourning its tropes. Chemtrails over the country club is a great line in this vein - speaking to both the ambient toxicity that haunts the American suburbs but also the deranged conspiratorial ways of thinking about the disquieting latent menace of living in the heart of empire. Her voice is whispy and ethereal; the melodies are seductive and elusive, approaching familiar moves before turning away. No hooks here, just mood. The music is the same, floaty swells of piano and acoustic guitar with strings and slides and backing vocals that rise and and fall. This album doesn't really have a stand out track and gets pretty samey, a bit boring with ballad after ballad and no beats to be found - she should be on the list, but this the wrong choice.

In 2015 a friend said LdR is music for dumb guys with smart girlfriends and refused to elaborate, but it makes sense.