Weekly Album: Week of 08/20 - 08/26 - Another Green World

Once again I would like to apologize for getting this review out so late. Been dealing with a lot of life stuff which was also why the previous week's review was late. Things seem to have settled for the time being so hopefully there won't be any more late reviews. Enjoy.

This week I listened to Another Green World by Brian Eno. I've been familiar with who Brian Eno is for a long time now, but mostly for his work with other artists. Specifically, I have always been a big fan of his work with German Kosmische Musik band Cluster, whom I love very dearly. I was given the push to listen to his own works after a friend of mine had purchased the CD, and I was intrigued when I saw the cover art. I went in with almost no expectations, as I wasn't really sure what kind of music that Eno would write on his on. Some of it is certainly more in line with the spacey electronica of Cluster, such as the songs, "The Big Ship", the title track, and "Sombre Reptiles" especially being made of essentially all electronic instruments and being in that spacey style. There are some songs that sound a bit more poppy or I suppose what some might consider "normal" such as the funk influenced "Sky Saw" or the piano rock of "I'll Come Running". These are still great songs, is the amazing thing. It shows just how much range Brian Eno has as a songwriter. Speaking of Mr. Eno, his vocals are certainly quite good. While he isn't the most gifted vocalist, he has a very calming voice that meshes quite well with the more ambient songs. Backing Eno are a large group of guest musicians, including the talents of progressive rock giants Phil Collins and Robert Fripp. Fripp especially shines on some of these songs, playing searing guitar licks on "St. Elmo's Fire" to the calming "Wimborne guitar" as it says in the liner notes for "Golden Hours". This whole album is a fun romp through some more rocking songs to ambient electronica that certainly interests me as to what the rest of Eno's discography sounds like. 8.5/10 

Weekly Album - Week of 08/13 - 08/19 - Stereotype A

Before the review starts I would just like to apologize for getting it out late. Enjoy

This week I listened to Stereotype A by Cibo Matto. I was quite interested going into this album by the way it was described to me but upon listening to it I found it was not quite what I was expecting. There was way more hip hop/rap influence on the album, which while allowed for some great instrumentals and beats to be written, left a lot to be desired in the vocal department. The two female vocalists, Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori, have amazing singing voices but they are not very interesting rappers. This makes the back half of the album a bit of a drag for me, with similar sounding rap songs that don't quite do it for me outside of having some cool beats. This does make any of the songs that have more melodic elements stand out all the more. This brings me to another problem I have with the album which is length. This album is 57 minutes long and it sure does use every second of it, although I don't think they should've used every second of it. The aforementioned second half of the album could have some of the songs cut almost in half and they would make no difference, especially with how similar a lot of them sound. I wanted to have this album listened to yesterday to not make the review any later but I was getting fatigued listening to it. To pivot to a more positive note, the instrumentals themselves are very nice. An interesting mix of electronic elements and funk with some heavier rock stuff sprinkled in for some added punch. There is a good amount of brass on here too which just sounds awesome in the mix. This is a fine album that I can't see myself really coming back to aside from a few songs, although I am curious to hear what else Cibo Matto have done. 6.5/10 album

Stavi Rants About: My Own Music

Hello everyone and welcome to another rant! Today's topic is about my own music, which I have briefly mentioned in the past (see my Brian Wilson post) but since I have a major announcement regarding my music, I thought I should talk about it a little more. 

    I have been making music for 6 and a half years now under the name Nostalgia Cassette City, releasing my first song titled "Self Replicating Animal Cells" on October 20th, 2018. My first album, of the same name, was then released on January 23rd, 2019. I got into making music through my growing interest in listening to music. I believe around this time I was getting into a lot of varying styles of music, which can be heard on the first album as every song tries to sound different. I believe that was a King Gizzard influence, haha! 

    I make exclusively Chiptune music, which is music using sounds and arrangements inspired by the music of video games from the 1980s and 1990s. I decided on Chiptune as I felt that it was the easiest to be made, production wise at least. You don't have to deal with recording anything, and it is all instrumental so you  didn't have to worry about writing lyrics or singing. I've used exclusively offshoots of a program known as Beepbox, which is a browser based Chiptune sequencer. It is quite intuitive to use so for someone just starting out with making music it is quite easy to pick up and understand. There have since been several modded versions of the program that I have used, from Modbox Beta, Jummbox, and now Ultrabox. Each version would have some new features that previous mods didn't have, such as new instrument options, better mixing capabilities, and most recently the ability to import audio files to use as samples. In the Chiptune world a type of software known as a Tracker is usually used to make music. I've tried them before but I find them very obtuse and clunky to use. I have a massive amount of respect for those that do use them, because I don't think I could ever put in the time to make a song in one of them. 

    I make music just for the fun of it. While growing an audience can seem appealing at times, I'm fine staying within my extremely small sphere of mostly people I know but sometimes people I don't listening to my music. I just enjoy the process of creating a song, even if I've had creative ruts from time to time. The act of creating music has stayed very fun for me, so I keep doing it. It helps to have people like my friends who support through the whole process, as it is nice knowing that when you are weeks deep into making a song that it isn't all for nothing. And it feels so satisfying as well when you finally finish the song; that first playback of the full thing makes it sound so fresh despite the fact that I might have just spent a large amount of time listening back to individually sections over and over. 

     I've come to find out that my writing process is a bit different than a lot of other musician's process. I tend to work on music very linearly, meaning often the first thing that I make in a song is usually the start. Now there have been several exceptions to that over the years, where perhaps I start by creating a small loop that ends up being the chorus or some other part of the song. But more often then not, I work in a very linear fashion. Most musicians don't do that to my understanding. Usually they will have some core idea in a song, whether it be a melody or a riff or maybe even a whole section that a song is then built around. Now sometimes that can lead to working linearly but from my understanding it doesn't. 

    While I have stayed withing the realm of Chiptune, my sound has changed over the years. After the first album I had a sort of freak out moment where I realized that I think I started off a little too complex, so I took some steps back to try to figure things out. This resulted in me trying to think inside of the box rather than out of it which led to the Back to the Box EP. From there, I stuck with a sort of power-pop inspired sound for my 2nd album after meandering a lot trying other things. I believe I was listening to a lot of Weezer and Ozma at the time. From there I would start to incorporate more progressive elements into the songs, like odd time signatures or more expansive arrangements. This kept on for a little while until I eventually went a little crazy again and started trying so many different styles which can be heard on my 5th album The Slump. I think now I have a better understanding of the music that I like, want, and am capable of making that I think I can keep making albums from now on that are actually coherent. This brings me to....

    The big announcement that I teased at the start of this. I have a new album coming out on Friday, August 15th (WHICH IS TOMORROW AT THE TIME OF ME PUBLISHING THIS). It will be out on YouTube and Bandcamp at 8 PM EST. I would love for anyone that reads this blog to give it a listen, and maybe listen to some of my other stuff beforehand to get a feel for my music. 

Weekly Album: Week of 08/06 - 08/12 - ABOMINATION REVEALED AT LAST

This week I listened to ABOMINATION REVEALED AT LAST by Osees. This is Osees latest release, and one that I was excited for as I have been a longtime listener of the band. The title refers back to their 2015 album Mutilator Defeated At Last which is one of my favorites, so I took the title as a sign that they might be moving back to something a little closer to that sound. For the past few years, they moved in a punky and synth heavy direction that, while made some good music at times, has not really been my favorite work that they have put out. While not a direct return to an older sound, this stands a bit of a middle ground between their more progressive/psychedelic music and their punkier music. There is a constant high energy throughout the whole album, which shows the punk aspect of the sound. This doesn't mean there is room for interesting instrumentation and even a little bit of some jams in there. This album, as all the other albums with this lineup have, show off how good all the band members are at playing their instrument. Their 2 drummers are just out of control the whole time and it is great. I'm glad this album let them show off with some more complex grooves, as opposed to the more "boneheaded beats" as band leader John Dwyer has called them in the past. One thing I wish of this album is to be produced in a different way. The band is still in their dry, punk production era it seems, when I think something that leans more into the psych aspect of their sound should have a little bit more space in the mix. I suppose it makes sense with the amount of energy the whole album has, but it makes it sound really compact. I especially wish that the drummers would be panned stereo again, they can sound a little mushy at times because you have 2 drummers playing at the same time in mono. Overall this is a great improvement over the last couple albums, and I am excited to see them explore this sound more. 8/10

Weekly Album: Week of 07/30 - 08/05 - Acetone

This week I listened to Acetone by Acetone. I had very few expectations going in as prior to being recommended this album by my friend Deckra over at Lost Gestures blog (which is very good and if you like hearing about smaller bands that your probably have never heard of before you would like it a lot) I had never heard of the band Acetone before. Upon listening, I found it to be a very pleasant and chill alternative rock album. The whole album is marked by slow tempos, clean guitars, and very soft vocals. It is a very well produced album, which I think something this clean needs to be. If the album sounded very under-produced and lo-fi it would not work as well as it does. The guitar work on this album is very nice, using a lot of vibrato and tremolo effects which gives the album a sort of swirly vibe to it, which I think adds to the chill nature of it. Some of the songs have this little country edge to them, and while I am not crazy about country, do help to break up the rest of the album. If it was just straight slow, soft songs the whole time it would be a little repetitive. But having the country-twinged songs like "Might As Well" or "All You Know" keep it fresh. This is certainly an album I will return to for some relaxed listening or background music for doing something. 8/10