July 2024
I'm not even going to hide how late these are now lol
What I've Been Listening To #
Sorry, it's pretty much all long or "unlistenable" this month (apart from one track)!
Yellow Dawn - Sumac #
This is experimental metal at its most crowd pleasing! An impeccably structured 13-minute masterpiece of heavy music in which no minute feels wasted. For a band that has records with Keiji Haino, I did not expect a fist-pumping guitar solo to erupt on-top-of one of the filthiest groove metal passages I’ve heard in years (this is not to mention the stellar up-close-and-personal production!). If you enjoy guitar, bass and/or drums, there’s frankly nothing to dislike here. This is one of my favourite tracks of the year and I’ll be surprised if there’s too much I’ll be able to place above it by the year’s end!
Give Me The Painkiller - Nails #
This is the most outright fun song Nails has ever put out. It’s also another fantastic entry into the storied "metal band does one sick Motörhead song" canon. Maybe Ace of Spades is actually the best song ever written! Hope I can see Nails live soon!
Listen to Give Me The Painkiller here.
Windmill of Corpses - Penalty Kill #
Been running a lot to this one! Pretty adorable that this is a family project by The Garden brothers with their punk drummer dad named after a hockey sports term. Each time I think that maybe the shtick has run it's course, they come through with a new song that makes me buy into their work again (and imo the last Garden record is their best one).
Listen to Windmill of Corpses here.
Add Up My Love - Clairo #
Maybe I’m egg-punk-pilled but to me the best Clario songs are the bangers. Every now again there’s a song that I don’t “need to put in 45 so I can dance to it” and usually ends up being one of my most played pop songs of the year. The production (also of the entire record that this cut is from, Charm) is sublime and reminds me of what De La Soul did with the "make original music that we then sample" technique for their last record. I’m 30, let me enjoy new music made with "real instruments".
Listen to Add Up My Love here.
Wood Blues - [Ahmed] #
Circumstances were that I saw they were interviewed by Tone Glow (didn’t read the interview) and that they’re playing Kings Place soon. I’m trying to see more live jazz so I checked out the only song they had on Spotify and it rules. I’m too jazz-illiterate to even know their namesake, I get the impression from reading a little that their repertoire consists of covers of his stuff? I listened to the whole song on my way to my drum lessons and felt entirely inadequate while learning Do That Stuff by Parliament. Needless to say, see you at that Kings Place gig if you’re going also.
凌遲 (Leng tch'e) - Naked City #
I've recently joined a new band (there might be some recorded output released presently!) and the music we've been playing has resulted in me revisiting some of my favourite "heavier" artists for some inspiration. This all came about because of a poster I saw in a rehearsal space looking for musicians who enjoyed High Rise, Les Rallizes Dénudés and Mainliner. As well as it being a great opportunity to listen to the fantastic catalogues of these artists again, I also went back to this particular track by Naked City. This is a band most famous for their combination of grindcore and jazz but this 20-minute track is more "Nothing Left Inside" than "You Suffer". Leng tch'e is a crushingly heavy concept track (the title refers to the ancient Chinese torture method, "death by a thousand cuts") which like all of the best Naked City tracks is a glorious combination of the absurd and the macarbe. An unforgettable listening experience that hopefully serves as a great gateway to those uninitiated into the worlds of John Zorn and Yamantaka Eye.
Listen to 凌遲 (Leng tch'e) here.
- Previous: June 2024