Discussion
What I'm listening to today: "Mini TVs", Chad VanGaalen
Possibly the last good thing Apple did for me was give me a free mp3 of this song. I am endlessly amused, in this live version, by Chad rocking out on his comically tiny guitar. This is some sort of representation of unafraid masculinity. It is small but very loud. I love the timbre of single-mic live recordings like this. I love the blown-out drums.
The television says it loves you. But it does not love you.
What I'm listening to today: "Otherworldly Foe", Hirokazu Tanaka (Nintendo)
Notice this opening with an organ version of the "cave motif", also heard in "Battle Against Belch"; I imagine a teenage Toby Fox noticing this and it *blowing his mind*.
Some great demonstration of the power of the Super Nintendo's sample chip here. Sample trackers often excel at bass sounds, but the breakdown here sounds for all the world like a live rock band. At least on 90s TV speakers
What I'm listening to today: "Kraken of the Sea", Keiichi Suzuki
This is my favorite song from Earthbound. As a kid I called it the "Atomic Robot theme" because you fight the Atomic Robot more times than the kraken. Back then it *blew my mind*, it sounded like the techno I bought on CD, those sampled 303 sounds, but here it was in a video game. At the time nobody had told me how many 90s electronic musicians were using trackers. Aphex Twin was trackers. I didn't know.
What I'm listening to today: "Modern Language", anonymous Nanel Records artist
Here's the B-side of a somewhat mysterious vinyl release named "Nanel006", I guess because it's the 6th Nanel release.
In my fourth year of this thread, I have to admit I've never understood techno micro-genres. Here's some minimal, groovy kicks with the feel of a corridor between two large buildings in Bucharest in 1998. A thin man in a coat is smoking. There's a chain-link fence above you.
Nanel
What I'm listening to today: "Christine", August Fanon & billy woods
This is from Fanon's full-album remix of billy woods' Golliwog, except this one track isn't from Golliwog, it's a remix of a track from woods' 2022 collaboration with Mike Ladd (with the Ladd verses cut out). Anyway, this is *tremendous*. Horror movie soundtrack grind under woods' smoothest and most portentous rap flow, trip-hop horns and optical illusion chiptune. Today I am thinking about Christine
billy woods
What I'm listening to today: "Rehearse with Ornette", Armand Hammer
Dark rap, borderline industrial. I really love it when songs use feedback as a musical element. I wanted to link you something that replicates the feeling of the Armand Hammer concert I went to two weeks ago and "WORLD IS A DOG"'s studio version does not stand up to Elucid's screaming live delivery but this track, this track stands up to its apocalyptic live vibe. Fuckboys deserve to be liberated too
https://armandhammer.bandcamp.com/track/rehearse-with-ornette
Armand Hammer
What I'm listening to today: "Gang for A Day", Moor Mother & billy woods with Franklin James Fisher
Moor Mother can collaborate with anyone and make the whole thing sound like a Moor Mother track. You may be tired of me describing billy woods adjacent artists as "dark jazz" but thing is like dark jazz and so do billy woods and his friends. Shoveling out sludge. The whole day, shoveling out sludge. Microphones installed then abandoned in the sewers. RIP to the beat
https://moormother.bandcamp.com/track/gang-for-a-day-feat-franklin-james-fisher
Moor Mother
What I listened to today: "Nagra SN demo with Modern Sounds Pluto v3", troy mckaskle
Here a musician made a short clip of Boards-of-Canada-ish analog synthesizer using a modern generative unit, then recorded it to a 1970 vintage reel-to-reel tape player to give the sound a rounded, saturated character on playback. But he filmed and recorded every meticulous detail of the process and the clicks and shudders of setting the thing up and running it are a music all their own
YouTube
What I'm listening to today: "Pictobreaks", Zorrovian
Short jungle break piece based on the Nintendo DS startup sound. The indelible sound of jerky run cycles and save points represented by disc-like rings spinning within disc-like rings. The camera can take any of eight positions and you have to keep tapping a button to pick one. I thought this song was an enjoyable way to spend 2 minutes
Zorrovian
What I'm listening to today: "INSERT", Trashiii
Short jungle break piece based on the Playstation 2 startup sound. Prevented from ending, stretched out into infinity. There used to be this particular type of pad synth I think artists wanted us to associate with wind, clean breeze, clouds? The console games of the fifth and six generations leaned on that particular pad sound so heavily.
Wonderful swingy feeling on this one. LTJ Bukem would be proud I think
TrashiiiOnPs2
What I'm listening to today: "oneofthosethings", Kurr
"x! xhe ax! yo! x!tect th! xx!ixtx!eaxxx t!xnt ox xecr!xxxxy!" Ixx!rxtabxx ab!xra!t glxx!h pi!ce. xxxtorx!d be!tx axd x!c!dentx!-souxdixg ton!s. x x!nxe !ha! xome!!ing xas gxne w!!!g, sounxs !x!! ! !alf!nxtxxning !i!eo xam!, musxx ou! of !!e ba!krooxs. xxexx!!e is da!cxxg to xxx s!op th!m!
YouTube
What I'm listening to today: "Timescape", Shadow Acid
A chill, fresh-feeling downtempo dance piece using a bunch of classic 80s-90s timbres to make something that structurally and tonally is a lot more contemporary sounding. Dubstep wub bass next to wiggly 303 synth. Good exploitation of the 808 cowbells.
I actually don't know how to describe the feeling of this one better than to point you to the Bandcamp cover image. It feels like that.
Shadow Acid
What I'm listening to today: "Dreamtime", Aaron Palmquist
Techno from 1997, but it's so futuristic you'd think it's recorded in 1998. 808 drums and Amen breaks existing in perfect harmony. You know that moment in music suggested by the Tetrisphere soundtrack? This is it. The moment the world truly understood how to use these synthesizers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP6di_HfHFc
Note: It's also on Bandcamp but the YouTube version is audibly recorded off vinyl and it just sounds great
WANTEDcd
YouTube
What I'm listening to today: "TONVERK HATEFILES #2", Dissonant Witchcraft
Angry thrashing industrial, stomping around the kitchen banging pots and pans, a cat that's just had its tail stepped on. Howling noises that the bridge supports made just before they collapsed. Digitakt's attempt at a polyphonic Octatrack plus a mystery circuit box with a proximity sensor, the artist plays it like a theremin. You have angered the Witch and now there will be very loud consequences
YouTube
What I'm listening to today: "Digitone II MINIMAL DUB 86 BPM ~ (ft. ChromaVault Soundpack)", Dissonant Witchcraft
Sometimes YouTube techno people film themselves performing in an outdoor location. But the Digitone is a sequencer unto itself, a DAWless DAW, and here the device simply performs by itself, outside. The environment feels significant; the song feels like winter. Sparse trees, half-observed, half-obscured by snow. These words are unnecessary. The video speaks
YouTube
What I'm listening to today: "Havoc in the Forum", TTNG
I think this is "math rock". Rock song components stuck together in an unfamiliar way, unfamiliar keys and time signatures, guitars swarming like insects, insects suddenly aligning themselves into unnaturally human straight lines, a motion-activated light bulb, an emotion you're not supposed to express out loud. You stole a page from his diary only to discover it was written in a private language known only to him
https://thistownneedsguns.bandcamp.com/track/havoc-in-the-forum