Some people say thank electronic music cannot bring emotions, but this is something I definitely disagree with. Venetian Snares has very many albums focused on dark themes. This song right here comes off his album "Rossz Csillag Alatt Szueletett", which is a huge mixture of breakcore, classical, and drill n' bass. The glitchy sounds over strings during the climax of this song are dark, frantic, and intense. I would have to say this an album that opens people more to electronic music and helps them really get a glimpse of what music really can be. Many people could never think that classical could go together so well with this type of music, but here it does.

On another one of the Venetian Snares release, "My Downfall", you'll get a larger undertaking into this music. The album isn't as heavy, but it's definitely darker, slower, and even at times depressing.

Just wanted to throw some albums out there for you guys. Check them out sometime if you're interested.

The Well Tuned Piano by La Monte Young

I haven't updated in a while, but today I'm going to talk about a piece of music that spawned most minimal music. La Monte Young's masterpiece, "The Well Tuned Piano" is over three hours long of nothing but slow piano that comes back and forth with beauty and intensity and holds some of the first characteristics to drone music. It can be a challenging listen to some, but for me I don't see how people could think of it that way. This piece to me is very easy listening and perfect to play when you need something to help you focus.

Lately when I've been working on some of my art I've played this and notice how this piece really helps inspire atmosphere and helps me paint out what I'm wanting, but in some way I can also see the music piece itself inside of the paintings.

This album is a journey through space and places you haven't ventured yet. Let it take you there.

This is only a fifth of the piece by the way.

d|p 1.1 by Basinski

"Disintegration Loop 1.1 consists of one static shot of lower Manhattan billowing smoke during the last hour of daylight on September 11th, 2001, set to the decaying pastoral tape loop Basinski had recorded in August, 2001. Shot from Basinski's roof in Williamsburg Brooklyn, this is an actual documentary of how he and his neighbors witnessed the end of that fateful day. It is a tragically beautiful cinema verite elegy dedicated to those who perished in the atrocities of September 11th, 2001" - Off the youtube video.




Now I don't know about you, but I find the idea of this pretty brilliant. William Basinski is an experimental ambient artist who releases tons of albums that are all unique in their own way, but it's his collection of albums entitled "The Disintegration Loops" that stand out most for its unique concept and story behind it. The song above has also been the cure to my insomnia for a while now. Slowly, this piece falls apart more and more towards the end and it almost feels hypnotic in a way, just as if a part of you is being destroyed while listening to it. This is not only a relaxing and beautiful work of art, but also very mourning and somber. 


Try it out sometime. I recommend just lying down in your bed with this playing. It'll take you places if you let it.

Dead To A Dying World - S/T

I don't know how the audience here that looks at my blog will react to this, but I'm going to take a chance and talk about this group anyways.

Dead To A Dying World is crust metal band that's unique in its own way. Unlike most bands that play this heavy, they use a cello and switch between male and female vocals. The two tracks on this album that go over ten minutes are the ones I would describe atmospheric, which bring this sense of complete bleak chaos to you. The other track I would describe is more like punches to the face.

This is definitely the heaviest album I've heard all year. Not only that, but the best debut album that's came out in 2011 too. Maybe even the best metal debut in the past two years. If you're into heavy and experimental music than this is for you.

P.O.S

P.O.S is a conscious rap group fronted by Stefon Alexander. He's released three albums so far and is also part of the rap group Doomtree. His style is confrontational, at times in your face, but can also be sort of nice just to chill to. Also, the beats man. His beats are creative, abstract, and different. There's a huge combination of things that makes him unique from other rap artists. Below is a song of his which definitely proves how creative he is lyrically and with his beats.

Hope you enjoy. Check out his latest album "Never Better" whenever you can! You don't want to miss it.

Boris (2011)

Boris has released a total of three albums this year; two which go in a completely new direction of their music and one that goes back to the heaviness of their old albums. Now, I'm not that big of a fan of their experimental pop electronic stuff, but I do like the idea that they've been able to play so many different genre's now. They can range from heavy stoner metal, doom drone, noise rock, sludge, psychedelic, to even J-pop.

What I really like is the new album they've done called Heavy Rocks. They've already had one album with the same name that was released a while back, but this isn't a remake or anything, but more of a follow up to the previous album that was released back in 2002. It has it's heavy moments, but I wouldn't call it any more extreme than it's 'prequel'.

You can hear the entire album below on NPR.

Click here.

And now for something completely different

The First Vienna Vegetable Orchestra is exactly what you think it is. They make all of their instruments hand made with vegetables and sometimes improvise with tools like screwdrivers. I've always been interested in bizarre music and I think this goes beyond that. It's sort of hard to keep a straight face watching this video, because just the idea of what they're doing is too funny for me to handle.

I have one of their albums that was released last year entitled 'Onionoise', which if I may say, is a very organic album. Literally. This music is extremely out there and I recommend it for anyone who's looking for something that will blow their mind.






It's also good music to play when stoned. 

Olatunji Concert: The Last Live Recording - John Coltrane

You might know Coltrane as one of the most prolific jazz artists to have lived on this world. His music went from hard bop, avant garde, and free jazz. Slowly, his albums got more experimental and the sound become louder. This is the album that contains his last live recordings and the surprise is that this is no ordinary album.

Although the record itself isn't in the best quality, I believe that's what helps bring this noisy aspect to life with the record. He plays only two songs on this, "Ogunde" and "My Favorite Things". What's really funny about this is that the two songs barely sound like the previous versions of the songs because of how destructive the sound is on this music. Each song being over twenty five minutes of pure violent free jazz like nothing else every created in music before.

John Coltrane plays his saxophone as if he was giving this music his last dying breath and trying to play out for the world one last time. In a way, that's sort of what he did. He was known to be a spiritual man who was able to play concerts that were over three hours because he felt like the music itself was some sort of holy figure making him play (So it as what I've heard about him). Maybe he tied up all of that energy from those three hour shows and compacted it into these two songs, which is a little over an hour.

Once you've actually listened to this album your view of jazz will change dramatically. Nobody could ever expect jazz to be so brutal, loud, and extreme, but here it is.

The madness begins seven minutes in. You'll know what I'm talking about when it begins.

Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version - Earth

Well, where do I start off with this album? It's very hard to understand if someone doesn't know much about minimalism and/or drone first of all. This came out in 1993 and pioneered the entire doom drone genre, so obviously this record has had a gigantic impact on music today, but when I recommend it to some people they don't really get it, so this review will also be an explanation of the pieces and my interpretations.

You have a guitar, bass, some drums in track three, and feedback. Tons of feedback. The guitar hits off on some fuzzy sludge-like riffs that repeat over until the riff itself feels like it's become one with the feedback, which not only creates this atmosphere, but a hypnotic feeling of being literally sucked into the music violently. The bass goes other places and is what's really helping that feedback grow throughout the piece. I have to say you can't really experience this album unless you can turn the bass up on your speakers as loud as possible, then put your face right next to it.

It's the noisy feedback that is mainly creating the atmosphere, not the guitar or bass. This sound evolves and explodes through out and helps branch off the two different experiences you can have listening to this album; (1) Having this to be a loud, heavy, and evil ride of destruction hypnotise your mind (2) Create a relaxing and soothing current, while it can also strangely become a nice album to fall asleep to. So not only can this album be extremily heavy, but it can also be just the opposite and still give off a positive response.

It's important to know what minimalism is even though this piece isn't fully minimal; only the last two tracks. Think of Philip Glass, Arvo Part, or Gavin Bryers. These are all minimalistic composers, but who would ever think distortion out of all things could be so minimal? Something that seems small but is incredibly so large, a few colors that make the colors themselves stand out in front of your eyes giving light to something beautiful, and also something that looks so simple, but tends to be such a complicated subject and/or method to present.

This is exactly that. A piece played with only so few riffs, but like i said earlier, these riffs become something else the more you grow into the piece. The bass and feedback are like husband and wife in the second track, but you barely even notice that unless you're really focusing on this music itself. And the cymbals and drums on the third track? They help grow this somnolent quality of drone to make this album unique then any other drone record out there. When I'm listening to this I'm receiving only few colors, red, orange, and yellow. These colors resemble fire and this fire sparks, whistles, and screams throughout the the three tracks.

Maybe this album just isn't for everyone, but it's an experience needed for any open minded listener and definitely for anyone interesting in drone. I hope this will give a better explanation to this record for you and maybe incite you to the doom drone genre. If I have failed I guess it was worth the try.

Below is the first ten minutes of the first track with footage of a movie entitled Eraserhead. Watch and enjoy.

No Bird Sing

No Bird Sing is a conscious rap group I found out about a couple days ago. They're really underrated, which confuses me because they're so good. They just came out with a new album called "Theft Of The Commons" if you want to check out some of their new material, but their first album is pretty good too. Overrall, I recommend these guys because they go against the typical hip-hop standards and bring something new to the table.

Sorry I haven't updated much, but I've been busy with school, so after that is all over I'll be back to making daily posts hopefully.

GOBLIN

The new Tyler, The Creator album comes out in the United States in four days, but it's already released in other places. I've already heard the new album and I've had it on repeat for the past two days, so I can gladly say it doesn't disappoint. The song above, "Nightmare", is just one song off this album. Just think about how dark this album must be if you've only heard one piece of it.

Tyler goes from sarcastic, brutal, depressing, to full out rage in some tracks and it's hard to just play this song from start to finish. I feel like it's the only way to journey into his head to where you can fully understand what he's saying. Also, this is concept album. Like the previous album the 'Therapist' is back, but the story also concludes too. Another thing is the production on the album has gotten better than the first album, which is probably because this is OFWGKTA's first album signed to a label.

Pick the album up or you'll regret it. This is not something you want to miss out on.

The Secret Eye Of L.A.Y.L.A.H. might seem like a typical dark ambient album, but it really isn't. What makes it so different is that every instrument on this album is made with human bones. Does that make you feel a little bit more freaked out by the music? At first listening to this I thought it was alright, but after learning that this album definitely makes me feel more freaked out.

The Secret Eye Of L.A.Y.L.A.H. might seem like a typical dark ambient album, but it really isn't. What makes it so different is that every instrument on this album is made with human bones. Does that make you feel a little bit more freaked out by the music? At first listening to this I thought it was alright, but after learning that this album definitely makes me feel more freaked out. 

Nil Recurring by Porcupine Tree

Nil Recurring is an EP by the progressive rock band Porcupine Tree released back in 2007. The four songs on this album were meant to be put on the previous album Fear Of A Blank Planet, but taken off for some strange reason, thus making this release. What makes it funny is that this is possibly their best release yet.

The album starts off with the self titled Nil Recurring, which is an instrumental settling out the mood for the rest of the songs. The next song, "Normal" is the longer and better version of another one of their songs. Amazing fucking guitar work from start to finish. The band around this time was basing their songs off the modern middle class teenagers living boring and depressing lives. This song says it all very well (Here is my car, my phone, and my TV, I've got it all, but you can see through me).

"Cheating The Polygraph" is an alright track, but the solo midway in the song is what really keeps me going with it and what makes me give it that replay value. Then we move on to the final song on the EP, "What Happens Now?" This could be the best song Steven Wilson has ever made in his entire career in my opinion. The lyrics are simple, nihilistic, and even funny to an extent. I love the way the piece progresses from start to finish; being this really nice soft song, moving on into some more of a relaxing piece, then busts into heaviness ending with an incredible solo and tons of tension.

Overall, I'd say you should give it a try. It's less than thirty minutes long and only four songs, so why not?