The Music Box.
Entries about the music I like.
Miles Davis — Big Fun
In life, we all have musical soulmates, artists whose sound is just so immediate to us. Artists whose most insane experiments flow through our bodies with barely any hindrance. Whose most inane compositions sound endearing. Miles Davis is one of my musical soulmates. I have yet to hear something by any iteration of Miles Davis that I haven’t enjoyed. Added to that list most recently is compilations from his fusion era — Agharta, Pangaea, and most recently, Big Fun. I recommend a languorous weekend spent with Big Fun filling the spaces in your bedroom as you contemplate whatever big questions occupy your life. It’ll be big fun.
Amaarae — THE ANGEL YOU DON’T KNOW
Amaarae's THE ANGEL YOU DON’T KNOW is a reverb-heavy mix of Afropop, trap, hip-hop and R&B. With unbelievably tight production, the album's sound is a cohesive formulation of hip-swinging baselines, head-bopping beats, and just-so melodies, all topped off with Amaarae's self-assured vocal delivery that alternates between whispers, sing-song rapping and straight singing. The Accra-based Ghanaian-American singer has released one of the most infectious 35 minutes of pop I've heard in a years.
Courtney Barnett — Sometimes I Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit
As Sometimes I Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit winds down, you walk through them in a daze. As you take another round before going back home, you listen to the album again — that rare looped album — and you think, man, I don’t think I’m ever going to forget the first time I heard this album. Like Velvet Underground & Nico alone at night in your room, or Ten Ragas To A Disco Beat one languid afternoon.
Helena Deland — Someone New
The basics of rock kind of remain the same. It's 🎸 + 🎸 + 🥁+🎤 = 🎶. That simple. But there's so much that can happen with those raw materials. Perhaps it's because my rabid love of music coincided with my discovery of post-punk, but I'm always blown away by simple evocative music. Drawing a bath and settling in for my nth listen-through of Canadian indie gold: Helena Deland’s Someone New.
Tarun Balani — The Shape Of Things To Come
I spoke about GoGo Penguin’s latest album earlier this year. Spoke about enjoying empty-white-room contemporary jazz. I also spoke about New Delhi jazz drummer Tarun Balani’s electronic project, Seasonal Affected Beats earlier this year. His latest as bandleader, a 31-minute (empty-white-room contemporary) jazz EP The Shape Of Things To Come [1] is a lot more diverse than his material as Seasonal Affected Beats, while also being airy and very enjoyable. Check it out here.
Akhil Srivatsan — my people are…
The fact is, my people are… will always (I suspect) be special to me, because it was made at a time of so much sadness, so much anxiety, and the process of creating it was so cathartic, provided so much relief; to me it’ll always be the Eno Fruit Salt of albums. Fact is, I’ll never truly be objective about its quality. But hey, who gives?
![Molchat Doma — Stairs [Молчат Дома — Этажи]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e2ad127a2dc434ac477aa46/1607251595430-Q4LXOHB02ID3G4K1VKKK/sbr3037-molchatdoma-1800_1024x1024.jpg)
Molchat Doma — Stairs [Молчат Дома — Этажи]
Is the world going to end? Is there no hope for us in the face of all the challenges we’re no doubt going to face in the coming years? But then this: at what other time of human civilisation could an Indian find it this easy to get his hands on a British-post-punk-inspired Belarussian coldwave album first released by a German label, then reissued by an American label?
System Of A Down — Protect The Land / Genocidal Humanoidz
There’s a time and place for a conversation on how much System Of A Down impacted my preteen and teenage years. There’s also a time and place for a conversation on how much that impact carried into my post-teenage years. The time and place is likely to be soon and here. But for now, it’s enough to say this. System Of A Down has released new material for the first time in 15 years.
Reuben — Racecar is Racecar Backwards
This record taught me three important things. First, it taught me that racecar is indeed racecar backwards, whoda thunk it? Second, it taught me that I had shed my distaste for sing-then-shout vocals. It was possible for me to exit the ‘either shout or sing well, choose one’ camp. Third, it taught me that I could fall in love with an album primarily based on the (analog) drumming, which is what contributed to my first several listens of this album many years ago.
Scientist — Heavyweight Dub Champion
My goodness, Heavyweight Dub Champion is more than just good, it's great. I went into this album cold, not knowing anything about it or Scientist. By the third song I was running around the house looking for candles and turning off all the lights. Oh good god it's so good, I can add the whole album to my inspiration playlist for my next album.
The Upsetters — Super Ape
Lee "Scratch" Perry was instrumental in making reggae dub. His studio band was the Upsetters. Their best album is believed to be Super Ape. Whether or not it's the best, it's certainly very nice.
Nas — Illmatic
In many ways, Illmatic is peerless. In it, the then 20-year-old Nas is a storyteller without equal, showing you through a clear window pastiches of a world you would have never otherwise seen. He does this against the backdrop of the best work of hip-hop’s best producers: DJ Premier, Pete Rock, Large Professor, Q-Tip (from ATCQ), and L.E.S. It’s a veritable who’s who of the greatest beatmakers of the east coast punctuating Nas’s images of urban decay with spare jazz-influenced boom-bap beats.
Boards of Canada — Geogaddi
Boards of Canada are among the best at what they do, which is making smoky downtempo electronica. Geogaddi is widely considered their second best album, which is saying a lot, considering their best is widely considered to be Music Has The Right Children, often spoken of in glowing terms in relation not only to electronic music, but also to all of western popular music. But there’s something about the range of Geogaddi that makes it my favourite Boards Of Canada album.
cLOUDDEAD — cLOUDDEAD
People in the know insist on calling the whiny nasal stream-of-consciousness ramblings of cLOUDDEAD hip-hop. I don’t know why, but as a compromise, let’s settle for experimental abstract hip-hop. Remember cloud rap? I do. A strong case can be made for cLOUDDEAD’s cLOUDDEAD being the first cloud rap album, and I’d be making that argument if my brain could digest this experimental electronic album as rap. Woo, what a fascinating album 😘
L. Subramaniam — Kalyānī & Sarasvatī
I gravitated to two L. Subramaniam albums in particular - Kalyani and Sarasvati, both released on Water Lily Acoustics. You’d assume this gravitation had something to do with my new-found non-zero understanding of Hindustani classical music. You’d be wrong. I just really liked the album covers. And of course, the music too.
Sankarabharanam
I wish I understood carnatic music better than I do, which is not well at all. As with so much art, film serves as a great gateway. Sankarabharanam is a classic of Telugu cinema, and really of Indian cinema. It’s story, centered on a carnatic music maestro and his relationships with his daughter and disciples, required an immaculately composed soundtrack carried by a tremendously skilled vocalist. It found this in composer KV Mahadevan and vocalist SP Balasubrahmanyam, my gateway to this music. As someone who grew up with SP’s voice in Roja, Hum Aapke Hain Kaun, Maine Pyaar Kiya, et al, I was affected by his passing. I have since been listening to a lot of his music, including his unbelievable work on this album; in my view, a must-hear.
REASON — New Beginnings
I’ve been struggling with hip-hop for a long time now. Like I haven’t had any ‘gang’ experience. And it’d be disingenuous to pretend much of hip-hop doesn’t harbour shitty attitudes towards fifty percent of the human population. That stuff is often explained away: playing a character, truthfully portraying a life led by a section of society over-represented in hip-hop — ‘gangbangers’. We’ve broadly accepted that hip-hop plays by a different set of rules from the rest of us. Well I’ve been struggling with that, and as a consequence, I’ve been speaking about hip-hop less frequently than I would’ve earlier in my life.
Jon Hopkins — Immunity
Usually when you can't finish an album it's indicative of its failings. But in rare cases, it's indicative of a greatness that compels you to behave like some sort of character from a movie: hold your head in your hands, sink to your knees, stare at the sky, shake your head in disbelief, whisper wow through teary eyes. That's what happens with Immunity.
Burial — Untrue
If you, like me, see the city night as a human emotion, no work of art better encapsulates it than Burial's Untrue. Musically, it's easy to name its constituent parts: part UK garage, part broken beats, part glitchy atmosphere, part time-stretched vocal samples, part reverb-drenched masters. But there's something magical that makes it a lot greater than the sum of its parts.
Neil Cicierega — Mouth Dreams
Every one of Neil Cicierega’s mashup albums is delightful. And the recently released Mouth Dreams continues this trend. Cicierega’s music is comical, dripping with references to (American) pop culture, and always surprising. In Times Like These (TM), it feels good to have a few laughs and listen to happy-happy music.