The Music Box.
Entries about the music I like.
Honey Dijon Boiler Room x Sugar Mountain 2018 DJ Set
Honey Dijon’s Boiler Room set from the 2018 edition of Melbourne’s Sugar Mountain Festival is one of the most popular on Boiler Room’s channel, is a masterclass in house music. It boasts of an esoteric setlist that weaves through house bangers, high-energy hip-hop, samples of Chaka Khan, New Order, et al, even a sample of MLK’s I Have A Dream speech.
The Wrens — Secaucus
There’s really something wonderful about discovering new music. I’m glad I live a life that allows repeated a-ha moments that come along with it. To me it’s almost a spiritual experience. I alluded to this in my last post as well. My mind shuts off all its anxieties and worries, and for the duration of the song or album, just stays in the zone.
12 RODS — Split Personalities
12 RODS' Split Personalities is among the most cathartic experiences in modern rock history. Existing in that weird valley between hard rock, alternative, and indie, every song in the album is a cathartic burst made for days as blue as its album cover. And Red, song 2 from the album is my candidate for best hard indie rock song ever.
A. R. Rahman — Roja
It’s hard to believe that the Roja soundtrack was a debut album, and that its composer, A.R. Rahman was only 25 when it was released. Since I was barely conscious when Roja was released into a world that had heard nothing like it, I have no first-hand experience of just how bewildering the new sound was for those who bought close to 3 million copies of the album.
Stranger Fiction’s 35 favourite albums of 2020
Stranger Fiction’s list of the best albums released in the first half of 2020 across hip-hop, ambient, electronic, rock, punk, post-punk, jazz, rock, pop, Indian indie, and other genres of music.
A tribute to MF DOOM
I’ve written about MF DOOM here in the past, and have made no secret of my love for his rhymes, which is why I was affected when his family made the news of his passing public on New Year’s Eve (they had kept it under wraps since October 31st, 2020, so they’d have time to grieve). The internet has been buzzing with tributes since. Mine will be a self-indulgent one. Akhil Srivatsan writes.
A journey through the Penguin Jazz Guide, King Oliver — King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band - The Complete Set
The Complete Set of King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band’s recordings is an archetypal record of this early era of jazz. It’s an album that is still intensely danceable, a quality King Oliver considered central to his band’s music, since they performed primarily to a dancing audience. This is the first in a series on the Penguin Jazz Guide, my exploration of the story of jazz.
Kelly Lee Owens — Inner Song
There’s two things Kelly Lee Owens’s Inner Song gets on point, leading it to ace the distractingly good test(TM) for good music in the Age Of Distraction. One is the textures of its instruments and how they evolve, the second is the answers it gives for the age-old question of popular music: how to write a good hook? These are remarkably difficult things to do, especially for an album of minimal electronica.
Portishead — Dummy
The story of Portishead’s Dummy usually fits snugly into pop music historians' retelling of nineties electronica. A Bristol-based band obsessed with dub, pads, and hip hop breakbeats releases an idiosyncratic debut album in 1994: it’s the natural progression of UK electronic music after Massive Attack's Blue Lines, establishing Bristol as the global capital of trip hop.
DJ Python — Mas Amable
True to its name, Brian Piñeyro’s second full-length under his DJ Python moniker is a calm, tropical, reggaeton-infused minimal house record. Combining the reggaeton that was ubiquitous in his time living in Miami with deep-house, the New York-based DJ’s latest work pushes the confines of a genre of his own creation — deep reggaeton.
A Story — Back When I Was Younger
Sure as any fact on earth, this is true: you’ll one day grow old and become the sort of person a younger you would’ve never thought you’d become: the sort of person who’d start anecdotes with phrases like back when I was younger.
Aesop Rock — Spirit World Field Guide
Aesop Rock is the wordiest storyteller in hip-hop today. He has the most unique take on the art of storytelling in hip-hop today. His wordy hip-hop tome, the Impossible Kid was among the best albums of 2016. His latest offering, Spirit World Field Guide, is more of exactly what you'd expect from him. Check it out to see the master of how to write lyrics practice his art.
Taylor Swift — evermore
Taylor Swift released her second album of the year, evermore. In many ways it continues the indie-themed acoustic guitar rock of folklore. But it has a bite: an evolution on the themes of storytelling in folklore. It’s a marriage of two important question for every songwriter: how to write a good hook and how to write lyrics.
The Avalanches — We Will Always Love You
It’s important to contextualise any Avalanches release with the story of how seminal their debut release, Since I Left You is. When it was released in 2000, the album was unlike anything anyone had ever heard before. It was dance-pop built out of a crate-digger’s dream. Their third album, We Will Always Love You is a sunshine-happy record of psychedelic electronica.
Gorillaz — Song Machine, Season One, Strange Timez
On my first listen of this album, I was reminded of the story of my seeking out the first Gorillaz cassette in Dubai. I had been watching the Gorillaz’ music videos on MTV for months, thinking, this is the future of storytelling. Blur’s frontman creates a band of cartoon characters with elaborate backstories. What a cutting-edge way to explore the art of storytelling.
Ichiko Aoba — Windswept Adan
When I last wrote about an Ichiko Aoba album this year, I said it was my favourite album of the year. I’ve since then said that about Klô Pelgag’s Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs and thought that about Yaeji’s What We Drew 우리가 그려왔. But as things stand, it might just be Windswept Adan that takes the cake. This is a beautiful piece of art: one that I believe everybody must experience at least once.
The Magnetic Fields — 69 Love Songs
With deft pop sensibilities and a strong commitment to the central theme of the loneliness of idealised love, the Magnetic Fields make light of the two hardest questions to answer in popular music: how to write a good hook and how to write good lyrics.
The Tallest Man on Earth — Shallow Grave
In 2008, a Swedish singer-songwriter, Kristian Matsson, released an earthy Dylanesque album, Shallow Grave, under his stage name, the Tallest Man on Earth. It’s a compendium of ten three-minute guitar folk songs that are unique in their simplicity: one man, one acoustic guitar.
A journey through the Penguin Jazz Guide
When it comes to song structure, the art of storytelling without words, how to write a good hook, and everything to know about why music is important, very few artforms come close to jazz. I’ve always wanted to chart the story of jazz from the standpoint of a non-American, Indian aficionado, who while in love with the music, is also cognisant of some of its history.
Cake — Comfort Eagle
I suspect there’s a certain type of nostalgia-prone socially anxious everteen who gravitates to Cake’s music. There’s a certain type of person who finds kinship in Vince DiFiore’s trumpet and John McCrea’s sardonic speak-singing. It takes a certain kind of person to argue, absent irony, that the greatest cover song ever recorded is Cake’s version of I Will Survive, even when faced with well-made arguments and protestations.