THE DREAM IS OVER
It feels like there is a shortage of kindness right now. Aside from [gestures to the whole United States/internet] all the domestic war crimes that are happening, things are balanced on the razor’s edge at the moment and not in the cool AC/DC way. I’m not sure who needs to hear this but take care of each other. Whatever slights you have, let them go. We’ve got to wake up because we have a long road ahead to heal ourselves.
weave - Snowmass
Tanukichan - Lazy Love
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross - The Start of Things
Travis Scott - coordinate
Charli XCX - claws
Daft Punk - Instant Crush (Feat. Julian Casablancas)
Denzel Curry & Kenny Beats - Pyro (leak 2019)
Phoebe Bridgers - Halloween
Power Trip - Nightmare Logic
John Lennon - God
It’s hard to even conceptualize something transcendent in this current hell world, let alone asking people to suspend enough disbelief to let any artist take you there. Nevertheless, weave have persisted and found a way to manifest an absolutely panoramic sound on “Snowmass,” from their sophomore album, The Sound II. This is dizzying emo. From the swirling post rock sighs to the thick power chords and punishing drums, “Snowmass” is imbued with the kind of urgent sincerity that’s tailor made for long drives to nowhere and early morning meditations. I have been blasting weave ever since discovering them on The Alternative’s excellent recurring series Friendship International, which highlights the best new emo bands from Asia (curated by Keegan Bradford). If you want to feel like you’re glistening in a cathedral of light, check out weave.
The first time I heard Tanukichan’s “Lazy Love,” I was enjoying a boozy brunch with my friend at the now defunct Hog’s Apothecary in Oakland. I miss that place, and their sizable tap room, but I’ll always remember the crushingly beautiful dream fuzz and Hannah Van Loon’s angelic singing while awaiting a giant plate of pork. The best kind of music can suspend you in between moments and memories. A song like “Lazy Love,” with its ethereal longing and blissed out melodies, is a textbook example of how to bend time and space. It’s the perfect soundtrack to killing a few beers (and pigs) with a good friend.
You could put Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross’ whole ambient discography on shuffle and listen to stone cold classics for as long as you’re awake. “The Start of Things” is taken from the soundtrack to the Jonah Hill movie, mid90s, and features rippling piano and swelling electronics. The whole thing feels like you’re waking from a gorgeous dream. Not bad from the guys that brought us “The Great Destroyer.”
For a while, I was batting around the idea of writing a pretentious essay titled, “Boys Don’t Cry: The Intersection of 80s Goth and 10’s Trap.” Ambition outpaced my discipline but I still think you can draw a spiritual line from The Cure’s Pornography or Disintegration, all the way to Travis Scott’s Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight (say nothing of the fact that Scott’s debut album also begins with a song called “Pornography.”). Both traffic slow, smoky atmospheres, and icy synths that seem to crawl through your ears, evoking terrifying nocturnal dreamscapes. “coordinate” is as moody and impressionistic as anything in the The Cure’s goth cannon but with Scott’s added menace and penchant for lean. Everything is falling apart in this song, from the liquid keyboards, to the blunt bass, to the flickering high-hat flutters. Scott’s highly processed take on mumble rap is the perfect party music if you want to get blasted and have a good cry. Robert Smith’s not crying, you are.
One of my friends sent me this great meme a few weeks back about how the quarantine has had several stages: Future Nostalgia / Fetch the Bolt Cutters / how i'm feeling now / Chromatica. You could probably add the current Gaslighter/folklore era as well. Of all of the stages though, I’m finding that Charli XCX’s how I’m feeling now has been the most rewarding. Her take on hyperpop (if you vibe with that label) is heavy and energetic, spazzed out and futuristic. “claw” has been on constant rotation for me—full of pitch shifted lust, bass that will rattle your sternum, and 8-bit keyboards that blip and crunch into oblivion. And I like I like I like I like everything about the transition from “coordinate’s” loopy synth line to this warp speed hit.
The Julian Casablancas Express keeps trucking along. This time, it includes his lone contribution to Daft Punk’s 2013 Random Access Memories, which is more consistent than “Get Lucky” leads you to remember. I can’t say I’m the biggest Daft Punk fan but I appreciate their economy and precision within the dance/electronica landscape. They engineer immaculate bass tones that are both fluid and resonant, more than I can say for their peers. Casablancas, meanwhile, is in full on robotic love mode. There’s something really intriguing about how tight and propulsive this track is, from the pencil thin guitar strums to the toy keyboard outro. You’ll be instantly smitten.
Whoa, Kenny. I would have never thought Kenny Beats’ jittery approach to beat making would work with Denzel Curry’s unhinged and manic flow. Maybe this is why I only write about music, rather than make it professionally. “Pyro (leak 2019)” is less than 2 mins long but it is an explosive mix of chopped up Playstation sound effects and stutter stop 808s. It’s hard, with a hard R. Crazy to think UNLOCKED came out this year.
Punisher is a strong contender for album of the year. Everything about Phoebe Bridgers’ sophomore album builds on its predecessor’s slowcore melancholia but there are different shades of black here. “Halloween” is a strong standout, full of subdued drumming, unraveling guitar doodles, and a duet with Better Oblivion Community Center band mate, Conor Oberst. Bridgers and Oberst circle surreal stories of our darkest selves, trading barbed horror nightmares before revealing “We can be anything…” The mercurial nature of being anyone and anything is maybe most terrifying thing of all.
Power Trip are the closest thing our generation will have to 80’s Metallica. I’m not sure there’s anyone in metal right now that sounds like they are playing thrash in the midst of a nuclear holocaust—except Power Trip. Everything on Nightmare Logic’s title track sounds like a high fidelity version of Ride the Lightning, from the heavy artillery drumming to the technical bass blasts. The main riff is a relentlessly devastating mix of pounding aggression and weaponized precision, set against dive bomb guitar pyrotechnics. Vocalist Riley Gale sounds like epitome of death, his cavernous howls thundering above the band’s fog of war. Book it now: Power Trip’s next album is going to leave a Master of Puppets-like impact on the world of metal.
“God is a concept / By which we measure pain…” is a line and a half. Just sit with it for a second and breathe. I love this song because John Lennon asks listeners to really think about the cosmic essential. If this isn’t the purest distillation of “we create our own suffering,” I don’t know what is. Oh, and the dude plays some incredible piano while reminding you that the dream is over.
Originally published August 8, 2020 as part of Hella Vibes.