What album(s) are you currently digging?

[20 scrolls]

 

 

 

[John]

I've listened to a lot of songs featuring Kilo Kish but I have never actually listened to her own music. She's featured on a lot of music by Vince Staples so if you listen to him you might recognize her. She also has a song with Flatbush Zombies called Jupiter Sounds off their D.R.U.G.S. mixtape and she kills it. About 3 weeks ago Kilo Kish released AMERICAN GURL and it is a pretty great album. She has a really nice and unique voice in my opinion. She sounds spectacular on this album. I love the whole album but DEATH FANTASY and NEW TRICKS: ART, AESTHETICS, AND MONEY are probably my favorite. The production on the entire album is really nice. Tons of nice synthy pop sounds that sound great if you have a really nice pair of headphones or earbuds. She released two singles in 2019 that aren't related to the album but they are also great in their own way and I figured I would discuss them as well. NICE OUT and BITE ME. They both have an electronic sound to them and she kills it. AMERICAN GURL also has some nice electronic tones in it.

 

 

Another album that I have been loving a lot recently is Where Have All The Flowers Gone by Deb Never? You might recognize her because she was featured in No Halo by BROCKHAMPTON. She is also featured on push by Slowthai which is a great song and she does a great job on it. It's a short album. 8 songs, 25 minutes. I like that but it also leaves me wanting more. I enjoy every single song on this album. It's a pretty depressing album but I have been enjoying depressing music lately so it's right for me. I can't pick a favorite because there are 8 songs and I love them all but.... Sorry and Sweet & Spice are standouts. Sorry kinda sounds like My Way Out by Daine at times and I like that because they're both great songs and the melody is kinda the same. Deb Never also has an EP called House on Wheels and a single that came out recently called Crutches. Those are also very enjoyable to listen to albeit depressing but different strokes for different folks or whatever the saying is. 

 

 

I haven't listened to as much rap as I used to since the New Year. I still listen to a lot but my music taste lately has been pretty much anything I can vibe with. That sounds corny and I thought I'd never write that but I'm really just not in the mood to listen to energetic rap lately. Been listening to a lot of $uicideboy$ as per usual. I don't really understand genres all too well. Like I can't listen to a song and tell you "oh it's cloud rap.. or pop punk.." or whatever. It's rap, pop, punk, etc and I don't know how to tell otherwise which is surprising because I listen to a shit ton of music. I don't really care about it I guess. Here are my top albums for the last 180 days:

 

 

thank you for reading

[John]

Hello again. I wanted to share a couple of albums that I have been listening to on repeat lately. I love music. It is a big part of my life. I also love rambling on about things all day. Usually I talk to myself or I write little journal entries but I'm gonna take that energy and just use it for this post. Any who

 

 

Kero Kero Bonito - Intro Bonito

 

I like Kero Kero Bonito a lot. I like Sarah Bonito and the gang. She's pretty attractive, has a nice singing voice, and leads a pretty good band. This is their first album as far as I am aware. It's pretty good to me but I don't think most people would like it. I don't mind most of the songs on here but there is only really a handful that I have been going back to and listening to a lot. Those songs would be Cat VS. Dog - English Version, Sick Beat, Pocket Crocodile, and I'd Rather Sleep. I like Cat VS. Dog even though it's just her talking about how much she wants to kill dogs and beat them up. It's weird but she makes it right? I dunno. I was pretty confused my first listen but I just kept on listening. Sick Beat is sick... I like it a lot. KKB is very good at producing tracks and I love how Sarah goes from Japanese to English. Pocket Crocodile sounds nice and mellow, very calming. I'd Rather Sleep is fun to listen to.

 

 

Kero Kero Bonito - Time 'n' Place

 

This is my favorite Kero Kero Bonito album and probably somewhere in the top 15 of my favorite albums if I were to rank them. It reminds me of early pandemic and how much I would listen to this album. Their production really shines and Sarah's vocals are spectacular. There's also a couple songs that I can't remember the names of right now but she does a little screamo. Not my cup of tea normally but I dig it lol. Favorite tracks off of this album have to be Outside, Time Today, Visiting Hours, and Rest Stop. I love all the songs, really. It's like a 10/10 album for me. I love the production, I love the vocals, I love everything about it. I love the memories I get from listening to it. The album just speaks to me bro. Like I've said a couple times now, the production is just so good. I don't even know what genre to call this? Pop? No idea. It's just good. This album was released in 2018 and the group's next and latest album released in 2021. It's called Civilisation and that album is also spectacular. She can't miss!!!!! They can't miss!!!!

 

 

Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee

 

Jubilee was my favorite album of 2021. Much like Time 'n' Place and most of the music I listen to, this album brings back some pretty great memories of when it came out and listening to it with people I cared about. I've been listening to A LOT of Japanese Breakfast and I haven't been put off by a single song I've heard from the group. I have listened to their entire discography on Spotify in one sitting and enjoyed it. They have a couple of covers of popular songs, most notably Nobody Sees Me Like You Do by Yoko Ono and Dreams by The Cranberries. The Yoko Ono cover is spectacular and makes me cry but I love the song a lot. This album though, I love it. Much like Time 'n' Place, I feel that to me, it is the perfect album. I love every single track on it. I love all of the tracks but my favorites would probably be Be Sweet, Kokomo IN, and Paprika. I wish the album was a little bit longer but it is great just the way it is and I hope for a new album soon. I love Michelle Zauner's vocals. She has a really nice voice and she just sounds great on Be Sweet. I find myself listening to this album in its entirety a couple times a month.

 

 

Japanese Breakfast - Soft Sounds from Another Planet

 

At this point I'm just listing my favorite albums with the exception of Intro Bonito. This album bro..... I love this album.... This album came out in 2017, before Jubilee. God damn bro. I fucking love this album. I don't really have much to say besides how much I love it and how much I can relate to some of the songs. Once again, Michelle Zauner kills it with the singing and the band/producer/whatever kills it too. It's just such a personal album, you know. I like the album cover even though it's very simple and basic. The album just sounds great. If you were to listen to any of these albums I would ask you to listen to this one first, or maybe you just want to listen to this one. I like the way she arranges her vocals and uses her voice as an instrument. Road Head, Machinist, Till Death, and Soft Sounds From Another Planet are my favorite picks but I really like every song. I also find myself listening to this album in it's entirety a couple times a month. I'm a big Japanese Breakfast fan and I hope to see them in person some day. I've only been to one concert. It was a Caroline Polachek concert. I went back in December and man I loved it. I wore earplugs because I was getting really paranoid about my tinnitus but the experience was still spectacular. A small Turkish band opened and it was great and then Oklou came on and played a set and it was magnificent dude. There's a couple videos online. Just look up Oklou set Terminal 5 or something. The bass was great. I'm a big fan of Oklou too. Caroline killed it as well. I loved it a lot. Good memories. Anyways, I hope to see Japanese Breakfast in person some day before I die. They have a lot of really nice live recordings on Spotify. I suggest you listen to their live recordings.

 

Thank you for reading

[John]

Hi. Here's a couple albums I have been listening to and enjoying a lot recently. A lot of these are new to me but I like them a lot. Instead of getting ready for my first day of the semester tomorrow I decided to write this because I have been wanting to for a while. I do have a lot of albums in my backlog that I have been wanting to write about but here are a couple that I will talk about for now.

 

 

Magdalena Bay - Mercurial World

 

This one is really fun to listen to. I like psychedelic pop a lot and this album hits the spot in so many ways. Mica Tenenbaum, the singer, sounds a lot like Kilo Kish sometimes haha. Especially in the intro track. I like the intro track going into track #2 a lot. It blends in real good and it starts the album off really strong. Standout tracks for me are The End, Mercurial World, Secrets (Your Fire), Chaeri, and Dreamcatching. She's got like the perfect psychedelic pop voice. I don't know how to explain it but her voice is perfect for the sound they have. Secrets (Your Fire) is a fun song to listen to because it's catchy. The production on Chaeri is very very nice. The album is pretty depressing lyrics wise but it sounds nice which would go for 99% of the music I listen to. I think what I like about this album a lot is that it doesn't sound like new school pop, if that makes sense. It sounds old and not over the top like a lot of new pop projects. 

 

 

Kllo - Maybe We Could

 

I found this album through a Spotify generated playlist. I can't remember what the playlist theme was but I want to say it was something like trance pop mix. I don't know but the album cover really drew me in because I'm a sucker for a really nice album cover. If a single or album has a really nice album cover it boosts my chance of listening to it. Anyways, I listened to the title track for a day or two before realizing that they had a whole album. The whole album is magnificent and probably one of my favorite listens of the year so far and it lead me into listening to their entire discography on Spotify and there was not a song of theirs that I did not enjoy. I immediately noticed that $uicideboy$ sampled their song Bolide on their latest album and I thought it was really neat that I coincidentally came across that. I really like the production that comes out of their music and the songs themselves have some nice substance to them. My favorite tracks are Maybe We Could, Ironhand, 1 Up and My Gemini. Ironhand hits nice and Maybe We Could has a really nice sound to it. 

 

 

Haley Heynderickx - I Need to Start a Garden

 

I've been delving more and more into indie music. It's embarrassing for me to admit this but even though I listen to a lot of music I have a really hard time of telling specific genres. When people ask me what I listen to mostly I usually say indie and pop music and then I will delve deeper but I really don't know and can't tell haha. As far as I am aware this is more folk music than anything. I also came across this song in a Spotify made playlist and I am thankful of that because man is it a spectacular album. Haley has a great voice and the way she uses it is mesmerizing most notably on tracks like Oom Sha La La when she starts to yell at the end. I love listening to this in my car with the volume turned way up. My favorite tracks are The Bug Collector, No Face, and Oom Sha La La. I haven't listened to much of her other work yet but I will sometime this week. Probably in the library at school. I would like to see her live, I think it would be really nice.

 

 

Cryalot - Icarus

 

Cryalot is the first solo EP by Sarah Bonito of Kero Kero Bonito. I've been anticipating this one for a while and it finally came out last week. The album is produced by Jennifer Walton. She has worked with KKB a lot and is also Jamie's cousin. I think I'll like anything Sarah puts out whether it is as Kero Kero Bonito or Cryalot. The production is great and she provided amazing vocals as per usual. I like the whole EP but my standout tracks are Hell Is Here, Labryinth - Edit, and See You Again. I don't have much to say besides that I really liked this project and I am looking forward to see more from her in the future. 

 

 

BROCKHAMPTON - Saturation II

 

About once a year I will go through a very heavy BROCKHAMPTON listening phase and I recently passed it. I listened to all of their albums repeatedly for about two weeks but this is the one that I will always come back to. Saturation II is my favorite BROCKHAMPTON album front to back. This is where they were at their best, in my humble opinion. I mean come on, the whole album is banger after banger and it's all so fucking catchy. FIGHT and GAMBA are probably my most favorite BROCKHAMPTON tracks. FIGHT hypes you up so much man. It almost makes you forget what Ameer did, because I sure forgot. Did he even do anything bad? I really don't remember. I genuinely like the entire album from the beginning all the way to the end. GAMBA is one of my favorite songs of all time. I don't really know how or why but it is so catchy and I frequently catch myself singing it. The production as a whole for this entire album is also wild. GUMMY, FIGHT, TOKYO, QUEER. Just to name a few standout tracks for production but my favorite songs off the album are GUMMY, QUEER, TOKYO, GAMBA, SWAMP and FIGHT. GUMMY is a FANTASTIC OPENER and then it jumps right into QUEER. QUEER might be one of my favorite BROCKHAMPTON songs but I think I've already said that about like three songs already in this paragraph??? Yeah I love this album and I'm glad I revisited it. Don McLennon's verse on QUEER is wild and Ameer never disappoints. I don't have a favorite member because I like all of them but Ameer and Don always have great verses. 

 

Thanks for the three people who will read this. I was bored and I like writing about one of the things I love most. This is probably the most productive I have been outside of work in a long time. I don't do many productive things sitting here in the darkness of my room. I'll make another post in probably a month or so. I think what I want to do from now on is to start writing about my favorite recent albums after I listen to them a lot so they're still fresh in my mind and I would have more things to say about them. I know I repeat myself a lot by using the same words. I hate it and I am trying to fix that part of my vocabulary. It sucks and I notice it a lot and it really pisses me off because I will try to think of another way to write it and I go blank haha. I don't like reading Pitchfork reviews that much because music is subjective right, but it is nice getting to read some insight from professional music reviewers and seeing how they describe things. Thank you guys.