The same moon shines, the same wind blows for both of us and time is but a paper moon

Man, these algorithms that power social media sure are something else, something spooky. For all the talk about AI, the algorithms sure disturb me quite a bit more - at least for now. So I was doing some research for a topic I'll be doing in the near future, and while I was thinking about said topic, my mind flashed back to a memory I had buried in my mind - quite likely something that was now over forty years ago. When I was a kid, my mother used to work at the only TV station we had, and because it was not that far from where I lived, I visited her very, very often. Sometimes she'd be doing office work, other times she'd be doing studio work. She was working for the department that handled foreign content, and part of her duties were - among many other things - to view - and I should note that by 'view' I don't mean she actually watched the whole thing; no, she watched a few minutes only, took some notes, fastforwarded a few minutes until the next segment, and rinse and repeat -  analyze, and write reports on whatever content was being shopped around from foreign networks, and it could be something contemporary or not. There was no actual distinction between what kind of content she had to view - it could be soap operas, regular TV shows, cartoons or even music shows. 

Often, when I visited her, and she was busy viewing something, I'd sit beside her and watch along, or if she had to go to a meeting, she'd sit me down and put on something for me to watch. In one of those instances, she was viewing music shows and I remember a band playing that immediately got on my nerves. I mean, even then, even at that young an age, I knew I was listening to something so stupidly pretentious, I'm surprised I didn't throw a tantrum. And the people playing, what were they, Japanese? Did music even exist in Japan? I was shocked, disgusted and traumatized.

And that - dear readers - was that. That was the end of that story. That is, until this week.

The algorithms, right? I'm used to getting suggestions based on whatever I search for - though some turn out to be wildly off the mark - and sometimes I get suggestions that make me think that my phone really is listening to me. But what scares me was when I think of something - I don't even verbalize it or look it up or whatever... and within minutes I'm getting suggestions that match exactly what I was thinking. And what did good ol' Youtube do? Motherfuckers, the video that I had seen once and only the once in my childhood appears in my feed. I had no idea what they were called, but as soon as I saw the thumbnail, I was like '...is it? Could it be? After all these years, could I have found that music from my childhood that I truly detested?', and a few seconds into it, sure enough - it's the very same band, and wouldn't you know, I actually found it pretty good!

Day 243 - Sadistic Mika Band - 'Hot! Menu'

So the song that almost made me wretch as a kid was actually the first song from their 1975 record 'Hot! Menu', called 'Wa-Kah! Chico'. For some reason, as a kid I didn't think it was actually real people playing that song, but rather robots with realistic skin. Because they played so... so precisely in time with each other. Like machines whose programming made all the pieces fall neatly and unerringly into place. And I didn't know it at the time, I had no idea what it was called, but man... noodling is something that I really am not such a huge fan of. And yet... I actually liked it here. And thinking that the rest of the album was going to be me much of the same... it's actually quite different. Proggy, yes, and some fusion-y bits as well, with some rock thrown in. It's funny how something I loathed as a kid would turn out to be pretty interesting! I'll give a pretty decent 7/10

Day 244 - Yellow Magic Orchestra - 'Solid State Survivor'

Well, this is the band where Yukihiro Takahashi (the drummer) was before Sadistic Mika Band, so it's got some family ties going on. This album is quite interesting - and apparently highly influential in a number of music genres, ranging from hip-hop to techno - in that it's mostly instrumental music that would not be - at all - amiss in 8 Bit videogames, and for my part, that's actually the most enjoyable bit of the album. Not to say that what's left was bad, but rather it's more akin to, say, Roxy Music. All in all a pretty groovy listen, it gets a 7/10

Day 245 - Far East Family Band - 'Nipponjin'

Very, very much on the spacey side of prog, this was a very interesting listen. It wears its Pink Floyd influences proudly on their sleeves, though they veer more towards the space rock end of that particular spectrum. A funny thing I learned about this band while researching them is that a fellow called Masanori Takahashi was their keyboard player, more famously known as Kitarō, he of new age music renown. And it shows here and there, especially in the more instrumental bits. Whilst I enjoyed the record, there's nothing really groundbreaking here - even for a 1975 record. All in all, I think it deserves a 6.5/10

Day 246 - Kenso - 'Kenso III'

I don't know what to make of this, really. On the one hand, it's a highly regarded album critically, and on the other it just feels terribly derivative - but I say that in a positive way. This album is classified as being Fusion or Jazz Rock, though I don't know too many records of that genre that would sway me to fit them in any of those categories. It does sound much more proggy than anything else, really, especially close to some Genesis stuff. Steve Hackett's guitar work is clearly an inspiration here. It's all very, very much instrumental, with only some vocal harmonies here and there, and though that's ok in and of itself, I am a huge fan of music with, well, actual singing. Nothing about that takes away from the album, though, and I found myself enjoying the latter part of the album quite a bit more than the rest of it. Didn't wow me, and neither did it make me feel like my time was stolen. I'll give it a 6.5/10

Day 247 - Kazumi Watanabe - 'Killowatt'

Or should the album be called 'Kirowatt'? At least that's how it's called in Apple Music.

Now, granted, there's much about Jazz Fusion/Jazz Rock that is still very unknown to me. I haven't listened to much of it, so I rarely know what to expect. From what I could ascertain online, this one skews more toward the Jazz Fusion side, and I can see that, but there's some bits of rocking guitar here. And to be sure, I can't fault any of the playing here, and if there's something I really love here is just how prominent the bass sound is. But (unfortunately) for me, most of this record was just music that I could safely ignore while listening to it. Some of it just gets too close to Muzak for my tastes, and it's in one ear and out the other. Only maybe the first and last couple of tracks really stood out to me. Not bad, not by a longshot, but just not my cup of tea. Still, it gets a 6/10

Day 248 - Ruins - 'Symphonica'

Well, listening to this made me think of a very specific moment in my life where I felt like doing the Homer Simpson backing into the bushes meme. There used to be a record store close to where I worked, and they only sold Prog/Psych records, and variants and subgenres thereof. I never went there a lot - maybe only a couple of times, really - and this specific time I went in and heard something so outlandishly ridiculous that my instinct was to back away and return another time, if at all. But curiosity got the best of me and I asked the guy who owned the store what was we were listening to. And he says it's a band called 'Magma', and I reply, 'Weird, this sounds nothing like the Magnum I know', to which he says, obviously frustrated with my stupidity, 'Magma! MAGMA! MAG-MA!'. And for god knows how many years thereafter, I never revisited the band, nor had I any real inclination to do so.

About maybe a couple of years ago, in one of those nights one has when you can't find any sleep, and some stray thought crosses your mind, and you end up in Wikipedia, and about three searches later you've deviated so far from what you were originally looking for, and you end up in Magma's wiki page. And that's how I came to learn that these French visionaries play a sort of music called Zeuhl, which is, apparently, a mix of Jazz Fusion, Symphonic Rock and Neoclassical music. It's also sang in the completely made up language of Kobaïan... and it's got something that I hate with a burning passion, which is Free Jazz, but the why is reserved for a future post.

And everything I just mentioned is very much prominently on display here. And it's weird - too weird for me, if I'm honest. Is it bad? No, it's - I think - quite good for what it attempts to do. It's complex, and well arranged, and you can certainly see these people know what they're doing. So it's not bad, it's good. Right? Right?? Well, that's as may be. As I've stated here often enough, something being 'good' does not necessarily equate to being 'enjoyable'. And ultimately... I found myself calculating just how much time I had left of this torture. I'm not sorry I listened to this - it does have its genuinely good moments, but the weird/unenjoyable ones far outweigh them. I'll give it a generous 5/10

Day 249 - Gerard - 'Irony Of Fate'

I had, in fact, elected another band to listen to but Apple Music wasn't having it, they had none of their albums there, so I had to choose another one. This one had been on my radar, and when I did some research on them, lo and behold!, I find they have an album whose cover is none other than John William Waterhouse's sublime painting 'The Lady of Shalott'. So I did some more research and apparently this album isn't widely well regarded. This is more on the Neo-Prog side (think British bands like Marillion, Pallas, IQ or bands like The Flower Kings and Symphony X.) My listen of this album was very pleasant - everything was very well played, in particular the keyboards which were melodic, symphonic, melancholic and probably a lot more words that end in '-ic'. I liked the singer's voice - though it's hardly spectacular. He sings mostly in Japanese, but sometimes with a little English thrown in, and yes - a little bit of 'Engrish' here and there as well. It was pretty good, and I wouldn't mind listening to something else by them. It gets a deserved 7/10

Next week we go to Italy. I think.

Fair Roseanna, your vagrancy's a familiar tale

It's the mid-to-late 90s and after well over a decade of basically just listening to metal, I'm finding myself a bit disillusioned with the whole thing. True, I kept on listening to (mostly) metal anyways, but my tastes had begun to wander away from it quite a bit. It's at this point that I start to go back to stuff I listened to through my older brothers, stuff like The Smiths, Joy Division, Bauhaus, The Sisters of Mercy, The Mission - as well as other, more electronic stuff I knew in bits and pieces from that time as well, prime among them Depeche Mode. In about 1997 or so, me, my then girlfriend Dora and someone who was once a really close friend of mine, started going out and every now and again we'd come across this goth troupe and in one of those instances I realized that one of those goth kids was a kid I went to school with a few years back. So we got to talking, and eventually I'd come to know - and somewhat be a part of - that scene. It's where the harsher type of electro started to come into my life, though I didn't really enjoy it at first. If I'm honest, we always ended up listening to the same old songs anyway. But even then I realized that there were... weirdos among the weird, who listened to stuff that no one other than a bunch of folks would realistically enjoy. And they'd listen to that type of music- and only that type of music. Some years later - this would have been in 2002 - I find myself working at a big box music store, and through some conversations I had with this one guy who worked in another branch, I got to understand a bit better just what subtype of goth they were into - and it was mostly (but not exclusively) stuff from the Cold Meat Industry label. To be fair, I never had such a burning inclination to delve into it, though I am certain that I have listened to some stuff from any of those bands in isolation - either through samplers, compilations, or possibly because some girl I was dating at the time - yeah, I only dated goth girls for a while - listened to it. 

Now comes the time, and was it worth time? Was it bollocks.

Day 236 - Arcana -' Inner Pale Sun'
Excellent darkwave/neoclassical, somewhere in the vein of Dead Can Dance, Elend, and a bit of Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio. There are moments here that are so, so cinematic in their nature, that you could just see them being part of the soundtrack to one of the quirkier Tim Burton movies. And I say this because there's such a delicate beauty here that images spring to mind together with the music. Loved this a lot, just wasn't a fan of the last song on the album - sounded too Death In June lite. 9/10

Day 237 - The Cult Of Brighter Death Now* – 'All Too Bad - Bad To All'

The name 'Brighter Death Now' is one I'd known about for decades. I had no idea what to expect, but bad drone shit wasn't it. Atrocious, it gets 0/10

Day 238 - Deutsch Nepal - 'Erotikon' 

Just as bad - if not, indeed, worse - than the previous entry. I might have listened to this shit in the early 00s to impress some goth chick, but no amount of money in the world could persuade me to listen to this dreck again. Not surprisingly, a 0/10

Day 239 - Raison d'être - 'The Stains of the Embodied Sacrifice'

Aaaaannnndd.... it doesn't get any better, does it? 

I just have no patience for this sort of ambient anymore, it's too much, too stupid, too insufferable. And only because of some moments in one of the final songs, it gets a 1/10 

Day 240 - Coph Nia - 'The Dark Illuminati: A Celestial Tragedy in Two Acts '

More shite, though there’s some bits of melody here, and it’s crooning more that actual singing, but it didn’t make for a pleasant listening experience. A very generous 3/10

Day 241 - Desiderii Marginis - 'Seven Sorrows'
I now wonder if I enjoyed this record so much because it was, in fact, good, or if it was because after four days of shite, something remotely above mediocre would sound like a masterpiece to me. 

There were some very cinematic moments here, heavy on the strings and with some melancholy piano segues here and there. Good, but not great - still, miles above the previous four entries. I'll award it a 6.5/10

Day 242 - Puissance - 'Back in Control'

Damn, I now realize that I could have timed this whole thing for a Front 242 album to land on this specific day, but I was too much of a dumbass to think of that. As for this entry, well, suffice to say I always thought that this was a black metal band - but they are clearly not. I enjoyed this one, though not overly so. Maybe because of all the crap I had to endure throughout this week this one, too, sounded to me much better than it actually was. I don't know. Neither bad nor good, just ok, and I'll give it a 5/10

Next week.... well, I'm still cooking on that one. We'll see.

They heard me singing and they told me to stop

The other day I decided to take a look at my subscriptions tab on Youtube, and I ended up doing a bit of spring cleaning, mainly because I realized that for whatever reason I was subscribed to quite a number of channels. And it's not just bands or streamers, I was subscribed to a lot of random channels from people who I have no idea who they were - like at all. Some I sort of maybe recognized, but most of the rest I clicked on the channel and there's nothing there - not a single video, nor a playlist. So I swiftly unsubscribed from them. But whilst doing that I got an idea for a challenge. I've been subscribed to the KEXP channel for a long time, and while I haven't actually visited the channel in quite a while now, I'm still receiving lots of their content on my recommendations. So I decided I'd choose a few of the bands they feature there and see if they're any good.

Day 239 - Angine de Poitrine - 'Vol.1'

Now, when I was still buying records, these... people? aliens?, whatever they might be were an ubiquitous presence in the mailing lists I received weekly. And I remember looking at the cover of this album, and thinking 'What a stupid name for a band. And what is this cover? Dear Lord in heaven, please tell me this isn't how they look.' Ah well.

And I can't even describe this. I can't. Is it prog? Yeah. Is it experimental and math and psych and all the things that the internet tells me they are? Yeah. And yet - none of that describes the glorious weirdness that I was witness to. If there ever was music that looks exactly how their players look - then it's this.

And at just over 33 minutes long, it really flew by. A great start to the week, 9/10.

Day 230 - Malcriada - 'ESTÁ BIEN LLORAR </3' (Yes, with caps and emoji, very millenial)

Pretty good, but highly derivative of Crystal Castles. The best song I'd say is the acoustic one where it's just the guitars and her singing. I'll be keeping an eye on them and it gets a strong 8/10. 

Day 231 - Valgur - 'Armageddon'

Also very derivative, but not in a really good way. I didn't much enjoy this one. Again - neither good, nor bad... just meh. 5/10

Day 232 - Pink Breath Of Heaven - 'Colors Make A Sound'

For some reason I had pretty high expectations for this one. Unfortunately, as soon as I heard the singer's voice, my heart sank - I really didn't like it. And neither was I a fan of the whole instrumentation, it was very, very derivative of other things - maybe a little of Emma Ruth Rundle there. A generous 4/10.

 
Day 233 - Sadness - 'sunset blush' (Yes, lowercase and all, thank you so very much)

This was really really good - one of the week's best, and a return to form after a couple of duds.

This reminded me of early post-Darren White Anathema, as well as some Explosions In The Sky. Derivative, to be sure, but really really good. A very worthy 8.5/10

Day 234 - Night Heron - 'ESCAPISM' (And pretty fucking please, can these bands just use normal caps/lowercase?'

Imma be honest, when I saw how these folks looked like, I figured I would be in for an atrocious listen. But holy hell, was I surprised! I had to go on the interwebs to see how to best describe what they sound like, and lo and behold, the KEXP website states that they're '...a moody, nocturnal, slow-motion blend of R&B, synth-pop, and yacht-rock – or as they aptly bill it, “night-driving” music – distinguished by laidback beats, jazzy flourishes, dreamy melodies, and a light psychedelic touch.' 

This was a really great listen, and it gets a very good 8.5/10.

Day 235 - Den Der Hale - 'Larking About'

Their Discogs page state that they're a 'post-psych' band - whatever the hell that means. And what we got here was something pretty weird - though quite good. Something along the lines of Wardruna in places, I guess. But it also made me think of this label that used to be around up until a few years back, that used to put out some weird stuff like this - and next week I'll be diving into it. As for this one, it's good, but I'm not sure that I'd ever listen to it again. I guess I'll give it a 6.5/10.

Next week, it's Cold Meat Industry time.

So here I go, it's my shot - feet fail me not, this may be the only opportunity that I got

When I started this challenge, I knew beforehand that there were very specific thematic runs I'd be doing. Some were obvious, like revisiting bands that were once important to me, the others were meant to challenge me even more, by taking me out of my comfort zone. The punk one was one such challenge, such as this week's was - as well an upcoming one will turn out to be.
So what did I elect to listen this week? Well, nothing less than hip-hop, something I know very little about. Sure, I know some of the more commercial stuff, but certainly nothing from the last 15 years or so. I've listened to stuff from Cypress Hill that I've greatly enjoyed, but that doesn't make me versed in the slightest in the genre. Did I come out a fan? Not really. And because I'm not exactly a connoisseur, I'm not sure what to look for in a song or in an album that would instantly make say 'this is genius'. I can only offer my impressions on it, and as such - impressions were very sparse indeed.

Day 232 - Madvillain - 'Madvillainy'

Liked most of it, some of it left me cold. It gets a 6.5/10 

Day 233 - Wu-Tang Clan - 'Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)'

I liked this one much better, in spots it reminded me of Cypress Hill. Maybe a bit too long for my tastes, that's why I can't give it more than a  7.5/10

Day 234 - The Roots - 'Fall Apart' 

This one I really didn't enjoy very much. Far too long for its own sake. Just a 5/10

Day 235 - De La Soul - 'De La Soul Is Dead' 

There's some playfulness to it, but again - overly long, like 75 minutes long, and not even halfway through I'm having trouble differentiating one song from another. I dunno, it's not bad, but for me it was just meh. 5.5/10

Day 236 - OutKast - 'Aquemini' 

This one alone was so much better than the previous four combined. It was so, so good. Lots of actual melodies, and lots of actual singing, and at over 75 minutes long it was just so damn good it never outstayed its welcome. For me it gets a 9/10

Day 237 - Kendrick Lamar - 'Damn'
Initially, I had chosen his 'Good Kid, m.A.A.d City', but it's 101 minutes long on Apple Music. Fuck that, ain't nobody got time for that. So I chose 'Damn' instead.

By the end of it, I thought to myself, 'Damn'. But in a sense of 'Damn, this shit was really bad'. And it was - at least for my tastes. Pretty mediocre. It gets a very generous 1/10

Day 238 - A Tribe Called Quest - 'The Low End Theory'

It wasn't bad. It wasn't good. It was just OK. I appreciate the artistry, but it does nothing for me. Felt like a 45 minute song that sounded pretty much the same. I don't know. Probably worthy of a 5/10

Sylvia, can't you see what you are doing? Can't you see I'm scared to speak and I hate my voice because it only makes you angry

And for this week's entertainment, we have a bunch of bands that were (mostly) very important to me in a very specific time of my life - somewhere between 2003 and 2011. Most of them were vehicles for healing during and after a relationship that occurred in that era, and now I revisit them. How did they hold up? Read on and find out, voyeurs and voyeuses.

Day 225 - The Antlers - 'Blight'

We live in an age where everyone has causes, and of course everyone can have them. Only, what with social media being so prevalent, these causes can't be escaped. They're being flung in our faces 24/7, and it's everywhere - literally everywhere. It's in movies, it's in music, it's on TV shows, and it's... it's exhausting really. Because you do need to get away from the real world to remain sane, and there should be a whole lot more ways to escape from it. All that to say that this album is based on climate change, a worthy cause in and of itself. Unfortunately, I want everyting but the real world right now. 

About the album... it's got very beautiful songs, very beautiful melodies, a very good message, an amazing voice but Jesus H. Christ am I tired of real life issues and politics in music, I need escapism and it seems I can't escape. Still, 8/10

Day 226 - Patrick Wolf - 'Crying The Neck'

I love Patrick Wolf. In fact, I can still remember the very first time I listened to one of his songs - 'Accident & Emergency' - on a music blog that no longer exists. His 2011 album 'Lupercalia' would be a serious contender for a spot on my desert island discs list. But that's where I stopped with him - I hadn't listened to anything by him since. He has such a beautiful voice, and this album is filled with beautiful songs - including noteworthy collabs with Zola Jesus and Serafina Steer.

Ultimately, though.... no new ground was broken here but still very, very good. I'll give it an 8/10

Day 227 - Temper Trap - 'Sungazer'

I've told this story a number of times, either here or elsewhere, but back in 2008 I moved to London. I was halfway through a very complicated relationship, and just before the year ended, she moved back home. Some months later, I enticed her to come back but her stay wouldn't be long. We then moved back into this on again/off again sort of thing, and in September 2009 she visited me for a few days. 

One of those days she was there, we went to the movies and saw '(500) Days Of Summer', and so much of that movie had eerily similar parallels to our own relationship. But 'Sweet Disposition' was prominently featured in the movie, and days later I had bought the 'Conditions' vinyl. I loved that album to death. Listened to it a billion times. And I was eagerly anticipating their next record.

I never did give it a listen, though. I think I was severely disappointed by the first single, or something like that. So I knew I'd be revisiting them now, and as soon as I start listening to it, I had to do a double take to make sure I was listening to the right thing, because the first song sounds nothing like what I remembered they sounded like.

But it picks up soon after, and grows into a really good record, with hints of a band being able to become that arena rock gods type of shit. I really liked it, and it gets a good 8.5/10

Day 228 - Beirut - 'A Study Of Losses'

'I was there, Gandalf. I was there three thousand years ago.' - this quote from 'The Lord Of The Rings : The Fellowship Of The Ring' movie sums up how I feel about being there when Beirut first came up. They got all the praise in the world, they were critic's darlings, and I didn't see what the fuss was all about. So I never paid them much attention.

And in 2011 the relationship I just wrote about came to an end, and how does one heal? I did, through music. And I have no idea why, but for some reason I downloaded their album 'The Rip Tide', and it drove me to tears, especially the title track. They slipped out of my conscience in later years, and I wasn't that keen on following up on them, for reasons I can't fully explain. 

This was the best listen of the week - it's so, so beautiful, and Zach has this amazing voice - unlike any other I've ever heard - that just fills the soul. It gets an amazing 9/10

Day 229 - The Veils - 'Fragile World'

I love their first two albums - 'The Runaway Found' and 'Nux Vomica'. And, again, there are bands that just seem to slip from one's conscience, and though you know deep down that they're still out there making records, you just don't have the time or the patience to seek them.

And what I'll say now might seem unfair, but it is the truth : just because something is objectively good, it doesn't mean that it's something that you'll enjoy. And I really didn't like this album that much. I really didn't.

But it's well put together, there's nothing that's really inherently wrong here. I just found it... boring. Boring as all hell. I'm giving it just a 5/10

Day 230 - Mew - 'Visuals'

Well, if I'm honest I didn't even know that the band had broken up, and it just goes to show how much I've kept up with them.

But 'Frengers', their monumental 2003 album, left such an impression in me that I had ridiculously high expectations for this one. And that's on me, maybe I shouldn't have, because just like the previous record, I wasn't such a great fan of this one. That's ok, not everything's a winner, and I'll give it a 6/10

Day 231 - Shout Out Louds - 'House'

Do you know what this band has is common with all the rest? It's yet another band that I've not listened to a new album in years and years. The last one I'd listened was the wonderful 'Our Ill Wills', and Jesus fucking Christ, that was almost twenty years ago. 

And this one was pretty damn good - a nifty 33 minute record that's rather more post-punky than I was expecting, at least in spots. I'll award it a good 8/10

See you in the funny papers!

It's in the water, baby, it's in the special way we fuck

Have you ever had a dream where at some point in the dream you not only realize that you are dreaming, but also that you had this exact dream multiple times before? And knowing in that, in the dream, it instills you with a weird sort of confidence where you think nothing can go wrong because you know exactly how it'll pan out. But sometimes it doesn't really work that way. 

I have a dream where I'm returning to a house I lived in in my youth that was haunted, and in I wade, sure that I am filled to the brim with divine power, and I'm going to send these demons back to hell, but when I confront them and let them know how powerful I am, I can't actually do anything at all, and the demons visit their greatest torment on me : they just mock me.

This was a preamble to the fact that yet again I delayed something I had planned for a while, but I ended up dreaming a certain kind of dream when I went to sleep last sunday. I make it no secret that I haven't been with someone in close to a decade now. I think that ship has sailed for me. And there are things that I miss, and there are things that I don't miss. There are things that I think about just once in a while now. And sex is one of those things.

But I dreamed of Zee, a girl I met in the summer of 2011. We met on the dancefloor of a club I used to go maybe twice a week, and we flirted and flirted, and one early morning just after the club closed I asked for her number. Shortly afterwards we were fucking like animals every single moment we could find to be together. She and some friends had bought a building and were renovating it, and we'd meet there and there'd be booze and sometimes coke, and we'd fuck until our bodies were spent, and all throughout this there'd be her MP3 player playing these super chill electronic songs. 

I'm aware I told this story before, earlier in the run, but Zee visited me in a dream, and for a while we were back in that unlit room, our sweaty broken bodies intermingled as one. So I decided to revisit some bands from that specific era, and the results weren't great, I'm afraid.

Read on, O loyal reader.

218 - Com Truise - 'Persuasion System'
What I'm going to write here for this record, sadly extends to pretty much every single album here, in some way or the other : there's nothing intrinsically bad here, but it's not really that good. It's the sort of music that goes nowhere, really, something that you can more or less safely ignore, it doesn't offend your ears, but ultimately is rather sterile. The last couple of songs, though, are pretty good.

I wasn't really a fan of this one, it gets a 5/10

219 - Mock & Toof - 'Temporary Happiness'
I remember - very clearly - the first time I listened to this band. I also remember - very clearly - what I was doing at the time : me and Zee were fucking like beasts on heat, and out of nowhere comes this weird, catchy song. I had no idea what it was I was listening to, but the following day I googles some lines I remembered from the song, and hey presto, 'Farewell To Wendo' was the name of the song.
This album here, though... None of the whimsy found on 'Farewell to Wendo'. A bit dull, really. It gets a poor 4/10

220 - Bag Raiders - 'Horizons'
Some bands or artists or whatever have that one song in them that is just so perfectly catchy that it has the capability of taking the world by storm, especially with how much social media has evolved and contributed to the exposure of a band's work. Bag Raiders is one such band, with their track 'Shooting Stars'. If I'm honest, that's the only song by them I ever knew... I think. And man, after two duds this one was just what I needed. Vibrant, joyful, full of beats that make you want to shake your bits, with only a couple of not so great songs thrown in. I'll give it a solid 8/10

221 - Twin Shadow - 'Cadet'

I can't remember a single thing about this one, I really can't. And I just checked Apple Music, and it says I played it this week. And, no word of a lie here, I didn't even drink a drop of booze this week, which maybe might've contributed to my forgetfulness. I was of a mind that I hadn't pretty much enjoyed what I'd listened to here, really. And I was dead set on giving it a mediocre rating based on that. But I went back and listened to it and... I'm glad I did, it was pretty damn solid. And funny thing, I maybe remember one or two songs - either from the listen I presumably had during the week, or from elsewhere. Pretty good, I'd just do without the crappy last song. It gets a 7/10 from me. 

222 - Toro Y Moi - 'Hole Erth'

Jesus, I really didn't like this one very much. It's like Gen Z music, made for TikToks on purpose, but in the end just... just boring. There were some songs here and there that almost had a promise of something good, but they went nowhere. Bad, I'll give it a 3/10

223 - Neon Indian - 'VEGA INTL. Night School'

When this one started playing, my ears instantly perked up, and a voice inside my head went 'Hello, hello, what's this? It's shaping up to be another great record!'. Alas. 

Alas, it was not. It was ok-ish, at best. A bit on the dull side, really. I don't think it deserves more than a 5/10, and I'm maybe being too generous.

224 - Washed Out - 'Notes From A Quiet Life'

I wanted so bad to end this week on a high note. I wanted this record to just lift me up. And did it? Did it bollocks. It has exactly two really good songs, and the rest of it was forgettable. Again, a very generous 5/10

So next week I either do what I've been putting on the back burner, or I do something else. We'll see how I feel tomorrow.

And I will always love you, with the wind, with the wind, oh the wind in your hair

I have a wee list with some of the challenges I have planned, and though they're in no particular order, I try go through some earlier than others. Some of these challenges require a bit of research, some others require a bit more. And this week's challenge I thought was going to require little to no research, so guess what? I did none. And so when I started this week's challenge in earnest, I soon realized I'd screwed up a bit. So what is this week's challenge? Well, nothing more than albums by members (past or present) of The Bad Seeds. I legitimately thought that there had been like a billion of them, but apparently no - there weren't actually that many. Some I knew I'd be listening to anyways, others were like rabbits pulled out of the hat, more like shots in the dark really. And.. huh... mixed results, really.

Day 211 - Teho Teardo and Blixa Bargeld - 'Christian And Mauro'
Being a huge, huge fan of this collaboration, I'd been meaning to listen to this album for quite a while now. For some reason I never did give it that listen, even though I had it on vinyl - it's very likely one of the very last records I ever bought. I saw them live in Lisbon some ten years ago, and it was quite the exquisite experience. In this alum they do much of the same things they'd done previously done - which by itself is quite, quite good - but there's not really any new ground being trod here. Still, pretty damn good - I'll give it an 8/10.

Day 212 - James Johnston - 'The Starless Room'
Ever heard of him? Yeah, me neither. This was a case when I went fishing for a name, hoping for the best and guess what? This was the best listen of the week, easily. Very beautiful, very delicate, very well thought out, very well put together. Also, it clocked at around 39 minutes or so, which meant it definitely didn't overstay its welcome. I'll give a very surprising 8.5/10.

Day 213 - Barry Adamson - 'Cut To Black'
Barry Adamson had been on my radar for years on end. But just like so, so many things, it never was a real priority. So, not knowing what to expect... I was mildly disappointed. I like Soul/R'n'B well enough, but only the old school kind of Soul, Motown, Stax, all that stuff. Contemporary/modern Soul leaves me cold, and this is much more in that vein than anything else. Maybe a couple of good songs, and no more than that. I'll give it a 6/10.

Day 214 - Mick Harvey - 'Sketches From The Book Of The Dead'
Very similar to the previous entry in terms of me wanting to check out Mick's work for a long while, but fairly different in terms of music. There are certain Cave-isms here, to be sure, but I really didn't find the album to be that great. Not bad - just not very good. It also gets a 6/10.

Day 215 - Naïm Amor & Kid Congo Powers - 'Tucson Safari'

You know, there's a certain style of music I just don't get, and I can't even understand why people make it in the first place, let alone how there are people who actively and actually enjoy listening to it. I call that style of music 'Stupid Music' and I have no idea how to describe it. But this is 99% it.

I went to a Kid Congo gig about a decade ago, when I was writing for an online music mag, and let me tell you - watching people enjoy 'Stupid Music' live was quite the education. These people really loved what they were listening to and all I could think was 'How? How???'

Is this bad? Yes. Is it all bad? No, there's like a good to great-ish song there. But It's so far from good... I'll give it a 2/10.

Day 216 - Hugo Race - 'Dishee'

Ever heard of him? Yeah, me neither. This was a case when I went fishing for a name, hoping for the best and guess what? This was the worst listen of the week, easily.

Some months ago I wrote this about an Emma Ruth Rundle I'd listened to : 

'I firmly believe that people who knowingly choose to unleash such atrocities upon the world should be chained to a post and whipped within an inch of their lives until they finally repent and denounce their works. This wasn't just the worst thing I listened to this week, or even the worst thing I listened to this year (at least so far), it's single handedly the worst piece of shit I've ever listened to. I'll give it a 0/10 because I can't give negative scores.'

This is one such case of an atrocity being knowingly unleashed upon the world. It's so, so bad. So bad. 

It also gets a 0/10.

Day 217 - Conway Savage - 'Wrong Man's Hands'

There's a lot to love here, not least the fact that it's just 26 minutes long. It's also very, very Nick Cave-y, you could certainly imagine some songs from this record being sung by him. There are moments of quiet beauty and soft tenderness here that just do that special trick, and fill your soul with joy. A very good way to end the week, and as such it gets a very good 8/10.

Next week I don't know yet if it'll be something from my list, or if I'm deciding on something else.