Author: auxymoron

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Classic Album Review

Yikii’s “Crimson Poem” – A Modern Music Horror

Album Cover for Yikii's "Crimson Poem"
Album Cover for Yikii's "Crimson Poem"

“Crimson Poem” is an album by the Changchun-based experimental artist, Yikii. Released in 2021, this album answers the age-old question, “What happens if you give a Chinese vampire access to late-career Björk?”

In “Crimson Poem,” Yikii combines the sounds of neoclassical darkwave and art pop, adding dashes of post-industrial along the way. This combo creates an odd but satisfying energy in the album, teetering the duality of fear and delight. The commonality between both sides is just how intricate the sound design is.

Known for her disorienting production, Yikii’s primary focus in her music is immersion. Through both subtle atmospheric tracks and shrieking cinematic moments, Yikii creates an experience that sounds perfect for a horror film. With an experimental style of song structure, throwing around new ideas every few seconds, there’s always something new to let your brain wrap around.

Songs

Songs like “Disillusionment” are a prime example of how immersive Yikii gets with her songs. Backed by a trip hoppy electronic beat reminiscent of early Portishead, Yikii supports this with her precise, cloudy, whispery vocals. Various other elements of sound design fill the mix and maintain the presence of the music. These include things like the creaky whine of a swing set, the trill of thousands of bugs moving, reverberating ghoulish synths.

“Five Layers of Crimson Snow” starts off with these tribal drums and tension building strums of what sounds like a yangqin, taking inspiration from traditional Chinese music. Slowly the tension grows more with the drone of a vocaloid choir and Yikii’s vocals in their creepiest form. Combining all this with the hollow ring of some electric strings, “Five Layers of Crimson Snow” is just screaming to be put into a horror classic.

“Scavenger’s Daughter” is a full on throbbing industrial track, with the exhilarating rhythm of a song from NIN’s “Pretty Hate Machine.” Yikii contrasts the dark instrumentation with piercing high and disorienting vocals. This song feels like a panicked run in the woods from something incomprehensible to the human brain. The haunting atmosphere that Yikii creates from just a few distinct elements is something worth appreciating.

“Liminal Space” sounds like the soundtrack to a really old silent film. The atmosphere is bumped up to ten with this mostly experimental track. With the cold sound of old, detuned piano and an uncomfortable string section that sounds like a swarm of bees, this song was made to make your hands clammy.

Conclusion

Yikii’s “Crimson Poem” is anunderrated gem. This album feels like the result of a ten hour YouTube spiral that really paid off in the end. If you are a fan of horror movie soundtracks or simply experimental music, I highly recommend giving this a try. With all of the atmosphere that Yikii develops with her uniquely erratic array of instruments and timing, it is hard to explain why she isn’t as popular as she should be.

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New Album Review

Parannoul Gives Fans Everything They Wanted with “Sky Hundred”

Album Cover for Sky Hundred by Parannoul
Album Cover for Sky Hundred by Parannoul

Parannoul is an artist that needs no introduction. Over the past three years, he has made a name for himself in the growing indie scene.

He has helped bring Korean shoegaze to the West, with heights it has never quite seen before. The artist has three incredible solo albums, incredible collaboration projects, and one of the best live albums of all time. He also recently released a groundbreaking album with Fax Gang, bending the worlds of rap, indietronica and guitar music to their very limit.

It is easy to say that Parannoul has become somethinf of an indie darling. Parannoul creates atmospheres like no other and constantly pushes the boundaries of what’s possible.

This sentiment continues to shine with Parannoul’s new album, “Sky Hundred.”

What sets this apart from other Parannoul records is how much more noise there is. Peaking cymbal crashes and gritty dissonant guitars are a trademark of this entire album. The harsh analog instrumentation complements the smooth, hypnotic flare of the piano melodies and electronic synths.

Not only does this create bold and crushing moments, but gorgeous and jubilant ones, too. Parannoul shared some of the albums that inspired him for “Sky Hundred” on an Instagram Story. These include Brave Little Abacus, Walrus and Seam, a band from the early 90’s based in Chapel Hill.

Best Songs

The opening track, “A Lot Can Happen” displays a middle ground between “After the Magic” and the rest of “Sky Hundred.”

The song leads with abrasive, peaking drums, sugar-sweet vocals and cute piano parts. It’s a prime example of Parannoul’s ability to put the listener into a revolving, blissful trance.

The vocals grow and grow, getting louder with more energy and distortion than ever from the artist. Boosted by the sparkly electronic sound effects, the distortion makes it harder and harder to discern the instruments from one another. This is one of the most emotionally high, electronic-filled Parannoul songs ever, and easily a perfect opener for this album.

“Lights Off Repentance” is one of Parannoul’s most experimental songs. Driven by a classic Parannoul whistling chiptune melody, every strum on the guitar and every beat of the drums clips. You can feel the distortion almost rattle your brain. The song grows more and more distorted in the bridge, with elements glitching in and out of the mix. It almost was trying to convey that the song was so heavy and loud that the program couldn’t comprehend it, which was honestly really cool.

“Evoke Me” is Parannoul’s longest song out of all of his mainline albums. At fourteen minutes long, Parannoul stretches out the climactic moments of this song to make them as satisfying as possible. The first climax of the song right after the five-minute mark might be considered one of my favorite moments by him. The melody is slowly pitched up by the driving piano and crashes with his life-altering scream. At this moment, I feel the music wash over me with the pure euphoria it creates.

“Backwards” is Parannoul’s most sonically uplifting song. With an upfront piano section, the song is a sweet and nostalgic piece of power pop. The uplifting nature feels very reminiscent of something like “Bodys” by Car Seat Headrest — not caring about any problems, just living in the moment. That sentiment carries over into the lyrics as well, as the song ends with the nihilistic-yet-optimistic mantra, “We all live knowing we disappear.”

Conclusion

“Sky Hundred” solidifies Parannoul as an artist who shows no creative boundaries. Being able to channel his emotions so precisely into creating beautiful music is so unique to him. Parannoul has given listeners the ability to create a utopia of peace in their heads, with “Sky Hundred” as the soundtrack.

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Band/Artist Profile

Dispirited Spirits Brings the Wonder of the Space Age Back To Life

Cover of "Fragments of A Dying Star" by Dispirited Spirits
Cover of "Fragments of A Dying Star" by Dispirited Spirits

At twenty years old, a Portuguese musician has created soundscapes like no other. Indigo Dias, also known as Dispirited Spirits, is the man behind a project that sounds too good to be made by one man. Starting in 2021, Dias has released two albums, capitalizing on space’s wide-open magnificence. Dias finds ways to squeeze indie rock, midwest emo, jazz, progressive rock, and modern electronica into space rock. These styles seamlessly blend into each other to make a tight and colorful package.

His two albums bring separate appeals, each with unique qualities. “Fragments of a Dying Star,” focuses on combining electronics and rock, managing to mesh them and make a jaw-dropping experience. “The Redshift Blues” feels a lot more like a magnum opus. With grand, multi-instrumental, bombastic sequences that take much time to develop, “The Redshift Blues” pays off in its stylistic complexion.

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New Album Review

Pop Music Breaks New Ground with wishlane’s “nobody’s listening”

Album Cover for "nobody's listening" by wishlane
Album Cover for "nobody's listening" by wishlane

“nobody’s listening” is the second full-length album by Chattanoogan native wishlane. The album was released on February 29, 2024. The 21-year-old has been making and releasing music for over four years now. Most of wishlane’s work has been through Webcage, the mega-group established over the hyperpop revolution in 2020.

“nobody’s listening” combines emo-pop and glitch pop, as well as a palette of electronica to make one of the tightest pop albums of the last decade. It’s clear from even the first few seconds of this album that wishlane has an incredible comprehension of sound design and can make his huge musical ideas come to life.

One of my favorite things about this album is the specific synths that wishlane uses. The sounds of the synths all heavily resemble highly amplified electric guitars. This not only allows the production to strike a fire inside of anyone who listens, but it also makes the production feel a lot more malleable as compared to just using guitars. “27 degrees,” for example, is the lead single and the first song after the introduction track. Instantly, the crunchy synths pull you into this inescapable riff that feels out of control. The guitar-styled synths work so well here, almost feeling like more of a rock song at times.

Another thing that I love about this album is the infinite creativity wishlane provides in his instrumental process. Throughout the album, there are many appearances of acoustic guitar, whistling electronics, reverberating piano and my favorite: rhythmic clapping. Despite not having any specific musical reasons, I feel like the clapping makes the LP. The acoustic guitar, however, seems to be the most prevalent of these instruments, serving as sort of a launching pad for all of the synths to just blast off from. The guitar adds a sort of dry unsettling flavor to the album, making it feel very atmospheric.

Using the acoustic guitar to jumpstart these winding passages throughout his songs, wishlane slowly revolves riffs and ideas around one another, then smashes them all together in a cathartic release of energy. wishlane is very skilled at continuing to keep your attention and always introducing new ideas. The songs in this album range from under two minutes to eleven minutes, and the longer pop songs feel just as punchy as the shorter ones. This is difficult to pull off, especially if you are making pop music.

wishlane’s vocals are nothing to snark at, either. He carries such an angsty, deep, emotional timbre with him, very derivative of recent emo-rap artist brakence. wishlane’s singing voice just brings so much weight to the tone of the album, flowing with the pitch of the synths and electronics perfectly. Songs like “string theory” really showcase his range, going from spoken word to a lower pitch to a higher pitch to screaming so seamlessly.

Conclusion

On “nobody’s listening,” wishlane has developed a perfect formula for pop music, creating some of the most emotionally intense bangers of the 2020s. I highly recommend checking this album out; you will get something out of it no matter what.

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Classic Album Review

Classic Album Review: Nemo’s “In Stereo”

Album Cover for Nemo's "In Stereo"
Album Cover for Nemo's "In Stereo"

Background

The underground rock scene of the late 90’s and the early 2000’s has always been a charming era to me. Bands like Hum, Bowery Electric, Southpacific and many more brought the space rock genre back to life in many ways. Whether it be combining the genre with midwest emo, post-rock or shoegaze, the result almost always ended up sounding great.

This “space rock revival” scene captured the glory of outer space and the joy of humanity’s monumental achievement in exploration. Bands attempted to match the feeling of the temporally appropriate film, “2001: A Space Odyssey” with its grandiose and horizon-widening perspective. This narrative was pushed to the absolute limit with the album “In Stereo” by Nemo.

“In Stereo”

Darrell Simpson, Patrick McGuire and Todd Harapiak made up the band Nemo, which released its only work as a band, “In Stereo,” on June 8, 1999. The album consists of 8 songs, totalling 66 minutes in length, with the last song, “Space Suit,” taking up almost half of that runtime.

“In Stereo” combines space rock, shoegaze and metal in an extremely satisfying fashion. This album feels like you are strapped to the side of a rocket engine as it propels into deep space. The album has some very artful additions to it that make it feel all the more atmospheric. Some examples are the beeping electronics throughout the album, which resemble spaceship modules, and the playful reverb on some brighter guitar parts that sound like satelite dishes sending out signals to space. Also, in “Bleary-Eyed Me,” the distortion on the vocals resembles the radio between mission control and the team onboard the spacecraft.

Songs

Not only are the band members geniuses at nailing the atmosphere, but they do a pretty good job of making some solid, earwormy riffs. For example, “King Valley 55” sounds like the combination of Blur’s more poppier side, and Have A Nice Life’s cathartically heavy instruments. “Bedhead” is a groovy, jumpy song that sounds like if Spiritualized listened to Primus. “Hyperdrive” feels like it is a child of the 2020’s emo/shoegaze revival scene twenty years before it was supposed to happen.

“Space Suit,” the closing track, is my favorite song on the album. Starting with mountains of reverb, the song slowly builds into a masterpiece of density, with one of the most gut-wrenching guitar tones I’ve ever heard. After continuing on for six minutes, the riff dissolves into a heavy, intoxicating drone, with more off-kilter guitars leading. I would like to imagine this as a spacecraft losing contact with the rest of humanity and slowly inching into deep space. The drone fades out after about fifteen minutes, and we are left with silence for the remaining runtime. Whether or not the silence at the end is intentional, no one knows. I like to think this represents all contact with the Earth being lost, the craft succumbing to the silence and blackness of space.

Conclusion

Nemo’s “In Stereo” shows not only the wonders of space travel with its depth-defying highs, heavy and glorius riffs and soaring vocals, but also the horror of having your back face humanity’s reality, facing a universe that no human has explored as deep as you will.

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Concert Review

Concert Review: Knocked Loose, Speed, Show Me the Body and Loathe

Bryan Garris of Knocked Loose
Bryan Garris of Knocked Loose. Original Photo by David Barnas https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/

On June 7, 2024, Knocked Loose played at The Ritz in Raleigh for their tour promoting their new album, “You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To.” The metalcore band hailing from Kentucky has properly solidified itself over the past half-decade within the hardcore hall of fame. With their brutal riffs, poetically miserable writing and satisfying band synergy that beckons stadium-spanning mosh pits, Knocked Loose is truly a force to be reckoned with.

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Miscellaneous New Album Review

Two Incredibly Creative Rock EPs Made for Summer

Photo by Ibrahim Rifath on Unsplash

As summer’s warm and enthralling climate draws people outside, so does their willingness to switch up our habits. One thing I like to switch up is my music, saying goodbye to The Moon & Antarctica and hello to Sunbather.

Today, I present to you two of my favorite lighting-in-a-bottle rock projects released over the past months that I will definitely be having in my rotation this summer. Both of these projects expand out rock genre in ways I would have never imagined, and they do it with ease.

“Connla’s Well” by Maruja

Over the past year, Manchester post-punk band Maruja have made themselves ever present in the underground music scene with their debut EP, “Knocknarea”. With their tight, abrasive and poetic sound, the band has taken over Brixton’s rock scene at the Windmill. “Connla’s Well” is a second out-of-the-park home run for the group.

“Connla’s Well” feels like an extremely intense massage. Each aggressive drum hit or intense saxophone lick feels like a hot stone, gaining satisfaction through the pain. The soaring vocals cut through the mix, beating muscles and cartilage into a pulp. By the end, it might be the most relaxed you could ever feel.

One thing that I absolutely love about “Connla’s Well” and Maruja as a band is how much they play with momentum in a song. Through carefully layering their vibrating guitar and saxophone like they do on “The Invisible Man”, they can seamlessly make their riffs grow into a flaming asteroid hurling across the galaxy at breakneck speeds.

Maruja’s Alto Saxophonist, Joe Carroll, stated an interview by God Is In The TV, that their sound is influenced a lot by the freedom of funk, reggae, and jazz. And even through the thick and tortured sound, you can definitely make out a lot of that beauty. This is wildly apparent in the closer “Resisting Resistance”.

Overall, “Connla’s Well” is a heavy, brutal, yet gorgeous work of art that you will not regret checking out.

“Twice Around the Sun” by Ugly (UK)

Six-piece Cambridge band Ugly create an incredibly unique experience on their latest project, “Twice Around the Sun.” The project combines styles of choral singing, modern post-rock and 60s and 70s folk, creating a real rural, barnyard feel to the entire project. One of the really standout parts of this project is that all of the songs start really innocent, but grow to monstrous proportions throughout.

The first song, “The Wheel”, is a great example of their amazing progression. The song starts with some cute group singing, with light percussion and strings in the background. This may be a strange comparison, but this part feels like I am having a picnic with all the drawings I made in kindergarten. But then there’s an abrupt and loud halt in the momentum and the beat completely switches up. Now, it sounds like TOOL got a hold of these twangy instruments and are summoning a portal to the underworld with this psychedelic groove. It all feels so natural too, which makes it even more impressive.

This EP has some of the best synergy I have heard between members in quite a long time. All of the choral sections, guitar, and percussion all feel like one driving unit in this music. It really ends up making creating such a powerful noise after it all.

One of my favorite songs off of this EP though has to be “I’m Happy You’re Here”. It really takes its time and grows to such giant and beautiful heights. The harmonies are incredible, the end hook feels like you are waltzing on air into the clouds. It is definitely a strong contender of my song of they year.

Ugly’s “Twice Around the Sun” is one of the most interesting little pieces of music you could get your hands on this year, with a perfect vibe to enjoy throughout this pleasant, hot summer.

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New Album Review

“For the Rest of Your Life” by twikipedia

Cover for "For the Rest of Your Life" by twikipedia
Cover for "For the Rest of Your Life" by twikipedia

“For the Rest of Your Life” is the fourth full-length album of the Brazilian experimental artist, twikipedia. The album was released on May 10, 2024.

twikipedia originated with the SoundCloud hyperpop movement during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their sound is a combination of lush and pretty trap and frenetic digicore. Through this brash combination, the artist creates worlds of childlike whimsy in the process.

On this album, twikipedia captures this same fast-paced yet sugary sweet feeling yet again. However, this time, the nineteen year old achieves this in a completely different medium: indie rock.

Combining influences of lofi shoegaze, slacker rock, and noise pop, the sound is extremely well rounded. The project also has near-perfect pacing, without sacrificing a feeling of homegrown moodiness. You are never left a second without a crushing riff, an awesome drum fill, or an soft electronic piano note.

“For the Rest of Your Life” feels like the wonder child of Parannoul’s “To See the Next Part of the Dream,” with its youthful energy, and Jane Remover’s “Frailty,” with its careful, deliberate electronica and DIY aesthetic.

Top Tracks

There are so many incredible songs on this album. Here are my top three:

“Room For One”

This song starts off with acoustic guitar that makes me sway back and forth. The first time listening to this album, I had the impression that the album would have a soft, indie folk feel to it. And when the electric guitar came in, that thought was immediately shattered and I was blown away. This song is an incredible example of how smart twikipedia is with their songwriting.

“Figure Me Out”

Starting with a twangy midwest emo riff, this track makes itself into a stupidly simple yet satisfying track. The crunchy guitar here is beautifully supplanted with cutesy xylophone and synth loops. With its slacker rock vocal style and lofi mix, this feels like a 2012 indie rock song was Frankenstein’s monster-ed into a beautiful post-modern collage of sound.

“Dry Your Eyes”

This song creates a momentum like no other; starting with a juicy riff, and grows with the rhythmic drums and vocal highs points. This song also finds ways to sprinkle pretty piano melodies in the mix. The track climaxes in this giant explosion of noise, and the beautifully shouted lyric, “If anything, I’d even make you cry.” This line, ironically, immediately brought me to tears when I listened to it for the first time.

Conclusion

twikipedia’s extreme transition from electronic music to indie rock has been a success, filling a niche that many have been waiting for. “For the Rest of Your Life” is an incredibly solid indie rock record, and is perfect for anyone who wants a fresh taste of rock.