WKNC 88.1 FM - North Carolina State University Student Radio
Author:chalcopyrite
I'm chalcopyrite. I like electronic music, especially stuff that is weird, silly, very online, or any combination of the previous. I hope you like when I write about electronic music.
The cover for the EP, via https://sv-1.bandcamp.com/album/fizzy-drink-lathe
I love music. I love when two obscure artists with different styles collaborate. I love this EP, which is only two songs (which to me is single territory, but whatever.) I know that most reviews are for albums instead of something this short, but I don’t care. It’s good.
Both artists do strange, ethereal atmospheres, but the execution is very different. Outback leans more into the EDM sphere, most often breaks-adjacent, while sv1 does glitch with more than occasional trap influence. So: what do these songs actually sound like?
The album cover, via https://sintel.bandcamp.com/album/top-ten-most-epic-fish-of-all-time. Yes, this is a real album.
Hello internet, and welcome to my album review of “Top Ten most Epic fish of all time” by Sintel! It’s a pretty unique album, with its silly gimmick belying some genuinely beautiful fish in it. That out of the way, let’s dive right in!
The cover of "Scattersun," via https://scattersun.bandcamp.com/album/scattersun
Listen. I understand if you, a Parannoul fan in this hypothetical scenario, saw that there was a new album and then was really confused when you listened to it and it was only kind of shoegaze. But as a Fax Gang fan? This is everything I’ve ever wanted.
Summer semester has started, which means less DJs and more music from the automation playing. Which means it is now as good a time as any to talk about the music that plays on it and is new and good! Here’s albums that got put on the rotation recently that you can hear in the Afterhours block on WKNC right now.
Iglooghost is an artist that I’ve paid attention to for a long time.
His debut album, “Neō Wax Bloom,” came out in 2017 and was one of the very first EDM albums I listened to that wasn’t, like, from a video game OST. However, I didn’t really pay as much attention for his next solo album, “Lei Line Eon.” As far as I can tell, it wasn’t received nearly as well as “Neō Wax Bloom,” so I figured that I wasn’t missing much by having it on the backburner of my listening backlog.
This one I found out about from someone posting a link to the YouTube premiere, and I decided to listen to it because I saw a friend say it was really good. In my personal opinion: Iglooghost is back.
From March 24th to 29th, there was the Shack. On the Shack, there was a Topster. The Shack is now gone, but the Topster lives on in my heart. Today, I will attempt to assess the quality of this Shack Topster, despite having only heard like half of them.
The cover for "それは皆からの秘密です (185.45.195.172)," a hexD DJ mix by Sienna Sleep.
Everyone loves a good intentionally low-quality effect for nostalgia reasons. The sensation ranges from posting movie screenshots run through VHS filters to pressing modern albums onto vinyl to those people on Twitter who post pictures of anime on CRTs. In more recent years, this phenomenon has created a trend of lobit music, made to replicate an era where YouTube uploads were low quality and waiting for your music to download took forever.
The term for the effect applied to music is called bitcrushing, and it’s a pretty simple filter to put on your music. Combined with Gen Z having nostalgia for 360p YouTube videos and now being old enough to put out music, it makes sense why there’s been a surge of it recently.
That said, it’s also existed for as long as people have been able to do it, leading into this brief history of one effect.
It’s been a while since the last one of these, hasn’t it? Tragically, the start of 2024’s been pretty dry for new electronic releases, but here at WKNC, we push through to find only the best. Here’s a few that have been added to rotation in the past month!
Yeah, this album is IDM, but Spencer Hodo plays around with what that means. Most notably is the amount of ambient techno influence on it – tracks like “follaiseach” lean hard into that territory, while still keeping some more straight-up IDM tracks, like “absorball.”
Regardless of what genre it is, “deafness” feels mechanical, with just enough ominousness to make an album that deserves its cover art. It’s a strong album, and good for those who like their electronic music on the more technical side.
Shygirl – “Club Shy”
Genre: House, pop
Tracks Added: “thicc,” “f@k€,” “4eva,” “mute”
Shygirl isn’t reinventing music in this EP, but it’s a solid 15 minutes of club-ready bangers. It’s house-y, fun, and most importantly danceable, and while a little more straightforward than some of her previous music, it’s a worthy addition to Shygirl’s discography.
“Thicc” is my personal favorite track, and exemplifies a lot of what I think is best about this release. It’s perfect to put on at just about any party, unless you go to really weird parties where you stand in complete silence or something.
cluli – “CLUECORE!”
Genre: Hyperflip
Tracks Added: “tf we gon do in our thinking chair,” “i was never book smart im clue smart,” “they besties”
Yes, we added a song that samples both Jay Eazy and the line “sticking out your gyatt for the rizzler.” But also, consider: it is, in fact, good.
Cluli brings their own take on the popular-if-you-are-a-very-specific-type-of-person microgenre of hyperflip here, leaning more into the “brostep-indebted extreme production bangers” side of things rather than the “meme sample-heavy” side, though it still brings plenty of the silliness. The result is a potential new classic, and a new artist to look forward to new releases from.
Conclusion
New music is always awesome, and these are no exception. Watch out for them playing on WKNC!
The cover for "Significant Soil" by Mister Water Wet
On the internet, it has been incredibly easy to find incredibly niche music if you know how to look for it, or even if you just accidentally stumble into it. One of my favorite recent instances of this has been a scene referred to as mineral ambient, or simply mineralism.
Mineral ambient is a form of ambient that focuses on atmospherics based off of ambient dub and dub techno, which means lots of echo, layering, and a very nocturnal sound.
Unlike these, mineral ambient has a strong focus on creating an organic-yet-surreal atmosphere – I’ve personally described it as “primordial ooze music,” which I still feel is a good descriptor of the vibe.
The unusual name comes from the label West Mineral Ltd, which describes itself on its website as “an Audio-Mineral exploration company.” Founded by ambient artist Huerco S, the label is considered the originator of the sound.
That said, after development by artists outside of it, there’s now a wide range of albums that would be considered mineral ambient or adjacent to it. So let’s get into some!
As of writing, I have not had a good, full night of sleep in two days. The fact that the weather has been sub-freezing has not helped, either. There is naught that I desire more at the present moment other than pillow, blankie, and, of course, bed.
I also have a wide variety of music that I listen to regularly before bed to get me into the mood for being cozy and ready for bed. However, I don’t listen to music when actually asleep for fear of what it could do to my psyche, and also because I feel like it’d be weird to wear earbuds to bed, and also because I don’t own any earbuds.
Today, I dare to ask the theoretical question: what if I did listen to this while asleep? What would that do to myself while dreaming? Would it even work at all?
