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New Album Review

ALBUM REVIEW: The Transonics – Lost In Time

ALBUM REVIEW: The Transonics – Lost In Time

BEST TRACKS: Lost In Time, Love and a Blue Light, You’re So Pretty

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This 6-piece band from Columbia very aptly named their debut album, Lost In Time, as it sounds like a blast from the past, belonging to the early 80s but by some heavenly fluke was born in the year 2020 instead. The Transonics are a severely underrated band, with less than 1,000 listens on any given song on spotify. However, when fantastic yet obscure bands are in need of a spotlight, that’s when college radio really shines. With the release of Lost In Time, the transonics are starting to take college radios across the country by storm. This eleven song album soars from beginning to end. What really excites me about this album is that the Transonics are a female-fronted band and strong feminine energy courses through every song in both the vocals and the writing.

The Transonics sound like a mix of the fun and infectious powerpop of No Doubt and the grungy rock and roll of Foo Fighters, with a twinge of early 80s psychedelica. The thing that stood out to me most was that lead vocalist Patti Davis has an electrifying voice that sounds uncannily similar to Gwen Stefani. After a short, 30 second intro, Lost In Time opens with the dreamy title track ‘Lost In Time’ which contains glittering hooks and spacy lyrics about wishes and daydreams.

Lost In Time is reminiscent of simpler times, when the grilled cheese Uncrustables were still a part of school lunches. This album caught my attention because of the album cover, which looks like it came straight out of a Lisa Frank coloring book, and it kept me listening, enchanted, with its exhilarating energy and irresistible riffs. I recommend this album if you want something sweet and lively to boost your mood after a gloomy session of browsing social media, or if you’ve ever been obsessed with the Bratz movies.

Safia

Categories
New Album Review

Album Review: Currents – The Way It Ends (2020)

This is Currents’ fifth release and second studio album, and all I can say is WOW! What a record! This style of metalcore has always been my favorite. This album has a great combination of growls and screams along with clean vocals. There are some songs on this album (A Flag to Wave and Poverty of Self) that are extremely heavy. The riffs in these songs are awesome. You also have songs like “Better Days” that has both screams and cleans in them. This song balances out both vocal techniques beautifully and the harmonies along with the music creates a beautiful song.

This album has more boasting lyrical content along with some beefy riffs. Currents style somewhat reminds me of Architects with their transitions. They have a very electric sound that they combined with technical progressive elements. The into track, “It Was Never There” builds incredible suspense. This was a great first taste of what the album has to offer. They then pick up the pace with “A Flag to Wave” and “Poverty of Self.” The choruses in their songs are really catchy and easily get you to bang your head. Tracks like “Monster” bring that crunchy heavy sound with bellowing vocals and screeching riffs. “Kill the Ache” is the poster child song for metalcore. It is a feel-good track that takes you on a journey. “Let Me Leave” is a more soft and melodic song that highlights Wile’s clean vocals. I love bands who have both a great growl and cleans.  

You can easily see that Currents was having fun with this record and you can also tell that they put a lot of thought in their songs and how they would make the listener feel. I love albums like this because you can easily tell that the band has put in a lot of time, effort, and dedication for this record. Everything is 100% authentic and it helped create an amazing record.

Favorite songs:

The Way It Ends

Poverty of Self

A Flag to Wave

Rating:

8/10

Stay Metal,

THE SAW

Categories
New Album Review

Alfedo Album Review

My favorites:  Scottie Beam, Something to Rap About, Skinny Suge 

Listen if you like: Danny Brown, Vince Staples, Earl Sweatshirt

The Alchemist and Freddie Gibbs’ album, Alfredo, was released at the end of May. On Alfredo, the duo combines the proven production talent of The Alchemist and the gruff voice of underground rapper Gibbs. Daniel Alan Maman, stage name The Alchemist, is a producer and songwriter famous for creating soulful and rhythmic beats for rappers and his own instrumental albums. He’s created many collaborative projects, and Alfredo is his most recent success. Gibbs is most well-known for his 2000’s mixtapes and recent highly-rated albums; his rough voice and smooth lyricism makes him an iconic musician. 

The album mainly reflects on the dealings of the Mafia and criminal activity. It features artists Tyler, the Creator, Benny the Butcher, and Rick Ross. The rhythms laid down by The Alchemist and paired with Gibbs’ fearless lyrics create a perfect complement. The album opens with 1985, a track full of references to pop culture including nods to Italian crime movies and the famous “Tiger King,” Joe Exotic. The song sets the stage for the rest of the album, filled with intricate beats and gritty rhyming. The album progresses, following a narrative of drug deals, guns, and women. Scottie Beam is a song that has so much relevance especially within the Black Lives Matter movement. He raps about the continuous violence faced by black Americans at the hands of police. “Yeah, the revolution is the genocide/Look, your execution will be televised.” This iconic line made it onto Gibbs’ merchandise, he sells shirts asserting “my execution might be televised,” with 100% of proceeds benefiting protest-related causes. Much of the album continues to hit on the experience of black Americans, the oppression at the hands of cops, Freddie’s childhood, drugs, and religion. Hw masters the art of romanticizing his own experiences, making them appeal to any listener. The album is one of Gibbs’ most successful yet, hitting the fourth on Billboard Charts’ top-selling albums of the week and the tracks from it becoming favorites among fans instantly. 

– Miranda

Categories
Playlists

Friday Favorites 6/12

As the Black Lives Matter movement continues to rally support across the world, I have aimed to shift my content focus onto the movement. Thus, for this week’s installment of my Friday Favorites segment, I have chosen songs by black artists that reflect the spirit of the movement and remind us what we’re fighting for. 

Sandra’s Smile – Blood Orange 

A really powerful, haunting ode to victims of police violence, specifically in reference to Sandra Bland and Trayvon Martin, and their families. Blood Orange vocalist Dev Hynes reflected on being “inconsolable” after Bland’s death and the track reflects this. 

Alright – Kendrick Lamar 

This song is one of the most memorable from the iconic album To Pimp A Butterfly. Beyond the surface of the track as a catchy rap song is Lamar’s reflection on the treatment of black Americans including police brutality and identity conflicts caused by mistreatment. The hook to the song repeats “We gon’ be alright,” asserting that despite suffering, we will survive through solidarity. 

Mad (ft. Lil Wayne) – Solange 

Solange has created a breadth of music relating to the experiences of a black woman in America, especially highlighted in this track. It reflects the injustices of the system combined with the inability of non-black individuals to understand these issues and the frustration felt by the black community. 

Be Free – J. Cole 

This song addresses the continued discrimination of black Americans, beginning with slavery and continuing with mass incarceration, police brutality, and oppression. Cole includes a chilling testimony by Dorian Johnson, who witnessed his friend being shot multiple times by police. 

Freedom (ft. Kendrick Lamar) – Beyoncé 

Beyoncé’s Lemonade was focused around the struggles and emotions of the black woman. This song specifically focuses on liberation. Even within the current movement, the struggles of black women are largely underrepresented. Beyoncé calls us to action in rallying behind the Black Lives Matter and actively working against oppression and injustice. 

I hope you all were informed by this list. As usual, you can find all of my Friday Favorites at WKNC’s Spotify page, including this week’s new additions. 

– Miranda

Categories
Music News and Interviews

New Tunes From May

 

In this series, I try to highlight some of my favorite tunes I listened to this month. May was another month full of new releases, but here are just a few that I find myself going back to a lot.

Was It Something I Said (feat. Cavetown) by MyKey – I love how this song has a very old school sound to it. The music instantly comes out sounding very 60s(?) influenced, the guitars and violin make it a soothing trip back in time. The album art also reflects this ‘classic’ style. The song is definitely a heartbroken tune, and the music makes it feel incredibly authentic. The collaboration was brilliantly done, as the two artists’ voices mesh well together.

Dance Alone by Blanks – Blanks is an Indie pop artist and his music is incredibly catchy and fun to sing along to. The artist made a lyric video for youtube where he said ‘Got bored in quarantine so I wrote a song’. The song is the perfect tune to dance to if you ever feel a bit lonely during this time. The hook is catchy and fun; and the guitars, bass and drums really make the song hard not to dance along to. 

Social Drinker by Ballyhoo! – It’s been a while since I’ve listened to this artist, but I was really excited after my first listen to this song. I find the lyrics are extremely relatable. The singer talks about social pressures often associated with drinking, and how hard growing out of this can be. The artist is over avoiding their problems and always turning to drinking. ‘Save me from myself’ is a lyric that reflects how the artist knows that they are responsible for themselves and what they choose to do, but that they understand their environment contributes to these choices. The song also reflects the struggles associated with growing up.

I would love to know what your favorite picks from May were, definitely let me know!

A full playlist to even more new tunes can be found here

– DJ Psyched

Categories
Music Education

Let’s Get Psyched About Piano: Scales

 

Scales may not always be the most exciting thing to learn about, most people would much rather just learn easy songs to start (that’s definitely my favorite way), but given how foundational they are to understanding an instrument and the basics of music theory, they’re a good place to go once you have the initial basics down. I did a blog post on ‘Learning the Basics’ a little while ago, it will be linked below for reference if you need it. 

What are scales? 

Scales are the ‘tonal base of music’ and are composed of ‘tones from which you can build melodies and harmonies’. Basically, they provide you with notes that sound good together. 

On a related note, a ‘Key’ is a group of pitches or a scale that are used in a composition of music. So while a key and a scale aren’t exactly the same thing, we do use scales for our keys, so when we see a piece of music and find it’s in, for example, ‘the key of C’ we already know what notes will likely be in the piece, because we know the scale of C. Knowing scales is also useful when you start composing or improvising.

Half steps and whole steps:

The distance between notes and keys on a piano are called ‘Steps’. Visually a whole step on a piano is when two notes have a key between them. If two keys are right next to each other it is a half step (as seen in the image below). 

Major Scales are based on the pattern above. 

Whole, Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Whole, Half (commonly written: W W H W W W H)

The C Scale is the easiest to perform because it includes only white keys. Since the pattern just so happens to work that way. But other scales, such as the D Major Scale, will include black keys. It still follows the same system of whole and half steps, but starting at D. So, if we follow the D a whole step we get E, and another whole step, meaning two keys over, is an F#. Then the next key, our first half step, is a G.

All major scales follow this pattern.

 

We play scales starting from the first note and down until we get to the same not in the next octave. So we go from C all the way down to C again, and then you play it backwards.

Now you know all the keys in a C major and D major scale, so you can improvise with these notes!

Next time we’ll look at minor scales,

Stay Psyched about learning piano,

– DJ Psyched

Learning the Basics blog post 

Categories
Weekly Charts

Daytime Charts 6/9

Artist Record Label
1 LADY LEGS Off Days Communicating Vessels
2 MOMMA Two Of Me Danger Collective
3 MINI TREES Slip Away [EP] Self-Released
4 PEACH PIT You And Your Friends Columbia
5 EMILY ROCKARTS Little Flower Self-Released
6 ROSE CITY BAND Summerlong Thrill Jockey
7 TAMBINO Summerlong Self-Released
8 DAKOTA THEIM Somewhere Under The Sun Self-Released
9 JAUNT All In One Self-Released
10 SIMEN LYNGROTH Muse Self-Released
11 ROOKIE Rookie Bloodshot
12 WHY BONNIE Voice Box [EP] Fat Possum
13 MARINARA I Feel Like Dog Self-Released
14 STEVEN DAYVID MCKELLAR Ethio Sonic Ritual
15 ROSEY DUST Keep for Life Self-Released
16 LASER BACKGROUND Evergreen Legend Self-Released
17 YUMI ZOUMA Truth Or Consequences Polyvinyl
18 HEY CHELS Everything Goes Self-Released
19 HELADO NEGRO"I Fell In Love" feat. Xenia Rubinos [Single] Super
20 KOKO NEETZ I.T.T.I.P. Admirable Traits
21 MY UGLY CLEMENTINE Vitamin CInk
22 PORRIDGE RADIO Every Bad Secretly Canadian/Secretly Group
23 FLAT WORMS Antarctica God?
24 FRANKIE COSMOS Close It Quietly Sub Pop
25 HELLO FOREVER Whatever It Is Self-Released
26 JAPANESE WALLPAPER Glow Nettwerk
27 RACOMA This Front Room Self-Released
28 NATION OF LANGUAGE Introduction, Presence Self-Released
29 TONNE Bridey Murphy [EP] Self-Released
30 PALEHOUND Black Friday Polyvinyl

TOP ADDS

1 HOLY HIVE Float Back To You Big Crown
2 PINEWOOD All Things With Symmetry [EP ]Self-Released
3 ZELMA STONE Dreamland [EP] Self-Released
4 ROLLING BLACKOUTS COASTAL FEVER Sideways To New Italy Sub Pop
5 WOODS Strange To Explain Woodsist
6 MANGO FURS, THE Inner Migrations Self-Released
7 JR JR August And Everything Prior [EP ]Love Is EZ
8 COMMUNIST SEX “Compilation Of You” [Single] Self-Released
9 RELIANT TOM Play & Rewind. Diversion
10. SCHOOL OF X Armlock Tambourhinoceros

Categories
Weekly Charts

Underground Charts 6/9

Artist Record Label
1 EARTHGANG Mirrorland Dreamville/Interscope
2 PAT JUNIOR I Thought I Knew Be Absxlute
3 BROCKHAMPTON Ginger Question Everything/RCA
4 CASHINOVA Big Dragon Stophouse
5 YOUNG THUG So Much Fun 300/Atlantic
6 DENZEL CURRY Zuu Loma Vista/Concord
7 YOUNG RJ AND MEGA RAN 2HANDSUP Ne’Astra
8 ANDERSON.PAAK Ventura Aftermath
9 TYLER THE CREATOR Igor Columbia
10 REASON"Trapped In" [Single] Top Dawg

Categories
Weekly Charts

Afterhours Charts 6/9

Artist Record Label
1 CHRISTINE AND THE QUEENS La Vita Nuova [EP] Because/Capitol
2 YEULE Serotonin II Bayonet
3 KEDR LIVANSKIY Your Need 2MR
4 OURI We Share Our Blood Remixes Ghostly International
5 HOT CHIPA Bath Full Of Ecstasy Domino
6 DEATON CHRIS ANTHONY BO Y Self-Released
7 COWGIRL CLUE Icebreaker Vada Vada
8 DANCE SYSTEM Wind ‘Em Up (Radio Version) [EP ]Monkeytown
9. SONNIKU, LIZ, SOPHIE"Sweat (Sophie Remix)“ [Single] Bella Union
10 GRIMES Miss Anthropocene 4AD/Beggars Group

Categories
Weekly Charts

Chainsaw Charts 6/9

Artist Record Label
1 CURRENTS The Way It Ends SharpTone
2 MAKE THEM SUFFER “Soul Decay” [Single] Rise
3 CARNIFEX “Cursed” [Single] Nuclear Blast
4 FIT FOR AN AUTOPSY"Fear Tomorrow" [Single] Nuclear Blast
5 HOLEHEARTED Hivemind Redzone
6 KNOCKED LOOSE A Different Shade Of Blue Pure Noise
7 CREEPING DEATH Wretched Illusions eOne
8 GATECREEPER Deserted Relapse
9 THE GHOST INSIDE The Ghost Inside Epitaph
10 DESERTION “Imperfection” [Single] Self-Released