Music Recommendations/What are you listening to?

I'm trying to bring myself to listen to Band-Maid's album Domination, but CONQUEROR is so good that I can't do it yet. ...it also doesn't help that the first three songs of CONQUEROR are the "anime intros" to the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers comics in my head*, and when I listen to them, it makes me want to read the comics, which makes me want to listen to the songs, in a beautiful spiral. The other songs are phenomenal too.

*"Page" is the theme for the pre-Shattered Grid arc, "Glory" is the theme for the Beyond the Grid arc, and "Liberal" is the theme for the Necessary Evil arc. Shattered Grid doesn't have it's own theme yet.

 

pure BS

 

I've posted this before, but peep his guitar:

(Double Star Wars whammy with Felicity Jones doing the intro)

 

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 12, 2021, Original Post Date: Jan 12, 2021 ---

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Iron Sky is a favourite of mine! I actually posted it here a while ago

Great minds...

 

It is such a great song. I didnt even realize there was another fan of it here.

 

A nice happy song to get you in the mood for 2021

This is actually one of the first songs I learned on guitar as a kid.

 

This is how you do a great cover of an already great song.

RIP Chris Cornell.

 

Band-Maid's new album Unseen World dropped today (Jan 20th Japan time), so I decided to download it and check it out. And let me say, it's a blast. It's really felt like the band(-maid) just came out and punched their listeners in the face with their ferocity. Like, there's definitely anger in this album - I mean with song titles such as "Warning!" "No God" and "I Still Seek Revenge." what do you expect? - and I'm here for it. Granted this isn't the first time I've felt this way or have had albums start off with a punch to the face, but it's one of the most effective times for me.* I haven't felt this punched since Linkin Park's LIVING THINGS' intro. (Which, while wasn't as hard as The Hunting Party's "Keys to the Kingdom," it hit harder to me.)

Another name for this album is "Killer Kanami," as Kanami, the guitarist goes HARD on this album. She has wicked guitar solos in nearly every song, along with the drummer Akane, keeps the energy crazy high for the duration of the album. The best solos so far have been in "No God," "H-G-K," and "Giovanni." The bassist Misa deserves an insane amount of credit too, providing the backbone in many of the songs; she even shows off in a couple of them too! "No God" has a short and sweet one. Heck, this whole album shows how much of a group Band-Maid is. Everyone gets a chance to shine and everyone works together to make the songs come together. Miku Kobato's song as the main vocalist, "Sayonakidori" brings a different flavor to this album that's very welcome, while still keeping the tone and energy level the same. (Her vocal sound and style remind me of Co Shu Nie's "Asphyxia." This is the second time something about Band-Maid has done that...no idea what that means for either, but I like all three songs, so yay...?)

Granted, there are songs that I don't really like, but that's true for every album. I've found that I don't like it too much when Band-Maid goes more grunge or old-fashioned, and they always have a song or two that does that each album. Part of the reason I'm hesitant to listen to some of the older songs is because I'm afraid that they'll be more grudge than what I ilke. Here it's "Manners." "Black Hole" will take me a while to warm up on, but I'm enjoying it so far.

This album also has a more...synthetic feel, despite it being hard rock. It's the audio at times and some of the transitions within the songs. This isn't a bad thing at all. I like it! But it does make the album feel more muddy at times. Then again, that goes with the album's whole aesthetic IMO.

Ultimately, I'd give this album something between an 8.5/10 and 9/10. It's an amazing album that I'm having a blast listening to, but it's also exhausting. There isn't really time to catch my breath while listening, and I end up as tired as the band probably feels after playing this, and that's not usually how I like my albums. That being said, for those interested in the band or like their stuff already, I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Tomorrow morning they're coming out with the music video for the first song on the album, "Warning!" so I'll link that when it hits.


*There's also the fact that my only real basis for comparison is CONQUEROR, which starts with the melodic-yet-still-resonant "Page."

 

After listening to Black Hole again, this time on headphones, I can say that it's going to blow some people away - Akane unleashed for real!

 

From work playlist (I'm a raver)

 

Listened to this yesterday on my commute. That's just some fanmade artwork as there's not really an official release of this. At least not all together presented as a concert but every song from the show has been made available as bonus tracks on the expanded editions of Wish You Were Here and Dark Side Of The Moon plus one tucked into the Early Years box set. I'm guessing somebody has put it together on YouTube or something but I just threw the tracks together in a playlist on iTunes so I could listen to the whole concert. It's a great but weird show, this was the Dark Side Of The Moon tour and they play the album in its entirety which is really cool but the show opens with Shine On You Crazy Diamond which wouldn't appear on an album until a year later then goes into two songs that would appear on Animals three years later. They are very cool early drafts that have quite a bit in common with the later studio versions but different enough to be interesting. Then they go into a great version of the Dark Side album then end the show with a 24 minute version of Echoes.

 

I forgot to say previously that I finally released by concept album this winter.
You can check it out at Spotify.

War & Aftermath


The album is a conceptual meditation on society going to war and making its way through the aftermath of it.
As with all of my music, this is an "instrumental" composition.

My personal artistic challenge for this project was very specifically in the mindset of attempting to create the idea of nouveau symphonic music which attempted to merge musical notions from baroque and classical music with pop/rock, hip-hop, and electronic digital music expressed in manners informed by modern cinematic musical language of thematic story telling.

Because of this, these songs are better when listened to in order sequentially (just like a film series) as each is a part of the whole story.
That said, each still stands on their own regardless and could be released as an independent song.

It was also of interest, further, influenced by Lucas, to go about making homages to musical concepts and phrases in other music that I love, while also commenting on the architecture of music in its historical contexts (e.g. musical expressions found in punk vs jazz, or pop vs classical). And lastly, again, influenced by Lucas, I repeatedly pushed the envelope of what electronic music can do as all of the music was created inside of a computer and written in midi notation by hand 100% (There are no samples...well...I take that back; there are exactly two field recordings used: an explosion and a small plane flying by overhead - all else is purely digital), and I repeatedly worked to challenge the notion of what electronic music can be thought of in its purpose and use.

For example, the first song, The March of Mars, thematically references the Imperial March in its bassline (which most Star Wars fans might likely catch). However, there are also thematic homages to Blue Monday and A 5th of Beethoven, as well as quite a few others in it.
And to the latter portion of architectural comment, the song is conceptually formed like a standard 32-bar pop song you hear on the radio (intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus/outro) while also exploring the teased relationship between cinematic musical motifs and 70's psychedelic music (easiest heard in the "bridge" or "breakdown" - depending on your flavor of terms).

And finally, to the electronic digital music boundaries and definition, it forward presents stringed instruments as the leading melody - one of the most challenging to articulate in the digital environment as a melody, and further blur the lines between the responsibilities of synthetic instruments' roles in music by having them perform orchestral supporting roles while pushing several of the classically orchestral instruments to the front instead of as supporting roles - often carrying a dual melody with an accompanying synthesizer.

Each song is built in such a manner to serve all of these factors and was an entire thrill to work on.
I pulled my hair out repeatedly, and went through all of the emotions in the "valley of creation", but I'm quite pleased with the final result (though I'm quite enjoying giving music a break and working on writing for a while).

Cheers,
Jayson

 

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