2024 Album-A-Day: Week 12

The playlist

Yeah I'm out of ideas for how to open these. And these don't get notes anyway.

March 18th: Bone Machine by Tom Waits

Tom Waits is a fascinatingly weird man. I listened to an interview with him where he went on a weird rant about a society of moles living under Stonehenge. That's the kind of energy this album has. It's dark, off-kilter, and a twisted kind of fun. I love the unhinged energy of "In the Colosseum" and "Goin' Out West," the stories told on "Black Wings" and "Murder in the Red Barn," and the jaunty tragedy of "I Don't Wanna Grow Up." I'm sure I'll explore Tom Waits further (especially since I recently started watching The Wire).

March 19th: Cosmogramma by Flying Lotus

When I found out that Flying Lotus makes a lot of the Adult Swim bumper music, everything fell into place. This album is an instrumental jazz/hip-hop/electronica stream of consciousness where everything flows together perfectly. This album moves in a thousand different directions and each of them make their own kind of internal sense. My favorite song has to be "Do The Astral Plane." Also, Thom Yorke featuring on this album is too perfect, and any song with slashes in the title is really good.

March 20th: Diary by Sunny Day Real Estate

Educating myself on second-wave emo, after being familiar with the third for years (I'll work my way backwards to the first wave eventually). Sad lyrics, post-hardcore dynamics, minimal production, and screaming. This is one of those albums I need to spend more time with to fully understand, but I like it right now. My favorite song on this one is "48."

March 21st: Waiting by Thurdsay

Yes, I made sure to listen to the band Thursday on a Thursday. This album is alright, and I enjoyed songs like "Ian Curtis" and "Porcelain" and "Dying In New Brunswick," but I might be slightly biased on this strain of post-hardcore because my first love when it comes to post-hardcore is At The Drive-In

March 22nd: Dose Your Dreams by Fucked Up

I'm going to cut to the chase: this album fucking rocks. Powerful. Fierce. Energetic. Alternately uplifting and angry. From the first song, I knew I would love this album. I love "Raise Your Voice Joyce," "Torch To Light," "I Don't Wanna Live In This World Anymore," virtually every song is chaotic angry fun. This is a long album that earns every second of its runtime.

March 23rd: Melt My Eyez See Your Future by Denzel Curry

Denzel Curry is a force of nature. I knew this from the first time I heard him, that being his Triple J Like a Version cover of "Bulls On Parade" by Rage Against The Machine. From the very first track, he's tearing the microphone apart. "Melt Session #1" establishes his presence, "Walkin" has that perfect moment where the beat drops out and he demands they bring the beat back in, the hook on "The Last" is great, and "Ain't No Way" is a fun posse cut.

March 24th: Assume Form by James Blake

Things I like about this album:

• James Blake's haunting voice
• Moses Sumney's feature
• Any song that has strings
• The way James says "California"
• Walls of sparkling synth
• The lyrics on "I'll Come Too"
• The vocal harmonies on "Lullaby for my Insomniac"
• ROSALIA's feature
• Andre 3000's feature

Things I'm not too into

• Travis Scott's feature
• That's it.
• I just generally don't like him.

This is a pretty good alternative-elecronic-soul-with-occasional-trap-stuff, and I'm open to checking out his earlier, more dubsteppy stuff.