Memory keeper. Mostly music and movies, plus some series and video games. Obscure darkness meets pop culture glow.
The other day I got this instant hook on The Cassandra Complex, which I’ve never heard before. That naive early ’90s industrial electronic rock nostalgia on this record and Cyberpunx stole my heart. Now, listening to these two records again after a week I don’t find them that much appealing, so not sure what it is, could be a mood swing in play. But The War Against Sleep is a definitive hymn, there’s no question about that.
This is bass-heavy electronic music that I can place closest to dubstep. I also feel like I have extremely little cultural context to form well-articulated thoughts about this music, which makes it exciting.
Saying that it’s “something Arabic” feels like derogatory to how rich it is beyond language, and when I say “Arabic” I am concerned that I’m already making false identification. I just don’t know, I am not aware, I lack knowledge. However, it doesn’t feel intimidating but rather I feel the urge to explore, know more, learn, listen, understand, makes me wonder.
It’s kind of an “oldschool minded”, classic type IDM record. Close to my heart, feels right, calm.
Post rock but black metal. (I can see the confusion of how to label this when there’s every possible version of putting these words together present in this albums tag list on Bandcamp.)
Pop ambient with dub and trance vibes. I wouldn’t choose it for conscious listening, but great for work.
Dubstep tunes with some psychedelic angle. Good album to start music discovery from.
An ambient album by The Bug that is an eulogy to Amy Winehouse—such a fascinating concept that I would have never seen coming. It comes with probably the best liner notes I have ever read on Bandcamp. Not because it’s a whole lot but it gives such a personal perspective to such an unexpected record.
Also, using the word “muse” just opens up this whole realm of thoughts how muses work for artists, which I’ve always found interesting. When a muse is depicted in a movie they tend to be this groupie that hangs with the rock band, but how a muse as a person and personality inspires art is rarely seen. Funny thing that Californication comes to mind where the muse is an interesting character. And recently I read about the life of Daphne Guinness who is also cited as being the muse for fashion designers like Alexander McQueen and Karl Lagerfeld. Just reading her bio, seeing her style of photos, and listening to her records makes me go “oh yes, I can see that”.
So, to get back to Black, it’s interesting how inspiration can come from such random places, and how a muse can find you even when you’re not searching.
This sounds like how post-punk can be interpreted as bedroom shoegaze alternative hiphop in 2023. Which is just fascinating. To me this is coldwave mostly.
Last year my number one music was Unto Others – Strength, and now I’m listening to their first album, wanted to make an entry for this, too. I consider their second record the better one, but they are pretty close, this first one is also amazing. I’m still trying to crack why I am so much obsessed with this band’s music. They share some DNA with an old Hungarian goth rock band, F.O.System, which is also one of my all-time favorite bands, so that may play a part.
The vocals sound like witch house but in rock, it’s eerie and soft but also smooth and comforting. Otherwise it’s overall dark rock with an amazing atmosphere. It’s hard to put my finger on it, like I’m trying to slap a genre label on it, but it’s really not about the genre but the mood.
I also wanted to put the follow-up record here instead of this EP, but this just kills so hard, and it is not replicated on the full-length unfortunately. Fuck unfortunately though, thanks for these four tracks.