So many rocks from psychedelic through prog to even stoner, it’s many blends of hard rock, really something refreshing.
Terence Fixmer – Through The Cortex
Dark industrial techno meets power noise.
Lorn – Remnant
I don’t really know how to label these albums anymore. When Loren appeared on Brainfeeder it was easy and obvious to call it dubstep not just because of the music but because it was those times. Then in the Ninja Tune years it was still related to that scene. But then the dubstep bunch dissolved and some started creating techno, others house, and then some continued this sort of evolution of dubstep into something like bass-dominated darkish ambient, which I wouldn’t call ambient per se, but I just don’t know what to call it.
Discogs labels this latest Lorn album simply as experimental, but I don’t think it’s experimental at all in a sense how I see a Pansonic record or something by Sakamoto being experimental electronics. Remnant has a lot of melodies, easy-to-listen textures, some beatless pieces but many with mid-tempo rhythm. This is not experimental at all, this is completely approachable and easy to digest even if it is for a specific taste – but that’s true for all sorts of music.
Nowadays I tend to consider these simply electronic music. Maybe add “atmospheric” as most of them could fit as a soundtrack for any movie, game or live performance. Bit dark but then not, bit ambient but then not, bit experimenting but then not, bit triphopish but then not. I am thinking of labelling these as IDM again, which feels weird because I have very specific moods attached to that genre because of Planet Mu, Plaid and such from the late ’90s and early ’00s, but the philosophy of that music and those releases are closest to what I feel now. So, all that said, we could call Lorn’s Remnant a modern, bass-oriented, moody IDM record.
Or this is dubstep still. It’s just that this is what dubstep sounds like 10-15 years in. (And probably I had come to this realization a few times in the past decade.)
Ital Tek – Bodied
Chilling, beautiful, intimate. Like Apparat with more Planet Mu in it.
Chris Liebing – Burn Slow
It is like techno with a triphop sound: not so dark as rather introvert, slow to mid tempo, bass-dominated, some vocals but often just words.
Lingua Ignota – All Bitches Die
Death industrial opera.
Clutch – Book of Bad Decisions
New Clutch album, does what it has to.
Skee Mask – Compro
From ambient to rhythmic noise to breakbeat.
Miss Red – K.O.
Dubstep bass-and-beats with an MC focus. For the first listen I wasn’t aware that it was produced by The Bug, still I was quite aware. Nice flow, well done words.
Luke Cage – season 2
I liked the first season for the cultural aspect, for telling a lot about Harlem and seemed like something authentic. In that respect, it seemed to tell a lot more about and go much deeper into black culture than the Black Panther ever did, even though this is much more the grim side of the story, but what can you do when it’s there.
And then the second season seemed like starting slow, and after a while I realized that it remained slow, I just got adjusted to the speed. And it took its time (1 hour long episodes? That’s balls.), and went deep into the minds of the characters, and I liked that a lot. It stayed culturally relevant, showed struggle, and when it came to some hit-hard turning points it just did hit hard and I went “wow, I didn’t see that coming” a few times. The Punisher was dark and a slasher but that was still a super hero flick on its own terms. Luke Cage’s season two is a super hero drama with some heavy shit going on. It was not an easy ride at all times, but it was well worth the time and attention.