Tips Zum Selbstmord

I've loved HIRS since, uh, last year, when I heard You Can't Kill Us, then retroactively loved them some more when I grabbed The First 100 Songs. Who couldn't love a grind band with the mission statement "TRANS, QUEER, anti-authoritarian, thrash with PUNK ethics to destroy capitalist misogynist scum and empower WOMEN, POC, and the LGBTQIA community...". And the music fucking rips. Friends. Lovers. Favorites. is more of the same except with a lot of guests (hence the title) including some high profile ones like Laura Jane Grace of Against Me!, Shirley Manson of Garbage, Alice Bag, Sadie Switchblade, and others. And the best part? They're a grind bands that knows the meaning of being succinct and to the point. This album is only 14 minutes long, and features almost no samples, which I thought bogged down some of their work (let's face it, sample-heavy grind band is a pretty 2000s look...just be a kick ass grind band). It's great.

Noise compilations are already pretty dodgy affairs. "Hey want 20-odd blasts of random, context-less noise blasted at you for 80 minutes?". Usually not so fun. But I snagged a groovy Vinyl-on-Demand comp called Mexican Cassette Culture 1977-1982, which I guess this one maybe stemmed from (first release from this Insane Muzak imprint, which sounds like a name John Olsen might come up with, or one who was aping John Olsen might come up with), and it was great. But it was VOD so you got like 6 or 8 sides, a few tracks from each group, some longer sidelong pieces, etc. A bit of time to sink your teeth into each artist. This one is the aforementioned 2-4 minute blasts variety and after a while it's hard to really hear anything at all. As a bit of a history lesson in subversive music in Spain in the 80's it's interesting, but it's not much fun to listen to. Meh.

I'd never heard of Park Jiha before or the groups she'd played in. Communion is her first solo record - in addition to composing these 7 tracks she plays piri (double reed bamboo flute), saenghwang (mouth organ) and yanggeum (hammered dulcimer). Kim Oki joins her on saxophone & bass clarinet, John Bell on vibraphone and Kang Tekhyun on percussion. This album strikes a fascinating balance between being accessible (I'd almost say catchy) and completely alien - you've almost certainly never heard anything like it. I returned to it time and time again and found it endlessly listenable, sounding not at all like anything remotely "jazz improv" despite the format being there. I can't describe it, just listen.

I don't listen to much vaporwave anymore because, let's face it, it's all derivative ass-sucking crap these days. But I still make time for Cat System Corp. for his "mallsoft" classic Palm Mall, some of the best interweaving of that vaunted 80's aesthetic and vaporwave/ocean funk/whatever beats (and straight up dreamy ambience). This one, which I believe translates to Family. Work. Shop., is the soundtrack to an 80-minute VHS CatCorp released compiled of footage shot by the dude himself on business trips, family outings, and so on. I don't have the tape but the soundtrack is all right - unfortunately for me more "soft" than "mall" which is to say less ambience and field recording and more beats, some of which are downright rump-shaking and funky at times. What's undeniable is that CatCorp has clearly grown as a musician, or a producer, or whatever you'd like to call him, far beyond what this genre usually lends itself to.

A Crow Looked At Me is regrettably absent from my 2017 best of because I stupidly waited until after the year was done to give it a listen. Didn't think it'd be my thing. I'd never listened to Mount Eerie/The Microphones/Phil Elverum much before. But it knocked me out, of course, was really one of the better things I listened to of the year. Now Only continues in very much the similar vein, less an album per se and more a healing project for Elverum following the death of his wife. These aren't so much songs as acoustic-guitar backed explorations, catharses, musings from a man still trying to find his way out of a nightmare. I think A Crow Looked At Me was better, maybe because it was like getting your head dunked in cold water whereas this is more A Crow Part 2 (the last song on this album, in fact, is titled "Crow Pt. 2"). Moving and heartbreaking and real, there is no question that A Crow and Now Only and what might come next will stand as absolute pillars...

Weird EP from Diplo whose production credits need no intro here. Despite the title this isn't a collection of bangers, rather the mood here is a little...wistful? Morose, even? The production has plenty of bombast - witness in particular "Suicidal" featuring Desiigner (as repetitive and maddeningly catchy as anything the latter comes out with) and "Look Back" featuring D.R.A.M. which is damn near melodramatic in its hugely over-the-top production. "Worry No More" with Lil Yachty and Santigold is also very catchy and radio ready. "Wish" with Lil Xan is completely forgettable and mostly a snooze, "Get It Right (Remix)" feat. MØ and GoldLink is also cinematic but not terribly good either. My favorite is "Wish" with Trippie Redd's raw-throated, shouty vocals (almost bordering on annoying but not quite). Catchy and anthemtic. The mood of this EP is scattered and a couple good tracks in its 18 minutes' length makes it f...

This is a great album that came out of nowhere for me as much as it did for most anyone else. Just 10 tracks, 41 minutes, but packed with musicality and ideas and heartfelt lyrics. Saba's flow is smooth and, well, lyrical and the production is gorgeous - dreamy, jazzy, and pitch perfect. The flow changes in "Life" are downright dizzying and "Prom/King" switches gears in the blink of an eye. Fantastic and worthy of multiple listens.

The Pitchfork review turned me onto this, and it's a pretty good one. A pretty interesting one at least. The first half of the albums races, some kind of incessant electronic/psychdelic/kosmiche thrum (with some nice female vox), really reminding me of modern Japanese psych like the Boredoms and especially Solar Anus. At the halfway point ("Vermillion Pink") things slow down into a woozy, warpy affair. At times the chanted, repetitive vocals lend this thing a near-religious vibe, felt even more when an old-timey violin tune crops up on "Oculate Beings". This is a long album (73 minutes) but it's constantly evolving and never really feels its length. It's definitely a good one.

Jan Anderzen's Kemialliset Ystavat project is one that for me has gotten less interesting over time (although Anderzen has been doing some cool things with Spencer Clark). The project has gotten glitchier, more processed over time, and less improvised/collective feel, and that's not so exciting to me. This is a poppy, glitchy, somewhat dreamy album that reminds me of something Avey Tare would come up with. It's just shy of 40 minutes and pretty forgettable.

Cool record compiling cuts from 4 tapes Dual Action aka Matthew Folden released on Hospital Productions from 2014 to 2016 under the four names that make up the title here. I'd never given Dual Action a listen before (and had no idea he was featured on a few recent Prurient releases) but these are pretty cool trax. Kind of in line with Prurient's Vatican Shadow project, a little more techno/electro-y and featuring actual beats but still drenching in a sinister vibe, analogue-heavy, dirty ambience. Good stuff.

The Caretaker first came to my attention with An Empty Bliss Beyond this World in 2011, which was a revelation. In the years since he's started his Everywhere At the End of Time project, mining the same fertile ground - a study of Alzheimers and tracks of older, ballroom, swing type instrumentals smeared, fuzzed and crinkled up like half-remembered reveries from a life you didn't live. The Everywhere At the End of Time project explores that idea in greater concept. And admittedly it had gotten a little stale by now. Thankfully the 4th entry in the series shakes things up. Four side-long tracks as opposed to the other's 3-4 minute songs. and the tracks are certainly more abstract, more ambient - although still with the crackle and nostalgia that make the project so identifiable. Was it new or different enough to really stand out for me? No, but I'm glad this concept is moving in different directions. Curious to see what follows.

Melvins and Lustmord released "Pigs of the Roman Empire" some...many years ago. Also an odd-duck-but-it-could-work collaboration. Much like Venetian Snares and Daniel Lanois here. Anyway not long after it came out King Buzzo made the comment that "some of the things people think he did were actually us and some of the things people think we did were him". That's the sign of a good collaboration, when all limbs get absorbed into one megalithic beast and the entity operates as an indiscernible One. Such is not the case for M. Funk & M. Lanois. It very much, almost constantly, sounds exactly like Venetian Snares' breakcore playing over Lanois' guitar glossolalia. Lanois is in dreamy, shimmery, ambient mode here, very cinematic and nuanced, and in fact it sounds like it would make a good listen on its own. Snares (whose game I know well and typically enjoy) just slathers his own beats atop with little regard for anything else that's going on. I know...