@@@ The Avener: The Wanderings of the Avener (Casanova/Republic, 2015). I would call this first tune spaghetti western club music. Tremolo guitars, trumpet flourishes over big bass and a not fully baked un/tss club beat. It’s a cool sonic formula but it’s not really going anywhere so if you’re not baked/stoned it might be a tad boring. The second tune Fade Out Lines adds a husky female voice to the previous formula. A little ’70s commercial rock/a shot of club funk. I got to this record via the Beats highlights page. Oh my 18 million hits on the GooglePimp, wasted on a lounge biscuit.
@@@ Guerilla Toss: Smack the Brick (NNA Tapes, 2015). More dance music genre mash. Big snapping straight beat with a yipping female voice and off kilter synth sounds. Also popping funk bass, some disturbed scratch guitar to go with your synth oddities. I would call this a sort of synth punk — she’s barking a bit like Yoko Ono and there’s a grating discord to the proceedings. The second tune Be the Breeder raises the tempo to produce a freshly blend feel — like Devo on many lines of speed. The third tune keeps the manic feel and fractured funk rock flow they established in the first two tunes. It’s interesting, I don’t love it but it’s interesting.
@@@ Markis Precise: The Feeling of Flying (Ineffable Records, 2015). #1 hip hop record this week on CFUV’s weekly playlist email. After an intro piece, the second tune Frequency gets into chill funk vibe. The rhymes are concious and it’s embedded in thick but not jeep bass, smooth-ish beats and a lot of laid-back organ sounds. The third tune is more old school with upfront scratching and more urgent rhymes about a new MC reigning over hip hop.
@@@ Pentagram: Curious Volume (Peaceville, 2015). Some hard stoner psych rock off the CFUV weekly email. Big fuzzy wah guitars, a hard rock drum sound, a singer that sounds a bunch like Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees fame. Now with a band name like Pentagram I was thinking we’d be getting a healthy dose of goat horns, 666, and the Great Horned One, but alas it’s not so. More angry flower than meth-y double kick sonic assault. Oh the riffs are big and buzzy here so if that’s how you roll…
YTD recordings listened to: 764
Good music, not recommended for purchase: 440
Not good music: 262
Honorable Mentions: 20
Buys: 12
Possibles: Chris McGregor, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Dave Arner Trio, MAKU Soundsystem, Zomby, Retox, About Group, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Bone Dance, Defeater, Jonwayne, Okkyung Lee, The Ballantynes, Debruit, Slidhr, The Whammies, The Chewers, Alexander Hawkins, Toxic Holocaust, Equal Stones, Comeback Kid, Susie Iberra/Roberto Rodriguez, Lenguas Largas, The Coral, Spacesuits, T.O.M.B., Fofoulah, Lozen, Erase Errata, Mohamed Abozekry, Dawn Richard, Leo Welch, Mastery, Leviathan, Xibalba, Hartley C. White, Weed, Cold Water, Ellen Jewell, Akitsa, Richard Thompson, Jeremy Pinnell, Pat Thomas, Janelle Monae, The Alchemist, Luther Dickinson, Andra Day, Frog Eyes, Ruby Amanfu, Madd Again!, Fuck the Facts, Shannon and the Clams, Qwanqwa
Deep In the Music 