In lieu of a show and to counter-program against certain records that are getting a lot of exposure right now, hit play and set your mind on fire.
Category Archives: John
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RETRACE 2012 pt 2
At the first half of this year, there was a temptation to include The Money Store in Ineffable, which passed as we got to know the albums that would actually populate the category. Looking back at last year, Ineffable was kind of a cop-out category. We don’t intend on having a folk category, so the three folk albums that had an effect ended up there. We thought tUnE-yArDs was too “weird” to be in pop and so we excluded it. 13 & God and Colin Stetson were the only legitimate candidates, and Stetson was the reason the whole category existed.
This year, I’ve taken advantage of the term to go and experience some truly far out shit, so the things in Ineffable are mostly of my own footwork and discovery. Pure noise recording, ambient non-electronic recordings, and a repeat appearance.
Continue reading
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RETRACE 2012, Part 1
(Yeah, I know. Content death. We’re hobbyists. Shit happens. I’m back now, anyways.)
2012 has been an insane year for music. Really, we chose the worst time to stop writing about things, because I know that I have a whole lot of shit I want to talk about that I haven’t gotten the chance to. So I’m embarking on a tiny adventure, focused on the year end shit.
We still split things up by genre, and in every genre, there’s these impossible juggernauts that seem unstoppable as category winners. At the same time, we’re not interested in something so droolingly easy as declaring category winners months ahead of time (although there was a brief temptation to rename the Best Album of 2012 award to “The Seer Memorial Runner Up Album of the Year 2012” before even that got hazy). Since we take a genre approach, this gives an easy way to introduce the records we’ve been enjoying that have a real shot at being category winners. Continue reading
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John Vs. “No Love Deep Web” by Death Grips
(I’m not posting the cover, but not because I object to it. It’s because I don’t know where anyone will be when reading it, and it’s unfair to assume it’ll be somewhere without prying eyes. I’m also not posting the “censored” cover because fuck a cop-out.)
I thought I had nothing left to say about Death Grips after witnessing one of the few shows they did for The Money Store. That experience fucked my life up for a few months as I had to compartmentalize and come to terms with everything they showed on those screens. I thought by making the front of the website that fucking jacket I wouldn’t budge on that stance. And then No Love Deep Web came out, and a bunch of crazy shit came out with it. I have theories. Here they are. Continue reading
John Vs. “The Seer” by Swans
Before we begin, I’d like to apologize for downloading the leak of the record. Gira wont read this, but I just want it public that, yes, I’ve had it for like a month, and that was a month before the general public had it, when I wasn’t supposed to have it. To make up for it, I bought it twice, and I am now going to spend my power praising it.
I’m also going to take a moment to indulge in detailing the way I listened to this record. You don’t have to listen to it this way for it to be good, but I found it to be a positive experience overall.
I’ll put a big bold “actually talking about the record” thing afterwords if you want to ignore this. Continue reading
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John Vs. “Open Your Heart” by The Men
The last time I had such a childish, underdeveloped first response to a record was when I bought Shine A Light by the Constantines. I’d bought it because I really enjoyed the song “Nighttime/Anytime (It’s Alright),” and had expected it to be a record full of songs like that, and was actually disgusted when only one song was kind of like it (“Tank Commander”).
I waited two or three years, until later into my time in high school, to put it on again. Now I vehemently defend The Constantines as being the finest rock band of 2000-2005, refer to four of those five releases as wholly perfect, intend to get “Modern Sinner Nervous Man” tattooed on my right wrist, and will probably have “Blind Luck” play during my funeral. Continue reading
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In Your Area
Alright, so, it’s probably obvious at this point that I’m a minimalist. The site is sparse, our podcast is raw, the cover of my record is pretty plain, et cetera. Now, by some measure, this is a choice. There is elegance in simplicity that I find enjoyable to take in. Plus some half-hearted attachment to the idea that belongings get in the way of enlightenment, whatever that means. Here’s the heart of the matter: I’m a sensitive person. Continue reading
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Bad Isn’t Good Enough
Five minutes before I started writing this, I had just listened to “Stupid Hoe” by Nicki Minaj for the first time ever. It was presented in a “worst song ever” thread on a music forum, by someone acting like nothing could ever be that bad.
I thought it was kind of fun.
Twenty minutes before than that, I was busy sculpting gum for fun.
Hours before that, I woke up screaming from a nightmare about a funeral for the still-alive.*
Now I’m preparing to write essentially a thesis on all modern music.
It’s been a weird day.
*the nightmare thing wont be covered in any greater detail, don’t worry about it
page:part
1. This page, right here.
2. John Vs. “Stupid Hoe” by Nicki Minaj
3. The Industrial Revolution and Music (radio edit)
4. John Vs. “New Slaves” by Zs
5. Bad Music
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Only Salt Remains
Since January, we were toying with an idea. Andrew and I listen to Public Strain frequently, to a point where we were coming around to having something else to say about that record. The idea we had was that everyone on the site would write something about the album. Andrew would’ve covered his attatchment to the record. I would’ve written about the lyric decoding process (you can see the results of that here). Matt hasn’t heard the record since we called it the 2010 Album of the Year. Metal Dan hadn’t heard it at all.
The deadline we set for all of this was last week. No one wrote anything (me included), and it seemed like that’s the end for that idea. At the same time, I’ve still felt urgency behind writing something about Women, as it’s been over a year since their meltdown. The sadness from reading that turned to jealousy at a certain point- what an amazing thing to just throw away. At the same time, I’ve got no right to say something like that, since I wasn’t someone that actually dealt with the people in the band. All I have is my perspective. Continue reading
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John Vs. “The Malkin Jewel” by The Mars Volta
…
WINNER: “The Malkin Jewel” by The Mars Volta
WHY: It’s always the punch you don’t see coming that gets you.
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