Write a comment Jazz is constantly reinventing itself, though many jazz musicians seem bound by a strong commitment to Bebop from which they cannot escape. Bebop, which emerged as a liberation—both musically and socially—has become a creative curse, much like Bach remains the unmissable blanket for the Western musical picnic.
Write a comment I am delighted to witness the flourishing democratization of electronic music. Each day, with every emerging artist, the boundaries between producer and composer blur further. Pop music is once again embracing experimentation, a trend reflected in the mainstream and viral successes of recent years, exemplified by artists like Kali Uchis and Helado Negro.
Write a comment Recently, we covered a single by Jizue, where we discussed the sense of humor in their music. With the same cheerfulness, Jizue releases a monumental new album, featuring 30 diverse tracks, under a long japanese name that can be translated and simplified as “Drama of the fridays, border 9”
Write a comment Alfie Templeman delivered a complex and danceable critique of technocracy on June 6, exploring how our perception is increasingly skewed by it. He highlights how big tech companies steal our attention, leaving us indifferent to listening attentively to music.
Write a comment One of the most difficult aspects of living as a music reviewer is finding music every day that feels new, worth writing about, and simply makes you happy to spend your time translating its sound to reason. Of course, this is easier done in some genres than others.
Write a comment A few weeks ago, we covered Iglooghost and his collaboration with Marina Herlop here. This time, the English electronic music producer is back with a full album comprising over 13 tracks under the name of “Tidal Memory Exo”.
Write a comment Today we are reviewing an album sung with a chest of concrete, a voice that comes from brutalist body architecture. Keeley surprises us with “The Hollow,” a collection of small songs with haunting lyrics, piercing voices, and open royal harmonies.
Write a comment Keigo Oyamada returns after a six-year hiatus, and last year, under his artist name Cornelius, he dropped a new album “Dream in Dream”. Recently, three days ago, he added to the previous surprise by giving us a new single, “Too Much Love for Sauna.”
Write a comment In our recent coverage, we recently spotlighted artists like BadBadNotGood and Hiatus Kaiyote, whose unique sounds resonate deeply with audiences. Today, we turn our attention to Crumb, a group often compared to these esteemed artists for their innovative sound and undeniable influence.
Write a comment David Grubbs and Jim O’Rourke were two of the most influential figures in Chicago’s vibrant end-of-the-century music scene. More importantly, they are pivotal figures who shaped the foundations and essence of contemporary experimental music so profoundly that one might argue that current experimental musicians, like those under the Tzadik label and the so-called “laptop composers,” can no longer be defined as “experimental music” but rather as a genre that happens to be called experimental. This statement does not diminish the efforts of these musicians, but it is interesting how many of these experimental musicians sound too similar to the experiments and proposals of David Grubbs, Jim O’Rourke, John Zorn, Otomo Yoshihide, and other geniuses of experimental music born in the '60s and '70s.
Write a comment Mong Tong is a music duo formed in Taiwan by the musicians and brothers Hom Yu and Jiun Chi. The breadth of musical influences this group embraces is overwhelmingly vast: South Asian folk music, 80s Nintendo soundtracks, psychedelic rock, German electronic music—the list goes on. Perhaps because of this eclecticism, the group felt tempted to create a musical “Epigraphy.”
Write a comment Piper Spray and Lena Tsibizoba, members of the acclaimed “Air Krew,” spent three years meticulously planning and producing the delightful album “Debtor of Presence.” Many reviewers have described it as an “unpredictable” musical experience, but i think this album has much more to offer than that, let’s go deeper into the value of this album.
Write a comment Hiatus Kaiyote has released another “blue single” titled “Telescope,” offering a tantalizing glimpse of their upcoming album, “Love Heart Cheat Code,” set to drop in less than a month. Previous tracks from this album have been reviewed here on MusicTalkers.
1 Comment Charlie Puth has released a new track titled “Hero.” If you go to YouTube and watch Charlie break down his super famous song “Attention,” he explains how he made that track. One curious detail from that interview is that Charlie explains how he was hesitant to feature acoustic guitar as a main instrument in the song, even though he recognizes it can be really useful for filling out rhythmic spaces in a song. In his latest release, “Hero,” he does feature the acoustic guitar as almost the prominent instrument. In that interview for “Attention,” Charlie said something akin to, “If you use the acoustic guitar, you instantly become THAT guy, or the song instantly becomes THAT song.” Meaning, Charlie was thinking about the fact that the persona of an “acoustic guitar guy” takes up so much space, and it seems, in his opinion, that persona overshadows some part of the song itself.
