Few albums will hurt you this bad. After the release of Daughter’s masterpiece, You Won’t Get What You Want, which stole the album of the year slot for “The 20 Best Albums of 2018” on this site, it would be reasonable to suspect that the world of experimental and dark music might take a while
by Ben Arzate The Buggles are the quintessential “one hit wonder” band, to the point that they’re less recognized by their name and more by “the guys that did ‘Video Killed the Radio Star.’” Their biggest claim to fame is that their music video was the first one to air on MTV. However, they couldn’t
Welcome to Bandcampology! I’m your Bandcampologist, Justin. This segment is intended to celebrate the delightfully weird, undeniably wonderful, and tragically underappreciated music platform, Bandcamp. In a world where music streaming services tend towards interchangeability due to the fact that any cool, new feature immediately gets implemented across board by all the major companies, Bandcamp is
By Ben Arzate Read Part I Here Dedicated to Hardy Fox 1945 – 2018 Despite the premature demise of their American Composers Series project and the death of their good friend and long-time collaborator Snakefinger, the Residents continued to work on new projects. In 1988, the Residents released what is, in my opinion, their best
Band: Esoctrilihum Album: Pandaemorthium (Forbidden Formulas to Awaken the Blind Sovereigns of Nothingness) Country of Origin: France Release Date: February 23, 2018 Genre: Majestic black/death metal Label: I, Voidhanger Records This album is so damned good I can leave aside the Lovecraftian lyrical leanings and have plenty of praise left over. Esoctrilihum, a one-man piece
In my later teens, I happened across John Coltrane’s album Interstellar Space while sifting through neat rows of CD jewel cases in a Half-Priced Books. I almost couldn’t believe my luck. At that time, I was in the red-hot middle of an infatuation with the Beat Generation and everything that typically comes with it: books,
It’s important to note in our foray into the history of avant-garde art that painting wasn’t the only medium impacted by experimentation. I’ve written several posts on music, and every band or independent musician mentioned in them bears the impact mark of the stylistic upheavals characteristic of the early 20th century. One particular character piques
There are two kinds of music fans out there: those who worship music, and those who worship personalities. Maybe this is a hasty generalization, but personality is the only way I’m able to account for the level of devotion some musicians seem to inspire in their fans. It’s almost a truism that many musical personalities
