Another year, another slew of advertising campaigns masquerading as year-end summaries, and another blog post in protest from me.
I haven’t found that many new artists this year, but what has characterized my year in music is probably that I’ve forayed into new genres. Much of this music I found on a Swedish corner on Mastodon.
Post-rock
With the most impact was post-rock, specifically the band Godspeed You ! Black Emperor, whose albums I’ve steadily worked through throughout the year. This is the band that I’ve like the most music from this year, as well as the one that has meant the most to me. I found them by chance because someone I follow on Mastodon said some interesting things about their newest album on their blog: https://gnomvid.se/2024/12/29/2024-ars-basta-album/. It doesn’t have a title but is named after how many had been killed so far in Gaza: https://godspeedyoublackemperor.bandcamp.com/album/no-title-as-of-13-february-2024-28340-dead
On Mastodon the author told me that they approach this genre like they approach classical music. It’s an associative process where they use the context of what they know about the world and the album to try and identify what emotions and thoughts bubble forth when they listen to it. I don’t think I had approached music that way before, but evidently it’s something I vibe with.
Their most famous album is Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven. I think No Title might be a better starting point for someone new to the band — I think it was for me, but I feel like there’s something special about Skinny Fists. It might just be recency bias since it is the most recent album of theirs I’ve worked through, but I feel like it is a little bit more unrelenting than their other albums. The wailing instrumentals in Sleep in particular are particularly haunting.
They left the big streaming platforms this year, which I really respect. You can buy their music from Bandcamp: https://godspeedyoublackemperor.bandcamp.com/
Shortly after starting listening to them, I heard that GY!BE are coming to town on tour, so I bought tickets. It’s the first, and so far only time I’ve gone to a concert. Here’s what I wrote about it at the time:
Concert
There were so many interesting things about the concert, it’s hard to talk about in a coherent fashion.
The opening act was one guitarist. I didn’t know an electric guitar could make those kinds of sounds. The guy went up silently on scene, positioned himself away from the crowd, half-crouching over the effect pedals and started cranking his guitar with lots distortion and reverb effects for twenty minutes straight. At some points he was even tuning the guitar while playing, and at another point he was strumming the air in front of the strings without actually touching them. It was a loud and oppressive sound with the anguish of a man with too much empathy for the people of the world.
The main act entered in a similar undramatic fashion. They just went up on stage to their instruments and started playing. I don’t think any of them had a microphone even. as far as I could tell, nobody on stage spoke a single word, no announcers and no lyrics. One song had a small recording of someone saying something in Spanish I think. The projector screen had the word “hope” up in the beginning. other than that, no language was used during the entire concert.
There wasn’t just one projector for the screen, there were four. Essentially, they had a DJ but for projectors,a Film Jockey if you will. Because the projectors were the kind that you put on wheels of film, and the FJ was putting on different films one different projectors at different time, overlapping the projections on the screen. he was covering the lenses with his fingers to manually dim the outputs and he adjusted the speed. At one point he even lit the film on fire while it was going through the projector.
Sadly I think the audio technicians forgot to reset the audio settings from the guitarist in the opening act because the guitar was overpowering everything else for a couple of songs. They managed to fix it later though thankfully.
Their music builds for long stretches of time. The experience of listening to that during the concert was so different. The loudness (I could at times feel the sound through my feet) and the surrounding crowd made it feel much more oppressive, in a good way.
Oh and when they ended the show in a way that basically denied us a full applause. They basically started playing this loud droning part that was looping, and then the members started leaving the stage, one by one. One did a piece sign. Some others waved. But because the droning part was still playing we couldn’t hear our own clapping so there never really was any applause. Later two of the members came back and started fiddling with the instruments. At this point I was still confused because the music was going, so I didn’t get that the show was done. It turned out the band members were packing up, and soon the music ended and people kinda just started heading towards the exits.
I ended up writing much more about the things surrounding the music, but that is mostly because those parts are easier for me to write about. The music was really good. The friend I went with almost had a religious experience and felt like they had listened to music for the first time.
I also found a recording from the same tour, but different location: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53i61bcZ5oM
Metal
Most recent is a fusion between Metal and Prog rock from Opeth through the album In Cauda Venenum, once again recommended to me by someone on Mastodon.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mFn428ktdyIi54Tei9pQ3ydQWPnmHFXb4
I like the blend between prog and metal, but what really makes the album works for me is the haunting and existential atmosphere with the slower tempo and melancholic howls. It’s annoying in a way, because it has opened my eyes to a new genre but I don’t know how to find other music like it.
As far as I can tell Opeth doesn’t have any other albums like this. They have some other proggier albums, but they don’t really do it for me. I’m reluctant to just try albums from other artists because I don’t really like metal on its own. So I am a bit stuck. We’ll see next year how this all turns out for me.
Rap
Most different from what I’ve listened to previously is rap. This is something I’ve been curious about since last year, and I’ve been trying to get into the genre. I did listen a bit to Kendrick Lamar’s concept albums To Pimp a Butterfly and Good Kid M.a.a.d City, as well as his latest more pop-ier album G.N.X.
Rap is an interesting genre for me because I don’t generally focus that much on lyrics. It might be something I pay more attention to over consecutive listens, more as a general impression than a detailed understanding. Rap is a genre that focuses so much more on lyrics than I’m used to.
Of the two concept albums mentioned above, I think I prefer GKMC, maybe because I better understand the text of the individual songs and the overall album. My favorite track has to be Good Kid. The bass line and horns (keyboard? background singers? the other part of the beat that isn’t the bass) in contrast to Kendrick’s unrelenting rap is really good.
I suppose TPAB might have cooler instrumental parts? I like the jazz backing that is loosely tied the couple fighting in For free? (interlude). The middle parts don’t work as well for me. In general I think I like the latter part of the album is the best, with my favorite track being Blacker the berry, but I also really enjoy the parts that are more of a speech and the final interview. The poem that gets progressively built up over the course of the album and ties into the different songs makes it much more interesting to listen to as well.
Reincarnated I really enjoy Reincarnated. There are other rap songs that I enjoy or find interesting, but Reincarnated is genuinely one of my favorite songs. Kendrick just kinda flows into and along the beat. And the many voices he does I love as well.
Another thing I found very fun is this Youtube/Twitch channel called Ari at Home. He has this portable DJ setup where he walks around in town making his own beats on the fly, and asks people on the street to join in to rap or sing with him. It’s a fun example of how participatory culture can be.
Ari at Home with Jetline the Lyrical and Flat Top https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAW5g-Fx6mU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQubErjZyvU
Punk
Another genre I have wanted to get into is Punk. It just hasn’t been a genre I’ve enjoyed in terms of audio sensory experience, but I feel like I should like it politically. I did find a band that I like this year (again from someone on Mastodon): Kid Kapichi. One reason that I think makes their songs approachable to me is that they are pop-y, but it is also their biggest downside. They are often a bit too repetitive for my taste, and I don’t like how the melodies become ear-worm-y.
https://kidkapichiband.bandcamp.com/album/heres-what-you-could-have-won
Other stuff
Last year I listened a bunch to Nothing But Thieves. This year I listened to their latest album Dead Club City. The song Overcome from that album is unreasonably good. It gives me this strong sense of joy and hope for the future. On some level I find it similar to Kenshi Yonezu’s さよなら、またいつか！(Sayonara, mata itsuka).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzTv976ghws
I found this DJ collective called Login.jp: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEmQRq5bxIUNGvAWj41AoaA
Their thing is to visit shops and places that are important culturally to record performances in order to archive their vibes and culture for the future.