So how about a music update? It’s been a while.

It seems for the moment the inclination for newer stoner/doom/psych sort of music has been set aside. I listened to the new King Buffalo again the other day and thought it sounded wonderful, but I’ve typed about that already. I’m going to guess anyone here for music already knows how I feel about general heavy music, anyway. So let’s start elsewhere.

Towards the end of 2022 I finally got the new Vitalic album(s), Dissidænce. It was kind of silly feeling at first but I’ve since been listening to it like it’s the only thing there is. Why is this person’s music so good? Why are they not a household name, the inspiration for argument from folks who don’t like the genre and think they’re special for liking something else? Why am I, specifically, drawn to it, specifically now? And then comes the ridiculous thoughts I’ve had over the years about being so into a genre/scene yet listening to bands/songs that have nothing to do with it and finding it quite acceptable if not complementary.

I’ve liked Vitalic from the start, though. I can’t remember how I learned of the music offhand, but July 15th 2008 I posted “Poney” to the blog. I’m sure it wasn’t long from there for “My Friend Dario” to be perpetually in danger of becoming my next earworm. The music has remained in my immediate collection since, with me more and more appreciating it. I didn’t even have a conscious thought about it before I saw this, but I see folks agree with me about “Poison Lips” given it’s their top-listened song. Most other songs in the top lists, whether current or over longer periods of time, echo my own behaviors for when I’m picking songs on purpose.

It’s odd to me because of how irritated I was about Daft Punk in the 90s. My teenage brain thought they were SO boring. And my 20-something and 30-something and 40 year old brain also find them dull most of the time. They have their place and time, I don’t hate them, but it rarely hits a spot for me. Part of the teenage perspective was my irritation with the lushy crowd who pushed “fun” or dancing or sex or drugs above all things and the peer pressure social performance bullshit that came with it. I wasn’t into any of it except as a thought experiment on the road to something else. Things shifted and changed later, but the sounds of that time irked the fuck out of me. I thought all dance/trance/electronic sucked all the way to hating when guitar bands used production or effects to make themselves sound better than they were to appeal to more people.

But Prodigy got through the gate, and I listened to Nine Inch Nails and Gravity Kills, and then I had a boyfriend who listened to a lot of music that I thought was gross upfront where some of the dance sounds actually started to work for me. I went back to Prodigy, and here came electroclash and dance-punk… Yes, I shall listen to the song with the lyric “tell the president to suck my fucking dick” and the other one about fucking the pain away. And somehow that ended up back on bands that sound very inspired by Daft Punk except with bite. Justice, MSTRKRFT? Yes please. And goodbye any negative thoughts towards disco or earlier 90s electronic I might/would have had.

Vitalic’s newest has an obvious stand-out at the front of the first album: “Rave Against The System“. I am target audience for this due to the bass. I’ve said since at least 2008 that doom and heavy electronic are unlikely best friends. This song follows patterns familiar to live dance music, like it’s meant to be played exactly like that, but I can’t not hear the “AMPS!!!!” joke I have towards the doom crowd creeping in there. Kind of reminds me of Electric Wizard, despite the obviousness of it having absolutely fucking nothing to do with that vibe. Meanwhile, I wonder, is/was France playing this song to their trash piles recently? Response: “OK BOOMER *spazz* BOOMER OK.”

A lot of these new songs are more introspective and wandering. “Cosmic Renegade” feels like a pensive night driving scene in a movie, of neon signs passing by a car window in a big city. The “hah” sound in the next song is weird and cool, the underlying music reminding me of a soft mallet strike on a flat wood percussion instrument until it goes more obviously digital. I’ve taken to “Friends & Foes” a lot in recent weeks. More weird vocalizations – now “eh” and “ah” – with darker-seeming introspective music. It’s like someone was singing and it got cut into a hundred pieces. Have I never heard this before?

Is that Devo I hear under “Boomer OK”? I just tried to look it up and folks I can’t understand mentioned The Chemical Brothers “Under The Influence“, a band I basically skipped right over. huh. They’re on to something here. … And now I’m somewhere else, listening to another new-to-me thing, thinking it sounds super industrial despite being techno. I can’t stay on the page for shit.

In any case, my ADD moment killed the vibe, so I’m left simply saying that I really like this music. I’ll be sick of it pretty soon, I figure, given how much I’ve listened to it.

What actually is brand new to 2023?

I started to listen to the new Ladytron but repeat bad and anxious moods took me away. They’re better for calmer, relaxed moments.

Who knew in 2023 I’d intentionally be listening to Paramore. I connect them with some scene I was too old for, but more recently seeing a live performance of “This Is Why” was captivating. She’s clearly a professional, and I don’t know how anyone has that much energy to do anything nevermind throw into one single song. Thinking it might be a fluke for TV, I checked out videos of them actually on tour, and nope, she’s always like that. So now I’m listening to what might technically be targeting a much younger crowd, scenes of people I’ve got little to nothing to do with aside from this, while relating heavily with these lyrics about things that are probably exactly what they seem to be about: 2020. Tearing up about the frustrations of that time period aside, it’s at least nice to be reminded of beautiful weirdos Les Rita Mitsouko through songs with shared titles, re: “C’est Comme Ca“. It’s like that. So it goes. Und so weiter. El gato es verde y no habla Espanol.

The proper album I’ve been inhaling recently is the new Fever Ray. This one follows the same timeline as Vitalic, a result of similar things. The Knife is the source band here, who basically have electronic sensibilities but meant more towards surrender than play. Fever Ray (project of folks from The Knife) is more focused and experimental at once. The first album was chill and moody. The second was more discomforting and awkward. This one reminds me a lot of The Knife… meanwhile, it’s been ten years from The Knife’s last album and 20 from their take-off point. How the fuck has it been 22 years? How do I listen to music I think is “fresh” that is old enough to vote and drink and rent a car? 22 years from before I was born was 1960 and that feels borderline ancient to me, some other world entirely. I generally did not respect or care about artists from the 80s doing things in the 00s. What’s this about?

Oh look, today or tomorrow is Karin’s birthday (stupid time zones confusing me). Oh really, three planets in Aries? Who’d have guessed that one from a near-solo artist currently dressed in a suit on (t)he(i)r evidence-of-existence photo online, who just posted a video cosplaying Pink Flamingos, a movie I’ve never seen but I probably should. Where does gender figure in here? For all I know that’s part of the artistic intention, but it’s certainly apart of the appeal. I hear/see a woman dressed in drag whether we’re talking the leather outfit or the Talking Heads suit, but someone has “they’d” up the Wiki and there’s a talk history full of arguing about it. I don’t know what’s real. Looking at this artistically, I’d say it’s pretty valuable to see someone of a feminine persuasion showing what’s typically seen as masculine power. Or, with a prior new video, masculine banality.

Or just me laughing at her seducing herself, dressed as a dudely dude either way, with the one video in between. You know what would be awesome? Peaches and Fever Ray making music together. I’ll take the NIN and Fever Ray, though!

Without the videos, these songs are just plain lovely. More introspection and wandering… and moments of sex and celebration and revenge… and falling off the edge of the world, evidently into the ocean.

Quick story time so this transition is less ridiculous while being way more ridiculous and I should have just not. I was once listening to “The Ocean” by Led Zeppelin and made a stupid joke about the song being about the singer’s pedophilia, due the lyrics (“she is only three years old”). My boyfriend just then did not appreciate this joke I made and had one of his typical uptight fits about it, like how dare I sully his worldview with my disgusting thoughts. I am pro disgusting thoughts, if tempered by a reality that doesn’t match, and don’t really want to spend time with folks who don’t agree so nevermind that connection and we broke up soon after. Free to be myself anew.

So brings us to Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers“. The song is about breaking up with someone and being like, fuck it, I love me and I can take care of myself anyhow. I don’t know where I am with what here, but it’s a pretty fair song to be happening around these days, with the backlash anti-human rights, anti-feminism going on.

And what comes after a breakup? Goldfrapp dancing to weird AI digitalism with “So Hard So Hot”, I guess. Am super excite that she’s back. One month to go! Maybe earlier if there’s a leak! Maybe another song! The first one is very disco, which is probably expected from history, but with the solo part of this thing I wasn’t too sure what we’d be getting. The new song reminds me of “Finally” by Cece Peniston… maybe because of the drum sounds? Also the lyrics. (And guess who loves that song.) Alison’s song is more afterglow. And all that stuff above about dance/electronic applies just the same here, what with how “Strict Machine” was a major catalyst towards enjoying heavier electronic later. In any case, more please.

Have I covered everything I mean to that has nothing to do with the usual yet?

Sandrider just released a new album. I’ve barely listened to it just yet, since you can see I’ve been distracted. Mentally, this band feels like something I was doing more around a decade ago, even though a couple of hours ago I was getting my brain tickled by 1000mods, who came before on the heavy rock spectrum for me. None of that comes down to quality or a lack of appreciation, just being in a different mood of late. I heard, at least in part, mister Obelisk mention something over the air about the drums here and I was somewhere between “which drums where? I don’t get it” and “duh?” Omfg don’t get me started on Akimbo. The drums on Navigating the Bronze deserve a Pulitzer. What the hell is that nerd contest for? Don’t care, make something up, put that album in the recorded history of human achievement. So even though I’m not sure what he said or what he meant, ok I agree on history alone. Now I’m going to go have an existential crisis about not being a musician and not knowing what the hell I’m talking about, surviving on impressions alone. At least both Akimbo and Sandrider, now, are fun, and I’m hoping I’ll be back to this album’s sort of fun soon.

Getting close to home now, Bongzilla just threw a random song into the ether for an album due on my birthday. Should I have called them Dorkzilla just there? My little joke about calling everything under a certain employment umbrella with the “dork” moniker hasn’t taken off that much. Bongzilla’s name is dorky enough. And they go for some cute little titles for all their songs. Guessing “Hippie Stick” is more weed slang. It’s nice and comfortable, anyway, if you like stoner-doom music. Relaxing, as it were. Wonder what that’s about. Sarcasm.

I still find it funny that I get to spend the next while advertising their tour at no one, subsequently putting it on my imaginary resume for whatever serious work in the future, made worse because the other band involved is Wizard Rifle. These are IYKYK kind of things, but an outsider to the scene will just be like “ah, so, before we can officially hire you, we’d like you to agree to a drug test.”

Even closer, Acid King’s album just came out and straight up lulled me to sleep. Shut the fuck up, brain, it’s nappy time and the gods of doom are here to tuck you in. I think it’s an “album” album you can’t really reasonably pick at because so far no one song specifically stands out, but I may just need time with it. So it goes, there’s a single!

Ha, I’m a fucking idiot. Grabbing that video, I just realized I’ve been recently mistaking the guitarist of Black Cobra as doing the Acid King thing (as guitarist) because I thought the drummer of Black Cobra was doing the Acid King thing (as bassist) before today. In short, that’s the guitarist – a second one in addition to Lori – regardless of what Wikipedia or whomever has said before about their connection to Black Cobra. Thanks, tunnel vision ignorance. Musical chairs! Now to wonder where Rafa went.

I also live in a world where Dozer has returned. I’m not super familiar with the personnel there but their echo has been felt in their specific scene of music so in many ways it makes fine sense to return, someday, to reap the rewards of the sown past. The first video for “Ex-Human, Now Beast” easily hit the spot, both impressing me for the use of AI and for the story, and I’ve been listening to the song a lot. I’m going to burn out before the album is even here. But it’s almost here. Mere days now.

Other bands and songs have yet had their time, at least in any meaningful way for me to type words about it. Did you know Depeche Mode released something new? Apparently Puscifer has a new thing out full of remixes. I haven’t heard it yet. Etc, etc. Lots of new stuff recently I just don’t have written down (yet?) for me to reference and pick through. Also old shit. Let’s listen to Deep Purple’s “Hush” for the 87th time this week. ONE… is the loneliest number that you’ll ever doooo.

Right on time for me to type about it, locals Danava have a new album coming this month and The Obelisk just posted a track premiere. I should probably listen to that. Is it going to sound like Stranger Things 80s whatever-fuck-these-goddamn-kids? Seems I was too quick on the draw and got a garbage mess of a track. The actual track refreshed is… a song, yes. It’s too soon. Three weeks to go to contextualize it, at least. Hi “Ace of Spades”. Today we suspected that Greg’s been hanging out with Matt Pike.

This was a lot of typing. Now I have to read it for errors and to add formatting and links. So much work. My hand hurts just from typing. Perhaps I should make more regular music updates than every 3-6 months.

While editing this, listening to “Spirit in the Sky” because it was on next, it occurred to me: this is the bass and drum from “Strict Machine”. That’s fucking hilarious! All that Jesusin’ took a left turn for Albuquerque. Holy fuck. Love you, Goldfrapp.

And another edit: Monster Magnet’s Superjudge and Tool’s Undertow albums – two of my all-time favorite music anythings – are both 30 years old today. This post is full of existential crisis.