Category: Music

Lubalin Closing Out 2020 on a High Note

I came across this video recently, and fell in love.

The beat, the singing, the facial expressions… turns out this is only the second “funny video” he’s done?

His latest video ‘Floating’ is very somber, and so well done.

Check out the comment section, too:

“Came here because of the attorney general. Stayed for the talent.”

That’s in reference to his other clip, below:

It’s neat to see someone have this well-crafted vibe, the look and presentation, and then they put out something that’s well done but not-so-serious, and see how it just hits.

As of the writing of this post, he’s got 160,000 followers on Instagram.

Goodnight, Metal Friend – MIX 09

This is a short one – less than 25 minutes – but still I think it’s a good one. A few guitars in this one, which is always a treat. Music by Archean Nights from France, Shum & dMH from Ireland, Oneirich from this ‘Dark Ambient Vol. 16‘ compilation, and Mirrortouch who is a young latinx producer named Juan Quintero-García.

I love the sleep music in my Headspace app, but sometimes I want something a little… darker. I love finding this music. Digging through the dark ambient and drone metal sections of Bandcamp, settling deep into the different songs and making sure they fit, with no sudden shrieks or loud percussion. Then fitting the songs together in Serato, and fading out of one track, and into another, at a good point, too. Not too fast, not too sudden. It’s a big bunch of skills and challenges that I really liked picking up this year.

Bandcamp Roulette Christmas Edition

Photo by Kaique Rocha from Pexels

Ever set out to do something, and then everything falls to pieces? That was me today, which is very fitting for this wretched 2020. Found the energy to set up my camera, route the audio, and set out to do another one of my Bandcamp Roulette videos, but then my video editing software decided to lay waste to my efforts, and here we are.

This year has left me short-tempered. I know it’s messed with lots of people, in lots of ways. Pick your poison, this year has been rough. That’s why I set out to find some Christmas music on Bandcamp today, to find some refuge in wonderful voices singing familiar melodies. Most of these came out in the last few days. What I found took me for a ride.

First is ÝRÝ, delicate and serene. Instrumentation is sparse, which is fine because it makes way for the vocals, which is are oh-so-good.

Next is Tenneson, which is “seven incarcerated musicians at Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility.” Musically not my thing, but the people behind it are. We all make mistakes in life, but there’s still beauty in our tragedy.

Two traditional tunes, but it’s always nice to hear someone new doing them, in this case Sasha Samara. Super smooth.

‘Hello Christmas’ from Guy Capecelatro III is soft and gentle, pretty stripped down. “A week ago none of these songs were written,” says Guy.

This one from Death Hags is sweet and airy, and perfect for a dreary, snow-less Christmas 2020.

Not usually one for very-specific lyrics, but as my roomie pointed out we’ll be talking about 2020 and COVID-19 for the next 100 years. Kathryn Hoss does a great job with this.

This one is soft and warm, with vocals by Katie Danielson.

“Wrap me in your arms Like a Christmas present / I’ll tuck you inside of my sleeve / I never liked this season, but I love those lights we hang / And the good things we choose to believe”

Without my computer mishap today I would have never heard ‘Like a Christmas Present’ by Tanbark (Chloe Nelson and James Jannicelli from Brooklyn, New York). Something things just happen for reasons we don’t get at the time.

All that to say, there’s a lot of amazing music on Bandcamp. There are so many artists out there releasing such good music, and it’s easy for them to get lost in the fray. Seek it out, it’s there. Hopefully you find something sweet from this little collection I put together.

Start Your Own Thing and Do It Soon

Randomly discovered this video with bassist Juan Alderete from a recent email blast from Abelton (for this post). Jaun played in The Mars Volta, and started a website at one point called Pedals and Effects, because he hated pedal review websites.

He just… made his own.

He bought a domain name and started doing it like he wanted.

Such a theme in life, right?

Don’t like your job, find a new one.
Don’t like the music you hear, start a band.
Don’t like podcasts that are out there, go make one.

You don’t need permission.

“Do you think people would like this sort of music?
“Should I start this podcast about weird horror movies?”
“If I made more of these, do you think people would buy them?”

Stop asking for permission and make your shit.

Can you walk around like Jaun here everyday and hang out with the dude from Nine Inch Nails? No, but I’m sure 20 years ago neither could Jaun.

And, holy shit, in digging more into this, Jaun was in a serious bicycle accident back in January 2020 and had to learn to fucking walk again.

Time is short, life is fleeting, start your shit now. Today.

Buy that domain name, shoot your first episode, upload your three song demo to Bandcamp today – tomorrow ain’t a promise.

Fell Hard for Beach Riot

Heavy, poppy, catchy – hell yes, I love this. Discovered by random on the Bandcamp front page, on the “Selling Right Now” scroller. Click, click, bang. Fell in love, listened to it twice, and had to buy it.

Digging For Music

@joekay

The last album that came my way via a DSP algorithm was VOWWS‘ ‘Under The World,’ back in 2018. For real, two years since and Apple Music nor Spotify has really surfaced anything for me.

These days I just go to Bandcamp, pick a genre that I’m interested in at the moment, then look for album art that intrigues me. It’s how I found these amazing albums:

If you’ve been listening to music for years, and buy albums, you know shit that looks good most of the time sounds good. It’s how DJs source music from local shops – finding shit that looks cool is a great place to start. And now with Bandcamp, it’s even easier.

Compare with this Spotify playlist, one of the biggest for “Dark Ambient,” with almost 7,000 followers.

It may has well be a fucking Google Sheet. No artwork, no branding, no vibes.

Same with Apple Music. Sure, it’s got the cool Apple playlist branding, and while it has album art, you have to use binoculars to really tell what looks good.

Of course, this is all a ploy to get you to hit play. Just trust them, and don’t worry about that album art, I guess.

All that said, nothing is black and white. I still use Apple Music for streaming a playlist on my runs. I also stream NTS radio via Apple Music, and some DJ sets via the MixCloud app.

There are so many ways to listen and consume music. Bandcamp, though, is the closest we got right now to the local record shop, and the feeling of digging through the used CD bins (my favorite).

Above I just outlined how I dig, and maybe you have better luck than me with the big streaming services. So keep digging, friends. Support artists and musicians when you can and buy their music.

Albums and Numbers

I love this bit from Bandcamp, as they’re doing away with ranked lists:

The goal here is to change the Best of the Year from a math equation into a discussion.

Bandcamp

As I remarked on Twitter, it’s hard enough to rank athletes who deal in hard fast numbers like wins and points. Like, sports stars have a record of Championships, and even the one with the most is still debated as being the “best ever.”

Ranking sure makes bands, labels, management and the entire music machine happy (who doesn’t want to say they were an outlets number one album in 2020?), but I think the discussion of what albums just simply mattered in a certain year is important, too.

Four Tet Collaboration with Anna Liber Lewis

I’ve been thinking this for years – musicians need to collaborate with artists more often. Not just for music videos, but for stuff to get people to watch.

I’ve heard of Four Tet, but never gave them much of a listen. I think I found this video from a Twitter. The color caught me, the imagery. So I gave it a shot.

Like, in 2020 you’re just looking for a shot. As an artist, a band, a musician, a writer, whatever.

Appearance and branding and presentation really does matter. I don’t care how technically proficient you are, if your album art is sitting next to another release with better looking art, you lose.

Like, this is science. This is biology. Shiny objects get noticed.

So I left this video open for like 2+ hours the other day while working. Another hour today, and I’ll probably revisit a few more times.

And you know which artist I looked up today on Spotify?

Four Tet.