Greg's Life #72: Music I'm currently listening to #3

Music I'm currently listening to #3

March 2012

As I mentioned in my previous essay, In November I had a job interview for an English company for a teaching job in Japan in Beverly Hills. So, we drove to Los Angeles and stayed there two nights. I loaded several CDs into my CD wallet for the long drive. After we packed up everything and sent it via surface to Japan, what was left in that CD wallet was all I had to listen to until we finally received our belongings from America two months later. As a result, I've been listening to the same selection of CDs over and over again, especially since we've been doing a lot of driving lately. Here's what I have been listening to the most recently.

A Sunny Day in Glasgow: Ashes Grammar
Their prior album, Scribble Mural Comic Journal, was quite an experience. It was very experimental, and they dabbled with a lot of noise in a way that would make Pychocandy-era Jesus and Mary Chain proud. Unfortunately as a result, it's not a very comfortable album to listen to very often, for the uninitiated. Unless you are used to some of the more bizarre bands out there, I'd suggest A Sunny Day in Glasgow's Ashes Grammar over their prior album. It is quite a bit more polished and coherent, and therefore a more easily accessible for the uninitiated.
The sound of this ASDIG album is still a very experimental, eccentric, and unstructured sound, but it is a very good thing. ASDIG's Cocteau Twins inspirations can certainly be felt in their ethereal dreampop sounds, and their unstructured music blends from one song into the next, with only the occasional audio whiplash that was abundant in their prior album. The songs on Ashes Grammar will blend from a trippy, hypnotic sound to rock 'n roll to an ambient house beat to the pizzicato plucking of strings, rather beautifully, without sounding like an annoying mishmash of clashing sounds.
As with much dreampop music, the vocals are not very discernable. The first song that really feels like a single, "Failure," may have you singing along to the chorus, "fall forward, feel failure," which is repeated many times. "Close Chorus" is a nice, blissful tune with a nice dance beat. "The White Witch" is a very catchy rock 'n roll tune. In all, though, it's the overall presentation of the entire album is what makes this a truly great listening experience.

Mahogany: Connectivity
This album is incredible. Originally, I had downloaded this from emusic.com, but I love it so much that I purchased it from Amazon because I wanted to own the actual physical disc. Somewhat similar to ASDIG, Mahogany is also experimental dreampop music, both eclectic and eccentric. Typical music follows the verse 1, chorus, verse 2, chorus, guitar solo, chorus, verse 3, chorus, etc format. Like ASDIG, Mahogany ditches this for a very unstructured style of music. The end result is very intellectual and thoughtful. Lyrics even cover subjects like architecture, signal transmission, mathematical equations, and physics! There probably isn't any true meaning to most of the lyrics, but they are abstract enough to seemingly make sense. While listening to "One Plus One Equals Three Or More," I find myself singing along to the repeated lyrics "Inverse the arc of the positention/This is the mode of the new objectivity./Changing space in mass impression/This is the way to the new connectivity." The music is very easy on the ears, ranging from a Joy Division-esque, catchy bassline to a slow march to a dreamy, reflective, poetic dissertation with soft tones. Definitely a great album for fans of Belle & Sebastian and the Cocteau Twins! However, I completely disagree with some online critics I have read, accusing Mahogany of basically "aping" Joy Division and Belle & Sebastian. It's obvious that a band like Northern Portrait basically copies The Smiths (not that this is a bad thing), but Mahogany is a band that stands on its own.

YMCK: Family Racing
My first YMCK album was Family Genesis. I picked up Family Racing used at a Book Off a few weeks after we moved to Japan. My first introduction to YMCK was a song they made about fruits on the Nick Jr. TV show, Yo Gabba Gabba. YMCK is a Japanese group that composes songs from a Famicom sound chip. Actually, I've read that it is actually an emulated Famicom sound chip on a MacIntosh computer. Nevertheless, their music is quite delightful. Very cute, but distinctly different from typical J-pop. Their music is more akin to 1960's lounge music. Family Racing was released prior to Family Genesis, so the sound is not quite as refined. Still, it is great fun to listen to. My favorite is track #4, "Come On! Swing All-Stars." It's rather nice listening to 1940's big band swing music played on 8-bit Nintendo hardware.

Ringo Deathstarr: Shadow
Ringo Deathstarr has gained quite a following in Japan. In fact, their Japanese CD releases are the best ones to get! Their latest album (EP?), Shadow, was released in Japan way before it was released in America. That's interesting, considering the band is from Austin, Texas. I had to order it at a Tsutaya media store because the music selection isn't that great in the rural town where I currently live. Shadow is a bit noisier and rowdier than their previous releases. Some people criticized their first album for being "too much like The Jesus and Mary Chain" (as if that's a bad thing) and their second album for being "too much like My Bloody Valentine (as if that too is a bad thing). Shadow doesn't sound as polished as their last year's album, Colour Trip, but it's all good. I am particularly fond of the song "Dear Future," featuring Japanese lyrics, even! The song "Just You" is a cover of a song from my favorite early '90s TV show, Twin Peaks. Awesome.

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	A Sunny Day in Glasgow: Ashes Grammar Their prior album, Scribble Mural Comic Journal, was quite an experience. It was very experimental, and they dabbled with a lot of noise in a way that would make Pychocandy-era Jesus and Mary Chain proud. Unfortunately as a result, it's not a very comfortable album to listen to very often, for the uninitiated. Unless you are used to some of the more bizarre bands out there, I'd suggest A Sunny Day in Glasgow's Ashes Grammar over their prior album. It is quite a bit more polished and coherent, and therefore a more easily accessible for the uninitiated. The sound of this ASDIG album is still a very experimental, eccentric, and unstructured sound, but it is a very good thing. ASDIG's Cocteau Twins inspirations can certainly be felt in their ethereal dreampop sounds, and their unstructured music blends from one song into the next, with only the occasional audio whiplash that was abundant in their prior album. The songs on Ashes Grammar will blend from a trippy, hypnotic sound to rock 'n roll to an ambient house beat to the pizzicato plucking of strings, rather beautifully, without sounding like an annoying mishmash of clashing sounds. As with much dreampop music, the vocals are not very discernable. The first song that really feels like a single, "Failure," may have you singing along to the chorus, "fall forward, feel failure," which is repeated many times. "Close Chorus" is a nice, blissful tune with a nice dance beat. "The White Witch" is a very catchy rock 'n roll tune. In all, though, it's the overall presentation of the entire album is what makes this a truly great listening experience.
	Mahogany: Connectivity This album is incredible. Originally, I had downloaded this from emusic.com, but I love it so much that I purchased it from Amazon because I wanted to own the actual physical disc. Somewhat similar to ASDIG, Mahogany is also experimental dreampop music, both eclectic and eccentric. Typical music follows the verse 1, chorus, verse 2, chorus, guitar solo, chorus, verse 3, chorus, etc format. Like ASDIG, Mahogany ditches this for a very unstructured style of music. The end result is very intellectual and thoughtful. Lyrics even cover subjects like architecture, signal transmission, mathematical equations, and physics! There probably isn't any true meaning to most of the lyrics, but they are abstract enough to seemingly make sense. While listening to "One Plus One Equals Three Or More," I find myself singing along to the repeated lyrics "Inverse the arc of the positention/This is the mode of the new objectivity./Changing space in mass impression/This is the way to the new connectivity." The music is very easy on the ears, ranging from a Joy Division-esque, catchy bassline to a slow march to a dreamy, reflective, poetic dissertation with soft tones. Definitely a great album for fans of Belle & Sebastian and the Cocteau Twins! However, I completely disagree with some online critics I have read, accusing Mahogany of basically "aping" Joy Division and Belle & Sebastian. It's obvious that a band like Northern Portrait basically copies The Smiths (not that this is a bad thing), but Mahogany is a band that stands on its own.
	YMCK: Family Racing My first YMCK album was Family Genesis. I picked up Family Racing used at a Book Off a few weeks after we moved to Japan. My first introduction to YMCK was a song they made about fruits on the Nick Jr. TV show, Yo Gabba Gabba. YMCK is a Japanese group that composes songs from a Famicom sound chip. Actually, I've read that it is actually an emulated Famicom sound chip on a MacIntosh computer. Nevertheless, their music is quite delightful. Very cute, but distinctly different from typical J-pop. Their music is more akin to 1960's lounge music. Family Racing was released prior to Family Genesis, so the sound is not quite as refined. Still, it is great fun to listen to. My favorite is track #4, "Come On! Swing All-Stars." It's rather nice listening to 1940's big band swing music played on 8-bit Nintendo hardware.
	Ringo Deathstarr: Shadow Ringo Deathstarr has gained quite a following in Japan. In fact, their Japanese CD releases are the best ones to get! Their latest album (EP?), Shadow, was released in Japan way before it was released in America. That's interesting, considering the band is from Austin, Texas. I had to order it at a Tsutaya media store because the music selection isn't that great in the rural town where I currently live. Shadow is a bit noisier and rowdier than their previous releases. Some people criticized their first album for being "too much like The Jesus and Mary Chain" (as if that's a bad thing) and their second album for being "too much like My Bloody Valentine (as if that too is a bad thing). Shadow doesn't sound as polished as their last year's album, Colour Trip, but it's all good. I am particularly fond of the song "Dear Future," featuring Japanese lyrics, even! The song "Just You" is a cover of a song from my favorite early '90s TV show, Twin Peaks. Awesome.