OPM: First Anniversary Edition

Jonny Fallout – Travelogue

This fittingly named album is a journey thru the sunnier side of nearly every genre of dance music. Upbeat, intense breakbeats; disco-kissed house; abstract techno with just a touch of funk; chilled-out drum & bass – it’s all here. 

That means the majority of this album is aimed at the dancefloor, but the production is lush enough, and the harmonic and melodic elements are interesting enough, to hold your attention even while chilling on the couch. And, to that end, there are a couple of more relaxed downtempo breaks to catch your breath. Full of lush sound design, solid beats, ear-catching vocal samples, and sharp hooks, this is a deeply engaging dance pop workout.

(Listened to the entire album)

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qhost revievv – “isekai”

Experimental pop/industrial anthem about the desire to be isekai’d. The vocals are treated with a vocoderesque effect, the beat is a slow breakbeat that’s hip-hop adjacent, the guitars are big and fuzzy and barely sound like guitars. 

It’s a fascinating genre-agnostic mashup that veers all over the place while always staying true to itself. It’s such a distinct and unusual combo of influences, ideas and themes that it’s probably destined for ultra niche appeal – but then again, so are most of my all-time favorite records. 

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Lords of Misrule – “Causation (Dawn of Reality’s Deep Dub)”

A 15-minute journey thru psychedelic dub, downtempo and chillout. Laidback but trippy, the track unfolds at a relaxed pace, unveiling plenty of squelchy bass, trippy dub delays and spacy synthesizer riffs along the way. 

Ten minutes in, some vaguely Western guitar sneaks in for a surprise vibe shift, but before long it’s also been subsumed into the overall vibe, becoming just another psychedelic sound source. Groovy and hypnotic, just the kind of thing that populated many a chillout mix back in the day.

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wordsSHIFTminds – Unified Field Music

A genre-free collection of lite, groovy electronic instrumentals that pulls from a deep well of influences, both obscure and obvious. At times it’s reminiscent of the sterile City Pop/Muzak-style funk that gets sampled into vaporwave tracks, and other times it’s more like a lost contemporary of Kraftwerk and Yellow Magic Orchestra. Several tracks could work as a soundtrack for a really wild adventure game set in a haunted nightclub on Venus. 

In general, it feels old-school, but never really self-consciously retro – more like the creator’s tastes just trend toward this older vibe, but it’s not something they’re trying to do. Regardless, it’s a varied and multifaceted album of laid back tracks with a general vibe of lowkey, peaceful simplicity. Relax and enjoy!

(Listened to the entire album)

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Carbon 7 – Long Count

A lively and inventive set of improvised material that pulls from jazz, rock, prog and more. This set of wide-ranging and freewheeling but musically adept jams was recorded live and, I’m told by one of the musicians, improvised on the spot after choosing a key for each tune. It’s somewhat reminiscent of the later Talk Talk albums, which were famously assembled from hours and hours of in-studio jams much like these. 

This is the raw stuff – potent and exciting, but like any jam-based music can sometimes require a bit of patience on the listener’s part. The jams are long and go to some strange places, but the ride is often great and never less than interesting.

(Listened to the entire album)

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As the title says, this marks the one year anniversary of posting this blog every week (minus Thanksgiving and the last week of the year). The first of these was published April 5, 2024! Looking forward to the next 50…and beyond!

If you’d like to support my efforts to expose cool independent music to a wider audience, you can contribute to my year-long fundraiser via Ko-Fi. Alternately, you could always buy some of my music…