FatherAlabaster

Altar Of Plagues - Teethed Glory And Injury   ...I feel like @markm would appreciate the artsy synth/industrial post-BM vibe of this album. Great on the big speakers.

Hey man, welcome, glad you're enjoying it here.

Rush - Hemispheres

Tigran Hamasyan + Yerevan State Chamber Choir - Luys i Luso

His Hero Is Gone - Monument To Thieves

Abigor - Taphonomia Aeternitatis

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium: Nahab

I couldn't do that. I can't even listen to most of the stuff I have in the car because it's got so much road noise it's impossible to make things out, and then all the albums have different volume levels. But I've always been one to put on one album front to back.

It looks like I have just over 1100 albums on the phone right now, almost 94gb. The playlists are just albums I wind up grouping together a lot, like Nordic folk music, fusion, favorite albums by certain bands that I don't mind on shuffle.

I'll only do shuffle if it's off a playlist I make from albums I like together. Pretty much only for longer drives these days. Shuffling everything on my phone is a non-starter, way too jarring.

Al Di Meola - Casino

Al Di Meola - Elegant Gypsy

1 hour ago, navybsn said:

Suffering Hour - The Cyclic Reckoning - not as good as their first, but still a solid record

I agree. I warmed up to it more after I saw them live, too, whatever it feels like it's "missing" on the recording came through well onstage. 

49 minutes ago, navybsn said:

May have to start looking internationally, like Messe de Mortes to get my fix.

Frustratingly it's less than 3 hours from where I live and yet I know in advance that I will never have the time to go. But if you're in the region maybe we could meet up. My friend the bass player loved it this past year, I think she said Dødheimsgard was in her top ten shows ever.

Mars Volta - Frances The Mute

Ustalost - Before The Glinting Spell Unvests    ...sorta not in the mood for this. 

Afterbirth - In But Not Of

Verberis - The Apophatic Wilderness

3 minutes ago, AlSymerz said:

Sounds like someone needs some Taylor Swift in their life!

NP: Max Boogie Overdrive - Stoned Again

 

My true battle is against Cocomelon.

Weird day for listening, I can't settle on a damn thing. NP Voivod - Nothingface.

5 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

At the risk of incurring the wrath of FA, I really like that cover art.

Wrath? Me? Never! It's a good illustration. Nobody is handing out points for good anatomy and perspective in a piece like this. The unrefined "naive" treatment has a folk art character that makes it feel more urgent, more like a document of something somebody actually experienced, which is a feeling that a more polished approach could easily fail to convey.

5 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Looks like they reinvigorated it with a new color palate for the reissue

Palette. Palette. The palate is part of your mouth. You wanna see wrath? "Color palate".

With love,

your pal the art snob

1 minute ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

Non-Australians, feel free to skip over this post by the way,

whew, I thought I was going to have to read that

Miles Davis - Sketches Of Spain

Queensryche - Operation Mindcrime   ...the young lad opened his big mouth about "80s rock" and "opera" and here we are

3 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

But why's Miles doing a tribute to the 1910's heavyweight champ?

Soundtrack for a Jack Johnson documentary. The album was initially just called Jack Johnson (like the doc) but my CD is "A Tribute", so a tribute it is. 

3 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

That one Iron Monkey album (Our Problem) is so badass though, might have to hit that one later. Should probably see if they have any others that are any good

Self titled debut is cool too. I haven't checked out anything since the original vocalist died.

NP: Miles Davis - A Tribute To Jack Johnson

I could fucking wish the drums weren't smushed over to the right side, given what a triumph of production this is in other ways, but the trumpet hangs in front of me like Macbeth's dagger. Big speakers for the win.

1 hour ago, markm said:

Swans/Soundtracks for the Bind (1996)-It's been said by many, that in a career of making weird albums, this is the weirdest album Swans ever made. love it or hate it-and fans fall on both sides of the fence (I am on the love side) there is nothing like this album. The album that was the final straw breaking the Swans for 14 years. They reformed in 2010'ish and they came to more general notoriety in 2012 with their massive trilogy beginning with The Seer in 2012 which garnered a great deal of praise in all music internet sites that cover left of field experimental music, which is when I discovered them. 2012 was when I got into headfi and hifi gear, put together a proper listening system and started following the machinations beyond metal.

At any rate, Soundtracks for the Blind (2 discs, 4 LPs) and 26 tracks is a herculean listen at over 2 hours.  It's long been a favorite for fans of experimental rock music. Some would say it's been eclipsed post 2010 in terms of what Gira strove to achieve-some kind of transcendental music that pulls from many genres. It's an album that requires patience, there is over indulgence and bloat to be sure, but I find the entire experience utterly compelling. 

The roots to Soundtracks predates 1996 some 10 years to the beginning of the Swans existence and is as you might guess, conceived to be the soundtrack to movie that never existed. There's quite a bit ambient music and overall vibe of ambient drone on this album, but also explosive music and  field recordings, and creepy, voyeuristic voice tracks. I believe Gira and Jarboe both recorded people in their lives with mental and physical health problems to create a sense of watching a film designed to give the listener a feeling of discomfort. The album is unsettling and beautiful. Much credit has to go to Jarboe, Gira's long time collaborator who has one of the most elastic, powerful, beautiful and at times brutal female voices in experimental music. 

In fact, the entire album has a combined effect of surrealist experience-reminiscent of a bizarre David Lynch movie and other worldly experience beyond the capacity to explain in words. 

The voice overs create a sense of watching a haunting documentary of some corner of the underbelly of twisted human existence-ne'er do wells living sordid, utterly depressing lives-something that draws me in, repels me but I just can't take my eyes off the screen--- or perhaps, turning to look at the multi car accident on the other side of the highway-traffic backed up for miles, emergency vehicles, cars burning, bodies on stretchers....and you just can't restrain yourself from slowing down to look at the carnage. 

There is nothing that I've heard that sounds like this album. 

I haven't heard anything else quite like it either. It's been years since I put myself through it. The voice recordings are really unsettling. I remember reading somewhere that they combed through a lot of secondhand tapes from pawn shops and so forth, but I don't actually know the backstory for those. As far as the later stuff goes... kudos to them, and I like it. I really got into the immersive soundscape of To Be Kind. But none of it is as compelling to me as the pre-breakup material. Maybe that's just because I listened to it so much when I was younger. Maybe part of it is also what Jarboe added. I don't get into her solo stuff, but she brought so much depth and weirdness to the band.

9 hours ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

Ummm... yeah. It doesn't all have to be Frazetta, but the influence is pretty clear, and if there's been some editing done to clean it up a little it doesn't take anything away from the hand-drawn feel. Wait, why am I defending my admiration of 'evil guy on a throne with a sword and fire' #3,041? I've got nothing against simplicity being used where simplicity works. What's the issue?

No issue, no need to defend. I'm surprised that you love it. Knowing how demanding and analytical you are in your listening, it seems incongruous to me. I feel like if you heard the musical equivalent of something this derivative and poorly executed, you'd have a scathing review ready to go before the end of the first song. 

I do think there's a very broad spectrum of "good art", and something doesn't need to be technically impressive to be impactful and meaningful, and being a good illustration is outside of both of those considerations. But even with that in mind I think this cover art sucks. It flaunts a lack of effort. So many other images in the genre are just way cooler and better done. I don't really put a lot of stock in cover art either way but this makes me a bit less likely to want to listen to the music.

So yeah, I'm a little surprised to see your high standards for music juxtaposed with genuine enjoyment of this piece. But I'm also not telling you what to enjoy... if this works for you, then great. You are the target audience. Love wins.

13 minutes ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

Love that cover.

Really? Unironically?

3 hours ago, navybsn said:

Rotting Christ - Triarchy of the Lost Lovers

Rotting Christ - Thy Mighty Contract

Those two and Non Serviam are the ones I go for. I haven't warmed up to anything past that yet.