Cordavision Music Reviews

The perfect example of saving the best for last. Okay, I’ve officially covered only one vaporwave project ever, and that was my favorite one, Late Night Delight from luxury elite and Saint Pepsi. I consider death's dynamic shroud.wmv to be one of the more influential acts in vaporwave still around next to luxury elite, but what I didn’t know was that dds dropped a whopping eleven albums this year. No, I’m not going to cover all of them, but since the final album in this series, Faith in Persona , was the one that hit my radar (and seemingly other’s radars), I’ll cover this one. Let’s get into it. To know some fan opinions about this album, I dove back into the vaporwave community long after my phase in that community came to an end. People are saying that this whole dds series, especially this album, is the second coming of vaporwave. Honestly, while I may not agree with that statement, I kinda understand why. It’s also probably dds’s grooviest album yet, mainly because I found my...

You know, we might as well close out the year with an Alchemist film score. Why not? As I said above, this just came out of nowhere for me. The Alchemist, arguably one of the most prolific producers in music right now, has been on an insane hot streak in 2021 alone. Only one week after his second album with Boldy James this year, he released his first film score to accompany Jason Goldwatch’s short film of the same name, Cycles . Let's get into my thoughts of Alc’s score. I actually really enjoy how unsettling this album is. I watched the short film that this score is a part of, and it’s pretty surreal. The score reminds me a lot of the video game Subnautica’s score, in a very weird way. I don’t know how I made those connections, and I honestly can’t even provide a good example from the game to bolster that point, but it just reminds me of it. The film itself seems like a cult initiation, and Alc’s score seems fit to do that. Yes, it’s a shorter review because it’s a shorter album,...

If you want to see my spoiler-free review of the movie Candyman , click right here ! Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe has been working under the Lichens name since 2004, but this is the first I had heard of him. After doing some research, I had found that he had worked with the late Jóhann Jóhannsson and the composer for Joker’s score, Hildur Guðnadóttir on an entire album. After seeing what I think is one of the best horror movies of 2021, Nia DaCosta’s brilliant Candyman sequel, I just had to review Lowe’s score. Granted, I saw the movie when it first released and haven’t seen it yet, but right when I saw the menacing cover art for it, I was entranced (heh). So, let’s get into Lowe’s Candyman score. Like another score this year, Jonny Greenwood’s contributions to Spencer , Lowe does a masterful job at personifying absolute dread throughout the album. Hints of original composer Philip Glass’s material are here too, but they’re typically drowned by noise in spine-chilling fashion. In the film...

Better late than never, I guess. I had never heard of electronic act Sam Shepherd, better known as Floating Points, before this album, but he’s been acclaimed for a little bit now. However, if you’ve caught the eye of Pharoah Sanders, one of the most influential jazz musicians ever, you must be doing something right. Along with working with the London Symphony Orchestra, Floating Points and Sanders ended up releasing an entire album together, titled Promises . Before its release, it was being hyped up as the return of Pharoah Sanders. It ended up slipping past me because of a busy schedule, but I knew I had to cover this before 2021 was up. So, let’s not waste any more time because enough was wasted already. Is this an album? Is this a song? It’s honestly tough to tell what it is, but either way, it’s fucking beautiful. I mean, damn. I’m kind of at a loss for words while writing this. Floating Points really makes you float on this ambient/jazz fusion experience, and the performances fr...

This album is why I wait to do my album of the year lists officially until 2022. It goes without question that Nas is one of the best to ever do it, and after a little bit of a lull in his discography, he’s had a comeback of sorts. 2018’s NASIR wasn’t all that great, but 2020’s Grammy-winning King’s Disease and its 2021 sequel are great showings that are all aging incredibly well. His new partnership with producer Hit-Boy has been instrumental in the later stages of his career and it’s been pretty great to listen to. On Christmas Eve, we got a surprise release from Nas titled Magic . Once again, it’s entirely produced by Hit-Boy and has a feature from A$AP Rocky, along with scratches and extra production from DJ Premier. Let’s get into Magic , which has been an odd theme so far this week. I don’t remember the last time a rap album made me this mad. Like, how is Nas this good this late in his career? I enjoy that this is short too, only 9 songs and less than a half-hour. It’s almost l...

To read my review of the first album she dropped this past month, The Makin’ Magick Album II , click right here ! Alright, there isn’t gonna be much lead-up to this one because it was mainly done in the first review, but to sum it up, DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ is quickly becoming one of my favorite producers ever. Her previous two albums, 2020’s Charmed and the other album released on the same day as this, The Makin’ Magick Album II , are some of my favorite electronic albums in recent memory. Now, we have the wonderful Christmas gift of covering not one but two DJ Sabrina albums. Let’s get into my thoughts on the second album, The Other Realm . See, having to review two albums from the same artist in one day is a little tough. I have to admit, seeing Sabrina go ambient on the opening track “Transcendence” is a welcome surprise. I know we have a working formula in DJ Sabrina’s music, but the ever-so slight change without completely diverging from her sound tends to work in their favor...

We’re gonna close off 2021 with a massive series of reviews, starting with this magical one here. This past March, I reviewed what was possibly one of the best electronic albums in recent memory, and that’s the nearly three-hour epic Charmed from London producer DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ. I didn’t say it in my review, but after listening to Charmed quite a bit, I could honestly say it’s up there with one of my favorite albums ever and I think it’d eventually be as influential as The Avalanches’s debut project, Since I Left You . After dropping the Charmed review [and receiving a very kind message from Sabrina herself], that’s when I took the deep dive on her discography. Luckily, just as I finished it, I saw that not one but TWO new albums dropped. The second review will drop a little bit later today, but the first album is the sequel to her first full-length project, Makin’ Magick . So, let’s just jump into The Makin’ Magick II Album . For shits and giggles, I’m gonna run back to t...

Cache Saturday is a series of unranked reviews where I’m gonna catch up on albums I’ve listened to, whether it’s for the first time or not. I’ll also cover new albums I’ve missed from earlier or were cut from my schedule. Also, they’ll all be done in one paragraph. This week’s entry is the return of Tierra Whack in the form of three EPs: Rap? , Pop? , and R&B? . See, how do I review three separate EPs in one paragraph? It’s a neat little thing called compartmentalizing. The titles of these projects are very self-explanatory. Three tracks of rap, three tracks of pop, and three tracks of R&B. It’s a novel concept, and especially after the insanely creative one-minute track gimmick of her debut album Whack World, it’s nice to see creativity shining through this relatively new artist. However, I do feel like Tierra’s punching a little bit under her weight here. The reason why I think this is so listenable is that it’s Tierra on these songs. She knows her way a beat and if these pro...

If you want to see my spoiler-free review of the movie The Matrix Resurrections , click right here ! Okay, I’ve never been that giant of a Matrix fan. My thoughts above will showcase my thoughts on Resurrections on its own, but it never really clicked with me as a franchise. The music, however, really has. The first three films were scored by Don Davis and are beloved by fans, myself included. However, he didn’t return for this. Johnny Klimek and Tom Tykwer ended up scoring this instead. While Klimek is a newcomer to the Lana Wachowski camp, Tykwer has been working with Wachowski since the early 2000s. So, let’s not waste any more time and get into the score for The Matrix Resurrections . Look, I have to admit. Hearing the opening chime in high quality was exciting, Matrix fan or not. Although, it does seem pretty odd why Don Davis wasn’t asked back, similar to why Laurence Fishburne wasn’t asked back to be in the movie itself. They were both available, so why not? I will say that Kli...

If you want to see my spoiler-free review of the movie Spider-Man: No Way Home , click right here ! Really? At this point, was I not going to cover this? Either way, Michael Giacchino has been one of the most in-demand film composers working right now. He’s had his handprints on nearly every modern franchise still going today like Star Wars , Mission: Impossible , Jurassic Park , Planet of the Apes , and Star Trek , along with Pixar’s most memorable movies like Up and The Incredibles . Most of all, he’s been very involved with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, even composing the fanfare that has opened every installment since 2016’s Doctor Strange , which he composed as well. Hell, the bits of his upcoming score for The Batman is already memorable. Giacchino has composed the other Spider-Man films in the MCU, so let’s just say he has the experience. Let’s not waste any more time and get into the score for No Way Home . A constant theme in all of Giacchino’s scores is that the titles are...

Oh boy, do I love dog rock. I have to admit, Japanese rock is crossing into new territory for me. I know I’ve heard CHAI and even reviewed their last album, but I’m not immersed in the genre. I’ve always heard the name tricot thrown around as one of the best J-rock groups, and when I was looking around, I saw that they had actually dropped a new album last week titled 上出来 (Jodeki) . I really don’t have a good intro for this other than this is the first time I’m hearing tricot, and I feel like this could be exciting. Let’s get into it. If I had to describe this with any word, it’d be vibrant. tricot seem to know exactly what they’re doing on this album and it actually sounds very innovative. In an odd way, it actually reminds me of Car Seat Headrest if they did math rock. That just might be one of the music-nerdiest sentences I’ve ever written, but it makes more sense in my head. I also loved the group’s vocals a lot too. They really know how to capture the atmosphere of the song and it...

Alc did say he wasn’t done with 2021… Yeah, yeah. The Alchemist and Boldy James don’t need any more introductions. I’ve talked about both of them multiple times on this site. Separately, they’ve been on a roll recently, dropping project after project that really can’t be stopped. As a duo, though, this is their fifth project together and each of the past four have been either good or great. This new surprise release, Super Tecmo Bo , has really gotten me excited about the finale of the duo’s great 2021 run. Let’s get into Super Tecmo Bo . You know, going into this, I thought this was just going to be a project of b-sides from their last album together, Bo Jackson , but this really is its own project. Oddly enough, I actually enjoy this more than Bo Jackson . Like the other albums [and EP] they’ve done together, Boldy James was born to rap over Alc’s beats. Alc has really mastered the loop game on this album, even if he’s mastered it in the past. It’s that good. Boldy’s storytelling alw...

I just wanna know what’s in the box. (I’ll see myself out.) Ever since Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial dropped just before the pandemic set in, Roddy Ricch has been one of the most exciting ‘new generation’ rappers working right now. PEMFBA was chock full of hits and Roddy himself was just great to listen to. He was one of the only rappers that just clicked suddenly with their debut album. Ever since then, I’ve been waiting for whatever his second album would hold. Now, we have that in the form of LIVE LIFE FAST . Did Roddy live up to the hype on this? Let’s get into it. Right when I had started this album, I knew what my biggest issue was going to be: It was pretty boring. Not to say that it was bad at all, which it mainly wasn’t, but I’d like to bring up something called ‘Drake syndrome.’ His album from earlier this year, Certified Lover Boy , is an album that I overall enjoyed [which I guess is a hot take], but it didn’t take a lot of creative risks. The features here oversh...

Cache Saturday is a series of unranked reviews where I’m gonna catch up on albums I’ve listened to, whether it’s for the first time or not. I’ll also cover new albums I’ve missed from earlier or were cut from my schedule. Also, they’ll all be done in one paragraph. This week’s entry is a side project from Weezer, everyone’s favorite band (100% accurate), OK Human . I’m mainly doing this for a friend of mine because I had actually skipped this album since it was released all the way back in January of this year. Along with that, Van Weezer is one of the worst albums of the year, so it made me push back listening to this album. After finally listening to this, I can say that I’m not sure why I doubted this. This album is great, actually. What I enjoy about it the most is the production. I know that an issue on some albums has been overproduction, but I don’t think it’s an issue here. It sounds great here and it’s probably one of the best-produced albums of 2021. Even with the sometimes ...

I wouldn’t be mad if you told me that this had the best feature list of 2021. You wanna know something crazy? I was in the minority on Russ’s last project, the CHOMP EP he put out last year. I honestly think it’s one of the best EPs of 2020 and deserves much more love, even if I loved more of the features on it than Russ himself. It seems like it’ll be more of the same with Chomp 2 , now a full-length album. The features here are stacked and includes Jadakiss, Jay Electronica, Big Sean, Wale, Lloyd Banks, Conway The Machine, Ghostface Killah, Styles P, The Game, Westside Gunn, Papoose, Ransom, and more. It’s pretty nice, so let’s just get right into Chomp 2 . Let me ask you a question. Look at the features above and then look at Russ. Is he carried throughout the entire project? I believe so, and if I’m being totally honest, so would most people. I like Russ as a rapper, he’s cool, so sure, I understand why he’s gotten all of these features. If I’m being totally honest, Russ does show...

I don’t know why he changed the cover at the last second, it was much better. Is it safe to say that Rick Ross is a legend at this point? Hell, the words ‘Maybach’ and ‘Music’ put together remind me of Ross now. That’s a big deal. Either way, Ross has just been vibing for the past few years, making music for himself, and I honestly respect that. Ross has hit that point in the career where he doesn’t exactly have to do everything to stay in the limelight because he made it. Unless something really bad happens, he isn’t going anywhere any time soon. He recently dropped a new album, Richer Than I Ever Been , and it’s a nice change of pace, mainly because it’s only 12 tracks. Let’s just not waste time and get into it. Honestly, what else do I even have to say about Ross? He’s essentially doing his thing. I think 21 Savage has one of his best verses ever on “Outlawz” and the beat on “The Pulitzer” is absolutely insane. The chorus on “Wiggle” made me audibly laugh the first time I heard it, ...

I just wanna play Shadow of the Colossus now. For obvious reasons, I’m not the biggest fan of posthumous albums. They usually end up being cash grabs. Yes, we have rare exceptions like Life After Death , The Shining , and Circles out there, but we also have Faith , Bad Vibes Forever , and Duets: The Final Chapter . Since Juice WRLD tragically passed away in 2019, it seems like his label has been exploiting him and his music. It’s not as obvious as XXXTENTACION’s estate, but it’s still there. The first posthumous release, Legends Never Die , was admittedly a grower on me, yet it’s still plain as day that they’re just putting out music for the sake of using his name. Now, with Fighting Demons, it seems like it’s going to be the same. Let’s get into it. I have to admit, I’m very surprised at the minimal amount of features on this. Posthumous albums like this tend to be loaded with features, so in a way, I appreciate this for just mainly being a Juice project. That being said, I do think...

Cache Saturday is a series of unranked reviews where I’m gonna catch up on albums I’ve listened to, whether it’s for the first time or not. I’ll also cover new albums I’ve missed from earlier or were cut from my schedule. Also, they’ll all be done in one paragraph. This week’s entry is Lancey Foux’s long-awaited mixtape, LIVE.EVIL . I gotta admit, this was a fun project. Only off of one project, I really enjoy Foux as an artist and I enjoy that a lot. I think he has a lot of potential to become a huge name in trap. The production is pretty great here, but Lancey’s the one who stands out the most to me. He has a great personality that gives a lot of energy to some of the less hard-hitting beats, and the features from Lil Yachty and 24kGolden are pretty nice too! Even if there are only a couple tracks that didn’t hit with me, it’s certain to me that Lancey Foux has a great future ahead of him and he’ll certainly be on my radar for it. Listen here YouTube Music LIVE.EVIL is a Human Resou...

kiCK iiiii concludes Arca Week on a very luscious note. Okay, after hearing the major differences between KicK iii and iiii , I honestly had no idea what to expect for the final entry in the KiCK series, and boy was I wrong. This is essentially a modern classical album done by an electronic music producer. It’s certainly something I’ve never heard of, but it’s a welcome one. Like the last one, there’s a lot of ambient references too. Arcambient? Let’s go with that. It’s mainly instrumental pieces, and I honestly don’t know how else to explain it. It acts as a very fitting conclusion and a very fitting end to an ambitious project. Conclusion: On the day of the final album’s release, Arca put out a statement about the release of the series. Part of it read ‘For me it is a cycle, like most phenomena in the universe. A prenatal KiCk is the first undeniable evidence that there exists an individual with an expression distinct from one’s mother and father. through this kick, this gesture o...

Arca Week rounds third base with kick iiii , if that analogy even works in this context. After KicK iii being the most abrasive and experimental of the bunch so far, kick iiii certainly distances itself from that. iiii is certainly the most relaxed of the bunch, with much more ambient and pop influences throughout it. Even though there are vocals on here, it feels like each aspect is like instruments playing with one another. There’s been controversy with this one about this being the weakest because of this, along with the demo-like qualities of this installment in general, but that’s actually why I like it so much. It feels like an ever-evolving live set, and I think it’s a welcome change in this series so far. I’ve also found out that this is a great album to do work to or study to, as I have finals this week and it’s been a pretty calming album to listen to. Overall, kick iiii is a come-down from the insanity of KicK iii , but the rough-around-the-edges qualities of iiii set i...

Arca Week continues with KicK iii , where I start to feel the tiniest bit sorry for straight people. You know, as I said with KICK ii yesterday, I was kind of disappointed by it and I actually got pretty worried about the rest of this week-long trek. Luckily, in casual terms, THIS SHIT SLAPS. Holy christ, man. This might be Arca’s best album. It’ll be hard to top this one. Even though I had said that KICK ii was experimental, that might as well be top 40 pop compared to this. It’s so loud and abrasive that it could honestly pass as a harsh noise outside of an electronic album. Along with that, she’s rapping on this. Like, rapping on it incredibly well. My personal favorite track has to be the instrumental “Fiera,” which genuinely might be one of my favorite songs of the year right now. It’s genuinely psychedelic and if you’re not into this kind of music, it will be very VERY hard for you to get into it. If KICK ii was the countdown, KicK iii is the explosion. This is truly incredib...

Arca Week starts today! Tuesday-Friday will cover all four new KICK albums, and I will give my ratings on each album on Friday. Let’s start with KICK ii , the first album to my knowledge that samples Among Us . This is gonna be the only review with an intro, so I’ll just get it out of the way now. Arca is one of the most creative producers working right now. I could honestly go on and on about how many new sounds I’ve heard from her, but that would take forever. The first album in this series, KiCk i , catapulted her into worldwide fame, even getting the chance to work with artists like Frank Ocean and Lady Gaga. Now, in a new experiment specifically to torment my review schedule, Arca has released FOUR NEW ALBUMS in the KICK series. I’ll be covering them one at a time and ranking them on Friday. So, let’s get into KICK ii . In her past albums, there were hints of experimental reggaeton and I enjoyed the little bits of that sound, but here, she goes all in on this sound. Oddly enough...

Y’all have to keep me up to date on these surprise drops, I’ve been busy these past few days. Mach-Hommy is a bit of an enigma. Even after what’s considered his highest-profile drop and highest commercially successful project yet in the form of Pray for Haiti earlier this year, he’s still miraculously kept an extremely low profile. The verses he contributed to Westside Gunn’s sprawling Hitler Wears Hermes 8 were top-of-the-line Mach, and even though he’s gone as far as dropping a whopping nine projects in a calendar year, I didn’t expect to hear any new solo material from him any time soon. I guess he proved me wrong with the surprise release of Balens Cho (Hot Candles) , so let’s not waste any more time and get into it. Like on Pray for Haiti , there are many nods to Mach’s own Haitian culture in the form of 50 seconds worth of interludes, and even if Mach’s lyrics aren’t as coded as his older projects, you cannot deny how well-versed he is. ‘Chain snatching to DMCA, either way your...

Cache Saturday is a series of unranked reviews where I’m gonna catch up on albums I’ve listened to, whether it’s for the first time or not. I’ll also cover new albums I’ve missed from earlier or were cut from my schedule. Also, they’ll all be done in one paragraph. This week’s entry is the comeback (at the time) of one of the most beloved electronic and plunderphonics groups ever, The Avalanches, with their second album, Wildflower . For those that don’t know, plunderphonics is a subgenre of electronic music where songs are entirely composed of samples, and The Avalanches are masters of their craft. Their most recent album, We Will Always Love You (which celebrates its first anniversary today), actually earned the Cordavision brand’s first perfect score. If I’m being honest, The Avalanches has one of the best discographies of any band working right now. Wildflower is the feeling of that one summer you don’t want to end wrapped in one album. The beat on “Frankie Sinatra” with Danny Br...

By the way, I’m very happy Droog beat the ‘sounds like Nas’ allegations. Your Old Droog is a relatively new name in the rap landscape to me, but with his other three drops from this year, including the incredibly personal TIME , which is one of the best rap albums of this year, I was excited for whatever Droog would drop next. The bar was set incredibly high a couple weeks ago because of the mind-melting single “Meteor Man” with Lil Ugly Mane and billy woods. With Space Bar , can Droog continue his hot streak and close out his stellar 2021 with a bang? Let’s find out. Similar to TIME , this has a loose concept about space. I’d honestly call it an aesthetic more than a concept, but it works in favor of what Droog is going for. With production from SadhuGold, 88 Keys, Nicholas Craven, and Elaquent, it sets an incredible soundscape for this intergalactic journey. His writing is still just as good as always, and even if I do personally prefer TIME , there’s still a cool atmosphere here to ...