Cordavision Music Reviews

Canada’s a real wild place, huh? Ah, the first review of the new year. It’s pretty exciting to see what the standard will be for the first big albums of the year, and the fact that there was a surprise album from The Weeknd that kicked off 2022 and that *wasn’t* the highlight really said something. 2022 was a banner year, and we’re already off to a good start this year. Canadian singer-songwriter Nicole Dollanganger is back, five years after her last album Heart Shaped Bed , with a new album, which came as a surprise to me. She dropped a great single in support of this album last year titled “Whispering Glades,” and mainly because I’m an idiot and didn’t keep track of any other singles, a new album flew off my radar. Basically, Married in Mount Airy came as a wonderful surprise when it came up last week on my calendar. Either way, a new album is here and, most importantly, I’ve heard it. Let’s get into it. I haven’t been riding or dying for Dollanganger’s music in recent months, but t...

Shoutout Hivemind. Right off the bat, I’ll say that I didn’t expect this from Quadeca. The section of YouTuber-turned-musicians that are on my radar are pretty big, especially since I upload on YouTube. Of course, there’s Joji who successfully made the jump, but there are other YouTubers that happen to make music like KSI that really just don’t hit hard to me. Quadeca’s last album, From Me To You , really set up some potential for Quadeca to be a pretty successful YouTuber-to-rapper jump and I still enjoy that project today. His latest release, I Didn’t Mean To Haunt You , leans into a much more experimental and ambitious project. I plan to watch the accompanying visual album too, but it’s just been busy. So, let’s just get into it. So, if I didn’t make it obvious, this project is a whole different beast compared to the other Quadeca projects I’ve heard. This is much more of an art pop album with some alternative R&B, experimental rap, and even a little tinge of industrial thrown i...

Still mad that I never got the vinyl release of his last album. Every time I review something that ended up being a surprise release, I always talk about how nice surprise releases are. Even if it’s by an artist you’re not a giant fan of, a surprise drop is always something cool. Memphis rapper Cities Aviv is one I got real excited about. Then again, I was always gonna be excited to see what he did next after his two-hour-long epic MAN PLAYS THE HORN , which is in my top 10 favorite albums of this year. I would’ve never expected there to be a new album so soon given just how large his last project was. Now, we have Working Title for the Album Secret Waters , a damn good surprise release that genuinely caught me off guard. Knowing that this project is only a fraction the length of HORN , does that addictive, hypnotic sound translate into a shorter project? Let’s tread into Secret Waters . What I think stands out here the most is the production, more specifically the sampling done here. ...

I just want this cover framed. Experimental music can be a tough sect of music to get into. I know it’s the basic line for this, but what else do I have to start with? Especially when it comes to electronic and ambient music, it can be very off-putting, yet it can also be hypnotic and genuinely great to listen to in a good amount of settings. If I’m being totally honest, I’ve been dying to talk about this project ever since I began writing reviews like this. Daniel Lopatin has had a hell of a career, with basically pioneering a whole genre with vaporwave over a decade ago under the Chuck Person alias, getting into scoring films with the Safdie Brothers, and also becoming an all-star collaborator with The Weeknd for his past two albums. I’ve written about his last studio album, 2020’s high concept Magic Oneohtrix Point Never , and I still enjoy it. However, this one is, cutting out all the fluff, the one. The first time I heard this album, 2011’s Replica , is one of the only moments in ...

Is it bad to say that I want Moor of this? I’ll see myself out... I’ve spoken about Moor Mother on here before, and I think she’s one of the most important artists working right now. Her last album, Black Encyclopedia of the Air , was one of last year’s best albums and I continue to go back to it every now and then. Now, we have Jazz Codes , which could be seen as a love letter to jazz, and every section of it is written by one of the mystifying artists of this decade so far. Let’s get into what I thought about Jazz Codes . Let me just say right off the bat that, like most of Moor Mother’s records, this isn’t that much of an easy listen. While it’s still very much an abstract rap album to its core, there are many more genres of music at hand here. Multiple subgenres of jazz like spiritual jazz, free jazz, and avant-garde jazz are just as prevalent as abstract and jazz rap. Even the ambient undertones here add more and more layers to this project. Many tracks on here feel uncanny and et...

The hoodie with this cover on it is incredible. Ada Rook has been on my radar for a while now. Even if I haven’t covered her solo work just yet, I’ve covered some of her work already. She was one half of the duo Black Dresses, which I’ve reviewed their last two albums, and she mastered Backxwash’s last album I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND MY DRESSES . Ever since this project’s been announced, it’s been one of my most anticipated releases of this year. With a surprise drop that I learned about a day after it was released, UGLY DEATH NO REDEMPTION ANGEL CURSE I LOVE YOU is here. Let’s get into how I felt about it. If I had to describe this project in a word, it’d be crunchy because HOLY SHIT this is a loud project. I typically don’t mention mixing and mastering in my reviews, but it’s worth mentioning because I like the angle of just how grimy this is and it just feels dirty and buried into the Earth. When it comes to the writing, this was the album that made me realize how good of...

It’s probably just me, but why does this cover make this feel pretentious? It’s been a while since a new Lykke Li project, and I’ve honestly been pretty excited to see what could be coming next from her. I’ve liked her last album, so sad so sexy , although I still have to go through the rest of her albums. This new album’s called EYEYE , and it’s been an audio illusion to try and figure out how to pronounce it, so that would be really appreciated from someone. I really don’t know how else to make an intro to this outside of the joke about the title, so let’s get into EYEYE . You know something? This simply just didn’t do it for me. I’ve typically liked what I’ve heard of Li’s music, but I think it was just too monotonous for me. After looking at the lyrics, though, I think that’s the strongest aspect of this album. While the production was very pretty throughout, I think that her voice just felt… off here. Like, I can’t put my finger on it. I’m typically fine with the airy vocals, but ...

Finally got some musicians to commission some work from my little cousin, she loves it! I’ve said in the past that I’m not drained, as they say. I’ve covered both Bladee and Ecco2K on this site, and out of what I’ve heard of them, I think that I prefer Ecco2K over Bladee at this point. It may be a voice thing, but the neurons fire more when I hear Ecco, especially his E and PXE projects. Even if they’ve worked together quite a bit before, this is actually the first time they’ve worked on an entire album where it’s just them two. Crest was a surprise release, so not that many expectations are tied to this. Let’s get into what I thought about it. It may not be the first time someone has said this, but I think these two work really well together. It’s genuinely scary how good they are together at times. Like the other Drain Gang projects I’ve covered, my favorite part of this album is the production. I believe the producer of this is Whitearmor, and he’s just as big of a part of why th...

If you want to see my *spoiler-free* thoughts on The Batman , click right here ! If there were any movie releasing this year, I’d have to cover the score for this one. For those that don’t know, The Batman is a movie I’ve been excited for on the level of Spider-Man: No Way Home . By the time this review releases, I will have seen the movie itself and will most likely have loved it. Now, though, we focus on what surely will be a highlight from the movie. I’ve covered Michael Giacchino’s work before, specifically his score for No Way Home , and ever since the middle of the pandemic, the four notes that he created for Matt Reeves’s new film has been an earworm. Two years after the first trailer for the film, we finally have Giacchino’s work for The Batman . Let’s get into my thoughts on it. Giacchino has already created an amazing theme for both Doctor Strange and Spider-Man, but they were due for something new like this. Batman isn’t. Even if Hans Zimmer’s score is known by most, Danny ...

*an obvious joke* This is a case where I was simply pulled into the album because of some good cover art, you know? I don’t know that much about Yeule, but what I do know is that Yeule is from Singapore and the stage name of Yeule is based on the Final Fantasy character. That’s pretty much if for that, and as I stated earlier, I mainly wanted to listen to Glitch Princess because I just think the cover’s sick as fuck. So, let’s just get into it. Like it says in the name, the production throughout this album is very glitchy. There’s honestly no way around saying that because it’s simply true. It’s also not often that a gorgeous voice can mesh so well with that kind of production, but it somehow does beautifully. Personally, the one thing that didn’t stick out to me too well was the writing, but since I’ve heard others praise the writing so much, that could change for me at some point since I’ve been listening to this on repeat for a little bit now. Also, as a fun treat for the digital ...

I mean, if you name your album W, that’s just peak confidence. If you don’t know about the Japanese rock scene, that’s totally okay. Even if they aren’t the most popular group, Boris is one of the huge pillars in modern Japanese music. They’ve been active since 1993 and have had a steady output since then. Their 2005 album, PINK , is widely considered to be one of the best noise-rock albums ever. The first part of this album was released back in 2020, titled NO . With the group’s new album being titled only W , I think I’m sensing a theme here. Anyways, let’s get into it. What’s most striking about this album is that this is a slight shift away from the group’s typical sound. Instead of the stoner metal that they perform so well, W has more of a shoegaze and even a dream pop sound. Because of this shift, it makes this album one of Boris’s least heavy albums yet, maybe even the least heavy music they’ve made so far. There may be some disappointment in that, but there’s still some heavi...

God, the cover’s so dark. I love it. There’s a first time for everything and this marks the first for something. This will be the first live album I cover on the site, and I’m quite excited that this is the one. The Gothenburg-born musician Anna von Hausswolff has been an artist that’s been climbing onto my radar more and more as I dive into the neoclassical darkwave genre. Hausswolff’s fantastic Dead Magic is one of the first I’ve heard in the genre and the follow-up All Thoughts Fly is just as great. Now, her latest release is a 2018 live performance that has been hyped up a lot for the past few years. It’s finally available to the public, so let’s get into Live at Montreux Jazz Festival . You know, I’m one of the people that enjoy a live version of a song, but I do prefer studio versions of tracks more often. This album, though? I think these songs are the definitive recordings of each one. There’s really nothing bad about this. Hausswolff’s vocals are incredible, the instruments ...

Nothing like a good January ambient album, am I right? I’m sure you haven’t heard the name Mydreamfever before, but this isn’t the first time I’ve covered them. He’s more popular under the name Parannoul, who made it onto my radar last year with two incredible albums: To See the Next Part of the Dream and a split album with Asian Glow and sonhos tomam conta Downfall of the Neon Youth , the latter garnering a perfect score when it dropped this past October. Now, the first album under the Mydreamfever name, he sets out to create something brand new and separate from Parannoul: an ambient album titled Rough and Beautiful Place . Let’s get into it. Something that people might not know about me is that I’m a sucker for a good ambient album. I typically don’t go back to them on my own time, but I do like to appreciate what I hear in music in general. When it comes to that, I absolutely adore this album. The piano-driven tracks, most if not all of them, are fantastic, and the ambient landsca...

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...

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...

I adore the abstract cover art of this. It’s like seeing a picture of the inside of a volcano, but when you zoom in, the quality goes down and it becomes fuzzy. Okay, okay. I know it’s two short EP reviews in a row, but I’ve been busy, alright? I’ve just really wanted to cover this. Iconic New Jersey producer Clams Casino recently dropped Winter Flower , a beat tape that certainly caught my attention because, well, it’s new Clams Casino. I like him. There was a pretty big part of this that caught me off guard of this project, and that was that this is very skeletal and each track is pretty short. It’s something new to hear from Clams, at least to me it is, and it’s pretty cool. One thing I’ve always appreciated about a good amount of his work, and especially on here, is that it truly does work on its own. Sure, you could probably put a rapper like Yung Lean over it and it could work, but it still works just as well as instrumentals. Overall, Winter Flower is something I’d never compla...

You know what? I might buy this on vinyl for the cover alone. Damon Albarn is a musician I’ve admired for a long time now. He ended up being a gateway to some of my favorite artists ever because of Gorillaz and I’ve always liked his work for Blur, but he hasn’t truly had much of a solo career. He’s released one solo album, 2014’s Everyday Robots, and he confirmed that he has another Gorillaz album planned for some time next year. In the meantime, he’s recorded The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows , announced back in 2019 as a tribute to Iceland. I’ve been excited for this for a while now, so let’s not waste time and get into it. Honestly, there was one album that came to mind when listening to it, and that’s David Bowie’s final album, Blackstar . This album has the oddball, jazzy tone that made Blackstar so beloved and I’m finally glad that there’s a similar album to that. I try not to use direct comparisons like that, but I feel that this was too big to ignore. The pro...