Cordavision Music Reviews

I’d just love to have this cover on a shirt, you know? I’m ready to fully admit that this review is coming out way later than I was hoping it would, but I’m glad I’m writing it at all. I’ve spoken about Backxwash (a.k.a. Ashanti Mutinta) in the past and even got the chance to get an advance copy of her last album, I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND MY DRESSES , which ended up being one of my favorites of that year. The overall darkness of her sound has just been so compelling to me and feels so different from not just rap but from music alone. That being said, there’s no reason for me to doubt that whatever she did next would be one I’d look forward to. We now have HIS HAPPINESS SHALL COME FIRST EVEN THOUGH WE ARE SUFFERING , the conclusion in a trilogy of albums that she’s been releasing for the past three years, the cherry on top being its Halloween release date. Let’s not waste any time and get into it. While this whole series of albums that started with God Has Nothing To Do With ...

Oh, the Ho99o9! Ho99o9 [an absolute joy to type] are a group that are genuinely unique in a big crowd of unique musicians coming out these days. The first time I had heard them was on clipping.’s amazing 2020 album Visions of Bodies Being Burned , and since their feature on that album, it’s been a wild listen for me. I think that their debut album United States of Horror is pretty good, and ever since their next album Skin was announced, I’ve been ready. I haven’t heard any of the singles, so I’m fully ready to dive into this without warning. Let’s just do it right now and get into Skin . It’s worth noting that Travis Barker from blink-182 produced this entire album and is the first official release on his own label, DTA. Admittedly, that kind of worried me for a second because of Barker’s inconsistency recently, but I think his production nailed it. The mix of trap, metal, and industrial music is a damn-near perfect blend of each genre. Even with the features from Bun B and Slipknot...

Horrorcore is making a massive comeback, and I will be a full supporter of it. I’ve spoken about Zambian-Canadian rapper Ashanti Mutinta, better known as Backxwash, on here once, but her impact has already been felt not just through my music taste but through a major award. Honestly, she caught my attention when she said that Nine Inch Nails’ “Reptile” has a hip-hop influence, but that’s neither here nor there. Her breakout album, God Has Nothing to Do with This Leave Him Out of It , won her 2020’s Polaris Prize. I spoke about that already in my review of that album, but it’s worth mentioning here. With winning that award, her profile only grew. This was shown during the lead up to the release of this album, the highly-anticipated I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND MY DRESSES . She started off naming her collaborators for this album: Ada Rook (who also mastered the entire album), noise producer Lauren Bosfield, Speedy Ortiz vocalist/poet Sadie Dupuis, Code Orange members Eric ‘Shade’ ...

Everything about this makes me genuinely uncomfortable in the best ways possible. I like creepy music. Like, something that genuinely gets your skin to crawl. Chinese-German artist Pan Daijing has been working in that lane since 2015, and it’s quite frankly some of the most skin-crawling stuff I’ve heard in a while. Four years after her harrowing album Lack 惊蛰 , she’s back with some new creepy shit, Jade 玉观音 . To enhance the experience, I ended up listening to this at 1 am so I could get the whole experience of whatever the hell this was gonna be. Let’s get into Jade 玉观音 and see how it went. I’m gonna start off with a quote from Daijing herself that I think describes this album quite well: ‘Solitude is like an immense lake you’re swimming through… Sometimes you dip your head in and sometimes you lift it up.’ Jade 玉观音 is one of the most terrifying experiences I’ve had listening to music in a while mainly because I was alone while doing so. A highlight on this was on “Dictee 三月,” where...

OH NO NO PLEASE GOD HELP ME. Backxwash is an artist that I’m mad at myself for not finding sooner. I first found out about her when the shortlist for the 2020 Polaris Music Prize was announced. For the uninitiated, the Polaris Music Prize is an awards show in Canada that honors artists hailing from that country, whether or not they’re independent artists or one of the biggest stars on the planet. Backxwash had won the top honors with this album right here, God Has Nothing To Do With This Leave Him Out Of It , getting shortlisted ahead of The Weeknd and Daniel Caesar, and coming out over more well-known names like Kaytranada, Jessie Reyez, and Lido Pimienta. Once I had seen this, I finally got to listen to this project earlier this year. So, yes, this is technically a re-listen, but since it was taken off of streaming services, I had to resort to YouTube. Either way, here’s my thoughts on it. God Has Nothing To Do With This Leave Him Out Of It is BRUTAL. In fact, it’s one of the roughe...

Today’s Halloween, and what a time to review a horrorcore album. Earlier this month, I put up my review of clipping.’s latest album Visions of Bodies Being Burned , and it ended up being a relatively big hit. Many of clipping.’s fans consider this and Visions to be joined at the hip and essentially be a double album, so I decided for the Halloween spirit since I’m not doing too much today, I’ll write a quick review of their first venture into the horror realm, There Existed an Addiction to Blood . No further information is needed if you looked at my Visions review, so let’s just get right into it! There Existed an Addiction to Blood is a hip-hop record with experimental, horrorcore, noise, and even some ambient vibes in here too. Like Visions , Blood has the overall concept of Halloween and horror movies and fuses them with issues in the world today like racism, police brutality, and gang violence. The ‘gang violence’ tropes are most present on “La Mala Ordina,” which has features f...

(Author’s Note: This is an advance review of Visions of Bodies Being Burned . I’m writing this on October 12, and when this review releases, the album is set to release this Friday, October 23. I’d like to extend a very special thanks to clipping. and everyone at Sub Pop for giving me an advance copy for reviewing purposes.) Even if you’re not a fan of anything relating to horror, you gotta love the Halloween season. Usually, there’s a celebration. Kids are running in the streets, looking for tricks or treats and wearing the costume of whichever character was popular to them at that moment. I have to admit, I haven’t done trick-or-treating in the past couple years, but I’ve been to Halloween parties. That’s where it gets crazy, but I’m not here to talk about partying. I’m here to talk about the overall atmosphere of Halloween. Of course, horror films are pretty successful during the month of October. With theaters closed across the globe this year, there’s a strange emptiness to the us...