Cordavision Music Reviews

I see where Drake got his inspiration. Do I need an intro? I feel like I should for the sake of covering Beyoncé for the first time on the site, so I’ll be quick. Beyoncé has essentially built this cult-like fanbase over the years, especially within the past decade with the one-two punch of her self-titled release from 2013 and her last official studio album, 2016’s Lemonade, an event within itself that’s cemented its place in pop culture history. Now, after a semi-productive six years that included an entire album with her husband Jay-Z, starring in and soundtracking the new version of The Lion King , and a film on Disney+, we now have RENAISSANCE , the first release in a trilogy of new projects that will reflect on her mental health during the COVID pandemic. How does RENAISSANCE sound? Let’s get into it. There’s an inevitable comparison to come, so I’m just gonna get it out of the way right now. Earlier this summer, Drake surprise-dropped HONESTLY, NEVERMIND , an R&B album insp...

This cover just reminds me of Vespertine . Rico Nasty has been an artist I’ve been keeping my eye on for a while. The mixtape she released with Kenny Beats was really the first time I had even heard of her, and it was great. Her debut album from a couple years back, Nightmare Vacation , was also very enjoyable, and it even got her that mainstream appeal that I think she’s been deserving for a while now. After Nightmare Vacation , I was wondering if she’d stick with the more mainstream sound or not. After announcing her next mixtape Las Ruinas and some of the singles, it seemed like it was going to get much more experimental, which really excited me. So, let’s not waste any time and get into Las Ruinas . I’d say that the biggest change when it comes to Rico herself is her lyrics. They’re much more vulnerable than the other stuff I’ve heard, and this gives the mixtape a whole new layer that I like to hear. Alongside that, the turn to a more experimental sound helps make Las Ruinas a pr...

It's kinda crazy that this is so divisive, to be honest. You knew this was coming, right? You know who Drake is, so there’s no reason to give an intro. Drake’s been dropping a project a year since 2015, and that period has had Drake’s highs and lows of his career. Personally, I’ve been wanting a full album of R&B tracks like “Passionfruit” for a very long time, and I hoped for that in last year’s Certified Lover Boy , but even if we didn’t get that, I still didn’t mind it. For once, I seemed to be in the minority on a positive opinion. Now, we have HONESTLY, NEVERMIND , and while I’m hyped for it, we really don’t have a lot of things to go over. It’s a new Drake album. Let’s get into HONESTLY, NEVERMIND . Right off the bat, this has been dividing not just the critics, but the fans. I’ve been seeing both positive and negative responses from quite literally everyone. As I’ve stated above, an R&B album from Drake is best-case scenario for me, and at some point, I figured that ...

Have I said how much he sounds like Kanye before? I feel like I have. IDK has been someone I’ve been keeping an eye on for a while. His album from last year, USEE4YOURSELF , was pretty good and really cemented himself as someone to watch out for in rap right now. I’ve been waiting for whatever he’d drop next, but this project just came out of nowhere. A short album entirely produced by KAYTRANADA, one of my favorite working producers right now titled Simple. should be anything but simple to me. Let’s get into it. Honestly, let me just say this: This is IDK’s best album. Like, there’s no way around it. These are his best lyrics and performances yet in my opinion, and if I may be honest, I thought we were gonna hit this point at least a few years from now. He just sounds super focused on here, and I’m also a fan of the subject material. However, what really puts this over the top is KAYTRANADA’s production, which is detailed and layered and really bolsters IDK’s performance. Even the fe...

Dot. Dot. Dot. Acclaimed Swedish house producers Axwell, Steve Angello, and Sebastian Ingrosso make up the supergroup of hitmakers known as Swedish House Mafia. After 2012, the name pretty much disappeared for nearly a decade while the three producers still worked separately, even together in duos in some cases. All of a sudden, back in 2021, the name started popping up again, dropping a couple of loose singles. One of them, “Moth to a Flame,” ended up featuring one of the biggest musicians in the world right now, The Weeknd. It became such a success that it not only ended up on this album, Paradise Again , but it also ended up on the deluxe edition of The Weeknd’s latest album Dawn FM . They even shared a set at Coachella together just last night. Believe it or not, Paradise Again is the group’s first studio album. Does it live up to the decade-long hype? Let’s get into it. Admittedly, house and EDM music has really grown off me and my ever-evolving music taste in the past couple of ...

Catching up on the lore, don’t mind me. Whenever I’ve covered Australian band King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, I’ve tried to keep up with their insanely large output. However, for the first time in almost two years of this brand’s existence, I’ve failed. King Gizz has already announced a new album that’s set to drop next month. It’s all satire, I know, I’m not genuinely that upset, but King Gizz albums have their own loose lore to them that I really don’t know yet. Anyway, Made in Timeland is yet another turn in the band’s varied discography. What did they do this time? Let’s see what happened. So, even in a unique discography, this album is quite different: this is intermission music. For context, the band were originally set to do a bunch of long shows in 2020 tied to their own Timeland Festival. Obviously, that didn’t happen, but it’s still set to happen later this year. There are only two tracks on this album, and each of them run for 15 minutes on the dot. They essentially mad...

I provided the extra butterfly, by the way. I’ve been sitting here for almost 15 minutes now, trying to think of a good way to start this. So, I guess I’ll say that King Gizz is one of the most versatile groups I’ve heard in a minute. I may be repeating myself at this point, but they’re always going to keep my attention whenever they drop a project. That being said, their last full project, Butterfly 3000 , has grown on me since its release, but I’m pretty surprised that there’s a remix album for this project out of all of the Gizz albums. To my knowledge, I don’t think the band was fully involved in this side project, but Butterfly 3001 has the possibility of being caught in my net. With contributions from DJ Shadow, DāM-FunK, and The Flaming Lips among others, there could be some good stuff in here. Let’s get into it. This is one of the cases that I’m probably just going to appreciate that it’s a thing that exists. I do think that Butterfly 3000 is a pretty good King Gizz album to ...

I never wanna hear fragments of music, you know? I’ll just listen to stems if I want fragments. If I’m being totally honest, I don’t know anything about Bonobo. All I know about him is that he’s a British producer based in Los Angeles. I’ve never heard a single Bonobo track before this album nor have I heard his production. I really do enjoy going into an artist blind. What caught my attention to cover this album was that one of the singles features Joji, and I really dug that song. So, Fragments is the producer’s seventh album, and after doing some research, it seems like 2010’s Black Sands is regarded as his best album. I personally haven’t heard that project yet, but will Fragments inspire me to check out the rest of his music? Let’s get into it and find out. I like any kind of electronic album that’s great at building an atmosphere, and this album really does that well. I really liked the use of orchestral pieces on this too. If this is a constant theme with his music, I’m alread...

This art kicks ass, for real. I’d kill for this physically for the art alone. So, here’s where I get to flex my K-pop knowledge. Girls Planet 999 is a reality competition show where they got 999 contestants from South Korea, Japan, and China with the intention that the final nine contestants would form a new supergroup and become titans in the South Korean music industry. In the finale, the winners were officially announced and became the group KEP1ER. After a couple of delays, they’ve finally released their debut EP with killer art, FIRST IMPACT . The project has already broken a massive sales record, with the first day sales being the highest in the history of Hanteo, South Korea’s equivalent to America’s Billboard. I know all that was a bunch of stuff to read, and I don’t blame you if it was a little boring, but this is a pretty big deal. So, let’s just get into FIRST IMPACT . This EP’s divided into two halves: three original songs and three made for the Girls Planet 999 show. Per...

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...

It’s wild to see someone like Mach-Hommy on the same project as H.E.R. and Thundercat. Alright, short project, short review. KAYTRANADA, who recently swept last year’s dance/electronic categories with his last album, a masterpiece titled Bubba , dropped a 3-track EP, Intimidated , and mostly has the features that I’d expect with KAYTRANADA. Thundercat would most likely work on paper and a H.E.R. collaboration has happened in the past and worked, but the biggest surprise here is Mach-Hommy, one of the most mysterious figures in underground rap right now, being on this type of production. The H.E.R. track is probably my favorite song on here, mainly because of its slickness and because she gels really well with his bouncy sound. The Thundercat track sadly might be my least favorite, but that’s not a knock against him at all because he’s a genuine talent and maybe it’ll grow on me soon. The Mach-Hommy track is honestly pretty nice too, and I don’t have access to the entirety of Mach’s dis...

If nightcore gets a resurgence because of this album, I won’t know what to feel anymore. I have a fun history with Lady Gaga on this site. One of my earlier reviews was Gaga’s last studio album, Chromatica , and at the time, I was one of the only people in the middle of it. So many people thought it was either her best album or her worst album ever. It was one of the first reviews I posted on Twitter, so it was pretty insane seeing something so small of mine cause a genuine discourse for the first and definitely not the last time. Either way, we have the often-rumored remix album to that polarizing album, Dawn of Chromatica , and it’s a pretty insane lineup here too. While Ariana Grande, BLACKPINK, and Elton John come over from the original album, we have new remixes of these songs from LSDXOXO, Coucou Chloe, Arca, Rina Sawayama, Clarence Clarity, Pabllo Vittar, Charli XCX, A.G. Cook, Ashnikko, Shygirl, Mura Masa, Doss, Dorian Electra (!!!), Chester Lockhart, Mood Killer, Lil Texas, Pl...

This one sparks joy. I honestly am not familiar with CHAI’s previous work and who they are. I’ve heard some singles from this project here, and they worked with JPEGMAFIA on the last Gorillaz album Song Machine - Season One: Strange Timez , which has definitely grown on me. The Peggy/CHAI collab is one of my favorites off that project, and since I already know about Peggy, I should wait to see what happens with CHAI in the future. Lo and behold, that new project is here. WINK is the name, and indie-pop is CHAI’s game. Let’s get into it. WOW, this thing is weird. First, the production is pretty nice. It’s nice to hear elements of future funk in a major album release, and it honestly gives me hope for that subgenre. The opening track “Donuts Mind if I Do” is relaxing and quite catchy. There are a lot of elements of dance in “Nobody Knows We Are Fun” and “IN PINK,” “END” is a legitimately strange track in the best ways possible, and “PING PONG” has some chiptune vibes that are so legitim...

The crayons on the cover are just not that pleasing to me, just saying. You remember when the disco revival was going down last year? Dua Lipa, Jessie Ware, Kylie Minogue, and Katy Perry were all getting in on that trend. In all of that whirlwind was an album that completely slipped under my radar: Róisín Murphy’s Róisín Machine . I only heard it earlier this year, and while I thought it was good, I just simply enjoyed Dua Lipa’s album better. Now, when I had heard that there was a reinvention of this album coming out this year, I had to see what was going down. Crooked Machine is a remixed version of Róisín Machine , and instead of a futuristic new take on disco, her frequent collaborator Richard Barratt decided to move into a completely different direction: house. Specifically, deep house. It’s very unexpected, but something that caught my eye enough to write about it. Who knows, this review will most likely flop, but I hope it doesn’t. Let’s get into Crooked Machine . As stated, Cr...

This cover is setting off my fight or flight reflexes, and I’m not entirely sure why. Kero Kero Bonito is a band that rarely gets talked about enough. One of the most consistent bands in recent years, the trio of vocalist Sarah Bonito and instrumentalists Gus Lobban and Jamie Bulled haven’t put out that many projects. If you’re into internet culture, you’ve certainly heard their track “Flamingo,” which I’ll link here . Along with this, their music has also been pretty rooted in video game music, even contributing to the theme song of the viral game, Bugsnax . Outside of this EP, they’ve put out two albums and two EPs, all of them ranging from pretty good to absolutely stunning. They haven’t missed yet, and Civilisation II is a pretty daunting task. It’s only three tracks long, and when you make a project this short, there’s a lot of pressure. Even though I know how consistent KKB can be, I was a little worried getting into this. Has KKB upended my expectations yet again? Let’s see. Le...

I wanna just lay in a field of grass, but I’m allergic to pollen :( I’ve always had a very strange relationship with electronic music. The bad music I’ve heard in the genre has been some of the worst music I’ve ever heard, and the good stuff is some of the greatest music I’ve ever heard. For some context, we have artists like The Chainsmokers on one end, and Daft Punk on the other. There are some subgenres in here too that work. Electropop is one of them, being an obvious fusion of pop and electronic music. In the little community of the AOTY website, the users there have been hyped as hell for this Porter Robinson album, Nurture . It’s apparently his first in seven years, and I’ve only heard one single from it, titled “Musician.” While it wasn’t the best electropop song I’ve heard, it’s certainly an interesting sound that I think can work pretty well. So, with how anticipated it is in the AOTY community, I figured I should take a listen and see what all the fuss is about. Let’s get in...

Serotonin fans, this one’s for you. It’s not too often that I sit down and listen to some long-ass albums. One of my favorite jazz albums, Kamasi Washington’s The Epic , is three hours long. The other written review coming out later this week is of an album that’s nearly four hours long. When it comes to long albums like this, it really makes me realize that music can be made, and a large amount of time can be put into this. For any artist, making a long album is a very risky move. Migos made Culture II , and it ended up being a nearly two-hour mess of an album that should’ve been a large mixtape instead of Migos’ next studio album. While it may not be to an extent, Drake’s 2018 double album Scorpion had some of the same issues, even if the songs were at least better. Now, in 2021 (or 2020, when the project dropped), we have one of the longest electronic projects I’ve ever heard: Charmed by DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ. I had never heard of DJ Sabrina at all before this, but a friend of...

This review was not influenced by the classic Tom Hanks film Forrest Gump . The Grammy Awards were this past weekend, and being in the music ‘journalism’ world, I watched the whole 3.75-hour telecast, and it was mildly entertaining. During the pre-show, most of the awards were announced, and Canadian producer KAYTRANADA swept the Dance/Electronic category with this album, Bubba , and one of its singles with Kali Uchis, “10%.” I have to be totally honest, I thought I reviewed this project. So, because of that, I decided to pick this out as one of the albums I reviewed in the written medium this week. Enough chit-chat, let’s talk about it. Hip-hop and R&B are some of my favorite genres of music, pop and sometimes electronic music coming in as close seconds. I grew up on pop and electronic music, and hip-hop and R&B music really shaped my palette for music and taught me to expand my tastes. When one or more of these genres combine, particularly hip-hop and electronic music, the on...