Cordavision Music Reviews

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...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

There’s a lot of output for a band that’s broken up, you know. Look, I don’t need to get into Black Dresses too much. Technically, they aren’t even a band anymore. Ada Rook and Devi McCallion broke up Black Dresses in 2020 after fan harassment, and after that, they decided to not be a band but drop music together anyway under the Black Dresses name. I still really don’t know what that means, but hey, we’re getting music out of it. Last year’s Forever In Your Heart is one of my favorite experimental releases of 2021, and honestly, I expect nothing different from this one. Let’s not waste any more time and get into Forget Your Own Face . To compare it to another one of their releases, I’d say it’s most similar to one of their first projects as a group, HELL IS REAL . That’s a more abrasive project, and I’ve called each Black Dresses project I’ve reviewed loud, but I mean it when I say that this album is *loud.* There are points where it could even be categorized as a noise album. The vo...

Ah, I don’t think I have a quirky one-liner for this. Alice Glass deserves the fame. Crystal Castles, a duo she was in with one Ethan Kath, deserved the fame. Hell, even as CC’s music began to decline, it was Glass’s vocals that were holding up that quality to me. It was understandably shocking to find out that Kath was abusing Glass for practically their entire professional careers as Crystal Castles. Either way, after all of that, Glass laid low for a while. Then, eventually, we now have Alice Glass’s first solo album, PREY//IV . I’ve only heard one song from it, so I’m mainly going into this blind. Let’s not waste any more time and get into it. I’ll say that the album’s biggest strength is its lyrics and songwriting. Speaking about any kind of trauma in music, especially when it’s the core concept of an album, is a very brave thing to do, and Glass really has done this in spades. I think it’s the album's biggest draw and its main strength. I also think Glass’s vocals are very st...

*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 ...

Gonna be flexing some religious/Renaissance painting knowledge here. Halsey has been an artist that’s been incredibly hit or miss for me. Her first couple albums really didn’t do too much for me, if I’m being honest, but her last album, 2020’s Manic , really caught me. Unlike the title, that album seems very refined and ended up really intriguing me to see if Halsey was going to progress as an artist. Right as this album was announced, though, I felt that there was something new happening. I mean, that’s with most albums, but this was special. Before any other details came out about this album, it was revealed that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross from Nine Inch Nails would be producing the entire album. Then, the title got revealed to be If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power , and with that, I was pretty excited about this. There’s even an IMAX short film, but I personally haven’t seen it yet. There really weren’t any expectations for this since there weren’t any singles released before it,...

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’ ...