Jon Brion - Meaningless (2000)

First solo album by composer/musician/producer Jon Brion, who's composed scores for a whole bunch of movies, including Magnolia, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (my introduction to Brion), and Punch-Drunk Love. Tuneful, sweet-sounding, yet deeply bitter songs that will land like a long lost friend to any fan of Elliott Smith in Beatles mode. He's obviously stayed plenty busy over the years, but I really wish he'd put out another record like this one.

Track listing:

1. Gotta Start Somewhere

2. I Believe She's Lying

3. Meaningless

4. Ruin My Day

5. Walking Through Walls

6. Trouble

7. Hook, Line, and Sinker

8. Dead to the World

9. Her Ghost

10. Same Mistakes

11. Voices

Love, it was nothing

It hardly hurt a bit

More like this:

Michael Penn - Resigned (1997)

Matthew Sweet - Kimi Ga Suki (Raifu) (2003)

Vieo Abiungo - Blood Memory (2010)

Related:

Tokyo Bloodworm - Tokyo Bloodworm (2007)

Dark but colorful instrumentals from American musician William Ryan Fritch. Lands somewhere between freak folk and neoclassical, with some Afrobeat and Indian elements for good measure. There have got to be upwards of 20 different instruments are on this thing, and impressively, Fritch plays them all.

Track listing:

1. Borne Harshly

2. Nervous Laughter

3. In a Wash or Haze

4. White Faced Rotted Teeth

5. Cote d'Ivoire

6. Gaunt Wolves with Buzzard Beaks

7. Rust and Bile

8. Sweat. Thick Like Blood or Honey

9. Parading on Broken Glass

10. Red Earthen Mouths

11. Rain Like Burnt Sugar

12. Fugue

13. Blood Memory

Feast before harvest

If you like this, check out:

Ginnungagap - Remeindre (2004)

Helena Espvall - Nimis & Arx (2006)

Deadguy - Fixation on a Coworker (1995)

Classic early metalcore. Dissonant, gnarled, and very, very angry. The sound of frustration and stress boiling over into pure contempt.

Track listing:

1. Doom Patrol

2. Pins and Needles

3. Die with Your Mask On

4. Baby Arm

5. Makeshift Atomsmasher

6. The Extremist

7. Nine Stitches

8. Riot Stairs

9. Apparatus

10. Crazy Eddie

You can't kill yourself

You're already dead

And you'd do it again

Also listen to:

Breach - Venom (1999)

Gob - The Kill Yourself Commandment (1999)

Cult of Daath - Slit Throats and Ritual Nights (2005)

Burly US black metal. A thrash-y, first-wave vibe and strong death/doom overtones. Extremely strong riffs. It's good, get it.

Track listing:

1. Bestial Atonement (Mountains of Burning Offal)

2. Conceived Through Black Mass Rape (Obscene Rites Part I)

3. Inhuman Sacrifice

4. Necrospells (Obscene Rites Part II)

5. Midnight Mutilation

6. Occult Obsession

7. Drink the Blood from the Skull

8. Transcending the Great Satan

Twisting heap of diseased meat

If you like this, listen to:

Abigail - Intercourse & Lust (1996)

Hoth - Rites of the Black Goddess (2001)

Aspidistrafly - I Hold a Wish for You (2008)

Beautiful, earthy, texturally rich sounds from a Singaporean duo. Angelic vocals, shimmering drones, field recordings, plaintive acoustic guitars, reverberating keys, and feather-light percussion. My birthday was on Friday so I celebrated by going to the bar and drinking way more tequila than I should have, then I spent Saturday nursing an all-day hangover and, relatedly, a sprained ankle. Then yesterday I had some friends over and was given three bottles of tequila. Needless to say, I'm nursing hangover #2 today. I Hold a Wish for You made me feel less awful for a second.

Track listing:

1. Candlescape

2. Moonlight Shadow

3. Common Colors in the Air

4. Sampling Atmosphere

5. On the Summer Solstice

6. Porcelain Sky Wink

7. Sui

8. Endless Dreamless

Language of flowers

You should also hear:

Eluvium - Lambent Material (2003)

Islaja - Palaa Aurinkoon (2005)

Life - Life (1970)

Swedish prog/psych. This band's only record splits its time between ornate proto-soft rock and heavy, bluesy psych, plus some more experimental diversions. Such an odd, sweet record -- excellent production, too. When I first heard it, I was a young, stoned music nerd combing the internet for every piece of Blue Cheer-worship known to man, and wasn't too fond of all the gentle, symphonic stuff, but it's really grown on me over the years.

Track listing:

1. Quo Vadis (I)

2. Nobody Was There to Love Me

3. Many Years Ago

4. Experience of Love

5. She Walks Across the Room

6. Sailing in the Sunshine

7. Quo Vadis (II)

8. Living Is Loving

9. Every Man

10. Experience of Life

11. One of Us

12. Yes, I Am

13. Once upon a Time

14. Quo Vadis (III)

15. Jag Färdas

16. To the Country

17. Tro pa' va'r värld

Live my life in harmony

Soul is floating in the breeze

Listen to these, too:

Nektar - Remember the Future (1973) + Magic Is a Child (1977)

Automatic Man - Automatic Man (1976)

Aanal Beehemoth - Forest Paranoid (2008)

Swedish raw black metal/hardcore hybrid. Echoing vocals over full-tilt, death-punk ragers and meat-and-potatoes, Gorgoroth-style black metal. As far as my tastes are concerned, one of the most successful black/punk fusions in existence.

Track listing:

1. Forest Paranoid

2. Dirty Soul

3. Kill for Money

4. Miserability

5. From Aanal with Love

6. Nuclear Hell

7. Penetrator

8. Frost in Head

9. Loaded Head / Empty Veins

10. Form of Satan

11. Sin Tonic

12. Witch Hunt

All them grannies fuck with three-headed dog

Sniff the cocaine from the helping hand of Satan

You'd also like:

Abigail - Intercourse & Lust (1996)

Order of the Vulture - Christ Killer (2004)

Hex - Digital Love (1993)

Lulling, minimal ambient pieces performed on at times endearingly 90s-sounding synths.  Great album with a fucking atrocious cover. If only it was a nature scene, or just, like, an abstract blur instead of that swirly-font, pot-leaf-emblazoned photoshop nightmare. From the golden age of Ninja Tune.

Track listing:

1. Dear

2. Deep

3. Shiny

4. Felt

5. Dust

6. Sleep

7. Thred

8. Surf

9. Chants: Aum • Om Numo • Om Aim • Sitaram

Could it be your face I see on my computer screen?

If you like this, try:

Michel Genest - Crystal Fantasy (1984)

Dan Hartman - New Green Clear Blue (1989)

Last Exit - Last Exit (1986)

Related:

Sonny Sharrock - Black Woman (1969)

Divination - Ambient Dub Vol. II - Dead Slow (1993)

Arcana - The Last Wave (1995)

Arcana - Arc of the Testimony (1997)

The Blood of Heroes - The Waking Nightmare (2012)

Discordant free jazz-rock madness from an incredible lineup of musicians. Sometimes feels more like no-wave than jazz. Also, just gonna disclose that I've struggled with attention/focus issues for my entire life, and the past week or so has been particularly rough in that regard. And around here, this has taken the form of things getting extra sloppy -- my last two posts were published with spelling errors in their goddamn titles (check the URLs) -- so sorry 'bout that. Onwards and upwards.

Track listing:

1. Discharge

2. Backwater

3. Catch as Catch Can

4. Red Light

5. Enemy Within

6. Crackin

7. Pig Freedom

8. Voice of a Skin Hanger

9. Zulu Butter

The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream

You might also wanna hear:

Musica Transonic - Musica Transonic (1995)

Slobber Pup - Black Aces (2013)

Reusmarkt - Fortress Ungh (1998)

Ukrainian lo-fi symphonic black metal. Drum machine, buzzing guitars, audible bass, goblin rasps, and keyboards generally set to "Symphonic Strings 2" and "Orchestra Hit", I'm guessing.

Track listing:

1. The Hordes Are Pass By This Land (Тысячелетняя Тьма)

2. Wisdom of War (Наша Языческая Война)

3. Gods of Wolves Hordes (...И Волки Будут Мчаться Снова...)

4. Fortress Ung (Легенды Матери Верховины)

5. Войско Тьмы

6. Собирайтесь Волки, Будете Вы Мои Собаки...

7. Reusmarkt

Black forest of those swept from the world

Also listen to:

Avzhia - Dark Emperors (1996)

Necrofeast - Soulwinds (2000)

Akira Rabelais - Spellewauerynsherde (2004)

Spellbinding sounds from American composer Akira Rabelais. Composed entirely of vocals that Rabelais sourced from a tape of Icelandic laments, then stretched, layered, and generally obfuscated until they assumed their true form as ghosts, wailing their grief from across the river Styx. Listening to this record feels like a visitation from the divine, or the immortal, or the damned. A true masterwork.

Track listing:

1. 1382 Wyclif Gen. II. 7 And Spiride in to the Face of Hym an Entre of Breth of Lijf.

2. 1390 Gower Conf. II. 20 I Can Noght Thanne Unethes Spelle That I Wende Altherbest Have Rad.

3. 1440 Promp. Parv. 518/2 Wawyn, or Waueryn, yn a Myry Totyr, Oscillo.

4. 1483 Caxton Golden Leg. 208 B/2 He Put Not Away the Wodenes of His Flessh with a Sherde or Shelle.

5. 1559 W. Cuningham Cosmogr. Glasse 125 Within Which Draw an Other Circle, a Finger Bredth Distant.

6. (Gorgeous Curves Lovely Fragments Labyrinthed on Occasions Entwined Charms, a Few Stories at Any Longer Sworn to Gathered from a Guileless Angel and the Hilt Edges of Old Hearts, If They Do in the Guilt of Deep Despondency.)

7. 1671 Milton Samson 1122 Add Thy Spear, a Weavers Beam, and Seven-Times-Folded Shield.

A cadence of vanishing

You should also listen to:

Asunta - Landscapes (1996)

Alan Lamb - Original Masters: Night Passage (1998)

A Vision of Love - Lessons in Hate (Part One) + Lessons in Hate (Part Two) (2013)

Two EPs of anxious, repetitive, industrial-edged techno from this alias of James Shaw, who's best known for his other project, Sigha. Distorted beats up front, reverberating industrial emptiness lurking in the corners. Late-night, void-embracing vibes.

Track listing:

 Part One

1. Hate (2/6)

2. Black & Blue (For You)

 Part Two

1. A Modern Romance

2. Our Education

She kills in ecstasy

Also listen to:

Ancient Methods - First Method (2007) + Second Method (2008)

Container - LP (2011)

Nychts - Denn... Nichts (2006)

Hypnotic Swiss ambient black metal. A swirling cloud of majesty and sorrow, made all the more impenetrable by the lo-fi wall-of-sound mix. FFO: Paysage d'Hiver, Darkspace. One track, just over half an hour of ugly beauty.

Becoming meaningless

Similar listening:

Nordlicht - Nebelmeer (2002)

Trist - Hin-fort (2007)

Jack DeJohnette featuring Lester Bowie - Zebra (1985)

By request, here's Zebra by drummer Jack DeJohnette and trumpeter Lester Bowie. Atmospheric, synth-y slow-burners comprising tastefully wandering solos over laid-back, sparse, at times African-sounding grooves. Not counting this one, I've posted at least 10 albums featuring Jack DeJohnette, so it's really about time that I did one of his solo records.

Track listing:

1. Ntoro I

2. Jongo

3. Aho

4. Kpledzo

5. Ntoro II

Strange shapes

You might also enjoy:

Rainer Brüninghaus - Continuum (1983)

Mark Isham - Castalia (1988)

Ron Geesin - Right Through (1977)

Queasily playful experimental pieces by Scottish composer Ron Geesin. A series of interconnected but distinct movements consisting of layered synths, dissonant guitars, noise-addled tape loops, field recordings, musique concrète, spoken word, demonic choirs, and more. I came to Geesin, as I'm sure many have, through his work with Pink Floyd -- in addition to arranging the symphonic elements of "Atom Heart Mother", he collaborated with Roger Waters for Music from The Body -- and was pleasantly surprised to learn that his work outside of those collaborations was just as bewildering, but with a greater sense of absurdist purpose, maybe?

Track listing:

1. Door-O-Plane Get Its Blades

2. Blades Spin Notions

3. Motion Above Rhythidoor

4. Four Guitars Did Laugh, Then Thought Again

5. Throb Thencewards Thrill

6. Hiding Haul of Voices, Hail!

7. Shut Out Hailing Calls Through You

8. Gong of Going Goes Right Through

9. Rhythiano Plonks the Plug Out, and We Follow

I've never come this way before

Revolving intermittent door

You should also hear:

Horrific Child - L'Étrange Mr Whinster (1976)

Asmus Tietchens - Nachtstücke (Expressions Et Perspectives Sonores Intemporelles) (1980)