reading playing tunes watching
Lol. Sorry. It's been almost four months. Well. I've been meaning to make this page prettier, but I've been too busy, and I have been listening to music but it's kind of a pain to upload the image to neocities then write paragraphs about it. I'll convert this thing to PHP and figure out how to update from my phone at some point lol.
Anyway, Every Time You Go Somewhere is an album I really liked when I was 15- before I had lastfm. Or I was 16. Or 17. I'm not sure actually. I just know I was young and still listening to various trans artists singing about sad things (it's a genre). Mal Blum was my favorite at the time.
I think San Cristobal is the star of the album. It's also the first song in the album. I really like the concept of the song. I think it's kind of boring that it's about love, but also I still really love it. "I saw my fortune scrawled up against the wall.. In a crowded market place, in a town I can't recall." It just sounds so magical. I really love it. There's a few other lines like that in the song that captures this.. the mental instability of reaching out for hope in things that don't really matter. Something sparks some strange hope in you. Suddenly, your reality has shifted over something simple. A shitty crystal ball or the writing someone left at the back of a bathroom stall.
Anyway, all of the songs are really pleasant to listen to. It's an album I've been falling back on when I don't want to listen to anything too loud or too emotional. They all have emotion but there's this sense of detachment. I really like it.
I also wanted to provide thoughts on Mal Blum. It's really interesting going back to an artist after they go on testosterone. Mal Blum's has a much deeper voice now, and as a result, their music has a completely different vibe. I wonder how they feel about it. I wonder if they've written about it. Their aren't many musicians I know who've gone on testosterone (only one other I know actually).
It's kind of like.. I'm so happy for them, but also I'm thinking about how the voice I treasured so much as a teen I'll never hear produce new sounds. Their voice was kind of similar to mine. It wasn't too high or too deep. It gave me hope that I could sing songs and make random tunes on my guitar too. Do you think that if a popular artist's voice changed, many people would grieve it?
favorite song: hell and you / perfect wife
Amigo the Devil is an interesting musician that I admittedly don't know much about.. Not completely sure how I found him. Probably in my attempts to find increasingly more morbid music to write serial killers to, he popped up. Some might find his music to be completely innapropriate. In this album, there's a song about Jeffrey Dahmer, an abused wife, a man stalking a woman and murdering her, etc. While I could discuss the ethics of writing music like this, I am not going to because I love it so much.
It evokes the spirit of a southern gothic with it's folk sound. There's this instrument used sometimes.. A banjo I think? It's so delightful to listen to. Amigo the Devil's voice has this sound of desperation at times that really makes you think "I can understand this awful person singing this song." There's wonderful lines. Hell and You is a delightful song that I love writing toxic couples too. But I love every song in this album. I've been listening to the album nonstop for days.
I get tired of one song, I listen to another. I listened to Hell and You nonstop then Perfect Wife then The Weight and now Dahmer Goes to Hollywood. Choosing a favorite song for this was rather difficult because it's constantly changing. It's just top tier. I highly recommend if you love morbid and/or variants of indie folk.
This year I challenged myself to listen to every single I Monster album on spotify. I was successful and ended up listening to them multiple times. It's a surprise they didn't end up on my spotify wrapped. Neveroddoreven, their most critically acclaimed album, in my opinion is their best. Every song on it is a banger and there's enough variance in the album that I don't get tired of hearing it.
While Who Is She is the most popular song from the album, I don't have the strongest feelings regarding it. Perhaps because I've heard it too many times in other places. I really enjoy "These Are Our Children" and "Heaven" which is probably pretty predictable knowing my music tastes. I'm currently listening to certain tracks to remember the others exactly as it has been a while since I listened. While you may worry that this has tainted my opinions of the albums, do not worry. I definitely remember thinking "These are great but Neveroddoreven is definitely the best." I'll talk about the others in due time.
Moenie and Kitchi is an album I've been listening to for years. Gregory and the Hawk has been at the top of my Spotify Wrapped multiple times, and while the music isn't always from this album, I do love Moenie and Kitchi dearly. The album art is lovely- I remember being young and trying to redraw it over and over myself.
It's an indie folk album that reminds me of sitting at my granny's house peacefully in the garden. My favorite song from the album is Oats We Sow though I also love "Doubtful" and frequently listen to "Stone Wall Stone Fence."" I struggle to call any particular song in the album weak as I feel a calm nice feeling listening to all of them. I don't think I've ever gotten to a song and thought "I really don't want to hear this one."
Even the name brings to mind a story of two characters who play together or perhaps even love each other. It's just.. so sweet. Never change Gregory and the Hawk.
