album potpourri #1

[puffin]

hello and welcome :) to my first 'album potpourri', a weekly(?) series of posts in which i'll select a random handful of albums from my library that i'd like to share and recommend! these won't necessarily be records i have in my regular rotation, but just a handful albums i love (or at least like) nonetheless. without further ado, let's begin!

NEU! 75 by NEU! (1975)

In the early 1970s NEU!, founded by two ex-Kraftwerk members, was one of the bands at the center of the krautrock movement, though I prefer the genre's other name: kosmische musik (cosmic music). They are most known for the debut album simply titled NEU! but I prefer 1975's aptly named NEU! 75. The album is a unique and timeless blend of electronica and psychedelic rock that truly lives up to the cosmic label. The first three songs in particular form one new-age lullaby, the flowing keys and steady motorik drum beats pulling the listener into a dream-like state of calm. These songs always help settle me down when I'm anxious or restless. The song "Leb' wohl" is particularly meditative with it's softly spoken vocals and the sound of crashing waves in the distance.

The album's fourth song, Hero, takes a strong left turn into proto-punk while E-Musik brings back the psychedelic, motorik sound of the first song while upping the tempo and energy. Sadly the album's sixth and final song, After Eight, isn't available on Spotify so I rarely hear it, but like Hero it is another cut of proto-punk. For me the first three songs (which total 20 minutes) are absolutely the highlight of the album but the whole thing is fantastic. If you listen and like it I would definitely also recommend the band's first album and also CAN's Future Days (which I'll definitely have to include in another edition of album potpourri).

Hot Rats by Frank Zappa (1969)

Hot Rats by Frank Zappa is THE jazz rock album as far as I'm concerned. The album opens with the short but superbly sweet Peaches En Regalia, which is easily one of my favourite songs of all time. Every thing about the song is so damn smooth and Zappa is able to pack so many unique sounds into just three and a half minutes. You get hit with a wave of amazing piano, and then horns, and more piano, and more horns, and then piano again, and then guitar, and more horns and there is just so much going on but the song never trips over itself or sounds muddled. Contrasting the clean and shiny opener, Willie The Pimp is a dark, grimy, guitar-centric jam featuring perfectly ugly vocals (the only vocals on the album) from the legendary Captain Beefheart. Son Of Mr. Green Genes reaches a middle ground between the first two songs: it has the bright and clean tone of Peaches but has the length, jamminess, and guitar centricity of The Pimp, making it my second favourite on the album.

As it's name suggests, Little Umbrellas is the shortest song on the album but is perhaps also the darkest and smoothest, sounding straight out of a scene from a 1930s gangster noir. The Gumbo Variations is another long jam, the longest on the album in fact, and prominently features a honking saxophone and some very unique sounding guitar. It also probably has my favourite drumming on the album. The album's final song, It Must Be A Camel, is the album's jammiest and jazziest cut, feeling the most improvised out of every song here. It is my least favourite, but the song's final minute or so feels like the perfect end credits to such a chaotic, dense, and expertly crafted album.

crystallize by Tokyo Shoegazer (2011)

crystallize by Tokyo Shoegazer is my favourite shoegaze album ever (and c'mon it has to be in contention for best album cover of all time :3) and one of the only albums capable of making me tear up. 299 Addiction opens the album as a demonstration of the sheer noise the band is capable of creating, but if it's too harsh for you don't disregard the whole album as the other songs are far less abrasive and more melodic. Still noisy of course, but just less harsh. Just Alright is perhaps the most straightforward, Loveless-like song on the album. The dual male and female vocalists really shine on this song and the drummer goes insanely hard. Bright is my favourite song on the album, and perhaps the best shoegaze song ever made. The song is structured perfectly as it all builds up towards a huge explosion of sound just over halfway through which WILL make me cry if I'm feeling vulnerable enough. The vocals are fantastic and the wall of noise from the guitars is just so overwhelmingly powerful and harsh, yet bright, beautiful, and delicate.

Silent Lies is one of the more relaxed and restrained songs on the album, putting more focus on giving space to the vocals and only coming in thick and hard with the guitar at certain points throughout building up to a brief but extremely noisy outro. Waltz Matilda is structured very similarly, though is completely instrumental and a bit more spacey, even including some synths near the end. Free is the album's shortest track, and is more dream pop or indie rock than shoegaze, but it's ethereal soundscape fits right in and gives you a bit of reprise from the harsh noise found through the album. It does build up and get noisier near the end of the song but has less of a 'wall of sound' compared to the other songs. Back To My Place is a stunning closer to the album, being quite similar to Bright in many ways. This album's weakness is its lack of variety but if you're like me and enjoy a perfectly paced build up to a huge explosion of sound that is both harsh and heavenly, than look no further because crystallize manages to nail that with pretty much every song.

Laugh About Life by Pipe-eye (2017)

Have you ever wished music was more silly, weird, whimsical, and cheerful? While look no further than King Gizzard's very own Cook Craig aka Cookie aka Pipe-eye. His debut solo album (and casually just one of seven albums he was involved in releasing that year with five Gizz records and one from The Murlocs) Laugh About Life exists in this strange psychedelic pop wonderland that captures the laid-back lifestyle of small-town Australia. Private Little Holiday is an endlessly sweet and charming song about getting away from work and the worries of life to go on a trip with the one you love. Trust Fund Baby sees Cook reflect on his relatively privileged upbringing (after all he is a very regal fellow) he and others have had over one funky ass bassline.

I won't go over every song here because they are all quite simple but the most important part of this album is how they all contribute to this child-like, whimsical fantasy that makes Pipe-eye albums feel so fun and fresh. At The Garden Gate is probably my favourite song on the album and you can really hear the Beatles influence on Cookie come through on it. To Agree With Someone is one of my other favourites and acts as a wonderful final (proper) song. Laugh About Life is not a technically amazing album by any means, but it has a contagious sense of fun and if you don't like it you are probably an awful person. Sorry, I don't make the rules!

Long Season by Fishmans (1996)

This one is gonna go a little different than the other ones. Long Season, though often split into five sections, is a single 35 minute song so I won't be going through it piece by piece. It's also hard to describe why this album is so good in words, more than any other piece of music out there it is so much more than the sum of its parts. I can tell you it has a recurring repetitive arpeggiated piano part that holds the composition together like glue but I can't explain why just hearing that piano part, simple as it is, makes me begin to tear up. I could try to describe the cacophony of sounds that make up the album's middle section but I couldn't possibly convey how well it somehow works. There is a genuine magic within Long Season that transcends any words I could use to attempt to describe it.

I'm far from the first person to wax poetic about this album, I mean it's practically been THE cult album online for the last 10 years but it was impossible not to include in this first of hopefully many potpourri posts. Long Season is my pick for the #1 album you NEED to listen to before you die. Can I give a stronger recommendation? Rest in peace Shinji Sato, within this album you are immortal.

thanks for reading, hopefully you find something you like here :)
xoxo tommy