The Blog…

Released in 1972, Pink Moon is Nick Drakes third and final album. It was recorded in just two days and only goes for 28 minutes with an average song length of just 2.5 minutes. It’s such an intimate and quiet album that features just his voice and acoustic guitar playing. It’s very different to his other two albums, the first one being full of big orchestral parts, the second being really jazzy and exciting. The lyrics are at times very dark and eerie, with much of the album focusing on his feeling like an outcast and not being accepted by society. but he had such an amazing talent for framing his ideas in a beautiful and poetic way. It all feels so so personal. I cannot recommend this album enough, I’ve had it on repeat for the past 3 hours. 

CAN were a German experimental rock band that came out of Cologne in 1968 and they were one of the most influential bands to come out of the Krautrock movement. Krautrock is a style of experimental German rock from the late ’60s and ’70s — built around repetition, improvisation, and hypnotic rhythms rather than traditional song structures. CAN had a very unique recording style. They would just record hours and hours of them improvising, Then they would cut the tape and rearrange it into a song afterwards. Which was a pretty wild thing back in the 60s. This kind of thing was very influential on bands like Radiohead, Talking Heads and Sonic Youth, you can hear similar kinds of techniques happening in some of their albums. The Future Days album itself is very ambient, hypnotic and sparse. There's lots of weird and unique textures throughout. Lots of really interesting and cool percussion. Some lovely guitar parts. Not many vocals, there are some, but CAN doesn’t really use the vocal as a lead instrument, it’s more of an added texture, the lyrics don’t really matter. So yeah. This is a good unique album to check out especially to hear where some of your favourite artists may have gotten some inspiration. 

The Sound were an English Post-Punk band from London who were active between 1979 and 1988. They were best known for emotionally intense yet melodic post-punk that blended blended anger and introspection. They were really highly praised by critics a fellow musicians but were never really able to fully break into the mainstream. However, in the late 80s, after the band dissolved their reputation grew through word of mouth and album reissues. The album has that classic post punk urgency and tension to it. The vocals sung by Adrian Borland are very raw and expressive, you can really hear his emotions pouring out as his singing. They really cut through the songs quite sharp as everything else in the production feels very nice polished, particularly for a punk album, the sounds in this album are really beautifully produced. Lots of cool synthesisers that blend in with the standard punk instruments. They give the songs a lot of depth, texture, atmosphere and for me they really create a spacey or introspective kind of feel to it.  The album has brief glimpses of 80’s sci-fi movie, which I love of course. Very powerful strong driving rhythms throughout the whole album. Very prominent, loud, simple yet effective basslines. Quite spacious guitar, its not super guitar heavy, although there are some pretty nice little solos scattered throughout.  Overall I really enjoyed this album. If your a fan of Joy Division, The Cure or U2 even I think this is definitely something checking out. 

The cocteau twins were a band that formed in 1979 in Grangemouth Scotland. They started out as a post-punk group, but through the early 80s they found a sound much more similar to what we now know as dream pop or ethereal wave. They abandoned traditional rock structures and created pieces based on layered guitars, heavy reverbs and incredibly emotional and expressive vocals. Despite critical acclaim and a devoted following, they didn’t quite reach mainstream success when they were together, but their reputation certainly grew after their breakup in 1997 and they have certainly had a pretty decent influence on artists across the alternative, ambient and pop space. The Treasure Album is full of  Such distant heavily reverbed vocals sung by ELizabeth Fraser . That are so incredibly beautiful. At first I was wondering what language this album is in. Then I realised, there is none. Many of the songs use a style called glossolalia (gloss-oh-lay-lee-uh) , which is emotionally driven vocal performance that doesnt use actual words. rather vocals that sound like language but arent any actual real language. She borrows phonetic shapes from real languages, often celtic like sounds, with a strong Constant vowel pattern and a repetition of melody. A real word or phrase will occasionally slip in, but not that often. The song titles hint at ideas of mythology, religion, or poetry. Which is totally what it sounds like she’s singing about. Although, she isn’t actually singing about anything. Elizabeth has said she wanted the voice to work like an instrument. She just wanted people to hear the melodies and expressions which protects emotional intimacy, meaning listeners project their own meaning on the song. The guitars fall in line with the etherical feel. The lead guitarist Robin Guthrie uses heavy reverbs, delays, choruses and flang effects throughout. The guitar is not really based upon riffs but is kind of used as more of a synth pad. The chords become all quite blurry, cloudy and are used as more of an atmospheric texture a lot of the time. You sometimes feel like your surrounded by a blanket of soft echoing guitars all around you. The bass is oftentimes quite melodical and can move independently from the guitars. It has a very warm, rounded tone that is never harsh or aggressive. Drums are very simple and steady patterns throughout, without many fills. They don’t push the rhythm forward and remain a steady pulse for the album. Overall, the album is very etherical, mystical, mysterious and beautiful and I highly recommend checking it out. 

Released in 1991 Laughing stock is Talk Talks fifth and final studio album. Talk Talk were originally a synth-pop band that originated in London in 1981. Their first two albums featured classic radio friendly 80s pop songs with tight song structures and catchy hooks. But from about 1986 their sound started to shift as they gradually used less synths and more organic instruments. They started putting more emphasis on song textures, dynamics and space. And by space I mean they added more room in their songs in between hooks, they were no longer trying to constantly hold the attention of the listener, like a pop song does. So this developed for a few years until we landed here at laughing stock. This album is really interesting. Full of great syncopated smooth basslines, big dramatic organs playing very full jazzy extension chord progressions and a variety of haunting synth pads and brass solos too. It has songs with very minimalistic writing and production, with songs that vell very open and spares. Except for two. Ascension day and after the flood are both have very full sounding and at times chaotic productions, chaotic in a good way, it creates a lot of tension and drama. After the flood has this big haunted yet mythical organ playing along with the drums, bass, electric keyboard, guitar and vocals all me. Its full of big jazzy extension chords and it frequently veres off the diatonic modes. Creating a really full and powerful dramatic piece. Then myrrhman and taphead are so different. Myrrhan has different instruments that come in and out of the spotlight, each having plenty of room to shine as very little is playing below them. It has really soft keyboard playing throughout with vocals, strings, brass and synthesizers gently rising above to the surface every so often. Taphead has really subtle pads or organ chords playing through the song with brass pieces coming through for lovely little roomy solos. The vocals are incredibly soft, almost whispering and you can barely hear what they’re saying. New grass and Runeii are both fairly minimal aswell. I really quite like the flow of this album, there is a few pretty big ups and downs in energy and emotion which I love and it all seems to develop quite naturally and smoothly.  Yeah this is a cool album, go check it out. 

Bark Psychosis were an English Post-rock band from London which formed in 1986. Their sound varied throughout their time and they incorporated many different styles into their work including indie-rock, psychedelia, cool jazz and even EDM. But they’re best known for their moody atmospheric soundscapes, emotional lyrics and experimental blending of instruments.   Hex is an album that utilizes quite a lot of sampling. It's filled with lots of abstract sounds and textures that give the album a very full and interesting sound. However, the sampling probably won’t be the first thing that comes to mind when listening to the album,  as it is also filled with nice groovy basslines, big wide electric guitars that have a million effects on them and some rather beautiful trumpet and flute lines as-well. Unlike the guitars, the vocals are whisper quiet and often sound like they are right in front of you with very little reverb. It isn’t really a lyric-driven album, the vocals seem to be used more as an instrumental texture rather than a tool for storytelling. They are also used quite sparingly, much of the album is very instrumental. The dynamics in the album vary massively, there are many sections in the album that are very quiet, there's lots of big breaks of airiness and minimalism throughout. But it’ll go from one of these breaks to then being very loud and incredibly full sounding in a matter of moments. It actually kind of reminds me a little bit of In-Rainbows by Radiohead. It’s quite an exciting album in that regard as there's quite a deal of variation, both in dynamics and in sound choices from the sampling. Overall Hex is a very moody and contemplative album that promotes unease and introspection. It is definitely worth a listen and I think it's a great example of how electronic and acoustic elements can blend together to make cool sounds. 

For the whole month im letting chatgpt pick one random album for me to listen to. This is day 7 and today we are listening to either/or by Elliot Smith. Elliot Smith was an American singer-songwriter born in 1969. He was originally in an indie-rock group called Heatmiser but he moved on to his solo career in 1993 where he put big rock songs to bed in order to pursue a more quiet, intimate and personal sound. The lyrics in Either/or are incredible. It dives into very deep, dark and personal topics such as addiction, feeling meaningless and being misunderstood. But he uses an abundance of metaphors which often mask his whole story and encourage a bit more thought when you're listening in order to fully understand what he’s saying. Some examples of this include the song Between the bars where the whole song is the perspective of alcohol talking to him as if it’s a romantic partner. Rose Parade where he talks about people pressuring him to participate in this parade that happened in his hometown. This is a all a metaphor for people joining and trying to “look good” and fit in with society when it is sometimes it’s all an act and doesn’t really make sense for you. Ballad of Big nothing where he encounters his disheveled brother in an alley and he says “you can do what you want to, whenever you want to, you can do what you want to, there's no one to stop you.” I think you can interpret this one in quite a few different ways. Anyway there are many more within the album and if you do want to listen to it, I advise reading up a little bit on the meaning behind some of the lyrics because I found that doing a little bit of research on this was really rewarding for the overall listening experience. In terms of the album sound, it is a very minimal production with much of the album being just acoustic guitar and his soft whispery voice. Theres some drums and bass too, but the focus of this album for me was really the lyrical content. Highly Highly recommend listening to this one. 

Cat Power is the stage name of American singer-songwriter Chan Marshall . Cat Power began in the early 90s releasing lofi-indie and folk music. Her sound later shifted over the years and she moved through to blues, soul and alternative rock but Moon Pix was very much still an indie-folk record.  Featuring very close and intimate vocals, sung very softly with some beautiful harmonies. Lyrically she discusses paranoia, insomnia, being emotionally detached and fear. he uses short phrases, simple imagery and fairly few metaphors which makes the writing feel very raw, imperfect and honest,  Lines often will repeat themselves and sometimes sentences are left unresolved. It's very much an album that strives for authenticity over perfection. The production of the album is very minimal with a few of the songs just being her and a guitar. The guitar is often very distant and the same riff will repeat over and over again and it also feels like the melodies never really resolve. To me this adds to the contemplative and uncertain feel that the whole album has. There is some drums in the album and they're played very loosely and almost feel like they are delayed, reacting to the music instead of holding the beat. Overall, Moon Pix is a dark, moody album that features some very bold and truthful story-telling.

Sigar ros are an Icelandic Post-rock band that came together in 1994. The Icelandic music scene was quite geographically isolated in the 90’s so artists were forced to find inspiration locally which may be why Sigur Ros sound quite different from the Post-rock music that was coming out of the US and the UK at the time. In saying that, the band never really liked strict genre definitions and their discography shifted through ambient, orchestral, electronic and acoustic phases. The title Ágætis byrjun translates to “A Good Beginning”. Which feels very fitting as the album very much feels like an introduction to something, it's a bit like a movie trailer.It has a spectacular cinematic atmosphere to it. With guitars that are drenched in reverbs and are often played with a bow, giving it a long swelling orchestral sound. That said, there are also real orchestral strings on some tracks too, which in combination with the guitars and keys create some huge emotional and climactic points throughout the album. The drums on the album are very spacious and, like all the instruments, they sound very big and wide. They aren’t busy or technical but they are powerful and they give the songs room to breathe. The vocals, similarly to in the CAN - Future Days album and the Cocteau Twins - Treasure albums, are used as less of a storytelling device and instead as an additional instrument and texture for the album. They are largely sung in Icelandic but again, similarly to Treasure by the Cocteau twins, the singer sometimes will use a made up language called “Hopelandic”  There are these huge crescendos in the album where all of the instruments layer on top of each other to eventually build to incredibly dramatic and euphoric peaks. Then after the peaks it’ll come to a grinding halt where everything is stripped back to just a quiet piano or a soft synth pad. This is another album that utilises dynamics in such a powerful way. Overall this album feels hopeful but melancholic at the same time. It feels cold, but also strangely warm and comforting. It’s cinematic, emotional and immersive. I definitely want to listen to this with headphones while laying on some grass and staring at the stars. 

Interpol are an American indie rock band that formed in 1997. They built their sound on sharp, echoing guitars, driving melodic basslines, and low, detached vocals that feel emotionally distant but strangely intense. Recorded in New York just two months after the 9/11 attacks, the album captures the despair and uncertainty that the citizens of the city were experiencing. The album largely captures the headspace of the frontman Paul Banks. It’s about his extremely toxic relationship and his obsession with his ex partner. The lyrics in the album are very dark, a little bit spin tingling, while also being surprisingly heartfelt at times and almost intimate. The vocals are melancholic and defeated but at times he delivers lots of urgency and anger. Guitarist Daniel Kessler has quite a unique style of playing. He uses lots of single note melodies alongside a fairly dynamic array of unusual two and three note chords. The second guitar doesn’t rely on playing stock chords or basic rhythms, but instead spends much of its time providing melodic counterpoints and weaving melodies around Keessler’s runs.The bass is often providing key mesmerizing melodies for the songs and doesn’t use basic or repetitive patterns. The drums in the album are full of tricky yet not showy patterns that provide all of the right accents to punctuate key moments of the album. Overall, Interpol’s Turn On The Bright Lights features both great instrumentation and a thought-provoking tone that’ll leave you sitting in disbelief long after it ends.

Wilco are an American alternative rock band formed in 1994. They originally came out of the alt-country scene in the mid-90s, but over time their sound shifted into something much more experimental and textural. Instead of sticking to traditional rock structures, they started blending folk, indie rock and subtle electronic elements, putting a lot more focus on atmosphere, space and dynamics. Their albums tend to feel thoughtful and carefully constructed, with a strong emphasis on songwriting and mood rather than flashy performances. The title “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” comes from the NATO phonetic alphabet — a system used in radio communication especially in aviation, military, and shortwave transmissions, so letters don’t get misheard over static or interference. I think this title is used to reinforce the main themes of the album, which are miscommunication, isolation and fragmentation. The vocalist Jeff Tweedy sings about saying something but feeling like he’s not being heard, wanting intimacy but feeling distant and trying to explain himself but falling short. Which all works really well with the metaphor in the album title. The album also ties the songs together with recurring words and musical phrases. War, lies, truth, death, distance, beaty, cigarettes, echoes and smoking are all words that crop up multiple times throughout the album in various songs. In terms of the sound of the album. It has a very warm sound overall with acoustic guitars, soft piano, pretty subtle bass and fairly loose drums. However, layered on top of that the album does have some electronic textures, distorted percussion and some interesting ambient noise. There are also bits and pieces of static noise scattered throughout. There is a fair amount of subtle dissonance in the album with some detuned instruments, some unique chord voicings and some tense melodies. Which gives the album a bit of an uneasy feeling at times. It’s not enough to feel chaotic, but just enough to be slightly unsettling. The vocals are usually very close, intimate and quite dry. They sit fairly low in the mix for a vocal and aren’t super up front. Tweedy’s performance is very relaxed and casual. It kind of feels like he just got out of bed and hasn’t had his morning coffee yet. It’s quite a spacious album with bigger breaks of air and moments where not a huge amount is happening. It’s quite a patient album. It also doesn’t have huge choruses or climaxes, the dynamics are really controlled and there’s much more gradual slow building. This was actually an album that almost never got released. When they delivered it to their label in 2002, Reprise Records, the label said it wouldn’t be commercially viable as it was too experimental and not radio friendly. Instead of making changes to the album, Wilco refused to change the record and the label dropped them, but they let Wilco keep the rights to the album. So the band released the album on their website to be streamed for free. Where it built a massive audience and word of mouth buzz proved there was an audience for it. So ironically then another Warner-owned label called Nonesuch Records   (Their original label, Reprise, was also under Warner) picked it up and officially released the exact same album in 2002. And so that’s why this album was almost never released. 

Arcade Fire are a Canadian Indie Rock band that formed in the early 2000s. They are known for blending rock and orchestral instruments, having emotionally direct and universal lyrics and having quite a large lineup of musicians that often switch between instruments during shows, This album centres around grief and nostalgia. It was written while several members of the band were experiencing the loss of close family members. And I think this results in a very unique perspective on grief. Most songs and albums capturing the grief of losing a loved one tend to lean on the idea of isolation and loneliness. But because the band had each other to rely on through these times, it doesn’t feel lonely at all, nor does it really feel that devastating. The album feels much more reflective, the lyrics are much more about appreciating the times that you had with the people you lost rather than feeling sad that they’re gone. Sonically the album reflects this as well. The album is certainly not stripped back or fragile like Plastic Ono Band by John Lennon or For Emma, Forever Ago by Bon Iver. It’s big, open and communal with lots of backing vocals filling up the choruses and melodies that are always moving onto the next thing and are not repetitive and content like the melodies on Moon Pix by Cat Power. The album has fairly heavy string usage. But in this album they don’t feel like they are just sitting behind the chords. They often carry counter melodies and rhythms. Sometimes they are even a bit percussive.The piano in the album is often used as a bit of an anchor for the album, and songs often revolve around simple repetitive piano lines. Which feel warm and comforting. The Guitars aren't riff heavy and are generally just more rhythmic, they don’t sit on top of the mix. They are fairly gritty and raw sounding. There are also a few other instruments that make their way into the album such as the accordion and glockenspiel, which give the album some brightness and offers a bit of a silver lining to the heavier themes in the album because grief doesn’t always sound the way you think it does.

Joanna Newsom is an American singer, songwriter, and classically trained harpist who emerged in the early 2000s as part of the indie-folk scene. Ys is her second album and was released in 2006. It’s an album that is based around Joanna's vocals and her harp playing, with some orchestral arrangements that were written by Van Dyke Parks, a composer famous for his work with the Beach Boys. The album feels very medieval, there's no drums, percussion or modern instrumentation. Just harp, strings, woodwinds and brass that swirl around Joanna's compositions which don’t follow normal verse-chorus structures, but rather develop like classical movements.Lyrically, the album is incredibly poetic and is layered with imagery of nature, animals, astronomy and folklore. It feels like each song is a little story in her mystical and magical world. But underneath all of the stories there is deep meaning within the album. She discusses themes of loneliness, grief and manipulation. I’ll give some examples of these for some context. In the song “Emily” she says, “The Meteoroid is a stone that’s devoid of the fire that propelled it” I think she's saying she's still a meteoroid that exists and is moving along, but the thing that once gave her light and momentum is now gone. The fire is what made it dramatic, alive and noticeable. Once the fire is gone she's just a cold rock drifting through space. In the song “Monkey & Bear” she says “and the bear would say, “I love you so”. Which is essentially saying that affectionate words can be used like a spell to mask being manipulated. In “Cosmia” She says “we came by the boatload and were immobilized” this metaphor is used to describe how grief can come in suddenly with full force and describes that initial feeling of being frozen where the world keeps on spinning but you don’t. The album is nearly an hour long but is spread across only five songs. The shortest song is seven minutes and the longest, “Only Skin” is sixteen. This gives each song enough time for Joanna to really develop each song into its own little self-contained world and gives room for real in-depth storytelling in her lyrics.   The vocals are very unique. Full of squeaky embellishments, dramatic vibrato and quirky inflections. Her vocal range is huge. The melodies are very complex but flow so naturally, it almost feels like they’re improvised at times. Her voice is certainly polarising and I could understand if people didn’t enjoy it. But I think that it perfectly adds to the idea that I think this album sounds like a mythical, medieval storybook.

Panda Bear is the solo project of Noah Lennox, who is best known as a founding member of the band Animal Collective. Animal collective were an experimental psychedelic pop band that came out of Baltimore in the late 90s. But while being in the band, Noah released his own projects. Person pitch was his third solo album and it was released in 2007. The album has a very surreal and dreamy atmosphere that’s created from the use of vocal loops and samples. The production is extremely layered with a lot of manipulation. It was made almost entirely electronically, mainly through samples, yet the album feels so analog and organic. I think it’s because the use of the sampling is generally from acoustic instruments and real world sounds from field recordings. The way he incorporates these sounds into his production is very unique and interesting too, he uses tiny fragments of clips and lets them all phase together, so it's sometimes not easy to identify a single particular sample as they all swell together into a big wave of sound. This paired with the relentless repetition, huge reverbs and choir-like vocals creates a very psychedelic and hypnotic sound. There are very minimal drums in this album, there is a fair amount of percussion use with congas, bongos and shakers, but very little kick or snare usage. Or any regular drum kit action really. But the way the samples are placed sort of reduces the need for them, as they create these soft, repetitive rhythmic pulses which are often quite complex, polyrhythms frequently pop up throughout the album. The vocals from Panda Bear are frequently compared to those of Brian Wilson from the Beachboys. He sings in a soft, airy and open falsetto with huge tightly stacked vocal harmonies backing him. He essentially creates a choir from just his own voice.  Lyrically Mr Bear writes in quite a direct, repetitive and almost mantra-like fashion. His lyric writing is a lot less experimental than his music production. He writes about fatherhood, nostalgia, domestic life, and wanting to slow down. It’s a very positive and wholesome album that feels grounded and grateful and …. honestly, this might be the most beautiful use of sampling I’ve ever heard.

Hospice is a concept album released in 2009 that tells the story of a hospice worker who falls in love with a terminally ill patient named Silvia. We experience the whole album through his first-person lens as he stays beside her as she slowly dies from bone cancer. All he wants to do is help and save her, but as the relationship unfolds, Silvia becomes emotionally abusive and destructive. He feels used and neglected, but is willing to push through as his love for her is so strong. He says lines like “I would happily take all those bullets inside you, and put them in myself.” The details in the album are painfully descriptive and vividly paint the picture of the hospital machinery surrounding them, the nightmares he is having, self-harm that takes place and the abortion that Silvia has throughout this. These details make the album feel so real and gut wrenching.Despite all of this, the lyrics in the album are not actually based on a true story and are actually a metaphor for a toxic relationship. The album shows that there is a power imbalance between the characters. Silvia is physically weak but emotionally dominates and becomes very controlling. There is emotional manipulation, where she starts to make him feel responsible for her suffering, where he feels guilty for wanting space and ashamed for leaving. And there's the hope that things will improve. He holds on to the memory of how their relationship started out, the hope that she'll change and the belief that his devotion will eventually fix it. Sonically the album starts out very minimal and has a very intimate, low quality bedroom recording quality. But as the album progresses it expands into huge reverb-heavy guitars, big swelling synthpads and emotional crescendos. The album goes from quite fragile verses to big dramatic choruses. But it isn’t afraid to throw in some ambient soundscapes either. Peter Silberman’s voice is delicate and pure, he sounds very calm. Which adds to why this album is so devastating. 

Beach House are an American dream-pop duo formed in Baltimore in 2004. The band consists of Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally. They started out making minimal, hazy dream-pop built around drum machines, warm organs and heavily reverbed guitar. Teen Dream is their third album and this is where their production ramped up significantly to more of a big budget pop album, full of lush arrangements, live drums, more pronounced hooks and outstanding melodies. It features shimmering reverb soaked guitars, glowing organ and synth pads and repetitive hypnotic drum patterns. Their songs slowly unfold and expand with slow builds to satisfying and euphoric choruses. There’s no rushing or dramatic shifts in the album, it’s all very smooth and comfortable. The overall sound of the album is warm, nostalgic and romantic. It really has that teenage feel to it. The same can be said for the lyrics which tend to centre around youth, desire and longing. They have a bit of a dramatic and fragile element to them, which captures that naive youth mindset where small problems feel existential. The vocals are deep, smoky and steady. They feel quite restrained a lot of the time and in the bigger choruses the emotion of her voice doesn’t tend to come from volume but instead she adjusts her phrasing, thickens her tone and stretches vowels which can make her sound deceptively huge. O ng and feeling too much, which is why this album will remind you of your childhood. 

 Mild High Club is the psychedelic pop project of Chicago-born musician Alexander Brettin. He started releasing music in 2015 blending 70s soft rock, jazz harmony and lo-fi indie to create his own signature sound. Skiptracing is his second album and it was released in 2016. It has a 70s psychedelic jazz vibe. It's very slow, hazy, nostalgic and surreal. The album has a pretty heavy usage of electric keyboards and synths which are actually rather sophisticated. They largely use extended chords that shift with really smooth voice-leading, making transitions feel very soft and not very dramatic. They also don’t use typical pop progressions, there’s chromatic passing chords, secondary dominants and a few pretty unexpected modulations that are done really elegantly.  However, the chord progressions never feel technical or flashy as they are generally presented in a very relaxed way and shift slow and smoothly. The synths are generally very bright, shimmery and have a fair amount of texture to them, which contribute to the spacey and surreal atmosphere of the record. I love the bass on the album, it's very smooth, melodic and it moves around quite a bit. It’s often wandering off from the chord that's playing or it plays the extension notes of the chord which adds quite a bit of extra harmonic colour beneath the keys. Rhythmically it locks in nice and tight with the drums which adds to the slow, headnodding pulse of the album. The drums are pretty simple, they’re slow and groovy, they aren’t punchy or very dynamic and they often sit slightly behind the beat for a laid-back, sleepy kind of swing. The vocals are incredibly laidback and relaxed, with a modern Indie Lo-fi feel. They're also covered in thick reverbs and delays, they have a very similar sound and feel to Mac Demarco's vocals. The lyrics in the album are a little bit difficult to decipher but they drift through memories, identity, culture and detachment, all in a half-aware, disoriented kind of fashion. I don’t think that the lyrics are really that important to be honest, it’s all a bit abstract and dreamy, which is really the whole idea of the album. The overall production of the album is very warm and soft. It has a vintage feel to it where the low end is very smooth and cushioned rather than punchy and the highs are bright but not harsh. There’s a bit of a lo-fi quality to the album where it has subtle imperfections that add an intimate and authentic feel to it.  The mix also has a lot of space with everything sitting comfortably with room around the keyboards and vocals. Reverbs and delays are pretty heavily used but they don’t necessarily make the space sound huge, but more soft and distant, they help contribute to why this album feels so dreamy  

Sun Kill Moon is the solo project of Mark Kozelek, formed in 2002 after the breakup of the band Red house painters. The sound sits somewhere between slowcore and indie folk, usually built around warm, intricate guitar work and very understated arrangements. Benji was released in 2014 and is the project's sixth studio album. Lyrically Mark is known for being incredibly wordy and detailed, this album is certainly no exception. In this album he provides very in-depth accounts of things that have happened to him or someone else, leaving in all of the pieces, whether they’re essential for the overall message or not. It all seems off-the-cuff and spontaneous, like he’s just writing into a journal. The lyrics are generally quite heartbreaking and thoughtful. There’s a big theme of aging and mortality.In the song “Carissa” he sings about his cousin who dies in a freak accident caused by an aerosol can exploding near a fire. In this song he sort of emphasises the point of life being fragile and unpredictable. In “truck driver” he talks about his uncle who dies from a heart attack. And in this one he talks about how people seem to only express their emotions for someone once they’ve already left, and it’s about regret, distance and things being left unsaidThen there's the song “I can’t live without my mother’s love” where he discusses not knowing how he will cope without his parents being there. In “Pray for Newtown” he references the Sandy Hook school shooting. Which is a shooting that happened in the US back in 2012 where 20 kids aged  between 6 and 7 died.  And this song kind of emphasises how death feels inescapable and you're constantly surrounded by it. Despite the lyrics being all-round pretty tragic, there is something quite comforting about them as they’re all relatable and even though his story telling is so very specific to Mark’s experiences, they are sung in such an honest and casual fashion that you almost feel as though your just up really late with this guy, having a few beers and he’s letting out some of his deep thoughts. His singing is just a few shades away from spoken word, it’s very soft and mellow with simple and fairly unexciting melodies. In terms of the instrumentation of the album, it’s very gentle folk-rock. It has a beautiful soft classical nylon string guitar playing throughout, there’s an upright bass, basic drumming and it has some pretty nice backing vocals in the choruses at times. It’s a singer-songwriter folk album, the lyrics are first and foremost. Nothing in the music tries to dramatise what he’s saying. It just quietly supports it. It feels steady, almost indifferent — like life just continuing on.And underneath all of these very specific stories is one simple truth the album keeps circling back to. Everyone dies.

Sufjan Stevens is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who emerged in the early 2000s indie scene. He’s known for blending intimate folk songwriting with ambitious, sometimes orchestral arrangements — often playing most of the instruments himself in the studio. Carrie & Lowell is his seventh studio album and was released in 2015. Lyrically the album is about his relationship with his mother. She was schizophrenic and left him when he was young, but came back in and out of his life periodically until she passed away in 2012. He talks about his feelings of abandonment and craving for a connection with her. He’s still in the process of trying to forgive her but he’s struggling with that, while simultaneously grieving her loss. This leads to him questioning his faith too. Stevens is a christian man and has sung about his faith in many of his records before, but in this album you can hear him questioning things like why his suffering exists. In the song “John My beloved” he says “No shade in the shadow of the cross” which suggests that faith doesn’t block pain and that belief doesn’t protect you from suffering. He almost seems disappointed by his religion. He writes in a very personal but matter-of-fact way with details that are quite specific to him and there's very little usage of metaphors compared to someone like Elliot Smith. The songs are sad and uncomfortable at times but they aren’t dramatised, it feels very authentic and real. He also isn’t awfully direct with how he is feeling, he tells sad stories and recalls hard memories and the devastation is more so just implied. The production on the album is very stripped back compared to some of his prior work such as Illinois, which is really big and orchestral. Carrie and Lowell is largely centred around a really warm and gentle fingerpicked acoustic guitar that plays repetitive circular patterns that don’t ever really build up in intensity. It adds a very reflective or almost nostalgic feel. There’s a lot of really light, airy synth pads that slowly swell in and out of the songs. They're very blurry and washed out, they don’t really add any drama or emotional weight but they do add a lot of atmosphere to the album. They often add quite a bit of space and make songs feel bigger than they are, the album is very stripped back and minimal, yet the addition of these hazy synth pads help to make the songs all sound quite full. You really notice when they aren't there, like in the song Eugene, there's no synths at all and the song sounds so empty compared to those surrounding it. The vocals on the album are very soft, he’s almost whispering half of the time. The microphone seems like it's really close to his mouth and you can hear lots of breaths, little cracks and tiny imperfections. This obviously makes the songs feel super intimate and personal. But the constant quietness of his singing almost makes him sound a little bit cold at times. It also adds to why it's devastating but not dramatic.

Radiohead is one of my favourite bands. So disclaimer, I am very familiar with this album. But in case you don’t know, they are an English alternative rock band that formed in 1985. They are best known for being quite experimental and blending rock with electronic, ambient and orchestral elements. And they have been massively influential from their pushing of musical boundaries and their ability to constantly be trying new styles. A Moon Shaped Pool sees a sonic shift from the band's previous records. With In-rainbows being a more rock heavy record and The King of Limbs being almost all electronic. This is much more ethereal, spacey and serene. The soundscapes of this record are very warm, gentle, and beautiful. Thom York's vocals have his signature whimsical and ghost-like tone. But here they feel quite fragile, his voice is almost always very soft and restrained, there aren't really any explosive moments coming from the vocals. They’re also fairly quiet in the mix, his voice often feels a little bit buried and not totally front-and-centre. It has some beautiful orchestral strings that were composed by the guitarist Johnny Greenwood. “Glass Eyes” in particular has some fantastic gentle, cinematic strings that are accompanied only by the piano and Thom's voice. It makes for such a romantic and emotional track. While in “The Numbers” they are a bit more bright and dramatic, taking more of the centre stage and adding some tension. There’s these very airy and round synth pads that give the album a very dreamy atmosphere, they’re not jittery or rhythm driven like they are in The King of Limbs and they feel very organic and light. The piano plays quite an important role too. It's very soft and warm. It plays simple repeating melodies throughout and is used as a bit of an emotional grounding for the more intimate and stripped back moments in the album like in Daydreaming and True Love Waits. The drums feel much more restrained than in previous albums, they are often fairly minimal and loose. You can see some jazz-influence coming out in The Numbers and then Identikit takes you back to the more tight, rock-driven style similar to those in In Rainbows. The bass in the album is probably a bit of an underrated highlight for me. Particularly in The Numbers when the rest of the band is all feeling a bit chaotic with the jazzy drums, ominous string arrangement and slightly random piano playing, the bassist Collin Greenwood is so sharp, focused and really holds the whole song together. And other than that, there are some terrific basslines throughout the album. The album is o  verall very melancholic, it was recorded just after Thom and his wife of 23 years had a divorce, so much of the lyrical content is about that. So it's sad but it's not an explosion of emotions, it’s more reflective. It doesn’t rely on big hooks or overly dramatic climaxes. And strangely I think that the music sounds quite warm at times. Overall it feels like the ending of something and it's been ten years since it was released so is this the last Radiohead album?

Ariel Pink is an American singer-songwriter and producer who emerged in the early 2000s e. And became known for his hazy, lo-fi recordings that blended 70s soft rock, 80s synth-pop, yacht rock. Pom Pom is Ariels fourth studio album and it was released in 2014It is loud, colourful, messy, sarcastic, sometimes beautiful and sometimes annoying. Sonically the album sounds very artificial and synthetic. The drums are stiff and plasticy like an 80s drum machine, they have these really snappy hard snares that almost feel a bit awkward, but in an intentional way. The synths are a key part of Pink’s sound, there's shiny digital leads, goofy sounding vintage keyboards, bright stabby chords and detuned pads. The combination of all of these create a very unserious and playful feel. He leans into that cheap, preset-heavy 80s new wave aesthetic at times, but he really exaggerates it at times so it becomes almost cartoonish. The guitars change from track to track. Sometimes they are bright and jangly like 60s pop, sometimes they’re more compressed and glossy like 80s radio rock. But they never feel raw or organic, they’re very processed. Vocally, he's moving between serious and parody moments. He’ll do these really lovely Beach-boysesk, very clean stacked harmonies that sound sweet and nostalgic. Then the next minute he’ll be singing in a weird cartoonish voice or an exaggerated character. This is kind of the whole vibe of the album, it’s beautiful one moment then absurd the next. And lyrically it's kind of the same thing, it jumps between surreal humor to pop culture references and then it’ll be something that feels genuine and heartfelt. You never know when to take him seriously, it's hard to know if he’s joking or being honest. Which is a bit unsettling. The album is a tad overstimulating. The mix is super dense and cluttered. It’s like a chaotic collage of so many things happening at once. With several hooks all happening at the same time, there'll be backing vocals, synth lines and a guitar riff that are all fighting for the same space. But he really leans into it and embraces the chaos. And structurally it's a rollercoaster with some tracks feeling like fully formed pop songs with proper arcs and hooks, then others feel like little comedy skits or little novelty adventures. It made it difficult to get settled into the album. It’s certainly an explosion of creativity, it really is nothing like any other album I’ve heard before, there is some really cool use of sampling, some really interesting sound choices. It’s big, theatrical and interesting but my god this album is confusing. 

Leonard Cohen was a Canadian singer-songwriter and poet born in 1934. He was known for his deep baritone voice and spiritually searching lyrics. You want it darker was his 14th and final album and it was released in 2016. The album focuses on the theme of mortality, Cohen was 82 at the time of recording and was very unwell. He was suffering from severe spinal fractures and was largely confined to a chair, from which he recorded the album. However, was still mentally as sharp as ever and was aware that his time was soon coming to an end. This shaped what shaped album, its beautiful piece of acceptance and farewell. In the title track he says “Hineni, hineni / I’m ready, my Lord.” Hineni is Hebrew for “here I am” and is used in the bible when someone is answering gods call. So straight away in the album you can hear that Cohen is really at peace with his death. The tone of the line isn’t delivered in a dramatic fashion by any means, it’s steady and almost conversational. His voice is very low, cracked and tired which makes the line even more convincing. On the song “leaving the table”, you hear him saying that he’s out of the game, he’s letting go. Throughout his career, in a lot of his lyrics he would discuss his struggles with love, faith, ego and failure. I think here he’s saying that he’s finally been able to let go of that. And it’s not in a frustrated way, he’s quietly exiting the room rather than storming out. In treaty he acknowledges that he does have some regrets in his life. He says lines like “I wish there was a treaty we could sign” and “I’m sorry for the ghost I made you be” so he’s saying that there are things that have been left unresolved and there is some emotional connections that haven’t healed yet. But there’s no defensiveness to it at all, he’s taking all of the accountability and asking for a bit of forgiveness. Sonically the album is very sweet, minimal and intimate. Cohen's deep, rough and quiet vocals are up super close and are very dry. He sings very very soft and a lot of it is just spoken word. Theres beautiful string work throughout, it’s fairly simple and spacious. There’s gospel style female backing vocals. They don’t feel triumphant or big, they feel more ceremonious. The album is overall tonally quite dark and there’s not really any big dramatic moments or explosions of emotions. And all of these elements help to create why this is an incredibly beautiful farewell.