On the other end of the coolness spectrum, I also listened to "Journey to Voltus B", HENGE's latest album, and found it to be a surprisngly atmospheric, enveloping and coherent journey from Earth to a foreign planet. Their best album since "ExoKosm".
The only downside to it being this monolithic 90 min mix of crushingly bleak drones played on faulty equipment and minimalist piano ballads is God knows how I'll have the time to revisit it. Worth revisiting though
"Louder, Please" starts as an album of very enjoyable 90s techno pastiches, ticking each major sound off one-by-one, only to slow down during its back half and reveal that Rose Gray's great strength is her ability to use club music to paint sweeping emotional portraits. Very, very fun.
Biig Piig's "11:11" - wobbly bass lines, spacey synths, some glitch music influences, and one great pop medley after another. Really excellent pop album.
Sarges' art pop style is made from a series of very distinct sounds and each song is her trying out new ideas for them, particularly her vocals which are often falsetto, duplicated and keep falling in and out of sync with each other. This is just going to keep growing on me throughout the year.
Comments
The only downside to it being this monolithic 90 min mix of crushingly bleak drones played on faulty equipment and minimalist piano ballads is God knows how I'll have the time to revisit it. Worth revisiting though
Album of the year so far