Various Music Reviews

A list of albums I have or am currently listening to, and what I think about them. Refreshed semiregularly?

I no longer have Spotify, so my main way of finding new music is a combination of YouTube, radio stations like NTS and KEXP, DJ sets (mostly from Boiler Room), and RateYourMusic.

I have a RateYourMusic and Listenbrainz profile, but in the interest of not relying on a third party service, I’ll write some reviews here.

May 2026

Most of these reviews were written in May 2026, but I’m only just polishing it up in Sept 2026. Better late than never?

I was in Japan for vacation and was able to spend some time at Recofan in Akihabara, which had a large selection of used CDs. I don’t ordinarily buy CDs (or really any physical media), but in the interest of owning more of my music collection (rather than just relying on YouTube) I figured picking up a few for cheap might be fun.

The albums I picked up were as follows (all are various types of “electronic music”, so you can skip past if that’s not your thing; also this list is in the order of the year that the album came out):

• “Feed Me Weird Things” by Squarepusher (IDM)
  • I’ve listened to this album partially, but never in full. “Squarepusher’s Theme” is great, and exactly what I think of when people describe IDM/ambient/the weirder bits of electronic music that Aphex Twin and Squarepusher make as “electronic jazz”.

• “Come to Daddy” by Aphex Twin (IDM)
  • I’ve listened to a fair amount of Richard’s stuff by this point - “Windowlicker” was my entry into his work (and with quite the music video to go along with it), but over the years I’ve listened to “Selected Ambient Works ’85-92”, “…I Care Because You Do”, “The Richard D. James Album”, “Drukqs”, and “Syro”. Of these, I think “Drukqs” being the weird project (OK, among Aphex Twin albums at least) is actually pretty fun and makes for my favorite listen (“Vordhosbn” is probably the the best even though it starts off fairly chill). I’m not really sure why it was so polarizing when it first came out – I think it’s a pretty great entry in his catalog.
  • I’ve never actually listened to the full “Come to Daddy” EP, other than the title track (maybe because it’s technically not an album, and thus wasn’t shuffled into Spotify/YouTube/whatever? I don’t know).
  • Obligatory plug for the AFX remix of Spiral Staircase (also known as Orphans, or the first track off Orphans).

• “Surrender” by The Chemical Brothers (big beat, rave)
  • I just saw this on the shelf and decided to pick it up. I’ve listened to a few Chemical Brothers tracks before, including “Star Guitar” (with an extremely satisfying music video made by Michel Gondry, the same guy who did music videos for Daft Punk and The White Stripes, among others) and “Another World”, but I had never listened to a full Chemical Brothers album. Surrender was the one with the highest average RateYourMusic rating, so it seemed like a good choice.
  • “Out of Control” and “Orange Wedge” are probably my favorite tracks. “Out of Control” is a pretty long, typical big beat track, but the glitchier moments are so fun. “Orange Wedge”, weirdly enough, reminds me of some of Caribou’s earlier work (more on that later).
  • I don’t really remember the rest of the album. I think it was fine overall, but those are probably the two tracks that stuck with me.
  • (Completely arbitrary rating): 6/10. It’s good, glad I tried it, but I guess the Chemical Brothers are one of those artists I’ll come back to every once in a while rather than obsess over their music.

• “Rooms” by Machinedrum (RateYourMusic calls this footwork? That’s not really what comes to mind for me - more glitchier house music?)
  • I’ve listened to Sepalcure before (of which Machinedrum is a member) and enjoyed their music before (“Carrot Man”). I’ve never listened to a Machinedrum solo project, but the CD was on the shelf and listed for cheap, so thought I’d give it a shot.
  • The opening track (“TMPL”) sounds like a Sepalcure track to me (which is a good thing!)

• “Pull My Hair Back” by Jessy Lanza (RateYourMusic calls this “alt R&B” and “synthpop”; I think synthpop is fitting, but it’s a different kind of synthpop compared to like, Daft Punk’s Discovery or something)
  • In contrast to the previous four albums, this is one that I’ve listened to a lot. I first heard of Jessy Lanza through her feature on Caribou’s album (incidentally, the next one in this list) and this album was her debut (as well as my first exposure to her work).
  • I think when I first heard this album in 2022, I had “Against the Wall” and “Pull My Hair Back” (title track) on repeat, but ever since listening to “5785021” on a bus headed for NYC, I think this is easily my favorite track off the album (and among my favorite Jessy Lanza tracks altogether). The synths, bass, and drums are awesome - everything sounds so textured. Jessy’s vocals are also really catchy and complete the track well. “Keep Moving” is also great. “Strange Emotion” is too, but I feel like I don’t listen to it as often as “5785021” or “Keep Moving”.
  • As much as I do like this album, I think there are catchier tracks on “Oh No” and “All The Time” (“Going Somewhere”, “Lick In Heaven” come to mind, “Face” and “Ice Creamy” on “All The Time” have some really funky vocal processing on too).
  • (Completely arbitrary rating): 7.5/10: Pretty great. I listen to this album fairly regularly, but alongside “Oh No” and “All The Time”. I think “Love Hallucination” is probably my least favorite release of hers, though I wouldn’t call it a bad album, just not really my thing.

• “Our Love” by Caribou (indietronica/synthpop)
  • This is completely irrelevant to the music but the fact that Dan Snaith was advised by Kevin Buzzard for his PhD is just insane to me, lol. Does Dan know Lean??
  • I originally got this album because Dan made all of his music free on Bandcamp for the 20th(?) anniversary of “Start Breaking My Heart” (his debut). Picking up the CD in Tokyo felt like the right thing to do considering how much I’ve enjoyed it for the past few years.
  • “Can’t Do Without You” and “Our Love” (title track) are probably the best known tracks from this album, and they are good, but I kind of agree with Anthony Fantano’s criticism that they just kind of fizzle out after a really great buildup.
  • “All I Ever Need”, “Second Chance” (with Jessy Lanza!), and “Your Love Will Set You Free” are the best tracks on this album, in my opinion. I like the vocals and production on all three.
  • Even though I think “Swim” (the preceding album) and “Suddenly” (the following album) have higher highs than “Our Love” (“Odessa” and “Leave House” on Swim, “Never Come Back” and “You and I” on “Suddenly”), I feel like “Our Love” has the best batting average of the three.
  • “Andorra” (which came out prior to Swim) is also great, but musically comes from a very different place - it’s much lighter on the synths and electronic instrumentation, and draws a lot more from indie/psych music. I think that album has some Beatles-esque music on it, particularly “Melody Day”. I’ve also heard his music compared to that of Arthur Russell - I’m not that familiar with Russell’s work, but from what I have heard (“You Did It Yourself”) they do sound similar, especially on this album. Moving to before “Andorra”: “Start Breaking My Heart” (his debut) is a solid IDM album, but I haven’t listened to much of “Up in Flames” or “The Milk of Human Kindness” (his second and third albums respectively). It is cool to see how much he’s evolved as an artist over these releases - “Start Breaking My Heart” feels like its own thing, followed by psychedelic/indie-ish stuff on his next three albums, and a turn towards the electronic on albums since 2010.
  • Where I’ve unfortunately soured on Dan’s music is his most recent (Caribou) album, “Honey”. The production sounded bland and pretty generic (one RateYourMusic review called it “plasticky” and that definitely describes it well). I guess that might be OK for a release as part of his other project, Daphni, but alongside releases like “Our Love” or “Suddenly”, “Honey” just sounds so much less interesting. Oh, and there were AI generated vocals on that album, which…ughhh. I’m not completely against AI in art/music (I think “Now and Then” by The Beatles is pretty great), but Dan using this to sound like a Pinkpantherss clone (on “Break My Heart”) or a rapper (“Campfire”) is just so cringe. Not only is the AI aspect off-putting, but the vocals don’t even sound good (the rap verse on “Campfire” is probably the worst thing I’ve heard on any Caribou release). I’m not really sure why this has a 3.06 rating on Rate Your Music, because it’s really not that good.
  • (Completely arbitrary rating): 7.5/10: Also pretty great. I like a lot of the tracks on “Our Love” and I think the 2010 - 2020 run for Caribou was made up of three really solid albums. Just too bad that he seems to be going in a different (and less interesting) direction recently, but hopefully he explores some of the sounds on Swim/Suddenly (or this album) again.

Other songs/tracks/albums:

• “Polish Girl” by Neon Indian, from the album “Era Extrana” (chillwave)
  • Chillwave is awesome. The fact that I’m ~16 years late to the trend of bloggers praising this genre is irrelevant, because it’s awesome.
  • “Polish Girl” is the best Neon Indian/Alan Palomo/Vega/etc track out there. It’s the best chillwave track, and it’s easily one of my favorite songs of all time.
  • The live versions of this song are even better. I was partial to the KEXP version for a long time, but I recently found a recording of Neon Indian playing the song on Fallon in 2011 and it’s fantastic.
• “In Daytona Yellow” by Leon Vynehall (house)
  • I think “Music for the Uninvited” and “Nothing is Still” are incredible albums, and I routinely listen to both. I wouldn’t say that they’re super experimental or adventerous, but “Music for the Uninvited” is a fantastic collection of house tracks, and “Nothing is Still”’s concept (basically the story of Leon’s grandparents moving from England to live in NYC for a few years in the ’60s, as told through these semi-ambient house tracks) is great and serves as this really vivid soundtrack.
  • “Rare, Forever” (the album that followed “Nothing is Still”) was just not a project that really stuck with me, so I was looking forward to “In Daytona Yellow”. I think the opener is pretty great, and the tracks where Leon himself is singing are actually quite good - yes, there’s quite a bit of processing/effects on his voice, but I think it works pretty well. However, I wasn’t impressed by a lot of the features (both vocals and the production on “You Strange Precious Thing” sounds pretty uninteresting) - only “Romantica” seemed like a track where the guest vocalist and Leon worked together well.
  • If “Music for the Uninvited” and “Nothing is Still” are both 8/10s, this is probably a 5 or 6/10.
• “Faith in Strangers”, by Andy Stott (UK garage, ambient)
  • The title track is one of my favorite songs of all time. The instrumentation really sells the moodiness, and Alison Skidmore’s vocals serve as an excellent counterweight.
  • I’m not sure what exactly the title track does better than a lot of other Andy Stott songs, but it definitely does something better. Maybe the vocals, or the overall song structure? Anyway, when he’s repeated this formula on his more recent albums (“Hard to Tell”), it really works well.
  • That’s not to say the rest of the album is bad (not by a long shot). The opening synths on “No Surrender” (which I can only describe as…anxious?) are really pretty, and even more low-key tracks like “Science and Industry” sound great. The bass on “Violence” reminds me of Geffalstein, I guess? Not an artist I listen to frequently, but I guess this track shares a lot with his abrasive, crepuscular production style. Stott also seems influenced by Burial, but (obvious) sampling doesn’t feature as heavily in his work compared to an album like “Untrue”.
  • There’s a new Andy Stott album on the way! I am looking forward to it.
• I’ll have to write about them in full at some point, but the new(ish) Boards of Canada album “Inferno” is excellent, as is the new Lusine album, “Melting Days”. I’ve also been listening to more music from Junior Boys since finding a CD of their debut album in Santa Cruz back in June (“Last Exit”, but I’ve also been listening to their second album, “So This Is Goodbye”).