Fifteen years later and I still don't have the vocabulary to describe the guitar tone in "Bat Macumba."

the PC Music month of mayhem comp, bad AFX cover aside, is actually better than their second eponymous comp

it's trashy splashy fun! it's got MC Boing AND Pobbles, so there.

bainbrombs

people talk a lot of shit about brainbombs being like the ultimate rock 'n' roll expression of unbridled id and like the band that would make Fun House shit itself and Joseph Minghella say "that's nasty" but I'm calling shenanigans. They're mildly diverting at best but there's just something so ungainly and goofy about the whole affair that's probably good in that it makes them impossible to take seriously as serial hatchet murderers but it's also bad because it makes them impossible to take seriously as noize godz. It seems so silly now that I was afraid to listen to them for fear that I was going to REALLY love them and then be forced to defend those lyrics. No chance of that - they're a novelty act, Turbonegro for wannabe nihilists. They're Cards Against Humanity: the band.

king gizzard orchestral carnatic funk metal and folktronic serialist glitch-dabke albums when?

is there a single more versatile artist in the world today...

than Áine O'Dwyer? I guess she really only alternates between tape stuff and drone and, of course, organ improv, with that one big 180 into being Joanna and Nico's lovechild but I dunno that still covers a lot of more disparate ground than most artists even on the fringe. She's the best and I still can't pronounce her name, God bless 'er.

reggae canon is best canon

oh how the hater has been laid low and made to change her tune! King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown. You know it, you probably love it - I didn't. Oh, it was fine. But y'know, I'm theContrariangorbler. Today tho low and behold shit clicked. It's a gently surrealistic watercolor paint-on-glass animation, it's a hazy tan, tangerine and teal daydream. The title track is still easily the weakest cut - it's pretty much the ideal dub cut but it just don't move me for whatever reason. The rest is just as good as virtually every music nerd friend I've ever had has always said it is - and the first half is especially magnificent. But y'all know that.

new benjamin clementine is legit, ftr.

If ever a band or project was aptly named, it'd be Aural Holograms. First track on their album is some of the most compelling and immersive "walking around an abandoned alien spacecraft" music I've yet to hear - really fantastic stuff. The second is quite nice, too, but then they stretch 12-15 minutes of idea for 40 minutes and it regressively goes from being commendably spooked to at least sonically interesting if not exactly atmospheric anymore to just plain dull. Pity because a couple more tracks like that opener and we'd have a classic.