Irregular Album Roundup #2

While the world's going to shit, here's a few records I'd been rotating through back when my commute was over 30 seconds.

Swimmer - Tennis (2020)

I never sampled Tennis before this album. I knew they were termed "indie pop" which I unfairly surmised to mean "ever so slightly off-kilter pop songs that I probably wouldn't return to" and never gave them a chance.

Well, I've listened to their latest release Swimmer, and you know what? These are ever so slightly off-kilter pop songs that I can't keep away from. Swimmer's nine tracks are loaded with variety, from chamber-pop(?) opener "I'll Haunt You" to tempo-shifting drum-and-piano "Need Your Love," dreamy 80s synth-pop "Runner" to late-night-tropical-walk-on-the-beach-with-a-loved-one (or LNTWotBWaLO, it'll catch on) soundtrack "Tender as a Tomb". Each tune's already bursting with identity, but what really seals the deal are Alaina Moore's vocals. She's not one to belt out a song, but every earworm of a line is delivered with a honey-soaked confidence and have enough twists and turns to make your ears gleefully perk up every time.

Swimmer's short 31 minute runtime works in its favor. Although nothing on here will blow you away, its short length and smart pop sensibilities makes Swimmer an infinitely relistenable album when you're not really sure what record to reach for.

Recommended Tracks

Honestly, every track, but if I'm pressed:

1. "Need Your Love"
2. "How to Forgive"
3. "Runner"
4. "Tender as a Tomb"

Instrument Soundtrack - Fugazi (1999)

Two decades before the Internet made it cool, Fugazi dared to ask – "What if lofi hip hop beats to relax/study to already existed? And were GOOD?"

This blog doesn't support a comment section (yet), but I'm sure if it did, I'd be getting a lot of hate mail right about now. Don't worry – I enjoy lofi hip hop beats as much as the next guy (hit me up in the nonexistent comments with your favorite lofi Square Enix compilations!), and I know this album falls squarely outside of that category. However, this demo collection is lofi, is filled to the brim with quirky Fugazi rhythms and beats, and is great to relax and study to. Before coronavirus turned me into a house zombie, I took the metro to work everyday. In between sounds of the train's rickety shaking and loud-mouthed passengers who never understand that wearing headphones does NOT mean their end of the conversation is muted too, I'd been working through a dense history of the wargaming and fantasy literature that inspired the original Dungeons and Dragons. This is not an ideal environment for loud music with vocals, but Fugazi of all bands kept me sane and focused on my reading for many a trip. Who needs binaural beats when you've got demos as chill as these?

There's some fun oddballs in here too. "Afterthought" is a meditative 90 seconds that Toby Fox should have stolen for the Undertale soundtrack. "Turkish Disco" grooves along with an irrestible bassline forming the backbone of a fun little improvisational piece. Then there's everyone's favorite off this album, "I'm So Tired." A two minute piano ballad with Ian MacKaye at his most vulnerable, this song sounds nothing like Fugazi but sheds light on an alternate timeline where MacKaye captured audiences for years with spellbinding ballads about bitter apathy. I wonder if 2020's doing any better in that timeline.

Recommended Tracks

1. "Afterthought"
2. "Turkish Disco"
3. "I'm So Tired"

The Fallen Crimson - envy (2020)

You know a band is either pretentious and boring or pretentious but actually kinda really good when they can't be bothered to capitalize their own name.

Japanese hardcore outfit envy have been releasing music for over two decades, but I never tried them until The Fallen Crimson released this year. Bands that have been around for that long are typically putting out drab and uninspired drivel (hello, Rivers Cuomo!), but I find it hard to believe an album this good was released so late into a band's career. More than just your average hardcore band, envy bring enough elements of post rock to the table to transform their already ungodly riffs (seriously, "Fingerprint mark" is headbanger of the year) into emotional rollercoasters.

If you want a perfect sampler of this album, check out the run of "A faint new world" into "Rhythm" and "Marginalized thread". This trio encapsulates everything I love about this album, featuring screams set against frantic and dissonant tremelo picking, spoken word vocals paired with the seething furor of a sound clawing to burst, dreamy and contemplative passages with emotional guest female vocals, triumphant life-affirming riffs, and a ferocious climax sprinkled with blast beats. It's a lot to take in over just 15 minutes, but envy's careful and lively pacing ensures nothing overstays its welcome, and everything gets the perfect amount of time in the limelight.

Recommended Tracks

1. "A faint new world"
2. "Rhythm"
3. "Marginalized thread"
4. "Fingerprint mark"

Our Last Sunrise - Aurora B.Polaris (2016)

I came across this album on a YouTube compilation video called Wonderland whose thumbnail features a fisherman just chilling with his dog casting out his rod to catch a whale. A whale in the sky. I purposely clicked on this video hoping it would inspire me as I prepared for my upcoming D&D campaign set on the back of a giant behemoth roaming the world (if that at all sounds familiar, just wait until the next album). It pretty generally hit the spot as background music until seven minutes in. That's when "Departure To The Front Lines Of Our Heart" hit like a Xenoblade titan sized truck.

Some necessary context: I love old school 90's Japanese Roleplaying Game (JRPG) soundtracks. Nobuo Uematsu was literally my most-listened-to artist of 2019. Much to my girlfriend's dismay, I shrieked from the comfort of a Prague Airbnb bed upon reading the news that Square Enix would be releasing all of the Final Fantasy soundtracks on Spotify. The genre's focus on simple melodies warped through the lens of complex orchestral pieces on primitive MIDI hardware reveals the lengths legendary composers like Uematsu and Yasunori Mitsuda would go to in spite of the technical limitations put on them.

While many modern game scores have lost this sense of flare and style in favor of generic orchestral action movie scores, modern JRPG's still stick with the above approach to songwriting, albeit with the wide possibilities of full orchestration in front of them. Songs with simple and repititve melodies are given the chance to evolve and morph these little motifs into all the possible variations they can.

This overly long prelude may explain why The Last Sunrise, an EP with no relation to video game music at all, is totally my jam. This music gives me the same vibes modern JRPG soundtracks like Octopath Traveler or Xenoblade Chronicles 2 do, with "Childish Love" and "Departure To The Front Lines Of Our Heart" in particular inspiring listeners with their own visions of the colorful and the fantastical. The other three songs are a little hit-or-miss, but I genuinely adore these two tunes for the childlike wonder I feel when I close my eyes.

Recommended Tracks

1. "Childish Love"
2. "Departure To The Front Lines Of Our Heart"

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 OST - Yasunori Mitsuda, ACE, Kenji Hiramatsu, Manami Kiyota

I have a lot to say on Xenoblade Chronicles 2. I unabashedly love this game for its setting and worldbuilding alone, but just about every piece of this game's quality armor exposes some chink for my game critic's blade to pierce. Nearly everything is equal parts good and equal parts bad.

Except for the soundtrack. It is flawless and must be protected at all costs from invasive game critics.

I knew this soundtrack was rocking from the moment the first battles punched me in the jaw with the semi-proggy "Exploration (Combat Theme 2)", but nothing could prepare me for the monstrous jam that was "Counterattack". If your aesthetic includes "big, epic, and kinda dumb" like mine does, you'll appreciate that every big, epic, and kinda dumb climactic moment in XC2 is perfectly synced to this titan of a track. This bad boy's got it all – quiet electric guitars slowly building tension towards the chorus, ridiculously triumphant strings to get anyone hyped, a smooth bridge for the bass to just do its own thing for a few bars, and the general sensation that you can kick that smarmy and suspiciously sexy anime villain's ass anyday. If I ever piss anyone off enough to make them want to kill me, I sincerely hope this plays while they get their revenge on me. They deserve it.

Elsewhere, the soundtrack shines best with its stunning environmental themes, each of come with their own day and night versions. Exploring the wide open plains of Gormott, the eerily beautiful innards of Uraya, the mechanical wastelands of Mor Adain, and the frigid snowstorms of Tantal wouldn't be the same without these evocative tunes that always capture exactly what's in front of you. These songs are seriously so good I can't listen to them while working because they distract me with memories of the worlds I'd seen and conquered throughout XC2.

Recommended Tracks

1. "Counterattack"
2. "Gormott"
3. "Mor Ardain - Roaming the Wastes"
4. "Tantal - Night"
5. "Gramps (Fonsett Village)"
6. "Garfont Mercenaries"
7. "Kingdom of Uraya"
8. "Friendship"
9. "Exploration (Combat Theme 2)"