2023 music blog

1. Green Mirror – Secret Circuit

This year I played ~400 hours of Dwarf Fortress, and there were many days in May where this was my soundtrack for doing so! works best as “getting in the zone” music when you’re wearing headphones. this has been getting a lot of repeat listens recently as i’ve been working on some OSR dungeon crawler type stuff, it really nails the vibe.

⭐: Every Day There’s Something New To Say, Stillitude, Light on the Sand, The Song of the Sea

2. Red Moon in Venus – Kali Uchis

i’ve seen maybe 3 james bond movies total, including the one where he gets ball tortured, but if i had my way the next one would feature an intro song by kali uchis. i just think she can really hit the mark and this album proves it.

⭐: I Wish You Roses, Worth The Wait, All Mine, Hasta Quando

3. With a Hammer – Yaeji

perfect for going climbing. if i was directing a new anime for BLAME! i would pick yaeji to do the soundtrack. i’m listening to what the netflix adaptation’s soundtrack and it’s perfectly fine i think, but something about yaeji’s work really captures the cavernous vastness megacity with the diameter of Jupiter.

⭐: For Granted, I’ll Remember for Me, I’ll Remember for You, Hap

4. I Hope You Can Forgive Me – Madison McFerrin

is madison mcferrin a nepo baby? she doesn’t have her on wikipedia page so it kinda seems like maybe she isn’t. either way, she’s good at what she does! this is a classically “good” album: her voice sounds good, it’s produced well, the penultimate song has a good keychange accompanied by electric guitar in the back third, basically all of the marks. i don’t think it does anything particularly new or inventive, but it doesn’t need to because the foundations are so strong.

⭐: Fleeting Melodies, (Please Don’t) Leave me Now, Utah

5. Coast 2 Coast – Pearl & The Oysters

album of the summer!!! (one of many) i love pearl & the oyster’s whole deal, their music is fucking weird computer sounds for big nerds and i’m eating it up. i hate cars but i love driving around, does that make sense? it’s nice to ride with the windows down listening to a bright and breezy little album, especially near the water. that’s what this album is for!

⭐: Fireflies, Pacific Ave, Moon Canyon Park, Paraiso

6. Why Does the Earth Give us People to Love? – Kara Jackson

you just have to listen to it, the whole thing, all in one whack. wear headphones while you do it. go for a walk, lay down, sit and watch dark clouds move across the sky of an otherwise bright day.

⭐: no fun/party, pawnshop, rat, liquor

7. The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We – Mitski

before this album i had only listened to one Mitski song more than once and it was “me and my husband” which i had on repeat for quite a long while at a point that i don’t really remember. i must give credit to my partner for showing me “bug like an angel” in the car one day, because it’s what made me decide to listen to this album.

i’m usually up and out of the house by 6am, trudging to the bus stop in the rain and the dark in order to get to the lightrail station so that i can go to work. this album works best for me at those times, and on the way home as i stare out the train window at an already-setting sun.

⭐: Bug Like an Angel, The Deal, My Love Mine All Mine, I’m Your Man

8. Alchemy – Disclosure

a tour through genres of electronic music. feels a lot like the duo just saying “hey btw we can do all this really well” and tbh, they can! having listened to the rest of their discography since the first time i wrote about this album, i def feel like it’s their strongest work. they do really good stuff when working with other artists but when it’s just the two of them their artistry really stands out.

⭐ Looking for Love, Higher Than Ever Before, Purify

9. Mr. Big Shot – Wallice

we are in the renaissances era of girl rock and thank god for that. big feelings album about growing up, moving past the old notions of self, and getting the fuck out of the town that’s killing u. good shit!!

⭐: Quarterlife, Disappear, Why Do You Love Me?

10. ANTIHERO – Ahn Dayoung (# 안다영)

I’ve written about this album many many times because I’m trying to get more people to listen to it. It might be one of my favorite albums of all time and no, i don’t know the lyrics to even a single one of these songs. it’s good, it’s dark, it’s moody, the album art is all fucked up. what more does a girl need?

⭐️: Zini, Usual Person, Moss, Revolver

11. Dusk to Dawn – Lamp

keeps getting better and better. thank u Lamp for continuing to make music. when i lived in california i used to go to this cafe called Plume’s and i would listen to Lamp all the time while doing evo bio homework. i never want to move back to california but i do enjoy recreating that experience with this album. u know, despite seattle being a “coffee city” i’ve yet to find a cafe that really hits the same vibe that plume’s did. maybe it’s because i don’t live downtown and everything around me is for parents to take their kids after soccer.

anyways this album fucking rips. on their wiki it says they take inspo from “Brazilian music, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, and Simon & Garfunkel.” I feel like more than any other album these influences really shine through. just a delight from beginning to end.

⭐: The Last Dance, Bedroom Afternoon, Old Notebook, Alone in My Room

12. From Whence It Came – yungmorpheus

the instrumentals on this fuckin HIT man. you can listen to Hold Tighter // Don’t Mention It and feel the inspiration from artists like Monodrone and haircuts for men, combined with lyrics that produce ponderous tracks for you to bob your head to. surprisingly a fairly long rap album too, clocking in at 50 minutes over 19 tracks, this is the type of thing i would have had on at 18 smoking weed at my buddy’s house while playing mortal kombat.

⭐: Hold Tighter // Don’t Mention It, Free Form Cash (Shoutro), What You Won’t Do

13. Get Up – NewJeans

good ass k-pop. takes lots of inspo from 90s jungle, modern glitch, stuff like anamanaguchi, and wraps it all up in a neat little package. unfortunately it’s also very short, a 10 minute listen. that’s just part of the industry for a lot of these groups though, looking at my collection the longest album I can find is aespa’s “Girls” which is 31 minutes. oh well!

⭐: Cool With You, Get Up, ASAP

14. Paths – G Jones

before this album i had never heard of G Jones before but this is possibly one of the best bass albums i have ever heard. each track has so much going on in it, but they’re all distinct in their sound and approach, with very little overlap from track to track. the transition from Maybe to In My Room is so stark that it throws me off each time, but despite being so polarly opposite from each other they’re both amazing!

⭐: Paths, Perpetual Bloom, Liminality, Maybe

15. pale machine 2 – bo en

a real “judging a book by its cover moment” for me, because the album art for this is rly sick. i had not listened to pale machine 1 before this so on the first listen i did not pick up on the fact that it’s in conversation with bo en’s previous work pretty heavily. despite that i had a great time. feels very resonant with the work of Leon Chang, bubbly and upbeat, dipping into a bunch of other electronic genres when it needs to. going back and listening to the original pale machine you can really see how bo en grew as an artist over the last decade.

⭐: prelude, every day I walk around like crazy! don’t you?, our time

16. seeyalater stratocaster – ippo.tsk

prior to this the only vocaloid music i had really listened to was Eve Vocaloid 01, because despite her iconicity Hatsune Miku doesn’t really do it for me. english vocaloids are usually a bit too uncanny for me to listen to, but ippo.tsk manages to produce a voice that still sounds artificial but in a much more naturalistic way, only letting the illusion slip a bit on parts of songs that have a lot of emotion behind them, a choice i think was intentional. seeyalater stratocaster hijacked my brain from the moment i hit play– that 3-song run of taste the rain, fall semester song, and oyasunimation had me hooting and hollering. three absolutely perfect tracks, the type of stuff you’d hear from an early-2000s anime OP or ED.

a wildly hopeful album about harboring inside yourself a joyful defiance in spite of the way the world is.

⭐: Taste the Rain, Fall Semester Song, Oyasunimation

17. Pocket Fantasy – mamalarky

remember what i said about girl rock earlier? we’re EATING right now. psychedelic sunshine rock. on their bandcamp page they say that they would take breaks from working on this to go hang out by the creek and soak up the sun, and you can feel it in each track! this album is bright and resonant, even slower songs like It Hurts go down like liquid gold. can’t wait to listen to this on a warm summer’s day again.

⭐: Frog 2, Mythical Bonds, Shining Armor, Now

18. Serotonin II – yeule

like a decade+ ago i kickstarted a game called Radio The Universe that i’ve been following the development on ever since. it looks great, you should check it out when it releases! this album really takes me to the same sort of auditory imaginary space. vast, ethereal and, if not desolate, then sparse.

⭐: Pocky Boy, Poison Arrow, Pretty Bones

19. Tapestry – Carole King

a perfect album. have you heard about carole king? she wrote the music for the hit children’s musical Really Rosie? i don’t normally rate albums, i’m going to go ahead and say this is a 5 star album. there is not a single bad moment on this entire album. they simply do not make them like this anymore.

⭐: Did you not just read what I wrote? they’re all good !!!

20. Marci – Marci

marci is a part of the band TOPS, a band that is equally amazing in their own right. this is her first solo albums,, and is one of THE modern pop albums. truly a standout in the field. nearly every track on here could be the single to carry an entire album, and she’s got like 6 or 7 of them all on one. there’s a reason this is my second-most listened to album this year.

⭐: Play By Play, Entertainment, Deeper Shade of Blue, BB I Would Die

21. Air Guitar – Sobs

very well put together album, high energy the whole way through. if stuff this good had existed in the 2000s we could have averted the christian tooth & nail moment that spawned bands like relient k and hawk nelson. alas, we take what we can get. regardless power pop is sooooooooo back i can’t even believe how lucky we are

⭐: Friday Night, Lucked Out, LOML

22. Live at Electric Lady – Remi Wolf

if you know my blog at all you know i’m the world’s #1 remi wolf stan. she has one of those voices we’ll be talking about for decades, and this album does a great job of showcasing some of her best songs in a new light. alyson lewis fka fillegrossiere gave me the idea for a playlist of songs that i would listen to if i was riding a horse. remi’s cover of Pink + White is one of those songs for me., and her new rendition of Liz stuns.

⭐: wyd, Pink + White, Liz

23. Expert in a Dying Field – The Beths

i have got to see the beths in concert, i’ve just gotta. i can never be in a bad mood while i’m listening to this album, i always have a good time when it’s on. which is funny i suppose, because the album itself is about a breakup and surviving the pandemic (which as we all know is still ongoing and has not “stopped” as some may have you believe). i’m reading another review for this album on my other screen right now and can i just ask you all, if i ever use the word “ditty” to please put me down.

⭐: Expert in a Dying Field, Silence is Golden, I Want to Listen

24. 創業 – punipunidenki

holy shit this album is so good. i know city pop is having its moment out here in the west currently, but i’d love nothing more than for this type of j-pop to catch on more widely. jazzy and electric, this album evokes the feelings of driving around the city late at night. i’m looking at their bandcamp right now and seeing they have a vinyl version of this …….. i don’t normally go in for physical media but this is good enough that i’d consider it.

⭐: Night Session, ラ​ス​ト​・​サ​マ​ー, ずるくない？

25. Flaming Swords – Fievel Is Glaque

experimental jazzpop. highly technical songs that are not very long but manage to do so much. the sound is reminiscent of the album Troupeau Bleu from Cortex back in 1975, but flaming swords takes everything that 10% further. i know i’ve been making lots of demands re: letting me direct various anime but I think they’d slay a Lupin III anime soundtrack. again just let me know if you wanna set that up, i’ve got some ideas.

⭐: Less to Be, Porn of Love, Paging Agent Starling, The Trick