https://www.sonicflight.org/contact daily 0.75 2024-03-26 https://www.sonicflight.org/reviews daily 1.0 2024-03-28 https://www.sonicflight.org/reviews/newermusic-yfn7p monthly 0.5 2024-03-25 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6601cc358b110b679a18cc95/290c5232-9004-4518-9e64-2fbc9856ad1a/a1829975877_10.jpg Reviews - Newer Music Songs by Adrianne Lenker is a visceral, poetic capsule of feelings of heartbreak and isolation. In “Ingydar,” Lenker sings, “his eyes are blueberries, video screens, Minneapolis schemes and the dried flowers from books half-read… the juice of dark cherries cover his chin, the dog walks in and the crow lies in his jaw like lead… everything eats and is eaten, time is fed.” Lenker captures the hidden, buried, real, and vulnerable. Her music feels like familiarity and home. It’s difficult writing about music sometimes because nothing can exactly capture the music except itself–there’s a mystery and nuance to Adrianne Lenker’s music that that sentiment certainly applies to. Songs will undoubtedly be in my (and many people’s) heads, hearts and playlists for a long time. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6601cc358b110b679a18cc95/fa8507bf-fadf-4332-8c53-8eb7631e4e9c/soccer-mommy---clean-album-art_sq-63ef97114b973aaaad57ed3f1e144f358fab486e.jpg Reviews - Newer Music Soccer Mommy's 2018 album Clean was a transformative discovery in the realm of modern indie and bedroom rock for me. Sophie Allison's smooth guitar work and catchy riffs on "Cool" and "Your Dog" are novel and badass. Her softer songs, such as "Still Clean," "Flaw," and "Blossom (Wasting All My Time)," form the emotional core of the album with their raw, confessional tones and lasting resonance. Clean transports you to a summer filled with isolation, heartbreak, and the giddy excitement of new love, capturing those feelings with an authenticity that lingers. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6601cc358b110b679a18cc95/cec4f90c-ef93-499e-b5d0-c9b5aaefe219/Screen+Shot+2024-05-02+at+9.58.15+AM.png Reviews - Newer Music Bnny's 2021 album Everything was written following the death of her partner and is an album that explores grief beautifully–in a dreamy, playful way at times–rapidly accepting the absurdity of it and exploring the feelings of numbness and denial. "Everyone says life goes on / Don't they know they're wrong?" (Thaw) – You can feel Viscius's pain and longing throughout the whole thing, gnawing at your heart gently, allowing acceptance of every feeling. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6601cc358b110b679a18cc95/8765c1bf-84de-415c-b429-1fc8666e6d8c/Screen+Shot+2024-05-02+at+9.58.28+AM.png Reviews - Newer Music Taylor Swift’s pandemic albums Folklore and Evermore brought all of us into refreshing territory, showing a deeply sad, poetic Taylor that felt even rawer in some ways than Red Taylor. The Tortured Poets Department was a highly anticipated and overwhelmingly disappointing album, using the same Jack Antonoff synths and chords that were used on Midnights, Reputation and Lover. There’s hardly anything novel to her body of work in this album, and it feels less like an album and more like a purge of feelings that could’ve been executed really beautifully if she had put in another year working on it. That’s not to say there aren’t great moments – the bridges in “So Long, London” and “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” are intoxicating and songs on the bonus album like “How Did It End?” and “Peter” are beautiful… but not quite enough to bring solace to the analytic listener about the lack of novelty in this album. I’d like to hear Taylor write a soft acoustic album or a rock album – There is a piece missing in her music as she appeals to the crowd interested in lyrical complexity, but continues to lack in musical complexity. Nonetheless, I will listen and bop out to this album. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6601cc358b110b679a18cc95/0073b043-9750-4da1-90c5-7269f777d60e/Screen+Shot+2024-04-13+at+2.34.01+PM.png Reviews - Newer Music I was excited to hear Eliza McLamb’s new album Going Through It after loving her 2022 song Pulp. Her lyrics are sophisticated and self-aware in this album as she reflects the past and present moments of her life: “Losing is so long/All my love stuck in a time that will always be gone” – from Before, a song which reminds me of Sufjan Stevens’ work. Glitter, Mythologize Me and Modern Woman undoubtedly feel like the bops of the album. Glitter is a song about caring for a friend in an unhealthy relationship, containing the blunt and compelling lyrics “I wanna kill your boyfriend” and “Everytime/that you say he loves me/I say that’s not what love means.” Mythologize Me is a fun, sarcastic song about wanting boys to, for lack of a better term, mythologize you – This song feels like a self-aware anthem that most young girls can probably relate to, with the amazing lyric “All I can do is fantasize/About how you fantasize about me.” To be honest, it does feel like “What would I ever do without men?” is sort of the wrong conclusion to this song that I think is, at heart, more about how we view ourselves as women. But the knowingly toxic, funny energy of this song is great and something that I’m not sure has been done before–It feels like something Soccer Mommy would write in an alternate universe where she’s a bit more unhinged. As much as I love the upbeat songs on this album, I think the song 16 is my favorite–The lo-fi, telephone vocal and dark synth of this one song brings the vibe of the entire album into new territory, and I’d love to hear more songs like that. What really stands out to me about McLamb is her ability to write cryptic, beautiful lyrics like “I’ll come later with a hammer and break open my burden” (16) and “Fake omnipotence so I can crawl back into bed” (Pulp). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6601cc358b110b679a18cc95/3e0bedca-f12d-420d-aa8a-45cec62fcea9/Screen+Shot+2024-04-01+at+3.15.29+PM.png Reviews - Newer Music Recently discovered Fog Lake’s Inference 3 (2017) and his other project farewell, alaska piano songs (2022), both of which are dreamy, nostalgic collections. piano songs makes me feel reminiscent of Aphex Twin’s piano instrumentals, and Inference 3 reminds me of Teen Suicide’s 2015 music, with its vocals buried underneath ambient, grainy guitar and piano sounds. Both collections feel comfortingly and endearingly sad and at times a bit dark and menacing like in “gladness / drone #3..” but dark and menacing in a way that makes you want to curl up with a soft blanket and watch life outside your window; grateful and curious in the discontentment. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6601cc358b110b679a18cc95/d11c53c8-c22d-4df9-a58c-2f5ff4defdc0/th-1221407066.jpg Reviews - Newer Music Sit Down for Dinner, Blonde Redhead’s newest album, is definitely a change in temperament from their previous albums–a collection of songs that conjure up words like ambient or synth pop and at times psychedelic folk / rock. This album feels like a breath of fresh air and a mark of growth, at times having sort of a Jesus and Mary Chain-like sound, relaxed and unhurried, somewhat surrendering to truths of life and death. If Misery is a Butterfly is an album you listen to when you want to be deep in your feelings, Sit Down for Dinner is the album you'd listen to in the aftermath, returning to routines, appreciating the small things that make life interesting and special. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6601cc358b110b679a18cc95/ed07b2af-3f69-487d-a4a4-111ec8ddd240/th-3630403355.jpg Reviews - Newer Music The duo Waveform’s 2023 album Antarctica slides into genres of electronic, indie / math rock, post punk and synthpop. The lo-fi vocal effects give the album sort of an early Death Cab For Cutie feel, especially in songs like “Firework,” “Antarctica,” and “Ocean” (a song which reminds me a bit of Mac DeMarco). The album feels emo in a way that is grounded in adulthood; Self-deprecating and lonely at times in a way that most people would understand. With catchy, crunchy riffs and elements that catch you off guard in the best way throughout, I found that every single song on the album hit something in me that fell deep into it. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6601cc358b110b679a18cc95/6bdc6b70-4896-4f53-a9b9-483ac51d2f5f/Greg-Mendez-Greg-Mendez-768x768-3064744105.jpg Reviews - Newer Music Greg Mendez’s 2023 self-titled album was one I had on repeat for months after it came out – Mendez’s vocals are comparable to Elliott Smith’s.. vulnerable yet controlled. His lyrics are brilliant: “Fuck, I’m paranoid/like my mom/And I wished she would say ‘sweetie I’m going away cause I don’t love you.’” (Sweetie)... “You’ve got the radio playing and all I can think is to change it to something I hate/It’s better than something that you like” (Best Behavior). “If you wanna be caught in some shark’s mouth/Spill a bucket of blood in the water” (Shark’s Mouth)... He sings about addiction, loss and complicated relationships, things that sting but are necessary to feel, necessary to be honest with yourself about. The guitar part in Shark’s Mouth is beautiful, as well as in all of the other songs, often evolving from happy strumming to soft postlude-like moments. While Maria is the song which I think initially sticks out to many (understandably), Goodbye/Trouble feels to me like the heart of the album. Such a heartbreaking and resilient album – There is so much pain and vulnerability in his words and music, but beneath the surface, you can feel his strength, and you can feel your own. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6601cc358b110b679a18cc95/1711395887234-DON34FD1OU2FUERZG77Y/a1667231887_16.jpg Reviews - Newer Music Listening to German Error Message feels like being transported to a rainy plot of land somewhere in Scandinavia or a train station in the middle of a snowstorm to wait for your long lost love. Paul Kintzing's lyrics are honest, fearful and sometimes cryptic in a way that makes them feel like parts of a poem, grabbing at feelings and phenomena that fell under the surface long ago: "Everything withers/Before it comes again... Hibernation/Caving in." The contrast of light and dark in the album cover feels like a reflection of the hiding and the uncovered, the "now" and the "before," the "two voices" of "want and need." This is both a sonically and lyrically beautiful album which makes me feel comfort in knowing that others are similarly worried and isolated in their own little worlds. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6601cc358b110b679a18cc95/1711395873750-NXVDOI6LPPHJA30LQC90/a3474069293_16.jpg Reviews - Newer Music Thanks So Much, an EP from the Chicago indie band Cusp, was something I highly anticipated after stumbling upon their debut album You Can Do It All, whose beautifully melodic yet darkly dense riffs made me want to cry myself to sleep while moshing. And it does not disappoint whatsoever; Jen Bender's Frankie Cosmos-esque vocals are heartbreaking and bittersweet as she sings about navigating the world of difficult people in "The Alternative," loss of childhood innocence in "Thanks So Much," and knowledge of the privacy and comfort that exists in isolation in "You Can't See Me." Cusp continues to amaze with their ability to stylishly capture feelings of nostalgia, anger, love, and impermanence. https://www.sonicflight.org/reviews/oldermusic-3hgda monthly 0.5 2024-03-25 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6601cc358b110b679a18cc95/9220fc6a-73bc-49ab-9c17-1bbf905105f2/Screen+Shot+2024-05-16+at+1.59.51+PM.png Reviews - Older Music Spiderland by Slint (1991) is undoubtedly one of my favorite post-rock albums. The songs feel a bit like bedtime stories that stay stuck with you long after listening, every line a metaphor for something, every note perfectly placed in the theme of the story. The music is menacing, melancholic, and powerful, burning with nostalgia, isolation, and truths of life… There’s not much to even say otherwise–the music speaks for itself. Spiderland was a masterpiece in its time and is still. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6601cc358b110b679a18cc95/514dcbca-3a3c-49ad-8d35-ef19fb502f8e/Screen+Shot+2024-04-11+at+4.54.18+PM.png Reviews - Older Music Sebadoh’s 1996 Harmacy is an indie rock album that is easily on the list of favorites. In “On Fire” Lou Barlow sings about having negative thoughts towards others and disappointing them, saying “Don’t hold it against me/Cause I know you’re lying too.” He captures the feeling exactly, the guilt of being brutally honest and fear of being sort of exiled from the world. “Nothing Like You” has sort of an eerie essence similar to that of Nirvana—Barlow sings “There’s a lot of girls in the world/That are nothing like you,” leaving the rest a bit up to interpretation. Harmacy is the complete embodiment of lo-fi New England 90s indie rock; 19 songs long, it is pretty much the perfect album to listen to on a long drive through empty, repetitious towns and suburbs, or to listen to if you just want to feel the glimpse of that scene (in the best way possible). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6601cc358b110b679a18cc95/26a3391e-f46e-49e4-a6bb-8eb1d60c3b88/Screen+Shot+2024-04-03+at+8.01.11+PM.png Reviews - Older Music Big Pity’s self-titled album from 2019 is one I hold close to my heart as someone who was entrenched for a while in the BK/Laguardia music scene. Mixing genres of slowcore and math rock, this album feels at times energizing but mostly calming and sentimental, at its heart, “Desert Song,” which finds its way into every long car ride I take – Its saturated, lonely melody, dynamic yet always returning back to its roots, is one that deeply resonates. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6601cc358b110b679a18cc95/51d086bb-fee9-4625-9813-0d57e5845a4f/mogwai-As-the-Love-Continues-e1603981811952-1909773575.jpg Reviews - Older Music Mogwai’s 2021 As The Love Continues felt like a shift from the Mogwai I had known from their earlier rock albums, specifically Mr. Beast and Come On Die Young, the darker post-punk albums I held close to my heart as a young teen. As The Love Continues is breathtakingly energizing and self-aware, as felt in the Ritchie Sacramento lyric “It took awhile just to think of home.” I’m sad this album doesn’t contain more lyrics but at the same time feel as though the fact that it is almost purely instrumental is what makes it so palpable, communicating so many feelings while saying hardly anything (one of the central reasons music itself is such an incredible tool). Sometimes I have this feeling when listening to music, that this is exactly what was supposed to happen–Had the record been any different it would have not had the same impact. Perhaps a bit of a fallacy in human thinking, however, for a band like Mogwai to create this album makes so much sense, veering towards bigger electronic sounds, becoming a bit less emo in the “life is depressing” way and a bit more in the “life is vast and ever-changing” way. I think this shift also makes their older albums feel more special to me, like there won’t be anything else quite the same as songs like “Cody” or “Christmas Steps” again. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6601cc358b110b679a18cc95/6ec70849-bf65-40a9-8130-519c89637484/a2579631905_16.jpg Reviews - Older Music Bitter River (2007) by Pygmylush is a fucking awesome, genre-bending album, half of which sounds like it could’ve been written by pirates in the 1700s, and the other half which sounds like a group of young punks in the early 2000s. The opening, going from the self-explanatory “Nonsensical Tremor” to the soft “Hurt Everything” is one I always show anyone who I ever talk to about music, because the two songs are in complete contrast with one another, existing in separate worlds, and yet go so perfectly together. These shifts occur throughout the album, such as the transition from “Foul Mouth Mother'' (a song that sounds like punk and screamo had a baby) to “Red Room Blues,” a song that feels like a nostalgic, sad and calm stripped-back Low or Red House Painters song. The 24-minute, ambient “September Song” is also unexpected and beautiful. This album really keeps you on your toes, anticipating the rush and release; I’ve truly never heard an album with such captivating contrast. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6601cc358b110b679a18cc95/2ded2efd-a14f-411b-ad81-a395323f185b/IMG_5379.jpg Reviews - Older Music I’m not sure what it would be like to listen to Blonde Redhead’s Misery is a Butterfly for the first time again, but I imagine it would mean re-discovering one of my favorite albums in the universe, the one I would soon memorize every bass line and keyboard note of, almost involuntarily; This album contains feelings that could only be explained through listening–To the cascading melodies, drums that add texture rather than just existing, the heartbreakingly amazing blend of guitars, cellos, and keyboard. On the album’s title track, Kazu sings, “Remember when we found misery/We watched her, watched her spread her wings/And slowly, slowly fly around our room/And she asked for your gentle mind,” a line which captures the melodramatic essence of this masterpiece of an album.