(NCS guest contributor Leperkahn decided that for a school project he was going to spend a week without metal. He received a lot of suggestions from our readers, and this is his report on Day 5 of the experiment.)
I’m afraid I didn’t get much listening time yesterday, probably because I didn’t have any prolonged, sedentary activities to perform (i.e., studying). In fact, I really only got to one album, an electronic album recommended by a couple people from a feller named Mosh. The album was Monarchy (not his most recent release, as I eventually found out).
While it was a very enjoyable background album, and thankfully did not sound like Transformers fornicating, it confirmed many of the other suspicions I have about electronic music. Quite a lot of the electronic music I’ve heard tends not to go for a sonic journey, as much as to paint a picture of a given atmosphere (or just go for a perpetual dance beat). That’s one of the things I enjoy most about most metal, and about the new discoveries I’ve made on many fronts this week. If anyone has some suggestions as to electronic artists who can actually achieve that type of aural excursion, please leave them below, as I would be very intrigued to hear about them.
https://iammosh.bandcamp.com/album/monarchy
As for today’s listening, I started with a couple short classical tracks (Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and Wagner’s “Ride Of The Valkyries”), which have been very enjoyable, and they masterfully executed the story-like quality I’ve found lacking in my forays into electronic music.
At the moment, I’m doing a listen through Nirvana’s back catalog (seemed fitting on this anniversary), though after that I’m going to get back to some more classical. In lieu of coming up with another genre to explore for my last day of metal exile (Sunday), I’m going to fill in some of the holes from each genre day, such as Death In June, Portishead, and Igorrr.
Again, if you have any suggestions for the above type of electronic music, classical music, or anything I might have missed in exploring the genres of the week, let me know below.
10 Responses to “METAL FASTING: DAY 5”
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Are you familiar with the beastie boys? If you aren’t you should probably check out “ill communication” and “Paul’s Boutique.” ill communication has quite a bit of punk and Paul’s Boutique is one of the best hip hop records of all time. Super interesting and varied cross genre shit.
I’m definitely familiar, but I haven’t spent much time with them, or really delved into any of their albums. Maybe I will.
I forgot to post this the other day.
Wynton Marsalis and Eric Clapton Play the Blues
https://play.spotify.com/album/5Esx8hdfVmi1xDkdBmBHD6
Also, I’ll encourage you again to check out Tangerine Dream, especially if it’s a journey that you want, not an atmosphere/groove. Someone more knowledgeable about Tangerine Dream than I might suggest a better album, but I thoroughly enjoy this one:
https://play.spotify.com/album/6aHeeKVHp0mIPrhKPAbnyf
For classical, I’d recommend Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 (aka New World Symphony). It’s one of my favorite symphonies, and it’s fairly easy to listen to. You should recognize several sections from it.
I would also STRONGLY recommend you check out Dmitri Shostakovitch’s Symphony No. 5. Anyone who likes metal should love this piece. It’s full of bombast and anger, nuance and grief. It was basically a big “FUCK YOU” to the Soviet party leadership who had been very critical of his work leading up to this, which was deemed too “modern” and “experimental”. To avoid falling into bad standing with Party leadership (and thus risking his life), he wrote this symphony. It’s a fairly straightforward symphony with lots of melody and glorious chord progressions, meant to be taken by the Party leadership as a musical affirmation and celebration of the Communist way. But disguised behind it all you can hear Shostakovitch’s frustration with the creative limits being imposed on him (and the limits being imposed on society as a whole), grief for all those that had been killed at the hand of Stalin (esp. Mvt. III), and the ending of Mvt. IV is so absurdly over-the-top triumphant and “epic” to the point that it becomes physically exhausting to perform…perhaps symbolic of something? Crank this up and bask in it.
Disc 2: https://play.spotify.com/album/5debLiUUY0DjbGcpp6Xi4F
staap! I’m getting tired of spotify. Why don’t these guys make it available in other countries.
If you insist, haha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAGBVLjx9YE&list=PL19431B6AA6576EB6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQpAJUZeIAY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zDijGmcBRk
haha. mighty thanks my friend. Then again, i wish they brought spotify around here.
“If anyone has some suggestions as to electronic artists who can actually achieve that type of aural excursion, please leave them below, as I would be very intrigued to hear about them.”
Listen to Autechre. Definitely. Their later-era stuff is a bit less approachable, but Amber, LP5 and Incunabula have some incredible tracks.
One seconds this suggestion, and repeats One’s suggestion to listen to Massive Attack and Coil.
I will toss in Ott, Phuture Primitive, and Kirlian Camera
If you want emotional electronic music then I’d heartily recommend Stars of the Lid. Just sheer utter gorgeous ambient drone that is, for me at least, captivating. It could be dismissed as background music but then you’d be missing out, there’s so much detail in their compositions that you really have to listen (with good headphones ideally). Their double album from 2001 (Tired sounds of) remains my favourite, give it a go if you’re interested.