Essential Albums - Dummy

 

Artist/Band: Portishead

Genre: Trip-Hop, Electronic, Jazz, Minimalism 

Label: Polydor Associated Labels

Year: 1994

Portishead's debut is a popular album in a music fan's mind but I think it is one of the best albums ever conceived, and it should be recognized as such.

About

Portishead formed in 1991 in Bristol, England, and is comprised of three primary members, singer-songwriter Beth Gibbons, electronic wiz and producer Geoff Barrow, and the jazz expert and co-producer Adrian Utley. Given the respective backgrounds of the trio, one can see how their debut output Dummy is a fusion of multiple genres of jazz, electronic, and sample music, pioneering the sound of trip-hop and downtempo music. For a debut album, Dummy is incredible in its consistency, album flow and cohesion. Each song focuses more on the sonic quality rather than loading it up with extravagant instrumentation, and they end up being sparse and repetitive establishing a very minimalist feel. And the entire album gives a feel of very slowly being submerged into a sea of uneasy utopia, the beaming and very sweet voice of Beth Gibbons pairs very well with a dark tone and sparser but loud beats. Every placing of each note, each guitar passage, each beat is very calculated but still manages to retain the "in the moment" feel. I love this album, I will put this somewhere in my top 10 best albums of all time.

Music

Dummy is 11 tracks of pure perfection, the opening track Mysterons encapsulates the vibe that Portishead are shooting for in the first 15 seconds, with very spacey keys and disk scratch and amazing snare hits, and it is pierced by the vocals with lyrics referencing an old British superhero film, towards the end the track ever so subtly starts going off its perfect sound and it warps a little. Sour Times is the second single from the album and has a cool sample of this with this delayed bells or similar and a plucky bass, a great single, the vocal inflections on this track are like everything else subtle and I noticed only after many listens. Strangers is a great song with a nice juxtaposition with a bass-heavy part and almost skeletal vocal verse, as great is this song it is in an unfortunate place between powerhouses of songs surrounding it. The next songs It Could Be Sweet and Wandering Star represent the best one-two punch provided by a pair of songs ever. The former is a bittersweet song about love and its struggles and it is amazing, with its almost industrial-esque samples and a very simple bass loop, with an exemplary vocal performance which is mastered masterfully (heh.). The next song Wandering Star might be my favorite from the album, the bass with heavy reverb and delay with almost distorted cymbals is a perfect tone-setter, the first verse is a normal vocal delivery then the sample and one of the most soulful disk-scratch comes in with every so minimal guitar leads with chorus and the following verse. The track keeps building instrumentally and is such a delight to listen, and of course, the obnoxiously catchy hook and the sadness it portrays is really powerful. It's A Fire deviates from the norm with it starting from the chord progression with comes as a breath of fresh relief from the bleak atmosphere presented in the album so far sonically, however, it is still very bleak and almost beautiful in its lyrics. Numb is full of intricate percussion and sonic textures with very emotional lyrics dealing with isolation. Roads start with this simple phased out guitar strums and is an amazing song, and when the beat kicks in is just such a mesmerizing moment, but the track had another one for you when the strings and layered guitars come in, and the hook where Beth sings "How can it feel this wrong?" never fails me to bring to tears. Pedestal and Biscuit are amazing songs but nothing different, just solid songwriting and fit's the album perfectly. The ending track Glory Box was the most popular single from this album and one can see why, its backbone is a simple beat sample and a spectacular vocal performance with some very cool effects on her voice thrown in, then the guitar comes in and blows everyone's mind and then is followed by a very succinct yet amazing guitar solo, AWESOME. It is just like Portishead to throw a song switch-up in the last 30 seconds of the album and then the song has a nice simple fade-out ending, and there is only one thing you can do now, listen to the record again!

Final Thoughts

This is one of the best albums ever made period, a band to have achieved so much perfection in their debut album is rare. Portishead will go on to do some more experimental stuff with their following albums but none reach the melancholic heights that dummy does. It is a full album experience, but still, the songs to sample from this album are either Glory Box or Wandering Star. The production through is very immaculate and never falters making it very similar at first listen, but Dummy is the album of subtleties, the more you listen the more weird and strange fun Portishead had with this album. Nothing more to say, my excitement for this album is apparent so just LISTEN.

 

 

Essential Albums - 23

 

Artist/Band: Blonde Redhead

Genre: Dream Pop, Shoegaze

Label: 4AD

Year: 2007

23 is Blonde Redhead's most popular (relatively) album to date, but I think it's also their best one.

About 

23 is the seventh studio album by Blonde Redhead released in 2007 following their critically acclaimed 2004 album Misery Is A Butterfly. Blonde Redhead is a three-piece with Kazu Makino on vocals and synth, and brothers Simone and Amedeo Pace on drums and guitars respectively. Blonde Redhead is one of those bands who

should receive more attention outside the indie scene. They are also one of the only bands who I think have a perfect discography. Even among their stellar discography and between critically acclaimed albums like Misery Is A Butterfly and Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons their 2003 album 23 should be talked about more. It is the perfect amalgamation of well-arranged instrumentation, aggression, and emotionally hitting yet little nerdy in lyrical content. Blonde Redhead does not bring the signature garage rock and no wave inspired riffs and lo-fi song construction and relies on sweet dream-pop sounds making this their most accessible record. However, the experimentation is there just very subtle, they bring in some experimental and angular guitar passages and very slick synths and electronics. The band recorded this with a simplistic view of creating individual songs, it is the production and mixing ( aided by Alan Moulder of MBV fame) brings all the tracks together for a cohesive listen. The number 23 named after enigma 23 as the number associated with change is a fitting name as the band transitions into a new sonic territory. 

Music 

The album opens with the title track 23 and it perfect opener for the album the lyrics deal with 23 enigma which deals with changes that a person can do good and bad in 23 seconds. There are several tracks which deal with changes and sort of ties the album together as a loose concept record. Musically this song is a pretty seamless blend of dream-pop and shoegaze with a pinch of ambient thrown in. The chorus chord change and the subsequent riff is heavenly and Kazu 

Makino's vocals just beam in creating a euphoric atmosphere. The second song Dr. Strangluv is the best song in the album with lyrics loosely relating to the movie Dr. Strangelove movie about the atomic bomb and the lyrics deal with love-hate relations with people and how misanthropic views change your perception and empathetic ties. Musically it is very somber with this very disorienting random spatial chimes/hi-hats, the percussion is very cool in this song with so many sounds buried in the mix giving this song immense repeatability. The Dress is the next song which is a classic dream pop song with a very slow verse then these shimmering guitars come into the chorus, the most interesting part of this song is how it uses space to create these dramatic parts, perfectly highlighting the lyrical reference. The next two tracks SW and Spring and By Summer Fall are more on the lane of Blonde Redhead's previous output with them playing it safe but boy it is executed and PRODUCED perfectly. Next track Silently is a very stark change of aesthetic, beginning with this very cheery beat, but lyrically it deals with the pain of one-sided unrequited love. Additionally, the vocal arrangement that overlaps on the chorus is just gorgeous. The publisher is the first song on 23 to feature vocals by Pace and sets a dark tone with bass-heavy pianos and again demonstrating a beautiful use of space to take the minimal verse instrumental to something more intricate. Heroine is about a friend's death and judging by the title possibly through drug overdose, the song musically is very hypnotic with a hint of eastern musical influence thrown in. The penultimate song Top Ranking, a very nice Indie Pop song with a catchy melody and intricate instrumentation. The album closer is again a somber dream pop song with this spacy production, which ends with a weird drum section. Overall, this is a very nice closer to this very dreamlike and ethereal album.

Final Thoughts

Blonde Redhead's sound change definitely paid off, 23 is their most successful album, and it deserves it and much more. Musically it is one of the best dream-pop albums I have heard, the production is immaculate with little details in the intricate instrumentation you notice every time you listen to it. Even though Blonde Redhead dials back the experimentation a bit on this album (relatively), it executes each song very well. The album is definitely the one I recommend to someone who is new to Blonde Redhead as a perfect entry to the diverse and PERFECT discography of this band.

Essential Albums : The Raven That Refused To Sing (And Other Stories ...)

Artist/Band : Steven Wilson

Genre : Progressive Rock, Neo-Progressive Rock

Label : Kscope

Year : 2013

Let’s take a look at the prog darling Steven Wilson’s third solo album which probably is the best progressive rock album to come out in 2010s

About 

Steven Wilson is a workhorse and it sometimes feels he has single handedly managed to keep progressive rock alive. Hailing from London he is most well known for fronting the band Porcupine Tree, he also has side projects in bands such as No Man and Blackfield. Mr Wilson is multi-instrumentalist as well as a producer with experience of working with bands like Opeth and Anathema.

Embarking on solo career by releasing Insurgentes in 2008 and following up with Grace for Drowning in 2011, both albums which I thought were spectacularly average. Raven that refused to Sing was released in February 2013 and is partly produced by Alan Parsons (guy who engineered a little known album called Dark Side of The Moon). Raven Refused to Sing received huge critical acclaim and is very well known in progressive rock and metal fans. Even though this album featured on Billboard 200 I believe this album should be more recognized as the best progressive rock album to come out in 2010s.

Music

With a runtime of little less than an hour and 6 songs this is a concept album about the supernatural and each song representing a different ghost story. The musical influences of classic progressive acts like Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull are clearly present but the songs feel fresh and modern. The album opener Luminol is the longest track on the album running past 12 mins and starts with an aggressive bass riff and is juxtaposed with a mini flute solo and Steven’s voice comes soaring saying ‘’Here we all are born into a struggle, To come so far but end up returning to dust” which sets the tone for the album perfectly, the rest of instrumentation builds up to release into a mellow part where Wilson sings with some really well engineered background vocals. Second song “Drive Home” is by far my favorite song in any Steven Wilson album with it’s very emotional lyrics about losing a loved one and THE BEST DAMN guitar solo! The Holy Drinker opens with these haunting chords panning from right to left channels and slowly builds the aggression pairing perfectly with the previous song, it has a very distant sounding saxophone passages and you are not clear as to where it is coming from which adds to the haunting sound, finally going into the verse which is very pink floyd, the rest of the song plays out well. The Pin Drop is probably my least favorite track here, Steven’s voice does not sound good against this relatively minimalist sounding track. The Watchmaker is a beautiful song with again the depth being really well constructed in the production front, and even being a slow track the vocals feel like they are being sung to you in a closed room, next leg of the  song is played almost as a jam session, a very nice euphoric jam session then it stops and slowly builds up again to something dark and drony ending. Finally the closer and the title track, it is an amazing composition opening with somber piano and Steven’s voice is coming in with a nice touch of reverb, and as it builds up the vocal layering is just angelic and the drum fills are like cherry on top.

Final Thoughts 

Apart from obvious songwriting and instrumental diversity this album brings to the table, the execution of each note on this album is impeccable. I like this album more than most of Porcupine Tree’s catalog specifically because of the lyrics. Steven’s lyrics  can come off as cringe and occasionally preachy, definitely so in his Porcupine Tree output and his best songs are about relatable themes. Even with the underlying concepts of supernatural all the songs on this album lyrics deal with relatable themes. Secondly the production choices are standard for a progressive rock album for 2013 however, I think Alan Parson’s hand is really subtle in production and sets the atmosphere for the album, making it very organic.

I love this album, and I would recommend this for any fan of progressive rock or even casual rock fan, and I think outside of the album context songs like Drive Home and Raven That Refused to Sing are really well constructed.