What's a Listening Log? Well, the idea is quite simple. It's a weekly segment that consolidates all the mini-reviews Dozens Of Donuts has given on RateYourMusic over the past week, split between the Past and Present. A straightforward grading scale has been put in place, ranging from A+ to F-, with C acting as the baseline average. There is no set amount of reviews per week, just however many I get around to reviewing. And don't expect week-of reviews. I wait one month - with at least three listens under my belt - before I rate and review an album. Enjoy!
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Released on the heels of 2017 - 2019, it was safe not to expect much from Nicolas Jaar's latest project. If anything, Cenizas reaffirms his stance as one of modern music's most dexterous producers, capable of shifting between Outside House, Microhouse, and Ambient at a moment's notice. Cenizas is Jaar's second project that delves into the latter genre, following 2015's admirable Pomegranates. Intent has been made clear: This is not a career-defining project, for even Jaar himself released it under the reign of 2017 - 2019 instead of waiting a few months, even a year or more, to do so. Cenizas is a palate cleanser, a nocturnal array of unsettled shiftiness that borrows from Electroacoustic's tendency to raise the bumps, burrows, and bruises to something more tactile. Certain songs, like 'Menysid' and 'Gocce,' stretch the elasticity of these elements much in the same way of Matmos. The sensations are unnatural and uncomfortable, rarely leading to pleasant moments sonically, even though Jaar's proven time and time again that he's more than capable.
Some other points, like 'Vacíar' and 'Xerox,' take on the foreign weightlessness of Carl Stone's Tape Music by attempting to acclimate sounds not heard often to silence we've become accustomed to. The result, again, is unrewarding. This is the case with the vast majority of Ambient projects, especially ones without an overarching purpose like Cenizas. What allows the LP to retain some interest is the brief, unexpected moments of Ambient Pop that catch you just as you begin to fall asleep. 'Cenizas' and 'Hello, Chain' are a few examples, but the two beacons are truly 'Mud' and 'Faith Made Of Silk.' Each recall Jaar's 2016 era of Sirens and Nymphs, two projects that dealt with the tapered fragility and delicate nuance of atmospheric Pop. 'Mud' may be a bit more moody than one would expect from Jaar, driving into a jungle with dangerous entities existing just out of focus. 'Faith Made Of Silk,' on the other hand, can be surmised off its title alone. His hollow, heavenly vocals dance off velvet tapestries in a way that resembles 'Don't Break My Love' or 'Heart' (from his Darkside collaboration Psychic). Though I, like most, could've done with the final unnecessary minute of silence.
Overall, Cenizas is a largely forgettable Ambient record that's pleasant in the interim but hardly worthy of repeated focus. One can always note these projects by the reception songs have on a singular basis. When one or two songs steal much of the listening community's acclaim (in this case 'Mud' and 'Faith Made Of Silk'), one can assume the rest of the LP is being held up flimsily and without equal distribution. Especially when eleven songs remain.
D
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Arca's @@@@@ isn't technically an album. Just like singles aren't technically 63 minutes long. Yet here we are. A spasmodic array of futuristic sounds, amounting to a dystopian wrought with humanity's insatiable desire to become one with machines. It's a far cry from Arca's 2017 self-titled, which found the Venezuelan producer turned singer exposing herself over fractured, fragile Glitch Pop much akin to her idol, Björk, whom she worked with on 2015's Vulnicura and 2017's Utopia. I wouldn't rush to stating @@@@@ is a return to Arca's previous style either, though the comparisons to Mutant's derelict Glitch and Deconstructed Club are palpable. Instead, @@@@@ dabbles heavily in Sound Collage, interspersing moments of panic, uncertainty, and lucidity with no regard for pace, prominence, or accessibility. Though it was released as one track, @@@@@ is in reality thirty, spliced together like a futuristic, cybernetic beatnik hopped up on every drug imaginable, going through the highs and lows simultaneously. In other words, the cover art is perfection. Humanity reduced to telekinetic communication via VR headsets wired to their face, as their bodies - mostly robotic replacements - are set adrift in some landfill as machines work tirelessly to rebuild a desecrated earth. The past, present, and future collides without the awareness to differentiate what's what.
C+
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2020 | Progressive Pop | Listen
A SIREN CALL FOR HOPELESS ROMANTICS
Do not take this perfect score lightly. It is a rarity, as all occurrences are in my catalogue, that has been labored over, contested with, and pried apart to ensure its positioning is accurate. If one were to deserve said acclaim, then shoot passed it with a level of ambition Singer/Songwriters haven't seen in nigh on half a century, it would be Fiona Apple. Fetch The Bolt Cutters is a masterpiece. Her masterpiece. Every positive descriptor one could find applicable to music can be found within the barriers of Fetch The Bolt Cutters. It is visceral, bold, passionate, triumphant, aggressive, engaging, creative, liberating, dactylic, and above all else, infinitely-enjoyable. Released, like a bad omen, in the thick of a pandemic the likes of which the world hasn't seen in over a century, Fetch The Bolt Cutters, beyond the musical brilliance that would've seen its heralding ovation regardless, has the benefit of a nation-wide quarantine to correlate to Apple's romantic alienation and solitary withdrawal from human-to-human contact. The untethered DIY production, Apple's reminiscent lyrics, her barking dogs, even the crazed, unhinged look that dawns the cover - sitting in stark contrast to Tidal's bare-faced innocence - all help to evoke a quarantine filled with disheartened singles, the failures of past relationships the only things occupying their minds. While no one would wish for circumstances this dire, one can take solace in Fetch The Bolt Cutters and its quest for cathartic emancipation.
A magnum opus, by design, can be difficult to outline. There isn't a stellar moment here, an unworthy dud there. Each and every second (of which there's 3,109) amounts to the whole. In this case, one could write an entire review on Fetch The Bolt Cutters' knee-jerk production that incorporates anxiety, irrationality, and emotion into instrumentation (namely piano and percussion) that's been used conventionally for centuries. One could also inspect Apple's unique perspective on female empowerment, choosing to side with cold-shouldered, second-string acquaintances ('Ladies') while overthrowing subjective, discriminative tropes in relationships unbalanced by man ('Under The Table'). Or they could study Apple's bias, sometimes fallacious relationship with her past, as we trek down school hallways with exploding internal conflicts ('Shameika') or recount judgmental strangers embedding impressionable concealments upon herself ('Fetch The Bolt Cutters').
But wait, there's more. How about a critical analysis on complicated, yet entirely comprehensible piano craftsmanship ('I Want You To Love Me') that successful matches any of Apple's erratic tones. Or maybe the suppurating creativity that welcomes dolphin noises, barking dogs, sexual innuendos, and shrieking of strawberry spreading as if it were imperative to one's own musings. Or, after processing all of that, to come to the realization that all of Fetch The Bolt Cutters' baker's dozen revels in the glorious splendor of insatiable Pop capable of instantly rewarding the listener ('For Her') while preparing for the long run with unbound, unforgettable ear-worms that won't soon be suppressed ('Relay').
Point being, a masterpiece is only labelled as such when every outlet manages excellence, and that's exactly what Fetch The Bolt Cutters achieves. Comparisons are apparent but not overwhelming. There's the Cabaret disgruntlement of Tom Waits, the spunk of Regina Spektor, and of course the ostentatious magnification of Apple's own 2012 epic The Idler Wheel. To be able to craft such an original sound in what's ultimately Singer/Songwriter, a genre wrought to the core with redundancies, regurgitation, and passionless doggerel, is nothing short of unimaginable. Whether it's the exquisite pacing of 'I Want You To Love Me' and 'Ladies,' the brandished ataxia of 'Shameika' and 'Relay,' the sublime tenderness of 'Fetch The Bolt Cutters' and 'Cosmonauts,' the provocative feminism of 'Under The Table' and 'For Her,' or the charismatic cavorting of 'Rack Of His' and 'Drumset,' Fetch The Bolt Cutters has a limitless amount of greatness to savor.
Unceremoniously, decade-defining works tend to set their impact, and plant their roots, in the year of zero. 2010's My Beautiful, Dark, Twisted Fantasy, 2000's Kid A, 1989's Doolittle (missed it by a year), and 1980's Remain In Light all envisioned the sound, style, and attitude that would sprout over their respective decades. Don't be surprised when, in retrospect, Fiona Apple's name becomes synonymous with that group, as Fetch The Bolt Cutters' ability to capture the zeitgeist, in such tumultuous times, while advancing the songwriting community through fierce and pressurized determination, will undoubtedly usher in a new era of female identity and individuality. Or, at least, one can only hope. For now, this will do. If there's one thing we know for sure, it's that Shameika was right..
A+
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Perhaps wrongful expectations got the best of me. After last year's whimsical, kaleidoscopic Burd - a Jazz Rap collaboration with Pyramid Vritra of Odd Future fame - I was expecting relative tonality from Wilma Archer's debut project. However, A Western Circular presents an entirely new side to the producer, with the only string tethering him to Hip-Hop is the Jazz foundation and features affiliated with the underground Rap scene. The most prominent of which, of course, is MF DOOM. For a get so massive you'd expect something greater on 'Last Sniff,' a mid-tempo trudge around nifty, but thoroughly expected DOOM dialogue. It also stands in stark contrast to the rest of the LP, a damning proclamation given its position as lead single.
The rest of A Wester Circular engages in weeping, melodic Nu-Jazz teetering - when vocals arise - on the verge of Neo-Soul. Despite the general unsavory palate of A Western Circular, derived largely from the prosaic glaze slathered upon it that emboldens ones patience, Archer's insistence on invigorating Jazz deserves some praise. Tracks like 'Scarecrow' and 'Killing Crab' twist expectation with unusual pacing and capricious sounds. But then there's dull slogs like 'Cures & Wounds' and 'Ugly Feelings,' which meander aimlessly, asserting no vision or enacting no reaction. Truthfully, much of the instrumentals would fall into this paltry group if not for the vocals, which elevate through sheer emotive resilience. Samuel Herring (of Future Islands and Hemlock Ernst) is the obvious candidate for praise, stealing 'The Boon' and 'Decades' with cinematic grandeur and a commandeering presence. His passion, on a record that'll be heard by few, is testament to his willingness to astound. These are the two best cuts, but 'Cheater' doesn't fair too bad either, though Sudan Archives' vocals - for better or worse - sound exactly like that of Beyonce's. A Western Circular is an unusual, but ultimately unremarkable record on the fringe of a genre already on the fringe.
C-
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