Lav's Music Corner

Father John Misty is a name as synonymous with the last 10 years of indie music as anyone. From this acclaimed collection of love songs I Love You, Honeybear  to his politically conscious opus Pure Comedy  he's been a surprisingly ambitious, though occasionally divisive musician. A few years ago he released Chloe And The Next 20th Century  whose themes included a pop culture reference-heavy take on old Hollywood sounds. Thought I liked the record it was his least universally acclaimed in a while. Mahashamashana  hasn't been met with the same fate, at least among his core fanbase. With single after single lauded by listeners and critics alike, this quickly became one of my most anticipated albums of the year.  Let's start with those singles because they're an unreasonably great bunch. "I Guess TIme Just Makes Fools Of Us All" kicked things off as a sauntering 8-minute jam with a vibrant brass section and one of the slickest grooves I've heard all year. It t...

  Kendrick Lamar is a rapper who really needs no introduction. After serving up some of the most acclaimed albums of the entire 2010s like To Pimp A Butterfly  and Good Kid m.A.A.d   City , he took a break for the last few years of the decade and the COVID pandemic. But since then he's returned in a massive way. It began with a series of acclaimed collaborations with his cousin Baby Keem, the much-discussed "The Heart Part V" became the table setter for one of the most discoursed-about albums of the 2020s so far, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers . And Kendrick spent much of this year embroiled in a back and forth rap beef with Drake, one he's widely seen as having won with his hit song "Not Like Us."  And that brings us to GNX , a surprise album that arrived to the surprise of all Kendrick's fans, and allegedly his label as well, on a Friday morning in late November. At 12 tracks spanning 45 minutes the album isn't exactly slim, but it's his lea...

Review by Lavender: FLO are an R&B trio that have been impressing me for a few years now with early EPs and singles that showed off their great chemistry and harmonizing, on top of a hilarious knack for crafting songs about love and sex with memorable points of view. With some more strong singles added in the lead-up to their debut album, I was hoping that Access All Areas  would show off the best of the group's potential. And despite the occasional slip here and there, that's mostly what it does.  The record is loosely split into two halves with the first being both more romantic and far hornier. It gets off to a killer start out of the gate with two strong singles in the first three tracks. "AAA" is a throwback R&B/pop jam with the trio's voices wonderfully weaving in and out of each other on a fantastic hook. "Walk Like This" didn't hit me quite as immediately when I first heard it earlier this year but it's grown on me quite a bit sin...

2024 is wrapping up and as I start working on year-end content we need to do a few quick round-ups to make sure we're prepared. I've reviewed a few dozen EPs so far this year and I plan on counting down the 10 best in a few weeks. But first, we need to take a look at a few projects with a very strong chance of landing somewhere on the list. Let's do it. Six Desperate Ballads  EP - The Garden After being pretty mixed on California weirdo-punk duo The Garden for a while, I was quite fond of their last record. Combined with some solid entries into their solo projects and the ever-expanding Garden-adjacent universe and I had no reason to think this EP wouldn't be a riot. Even as I was a little mixed on the lead single "Filthy Rabbit Hole" I've warmed up on it especially with how propulsive of a start it is for this EP. I also loved the other single, the short but incredibly memorable "Ballad" which serves as the EPs wonderful closer.  In between ther...

A massively hype week with some huge new releases this late in the year is a surprise, but I'll take it! 5.  The Laugh Is In The Eyes  - Julia Holter Julia is back following a remarkable new album earlier this year and in this new single she finds herself playing with similarly indulgent palettes of space. The song has a dreamy sauntering demeanor with an imprecise poise but all of the instrumental sounds that do seep through are wonderful and wrapped around the core of Julia's beautiful vocals.  Listen 4.  Luciferine  - Ichiko Aoba The charm and whimsy of folk music has officially returned with a new Ichiko Aoba album on the way next year. She's teeing the record off with this fittingly beautiful lead single which deploys gentle strings and ornate backing vocals. It all swells to life around Ichiko's girlish vocals and swaying poetry, to great results. She may not be rewriting the book, but it works for a good reason.  Listen 3.  Crispy Skin  - S...

As the year comes closer and closer to an end and the criteria for my rapid fire reviews narrows, it's always worth looking for outside the box categorization to put together some of the records I want to talk about the most. That's what we're doing here with 5 albums I didn't get the chance to review earlier this year, but ones that have landed high up on RateYourMusic's 2024 charts, and therefore have dominated quite a bit of music discourse online. Surely fans will be civil in reaction to all of my opinions on these various records, right? The New Sound  - Geordie Greep Somehow with the release of his new solo album, Black Midi frontman Geordie Greep managed to supersede the discoursing power of his post-punk outfit's entire 5+ year run with just one record. That's because The New Sound  has been a WILDY divisive record online. It's hard to knock the instrumentation and production anywhere on the record. Talented musicians weave a dizzying array of vi...

5.  TURN YOUR HEART AROUND  - SBTRKT The strange phenomenon of new SBTRKT singles being lightyears better than anything on the project's new album from last year continues. This is a short but sweet track that really puts its head down and grinds out a pummeling pseudo-industrial little dance track with tight loops and fuzzed-out vocals for a mostly pretty irresistible result.  Listen 4.  PHANTOM BRICKWORKS VII  - Bibio Another helping of the familiar solemn piano and isolating ambient compositions of Bibio's  PHANTOM BRICKWORKS  series feels perfect right now. It also feels in line with the trio of singles released so far from the upcoming ambient-focused project. This may be my favorite of the bunch offering up another bulky runtime that manages to impressively weave together a beautiful, gentle series of piano passages effortlessly.  Listen 3.  PLAY DEAD! PLAY DEAD!  - Vylet Pony Color me surprised as someone who has always had mixed ...

Review by Lavender: Freddie Gibbs is a critically lauded rapper who has been at it for a full 15 years at this point. He broke through in the 2010s on the back of great collaborative records with legendary producer Madlib like Pinata  and Bandana . He's continued a run of solid projects into the 2020s, garnering acclaim for his 2020 crossover with The Alchemist Alfredo  and more acclaim, from me at least, for 2022's $oul $old $eperately . So when he surprise announced a new solo album last week I had no reason to think it would be anything less than solid. And that's pretty much the expectation that You Only Die 1nce  lives up to.  One of the best parts of this record are the instrumentals. Tracks here serve up dreamy blends of fluttering keys and vintage soul that create a great palette for introspection. "30 Girlfriends" is a great example where Freddie takes on this relaxed instrumental with an impressive series of flows that don't require him to up the int...

Rap is one of those genres where I'll never be able to keep up with all the relevant releases. I do my best and there are still way more than just these 5 records that slipped through the cracks, so let's try and catch up.  The Thief Next To Jesus  - Ka This one hurts. I wanted to cover this record but it came out in a busy week and slipped past me when I took vacation but I certainly would have prioritized it if I could go back in time in the wake of the news of Ka's tragic death. Through that lens it's worth looking at this record with a closer gaze than what I'm able to here. In fact, it's probably worth pouring over his entire excellent discography to pull out highlights. His finale album The Thief Next To Jesus  is fittingly soaked in Christian themes, something he's indulged in before on records like 2020's Descendents Of Cain . But in particular on this record through both his own lyrics and several perfectly selected samples, he examines the hist...

Review by Lavender: Tyler, The Creator really needs no introduction. The rapper, fashion designer, and one-time TV-comedian has been a pop culture staple since the early days of his edgelord rap collective Odd Future. He first broke through as a critical darling on 2017's Flower Boy  an album that embraced pop sentimentalities and personal vulnerability in a far more digestible way than Tyler had ever done before and was rightly a massive success. It's what happened following that record where I get off course with Tyler's fans and rap fans in general though.  To many his follow-up album IGOR  in 2019 is seen as his true masterpiece, something I couldn't disagree with more. My middling review of the record got me in a LOT of trouble at the time and yet I stand by pretty much every word of it. In fact, I even prefer Tyler's follow-up CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST  which dropped a few years ago and delivered an equally strong collection of features with a much more consis...

Yes LCD Soundsystem are back and yes there was a pretty good chance going into this list they would be at the top spot 99 out of 100 times, see whether it came to fruition.  5.  Punish  - Ethel Cain I still get some dolls unhappy with my review of Ethel Cain's breakthrough Preacher's Daughter  where I pointed out how inclined she is to senselessly waste time with both too many songs and songs that wander on for way too long. With her even longer follow-up, I can already feel similar instincts creeping in but this lead single does have me biting my tongue a bit. Despite definitely being both longer and slower than it needs to, the subtler cracking darkness that the Ethel Cian persona has always been wading through is very much intact and it's clear why she's made a name for herself by doing it so well.  Listen 4.  AAA  - FLO R&B girl group FLO have as much potential as anyone right now and they've been showing it off with great singles for a few yea...

This is a special review written by my friend and go-to emo and pop-punk coinnessoir Sasha Prudence. You can check her out on Instagram here. Review by Sasha: Origami Angel is a 5th wave emo band from Washington DC that made their big break on the scene with their acclaimed 2019 album Somewhere City . The album consisted of lyrics ripe with nostalgia for late 2000s childhood delights, blisteringly fast mathy riffs, and themes about a hopeful future full of emotional growth and self-improvement. However, the band’s hopes to tour behind this album were dashed with the arrival of Covid 19. Their tour was canceled, and the momentum the band had gained was all but lost.  They returned with a follow-up album, Gami Gang , which was as unorganized as it was experimental. The album ended up feeling like a mixtape full of wild ideas such as "Bossa Nova Corp," which combines easy listening bossa nova with powerful pop-punk chords, and it’s one of my personal favorites of the band. Thei...