39 ANOHNI: Paradise

Mar 13, 2018Mar 13, 2018 ~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

Distant Wonder Rumbles

This mini-album is a threat. It’s an aggressive and intimidating declaration of intentions. It’s subtle, but there are people (or perhaps just ‘person’: me) smart enough to decipher it. Like when Donald Trump

visits Kim Jong Un for a state banquet, and Jongy spends the entire meal flicking peas directly into Trump’s mashed potatoes, particularly around the east side of the plate. Trump won’t understand the suggestion, of course, because [DONALD TRUMP IS STUPID JOKE] and the fat fuck is just happy that he’s getting a little extra food. But us smart people (yes, you. And you. And you! Not you though. You know why. You know why) will see the threat being made, we’ll know some pretty awesome shit’s about to go down!!

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40 Lil Peep: Come Over When You’re Sober Pt.1

Mar 12, 2018 ~ Lex Leeson ~ 7 Comments

A Legacy of Obnoxious Beauty and Regrettable Tattoos

That’s true: I would have never even considered listening to some white (presumed) rapper with worse tattoos than Cheryl Cole and apparently popular with teenagers (who, as I’m sure you’re aware, are universally thick as soggy pig shit) unless his death made the (minor) headlines in November 2017. Alternatively, if I died from a suspected drugs overdose instead of Lil Peep, I would have also never had the chance to hear this record and most probably never write this post. Also, if I had no ears I would be categorically unable to listen to it. If I was an iguana rather than a human, I might possess the ability to literally listen to the album, but it’s highly unlilkely I would manage to collate my thoughts on it on a WordPress blog. It’s definitely true that if circumstances were different then things wouldn’t be the same, and you’re extremely clever for pointing that out.

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41 Shamir: Revelations

Mar 12, 2018Mar 23, 2018 ~ Lex Leeson ~ 7 Comments

I Bet You Think This Album’s About You

“You have a song/Which means you’re doing something wrong/Don’t think you’re special/’cause it’s about you”

On his second song from his second album* Shamir brilliantly showcases something quite perverse about the human psyche. Let’s imagine that I was once Shamir’s shitty ex-boyfriend: if I just left my clothes strewn across the hallway when getting undressed ready for bed; if I pretended to be, like, really into hip-hop as I felt it would somehow demonstrate affinity, and yet only ever listen to Lil Yachty on loop**; if every time I entered the house I’d bound over the sofa, snatch the remote from him and turn over from whatever faggy thing he was watching like ‘Narcos’ or ‘Gomorrah’ in order to immediately watch the highlights from last night’s WWE Raw (“No, Shammy***, you don’t understand! It’s being held in Chicago and, like, CM Punk is definitely going to make a comeback!”); whenever I’d finish the last of the milk I’d just put the carton back in the fridge; if I once acted surprised when he mentioned he’s black because I ‘Really, honestly don’t see colour’; if I said to friends that you ‘obviously’ didn’t vote for Trump; if I had an ‘All Lives Matter’ bumper sticker and don’t understand the problem with it; if I always had bad breath; if I was the absolute freaking worse. Then imagine if Shamir wrote a song outlining how big of a frickin’ arsewipe I was, basically just taking the 182 words above and making them rhyme (the fucking hack), and broadcast to all of his fans what a miserable waste of flabby-fucks-not-worth-giving I actually was. Have you ever thought how that would make me feel??

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42 Pixx: The Age of Anxiety

Mar 11, 2018Mar 23, 2018 ~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

Anxious Geography

“Here me/Hear me cry out/Everything is weird in/America”

America is a different country from Britain. Like, completely different: it has its own laws and everything, and is entirely full of people who are very different from the people in the UK. Not only is there a lot more of them but, let’s face it, a lot of them are probably a lot fatter, so their combined weight of humanity would be so much more that it would render Britain’s almost inconsequential.

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43 Big Boi: BOOMIVERSE

Mar 11, 2018Mar 23, 2018 ~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

Listen, I spent two freaking days finishing my 2000 word Lil Yachty appraisal, so the next couple of entries are going to be a little shorter than usual

Boi Makes Pleasantly Big Bang

Ah, Big Boi: what can you say about him that hasn’t already been said?

You could say quite a lot, actually: you could say he was part pf the water polo team that won bronze in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics; you could say that he’s terrified of performing squats because he’s convinced the movement will force him to pass wind and he’d just die from the embarrassment; you could say that the only reason bananas no longer grow in Atlanta is because Bog Boi ate them all; you could say that he spells Ludacris’s name as ‘Ludicrous’ because he’s vehemently against using hip hop as an excuse to propagate incorrect spelling; there are loads of things that haven’t been said about Andre Patton before.

I mean, I guess it’d be more difficult to say things that weren’t lies, but still…

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44 Lil Yachty: Teenage Emotion

Mar 10, 2018Oct 19, 2018 ~ Lex Leeson ~ 14 Comments

The Teens are Revolting

A revolution doesn’t mean that things are being changed for the better. It just means that things are being changed

It’s for this reason that Donald Trump

is probably the most revolutionary American President in generations.

Barack Obama certainly wasn’t revolutionary: he was a notable and genuinely inspiring representation of the progress made in perhaps considering the possibilities of equal opportunities in the country (and by extension the western world) but aside from the colour of his skin his rise to power (best at school – notable stint at very high paid but extremely dull job – moves into politics – doesn’t do anything horrendously embarrassing for about a decade – gets good at public speaking – becomes president) and pretty much the entirety of his term in office was generally a cut and paste job from near enough every democratic president in history (Republicans are nearly exactly the same, except they claim their family owned a farm, wear cowboy hats on distinctly more occasions, and actually talk about guns rather than change the subject in fear of losing votes). He was smart, he said the right things, he wore the right suits, he never slagged off Will.I.Am on Twitter for declining record sales after he stopped working with him. Hopefully Obama’s time in office will encourage far more non-white feasible presidential candidates in the future, but right now the most revolutionary thing to come out of his presidency may be the future popularity of drone strikes.

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45 And So I Watch You From Afar: The Endless Shimmering

Mar 9, 2018Mar 9, 2018 ~ Lex Leeson ~ 10 Comments

Seth Manchester: So Much To Answer For

Now, if you read my rapturous praise of The Hotelier’s ‘Goodness‘ last year- which you didn’t, because you’ve only arrived at this entry by mistake (perhaps after punching ‘erotic fucking baboon*’ into Google, arriving here penis in hand and, if you’re being honest, desperately disappointed) and already can tell that the cheap and obnoxious work evident in both the cheap presentation and the nonsensical garbage written is hardly worth trawling through three months worth of posts in order to proper place this particular entry on a semi-obscure instrumental rock band from Belfast in its intended context- then you might remember- though even if you did read it, it’s far from certain that you’d remember a brief snippet of information lightly touched on during the piece, and are far more likely to be mentally scarred for life by the image of a pale fat guy dancing with his shirt off if the entry left any lasting impression on you at all- how much of the praise for the construction of such an unholy masterpiece of a record should lay at the feet of one ‘Seth Manchester’, who contributed some of the greatest rock production I could ever remember hearing.

I’ve, erm, lost a lot of weight since those pictures, ladies…

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46 Andrew Bird: Echolocations: River

Mar 9, 2018Mar 9, 2018 ~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

Echoes of Locating a Cool Red

Aaaaaah, Andrew Bird- ‘Birdo’ as I call him, or ‘Birdman’, or ‘Big Bird’, or ‘Slammin’ Andy’ if I’m not into the whole ‘feathery’ thing: we’re good friends- has been a repeat offender of past Necessary Evils. I occasionally forget about him for a few albums, but then discover his latest release and discover him still producing music of such consistent quality that I curse myself for ever letting him slip from my consideration. He’s like that cool uncle whose infreuent visits you always enjoy and, while he’s scoring you premium grade memthaphetamine and letting you rifle through his collection of vintage mid 1980s porno mags, you wonder why your parents never think of inviting him round more often

‘River’ is the second of his ‘Echolocations’ records and the first I’d been made aw

been made aware of. The ‘Echolocations’ records are instrumental albums where The Birdmeister removes himself vocally from the process (meaning we lose a voice that, if we’re being honest, was never one of the main selling points of his music) and focuses on his incredible work with violins. I mean, there isn’t even any whistling on this album, which for a long time Birdometer fan is like playing the latest Lana Del Ray album and her never once either putting on or taking off a red dress. Each record’s name also points to the nature (geddit?) of field music that the collection is recorded under. The locations of the echoes you might be able to pick up: are you following? The first such collection was called ‘Echolocations: Canyon’, which was chiefly recorded in- get this- a canyon, and now ‘Echolocations: River’, recorded in an underpass next to the Los Angeles River.

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47 Big Thief: Capacity

Mar 7, 2018Mar 7, 2018 ~ Lex Leeson ~ 9 Comments

Sibling Thievery

I’ve already mentioned how much I always appreciate recommendations and referrals, how I am always fascinated by what exact pieces of culture push different people’s buttons and charge up their dopamine. I am always intrigued by different people’s appreciations and infatuations, and am always eager to investigate them further if I have no working relationship with them.

(Once, back when I was drinking, drugging and fucking at university- believing I was living an impossibly cool Hunter S Thompson-like gonzo lifestyle while actually near irreparably fucking my life up for more than a decade- I was in a girl’s room the morning after a CONQUEST the night before- #LAD- and was perusing her CD collection. I laughingly put down the ridiculousness of much of her collection, explaining to her at length how fucking shit Jamiroquai, Sublime, The Mighty Bosstones etc were. She slapped me in the face. Like, hard. I immediately realised how much I deserved it, and changed my life accordingly. I later married that woman. True story)

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48 MUNA: About U

Mar 7, 2018Apr 15, 2018 ~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

(Never) Get Over Urself

“Now I know I’m not so special/Cause I’m all dressed up/And you think that I’m beautiful/But it’s not enough”

At what age, on average, do you think your average adult comprehends that they’re not at all special? At what age would you expect a human would generally accept that their life is generally inconsequential to the universe’s relentless expansion and eventual disintegration?

Some scientists (bloody boffins! With their freaking glasses on and tweed sweaters! With their copies of the freakin’ Guardian tucked under their puny arms! Neeeeeeeeerds!!) suggest that this realisation comes when a young child looks into a mirror and first comprehends their own reflection, putting themselves for the first time as a small cog in the much wider spectacle of life, shattering the illusion that they were an omnipresent God overseeing random images flash by and gratefully being offered food and cleansing as thanks for God’s benevolent goodness. This is why, after first glimpsing themselves in the mirror, children immediately become calm, restrained and selfless members of the household, recognising how much more the family could achieve if they worked as a team. They’ll often start helping out with the dishes, and leaving positive Amazon reviews for baby wipes you purchased, believing that it’s the least they could do in 2018 to recognise such good value for money and outstandingly reliable delivery.

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