Tag: bandcamp

Necessary Evil 2019 (16-11)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 10 Comments

Boooooooooooooooooooooooooo-yar!! This will actually take us up to the top ten! And it’s not even Christmas yet!! Just to be clear, you should all be very impressed.

16 Pickle Darling: Bigness

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Just… gorgeous. ‘Bigness’ seems almost like it was intended as something of a wry, ironic name, as Mr Darling deals in ostensibly small scale music. His songs can initially seem so slight, polite, inoffensive and casual, all linked with a voice so hesitant and unassuming that it’s the volume and urgency that a fruit fly might adopt if it wanted to get the waiter’s attention at Costa Coffee to inquire as to what was taken its Hazelnut Praline & Cream Latte so long but didn’t want to make too much fuss. The tags that the album is identified with on Bandcamp are alternative; bedroom pop; christchurch; new zealand; pop; indie; indie pop; Christchurch, which tells you one thing… Well no, it firsts lets you know that Pickle Darling is from Christchurch, New Zealand, as he’s so keen for you to realise that that he states it twice, but the second thing that the tags tell you is that ‘Bigness’ is a bit of a cheery, unassuming and- in the words of Helltown– ‘bedroom bullshit‘ kind of record. It’ll be fine. It’ll be cheery, a little bit twee but well meaningfully pleasant. Most of all though, it’ll be small.

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(…)

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18 & 17 Big Thief vs Big Thief!

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

Both ‘U.F.O.F’* and ‘Two Hands’ are fantastic albums. Certainly, nobody has had two albums in the Necessary Evil top 20 before, and it’s certainly to be commended how an artist can release two separate albums of general quality as these two blasts of mana. But let’s temper our explosive ejaculations just a bit, yeah? The two albums last a total of 82 minutes (perhaps. I honestly don’t trust my own maths). Lupe Fiasco’s criminally underappreciated ‘DROGAS WAVE‘ was NINETY EIGHT fucking MINUTES- because Lupe is mildly insane- and was far better than either of these records. There are twenty two tracks spread across these two records. Pffff! ‘DROGAS WAVE‘ has twenty four tracks! And that was 24 tracks narrating the story of the transatlantic slave trade and making it work as an analogy for rebirth and second chances. What’s that, Big Thief? Woozy Impressionism of banal domestic themes? You’re gonna push that for twenty two tracks? Alright. Ha! You thought I wouldn’t have the chance to talk about Lupe Fiasco this year!

Yes! What’s that, Lupe?! What’s that?! He’s talking about you again! Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy?!?!

 

(*Unidentified Flying Object Fuck. I mean… I assume… It doesn’t say on its Wikipedia page, so I’m out of ideas**)

(**it stands for friend! Unidentified Flying Object Friend!! Dudes, that’s so lame! I’m just saying, if I was 10 years old, I’d call it ‘totally gay’. Luckily, I’m older and wiser and fatter and gayer these days, so I understand the offensive connotations of referring to something as ‘gay’ in the pejorative sense. That’s why I am not saying that calling your album ‘Unidentified Flying Object Friend’ is ‘really gay’. So it’s not. But it totally is, do you understand?)

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20 Hannah Cohen: Welcome Home

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

I absolutely adore Hannah Cohen. I would go as far as saying I love her. As an artist, of course, I think she’s amazingly talented and has that certain something special that you can’t quite put your finger on. She may well be a fucking nightmare as a person. Maybe she spends half the time complaining about how dumb people are for watching Love Island, and the other half actually watching Love Island “Just to see how shit it is”. Maybe she’s a staunch believer in aromatherapy and whenever you bring up the questionable science behind it she simply states that there’s “A lot we don’t know about the world”. Maybe she prefers Jurassic Park 2 to Jurassic Park. I mean, it’s not a bad film, don’t get me wrong, but come on! Maybe she hates feminism because she “doesn’t hate men”, which leads to so many circular arguments that you know it’s a guaranteed evening wasted if you bring it up so have learned not to. Maybe, when she rides the bus on her own, she sits on the seat next to the aisle and leaves an empty seat next to the window just to make sure nobody sits next to her. Do you know these people?? Worse than fucking Hitler. Maybe- in fact, statistically, very probably– Ms Cohen is the absolute worse person in the world, that doesn’t matter, it’s the artist that I love.

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“[FUNNY QUOTE]”  Sorry, it’s late and I’m tired

‘Pleasure Boy‘ was all kinds of amazing. One of the best albums of

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55 Don’t Do It Neil: B/X

~ Lex Leeson ~ 7 Comments

“Descend deep in my body
Ascend me from my body
From my body tonight
Free me from my body tonight”

OK, fair warning- maybe even a trigger warning, but I’ve got to be careful because some people get so fucking angry when you word a content warning that way*- but this post might go to some pretty dark places. I mean, I’m just going to talk about my life a bit, which is always going to be a bit dark, isn’t it? For you, I mean. I’m alright with it, I fucking live with it, but I appreciate how some people might get a bit uncomfortable. These people can just read my Princess Nokia bit again, that was pretty funny. I’m going to use the brilliant ‘B/X’ album as a jumping off point to talk about how I was ‘freed from my body’, then masterfully bring it back at the end to Don’t Do It Neil. It’ll be a fucking amazing post, and I don’t know why more people don’t read this blog, it’s fuckin’ straight fire.

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(*because some people- and I can’t stress this enough- are fucking dumb)

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Necessary Evil 2019 (92-84)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 15 Comments

92 Chance the Rapper: The Big Day

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Seriously, what the fuck is this? It’s almost depressing that this is technically the debut album from arguably one the most influential and critically adored rappers of the past ten years. Previously only releasing music through free mixtapes, it’s a little baffling that Chance has decided the album that sees him starting to go after that Bruno Mars crowd should be the one that people should have to pay for.

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Govier Forces a Little Exception of His Own

~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

Yeah, that title was a pun when I reviewed the american poetry club album. Makes less logical sense now, admittedly, but I like it. Hey! Two album reviews this year! Getting into some real Lestor Bangs territory now! This blog is fucking legit, yeah?

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We* far too readily accept that whatever we do is simply good enough. We** accept what we are able to do at a scandalously young age. At the very latest when we’re about 18 or 19 and first enter university believing we’re already the finished article and want to spend the next few years convincing other people how fucking amazing we are, usually under the assumption that it’ll lead to increased opportunities to rub our genitalia against somebody else. Often though, it happens much, much younger. Many of the people you pass on the street, many of your closest friends and family, many of the people weird and/or dumb enough to read this very blog, basically decided at about 13 years old that you know all the things you can and can’t do, your likes and dislikes.  You*** decided at that age that you shouldn’t really waste time overloading your dumb brain with any new talents or inspirations, so decided to spend the rest of your life getting angry and other people for not accepting you for who you are (and have been for decades).

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“Right, fuck it, I’m done. I’m never going to better this”
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NE2019 Prejaculate (The Best Songs of 2019 So Far That You Might Not Have Heard)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 8 Comments

Why are we encouraged to state what ‘The Best [CULTURAL CONTENT] of the Year So Far’ is at the start of June? It isn’t half way through the year. It’s just over five months in. The Guardian stated what were the ‘Best albums of 2019 so far‘ on June 4th! That’s only 154 days into the year!! That’s only 42.19% of the way through!!! Unless I’ve forgotten how to work out percentages!!!! Which is very possible!!!!! Wow, I’m using a lot exclamation marks in this paragraph!!!!!!

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Well, anyway, I want in. I want a mouldy old piece of that rotten SEO pie, though released far closer to the actual year’s mid point of July 2nd. I’m not going to list the best albums of 2019 though, because I already often struggle to think of things to write come December, and I don’t want to waste that awesome simile I’ve devised to explain my thoughts on the new Jonas Brothers album six months early. Be patient. It’ll blow your mind. So I’ve decided to list the best songs of the year so far, similar to what I did in 2016. Although this time I didn’t just want to add my feeble, narcissistic voice to the chorus of intellectual critics praising songs like Old Town Road or Sweet but Psycho. You already know these songs are great, yeah? So I’ve tried to shine light on amazing songs by amazing artists off (mostly) amazing albums that there’s a chance you might not have previously heard. Get investigating, yeah? They’re in pretty much the order I remember to list them, because, seriously, fuck lists.

(If you can’t bother reading, there’s a handy Spotify playlist for the illiterates)

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36 Laura Jane: Devotion

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

When I first heard ‘Devotion’ I was blown away by it. I had never previously heard of her, and only bonked into her album during one of my financially and mentally draining BandCamp trawls. She didn’t exist. I had read no reviews or even mentions of her in the world of online music journalism. Yet here she was. And she was perfect. I got very excited. I had discovered her and would now be the spark that lit the wider press adoration that fired her to the very top. She would be my artist.

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‘Devotion’ is a pretty spectacular album, and I was looking forward our trip to the top together. I pictured her mentioning my name in her acceptance speech after winning her first Brit/VMA/Emmy/Oscar/Mercury/Nobel prize in 2025, as someone who had ‘always been there’ for her. She’d even invite me to sing backing vocals on Dismal Affordable Beams, track seven off her 2023 album ‘Pigs! Pigs! Fucking PIGS, Motherfucker!‘, as being a longtime devotee of my art* naturally meant she was well-aware of my exceptional singing ability. I mean, the track isn’t very well received (like, at all), but it means that I can now boast of appearing on a platinum record. And, yes, some deeper feelings are quite obviously always going to blossom between two people who work so closely and are so deeply in awe of each others art*. Laura would even proposition me one night, but I’d say I could never take advantage of a woman who’d been drinking gin and snorting ketamine for the last six hours straight, and I wouldn’t want to jeopardise what had by that point grown into one of the most artistically and financially successful partnerships in all of music. This honesty, and my sheer integrity, would cause Ms Jane to burst into tears, and she’d apologise for even putting me in that position as she falls into my embrace. I pat the back of her head, and say that I still love her, and that I would help her beat the debilitating drug addiction that I’ve just decided she has. I mean… I’d probably say no… depends how lonely I was feeling…

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45 Marissa Nadler: For My Crimes

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

I got a phone call from BT on Thursday that said my internet would have to be shut off later that day because of irregular activity on my account, unless I took immediate action by pressing ‘one’. This, understandably, through me into a nervous frenzy. Cut off my internet!! I would literally be able to do nothing! My entire life, my work , my leisure and whatever the fuck this blog is*, is only rendered possible by being online! If you take me offline, I’d have to read a stinking book or something, like this was freaking 1970! No thanks! Plus, I keep a dangerously low amount of pornography in the house, barely a dozen DVDs and 700 or so pencil pictures of Rashida Jones, so I was worried where my next fifty or so wanks were going to come (pun!) from.

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The fuck is that?

(*it doesn’t earn me any money, I don’t really get any pleasure writing it, I have no idea what the purpose of this fucking piece of shit is. Apart from, of course, leading up to me live steaming my own suicide, but I don’t get nearly enough readers to do that at the moment! Plus, I’m actually quite enjoying life as Alex Palmer: Trainee Immigration Lawyer at the moment, so suicide isn’t really on the agenda. I am so grateful for anyone who reads this nonsense though, and a freaking comment would make me more happy than you could possibly understand. About 90% of the comments on this blog so far have been from my ‘ex'(it’s really, really complicated)-girlfriend, and I would really appreciate comments from people I haven’t had sex with. I will, obviously, have sex with you after you leave a comment)

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