12 Kanye West: Ye

Dec 31, 2018 ~ Lex Leeson ~ 9 Comments

Next September, it’ll be ten years since Kanye West famously interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the 2009 VMA awards. Which award? Which Taylor Swift song/video/album won? Which work by Beyonce was Kanye so aggrieved didn’t win? Literally nobody knows. And yet I promise you that every person you mention the moment to will be able to do a pitch perfect Kanye West impression from the moment. It was a dumb moment at a dumb musical award that nobody (at least in this country) gives two shiny shits about, and yet that moment of Peak Megalolz was still honestly one of the biggest and most discussed cultural events of the 21st century. Such was (and still is) the cultural cache attached to Mr. West.

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38 Equip: Synthetic Core 88

Dec 20, 2018 ~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

I think we can say that we are now living in the post-truth era. If we’re not, we should still say it. That would make the statement untrue, which would actually prove that we are living in the post-truth era, Which would make the statement true. Though, since we’re living in the post-truth era, the usefulness of saying that we’re living in the ‘post-truth era’ is debatable, as the truth is no longer what we deal in. However, if I say WE’RE LIVING IN THE POST TRUTH ERA really loudly and marry it with whatever’s trending on Twitter right now (Josh Gordon, whoever he is) then perhaps you’ll decide this post is worthy of note.

Eugh, he’s an American football player?? I thought he was a real person

But when did we enter the era of post-truth? When were we pre-truth, when were we resolutely amid truth, and at what point did truth become a rapidly shrinking figure in our rear view mirror. Some say that the era started with that last paragraph I wrote. This is definitely a minority view however, as at time of writing I am the only person who’s seen that paragraph, and I certainly don’t believe that. Me stating that, however, is another good example of the post-truth age. What do you think of when you think of post-truth? Donald Trump and Brexit? Was 2016 the end of our often fractious relationship with reality?

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46 Laurie Anderson & Kronos Quartet: Landfall

Dec 16, 2018 ~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

“You know the reason I really love the stars? It’s that we cannot hurt
Them. We can’t burn them. We can’t melt them or make them overflow
We can’t flood them or blow them up or turn them out
But we are reaching for them. We are reaching for them”

In a strange way, the influential 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth might have unintentionally and semi-ironically doomed us all. It has had very inconvenient consequences, you could say. But absolutely don’t, because that’s a rotten line.

Now, I’m not arguing that An Inconvenient Truth didn’t do a lot of good. I was.. younger… when it came out, and I have to say that, while maybe not a climate change denier, I was probably sceptical of the threat based on my own scientific research uncovering statistics like the fact it snowed a couple of years back and it was sometimes really cold. The film actually convinced me of the facts, using simple statistics and arguments that, if I’m being honest, I was probably too lazy to read for myself. I was a child, I decided that believing that climate change was at least overstated would mean I needn’t change anything about my behaviour, and so only searched out articles and columns that supported the theory I had chosen to believe. I was a child. I saw An Inconvenient Truth and realised what a child I was being. And how stupid I was. I imagine many people had similar epiphanies upon watching it. I was a child, and I still can’t believe how stupid I was. A child,

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79 stef chura: Messes

Dec 2, 2018Dec 2, 2018 ~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

Four albums in, and two of the artists have debilitating issues with capitalisation (stef shares similar disregard for proper nouns to american poetry club). The only two artists from America, make of that as you will. Is this the Donald Trump effect? In fact, if any human being on Earth loves capital letters, it’s The Trump, so maybe these artist’s refusal to capitalise is a subtle form of process. Fair enough, as you were…

I don’t think I had as much of a personal relationship with any artist on this year’s list as I had with stef chura. Back in early 2018 I was relatively new to Bandcamp, which is one of the Greatest Things Ever that I really don’t have time to talk about here (I’ll save that for an album where I can’t think of what to write about- there’s plenty of those coming up). I was initially overwhelmed by this new tool that was seemingly offering me endless opportunities to hear new music from artists not even yet big enough to have had held discussions over the exact makeup of the band’s logo*, artists so obscure that even if the singer committed suicide it would only make even the local news on a really slow news day, that I didn’t really know where to start. I followed a few people, hoping to get suggestions from their own opinions rather than go through the laborious task of forming my own.

(*Every band should have a logo. Listen, this isn’t a debate, I’m just telling you a fact. If you haven’t yet got one you’re obviously not taking your art seriously enough. I’ll accept that some artists might not have had the time yet, but if you’re on your third album and still logoless then you’re showing offensive disregard for your own brand. Did Steve Jobs die for nothing?**)

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Entry #1 Prince: Raspberry Beret

Oct 12, 2018Oct 13, 2018 ~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

Only Feasible Starter

There is an extremely high chance that I’m going to die relatively soon. Like, probably tomorrow.

OK, not probably tomorrow. Possibly tomorrow. OK, maybe not even ‘possibly’. Maybe tomorrow.

Alright, the chances of me dying tomorrow, or even in the upcoming days, are admittedly quite remote. But I could die any minute.

I mean, admittedly, we could all die at any minute of any day, such is the deliciously cruel randomness of life, but let’s face it- I’m far more likely to die a long time before you. I am a medical wreck; I take very few measures to protect my life; I have a dangerous curiosity when it comes to both legal and illegal substances and yet so blissfully unaware of my surroundings that the likelihood of me being hit by a bus or eaten by an escaped hyena* (that everyone else noticed was coming from miles away) are extremely high. This is all despite the fact that you so deserve to die before me! Come on, admit it- you’re a fucking waste of your disgustingly over extended skin!

(*Yeah, I know hyenas only generally feast on dead carcasses, but have you seen me lately? I’m sure they’ll take one look at my decrepit body and decide “Close enough”. Cheeky sods)

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8 LCD Soundsystem: american dream

Apr 3, 2018 ~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

LCD Go Down Cistern

…is what I’d call this piece if the album was rubbish. Honestly, I’ve been waiting for ages to use that pun.

Down the toilet, see? Like crap. Because the album’s crap. Utter faecal matter.

Unfortunately, LCD are yet to afford me an opportunity to use it, and I’m really starting to think they might not ever. They are an irritatingly consistent band.

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21 EMA: Exile in the Outer Ring

Mar 24, 2018Mar 25, 2018 ~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

The Rejection of Comprehensive Reviews

Well, two out of three ain’t bad (I turned 34 after the song was released)

I’m not going to be able to give the next handful of albums the usual insightful and in depth investigation that by this point you’ve come accustomed to.

You see, my previous entry intensely debating the artistic choices made on St Vincent‘s recent album was just so emotionally draining, that I worry that if I shake have head over my keyboard there simply won’t be enough viscous creativity juice left to pour out over my next few reviews.

Regardless: here is Emalina McFunnel Armitage with her third solo album. It’s brilliant, for many of the reasons I pointed out in my 2014 reaction to her previous record.

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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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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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55 Amanda Palmer & Edward Ka-Spel: I Can Spin a Rainbow

Mar 2, 2018Apr 15, 2018 ~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

A Vanity Projection of all Seven Colours

What are the best things? Like, what is the stuff you really like best?

The good stuff, right? The things that are are generally of superior quality, the things that are made up of such unarguable value that their very existence seems to increase the very worth of your being even just an iota. The things that are either useful or beautiful.

Some people say they like bad stuff. They’ll swear that they definitely see quality or usefulness in the music of Phil Collins, eating non-magic mushrooms, the films of Adam Sandler, fascism, and organic food*. These people may often claim ‘irony’, but that’s only because they don’t understand what ‘irony’ means. But these people don’t actually like bad things because they’re bad, they secretly like them because they’re too stupid to realise that they’re bad, and actually think they’re good. These people are absolute idiots, potentially dangerous, and should be disregarded in any serious debate.

There’s stuff that tries to be bad- your Sharknados, your Donald Trumps**, your Blink 182s. This is the bottom of the barrel, merely a celebration of renouncing ambition and lowering expectation. These things, and the people who like them, are just celebrating nihilism rather than anarchy. These people are absolute idiots, potentially dangerous, and should be disregarded in any serious debate.

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