7gp ["seven good plays"] album-listening exchange

If I know that there's someone out there giving perhaps grudging, but well-meaning and fair attention to some niche favorite of mine, I'm more likely to put in the effort to listen to something *they* like a lot.

So I was thinking we could do something like this:

Each person who signs up for this "7gp" album exchange will agree to give seven good plays to an album someone else recommends, abiding by these two rules:

1. These should be seven honest, careful listens in a setting comparable to what you'd give an album you're getting to know by an artist you already like;

2. Each listen should be at least two days apart. So if today is Monday and I play an album (let's say it's the first time I play it), the second play should be on Thursday or after.

(Clarification for Rule Number 2: if you play it multiple times on Monday, or on Tuesday and Wednesday, it doesn't violate rules but the official "second play" won't be counted until you listen on Thursday.

My reasoning here is, my appreciation for an album usually grows when I give it space. If I play something seven times in a row one afternoon, I won't have engaged with it as deeply as if I play it seven times across the space of one month.

Also, when I *don't* like something, playing it seven times in rapid succession will just leave me laser-focused on the things I don't like about it. If I space out those listens, there's more chance for me to notice interesting things.)

So, whoever's onboard would recommend between one and three albums (if you recommend more than one, your randomly-assigned listener will choose only one; if you want to be helpful, you can write a 1-2 sentence gloss of each album you recommend, so that your listener has some vague idea of what they're getting themselves into when they're choosing). And each of us who's onboard would also get assigned one album.

If we got some momentum with this and kept it going, we could do a round every month or two.

I figure we who sign up should be ready for & open to all kinds of genres. ILM hosts all types. Let's try not to back out of an assignment because the album isn't the kind of thing we'd normally play.

And when we assign/recommend an album, let's be sincere. Don't recommend something you don't care for much. Knowing "I'm listening to something that means a lot to [fellow ILMer]" can help with the patience that's usually lacking when I'm trying out something I wouldn't typically go in for.

Anyone in?

it's 2025, sad state of affairs is I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone willing to give any album a single coherent, focused listen

I quite like this idea and would like to participate. A couple of possible issues/queries:

1) The randomly assigned listener might get assigned a choice from albums they already know. In this case I guess there could be a re-assignment? Maybe to be successful the exercise needs to gain a certain critical mass.

2) How do listeners report back on the experience? Like, do they say "I'm at listen number 4 and ____ is really starting to click," etc., or do they try to write something more comprehensive after the seven spins?

The Fall Forum used to do anonymous mix CDs without tracklistings that were randomly exchanged by a self-assigned coordinator. Then people would do a writeup of the whole thing, track-by-track (with as little or as much detail as they liked) and the compiler would then out themselves and respond. Maybe they still do? It was a lot of fun. 7gp takes out the compilation and guesswork labor (finding the song by Googling lyrics or using Shazam was frowned upon) while preserving the random element.

I like both ideas (mix CDs and individual albums). I feel like I would've had a much easier time with this 10 years ago though, seems like all the seemingly obscure stuff I dug has been thoroughly discovered now!

I feel like I would've had a much easier time with this 10 years ago though, seems like all the seemingly obscure stuff I dug has been thoroughly discovered now!

I'm guessing it might work better if you end up listening to something in a genre you don't know as much about. Of course some ILMers have considerable breadth of knowledge, but no one has heard everything. I would need to do some work myself to come up with three albums I love that aren't more or less well-regarded. Beyond that, some albums more obviously reward repetition than others — although the challenge to hear something different on the seventh spin of, say, a randomly chosen Ramones LP might be worthwhile.

I'm thinking of this partly in terms of what Carl Wilson does in his 33 1/3 album about Céline Dion's Let's Talk About Love, deliberately choosing something he hates to try and think more deeply about taste. (I tried an assignment once where my students did something comparable; for most, it really didn't work!) But of course the exercise doesn't have to go in that direction.

normally this would be exactly my thing but I have already made my life into a music discovery project and have no more time free for any new ideas. would take interest in thread though.

seems like all the seemingly obscure stuff I dug has been thoroughly discovered now!

― frogbs, Saturday, February 8, 2025 12:11 PM

i have read some very distressing and upsetting things on these forums in my day, but nothing scares me more than these kinds of sentiments. my condolences, frogs.

i'm interested in this. seven listens over 2 weeks seems like too much of an investment though. i'd give 3-5 days and three full listens. even with new stuff that i like a lot, that's how i listen to albums, revisiting as the mood hits.

maybe it's because most of the music discovery I do is on this board, or on hyper-specific Discords, as opposed to irl with my roommates and friends like it used to be. also as you get older more of your music listening is devoted to things you already like (which hopefully should be a ton of stuff by now) or rediscoveries, I'm not really interested in what's "new" these days like I used to be, but I probably should put more work in because I find cool stuff in Music League all the time

i get that. i hope new-to-you goodness continues to flow. in the past, your postings have helped me find a handful of great catalogue picks, so thank you for that!

NJS, I did think about that too --

1. Right, we could do a reassignment in that case. Alternately, if there are multiple options and all are familiar, the listener could choose the album they feel they know least well and have a nice bed-in, you know? There's a lot of stuff I've "heard" but not really "listened to." Hell, I don't think I've heard Exile in Main St all the way through twice.

-- which leads me to -- frogbs! On a general level sure, corners of the YMO universe and Hirasawa (these being the areas you've helped map that I've visited) have gained considerable traction. But how many people on ILM have heard Paraiso seven times? Let alone Technique of Relief? We wouldn't necessarily have to go ridiculously obscure, since chances are our listener won't be knowledgeable in our particular fields. And since you could list three albums, you could pull them from different domains -- I might know some Hirasawa at this point but I've never really listened to TMBG or Ween -- as NJS pointed out too.

And thus back to NJS,

2. Either way. I'm definitely the type to come and comment as I go, but a single write-up at the end of the seven-listen run would be fine too. A really neat result of all this could be that, though I give seven listens to the album I've been assigned, I'll also end up checking out a lot of tracks based on what other people are discovering and reporting to the thread about.

I'm a diehard album head (even though it's 2025... people like me are out there) (it's my favorite art form, period!) but if a recommender wanted to submit a self-curated mix instead of an album, that'd work just as well.

although the challenge to hear something different on the seventh spin of, say, a randomly chosen Ramones LP might be worthwhile.

Yes indeed! The persistence might reveal a lof of things even about an album you know pretty well. I had my huge Dylan kick more than a decade ago now. I wouldn't mind at all being pushed to find out what I'd make of Blonde on Blonde if I gave it seven listens *now.* which is why I wouldn't stress the obscurity levels of what we submit.

deliberately choosing something he hates to try and think more deeply about taste

This is an interesting element too, yeah! If I got assigned a modern EDM-based pop album I would definitely flounder, but even so, the exercise would go a long way to clarifying what I like and don't like in an album or sound, and that'd be appreciated. Plus it'd be a good challenge / opportunity -- to really try to hear my way into it, knowing it's something that my recommender loves. (Which is why sincerity is key... if someone recommends something they hate just for the laughs, this won't work.)

Austin,

i'd give 3-5 days and three full listens. even with new stuff that i like a lot, that's how i listen to albums, revisiting as the mood hits.

That does fulfill Condition 1, so I'd say come on in! If the spirit of the thread takes you, you might end up playing the album more, or worst case scenario, your recommender will think "goddamit, I got Austin again. So be it, 3-5 listens it is." The listeners/recommenders would get shuffled every round so if we manage to get, say, seven people, the different combinations each round will become their own fun element.

Where's imago, by the way? I thought that with the amount of stuff he likes that the rest of ILM doesn't, he'd be glad of a captive audience.

Also -- say you recommend three albums in the first round. You can reuse the two that went unpicked next time around. And then, third round, recommend only one, thereby forcing *somebody* to play your still-unpicked third. (Or do all new stuff each round, whatever you fancy.)

So for now:

TheNuNuNu
Neue Jesse Schule
frogbs
Austin

We could make this happen with just four people -- I can't do math for shit, but we'd need what, seven or eight rounds before each of us had recommended something to the other?

Let's give it a few more days and see if anyone else can be persuaded. (Daniel_Rf to thread!) and more people might sign up in another round or three.

as you get older more of your music listening is devoted to things you already like (which hopefully should be a ton of stuff by now) or rediscoveries, I'm not really interested in what's "new" these days like I used to be

Exactly, that's what I've found to be the case too. And I'm perfectly happy with it -- I could probably spend the next four years barely venturing out of the Japanese folk-rock/synthpop kingdom. But (a) I did get into XTC and Gizzard and Hirasawa this year, and am better off for it; and (b) anything is worth it if I can get someone listening to Agata, mwahaha

I'm in.

I often miss how I listened to music when I was saving up my lunch money to buy cds. Even if I didn't like something I bought, I would try to like it because one album was precious back then. Some things that initially put me off I worked my way into out of stubbornness, and not wanting to waste money. The Velvet Underground & Nico sounded AWFUL the first five times I listened to it.

The sixth time was pretty good though.

Hahaha! YES! In the years of 3-5 new CDs a year... you had to just keep pushing... whereas nowadays I have to trick myself into similar behavior. One way has been to limit my buying on Bandcamp, and it works sometimes -- there's a different weight to an album when I know it's sitting in my Bandcamp collection. (And this, clearly, is another!)

Have you considered signing up for the Music League on here?? It’s a similar idea and you’ll discover all sorts of new things.

That one looks -- intense...! The amount of listening that needs to be done to keep up seems pretty high, and it feels more of a lateral than a vertical spread -- lots of songs to hear, but probably not multiple times? Plus song- versus album-focused. All exacerbated by my not having Spotify out here. But it's been a fun thread to peek in on.

Oh and "inflicting" something on others seems frowned upon, whereas here it'd be 50% of the point!

I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone willing to give any album a single coherent, focused listen

I mostly listen to entire albums that are new to me, and probably give each of them close to seven plays apiece. I'm more interested in depth than breadth, though I try to balance familiar acts or genres with ones I haven't explored.

have no more time free for any new ideas. would take interest in thread though.

I mean, I'm still following up on record reviews I read in 1986, not to mention all the books, magazines and websites and radio etc. since then. It usually takes more than one person saying "this is great" to tip the scales for me, but if someone recommends something that is already on my radar, I will diligently listen and report back.

Alright, so just the five of us. (me, Neue Jesse Schule, frogbs, Austin, Cow_Art)

Let's give ourselves a couple days to figure out which album (or, up to 3) we want to recommend this round. When you've figured it out, post here. By Wednesday, let's say? After that I'll do the random assigning, and we can begin.

Oh yeah, let's cap album runtimes at 90 minutes! In theory I'd love to be assigned something as good and as long as Sandinista but, we do all have our own other trips.

It usually takes more than one person saying "this is great" to tip the scales for me, but if someone recommends something that is already on my radar, I will diligently listen and report back.

Ah, Halfway -- does this mean you'd like to join the draw? (And recommend your own things?) If the rec(s) you get assigned don't mean much to you, you're free to back out of the round, and I'll reassign where necessary.Or were you just making a general statement about your following-up-on-recs habits?

Alright, my three:

HIS - 日本の人 (Nihon no hito) (1991)
An enka singer, an odd-voiced glam rocker, and emperor of weird synthpop Haruomi Hosono team up to pay tribute to the folk music they loved in the '60s.

あがた森魚 - ぐすぺり幼年期 (Gooseberry younenki) (2012)
A concept album about early childhood - the light and mystery, the fear and helplessness. Among the gentler records in Morio Agata's punk-folk catalogue. Lightly psychedelic arrangements, rootsy group vocals.

Richard Dawson - Nothing Important (2014)
Dark, minimalistic, literary, gnarly, qawwali-indebted, distorted folk music. The forum search shows it made some mark on ILM in 2014, but hasn't come up much since. Home to two of the most unsettling and touching songs I know.

does this mean you'd like to join the draw? (And recommend your own things?)

Maybe if we were all stranded on an oil rig near Antarctica with nothing but CD collections to exchange. But that kind of time investment right now requires that I'm already intrigued by a record.

So participants name three albums and we get randomly paired up?

1-3 albums, yep. And then I'll do the random pairing.

(You only need to choose one album each round.)

(As a listener, I mean. As a recommender you can recommend up to three, *if* you want to give the listener who'll get your assignment some volition.)

I do think seven plays in a month will be demanding — in 2024, that was the max I played any album the whole year. (Question: How many times do those of us who reviewed albums professionally usually play them?) But I'm up for the challenge, partly because my own listening habits feel a little moribund lately.

I'm mulling over my selections. TNNN has stressed that we should love the records we choose. I also feel like I should choose titles I'd be willing to play seven more times in a month myself, which I wouldn't typically choose to do with an old favorite. Of course projecting myself into the mind of the imagined listener is a little pointless, but I want to imagine how the experience could be worthwhile.

I also feel like I should choose titles I'd be willing to play seven more times in a month myself

Yes! Very much a part of my own thinking.

Thank you for your thoughtfulness, NJS. I'm excited about this project.

I could overthink this, but I'm just going to go with the last three albums that I have actually listened to repeatedly over an extended time because they were new to me and I liked them a lot.

1. Sinéad O'Connor - Throw Down Your Arms (2005)
Reggae covers recorded at Tuff Gong with Sly & Robbie. Music to alleviate doom.

2. KD Lang - Watershed (2008)
Solid adult contemporary, lushly produced in the best way, sometimes reminiscent of Histoire de Melody Nelson by Serge Gainsbourg with a bit of Muppet banjo.

3. Teenage Fanclub & Jad Fair - Words Of Wisdom And Hope
As a middling fan of Teenage Fanclub and Jad Fair, I find this to be the best of both worlds.

yeah trying to think of albums that I'd actually listen to 7x in a month myself. when we kicking this off, tomorrow?

Tomorrow, o Amphibian!

Or whenever you, NJS, and Austin get the recommendations together. I'm not a draconian sort.

Cow, all three of those sound enticing (and all new to me!)

here's 3 rando personal classics that i have strong connections with. trying to be mindful and pick albums under ~45mins. i'm including spotify links for reference (+youtube when available):

gary burton quartet ― country roads and other places (1969) JAZZ
gary burton-vibes (+sometimes piano)
roy haynes-drums
steve swallow-bass
jerry hahn-guitar
not a full blown country/jazz hybrid sound, but definitely more folky funky than the standard post-bop of the day. recent revives around bill frisell got me thinking about this kinda "urban rural americana" sound. this album kinda sorta nails it.
https://open.spotify.com/album/7yGbCVYfpeGrWBdil0pOmo?si=3Qdovu0kQOWoVa_MUniPJQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fz-G82uiAw

the roots ― from the ground up ep (1993) HIPHOP
even though i didn't hear it until after illadelph halflife, the band's first ep remains one of the most charmingly idiosyncratic and refreshing hiphop releases of the 90s. from scott storch shoutouts to malik blunt identifying himself as such, it almost seems quaint by now. however even with the cynicism towards the band flowing thoroughly for the past decade and change, i can't overstate how fucking awesome this music is.
https://open.spotify.com/album/67el5xZUlIE1u0Z6CdZ0so?si=uUx7bRZfQ-S7hAyIkGHTcw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbacy3t8Kzg

terry callier ― i just can't help myself (1973) R+B/FOLK
gonna skip the 2 preceding (more revered) albums in favor of this one, mostly on the strength of "can't catch the trane." musical homages can be be a slippery slope, but terry understood the assignment completely. the rest of the album is more of a gritty soulful folk rock sound.
https://open.spotify.com/album/1PIkkbEskqfpCLCNpXTdbf?si=kdbOAClmRMmXVQy7tQvwoA
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mSKhc6bH3g2m6ee-3tGQdns_BWkvtOJMc

let's goooooo!!

Excellent. One act I've been half-meaning to check out for years and two totally new to me, and apparently Takashi Matsumoto of Happy End liked Terry Callier because a few years later he wrote a song called Satin Doll too -- unless they're both referencing something else? Anyway, I would be delighted to draw either of you, and I can't imagine that frogbs or NJS will disappoint either. More & more hyped for this daily.

Oh indeed, Satin Doll is a Duke Ellington cover. So be it. Still, just read through the whole Terry Callier thread -- intrigued -- bridging the gap between John Martyn and Gil Scott-Heron, you say...

Okay, here are my 3:

Sora - re.sort (2003)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i87AYSywcVA

In the first half of the 00's "folktronica" was a pretty big thing, in online circles at least. It didn't really last though and I assumed the music hadn't held up but I think it actually sounds better now than it did back then. Like what the "music of the future" should've been. Sora is interesting because he's a total enigma - outside of this one album there is almost nothing else to his name (a couple of tracks on 90s electronica comps, but that's it). Spread entirely through word of mouth and online folks who were into this kind of thing. Didn't go very far. But somehow, about 5 years ago, it wound up getting a reissue, and for whatever reason really took off then. Despite its 2003 release, 99% of its ratings on RYM have come since 2019. I know I posted about it in one of the ambient threads here and people seemed to like it. It's really great, stuffed with jazz and bossa nova samples, which I think sets it apart from similar albums. My favorite is the final track "Satellite Towers".

Simon Bookish - Everything/Everything (2008)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWX0MblnWm0

I'm guessing some ILXors know about this album. One of those things that seems like it would be up the alley of anyone who posts here. Simon Bookish is an experimental electronic artist who, for some reason, decided to make a grand, overwrought pop album. And it rules. It's sort of an amalgam of stuff like Todd Rundgren, David Bowie, Brian Eno, Thomas Dolby, etc. - but it's got its own thing going on too. It feels a bit like a musical. Lots of horns, no guitar (I think). Really catchy tunes. The album did okay, I think Pitchfork liked it, but his career didn't really take off and he went back to making more experimental and formless stuff after this. Seems like the sort of album that'll get rediscovered and lionized some day.

The Bran Flakes - Help Me (2017)
https://open.spotify.com/album/1LFN5fcTGiaqIsJXSbXs4X
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZEUYrP_XbM

The most recent album from a couple of Canadian plunderphonics weirdos. Originally they were maybe a bit like Negativland, some of their early work is downright disturbing, but over time they became more fun and demented, leading up to this, honestly one of the most fun and bonkers album I know. They sample a ton of stuff from the 50's through the 70's - kids records, educational tapes, polka 45s, commercials, TV shows, etc. Their prior album I Have Hands is also really fun, but I picked this because it's shorter. Despite being real gimmicky I think I did listen to this at least 7 times the month it came out. Just so many bits that stick in your head, I couldn't get enough.

Posted a Spotify link of that one since the YouTube playlist has some junk in it, like all album playlists do.

Have fun :)

Thank you for your thoughtfulness, NJS. I'm excited about this project.

My choices won't win any obscurity contests, but here goes:

Coachwhips - Bangers vs Fuckers (Narnack, 2004)
This is basically the “randomly chosen Ramones LP” I considered upthread. Eleven garage rockers in 18 minutes, with largely inscrutable vocals chortled through a busted telephone mouthpiece atop crushed-out drums and organ blaring through as if from another planet. On the face of it, it might seem to say all you need it to after a single listen (or, according to taste, a fraction of one). But there’s something compelling in this extremely overdriven recording that seems intent on clearing your brains out of your head. Will documenting the cumulative effect recover said brains? Your best choice if pressed for time!

Joni Mitchell - The Hissing of Summer Lawns (Asylum, 1975)
A justly celebrated and endlessly rewarding, mysterious album. So many sounds and textures (a bit lite fusion plus folk balladry, but that sells it short) accompanying Joni’s more or less direct singing, a real fever dream of an album. It’s a peculiarity that I’ve been listening to this for twenty-five years but still only vaguely know the lyrics, despite the reputation of the lyricist.

Jan Jelinek - Tierbeobachtungen (~Scape, 2006)
I think this came along when the moment for glitch/microhouse had started to wane, so it’s relatively overlooked. I hear it as a dark take on “all watched over by machines of loving grace,” where the dank whooshing and washing and whistling sounds obliquely suggest “nature” even as their repetition signals its uncanny absence. But the album is also be quite soothing: is the title (Tierbeobachtungen = animal observations) anthropocentric or zoomorphic?

Don't you fret, NJS, two of those have never crossed my radar. And the Joni, acknowledged classic though it be, is like Exile, I've only played it all the way through twice. And that was years & years ago.

I think I'd be happy with *any* of these twelve.

Alright now. Draw time...!

And, the results (courtesy of www.random.org/lists... for a more thrilling experience next round I should do this old-school, with names written on paper, and scissors and a hat)

> Neue Jesse Schule chooses one of mine.

> Cow_Art chooses one of NJS's.

> frogbs chooses one of Cow's.

> Austin chooses one of Frog's.

> I choose one of Austin's.

Sampling Austin's three. Embarrassment of riches.

Gonna go with Terry Callier. I swear by Al Joshua, and I love the mystical edges of the Van Morrison catalogue, and Curtis Mayfield's There's No Place Like America Today (thanks to a Sinead O'Connor rec), and (Alley-Wind Song was my sample) this is putting me in mind of all them.

On first listen: feels like there's a lot of interesting stuff happening quietly in the background of Side A, stuff that will take a few listens to unravel. I think I noticed a tendency to fade out / end on a great repeating vocal melody. As for Side B, though, holy fuck. How did I not know about this album sooner? Astral Weeks and Veedon Fleece should be packaged with a sticker that reads, "Next station on the line: I Just Can't Help Myself."

Just seen this thread, good idea! Is there room for another next time around?

Absolutely!!! Would love to have you on board, Mare.

Jan Jelinek - Tierbeobachtungen is what I’ll be listening to. I’m a huge Joni fan so I know Hissing Lawns backwards and forwards. Garage rock is something I was more into as a youngster, so Coachwhips are out.

I don’t know much about glitch/microhouse, so this should be good. Glitch to me means Oval’s 94 Diskont which I love but it’s the only thing i’ve heard like that. Microhouse is like…. Gas? I have a Gas album that I like. Looking forward to this!

Speaking of the Coachwhips, garage rock is not my native ground, though I do adore Dead Moon. But if I'd drawn NJS, I would've seriously considered choosing it just because NJS's write-up is so good.

Thanks Nu, look forward to it!

Did Terry just sing "the famine and/or feast wind" ?

Side B raises the hairs on the back of my neck.

Oh holy fuck,

Beware of the East wind,
A god of man and beast wind,
A famine and/or feast wind,
And the last but not the least wind,
A threat of silver fleece wind,
A follow great release wind,
Blowin all across the land,
Blowin all across the land,
Where you stand,
Where will you stand,

No more looking up lyrics, this is cheating, this is too good

really happy you're diggin it!! he's incredibly articulate and that album has some of his best words.

i chose sora, mostly based around the lore recounted in the comments. three tracks in and very pleasantly reminded of the integration of this sort of thing into more radio-friendly indie and some mainstream bands. a very dated sound, but in a nice way. browsing through the "fans also like" (i'm listening on spotify) and there's rei harakami and nuno canavarro among the lot ― figures i love it. and oh hey, as i was typing this, a bill evans sample popped up. lol yeah, i won't have any issues thoroughly soaking this one up. thank you, frogs!

some noteworthy environmental notes:
it's pouring rain right now, but i'm able to be inside next to an open window with Re.sort playing on a small bookshelf stereo. "traces" sounds absolutely perfect accompanied by the natural sound of rain outside.

noteworthy notes quite worth noting, i should say.

Laughed out loud at the second message (I don't know, I still don't feel comfortable actually posting a "lol," even though I grew up in the years of lol and rofl and rotflmfao)

all good. i'm just really into this sora album and doing little editing out of excitement. this is a perfect recommendation and checks so many boxes already, but in the spirit of #onethread, i posted here about wanting to hear albums that have a specific characteristic in them and this one delivers without issue. i won't say what's on the other side of that link right now, but i'll be back in the next few days to check in with thoughts after further listening and what that link has to do with any of this.

Not derisive laughter! I played the Sora too, just now, -- wrong setting for a careful listen (noisy coffeehouse) but it floated pleasantly over & through me.

Tierbeobachtungen is lovely. The first time I listened to it I was sitting on the back porch, watching rain fall in the pool. The first two or three songs are my favorite, but the entire thing is quite nice. I listened to it again while picking up the house and walking the dogs. Looking forward to spending more time with it. I love music that feels like a window is opened into a soundcape and i'm just hearing part of something that's been going on a very long time, machines turning forever.

.....I'm not going to have time for any of my previously-ongoing music trips, am I

Thanks everyone, this is thrilling.

gonna listen to all 3 of Cow's to figure out which one I wanna get into. never heard a Sinead OConnor album before and I'm sure this is the wrong one to start with but so far it certainly sounds nice :)

I love music that feels like a window is opened into a soundcape and i'm just hearing part of something that's been going on a very long time, machines turning forever.

This description was so beautiful I had to try the album myself. Played it twice while biking, which is how most of my quality listening gets done, including the Terry Callier -- our apartment complex is next to a bay, and all around the bay is a park with great bike lanes and not a lot of people. I ride the bike to work and back, an hour each way. Sometimes twice a day. Come midsummer (which lasts, like, six months) the journey is so SCORCHING and so SUMMER that the only albums in my whole collection that still sound good when I have to make the trip at midday are Kazemachi Roman and Tropical Dandy.

Anyway -- Tierbeobachtungen is captivating. It's just as Cow wrote above, you feel like you're intruding -- it's eerie, but these machine/creatures are not doing anyone any harm, they're just doing what they always do. It reminds me of Hosono's Watering a Flower, which sounds like going to sit by a swamp, watching a bubble rise to the surface every five minutes. The first track (Talking) is like visiting the swamp in daytime, the second (Growth) is when you come back at night.

This Jelinek record seems to have a similar trajectory. Those first two songs are easy to pay attention to, they have catchy melody-snippets and distinct rhythms (it's like... ambient funk), but as the album continues the machines get tired, they can't keep as many processes going, they slowly wind down, and the songs drift away, becoming less and less as they go. Before the closer there's a whole minute of silence, and that last song, when it finally starts up, is barely anything at all, the machine barely awake. The final seconds sound like one of my three-year-old daughter's musical toys when the batteries run completely out of power.

Reporting from "Station 2" -- three days since my first real careful listen. I love the structure of Side B, the two long mystical explorations bridged by a lush, lyric-light, scat-heavy middle song. Side A is more recalcitrant, but I'm starting to love the quietest of the five, Satin Doll. I like how quickly the album title announces itself in the opener. And while Terry-as-singer captivates me primarily on Side B so far, there's also the peak of Gotta Get Closer to You, 1:32 to 2:02 or so:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcsAiNVticY

been going back to Re.sort periodically and it's really bright, soothing music. it's been a fitting companion in so many different situations: driving, in the bath/shower, coloring mandalas, meal preparation, etc. it's music that repeats themes sporadically enough to get "turned around" in if you're passive listening, but it also has a strong enough presence to be more than just ornamental during active sessions.

and re:the fidelity of this stuff and that time-streteched "pixelated" sound―――idk why i'm such a clichéd "purist" but i do tend to experience more emotional resonance and overall connection with a piece of music if it's a bit flawed and messed up. that's sort of one of the main tenets of this stuff, so yeah: i'm all in.

i liked the stuff like ben chasny was doing and there's a few familiar names who would pop up as remixers on indie band's singles, but i wasn't saavy to the inner workings of this scene at all back then. idk where Re.sort falls into it, but hearing it now without much other context at all, it definitely feels like one of the better examples of the sound. really great stuff and i've already jumped into other "riyl" things based around it. thanks again, frogs.👊🏼

and again: if you need a bright shot of good sunshine via music, Re.sort might have something for you.

oh yeah! i forgot!

Re.sort has good "SONG" songs, too. the shorter, beatier tracks present those by-now stale, but still endearing "wonky" rhythms, while the longer ones present these multi-movement, slightly jazzy soundtracks ("Rayuela (ii)" is a big favorite here). and even if it's all instrumental/wordless vocals, "revans" was a first-listen love and immediate "current favorites" playlist add.

really good album. firm four mics.

final thoughts for now:
idk how this album was constructed ―all samples? all live instrument protools manips? hybrid of both?― but whoever "sora" is has a preference for tones that overlap with mine very heavily. whether it's actual vibes, marimbas, and glocks or just sounds manipulated to resemble those things, i don't care. what i do know is that i love this album's pallette.

that's a good question, trudging through YouTube comments and the like a number of samples have been discovered, but I do think there's a fair bit of "original" stuff here, even if he's not actually playing the instruments himself.

listening to Words of Wisdom and Hope, really tickles the TMBG/Logan Whitehurst part of my brain, I would've been really into this had I gotten it the year it was released

idk why i'm such a clichéd "purist" but i do tend to experience more emotional resonance and overall connection with a piece of music if it's a bit flawed and messed up.

Ha! Me too -- I first noticed it in my early twenties somewhere, and it's stayed true (35 now), the way the wrong / awkward / wonky moments in a performance often end up being the bits I look forward to each listen. Not necessarily my *favorite* moments in a song, but I love to hear them. Something warm and cheerful and perennially surprising about that kind of thing.

My latest gleanings from I Just Can't Help Myself: such good backing vocals.

NuNuNu, I’m sorry for taking so long to comment on your selections. I wanted to give each album a dedicated listen before deciding which one I’d choose, which took longer than expected. Recently I’ve taken up the hobby of choosing an unknown or neglected album and writing about it as it plays in my (paper) diary, and so I approached each of the albums this way.

Regarding the first two choices: my knowledge of Japanese pop is pretty shallow, mostly limited to YMO and YMO-adjacent albums plus a smattering of city pop through Light in the Attic’s compilations. The knowledge gap here has a lot to do with never having really read much about it — much as I love some of this music, it feels like my appreciation of it doesn’t transcend hype. Any suggestions?

Anyway, I started with Mario Agata, whom I’d never heard of. Listening to Gooseberry younenki, I hear the comment that it’s about childhood and think that the music is also referencing past styles... but I don’t quite know from where. For instance, the chugging rhythm and singalong vocals of “めりけん弾丸特急” call to mind “The True Wheel” from Eno’s Taking Tiger Mountain, but I have no way of knowing whether that was a source for Agata (whose first album preceded Eno’s) or if he and Eno had a different source in common, or if the resemblance has a different genealogy. And, of course, I don’t know what the lyrics are about. I can’t think of anything else from c.2012 that sounds like this album, which has a homemade feel and a charmingly high clarinet quotient for a rock album. I’m not sure if I’m overstressing my ignorance in feeling a bit incompetent to comment on it — a child’s world is always new, and in that respect maybe it makes sense to allow oneself a naïve approach.

To a lesser extent the same is true of HIS. Here I’m familiar with Hosono and hear the album’s pastiche elements (lots of Latin American styles) in light of the plundering of American exotica he was doing with YMO and before that. However, this album is essentially sweet, with a modest dry acoustic, in a way that Pacific or the first YMO album aren’t. I hear 日本の人 a bit like a family comedy from some imagined past — there are moments that conjure the kind of nostalgia you get from a film where you wish you shared in the giddily (re)discovered love of the people in it (the cha-cha number, “恋のチュンガ”).

Dawson’s Nothing Important is a different beast altogether, except maybe in the sense that all of these albums have a “folk” lineage (including sometimes “untrained” vocals). I heard a bit from Peasant when it attracted attention a few years back and I know it did well in the ILM poll, but I found Dawson’s voice abrasive and didn’t bother making the investment. Banal truth: I had more patience for this kind of thing when I was younger. (I remember being shocked with someone heard a mix CD I assembled as “easy listening,” but in retrospect I know what they were talking about.) The often mangled (maybe detuned?) guitar playing and ragged vocals appeal to a sense of raw experience — what we imagine we exclude in our presumedly digital and urban present, which is also an experience of suffering. I’m guessing someone must have already drawn comparisons between Dawson and Bela Tarr, who also makes small worlds seem vast, cold and cruel, as well as mordantly funny.

Well, I must choose. I had more good feels listening to Agata and HIS, but I'm going with Dawson mostly because I feel like I'm in a better position to "read" him (and about him) while also gaining something from the process. It's winter here in Minnesota, cold enough that they cancelled school this week, and we might as well face down suffering.

BTW I loved reading the comments on Tierbeobachtungen upthread — glad Cow_Art found something to choose in the list (feels like a narrow escape!) and is enjoying the experience. Also will have to hear Watering a Flower after NuNuNu's comparison with that album. And I'm glad toys still get sick and die like NuNuNu's three-year-old's, though I guess that's perverse of me.

I've had four "good" listens to Tierbeobachtungen, plus a couple of extra. Liking it more each time. Loving the hiss in some of the loops.

Ahhh, NJS! (Shall I call you Jesse? Initials feel too distant for how intimate this project is getting to feel.) I suspected a great long post was brewing, but didn't foresee one quite so detailed or beautiful. (That final paragraph...!) Thank you for giving each of the three so much care and thought. Thrilled that you chose the Dawson -- plot twist!!

More comments to come, as for now I need to return (reluctantly) to my (salaried) work.

Yeah, Jesse's fine. Neue Jesse Schule was meant to be a temporary username from when I started grad school that ended up becoming permanent somehow; I'm kind of embarrassed by it.