we've been doing these tapmusic.net top album 3x3s every friday on a discord for forever, and i wanna get back in the habit of sharing them (they're the root of music friday!) and rambling about music i listened to over the last week! i love the little music potlucks, but i also wanna encourage folks that there is no singular method of celebrating music friday, it is simply a sharing of music on fridays.
the grand tour returns
i've gone through like fifteen versions of The Grand Tour, where i am listening to a bunch of music in release order, which led to The Summer of Jazz and some other things, but i decided i would go into my monitored music calendar in lidarr and start on my birthday in 1989 and kind of grab every album from that point forward and have that be the focus of The Grand Tour v.2.9_final_FINAL.psd
it's been fun so far! it's a lot more varied that the last few times I did this. onward to some highlights! (these are not in any particular order.)
kessoku band (the bocchi the rock album)
spotify: 結束バンド/Kessoku Band (2022; 14 songs, 54m)
the kessoku band self-titled album RIPS. it shreds. i also appreciate that the last track is the only one sung by bocchi's VA and is an AKFG cover. a sweet love letter to end on. too many shows about musicians fail to do more than like a handful of songs. (looking at you, given and ya boy kongming.) digging a little bit into who makes up the band was not tremendously surprising that it's got folks from tricot/the peggies, but it did put me onto...
tricot
spotify: 不出来/Fudeki (2022; 24 tracks, 1h29m)
i missed this one until now! i was really surprised how well the 2nd disc works as instrumentals, also.
joe hisaishi
Joe Hisaishi used to do city/synth pop! this is really just my own ignorance, but i always thought he was just a master piano soundtrack guy. nope! turns out digging into the archives of artists you like often yields fun results. the hi-tech (i.e., played on synths) versions of some of the early ghibli scores have also been fun, but they seem to not be anywhere
808 state
youtube: Quadrastate (1989; 13 songs, 1h7m)
i got off a meeting that was really dragging and hit play and was immediately hit by my first listen to 808 state. an incredible reversal, in my imo.
the plastics
spotify: Welcome Plastics (1980; 14 songs, 43m)
the plastics. i really like the album art on this one. they seem to oscillate between being adjacent to bauhaus and the b-52s, and i like that chaos.
steve lacy
spotify: Gemini Rights (2022; 10 songs, 35m)
one of my students sent this last week for music friday, and gemini rights is: good, in my imo.
otouto
i've had this album on my wishlist for so long that i forgot what the album sounded like, so when i finally tracked it down i got to re-experience it and: dang, that's a good album. unfortunately, the full thing seems to no longer be easily found.
mamalarky
spotify: pocket fantasy (2022; 12 tracks, 34m)
@anlattner got frogged by this and shared it, and i think the whole album is great.
the field mice
spotify: Snowball (1989; 8 songs, 34m)
no notes, just vibes.
yumi arai
spotify: MISSLIM (1974; 10 songs, 38m)
a yumi arai track was my music friday potluck pick! something about those first two albums i listened to hit a note this week, and there's a lot of really fun instrumentation on them.