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Waterstrider - Way Out
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Waterstrider - Way Out

Joel Frieders | July 1, 2019
THIS FUCKING BAND. Waterstrider have the discint knack for making me forget there are other people around me. I find the audible string they're dangling in front of me, and like a cat high on dat nip, I'm closed eyes hypnotized and completely out of body. How fucking comf is this riff on "Way Out"?  Jesus balls on a faded beige broken down Bonnevile in the parking lot of a dive bar that looks closed but is actually completely packed full of guys just getting off the third shift and living life in slow motion. THIS SONG IS FUCKING GORGEOUS. The bass gently punching with that swift kicked bass drum and the muted guitar pick out under that ghastly vocal is making time stand still, and I'm fucking thankful this feeling still exists when everything else sucks, from...
SHREDDERS - Ayeyayaya
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SHREDDERS - Ayeyayaya

Joel Frieders | June 25, 2019
I'm somewhat of a Doomtree fanboy. I never really understood their draw until seeing them live, and then I saw them live NINE TIMES in like four years and I was hooked. Every time I even THINK about seeing Doomtree I get hype as hell.  This SHREDDERS project is a fun variant on a rap-fam that sometimes feels like a stable or a hotel full of rappers instead of just a crew. The latest drop is "Ayeyayaya" and it's fulla SIMS and P.O.S. freak flows and a beat that makes me wanna Kid N Play dance around a high school house party, except my house party is at my house and I just vacuumed. CHECK THEM VACUUM LINES DAG! WE CLEANIN! Looking at the credits on the bandcamp page I noticed the production duo of ...
City and Colour - Astronaut
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City and Colour - Astronaut

Joel Frieders | June 18, 2019
I've loved me some City and Colour for a while now. I remember bouncing one baby on my lap and one baby in the carrier with my foot as I wrote about his album, Little Hell, in my kitchen back in 2011. His voice is calming and comfortable, but with the strange and unique ability to cup my feels like a pair of sensitive ballsies and turn the tone all the way to bleak. But hopeful. It's like he's got you by the aforementioned balls, but you trust him not to squeeze, and he doesn't. Well, at least not the balls. City and Colour squeezes that heart muscle thing I forget I can lead with once in a while.  His latest single, "Astronaut", is another example of how soaringly gorgeous this dude makes music. But maybe the main reason why I felt...
Lipphead - Slippery Fingers
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Lipphead - Slippery Fingers

Joel Frieders | June 7, 2019
Are you KIDDING!? I've loved both Blockhead and Elliot Lipp for yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaars! And NOW they decide to touch tips? Uncle Tony and Mister Lipp are gonna make me impregnante myself again ain't they?  Lipphead is brilliant. And this first single, "Slippery Fingers" is straight up cool out bbq soft shorts PERF. Whenever I'm confronted with music that makes me feel just as relaxed as energized, I get a bit offended because I didn't hear it before. Thankfully this just dropped today, so while I might be late to everything because of all these kids I made, at least I got to hear this as soon as it existed publicly. Super jacked to hear the rest of this album, and I hope the vibe of being played outside while consuiming many...
Altered Tapes - So Fresh, So Clean (Altered Tapes Remix)
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Altered Tapes - So Fresh, So Clean (Altered Tapes Remix)

Joel Frieders | May 16, 2019
Sorry if it looks like I'm fanboying on these Altered Tapes guys lately, IT'S JUST THAT I AM. This track is like the fif time in the last few weeks where I've wanted to literally LIVE INSIDE A TRACK. That smooth shoulder shimmy shimmy shit is so fucking appreciated lately. Outkast was one of the first groups where merely thinking about them threw me into a vibe where everything around me, while insane, was fine. Oh, the car's on fire? It's fine. Oh, the BBQ was canceled because of tariffs placed on our trade partners? That's fine. Oh, we're out of Squirt and have to use Canfield's 50/50 instead? Ok, that's fine. Oh, KIDS Incorporated was canceled? THIS IS ABSOLUTE HORSE HOCKEY! Altered Tapes are the hip older brothers of my brain's musical center. With...
David Pritchard - An Admission of Guilt
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David Pritchard - An Admission of Guilt

Joel Frieders | March 14, 2017
Knowing absolutely nothing about David Pritchard, nor his 1977 album Nocturnal Earthworm Stew, I will admit to being completely fucking mesmerized by his track "An Admission of Guilt". I spent the better part of last week staring out the window at all of the shit being blown around by the 80mph winds and playing air drums in my own private David Pritchard universe, where noises aren't noises, they're sonic accoutrements bruv! As a self-proclaimed beat freak, I find these ever changing rhythms so fucking choice, it's akin to a full length feature film in just under 13 minutes. If only my attempts at making music this all over the place sounded this well put together. David Pritchard, even though you dropped this shit 40...
Dead Sea - 8.50
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Dead Sea - 8.50

Joel Frieders | February 23, 2017
I clicked play on this sumbitch this morning after my kids got on the bus. It's been unseasonably warm, the windows are still all dew-ey, the sun was coming up to my right, and I'm only wearing my trademark hoodie and jeans as I drive myself to work.  Simply put, it's fucking comfortable outside righ meow.  Yet, the sad part, that most conscious humans on earth understand, is that we're experiencing this shift in seasons because we've been steady dicks to the environment. This song, "8.50", from Dead Sea has that sort of shimmering comfortable sweatpants and tube top pleasure laid out as a sort of framework for the track, but then the vocal is that odd sort of hopeless and meek murmur, somehow making the juxtaposition of the two sides the focal point of the track...
Oddisee - Things
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Oddisee - Things

Brandon Backhaus | January 5, 2017
Next sunny day, as the winter blanket of clouds and cold offers a respite, as the bitter and hopeless glances at checking account balances fade to paydays, as the shit show of 2016 gives way to a new year full of stout resolutions and hopeful commitments, hop in whatever vehicle you have acquired in your life as your main form of transportation. Maybe the windows are down and you get your teenage girl on. Maybe headphones are atop your head as you hop on your bike and channel a Goonie or two. Maybe you put on some New Balance, jog out the door and get in touch with your inner Forrest Gump.  Whatever the means, however you listen, when you press play make sure that the track that comes streaming into the holes on the side of your head vibrating tiny bones and causing sound to enter your...
Cars and Trains - Secret Worlds
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Cars and Trains - Secret Worlds

Brandon Backhaus | October 3, 2016
Cars & Trains is fucking with us.  Portland’s electronic-folk toy-instrument live-looping god-piece is straight up fucking with us.  He has released Secret Worlds, a new 1-track album scrapped together from remnants of piano/cello sessions with musician William Ryan Fitch and long repressed memories.  What gaul Cars & Trains must have? Releasing a record with 1 fucking track. Next he’ll tell us that he’s going to start including Planes and Razor Scooters.  “Secret Worlds” is tinkling and childlike a it builds and builds and adds new layers on top of new layers until it hums to a frenetic crescendo like a first kiss.  Cars & Trains, you bastard. Getting me all worked up and panting and then you just leave. No note. No...
Open Mike Eagle and Paul White - I Went Outside Today feat. Aesop Rock
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Open Mike Eagle and Paul White - I Went Outside Today feat. Aesop Rock

Brandon Backhaus | May 9, 2016
What’s up, everybody?  It’s been a while.  How’s life?  I’m good. And for the first time in a minute.  Been pilfering time while listening to the crickets.  I went on a twelve mile solo hike.  It felt like was recovering from a cobra bite.  Life has a funny way of teaching you the important lessons that you need, dude.  Today I came out of my apartment and didn’t even feel like a contortionist. My face flexed into a smile at times and even when I got choked up was genuine. I’ve been meticulously putting all the cards back after I felt erroneously like I could discard that. Even though I blew them down on purpose, all it did was skew things for worthless. After weeks of feeling sickened for her, turns out, I need some brick and mortar. But now I’m back and I’m feeling fine.  Spring seems ...

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