This is not what you wanted - not what you had in mind

Continuing my trip up #album-of-the-day...

20.03.25 : II - Moderat (2013)

Again, I'd not heard of the album or artist but I took a sneak peak somewhere and saw Jon Hopkins and Burial mentioned in the same breath, so my suspicion was that I'd like it.  And yeah, if you like those artists, you'll like this.  I've not got a lot more to say about it than that really - it's bleepy and off-kilter rhythms which won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I like it.  

And there were generally positive comments from the channel as well (I'm beginning to suspect no-one ever said anything actually bad about anything until I came along) - apparently it's particularly good for writing up notes to!  A new statistic I'm including for amusement's sake (when I remember) is how many people left the channel as a result of the album - and this one managed to scare two people off, which was probably quite a high percentage of the population at the time.

Wikipedia has the following to say on the album in the main body of the entry "II is the second studio album by electronic trio Moderat. It was released in August 2013 on Monkeytown Records" followed by a track listing, chart placements in four countries (#73 in the UK, but top 10 in Germany) and then two more sentences.  Which is one of the shortest entries I've ever seen - there was more information on the album given in the channel!

"Customers also listened to" Apparat and ModeSelektor - which is not a massive surprise given that Moderat are a combination of the two (as you might guess from their name).  But yeah, I liked this and would listen to it again and am tempted to check out stuff from their component parts as well.

20.03.26 : The Optimist - Cory Wong (2018)

And for the third entry in a row, I've not heard of the artist or the album, so going in blind AGAIN -  it's like I've never listened to any music ever!  And the opening instrumental track had me slightly concerned because if the album was all like that then I was going to get bored very quickly with the Mark King style musical masturbation.  Fortunately, things did improve, but not massively so for me, I'm afraid.  It's a bit too all-American up-beat sunshine funk for me - it all sounds like it's the theme tune to some US drama set in some unfeasibly sunny location.  It's skilfully played, they all sound like they're having a good time and I'm very pleased for them and all that - but I'm sat here watching the rain, so they can just all fuck right off.  And that is one cheeeesy album cover as well.

The channel agreed it was sunny and upbeat, but for some reason this was viewed a good thing.  Shame on you all - you won't be so happy when you get to my age, I can tell you.  It managed to scare one person off though - but their loss was balanced by the addition of one new joiner.  Wikipedia has no entry for the album at all - but the internet has lots of pictures of him smiling and looking happy to make me hate him even more though.  And I'm afraid I'm going to have to deduct further points for him calling one of his albums Cory And The Wong Notes - that's just wong.

"Customers also listened to" a load of people I've never heard of, but I just know I'm going to hate Organ Freeman without hearing a single note of their work.  And I won't be checking out any more Cory either, I'm afraid.

20.03.27 : groundUP - Snarky Puppy (2012)

I had at least heard of Snarky Puppy, but couldn't have told you anything about them.  I seemed to recall reading their music wasn't exactly reflective of their name - but that still leaves a few possible genres out there.  And, oh good - it's more upbeat American stuff.  More jazz than funk this time, but that just makes it worse for me I'm afraid.  Far too noodle-y for my tastes - although I actually didn't mind "Minjor" too much for some strange reason because it's not really my sort of thing at all.  The channel was mostly happy enough with it, although there was some mild dissent - but that was more directed at jazz in general than the Snarksters.  It resulted in a net change of +1 members for the channel as well - the jazz was truly drawing in the crowds.

Well, if you'd told me two albums ago that II was going to have the longest Wikipedia entry of this round with three full sentences, I totally wouldn't have believed you - but this one comes in at a grand total of two sentences - "GroundUP (stylised groundUP) is an album by American jazz fusion group Snarky Puppy that was released in 2012. The album was recorded live at Shapeshifter Lab in Brooklyn, New York, in front of a studio audience".  What a mysterious selection these have all been.  It also tells me that there are 23 members of the group - touring for them must be somewhat of a challenge, to say the least.

"Customers also listened to" a load of people I've never heard of - I can only assume it's upbeat jazz, so can be thankful for my ignorance.  So, to sum up, in case it's not entirely clear - I did not like this album.

So, all in all, the happy Americans can go do one - and the serious Germans walk off with the round with ease.

20.03.21 - Let's start at the very beginning...
20.03.30 - Some people I've heard of!