Niklas Pivic

I love Rakim's work with Eric B. I love parts of what he did solo, until now.

This album consists of:

• God worship

• Featured artists worshipping Rakim

• Rakim rapping some mathematics and life stuff

• Featured artists rapping about b!tches, money, clothes

There are very few band compilations that can best this one. As one of the Reid brothers said, they did mash the sentiments of North American 1960s girl groups and Einstürzende Neubauten.

In spite of this band being racist, homophobic, and anti-feminist (just check the lyrics to 'One in a Million' and Axl's fights against Nirvana) I do actually dig some of the songs here.

A bit like a black-metal band playing covers of The Cure songs, tainted with a lot of Sonic Youth influence. Some tracks really got to me, I'll listen to this again.

Jon Spencer, nearly 60 years of age, teams up with the young rhythm section from The Bobby Lees: the results are rock blues that kind of matches what Spencer made with the Blues Explosion. This is vital, mature, yet impressively free blues that revitalises the spirit.

Eight songs in nineteen minutes? You got it. I'd love to hear more from this trio.

Tim Reaper releases some of the best drum 'n' bass I've heard this side of the noughties. This EP does not fail to deliver.

My modus regarding Merzbow:

1. I think about listening to a Merzbow record. (Side note: I've never re-listened to a Merzbow album.)

2. I think 'Holy shit, I hope this album isn't high-pitched.'

3. I start the album, volume very low.

4. Having ensured that my hearing won't be damaged, I start listening.

5. Around five minutes into the first track, I nearly always think 'Why did I start listening to Merzbow?' and also 'There's no other artist who's really like Merzbow.' and 'Holy shit, has he released around 600 albums, singles, and collabs?' and 'I wonder if he ever listens to his old albums. Why should he? Fuck it.'

6. After half an hour, I wonder whether I'm falling to… More

This is a grand experimental album made by a highly inventive and evocative musician, mainly drummer. This is the kind of experimental instrumentals you'd expect to be released on Drag City or similar labels.

Polyrhythmic drumming abounds with simple and dissonant electric-guitar notes. This is some provocative and great shit and I lap it up, simple as that.

A very nice and plain noise record: it felt like what I'd imagine holding fans to your ears while falling through air would feel like.

The sounds were not high-pitched (à la Merzbow) but very mid-levelled; this made for nearly an ambient listening experience.

To think this album was made in 1996 is incredible; it feels like an ambient->backroom at a techno club->ambient house...wow. It's a great album to listen to.

This is a really fun band. They're funny, too.

I really dig their first album, Pure Particles, which was a lot of fun in a brief period of time. Now they've signed with Sub Pop, the record label, which hasn't really changed their music or seemingly their fun perspective. Songs are about the import of proper alcohol quality and making a really pop song; there's a lot of ironic sensibilities strewn across the album.

Don't miss this lot. Very lovely melodies, songwriting, and collaborative song. Power pop meets twee indie.

For me, it's hard to not see this album as an elevation for a survivor of sorts. Cave's two sons have died and I can't understand the depths of those sorrows; I've experienced visceral and all-consuming sorrow in different ways, but I feel—and I may very well be wrong about this—that Cave's spiritual sides have grown beyond that of the christian concept of God, into something that I identify as unitarian universalist.

The first half of the album uses Cave's voice as that of a gospel preacher, rhythmically and repetitively, throwing his audience into a trance. The addition of a gospel choir in a few places doesn't hurt.

I dig how the drums sound as though the mics… More

This is an album that, to paraphrase Jon Hopkins, just came about without intellectual process. While I doubt that somewhat—Hopkins is a masterful audio engineer and a great composer, and those qualities aren't solely attained as gifts from above/below—this is both a psychedelic and very warming album, at least to myself. There are a lot of analogue feel to the album.

This music reminds me of the most sacral and ambient music made by the wonderful Popol Vuh. Also, I find this album to be a great step from Hopkins's last album, Music for Psychedelic Therapy.

This is an unsettling, spooky, fun, and disturbing album. Feels a bit as though Swans, David Lynch's writing, old-school horror films, and Einstürzende Neubauten had a kid together, as directed by Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci.

A fairly short bunch of modern experimental classical music compositions that make me more interested in this young Serbian composer. This is some raw stuff that breathes. The composer isn't afraid to use low volumes to achieve grand results.

A nice electronic trippy-dubby album that suited me fine while working and reading.

This may sound contrite, but I'll say it anyway: the unreleased Steve Albini version of this album, recorded in 1997, is excellent. A sheer power-pop masterpiece. Some of the songs just bleed fun and love for music. Every single bit is lovely.

On the "Rockline 2003" show, someone called in and asked the band for the history behind this disc, and Bun E. Carlos gave the explanation. The "In Color" album was produced by Tom Werman, but the band always felt that Werman screwed up the album. "He made it safe for radio, but the album sounds like it was done in a cardboard box." So, in 1997, they were in the studio hanging around with Steve Albini and had… More

This is a breath of fresh soul air. There's a lot of heft here, the sentiment I get when listening to music by the likes of Can or Mozart, people who can do anything, when they've chosen to make music that is fairly simple. This is a lovely album.

This is actually a very listenable album, considering how Merzbow usually includes a lot of high-pitched treble-laden noise. Au contraire, this is low-rumbling stuff (at least during the first 20 minutes); sounds made me feel as though massive ice-blocks were dragged all around me. In a good way, actually.

I had no problems working to this music!

This album is a jam. Roubaix really turned it out.

A later version of this album includes two remixes of the main soundtrack theme, one of which is absolutely blissful: https://song.link/le-samourai-remix

The film for which this soundtrack exists is also wonderful: https://www.criterion.com/films/184-le-samourai

This reminds me of Torres but on downers. Some of the songs on this album are lovely, for example, 'Petco'. I enjoyed a lot of the interludes and ideas that made their way into the album; sudden inspiration should find its way into albums far more often.

This is a nice addition to the DJ-Kicks series: interesting, exciting, and not that inventive, but fairly upbeat. An electronic and simple mix that nicely rolls by as I'm working.

This is a fresh breath of air. Tight, playful, polyrhythmic. What strengths!

I wrote this a couple of weeks after the album was released:

Alvvays' third album is their best yet.

In a couple of weeks, I've played this album over twenty times. Yeah. It's that good.

Alvvays don't shy away from their influences—The Smiths, shoegaze stuff, twee indie bands—but they bring great songs to the table, songs with odd chord changes, loads of melodies, no show–offy shit but rather a communal sense of wanting to do whatever makes the best song, and more melodies. I love the fact that they're using two different singers. And synths. Reliable drums. Great guitar sounds and riffs. This is some fun and great shit. I feel that Alvvays have feared nothing while… More

A really lovely and loving album by a band that has taken a lot of time to craft their sound.

Lovely, fuzzed-out, and distance-spaced reverby stoner rawk, ham-fisted and nice.