Ryan’s Music Picks 🌜 January 2018

I decided to post a link to an album every day in 2018 on twitter (@ryanruppe). Here’s January:

• Spotify Playlist

• Apple Music Playlist

USF – Pacific Decade (Bandcamp)Head-nodding electronic atmospherics for a new year.

Deltron 3030 (Bandcamp)A stone cold classic. The best scifi rap in existence AND if it wasn’t for this album (specifically track 14), the Gorillaz wouldn’t exist.

Jean Jacques Perrey and Luke Vibert – Moog Acid (Bandcamp)Delightful synthesizer sounds, beeps, boops and beats that straddles the line between retrofuturistic and actually futuristic.

NHK yx Koyxen – Exit Entrance (Bandcamp)Laid back clicks and beeps like some machines having a intimate coffee date. Great for quiet Saturdays.

Monster Rally – Flowering Jungle (Bandcamp)Loops and beats branching out from vintage exotica to doo-wop and Motown loops with slowly blooming grooves.

fraNcis. – Y2K: The End Times Mixtape (Bandcamp)One of my favorite artists from http://mp3.com in the late 90s, also formerly half of Viva Voce. Tons of solid groove that soundtracked my high school and early college.

Balmorhea – Clear Language (Bandcamp)Pastoral and dense, with relentless feeling. Great soundtrack to your favorite fantasy novel.

H. Takahashi – Raum (Bandcamp)Gentle sounds to absorb and envelop. Perfect auditory therapy after one of those days.

Rostam – Half-Light (Bandcamp)My favorite member of Vampire Weekend strikes out on his own and makes what might be the best album to come out in 2017.

Louis & Bebe Barron – Forbidden Planet Soundtrack (Spotify)A groundbreaking recording of early experimental electronic music, it was credited as “electronic tonalities” in the film. Still mind blowing and fresh sounding now.

The Como Mamas – Move Upstairs (Bandcamp)Roaring gospel tunes that crackle with live energy. Hard to believe they make stuff like this anymore.

Elder – Dead Roots Stirring (Bandcamp)Chunky riff metal, like if Zepp did only 10-minute sludgy grooves.

Algiers – The Underside of Power (Spotify)Dangerously passionate southern gothic post-punk with the right amount of soul for this dystopia we live in.

Adrian Utley’s Guitar Orchestra – In C (Spotify)A dude from Portishead and some guitar and organ friends play Terry Riley’s legendary minimal composition with an electric drone and an edge of menace.

Surfer Blood – Snowdonia (Bandcamp)Classic power pop sound with layers and depth and feels.

Software – Digital-Dance (Bandcamp)Proto-vaporwave with saxophone, synth guitar and gated drums like everyone wants to do now, but from contemporaries of Tangerine Dream. Actual rockin’ spa music.

The Go! Team – Semicircle (Bandcamp)The champs return with another one for the ages. Stomp out your winter doldrums with sousaphones, youth choirs, and block-rocking bears.

Celadon City – Somehow We Will Get Through This (Bandcamp)Emotional/pastoral electronic music for hard days and good days.

Roberto Carlos Lange – Cutups (Bandcamp)The mastermind behind Helado Negro makes aleatoric drones and pulsing oceans of sound to immerse yourself in.

Greta Van Fleet – From the Fires (Bandcamp)Throwback 70s-style metal but with 2018 production. Zeppelin dads take note.

Von Südenfed – Tromatic Reflexxions (Spotify)Mark E. Smith (RIP) and the dudes from Mouse on Mars have a go at that mid-2000s indie-dance sound from LCD Soundsystem et al by having MES toast over motorik beats.

Canada Effervescent- Ridin’ America (Bandcamp)Clear, crisp synthesized sound, blastin’ across the plains with the warm hum of an ambient embrace.

Club 8 – Golden Island (Link)Swedish quiet pop kings Club 8 get dark and mystical.

Electric Wizard – Time To Die (Bandcamp)Slow, heavy, dark metal. The perfect soundtrack for underground lizardman battles in Dungeons & Dragons.

Pastel Ghost – Abyss (Bandcamp)Spectral synthwave that’s balanced between outrun and dreampop.

Greg Jamie – Crazy Time (Bandcamp)Dark and haunted songs that crawled out of a forbidden wood to tell of happenings outside of the material plane.

Philip Glenn – Outsider (Bandcamp)Homegrown Southern California bluegrass that makes you feel like you’re there in the room as they play.