#1601 Floating Points - Shadows

The best bit of the just-reviewed Teebs album comes at the very end: a bassoon (?) part flubs some notes and noodles the album off to nothingness. It's alive at last.

Here too the highlights are the imperfect moments, music made by human hands over top of that microhousey perfection. I'm looking at you Myrtle Avenue, with your warm, glowing rhodes breathing life into everything. And at the very end Sais beats with Aphexey tone-pulses.

But then there's the likes of Obfuse and Realise that are offkilter, sure, but sounding more like       k              kk                 k k                k k              k            k k      k           k  k                     k               k                   kk    k                 k               2.5/5

#1600 Teebs - Estara

A meandering mix of ambient, wobblecore and old-school IDM that doesn't really amount to much. Occasionally pretty, but just doing too much subtle weird shit in post to really settle into 2.5/5

#1599 Flying Lotus - You're Dead!

I've always found flylo's stuff pretty oppressive, packed with dark texture, glitchy twitches and some unknowable eldritch atmosphere. This is no different: it's incredibly well put together, insidiously imaginative, and certainly brightened by Thundercat's sprightly bass lines, but I respect it more than I enjoy it. I just feel stoned or soulsucked or something afterwards.

An impressive trick, but not exactly the kind of thing I can recommend fullthroatedly 3/5

#1598 The Byrds - Fifth Dimension

Harmonies!
 Harmonies!
  Harmonies!

Offset to forever!

Bouncy little thisandthat with a touch of that country twang, layered on and on into sheets to help you sleep, daydream or otherwise keep the peace. Super listenable, well-paced proto-psychadelia, bonus for a slightly stranger than usual Hey Joe boxchecker 3.5/5

#1597 Captain Beefheart - Safe as Milk

In 1967 we didn't know Beefheart was going to go all Trout Mask Replica on us yet, so what he does here is a sneaky little sneak. It's a few tracks of pretty straightforward, bluesy // Faces // bar rock, with nothing stranger than a proto-Waitsian wobble to the vocals to tip us off.

And then we're growling our way through Dropout Boogie and theremin-swooning over jagged Electricity and feeling punch-spiked circa Abba Zaba. I knew that album title couldn't be sincere! we'd say. It's a pretty good piece of albumwise maneuvering, and the listen's more fun for it, even if there's nothing as explosively inventive as his later stuff on here 3.5/5

#1596 Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

I spent a first run through rock and roll hitting the foremost album by all the heavy hitters: Sabbath's one of those band's where I'm *still* working my way back through, going "these guys really had a //lot// of good goddamn albums".

The dips into proggy territory work for me. Cos prog rules. Who Are You's synths are a bit much, but Fluff's a great little breather and A National Acrobat is staggering. This is strong stuff: heavy, interesting, super listenable, even if it lacks the violent impact and memorable hooks of the earlier stuff 4/5

#1595 Brownout - Brownout Presents Brown Sabbath

See, now maybe this benefits from coming on right after that bloodless Ronson album, but this is how you put some fucking muscle in your mix: layer it 9 dudes deep and riff on the powerchord godfathers.

Yep: big-band funk covers of Sabbath songs, pretty much sounds like you might expect: power chords with horn flourishes and the occasional jammy detour. It's a gimmick that's good for a listen or two, should be ripping live though 3/5