Category: listening

  • Angine de Poitrine | Umm?

    Okay, YouTube has been at me for weeks to watch these guys (gals?), so I finally caved and watched the video.

    These folks are off the deep end of the spectrum. Not the most experimental I’ve ever heard for music, because it is still recognizable a rock-adjacent in sound. They do some neat tricks with loops and effects on top of a microtonal guitar/bass combo with polyrhythm drums. The whole, adjusting knobs on the effects with bare feet is an interesting trick.

    And they’ve cultivated their “weird vibe” very precisely between the phallic masks and eye-melting pattern clash. They also, apparently, have their own language for interviews for which their manager “translates”.

    Looks fun. And they appear talented (from what I can hear, but there is an emphasis on disruption and subversion, so I might not be hearing it quite right).

    But.

    For me, it started to sound clever but samey after a point. More gimmick than hook, if you know what I mean.

    I jumped to a song above, but feel free to start and the beginning. Give me your read on this. Is microtonal (other notes than the Western chromatic scale) the future? Do you think they’ll be around in three years? Or just a flash in the pan?

    Seriously, though, they make Zappa sound relatively grounded. Makes me long for Diamanda Galás and her Steak Knives experimental (opera-trained) vocal/screaming routine, honestly. Wait. Maybe don’t listen to that link. It may give you reason to judge me.

    Meh.

    Curious if you think they are good, bad or if you’re indifferent to the whole thing. Drop me a note.

  • The Milkman — Mice feat. Julianne Regan

    Hey isn't this neat
    But we've got to be discreet
    'Cause something this supercalifragilistic
    Can get sado-masochistic so quickly

        So if you want to know me
        Well you'd just better take things slowly

    Man, I sure miss the tongue in cheek saccharine-laced snarky sugar pop of albums like this. A little more over-the-top than Strawberry Switchblade (who were more polka-dot laced bubblegum goth), but I loved this shit.

    As you might recall from a few days ago, Julianne sang for the more folksy-hippie-goth All About Eve. Yeah, I’m in a J.R. mood this week.

  • And… Billy Bragg is with us, too

    Now, Billy Bragg is a folk musician I do listen to. He wrote a classic tune for Minneapolis in the past few days as well. If you haven’t listened to Billy Bragg before, I recommend you remedy with that below.

    When they came for the immigrants
    I got in their face
    When they came for the refugees
    I got in their face
    When they came for the five-year-olds
    I got in their face
    When they came to my neighborhood
    I just got in their face.

    I will bear witness to terror
    I will bear witness to tyranny
    I will bear witness to murder
    I will bear witness to fascism.

    For reference, a five-year-old was used for bait by ICE to arrest his father. They wouldn’t let the young boy go into the house, and then they took him to Texas with his father against judge’s orders.

  • Towards the Within — Citizen I.C.E., Dropkick Murphys

    Too scared to join the military
    Too dumb to be a cop
    Citizen I.C.E.

    This is an old song of theirs, formerly called “Citizen C.I.A”, and lyrically reworked to reflect current events. The rest of the lyrics are in-video.

    I have to admit, I should probably listen to more Dropkick Murphys than I do, and that will probably change in the coming weeks. Every time I encounter news about the band, I see them in an increasingly positive light. I don’t have to like every song a band writes to know them to be stand-up folks that deserve my support.

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  • songlets — may faire

    It was a bit of a surprise when an old song I had written way back when the dinosaurs still roamed the earth came into my head yesterday and wouldn’t get out. Much to my amazement, when I pulled out the guitar, the chord progression and rough playing style came back to me almost instantly.

    For a bit of perspective, the song, “May Faire” has never been performed. So, it’s not like I spent uncountable hours rehearsing the song. I may have toyed around with it whenever I could not come up with something new for a few years, but it was not on the forefront of my thinking.

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  • half-penny thoughts — 05jan26

    I’m probably overlooking quite a few artists, but it sure seems like the vast majority of them these days are very serious about their music.

    That’s not to say that I didn’t listen to and work with musicians in the past who were very serious about their music, but it seemed there were more folks in earlier eras who were a lot less serious about it. Or, they were serious musician who leaned into satire instead of saying things like, “We are artistes, not baboons. Go away and baboon elsewhere.”

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  • Towards the Within — Sólstöður, Kælan Mikla

    A little Icelandic darkwave in honor of the upcoming solstice, perhaps?

    Á sólstöðum í svartnætti tunglið geislum grætur
    Vetrarnótt; við erum þínar sönnu svörtu dætur

    Winter solstice in the black night
    the moon cries its beams
    Winter night; we are your true dark daughters

    Of course you may have some, my darkling dearies. Enjoy.

  • Towards the Within — Succulence by Foetus

    J.G. Thirlwell, also known as Clint Ruin, Frank Want, and Foetus (multiple variants of the name), among other pseudonyms is an Aussie musician that has been putting out albums of an experimental nature since the early 80s.

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  • Testing new mp3 design

    The song below is not a new song, but one I posted a short while ago. I am trying to create a reusable set of Gutenberg blocks in-post to borrow from for future audio-oriented posts to make the songs/spoken-word stand out better as an audio file.

    sEEthIng

    a songlet by michael raven

    ©

    michael raven

    The “player” will likely evolve as I figure out exactly just how I want it to look.

    Here’s another quick modification:

    sEEthIng

    a songlet by michael raven

    ©

    michael raven

    And a more compressed variant of the second:

    sEEthIng

    a songlet by michael raven

    ©

    michael raven

    I have a few other formatting ideas that I want to play with, but if you have an opinion, please let me know in the comments (on either music or player design). Let me know if you are having problems rendering. If so, let me know the platform (WordPress Reader/web), device class (mobile/laptop/tablet) and browser (default for your device if you use the WP Reader app) .

    Thanks!

    [07 dec 25 update:]

    Yesterday’s attempts didn’t have the intended appearance when it comes to viewing on WordPress Reader,. I can still leverage what I learned, but I’m going to attempt a new approach here and see how it looks dark, (stack on mobile, header large font not H4, copyright no-call):

    sEEthIng

    a songlet by michael raven

    ©2025 michael raven

    Or this light (no stack on mobile):

    sEEthIng

    a songlet by michael raven

    ©

    michael raven

    [07 dec 25 update 2:]

    Yeah, no matter how you tweak it, the appearance is the same on WordPress Reader. A bit broken with “no-stack” on mobile, but looks good stacked. Seeing as it matters not at all for WordPress Reader, I will just decide on a favorite when I set it up later (and avoid using rows on the copyright line, because it breaks in feeds and WP Reader, but I’m just trying to be fancy there and the fancy isn’t required).

    I’m leaning towards the dark variant above (using “media and post”), feel free to pipe up if something absolutely does not work in your mind.

  • On the Hobnob with Gilly

    a songlet written in 120 minutes or less

    Picture of an audio soundboard
    Photo by Anthony Roberts on Unsplash

    For new visitors: I occasionally set myself up with the challenge to write, record and produce a songlet (not a full song) in the space of 120-minutes, starting from scratch. I try to limit the song to about a minute in length.

    As a result, quality varies greatly and I don’t promise that there are any hits that will arise of this personal challenge. The quality over time will vary dramatically, depending on how my creativity level is faring for the day.

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