its been a few months since the first part so now its time for part 2 of talking about my musical influences. (part 1 can be read here). again, these arent necessarily my favourite albums but theyre albums & artists that had an undeniable influence on me & how i make music or what i want to achieve when making art. or just music i want to talk about in general
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sadness - I want to be there (2019)
perhaps unsurprisingly, the 2019 release by sadness is one of my favourite albums of all time (and is probably a contender for the number 1 spot on that list along with Black Dresses ‘LOVE AND AFFECTION FOR STUPID LITTLE BITCHES’). while it wasnt the album that introduced me to blackgaze (i had already heard & liked Deafheaven, Ghost Bath & Dreariness amongst others) it was the album that really cemented by love for it and more experimental types of shoegaze in general (along with Coaltar of the Deepers, Jesu & The Angelic Process). but i think even if i had little interest in blackgaze, i would still love this album regardless. it just has an incomparible emotional resonance for me, and its just some of the most beautiful, moving, painful & melancholic music ever recorded. it just has this unexplainable nostalgia attached to it i feel. any time i listen to it, regardless of where i am or what im doing, it just transports me back to this time & place and makes me incredibly emotional. for me, it will always be the companion i had during that long and lonely summer where i spent every day lying on the floor, drugged out of my mind & wanting to die.
i have so many memories & complicated emotions attached to this album that its a little hard to talk about it. it takes me back to a time in my life when i really wasnt doing good, and it is unfortunately connected & associated with memories involving someone who hurt me irrecoverably & is thankfully no longer in my life. and yet despite this, i dont hate or resent these memories, and the moment in time in my life that they hold. listening to it, part of me will always exist as that lonely & miserable girl, lost & spiralling while melting into the end of time.
i dont think my music is anywhere near as good or beautiful or powerful as this album, and i doubt i will ever be able to get close, but some people have compared my stuff to sadness before which is undeserved but immensely flattering all the same. regardless, it would be a lie to say this album wasnt significantly influential to me and in what i try to convey in my music. specifically, the sense of impossible longing and nostalgia. theres also the harshness in softness (or softness in harshness?) thats achieved through the mixing of dreamy soundscapes with harsh guitars & vocals which i just absolutely love. i think for me, this album conveys the beauty in despair better than anything else i have seen or heard. i doubt my music would exist without this album. i will always want to be there.
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Viper - Heartless Hoodlum (2006)
ive picked Heartless Hoodlum but to be honest its not specifically this album but a bunch of Viper albums which i listened to a lot all equally (The Hiram Clarke Hustler, Ready and Willing, These Rappers Claim They Hard When Them Fags Never Even Seen The Pen, etc). i really like his music. im not interested in talking about his ‘meme’ status or whatever. i think Heartless Hoodlum feels the most consistent from start to finish but i listen to his music a lot often while im doing things like getting ready to go outside or cleaning my room or making pictures. i find its music that often fits my mood & theres a real gentle melancholy in a lot of it. its comforting, even when the lyrics are covering a more bleak or aggressive topic.
its his musical aesthetic i think that i really like. the lofi recordings, gentle and dreamy beats, simple & yet very personal album art. its music completely made by Viper and it feels very personal and complete. you are completely in Viper’s universe. i guess with ‘cloudrap’ i could easily talk about the influence of Lil B or Bladee but for me Viper just feels a lot more authentic and true to Viper himself. (this is not to say Lil B is unauthentic or anything. i love Lil B and he is a true original and very inspirational).
i think Viper’s ability to not be poisoned or influenced by the world around him is very powerful. i think he is a very powerful entity. and what he has created and conveyed through his music is important. and clearly he has his own struggles and weaknesses and all the rest. but what hes created is interesting & unique
honestly i feel an odd closeness to Viper that i find hard to put into words. we have lived different lives and i dont even know that much about him, but he is relatable to me sort of. as an artist, i feel closer to Viper than pretty much any other contemporary artist and i like to think that what i do is ‘similar’ even if its very different. ive noticed that in the past couple of years he seems to have had a spike in popularity with a new clique of people & fans & discord-types around him. im not sure how i feel about that as i get the feeling that a lot of them are not kind. but ultimately its not for me to pass judgement on how other people engage with an artist’s music, and if it means he is supported and stuff then i suppose that is good.
if i were to try and identify the main impact he has had on me personally, it would probably be aesthetic; both the lofi production quality through necessity rather than strictly choice (most of my music is recorded through a faulty and buzzy line6 with various old and faulty equipment, and mixed using 20 year old crummy speakers and falling apart headphones) and the presentation as well, like the literal way he tends to name track and album names. literal but also personal & obscure. i think ultimately i want my music to be as authentically ‘me’ as Viper’s music is Viper.
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Shinsei Kamattechan - tsumanne & minna shine (2010)
ive picked 2 albums for Shinsei Kamattechan since i heard them both for the first time back to back, and they were released pretty much on the same day iirc. they work pretty well together as a sort of double-album. heartfelt emotional lyrics drenched in dense melodic noise pop, they are pretty much the perfect band. they mix angry dissonance with catchy twinkly melodies better than pretty much anyone else; the sort of mix of screaming and twinkly melodies that a lot of post-emo bands are doing today, only Shinsei Kamattechan were doing it back in 2010 although never getting quite as heavy or straight screamo as a lot of emo bands (this isnt emo or hardcore; they are definitely noise pop & j rock through & through).
i think one of the things that really sets them apart is the topics & themes covered in the music. online existance, gender identity & sexuality, being a NEET/ hikki, alienation from society, suicide & depression. its music for the lost & terminally online. ive always found it difficult to really connect or engage with a lot of art and music dealing with gender and sexuality, probably part of my larger difficulty of connecting with or understanding humans, but Shinsei Kamattechan has always done it in a way that speaks to me and i can connect to. and its probably because of that lense of online existence that they speak through. theres a lot of anger here but theres also a lot of beauty. screaming ikareta NEET at the top of my lungs makes me feel a little more real & sure of myself despite the despair. less ashamed of who i am. its music that has kept me company over the years.
i think i always want my music to be more ‘poppy’ then it ever ends up being. i like writing melodies and catchy tunes and i keep trying to chase a more poppy style altho perhaps unsuccessfully so far. id like if people who struggle to connect or engage with popular art covering certain topics might be able to do so through my music maybe. i think id like to make music more like tsumanne and minna shine, and i will definitely keep trying.
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Mom - Self-Titled (2014)
i feel like there isnt too much i can really say about this, but to me its some of the best songwriting ever. it really is just perfect from start to finish. i have listened to this more times then i can remember. its difficult to put into words what it makes me feel... it both feels very personal and intimate to the artist, but also comforting & relatable. certain lyrics often pop into my head at various points of the day, and there are particular tracks i end up thinking about a lot. there are people i think about that i think should listen to this. it feels like one of the most important things i ever listened to.
honestly when it comes to the music of Devi McCallion there are a lot of albums i could talk about that had an impact on me or that i think are particularly important or amazing etc (EMERGENCY! by Girls Rituals is another album i love and listen to a lot). i think that to me, Self-Titled is the gold standard of songwriting and lyricism. i think i said in part 1 that i truly believe that she is the greatest lyricist & songwriter alive today, and this album is a perfect example of that. the first time i heard “No Obligation” it felt like something i really needed to hear. i think it really had a massive impact on me. it might sound like an exaggeration to say it helped improve my life but i really think this album did. “Strength” is another very important one too. theyre all important really. “Good Mood” comes into my head a lot.
again, when things are really important to me, i usually struggle to really talk about them in any way that feels authentic or respectful to the thing. so i guess i will just say that this had a huge impact on me and you should listen to it.
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seems like as good a place as any to stop. i could talk about music all day. i think next time i write about music influences and stuff it will be less about specific albums and more about artists and genres and scenes that are special to me in general. altho i guess i already kind of did that in this post anyway. oh well. its so hot at the moment and my room is so stuffy and its difficult to cool it down, so writing coherent thoughts is quite difficult. not that i have coherent thoughts at the best of times anyway so i dont know why im complaining. writing feels good though, although im conscious of the fact that im sort of diverting creative energy away from more important things to me (music, art, videos etc) into this blog. its fun though.