Gold Soundz S2E1, or: How Learned to Stop Listening and Love the Doldrums

by Sebastian Cruz, Dancing Monkey

Illustration by Emila Shuncan, Layout Editor & Assistant

Thank God that something like Megadeth (by Megadeth) came out this month, or else I’d have nothing else to talk about for this little preamble. Megadeth is the kind of bait that makes me warm and fuzzy. I could close my eyes right now and see the outrageously nerdy music review commentators of the mid-10’s talk down to a band that’s older than God making uncompelling material. It’s the kind of album that, if released twenty years ago, would have inspired furious rebukes of critical opinion by the band, broadcasted on MTV: Butt Rocksplosion. I’m very comforted by this album, and I’ll never listen to or think about it ever again. I think I’ll stay here for awhile, in this comfort, and hope that this will suffice for a January release drought for music and a January free time drought for myself. Sweet dreams!

Joji - Piss in the Wind & Cavetown - Running with Scissors

Joji and Cavetown are the January-release artists of our generation. Both prominent and controversial in their own respects, the two of them have settled into that unfortunate artistic middle age where no one can say for sure what’s the best for them. Joji is at least interesting because he became alt-R&B megastar after spending almost a decade partaking in torture adventures on the app that came before YouTube Shorts. The less said about what Cavetown was propagating—that soft-headed twee stuff that’ll cause a root canal if ingested—the better. Sad to see that neither of them really want to do anything at all to move the needle. These artists get fed off of residual, (vague) good will, so please make sure to reminisce for their benefit. I’m a humanist, see?

For fans of… The background music of a party you don’t want to be at, age regression, keeping up with your most disappointing friend.

Listen to: Feminist Fails Cringe Compilation #10.

J. Cole - The Fall-Off & A$AP Rocky - Don’t Be Dumb

I like Rocky, because he’s cool. I don’t like J. Cole, because he’s not cool. Even if that’s the logic of a nine year-old, I believe it has deep-seated implications regarding the artists’ respective creative routes. Rocky has that kind of cool that’s pure inertia, the inability to change his style and refusal to be in any way scrutable. His music is much the same, as is his latest command Don’t Be Dumb. The heightened, more textured genre excursions cannot cover his emptiness. His entertaining, beguiling emptiness. 

Unfortunately for our friend Jermaine J. Cole, entertaining and emptiness are beyond estranged from one another. In fact, Cole’s unrepentant and unstoppable middle-of-the-roadness means that any attempt to qua(nt/l)ify what makes him unique in the rap sphere is fruitless. He is so not enough in almost every category. 105 minutes of so not enough is far from so not enough in my book: it’s absolutely dreadful. If I were as hacky as Cole, I’d title this section “THE FALL-OFF? I’M SURE HE DID!”

For fans of… Millennial-aged terror, the boring side of Hip-Hop Twitter, staleness.

Listen to: See below.

xaviersobased - Xavier

And xaviersobased blows both of them to little smithereens without even knowing it. He is deliriously unrefined, unpredictable and very true. Beats that’ll make your head spin and ears shriek. About time we got a Yung Lean-esque paean about “Negative Canthal Tilt”. Say what you will, it’s vital work.

For fans of… AI slop intellectualism, hearing damage, being young, sensitive and turnt. 

Listen to: “Minute”.

By Storm - My Ghosts Go Ghost

If you can believe it, the internet has been good for something. By Storm, f.k.a. Injury Reserve, bubbled up slowly and surely from pre- to post-pandemic internet rap darlings, and it is because of that beautiful superhighway that I have been able to watch their metamorphosis into something indescribable. The passing of member and MC Stepa J. Groggs has loomed large over not just this album, but the previous one as well. Remaining MC RiTchie spins a very frank yarn on the process of grieving, then going on with life. Parker Corey shapeshifts under RiTchie’s visceral transmissions, as if witnessing a psyche changing in real time, keeping up with all the threads of life: a budding family, integrity as a man and an artist, crippling derealization. Don’t let the funereal aesthetic scare you away: this album is beautiful.

For fans of… Time passing, firehose introspection, love.

Listen to: “Zig Zag”.

Mandy, Indiana - URGH

Oh you want dance music? I got dance music. Dance music has never been better, which means things have never been worse as a whole. URGH is a deliciously apt title; the sound you’ll make when the album knocks your Fucking Teeth out. The vocals, not so much sung as chanted entirely in French by Valentine Caulfield, are hardly a balm. Caulfield’s voice is whipped along with the chainsaws of noise and 4/4 deathstomps to become a part of the rhythmic churn. I’d approximate this album like a literal dance machine, conceivably alive and moving with that mechanistic terror of something being made to move against its will. Do let the grinding maw scare you away: the beat’ll bring you back anyhow.

For fans of… Casing the pit, righteous abhorrence of all the world’s sickness, pulverization.

Listen to: “try saying”.