Cheap Thrills - Q1 2023

In this edition: shoegaze, big-band, hip hop, and more! 

Looks like I'm a little behind schedule on this one...

Well, in my defense, the last few months have been fairly hectic, what with me getting married and all. I've had this article in the hopper since February, but I figured it's best if I just wrap it up before I allow myself to procrastinate this blog to death (again).

Here are your Cheap Thrills for the first quarter of 2023, featuring all sorts of name-your-price goodies. Support the artists by spending a few bucks on music and/or merch!

Parannoul - After the Magic

Parannoul's third album sees the Korean shoegaze artist trading some of his trademark lo-fi fuzz for a cleaner, brighter, and more dynamic sound. I previously featured his sophomore LP, To See the Next Part of the Dream, on a previous edition of Cheap Thrills, and while part of me misses the blown-out wall of sound that characterized those first two records, there's no denying that After the Magic still rocks pretty hard, with cathartic climaxes that pack a hefty crunch. Add in some guest vocals from Della Zyr and you've got another classic release from the burgeoning Korean bedroom emo/shoegaze scene.

The 8-Bit Big Band - Backwards Compatible

I recently got wind of this group (no pun intended--seriously) from an Adam Neely video about the increasing overlap between jazz and video game music. Not only do these arrangements of classic tunes span a wide variety of console generations and genres; they're all superb to boot. In fact, the band's rendition of "Metaknight's Revenge" won a Grammy for Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Capella. All of their music is free, so if you're down for some big and bombastic covers of your favorite video game themes, The 8-Bit Big Band is a whole lot of fun. 

Ken Burns - Discography

Is this yet another defunct and short-lived screamo band? You bet your ass it is, and considering that the group named themselves after a famous documentary filmmaker, Discography is a fittingly (and maybe predictably) named retrospective that covers the band's short yet intense lifespan. Highly recommended if you like the slightly more melodic post-hardcore side of the genre a la Funeral Diner, Daitro, and Kidcrash.

Sixty Ton Angel - Sixty Ton Angel

Brooklyn's own Matthew Anderson has been making music for over a decade under several different monikers. As Sparrow, he and his collaborators weave upbeat art rock jams, while in this solo project (potentially named after a Porcupine Tree lyric?), Anderson opts for meditative, droning ambience of Stars of the Lid and Lawrence English. The self-titled EP slowly ebbs and flows between the gritty buzzing of distorted keys and ethereal hums that numb and cool, washing over the listener like crashing waves or the distant sounds of passing trains. 

JPEGMAFIA X Danny Brown - SCARING THE HOES

SCARING THE HOES is the hip hop equivalent of a multi-vehicle pileup. Two of wildest and weirdest dudes in the genre have collided like some sort of twisted Voltron made up of clown cars and monster trucks, and the result is a glorious mess of profane high-octane rapping, distorted synth melodies, schizophrenic beats, and samples that sound as if they're being blasted from a car racing towards your current position. Is it all a bit fatiguing? Sure, but only because the album is so dense and full of energy that it threatens to collapse in on itself at any time. 

Corubo - Ajuricaba

Note: This one is was going to go in my latest Invisible Oranges column, but there were some rumors that how one of the musicians involved may have been involved in some sketchy bands. I wasn't able to corroborate any of this on my own, so I figured that I'd stick the writeup on my personal blog. I'll delete it later on if I get any updates, but here's an advanced warning just in case.

There’s “name your price”–a distribution model that we all know and love–and then there’s including free Mega links to your music directly on your Bandcamp. Not only does this Uruguayan black metal war party offer their music entirely for free; they also provide educational resources. Their latest album Ajuricaba comes with a lengthy but fascinating essay about the album’s namesake, a mighty chieftain who led a doomed campaign against the Portuguese. Corubo’s music channels centuries of unrest into virulent raw black metal that juxtaposes dissonant layers of guitars, guttural howls, and relentless percussion with colorful pan-flute choirs and carefully selected samples. The album’s tortured beauty is only enhanced by the lyrics, which swap between Portuguese and Spanish to weave a tale of ruthless exploitation at the hands of colonialism, capitalism, and religion. In one particularly moving excerpt (translated through Google), the narrator laments how “I crossed lands, agglomerates of incandescent cities / fields and forests with colossal rivers, / no matter how far I went, slavery always haunts.” Come for the ferocious black metal assault; stay for the history lesson.