mcc

mcc , vor 2 Monaten an Random Englisch

For the last two years I've been semi-daily posting "What I'm Listening to Today" links here. Mastodon has some problems with threads containing hundreds of posts, so I re-create the thread once a year.

If you'd like to see, here's my "year two" thread: https://mastodon.social/@mcc/110266770603341546

Or, alternately, every song from year two in the least practical format possible: A 301-song, 38-hour YouTube playlist (note: video #1 contains flashing):

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLIjft6ja7DM_kacOW8zo2vtr-aWpTNX6

And here's the thread for "year three":

mcc OP , vor einem Monat

What I'm listening to today: "Bound By Secrets", Nebula

I coaxed this out of the YouTube algorithm during a week I briefly managed to train it to feed me nothing but early-90s jungle recorded from original vinyl. Actually it turns out this song was released in 2014 and exclusively as FLAC, but whatever. This is some atmospheric jungle with a lovely, loose jazz windup at the start. Jungle always gives me a sense of being in darkness and this is like whispers in the night

https://nebulasciwax.bandcamp.com/track/bound-by-secrets

mcc OP , vor einem Monat

What I'm listening to today: "Playstation 1 nostalgia ambient atmospheric jungle drum and bass mix", Dopo Goto

This is one hour of pure vibes. Muffled, laid-back 90s-future jungle atop a visualization of a lo-fi cyber city and songs with names like "A Song to Fall Through Textures" "A Song to "Insert Disc 2" "A Song to Remember Aeon Flux". It says "mix" but it's more like one piece of original music with nine movements, powerful focus music, like ambient but high-energy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXsZz4bwEYQ

mcc OP , vor einem Monat

What I'm listening to today: "High-tech Low-life", Slowerpace

This artist has a series of albums framed as OSTs of nonexistent Playstation 1 games. This song for example supposedly plays during the opening cinematic of "Pyromaniacs" (tagline: "Violence Is Sometimes The Only Way"), apparently a Shadowrun game that failed to secure the license at the last second.

This track's got a great feeling, a warm blanket in the chill, sounds like if µ-ziq had tried to do trip-hop.

https://slowerpace.bandcamp.com/track/high-tech-low-life-intro

mcc OP , vor einem Monat

What I'm listening to today: "memory", hkmori

If you've seen a video bouncing around instagram/tiktok with a funny cartoon drummer and titled "Breakcore in a nutshell", that's hkmori, from her song "anybody can find love (except you.)".

This is my favorite hkmori song, where she executes the breakcore formula expertly (and moodily) but mixes it up by dropping in dense clusters of 808 kick drums where the Amen chops would normally go, resulting in a really unique sound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX-efXxODu0

mcc OP , vor einem Monat

What I'm listening to today: "Dracula Forever", Clarke Jaxton Motorbike

This YouTuber has a series of live-performance electronic jam videos, in each case accompanied with floating captions telling a little short story. It's fun! The stories are good.

This track's simple but is a real bop. Made with 2023 vintage devices but has an 80s feel because those two devices happen to be Roland's desktop SH-101 clone and Teenage Engineering's new take on an 80s lo-fi sampler.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGfQjV9bKc4

mcc OP , vor einem Monat

What I'm listening to today: "PlayStation jungle Mix 2 | drum & bass, Frutiger Aero, liquid, Y2K, intelligent", Dopo Goto

This uses similar instrumentation to Goto's "Mix 1" for a totally different feel, instead of focused and driving this is laid back and dreamlike. There's an emotion I don't know how to describe, there's a kind of this warm feeling in the nerves of my spine when I'm either on the verge of falling asleep or about to start crying. This is that in music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owldd4hs7wQ

mcc OP , vor einem Monat

What I'm listening to today: "DigiLogTokyo Microne, Synthernet 8888, CSK ParipiDestroyer, and ACID bass synthesizer prototype", Tekitounix

A short, frantic acid piece, so fast it feels like it's about to run off its rails at any moment. Goes real hard and ends with you wanting more. Just another 30 seconds please

I previously linked a jam on this same trio of handheld devices, but in that one the third device was an unlabeled breadboard. I guess it's named the Microne.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBR87qm6dvs

mcc OP , vor einem Monat

What I'm listening to today: "THEM5000 (Monomachine only track)", Dataline

A futuristic, kinda IDM-y electronic jam. Flits stream-of-consciousness between several different ideas while maintaining the same dark groove. Actually kinda feels like a little mixtape, except for the fact it is six minutes long. Nice energy.

Made on the Monomachine, the old idiosyncratic Elektron box that defined the sound of SOPHIE and Quaristice-era Autechre.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8nyRgppkng

mcc OP , vor einem Monat

What I'm listening to today: "Set U Free", Planet Soul

So it's the mid-90s, I'm in junior high, I love techno but it's not so easy to come by in Texas. But 104.1 FM, the pop-rock radio station for Moms, will play "dance music", & some of it's pretty good. And then there was the "Planet Soul" song, which was great. This song's weird, progressive, does strange things with tempo, but its laid-back groove is so accessible even KRBE will play it, as long as it's after 8 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip6OmReVmIY

mcc OP , vor einem Monat

What I'm listening to today: "Sweet Dreams", La Bouche

When I think about 90s "dance music" (I don't even know what actual genre I'm even talking about. "Eurodance"? Was that later?) I think La Bouche. They were the Archetype. All their hits sounded about the same, they all had cheesy production and cheesy raps and were all extremely effective. This works, it really works, this music was created with a Purpose and it succeeds at it hard. Listen without judgement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9McVO9hpUE

mcc OP , vor einem Monat

What I listened to today: "Straight Up", Paula Abdul

If I ever have to explain to someone what the Synclavier was, I will simply play them this song.

This song might actually be the exact point the 80s pop production style peaked. There's so much going on here! The sampled flutes. The Scarface visual gimmick on the the video. I spent years wondering why the worst possible retaliation she could imagine inflicting on her partner was to go "a ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El1kgCqD7Xk

mcc OP , vor einem Monat

What I listened to today: "My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)", En Vogue

Here's a song from that brief, magical junction point in the 90s when hip-hop, r&b, pop, "dance music", and the OST to the SNES "Paperboy 2" were all briefly the same genre. And then there's the video, which increases the sense of all things conjoining by loading up with 50s R&B imagery. 90s kids, you've heard this song but have you ever really listened to it? This is a bop. This is so charming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIuYQ_4TcXg

mcc , vor einem Monat an Random Englisch

I feel like very recently— like, the last month— Google has gotten massively worse about aggressively correcting acronyms to unrelated, similarly-spelled words. Like look at this search where I search for the wiki for the C# game library FNA, and Google simply decides, without even offering a "Did you mean…", that it would be more interesting if I had instead been looking for "FNAF"

mcc OP , vor einem Monat

@foone hm. How's "Battle for Dream Island" look. Like any good

mcc OP , vor einem Monat

@foone Baffling

mcc OP , vor einem Monat

@foone Hmm, I'm logged into google search which means it in principle knows my Android download history, but I don't know if privacy policy allows it to check that.