hello, i'm CJ! welcome to a miscellaneous scrap heap for anything/everything about me.
arty shit
music recommendations
rambling
20/02/2025
I've been listening to a bunch of albums recently and I thought I'd post my favourites from this week here - first of all, I finally got around to listening to "DAMN" by Kendrick Lamar. With him going viral recently for performing at the superbowl, I was reminded of the fact that I'd been meaning to listen to his albums for a while now. There was a pessimistic yet sincere attitude across all of the songs that really spoke to me - I've been having a rough few weeks and it's comforting to hear someone else acknowledging the same kind of hopelessness that I feel, but not in any sort of cold, nonchalant way. My favourite song on the album currently is "PRIDE". It just feels so tired and weary, and I don't know what it is but when he sings "in another life, I surely was there", my heart hurts. In a good way, though.
The second album here is "Mignonne" by Taeko Onuki. It's an all-Japanese album, so as a tragically monolingual person I don't have any connection to the lyrics, but the instrumentals and the overall vibe are absolutely incredible. For years I've always felt that my blindspot in music was jazz - I always wanted to get into it, especially since I know jazz musicians are some of the most talented out there, but I just couldn't find anything from the genre that clicked for me - and this album has opened up an avenue for me to finally start getting into it. It's not a jazz album per-se, more pop really, but the influences are undeniable. My favourite song from this album has to be "4:00 AM". The groove that builds up towards the end is the definition of an eargasm.
The third and final album I'm gonna talk about today is "Terraformer" by Thank You Scientist. This one was a continuation of my delving into jazz, and ohhhh boy, this album definitely felt like delving into something. Again, it's not strictly jazz - this would probably fall into the category of progressive rock. Every song on this album is a journey. This band has literally zero chill, I swear to everything holy. "Chromology" has to be the craziest one, with no lyrics, all instrumental and switching rapidly between rhythms and time signatures, never repeating a section once. My favourite, though, was probably "Everyday Ghosts". I think I ascended to that one.
This was a longer entry than usual, so if you're still here - thanks for reading! I hope this was interesting for you, and maybe you found something new to listen to. See ya!
06/02/2025
I think everyone should listen to the album "Darker Than Darkness Style 93" by Buck-Tick. They were a Japanese rock band, mostly successful in the 90's I believe - the man pictured above is their singer, Atsushi Sakurai. I know that he went viral online in recent years for his looks, but I think more people should delve into his actual art because he was incredibly talented and so much more than a nice face. The album I mentioned is my favourite from the band, but they have many others as well.
Unfortunately Atsushi passed away not that long ago while performing on stage, which was super sad to hear just after getting into his work - RIP to an incredible artist. At least he died doing what he loved.
31/01/2025
something i want to start doing here is sharing random pieces of media that are interesting me at the moment. i might do this weekly, monthly, who knows. recently i've been completely enthralled by "Lozenge of Love" by Radiohead - it's a b-side from one of their EP's that they released around the time of their album The Bends, and it's absolutely beautiful. The relationship bewteen Thom Yorke's voice and the guitars is so delicate and intricate and lovely. listen here :)