The Daily Spin: Volume 9

brb, driving to Minnesota to make Eli watch Interstellar

Oct 01, 2023

Welcome back to The Daily Spin, hosted by David Peterson of The Low Major. Each day, David picks an album (from reader suggestions, new releases, or his own personal favorites) and reviews it, alongside fellow TLM writer Eli Powell and myself. Today, we’re looking back at the month of September, both here and over there!

Note: albums with gold dates were recommended by me. Albums with purple dates are from Saturday Nights at the Club, suggestions made by a group of friends on Discord.

Best Album

Nominees: Interstellar (Original Motion Picture Score) (9.1), Heaven’s Vault Official Soundtrack (8.9), Wings (8.7), Transatlanticism (8.7), Party Favors (8.6)

Whatever vestiges of Radiohead’s initial defining sound still existed when they released In Rainbows in 2007 were entirely gone by the time of A Moon Shaped Pool, which may well prove to be their final album. I don’t know if that’s necessarily a bad thing—what they were trying to do with this album is just a different kind of music from what they were aiming for a decade earlier—but one could argue it sets a slightly lower ceiling, the complexity and depth of that more electronica-influenced style traded in for something ethereal and almost ambient. At the same time, I can’t help but be blown away by how easy they make this shift look; it’s a smaller one than the total overhaul in style they went between 1997’s OK Computer and In Rainbows, but structurally, A Moon Shaped Pool is radically different in how much of a complete, self-contained work it is. With the exception of “Burn the Witch”, you really don’t get the sense that these tracks are independently great—they’re crafted to create a cohesive whole, a 52-minute long experience, not a bunch of 3-to-6-minute ones. That effect is particularly remarkable given how much this album borrows from every era of Radiohead’s discography; some of these songs have been developing for decades, yet they still come together into a complete picture so cleanly. It’s a leap that would be a defining part of most acts’ careers, but is a footnote in theirs. This is just what Radiohead does.

Worst Album

Nominees: Fly (6.7), Djesse Vol. 3 (7.3), Infinity on High (7.3), Jack in the Box (7.4), no future (7.4)

One of my main takeaways from this project has been that there’s some critical value to separating an artist from their work. I think people are inclined to take this too far—I wouldn’t go to the point of calling myself a fan of a deeply problematic artist, exactly—but it’s often worth acknowledging and temporarily setting aside their personal views when analyzing an album (depending on its content). Usually this is something I think about with music by the likes of BØRNS, but it goes the other way, too. I'm really glad artists like Tyler Childers exist in the country music scene, people who don’t just avoid the stereotype and bigotry that's overtaken the genre, but actively take a stance against it. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean this album is particularly good; outside of a few lyrical moments, it's a forgettable country record that feels musically stuck in the past. I wish it was something more, but there just isn't much here to love.

Personal Favorite

Nominees: A Moon Shaped Pool (9.7/+0.8), Wings (8.7/+0.7), Dear Wormwood (8.6/+0.6)

Party Favors is one of the simpler albums I’ve recommended for the Daily Spin, which says a lot in the way of how well-executed it is. Sure, it touches onplenty of the themes I like in music—lyrically, it repeatedly delves into complicated or abusive relationships, power dynamics, and queer experience—but the reason I had this on repeat in late 2020 isn’t all that complicated. It's just great indie rock that’s humming with an air of barely-repressed emotion, something that I really vibed with at the time and still enjoy a lot. It does at times fall back to a solid baseline set by strong-across-the-board lyrics, vocals, and instrumentation, but the tracks with the best hooks are indelible to me. I could go a decade without listening to this album and I’d still hum along to the choruses of “Squaring Up”, “Animal”, “Too Close”, and “Michelle”. It's not necessarily an inner-circle favorite the whole way through, but this is a record I can’t see myself ever falling out of love with.

Not for Me

Nominees1: Continuum (8.5/-0.5), Rustin’ in the Rain (6.5/-0.4), Blonde (8.6/-0.4)

The average track length on Matter pushes five minutes, and while stretching things out like that can work for some genres, it really sours me on an indie synth-pop album that feels like it’s filling up time between a handful of truly strong musical ideas. I like a lot of the sounds individually, but not much seems to flow as well as you might hope, and the album as a whole can come off as the same song eleven times if you’re not paying close attention. It’s just not all there for me.

Best Lyrics and Vocals

Nominees: Party Favors, Blonde, Wings

I could go on and on about how beautifully Maggie and Tyler Heath’s vocals nestle into the stirring folk/chamber sound of their orchestration, but this was picked for Album Club by Leah (of The Low Mayor), and she puts it better than I can:

I really appreciate this album as a metaphor for dealing with an abusive relationship, or abusiveness in general. Throughout the album you see the journey from “I know I shouldn't love you/But I do“ to “I know who you are now/And I name you my enemy”. There's a narrative of personal growth, recognizing abuse, and eventually leaving and separating yourself from that situation.

And, of course…that theme hits ten times as hard coming from a band which has repeatedly come back to its complicated, ever-changing relationship with Christianity in the western world.

Best Instrumentation

Nominees: A Moon Shaped Pool, Little Ghost, Transatlanticism

As David mentioned in his review, this album takes a lot of cues from Sigur Rós, who underwent a similar transition from post-rock through folk to ambient prior to KAUAN’s. Personally, though, I’m inclined to consider it a slightly more successful execution of a similar concept—it's a little more defined, with some pretty strong melodies and long builds that give it a particular character which Sigur Rós’s Valtari could be said to lack. It’s got an even longer average track length than that album, but I personally think Kaiho does the most with that length, using it to weave delicately between the various genres it touches on.

Best Album Art

Nominees: Lost with You, Little Ghost, Matter

Shoegaze is a notoriously difficult style of music to do well, and there’s something about this album art that captures what Slowdive have mastered about the genre. Based on the Labyrinth of the Reims Cathedral, a 13th-century work of art in northeastern France, it depicts the almost paradoxical combination of repetition and gradual transformation that keeps the long tracks of everything is alive from dragging on. If you follow the path from the entrance in, it never feels like you’re getting anywhere, but in the end you’ll still find yourself where you’re supposed to be.

Listen to the September mixtape here!

In Short

Djesse Vol. 3 (Jacob Collier): This feels like it should be the first part of the trilogy, not the last.

Party Favors (Sir Chloe): “Michelle” pulls absolutely zero punches and I love it.

Little Ghost (Moonchild): A chill, artful mix of lo-fi, jazz, soul, and R&B that just works.

everything is alive (Slowdive): Good shoegaze: it does exist!

Lost With You (Wildermiss): Folksy indie rock which is a little directionless, but kinda owns it.

A Moon Shaped Pool (Radiohead): Like every Radiohead album, it’s at once an evolution of their musical style and a radical departure from everything they’ve done before.

Sam’s Town (The Killers): If you’ve ever heard anything by the Killers, you pretty much get the gist.

Interstellar (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (Hans Zimmer): A lot of the reviews make a point of how original this score is, and…look, I’m not saying it isn’t great, but doesn’t it remind anybody of Koyaanisqatsi? Just me?

no future (EDEN): Drawing on influences like Frank Ocean and Bon Iver makes it hard not to notice that this album feels a little less clear in purpose.

Continuum (John Mayer): It’s 50 minutes of the same tone…a really good 50 minutes, but still.

Playing Robots Into Heaven (James Blake): I’m not sure how to criticize this album without coming off like I’m condemning ambient music as a whole.

REMNANT (LORN): A pretty powerful and emotive electronic/dark ambient record.

Transatlanticism (Death Cab for Cutie): To the surprise of absolute nobody, my kind of music.

AM (Arctic Monkeys): It’s easy to miss how delicately this album weaves between indie rock, blues, R&B, and soul, simply because it does so with such elegance.

Heaven’s Vault Official Soundtrack (Laurence Chapman): Awarded the official TWP soundtrack seal of approval for titling tracks with appropriately mysterious, intriguing names.

Dear Wormwood (The Oh Hellos): The Oh Hellos are, without a doubt, among my two favorite things with the abbreviation TOH.

Infinity on High (Fall Out Boy): I like when this album gets a little campy, but otherwise it’s pretty unremarkable 2000s pop rock with a passing resemblance to punk.

Rustin’ in the Rain (Tyler Childers): We need more artists like Tyler Childers. Just, uh, not in my playlists, necessarily.

Valtari (Sigur Rós): Not sure I would call this post-rock, but whatever it is, it’s good.

Matter (St. Lucia): I just don’t get the hype.

Kaiho (KAUAN): Valtari’s more melodic twin.

Blonde (Frank Ocean): As music, it’s solid; as art, it’s transcendent.

Jack In The Box (j-hope): An extremely forgettable EP dressed up in BTS-level production.

Fly (The Chicks): It largely predates the takeover of this genre by the soulless country/pop music that it resembles, but it’s hard to unhear the similarities.

The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We (Mitski): I’m getting more Lana Del Rey than Mitski, honestly.

Hot Fuss (The Killers): Good start, rough finish.

After Laughter (Paramore): Brisk, upbeat, great modern pop.

KPM 1000 Series: Hot Wax (Brian Bennett): I have a sudden urge to look at a bunch of charts depicting the history of the Minnesota Vikings.

Three (Phantogram): The malcore of depcore—oh, right, sorry, the…me-core of David-core? Doesn’t really roll off the tongue, but oh well.

Wings (BTS): Just describing this as K-pop doesn’t capture how well it draws on stylistic influences like hip-hop, dance, electronica, and orchestral pop. I get the BTS hype now.

I was 0.8 points below David’s rating on the Interstellar soundtrack, but I’m not including it since Eli rated it a “haven’t seen the movie”/10.