June was a month of a lot of music, and I've been listening to albums released earlier this year a lot as well (so much 100 gecs) but these are five albums which came out this month that I've been rocking.
The Baseball Project "Grand Salami Time!"
https://open.spotify.com/album/1IPBzbCP7Id0vk22g98lfC?autoplay=true
For those who know me (or even just frequent this site) it is no secret that two of my biggest passions are music and baseball. So, to have a band sing songs about baseball, combining these two passions, is just something I'm all for. Somewhere between The Hold Steady, Beach Boys and that Americana/rock n roll sound, The Baseball Project has even created a sound here that can be heard at baseball games.
"That's Living" can be very much on the folk side while "The Yips" is almost that southern rock n roll sound. Some elements of Tom Petty can be found in here and there are also a lot of sweet guitar solos. I especially enjoy the song "New Oh In Town", which is about Shohei Ohtani. The album ends on "The Voice Of Baseball" with the sing along chorus that he's not just the voice of the Dodgers, which is a great tribute to Vin Scully.
Remotely Together by V/A (Rewire)
I was first drawn to this album because of the involvement of Claire Rousay. I really enjoy that this is a collaboration between artists who are not in the same room and they just have it come together so perfectly. Reading about this being planned from 2021 as well just makes it feel more like the type of art and ideas that have been created in many ways because of the pandemic in 2020.
All of that aside, this is still an exploration in music which ranges from singing to the jazz piano to an eerie ambient droning sound and that's just on the first track with Claire Rousay and Morita Vargas! Maria Chavez and Valentina Magaletti combine this marching percussion with beautifully blissed out tones, while KMRU can feel more like a walk through an electronic rain forest.
Tigercub "The Perfume of Decay"
What I really enjoy about Tigercub is how they sound like a band from the late 1990's but with a modern twist. Elements of Stabbing Westward, Filter and Hum can be heard within this sound, which also just goes a lot of ways to branch out on its own. I feel like at first it drew me in because it sounded like something nostalgic but now I can only kind of hear it as sounding like Tigercub.
The sound is both complex and heavy with a lot of melody on the song "Swoon". There are also times when this feels like it's coming out of the nu metal era, or perhaps more specifically from the days of bands like Seether, but without sounding quite the same as all that either. I just like this album because it rocks and it brings together a lot of the different styles of rock that I enjoy to create something familiar yet new.
Sea Moss "REMOSS2"
Last year, Sea Moss released "SEAMOSS2" but it wasn't until this year that I heard about that or this remixed version of the album. Sea Moss has a unique sound on its own, but within can be found remixes of the songs providing two fairly different albums between the remixes and originals. Remixes on here are done by artists such as Machine Girl, GHOSH (who I also just got into this year), Giant Claw and Fire-Toolz.
But much as music seems to be a gateway drug, listening to this album has made me even more of a fan of Sea Moss but also opened my ears up to new artists I hadn't heard before. My favorite is B|_ank, who does a remix of "Needy Needy", and it's one of my favorites on this album. I think I had known the name B|_ank before but now I will go out of my way to listen to them. That's something which can be said for this entire album.
Jeanne Balibar "D'ici là tout l'été" (Midnight Special Records)
Jeanne Balibar has the sound of smooth jazz on this album, but it is also captured in a fun pop way. There are these big church bells, which eventually stretch out into different tones which just showcase the sounds that such tones can make throughout the album. There is a lot of soul in here and "Encore ! Encore !" just feels like such a wild ride.
At times this album gets quieter, more minimal, but it still embraces the overall feeling from the start. "Divabobo" (which is just fun to say) closes out the album as a nice dance number and the entire album just feels so pleasant. It's something I enjoy listening to at any time of day no matter what I'm doing. It's perfect any mood music.
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