1977 prog rock album from one of the all time greats. Kind of the red-headed stepchild of Pink Floyd's mainstream peak. It's a solid album that suffers mostly from being surrounded by some of the greatest albums of all time.
Fun fact: David Gilmour played bass on both "Pigs" and "Sheep," with bassist Roger Waters playing rhythm guitar instead.
The Silent Ballet was a website focused on mostly post-rock music. Between 2006 and 2010, they released 16 compilation albums, all released under the CC BY-NC-ND license.
While The Silent Ballet is mostly defunct—they generate top 100 albums and tracks lists once a year—the Creative Commons license means these albums are still available. It's a sort of window into a period of time.
2022 experimental rock album from London, England. A crazy experience that takes from prog rock, show tunes, jazz fusion, and more. A hellish nightmare concept album, at times sung, at other times ranted in a blend of carnival barker and auctioneer; often hectic, occasionally soft, frequently discordant.
My picks: "Eat Men Eat," "Welcome to Hell," "Dangerous Liasons"
So bear with me here. Time Trax was a TV series that ran 1993-94. In 1994, a video game based on the series was released for the SNES.
This isn't that soundtrack. This is the one for the unreleased Sega Genesis/Mega Drive version of the game, with music by the great Tim Follin, who pushed hardware to its limits for games like Solstice and Silver Surfer for NES, or Plok! for SNES.
Internet funny man Neil Cicierega has made plenty of great things over the years: The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny, Potter Puppet Pals, Ariel Needs Legs, etc. Here he created lighthearted pop about strange subjects, such as reanimating a pop star, Lovecraftian love, and Gef the talking mongoose. Standouts include "Touch-Tone Telephone," "Sweet Bod," and "Reaganomics."
Tortoise has been around for over 30 years, creating post rock with a very evident jazz influence, in addition to minimalism and electronica. TNT is arguably Tortoise's strongest album, and in my opinion near perfect.
My picks: "Swung from the Gutters," " Ten-Day Interval," "In Sarah, Mencken, Christ, and Beethoven There Were Women and Men"
Ween correctly set expectations by following up the opening Motörhead tribute "It's Gonna Be a Long Night" with the relaxed psychedelia of "Zoloft." What follows is an album that bounces around a bit before mellowing out, all with an underlying sadness from Gener's divorce from his long-time partner.
My picks: "Transdermal Celebration," "Happy Colored Marbles," "The Argus", "If You Could Save Yourself"
2000 rap opera concept album. I'm generally not big on rap, but between catchy beats and some very unconventional (and nerdy) subject matters, this album is definitely an exception for me. The first song alone mentions Neuromancer, Ghost in the Shell and The Matrix. Wonderful stuff.
My picks: "3030," "Virus," "Time Keeps on Slipping"
The Hanoi, Vietnam-based Mukang Fields call themselves a "space jazz groove trio," which is both accurate and misleading—accurate, in that their music is a very synth-heavy, spacious jazz; misleading, in that it has nothing to do with the awful "Space Jazz: The soundtrack of the book Battlefield Earth" by L. Ron Hubbard. 😆
Some fun jams here with synths, sax, flute, and throat singing.
Instrumental hip-hop/trip-hop/plunderphonics masterpiece. "Building Steam With a Grain of Salt" samples another album from yesterday's AOTD artist Mort Garson. Between this album sampling Prince of Darkness and Psyence Fiction sampling Jacob's Ladder, I'm convinced DJ Shadow has good taste in movies. 😆
My picks: "Changeling," "Stem / Long Stem (Medley)," " Midnight In A Perfect World"
1996 post-rock/experimental rock album from Chicago, Illinois. Listening to this, I'm once again loving Tortoise's distinct flavor of post-rock, with a very noticeable jazz(-fusion/-rock) influence, as well as minimalism and krautrock.
My picks: "Djed," "Glass Museum," "The Taut and Tame"
I've been a GY!BE fan for about 15 years now, and I love every album. Post rock with a symphonic bent, usually interspersed with soundscapes and field recordings.
Slow Riot isn't my favorite Godspeed album, but I think it's the most approachable.
2000 (2001 UK/NA) plunderphonics/hip hop/nu-disco album from Australia. An absolutely impressive production, cleverly blending hundreds of samples into songs that smoothly transition from one idea to the next.
My picks: "Since I Left You," "Electricity," "Frontier Psychiatrist," "Etoh"
My favorite of the "Mouth" series of albums, all wonderfully executed mashups of classic songs in the most chaotic ways possible. Incredibly unexpected pairings and complete reworking of snippets into new creations, all designed to make you laugh while being as catchy as possible.
While F♯ A♯ ∞ is iconic, Lift Your Skinny Fists is Godspeed's definitive album. Post-rock with a classical bent, with plenty of influence from film soundtracks.
While the whole album is well worth the listen, "Sleep" might just be my favorite song of all time, especially the second movement. ("Broken Windows, Locks of Love Pt. III")
Neil Young is typically associated with folk rock and country rock, so when he released this new wave/synthpop album in 1983, reception was...less than positive.
While it may not be Neil Young's best work, I think it's a great demonstration of his creativity and it has some genuinely great tracks on it.
My picks: "Computer Age," "Sample And Hold," "Mr. Soul"
Lustmord has had an impressive career spanning film, TV, commercials, video games, and original music. I'm not at all surprised to find out he was part of the Scorn soundtrack, but I was surprised to find out that he had made music for Planescape: Torment before a change in producers removed him from the game.
Basically "what if you threw Supertramp, Queen, The Beatles, and the Beach Boys in a blender, but in '93 when everyone wanted grunge." Wonderfully produced power pop that's full of excess.
Also, the lead singer was the drummer. Who played drums standing up. Crazy.
My picks: "Joining a Fan Club," "New Mistake," "The Ghost At Number One," "All is Forgiven,"
1995 math rock/noise rock album from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Loud, angular, discordant. Aggressive up front, although the album calms down a bit towards the back end.
Pro-tip: if you ever want to annoy co-workers, try putting on "Repeat Defender," especially from about 4:28-5:48!
My picks: "Stupid Puma," "Repeat Defender," "Dick Suffers Is Furious With You"