July 2023

Albums

Arooj Aftab

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Welcome again to another round of, “More Musical Storytime, Less Musical Review”. For this week’s write up, I’m covering more, an Artist than a specific album. Specifically, Arooj Aftab, a Pakistani-American artist. I have two of her album, Vulture Prince, her third album, and the Record Store Day vinyl of Live in London.

Arooj Aftab really isn’t my normal “kind of music” though honestly, I don’t really even have a “kind of music”, as I have always just, enjoyed all kind of music. I’ve listened to plenty of pop, rock, country, hip hop, and, somewhat experimental style minimalist Pakistani music. Or whatever the genre here would be. Anyway, it’s time for a bit of fun story time.

Back in 2020, maybe 2021, it’s all kind of a blur, during the COVID lock downs, I started watching a lot of online concert streams, mostly artists I had heard of, since a lot of these were paid streams. I couldn’t go to any concerts, so why not at least support the artists and watch some online concerts instead. I’ve used a lot of different platforms for this, maybe one day I will do a run down of the options out there. In August of 2021, I was going to catch a stream for Molly Tuttle, a finger picking blue grass musician, performing at Red Rocks Amphitheater, streamed through a site Mandolin.com.

This was the first time I had used Mandolin.com, and unfortunately, the stream was riddle with issues. I don’t think an entire song was played in full during the entire stream. It kept dropping and breaking up. I wasn’t super worried about it or even particularly upset, these streams tend to have a pretty affordable entry fee, so no big loss. Mandolin ended up issuing a refund for the stream, AND a credit for future use within the next 6 months or so.

I kept an eye on their schedule for any other streams I would be interested in, but nothing really came up on my radar, and my credit came up on “about to expire”. So i picked a couple of shows that seemed like they might be interesting, one was Courtney Barnett and the other was Arooj Aftab.

For lack of a better way to describe the draw, after the brief bit of research I did, Arooj Aftab struck me as the kind of “weird hipster shit” that I tend to find appealing. And it turns out that it, well, her music kind of is. Also, don’t take the “weird hipster shit” as a derogatory, it’s just, an apt meme-ish description.

So anyway, I enjoyed the show. While perusing Bandcamp for music to add to my little list of “bookmarks for Bandcamp Fridays.” I found that Arooj Aftab has a page there and I decided to buy her (at the time), current album, Vulture Prince.

I hard to really get into the specifics of what I like about this album and it’s tracks, mostly because, half of it, probably more, is not in English. There are some English tracks, but it’s mostly sung in Urdu. Most of my judgement is on the music itself. Wikipedia suggests her style is Jazz and Minimalism, which I would agree is pretty apt. I just mostly find the songs quite relaxing. It’s all long drawn out vocalization and has a sort of “chanting” vibe to it. The musical parts of very light and rambling. It’s music you can just sort of sit back and get lost in.

Anyway, earlier this year during Record Store Day, I noticed there was an Arooj Aftab vinyl available, Live in London, and it was pretty affordable, it may have actually be the lowest priced item on the RSD selection, so I grabbed that as well. I think it only shares one track with Vulture Prince, but it’s a lot of the same sort of vibe and feel. It also is a nice looking red colored vinyl, though colored vinyls are kind of everywhere.

Anyway, if you’re looking for some interesting low key music to chill out with, Arooj Aftab can certainly fill that need.

Link List

Thursday 2023-07-13 – Link List

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Link List

Sunday 2023-07-09 – Link List

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Friday 2023-07-07 – Link List

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Albums

Pink Floyd – The Wall

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I had such a good roll going on these album posts each week and then I got in a funk as I do, and fell off a cliff. Conveniently enough, Pink Floyd’s The Wall is an album I used to listen to frequently when I was “in a funk”, though not quite as much anymore these days. I mentioned last post that these are less reviews and more just writing about music I enjoy or have enjoyed, and The Wall is definitely one of my “top albums” for time listened to and how much I like it.

It’s also kind of up there for “number of times I have bought it”, but that’s not hard, as I don’t own too many albums more than once. I have the CD version, I have a live CD version, I have a copy on Vinyl, an old one not a reissue, possible even one of the original versions as it doesn’t have any text on it, just the Wall itself.

When I originally bought this CD is kind of a funny story. I was quite young at the time, and had gone to Best Buy I think with my dad and uncle maybe. I forget why they went, but I went browsing through the CDs, which at the time was a giant multi aisle set up, right up front. Like 1/4th the floor space of the store or something, which is funny because now you’re lucky to find am 8 foot section of CDs at a Best Buy. Anyway, I bought a copy of The Beavis and Butthead Experience (and I think maybe also Nirvana’s Nevermind). When I got home, my mom disapproved of Beavis and Butthead, so I was forced to return the CD, and instead, I bought The Wall. I would have been like 13 or 14 at the time. Funny enough, The Wall was originally released the same year I was born.

It’s probably better in the long run. Also, I eventually bought that Beavis and Butthead CD again, later. I’m also not real sure thematically that The Wall is much better than Beavis and Butthead for a young fresh teenager.

One thing I feel like this album really influenced in my music tastes is the idea of an album that “tells a story”. It’s certainly not the first rock opera ever, but it’s the first one I was really exposed to. To this day, albums with connected underlying themes, even if it’s a super loose connection, really strike my fancy. The Wall tells a story of a man (named Pink) who grew up with a shitty abusive childhood, who became famous, goes a bit crazy, and isolates himself behind a mental wall. At the climax his inner self passes judgement and he is able to break free. The album is also circular in that the end of the album runs seamlessly into the start of the album, allowing it to be run on an endless, connected loop, though that would have been tricky to do before digital media.

Albums with literally connected tracks, are also something I really like, and The Wall may be to blame for that as well.

The album is effectively split into two parts. On the CD version, this is split into the first and second CDs. The first half is the building of the wall, and an exploration of the character’s history and life up until that point. There are quite a few returning themes that run this thread, the most blatant of which is in the three versions of Another Brick in the Wall, which serve as brief interlude moments where previous trauma is compartmentalized off as “another brick in the wall.”

The second half follows Pink’s isolation and decent into a drug induced madness. The airy calmer tracks are intermixed with several sorrowful regretful tracks before Pink hallucinates he is a fascist dictator chasing down minorities at the peak of his delusions. World War II themes are one of the underlying themes of this story as well, the character’s father having died during the way, and several tracks referencing the destruction from the war. Eventually it climaxes off with the previously mentioned The Trial, where Pink is laid bare and judged for his crimes.

The circular nature of the album also is a nod towards how cyclic depression can get, where yes, our hero has broken free and come to his senses, but all of this previous trauma still exists and will come back to close the world off once more.

It’s not worth it’s own separate post, but it’s worth mentioning that the Live Album, Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980-81, is excellent as well.

There is also a music movie version out there, though it’s been a while since I watched it. I have also heard the live shows at the time of it’s release were incredible to watch, with huge puppets and anamatronics and such, but I would have been way to young to ever see it performed live.

Dark Side of the Moon seems to be the most popular album Pink Floyd has put out, but my favorite has always been The Wall by a long way.

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