2017's Year End Compilation

I only had time for a few things this year, one of those things was this particular movie. I do still really like this movie, although these days it's sort of been "dethroned" by "Suzume".

This was probably one of the last movies that my partner and I watched together in my parents basement before I ultimately decided to move out.

Let me paint the picture for you.

It was a mid 80s bungalow in suburban nowhere, Ontario. The basement was finished, with a rough, thick carpet adorning the floor. The kind of high-traffic stuff you'd get installed in an office. My dad didn't want the dog messing up the carpet.

The walls are the same plastic faux-wood panel that was installed when they first finished the basement. The wall-hung lamps and white, laced shades hung over the cast-in-place windows on a rusty, brass colored friction rod are the same as they ever were.

A hand-me-down flatscreen sits across the room, tower speakers on either side of the console that it sits upon. It's chilly down here, but not too cold. Perfect for a blanket! Or two. Or three.

We had this blu-ray player that used to play .mkv files just fine, until one day it decided it didn't want to. It never loaded an .mkv after that. Did that midway through a Kill La Kill episode to me.

This movie didn't get a local theatre release for us, so we sat in that basement, that couch probably too far from the telelvision screen, and we watched that movie together.

I don't really think about this movie a lot anymore but what I do think about is sitting in that basement and watching this one together, not knowing it would be close to one of the last ones I'd watch in that house.

It's strange, isn't it? Sitting in a room. You may know it very well. In my case, it was a childhood home.

But, nothing lasts forever. Sometimes you know the end is coming and sometimes it's stolen from you in the breath of an instant.

I wish I had sat down there in that basement and I had taken it in a little more. I wish I had realized I wouldn't always be going back there.

I wish I had more photos of that place, and I wish that this complacency didn't creep its way in between the monotony and repetitiveness of day-to-day life.

Anyway, Radwimps is good! This music is great. Little did I know that I'd get to see them live in 2022 in Toronto. Zenzenzense is probably the winner for me, today, between these two that are showcased here.

That same basement I described above is the one that we watched Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood together in.

This opening is, by and large, probably my favourite anime opening period. Yui's voice has got this great maturity to it, and the way she sings has a perfect blend of staccato and flow here, almost being spoken word at points.

You know an opening is good when it plays in your head while the song comes on, even any number of years later.

I am far, far overdo on a rewatch of brotherhood. I remember being really taken aback by how smart and exciting that show was.

There's not enough magic shows!

If it wasn't apparant to you, dear reader, that I didn't have much time in 2017 to myself, then a mario song making it in here has got to be proof of that.

I like Mario music, don't get me wrong, there's some phenomenal pieces of music in the franchise, but this particular song making it in here is indicitive of something to me.

This is one of the years that I have very few memories of, I do somewhat remember playing this song, I remember going to a gamestop early in the morning to get this game and binging it over the course of a week or so.

Pretty sure this game dedicated a lot of my little bit of free time in this particular year and that's why it's on here.

Not a big fan of this one anymore. To be honest it's been a very long time since I have listened to this song all the way through with earnest.

I did not listen through it all the way while writing this.

My partner does not like Kero Kero Bonito, save for this one particular song.

For this reason, it got a lot of playtime around them as I wanted to listen to the group and this one was the safe pick.

Though, this track is a lot of fun. I like how the minimalist japanese and english singing/wrap hybrid that the band sort of invents here is brought forward to a full length record with Bonito Generation.

Although, in writing that now I think that it was sort of invented by Sarah sometime before this song, with them featuring in some other small-scale indie stuff as a vocalist.

This song was also a bit of a meme for a bit there, if I recall correctly? Always weird when music you like hits it off in meme culture. I guess that happens more and more these days with most labels wanting their artists to chase the tik tok algorithms. gross.

One of the very few albums that I listened to this year.

For this reason, a lot of this record is on here.

Man, I feel really weird writing about this year. I don't even really like a lot of this music anymore, so having to come up with stuff here is kind of tough.

I don't really like listening to this song anymore, the lyrics hit a little too close to home these days.

This song feels little trill and kind of blasted out to me these days.

Kind of echoing my thoughts on the above track.

This is the only song from these three that I still enjoy listening to today.

I think because this song is more of a blues or chamber pop type thing that I'm more into in the modern day.

This record doesn't really go very many places, the songs tend to set up one particular motif at the beginning and then kind of hang onto it.

It's good that I saved these songs because I do remember liking them and its not something that I ever really listen to anymore, I think I've said this before in this project but having music that I end up not liking in here just as important as music that I continue to like.

If you have a chance, check out PREPs record "Futures". Sound of the summer.

I say this partially in jest and partially in truth, as this EP was something that I listened to a lot this summer.

It's not often that my partner sends me music to listen to, but this was one of the few occasions.

I remember laying on the couch in my families summer home, getting this text, saying "Someone posted this on a discord server, I think you'd like it!"

I did like it!.

I liked it so much that this EP still gets listened to constantly by myself, and I went out of my way to buy in on vinyl, which is something that I seldom do, saving that only for records that strike a particular chord with me.

I've always loved PREPs soulful, electro-jazz fusion type of approach to their projects, they've stuck to this particular vibe for a very long time, still releasing music in this style, but I honestly think it works well for them.

Who's Got You Singing Again is another great example of that just complete and total understanding of soulful music that PREP has.

I like the contrast that these two songs have next to one another, this one being a lot more depressing but still having a funky and grooving beat to it.

Would really love to catch this group live some day, I think they really got something good going!

These two songs are classics for me from this year, probably one of the few songs on here that I am still truly extremely impressed with all these years later.

Sonic Mania is a legendary game, if you've played it - you know how good it is.

Tee Lopes proved themselves when creating music for this game, and this particular song was a standout.

Really great fan music from a Sonic-CD type game and this is one of the few songs that I literally stopped playing the level to slow down and appreciate.

One of the other songs was the oil ocean level, which is the one with the sax solo.

When are we getting Shadow Mania!?

I remember listening to this music on this record a lot when I was studying for school this year.

In Love With A Ghost really was one of the forerunners when it came to lofi music, as much as I hate that term.

It's not wonder that they decided to break away from it and pursue different styles of music later on, but there's no denying this ones commercial success.

This is another album that I have a vinyl record for.

Again, one of the few records that I spent a lot of time with this year, on account of there being 3 songs from this record back-to-back in this compilation.

These three songs all have a really great sense of soundscape, texture, and emotion to them.

This is the earliest example that I can remember of falling in love with songs that have ambient soundscapes or rain sounds in them.

I know that was a trope for a long, long time before this album came out but it's still my first love in this regard.

Echoing my thoughts on the above two tracks here.

I love how the plucks on the strings and melodies in this one create a bubbly, or bouncy feeling and the way its more uplifting than the previous two.

Going from something like this into virtual self is quite the tonal whiplash.

When I tell you that this entire year should have just been the tracks from the Virtual Self EP, I am not being hyperbolic.

I remember so clearly when this song came out. I was sitting in the computer lab at my local college. It was during a teacher strike but I still had giant cumulative projects to work on, so I was coming into the school regardless.

I was sitting at my dual monitor workstation, staring at my phone while I browsed twitter when Porter Robinson tweeted NEW PROJECT!

This was the song that come out with it. Blew me away!

I was really starting to show an interest in Bemani games at the time, especially BMS projects, so seeing a project from my favourite artist paying direct homage to that particular sub-niche of music and visual style was nothing short of vindicating.

I never skip this one when it comes on, the energy it creates is intoxicating!

I also remember there being some discussion online if it was really Porter Robinson before he made it 100% clear, to me, the acoustic "language" style pianos was a dead giveaway.

There was never any Virtual Self shows near me, but I had a car. I could have driven to Quebec to see it. I should have done that! I still regret that I never did it.

In hindsight, this song doesn't necessarily fit with the themes of the rest of the EP. That doesn't mean it's bad or anything, it's just interesting!

Definitely the chart fish song of the EP.

That being said I really love the music video for this one, which is extremely rare for me to say because I tend to not watch hardly any music videos at all.

The two characters that Porter Robinson created for this project, Technical Angel and Path Selector are very cool.

I remember each character had canonical tracks that they created on the EP, which is just such a cool idea.

The website I recall had some information on the two of them, and these "orbs" that showed each song. I remember there was some orbs that were never fulfilled, which kind of sucks.

I was super duper into this project. I spent hours reading through the weird machine-generated techno-babble that was written, consuming all of the artwork, even learning to make some stuff in this style. I was obsessed.

Still a really great project to this day and such a great love letter from such a big artist to such a cool niche-hobby, that being japanese rhythm games and BMS specifically.

Thank you for this, Porter! This shit owns.

This one is on here because the studio versions of this music that was, maybe used for pre-vis or something? for the live show for Shelter was leaked.

I listened to it a lot. I still do. I'm not ashamed to admit that.

Porters vocals in this version are very very good, and I have very emotional memories of seeing this show live.<.p>

The parts were the show gets slowed down for some more vocal-focused parts are a lot of fun.

This is, also, one of the few times Porter Robinson sings verbatim without vocal processing, far, FAR before Nurture ever came out.

The way this song explodes into the main melody hook is so fun, with those supersaws and the bassline in behind it?

That was kind of a cliche thing for music to do back in the day, but it does generate a really satisfying emotional response and is just so amazing to be in front of in a love show setting.

Another example of Porter Singing without processing before Nurture!

This show did this thing where Porter and Madeon did flips of each others songs as the show played through, so Madeon would remix Porter stuff and Porter would remix Madeon stuff.

These two songs showcased here are just so good and emotional, they both use the same "Porter-isms" that was something of a cliche at the time, that being emotional supersaws and basslines.

I just can't get enough of it all, though. This song is just an unashamed Porter Trope song, with the super saws, bassline, high-octave reverbed piano hits, vocal chops? it has it all.

Whenever I listen to this one it brings me back to being in the audience, just wanting to lift my hands up and really be in the moment.