June 2023 in Music

Kevin Penkin’s anime soundtracks have been a revelation – grand orchestrations simultaneously classical and contemporary, and always with some high, haunting crescendo of horns, breaking emotionally – and always with an undercurrent of the eldritch and bizarre.

In June, I got really into Depeche Mode. This is my pattern – there will be some beloved classic artist whose work would always have appealed to me, and yet I will take years and years to get around to them – until I suddenly do. This is exactly the kind of sound I’m ‘nostalgic’ for – a kind of back-projected, learned nostalgia for a past I didn’t have. In other words, a pose. But as far as this type of new wave/synth pop is concerned, I’m shameless.

The next three songs are also from that same time period, but they’re otherwise quite distinct – contrast Bjork’s squawking cries, all rough edges, with Ultravox’s ultra-smooth sound, as if they’d taken a sander to their music. And of course Peter Gabriel is just my favorite.

After that it’s more oddness Mili, and then more J-Pop, and I’ll just specifically shout out ZOMBIE-CHANG’s terrific vocal style. She manages to sound incredibly droll and utterly done with everything, in a way that adds character to the music.

Then I decided to revisit 2014, when I listened to the radio on my commute and enjoyed WALK THE MOON’s optimism – and you know what, it’s not a bad thing from time to time.

Junkie XL pulled off a gently haunting score for Three Thousand Years of Longing, not really what you’d expect from the Mad Max guy.

Late Yellowcard is still pretty good, despite what some folks might say.

Fly-day Chinatown is perhaps the greatest example of early ‘80s Japanese city pop, and it was probably my song of the summer – indescribably grand.