No Filler Music Podcast - Best of 2022 - Part Four

Episode Date: December 31, 2022

In our final episode of 2022, we wrap up our best of countdown with our top 10 tracks of the year. Thank you as always for listening, we'll talk at ya next year! Tracklist Cloakroom - Dissembler Honeyglaze - Childish Things Fleshwater - Closet Widowspeak - Sleeper AURAGRAPH - Parallels Toro y Moi - Last Year Pencey Sloe - The Run I. & II. (feat. Alcest, JK Flesh) Beth Orton - Forever Young Minaxi - Adore (feat. Theodora Curtis) Sunbeam Sound Machine - Two Summers This show is part of the Pantheon Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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My name is Quentin. With me for the last time in 2022 is my dear brother Travis. Here I am. There you are. Do you think anybody besides perhaps our brother Spencer, if he's listening, knows the movie reference I just made? Oh, man. Hang on. Oh, that's Tommy Boy. No.

Black Beverly Hills Ninja? Yep. Okay. Yeah, there you go. It's Beverly Hills. I knew who's Chris Farley. Man. Here I am.

Dude. That's in the very opening scene, I think, where he's trying to, like, impress the whoever the oh yeah the love interest is right he's trying to like show off his ninja skills yeah he's the last ninja in the in the dojo or whatever i'm guessing he's hiding behind something that's way too small for him something like and he thinks that no one sees him right and he pops out here i am i don't remember exactly but man we were huge chris farley fans dude who wasn't man mega yeah too soon yeah uh so this is the last episode of the year dude this is it what better time than now to do a little tribute to chris farley where'd that come from

seriously came from the deep you know murky depths of my brain depths of the nostalgic river where that stuff just it just lives there rent-free and just comes out of nowhere you know what it does it goes here i am yeah he pops up and you know a little chris fireley line just comes out of my math, you know, unexpectedly. So we've been doing our best of 2022 episodes this whole month. And now we're down to the top 10. My favorite five and your favorite five. This maybe goes without saying at this point, but this is more a representation of my

favorite artists of the year or my favorite albums from these artists for the year, you know? Yeah, yeah. Like there's, it took me, I mean, a long time, dude, with the way. one of these albums to narrow down to which song I'm going to play today. Same. And for multiple of these choices, dude. Like, there's so many good songs on some of these albums. Just moments ago, I was listening to all the releases that this guy put out this year on shuffle,

just trying to, like, narrow it down. Yeah. Because I'm the same. It's like, it's hard sometimes to try to narrow it down to one song to represent an artist. Because then you listen to the next one and you're like, oh, man, you know what? maybe that one's a little bit better. Yeah, and then you're like, but you know what, though? This shows off the way that the album plays with this.

Exactly. So I want to play this song so that I can show off. But you know what, dude, our job isn't really to ruin the surprises of a good album, right? My hope is that the songs I pick will at least get you to jump into the rest of the record. Yeah. Because, yeah, man, I got some great picks for tonight. Two of these picks for me tonight are artists that you already, brought over the last two weeks.

That's right, because I stole your thunder. You did. But here's, you know, two more tracks from two of our collective, like, favorite artists, which is great. So, you know, like you said off mic, and like I said off mic earlier, one of the tracks I'm bringing is going to get split into two different clips. And same for you. Same for me.

It needs to be done, dude. We're going to do rapid fire for realzy this time. I think this might be the first true. rapid fire of the year. We're going to do it, man. So let's jump right into it. Exactly. So the good thing about two of my artists is that you already kind of teed them up in previous weeks, like I said, even I think it was last week. It was Cloak Room, right? Yeah. Okay. So I'm bringing another track from Cloakroom. You brought doubts, which I actually debated like, you know what? Doubtz pretty much

like tells the story perfectly. I don't need to bring another cloakroom track. But then I think the very next track on the record, which is the last track, does a really good job

showing the doom-gazy side of them and like the grunge side of them a little bit better than Doughts does because Dounce is way left field. Like you said, it's way out of left field on the record. There's nothing doomy about Dounce. It's very light, alt-rocky kind of

kind of stuff, right? And that's not the full picture of cloakroom. So I'm going to play, like I said, the very next track on the record. So once again, here is Cloak Room. This is off their record, Disillusion Wave. The song is called Dissembler. Tempting to let it keep playing, too, because as you just heard, it transitioned into an entirely different sound and vibe, you know. That's a good little teaser, dude. That'll make anyone hearing that for the first time when a dive, dive in. And it's a perfect, you know, representation of what the whole record is. Like, from track to track, they'll go from something that's grungier, kind of doomier

to something a little bit lighter. And within the same track, they'll do that sometimes, like with this one, you know. So doubts was more light, you know, and kind of alt-rocky. This song had a little bit of grunge to it, like I was saying. And toward the end of the song, it transitioned into this lighter kind of alt-rocky, you know, shoegaze kind of thing. And it's just, it's just a masterful record, man. They really, they really pulled it off. This came out in January, too. So, you know, this was a early front runner for me and probably for you, too. Because like, I knew, this was on my, on my best of

2022 list from the jump, you know, like I knew I'd be bringing a track from this record. Yeah, I think it was either a song from this record or a song from the new Animal Collective. That was the first track on my Best of 2020 playlist when I started it. Yeah. Hands down, one of the best records of the year. If you're not convinced yet, go check it out. Distolution Wave, amazing record. R IQ, rapid fire. What you got for your first pick?

All right, man. I feel like I may have brought two tracks from this group already is what you heard. One of them was a introduction song for one of our watches right when this album dropped. And another one I think was. was a single from this record. Maybe it may have been last year. So I've been digging on this group for at least a year now. Honeyglaze is the group.

Can't forget that name, right? This album there is its self-titled. The first full-length came out in April of this year. And man, this is a perfect, like, folk pop record. I mean, I don't know if that's even the best way to describe what they are. but man, there's something about this group, dude. I love Anuska Sokolow. She's the lead singer.

Tim Curtis, that's the two main members of the group. And yeah, let's just rapid fire, dude. I don't know. Do you remember anything about this group? No, I don't. Very playful with their lyrics. She's very, like, self-aware. And, you know, all her lyrics are very, like, raw and pokes fun of herself

in all the right ways. It's just a great record, very down-to-earth and simple and effective, dude. I mean, this whole album, just from start to finish, is just fantastic, dude. So let's play, and I just landed on this song,

maybe 10 minutes before we started this recording. So here we go. This is, again, Honey Glaze. It's a song off of their self-titled. This song is called Child. childish things. I was captivated by that, man. Like, you know, it's one of those lyricists that you kind of, you have to stop and pay attention, you know?

Yeah. And I was reading along with the lyrics and because you had it pulled up in your screen. And I saw at the bottom it says repeats times five. I was like, oh, that's interesting. Yeah, and each time it's slightly different. Yeah, and I love that. I love it. Very cool, dude.

Yeah. Yeah. That's why I played so much of it. I just wanted, really wanted to drive that point home that, like, it's a lot of It's the same verse, I want to call that over and over and over. And I think that's, that's, you know, when it's done right, the message she's trying to get across, you know what I mean? Like it's, I want to repeat this five times, you know.

Yeah. Getting lost inside my head. Think of all the childish things have said. And that's like, like what I was saying, you know, it's very raw. Most of her lyrics are very like self-observant, you know? Yeah. Uh-huh. Almost like a diary entry or something.

Right. exactly like that, dude. I can't stress this enough, dude. The whole album, like, as a whole, fantastic, dude. It's a great, I mean, it's short and sweet. Give it a listen. That was Honeyglaze. We're going to rapid fire it, dude.

Pass it back to you. What did you get? Okay. So I purposely put Cloak Room and Fleshwater as my first two, just to get those kind of played. And then I can have my last three as, like, you know, artist you haven't heard yet for me. But anyway, so I'm going to play Flashwater. And I think you brought that first week

maybe. So it's been a couple weeks since you guys have heard this record. And I played the Razors Apple. You did. And my plan was to play two tracks because Razors Apple immediately follows the track I'm going to play, which is called

Closet, and it kind of blends into each other. But I'm just going to play Closet by itself. And it's two minutes and two seconds long. because I want to play the whole track. And it is such a different track from Razor's Apple that I think you're getting kind of the two sides of them here. What I love about Closet is it brings me back to all the things that we love about Emory, the Weeks End, that record. Oh, what an album.

Yeah, right? That was like one of the one of the one kind of email records that I kind of was attracted to. Anyway, it's that like clean vocal. delivery paired with screaming vocals, right? And they kind of have that dynamic. There's two singers on Fleshwater, right? Anyway, so here we go. Again, this is Fleshwater, and this song is called The Closet. And that's it, dude, it fades right into the Razors Apple after that. Yeah. Yeah, dude, that's the song that got me. Yes, me too, man. That piqued my interest when I first heard it. And it reminded me of Coheedon Cambria or the Mars Volta that,

you know, that era of, of hardcore email stuff. Love it. Love it. Yeah, again, dude. I mean, we don't have to say this, you know, again, but I will. You know, this is a time, dude. This is the time to be a fan of the music we grew up with. Like these indie bands are putting out records that are pitch perfect to that era of rock.

And, you know, they're putting their own spin on it. And I think it's, in some ways, sometimes even better than, you know, who they are imitating, right? And, yeah, Fleshwater is definitely a ban to pay attention to, you know, see what they do next, right? All right, Q, back to you. And, man, we're flying, dude. We're doing it, brother. We've never flown this fast before. A true rapid fire episode.

That's what people want, right? Just get on with the tunes. Just get on with the tunes. Well, you know, I may have a little bit more things to say about my next few. Me too. But we're making good time, Q. So I'm going to pass it back to you. What's your next pick?

All right. This is also a group that you've heard before on this podcast. Widows Peak or Widow Speak. It could be one of those two-pers, you know? It's one of those two-fers. This group released another one of my, I mean, of course, course it's another one of my favorites of the year because this is the last episode and this is our top five uh the jacket was released back in march of this year uh they also made it on my favorite i think

i think um nathan forster friend of the show had this song the good ones from their album plum from 2020 on the playlist that he sent us when we I think we reached out to him and a few other of our friends of the show asking them for their favorites of that year. Or it could have been for the best of the decade. Anyways, the good ones was one of my favorite songs of 2020. Again, the jacket just came out in March. And this is another just fantastic record right from the rip, dude. And what they do so great is this is another group that keeps it really simple.

but man, is it just a mood, dude. And so it's singer-songwriter Molly Hamilton and guitarist Robert Earl Thomas, who also, he releases a lot of solo stuff. And Woodhouse Peak is, quote, a project perennially anchored by warm, expansive arrangements, references to 90s dream pop, 60s psychedelia, and a certain unshakable Pacific Northwestness.

No wonder I love it, dude. Now we're getting to the bottom of it. And this is another one of those examples of, like, I could have played any song from the record. While You Wait, Might be my favorite, but I brought that one earlier on What You're Heard, that's the opener. So I'm going to jump down to the closer of the record. This song is called Sleeper. I could see why they call it Sleeper, because it's very laid back, kind of put you in this, like, you know, easy,

breezy kind of feeling, you know. Yeah, the whole record has that vibe. Does it, okay. And it gives me this like Velvet Underground vibe with the bongos and the guitar tone. Yeah, I did.

Totally. And I love his guitar work, do you? I love that tone. They're from the Pacific Northwest. According to that little blur that I ran. You know, this lyric jumped out of me. So I'll turn off the highway.

I have my exit. and I'm still singing yellow rows of Texas. There you go, Q. That's, that's, that's, that's me. I'm in Texas. Well, it says their origin is New York. Well, well, which is it? So maybe it's just that they've,

maybe it's not that they're from Pacific Northwest. Maybe they just bring this Pacific Northwest vibe with their tunage. What vibe with that big, Q? I don't know. Well, here we go. Molly Hamilton wrote the songs in her hometown, Tacoma, Washington. There you go. We drove through Tacoma, Trived to get to Olympia.

We did. Actually, that Cosmonaut. Cosmonaut Coffee was in Tacom. Oh, shit. I forgot. Dude, I got an email back from Hertz. I got to check that shit. Oh.

So. You got the coffee mug? God, I hope so. Travis left a really cool coffee mug that he bought at my favorite coffee shop in Tacoma. Yeah. He left it in the rental car. So he's been bummed about it since he left. Well, let's.

Take this time since we've been rapid fire. And let's let's get the news, dude. Here we go. Here we go. Okay. Dude Travis, unfortunately. That's not good. Your lost coffee mug has not been located at this time.

Well, yeah, I don't think they need to specify that it's lost. Yeah, that's redundant. Your lost coffee mug has not been found. It's like, well, that's implied when you said that it has been found here. Yeah, well, thanks for rubbing the salt in that wound. Jesus. It's funny because. coffee mug is actually one of the items that they have in their select drop-down of like common things that people leave behind.

So this is just like unfortunately your insert name of thing that they lost here. You know, this is just a generic email that they send to everybody after a week probably, right? Yeah, in fact, it's been a week since we got back. So that dude, somebody else is sipping coffee out of my mug right now. Like the next person who rented that car, 100%. Got a free mug. Well, here's the deal. I will be just a little bit closer to Tacoma once I move down to Olympia.

I will send you money, dude, if you go buy me another one of those mugs, man. Yeah, I'll do it, dude. I'm going to want. I'll have a reason to go back to that coffee shop. You definitely will. Well, here's no thank you. I also left a bag of beans in there, so. I'm not buying any more coffee beans, too.

I'm not spending 25 bucks on like a quarter pound of beans. Okay. That's fair. Really, I cared about the mug more than the beams. It was a dope mug, dude. It was. So, yeah, Molly Hamilton is from Tacoma. So that's where that comes from.

So again, that was Widows Speak. A song was called Sleeper off their album, The Jacket. Another Favy. And I'll pass it back to you, brother. What you got? All right. So it would be hard for me not to play a song from this particular guy. because Spotify informed me that this was my top artist of the year and my Spotify

wrapped. Damn. Is it true? Do you feel that way? Yeah, it's true. And here's the reason why. So this is a, I guess he's, he's an electronic composer that I would put primarily in the vapor wave camp.

I've played a song from his on, like either the March or April, what you heard. he goes with the name Arrograph and this one particular record that he put out has been on heavy heavy repeat for me this entire year and there's actually a record that came out last year but he's just have not brought a song yet on this pod I have the funny thing is I haven't I haven't played one from that record yet

no no so I brought it what you heard but it was a record of his that came out in this year called, well, I'm not going to say the number of eights, but it's literally eight-eighths. That's the name of the record. It's eight eights in a row. It's literally the number eight. This guy is just super prolific.

And I'm excited because he put out a record just now that I haven't listened to yet called 2-2-2-2-2-2. Not all of his records are. are numbers based. But he's just super prolific, man. Like, this year alone, he's put out one, two, three, four, now five records this year. It's looking very, very vapor wave. Super vapor wave.

Yeah. He falls into the tropes. But what I like about him is that, you know, I feel like vapor wave artists right now are a diamond dozen. And there's not, you know, a lot of them sound the same. A lot of them throw in these, you know, ring. random, like, saxophone clips and, like, R&B samples and stuff that I don't really care for. You know what I mean?

I feel like with vapor wave. Yes. Yes. Like shot a vocal, super slowdown. Yeah. I don't, I'm not here for that, dude. Yeah. For me, when vapor, when vapor, when vapor wave is done right, it's like nothing's better.

And this guy does vapor wave right, at least as far as I'm concerned. Like, I, I like this guy's version of, you know, this very kind of tropey genre, right? You like the cut of his jib. I do. I think that's the phrase. Yeah. We'll go with that. Okay.

The thing about him is that it's not necessarily one track, you know, or a handful of tracks that I like. I just like his music, you know, it's all very consistent. And if I'm listening to him, I'm going to listen to him on shuffle kind of thing, right? Or him, you know, just an album on shuffle or something like that. Because I just like the vibe that he puts me into, right? So it was hard for me to pick a track. But I landed on one because like I said, dude, I had freaking four or five records from this year alone to go through to try to determine which one to play. But like I said, I landed on one.

So here we go. This song is off of his record reflection plane, which came out in July of this year. This song is called Parallels. This one's very like retro. What's it? Synthwave. Night drive. Synthwave.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's what he does well is that he incorporates some of that stuff that's more associated with like the Kivinsky. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's the first thought. It is.

The first thing that comes before. It is. Have you listened to this Enter the Void record? It looks like it's a live one. Live. Give it a listen to it. I'm curious how he pulls us off live. Yeah.

There's actually some stuff I'm noticing that is on band camp that's not on Spotify yet. Always worth it to show. to band camp dude there's oh that's with my yacht club i brought him last week he's got even more stuff on bank camp yeah these prolific artists yeah they're gonna drop all the stuff that they're just kind of messing around with that's that's a good point yeah so um just to give a little bit more you know cred to this guy he's from texas which is kind of cool uh but he here's probably he's biggest claim to fame. He actually, so he moved to Austin. He's born in Laredo, Texas, moved to Austin because that's where you're going to end up if you're a musician and you live

in Texas, obviously. That's what I did. But he became fascinated by the electronic music scene spearheaded by Survive and the Holladec Records Network. So if the name Survive rings a bell to you, that is the name of Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein's group who are known for the Stranger Things soundtrack. And Arograph, aka Carlos Ramirez is his actual name, he's actually credited as a score mix engineer for the Stranger Things soundtrack. So that's legit. Nice. That's, you know, as far as like electronic music, you know, everybody knows the Stranger Things soundtrack from the last few years, right?

That's kind of like, if you're going to put your name on something, that's a pretty good one to get, right? Anyway, so yeah, Arrograph, everything he puts out is like this. He's amazing. If you like this kind of music, you can't go wrong with his stuff. All right, Q, I'm going to throw it back to you.

What do you get? We're halfway through. Halfway through. I'm going to bring some, I'm going to bring some Toro Emo, dude. Oh, okay. Did you listen to his album from this year? I may have perused it,

but I don't think I gave it a proper listen. Mahal is the record. and just right off the rip dude Unknown Mortal Orchestra appears on track one I know how much you're a fan of that guy he put out some new stuff this year too well ever since Chas Bundick aka Toro Imwa

did that album with the Mattson 2 star stuff from 2017 which is one of my favorite records he has just been getting more and more like psych rock you know like he's he's starting to put that chill wave

stuff behind, which is, you know, his claim to fame. He was like, he was graduating class, dude, with, watched out and freaking neon Indian and all those boys. Yeah, he was one of the one of the founders, you know, if you want to put it that way. Really? Of the, yeah, the 2010s chill wave movement. This album is not that. It's nothing like that stuff, man.

That's what's made him have the staying power that some of his other chill wave artists didn't have us. He's so diverse with his. music, you know. Yeah. Oh, dude, and I forgot, should the Matson 2 show up on one of the songs on this record? So, yeah, he's been collaborating with those guys for a while. They're like a jazz duo, they're twins. That's why they're called the Matson 2. Anyways, I'm going to play another track off this record. And this was another one that came down to the wire for me for like picking which one to play. But yeah, we're going to jump to track 6 on the record.

This song is called Last Year. So smooth like butter, cue. What a great song. What a great song. That's jazz, dude. Very jazzy. And that's another thing he picked up hanging out with the Matson 2, man. They're very psych rock, but they're a jazz group first, you know.

Yeah, I was surprised that this wasn't the track that featured the Madison 2. But yeah, everything about that, dude. I love the, you know, there's a little bit of, like, the 60s. Yes. Pop. Stereo Lab kind of stuff. 100%. Look at the album cover.

Look at his main picture. Oh, yeah. Look at that. He's in the freaking magic school bus. Yeah, he's such a talented songwriter, man. I mean, when you look at his discography, like, it's just so wide ranging, you know, but it's all very cohesive, too. Like, he has, if you hear a song from him, you know it's him.

You know what I mean? Like, he has a very distinct sound that he's come up with. but he's able to write with his voice and apply it to any kind of song, right? Psychedelic, obviously, chill wave, jazz. He's done some other. I mean, he's got a whole side project where he does more electronic, straight up electronic stuff. I forgot what it's called.

Yeah. But yeah, he's just super, super talented dude, you know. Yeah. Goes without saying, great record. Definitely worth a deep dive. Give it a listen all the way through it. It's a blast. It's definitely a cue up.

and listen kind of record right there. You haven't heard already. All right, pass it back to you, dude. What's you got? All right, Q, we are entering my two favorite records of this year. This next pick here, this band is no stranger to no filler. So we did a full-length episode on this group back in August. So if you want to get the full story on them,

go listen to that episode because we kind of go back more into their history and stuff. But Pincey, slow. Put out a new record this year. So I brought Smile to Zero on the June what you heard, which was, I think, either the first or second single that came off of this record. But yeah, they put out a new record called They Collect in August. And Q, I know you're going to be unsettled here by the album art, because you're not a fan of the album art for this record. It's kind of this weird kind of like...

It's like an Apex twin album cover, but like... Yeah. Even... It's like... Basically, it's the lead singer's face and she's smiling in all of these different shots that they used on the singles and the actual record album art, but it's like shown through like this prison. Anyway.

Just not a fan. We're not here to talk about the album art though, Q. I'm not going to look at your screen anymore, dude. You know, it's not going to hurt you, cute. It's not. This music's going to... going to take you on a trip though. Okay.

So I've got two clips from this track because it's actually, so on the record, this is two different tracks, but it's essentially one song. And actually for the single, they released the two tracks together as one. But the name of the track is the run, as in like I'm running, right? But this track features two other artists that I'm not too familiar with. That could just be, yeah, so there's an artist named Alcest or Alkist, and then another one named J.K. Flesh that appear on these two tracks here.

But anyway, I'm just going to let this kind of play. It's going to take on a Journey Q. So again, this is Pinty Slow. This is the Doom-Gazy, Dream-Gazy Parisian group that just put out these beautiful Doomgays songs. And this is one of them. So here we go. I'm just going to click play here. This track is called The Run. All right, that's part one of the song cue. Part two is where it starts to shine, though, and some magic happens.

So I'm just going to say that. They're doing it different, though. You know, like they've perfected, like they're comfortable in the pocket, you know, that they've comfortable in the lazy boy that they've crafted. Yeah, so I found out some more information. about the two contributors here just because I was curious. So Alcest is actually the name of a band. The person who's leading their vocals to this track is actually the front man of that band.

His name is Nage. And then J.K. Flesh, I'm not sure how this person is involved on this track, at least. But is some member from a band called Godflesh, which is a band that's been around for a long time. and Godflesh apparently is, I'm just going to read the first line of their bio here. If Black Sabbath were reborn as an industrial rock band. So anyway, so, you know, Pincey Slow has some contributors on this record, on this track only. So they've been making friends out there. But anyway, I'm going to pick it up where we left off here.

And then something happened to this song that just freaky catapulted me into the in the stratosphere, dude. So here we go. Again, this is the run. That's fantastic, dude. Reminds me a lot of slow dive, especially stuff from their self-titled, like their comeback record,

that we did a full episode on. Yeah, we did. Very similar with female and male vocals, kind of working back and forth in tandem with each other like that. Yeah, and one's interesting is that's not Pincey's low, that's, that's a contributor to the record, right? So that's not the normal sound. It's usually just her vocals, right? So that's what makes this track, these tracks unique, I should say. But yeah, this was another, like, it was very, very hard for me to pick a track off of this record.

I was dead set on playing the very next track called Brutal and Red. But I decided on these two because I think, as amazing as this record is, like there's something really exceptional about those two tracks because of how like kind of soaring you know it's very like a it's a very sweeping kind of like beautiful song that they're writing right it's broken into multiple parts and I think it's like you know it's a it's an accomplishment or at least a I don't know an indicator of how far they've come you know just a few short years of as songwriters right like you know the record that we did in August I think was their first full length it was called don't believe watch out and like

you know, a few years later, they put out this record and, yeah, they're just writing these beautiful songs, man. Definitely a record of the year for me. Go check him out again. That's Pensey Slow. The record's called Neglect. All right, Q, bringing it back to you. What's you got? All right, man. I am really, really excited to play this song because I haven't featured anything from her yet on the pod. I just discovered her this year as an artist. named Beth Orton. You've heard of her? I have not.

Well, she's been active since 1993. She's been dropping records since then. And her album, Weather Alive, which came out this... Of course, it came out this year. That's why I'm playing it. Was described by Sam Sadomsky of Pitchbork as the best work of Orton's career. Okay. I don't even know.

Oh, Orton's career. I'm not familiar with her career, but this album, dude, blew me away. This is my favorite album of the year, dude. It's a no-brainer, you know. I said Honeyclaze was a close second. It's pretty close, you know, but it's not that close. This is it, dude. This record blew me away.

I'm on the edge of my seat, dude. Well, you're not ready for it, dude. Okay. So there was an interview with the New York Times where Orton said, So she bought this used upright piano in London and started writing songs on it. And she says, no matter where you touch the piano, it just has these resonances. Little ghosts of other chords just keep ringing out. And you're like, oh, that speaks of another melody.

And that speaks of another feeling. Is she just talking about playing the piano? Just talking about this particular piano. There's just something about the way the chords ring out on it. And it just inspired her and she just kept going and going and built this whole. So she found like a magical piano. That's what it sounds like, dude. That writes music for her.

Yeah. She herself describes the album as a, quote, sensory exploration that allowed for a connection to a consciousness that I was searching for. It sounds like she was high. It's a kid, dude, dude, dude, she's like, the piano was talking to me. You know, some people are better about expressing their feelings than you. You know, she didn't say that it was a magical piano. That's what you said, brother.

And let's just let this music play for itself. And maybe we'll be like, you know what, that is a magical piano. All right. Dude, this record, man. And this song, so. I'm ready. Okay. And I'm glad I remember to say this because it's true.

This is a legitimate no-filler record. That's all I'm insane. All right. I need to stop and just let's just play. Let's just do it. Just play a tune. So this one I got to split up into two. Here we go.

It's going to be lengthy, brother. This song is called Forever Young. Yeah, that's top tier right there, Q. It's taunting, dude. The whole record is very, you know, we throw that word around. That word came to my mind as well. So this record feels like a talking heads record at times. It feels like a radio head record at times.

Yes, dude. Tom York is what came to mind. me as well. Yeah, not just the, like, yeah, in the cadence of, and the way she draws out words. And, yeah, a lot of it feels very Tom York. Yeah. Yes, I was thinking of the same thing. The way that the words kind of blend into each other and the way that she held the notes, right?

Very reminiscent of Tom York. And apparently she's known for her, quote, folkotronica music. So she's been doing something folky mixed with a lot. electronic music. Apparently she became well known through her collaborations with the chemical brothers. Never really got into them, but they're a huge electronic act. Yeah.

So here we go. Here's clip two from Forever Young. Yeah, haunting is the right word, Q. Captivating. Yeah, and the piano. I can see now, Q, that it's a magical piano, for sure. And I love the drums and bass line. Yeah, the drums and bass, great. It looks like she is quite the list of

of people contributing here. Yeah, so she self-produced this. That's worth noting. But yeah, that last, that second clip there, that's kind of reminded me of like that collaborative feeling, a collaborative route that David Byrne decided to take

with Remain and Light, you know? Just with the background vocals just kind of jumping in every now and then just kind of lending themselves as another instrument almost. I got that vibe a lot from this song. There's lots of moments of really great

jazz in this album. It's just, it's fantastic, dude. Yeah, I'm definitely hearing this up, dude, for sure. Dude, you're in for treats, man. So anyways, that is Beth Orton. The song is Forever Young from Weather Alive and passing it to you, brother, this is your last pick of the year.

How are you going to end it? All right, Q. It's sitting on this track. All. because this is my favorite track of the year, hands down. The band is no stranger to no failure they were on it. What you heard, I played a track from this record, but this particular song, there's just something magical about it, dude.

So this is a Shugays, alt-rock band from Brooklyn. They're called Manaxi, and I'm going to read this description because it's the perfect way to describe them. This is from their Spotify bio. It says Manaxi sound combined. elements from classical, pop, and rock music from India and Pakistan with psychedelia, shoegazing, dream pop, noise rock, and electronica. That's a ticks-heavy box, dude.

Yeah. The music that we love. Exactly. And now this particular song features a guest vocalist named Theodora Curtis, who I haven't really dove too far into her stuff, but she looks like just another singer-songwriter. But she shows up a couple times on this record. But anyway, I'm just going to cue this up, dude. I'm going to play the whole song because it's pretty short, but you got to hear the full thing.

So again, this band is called Manaxi, and this song is called Adore. I think I've ever felt more hopeful for rock and roll, dude. An awesome way, dude. Like 90s rock. That shoegaze grunge. Grunge rock is back, man. That's a perfect shoegay song, right? Yeah.

And obviously that the change at the end, what it shifts into is like pitch perfect smashing pumpkins, guitar tone. Yeah, it doesn't get much better than that. You want to know how I found out about these guys? They were self-promoting this record on the Shugay subreddit. Awesome, dude. Shout out to that subreddit again, do you. I love that group of people, dude. I've found so much great music through the Shugay Sub-Radet.

Yeah. So, you know, these guys posted about it. And they're extremely obscure. Like on Spotify, they only have 633 monthly listeners. Wow. And I'm one of them, obviously. But I'm just saying, like, there's not much attention on these guys. But this record is really, really incredible.

It's called Laszine. Well, it was produced by Simon Scott. Hello? From Slow Dive. Yeah, you know, it's kind of surprising that this doesn't have much more of a following. But I mean. Yeah, he shows up on one of the songs, too. Well, yeah, man, they deserve, I don't know if they're looking for it, but they deserve more listens, dude.

They deserve the recognition. Yeah, and you know what? Spotify isn't the end-all be-all indicator, right? Sure. But, yeah, it still tells you, like, you got to look, man. The good, great, incredible music is out there. It might not be front and center on, you know, all the music blogs out there, the pitchforks and the stereo gums or the NMEs and all that kind of. stuff but it's out there man you know if you if you follow the right sources you know and

reddit is a great source sometimes right for for things especially little little subgroups subcultures and stuff like that redid does it better than any other social media's platform yeah it can really find your niche on that on that platform yeah again that track was called the door that was my favorite track of the year i think hands down And yeah, I'm just glad I was finally able to share it with you all. All right, Q, what are you got? How are you going to close out the year for no filler? All right, I've brought a song from this guy before.

It goes by Sunbeam Sound Machine. You know how I was talking about Tori, Ma'i, kind of going from chill wave, slowly into more like psychedelia, jazzy stuff? I feel like this guy's done the opposite. And he's been active since 2013, so that was like, like towards the tail end, maybe right in the middle of like the chill wave dream pop movement of the 2010s. And he's dropped only three records since then. Lots of singles sprinkled here and there.

But he has slowly gone more and more into the direction of that classic chill wave sound from the 2010s. And he's keeping it alive, dude, in such an awesome way. His album Pawsome just came out in October. I love this album, dude. I love this artist. And this is a freaking great song to end it with, man. I feel good, good vibes tune. Here we go.

This is again Sunbeam Sound Machine. The album is Possom. And this song is called Two Summers. Good vibes all around, yeah. Great example of layer building, right? Yes. Just lots and lots of layers. Absolutely.

He does it really well. And the harmonizing is really, you're that killer. I love how he drags on that last line over and over to finish it up. I love it, dude. What a great song. Great way to fit to wrap it up, dude. Yeah, I think so. And I think it highlights what we've been saying all year about, you know, okay, so let's just take the track that I played, Manaxi Ador, and then this track.

And I think this sums up 2020. too, or at least the ton of music that we fell in love with this year, is really exceptional indie, sort of like bedroom poppy kind of people like this guy, and countless other bands that we brought on What You Heard's. And then there's the Manaxi side of things, which is the grunge, shugays revival, you know? We were obsessed with Dream Pop and like both sides of the coin of, Shoegays. This year, yeah.

The more dream poppy chill wave kind of stuff and the more grungy shoegays kind of stuff. And that's pretty much all we listened to and played on this podcast all year, dude. Yeah. Pretty much. I mean, and for good reason, dude, there's lots of great. And, you know, we did, we were all over the place, like as far as decades ago. It wasn't all the new stuff that was coming up. But, I mean, we played, didn't we do a whole album on Narrowhead?

I mean, a whole episode on Narrowhead? Yeah, we did. We did. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, if we look back to very first episode of 2022, Teen Dream Beach House, which is like, you know, sort of the, if you wanted to point to one dream pop album from the 2010s.

It started it, I think. Yeah. And then we went to Beach Fossils, Real Estate. And then we did our back-to-back Miracle Legion and Palais. eras episodes which was great. That was good stuff. And we did another REM, funny enough. This might have been a rewind, actually.

That had to be. Yeah, we had a rewind. Then we did, yeah, we did R.M.'s first record. And then we did Catherine Wheel, pale saints, hum, lush, drop 19s, helmet, which was kind of an offshoot of, like, hardcore and stuff, but still kind of like an alt-rock kind of deal. Jimmy World, unwound, which is interesting. But yeah, dude, yeah, swirlies, the sloan, band of seasons, narrowhead, pink shiny ultrablast, Pancy Slick, Spotlights. Now that was after I had after Ronan.

And they Ronan came along. Came along. So you were. And me and Nathan did some, had some fun. Yeah. But yeah, we went back to slow dive. It was a good year, man. So we had, yeah, we had some good times, man.

Good times this year. Really good year. go back and listen to some of those episodes of any of those artists tickles your fancy. We did Cocktow Twins. We did Sweet Trip. Yeah, lots of good stuff this year, man. 2022, we're closing it out. Lots of great tunes. We're shared by all. Come back next year for even more. I'm not sure what we're going to do next year, but we'll figure it out. All right, Q, what are we going to do here to close us out as far as an outro track? We've got to have something to play here.

How about? I can play another pincey slow track. Okay. Not good. Now I get to play the song that I was sitting on for months as what I plan to play. But it'll be a good one to close us out. Okay. So, thank you, everybody, for listening.

If you listen to just one episode this year, thank you for listening. If you're a frequent flyer, like you listen a lot, obviously. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. for tuning in every week. And, you know, this is a labor of love for us. We love doing this. It's like, you know, one of my favorite things to do is share music with people.

And it's just been a blast doing this podcast. And we're going to keep doing it. Let's keep going into 2023, dude. So check us out on Instagram. I got to be honest with you, you know, it's been a while. Anyone who listens to this show knows that we are just not fans of the social media. I mean, we're just not good at it. No, we're not.

The only reason I say follow us on Instagram is really more to say, like, reach out to us on Instagram. Reach out to us on Instagram. Yeah, it's a great way to get in touch with us. You know, recommend some music to us. What were some of your favorite tracks from this year? You know, let us know. We want to hear from you guys. So, yeah, just look for No Filler Podcast.

You'll find us. And, of course, you can find us on the Pantheon Podcast Network. It's Pantheon Podcast.com. And that's it. I'm going to close us out here with another track from Pincey Slow off of their record, Neglect. And we will see you guys next year. My name is Travis. And I'm Quentin.

Thank you, as always, for listening. The song is called Bruttle in Red.