Music

An overview of some of my favorite albums - what's impressed me, moved me, and changed me the most.

Imaginary Sonicscape (2001) by Sigh is a technicolor black metal masterpiece, the sound of a brilliant experimental band at the absolute pinnacle of their power and clearly having a ball with it.

At this point in time, this is definitely my favorite album. My favorite to listen to, my favorite to talk about, my favorite to recommend, and my favorite to hear what other people think about it. It's so vivid and dense that it feels like there's always something new to zero in on, but it never strays into incoherence despite its spine-snapping musical curveballs, which somehow only serve to reinforce how crystal-clear the vision for this album was.

Atop soaring synthesizers, nested self-interruptions, and surreal, glitchy soundscapes, this album is... catchy. Like, catchy in the way Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" is catchy. The anthemic chorus of "Corpsecry - Angelfall" lands with even the most intractible of distortion haters in my life, and the completely inexplicable lounge music break in "A Sunset Song" brings an incredulous smile to my face every time. It's an album with perfect control of its own atmosphere and tone, surely aware of its own absurdity but delivered with a seriousness that never has you questioning why Sigh have a tighter grasp of the concept of groove than anyone not belonging to ABBA or named James Brown.

Special attention must be given to lead guitarist Shinichi Ishikawa's work on the album, which catapults this album into prog and blues brilliance simultaneously, while also delivering the most major key music you'll hear on a black metal album. Whatever the call, Ishikawa is more than upy to the task, unquestionably a major reason this album is as lush and vivid as it is. Over ten minutes, "Slaughtergarden Suite" ascends from industrial soundscapes to hopeful guitar calls, from vocoded screams and strings to off-the-rails game show music, and then to simple, tight, cutting riffs... over a distinctly g-funk synthesizer trill. At this point, the song still has four minutes to go. "Ecstatic Transformation," meanwhile, closes with a delightfully upbeat duel between Ishikawa's guitar and frontman Mirai Kawashima's organ, set atop a bed of claps.

The real tragedy of this album is you will only hear it for the first time once. Imaginary Sonicscape is blindingly brilliant, spectacularly fun, and intensely emotional at times. It is a truly singular experience that I cannot recommend enough.