It’s freaking mental that we’ve *actually* done tens of reviews since we started out a few months ago. Some of them have stood out more than others. Like Tungi’s masterpiece of an EP “Life of Sound”, which is the only item to ever snatch a full 10/10 star rating from us. Not even Tungi with a G himself managed to come close to topping it with a recent project within the same year.
On the opposite side of the scale, Exray Taniua’s painfully atrocious single “Big Mama” is the lowest rated item we’ve had the displeasure of sitting through. We gave the dang thing 2/10 stars, and honestly even that was generous.
But why the scathing tone? It’s only proportionate to the material! Thing is, we fancy ourselves a dispassionate and neutral outfit. We’re not some sleek publicity machine or puff piece factory. We’ve lauded some pretty cool output before, handing out flowers for some rather awesome projects. So, we’re not perpetually negative, for the edge of it. Just for context, we’re the only 256 outfit that’s doing starred reviews as is a review standard for international pubs like Pitchfork, NME, the Quietus, you name it. It’s ’cause words can be taken one way or another, but a definite figure is a more solid verdict which can be aggregated into a larger take. It’s part of how scenes grow. We’d like some competition in this field. We’re encouraging, or even provoking, more outlets to come up & do starred neutral reviews, which aren’t afraid of “stepping on toes”. Art critics (broadly speaking) aren’t nurturers. We have community for that, and some publicity outfits too, which all have their place.
But, like, we barely have dispassionate music criticism in these parts. May more of it sprout up! Bring it on y’all. We’d be super glad to have more outfits in our mold.
Otherwise, can’t wait to do more of these in the coming year!
