Music for cold weather, day six point five

I'm waiting until tomorrow to post my very favorite album because it is very special to me and I have a lot to write about it. In the meantime, here are some other albums I like during the colder months of the year that didn't make the top seven. If you plan on drinking while listening to these, be sure to hide the kitchen knives beforehand.

Xiu Xiu - Knife Play (2002)



Bark Psychosis - Hex (1994)



Arab Strap - Philophobia (1997)



Knife Play. The album title says it all. Sounds like being stabbed feels to a masochist. Sounds like what I'd want to hear if I was freezing to death. Sounds like the kind of music someone would make with live jumper cables clipped to their scrotum. I knew a guy who took 5 hits of acid and listened to this album once; probably the craziest human being I've ever known, because that would be at the top of my 'things you should never ever do' list. Hex. Mostly instrumental post-rock. Light cymbals + emotive, studious piano melodies, snowed under several feet of orchestrated melancholy. Probably what inspired Explosions in the Sky and bands like that. Philophobia. The most self-loathing, desperate, and saddest of all sad bastard music. You just feel fat, drunk, and loveless listening to it, its like a contact high only not at all euphoric (contact Low?). Despite all that, this is a very sincere and well-written album. Like Low or Bedhead with a drum-machine turned up a notch on the tempo, and more direct lyrics about romance/relationship woes. I had a hard time choosing between this and Elephant Shoe, but this is probably my favorite.

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