Alt-Reviews: August

I’m Jack, and I’ve been reviewing music for almost a decade - starting with a college radio show, then online radio as Bort on A2B2 Radio, and now short album reviews on TikTok as @mymusic80808. If there can be said to be a throughline across the sounds, it's that they're (mostly) alternative...welcome to Alt-Reviews.

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Sophie Birch - Bivabippabualukka
[9]

I wish KK Slider was real, he would love Sofie Birch. It’s like if an Animal Crossing OST studied abroad. Feels like a whimsical folksy jazzy lazy afternoon in the shade.

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Jungle - Sunshine
[8.75]

Really talented dance music producers be like “yeah this is too good, let’s add a shoehorned rap verse in the middle of the album to bring everything down a notch”. Even with that, it’s the best full length from the group yet. Timeless.

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Erykah Badu - Before The World Blows
[8.75]

Two of the coolest people on the planet dropping a swan song for the end of the world. There are few universes where this album was going to be anything short of amazing. Something here for anyone who likes good music.

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Donatell - Water, CA
[8.25]

(Guy who only listens to Oneohtrix Point Never): “getting major Oneohtrix Point Never vibes from this.”

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Art Feynman - Orphans
[7.25]

The ambient instrumentals were exceptionally comfortable. He seems to be on a Bon Iver tip for the latter half of the album, subbing in stretched synths for folksy instrumentals paired with uncanny auto tune vocals. Took me this long to realize Art is an alias for Luke Temple, who I am also a fan of and think more people would enjoy if they knew about him. 2013’s Good Mood Fool is great.

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Lusine - Melting Days
[7.75]

I love when an album is quiet. Cuddle puddle soundtrack.

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Hether - Return of Earslime
[7.75]

As a spiritual B side to 2025’s “Holy Water” (which I gave a 5.5 last October), one has to wonder how an artist looks at both of these records side by side and decides this album is not the stronger piece of music to release as the A side. Add lyrics to this, Hether! You coward!

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Floating Points - Mere Mortals
[7.5]

Floating Points can do what Vivaldi did but Vivaldi can’t do what Floating Points does (because he’s dead). 🤔

I can’t help but compare this to his previous orchestral work Promises from 2021, which felt like it had a much more distinct voice throughout and is a 10/10 in all regards. I wanted this to lean more into the contrast of traditional music with electronic elements like you get in Movements 3 and 8, but at times I honestly forgot it was a Floating Points record. The jump scare in Movement 11 was extremely effective while I was driving to work at 8am.

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PIG1987 - UPON THIS ROCK I BUILD MY CHURCH  
[7]

I’m going to quote a family member for this review: “It’s like I’m at the doors of berghain and I’m about to get in and I can feel the music thru the door”. It’s dark and gritty while remaining extremely committed to the bit of sounding like it’s coming from the blown out speakers of a Honda Civic.

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Esseks - When You Wake Up
[7]

Part 2 of his “Remember this / When you wake up” album duology. While Remember This was a destructive force of bass, barely giving you time to breathe (I gave it a 9 in my June 2026 reviews), this is the cooled down B side to that album. When You Wake Up feels more like a standard above-average bass record with moments of experimentation. Still worth checking out but it’s not nearly as exciting as the other album in my opinion.

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Roy Montgomery- Nebular
[6.75]

I liked how hypnotic it was and really set an atmosphere hard to tear away from. Just didn’t give me that ASMR I look for in slow burn ambient like this. I did enjoy the vocals on the latter half of the album a lot. Almost like the shoegaze of ambient.

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Marlon Hoffstadt - Das 1st Daddy
[6.25]

The marketing for this album really wanted you to know this album was made in a week. It sure sounds like it!

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god of war- Molly Picture
[6.25]

Laid back emo adjacent rock that I probably won’t come back to but made for a good backdrop on the summer afternoon I listened.

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Antony Szmierek - Decoding Birdsong
[6]

Another entry in the “English guy talks over electronic music” genre. The beats were fun but never really wowed me. I’d be happy to hear any of this on a dance floor but nothing left a lasting enough impression that I would revisit anytime soon. I was most engaged when he ditched the monotone spoken word for actual melodic vocals. You gotta be rolling out Shakespearean level lyrics if you want to just talk over an entire record.

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Lawrence English - The Rest Is My Ghost  
[6]

Everybody gangster till the dark ambient drone blows out their car speakers

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jigitz - 50 ballerinas
[5.75]

The best songs on this album are the singles that have been viral for months, which have deservedly blown up. The rest feels like filler to justify releasing these singles on an album.

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Cornelius - REFRACTIONS
[5.5]

These are not vestiges of the “Shibuya-kei” sound that defined the subculture of 90s Tokyo. This is a continuation with no interest in modernizing. It works really well in the indie rock tracks that populate the latter half of the album. The front half is spiritually 90s to a fault, landing like a dollar bin lounge club CD from 2001.

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Overmono - Pure Devotion
[5.25]

Overmono essentially edging me for 40 minutes with an album that never lifts off. Enjoyable while listening but completely forgettable sans the ear worm that is “Knight in Shining Prada”. I may be so bold as to say they have had more misses than hits since 2022’s Cash Romantic EP. Will always be chasing the high of hearing “Gunk” again for the first time.

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Steve Roden - chair (a subscape of resonance)
[5.25]

Honestly a bummer that this might be some folks first entry point to Roden, because this is far from his best. His family and friends have been posthumously releasing his unfinished projects since he passed from Alzheimer’s in 2023. His brand of ambient music is microscopic in concept, exploring the faint crackles of ice meeting heat, chairs scratching the floor, film reels knocking against the interior of the projector. But he blows those moments up into macro ambient tapestries. This album can be described simply as the music of a chair’s existence. It just feels way too disjointed for something already so naturally stark. If you want him at his best, listen to stars of ice (2022). I speak more about it in my top 5 Ambient album OAT list from last year.

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Mike D - Thank You
[5]

Theres a solid 4-5 song EP in here. Beyond that, the vocals combined with the distorted filters made about 70% of this album unbearable. Mike D still has so much energy in his flow, and hearing it paired with a forward thinking production gives glimpses into what a modern age Beastie Boys record could sound like. But I have to imagine allowing his adult kids to tap into the production just turned the studio into a room of family members too afraid to tell each other what they’ve made sounds like crap.

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Tyondai Braxton - Splayed Werks
[3]

I don’t care how many guggenheims this guy got his music in, this is aimless mush disguised as high art.

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Turnstile - NEVER ENOUGH: VERSIONS
[1]

This is a microcosm of everything I hate about the current landscape of media and entertainment. Was it supposed to blow our minds that this many cool artists all agreed to be on a remix album? Am I supposed to stand up and clap because I recognize the names in front of me? I honestly doubt Turnstile had any creative say in this project, it reeks of label f*ckery. But even then, it makes me respect them less for thinking we as fans would be ok spending our time digesting music that doesn’t take us as the listener seriously. Jingling keys in our faces like we’ll give anything a listen as long as it has name recognition attached. It’s incredible how phoned in almost every single rework is on this album. Oklou sounds like she’s being held hostage in the booth. Four Tet’s track sounds like what Suno would make if you asked it to make a Four Tet song. Blood Orange sh*ts out a 2 minute seemingly un-mixed mess. Elton John’s feature is tantamount to elder abuse. Even some of the reworks that sound ok like D*ing Fetus or Panda Bear fall flat in the mix of all this garbage. Just overall an insidious experiment in bridging the fandom model of superhero meetup movies to alt-pop music. Turnstile will return in Avengers: Doomsday.

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Check out Jack's selects from each release in the playlist below: