Top 8 Songs of the Month ~ January 2023 ~ Lila Ehjä, Tricor, Scary Black

I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been writing so many blogs lately, but it feels like my last Top Songs of the Month blog was like a week ago. But, I do have new music to get to. I used some of my Christmas money to splurge on Bandcamp Friday last Friday, and I picked some winners. Got some albums I’ve been meaning to buy for a long time but couldn’t because I have this pesky food addiction that I can’t seem to kick. (I really need to go to rehab, I just can’t stop eating two normal-sized meals a day.) I really do try to pay for my music, even if I have to wait months before I have enough disposable income to buy an album sometimes. I know artists probably make even less money on YouTube than the absolutely minuscule fractions of a penny they make on Spotify, but I just don’t like Spotify. But I feel guilty for not paying for every song I get into, at least not immediately. 

Anyway, probably the crown jewel of my Christmas acquisitions this year was Christian Death’s Only Theatre of Pain on vinyl. Something to add to my fledgling record collection that’s goth, since previously all I had were some dusty old jazz records from the thrift store and Nirvana’s self titled “best of” album. I talked about that in a previous blog. Let’s get to my picks this month. And the last two aren’t goth, I just felt like talking about some of the other music I’ve been listening to, because I’m still on kind of a 90s grunge kick and have been for like a year and a half at this point, although it’s still secondary to new goth music. I went through the whole Alice in Chains discography and now I’ve been digging into the thousands of Nirvana demo tapes that somehow got saved. Maybe Soundgarden will be my next special interest, I still haven’t heard all their albums, we’ll wait and see.

Lila Ehjä ~ Bats

Here’s my first hit of 2023. This song came up in my subscriptions on YouTube the other day and I loved it. Lila Ehjä hails from Paris, France. I need to check out her other music, but this track is a very haunting one, good for dark meditation. I was just in the right mood for it when I heard it. 

This is off the album Yö. For a French person it seems she loves her umlauts. The album released on January 3rd.

https://crouxrecords.bandcamp.com/album/y

Tricor ~ Last Christmas 

Christmas may be over, but I’m still listening to this song. Someone actually made a good goth Christmas song that I can listen to all year. And it’s of course a cover of the famous Wham! song. I’ve heard one other  cover I liked of this song, it was in the style of Type O Negative by the tribute band Stereotype O Negative. Tricor has some other great music too, this was the first song I had heard of theirs. 

It’s a single, not off any album. You can find it here:

https://tricor.bandcamp.com/track/last-christmas

Scary Black ~ You and I are Not the Same

This album, Are you Afraid of the Dark?, has been out fir a few years, released in 2019, but I finally tot around to buying it off Bandcamp during my splurge. I’ve long liked the song “Stay in Your Lane” as well as the title track. But this is one I had never heard until I bought the album. It makes me think of how different I feel from most people, thanks to being neurodivergent. Scary Black is an awesome band, probably the closest sounding band to Slow Danse with the Dead that I’ve heard, that of course being pretty much my favorite band that’s still active, so Scary Black is definitely up there on my list too. Another of those Kentucky goth bands. 

The album can be found here, and Scary Black has had releases since this album too which are also worthwhile checking out.

https://scaryblack.bandcamp.com/album/are-you-afraid-of-the-dark

Rayne Reznor ~ Alive

No relation to Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails; at least I don’t think so. I thought at first maybe it was his cool goth daughter or something, lol. This song caught me by surprise with how addicting it is. I really haven’t been into dancey dark-electro music as much as I used to be, but this song I still loved. I like the robotic glitch effect on her voice, if you listen to it you’ll know what I’m on about. I think this might be her first release, actually. Correct me if I’m wrong, this is the only song I’ve seen of hers on Bandcamp anyway. Just released on December 20th.

https://raynereznor.bandcamp.com/track/li-e

Qual ~ The Geometry of Wounds

This is just a song I chanced upon. Qual is from England, and this song came out in 2015. I don’t even know if that picture in the video is in any way associated Qual because that doesn’t appear to be the album cover, but I love it. Looks like the God Anubis sitting back with a joint and sighing “I’m too ancient for this shit.” Anyway, I need to check out Qual’s album. That song “Spit on Me” sounds interesting. 

https://qual.bandcamp.com/album/sable-2

Deus ex Lumina ~ Fight Back!

This song has a brand new music video that got posted last night. I’ll call this my second hit of 2023. The song was released on Bandcamp on January 6th. Written as a “New Year’s Resolution” according to the singer’s commentary, and is an anti-authoritarian anthem. It’s catchy too, and I love the message. It would be nice if more people did fight back against tyranny. But they’re too busy sleeping. Classism keeps it all in place. 

https://deusexlumina.bandcamp.com/track/fight-back

Leonard Cohen ~ You Want it Darker

Now here’s something different for me. I first heard of Leonard Cohen in the Nirvana song “Pennyroyal Tea”, which contains the lyric “Give me Leonard Cohen afterworld, so I can sigh eternally.” I didn’t know who that was, but it was such a strange lyric that it stuck in my mind. Then I heard the song “Everything I Love is Dead” by Devoted Sinners, which of course was on my list last month, and one of the dead singers mentioned in the song was Leonard Cohen. So was wondering, who is this guy? So I looked him up finally, and realized he wrote that song “Hallelujah”, which is popular but I never really liked, even when Aurelio Voltaire covered it (and I like 99% of his songs). I decided to look at his other music though, and the title of this track grabbed my attention because, yes, I ALWAYS want it darker. It was like he was beckoning me into his music with that title. It came off his final album apparently, in 2016. It was a swan-song album, a lot like David Bowie’s Blackstar. I always love “I’m gonna die soon” albums for some reason, I mean it’s going to happen to all of us eventually. So for some reason it captivated me and I liked the whole album. Coincidentally I have been enjoying acoustic rock for months now, and it fit right in with that genre of music. I like his low, gravely voice. Leonard Cohen must have been one of those really cool old guys, full of wisdom but well past the point of caring what others think, just doing his thing before his time’s up, having accepted his fate. It kind of helps me accept my own fate, listening to it. I like music that does that. It doesn’t even matter about the genre if the music is that deep. I’ll listen to a pop song if it ever goes that deep (it never does though).

I guess I’m supposed to plug his album now. Hmm, it’s not on Bandcamp. But this track is self titled, so you can find it. 

Nirvana ~ Moist Vagina

What is it about Kurt Cobain that just endears everyone with him? Maybe I’m just reminded of myself, because he was just a regular artistic guy, not born rich, in fact was nearly homeless on a few occasions, who wanted to do art instead of work at a horrible job, had a terrible home life in childhood, and had chronic pain and depression. Just like me for the most part. I feel like we’re cut from the same cloth, it may or may not be true but that’s how I feel. But he was unexpectedly thrust into the spotlight, and even though he engineered this fame himself he was so unprepared for such astronomical fame that it quite frankly killed him. I think it just reinforces my mind that I don’t want to be famous. Maybe a part of me does want to be famous, but I know I wouldn’t be able to handle it. So I’m content with living and dying in obscurity. 

Anyway, I’m getting way off topic. I’ve been binging the obscure Nirvana songs that never made it onto the albums, and just when I think I’ve heard them all I run across another one I’ve never heard. “She Only Lies” is the other song I’ve been listening to a lot the past few days. This song just had a really shocking title. It’s the original “WAP”. I was almost afraid to listen to it, weirdly, but I did. The lyrics are just bizarre too. Cobain screams “Marijuanaaaaaa” over and over. And the last part of the song just just a low, guttural “aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa”. It’s freaky to listen to, especially on really good speakers. So this song made an impression on me. If you think of it like a piece of art, it might remind you of the twisted paintings Kurt Cobain painted, of grotesque marionettes against psychedelic backgrounds.