Marvin Gaye's
You're the Man is one of the lesser "great lost" albums to see release in the current century, but really only because nearly all of its music has already made its way out on various anthologies. It can be seen as a bridge of sorts between two of Gaye's most ubiquitous and long-lived masterpieces, but not a particularly revolutionary one. (That's despite the claims of note writer David Ritz, which isn't surprising, as Ritz strongly champions the unissued record in his biography of Gaye.) Also, a number of its tracks have been newly remixed, so it really qualifies as just a new and highly focused compilation. Gaye's discography will eventually be under the microscope here and at that point I will give the record the full treatment it deserves.
For many of us in our mid-thirties, it's still counterintuitive that times just...
change. We remain the passengers in our bodies -- even as they start to let us down -- and we've experienced all of this life on a continuum, so it seems strange to actually start to witness firsthand the passage of What Was into What Is and Will Be. There's sometimes sadness in this development, and sometimes unheard-of possibility, as when a beloved singer-songwriter, currently in what by all logic should be the twilight of his relevance as a performer, turns the camera on the world around him and uncovers depth, beauty and truth, and a voice you've been hearing for almost two decades abruptly becomes a modern-day salve for distinctively modern-day blues. And that's when you say hello.
***
Andrew Bird: My Finest Work Yet (Virgin) [hr]
In which, somehow, a musician whose lyrics have typically been free-association propping up generalized pretty vibes -- and we loved him for it -- springs forth with some serious Thoughts on a dying planet, a struggling society and a climate of hate, and for whatever reason matches it up with his most creatively energized music in at least a decade. Not that he's ever been anything but a hard worker, but you can feel in every bit of carefully filled (and economically-minded) sonic space on this record that at age 45 he's hit upon a moment of genuine, unforced inspiration. The cheeky title is unpretentious because it's a joke, and also because deep down he knows it's true; it's appropriate because, like the content, it's an attack on apathy. But not a call to arms, which would be gauche and empty coming from this source; rather, a spirited questioning and taking of stock. But at any rate, let's talk music, which is gorgeous, confident and "big" out of the gate with "Sisyphus," declaring an aural mission with the heavily echoed pedestal he's willing to place himself on as he whistles and wraps around the first of many instantly ingratiating melodies on offer here. The confidence carries over to the much jazzier, lower-key chide "Bloodless," also perfectly suited to his voice both at the outset and when it builds to its almost McCartney-like sweeping chorus. Across the record but perhaps especially here, on a verbally and emotionally demanding song ("the best lack all conviction / and the worst keep sharpening their claws / they're peddling in their dark fictions / while what's left of us, well, we just hem and we haw"), Bird has never impressed so much as a singer; it never used to be the point, really. When I first heard "Lull" on the radio I thought he was Beck. Beck even at his best never achieved this direct, human collusion of the sly and the sincere, and he certainly never sang any word the way Bird sings "Catalonia."
The surprises continue, the record shockingly generous given its relative brevity: "Fallorun" is an urgent and gorgeous take on New Order's "Ceremony" about society systematically falling apart, the bitingly anti-GOP "Archipelago" beautifully interpolates the Four Tops, and perhaps best of all, the classic, pragmatic Bird-isms ("come on everybody, let's settle down") of "Don the Struggle," vaguely challenging the aged, tone-deaf and ideologically hopeless suddenly give way to a wonderful explosion of sing-song rapid fire excitement that scans so well you suspect it couldn't make half as much sense as it does: "Clinging to the thread of the notion that your fight is a righteous one / the more you have to try to convince yourself / the more you're gonna hear a dissonant sound / but dissonance is energy while the consonance reminds you of your poverty / do you follow me?"... which gives way seamlessly into a fiery
j'accuse on complicity disguised as a love ballad, "Bellevue Bridge Club." The careful phrasing and devotion to a theme are nothing new for the singer-songwriter field, but at a stage in his career when he's long established, Bird seems to have unexpectedly turned a corner here, with everything from melodies to arrangements more developed than ever before; and while it's not as if he wasn't "good enough" before, it seems proper to cite and admire this as a surprise, a comforting gift and a challenge worth celebrating, even if it's these "troubled times" that have wrought it.
Ibibio Sound Machine: Doko Mien (Merge) [hr]
Not simply worldbeat, not simply disco, not simply post-punk, this miraculous third album from Nigeria-raised Eno Williams and her crew of ferocious funk magicians is the sort of music that makes you newly aware of the fact of being alive, and not just pleased but thrilled at the revelation, even if you're teetering just on the edge of life and sanity. "I Need You to Be Sweet Like Sugar" matches its top-of-lungs David Byrne-like rant with bristling sensuality, then the horns and itchy Bernie Worrell-isms show up in time for "Wanna Come Down," whose undeniable, grandiose discotheque trickery and incredibly persuasive rhythm taunt in unsion with Williams, back in her family's Ibibio language. For her part, Williams has never had such an opportunity to demonstrate her outrageous eclecticism, bouncing from pure silky soul to hopping chants to Yoko Ono-like cries on "Nyak Mien" to a wild transformation to a musical saw on the powerful, beat-driven title track. Ibibio isn't a throwback band -- everything about the music and performances is present and vital and so very
right now; the only similarly lively music I can think of currently being produced today is in the realm of dance-driven electronica -- but this album is full of remarkable moments when you can hear the weight of history and the disappearance of time as a construct; the "what more can I do" hook on "Doko Mien" itself is a great example, and so is the "King's Lead Hat" riff on "Nyak Mien," and the entirety of the unbearably funky "I Know That You're Thinking About Me," on which Williams' command is both so undeniably singular and seems to shoot Grace Jones and Patti LaBelle and Bjork all together into the sky. The stomping "She Work Very Hard" achieves that same impeccable synthesis of classic popcraft and monstrous, indescribable groove. But the bread and butter of ISM remains their vicious rhythms and unpredictable vocals, and the entirety of this wonderful, joyous, dangerous album fulfills every kind of potential they've already displayed even on its slow-burn cuts (the sneaky, mysterious "Kuka" boasts lovely electric guitar and Williams' most sensitive, lilting vocal, and that's just the tip of the iceberg here). This is very much the sound of a grand outlet achieving their zenith; whether it continues past this or not, we're lucky this is recorded and here for us in our time rather than either a distant memory or an unknown, unheard tree falling in the woods.
American Football: LP3 (Polyvinyl) [r]
Real 1998 hours from an Illinois cult band that defined the morose underground emo sound of the pre-mainstream era of that genre; like their older work, this is obviously an acquired taste, but as a mood it's basically beyond critique: detail, intricacy and emotional melancholy baked into its ringing guitars and tentative melodies. It's the kind of record on which "plodding" is a compliment; these are grown adults with 401Ks now but you can't hear "Every Wave to Ever Rise" without reaching back to putting off homework in favor of chatting with girls on ICQ, then turning on the TV and getting depressed. Projecting, maybe. Hey, "Life Support" borrows a Radiohead riff!
Nilüfer Yanya: Miss Universe (ATO) [r]
Lush debut from British singer who's not trying to be someone makes heavy use of a variety of collaborators but enjoys a soothing consistency informed by the 23 year-old's admiration of radio pop dating from the time of her birth. In other words this is another lush neo-adult contemporary pop album with traces of trip hop and late-'80s pop balladry, and while not nearly as strong as Flock of Dimes' definitive
If You See Me, Say Yes (or the all-time touchstone, Pet Shop Boys'
Behavior), it provides a welcome injection of youth into this slightly revisionist genre and a fine showcase for Yanya's exquisite singing voice, capable of evoking Annie Lennox (listen to "Paradise," complete with sax) as often as more calm and collected inspirations like Tracey Thorn, whose Mike Leigh-like attraction to naturalism would never permit something as off-kilter as "Heat Rises." Of course it's all a bit square -- less square than Adele or Dido or Ed Sheeran, sure, but still essentially a potential symbol of future inspiration toying with adults' old ideas, like if the first wave punks had just done rockabilly covers -- and I don't think its particular injection of playfulness, a series of skits riffing on phone prompts, is entirely successful, and they make an overlong record bulkier yet. But the music is never less than very good -- the least distinctive songs are still catchy and well-sung -- and at best it's sumptuous and delightful, starting with the stern hooks and heavy guitars of "In Your Head," moving to the slickness and lilt of "Angels" and the unexpected hi-NRG bridge of "Baby Blu." Best of all is "Tears," a vintage groove with an exposive hook and just the slightest bit of bent-note strangeness; when she tries again, if we can expect more of this impatient fumbling toward the edges, it will be welcome.
Jenny Lewis: On the Line (Warner Bros.) [hr]
However much accused sociopath Ryan Adams may have informed the production of this record, the fact remains it sounds absolutely heavenly: vintage compression, the unmistakable crispness of analog tape and drum sounds that batter you so completely you'd swear you were listening to Jim Keltner and/or Ringo Starr. (Don Was plays bass too.) But it's thanks to Lewis herself and her modest but never-more-evident brilliance as a composer that this cycle of Brill Building country-ish pop goes beyond aesthetic pleasures and positively sings (as does she, belting the hell out of "Little White Dove" with seemingly no sonic limit, and channelling Susanna Hoffs' intimidating friendliness on the title cut). Lewis' absolute confidence as a singer provides for an embarrassment of riches in mood, offering untimitaged joy on "Rabbit Hole" but presenting herself as a florid, hard-living superstar on "Hollywood Lawn." It's all very throwback and sentimental, yearning (not unlike She & Him's records) for an AM radio past that those of us too young to have experienced can't help but romanticize, but it transcends the limitations of nostalgia (unlike She & Him's records) and certainly of "classic rock" as a concept, regardless of who plays on it, through the obvious and long-known toughness in Lewis' writing. "Red Bull & Hennessy" is propulsive and old-world, but its closing breakdown suggests a dismal horizon beyond; the piano-driven "Wasted Youth" is lovely, soulful and catchy with as much a power pop sunlight sound as any harking back to girl groups, but there is a new yearning in her words and voice. Even at its most inconsequential, the record at least charms, and its chief export is its mere exuberance, which at a moment like this can feel life-saving, like listening to the radio used to be.
Billie Eilish: When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (Interscope) [r]
An L.A. teenager gets drunk on the possibilities of her idiosyncratic voice while her brother has the time of his life with the new Full-Dimensional stereophonic sound. It's a very pure sort of narrative, and the chord it's struck worldwide is something of a victory for a presumed generation of young weirdos. Once she removes her Invisalign, we're permitted to spend time with Eilish's strange and truly unusual, singular voice, the possibilities of which she spends the entire record exploring through songs she writes with sibling Finneas. The songs are often barely there, she's often barely breathing, and while the production suggests trap, it's really something odd, minimalist and genuinely risky. "Bad Guy" is one of the vaguest songs ever to become so popular (I don't like it when she says "duh" -- seems a copout -- but everyone else does), and the expressions of villainy and drugginess ("Xanny") that follow provide new dimensions in low-toned vocal seduction. Make no mistake: it's real singing, surrounded by flipped-out stoned blown-out production, and it's also truly and wholly Contemporary. It does bear the marks of adolescence a bit, but so did Fiona Apple's first album and Robyn's first several, and besides, "All the Good Girls Go to Hell" might have had the same
Jungle Book cartoon playfulness about it if it came from a song factory, but it wouldn't have seemed so genuine and playful, and it certainly couldn't have been delivered with this degree of Prince-scale minimalism. It crashes a bit in the second half; the last better-than-average song is the ukulele-driven "8," when her voice gets treated into otherworldliness, but what follows continues with the engaging intoxication, the slight beats and the anti-relationship ballads buried under synthetic percussion. (Meanwhile, why an
Office sample?) Free inspiration for the day: team these two up with SOPHIE and see what happens.
Weyes Blood: Titanic Rising (Sub Pop) [r]
Pleasantly bleak as usual, now with bonus assertiveness!
Fennesz: Agora (Touch) [r]
Now in his late fifties, the Austrian experimental artist returns with more solid, heavy atmospheres of guitar and electronics, maintaining a quiet roar. Exactly what you expect, which is just fine.
Lady Lamb: Even in the Tremor (Ba Da Bing) [r]
Aly Spaltro's in love and we should be happy for her as we should be for any quality human being who finds it, and you can hear the giddiness in her voice throughout this ambitious album (follow-up to one of the decade's best,
After), but she's also no more infallible than many others when it's caused her to soften her blows a
lot. Ridiculously intelligent as always, her unstoppable barrage of clever and sensitive lyrics and the attendant obsessions with unpredictable rhythms, time signatures and multi-part compositions in the overstuffed, cerebral vein of Scott Miller have suddenly found themselves rubbing up against a rather soppy, florid, almost Diane Warren-like pop sensibility, most audible on the overbaked chorus of the closing adult contemporary tearjerker "Emily," which isn't worthy of Spaltro's own narrative of "crying on the passenger side of America." The songs are less musical, busier, their pleasures more fleeting, and while the trickiness occasionally kills, the new tracks have a hard time ingratiating, though there are contexts in which it all seems perfectly wrought, when the monster chorus of "Deep Love" and its weird closing key change seems touching and adventurous rather than syrupy and careworn. The songs are best when they take pains to evoke just what they're talking about, which is one reason the verses of "Deep Love" resonate when she narrates fixing her lover's hair and chatting with a friendly couple next door ("passing by a pure scene in somebody else's life gives my life meaning," she says, and while it's Agnes Varda she mentions elsewhere on the record, I can't help thinking of Frank Borzage) and also one reason the title track is so convincing in its documenting of anxiety: because it doesn't just have the words ("it takes a conscious effort to hollow out this head / my brain is a constant rain on its own shelter"), it has the
feeling. The most epic of the songs, "July Was Mundane," is one of the vaguest lyrically; and the strongest, "Oh My Violence," is the one that has the least trouble scanning its complicated verses into melody.
All that said, this is an artist I want badly to go to bat for -- I'm psyched to be seeing her live later this month -- and I don't think we can just dismiss this record because of words that are mismatched to songs when the words are
this good, and in fact tremendous. "It's all that I want to do / to love you, to witness together how clumsy we are / how candied, how calcified, how mesmerized and how small / to share in the cosmic joke, to fall to a thousand floors and laugh / to soar, to take out and soar through the strange things we do." That would still be miraculous if you sang it to the tune of "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da." And I can't hum "Strange Maneuvers" to you after trying to get to know it, but I'll never forget the central passage of its I-need-therapy rock & roll: "I don't wanna be afraid of myself anymore / after wading all day in my kiddie pool brain / my last stitch is a ticket to a matinee / but my attention span is too broke to play / I can't stop replaying my mistakes over and over / and over, and over, and over." And I'll never forget the childhood memory of religion and death on "Young Disciple," in which she concludes she once permitted herself to believe in an afterlife "as an impassioned follower of my beautiful mother," but it's barely anything resembling music. And maybe there's an argument to be made that it needn't be; but if so, Spaltro's previous work seems to contradict it.
The Chemical Brothers: No Geography (astralwerks)
Not a terrible workout tape. Not pretty either, which is the best they can do nowadays, and the samples around which they build these tracks are mostly insipid.
Loyle Carner: Not Waving, But Drowning (Virgin) [hr]
The hard-won confessionals and playful rhymes of
Yesterday's Gone gave no suggestion to the troubled, depressive flow on this South London rapper's sophomore record; like Lady Lamb, he's in love, but it's fascinating how unrecognizably different a place it takes him. The rhymes are sharp and quick-witted, clearly taking stock of a long and complicated past, but the mesmerizing thing is how morose and cloudy the record is. Full of ease, yes, but also rife with an unresolved, unsettled feeling that makes it strangely irresistible. Boasting well-placed hooks sung by Jorja Smith and Sampha, the record achieves a lilting, poetic sense of journey across its fifty minutes, and it's quite shocking how much fear, stress and bleakness it manages to encompass given that it climaxes with his mum effectively giving him away (a bit of a repetition of the end of the first record, and not wholly needed here, nor are the samples of footie gatherings or Carner ordering chicken soup, but you know how rappers are). From the fiery Rebel Kleff hook at the center of "You Don't Know" to the equally compelling one he concots himself on "Still" on through to freestyling through "Sail Away" and some thorny contemplation of his racial heritage on "Looking Back," Carner positions himself modestly as one sound among many on a record with the same chilled-out vibe of a lot of classic Roots albums, only here with the oppressive yet all too calming sound of encroaching grief and paralysis. "Loose Ends" ("a lot of love a lot of loose ends / a lot of people that I wish I knew then") and "Ottolenghi" along with the unshakeable piano hook on "Carluccio" are the quintessential moments in which Carner's hip hop bona fides and the musical grace of this remarkable record sing out in an impeccably judged synthesis. Sometimes a record is the right piece of music for everyone's moment; sometimes a record is the right piece of music for you, right now, and this is that for me -- private, specific and empathetic in its treatment of a dark night of the soul, it's what I needed, coming from a source I did not at all expect.
Lizzo: Cuz I Love You (Atlantic)
Lizzo's transition from queen of the filthy Minneapolis indie rap scene to a amiable feel-good R&B singer signed to Atlantic remains weird if not disheartening, not that she isn't still a lot of fun to listen to, but you might as well get most of these songs prepped for their highest purpose as future
Drag Race lipsync showdowns, especially the music-hall title track, which for all its charms is essentially a Mad Libs-like exercise in generic platitude-pop, as is the self-love anthem "Soulmate," which has nothing on various prior self-love anthems in her catalog. Most of the record is either dated or derivative -- "Jerome" is well-sung neo-doo wop clearly taking its inspiration from "Love on the Brain," which obviously throws it out the window; "Lingerie" is agreeably dramatic enough to be an
Idol show-stopper but bears all the marks of artistic surrender; and "Better in Color" and "Crybaby" shoot for a funk-rock crossover market that no longer exists -- and coasts entirely on Lizzo's engaging star quality, which in fairness is far from nothing and certainly can put something like "Jerome" or the amusing "Heaven Help Me" ever so slightly over the line. The guest shots from Missy Elliott and Gucci Mane are promising and are at least identifiably hip hop but come off, respectively, as badly dated and awkward, the latter through no fault of Gucci's since he turns in a serviceable verse that's saddled with a dreadful hook courtesy Lizzo herself that sounds like a middle school football cheer. The album tries to do too many things and excels at none of them, with no many conflicting forces at the helm, but hey, it got her on the charts.
Angelique Kidjo: Celia (Verve) [r]
Winning and high-energy as always, Kidjo turns her attention to salsa with this tribute to Celia Cruz, the celebrated Cuban singer who Kidjo saw perform in Africa in the mid-1970s. As ever, Kidjo makes the music her own (with bass from Meshell Ndegeocello and several contributions from Sons of Kemet) and even if the transition isn't as mindbending and revelatory as what she did with Talking Heads last year, it's still an inexhaustible delight, particularly "Toro Mata" and "Bemba Colora," which stretch grooves out before ruthlessly puncturing them, always with Kidjo herself leading the onslaught.
Little Simz: Grey Area (Age 101) [hr]
Songs entitled "Pressure" and "Therapy" serve as earmarks for how this eventually turns into a self-confessional comedown, but for the first two thirds, this Islington rapper who spits, mocks and examines with equal speed and confidence is totally ablaze along with producer Inflo. It never again attains the synergy of the breathtaking opener "Offence," but the corrupt video game hook of "101 FM" comes close, and the hooks on "Boss" and "Selfish" demonstrate a commitment to popcraft you wouldn't necessarily expect from someone of Simz's raw, ruthless talent. No wonder, though, that the midstream highlight is "Venom" when she comes out swinging like the Count Five in 1965 with "Life sucks and I never tried suicide / mind's fucked even more than I realize" before revealing not only that she's out for blood but whose and how much. At its best, the hardest hip hop record in a while... but by design, so much more.
Robert Forster: Inferno (Tapete) [hr]
The solitary thoughts and textures of a Go-Between who never stopped loving rock & roll and never stopped looking directly into the present (and the ordinary), regardless of how thoughts lost and lives past may weigh in his mind; it means more than what we get from Peter Perrett or Richard Thompson, both of whom continue to write and perform more strongly than the majority of their aging peers, because in Forster's case the job seems so much more deliberate, but also totally unpretentious. He works slowly and only shows up to share with us when he has something to say, and these subtle, winding melodies and narratives give us plenty to unlock over what will surely be years -- "No Fame" and "Remain" cast his storytelling prowess and Velvet Underground fandom with boundless warmth and only the most mature, knowing kind of resignation, and "One Bird in the Sky" bows to charmingly pure pop, but it's the kind of record on which I'm quite sure my favorites will change each time I listen. He wouldn't bother us with all this if he didn't believe in every bit of it, and it's hard to think of another artist of his generation you can still say that about. This is probably Forster's best collection of songs since his old band's heyday, and for all its calm you can easily put it up against a younger band with similar aspirations like Rolling Blackouts C.F.; if this music is informed by the banality of getting older, may that experience stretch on into beautiful infinity.
ALSO RECOMMENDED
- Yola: Walk Through Fire (Nonesuch) [Civil Rights-era soul transported from Bristol to the Grand Ole Opry; "Love All Night (Work All Day)"/"Faraway Look"/"Shady Grove"]
- The Japanese House: Good at Falling (Dirty Hit) [Amber Bain comes on like Wye Oak turned left at Greenland; "We Talk All the Time"/"Worms"/"Follow My Girl"]
- Adia Victoria: Silences (ATL) [baroque country saddled up with cushy '90s alternative]
- Nick Waterhouse (Innovative Leisure) [as usual with these delightful retro types, we 100% got the sound but not the songs]
- Stella Donnelly: Beware of the Dogs (Secretly Canadian) [righteous indignation -- "my mum's still a punk and you're still shit"]
- Stephen Malkmus: Groove Denied (Matador) [at home with the groovebox (and sounding more like Lou Reed than ever); "Grown Nothing"]
- Feels: Post Earth (Wichita Recordings) [classic vintage brattiness eventually flatlines but wishes it could be like David Watts; "Awful Need"/"Deconstructed"/"Car"]
ALSO RECOMMENDED FOR THE AMBIENT FILES
- Teeth of the Sea: Wraith (Rocket Recordings) [a bang then a whimper then a whimper then a whimper then a bang then a whimper]
- The Comet Is Coming: Trust in the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery (Impulse!) [gamely auditioning for a ridiculously limited audience of giant ears.. oh, and Kate Tempest shows up; "Birth of Creation"/"Blood of the Past"]
FURTHER INVESTIGATION TO COME
* Mary Lattimore & Mac McCaughan:
New Rain Duets
* Ex Hex:
It's real
* Quelle Chris:
Guns
* W.H. Lung:
Incidental Music
* BTS:
Map of the Soul- Persona
* Elva:
Winter Sun
Orville Peck:
Pony
Avey Tare:
Cows on Hourglass Pond
Jayda G:
Significant Changes
Lee Fields & the Expressions:
It Rains Love
Rozi Plain:
What a Boost
Priests:
The Seduction of Kansas
The Budos Band:
V
Bibio:
Ribbons
Shovels & Rope:
By Blood
Anderson .Paak:
Ventura
Stealing Sheep:
Big Wows
REJECTS
Durand Jones & the Indications:
American Love Call
The Claypool Lennon Delirium:
South of Reality [NYIM]
Nakhane:
You Will Not Die [NYIM]
Spelling:
Mazy Fly [NYIM]
These New Puritans:
Inside the Rose
Lucy Rose:
No Words Left
La Dispute:
Panorama
Shlohmo:
The End
Devin Townsend:
Empath
Steve Earle & the Dukes:
Guy
Edwyn Collins:
Badbea
Garcia Peoples:
Natural Facts
Mekons:
Deserted [NYIM]
White Denim:
Side Effects
Martha:
Love Keeps Kicking [NYIM]
Molly Tuttle:
When You're Ready [NYIM]
Pup:
Morbid Stuff
Bruce Hornsby:
Absolute Zero
John Paul White:
The Hurting Kind [NYIM]
Fontaines DC:
Dogrel
Damien Jurado:
In the Shape of a Storm
Martin Frawley:
Undone at 31 [yikes]
Wand:
Laughing Matter [NYIM]
Fat White Family:
Serfs Up!
Cage the Elephant:
Social Cues
Drugdealer: Raw Honey [NYIM]
ORPHAN TUNES
Durand Jones & the Indications "Don't You Know" [American Love Call]
The Claypool Lennon Delirium "Blood and Rockets" [South of Reality]
Nakhane "Clairvoyant" [You Will Not Die]
OLD RECORDS RATED (NOT REVIEWED) THIS MONTH:
Sade:
Soldier of Love (Epic 2010) [r]
ARCHIVAL GRADE CHANGES: [I've also added notes on these changes to the respective old reviews of these albums, but did not change the reviews themselves. -n]
Flying Lotus:
Cosmogramma (Warp 2010) [-] -> [r]
Robyn:
Body Talk (Konichiwa 2010) [r] -> [hr]
Midnight Juggernauts:
The Crystal axis [hr] -> [r]