(Un)Focused Definition Ep. 75: FLAC Attack!

I’m starting to get back into the groove. I’ve got stacks of CDs and vinyl records waiting to be spun and reviewed, we’re going to start formally crossing over with Nine Circles, featuring the metal reviews I write over there over here (hence the new menu option – will probably load them up on Sundays) and to top it all off I snagged a sweet DAP (Digital Audio Player) from FIIO, popped a 1TB microSD card in it and started loading my Bandcamp collection in FLAC format to it. Got about 4,000 tracks in it so far, and so I grabbed my headphones, hit the Randomizer, and this is what came out:

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52 Reasons Why

Wanted to do something different today. It’s my birthday, and I already built a playlist last week celebrating a bunch of great music that came out during the year of my birth. But the music of 1973 isn’t what made me into who I am now – that’s an ever-growing, ever-evolving store of musical moments and memories. And so I wanted to make another playlist, of the songs that inspired me, moved, me, marked significant moments of my life.

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(Un)Focused Definition Ep. 48: It All Sounds So Good…

It took almost two weeks for this nasty respiratory infection to go away, and today is the first morning I can actually walk around without wheezing, coughing, and otherwise sound like I’m dying. So we’re having a virtual celebration with a bunch of songs I’ve been enjoying that either came in recently or have just been hitting the spot when listening to radio shows or my own playlists. I upgraded my theater system in the basement with a new setup that supports Dolby Atmos, so it’s been a blast listening to a lot of discs I’ve collected over time I can now hear for the first time. I’m not an Atmos convert, but I’ll be honest: left to my own devices this playlist and this weekend would be almost nothing but the new incredible remix for Pink Floyd’s Live at Pompeii, so if you want an alternative to this week’s playlist you can just spin that over and over and over…

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freckle - freckle

Freckle: Freckle (2025)

I’m still trying to figure out what it is that Ty Segall does that captures exactly what I’m looking for in a rock album. Despite his myriad incarnations and permutations, from the Sabbath stomp of bands like Fuzz to his Eno-esque limitations on albums like First Taste or his more out there collaborations with White Fence and Brian Chippendale 0f Lightning Bolt, there’s just something there that resonates in me. Nothing’s changed with Freckle, both the album and the new collaboration with Corey Madden of Color Green. Whether or not Freckle the band is a one-shot deal, I’m all in for its blend of psychedelic pop and guitar rock worship.

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(Un)Focused Definition Ep. 35: The One With My First Great Album(s) of 2025

Used to be January was a bit of a dumping ground for music; smaller bands and releases living in the shadow of everyone’s year end lists and folks checking out all the stuff they may have missed. So I wasn’t expecting much, thinking I would just nestle down with some cozy 70s prog and 80s metal, hibernating until the “good stuff” starting poking out. Welp, that’s already started to happen, so we’re going to keep this trend of what’s been coming in the house and I’ve been listening to for the last week, and we’re kicking it off with an album I’ve fallen hard for, a surefire bet for my own end of year list. Or albums, I should say, because wouldn’t you know it? Yesterday Ty Segall had to go and release his third album in one 12-month cycle…

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CTT - Best of 2024!

Consuming in 2024: My Favorite Music

Finally. As of this morning you can listen to my buddy Dan and I wax rhapsodic about our favorite non-metal albums of 2024 wherever you get your podcasts, which means it’s time to finally get down to bees-niss and sum up the year in new music. I already recapped most of the metal selections in my various (Un)Focused Definition playlists, and of course you can hit the “best of 2024” tag to read the reviews for many of them regardless of genre. We’ll use a lot of same categories I used back in 2021, and add a few more to talk about the stuff that wasn’t completely reviewed here on the site. Let’s get to it below the jump.

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