Culture
Quarantine Playlists: Peter Vilardi
< < Back toAlthough gathering for live music will be impossible for a little while, WOUB Culture is trying to keep the groove alive by asking members of the regional music scene about the music they have been relying on to get through these strange times.
Peter Vilardi is an Ohio University alumnus, a graduate of the Scripps College of Communication, and a writer for
Experimental Kindergarten & Music in Motion – Columbus. He is best known for his work in underground hip-hop music as the enigmatic MC Freeman. He is also a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, underground show promoter, independent record producer, film composer and character actor, among many other things. He currently resides in Columbus, OH, where he spends his time enjoying retro video games, trash horror cinema and independent professional wrestling.
A frighteningly good collection of songs. I remember downloading “Street Halo” onto my USB-sized MP3 player in 2011, wondering when the next Burial record would come out. Turns out I was wrong in the best possible way – I was already hearing it, in pieces, trickled out gradually over the entire decade. This is flat-out one of the best electronic albums of the 2010s, and also one of the best pure compilation albums. A modern classic.
(“Street Halo”)
Flower Travellin’ Band: Satori
Some classic Japanese psych-rock and proto-metal. If you ever put on an old wrestling pay-per-view (say, WCW
Halloween Havoc 1993), I’d recommend muting the audio, putting this record on, and cracking open an ice-cold beer. This is a forgotten gem from its era that has only gotten better with age.
The boys from Bloomington are back with another pitch-perfect oddball punk record – but this one is a little weirder, gooier, and harder to pin down than their past efforts. Room of Clons is a bit slower and lower in the best possible way. The Cowboys are a phenomenal band, not least because they keep surprising me and staying interesting from record to record.
This is an undisputed jazz fusion classic, and a sacred text of jazz. Probably the best late-night album in history. If you find yourself up late at night with not much to do (and I often do), this is the one to put on. Essential listening.
Sophie Allison is a fantastic songwriter and performer, and her band has only been getting better. Clean
was one of my favorite records of 2018, and this one is gnarlier and weirder in all the right ways. I love how much this album sounds like Sheryl Crow, or The Bends-era Radiohead. The ‘90s are back, baby!
Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments: Straight to Video
TJSA is some phenomenal classic Columbus punk. These guys are local legends to me – I still have yet to see them live, but reports tell me their performances are not-to-be-missed. I did get a chance to see Ron House, the band’s singer, in one of his many side projects at last year’s Nowhere Fest at Café Bourbon Street/The Summit (which, side note, is probably the best punk show I’ve ever seen, period). Anyway, this record is amazing.
Of all the shows I had to cancel due to COVID-19, my house show with Big Lo was the one I’d looked forward to most. But, had we not tried to schedule it, I may never have discovered how fire his music is – he’s a singular talent and a criminally underrated hip-hop artist from Pensacola, FL. This album, a collaboration with producer CxxxLxxx, exudes late-night cool, evoking smoky rooms and seedy activity in unknown locations of ill repute. In other words, very good stuff.
A sublimely weird work of found-sound vaporwave, this is a rare overlooked record that is, for my money, a classic of the burgeoning genre. This record takes the niceties of vaporwave – decayed lounge music loops, a vaguely vintage-corporate atmosphere – and cranks the cheese up to 11, destroying any hint of tastefulness or subtlety with reckless abandon. Disney iTunes 3D hits the uncanny valley over the head with a hammer, and never fails to put a huge goofy grin on my face.
Blood Incantation: Hidden History of the Human Race
I’m mostly a novice of death metal – I’ve always leaned a bit more towards doom, drone and sludge – but this is an undisputed heater. This record is Ancient Aliens space death metal, with a bit of prog and fake cult literature thrown in for good measure. It’s like if Tim & Eric’s Zone Theory had blast beats. Unrelenting flame. (Also, this band has possibly the coolest contact information I’ve ever seen any band put on the back of a record: “To contact Blood Incantation, concentrate.”)
I never thought, as a kid, that I would be listening to “lounge” or “easy-listening” music, but this is a fascinating and surprisingly deep listen. Baxter’s arrangements are imaginative and evocative in the best ways. This album was originally composed as the soundtrack for a film of the same name, which would years later be released by the new name The Mighty Jungle. No word on whether or not that’s any good – but, hey, if quarantine is long enough, I may just watch it and report back.
Tommy Jay & Mike Rep: The Grim-O Comix Sequence
Another classic Columbus record. This one was actually committed to tape in 1974, but didn’t see the light of day until 2010. It’s a lo-fi, home-recorded folk-rock odyssey that is technically a rock opera, and very forward-thinking for its time and place. I love this record because it captures the Columbus experience in oddly specific ways – I, too, have worked as a “box boy” at the “big department store.” There’s shades of Jefferson Airplane and other era-appropriate touchstones, but Tommy Jay and Mike Rep bring a lot of originality to this song cycle. Highly recommended.
A phenomenal recent record from one of modern hip-hop’s finest. Gibbs’s work with Madlib on Pinata and Bandana is likely his best, but don’t sleep on this lean and mean set of songs, which is airtight and perfectly sequenced. There are some really great high-energy bangers on here – out of all the albums on this list, this one gave me the hardest time picking just one song to showcase. Back in 2018, I saw the opening show of this album’s tour, which was as high-energy and chaotic as you’d expect. For that reason, and many more, this record’s stuck with me.
It seems like it’s very popular for Metallica fans to dunk on this album – particularly its lo-fi, raw mixes, its changes from the established Metallica formula, and its ringing, shall-we-say distinct snare drum sound. But I don’t consider myself a “Metallica fan” at all, so let me be perfectly honest: this record rules. Once I got over hearing Metallica in the rawest, dirtiest soundscapes they’ve ever inhabited, I started to notice the labyrinthine song structures and non-sequitur lyrics. There are no guitar solos here; there are only riffs, and endless diversions. There’s a lot of unintentional hilarity here, particularly in the way this record was received (I’m sure the cringe-inducing documentary Some Kind of Monster didn’t help matters). Most critics of the era didn’t get it, and I can only imagine the average Metallica fan absolutely loathed it. Weirdly, all this has managed to increase my respect for Metallica tenfold – I can’t believe that this was a commercially released product at the top of the charts in 2003, and that everyone hated it so, so much. In the best possible way, it feels like this album should not exist – and, yet, it does.
Mont Saint Michel: Candy Paint
Of all the musical projects I’ve worked on, Mont Saint Michel – my collaboration with my good friend and bandleader Tyler Stupalsky – stands alone as one of the weirdest and most haunting. We are ambient eldritch gods on a stone slab in space, inhabiting fields of sound and canyons of reverb. Our 2017 LP You Never Moved Me is a lush, cavernous journey deep into the mind. But Candy Paint – our collection of previously unreleased rarities, B-sides and demos from 2017-2018 – goes deeper still, finding new textures and tones among the endless echo. In addition to some unsettling instrumental work, we’ve also done what I’d wager is the definitive cover of the deep Beach Boys cut “A Day in the Life of a Tree.”
Unholy Two: The Pleasure to End All Pleasures
As soon as quarantine is over, Unholy Two is the first band I’m seeing live. They are hands-down my favorite Columbus band, and their sound is like steel wool directly to your brain. Their latest LP is not for the faint of heart, but it is for the hard of hearing. This album could peel the paint off your wall at a hundred yards. If you like deathmatch wrestling, gruesome true-crime accounts, and pummeling walls of feedback as much as I do, you’re in for a real treat. Everyone else: watch out for this one. It’s scary, and it will mess you up.