Posted in Music chat, New Tunes

Simz is BACK!

ALL HAIL.

We are big big Little Simz fans here at TINH, and while we were mixed with our view of Sometimes I Might Be Introvert (S.I.M.B.I.) – for me, it was a brilliant record, somewhat let down by the strange skits from Emma Corrin / Lady Di in the Crown – we all adored Grey Area for its energy, power and sheer do-not-give-a-fuck attitude (not to mention amazing flow and vibe).

And as we all got to thinking about our 2022 Top Tens, here landed No Thank You, on 12 December, to land in that strange slot of after end of year lists, but not in 2023, hence a sort of hinterland. But my god, it doesn’t really matter, because it’s an amazing work. Much more personal, and pared back than the maximal feel of SIMBI, this sees Simz and her producer, Inflo, in perfect harmony. Gorilla may be one of my tracks of the year as a late entry, and if it came out in November, it would’ve likely been in my Top 5, straight in!

It’s great to have her back, but perhaps next time, release on 2nd Jan?

We love Simz.

Posted in Album of the Month, podcast

Podcast Episode | Top 10 Albums & Top Tracks of 2022

Ep. 32 | Everything But The Girl | Fuse This Is Not Happening – An Album Of The Month Podcast

In Part 1 we explore the new Everything But The Girl album Fuse,  and ask is it worth the 24 year wait? In Part 2 we play Spin It or Bin It? The theme this month is new music … tracks that have been released since Feb 1st 2023.Part 1 | Album of the Month | EBTG | FuseIt's Nolan's choice this month and we go with the long awaited / not even expected 12th studio album from Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt. It's rare that we get to talk about an artist that we all have a significant relationship, but this is a great example. In January we got treated to the track Nothing Left to Loose but the album offers much more. It's got just about every type of EBTG track you can think of and some of their best tracks ever.Go listen to the album – HereGo watch some videos – HereGo buy some of their stuff – HereSome links that we reference and recommend; Pitchfork interview – Click HereBBC Radio 5 Live interview – Click HereEBTG in conversation at Rough Trade – Click HerePart 2 | Spin It or Bin It | New MusicIt's been a few months since we did new music so here we go. There's a definite whiff of summer in the air!Nolan chose – Amplify by Rodriguez Jr.David chose – Mo Se B'ola Tan by The Estuary 21 Joey chose – Sandrail Silhouette by Avalon Emerson Guy chose – Everybody's Saying That by Girl RayIn order to chose our tracks we create a long list, then a short list of 4 tracks each. Each of our 4x track short lists are collated here … have a listen. *** Enjoy the episode ***We've been writing the blog for years come and have a look – https://thisisnothappening.net/
  1. Ep. 32 | Everything But The Girl | Fuse
  2. Ep.32 | Kelela | Raven
  3. Ep. 31 | Young Fathers | Heavy Heavy
  4. Ep 30 | Rozi Plain | Prize
  5. Ep 29 | Ab-Soul | Herbert

It’s that time of year again, we dust off David’s scoring-algorithm for the end of year review. This is the one we look forward to and we hope you enjoy it.

This month, in Part 1 we run through our collective, This is Not Happening Top-10 albums. In Part 2 we all introduce our Track of the year.

Part 1 | 2022 This is Not Happening Top 10 Albums

So, there’s for of us. We all independently chose our Top 10 albums. This data is fed into deep learning algorithm that considers all of the knowns and most of the unknowns and create a singular, collective This is Not Happening Top 10. Its a controversial approach but its as fair as we can make it. 

This year only 2 albums were chosen by all 4 of us. Only 3 albums were chosen by 3 of us. However, the Top 10 feels more ‘shared’ than we’ve ever done. I think it’s a really solid top 10 and we should be proud of it.

Our number one is an absolute belter! We can hold our heads high with this one.

Part 2 | Tracks of the Year

How do you sum up an entire year in one track? Is it even possible? Two, important  questions, to which our answers are; ‘with difficulty’ and ‘yes’. We chose 4 tracks from 4 different genres. There’s more than a whiff of melancholy that links our Top tracks but we think is kind of fitting for one of the oddest of years.

Next Month

If we’re honest, we’re not 100% sure what we’ll be reviewing. Every year there are albums released later in the year that we miss or simply don’t have the time to get our teeth into. So Nolan will pick one of these albums and we’ll all spend the holidays getting stuck into that with our families (if it’s vaguely appropriate for very young or very old ears).