Ray Finlayson
Contributor at Beats Per Minute
A musician of sorts. Sometimes he talks in the third person. Available for weddings/funerals.
Articles
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1 week ago |
beatsperminute.com | Ray Finlayson
[Torn Light Records; 2025]Stratocaster in hand, Michael Vallera sought to create a blanketed, grey world. Back in 2023 he plugged his guitar into a minimal effects chain (which subsequently “fed into a small solid state amplifier”) and conjured his world. The Chicago guitarist and sound artist created music that reminded him of charcoal drawings, monochromatic pieces that thrum and drone like apocalyptic landscapes void of life.
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2 weeks ago |
beatsperminute.com | Ray Finlayson
[Polydor; 2025]“Music is about feeling better, making other people feel better. It’s about solidarity; strength in numbers.” For Rebecca Lucy Taylor (aka Self Esteem) music is community. It’s the banding together to create comfort, to let others hear and be heard, to show other women that they most definitely are not alone. On her previous album, Prioritise Pleasure, Taylor was offering a beacon for those in need. “I just want to let you know there’s a point in you,” she sang with open arms.
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3 weeks ago |
beatsperminute.com | Ray Finlayson
[Matador; 2025]Enacting a promise made to each other, Send A Prayer My Way is an album that follows through with a pact to make the music both Julien Baker and TORRES (aka Mackenzie Scott) grew up with, but could never quite see themselves in.
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1 month ago |
beatsperminute.com | Ray Finlayson
[Joyful Noise; 2025]How strange and funny it is to be reminded of something by the simplest thing. We see a shade of something familiar, hear an evocative note, have our smell memory activated, and suddenly we’re transported. Consider Scottie from the 1958 film Vertigo, who goes down an obsessive path because an echo of a woman he loved was brought to mind by a passing stranger on the street. Or – from another angle – how jazz musicians will teasingly quote each other during their solos.
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1 month ago |
beatsperminute.com | Ray Finlayson
[Sub Pop/Royal Mountain; 2025]Big Dog is a record that tracks a journey, a personal odyssey through turmoil and built up from low points. It’s a document of resilience and hard work that its creator Bria Salmena put in as she shaped the music that mattered to her.
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Merry Tmas to each and every Chris out there! So glad you now finally have your own day!
Hot albums! Get them now while they are fresh! The best the year has to offer! Now including the finest blurbs you ever did see, including some stellar word composition from yours truly about @billieeilish, @charli_xcx, and @HalfWaif
BPM’s Top 50 Albums of 2024 This year, like every year in music, the cream of the crop is a mosaic of styles, moods, tones and textures. We’ve done our best to crochet it all together into a loving patchwork Enjoy: https://t.co/MBlWi0nDtn
The only end of year list that matters! So many hits in this long, long year. Had the pleasure and privilege of writing about a bunch of these amazing songs, including @Beyonce, @TheDecemberists, @TheWeatherStn, @CassFreshUSA, @kendricklamar, and @ChappellRoan.
BPM’s Top 50 Songs of 2024 Fifty songs we think are the best from the long year gone, that hopefully serve as a reminder that these 12 months definitely weren’t all bad. Fifty songs for another year that just kept coming Enjoy: https://t.co/1XOdvUZXQc