This is the newly rebuilt Five Random Songs: chock full of posts, each featuring five random songs from my collection of music. Along with some other junk. Everything is tagged by artist. Poke around some, it’s been here since 2017. Starting in 2026, I shifted to twice-weekly posts with a little longer format. If you want to keep up, you can use RSS, sign up for email, or follow me on Bluesky.
I just looked and realized that Cor-Crane Secret, the first Polvo album, is missing fromy my library. I’m not sure where it went, I absolutely had the CD back in the day. Lost? Never got ripped? Dropped on the floor during one of the library’s migrations from place to place? Who knows? But thanks to the magic of Bandcamp, I can replace it. And Shapes, which was also missing. It’s Polvo day here!
[Read More]Pretty sure this is a repeat!
This is also a repeat!
(That’s a lie, I just don’t want to figure out anything to say about the National. Don’t want to make people mad!)
La Gritona were a noise rock band out of Boston, active in the second half of the 90s, who put out one album and some EPs before ending things. And they smoke, all heavy skronk and yelling, exactly the kind of stuff that’s up my alley. But I had no idea they existed, because by the time their album came out in 1997, I was out of college and slowly losing touch with music. Luckily, their entire catalog was compiled together into a re-release in 2010, where a postiive review brought it to my attention. And maybe this will bring them to someone else’s attention, because this stuff rules.
[Read More]With the strings here, this is reading very “late Stax” to me, or perhaps Curtis Mayfield. Interestingly, it’s an era of soul that for the most part hasn’t seen as much of a revival as earlier Stax or Motown. I’m not sure why that is, exactly, although perhaps the lusher arrangements are just harder to put together for independent artists.
You first, the Queers!
[Read More]Big same, Beatles.
Do I need to hear “Jikan no Hashi” for this song to make sense?
Abstract hip-hop artist DJ Krush’s 1996 MiLiGHT featured a bunch of collaborations, resulting in a bit of an uneven record. But at the heart of it are always his jazzy beats, so it’s still a pleasant listen.
Well, that’s pointless.
[Read More]Made it to May! Seemed like April lasted for double the usual days this year.
I’m not sure I would have placed this in the past, but you know what? I’m getting some pretty heavy Yes vibes off of this.
Sometimes, I wish I was enough of a professional to click onto my own tags and read what I’d already written about bands. But, I’m not, so I have to rely on my own crummy memory. I don’t want to repeat the same stories about bands, but I also don’t want to work any harder than I do for this thing. So here we are, I’m writing nonsense and you’re left with a meta comment here instead of something useful. Or even “useful”. Well, anyway, the song is over!
[Read More]“Drunk Trumpet” appears on Kid Koala’s first record, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, and this is a fun live version of it from Live From The Short Attention Span Audio Theater Tour. As always, Kid Koala is a gas.
Before his legendary Donuts, J Dilla’s first record under his own name was Welcome 2 Detroit, part of the first set of records for BBE’s Beat Generation series. Dilla’s record is probably the second best of that group, after Pete Rock’s, and if you haven’t looked it up but enjoy his other work, you should.
[Read More]Love me a good jazz/DJ thing.
Streethawk: A Seduction was the first Destroyer record that I heard, and this was the song that I heard on that record that really got me going. Something about how spare a lot of the song is, just his voice and either a simple groove or his guitar, just works super well. A delightful tune.
You know, it would have been just fine with me if that first thirty seconds of formless guitar noise just kind of kept going. I have objections with the rest of this crawl, mind you. But I love me a good wad of meandering feedback.
[Read More]After the explosive success of You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine, a remix record was hustled out the door. I didn’t realize it was a remix record, I just saw it in Sonic Boom here in Seattle and thought “neat, a new DFA record!” Friends, it wasn’t a new record, not really, and is as pointless as any other remix record.
[Read More]There are times when I think we should just ban all rock songs longer than two minutes. If you can’t get your point across in two minutes, go play some jazz or something, loser!
I typed this first as “Beos”, and then thought, huh, I wonder what a veteran hip-hop duo was doing writing a song about a near-forgotten niche operating system. You all should be thankful I’m not going to even attempt a verse here.
[Read More]A thing I can recommend as a solid move is to befriend some people in Australia, and then get some music recommendations from them. You’ll get plenty of stuff that you never otherwise would have heard, and if my experience is anything to go by, they’ll be absolute delights - the people, and the bands.
Surprised there’s not a parenthetical in this title. I mean, even a “(You Can’t) Hurry Love” or something, come on, it’s like they’re not even trying.
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