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.
Now, see, if you remember that Iskra track from yesterday, you might say that this sounds like the same shit. But if you listen to enough of this garbage, you’ll hear differences: the vocals sound like they are yelled through a bullhorn instead of strangled, and this is just relentless blasts. So, grindcore, not something else. If it’s just focused on speed and aggression, you’ve got yourself some grindcore.
[Read More]Oh shit! Enjoy! This is the second half of Product Placement, the breakbeat extravaganza collaboration between two break experts. Incredible stuff, and honestly, I could probably just end today after this. This project ties together the songs that provide the key breakbeats that hip-hop was built out of, but provides more context for them, and it rules.
Gleeful electro-funk outfit TWRP are entirely about cranking up a good time with the fattest grooves they can conjure. Is it pointlessly retro or not? I don’t think it matters, frankly. If they can bring it, does it matter that they’re conjuring the sounds of the 80s?
[Read More]I don’t normally list guest artists on the title line, but check it: Black Thought and Pharoahe Monch. Super nice! Kweli is at his best when he’s got other top-tier MCs to work with, part of the alchemy of Black Star.
As always, there’s nothing really like Nancarrow, with music that feels about as alien as possible while still seeming like there’s a plan. Even if you can’t actually put your finger on that plan.
[Read More]Preach it, Propagandhi! Used to crank this tune driving around Spokane with the windows down, which was probably less risky in 1995 but not without risk.
This is a progressive metal project led by Gabriel Lucas Riccio with help from a bunch of guest artists, and it’s a real trip. I suppose you can tell from this track if you’re going to like this thing or not. I admire the ambition of it, certainly.
[Read More]This, from Xtra-Acme USA, is kind of a sketch of a song, but it still cooks pretty good. I mean, just one good “weeeeeeeeeeellllllll” from Spencer is enough to get me going.
There’s some other song that I can’t quite put my finger on that the intro to this song reminds me of. I feel like the guitar tone is very Black Francis, but I’m not entirely sure what song it’s trying to trigger for me. Once you get into the meat of the song, though, that feeling of reminding dissipates.
[Read More]Rock ’n’ roll! Straight outta the 50s! Or 1993, whatever.
From Singles Breaking Up, Vol. 1, which is a singles comp, as you could probably guess. Kind of hard to believe that you can consider this song and the previous one (separated by a mere four years!) as both being products of the 90s rock underground.
2015-2018 was an extremely productive period for TMBG, with a flurry of albums driven in part by a revival of the Dial-a-Song project. Of that burst of records, the gem is I Like Fun, a record loaded with catchy tunes, but also some pretty fun song structures. This isn’t one of the killer tunes from it, but even as one of the lesser tracks, it still has that big horn arrangement and is a good time.
[Read More]Back in the day, there were troglodytes on Usenet that hated the Nation of Ulysses for being too arty, too pretentious, just too much. How stupid is that? This shit rocks, people are dumb.
OK, you’ve all heard this song a billion times, on radio stations, as various crappy covers, and as the background music to a weepy scene on a middlebrow TV drama. So, whatever. What I want to talk about is this bit from the Wikipedia entry on the song, which I went to go look at to see how high this thing charted (which I no longer care about).
[Read More]Maxinquaye is one of the three pillars of trip-hop, along with Blue Lines and Dummy. What’s striking about all three records, besides them all being great, is kind of how dissimilar they all end up feeling. There’s a murky darkness at the core of them all, but they take different paths to get there. Tricky is probably the most hip-hop of the three, although the swirling noise is still pretty distinctly foreign to the hip-hop of the time.
[Read More]These pieces, which come up occasionally, really don’t make a lot of sense in isolation. Shuffle is good at some things - surprises, shaking up your routine, serendipity - but is bad at an album like this.
Rejuvenation is my favorite album from the second Meters phase of life. The grittier, mostly- or all-instrumental Meters of the first few albums had changed into a brighter sound, with vocals and more bounce. Still incredibly funky, of course, but a different feel. Generally, I lean towards the earlier sound, but this album is undeniable.
[Read More]Had I encountered this when I was 17, I’m sure I would have adored it. As it is, I like it just fine, but I’m also far more likely to listen to the punk that I encountered when I actually was 17. It’s nothing personal, we just make emotional connections with this kind of thing when we’re young.
squints Jazz fusion? Elaborate post-rock? Post-math-rock? Math jazz?
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