Boris, “Flower Sun Rain”

This is apparently a cover, which I hadn’t really realized before. Smile, the album that opens with this song, is on the more accessible end of Boris’s work. There are plenty of vocals on the record, plenty of things that are recognizable melodies, and generally not as much of the harsh noise. That’s not to say that it’s easy listening or anything, just that in the context of their career, it’s pretty approchable.

Amon Tobin, “Back From Space”

The album opener to Out From Out Where, this record had the enviable task of following up the magnificent Supermodified. To Tobin’s credit, he didn’t really try and make Superdupermodified or whatever, he just continued evolving on his own path. This record moves a little bit away from the frantic excess of the previous, a little more towards orchestration, and just ends up full of cool textures.

Modest Mouse, “Tundra/Desert”

Before what I consider their breakthrough, The Lonesome Crowded West, Modest Mouse was making jagged, interesting music that sometimes was too much of a mess to really be great. But, I have to say, the older I get, the more I appreciate the early stuff. This is from Interstate 8, released in 1996, which is an “EP” because it’s just five new studio tracks. But, there are also six live tracks, so it’s also kind of a full album’s worth of music. Anyway, if you haven’t really listened to their pre-fame catalog, it’s worth your time.

Happy Halloween! Time for a spooky special!

Inter Arma, “Scarecrow”

Inter Arma released a covers album, Garbers Days Revisited, in 2020. This sort of thing is pretty traditional in metal, thanks to Metallica’s Garage Days Revisited. Inter Arma does nice work with their covers, as befits such a good band. This is a Ministry song here, so it’s supposed to sound like this.

Jake One, “Scared”

Seattle producer Jake One worked with a whole bunch of guest MCs on his album White Van Music, but thanks to being the product of a single producer’s vision, it still feels pretty coherent. There’s a lot of excellent stuff on this album, although its long running time kind of wears on you eventually.

Margo Price, “This Town Gets Around”

This album, Midwest Farmer’s Daughter, came out in 2016 on Jack White’s label, and is very much a throwback. It wears its inspiration on its sleeve, with Loretta Lynn’s influence heard everywhere in the music and of course the album title’s homage. Trying to live up to Lynn is of course a massive challenge, but Price does well. There’s nothing especially adorned about this album, it’s just very straightforward country, but it’s a lovely record.

Big day today! This marks a full year of perfect updating. That’s 1,825 songs, plus a few duplicates (which I don’t say much about). I write a little paragraph for each of these things, most of the time. Sometimes a throwaway, sometimes a bit more, but let’s say that I wrote about 60 words for each song. That’s something on the order of 100,000 words I’ve written about music over the past year. And not a damn bit of it useful! And if you compiled it in one go, it’s a novel’s worth of garbage.

Screeching Weasel, “The First Day of Winter”

Another cut from Television City Dream, which as far as I know is the last Screeching Weasel album (it absolutely is not). I’m kind of hard on Screeching Weasel in this space, but you know, I do like this junk, even if I know it’s kind of the Pringles of punk rock.

Gas Huffer, “Beware of Viking”

Meanwhile, I’m more likely to listen to something kind of garage-y at this point. I dunno, something a little grittier just kind of gets me going more than the Ramones-inspired stuff.

Queens of the Stone Age, “Un-Reborn Again”

This comes from the most recent QotSA album, Villains, where they worked with producer Mark Ronson. The result is a little bit of a different feel to things. It’s a slick, glossy record, full of moves that I would characterize as more glam than anything else. This song is a great example, this is just all shiny, swaggering glam. It’s not an unfamiliar aesthetic in the QotSA catalog, but it’s definitely to the fore on this album. I do appreciate that they’re willing to change things up, so I like it a lot. They don’t have to keep re-making Songs For the Deaf, I can just go listen to that if I want to.

Sloan, “Deeper Than Beauty”

Sloan are a rarity, a band who clearly should have been big in America, but instead settled for a long and celebrated career in Canada. This stuff, really smart power pop, absolutely could have broken through at basically any moment, and just kind of never did. If you like this sort of thing at all, this album and One Chord To Another are must-listens.

Yo-Yo Ma, “Suite no. 1 in G major, BWV 1007: III. Courante”

I feel too dumb to even type out that song title, much less listen to this.

Mantar, “Eternal Return”

I long ago ran out of stuff to say about Mantar, so let’s just have a close listen to this. The shift up to the double-time drums fifty seconds in is nice. And a nice change in the gallop shortly after the vocals kick in. There’s a restlessness here, where they’re refusing to totally settle into a groove, which is kind of nice. Although sometimes the fun of music like this is a nice punishing rhythm. Views differ, apparently even in my head!