Swans, “Better Than You”

The late 80s/early 90s vesion of the band is probably the one that is most different from the other iterations. The period began with Burning World, the first (and last) Swans major-label release, which was a commercial disaster and an artistic mess. The other albums of that period (White Light From The Mouth of Infinity, Love of Life, and Ten Songs For Another World which was technically from World of Skin but who cares) were better artistically, but this is kind of the “pretty” Swans period. The albums all went out of print, and stayed that way for a while.

Rage Against the Machine, “Calm Like A Bomb”

The last proper Rage album, The Battle of Los Angeles is also my favorite of their records. It shows the most focus, and they refined their attack to the point of total relentlessness on this one.

The Dillinger Escape Plan, “Jim Fear”

Meanwhile, about a month before Rage released that record, the Dillinger Escape Plan put out Calculating Infinity which…uh, kind of puts “total relentlessness” into perspective.

Moses Sumney, “Lonely World”

Sumney’s Aromanticism pivots around “Lonely World”, a song that goes from gauzy and shimmery and gradually ramps up to a frenzied finish, reflecting the inherent duality in this album. It’s an album that sounds like a love album but is all about not being capable of experiencing romantic love.

J-Zone, “It’s a Trap!”

J-Zone has had multiple musical lives in his career. His early career, as a producer/rapper, ended with a miserable tour, a retirement, and a memoir recounting his struggles. His second act began with this album, Peter Pan Syndrome, where he came back as a rapper but added the drums to his skill set. He sounds energized on this album, doing something new, but full of the same types of sophomoric (but funny!) gags as his first go-around.

Skinnerbox, “Trying To Be Cool”

Skinnerbox’s What You Can Do, What You Can’t is a charming album from the third wave, full of personality and a distinctive sound, especially King Django’s vocals. Alas, the followup record Demonstration, which gives us this tune, feels really flattened. It sounds to me like a bit of a cynical shot at radio play by injecting some punk into the sound, and it just kind of makes Skinnerbox sound like everybody else.

Seam, “Shame”

I love EPs! I miss rooting around in record stores and coming across them, because they were often a surprise. It doesn’t happen very much any more, or at least, I don’t come across them very often. Probably just means I’m out of touch. I’m very old!

Anyway, this is from the Kernel EP, but this song is just an alternate take of a song from Headsparks, so this EP is pretty inessential. Buuut, I do miss EPs.

clipping., “Nothing Is Safe”

There was probably a time in my life when I would have regarded clipping. askance. I’ve long been OK with noise in my music, having picked up an affection for industrial as a teenager that continued forward with noise rock, various gnarly forms of punk, etc. And, of course, hip hop has been a staple of my listening for even longer. But for a long time, I thought I didn’t like pretension in music. It led me to avoiding things like prog rock, various forms of art rock, all kind of ambitious music for a long time. Or, at least, things that were ambitious in particular ways that set me off.

Tool, “Intolerance”

I picked up Tool’s first album when it came out, because they kind of ran parallel to bands like Helmet, who I loved. But they never really did it for me, and I fell off them after this album. I think it’s just too clinical for me. Yeah, you can hear some similarities to bands I like, but it needs to be grittier. At any rate, after not falling in love right away, the door was permanently closed by one of the most annoying fan bases in music at the time.

Thundercat, “Daylight”

Thundercat is very hard to describe. Jazzy, yeah, but with some R&B, some fusion, some soft rock, some soft jazz? This is from his first album, and he doesn’t get any easier to categorize down the road.

Upsilon Acrux, “Death Before Disharmonic”

Upsilon Acrux is very hard to describe too. Math rock, prog, little bit of krautrock here and there, maybe even the occasional jazzy excursion? In the end, I’ve got to be in a mood to listen to this sort of thing, but in the right frame of mind, nothing else will do.

Claw Hammer, “Gut Feeling”

One of the things that we rail against around here are pointless covers. Especially in an age when so many of the originals are easily accessible, a cover really needs to add something. This is doubly true when it’s something truly beloved or original. However, it is possible to wrap around on the pointlessness scale of things and loop back around to cool. Claw Hammer turn that neat trick by covering the entirety of Devo’s landmark Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, playing it pretty straight. Jon Wahl’s oddball strangled wail is the primary distinguishing factor, but otherwise, it’s Devo’s record. Just listen to Devo! And yet…there’s a strange attraction. It’s pretty bizarre alchemy.

Azymuth, “Laranjeiras”

Far Out Recordings released a comp of demos from Azymuth from 1973-5 in 2019, capturing this Brazilian jazz/funk group’s sound at the height of their powers. I don’t know jack shit about them other than this, but this record seriously smokes.

The Apples In Stereo, “Energy”

You know what? Sometimes it’s ok to just enjoy a pop song. This is pleasant. It’s nice! It doesn’t matter that it’s extremely unchallenging.