竹村延和 (Takemura Nobukazu), “Meteor”

This is from his 2000 release, Sign, and is the outro piece after the 35-minute “Souvenir in Chicago”. A thing I really like about this is the texture of the sounds, a lot of them are stretched, torn, distorted, and otherwise manipulated in surprising little ways. A track that rewards a close listen.

Slayer, “War Ensemble”

After slowing down a bit from Reign in Blood to South of Heaven, Slayer came back roaring with Seasons in the Abyss. This is yet another classic thrash record, the final Slayer record featuring Dave Lombardo during the initial run, so it was kind of the capstone for that era of the band. While I think I still like Reign in Blood a bit more, this record is a very close second from them, and is absolutely one of the critical texts of thrash and all of metal.

Pinegrove, “Darkness (acoustic)”

After a very good and well-received second album (Cardinal), Pinegrove ran into some serious problems that derailed the band after accusations surfaced about Evan Hall. It was a messy situation that Hall and the band tried to handle head-on, eventually going through mediation with the accuser and leaving their label willingly when another band objected to their presence. Overall, they seemed sincere in their attempts to handle things, and it seems like the accuser was satisfied by their steps. Anyway, all of this delayed the release of their third album by a couple years, and it eventually came out self-released. For all that, Skylight is actually a good album, and it came accompanied with an acoustic interpretation (called Skylight II). That’s where this track came from, and it’s a nice little listen.

Prince Paul, “A Prince Among Thieves”

Hearing this song out of context, the climax/punchline of Prince Paul’s briliant album A Prince Among Thieves, really is kind of jarring. It makes so much sense in the original context but is a strange one outside of it. It just kind of sounds like what it is parodying, a maudlin tribute song from the 90s.

Chokebore, “Line Crush”

This is from the comp Clusterfuck ‘94, a collection of singles, album tracks, and unreleased stuff from three bands (Chokebore, Today Is The Day, and Guzzard) that was intended to fund a tour. It’s really pretty unnecessary, especially when you have most of the material on here with other records. But, you know: in ‘94, I didn’t have the ability to look stuff up easily, so I bought it. I bought basically everything Amphetamine Reptile released, just as a policy. Anyway, Chokebore is the least interesting of these three bands, but this track is OK.

Rocket From The Crypt, “Good Bye”

RFTC almost in a Smashing Pumpkins kind of mode here. Can’t decide which band would be more insulted by that comparison.

Señor Coconut, “Pisco Control (Jive Electico)”

Señor Coconut’s album of Kraftwerk covers done in a Latin style is a delight, a charming re-interpretation of the Kraftwerk originals that really highlights the beating heart at the center of those shiny, robotic songs. Alas, the first Señor Coconut record (this one, El Gran Baile) is sort of a testing ground for some of those ideas of merging electronic music with Latin style, and it’s not nearly as much fun.

Emperor, “A Fine Day to Die”

Among the various albums to emerge from the second wave of black metal, In The Nightside Eclipse seems to me to be the one that really set the template that a lot of black metal followed. While it’s inaccessible, it’s not as inaccessible as many of the other early records from the scene, and the extra elements that Emperor played with are ones that many other black metal bands would end up also playing with. As such, if you were to listen to one old black metal record to kind of understand the music, this is probably a great choice.

James Brown, “I Got You (I Feel Good)”

There’s a certain strange thing that goes on in my head around timelines. This song was first released in an early version in 1964, and it absolutely does not seem like it should be contemporaneous with, say, A Hard Days Night. Or Eddie Holland’s “Just Ain’t Enough Love” to pick an example of what Motown was up to at this time. As a consequence, the timelines for funk and soul are just completely disconnected in my brain from those of rock. I can get the progressions of both straight in my head, within their own milieu, but when I think about what they were each doing at the same time, it just doens’t fit, like a miscut jigsaw.

Spawn of Possession, “Bodiless Sleeper”

Every time Spawn of Possession has come up here I’ve mostly just complained about it. It’s all just from the same record, and you know what? Let’s move on.

Nicole Willis & the Soul Investigators, “No One’s Gonna Love You”

A little harsh there, don’t you think? No one is going to love me? My dog thinks I’m pretty neat.

Jackintosh Plus, “Desert Rider”

Hey, it’s my buddy Jack Grimes! He did the logo for this joint, hire him for your graphics needs!

The Mr. T Experience, “I’m Like Yeah, but She’s All No”

Seems like we’ve had a lot of East Bay stuff recently. Or am I just imaginging things? Anyway, it’s welcome. I might have that impression because I was listening to Operation Ivy in the car earlier today, I guess. I’m highly suggestible.

R.E.M., “Half a World Away”

Folks, do you really want to hear my thoughts on the archetypical “college rock” band? You do not. They are vapid. My thoughts, not R.E.M.

Monsula, “Concession”

Monsula were one of the bands in the East Bay who had a bunch of people from the scene move through (up to and including Five Songs favorite Lance Hahn of J Church) and thus helped really mould the sound of a lot of bands. But even setting aside influence, this is really good stuff, bringing in some post-hardcore to the punk sound of the East Bay. Both Monsula albums were re-issued by Lookout on CD as a single disc, which was a fantastic deal. I suppose you can’t get that deal these days.

Leprous, “Nighttime Disguise”

Ah Leprous, the perfect band for when you think “dang, I really want to hear a lot of time signatures.”

Cthulhu Rise, “Opus 23”

Cthulhu Rise are an instrumental prog metal/jazz fusion thing. I mean, I suppose you can hear that, huh? This whole album is like this - always moving around, always experimenting, always trying to surprise you, but you know, it also all starts to blend together a fair bit. Not bad as something to pop up randomly like this, though. A track at a time? Sure, that’s fun.