Dām-Funk, “Floating On Air”

One-man band Dām-Funk does a nice job of collaborating with a wide range of interesting folks, often to fine results. This cut is the first peak on Floating on Air, featuring Flea and somebody called Computer Jay. It wanders around a little bit, but I’m totally fine with that in my electro-funk.

Calexico, “Victor Jara’s Hands”

2008’s Carried To Dust was a return back to the sounds of their best album, Feast of Wire. (As an aside, it was super gratifying when the band themselves agreed with my opinion, proving that Five Songs is never wrong.) It’s actually super admirable that Calexico will try out different styles on their records, but I’m also not sorry to get a second helping of that super lush, dusty beauty either. As always, Calexico kind of sounds like they’re making a soundtrack to a movie that doesn’t exist.

This is almost the full Five Songs experience today, we’re just missing some incomprehensible metal.

Edna’s Goldfish, “World Over”

Ahh, 1998. With The Mighty Mighty Bosstones at the peak of their popularity, with “The Impression That I Get” as a pretty big hit, it’s not a surprise that there were lots of followers who got record contracts in their wake. And so, Edna’s Goldfish. Difficult not to picture my old Civic when I listen to this.

You know, now that I’m not linking out to YouTube, I suppose I don’t have to do these intros, do I? I mean, I don’t have to do any of this, I suppose.

Oneohtrix Point Never, “Same”

Our first go-around with Oneohtrix Point Never, with a track off his best album since Replica. Rather than diving deep on a time period and exploring all the sounds from there, Age Of draws widely from whatever noises Daniel Lopatin wants to use. The result is unpredictable, but always interesting, and not a bad spot to start listening to OPN.

Still on that train!

Merle Haggard, “Go Home”

Well, I certainly like to kick things off with a story about how a guy’s racist friends broke up his relationship. Just some real cheerful shit here!

The Coup, “Me And Jesus the Pimp In a ‘79 Grenada Last Night”

Oh, it’s gonna be like that? Let’s follow up that song with a kid whose relationships were totally warped by his mentorship from a pimp, who later beats his mother to death. Heartwarming!

Super bitchin’ day today.

X-Ecutioners, “3 Boroughs”

Built From Scratch really is just a fantastic name for an album.

…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, “Insatiable Two”

I love the Trail of Dead, but can we just talk about the album cover. That is some middle school-ass shit right there! I’m gonna bet without looking that it was done by either a band member or a family member of the band.

Aden, “New Fast”

During the early 90s, parallel to grunge, there was a growing movement of indie pop bands that didn’t make a lot of headway, but were a recognizable subculture. As the 90s went on, a billion of these pillowy soft indie bands popped up. The pressure from all these bands ensured that, eventually, one or more of them would break through (it was Death Cab for Cutie, mostly).

Back in the swing of things, the ol’ muscles are starting to come back! And I 100% mail it in on a couple of these songs. It happens!

The Enemies, “Moesha”

I got nuthin’. Kind of a post-rock/math rock sort of thing going on here. I like it! Sometimes Past Josh makes good decisions!

Common, “Break My Heart”

I find Common to be a little uneven, with Finding Forever being one of the spotty records. There are high points to it, like the fat synths behind the verses on this song, for instance. But when you compare it to its immediate predecessor, Be, it just feels like it’s a half a step behind.

Well, that was fun! Nothing like coming back after a big hiatus. I mean, the music was still the same routine, and I’m just typing the same nonsense, so…uh, why do I do this again?

The Greyboy Allstars, “Jack Rabbit”

There are times when I end up with a record, and can’t figure out where it came from or why I have it. This record, I can’t figure out where it came from, but can at least can figure out why I have it. I’m sure I read a good review of it, and I’m just a sucker for instrumental funk, so here we are. Good tune! I should listen to the rest of this, and I would, except I’m going to listen to five random songs. Well, four more.

WE’RE BACK AT IT! HIT IT, PLEXASAURUS REX!

Baroness, “Rays on Pinion”

This is how the first Baroness album opens up. While they’re usually grouped with metal, and in particular often brought up in the same breath as Mastodon, they’re not really the same thing. Yeah, there is some serious riffage in here, but the separation between this and, say, some of noise rock or post-punk isn’t exactly clear. Music categorizing is a sloppy thing, y’all. Anyway, this album is good! Listen to it!

So, back in May, I stopped posting to Five Songs because YouTube were being incredible bastards (they still are), and I didn’t really want to contribute to them in even the puny, pathetic way that I was. I needed to find a new solution to stream music, with my criteria being:

1. It needed to have the ability to specify a playlist in one place
2. It needed to have the ability for me to upload my music to it, because a non-trivial percentage of the songs we have here won’t be in streaming services
3. It needed to not throw stuff out on copyright claims whenever I try and add stuff
4. It needed to not be YouTube

The first of these is pretty easy, but means I can’t just Frankenstein something together with a bunch of services. Uploading cuts out pretty much all of the big streaming services like Spotify. SoundCloud has copyright controls, so that’s out. And that leaves YouTube, which, uh, fails the last of these tests. As a result, I gave up for a while.