Posts

Some authentically old music, and some music that wishes it was older than it is.

Craw, “Eidolons”

I really cannot emphasize how happy it makes me that there are folks that are going back into our past and bringing bands to our attention. Craw’s revival via Kickstarter is one great example, but also labels like Light in the Attic and Numero Group are doing great work. There are so many amazing bands who might have not gotten a fair shake the first time around, and finding them is fantastic. Anyway, Craw is really good!

Pretty angry set of songs today, mostly.

Ice Cube, “I Wanna Kill Sam”

Here, we have Ice Cube from one of his peak albums, in full-on fury at the state of America. I love the break in the middle of the song. At any rate, when Ice Cube was at the top of his form, there wasn’t anybody better.

Jesus Jones, “Your Crusade”

There was a brief boomlet in “Madchester” music, centered around the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays, which combined alternative rock with dance music, giving an interesting hybrid. Technically, being from London instead of Manchester, Jesus Jones weren’t actually part of that scene, but spiritually, they were. Doubt, their second album, was a massive hit, thanks to “Right Here, Right Now”. Their followup record, Perverse, is impressive in one way: they could have basically made a carbon copy of their huge breakthrough album, but they chose instead to make some big changes to their style. In particular, they pushed the electronic stuff to the fore, rather than leaning more in the rock direction.

Music!

The Microphones, “You’ll Be In The Air”

There are going to be a fair number of artists where I exhaust what I know about them or have to say about them fairly quickly. The Microphones are one of them. You can check out the previouslys down below for my previous tepid takes!

Overall, this is one of my concerns of this project - will I just run out of things to say about everything? Will it just devolve into random junk? Probably. I could critique the exact song in question, I suppose, but I’m not sure I really have the musical vocabulary to make that work consistently.

Another day of all bands we’ve had before. I think that’s fun! Here are your repeat offenders!

Napalm Death, “Moral Crusade”

Even though it sounds like it was recorded at the bottom of a murky pond, you can still hear what stunned people about Napalm Death’s debut. It sounds so extreme, so otherworldly, that it’s pretty hard to comprehend at first. Mick Harris’s drums, in particular, sound almost incomprehensibly fast.

Farside, “I Hope You’re Unhappy”

Farside here are operating in sort of a mid-tempo alternative rock mode, but I still find it enjoyable despite that. I also enjoy it when bands break the fourth wall like this.

There’s nothing special about today. Sorry about that, after yesterday being our first special and all. Just some tunes for you.

JD And The Evil’s Dynamite Band, “My Beach, My Waves, Fuck Off!”

Funk revivalists on Soul Fire records, you’ll encounter few artists quite as dedicated to re-creating the feel and experimentation of the original funk scene as these folks. There’s only one album from them, though, and I don’t really know much more about them than that.

It’s eclipse day! I hope everybody had a chance to check things out. I did here, and I thought it was pretty neat, but the boy didn’t seem to care very much. Ah well. In honor of the event, we have our first Five Songs Special! I searched for “moon” in my library, giving 261 tracks. I then used random.org to generate five numbers, picked those tracks, and got us this list! Enjoy it along with me, won’t you?

Totally forgot to post yesterday. I’m super flaky this week. Sorry about that! Here’s some music for today, at least.

Less Than Jake, “The Troubles”

A few things distinguish Less Than Jake from the many other ska-punk bands that all started up at roughly the same time. The first is that they were more punk than ska, refusing to be tied down to the gimmick. The second is that the quality of their songs was, in general, much stronger than most of their peers. The third is probably the most important, which is that they lasted for forever. I’ve got eight albums from them, and I don’t think I have their entire discography. I think their sweet spot is from Losing Streak through Anthem, personally. This song comes from their most recent album, though.

METAL WOOOOO \m/ \m/ \m

Deathspell Omega, “Sola Fide I”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Deathspell Omega turn out to be Nazi shitheads, and you should not in any way patronize them. I’m leaving the original text here, but fuck these guys.

One of the attractions of extreme metal is the virtuosity that bands can display. A talented band like Deathspell Omega can really make you wonder exactly how they can manage to create that kind of racket. But it’s not just the spectacle with this band. Deathspell Omega is incredibly adept at evoking a mood, and they create songs that go to very interesting places. This track, from Si Monumentum Requiris, Circumspice (“if you seek his monument, look around”, from an inscription on the grave of Sir Christopher Wren inside St. Paul’s Cathedral), is a good example of the drama that they can create within a song.

A bit of a mixed bag today. Too bad we missed the Amon Tobin track that immediately followed these!

Arsonists, “Blaze”

Underground rap act out of Brooklyn, Arsonists are odd simply for the fact that they signed to legendary indie rock label Matador for their two records. The two turned out to be excellent, with the group itself doing all the production as well as the rhyming, which is always a pleasure. I can’t really think of any other rap artists who ended up on Matador off the top of my head, so this remains just a fascinating experiment for the label.

Yeah! Old Primus! Soul! Kid music?

Labradford, “WR”

The other day, we had Kranky labelmates Jessamine, but here’s the band I associate most with that label, Labradford. Post-rock-y, drone-y, sometimes very experimental, Labradford had a very interesting run of a half dozen albums on Kranky which were all very interesting. Most of the time, they were working with instrumental stuff, and I find it to be really pleasant stuff to put on when I’m working. That sounds like a backhanded compliment, but it’s not intended to be.