Posts

RJD2, “Sell The World”

I think we’ve had a couple tracks from The Horror by now, which is kind of a companion EP/remix project to go along with Deadringer. Unlike a lot of these kinds of revists/companion pieces, it’s very much a worthy release in its own right and not just riding the coattails of another album.

Vaz, “Chartreuse Blues”

Why, it seems like just the other day that I got really fired up about Vaz and Hammerhead. And here they are, back for another tune. “Tune”? Blast. Whatever! Love this stuff.

Valentine Six, “Always Is My Name”

Here’s a little bit of an oddball. Valentine Six put out one album in 1997, full of this kind of lounge-y sort of thing. Clearly more than a little Tom Waits in the DNA here, maybe just a little bit of Nick Cave. It’s pretty good, and I haven’t thought about this band in ages.

Morrissey, “He Knows I’d Love To See Him”

Like lots of other people, I was curious to see what the various members of the Smiths would get up to after that band broke apart. I picked up a couple of Morrissey’s EPs, and honestly, didn’t really follow him from there. I mean, yeah, this is clearly a Morrissey song, but I guess I had enough of him from the Smiths’ albums?

Jungle Fire, “La Kossa”

Jungle Fire, out of LA, play Afro beat and funk, clearly heavily inspired by the usual folks like Fela Kuti and James Brown. Nothing wrong with that! Anyway, this is from their 2017 album on Colemine records, and I really appreciate the drama of this. There’s a lot of Kool & the Gang that I hear, and that works for me.

Lee Alan, “Set Me Free”

Look, not every single Motown put out during their heyday was a slam dunk. But even the goofier ones are still short, at least.

Bell Witch, “Suffocation, A Burial: I - Awoken (Breathing Teeth)”

First things first, that is a MAGNIFICENT name for a metal song. A roman numeral, a parenthetical, just all kinds of extra junk. Spectacular.

At any rate, the other day I referred to Pallbearer as the standard bearers for doom metal, but I think that’s maybe not quite right. They’re probably the most popular, but Seattle’s duo of Bell Witch is probably more critically acclaimed. A lot of that praise comes more from their 2017 release (Mirror Reaper), but this from 2015’s Four Phantoms gives a good idea of what the band is about. The microgenre they play in is called funeral doom, and you can see why.

Squarepusher, “Dust Switch”

Music is Rotted One Note is such an incredible album. I am always blown away by it. I recognize that’s not insightful, but it’s where we are.

Trumans Water, “Speeds Exceeding”

I think I’ve mentioned before my early 90s experiment of finding a band like They Might Be Giants (there’s no such thing). Trumans Water was one of the bands mentioned sometimes on Usenet (that’s one of the places people yelled at each other about their opinions before Reddit and Twitter existed) as being broadly similar, so I picked up Spasm Smash XXXOXOX Ox & Ass. And, it’s not really anything like TMBG. I suppose I can sort of squint and see some of the same restless experimentation, but without the eclectic arrangements, good natured pop sensibility, and gentle humor, it’s not really at all the same thing.

New York Ska-Jazz Ensemble, “Haitian Fight Song”

This version of the great Charles Mingus song is actually the version that got me to go look up Mingus and learn more about him and buy a bunch of his records. It’s such a great song.

Pallbearer, “Atlantis”

This is the a-side from the Pallbearer single from 2019 on Sub Pop. Thanks to their 2017 record, Foundations of Burden, breaking free from the metal press and getting broader attention, Pallbearer have become the standard bearers of doom metal. But there are certainly times that Pallbearer doesn’t sound like doom metal so much as just plain ol’ heavy metal. Which is totally fine! They sound good, and there’s nothing wrong with just heavy metal.

Pyrrhon, “The Invisible Hand Holds A Whip”

Every three years, discordant death metal masters Pyrrhon fire off a new album, and every three years, it whips. I first encountered them with their second record, The Mother of Virtues, and have eagerly followed them since then. While they were dropped by Relapse records after that masterwork, they haven’t slowed down. I recognize totally that this stuff is repellant and bizarre, but it’s compelling in ways I don’t totally understand.

The Orb, “Into The Fourth Dimension: Essenes Beyond Control”

Little Fluffy Clouds was one of the first things that ambient electronic artists The Orb released, and I picked it up as part of a foray into whether I liked electronic music at that time. I knew some folks that were into going to raves and things, and thought, eh, I like industrial enough, maybe I’ll like this too. I never really got into it, though, at least not at that time. Wasn’t too wild about raves either. It wasn’t until I encountered more frantic genres of electronic music that I really got it.

Green Day, “Basket Case”

I know they became clownish and bad, and that continuing to like them is evidence of creeping Boomerism, but I don’t care, this album rules and this song rules.

Yves Tumor, “Romanticist”

I had my annual tour through the year end album lists a month or so ago, and this Yves Tumor album was one of the big winners. It’s very good! I’m not sure what I was expecting from a band named Yves Tumor, but I don’t think it was this. Among other things, Yves Tumor isn’t a band, it’s a person. Anyway, excellent album.

Samiam, “Head Trap”

Samiam were part of the punk scene that would eventualy spawn Green Day. As the labels moved in, hunting for the next big thing, Samiam found themselves on Atlantic Records for a single album, which is as close as they got to breaking through. I always felt like they deserved a bigger audience, and it was a little sad that they didn’t connect. At any rate, this actually comes from the album right before their major label record, Billy, which is my favorite album from them.