Chance the Rapper

The Story So Far, “Line”

I don’t remember picking up this record, but I guess it’s not a huge surprise. Pure Noise Records might be how I found it? Anyway, pleasant enough.

But enough of that. Somehow Plex thinks that this album came out on something called “Ice Grill$”, and I really like an alternate universe where that was the only change, and thinking of baffled consumers on both sides encountering the album.

Monobody, “Raytracing”

Monobody is an instrumental math rock band from Chicago, with a couple of albums so far. This is from the second, Raytracing. Their music has more than a little bit of jazz fusion going on in things, and is definitely more towards the cerebral end of math rock.

Coalesce, “Cowards.com”

Hey, it’s the other end of math rock! Always enjoyable when songs from the late nineties have web references in them.

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, “Mars, Arizona”

Damage was the last album before a hiatus, and so I kind of group it with the other albums from their initial sequence, and think of the post-hiatus records as a different thing. Two of these albums kind of stand out as different from the others, by virtue of having outside producers working extensively with the band and adding some new sounds into the mix. There have been electronics around since the days of the theremin, but on both Acme and this record, there is more variety to the sound. It’s all still unmistakably the Blues Explosion, of course, with the rock and blues sounds front-and-center. But the additional texture gives the two records a new sounds. Of the two, I slightly prefer Acme, but they’re both a bunch of fun.

Here’s today.

Mouse on Mars, “First: Break”

A thing that unifies a lot of my music taste is a certain amount of boundary pushing and unpredictability. It’s why on the electronic side I tend to prefer noisy, hyperactive stuff rather than music from the ambient side of things. This spastic…tune?…is a good example. It doesn’t make any goddamn sense at all, but whatever, it’s fun.

Chance the Rapper, “Summer Friends”

There’s a warmth and humanity in Chance’s work that is lovely to hear. It’s as human as that Mouse on Mars track is cold and mechanical. We here at Five Songs contain multitudes!

Strange mix today, but some great stuff.

The Meters, “Here Comes The Meter Man”

I hope one day to make a sound even half as cool as the noises that Ziggy Modeliste is making on the drums on this song. You get those ten hour loops on YouTube of every annoying noise on the planet, can I get a ten hour loop of the drum break on this song? (Answer: probably, yes.)

Still haven’t missed a day yet this year!

Ghostface Killah, “Ghost Is Back”

I think Ghost’s skits just kept becoming less comprehensible as time went on. They’re not even really skits any more. There appears to be no bottom to the gibberish. Anyway, this is from More Fish, which isn’t as good as Fishscale. But still a decent album. Good song once it actually gets going.

The Mortals, “Hangin’ On”

The Seattle grunge scene wasn’t really the only game in town at that time. While those acts became nationally famous, there were other robust rock scenes in town at the same time. Estrus Records was at the center of a garage and surf revival, including bands like the Mono Men, Gas Huffer, Man Or Astro-man?, and today’s act, the Mortals. This is pretty nuts-and-bolts rock, but played with plenty of energy, so that’s welcome. The second Mortals record, Bulletproof, is probably their best.