Einstürzende Neubauten

Here’s today!

Jeanne And The Darlings, “How Can You Mistreat The One You Love”

How sweet is that Memphis sound? This is a song from late in the Atlantic run for Stax/Volt, from 1967. That’s a tasty break in this song! Jeanne and the Darlings just ended up recording four singles in their career, so there isn’t a lot of followup to this tune.

Einstürzende Neubauten, “Bildbeschreibung”

There have been times in my life when I’ve bought a record that was intimidating, when I wasn’t really sure what I was getting into. Buying this album, Strategies Against Architecture II, was one of those moments. I had heard of the band, in mostly hushed tones, and I wasn’t really sure I was up for it. So strange! So noisy! So German! I didn’t honestly know if I was up for it. And the album was, indeed, something pretty far beyond what I could have expected. But I certainly liked it!

Overstuffed one today!

Steady Earnest, “Put It On”

Yes, this is the Bob Marley song. Yes, this song rules. Yes, this cover is probably pushing the tempo too much, but whatever, see point #2 above.

The Police, “One World (Not Three)”

Ghost In The Machine is easily the worst Police album, with neither of the energy and catchiness of the best of their early work, but not yet settled into the progressive pop of Synchronicity. It just doesn’t really hang together well for me, and I basically never listen to it.

Today!

Clem Snide, “Donna”

Long time reader/listeners (both of you!) know that I’m a huge Uncle Tupelo stan, but my favorite alt-country album isn’t one of theirs. It’s probably Your Favorite Music, Clem Snide’s second album. Thanks to their willingness to stretch out and leave space for Eef Barzelay’s intimate delivery and elliptical lyrics, the entire album manages to create a mood of melancholy without really giving you a specific reason for it. It’s a little disorienting that way, but then you get to the end, and you want to give it another spin.

A repeat today, so you all know what that means. SIX SONGS BABY

De La Soul, “Pain (Radio Edit)”

Feels like we’ve had this song on here before. (looks) Yeah, we have. I have to fix all the tagging/index stuff around here.

Neutral Milk Hotel, “You’ve Passed”

The focus for Neutral Milk Hotel is on In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, but On Avery Island is very good as well. It’s maybe a little more predictable, a little more just pure indie pop, but Jeff Magnum knows what he’s doing here.

Nice one today.

Fugazi, “Break-In (version)”

Fugazi released First Demo in 2014, putting out a session from just a year or so into their existence. The songs here would appear on several of their proper releases in a different (and more polished) form. But as a Fugazi obsessive, it’s great to hear how these songs first started shaping up.

New York Ska-Jazz Ensemble, “Nelson Mandela”

One of the great questions being debated by Five Songs scholars everywhere is whether I am, in fact, qualified to talk about the New York Ska-Jazz Ensemble. It’s well-established in canon that I’m not qualified to talk about jazz, of course. But half jazz? The pro camp: clearly I know some shit about ska, right? The con camp: I’m demonstrably a terminal dipshit.

Nice one today!

Yautja, “for naught”

Kind of math-rock, kind of death metal, this kind of hybrid makes me happy. Which it probably shouldn’t! This comes from the EP Songs of Lament, the followup to their excellent Songs of Descent. Both are worth looking into.

Bathory, “Shores in Flames”

Bathory were black metal pioneers, with the singer Quorthon’s strangled croak setting the template for black metal vocalists that persists today. The primitive recording and washes of guitar noise also formed one of the pillars of the genre. But, not content to provide some of the building blocks for one type of metal, Bathory re-invented themselves. The album prior to this one started experimenting with breaking out of the template, but Hammerheart showed that the template was gone. This song is the opener of that album, featuring Quorthon actually singing, and the songwriting now was focused on the epic rather than the squalid. And, indeed, Bathory had now invented the subgenre of Viking metal which, yes, is a thing. Bottom line: there aren’t very many bands that have ever been as metal as Bathory, and there aren’t very many bands more influential on the genre.

Today’s music.

μ-ziq, “Johnny Mastricht”

Electronic artist μ-ziq is the moniker of Michael Paradinas. Designed not for clubs but for headphones, μ-ziq had a great run of really interesting, inventive albums. The prize record is the fantastic Lunatic Harness, but the follow-up Royal Astronomy is great as well. This album, Bilious Paths, is very good but is a little off his peak.

Einstürzende Neubauten, “Mei Ro”

This track is from The Jewels, a compilation of a series of tracks that Neubauten posted on their site. The tracks themselves were the product of a series of formal experiments, with the band participating in games to generate constraints, and the songs were all put together very rapidly, a day or so. The results are interesting but not always super gripping.

Six songs today! Repeats are your best value here at Five Songs Incorporated!

Nitzer Ebb, “Higher (Barry Adamson Mix)”

This is from an obscure EP called As Is, a little four song thing with a grab bag of tracks on it. It was put out to precede Ebbhead, which was to be their major label debut, and was supposed to get people hyped up. It’s not a bad little EP, you know, if you’re into Nitzer Ebb.

Nice set of songs today. I am not posting this on Twitter today because I’m boycotting today in support of the #WomenBoycottTwitter protest going on.

Dumptruck, “Watch Her Fall”

Underground pop act Dumptruck was a favorite of college radio before I really listened to that sort of music, and I eventually gave them a listen after hearing so much about how great they were. They were made out to be The Band That Should Have Made It. And I like them, but I don’t have the connection to them that so many folks who were there seem to have. This comes from the only album I have, Haul of Fame, a retrospective compilation of their entire career that I recommend checking out.

Pretty rugged set today. Starts off soft, but doesn’t stay there.

Big Ass Truck, “Return to Thermopolis”

I encountered Big Ass Truck when their first record showed up at WRCT while I was working there. How was I not going to play a band called Big Ass Truck? Turned out to be a funk record, and I somehow ended up with not only that record but the followup, Kent. I’ll be honest, I haven’t thought about these guys in a long, long time. Maybe I should listen to one of the records again, see how it’s aged?