Flamingosis

They Might Be Giants, “Can’t Keep Jonny Down”

John Linnell is probably my favorite songwriter ever, and so it means a lot when I say that “Some dude / Hitting golf balls on the moon / Bathroom in his pants / And he thinks he’s better than me” might be my favorite lyric he’s ever written.

johnboy, “Chair”

I miss the heyday of noise rock. There were so many bands doing cool shit in the early 90s, and you could just find new stuff all the time. I suppose it might still be happening somewhere still, and I’m just not plugged in enough to find out about it. Is anybody doing a noise rock blog?

Flamingosis, “Those Eyes”

Discogs describes Flamingosis as “chillwave” and “disco”, and, sure, whatever. There’s some synth pop here, some electro-funk, some straight up pop - the sort of thing that sounds nostalgic without actually really evoking anything specific. In this song, there are actually some Soul II Soul vibes going on here. Which, in turn, brings me to two memories of Soul II Soul. The first is that they were weirdly one of the contemporary (at the time) bands that my dad and I both really liked. He bought his own copy of a couple of their albums, we used to listen to them in the car, it was great.

Lots of electronics today.

Prefuse 73, “140 Jabs Interlude”

Rivington Não Rio, the 2015 album from Prefuse 73, was something of a return to form for Scott Herren, his best work since Surrounded by Silence for my money. This track takes a little bit to get going, by turns downright pyrotechnic by the end, and Herren’s beats are great when he’s really going for it.

RJD2, “Shot In The Dark”

Prior to firing shuffle up for Five Songs, I had just been listen to STS x RJD2, a delightful collaboration featuring some absolutely ferocious work from RJD2. He’s still never beaten Deadringer, mind you. But I wanted to plug the fact that he’s done some cool shit otherwise.