J Church

Talib Kweli, “The Proud”

Black Star underwent a slow disintegration after their one and only record, one of the best hip-hop records ever. Mos Def pursued a solo career, leaving Talib Kweli and DJ Hi-Tek to make a record together. Then, Kweli broke from Hi-Tek and made his first solo record without any of his Black Star collaborators, Quality. It’s my favorite of his pure solo records, although it doesn’t rise up to Black Star. Kweli has made a lot of records of a relatively consistent level of success, but I really only consider the records he’s done with Hi-Tek to be essential.

Marlowe, “Spring Kick”

Marlowe, the collaboration between L’Orange and Solemn Brigham, put out their second album (entitled Marlowe 2) and continued in the same vein. It’s all gnarly breakbeats, surprising samples, and rapid-fire rhymes. Lovely stuff.

Hybrid, “Doomed to Failure”

There are a lot of bands named Hybrid, if you go looking for them. This one is the extreme metal band from the US who put out a couple of albums and disappeared. It’s more like tech death metal than anything, although they’re clearly going for a blend of a lot of different things. This bit where other, non-metal genres are blended in can work, but it’s tricky, and I’m not really sure they pull it off.

STS, “All I Wanted Was A Caddy”

I’ve sung the praises of this record, but the STS and RJD2 colab from 2015 is such a gas. RJD2 is in great form, and STS is able to really bring it home on that platform. A really delightful record.

Sharon Jones, “Got a Thing On My Mind”

Hell yeah!

Lambchop, “The Daily Growl”

Lambchop’s Nixon was something of a breakthrough, gaining a lot of press attention and elevating the profile of the band. Their arrangements had been getting more and more elaborate, and Nixon is pretty busy (as Lambchop goes). So the question was, on their followup, would they keep going in that direction? No, as it turns out. Is A Woman is something of a retrenchment. The songs are pretty languid, and it’s clear at this point that Lambchop was going to just blaze their own path through music, being impossible to categorize but recognizable as just being themselves. From this album forward, Lambchop albums pretty much just always sound like Lambchop albums, and not a whole lot else.

They Might Be Giants, “Nanobots”

The title track of their 2013 album, which was the second album of a little renaissance from TMBG. Post-children’s albums, they put together two outstanding records, bursting with ideas and shimmering tunes. Join Us ranks in the first ranks of their albums, and Nanobots isn’t far behind. I think their next couple albums suffered a bit from attenuated creativity, as the Dial-a-Song project seemed stretch them a bit thin, but these two albums are really top work.

Eggs, “Erin Go Bragh!”

Hmm. Time to find out what the translation of “erin go bragh” actually is, a phrase that I know only from associations, and not what it actually means. “Ireland to the end of time”, neat!

J Church, “The Versace Killer”

From Cat Food, a mini-album that features some new tracks, a couple re-workings, an Electric Light Orchestra cover (“Turn To Stone”), and the usual commitment to rocking from J Church.

Renegade Soundwave, “Murder Music”

I will always group Renegade Sounwave with Pop Will Eat Itself in my brain, and it’s almost impossible to separate them. But, if you’ve heard both bands, I think you can hear what I’m hearing. If you cannot, don’t tell me! I don’t care!

Silkworm, “Garden City Blues”

My library of bands I could compare people to back when I picked up this album in 1994 was fairly limited, and my big thought when I listened to this was “geez, Pavement much?” And, I suppose in my defense, this song still sounds pretty Pavement-y to my ears. That description sells Silkworm very short, of course, but when this was the first song on the record, I’m going to go ahead and let Young Josh off the hook.

The Shins, “New Slang”

I sort of mentally lumped the Shins in with a bunch of other indie bands (like Death Cab) as being “fine, but not for me”. Who had the time to differentiate all these bands? It wasn’t actually until I found “For A Fool” on Rocksmith and had such a good time playing it that I paid more attention, and hey - turns out I actually really like the Shins. We wander into the music we like through a lot of different ways, and it always pays to keep your ears open.

Tool, “Intolerance”

I picked up Tool’s first album when it came out, because they kind of ran parallel to bands like Helmet, who I loved. But they never really did it for me, and I fell off them after this album. I think it’s just too clinical for me. Yeah, you can hear some similarities to bands I like, but it needs to be grittier. At any rate, after not falling in love right away, the door was permanently closed by one of the most annoying fan bases in music at the time.

400 Blows, “The Ugly Are So Beautiful”

There’s a ruthless, efficient logic at the heart of 400 Blows. The find their groove, riff, or idea and just hammer away at it. It’s not that they’re robotic or simplistic or anything, but they recognize that repetition has a power of its own, and are unafraid to make use of it. It’s the sort of music you can disassemble an engine to.

Poster Children, “0 For 1”

There was a decent sized indie rock scene in Champaign-Urbana in the late 80s/early 90s, with Hum, the excellent and forgotten Steakdaddy Six, Honcho Overload, and the Poster Children all emerging to varying levels of success. Of that group, the Poster Children had the most success at the time, signing to Sire and producing a string of well-received albums. Hum is probably the one with the best enduring reputation (especially given a comeback), but the Poster Children still hold up today as well-executed indie rock.