Mastodon

9353, “East of Sudan”

This is really pretty avant-garde for the punk scene of 1984. I mean, sure, there were plenty of post-punk bands working in kind of adjacent spaces, but this is still pretty far out there.

Imarhan, “Ehad Wa Dagh”

We’ve had Imarhan on here before, but as always, I feel kind of inadequate writing about bands from other cultures that I’m not familiar with. Sure, I can write about, say, punk bands from the US plenty, but I guess I’m not really up to the task of writing about a rock band from Algeria, esepcially as they’re clearly blending their own influences with those of rock. It’s very cool stuff, though.

The Cinematic Orchestra, “Flite”

Last time, I described this band as sounding like a movie soundtrack from a Ninja Tune band. Not a bad description! But this sounds like maybe something that got left off of Music Is Rotted One Note. Still good!

Inquisition, “Darkness Flows Towards Unseen Horizons”

Don’t listen to these assholes! This album is from 2013, which I picked up before a bunch of bad shit came to light about them, but fuck these guys!

Eagles of Death Metal, “Anything ‘Cept The Truth”

The opening track of Heart On, the third Eagles of Death Metal album of greasy rock before they went on hiatus. For me, I think that the previous album is a little better - a little scuzzier, a little less slick. Love the handclaps here, though. Five Songs is very much a pro-handclaps space.

Dawnbreed, “Volvoteen”

This album is from 1997, from Trans Solar records out of Koblenz. Dig the CompuServe email address on the back of the album! At any rate, this is a Very Josh sounding album, certainly for that time period. Thing is - I don’t remember it! Might have bought it at a show? Might be an album that Megan bought? Did I buy it in a big batch and forget about it? Who knows?

Eddie Holland, “Take A Chance On Me”

Alas, no, this isn’t a predecessor of the ABBA song, but now I want to hear Motown style covers of ABBA songs.

The Pietasters, “Without You”

Seems like we’ve had a lot more of the Pietasters live than we have from their studio work, which is kind of a shame. A rational person might ask, well, why don’t I just remove the live record from the collection? To which I say to you, Rational Person, why the hell are you even paying attention to this dumb blog? Shouldn’t you be doing some imaginary figment business or something?

Windhand, “Halcyon”

Windhand are usually categorized as playing doom metal, which is to say that they kind of follow in the footsteps of Black Sabbath or at least Sleep. There’s aspects of the sound here which really kind of blur into adjacent genres, which is to say that there’s a certain psych-rock thing going on here, as well as more than a little grunge. Genre categorization aside, this is pretty easy listening for heavy music, and is just kind of pleasant. At least for me.

Mastodon, “Black Tongue”

With Crack The Skye, Mastodon had kind of reached the end of an exploration, into very prog-y songwriting. In a lot of ways, it mirrored where Metallica had reached with …And Justice For All, and with both bands, the next album represented a real break in style. In Metallica’s case, it was driven by tragedy, with Cliff Burton’s tragic death. In Mastodon’s case, it seemed to be driven by just a desire to move in a new direction. The Hunter, the album in question, is not their best work. It’s still very good, but I personally find the epic stuff from their previous albums more engaging. It’s not until Emperor of Sand that I’m not back fully on board.

Pretty fun one today.

Mastodon, “North Side Star”

Mastodon released Cold Dark Place in 2017, an EP of miscellaneous songs that were recorded during the sessions for Emperor of Sand and Once More ‘Round The Sun. Like most leftovers EPs, it’s a bit of a mixed bag, but basically fits in well with those albums. If you really want more latter day Mastodon, you can do worse than this record. For instance, you could buy an album from a totally unrelated band. That would be a bad move!

Stick with this, it gets good.

Negativland, “The Copyright Law (Part 2)”

The opener to the second disc of the bootleg/semi-official Negativconcertland, and while I think live albums are mostly pointless, a live album of Negativland (which had a big mixed-media audio/visual show) is extra pointless. Feel free to skip this one, y’all.

Snoop Dogg, “10 Lil’ Crips”

The Blue Carpet Treatment had multiple moments where Snoop didn’t sound totally sleepy, which means it’s one of the better late career albums for him. And then I looked, and he’s had, like, a billion albums since that one. So, this is now kind of mid-career.

Soul, a couple rap songs, some metal, and an electronic artist cutting up Fugazi. What could be better?

The Olympians, “Pluto’s Lament”

I don’t think we’ve talked that much about Daptone Records around here. Daptone is a retro soul label out of Brooklyn, releasing records by Sharon Jones, The Budos Band, Charles Bradley, and many others. While most of the artists on the label are very retro in sound, it usually still sounds pretty fresh in no small part because a lot of these types of music kind of disappeared from the music scene for a while.

Nice grab bag today. Also, have I mentioned my game is out? It is! Pick up Fox in the Forest from any good hobby store, or online, or wherever! OK, ad is over.

Joanna Newsom, “Cosmia”

Joanna Newsom made a lot of waves in the indie music community with Ys, a folk album driven by Newsom’s harp work and her bizarre vocal style. I picked it up to check it out for myself, and I couldn’t ever really get past the vocals. Listen for yourself, this track is a good example of what’s going on with her music.