Palace Music

Hot Chip, “One Pure Thought”

Hot Chip is dance music, basically, with some nice melodies. But while this is perfectly nice, it’s never really clicked with me very much, and I just have the one album from them. I guess the closest thing I listen to regularly is LCD Soundsystem, and it’s not totally clear why I prefer one over the other.

Pond, “Perfect Four”

As always, a quick clarification that this is the rock band from Portland in the mid-90s, not the Australian band in the 2010s. Pond more-or-less arrived fully formed with their first, eponymous album. While their songwriting would get sharper, this album is still chock full of excellent rock. That they should be claimed by the anti-grunge vortex is one of the shames of the 90s.

Excellent one today.

Joe Lally, “Message From Earth”

I don’t know why I’m surprised at how minimal Lally is willing to get, given how even the most spare Fugazi songs still had a lot going on. But, it’s silly to get surprised by that, as Lally has always clearly been talented, and there’s no reason to believe he’d just make Fugazi Light once on his own.

J Church, “Chemicals”

We’ve discussed many times how J Church has put out a ton of compilations in their time, but when I look at their normal albums, I think Prophylaxis is my favorite of the bunch. It’s hard to pinpoint why exactly, as J Church didn’t really vary their sound much over the years. I suspect some of that is just that it was one of their earliest, so I spent more time with it. When you encounter an album at 19, it makes an impression! But, whatever, it’s my favorite! You can’t take that away!