Parquet Courts

Sunless, “Spiraling Into the Unfathomable”

There’s a sort of genre of bands like Sunless who kind of approach metal from a similar direction, but don’t seem to have a consistent name for their subgenre. Bands like Gorguts, Portal, Pyrron, and others are extremely dissonant and technical, but there’s not so much of the wheedle-wheedle-whee solo pyrotechnics that characterize tech death. So, as a descriptor, I kind of go with dissonant death metal, and that seems to work OK. As an ill-defined subgenre, though, I quite like the stuff.

Danny Weinkauf, “Champion of the Spelling Bee”

After the success of the They Might Be Giants kids albums, which included a few songs written by bassist Danny Weinkauf, he set out on his own and recorded a couple records in a similar vein. They’re pleasant enough, but by the time they were out, I didn’t really play them for the kids and so they’re just kind of in my collection.

Good one today!

Albert King, “Playing On Me”

This merger of King’s blues guitar with the Stax horns, with funk folded in, is just delightful. I need to find some more shit like this. You can add blues to the long list of music that I fundamentally know jack squat about. I’m starting to think I’m not qualified to write a music blog at all!

MU330, “Dropping The Ball”

If you’re going to combine ska and punk, you can’t half-ass it. Full tempo punk with horns, hell yeah! Yeah, this shit’s a laughingstock, but I don’t care. It’s fun! Screw y’all!