PUP

John Oswald, “O’hell (Sir Jim Moron)”

Beyond the disorienting pluderphonics thing being totally in Five Songs’ wheelhouse, anything which calls Jim Morrison a moron is A-OK with us here.

The Melvins, “Honey Bucket”

The Melvins’ 2021 release, Five Legged Dog, is an all-acoustic exploration of their sound. It features songs from across their entire catalog, alongside some assorted covers of other bands. This tune comes from their major label breakthrough (?) Houdini, and it’s fun to hear an alternate take on it like this. It’s impressive how heavy they can get this to sound without the usual roaring amps. This is an inessential record, but any Melvins weirdo needs to hear it.

Joe Lally, “Day Is Born”

The first track to Lally’s second record, giving a good idea of what sort of bass-forward tunes you can expect to hear from him. If you’ve listened to Fugazi’s instrumentals, you’ll have a decent picture in mind also, even though Lally does sing.

House of Lightning, “James Brown”

Part of the Floor family tree, House of Lightning shares members with Floor and, as you can hear, aesthetics. If you’re looking for more stuff in that vein, of really big riffs and melodies and some clean singing, you’re in the right spot.

Spawn of Possession, “Where Angels Go Demons Follow”

I dunno, the vocals on this track are really amusing me tonight. Something about the cadence here is extra ridiculous.

Negativland, “Cityman”

Negativland, in their roles as cultural and social critics, were usually on their strongest footing when they took aim at consumerism. They would always have such rich vocal samples to draw from, and their pointed sarcasm always landed well. And it’s not like it’s super easy to nail this target. Yes, consumer culture in America is a giant blimp, but criticism can come across a smug or facile here because it is such a easy path. Negativland succeed because they mix the absurd in, and they also let our consumer culture speak for itself. The most powerful criticism can be just a simple mirror.

It was wobbly a few times there, but another month in the books. As always, thanks for sticking with me here!

BIG|BRAVE, “Do.No.Harm.Do.No.Wrong.Do.No.Harm.Do.No.Wrong.Do.No.Harm.Do.No.Wrong”

If you were just given the data above, the name of this song and the name of this band, I wonder how close you’d get to guessing that it sounds like this kind of abrasive drone? I think I’d guess something pretty outré, at any rate, so I might get pretty close to “early Swans, I guess?” But that’s easy for me to say, I already knew what this sounded like.

Skinnerbox, “Trying To Be Cool”

Skinnerbox’s What You Can Do, What You Can’t is a charming album from the third wave, full of personality and a distinctive sound, especially King Django’s vocals. Alas, the followup record Demonstration, which gives us this tune, feels really flattened. It sounds to me like a bit of a cynical shot at radio play by injecting some punk into the sound, and it just kind of makes Skinnerbox sound like everybody else.