Rites of Spring

Slant 6, “Semi-Blue Tile”

Why do we make songs longer than a minute? What’s the point?

Weezer, “Smile”

OK, this track is from something called Blue / Green / Red, and I swear to you, I did not get this album from anywhere. I wouldn’t do that to myself. One hypothesis is that if you have a few Weezer albums stored together, they’ll begin reproducing. Left to their own devices, eventually a pile of Weezer records will produce self-titled records named after colors not even known to mankind.

Squarepusher, “Come On My Selector”

Early Squarepusher is very much drum ’n’ bass, albeit pretty frantic even for a genre known for punishing tempos. Squarepusher is still primarily cutting up the Amen break for the drums, for instance. You can hear his bass playing front and center here, of course, and it’s great despite being firmly in a genre. This EP, Big Loada, would kind of mark the last of the pure drum ’n’ bass, as the next album found him heading in a much more marked fusion direciton.

Much better than yesterday.

Clipse, “Chinese New Year”

Backed by the Neptunes (Pharell Williams and Chad Hugo) doing all the production, Pusha T and Malice made gangsta rap that always sounded vicious and lean. Their first two records, fueled by those fantastic beats, are pretty outstanding, even if the lyrical content is…let’s go with questionable.

Rites of Spring, “Persistent Vision”

You know, I think Guy Picciotto was more comprehensible with Rites of Spring than he was with Fugazi. I’m not entirely sure how that happens, it’s not like he wasn’t yelling with both bands.

After I kept shuffle on yesterday, I got Silkworm, Mono Puff, The Roots - lots of bands I wanted to talk about. It can be agonizing letting stuff like that go away, but rules are rules. Without rules, this whole thing just becomes “Josh writes about music however he wants” and then I’ll probably stop doing it. And then ones of people will be deprived of this scintillating work!

Up in the sky! It’s a playlist!

I’ve updated the blogging software on this thing, and I’m even poking around with new themes. Look at me, I’m…well, not professional exactly. Wasting my time? Yeah, let’s go with that. As is now traditional here at Five Songs Inc., you can listen along with me, if that’s something you’re into. Great set of songs this time around!

NoMeansNo, “Machine”

NoMeansNo started as a hardcore band, but unlike most of their peers, hung around for a long time and managed to evolve as they went along. Songs started stretching out more, some jazz started creeping in, and more than a little overt artiness. They were driven by the rhythm section, brothers Rob and John Wright, who were relentlessly inventive. NoMeansNo made my second favorite hardcore album ever, Wrong (two Wrights made a Wrong!), and continued with a string of strong albums including the source of this song, Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy. I’m not sure how much people know them outside of folks living on the west coast during the late 80s/early 90s, but it’s a shame, they should have a higher profile.