Shellac

Einstürzende Neubauten, “Stella Maris”

Ende Neu felt like a bit of a reset for the band, which makes some sense after one of the founding members departed. There’s a lot more things on here that you’d characterize as songs, even nice ones. That’s not to say that it’s conventional, just that the surface of it is pretty conventional. But as always, Neubauten is in the details, and it’s a good album after you dig in, although they’d get more comfortable in this new format on subsequent records.

Polvo, “Bridesmaid Blues”

I just looked and realized that Cor-Crane Secret, the first Polvo album, is missing fromy my library. I’m not sure where it went, I absolutely had the CD back in the day. Lost? Never got ripped? Dropped on the floor during one of the library’s migrations from place to place? Who knows? But thanks to the magic of Bandcamp, I can replace it. And Shapes, which was also missing. It’s Polvo day here!

Talib Kweli, “Guerilla Monsoon Rap”

I don’t normally list guest artists on the title line, but check it: Black Thought and Pharoahe Monch. Super nice! Kweli is at his best when he’s got other top-tier MCs to work with, part of the alchemy of Black Star.

Conlon Nancarrow, “Study For Player Piano No. 14”

As always, there’s nothing really like Nancarrow, with music that feels about as alien as possible while still seeming like there’s a plan. Even if you can’t actually put your finger on that plan.

The Miracles, “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me”

The vocal R&B band the Miracles are mostly known for launching the career of Smokey Robinson, but they had a long string of hits in their own right as well. I mean, this is basically irresistable.

Hammerhead, “Once Again…With Feeling”

Can I just re-iterate how delighted I am that Hammerhead got back together and recorded a bunch of new material? Coming across multiple Hammerhead records that I’d never heard before at once was such a delight. Listen to this! The urgency of the rhythm, the noisy grumbling of all the guitar and bass, the spacey breakdown, I’m just so happy.

Happy birthday, Five Songs! Four years ago, I kicked this thing off. If I’m counting properly, this is entry 776. At least. It’s possible I missed a tag or two somewhere. That’s 3,880 songs! Approximately! Because I’m sure I’ve missed duplicates somewhere. But I did do 26 songs from the Melvins, which helps make up for it.

Anyway! It’s come and gone a bit, and I’m not sure how much longer I can keep up the updating every day pace. But I thank everybody who has tuned in to one of these, who has commented here or on Twitter, and just generally said kind words. It’s very appreciated when it’s acknowledged that somebody besides me is paying any attention. So thank you! And on to the tunes!

Albert King, “Born Under a Bad Sign”

Majestic. I’m just going to fuck this up if I try and write something.

Chemical Brothers, “Block Rockin’ Beats”

Last time we had a track from this album, I expressed mystification that the Chemical Brothers had a moment. But you know what? This song is a fuckin’ force of nature, of course it was huge. Listen to it!

Indian Handcrafts, “Starcraft”

We’re big fans of noisy duos here at Five Songs, so of course Indian Handcrafts is up our alley. They’re more towards the Melvins end of things, putting them in the vicinity of Big Business more than anybody. Big stoner vibes, and huge riffs. It’s impressive that this is just a guitar and drums.

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.

Reminder! Go to Bandcamp today and buy some tunes to support artists and transgender rights! You can listen to these while you do it!

Shellac, “Steady As She Goes”

Let’s do a quick ranking of Shellac’s albums:

• At Action Park
• Excellent Italian Greyhound
• 1000 Hurts
• Dude Incredible
• Terraform

But really, they’re all good albums. I look forward to another Shellac album in another three years or so.

Duke Ellington, “The Tattooed Bride [Album Version]”

Wow, my rip of this song is hopelessly goofed up. Ugh. I should really re-rip it, but that would require digging it out of the boxes, and ugh, I’m not going to do that either. This is from the collection The Duke: The Columbia Years (1927-1962). Also, as always, I’m not qualified to write about jazz.

I’m going to see The Wedding Present tonight! I’m super excited, I haven’t been to a show in a bit, and they’ve been a favorite band for a long time. I’m super tempted to break my own rules to have them come up, but no, I’ll behave! If you’re behaving, you’ll throw on some tunes! Kick out the jams, Google! (Google has never kicked out any jams.)

RJD2, “The Horror”

Here we encounter another artist that is probably most famous for something other than their albums. In this case RJD2 composed the theme for “Mad Men”, which isn’t a bad encapsulation of his style. The track here is the opening from his outstanding debut album Deadringer, which is mostly instrumental tracks but does have some songs with guests rhyming on them. As opposed to DJ Vadim’s that we just heard, there’s personality on every track here, with a variety of moods, lots of great samples, and fun twists throughout. Too often, DJ albums can end up kind of self-indulgent, but this is one of the great ones.