Squarepusher

The Budos Band, “Ghost Walk”

The Budos Band are brilliant, always worth listening to, but they don’t always do cool. This song, though, is so smooth and cool, a standout from their brilliant first album.

Squarepusher, “Nux Vomica”

Burningn’n Tree is a collection of Squarepusher’s earliest EPs (one not even credited as Squarepusher), along with a few new tracks for the album. As a result of being a collection, as well as being from when Tom Jenkinson was still kind of sorting out what he wanted to sound like, it’s uneven. So it’s interesting stuff if you’re a Squarepusher sicko, but you have a lot of records to get through before you should get to this.

Squarepusher, “Tundra”

Feed Me Weird Things is Squarepusher’s debut record, where he still hewed closer to jungle than he later would on subsequent albums. But even at this early date, when he was still working to define his approach, the fusion elements still shine through pretty distinctly. In the end, there’s nothing really very standard about this, one of the stronger tracks on the record.

Vaz, “Chartreuse Blues”

Vaz is two-thirds of noise rock legends Hammerhead carrying on with tunes very much in the same aggressive vein. All growling guitars and pummeling rhythms, this is the good stuff. Starting on this record, Chartreuse Bull, they added a second guitarist, giving a more layered sound than they’d ever had, either as Vaz or Hammerhead, so this is probably the record to start with. Or go back and listen to Hammerhead’s Into the Vortex first. I’ll always recommend that record.

Squarepusher, “Iambic 5 Poetry”

Budakhan Mindphone is an EP that was released just a few months after Music Is Rotted One Note, where Tom Jenkinson broke free of the gravity of drum’n’bass and moved into really doing his own thing. The lever that broke him free was fusion, but this EP is really more of an experimental thing than pure fusion. It’s a worthwhile companion to the album, well worth looking up if you like this period of his music.

The Nation of Ulysses, “Cool Senior High School (Fight Song)”

Back in the day, there were troglodytes on Usenet that hated the Nation of Ulysses for being too arty, too pretentious, just too much. How stupid is that? This shit rocks, people are dumb.

Death Cab For Cutie, “I Will Follow You Into The Dark”

OK, you’ve all heard this song a billion times, on radio stations, as various crappy covers, and as the background music to a weepy scene on a middlebrow TV drama. So, whatever. What I want to talk about is this bit from the Wikipedia entry on the song, which I went to go look at to see how high this thing charted (which I no longer care about).

Lard, “Forkboy”

Lard, the collaboration between Jello Biafra (as you can clearly hear) and Ministry, usually sounded just like what you might expect that collab to sound like. But Ministry were having fun with it, and were just in full-on raging hardcore mode, and Jello was in fine form, so this album winds up being probably my favorite post-Kennedys Jello record.

People Under the Stairs, “Reflections”

People Under the Stairs hit their fifth album, and at this point, had really reached maturity as artists. They were now confident enough to not just crank out their old-school loop-based beats, but to add in some more compositions like this one. And to be able to write rhymes that can work together with this new style. It’s a nice addition to their toolbox, and as a result, this is probably my second-favorite album from them.

Stevie Wonder, “Pastime Paradise”

The capstone of maybe the best run of any artist, ever, Songs in the Key of Life is a sprawling double album covering an incredible amount of ground, both musically and lyrically. Wonder tackled social issues and spiritual ones, found time for some gorgeous pop songs, funk, just about everything under the sun. And he just pulls it all off with aplomb.

Spawn of Possession, “Apparition”

Symphonic tech death metal band Spawn of Possession had several albums, but I’ve only listened to this one. And mostly, it kind of drove home that this kind of symphonic stuff really isn’t my bag.

The Mr. T Experience, “Bridge to Taribithia”

Thoroughly enjoyable instrumental from Our Bodies Our Selves, one of the stronger mid-career MTX albums.

Claw Hammer, “Uncontrollable Urge”

This song is a serious jam, even when it’s a very straightforward cover of the song. I’ve decided that I really like having Claw Hammer’s album length cover of Devo’s first album in the library just to increase my chances of hearing the tunes.

Doc Hopper, “She’s a Cokehead”

Canadian pop punk band Doc Hopper is really following in the footsteps of many other bands, especially Screeching Weasel here. Ask Your Mom is a really solid record, but this one (Zigs, Yaws and Zags) is just fine.

Zoom, “Flunkie”

This record, the 1992 self-titled release from Lawrence, Kansas rock band Zoom, was one of my white whales for a long time. I used to play the album on my radio show pretty often, but never picked up a copy for myself. By the time I realized that I hadn’t gotten around to it, they were almost impossible to find. I just got in the habit of checking the “Z” section of every record store I went in, in the hopes that maybe a copy of this album would show up. Their followup record, Helium Octopede, was not too hard to track down, but this one eluded me. Eventually, Megan finally found a copy of it, and I was reunited. In the intervening years, the stature of the record had built up in my mind. Could it live up to those memories?

The Orb, “Blue Room [Edit]”

The Orb’s U.F.Orb was a big hit for ambient house, which is still a relative measure, but still. Like all electronic albums that got big, there were a host of remix singles and things that were put out. This comes from one of those singles, and is a tidy 3:12 mix of the song. This same single includes a 40:00 mix of the song, in case you wanted more. You can simulate it by playing this track thirteen times in a row.

Squarepusher, “Dust Switch”

Music is Rotted One Note is such an incredible album. I am always blown away by it. I recognize that’s not insightful, but it’s where we are.

Trumans Water, “Speeds Exceeding”

I think I’ve mentioned before my early 90s experiment of finding a band like They Might Be Giants (there’s no such thing). Trumans Water was one of the bands mentioned sometimes on Usenet (that’s one of the places people yelled at each other about their opinions before Reddit and Twitter existed) as being broadly similar, so I picked up Spasm Smash XXXOXOX Ox & Ass. And, it’s not really anything like TMBG. I suppose I can sort of squint and see some of the same restless experimentation, but without the eclectic arrangements, good natured pop sensibility, and gentle humor, it’s not really at all the same thing.