A repeat!
It seems like a concept that would be kind of evergreen - ska up some jazz standards, add a few originals, off you go. But somehow, it had diminishing returns? Each album worked a little less than the previous one, and by the third, it was down to just “fine”. It’s fine! But that’s all.
Goddamn!
[Read More]BOXING DAY. I am not doing a special today.
Cosmic Analaog Ensemble is the work of a single person, Charif Megarbane, who uses his band to explore different genres and styles. With Les Sourdes Oreilles he’s really going after what I’m going to call soundtrack funk - the sort of thing that seems like it should be in a gritty 70s movie. This entire record sounds like a lost David Axelrod record, and that’s a high compliment. If you like this track, you should pick up the whole album, it’s all of this quality.
[Read More]Steely Dan has such an interesting reputation. Unlike so many of their contemporaries, they’ve retained a cachet among music fans, and continue to be talked about in positive terms by so many folks. It’s not that it’s not deserved, it’s just not entirely clear why they haven’t just been thrown away as old fart music like so many other bands.
One of my forever bands and forever records.
[Read More]This is a punk band named X, but not THAT one. This one is from Australia, which is why Amphetamine Reptile credited them this way after re-issuing the record. This album came out in 1979, actually pre-dating the first album by the Los Angeles X, although the latter had already formed. Parallel evolution! Anyway, as you can hear, this is pretty aggressive stuff for the time, and is a solid early punk record. This is one of those records that was more inspirational than it was popular but is worth hunting down to listen to.
[Read More]Might get back into industrial dance again. I mean, sure, this shit is dumb as hell, but maybe that’s what the times demand. Get some Belgians yelling at me about vague Dystopian futures.
In case you were wondering what “Spine II” was a follow-up to.
Less Than Jake would regularly re-record songs for later albums, polishing up the previous version. It was an interesting habit because it clearly wasn’t for a lack of material - their albums were always a healthy length, and during their prime, they put things out regularly. So I think it was just a matter of them wanting to get things right. This song originally appeared on Pezcore, and they revived it for Losing Streak (this version) a year and a half later. I wonder why?
[Read More]Up For the Down Stroke is the record where George Clinton brought back the Parliament name and it represented the band going big on party friendly funk tunes. It’s the record where they really hit the big time, and the start of their essential records.
Released posthumously, Brainwashed is the final record from Harrison, and the only one I’ve actually picked up. I’m not sure I’m really the audience for this, fundamentally. It’s pleasant enough, but not something I’m going to really throw on.
[Read More]Damage was the last album before a hiatus, and so I kind of group it with the other albums from their initial sequence, and think of the post-hiatus records as a different thing. Two of these albums kind of stand out as different from the others, by virtue of having outside producers working extensively with the band and adding some new sounds into the mix. There have been electronics around since the days of the theremin, but on both Acme and this record, there is more variety to the sound. It’s all still unmistakably the Blues Explosion, of course, with the rock and blues sounds front-and-center. But the additional texture gives the two records a new sounds. Of the two, I slightly prefer Acme, but they’re both a bunch of fun.
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