“Kicking Television” appeared on a tour EP for the A Ghost Is Born tour, and later lent its name to their live record. Here, the track is collected onto Alpha Mike Foxtrot: Rare Tracks 1994-2014, and it’s nice to have a rocker like this be widely available again. Wilco was never really just an alt-country band, but it’s always fun to hear their style wander around a bit from their assumed baseline.
[Read More]I’ve sung the praises of this record, but the STS and RJD2 colab from 2015 is such a gas. RJD2 is in great form, and STS is able to really bring it home on that platform. A really delightful record.
Hell yeah!
Lambchop’s Nixon was something of a breakthrough, gaining a lot of press attention and elevating the profile of the band. Their arrangements had been getting more and more elaborate, and Nixon is pretty busy (as Lambchop goes). So the question was, on their followup, would they keep going in that direction? No, as it turns out. Is A Woman is something of a retrenchment. The songs are pretty languid, and it’s clear at this point that Lambchop was going to just blaze their own path through music, being impossible to categorize but recognizable as just being themselves. From this album forward, Lambchop albums pretty much just always sound like Lambchop albums, and not a whole lot else.
[Read More]Freedom Tower: No Wave Dance Party 2015 was a throwback for the Blues Explosion, bringing back the stripped down sound that they had really moved away from after Now I Got Worry. It’s pretty much just back to two guitars, Jon’s strange yelping/posturing, and of course Russel Simins wrecking it on the drums. What’s nice about it is that it doesn’t really sound like a throwback, it mostly sounds like a lost recording from that time. Which is great!
[Read More]I don’t know why I’m surprised at how minimal Lally is willing to get, given how even the most spare Fugazi songs still had a lot going on. But, it’s silly to get surprised by that, as Lally has always clearly been talented, and there’s no reason to believe he’d just make Fugazi Light once on his own.
We’ve discussed many times how J Church has put out a ton of compilations in their time, but when I look at their normal albums, I think Prophylaxis is my favorite of the bunch. It’s hard to pinpoint why exactly, as J Church didn’t really vary their sound much over the years. I suspect some of that is just that it was one of their earliest, so I spent more time with it. When you encounter an album at 19, it makes an impression! But, whatever, it’s my favorite! You can’t take that away!
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