The Avalanches

竹村延和 (Takemura Nobukazu), “Meteor”

This is from his 2000 release, Sign, and is the outro piece after the 35-minute “Souvenir in Chicago”. A thing I really like about this is the texture of the sounds, a lot of them are stretched, torn, distorted, and otherwise manipulated in surprising little ways. A track that rewards a close listen.

Slayer, “War Ensemble”

After slowing down a bit from Reign in Blood to South of Heaven, Slayer came back roaring with Seasons in the Abyss. This is yet another classic thrash record, the final Slayer record featuring Dave Lombardo during the initial run, so it was kind of the capstone for that era of the band. While I think I still like Reign in Blood a bit more, this record is a very close second from them, and is absolutely one of the critical texts of thrash and all of metal.

The Avalanches, “The Divine Chord”

A thing I admire about Johnny Marr (who guested on this song) is that he’s cheerfully helped on about a zillion things in his post-Smiths career, and they’re pretty all over the map. And he seems happy to do it. Good for him!

Mastodon, “Stargasm”

I’ve tried on multiple occasions to love The Hunter, and I just haven’t gotten there. It’s not that it’s bad or anything, but I dunno, I just want them to be more elaborate than this. Although it’s pretty funny to call this tune as not elaborate.

Elvis Costello, “Turpentine”

I have largely ignored Costello’s work past his salad days. Imperial Bedroom is more or less the last of his records I regularly listen to. No real reason for it, honestly, I just kind of feel like I have enough Costello. I broke that rule of thumb with Momofuku, his 2008 release, after I heard it was banged out in a matter of a few weeks. I thought the urgency might be fun to listen to. And, it’s fine? It’s a Costello record, there’s nothing wrong with it. But I still just go back to his earlier records.

The Delgados, “If This Is A Plan”

There are times when I kinda run out of things to say about a band. That’s not even interesting things, mind you, just things in general. I suppose I could just straight repeat myself, but the tags would betray that, if anybody cares. Besides, I’m sure I’m unintentionally repeating myself plenty as it is. I’ve written nearly a thousand of these articles, so nearly five thousand little stories. I haven’t had five thousand distinct things happen to me in my life!

Black Flag, “Loose Nut”

When I finally got around to listening to Black Flag, I didn’t really know much about the band other than they were a legendary hardcore band, and that was kind of it. I wandered into a record store and just bought one of the records, this one, kind of at random. Little did I know that outside of the classic Damaged, their discography is kind of a mess. Loose Nut doesn’t seem to be anybody’s favorite Black Flag record, coming as it did during an extremely productive time for the band, with all the records in this period suffer a bit from kind of stretching things out. At this remove, I’m still of that opinion. Damaged and My War are the ones breaking new ground, and the rest of them are pretty hit-or-miss.

The Avalanches, “Running Red Lights (feat. Rivers Cuomo & Pink Siifu)”

The anarchic and sweet pop of the Avalanches is usually at its best when it’s barrelling along, swirling and shimmering. You know when it is not at its best? When Rivers Cuomo shows up for some reason.

New Order, “All The Way”

I think Technique is the record when New Order really shook off the last vestiges of Joy Division. It’s fully a bouncy pop record, danceable and charming. Because of that, it’s probably my favorite record of those outside of Movement.

It has been pointed out that I should probably have comments enabled on this blog. I’ll see what I can do about turning those on, although fiddling around with Ghost kind of makes me want to turn myself into a ghost. In the meantime, we soldier on! As always, you can listen along here.

Ugly Duckling, “Pay or Quit”

Ugly Duckling is a bit of an odd band, a proud throwback rap group that tries to recall a percieved golden age, with the result that they seem really disconnected from other rap acts. This ends up giving them a bit of a sui generis feel, which is dumb for a band that is explicitly trying to reference and revive the past of their musical genre. Well, whatever. Expect lots of loops, trading the mic back and forth, word-play focused rhymes, and a total lack of profanity. When the formula works, it can be pretty lively, bouncy fun. When it drags, it drags painfully.