The Chemical Brothers

Folks, we’ve got a special thing today! Our first ever Five Songs Guest Post! That’s right! For the first time ever, Five Songs is an actual “we” instead of a royal “we”! This guest track listing was provided by Col. Hector Bravado, founder of Breakup Gaming Society, home to America’s Least Responsible Board Game Podcast. Riff with him on Twitter (@T1ChiefRocka) or listen. We’re going all instrumental today, and now I’m going to turn over the mic!

Run-D.M.C., “Raising Hell”

I’m sure I’ve told the story before, but Raising Hell was the first album I remember buying for myself. I heard “Peter Piper” on the radio while we were driving to Pullman, WA, and I was entranced. I didn’t know exactly what that was, but I memorized the name of the act, and later found the cassette tape and bought it for myself. There was a certain excitement in buying a record with a bad word in the title, as well as just the unknown of not really knowing what to expect from it. I loved it, of course, and I still listen to this album to this day. While I didn’t become a music hound right away, this was my first step down that path, and will always hold a special place for me.

The Chemical Brothers, “Where Do I Begin”

We’ve talked before about how “Block Rockin’ Beats” was (deservedly) a galactic scale hit. I have to wonder how people who bought the record thought about the rest of the album, which is excellent, but which gleefully throws genre after genre into the blender and is pretty all over the map. I’d like to think that people put it on and thought “fuck yeah”.

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.

Panopticon, “Blåtimen”

Panopticon, the band that is actually just Austin Lunn, gained attention with Kentucky, where Lunn merged his love of Appalachian folk music with his love of black metal and produced an amalagam of the two, creating one of the most distinctive and interesting black metal albums ever. A couple albums down the road from his breakthrough, and he was still playing both of his loves. The Scars of Man on the Once Nameless Wilderness is a double album, and unlike Kentucky, it’s more two halves rather than a melding of the two styles. There’s a midpoint in the double album where it switches from the black metal to the folk. Lunn is an expert at both, so as long as you’re OK with both styles, it’s a great record. This, uh, is from the black metal half.

Killer Mike, “R.A.P. Music”

I often refer to Killer Mike’s R.A.P. Music as “Run The Jewels 0”, featuring as it does the core duo from RtJ. The approach that El-P takes on the beats is definitely on the continuum that would develop into RtJ, and of course, Killer Mike is on point. The only real difference between this and a full RtJ album is that El-P stays off the mic. Every fan of RtJ owes it to themselves to get this record.