The Mekons

Uncle Tupelo, “Looking For A Way Out (Demo)”

This comes from the deluxe reissue of Uncle Tupelo’s second album, Still Feel Gone. And, you know what? I’m just going to get sentimental here. I really miss Uncle Tupelo! I know that we ended up with plenty of great music from Tweedy and Farrar, so it’s not some tragedy or anything. And maybe their partnership breaking down is one of the things that unleashed their creativity, sure, sure. But, their alchemy was special, and Uncle Tupelo was brilliant and still touches me. I miss ’em.

Run the Jewels, “Early (feat. BOOTS)”

I still think Run The Jewels 2 is the best album from them. In fact, let’s do this!

Run The Jewels 2 RTJ4 R.A.P. Music (aka RTJ 0) Run the Jewels 3 Run the Jewels Meow the Jewels

Broham, “Nothing In Common”

Oh man, that is sweet. Listen to that bass! The horns!

Baby Elephant, “Turn My Teeth Up!”

Baby Elephant is eccentric genius Prince Paul teaming up with funk legend Bernie Worrell for an album of off-kilter funk. Worrell is incapable of not sounding like a million bucks, and Prince Paul is, as mentioned a sentence ago, a genius. So, this album rules.

Azymuth, “Laranjeiras”

Far Out Recordings released a comp of demos from Azymuth from 1973-5 in 2019, capturing this Brazilian jazz/funk group’s sound at the height of their powers. I don’t know jack shit about them other than this, but this record seriously smokes.

The Apples In Stereo, “Energy”

You know what? Sometimes it’s ok to just enjoy a pop song. This is pleasant. It’s nice! It doesn’t matter that it’s extremely unchallenging.

Flying Lotus, “Takashi”

It’s a little hard to describe Flying Lotus accurately. “Electronic” feels wholly inadequate. “Fusion” is accurate, yes, but also feels like it’s not really highlighting what he’s fusing. There’s lots of jazz and experimental electronic music here, some funk…just kind of lots of everything. It’s great! But hard to describe. Luckily, you can just listen to it.

The Mekons, “Wicked Midnite”

I don’t always have a ton to say about bands. The Mekons were good!

Nation of Ulysses, “The Sound of Young America”

I need more art punk in my life. Nation of Ulysses was unafraid to just go for it, with their over-the-top political polemics, the atonal honking of the trumpet, the odd song structures, or whatever other pretensions they were willing to put on. They also carried it off with straight faces, which just helped carry things. As I get older, I’m happier with bands that staked out their own territory. Nobody really sounds like the Nation of Ulysses, and that’s really valuable.

You know, now that I’m not linking out to YouTube, I suppose I don’t have to do these intros, do I? I mean, I don’t have to do any of this, I suppose.

Oneohtrix Point Never, “Same”

Our first go-around with Oneohtrix Point Never, with a track off his best album since Replica. Rather than diving deep on a time period and exploring all the sounds from there, Age Of draws widely from whatever noises Daniel Lopatin wants to use. The result is unpredictable, but always interesting, and not a bad spot to start listening to OPN.

I try and mention it periodically: there’s an index of these posts. Just in case you want to go poking around in there. We also have music for today!

Rocket From the Crypt, “Strangehold”

I know I brought up the horns before, but it really is a shame that the sax is regarded as hopelessly cheesy in a rock context. We should reclaim the sax! Rocket From the Crypt did their part, anyway.