The Twilight Singers

Valentine’s Day! Let’s do a special!

The Twilight Singers, “Candy Cany Crawl”

No! That’s the wrong kind of candy! Stupid randomizer.

Snoop Dogg, “Candy (Drippin’ Like Water)”

That’s the wrong kind of candy also! Starting to think that “candy” is mostly used as a metaphor in songs for other things than, you know, candy.

The Spinanes, “Kid in Candy”

First, before we examine the candy content of the song, let’s just take a moment and just marvel at how much fun it is to listen to Scott Plouf go on the drums. And Rebecca Gates is always a marvel. What a pleasure.

Witchcraft, “The Outcast”

Doom metal can sometimes just be code for “wants to be Black Sabbath”, and while that’s not such a bad thing, bands definitely have differing levels of skill at it. Sweden’s Witchcraft have been at it for a long time, and as a result, they’re pretty good at it. By the time they hit this album (2016’s Nucleus), the truth is that they’re actually channeling a whole lot of 70s rock and not just Sabbath. There are distinct notes of, say, Jethro Tull going on here.

Wasted Shirt, “Double the Dream”

Wasted Shirt is Brian Chippendale (Lightning Bolt) and Ty Segall, playing the sort of demented noise duo rock that Chippendale in particular is known for. There’s only one album of it, called Fungus II, but it’s well-worth picking up if you’re a Lightning Bolt fan.

Prefuse 73, “See More Than Just Stars”

From Prefuse 73’s 2015 album, Rivington Não Rio, an album that strikes me as more tuneful and a little tamer than his earlier work. Still pretty good, though, although I generally prefer the more chaotic stuff.

Two Fingers, “Moth Rhythm”

Most of the tracks on the Amon Tobin side project feature Sway rapping on them, but this is one of the two songs that does not. As a result, this just sounds like an Amon Tobin song. Contemplative for him, sure, but still a Tobin song. Not that that is a bad thing.

British Sea Power, “Be Gone”

British Sea Power play pretty nuts-and-bolts indie rock. This is from their second album, which doesn’t show a ton of evolution from the first record. It’s good, but I’m not sure it’s super memorable.

Nice one today.

Fugazi, “Break-In (version)”

Fugazi released First Demo in 2014, putting out a session from just a year or so into their existence. The songs here would appear on several of their proper releases in a different (and more polished) form. But as a Fugazi obsessive, it’s great to hear how these songs first started shaping up.

New York Ska-Jazz Ensemble, “Nelson Mandela”

One of the great questions being debated by Five Songs scholars everywhere is whether I am, in fact, qualified to talk about the New York Ska-Jazz Ensemble. It’s well-established in canon that I’m not qualified to talk about jazz, of course. But half jazz? The pro camp: clearly I know some shit about ska, right? The con camp: I’m demonstrably a terminal dipshit.