The Unsemble

The streak is alive!

New York Ska-Jazz Ensemble, “Low Blow”

This is from the second New York Ska-Jazz Ensemble record, Low Blow. To recap, the NYSJE was assembled from a bunch of folks from various bands in NYC, including the Toasters, the Scofflaws, and one member of the Skatalites. They play a mix of originals and compositions by other people, with this being one of the originals. All three albums are solid, and I recommend them.

The White Stripes, “Fell In Love With a Girl”

White Blood Cells still strikes me as such an unusual breakout album. The White Stripes didn’t particularly soften their approach or anything, it’s still the same kind of garage rock they’d been making to this point, and yet it really got huge. I’m not sure why them and not some other act.

Tune in to this space tomorrow when I will be baffled by other commonplace things.

Bathory, “Possessed”

Bathory’s second album, The Return of the Darkness and Evil, was one of the touchstones in black metal’s first wave. Most of the traits of the genre were in place at this point, with the murky production, shrieked vocals, satanic themes, and punishing pace. The template would get refined on Bathory’s next record, but this is one of the establishing albums.

The Unsemble, “Krishna”

The Unsemble are an experimental outfit consisting of Alexander Hacke (Einstürzende Neubauten), Duane Denison (The Jesus Lizard, Firewater), and Brian Kotzur (Silver Jews). There’s nothing really rock about it, and it doesn’t sound much like any of these folks’ other bands, other than some of Neubauten’s quieter moments. It’s an interesting listen, though, and I recommend it.

I had to upload three of these songs myself. You know you’re in for the good stuff!

Lawsuit, “Thank God You’re Doing Fine”

I just noticed now that I have a typo in the song title for my rip of this song. Huh. Anyway, Lawsuit were a local band that my friend Bill encountered in Davis, CA. They played a super fun sort of horn-and-bongo-driven rock. They never got any kind of national profile at all, or really anything outside of California, but they put out an album and EP that are both brilliant. One of the band member, KC Bowman, has showed up here before. Paul Sykes, the singer who also contributed to the songwriting, in particular was a real treasure. His mix of bounciness and despair was unique, and there’s nobody really quite like this band.

I’m going to see The Wedding Present tonight! I’m super excited, I haven’t been to a show in a bit, and they’ve been a favorite band for a long time. I’m super tempted to break my own rules to have them come up, but no, I’ll behave! If you’re behaving, you’ll throw on some tunes! Kick out the jams, Google! (Google has never kicked out any jams.)

RJD2, “The Horror”

Here we encounter another artist that is probably most famous for something other than their albums. In this case RJD2 composed the theme for “Mad Men”, which isn’t a bad encapsulation of his style. The track here is the opening from his outstanding debut album Deadringer, which is mostly instrumental tracks but does have some songs with guests rhyming on them. As opposed to DJ Vadim’s that we just heard, there’s personality on every track here, with a variety of moods, lots of great samples, and fun twists throughout. Too often, DJ albums can end up kind of self-indulgent, but this is one of the great ones.