Wu-Tang Clan

No intro today, because I’m working on something Five Songs-related that will be fun, and I’m going to get back to that. So on to the tunes!

Tortoise & Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, “It’s Expected I’m Gone”

Will Oldham hasn’t exactly had a conventional career, ranging from his frequent name changes, the prolific output, and the often odd direction of his music. But this collaboration with post-rock titans Tortoise is one of the oddest moves of the lot. For starters, the collab doesn’t make a lot of sense. The ultra-cool Tortoise, with their calm precision and sometimes cold affect, seems like an odd fit with Oldham’s often messy but human style. But even beyond that, they hooked up to make a covers record. And those covers are of songs from a huge range of artists, from superstars like Bruce Springsteen or Elton John, to international artists, to underground favorites such as today’s subject, the Minutemen.

The Roots, “We Got You”

Just a brief thing from the Roots’ live album, I won’t spend more time on this than it lasts.

Wu-Tang Clan, “A Better Tomorrow”

The way the drums start up on this track, that’s such a RZA move. The distant piano loop also is a signature. These days, if I came into a beat blind, I couldn’t be sure if it’s a RZA track or not, because his style has been adopted by a lot of folks. But in 1997? Yeah, I could easily pick his stuff out.

X (Australia), “Suck Suck”

This is a punk band named X, but not THAT one. This one is from Australia, which is why Amphetamine Reptile credited them this way after re-issuing the record. This album came out in 1979, actually pre-dating the first album by the Los Angeles X, although the latter had already formed. Parallel evolution! Anyway, as you can hear, this is pretty aggressive stuff for the time, and is a solid early punk record. This is one of those records that was more inspirational than it was popular but is worth hunting down to listen to.

Labi Siffre, “I Got The…”

This is from the 1975 album Remember My Song, a record that became famous due to sampling (especially in Eminem’s “My Name Is”). As with so many of these great old funk records, it’s a delight that it was resurrected by interest in the source material, because it’s absolutely incredible. I mean, yes, the break that Dre flipped is astounding, but listen to this entire thing. The temperature in this room dropped about ten degrees when this kicked on, it’s so cool. And, for real, look at this album cover. Goddamn!

Russian Circles, “Vorel”

Russian Circles usually gets tagged with the post-rock label, which doesn’t really hang together to me. There’s nothing really post- about most of their stuff. To me, this is really just straight up instrumental metal, and it’s faaaantastic at that. They’ve been cranking out fantastic albums for years now, and it seems like it would get tired, but it absolutely does not. This is from the magnificent Guidance, which is as good a place to start as any.

Amon Tobin, “One Shy Morning”

Amon Tobin put out two albums in 2019, with this one (Long Stories) being the more ambient, quieter one of the pair. It’s well done, and it’s a good record, but honestly, I prefer Tobin when he’s more out there than this.

Fela Kuti, “Igbe”

The inventor of Afro-beat, Fela Kuti is one of the key musical figures of the 20th century. I’m not a Kuti scholar, truthfully, owning only a handful of albums, and if I roll out a bunch of biographical info here, I’d largely be cribbing from some other site. But just listen to this, and then try and imagine any of the Daptone bands sounding the same. Even beyond the influence, though, this just flat cooks. This is from Gentlemen, which seems to be considered his best album - that’s why I picked it up in the first place.

The Mighty Mocambos, “In The Dark”

Funk group out of Hamburg, German, the Mighty Mocambos have excellent taste in guest artists, and consistently delightful percussion. Hell, they have a side line as a steel drum band. This song comes from Showdown, which is an excellent collection of tunes.

Zeal and Ardor, “Waste”

We just had a post-black metal band, and here’s another. As you can hear, Zeal and Ardor certainly make use of plenty of the markers of black metal, but marry it to African American spirituals, to create something new from the genre. This kind of blending is super interesting, and I’d like to see it more often.

PUNK AS FUCK TODAY

White Lung, “Kiss Me When I Bleed”

Been a little while since we’ve had any Canadian punk! I’ve missed it! They’re from Vancouver, it’s lovely to have some singing not from a dude, and the guitar work is righteous.

Sicko, “Kenny (Live)”

Yeah! More punk! Seattle is basically in southern Canada, I’m going to count it. The live stuff is inessential, but I’ll take any Sicko material I can get.

All over the map today!

Wu-Tang Clan, “Maria”

There were more of this sort of filthy song on Wu-Tang Forever than there were on their debut album. And, honestly, this song falls a little flat. It seems to think it can skate by on the explicit lyrics, but everybody’s rhymes here are really kind of by-the-books. Wu-Tang is always at its best when you have some contrast in styles. What’s the point of having this many MCs otherwise!

Today!

Unsane, “Dispatched”

I mentioned last time Unsane came up that they didn’t evolve that much between albums. And this song (from their second album) is a good example - this could easily have just slotted into the first album without skipping a beat. Finding your lane and staying to it is fine, of course, but it does mean that maybe you’re not going to want to keep up with a band for forever.