Now you're at Songblague!

Unpresidential

2012-02-20T00:00:00.012-05:00

I often think Presidents' Day is a holiday cooked up by auto dealers and electronics shops. I'm not sure why Washington's and Lincoln's birthdays are an occasion to go buy stuff on sale, and I also think it's a pretty awkward to try linking these anniversaries to some non-specific honoring of US presidents. Regardless, I have the day off, and hopefully, so do you, and let's be happy about that. Meanwhile, here's a tune that's about as far from American pseudo-holidays as I can think of. Let's raise a flagon of mead to these troubadour faeries of olde English woodplaces!

Spirogyra - The Future Won't Be Long

Alien industry

2012-02-17T00:00:00.010-05:00

Still kinda digging this tendency toward wordlessness. You may be familiar with Jean Michel Jarre from his flamboyant and atmospheric work, but it's good to know that he had a fair bit of musique concrète in his genes too. Talk about industrial music! This should be playing in a power plant breakroom on Venus.

Jean Michel Jarre - La Cage

Audio peace

2012-02-16T00:00:00.012-05:00

Intense workdays call for palate cleansers that don't kid around. I'd take floaty, skyward-looking synth dreams like this almost any day. But today, it's a special helping of audio peace. It also sounds like the soundtrack for curing diseases.

Steve Hauschildt - Already Replaced

Contemplating impossible enormousness

2012-02-15T00:00:00.014-05:00

Well, I was right. My current Tangerine Dream immersion has pulled me into the outer reaches. And I have no choice but to take you with me. You'd be surprised how good this stuff sounds when you wake up and stretch in the morning. Something to do with greeting day in all its giant formlessness. And I'm sure it sounds better the further you get out into the solar system.

Tangerine Dream - Mysterious Semblance At The Strand Of Nightmares

World of echo

2012-02-14T00:00:00.013-05:00

It doesn't take much to get me into an Arthur Russell state of mind. Sometimes, it's just the winter air chilling my bones that makes me want to float in the warm ocean that is his voice. Add in the invigorating bristles of that cello and you've got pure audio therapy. Let's go swimming!

Arthur Russell - Place I Know/Kid Like You

My signals in your brain

2012-02-13T00:00:00.017-05:00

Having recently come across this Television-esque band from Norway, I'm reminded why groups aped this sound so thoroughly throughout the 'aughts. But these sadly unheralded guys got everything right about this aesthetic back in their day — zippy, angular, nice Gary Numan-like synth warbles, and in no hurry to get through it. Somehow, I continue to be a sucker for oh-so-serious voices like this.

The Cut - Atmospheres

Smooth criminal

2012-02-10T00:00:00.022-05:00

Been catching up on movies I should've watched in film class. Melville's Le Samourai is justly legendary for smooth n' icy French gangster chicness as personified by Alain Delon. There's nothing more I can really add to that piece of iconography, except to note how much I really do appreciate the minimal amount of speaking not just in the movie, but also in many parts of life. Which may mean that I'm putting myself in the wrong situations. Or that I'm getting crankier with time. But with 4 of 5 songs this week being instrumentals, I think it's that I'd just rather hear music most of the time. Including awesome soundtracks like this one.

François De Roubaix - Le Samourai

Moving and not moving

2012-02-09T00:00:00.014-05:00

More instrumental evocativeness. Conrad Schnitzler had his hand in a bunch of krautrock cookie jars, though was never a luminary in his own right. (In a just world, he'd be a tycoon of a pretzel company.)

I love this piece, but it seems mistitled. Far from static, it sounds like anticipatory preparations for some Big Event. Good for tightening ties and setting headbands. Or both, preferably.

Conrad Schnitzler - Ballet Statique

Synthesizers in crisis

2012-02-08T00:00:00.015-05:00

If you dig The Cars (debut album, at least) as much I do, today's song will be quite a treat. Aside from looking awesome in their videos, keyboardist Greg Hawkes clearly had some ideas of his own. They seem to involve a kid running from both FBI and KGB agents in a downward spiral of plot twists in my made-up film. They also involve some sweet pitchbending (perk your ears up at 2:32). The fact that some of my own synth adventures seem at home in this soundworld only make me fonder. Thanks to Jason for hipping me to this one.

Greg Hawkes - Block Party

Procession into the beyond

2012-02-07T00:00:00.023-05:00

Uh-oh, it seems I've entered into a Tangerine Dream vortex. Which means there's a real chance I may disappear into the depths of space or melt into the floor. Before I meet either of these fates, allow me to give you a solo tune from frontdude Edgar Froese. While it's tempting to embark on a 20-minute epic drift from TD's far-out heyday, I'll go with an anomaly instead — a linear groove with flesh n' drums and some baked guitar action.

As for this album's cover art, gotta say I really don't need to be reminded that it's humans making the music. Talk about a face made for light shows.

Edgar Froese - Icarus

Saturday for Monday

2012-02-06T00:00:00.006-05:00

In previous years, a twee-ish piece of curatorial, '60-reconstructing pop might have been all wrong for a post-Super Bowl morning. But since the ritual watching of the game is pretty much all we have left to unify us a nation and with pro football marketers savvy enough to bring the ladies into the jersey-wearing, wing-chomping fold, we find ourselves in a different world. Which is to say, at least some pallid indie rock boys and girls will enjoy the transition from gridiron heroics to these precious 3 minutes.

Pitchfork actually got its head out its ass and hit the nail on that head with these guys. My view on nostalgia for other people's pasts—constructed entirely out of memorabilia consumed out of order and from second-hand sources—is still evolving, but I'm always happy to hear a well-executed tune. And these parts of the '60s are always welcome around here.

Saturday Looks Good To Me - Since You Stole My Heart

Silver age

2012-02-03T00:00:00.014-05:00

The thing about being "ahead of your time" is that you never get full credit for your innovations if time never actually catches up to you. So it went with the Silver Apples, who used a fairly limited sound palette to produce some of the coolest, most distinct music of the '60s (also some of the least '60s sounding). There are so many ways the space age could've gone. These guys charted a course we still haven't even embarked on.

Silver Apples - Lovefingers
Silver Apples - Misty Mountain

Lovable loser

2012-02-02T00:00:00.019-05:00

I love that ELO have been thoroughly rescued from the dustbin of AOR history, and that Jeff Lynne's insistent fusion of Beatles and bombast seems to have the respect it always deserved. Still, I suspect their '80s output will remain stashed in the attic. Which is a pity. Secret Messages has some killer moments. This is my favorite, with its preposterous rainy day verses (synth sax!) and equally preposterous chorus (TR-808 handclaps!). Totally mismatched and totally worth blasting out loud. I'll stand this one next to "Evil Woman" any day. Dig this one too from the same album.

Electric Light Orchestra - Loser Gone Wild

Give the drummers some

2012-02-01T00:00:00.022-05:00

Moving from grainy Euro/African fusions to a more wide-screen form of exotica. Via a pair of drummers doing it all with electronic percussion and sampling. I give a big thumbs-up to my fellow stickmen getting their melody on. Strangely, I love those new agey '80s synth drums more and more. Maybe it's something about the charm of limitation.

Michael Shrieve & David Beal - Mon Amie

Swim across oceans

2012-01-31T00:00:00.020-05:00

Remember when it felt metaphorical to talk about a small world? It was a big, big world for so long that people now coming of age will never truly appreciate that dizzying sense of distance, things being so flattened and easily available in the digital version these days [commence old man exhalation]. Imagine then the excitement or confusion for those exposed to these transcontinental tracks by Hector Zazou, Bony Bikaye, and a couple weird German dudes called CY1. Some call this a European answer to My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts. I say that's a fine description. And certainly worth your attention, especially if you appreciate how long it takes to swim across oceans.

Zazou/Bikaye/CY1 - M'Pasi Ya M'Pamba
Zazou/Bikaye/CY1 - Mangungu

Replicant rock

2012-01-30T00:00:00.022-05:00

I've been having quite the musical crush on Gary Numan lately. Such a bummer that he got tagged with one-hot-wonderdom, because he produced a really nice string of dystopian/robotic/androgynous, yet quite catchy, music. In fact, I'd say as much as anyone he elaborated on Bowie's Low-era innovations. And with some glammy sass too. He could've been the biggest star in a Blade Runner world.

Songblague has previously given Numan a little of his due, but here's a day all for him. This tune is just right — foreboding and becalmed at once. Like a beautiful flight through the clouds above a nervous and troubled world.

Gary Numan - The Aircrash Bureau

I look for a center of permanent gravity

2012-01-27T00:00:00.024-05:00

I just recently stumbled upon the long and varied career of Franco Battiato, and I'm not really sure how much of it I'm going to like. Seems the general trajectory is from proggy/experimental electronic to opera by way of eccentric pop. An album from that middle period is what caught my ear. Maybe it's how the singing seems almost goofily off from the music. Guess that's what happens when one's inner opera singer struggles to bust out of the rock band.

Franco Battiato - Centro Di Gravità Permanente

Rising son

2012-01-26T00:00:00.002-05:00

I don't much care for dynastic succession. In monarchies or any kind of business. But it is nice to see a young man inherit a fair bit of his father's talent. The son of Neil Finn clearly knows his way around a pop song. Based on seeing him perform a few weeks back, he also seems to know his way around looping pedals. And going apeshit on drums. And beards. And all that at once. Good genes at work.

Liam Finn - Cold Feet

Analog space suits

2012-01-25T00:00:00.005-05:00

Too much vying for my attention here on Earth. May as well take a little mental sojourn into space. The French-speaking part of it, at least. Check that album cover. Can I get that keyboard stand?

Benoit Hutin - Travelling

I looked so pretty

2012-01-24T00:00:00.017-05:00

Here's something of a curiosity — a prickly/precious Anglo-indie '80s staple finishing off their career with a foray into rootsy vibes. And damned if those chorus pedal-heavy guitar bends don't make me all squinty and dopey-happy. And then I look up the lyrics and they seem to be about child molesting. Sigh.

Felt - Budgie Jacket

The wind does not hear

2012-01-23T00:00:00.028-05:00

It's never too late to recalibrate the brain. Today's song has occupied a minor place in my head for over 20 years, similar to its interlude-like position on the seminal In The Court Of The Crimson King. There it's sandwiched between the proto-metal blast of "21st Century Schizoid Man" and the proto-prog melodrama of "Epitaph".

But now it suddenly steps into its own spotlight — a rainy day spaceout with some classy flute action and a subtle edge that hints at the darkness tucked into the Aquarian age. That non-heavy handed invocation of the demonic is actually one of my favorite things about the Crims.

King Crimson - I Talk To The Wind

In the ether

2012-01-20T00:00:00.011-05:00

Reflecting on a tough day of hard economic realities in the working world and appreciating my good fortune (which is dependably undependable). Wherever the dice roll leaves you, it helps to wrap yourself in layers of ethereal sounds for a good while.

Grouper - Alien Observer

Space is only noise

2012-01-19T00:00:00.015-05:00

Among experimental musicians, I'm often most drawn to the ones who can take familiar sounds and make them completely alien. Computers are great tools for that purpose, but it's still the re-imagination that does the heavy lifting. I recently got hipped to Nicolas Jaar, whose Space Is Only Noise album has been a staple of my living room ambience for a couple weeks now. Here's a track that takes somber, minimal piano and puts it in a landscape that only vaguely resembles any place on Earth.

Nicolas Jaar - ^tre

On the back of a new belief

2012-01-18T00:00:00.009-05:00

Meanwhile...back in America, the kids are dressed up in their best reverb and dancing the dread away, like a perpetual Kevin Bacon motion machine. Of all the bands that rip off Bruce Springsteen, these guys make me like them with an equal degree of shamelessness.

The War On Drugs - Baby Missiles

In session

2012-01-17T00:00:00.039-05:00

Let's hear it for the session men. The best ones find a way to make their mark. Their voices sneak into your consciousness even while wrapped up in other people's music. The rest wear ponytails and/or goatees.

Chances are, if you like Talking Heads' Speaking In Tongues album, you're already a fan of Wally Baradou. He was quite the session butterfly throughout the '80s, so I'm sure he's planted some tasty licks in a diverse number of ears. We're going HAM on Wally today, rocking a generous three jams from his classy solo work. Here's to it.

Wally Baradou - Canyons
Wally Baradou - Endless Race
Wally Baradou - Chief Inspector

Who's that on my radio?

2012-01-16T00:00:00.011-05:00

Happy MLK Day. Hopefully, you're enjoying a day off, appreciating the gift of your civil rights. And on a much shallower level—albeit one full of easy, immediate pleasures—hope you appreciate this excellent power pop nugget. Thanks to Mark Prindle for making me aware of these guys' existence. No mean feat. Apparently, the pinnacle of their stardom involved a spot on MTV's New Years Ball to usher in 1983. We all have dreams.

The Producers - She Sheila

Blues run the game

2012-01-13T00:00:00.008-05:00

Here's one from the "busted luck folk singer" files. From being badly burned in a classroom fire to a subsequent life of depression, despair, and poverty, Jackson Frank seemed to have had enough sorrows to fill a vast catalog. Instead, he made a hauntingly pretty debut (songs later covered by folkies and non-folkies, apparently) and that's about it. From the comfortable vantage point of the listener, that's all there needs to be. I'm sure, however, that his life would've been a lot better had he been a more prolific man. Sad sad sad.

Jackson C. Frank - Blues Run The Game

Franco Italo

2012-01-12T00:00:00.008-05:00

Amid all the gloom about the euro zone meltdown, I think it's helpful to focus on what really unites the continent — namely an appreciation for Italo Disco. Here is a French variety, well-suited to the strutting lifestyle of your dreams.

Le Club - Un Fait D' Hivers

The language of cop shows

2012-01-11T00:00:00.030-05:00

Moving from fantastical realms to the real world of tight pants and hot pavement, we look to some guys who clearly had their fingers on the pulse of their day. But then, a listener of yesterday's post now has me wondering if it's really so easy to distinguish between the escape and reality (strokes imaginary beard). At least, ridiculous taste in album cover art is common to both worlds.

Rhythm Heritage - Language Of Love

Hackery

2012-01-10T00:00:00.035-05:00

The fabled high-flying guitarist's solo debut is an oft-mocked venture. Usually, for good reason, given their propensity to be full of all the crappy ideas the band had previously stifled. But it would be just plain mean-spirited to throw snickers in Steve Hackett's direction for his first effort, even if its songs are titled after...umm...tarot cards, and even if the cover art a little too closely telegraphs the kind of soundworld on offer.

Most folks who hang around this space know that Songblague has lots of good feeling toward even the most tasteless of prog-rock efforts. Partly for nostalgic reasons, and partly because there's actually a lot to like in excess. This track hits all those notes. What charms me most is how it plays like a nice guy trying to get all sinister and prove that Peter Gabriel wasn't the only one in Genesis who had weird ideas (i.e. dark mellotron "choir" move at 1:53). Hackett just wasn't as savvy about assembling them. However awkwardly, it does sound like a respectable nightmare. And it does its genre proud by ignoring just about anything to do with the 1975 of consensus reality.

Steve Hackett - A Tower Struck Down

Can't chop down a symmetry

2012-01-09T00:00:00.022-05:00

You can almost see the in the stairwell at the Canadian food co-op where a young Jane Siberry probably pinned up her ad looking for a New Wave band to execute her proggy/coffee house aesthetic. Or that's how it looks in my most reductionist moments. In reality, I dig this stuff just as shamelessly as I do Kate Bush. This is the nerdy version of that more flamboyant allure. And I am especially loyal to it, since I refuse to follow the muse of Siberry's late career. But this is squarely in that other '80s I sometimes believe I can will into popular memory.

Jane Siberry - Symmetry (The Way Things Have To Be)

The lift stops between two floors

2012-01-06T00:00:00.020-05:00

You'd think a Brian Eno/John Cale collaboration would've ended up on the right side of the supergroup train(wreck)tracks. Yet their full-length collaboration Wrong Way Up is a dreadfully bland stab at pop that rightfully was not very popular. The '80s weren't really either of their decades, so I suppose they deserve a pass. On the bright side, it yielded this track, which hits the sweet spot of minimal beauty. It almost seems to float. A nice soft conclusion to a week that didn't really get out of neutral.

Brian Eno & John Cale - Cordoba

Waterfalls of light

2012-01-05T00:00:00.013-05:00

Something always stopped me from being an actual Throwing Muses fan. It wasn't the peer pressure of seeing their CD spines running through friends' record collections when they were '90s alt rock staples. It wasn't necessarily that I couldn't really relate to what Kristin Hersh was trying to get across about her troubled head. I dunno. Maybe it'll click one day, although that time has probably passed. This song, however, was always a fave. Can't beat those sparkly arpeggios and the even more sparkly crescendo at 2:08.

Throwing Muses - Flood

Everything is fantasy

2012-01-04T00:00:00.012-05:00

Just a few days into 2012 and I'm already completely sick of having to greet everyone with "happy new year!" I'm going to temporarily revolt by denying not just the future, but also the recent past. A little Television Personalities music should help with that trick. Dan Treacy knew a thing or two about escaping his own time. Clearly, the 1981 in his head looked nothing like the 1981 outside the window.

Television Personalities - World of Pauline Lewis

A seething, crumpled, teeming sky

2012-01-03T00:00:00.023-05:00

Staycation is over. I couldn't have asked for a better one — somehow both super-productive and super-mellow at once. Super. Anyway, back in the saddle. I realize I've already flaked by skipping the first day of the year (hey, banks are closed too). Let me make it up to you with a get-one-free, baby.

If 2012 is going to be a year of apocalyptic undertones — courtesy of both Mayan calendar kitsch and the prospect of a Republican presidency — let the 'blague year begin with this sense of unease. I recently went back to my man Arto's series of wacked samba albums, beginning in the mid-'90s. The first is the best. And this first track is just a stunner of atmosphere both lovely and ominous, abetted by a curious team of Brian Eno and twin #1 from Blonde Redhead. The other one is a graceful lilt, with the usual great lyrics and Ryuichi Sakamoto adding some classiness on the keys. Happy New Year. Now get back to work.

Arto Lindsay - 4 Skies
Arto Lindsay - Child Prodigy

3rd annual Songblague mixtape!

2011-12-29T00:00:00.016-05:00

Year-end roundup time again. And this time I'm indulging myself and stretching things out to a luxurious 30-song span. No double album configuration this year. This one is a straight, linear fly-through of 2011 postings. The usual caveats apply — these aren't necessarily my favorites of the year, this is one story among millions, very few of these songs actually came out this year. But I've been pretty happy about my decisions lately, and I hope you enjoy the ones right here. Happy pre-New Year!

Laurie Anderson - Excellent Birds
Karla Bonoff - Somebody's Eyes
Dirty Beaches - Lord Knows Best
Kissing The Pink - All For You
Grovesnor - Taxi From The Airport
Vince Guaraldi - Oaxaca
Lush - Desire Lines
Yo La Tengo - Fog Over Frisco
Dylan Ettinger - Penguin Point
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Up Jumped The Devil
Be Bop Deluxe - Orphans Of Babylon
The Stranglers - Nice n' Sleazy
Aztec Camera - We Could Send Letters
Erroll Garner - Body And Soul
Anna Calvi - Blackout
Peter Hammill - Breakthrough
Ennio Morricone - Il Grande Silenzio (Restless)
The Sound - Golden Soldiers
Hot Cold - I Can Hear Your Voice
Tuxedomoon - Atlantis
Inoyama Land - Glass Chaim
Martin Newell - Julie Profumo
Sorcerer - The Dream
Tall Dwarves - Starry Eyed and Wooly Brained
Tom Waits - Never Let Go
Thin Lizzy - We Will Be Strong
Yasauaki Shimizu - Semitori No Hi
We The People - In The Past
Heaven & Earth - Feel The Spirit
Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - Marty's Song

Bungled Xmas

2011-12-23T00:00:00.013-05:00

Christmas/Chanukah/Solstice songs abound. And so many good folks are making excellent seasonal mixtapes. I really can't compete. And besides, I'm in a period of deep concentration with my own stuff. So, before I split for the year, here's a crazy one that's (in)appropriate for any season. A warning – don't be in mid-coffee sip at 1:18. And do listen all the way through; you want to earn those presents.

I'm fixing to have another year-end roundup mix around New Years. New posts will recommence on Jan 2. Happy happiness!

Mr. Bungle - Merry Go Bye Bye

Heavenly earth

2011-12-22T00:00:00.014-05:00

I'd say the holiday season could use a little groovy, pastoral psych-folk. Surely there's a kitchen in a rural place where someone is preparing festive food and blasting these tracks. I'm not sure if these ladies are from an actual canyon, but that's where they're filed in my brain's library. You can practically see the spliff smoke emanating from the engineer's lips.

Heaven & Earth - Jenny
Heaven & Earth - Feel The Spirit

Stirring strings

2011-12-21T00:00:00.017-05:00

Some more sweet, unhurried waves of sound from a fine guitarist, however unfortunately named. But there's no juicing with this McGuire. Maybe it's because I'm so ensconced in my own digital recording fun, but I can't help smile out loud at a track-yourself-to-your-own-delight situation like this. Some may say it's vanity, but who can't be happy with a world that lets us be our own orchestras.

Mark McGuire - When You're Somewhere

Naptime

2011-12-20T00:00:00.015-05:00

I'm not usually the napping kind. My clock doesn't work that way. But there are times when I just can't muster the synaptic quorum to keep the lights on. And I submit. The trouble with the afternoon power-down is the disorientation that follows and then moves to sabotage what's left of the waking day. Dizziness mixed with mania, stuck in a kind of mental hurry-up-and-wait. No fun, but sometimes necessary. Of course, if naptime could just feel like this tune, I'd have no complaints at all.

Robert Fripp & Brian Eno - Evening Star

French frost

2011-12-19T00:00:00.001-05:00

Things are starting to settle into that Christmastime feel. And I admit I'm happy to be fitting myself into a cozy mental frame. Which means the contrary part of my mind wants to conjure up creepy, unsettled sounds. This one is wintery alright, albeit more in a nuclear variety. And serves to remind that the French can also set their faces grimly to an ashen sky.

Trisomie 21 - The Fairylike Show

Library ghosts

2011-12-16T00:00:00.007-05:00

Some more Simon Reynolds-inspired ghost nostalgia. You don't need to have been raised on British educational television to have an old part of your brain snapped to rapt attention by this jam.

The Advisory Circle - Everyday Hazards

What the heck

2011-12-15T00:00:00.007-05:00

Tim Hecker's sketches are more beautiful than many people's masterworks. I could live in his echoes for days without food or engagement of the other senses. That's some ambition. Let's start with a minute and a half and go from there. I think he and I accidentally wrote the same melody. Debating whether or not to sue.

Tim Hecker - Sketch 6

Gone with a rock promoter

2011-12-14T00:00:00.014-05:00

Sticking with fond feelings for the '90s. Last Splash came on during a night drive recently, and I got a bit of that old driving-around-rocking feeling from high school days past. Very nice indeed even now that I'm double that tender age. This tune in particular has a burnt, slightly baked quality that I quite enjoy. I'm not really sure the part with the big drums is necessary. But then, it was the '90s and who can fuss with bands that crushed on crunchy guitars.

The Breeders - No Aloha

Color me babe

2011-12-13T00:00:00.002-05:00

Having just read Retromania, I'm finding that a lot of music I enjoyed in the '00s now feels tainted with the brush of nostalgia. Or worse, an anemic lack of forward-facing inspiration. Which now makes me look fondly on stuff in the '90s that may have been a bit cringe-worthy, but at least took risks.

Babe The Blue Ox was one band that acquitted themselves quite well in that decade. They just suffered from a lack of hype and boosterism in the Brooklyn of their heyday (hard to imagine such a thing now). Anyway, they rocked with heart, good humor, and some nice Beefheartian rhythmic shenanigans. This track captures all of that.

Babe The Blue Ox - Rube Goldberg

Metamorphoses

2011-12-09T00:00:00.020-05:00

Nick Cave has done a lot to mellow over the hellfire punk image of his raucous youth in recent ears. To me, a lot of the "mature" work has been a yawn. But his soundtracks with late-arriving Bad Seed Warren Ellis (The Assassination of Jesse James, The Proposition, The Road) have been just stunning.

For some reason, the duo's excellent score for the equally excellent recent (and surprisingly acrobatic) staging of The Metamorphosis has not been given a proper release. But fear not, for Songblague has done the legwork and tracked down these beautiful cues, which open and close the show. If you don't get a bit misty-eyed, you may not be a real human being.

Nick Cave and Warren Ellis - Marty's Song
Nick Cave and Warren Ellis - The Water Song

Claustrophobia

2011-12-08T00:00:00.011-05:00

Your dreams are haunted by claustrophobic landscapes. The city closes in around you, and you find yourself running for daylight and yet also compelled to caterwaul with oxygen you really can't afford to waste. The camera pans out and your narrative eye suddenly recognizes that the scene is all made of Lego. Here's a good song to listen to you as you contemplate what's wrong with your life.

Zoo-Z - Skylines

So pretty in the city of industry

2011-12-07T00:00:00.010-05:00

There are lots of times when texture is everything, and I'm often happy to wile away the hours rubbing musical contours over my ears. Then there's sweet guitar pop, with its equally sublime pleasures.

Oranger - Crooked in the Weird of the Catacombs

Mob rule

2011-12-06T00:00:00.015-05:00

Good to be back in New York. A week+ in the land of tango, succulent lomo, reversed moons, and 'relaxed' schedules had me itching to return to a landscape of jagged, if decidedly non-Andean, musicality. These cats are definitely scratching that itch. Maybe a little too hard.

Frank Sumatra & the Mob - The Story So Far

Bon voyage

2011-11-24T00:00:00.010-05:00

It's weird that I never really got into Bon Iver, considering the ubiquity of the name-dropping. Or maybe that's been why. Anyway, I admit I'm quite digging the new album, the cheesy parts most of all. Here's one that seems very much of today's moment, what with the scruffy angel falsetto, seemingly mismatched instrumental colors, and general soaringness. Like watching the sunlight dappling on the snow.

Also, it's a good send-off for a much-needed vacation. Going down to the Southern Hemisphere. Back with you on December 6. Enjoy the time between.

Bon Iver - Towers

English sunshine

2011-11-23T00:00:00.002-05:00

I have a weird soft spot for provably British singers who sound like they're putting on the accent. I also love that sunny British psych sound from the hazy '60s. Put them together and I'm a smiling fool. A big hi-five to my friend Ali, who hipped me to this track a couple years ago. Also, fun fact — Peter Frampton wrote it. He should have closed up shop immediately afterward.

The Neat Change - I Lied To Auntie May

Living in the past

2011-11-22T00:00:00.022-05:00

Oh the endless buried treasures of the mid/late'60s. Some have places of origin that make you wish that earlier eras were possessed of today's incessant documentarian instincts. We The People were apparently a short-lived garage band from Orlando. Take a moment to imagine the uphill battle they faced in an environment like that. Try to picture the reactions of their fellow Central Floridians in the face of such wide-eyed forward-driving sounds. Sadly, their future belonged to Walt Disney.

We The People - In The Past

Are you coming home this year?

2011-11-21T00:00:00.026-05:00

I admit I was a bit wary last night when I went to see Ray Davies perform some Kinks klassics with a full-on choir behind him. Turned out I had no reason to be. He was in remarkably un-haggard shape and full of good humor as he trotted out the hits and cult hits, many of which were lifted into happily rarefied airs with all those voices. I'm squarely with all the Village Green preservationists who appreciate Davies's late-'60s pastoral zigging when so many others were electrically zagging. Which fires up a desire to drop some dynamite forgotten tracks that give a little look into a version of the 1960s that never had the chance to get Behind The Music'ed. I'll probably be sticking with this theme through this short Thanksgiving week. Here's some very un-Kinks-ish music to start it off.

Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera - Intro
Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera - Mother Writes

Christmas assault

2011-11-18T00:00:00.020-05:00

There are several ways for songs to establish their authority. Some come crashing through your bedroom window with blasts of guitars and cymbals, while others simply walking into the room with a look that says the nonsense will now cease. Here's one from the latter category.

Meanwhile, I know it's a little early to start thinking about Christmas parties. But if yours doesn't include this tune, it's not worth attending.

Willie Colón - La Murga

Trying to get to you

2011-11-17T00:00:00.017-05:00

Just can't resist going back to the well of classix. Of course, the Pixies are one of those bands whose weaker tracks are far beyond what most bands could ever aspire to. Last time I dug them up, I got all sentimental. And damned if it isn't happening again right now. This one goes back to some high school delirium that I suspect will get neither hazier nor clearer with time.

Pixies - Letter To Memphis

Grinning like facepacks

2011-11-16T00:00:00.014-05:00

For all his command of atmosphere, Eno really doesn't get enough credit for exploring dark mental spaces as well. I've always dug the derangement of this trudging track, but seeing a truly maniacal version at a Here Come The Warm Jets tribute show this past summer sealed it as a Songblague necessity.

Brian Eno - Driving Me Backwards

Music by airports

2011-11-15T00:00:00.012-05:00

To the extent that I'm ever "educating" my dear listeners, I realize that there's always someone who knows more about x band/scene/period. That's cool. In many ways, I actually prefer breadth to depth. That said, here's a tune I'm pretty confident you haven't heard, generously introduced to me by a friend with impeccable first-hand knowledge of the underlayers of Kiwi pop.

The Airports - The Song About Walking Around Town Thinking To Myself What A Wonderful Life I'm Living

Reveille

2011-11-14T00:00:00.005-05:00

Putting aside the inventive valvework of countless jazzmen, I still have a hard time separating the trumpet from its martial associations. Unless we're talking the ambient strategies of Miles Davis muting or Jon Hassell processing, trumpets make me want to wake up or go attack something. Here's a tune that hits all those notes in sort of a roundabout way. Not a bad thing for a Monday morning.

La Loora - Pre-Catastrophy

The snipers by the falls'll be delivering their calls

2011-11-11T00:00:00.008-05:00

Yay for wild Canadians. It seems that Frog Eyes's Carey Mercer aims to be some kind of bookish take on Nick Cave's '80s danger, and I think that despite the think-lipped manners, he is in many ways equally unhinged. But it's the fantastical theatricality that makes him unique. Breathlessness, piano pounding, and shaky drums...all things that get my head a'bobbing.

Frog Eyes - The Oscillator's Hum

Not to raise their voices

2011-11-10T00:00:00.025-05:00

There's sweet justice in the recent consensus that George made the best post-Beatles solo album. I still maintain that Paul had the best career overall, but then Ringo was involved in this awesomeness, so the whole debate is bound for stalemate. Of the many gems on All Things Must Pass, this one manages to constantly, if quietly, amaze. Kinda like George himself.

George Harrison - Run Of The Mill

Lunar interlude

2011-11-09T00:00:00.024-05:00

With a pair of double-wide posts so far this week, I'd say a little interlude is in order. And I like that it comes courtesy of Jonny Greenwood, whose main paycheck band rarely gets play as a palette cleanser. At any rate, you may know of his compositional ambitions. This one is a lot less ominous, more a moment to pause and reflect on gravity, or conscience, or whether you may have left the iron on before leaving home.

Jonny Greenwood - Moon Mall

Real humans

2011-11-08T00:00:00.046-05:00

So it seems everyone's all hot for neon-noir, Michael Mann-indebted sounds these days. And why shouldn't they be? I'm glad folks like the Chromatics are getting their well-deserved cinema time. Drive was exquisitely flawed — with a strange fetish for demolished heads — but it succeeded at least for bringing this fabulous track to light.

As much as the hook, I'm drawn to it for the tenderly delivered lyrical notion that to be 'a real human being' is itself a thing worth rallying around, as much as being 'a real hero'. Which is to say I'm at least halfway appalled that we expect a world of inhumanity, if we even know what that is anymore.

College (featuring Electric Youth) - A Real Hero

Meanwhile, I hate to waste anyone's time with a tune they're probably hearing a lot these days (though I do love me that M83 sonic overload), but this somehow feels like the flip side to the heroics above. The former was smartly used in a smiling, dreamy daylight sequence, while this one seems more the province of the stone-faced night driver that is the go-to mental image for this aesthetic.

Having said that, Anthony Gonzales gets a big high-five for his courageous saxophone deployment in the outro. A real human being indeed.

M83 - Midnight City

I realized my fists were clenched

2011-11-07T00:00:00.029-05:00

Robert Wyatt and his cozily alien voice make another welcome appearance on the 'blague. I recently busted out his Shleep record and was reminded of why it's good to keep albums around that you suspect might grow on you. While not the spirit triumph of Rock Bottom, it's a beautiful and weird cycle of sleepy-brained tunes apparently inspired by their creator's insomnia. Good enough that two specimens are warranted. The first was co-written with Eno, and its jaunty, gentlemanly funk gives has that signature all over it. The second is more late-nite in its texture, and I can see the camera slowly pulling back above the spiral staircase as the protagonist shrinks to a shaky point.

Robert Wyatt - Heaps Of Sheeps

Robert Wyatt - Out Of Season

Bad drugs

2011-11-04T00:00:00.011-04:00

Oh man, how could I have neglected to post this on Halloween! I'm not much of a goth fan, but I do like how Bauhaus sometimes came at it from a darkly psychedelic angle. This one is particularly queasy, with a swirling dubbiness that seems to come straight from a thoroughly gone night of debauchery.

On the lighter side, every time Peter Murphy moans the chorus, all I see is this.

Bauhaus - She's In Parties

Any vows on lovers' leap

2011-11-03T00:00:00.016-04:00

As surely as yesterday's tracks show a less visited side of the 1980s, here's one from the days when college rock did in fact have something to do with the intellectual ambitions of both bands and audiences. Not that it doesn't rock. And not without a charming earnestness that looks fondly on an imaginary utopia of Anglophilic power pop. A nice shade of California love.

Game Theory - Make Any Vow s

Two gentle Germans

2011-11-02T00:00:00.025-04:00

Tracing the constellations of classic krautrock, you can't get too far without bumping into the boys of Cluster, also known by their excellently mellifluous names Moebius and Roedelius. You may have heard their collaborations with Brian Eno, but their solo work often achieves the same high level of textural minimalism that remains completely engaging at nearly any length. The kind of ambient that almost refuses to let a book or zone-out overtake your mind. Which is a good problem to have. So, in turn, we have Moebius doing movies...

Dieter Moebius - Falsche Ruhe

...and Roedelius laying by a stream, not doing much at all.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius - Mein Freund Farouk

Now I care

2011-11-01T00:00:00.021-04:00

Last year, some folks in LA had the bright idea to showcase local bands by having them cover Television's under-celebrated Adventure album. I too have under-celebrated this album because, well, it's not Marquee Moon. Which is itself an over-celebrated album, in my opinion.

Of course, this 'blague has given some tender love and real estate to Adventure's best track. But the beauty of covers is how interpretation can bring out a song's hidden virtues. In this case, a fairly pedestrian four-count rocker grows a country beard and rises glowing and newly translucent up above quiet waters in the beautiful moonlight.

Local Natives - Careful

A touch of Ned

2011-10-31T00:00:00.016-04:00

After a weekend of snowboundness, power outages, and hotel hijinks in Western Massachusetts, I'd say a slice of luxuriously decadent pop is called for. If you don't know Ned Doheny, well, why would you? Except that he sits in the same constellation as Steely Dan, Todd Rundgren, and many less celebrated yachtsmen. I'd be shocked if I were told that a bunch of cocaine was not involved in the making of this one.

Ned Doheny - Sing To Me

Future Olympics

2011-10-28T00:00:00.000-04:00

Oh man, the endless treasures of vintage Library music. You have to discard some chaff, but the effort yields precious rewards. This one should soundtrack some sort of futuristic bloodsport competition. Or a videogame version of it. Or whatever wild stuff you do this weekend.

Gerard Gesina - Big Green Espace

The floods breathed

2011-10-27T00:00:00.017-04:00

Talk about a perfect pairing of music and album cover. This is some hyper-maudlin stuff that may be a shade of gray too far for some. Not me though. I like my emotionally manipulative sounds to be as heavy-handed as possible. I'm just not sure if the imaginary movie should take place in the countryside during the bleakest Soviet days or if it should follow the long, lonely retirement of a discarded stuffed animal. Suggestions?

Sylvain Chaveau - Et Peu a Peu Les Flots Respira

Beards of Uruguay

2011-10-26T00:00:00.021-04:00

I trust that on this near-November Wednesday, you're all as keen to groove to some Uruguayan psych-pop as me. These guys may not be Os Mutantes, but they take me to a grainy, blurry Tropicalia wonderland all the same. I bet that 40 year ago, some well-meaning middle class hippies in Uruguay were rocking out to this while hatching idealist impossible schemes, bless 'em.

Limonada - Dejenme Dormir

You've got some Gaul

2011-10-25T00:00:00.014-04:00

Oh, the effortless style of the French, at least the way I imagine them back in the early-to-mid '60s. The Franco-centric offerings on the 'blague have mostly centered on the lascivious and goofy detours from otherwise lascivious libertines (not counting Stereolab). I'm don't know enough about Chantal Goya to determine if she's any more wholesome, but this track at least sounds mostly disease-free.

Chantal Goya - Laisse-Moi

Moonwalk

2011-10-24T00:00:00.015-04:00

It's good to see bands one admired in college days sound even better with more mature ears. The idea of indie rockers doing chamber music may have seemed like a novelty back then, but the quality of the playing is not only more impressive now, but seems possessed of a dignity that allows an even better aging process. This track comes from an album that took its title from the geology of the moon. It does a nice job of evoking the slow, slightly melancholy walk over its cratered surface.

Rachel's - Kentucky Nocturne

Feral

2011-10-21T00:00:00.013-04:00

Why doesn't anyone talk about "freak folk" anymore? Unlike most ad hoc genre tags, I always thought that one was kinda benign, and accurate to boot. A couple years ago, I snatched up many a record that could claim an association to Animal Collective, back when they were caarazeeee psychedelic campfire troubadours. I guess these folks could've been the women's auxilliary. Still a quite charming woodsiness.

First Nation - Female Trance

Elements

2011-10-20T00:00:00.015-04:00

Low clarinets...sparse synth notes...space...imaginary saxophones...drift into thin air...phantom breath...brief swollen color diffusion...drop the head back...dream lengthwise...

Yasauaki Shimizu - Semitori No Hi

Music for vampire ballet

2011-10-19T00:00:00.009-04:00

I'm trying to not think of this tune as novelty, but when a ballet dancer moonlights as a crooning synth popper, it's hard to really know how to receive it. I suppose that's part of the allure. As is the sheer catchiness.

Karl Biscuit - La Morte

Tom Waits for no man

2011-10-18T00:00:00.018-04:00

I've enjoyed Tom Waits's gallery of carnival characters and multi-lensed channeling of American lore for many years now. In a petty sense, it's been disappointing to hear it mostly rehashed over the last few albums, but then, I'd be a total ass to view that as anything resembling a tatter on his many accomplishments. Which is why when I put the Orphans album the other day, it was so pleasing to hear this weird '50s hiccuping rocker kicking it all off. Could old Tom be hearing new voices in his head? Things settled into familiar territory afterward, but it goes to show how a good opening can cast a glow that sustains.

Tom Waits - Lie To Me

And here's a two-fer-Tuesday to give this triple disc set its proper due. A little on the nose, but what heartless bastard wouldn't drop a tear in his beer as his barmates rouse themselves to belt this one skyward.

Tom Waits - Never Let Go

Movement

2011-10-17T00:00:00.009-04:00

Gotta say I'm a bit amazed at being able to get my meaningful possessions packed, transported, and mostly unpacked in a relatively short span of countable hours. Now there's the process of acclimating to a new domestic space, but there's plenty of time for that. Unpacking box after box of CDs brings many thoughts to mind. And even more songs. For some reason, this one popped into my head at several moments. Not sure why, but then what fool assigns meaning to any thoughts that come when trying to reconstruct the shape of a collection from poorly packed moving boxes? Maybe something to do with the title.

Badly Drawn Boy - Once Around The Block

Home

2011-10-14T00:00:00.007-04:00

It's moving weekend, for the first time in over 6 years. Exciting! Slightly terrifying! I'm not really equipped to go into the emotional details of that process right now, if only because the logistical ones are enough of a mindful. Times like this—trying to make yourself as mobile as possible and gauging the true weight of your possessions—it's best to surround yourself with music that feels like home. Even in German, this is one I can wrap myself in as I alter my center of gravity.

Kraftwerk - Computer Liebe

Sweet guitarmony

2011-10-13T00:00:00.018-04:00

If Thin Lizzy had done nothing but bless us with harmonized guitar solos, we would still be forever in their debt. If they had only embodied the streetwise rocker archetype, we would still owe them heavy rotation on jukeboxes the world over. Add to that a fine set of bone crunchers and ballads and I can say it's taken shamefully long to pay them a proper tribute on the 'blague. Here's one from their later days, still full of fire, fueled by booze, and clad in don't-mess-with-me denim.

Thin Lizzy - We Will Be Strong

The truth about America

2011-10-12T00:00:00.016-04:00

Thought I'd bring things to a grinding halt around here. Put another way, sometime a song offers no music at all except a well-constructed, multi-idea-synthesizing, passionate, and very human talk about the state of Things today. Give Simon's lecture an hour of your day and your socio-economic understanding will be much enhanced. Promise.

The one from the sun

2011-10-11T00:00:00.022-04:00

One of my favorite things about Sun Ra is that the sci-fi presentation rarely tampered with the genuine jazz/r&b/whatever that the Arkestra was into at the time. The music always was made of good solid terrestrial elements. This one sounds like a groovy '50s party at the house of a man who on special occasions puts on the Christmas lights and sequins and jumps up on the table to describe his interstellar travels. Which is really something any good host should do.

Sun Ra - The Sun Man Speaks

Message in a birthday

2011-10-10T00:00:00.017-04:00

Well, it's my birthday, and I'm going to indulge a longtime personal favorite. Sting's absurd career notwithstanding, I maintain the utmost loyalty to the Police's brief and excellent discography. I continue to be awed by the supercharged push of Stewart Copeland's drumming, Andy Summers's cool/understated guitar wisdom, and even Sting's attitude, pre-pompous assitude. This song captures the best of their hooks and subtle fanciness in one piece of pop magic. Great for both karaoke belting and jumping around the bedroom solo. Here it is live, exhilarating and seemingly on the verge of collapse the whole way through. Maybe even powerful enough to blow out those 34 birthday candles in my mind.

The Police - Message in a Bottle (live)

Thin men

2011-10-07T00:00:00.018-04:00

I'll admit it, I like Suzanne Vega, and always did. She's one of the few coffeehouse types who knows that all those vocal curlicues do not signify actual emotion outside of commercials and rom coms. She sings plain and understated, and bless her for it. She got kinda experimental after that "Luka" hit, and most people didn't care much for that. I know she went folky again later on, but I lost the thread there. Here's a surprisingly slinky one. Part of me wants to hear a version with Donald Fagan singing. And for those of you on the Yom Kippur train, a title that loosely speaks to your foodlessness this weekend.

Suzanne Vega - Thin Man

Canned bliss

2011-10-06T00:00:00.010-04:00

Hell is a waiting room. Hell is regret. Hell is not knowing how to not repeat mistakes. Hell is injustice. Hell is other people. Heaven is so much simpler. It's 16 minutes of Can live in Paris in 1973.

Can - Spoon (live)

Bruisin' Susans 2

2011-10-05T00:00:00.009-04:00

There are days when the worklife is just too much on the nerves. Theses are the times I wanna run around the city making home movies about running about the city, playing in a band, and generally not concerned with time meted out in scheduled blocks, with frantic activity in the margins. Oh wait...

Band Of Susans - Now Is Now

Bruisin' Susans

2011-10-04T00:00:00.016-04:00

How has this band eluded me for so long? A rock band merging Rhys Chatham's multi-guitar intensities, punk drive, and rock n' roll heart. An muscular American update of shimmering endless Neu!-isms. And with three members named Susan to boot! One of those bands I'd heard many times as reference points but never explored. Now an overdue obsession. This one features their more tuneful side, making you want to pump fists and stomp the accelerator.

Band Of Susans - Learning To Sin

Mirrors and beyond

2011-10-03T00:00:00.009-04:00

Who is this Johnny Warman, and how did he manage to borrow Peter Gabriel's band at the height of their early '80s awesomeness? Maybe more impressive than that hustle is his ability to rip off "Dear Prudence" in the verses and then ride Tony Levin's boomstick authority to a triumphant chorus. Bummer it went right to the dustbin of history. Rescued now for your listening pleasure. And for extra enjoyment, check out the awkwardly/excellently dated music video.

Johnny Warman - Walking Into Mirrors

Put your face on

2011-09-30T00:00:00.000-04:00

Music for getting ready is important. And not just because it makes for a good montage in movies. Often, the anticipation of preparation is better than the thing you're getting ready for. I used to spend way too long choosing music to tie my shoes to, to say nothing of more fashionable matters. I regret none of it. And with the weekend arrived, feel free to crank this one as you put on lipstick or tie windsor knots or get the clown suit on. Whatever you get up for.

Paintbox - Getting Ready For Love

Dream procession

2011-09-29T00:00:00.016-04:00

Continuing a week of mental haze, I recall an old dream. It involved walking slowly through an airplane hangar with clowns very very slowly waiving Queen Elizabeth-style style left and right as the planes lazily took off. It wasn't clear if they were humans dressed as clowns or animatronic robots. I'm not sure if it was an anxiety dream or a reflection of strange, yet complete contentment, but this song was surely playing on repeat.

Future World Orchestra - Airborne

Gentle marching

2011-09-28T00:00:00.010-04:00

Another side of moodiness. I love the sound of pianos more and more, especially when they feel like they're carrying me across long shapeless fields in late afternoon. Which is what I'm hearing here. Much more than anything to do with Paris.

Tacks, The Boy Disaster - Paris

Pale boys approaching

2011-09-27T00:00:00.019-04:00

I know it feels like a lingering summer out there, but I'm anticipating the upcoming chill and crunchy leaves that so often brings vaguely gothy new wavey stuff like this to mind. Is it overwrought? Will I ever outgrow it? Listening to these tracks back-to-back, gotta say no and no. I don't even care if the second one is double its appropriate length, that chorus is just tasty.

Sad Lovers and Giants - Vendetta

Sad Lovers and Giants - Man of Straw

Dancing and dreaming pleasure

2011-09-26T00:00:00.006-04:00

When I was a kid, I secretly liked my many allergies and occasional colds because it meant I got to have cold medicine. The ensuing loopiness was at once a dry run for the pharmacopeian dimension of early adulthood and also a weirdly satisfying recline into level of consciousness untroubled by neurosis or hurry. Battling this last weekend of heavy allergies (I blame that damn Irene for putting all kinds of subterranean gunk into the air) brought me back to that state. Here's a tune for that kind of dreaminess. Don't even think of hating on that saxophone!

Tuxedomoon - Atlantis

Fashionably late

2011-09-23T00:00:00.078-04:00

I try not to post too much music that's readily available at other Internetly places, especially when it comes to "hot new releases". But the new Rapture album came across my radar, and hearing this comeback effort, I couldn't help but remember the music climate of the early 'aughts, when you couldn't throw a stone in New York and not hit a dancepunk band of variable cruddiness.

It was a nice triumph of the erudite music nerds taking over the dance floor and dictating the soundtrack. But at the same time, this band kinda sucked. In ways I found hard to articulate. Partly, it was the blatant rip-offs — I'm all for artless vocalizing if it's your own artifice at least (cough, John Lydon, cough). But mostly it was the slicking up of a band that was frankly neither very tight nor had much to say. The sight of gyrating indie kids was an interesting novelty, but could you really call the music "infectious" in itself? The labored danceability seemed like a stumbling mile from the silky ease of tracks like any of these, to pick examples right off the top off this 'blague. As for lyrical content, some things are best not recalled.

I'm sure they're nice guys, with good influences and intentions. But as ubiquitous carriers of the new thing, they underwhelmed. Which made the cultural noise around them both irritating and disappointing. And so the bits I liked (and there were) caused a strange cycle of aesthetic pleasure, guilt, and anxiety. A little like the kid compelled toward a crush and yet finding everyone reason to be repulsed and then turning that tension inward.

Anyway, this new album has them all growed up and yet seeming quite lost. They try lots of styles, which are adequately, if unconvincingly, executed. So why am I posting the title track. Hmmm. Empathy? Mr. Once Popular trolling for new friends in the cafeteria? Not to diminish the strengths at work. The song's catchy, triumphantly hypnotic, the caterwauling seemingly inspired, and maybe that's enough. Maybe I'm still trying to fall for them.

The Rapture - In The Grace Of Your Love

Wild about Harry

2011-09-22T00:00:00.011-04:00

It takes a special bass player to get a solo perch up on the 'blague. Or in this case, a visionary who happened to work the low side. I suppose this could be considered a curiosity for those who know Haruomi "Harry" Hosono mainly from his pioneering electronic work. But this is quite the classy groover, which goes to show that 1973 was 1973 just about anywhere.

Haruomi Hosono - Rose & Beast

Jangle in the attic

2011-09-21T00:00:00.019-04:00

What is it about slightly maudlin jangle pop that sounds so good when captured on cheap cassettes? It's like jewels found in the attic, covered in dust and neglect, and all the more precious for it. At least dudes like Ariel Pink were paying attention. Martin Newell went on to form the Cleaners From Venus, who were just about as unheard as these early recordings. Another nice Internet rescue from the out-of-printdom.

Martin Newell - Julie Profumo
Martin Newell - Winter Palace 2

You f--- up my censor

2011-09-20T00:00:00.018-04:00

Maybe I'm a little immature, but 5 years after hearing this, it still cracks me up. Or maybe there's just something timeless about demonstrating the mind's natural dirtiness via pretend-censoring the squeaky-cleanest things. Either way, it reaffirms the power of an overarching authorial voice and its godlike ability to bend any text to its will.

John Denver- Annie's Song (WFMU edit)

Music for babies' expanding minds

2011-09-19T00:00:00.010-04:00

From the minimalist tension of Friday's track to the wide-eyed wonder of these Japanese new agers. I don't know why I have a near-endless attention span for this kind of stuff. Maybe it's because I can imagine a 2-year-old version of myself looping it in his head while making all kinds of discoveries about water and clouds. At any rate, Yellow Magic Orchestra's Haruomi Hosano produced this, and that alone can be your official seal of quality.

Inoyama Land - Glass Chaim

Coiled

2011-09-16T00:00:00.017-04:00

Who needs drums! Aided by their fabulously toy-like drum machine, Young Marble Giants fashioned the basic rock essentials and tied it together with the taut wire of understatement. There's so much fury just waiting to escape those muted 8th notes and library vocals, and the band smartly kept it below the surface, forcing us listeners to supply the mental catharsis and aftermath our damn selves.

Young Marble Giants - Music For Evenings

Crepuscular activity

2011-09-15T00:00:00.013-04:00

Keeping with the strange fusions. It took an odd set of post-punkers to hitch their wagon to samba styles that must've seemed a million miles from their time. But these juxtapositions just remind us how arbitrary any time is and how many different versions could exist. Taking a cue from the cover, I prefer to imagine these streams flowing into a future I may be brave enough to inhabit. Or at least an apartment I might rent. Here are two songs from that world — one coldly wacked-out cover, the other a warm bolus of mechanical sunshine.

Antena - The Boy From Ipanema

Antena - Camino Del Sol