On the road again for the nth Sunday in a row -- getting tired of that. Anyway, it gave me the chance to catch up on some great stuff. Hungry Kids of Hungary's album Escapades, which is light, summery and full of lilting pop vocals, got me through an absolutely fucking awful Dallas traffic disaster (it transcended "jam"). One track on there especially sounded very similar to the Beach Boys with some tight harmonic work but I can't remember which one. So listen to all of it.
For something slower and dirtier, how about Angel, the first track off of Massive Attack's Mezzanine? Can't miss with that album.
Weekly tag, anyone?
So somebody I work with insists on blasting the local pop-country radio station whenever we're in the car. For the last month and a half, for two days of every week, I spend a good hour listening to top 40 pop country. Some of the songs are really terribly produced, some of them are really well-produced. Some use obviously canned lines written and are recorded on second-rate digital instruments, some of them rely way too heavily on auto-tune, some of them are lazy. But others are beautifully crafted, utilize super-talented session musicians, and have hooks for days. And I'll be damned if it all doesn't satisfy some heretofore unrecognized craving of mine. Every song is about livin' in the backwoods and driving in trucks and falling in love next to the quarry in the middle of summer and drinking watery beer and yadda yadda. And they've engineered it down to a science, like the science of simple pleasures, or the science of small-town nostalgia. To the point that even if you've never lived in a small town, you start to think, "yeah, I do want to sing Willie Nelson songs down at the ol' bonfire, and then wake up early and work really hard in the field and then fall in love with the boss's offspring and then fight and make up and fall in love again and start a family and on the weekends, yeah, I want to front a cover band that makes people dance at the local dive bar." I'd never turn to this station by my own free will, but I'll be goddamned if I haven't come to really appreciate the times when this guy turns on the radio and tunes in and turns it up way too loud. It's really satisfying, and it makes me realize how much I willfully block out for no other reason than I've arbitrarily decided certain things are cool and valid and certain things are the opposite. It's worth walking out of your comfort zone every once in a while, you might find some really neat shit.
Unfortunately, I have no idea what any of the songs are called, or even who sings them because the radio station is terrible about identifying all that between breaks. More often than not they just play a 20 minute set broken up by lame DJ banter and commercials. It's a shame, because I'd like to know what I've been listening to. Ultimately though, it's more about the overarching unity of content between all the songs when they're put together. Just makes me wish I lived in a smaller town, I dunno.
Lets see. I started off this week by seeing Tyler, The Creator. It was a sort of strange show, I felt old, people seemed to be more obsessed with Tyler than with his music (he kept taking pictures with peoples iphones from the crowd). It was at a small venue which was great but it was only Tyler so he kept cutting off songs after a few verses cause they were collabs with others. He intro'd Yonkers by saying he "fucking hates this song". Other track links for those unfamiliar: Bastard, Goblin, and Sandwitches Musical style: offensive violent rap. There really isn't anything new I've been listening to this week, but here goes: * videosforpictures - Might have posted them before, been listening to them a fair amount this week. They are releasing a new album and it sounds good so far. They are sort of lo-fi noisey folk. Tracks: The Drop pt. 1, Dried Out and Hotel Prison * Fidlar - Seeing these guys in a few weeks and so incredibly excited for it. It should be a great show. They make such perfect punk with a bit of dance and surfer feel brought to it. Tracks: No Waves, The Punks Are Finally Taking Acid and Max Can't Surf. Max Can't Surf is definitely their most radio friendly song in my opinion, so catchy. * Car Seat Headrest - I think this is the only music I "found" this week. Reuse the Cels really wowed me when I first heard it and I bought the album based on that (for my named price of $5). The rest is the fairly good, I recommend just giving that track a listen and seeing what you think. It is sort of alt rocky with a lot of echoy reverb. * Honorable mention: Meowtain - Amazing name, pretty good music (lo fi pop).
I made a post about it here, but I've been listening to Waxahatchee's new album, Cerulean Salt. It's a great female led garage influenced album, and my favorite album of 2013 so far. I've also been listening to We Were Promised Jetpacks, or my favorite Scottish Indie Rock band. If you like the Twilight Sad you'll like these guys.
Didn't even realize you replied to my comment, flagamuffin. What do you of We Were Promised Jetpacks?
I've been listening to Pavement quite a bit recently. Love the singer's voice; love Slanted and Enchanted; it is an excellent album and I love the distortion. I've also been listening to some classical music. I've enjoyed some pieces by Philip Glass and Terry Riley, but I've been mostly listening to the works of William Grant Still. His Afro-American Symphony, First Movement is a beautiful work that melds blues in with the classical tradition. The blues motif at the beginning is brilliant.
Pavement is a great band, I prefer Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, but both albums are masterpieces.
I'd like to give a shout out to Silver Jews which had some overlap with Pavement for a while (via Stephen Malkmus). Their song I Remember Me is a fantastic song with a heart wrenching story.
First and foremost, I want to give fuffle's post a plug. I've been listening to his song the Visitor all morning and I'm really digging it. Seriously nice work, give it a listen. This week I listened to some Zombies I listened to Stornoway I listened to The Hard Lessons All great bands and great songs. Good week of music. OH... and I listened to some NOMO
That Zombies track is such a classic, but I really absolutely 100 percent have to tip my cap to you because I'd never heard the Hard Lessons song you linked and it is incredible. You don't hear new music that grabs you like that very often. Wow.
Glad you dug it. Here's another great tune from them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crwHzEgO7xY Great Michigan band. I love that Stornoway song, are you familiar with it? Up your alley?
Believe me, since I heard the first track I have managed to listen to every piece of music THL have on grooveshark, the above included. Got on a roll. The Stornoway didn't resonate with me as strongly, but I've listened to it twice and it's definitely up my alley. Periodic backing vocals are a highlight, as well as the lyrics. Piano and various instruments were a bit jarring at times. Overall definitely enough to put that album on my long list of music to delve into someday.
Contemporary Noise Quintet - A Coin Spinning Perfectly I don't know how to describe it, but I'm in love with this tune. To me it's the most beautiful thing that's ever been written. It tugs on my heartstrings and I get a little teary a little bit. The changes are so strong and they resonate so deeply with me.
At 2:18 is it. That solo is so longing, so yearning for something more, something better. I'll be damned if I ever listen to something as beautiful as this.
I've been listening to a lot of UK mathcore: Meet Me In St. Louis - Come To New York, There Were Fewer Murders Last Year & Blakfish - Carnival of Carnivores.
I listened to the new Sigur Rós track, Brennisteinn, a few times since it was released last friday. It sounds a lot darker then what they did on Valtari, but it's not a bad thing at all, I really like how it sounds.
Nik Bartsch. Minimalist jazz I guess is how I'd describe it. That doesn't seem right though. I don't know.
I listened to a post-punk college rock band from the late 70's/80's. The Feelies Have a listen and you can easily tell that they were influential to later bands. Apparently they rarely used outside producers so their songs were pretty long and not radio friendly. 'Crazy Rhythms' is a very cool album from 1980.
Their cover of Everybody Has Something to Hide (Except for Me and My Monkey) is also really tight. Really cool sound this band has.
Snog released a video for their next album on Tuesday, and I've been watching it a couple of times a day. Thrussell is a nut, but the best kind of nut. Other than that, I haven't gotten really into much new stuff this week. Been listening to a lot of C17H19NO3, one of John Bergin's old musical projects. He had mp3s of all his music up for a while at grindertool.com, but the domain seems to have been gobbled up by a typo squatter and Amazon is selling mp3s, so I'm not sure whether they're gone on purpose or not.
Well, flagamuffin, I'm glad you introduced us to Astronautalis, because I've been listening to This is Our Science lately and it's fantastic. I especially like The River, The Woods and Lift the Curse. I've also been listening to This is the Album of a Band Called Adebisi Shank, on recommendation from a friend. Very nice and full of energy. Finally, I just started listening to When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold by Atmosphere. Check out Like the Rest of Us and Yesterday.
I've been listening to: Oskar Schuster who makes these kind of . . . complex, shimmery instrumental tracks. Colin Stetson who creates some amazing arrangements using only a single bass saxophone. Built to Spill because they are great. and Fishbone, mostly stuff from Give a Monkey a Brain . . .