The plane slowly crashing

This track comes from the Yesterday's Future files. Vivid images come to mind. The long arc of an airplane soaring and crashing. Robots in the cockpit. The geometry of the runway about to be ruined. You can debate what kind of future would be soundtracked by coldly seductive electro-rock with equally icy German women on vox, but I think we can all agree that it'd be a world worth spending some time in. Like 4 and a half minutes or so. Which is just what we've got here.

Gina X Performance - Nice Mover

Cool it now (not quite in the New Edition sense)

I can't believe August is getting away from us this quickly. And since I haven't even seen a beach this summer, I'm going to have to use music to get myself there. You can call it cheesy, but if music could lower blood pressure, this would be one track to do it.

I'd also like to take a moment to appreciate one of the worst album covers you'll ever see. It looks like an early '80s ad for Brazilian dishsoap. Or a poster for bartending classes.

Marcos Valle - Estrelar

Japanese lullabye

I miss having the kind of life where summers were the slowdown time. The last few years, summer's been full-on work overload, with all the uncertainty and anxietiy that carries with it. I'd complain if someone else had made my choices for me. The nice thing is that stress creates its own spaces of escape. And happily, lots of tunes have acted as my little magic carpet. Here's one from the Boredom's drummer Yoshimi's excellent side band. A dream in sound with a landscape full of misty forests and weird waterfalls.

OOIOO - Mountain Book

The white gloves of the devil

Sometimes you just want to savor the idea of a movie, rather than bothering to go watch the thing. Les Gants Blancs du Diable was apparently an animated French thriller from 1972. If the soundtrack is any indication, I would probably love it. But maybe not. It could be boring, or utterly lacking the rainy day grooves and pure French '70s-ness of Karl Heinz Schafer's soundtrack. I really don't want to take the chance. So I'll just focus on the poster and the awesome title and let my imagination go from there. Big props to Mutant Sounds for supplying this to the public. Essential listening for library music buffs.

Karl Heinz Schafer - La Victime

Flying colors

Lately, I'm finding myself compelled to go through my records, trying to mentally revisit the downtown improv scene that I loved so much in the late '90s/early '00s. In terms of pure playing, many of the musicians are in a league of their own, the music bursting with strange colors and inspired flights. It's a drag that there's no homebase for those guys anymore, though it's pretty awesome that Roy Nathanson is my bandmate's landlord and—shameless self-promotion—will be playing on our forthcoming album.

Anyway, look out for a healthy heaping of downtown sounds on the 'blague in the near future. Here's one from Jamie Saft and Cuong Vu—two guys who'd be on anyone's list of top collaborators. I love the skewed cop show funk-esque head that they use for a jumping off point.

Saft/Vu - Garbo

Cheers for the young idea

Before he was an indie rock A-lister, Ted Leo slogged it out in Chisel, a band whose mod-inflected punk was totally a harbinger of what would come in the 'aughties, but sadly out of step in the '90s. Set You Free is still a dynamite listen, containing the blueprint for Leo's stylistic range while rocking out with the kind of abandon you rarely recapture once you hit your stride. This cut spends a minute and a half revving up before launching into a refrain so good, they just keep it going without changing a note. Pure rock bliss.

Chisel - On Warmer Music

Let's talk in bubbles

Looks like this week has become a little musical travelogue. Or at least a 5-day shutout of The Homeland. I know, very unpatriotic. So it goes. Let's finish it off with a stop in France. This one's a departure from Serge's usual brand of debonair sleze. It's actually a sweet picture of romance in comic book land. Of course, the music itself suggests a very non-PG-rated strip show. But hey, look who we're dealing with.

Serge Gainsbourg - Comic Strip

(And for a Friday bonus, enjoy this important 20th century moment.)

The lighter side of the desert

Walking through the stifling late afternoon heat, ipod shuffle mode had a moment of inspiration. Tom Tom Club's debut is one of those albums I'm happy to have but rarely listen to. But the right context changes everything. In this case, my brain was transplanted to a Moroccan vacation in full swing. I'm talking travel beard, afternoon boozing/napping, and idle thoughts about life-changing decisions destined to be abandoned upon returning home.

If you're unfamiliar, Tom Tom Club was basically the Talking Heads rhythm section plus some members of the expanded touring band. A one-off, cool-down project that got some unexpected critical props and kept going for a while without too much consequence. As much as I love the dense, ominous Afro-funk of Remain In Light, sometimes it's nice to spend some time with its carefree kid sister.

Tom Tom Club - Lorelei

Maps won't show us where we're going

Tell it, indie kids! Tell it all day long, with your shower-trained voices and your power-pop gallop. There are some days when you're perfectly content with catchy, cryptically literate tunes from the New Pornographers extended family of pop groups. Today is one such day.

Immaculate Machine - Dear Confessor

The secret life of Arabia

It's hot out. Like brain-paralyzing hot. No way around it. Unless you get to spend your day in air conditioning, which would be great if it wasn't one of those days where your job puts your brain in another kind of pain.

The crazy summer heat makes me hallucinate. So here's a good track to accompany that—a desert fantasia undercut by some incongruous guitars and a nicely broke-ass tabla drum machine.

Secret Chiefs 3 - Renunciation

Australia brings the rawk

If "Beds Are Burning" is all you know about Midnight Oil, then Songblague has a special treat for you. Some personal history - around 7th grade, I got hugely into them. They were at the peak of their US popularity, an arena-sized act. The first big rock show I ever saw was them at the Philadelphia Spectrum. They tore it up, and I became totally devoted.

They were also the first band who had a mysterious back catalog that I felt compelled to explore, with the excitement that genealogy buffs must feel as they unearth their family trees. It was a happy, if solitary, pursuit. After all, who in South Jersey circa 1990 cared to learn that the Oils had been one of the biggest bands in Australia for over a decade or that their live shows were legendary for their all-out fury. Who knew that they'd already made several albums full of leftfield, powerhouse rock for the politically aware, full of exotic Australian vernacular and references to places that I will never see. Here's an early example, with some awesome riffage straight out of the Thin Lizzy playbook.

Midnight Oil - Cold Cold Change

Total modal

A bunch of famous people have been dying lately. One not-so famous person who passed recently is George Russell, and I think he deserves a note or ten thousand in tribute. Songblague will do its humble part.

Sadly under-praised, Russell was one of jazz's great innovators, working up an approach to improvisation based on scales, rather than chords, and getting all crazy with the Lydian mode, which I admittedly don't understand as well as I'd like to. Anyway, he made a bunch of awesome records in that great early-to-mid '60s period, when jazz was discovering all kinds of cool things about itself, before getting carried away by its excesses. This cut's got energy with brains to match.

The George Russell Septet - The Stratus Seekers

(Aww man, I just read that Rashied Ali and Les Paul kicked off as well. What is going on here?!)

Bio riddims

Lincoln Center's 'Out of Doors' concert series pulled off a real snazzy pairing last Saturday night—Rhys Chatham's piece for 200 electric guitars followed by a set from the reunited, seminal Liquid Liquid. After the giant motoring hum and roaring crescendos that comprised Chatham's monster, it was just perfect to hear the post-punk street sounds of these guys.

It's one thing to know rhythm, something else to be literally all about it. Hooks are great, but Liquid Liquid show that it's drums and more drums (and bass and vox acting like drums) that get the party started. It's a bummer that I hadn't heard of them until I went through my joyless, post-rock Tortoise-centric phase. No slag on them, but I'd rather be at the party.

Liquid Liquid - Out

Tropical late afternoon beach party in heaven

I don't know what it is, but I just can't shake my crush on the sweet Windsurf soundworld, the magic of which extends to the solo efforts of Messrs Sorcerer and Hatchback. It's funny because rationally, I should hate this stuff. It's beyond derivative, with influences plugged in almost completely unmanipulated. The songs are barely composed, mostly a bunch of ideas that flow one to the next. And yet...the effect is so ineffably compelling that I realize I will never understand the chemistry of aesthetic rapture. Guess that's just the way crushes get you.

Sorcerer - Jump Rope

The past that'll get us

Disco Inferno possess one of the least accurate band names I know of. Hardly disco and nothing resembling an inferno with these guys. They started out as a Joy Division knockoff and evolved into a weird and interesting poppish group that worked an artful approach to sampling into equally artful songs. None of this would be apparent in this tune, which is one of their least weird songs. But it's a nice summer listen, breezy and moody, with lyrics about trying to not be held hostage by the past. I like that thought lots.

Disco Inferno - The Last Dance

Hall or nothing

I saw Hall & Oates play last Thursday in Coney Island. The show was great, but I was especially happy to find myself loving it not as a nostalgia act, but the way I would any parade of great songs. Looking around, I saw a sea of un-ironic adoration. Which gave me a great sense of justice, because H&O have no business being lumped in with the radio fluff of yesteryear. They ruled the charts for a reason, because ridiculously catchy, well-crafted pop—with some well-placed quirks—should strike a chord with the masses. It's even more impressive listening to the stuff today and hearing the traces of its time but no sense of indebtedness to the era. Which is to say, the best of their stuff doesn't feel the slightest bit dated.

You've heard the hits. But what about Daryl Hall's strange, yet totally inspired, collaboration with Robert Fripp. Sure, he was into Aleister Crowley, but who'd have thought he'd end up pallin' around with proggers?! They recorded the Sacred Songs album just before H&O hit their stride, and the label shelved it for 3 years. Because, well, record companies don't know anything about music.

It's not the easiest record to find, but it's well worth the effort. This is one of the standout tracks. Snarky lyrics, muscled-out vox, and crazy weird Frippery at 1:40 that might make your head implode. Despite all that, it's still all about the pop magick that Hall is so adept at conjuring.

Daryl Hall & Robert Fripp - Something in 4-4 Time

Shaking the twee

Started the week with a soundalike; may as well end it with one too. I was vaguely into this group in 9th grade and forgot about them pretty quickly. I heard their debut again a couple years ago, and this track got deep in my ear. If the Smiths were from Hershey, PA and born a few years later, they would've recorded this. Can you imagine the kind of abuse these guys must've taken from the high school football team?

The Ocean Blue - Vanity Fair

Man in the funhouse mirror

I suppose it doesn't flatter Frank Black's solo career to say that his best album is the one where he radically revisits his old Pixies classics. Sorry, but that's Songblague's position on the matter. Be honest all you Black Francis lovers, don't you think the weird Pixies magic just seemed to abandon him when he turned his name around? He's been prolific alright, but there's just something very workaday, lunch pail about it.

 

That's what's so nice about the Frank Black Francis record, and I don't know why everyone didn't adore it when it came out. Think about the risks involved in re-imagining songs that are gospel to your dedicated multitudes. I think he pulls it off beautifully, with a surrealism that's totally different from the madcap variety of his youth. If it's 'mature,' then it's a pleasingly warped adult we're dealing with.

"Monkey Gone to Heaven" was the first Pixies song I ever heard, which puts it on the Top 5 list by default. This version sounds like a psychedelic funeral, all twisted sadness and garbled warnings.

Frank Black Francis - Monkey Gone To Heaven

Decibel du jour

Shopworn as it may be, the Lennon-McCartney paradigm actually suits The dB's (Decibels, not Doobie Brothers), albeit with a new wave twist. Chris Stamey is the arty, angular one with the whiny voice; Peter Holsapple is the pop craftsman with the rootsy bent. They come from opposite sides of the tracks, but together, they're gonna clean up this town! Umm, I mean their songs alternate with a rare elegance, like cars merging symmetrically from two lanes to one without even a hint of horn honking. Umm, whatever on that too. Anyway, this one is Holsapple's, and it may be his best—two minutes of everything done right.

The dB's - Big Brown Eyes

Everything at once

Another track to get back into a New York state of mind. Last week, I was talking about musical snobbery and the freedom of jettisoning the 'chops quota' for enjoying music. On the other hand, it's instructive to go back to the groups that thrilled so much and set the bar unfairly high. Case in point, John Zorn's legendary Naked City band, which I spent several years going totally gaga for and then burnt out on pretty hardcore. Mighty refreshing to take it out of the cellar and pull a stiff shot of the stuff. I heart New York.

Naked City - Asylum

Back on the mean side

Back from LA. Operation Breathe Deep and Mellow Out a near-complete success. I have decided I actually like driving around the place, though I still can't get used to the phrase "it's not far from here" referring to a 20-minute drive.

I like to think I took a little sunshine back with me. But that's got nothing to do with today's song. Talking about Graham Parker, who demonstrates that while you can't be Elvis Costello, you can sure sound a lot like him.

Graham Parker - Local Girls