Taking leave

There's music that reminds me how inadequate words are. Or at least irrelevant. Or at least fail thoroughly in my exhausted, totally-vacation-ready state of mind and nervous system.

This song is just beyond. Beyond the words I can find and the material conditions of my overextended time. I'm digging it because it perfectly suits the visions of a desert I'll soon be cruising through. And because its construction seems so magical that I can't feel any association with its components, and so it is a true escape.

Fennesz is good like that. All Music Guide talks about haunting melodies and washes of granular noise, and I guess that's a pretty good approximation. But there are always colors without names, and numbers hiding between numbers, and sounds that will not be organized into language.

Peace out, friends. Songblague will be back on 11/9.

Fennesz - Rivers of Sand

Aww man, I can't leave things all heavy and serious. Life is a dream. Here's the first thing that comes up when you type "vacation" into Google images. Alright!

Power pop on draught

There are plenty of rock dudes you'd love to go out drinking with. Bob Dylan. Thin Lizzy. Tom Waits + whoever he would've brought along in 1978. I'd even add Belle & Sebastian, because you know those little Glaswegians could probably drink you under the table and smash your smug face if you even mumbled the word "twee."

Then there's Artful Dodger, in whose sweaty company I'm sure you would've had a rollicking, all-American time throwing back cans of crappy beer and enjoying the most indistinct burgers in Wisconsin. Even if you were in Virginia. The boys are long gone and forgotten, but you can conjure the magic with their utterly addictive masterpiece.

Artful Dodger - Wayside

Decadence Europa

From the sublime to the profane. Giorgio Moroder does it without even a word spoken. He's got it all smoke machine disco like. Then the cop show guitars blast in, and you know you're in the presence of divine grace. You could probably catch an STD just listening to this.

Munich Machine - Space Warrior

Pärt apart

From art-damaged Judaica to modern minimalist sacred music. Guess the train of thought got derailed. I actually had this playing on the subway the other day. Rainy, a littled dazed, Saturday afternoon. Just the thing. Give this a minute to get going and it will fill you up with a glow.

Arvo Pärt - Cantus In Memory Of Benjamin Britten

Diasporovisation

Every time I try to think about the music I'll be hearing in Israel, I end up putting on something made by Jews in America. This track goes back to the fertile downtown improv scene of a few years back, now scattered around the city, and probably several others. A diaspora by any other name.

Roy Nathanson & Anthony Coleman - Ija Mia

Hot ticket

OK, I really need a vacation. Right. Now.

Cristina - Ticket To The Tropics

Move with the movement

I'm all heart for the Gabester. Albums 3 and 4 especially, and I feel it most when he's been off the stereo for so long that memory does its monument-building magic. Which is understandable; he's got his name on several seminal records of my early listening years.

Then I go and listen again and hear all the problems in execution that obscure the brilliant ideas. So I end up having to enjoy him almost academically, because I can hear what he's aiming for (say, modern isolation and paranoia), and it's obvious that the art is more in the process than the product.

Here's a good example. The ingredients are awesome, and so is the groove, but there's something so stiflingly early-'80s about the production. Maybe it was deliberate; given that the song's all about getting off on the crush of population density. I don't know if I'm necessarily in tune with that on my morning commute, but the energy does seem to make the train kick it up a notch.

Peter Gabriel - I Have The Touch

Øye vay

Autumn sounds remain the order of the day. Maybe it's because I've gotten to see so little of the autumn daylight lately that I've got to feel it by proxy. This one's funky and minimal. Up close and personal. Feels like it should soundtrack slow dancing in the living room. Or a slow evening walk in someone else's city. Too bad the song's all about possessiveness and jealousy. Hit me, Erlend!

The Whitest Boy Alive - Gravity

Mars on life

Time for some '90s digital warmth. I'm talking about the friendly, textural stuff, not the hamfisted fin-de-siècle aggro junk people used to writhe around to so goofily. I put on Autoditacker the other day because a) it was starting to feel autumny and b) I have good memories of washing dishes to it. Now I have good memories of cutting vegetables to it. And it still feels like a comfy sweater of sound in the crisp air of early autumn.

Mouse On Mars - Juju

There is no pilot

I am amazed and grateful that someone actually took me up on my crazy request! So now I've got vocoders running all through my brain. Which first took me me here. Which then took me to Big Science proper. Which reminded me how much I love this opening track—the funk almost surgically removed from the saxophone riff, the lyrical dread transmuted into playful, detached bemusement.

I am totally with Mrs. Lou Reed on planes going down as an archetypal site for the absurdity of modern life. But more than that—and call me a Luddite—but I still can't find my way to seeing air travel as something normal, however much the everydayness of it creates the impression of normality. Feels like a human offense worse than oil rigs or power plants. And yet so bureaucratic that it's almost entirely without style. So when it goes wrong, you may as well accent the ridiculousness of everyone involved. And with that, T-minus 2 weeks to liftoff.

Laurie Anderson - From The Air

I am older than ever before

Songblague quietly hit the 6-month mark last month. Cool, cool. But my birthday is tomorrow, and I'll ask you to indulge me a moment to make this space a little self-serving on that occasion.

It's not much of a milestone...cough...32, and I've been too busy to plan anything social. Instead, I'd like to celebrate it with a track from my band's forthcoming album, which I am very very very excited about. We're looking at a Halloween time release, so look out for it. This track is one of my favorites. It's about the textile workers' strike at the Lowell Mill way back in the American day, and it features the excellent voice of our friend Ali Hammer. Enjoy the sweet harmony and my attempt at appropriating the Purdie Shuffle. Cheers!

The Deedle Deedle Dees - Do The Turn Out

Let me jump and shout, alright!

Brilliant power pop doesn't need much by way of commentary. Which is good, because my synapses are quite fried. And not even from drugs. These guys sound pretty hopped up though. They're practically tearing through the tape. OK, enough out of me.

20/20 - Giving It All

Yacht rock strutters' ball

Steely Dan, Toto, and Chicago went out for a night on the town and ended up in a tangle of squalid love. Several months later, this little baby was spotted floating down the river. It's best to not ask questions. But if you've set your yacht upon the oily seas and want to keep the dancing going, it couldn't hurt to have this tune playing on deck. Maybe segue into it from this.

Larsen/Feiten Band - Make It

Preparing for liftoff

The plan is starting to come together. Hotels are getting booked, supplies procured, all that. B and I head out for our mad dash across Israel in less than 3 weeks. It's soon enough that loose ends are starting to make me nervous, but far enough away to still feel like a dream. I'm trying to heed the lessons of Chevy Chase and let spontaneity upset our best-laid plans. But I suspect I'll still find a way to drive around with someone's deceased grandmother in the rental car. That's how Songblague conducts its international busines. Anyway, here's a song to accompany thoughts of liftoff.

Sun Ra - Rocket Number 9

Hey, you can never have enough of the Sun One! Two for Tuesday, babies. This is what the pianist is playing at the hotel bar on Venus.

Sun Ra - Quest

Go have a laugh on me

Marshall Crenshaw got a raw deal. His self-titled debut is a parade of great pop songs. The influences are obvious, but he executes brilliantly. And it's got that bright eyed ambition that makes first albums special. But he was done in by unfortunate timing. Snappy, traditional-minded rock n' roll didn't stand a chance in '82. Not much room for poor Marshall between Eye of the Tiger and Thriller. So it goes. But the record has aged very nicely. And this is a song to help you get up and going on a Monday. Or at least one I can sing along with in the morning while half-asleep and trying to get my act together.

Marshall Crenshaw - Mary Anne

Yesterday's tomorrow according to Atari

Life is full of absurdity. War, congressional debate, Neil Young's Trans album. That's right, the one where he appropriates Kraftwerk. Uhh, whaaa? The story I heard is that he got a vocoder so that he could better communicate with his son who was born with cerebral palsy. It's a tender account, and it makes me think the album is more than a middle-finger-to-the-record-label act of career suicide. Who knows? Maybe it was that too. Maybe Neil wanted to get as far from himself as he could. Or maybe he got really into playing Atari. None of those layers apply to the album art, which packs in just about every lame signifier of "The Future" as any single image from the early '80s.

Meanwhile, I've got a birthday coming up, and you know, a vocoder wouldn't be the worst thing to find under a bow and wrapping paper. Just sayin.'

Neil Young - Computer Age

A long exhale

You know when a mess becomes so complex that it's actually kinda liberating? That is the state of things at my work right about now. The chaos would be almost pleasing if it wasn't for the acceleration. Luckily, here's Shuggie giving us a speed to shift down to. Why do early drum machines remind me of chemistry sets?

Shuggie Otis - Aht Uh Mi Hed