Tuesday, June 30, 2009

If John Hughes were German...

this song would've surely made it into one of his films, probably in the opening credits. And in that alternate universe, around the age of 12, this would be the song of my summer. Any given day, it would insinuate itself into everything—soccer practice, the wind blowing through my hair while walking home, and later that evening, the rain falling on the grass outside. I would drink a Fanta and all would be right with the world.

Monday, June 29, 2009

Preservatives

Like they say, nostalgia isn't what it used to be. Not being English or of a certain generation, I guess something about Village Green will always get lost in translation. The songs are unimpeachable, but I suspect that if I actually knew the places Davies was re-imagining, my memory would probably have a slightly more contemptuous flavor.

Still, I'm on the critical bandwagon about the album — an English masterpiece that Americans can love too, much the way late Soviet era kids loved our blue jeans. The record's closer in particular is sweet, innocent, and goofy. But also maybe a little ambivalent. Why doesn't Ray want to see any more of those pictures anyway? Would actual representations of the past ruin the chemical magic of memory? That kind of preservation needs a little self-delusion.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Prog rock vs. yacht rock (hold the Michael)

It's just too much. Tears fall down my cheek and onto my 'Beat It' jacket. My hands won't stop trembling, no matter which one I put the glove on. I moonwalk for a few uncertain steps, then fall to the ground. Somewhere up above, I hope Michael knows that I hum 'Man in the Mirror' whenever I undertake a daunting task like bringing out the recycling.

Seriously though, I had this jam in mind for today well before MJ's demise, and it will not be pre-empted. Besides, how lame would it be to post 'Human Nature' or whatever. There is no context that can overcome saturation. So, keeping with the original plan, I want to note a little bit of hard won self-actualization. It's a sign of a mature mind that one can engage in a public display of affection for Phil Collins-era Genesis and feel no shame.
Especially those awkward transitional albums where he wore a big beard and dressed like a fisherman.

I listened to all of A Trick of the Tail while walking over the Brooklyn Bridge, and the experience was magical. I can't say why; there's really no reason for it, but hey, can't argue with fact. This track in particular has an easy breezy pastoralness to it, but then—Bam!—prog city in the bridge. Sweetness. I guess it's sort of about death, so there's your topical tie-in. Sail away, MJ.

Genesis - Ripples

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Slow and whoa

More mellowness required. May as well go full on ridiculous with it. I saw these guys play once, and they enacted every zonked-out visual signifier the music suggests. Including actual rose-tinted sunglasses. At night. Still, give 'em respect. They have their thing, and they're sticking to it. Forget sleeping under the stars. This is music to evaporate or decompose to.

Brightblack Morning Light - All We Have Broken Shines

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Deceleration

Long, hectic days deserve simple songs and not too much in the way of explanation. This one reminds me that I'd like to be walking slowly in a quiet place, looking at other slow moving things. Gonna try to work a dream around that.

Mojave 3 - Beautiful

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Dweeb style city walk

Forget all the artificial intelligence concept album nonsense. This is just an honest struttin'-down-the-avenue groover. Except the moody dude who's struttin' is on his way to marching band practice and he keeps trying for that moustache that just won't fill in for him. But cool it with the mockery. One day he's gonna fire your ass.

The Alan Parsons Project - I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You

Monday, June 22, 2009

Optic verve

Like him or loathe him, Peter Greenaway's films are genuinely disturbing. The Draughtman's Contract has the notable distinction of being both dull and disgusting by turns. Happily, Nyman's soundtrack succeeds better. This tune in particular, which releases the tensions of heavy manners and period costumery in a galloping surge. You could commit acts of cruelty to this music and convince yourself you're not such a bad guy.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Theme Week - Training Montage (5/5)

Home-stretch. Finish line visible. Fix your headband and commence your sprint. Or, if you prefer, browse the racks at your local American Apparel, whose soundtrack programmers seem to think Braxe and Falke's work will put you in the mind to part with cash and show some skin. Well, they're probably not wrong. Meanwhile, I request only that you fight the temptation to hum the Chariots of Fire theme as the inaugural Songblague theme week comes to a close.

Alan Braxe & Fred Falke - Rubicon

But before we close it out, here's a bonus track from these same eminent French gentlemen. A little dip into post-workout hedonism. A neon wonderland conjured in a hot minute and half. Just short enough to want it to go on forever. Or at least another few bars of keytar soloing.

Alan Braxe & Fred Falke - Horizon

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Theme Week - Training Montage (4/5)

You know that moment when you're running and you realize that your brain has gone someplace far away and that the best thing for the momentum is to keep it as remote from the body as possible? Here's a song for that zone. No drugs required.

Ellen Allien - Your Body Is My Body

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Theme Week - Training Montage (3/5)

Given how weird and spooky the Knife have been known to get, it's hard not to think they're being a little cheeky with this. My mind toggles between images of runaway teen rebels and dangerous aerobics. Ideally, they're both part of the same movie.

The Knife - Listen Now

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Theme Week - Training Montage (2/5)

No way around it, this one's straight-up corny. The crappiness of the band's moniker is matched only by the priceless wretchedness of the lyrics. And yet, the hook is irresistible. And I'm in love with the bassline. And the video features some strange air traffic controller/robot choreography that must have made as little sense in '82 as it does now. Bless 'em all.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Theme Week - Training Montage (1/5)

Exciting stuff this Monday. Songblague debuts a new feature — Theme Week. For the next 5 days, we're all about focus. And for our first great theme, we explore the training montage—that special cinematic interlude where the hero/heroine has gotten his/her head straight and is furiously getting in shape to prove him/her self at the Big Whatever. Think Rocky and Apollo running on the beach, sweat-drenched aerobics classes, endless practice SAT tests. These important moments deserve equally important musical accompaniment.

We start with an unlikely artist. Michael Philips was the original guitarist for Genesis. Apparently, he freaked out early on and retired to some quiet English place to make and release music at his leisure. Most people did not keep up with his pursuits. Neither did I, but somehow I ended up with a soundtrack he did for a film about a global yacht race. It was made in the '90s, but it's so '80s, I feel the dude really should've gotten out more. Anyway, I love this hokey little gem.

Anthony Philips - In the Southern Ocean

Friday, June 12, 2009

Music for a new society

What if the post-apocalyptic future is nothing like Mad Max? No scattered remnants of industry and marauding humanoids with their strange rituals and techno-animalism. What if it's all gentle, homespun, cooperative living among barely disturbed nature? What if starting over sounded like this?

Thursday, June 11, 2009

His and hearse

I have a hard time with Nick Cave's early albums. I like that they seem to come from another place and time, with good old fashioned archetypes—usually the mysterious, maybe murderous drifter recounting his bad acts and inner torment, seducing and raising hell in equal measure. And yet, my attention drifts. Like watching porn. It's easy to get numb to it.

I think Let Love In is his finest hour. It's still rough and boisterous, but the violence is more submerged and the calm bits stretch out with an eerie tension. This track is probably my favorite. As songs about death go, I'm totally in its spell. I like the funereal pace, the honest, playfully sneering reflection on a life of malice, and the way it slowly rises to a roar. Hats off to the man.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Lay Me Low

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Silver rockets

What's wrong with America? I mean, besides imperialism and gross inequality. We were the vanguard of space travel. We put a flag on the moon. We still rock missions to the international space station. So why didn't we shower our affections on the Rockets? We should've made them our galactic ambassadors. But no, these French disco futurists had to settle for a merely respectable career in Europe, living out their glory in Italian arenas and variety shows.

But it's not too late. I figure since the planet hasn't yet been attacked by superior space beings, there's still time to get serious about our interstellar broadcasts. Let's quit it with the multilingual hellos and go with a more universal playlist. Any of the Rockets' first 3 albums will do. Are you listening, NASA?

Rockets - Synthetic Man

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Hard times

Talk about rainy day music. Could anyone but Curtis hit these notes of despair, fear, and underclass resignation? With a plaintive grace and a groove that insists on pressing ahead? Sure, Marvin Gaye maybe, but Curtis just oozes righteousness, and without all those dad issues. You've got to be stone-hearted to be unmoved by this tune, I say.

Curtis Mayfield - Hard Times

Monday, June 8, 2009

Really sanctuary

Spent about 5 continuous hours on bike Sunday, and I have a grotesque farmer's tan to show for it. My legs are in revolt. My dad is probably still hallucinating. In a world without these kinds of consequences (or traffic lights), this song would sync with the turning wheels. It sounds pretty great when you're walking too.

New Musik - Sanctuary

Friday, June 5, 2009

Cover me (psychotic behavior)

People usually think John Cale was the civilized one in the Velvet Underground, what with the viola and the accent. But he could do spine-tingling, locked-in-a-closet-for-2-weeks disturbed as well as Lou Reed any day of the week. This one finds Cale taking Elvis out of the maltshop and into a demonic place, capturing the hellishness of lovelorn despair. It's got a great shriek at the end, and Eno hooks him up with some sympathetic keys. A scary little masterpiece, this one.

John Cale - Heartbreak Hotel

Thursday, June 4, 2009

A sentimental indulgence

Time Bandits is probably my lifetime favorite movie. I mean this literally. Layered as hell, the film dazzles at all the crucial stages - childhood, pretentious undergrad days, mature/damaged adulthood, decline and dotage (I'll assume). With all that imprinting, how can I not have a soft spot for George's theme song, which isn't all that great, but, like the 25-some-old blanket I refuse to throw away, commands my complete loyalty. I can't think of anything else that could soundtrack the plundering of history's treasures with a gang of renegade midgets.

George Harrison - Dream Away

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

History revisited

I'm already feeling nostalgic for my last wave of nostalgia. So I found myself reaching for this record. I sorta wish these guys had left more of a mark. Looking back at all the early-'00s NY bands who aped post-punk, these guys had an un-obnoxious charm that has aged surprisingly well. How many people can you say that about?

The Natural History - Watch This House

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Passport party time

From what I understand, Klaus Doldinger is the Miles Davis of Germany. His Passport group has been a stopping point for German jazzers since the early '70s. As far as the Miles comparison goes, he's definitely stuck to the fusion period; the Passport albums I've heard play like Cliff's Notes for the genre, a fair share of it deliciously hokey.

Doldinger clearly brought his passport to the studio for this jam, because it's 100% funky USA 1974. There needs to be a scene in a future movie where all the passengers in the terminal are grooving to this on their way to the baggage claim. As for the album cover, I have no explanation.

Passport - Rockport

Monday, June 1, 2009

Obsesión

Happy June, dear Songblague listener. Balmy days are here, so why not be in the spirit. Today's selection presents you with the dynamic duo that has been the object of my near-constant auditory devotion since my man TPK hipped me to them more than a year and a half ago. Like some kind of magical gum, the sweetness refuses to fade.

Anyone who's been in my orbit lately knows of my not at all ironic affinity for this kind of stuff and for the worlds it so easily synthesizes - sleek utopian krautrock, cosmic disco, shaggy a.m. gold, mellow fusion, dollar bin treasures, and a fantastical California of the mind. I don't know, all those threads have always been there, but these guys have taken them and fashioned a beautiful balearic locale that my ears want to escape to any chance they get. I know some folks roll their eyes and say cheese. I only hope one day they can hear what I'm hearing.

It's hard to pick a single superlative track off their Coastlines album, but here's one that's been making lots of little rainbows in my head lately. Songblague recommends getting your hands not only on their work but on the solo adventures of messrs Hatchback and Sorcerer as well. A sunset rubdown by any other name.