Perverted, converted, mind-bending, patent-pending

Huge, full-bald, lurching Mr. Bizarro approaches as you relax under a palm tree sipping a Pina Colada. He's wearing a 1920s bathing suit and carries a beachball in one hand and a coconut in the other. He makes as if to throw one at you, then the other, then lets out a fierce, unbridled scream like a terrified baby. Your move...

The Monochrome Set - Mr. Bizarro

Give me the words

Drawing together a couple threads from the week — extroverted vox à la Peter Hammill and a cover treatment courtesy of Nouvelle Vague. (The latter is actually where I heard this tune first.) I don't often listen to these San Francisco avant-theatrical dudes, but I'm always happy when I do. Or at least made happily ill-at-ease. Such is their art, although this one is absolute pop for them. Also, they sport one of my all-time favorite band names.

Tuxedomoon - In a Manner of Speaking

I need excitement, oh I need it bad

John Peel famously said that "Teenage Kicks" was his favorite song of all time. Can't argue with the tastes of a legend. And it's right up there for me too. When your aim is this true, it's hard to call it anything but perfection. Pure rock n' roll, topped off with a rare consciousness that these kicks desperately being craved are the special domain of the teenage animal.

The Undertones - Teenage Kicks

Also, a great song sounds great in any language. Including broken English.

Nouvelle Vague - Teenage Kicks

She's in love with being in the movie

Still unpacking the Peter Hammill treasure trove. I'm becoming more and more amazed at how his trilly/growly voice doesn't displease me and how he keeps getting away with styles that should should reject him like a failed transplant. Here's some foxy disco with a fist-pumping chorus with lyrics that could easily come off as silly film imagery riffing. And yet he comes through the minefield like James Bond. A feat worthy of his facial expression on the album cover.

Peter Hammill - Film Noir

The visitors hide no aces up their sleeves

So this is how oilmen feel when a new well gushes up. I stumble upon a new musical world, and it's all feverish excitement to plumb the depths. Somehow my youthful absorption of proggy sounds sidestepped Van Der Graaf Generator and the rich world of Peter Hammill solo albums (with the exception of the glammy, proto-punk Nadir's Big Chance). I'm just now correcting this, and I'm all happily awash in Hammill's work, particularly the albums that incorporated a new wave influence with minimal embarrassment. I'm not sure what's 'blague-worthy yet, but this one has had my ear. Maybe it's because the outro synths sound like little fishes swimming upstream.

Peter Hammill - Breakthrough

I could be anyone

Sometimes buzz is deserved. It Girl Apparent Anna Calvi has all the chops and charisma you could ask for, though all the PJ Harvey/Nick Cave comparisons seem a little obvious. This one actually feels more like Morrissey, or some other devotee to Phil Spector-esque chilly romance. Apparently, she's also a demon on guitar, though here she's more about swirling up into the stratosphere.

Anna Calvi - Blackout

Pouring magma in the collection plate

If all you know about Magma is their sci-fi concept multi-albums about the end of the world (and an alien planet, natch) sung in an invented language (Kobaian) that mixes bombastic choral styles with knee-slappingly excessive symphonic prog rock and jazz fusion, well then you know too much about Magma. And if none of that is news to you, you may enjoy their bizarre foray into gospel sounds, which happily does not jettison the Kobaian lingo.

Also, yes, that cover art grotesquerie is the work of HR Giger, who knows a little something about nightmare aliens.

Magma - Spiritual

My silver bullet

It's no secret that piano-based musical theatrics are generally not my cuppa tea. At the same time, I consider myself man enough to dig Kate Bush without the slightest irony. I don't care if she's indirectly responsible for the likes of Tori Amos. Small price to pay for some of the best British caterwauling of the '80s. I love it when she's all screamy, like on this one.

Kate Bush - Pull Out The Pin

Quote love unquote me

Sorry, can't resist another one from my early NYC days. It's great that Stephin Merritt's Gershwin-esque songwriting chops have been given an appropriately-sized canvas in recent years. But I found him much more charming when he filtered his talents through dinky synthesizers and occasional magic banjo. Something about this one keeps getting me. It's far superior to the tired I album version. And the lyrics are the bees knees.

The Magnetic Fields - I Don't Believe You

Canon fodder

I've been living in this city long enough that songs from my first days in town sometimes feel like they're from another life. It's a fun time to mentally revisit, and summer especially takes me back. The Other Music heads were all over this "band" (more of a sporadic confederation of musicians circling around accordionist Alig Fodder) around '99, and I was quite smitten as well. You can hear why right here. This is like a cubist pop song — about five different potential versions of it all happening at once. Somehow, they make room for each other. Also, there's something a little Stereolab-y about it, and you might remember how wanky those same heads were over them at that time (yours truly of course being just as guilty). OK, back to now...

Family Fodder - Savoir Faire

Easy keys

Sometimes I'm just straight-up embarrassed by the gaps in my knowledge of jazz. For years, Erroll Garner was one of those canonical guys I meant to dig into but never seemed to find the time. That time is now, and his tunes did much to cool me off in the brutal heat earlier this week. I want surround myself with people as tasteful as this track and as sneakily modern as its intro.

(Summer placement inspired by a similar move a year ago today by Art Decade, who totally nailed the Mad Men-ness of it. Cheers!)

Erroll Garner - Body And Soul

Little big band

Some summer albums renew their gifts year after year. This sprightly band of Australians painted their fun, bright colors all over my 2005, and tracks like this one remind me why. They lost me when they tried to get all hip and drum machine-y. For this kind of stuff, you really can't beat the sound of marching cymbals.

Architecture In Helsinki - Tiny Paintings

Horrorshow

I'm in soundtrack land, and I can't stop now. Not with a recent windfall of Goblin records I just scored (thanks Adam). If you haven't heard much from this Italian prog-rock band/horror film soundtrack specialists (most frequently in collaboration with the eminent director Dario Argento), well, get listening. If yesterday was a majestic tune coming in through morning light, here are some haunting sounds for descending into the troubled night.

Goblin - Suspiria
Goblin - Sighs

Big silence

I keep meaning to drop out of life for a few weeks and immerse myself in Ennio Morricone soundtracks. Actually, it'd take months (I think dude has done over 500 by now), and I'd likely emerge with the kind of intense look on my face that no sane person would want to approach. Short of that level of commitment, here's a beautiful Western theme from the master. I aim to have at least one major life event occur while this is playing.

Ennio Morricone - Il Grande Silenzio (Restless)

Let me play with your radio

Attitude never goes out of style. Sonic Youth may be graybearded and tired ambassadors of NYC music, but their back catalog continues to reward. Charges of selling-out notwithstanding, big-label debut Goo album is a rocker of fine distinction. And Kim's smirking, teasing feminism never sounded so alluring as on this track.

Sonic Youth - Kool Thing

Down in candyland

Slowburn saxophone and queasily sliding bass open a window into a dark other world inside the insistent daytime heat. It's not the first summer this has happened, and probably won't be the last.

Morphine - Candy

Downstate

Nothing like an invigorating mountainous getaway weekend to reset the internal gears. But locales are a bit deceiving, and it's funny how some of the most beautiful stretches of Catskill highways are so well soundtracked by music designed for stylized drama from the opposite end of the coast.

I realize that Miami Vice calls to mind signifiers of a most unforgiving mid-'80s recollection, but really, Michael Mann knew what he was doing. Ditto for Jan Hammer, who came a long way from his youthful fusion days. Surprises abound, and Songblague heartily recommends digging deep into the show's excellent trove of sunkissed yet moody sounds.

Jan Hammer - Crockett's Theme

Upstate

Continuing with late masterpieces...Mercury Rev is another one where I depart from the longtime faithful. I appreciate the psychedelic mess of the early albums, but can't say I'm ever really compelled to jump into those worlds. Gotta say I'm with the masses on applauding the symphonic highs and lyrical lows of Deserter's Songs. But you've probably heard all that, so here are some of the creeky upstate ambient interludes between the pop payoffs. Which segues nicely into a note about my own upstate jaunt this weekend. I can think of no better salute to America than to take a few more days' leave from my calendar routine. Which is to say, savor these 3 dusky pieces; Songblague will be observing radio silence until next Thursday (I think).

Mercury Rev - I Collect Coins
Mercury Rev - The Happy End (The Drunk Room)
Mercury Rev - Pick Up If You're There