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Sometimes you have to go put yourself into an imaginary '60s place. I remember getting into these guys a few years ago, when I was apt to snatch up any album if someone told me it was a forgotten classic lovingly/belatedly reissued. Or maybe a rare specimen of exquisite artifice that the masses just didn't get around to appreciating, and then its moment passed. Well, I've still got that instinct, and I still believe all those possible futures are worth pondering. Here are a couple fine examples (links fixed now).
Found myself on a little business jaunt to Philadelphia yesterday. And with a beautiful day on my hands, I felt obliged to walk around aimlessly with all the free time I could steal. In my mind, this is what such a walk sounds like, irrespective of season or weather. And no amount of grim faces and neck tattoos can take the soul out of that fantasy.
Wow, could the emergence of "balearic" music really be more than 5 years old already?! Somehow, the sounds of this Studio escaped my ears while I was getting floated on all that ambient, propulsive, hummy groove stuff. I'm happy to report that jams like this have not aged nearly as badly as some other trends from just a few years ago. The band may be blandly named, but the beachy escape is sweet and succulent.
A national freakout comes to something like resolution. And while I suspect the collective tweakage will more likely find a new expression than just dissolve, a nice healthy exhalation is in order. I offer this tune to color in that mood. Also good for arriving at the street you call home, preferably if you have a vehicle to cruise onto it with.
Meanwhile, does this guy look like a young James Caan or what?
So much going wrong all at once in the world. And some interesting developments happening in mine. It's a head-scrambling mix. Which demands some appropriate musical disorientation.
Leave it to Knife/Fever Ray vocalist Karin Dreijer Andersson to find the dark side in a cool, almost marimba-like electronic groove. Or to look at it in reverse, I guess this is a pop song in her world. Music for walking in circles and waiting for what comes next.
Feelin' the sting of the NYC real estate hustle. The best medicine is a tune like this. Sends me to the imaginary world of $50-a-month lofts and a city that would keep finding reasons for me to see very little of home.
Some menacing clouds came out last evening, and my mind turned immediately to this piece of awesome flute-iness that could shine a light of piercing contemplation through any nimbus. There is a wide variety of brown pants that could accompany this tune, and one day I hope to own all of them.
The sweet spring air brings the sweet rock. Somehow, Westerberg and gang were never too addled to lace their meat n' potatoes rock n' roll with a swooning hook. Perfectly suited to bodies gathering motion and heat. It may be a truncated season, but I'll amble my way down the street with this tune in my head for as long as I can.
Aw hell, why stop with imitation when you can have 11 minutes of Fripp upon Fripp upon Fripp, etc. The more outdated his tape loop analog "Frippertronic" system of self-layering gets, the more I dig it. Something about the limitations of technology revealing the contours of personality. Also, the guy sure knew how to have an audio conversation with himself.
Maybe it's a sign of stunted development, but if you give me some repeated musical patterns and layer them crosswise/syncopated/whatever, I'll be your loyal listener, even if you are a fairly cheezy French prog rock outfit. With this one, they sensibly send the drummer on break, and commence to weave a sparkling web of notes, nicely-paced, before the guitarist launches into his best imitation of a Robert Fripp solo. Bon travail!
Yo La Tengo is emerging as the kind of band you grow old with — knowing how your tastes change and changing along with you, sometimes suggesting places you only might've gone. While putting Tortoise/Sea and Cake vet John McEntire at the console for their latest album might seem like a jump back to their more youthful '90s days, songs like this seem very much of the present. Which is to say, vaguely happy with where we are and yet quietly terrified of what's to come. Hearing it, I see bearded artisanal craftsmen libating at the beer garden in the late afternoon sun, stroller parked at arm's length, bobbing along to this melody, and imagining a time when they'd all be drunkenly belting it out together at the top of their lungs.
I'm a sucker for fragmented compositions. They're an easy way to invoke the landscape of dreams. Or nightmares, depending on your state of mind. Takeo Toyama has some big-scale ambition in terms of the elements he brings together. I'm not sure the result really adds up, but I like the world it begins to construct. Title-wise, I don't really see where porno comes into the picture, but hey, that's dreams for ya.
Wouldn't you know it...a week of work stress segues right into a weekend of sore-throated body fatigue, flirting with a full-on cold. I'm always amazed how the body—ever loyal to external obligations—keeps it together just long enough to collapse when free time comes around.
Anyway, bring on the over-the-counter feelgood agents. And throw in some semi-hallucinogenic African thumb piano grooves. This one would be a dreamy head-bobber if the dude's voice didn't detour into a terrifying place at 2:32 and 3:22. An apt segue back to the workweek.
German synthy songstress Barbara Morgenstern is one of those musicians who hits the balance between catchy and inventive so frequently that you forget how hard that feat is. Sorta like the perennial All-Star who only attracts attention when the knees start to go. I'm lost in her world right about now, and quite happy about it.
"The Operator" was her hit from a few years ago. Here's a version that sets the song's lurching/spooky notes stomping around the creaky floor, and then brings them slowly down the stairs in sparkly evening dress.
Spent the weekend being an audience member in eclectic situations — a one-woman stage play, an NBA basketball game, a medieval re-enactment in New Jersey. After that, I'm all ears for these guys making quiet and pretty guitar sounds in a Chicago loft some 15 years ago.
Veteran 'blague readers know that I usually have to jump out of the car when the aimless jamming sets in. Which means that instrumental funk bands (especially post-1970s) start out with a big strike against them. It takes a snappy groove and/or some eyebrow-raising instrumental dexterity to keep along for the ride. These Chicago dudes are scoring on both counts for me today.
Drum chops watchers: note the sweet little turnaround at 2:23. Figure it out and throw it in your bag of tricks.
I love a song that puts the big dumb goofy smile on my face. It's important to be in touch with your simpering inner self lest you get lost in the brave faces of adulthood. Here's one that calls to mind those parties where someone brings in the ether tank and everyone's like "oh, yeah? Oh..yeah!"
Nothing like a business trip to make you appreciate the virtues of home. Some people are invigorated by the suitcase-dragging life and savor the constant sense of newness each hotel brings. I am not one of these people. When I'm traveling on the clock, slapstick disaster is always just a moment away. Logistics won't behave, and keeping the caravan of personal affects together is like herding a pack of restless dogs. It's no vacation, to be sure. Which makes me appreciate the astral flights of Sun Ra even more. Especially when they feel like the soundtrack to a very cheap '50s sci-fi film.
Sun Ra and the Myth Science Arkestra - Eve
Think about the kind of music you'd make if you lived under a military dictatorship. Would it reflect your turmoil and repression and come out all frantic and violent? Would it sound like giving up? Or would it groove and soar? I can't help but have affection for Brazilian musicians — Tropicalia and otherwise — who responded to the ugly realities of power by making music that was beautiful and full of sunlit spark. Soul of the sol, so to speak. Enjoy this one for a while. The 'blague will be laying low the rest of the week.
Gotta give it up for this unlikely assemblage of talent. Patrice Rushen, Freddie Hubbard, Ian Underwood, Airto Moreira, and others join very smiley trombonist Raul de Souza to bust out the Latin fusion disco jams. There's not much to say about a groove like this. Just tuck your shirt in and keep your sweat in check as you throw yourself around the room. (Oh also, join me in a little raised glass for Songblague's 4th anniversary.)
I think I've fully expressed my affection for C86 pop. But it's been a while since I got smacked upside the head with such a jangling gob of the stuff. So when it happens, I have to go all bobble-headed, and not utter the slightest complaint about how much like a singsong (albeit childishly vindictive) Morrissey the singer is trying to posture himself. It's important to get past these things.
It's said that sunrises and sunsets are often indistinguishable. I guess that depends on the kind of schedule you keep. When I do see the sun come up, it's either a grumpy early call or I've had a night that doesn't lend itself to a serene melting away. Which make this one a curious title. I can absolutely put my mind in a place where the sunset feels like a blissful passage. But almost never does the morning arrive with such calm. Maybe I need to work on that. As for the hint of moaning at 4:07, well, hey, to each his own. Meanwhile, hope this helps put a mellowness in your day.
I often wonder how possible it is to truly live off the grid. And what parts of common culture you would allow yourself to bring along. The skinny on Eden Ahbez (born George Alexander Aberle, Brooklyn 1908) is that he was a proto-hippie LA denizen and songwriter who wore robes, slept outside, and lived on almost no money. Apparently, he wrote Nat King Cole's hit "Nature Boy" while living under the Hollywood sign, and found a way to be pretty productive craftsman over the years.
Which makes me wonder how much that kind of Venn diagram of worlds one could pull off today. Can you write pop tunes and be cut off from the culture that laps up pop tunes? At a certain point, would you start to see your own detachment as a form of novelty or publicity?
This exotica-tinged tune sheds no light on any of this and generally smacks of beatnik bullshit, but I am fully loving the atmosphere it perpetrates.
I'm not a big fan of spotlighting standards, but then this one came on the stereo on a recent cold evening while I was quietly reading at home, and suddenly, it was blammo! Living room dance party featuring myself and my wife, who is more than forgiving/amused about my spontaneous dance moves. Isn't that what jazz is all about, after all?
