Like fencing foils and lovely girls I'll never kiss

Prefab Sprout maintain their vice-like grip on my ears. I suspect this will continue as autumn digs in. Overly ornate flourishes aside, Steve McQueen is the jewel, but the debut certainly has its moments. This would be the tune you'd reference if you wanted to explain how a band could make like Steely Dan in the English '80s — counter-intuitive melodic turns that net a nice return on investment and lyrics that look askance on love, longing, and loss. Metaphors aside, I suspect Paddy McAloon always pretty much sucked at b-ball.

Prefab Sprout - I Never Play Basketball Now

Stranger in a strange land

I'm in a new city without a job, so I've been feeling a bit lost as of late. I'm taking extra pleasure in the small things, such as hearing a song for the first time and feeling like I understand it completely. At the same time, I'm feeling a bit like a musical ignoramus for not having heard this "psychedelic masterpiece" sooner. And for initially thinking it was the Rolling Stones. Anyway, here's how it went: last night I was making dinner and my boyfriend put on Side A of SRC's self-titled album. What I thought was an obscure Rolling Stones B-side turned out to be "Black Sheep." Does Scott Richardson (as in Scott Richardson Case; as in SRC) not sing exactly like Mick Jagger on "Ruby Tuesday"?

SRC - Black Sheep

Bad people doing wrong things

Yesterday, I woke up in a nasty mood. It continued all through the day, fueled equally by mundane frustrations (missing elevators, slow walkers) and a sense of big trouble brewing (the oncoming electoral triumph of thuggish orc-like seekers of Congressional office). The thing about a scowl is the longer you hold it, the more naturally it fits, even when there's no shortage of sunshine around you. And you end up with this song stuck in your head and feeling kinda good about it. Maybe that good feeling is what keeps the malice inside. I'm sure it will pass.

Gallon Drunk - Jake On The Make

Tweedom rock

Yesterday's menace gives way to the poster children of tweedom. But Songblague has the gentleness of a true tough guy. Which allows us to smile on this song, pet its tender head, and take it by the sweatered arm into our warm home. The lyrics are a crock of shit (go find anyone with such a sanguine view of breakups), but the lilt makes me go along with it. Tease me and I'll rip your arm off.

The Field Mice - When Morning Comes To Town

Rock n' roll funhouse

The only thing cooler than putting a song together is taking it apart. Or more specifically, creating something that sounds taken apart and then reassembled with a total disregard for traditional ideas of shape. Such was the stock in trade of U.S. Maple, one of the most interesting indie bands of the late '90s/early '00s. If the guitars sound all Beefheart-y, it's because they were on the same wavelength. Which I guess would be a bunch of wavelengths at once, a very specific order masquerading as chaos. As for those raspy vox, sure, they're a little creepy, but wasn't rock n' roll supposed to be disturbing once too? You can even waltz to parts of this.

U.S. Maple - Ma, Digital

Five lives in one

Tom Verlaine's first solo album is pretty much on the level of Television. The man's got some kind of style, which I suppose is how he makes riffy rock n' roll seem several steps beyond Rolling Stones-esque triteness. I love that little piano bit. Sounds like a cartoon cat walking through a dark alley.

Tom Verlaine - Souvenir From A Dream

Mercury rising

Here's a fun one, courtesy of an obscure Spanish psych outfit who made a concept album about the planets. I don't know what the concept is beyond naming songs after each planet. Whatever. Just talking about the solar system is cool. It's some groovy stuff, and you can find it here. So let's take a minute to appreciate the runt of our planetary family, the first to go up in flames if the sun ever has a really nasty temper tantrum.

Proyecto - A Mercurio

Humble experiments

Ladies and gentlemen, Songblague proudly presents the unsexiest saxophone ever recorded. Barry Black was a side project of Eric Bachmann (of Crooked Fingers and ex-Archers of Loaf croaksmanship) where he got to indulge his "serious music" aspirations. The stuff is pleasant enough as Composition 101 fare, but the charm is in appreciating little seedlings that don't have much hope of germinating and don't seem at all diminished by their modest ambition. This tune sounds like it should soundtrack a claymation film about a haunted house.

Barry Black - Chimps

Tippett point

Most of the time, I'm happy that I'm not living in 1971. Except when I hear tracks like this. I can almost see the sun's glare in my mental picture of this band's imaginary outdoor concert. Which I'd much rather look at than this terrifying album cover.

Keith Tippett - Black Horse

At your fingertips, out of reach

I'm a pepper. This weekend, I finally broke down and got an iPhone. "Broke down" is of course all wrong, since this is clearly an upgrade on every level of my being. Now I am whole. Not to be too sarcastic about it, but I've always been ambivalent about early adoptership of new gadgets, even ones that do revolutionize your daily life. My professional life aside (bloody hypocrite), my instinct is to pause indefinitely when it becomes de rigueur to own a thing and when not owning it consigns you to a sort of second-class citizenship, especially if...gasp...if you're not broke enough to be priced out. Especially when said gadget does present a new platform for social exchange. The fetishized commodity...blah blah. Well, it's true. Aren't there more interesting things to fetishize? And I'm not even one of those paranoid types who's weirded out by GPS knowing where I am at every moment. Maybe a little.

The main thing is that the more you have, the more you have to lose. The iPhone's ability to consolidate the components of your life is astounding, and getting used to that does put you in a certain servitude to the new normal. I'm not a live-by-your-wits-in-the-woods type, but I try to maintain some sense that I can exist a little outside the cradle of our loving machines. Yes, I'm aware that I'm saying this on a blog that is fully a part of that network. And now I've nestled even deeper into my place on the grid, marveling at my new toy's ability to put so many of my world's levers into my tingling hands as to convince me that is really can be that small.

Which is a long wind-up for a tune that does just the opposite — pushing and flowing, expanding, dissolving, coyly luring you in and then escaping your grasp.

Woolfy - The Warehouse (Project Sandro's Wall To Wall Mix)

Shoulders are sweet

Moving from an actual Frenchman to someone who just wears it well. While this one's sung in English, it earns style points courtesy of production from the very smooth customer Benjamin Burgalat. It's uniquely dreamy and also a little overloaded at the same time, the usual problem when you try to recreate yesterday's atmosphere with today's tools. Which are fast becoming yesterday's tools. How weird to feel nostalgic for 2003.

April March - Somewhere Up Above

The wrath of Kan

He's been called the French David Bowie. Does every country have its David Bowie? Does David Bowie have a David Bowie? I don't know much about Alain Kan other than that he seemed to enjoy shocking the public, and then one day vanished at a Paris metro station. Excellent career move. Thanks to Paul Durango for putting him on my radar, where he will stay.

Alain Kan - Le Premier Bébé De Lady Star Lune

Fast robots

I'm not sure if today's tune should soundtrack propaganda films about the efficiency of Soviet factories or porno films starring cyborgs. Maybe it's the same movie?

Kissing The Pink - Frightened In France

Affectionate punch

OK, how about we step back from exquisite pop and air out a post-punk chestnut. Alan Rankine's weird, slightly spiky pop sense and Billy Mackenzie's near-operatic vox take a moment to get used to, but it's an association I can get behind. This one sounds a lot more tense than amused.

The Associates - Amused As Always

Call you appetite

I'm not sure why I keep falling for songs that pair fancy chord changes and a general feyness. And I wish terms more interesting than "sophisticated pop" came to mind. This stuff totally disarms me, and yet, I find myself humming harmonies through a stone-faced frown, walking down the street, darting past human interruptions. I guess there's some irony in that. Seriously though, go find their Steve McQueen album. It'll make you like 1985 a whole lot more.

Prefab Sprout - Appetite

And because I can't get enough if it right now, here's a little bonus with some even fancier moves.

Theme Week - Dream in sound (5/5)

Well this seems like a good place to round out Elephant 6 week — a band that exists mostly in the dream realm. Combining wax cylinders and wire recorders with talk of aliens and astral visions, we get a fantastical collision of a re-imagined earthbound past and interdimensional possibilities. Somewhere between a twisted lullaby and the will to change the grammar of consciousness. (Mang.) Ending this little journey, I don't know whether I'm coming home or blasting off again.

The Music Tapes - Nomad Tell Us

Theme Week - Dream in sound (4/5)

Here's a band that had so many ideas they seemed to stumble over themselves getting to them all at once. The Black Foliage album is kind of their masterpiece, but its dense restlessness makes me a little queasy. Too often it ends up screwing with its ideas before the listener has a moment to absorb them. And then there are the 10+ minute tape experiments, which are...you know. Bummer, because there are some stellar moments, like this track. I had this one in queue, and some recent sleep deprivation has given it extra resonance right about now.

The Olivia Tremor Control - A Sleepy Company

Theme Week - Dream in sound (3/5)

The Apples in Stereo are probably the most straightforward of the E6 bunch. Which is just fine when you write sterling pop songs. I suspect that if '60s jangle pop hadn't existed, guys like these would probably have invented it. Give me angelic bah-bahs and a chorus full of burly horns, and I'm a happy Songblague.

The Apples in Stereo - Silver Chain

Theme Week - Dream in sound (2/5)

Seeing Of Montreal put on their massive, elaborate stage show a couple weeks ago, I had to marvel at how far the band has come. Who'd have thought from from those ultra-twee, ultra-dense/kaleidoscopic early albums that Kevin Barnes would come to inhabit the sci-fi space-glam, emotionally-wrenched character he now takes from town to town. The songs are a little simpler now, but conceptually just as ambitious and sometimes just as inscrutable. Barnes has never been short of ideas or ambition; that's for sure. He could probably write an album in his sleep, and then record it the next morning. Makes me feel positively lazy. Anyway, here's a good one from those bright splashy color days.

Of Montreal - Penelope

Theme Week - Dream in sound (1/5)

I've been listening to a bunch of Elephant 6 bands lately. For those unfamiliar, here's a little primer on what that circle of bands was all about. Something still appeals to me about a group of creative folks fumbling around with nascent ideas, consolidating influences, making some stuff, and then scattering out into many permutations to give their musical whims the proper attention. With some distance from the heyday of that scene, my fondness only grows.

No need to bother with descriptions of the "Elephant 6 sound." You either already know it all or you'd rather just hear the music bear it out. So here goes. The first salvo comes from Elf Power, a band as charming as their name is silly. They're still rocking it out of Athens. In fact, I saw them play a couple weeks ago, and I was happy through and through. And this song title is as good a summary as any for the whole business. Extra credit if you can identify the song they're referencing in the middle bridge section.

FYI - this week's little survey will sidestep the Neutral Milk Hotel, who I believe were kinda overrated. Feel free to argue with that assessment.

Elf Power - We Dream In Sound

I dream of many things

Apt song title. Indeed, I am the October man. It houses my birthday, and every time it comes around, its air gets deep inside. Here's a song that fully belongs to the season. Sparkling and crisp. And while we're on it, let me re-iterate my ongoing admiration for Bill Nelson, who is shaping up to be my MVP of 2010. Past posts certainly get at some of his appeal, but I keep finding reasons to live inside his albums from 1979 to 1983. Do check 'em out. Meanwhile, let this majestic track accompany the nice slide of arms into long sleeves.

Bill Nelson - The October Man

PS - enjoy the weekend. A new Theme Week starts on Monday. You may be interested in the previous ones.