Bon voyage

It's weird that I never really got into Bon Iver, considering the ubiquity of the name-dropping. Or maybe that's been why. Anyway, I admit I'm quite digging the new album, the cheesy parts most of all. Here's one that seems very much of today's moment, what with the scruffy angel falsetto, seemingly mismatched instrumental colors, and general soaringness. Like watching the sunlight dappling on the snow.

Also, it's a good send-off for a much-needed vacation. Going down to the Southern Hemisphere. Back with you on December 6. Enjoy the time between.

Bon Iver - Towers

English sunshine

I have a weird soft spot for provably British singers who sound like they're putting on the accent. I also love that sunny British psych sound from the hazy '60s. Put them together and I'm a smiling fool. A big hi-five to my friend Ali, who hipped me to this track a couple years ago. Also, fun fact — Peter Frampton wrote it. He should have closed up shop immediately afterward.

The Neat Change - I Lied To Auntie May

Living in the past

Oh the endless buried treasures of the mid/late'60s. Some have places of origin that make you wish that earlier eras were possessed of today's incessant documentarian instincts. We The People were apparently a short-lived garage band from Orlando. Take a moment to imagine the uphill battle they faced in an environment like that. Try to picture the reactions of their fellow Central Floridians in the face of such wide-eyed forward-driving sounds. Sadly, their future belonged to Walt Disney.

We The People - In The Past

Are you coming home this year?

I admit I was a bit wary last night when I went to see Ray Davies perform some Kinks klassics with a full-on choir behind him. Turned out I had no reason to be. He was in remarkably un-haggard shape and full of good humor as he trotted out the hits and cult hits, many of which were lifted into happily rarefied airs with all those voices. I'm squarely with all the Village Green preservationists who appreciate Davies's late-'60s pastoral zigging when so many others were electrically zagging. Which fires up a desire to drop some dynamite forgotten tracks that give a little look into a version of the 1960s that never had the chance to get Behind The Music'ed. I'll probably be sticking with this theme through this short Thanksgiving week. Here's some very un-Kinks-ish music to start it off.

Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera - Intro
Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera - Mother Writes

Christmas assault

There are several ways for songs to establish their authority. Some come crashing through your bedroom window with blasts of guitars and cymbals, while others simply walking into the room with a look that says the nonsense will now cease. Here's one from the latter category.

Meanwhile, I know it's a little early to start thinking about Christmas parties. But if yours doesn't include this tune, it's not worth attending.

Willie Colón - La Murga

Trying to get to you

Just can't resist going back to the well of classix. Of course, the Pixies are one of those bands whose weaker tracks are far beyond what most bands could ever aspire to. Last time I dug them up, I got all sentimental. And damned if it isn't happening again right now. This one goes back to some high school delirium that I suspect will get neither hazier nor clearer with time.

Pixies - Letter To Memphis

Grinning like facepacks

For all his command of atmosphere, Eno really doesn't get enough credit for exploring dark mental spaces as well. I've always dug the derangement of this trudging track, but seeing a truly maniacal version at a Here Come The Warm Jets tribute show this past summer sealed it as a Songblague necessity.

Brian Eno - Driving Me Backwards

Music by airports

To the extent that I'm ever "educating" my dear listeners, I realize that there's always someone who knows more about x band/scene/period. That's cool. In many ways, I actually prefer breadth to depth. That said, here's a tune I'm pretty confident you haven't heard, generously introduced to me by a friend with impeccable first-hand knowledge of the underlayers of Kiwi pop.

The Airports - The Song About Walking Around Town Thinking To Myself What A Wonderful Life I'm Living

Reveille

Putting aside the inventive valvework of countless jazzmen, I still have a hard time separating the trumpet from its martial associations. Unless we're talking the ambient strategies of Miles Davis muting or Jon Hassell processing, trumpets make me want to wake up or go attack something. Here's a tune that hits all those notes in sort of a roundabout way. Not a bad thing for a Monday morning.

La Loora - Pre-Catastrophy

The snipers by the falls'll be delivering their calls

Yay for wild Canadians. It seems that Frog Eyes's Carey Mercer aims to be some kind of bookish take on Nick Cave's '80s danger, and I think that despite the think-lipped manners, he is in many ways equally unhinged. But it's the fantastical theatricality that makes him unique. Breathlessness, piano pounding, and shaky drums...all things that get my head a'bobbing.

Frog Eyes - The Oscillator's Hum

Not to raise their voices

There's sweet justice in the recent consensus that George made the best post-Beatles solo album. I still maintain that Paul had the best career overall, but then Ringo was involved in this awesomeness, so the whole debate is bound for stalemate. Of the many gems on All Things Must Pass, this one manages to constantly, if quietly, amaze. Kinda like George himself.

George Harrison - Run Of The Mill

Lunar interlude

With a pair of double-wide posts so far this week, I'd say a little interlude is in order. And I like that it comes courtesy of Jonny Greenwood, whose main paycheck band rarely gets play as a palette cleanser. At any rate, you may know of his compositional ambitions. This one is a lot less ominous, more a moment to pause and reflect on gravity, or conscience, or whether you may have left the iron on before leaving home.

Jonny Greenwood - Moon Mall

Real humans

So it seems everyone's all hot for neon-noir, Michael Mann-indebted sounds these days. And why shouldn't they be? I'm glad folks like the Chromatics are getting their well-deserved cinema time. Drive was exquisitely flawed — with a strange fetish for demolished heads — but it succeeded at least for bringing this fabulous track to light.

As much as the hook, I'm drawn to it for the tenderly delivered lyrical notion that to be 'a real human being' is itself a thing worth rallying around, as much as being 'a real hero'. Which is to say I'm at least halfway appalled that we expect a world of inhumanity, if we even know what that is anymore.

College (featuring Electric Youth) - A Real Hero

Meanwhile, I hate to waste anyone's time with a tune they're probably hearing a lot these days (though I do love me that M83 sonic overload), but this somehow feels like the flip side to the heroics above. The former was smartly used in a smiling, dreamy daylight sequence, while this one seems more the province of the stone-faced night driver that is the go-to mental image for this aesthetic.

Having said that, Anthony Gonzales gets a big high-five for his courageous saxophone deployment in the outro. A real human being indeed.

M83 - Midnight City

I realized my fists were clenched

Robert Wyatt and his cozily alien voice make another welcome appearance on the 'blague. I recently busted out his Shleep record and was reminded of why it's good to keep albums around that you suspect might grow on you. While not the spirit triumph of Rock Bottom, it's a beautiful and weird cycle of sleepy-brained tunes apparently inspired by their creator's insomnia. Good enough that two specimens are warranted. The first was co-written with Eno, and its jaunty, gentlemanly funk gives has that signature all over it. The second is more late-nite in its texture, and I can see the camera slowly pulling back above the spiral staircase as the protagonist shrinks to a shaky point.

Robert Wyatt - Heaps Of Sheeps

Robert Wyatt - Out Of Season

Bad drugs

Oh man, how could I have neglected to post this on Halloween! I'm not much of a goth fan, but I do like how Bauhaus sometimes came at it from a darkly psychedelic angle. This one is particularly queasy, with a swirling dubbiness that seems to come straight from a thoroughly gone night of debauchery.

On the lighter side, every time Peter Murphy moans the chorus, all I see is this.

Bauhaus - She's In Parties

Any vows on lovers' leap

As surely as yesterday's tracks show a less visited side of the 1980s, here's one from the days when college rock did in fact have something to do with the intellectual ambitions of both bands and audiences. Not that it doesn't rock. And not without a charming earnestness that looks fondly on an imaginary utopia of Anglophilic power pop. A nice shade of California love.

Game Theory - Make Any Vows

Two gentle Germans

Tracing the constellations of classic krautrock, you can't get too far without bumping into the boys of Cluster, also known by their excellently mellifluous names Moebius and Roedelius. You may have heard their collaborations with Brian Eno, but their solo work often achieves the same high level of textural minimalism that remains completely engaging at nearly any length. The kind of ambient that almost refuses to let a book or zone-out overtake your mind. Which is a good problem to have. So, in turn, we have Moebius doing movies...

Dieter Moebius - Falsche Ruhe

...and Roedelius laying by a stream, not doing much at all.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius - Mein Freund Farouk

Now I care

Last year, some folks in LA had the bright idea to showcase local bands by having them cover Television's under-celebrated Adventure album. I too have under-celebrated this album because, well, it's not Marquee Moon. Which is itself an over-celebrated album, in my opinion.

Of course, this 'blague has given some tender love and real estate to Adventure's best track. But the beauty of covers is how interpretation can bring out a song's hidden virtues. In this case, a fairly pedestrian four-count rocker grows a country beard and rises glowing and newly translucent up above quiet waters in the beautiful moonlight.

Local Natives - Careful