A silvery day

Some days are made for staying home and digging back into an artist's deep catalog. And many thanks to holiday staycations for supplying such days. Not to reduce a life's work into a few hours of concentrated listening, but there's great pleasure in letting a full personality unfold as the hours pass. Hard bop heavyweight Horace Silver had no shortage of memorable tunes, but this one caught my ear and help tight with the grip of a crying newborn.

Horace Silver — Kathy

Bad trip

While we're dealing in French decadence, here's one from another end of the spectrum. I recently gave the cult sci-fi classic Fantastic Planet a whirl on the DVD player. Having long regarded it as one of those movies meant to be watched under the influence of whatever psych drugs you fancy, I realized it's pretty damn freaky/psychedelic/disturbing all on its own. Maybe my mind is just apt to get deep inside a story of cosmic genocide in a crazy weird organic alien landscape, but I found it affecting in more ways than I probably should. And in no small part due to the very baked and desolately minimal soundtrack.   

Alain Goraguer — Dehominisation (I)

Robot afros

Herbie Hancock has amazed me several times in my life. He was cool Mr. "Rockit" in my early sentient years, only to reveal an exquisitely textural presence in the string of Miles Davis classics I discovered as a teenager, only to be occasionally very brilliant in his hit-or-miss '70s Fusion wanderings. Here's a gem that floored me anew just a few days ago. It sounds like a possible Kraftwerk future fantasy, but with a generous dose of non-Germanic warmth. The fabulous textures are there too. Far-out synths and jazz familiars finding beautiful common ground. 

Herbie Hancock — Rain Dance

In the (airto)night

I can feel it coming...vacation time, that is! My brain has already begun to climb out of the head that sits atop a neck knotted with stupid stresses. It has gotten on the plane and is now doing a little dance over the Atlantic, accompanied by this tune, and damn right is singing along with every note of scatting that starts at 2:50. Can't wait for the rest of me to catch up.

Airto Morerira - Romance Of Death

Layering up to the sky

Think overdubbing has no place in jazz? Well, you won't be flying with Les McCann if you do. His Layers album was the first 32-track recording (remember when musicians were actually limited by tape?), and damned if he didn't just let himself keep adding the...um... layers. And yet, like a finely packed suitcase, those layers don't overstuff the songs. Case in point...

Les McCann - Soaring (Part 1)

Getting Hutched

Well, I'm getting married on Saturday. The bigness of it is in many ways something I can't even get my head around. And as I've been warned, not so easy to physically process either. Whenever my plane is about to takeoff, I feel a distinct shakeup in my body chemistry. This is that multiplied a bunch of times. Which actually feels better than it sounds.

But as with so many things, a song says it better. So here's how we're going to introduce ourselves to the world (and hopefully not trip over each other). The honeymoon will wait a few months, but I'm hereby taking a weeklong vacation from the 'blague. See you back on Monday 6/11.

Willie Hutch - I Choose You

Maidenly sounds

Oh hell, let's just ditch that experimental otherworldiness and just jump into the forest, tambourine in hand. The British folk revival wave has probably passed, but there are plenty of original sources that still deserve a listen. Here's one that not enough people talked about. I remember first hearing them in the apartment of a former bandmate's friend. One of those post-gig mellow-outs where nothing sounded more perfect than the strains of these hinterland troubadours.

Midwinter - Sanctuary Stone

Before they were robots

OK, so you got locked out of all the Kraftwerk MOMA shows. Guess what? They're not actually playing their whole discography. I'm not sure why they've disowned their pre-Autobahn work (some of which features the two gentlemen who would form the groundbreaking Neu!). Maybe they just didn't want you to remember that they were once human beings. So here they are, as a duo, playing some very fleshy krautrock that you will not hear in reunion form.

Kraftwerk - Elektrisches Roulette

Contemplating impossible enormousness

Well, I was right. My current Tangerine Dream immersion has pulled me into the outer reaches. And I have no choice but to take you with me. You'd be surprised how good this stuff sounds when you wake up and stretch in the morning. Something to do with greeting day in all its giant formlessness. And I'm sure it sounds better the further you get out into the solar system.

Tangerine Dream - Mysterious Semblance At The Strand Of Nightmares

Heavenly earth

I'd say the holiday season could use a little groovy, pastoral psych-folk. Surely there's a kitchen in a rural place where someone is preparing festive food and blasting these tracks. I'm not sure if these ladies are from an actual canyon, but that's where they're filed in my brain's library. You can practically see the spliff smoke emanating from the engineer's lips.

Heaven & Earth - Jenny
Heaven & Earth - Feel The Spirit

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

Canned bliss

Hell is a waiting room. Hell is regret. Hell is not knowing how to not repeat mistakes. Hell is injustice. Hell is other people. Heaven is so much simpler. It's 16 minutes of Can live in Paris in 1973.

Can - Spoon (live)

Wild about Harry

It takes a special bass player to get a solo perch up on the 'blague. Or in this case, a visionary who happened to work the low side. I suppose this could be considered a curiosity for those who know Haruomi "Harry" Hosono mainly from his pioneering electronic work. But this is quite the classy groover, which goes to show that 1973 was 1973 just about anywhere.

Haruomi Hosono - Rose & Beast

Two sides of the moon

Rounding out a very non-comprehensive week of Krautrock, we're taking it back to the mighty Can. This jam is another favorite of mine, and uncharacteristically short. Clock-precise and sunset-beach-party-decadent at once.

Can - Moonshake

And here's one that's pretty much a "Moonshake" re-do, from one their less-than-perfect later albums. Clearly, their future days were no Future Days. You can hear the '70s finally catching up with them. Still a sweet hypnotic groove.

Can - Don't Say No

Happy Memorial Day/bbq/whatever you do! Back Tuesday.

Theme Week - À la bibliothèque, bébé! (5/5)

Let's close out Library week like the champs we are. I love that there's a whole species of music meant to soundtrack Olympic-scale victory. But again, for me, it's the mundane moments that most deserve to be accompanied by such heroic sounds. So in that spirit, let your weekend laundry or grocery shopping chores be magnified by this track.

Simon Haseley - World Power

Bogus journey

Roxy Music is one of my favorite band names. It oozes style and sass, with some artsy distance to boot. The Music For Pleasure album is worthy of their name. Eno's sound adventures and Ferry's glammy crooning were becoming totally incompatible, but somehow the record is magnified by the tension. Here's a direction they didn't explore nearly enough—a sinister, almost Cannish groove, shuffling along as dark sexy phantoms circle around it.

Roxy Music - The Bogus Man

Beach by proxy

The house where I grew up is a 15 minute walk to the Atlantic Ocean and a 10 minute drive to the finest pawn shops in Atlantic City. I went down for a visit this weekend. But sadly, a plumbing emergency was the closest I got to any great body of water. So in lieu of actual beach time, here's a song to approximate the confluence of sand and languishing. It also sports one of my favorite album covers. I am prepared to explain this at length, if you'd like. Happy Monday!

Marcos Valle - Tira a Mão

The gypsy and the moustache

Man, this one's been in the queue forever. I know that Fleetwood Mac is well back in fashion and that Lindsey/Stevie's pre-Mac debut has been adequately rescued from obscurity (thanks to my buddy Terence for hipping me to it). But I'll bet some of you still aren't sold on the magic. I surely am though. Enough to eclipse the memory of having to run laps in gym class to the hit singles off Tango in the Night. All you skeptics, give this magnificent nugget a chance.

Then there's that album cover. What can you say? I'll say that Stevie's thousand-yard-stare isn't fooling me. She knows what she's doing with that right arm. Props to Lindsey for keeping a straight face. Can you imagine the outtakes from this photo shoot?

Buckingham Nicks - Long Distance Winner

And now dear listeners, let me introduce your special guest blogger for tomorrow (and hopefully more thereafter) — Songblague's godmother, Ms. Sarah Flynn. A while back, we had a daily song exchange which ran for a solid 6 months. That worthy enterprise eventually ran out of steam, but it planted the seed for this open-ended listening party we've got going here. I think this space could stand to be a little less of a mono-blog, and I'm very excited to have her on board. Lend her your ears, friends. And your friends' ears while you're at it.

I'm zero the hero

Whirlwind of a workweek. Certainly won't be the last for the next while. Best to turn attention to octave doctors, flying teapots, and other radio gnome invisibles. Happy labor days. Back Tuesday.

Gong - Oily Way