Unguarded moments

Spent a good bit of last week on long daily journeys between home and the birth hospital. It made for an disorienting juxtaposition of environments, with the subway portions acting as a nice interstitial, offering generous portions of solitary book and headphone pleasures. Music-wise, I ended up curling into a couple unexpected synthy earworms, courtesy of a duo who have made their way into this space before. While having nothing to do with babies, births, or journeys full of anticipation, I suppose this will soon take its place in the audio portion of early baby memories, which is a bit of randomness I can't complain about.

Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin — When The Guards Are Asleep

A new landscape

And then things snap back into motion all at once. Sticking with Ryuichi, who is more than appropriate for plotting next moves, synthesizing a landscape of possibilities in a laboratory of false histories.

Ryuichi Sakamoto — In A Forest Of Feathers

The neurotic

I've been in a serious Genesis rabbithole. It spans all stages of their career, from the baroque-iest to the beardiest to the Miami Vice-iest. It also spans all segments of my listening life way back to early teenage discoveries. And I'm not even gonna be bothered with allegations of cheesiness. No reason not to be fascinated by exquisiteness even when found in fundamental mistakes. So where to begin? A mixtape is probably warranted. Maybe it'll come to that, but meantime, here's a B-side from what consensus views as the low point. And yet, despite the unlikely stadium rockers they'd become, they're still trying to put together proggy epics, even if they were a bit lazy in the construction. They're also oddly trying to sound like the Police. Give them props for the effort, and the title nicely suits my last few days' manic journey through several circles of real estate hell. I'm ready for my home by the sea.

Genesis - Do The Neurotic

Where you are right now, only much better

I'm having a strange attraction to Laurie Anderson's pop-aspirational music. Strong enough that I can get beyond the scent of terrible high school poetry on this particular title. I actually really like the '80ness of songs like this. It lives in the same orbit as the Talking Heads at their commercial high water mark—an alternate version of that time, but without forsaking the pumped-up sound. And of course, she's a national treasure for consistently rescuing the art of spoken word from its most cringe-worthy practitioners.

Laurie Anderson - Language Is A Virus

Snuggle sounds

Can't get myself out of this Library trip I'm on this week, so I'm not even gonna fight it. This one may be a bridge too far for some in terms of its audio gumminess. But again, when you're this far down the rabbit hole, your moral compass is mostly useless. So many ridiculous made-for-TV moments come to mind, but I'll let my friend Terence's reaction be the word on it: "perfect accompaniment to a sumptuous dinner, prepared tableside by an expert waitstaff, in a rotating restaurant that offers commanding views of both the marina and municipal airport." Indeed-o.

Unit Six - Snuggle

World of echo

It doesn't take much to get me into an Arthur Russell state of mind. Sometimes, it's just the winter air chilling my bones that makes me want to float in the warm ocean that is his voice. Add in the invigorating bristles of that cello and you've got pure audio therapy. Let's go swimming!

Arthur Russell - Place I Know/Kid Like You

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

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

Dancing and dreaming pleasure

When I was a kid, I secretly liked my many allergies and occasional colds because it meant I got to have cold medicine. The ensuing loopiness was at once a dry run for the pharmacopeian dimension of early adulthood and also a weirdly satisfying recline into level of consciousness untroubled by neurosis or hurry. Battling this last weekend of heavy allergies (I blame that damn Irene for putting all kinds of subterranean gunk into the air) brought me back to that state. Here's a tune for that kind of dreaminess. Don't even think of hating on that saxophone!

Tuxedomoon - Atlantis

Into leather

It's been a dizzying workweek, and I'm bouncing on my toes until I can get out of town. Which brings the mind quite easily to driving songs and/or pop gems. And you can usually count on the the Chills to deliver on both. It's their second appearance on these pages, and there are some days I want to listen to no one else. Perhaps the least kinky song to mention leather garments, this one is a heavenly pop hit by any other name.

The Chills - I Love My Leather Jacket

Action sequence

From Hot Chip to Hot Cold. And this track is just hot hot. Makes me sit back in my chair, sigh, and complain that they just don't 'em like they used to. (The secret is the guitar, young synth-poppers.) Seconds later, I will put my headband on and dart out the door to do something vigorous. I feel like a my own personal training montage for this to soundtrack.

Hot Cold - I Can Hear Your Voice

Watching the snow fall

These last few weeks, the snow has become such a natural part of the city landscape that I'm hardly noticing it anymore. Which may be why I've been living inside this excellent mix the last few days. It contains this semi-classic track, which I'm just now re-appreciating. Partly because of that charmingly dated synth percussion, and also because it manages to be icily funky without sounding being all post-punk ominous. Maybe also something to do with those flocks of birds falling from the sky of late. And the presence Peter Gabriel in guest star mode makes me smile.

Laurie Anderson - Excellent Birds

And here's Gabriel's own version, a nice reshuffling of the elements. It's not as much of a curiosity as our last double-dose Gabriel collaboration, but it is a pretty cool and weird choice for a big blockbuster album closer.

Peter Gabriel - This Is The Picture

Secondhand sweet pop

Japanese pop bands have magical powers of refraction, taking original sources and bending them into sounds that range from a little disconcerting to very perverse. And they have a weird way of twisting memories of my adolescence. This tune sounds eerily like my first attempt at forming a band, from the excessive guitar effects to the drums that barely keep up. It's a game of telephone, weirdly imitating American teenagers weirdly imitating British '80s alt-rockers. I like how the guitar break is so perfect, dude plays twice exactly the same.

D-Day - So That Night

Walking on hallowed ground

Oh snap, it's Bill Nelson again! Songblague has been showing him a lot of love this year, and it's because he keeps filling my head with notes that sparkle. It's actually a little alarming how much I'm not getting sick of him. Or maybe I'm just tired, and fatigue makes you reach for unambiguous pleasures.

At any rate, here's one for your dreamy Autumn pleasure. Enjoy it slowly, because the 'blague will be silent while I go for a little vacation/recharge. See you in about a week and a half. Many good things coming soon...

Bill Nelson - Theology

Mobile mellow

A late word on the demise of the Walkman (for those of you who haven't heard, production is finally being discontinued). Good ambient music can absorb almost anything that passes in front of it, holding its space without being protective of it. The usual assumption is that it's best enjoyed in the confines of an interior space, doing things that music shouldn't overwhelm—laying about, washing dishes, reading, scheming, etc. But actually, I'm a big fan of ambient on the go. Put on the headphones, jack up the treated soft pianos and be the calm, roving center of the city, emotionally unplugged and happily looking in from outside.

Harold Budd and Brian Eno - Late October

Brilliant furniture

Generally, I've tried to avoid double dipping into the same film soundtrack. But today I just can't help it. You probably don't even remember the scene that features this tune. I believe it's pushed to the background until the saxophone break suddenly leaps out. Well, I think it deserves a close-up of its own. Why do I have such a soft spot for this species of moody British crooner?

Furniture - Brilliant Mind

Black cell abrasion

I don't know what it says about me that a track I couldn't get enough of at 13 is a track I still can't get enough of. Such is Depeche Mode's mysterious hold on me. I know, I know, the lyrics are beyond hokey. And the music is like an intro workshop on melody and arrangement. Dangerously saccharine. But its roots are deep and tangled in my brain. Like the song says, it feels like home.

Depeche Mode - Here Is The House

Hurt like kryptonite

I found my sister's cassette copy of XTC's Skylarking in the spring when I was 13. I remember really liking the way the album breathed, but being a little uneasy about it. It was one of those gateway albums that segued me from pop radio to artier, more idiosyncratic stuff. I waded in gingerly, the lack of a listening community making early listens feel like I'd stumbled onto strange territory. But the record's self-assured breeziness won out, and I was happy to start having bands that I could spread the news about.

Over the years, Skylarking's luster has dimmed. The band's post-punk early albums are still compellingly cockeyed, and their Dukes of Stratosphear incarnation did '60s psychedelia note-perfectly. On the other hand, this record at least has Todd Rundgren going for it. And this track—with its dorky take on failed romance via the language of superpowers—has springtime running all through it, including the key element of melancholy riding the breeze.

XTC - That's Really Super, Supergirl

Aerobicizing behind the iron curtain

Should anyone be surprised that the Soviet government was sanctioning and distributing exercise music during the 1980s? What's weird is that it took until late 2008 for someone to dig up this treasure trove. Many thanks to the great Paul Durango for doing the world this important favor.

This track is a little out of character for the series, much of which sounds like a trade show demonstration for synthesizers and drum machines. This one feels like a Russian fusion band soundtracking a Smurfs episode. The real treat is the guitar spooge-out that kicks in at 1:10.

Sting was once concerned about whether the Russians loved their children too. Does this song settle the matter?

Arsenal - Festival