Klawing

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.

Irving Klaw Trio - Relleno 2

Do your time, then come home for good

It's hard to listen to rock n' roll these days. Now that everything is given some sort of digital lift — if it wasn't a purely digital product to begin with — rock bands are falling all over themselves to show just how raw and primal they are. Which is a pretty sad sight/sound. It's like when someone tells you how funny he is. Makes me enjoy bands that just made rock music in the style of people they grew up listening to and didn't sweat their audience's reaction. Sloan didn't make much of a claim to originality, and I'm fine with that since it yielded songs like this.

Sloan - Everything You've Done Wrong

Tea party

I used to turn a very snobby nose up at funky jazz, soul jazz, and 'most any kind of jazz that didn't honk all over the place. More mature ears understand the value of getting hips shaking and lips loosened. Although if this song title is any indication, Charlie Hunter is looking to take the party to a much more uninhibited place.

Charlie Hunter Quartet - Teabaggin'

Knock on wood, knock on trees

You can't help but admire the winding career of Warren Defever (aka His Name Is Alive), who has followed his muse across all sorts of unpredictable realms, treating some of his best songs as palimpsests.

I suppose Stars on E.S.P. was Defever's commercial highpoint, and its various shades of '60s-looking psychedelic pop still sound inspired. The kind of album that just wants to flow and not let you get too caught up in individual tracks. Still, this one sounds pretty nice after being fished out of the sparkling river.

His Name Is Alive - Country Girl

A seething, crumpled, teeming sky

Staycation is over. I couldn't have asked for a better one — somehow both super-productive and super-mellow at once. Super. Anyway, back in the saddle. I realize I've already flaked by skipping the first day of the year (hey, banks are closed too). Let me make it up to you with a get-one-free, baby.

If 2012 is going to be a year of apocalyptic undertones — courtesy of both Mayan calendar kitsch and the prospect of a Republican presidency — let the 'blague year begin with this sense of unease. I recently went back to my man Arto's series of wacked samba albums, beginning in the mid-'90s. The first is the best. And this first track is just a stunner of atmosphere both lovely and ominous, abetted by a curious team of Brian Eno and twin #1 from Blonde Redhead. The other one is a graceful lilt, with the usual great lyrics and Ryuichi Sakamoto adding some classiness on the keys. Happy New Year. Now get back to work.

Arto Lindsay - 4 Skies
Arto Lindsay - Child Prodigy

Color me babe

Having just read Retromania, I'm finding that a lot of music I enjoyed in the '00s now feels tainted with the brush of nostalgia. Or worse, an anemic lack of forward-facing inspiration. Which now makes me look fondly on stuff in the '90s that may have been a bit cringe-worthy, but at least took risks.

Babe The Blue Ox was one band that acquitted themselves quite well in that decade. They just suffered from a lack of hype and boosterism in the Brooklyn of their heyday (hard to imagine such a thing now). Anyway, they rocked with heart, good humor, and some nice Beefheartian rhythmic shenanigans. This track captures all of that.

Babe The Blue Ox - Rube Goldberg

Thin men

I'll admit it, I like Suzanne Vega, and always did. She's one of the few coffeehouse types who knows that all those vocal curlicues do not signify actual emotion outside of commercials and rom coms. She sings plain and understated, and bless her for it. She got kinda experimental after that "Luka" hit, and most people didn't care much for that. I know she went folky again later on, but I lost the thread there. Here's a surprisingly slinky one. Part of me wants to hear a version with Donald Fagan singing. And for those of you on the Yom Kippur train, a title that loosely speaks to your foodlessness this weekend.

Suzanne Vega - Thin Man

What kind of drunk?

I didn't rally much around boozy bands during college. My head was usually up in cloudier landscapes. And yet, I always had heart for Silkworm. Still do, especially since a lot of '90s indie rock has a sad habit of wilting before my adult ears. There's no Springsteen-aping celebration of wild, fleeting, beer-soaked youth here. Just drunk drunkenness that staggers around stage, threatening to fall down and not get up. Well, maybe there actually is something a little poetic about that.

Silkworm - Drunk

The harm that comes from change

SB has already noted the rich and surprisingly varied career of Yo La Tengo, a band that keeps getting better with every chance they take. At the same time, there's a lot to like in their juvenilia, when it seemed they would fit neatly into the indie boxes that their influences telegraphed. Here's one such early gem that will jangle around your head for longer than you'd expect.

Yo La Tengo - Fog Over Frisco

Put you in a light that will hurt your eyes

Let's stick with loud guitar rock bands from the 1990s. Or more specifically, the ones I was into then. Even more specifically, the ones that still make me make rock faces and dumb body contortions. I think I've previously commented on how badly a lot of the math-rock/post-rock/indie-anything-but-cock-rock from that era has aged. Much of it has neither the fun/catharsis of rocking out nor the technical wherewithal to prog it up respectfully. (Have you listened to a June of 44 album in the last 10 years? Yeesh.)

Anyway, these guys were good. Still are — the old stuff and the reunited version both. Exploded Drawing remains a great experimental rock record that does both effectively. Here's one of my faves from it. The verses sound like banging your head without being head-banging. Neat trick.

Polvo - Feather of Forgiveness

Hooray for the day

It's been baking outside these last couple days. Hopefully, it's the last gasp of the cruel summer heat. Does Songblague Nation wilt in response? No! We choose to embrace the sweat and rock it out. And I sound this battle cry with the full weight of my office. Literally, I'm sitting in my very climate-controlled office. But still, onward!

In addition to its blissful rock out-ness, this little nugget ranks as one of my favorite GBV song titles, right up there with this one. Can't say I'm too interested in their reunion tour though. Let 1996 stay 1996. As for today, I keep finding myself focusing on the harmony vocal, which I think is an important marker for spiritual development.

Guided By Voices - Your Name Is Wild

Boss Swede

If you're like me, you've noticed a frustrating divide between music you acquired pre- and post- digital conversion. I was a pretty late ipod adopter, but I quickly filled my 80-gig capacity. And since I'm lazy about shaking it up, a whole galaxy of great albums that didn't get in when the getting was good now just gets short shrift.

The Cardigans' First Band On The Moon is one such album. I dug it out recently and ended up digging the whole damn thing. Pretty dynamite start to finish, with cool production quirks which—amazingly for a '90s record—still sound good. This is the album's closer and it has the bigness of outro songs on classic '70s records. A song of utter hopelessness matched with a triumphant flute melody. I don't think anyone pulls that trick off better.

The Cardigans - Choke

Man alone

Now here's someone who understands essentials. Insular, interior, one-man music is not the sole province of keyboard tappers. The bass is a simple pulse, but this quietly sturdy backbone opens the world wide. Every element on top is just the right sized presence. It may have been made in a room, but it feels as vast as the ocean.

Henri Texier - Amir

Flying colors

Lately, I'm finding myself compelled to go through my records, trying to mentally revisit the downtown improv scene that I loved so much in the late '90s/early '00s. In terms of pure playing, many of the musicians are in a league of their own, the music bursting with strange colors and inspired flights. It's a drag that there's no homebase for those guys anymore, though it's pretty awesome that Roy Nathanson is my bandmate's landlord and—shameless self-promotion—will be playing on our forthcoming album.

Anyway, look out for a healthy heaping of downtown sounds on the 'blague in the near future. Here's one from Jamie Saft and Cuong Vu—two guys who'd be on anyone's list of top collaborators. I love the skewed cop show funk-esque head that they use for a jumping off point.

Saft/Vu - Garbo

Deceleration

Long, hectic days deserve simple songs and not too much in the way of explanation. This one reminds me that I'd like to be walking slowly in a quiet place, looking at other slow moving things. Gonna try to work a dream around that.

Mojave 3 - Beautiful

Cover me

I admit, I'm still a sucker for Mark Kozelek's music, even at its most emotionally raw. And I'm always amazed at his ability to draw the same intensity out of other people's songs. Who'd have thought a fairly minor Cars tune could sound so epic and heartfelt? Slowed down, stripped down, it opens wide, with a voice somber and beautiful like a cello. It's so good you can almost forgive him licensing it for a Gap ad.

Red House Painters - All Mixed Up

Brake dancing

A period piece, circa 1996. Checklist it. Melodic indie rock with a brick on the distortion pedal, sometimes hinting at noisier realms. Collage-like album cover. Band name aiming for cerebral obscurity. If you had a cool band in college around this part of the '90s, it probably sounded something like this. My band at the time did not sound like this. But I was around the same age as these dudes, so I felt a certain kinship. I think my speak/singing voice was pretty close to this too. Still dig the song. Like a perfume, it evokes a memory fully-formed.

The Raymond Brake - Easter