Sweet harmonie

Maybe it's a sign of stunted development, but if you give me some repeated musical patterns and layer them crosswise/syncopated/whatever, I'll be your loyal listener, even if you are a fairly cheezy French prog rock outfit. With this one, they sensibly send the drummer on break, and commence to weave a sparkling web of notes, nicely-paced, before the guitarist launches into his best imitation of a Robert Fripp solo. Bon travail! 

Philharmonie - No One Answering

Somber pickin'

Spent the weekend being an audience member in eclectic situations — a one-woman stage play, an NBA basketball game, a medieval re-enactment in New Jersey. After that, I'm all ears for these guys making quiet and pretty guitar sounds in a Chicago loft some 15 years ago.

Pullman - So Breaks Yesterday

Dosed

Veteran 'blague readers know that I usually have to jump out of the car when the aimless jamming sets in. Which means that instrumental funk bands (especially post-1970s) start out with a big strike against them. It takes a snappy groove and/or some eyebrow-raising instrumental dexterity to keep along for the ride. These Chicago dudes are scoring on both counts for me today. 

Drum chops watchers: note the sweet little turnaround at 2:23. Figure it out and throw it in your bag of tricks.

Heroic Doses - Reggie, Is It?

Queen tones

Pulled out some Lounge Lizards albums recently, and was happily smacked upside the head by a spunkiness that has aged very well. Then I put on their last album, which on the one hand is animated by a lovely sound palette and a gaggle of eager/excellent musicians, but now takes on kind of a tragic hue in light of John Lurie's subsequent troubles. Still, these sprightly tones are well worth enjoying, especially when paired with Lurie's album cover painting, which seems appropriate for nearly every moment of my day.

The Lounge Lizards - Queen Of All Ears

Indonesian analog set

Here's a band I just thought about for the first time in a while — one of the more tasteful meldings of indie rock and non-Western sounds, though I guess I usually go for weirder efforts. This species of indie rock recalls the comfy propulsive drone of the American Analog Set. Which means that the hammer dulcimer doesn't really mesh with that DNA, but it least it doesn't clash. The effect is like traveling in the Far East and trying on local clothes that make you look neither convincingly local nor cluelessly foreign. Which is not really bad ground to occupy. (OK, maybe 'occupation' isn't the best word.)

Macha - Capital City

Quote love unquote me

Sorry, can't resist another one from my early NYC days. It's great that Stephin Merritt's Gershwin-esque songwriting chops have been given an appropriately-sized canvas in recent years. But I found him much more charming when he filtered his talents through dinky synthesizers and occasional magic banjo. Something about this one keeps getting me. It's far superior to the tired I album version. And the lyrics are the bees knees.

The Magnetic Fields - I Don't Believe You

Upstate

Continuing with late masterpieces...Mercury Rev is another one where I depart from the longtime faithful. I appreciate the psychedelic mess of the early albums, but can't say I'm ever really compelled to jump into those worlds. Gotta say I'm with the masses on applauding the symphonic highs and lyrical lows of Deserter's Songs. But you've probably heard all that, so here are some of the creeky upstate ambient interludes between the pop payoffs. Which segues nicely into a note about my own upstate jaunt this weekend. I can think of no better salute to America than to take a few more days' leave from my calendar routine. Which is to say, savor these 3 dusky pieces; Songblague will be observing radio silence until next Thursday (I think).

Mercury Rev - I Collect Coins
Mercury Rev - The Happy End (The Drunk Room)
Mercury Rev - Pick Up If You're There

Big kiss

Another one from the dust-off-the-CD files. I'm in the minority of Elliott Smith fans in that I don't get all that affected by the lo-fi misery of the early albums. Rather, his big-label albums with their big sound are what do justice to his big talent. XO in particular is just about flawless, end to end. And this tune conjures visions of 1998 that don't even make me cringe.

Elliott Smith - Baby Britain

Daydream your way around the room

Any album that sounds the way its cover looks is bound to get a thumbs-up around here. And I hope you will find today's selection as dorko charming/looks ridiculous with snorkel gear/but in a funkyish way as I do. Arto Lindsay's career has effectively straddled the noisy/smooth divide, and his samba-with-a-twist records are easy pleasers. Let this tune take your mind off the prospect of slushy foot journeys and further sidewalk shoveling this weekend.

(FYI, I'll be cooling out for a bit. Back Wednesday.)

Arto Lindsay - Simply Are

Dirty sea

Last weekend, I saw a stage performance of The Metamorphosis. The production was brilliant in itself (no insect costume but plenty of pathos!), but I was equally struck by how good a pair of soundtrackers Nick Cave and Warren Ellis have become. Which reminded me how long it's been since I listened to my Dirty Three albums (Ellis is their violinist).

A couple of this week's themes come into play here — nostalgia for un-muddied musical influence and an evocation of overwhelming sadness. Regarding the latter, no one does it quite like these guys. This music breathes like a body you want to stay close to.

Dirty Three - Sea Above, Sky Below

Your heart is surrounded in rust

Licking cracked lips on cold days like these, my mind often drifts back to wide-eyed undergrad times. Or at least as wide-eyed as my cranky temperament allowed. I remember hanging out with my bandmates listening to the likes of Beekeeper and instinctively trying to incorporate their best ideas into whatever stew we were trying to cook up. At some distance, I can now appreciate that lack of focus, the utopian sense that just about anything can work together. (That'd be the wide-eyed part, I guess.) And now, this song — with a steely austerity that finds room for harmony in its furrow-browed groove — seems just about right as you watch your breath form and vanish in front of your eyes.

Beekeeper - Dead And Drugged

Exodus

As you may have noticed from my dutiful workaday Songblague postings, I haven't had much of a summer vacation. It's OK. Work sets you free. Oh wait, that came out real wrong. Anyway, I'm not really looking at a ramp-up in leisure time. But the Dees are heading out on the road for a 2-show tour culminating in a minor league baseball stadium gig in Lexington, Kentucky (the other gig being a retirement home, and it won't be our first trip there).

So this is my excuse to take a week or so off. I'm gonna be inexact because I'm not planning that far ahead. But I'll probably be antsy to post again by midweek, so check back next Wednesday or so. Meanwhile, here's a totally dynamite nugget of late-model Judaica that is totally incongruous with spending a few days in Red America. L'chaim!

Masada - Meholalot

Memorial Day

I'm sure you will indulge if I skip the salute to people in uniform and instead honor a musician. Tom Cora was an avant garde improvising cellist who played with just about every experimental musician in New York and beyond throughout the '80s and '90s. The music is all over the map, and a lot of it is excellent and exploratory work. He died of cancer in 1998, and shortly afterward John Zorn released a retrospective of his music. You should own it. I put it on recently for the first time in years and was totally stunned, track after track.

Here's a piece from that comp recorded just after Cora's death. I find it genuinely poignant. Probably not so great for barbecue listening though. See you back Tuesday.

Thierry Azam - The Week Tom Died

Fleet fingers and magic lips

Having the great privilege of rocking out with Roy Nathanson reminded me that I really should put on music from the erstwhile downtown scene more often. There's really no substitute for top shelf improvisers busting out, even when they've got it written out. Here's trumpeter Dave Douglas and accordionist Guy Klucevsek yukkin' it up.

Dave Douglas - Mugshots: Decafinata

From a starship over Venus to the Sun

I must admit I was surprised to discover that Shudder To Think—with their jagged artiness—could pull off a note-perfect imitation of Glam's creamy triumphs. Many have tried to channel David Bowie, and the failures have ranged from bland to spectacular. The Velvet Goldmine soundtrack is chock full of the rare successes. These DC boys contributed two home runs, and here's one of them.

Shudder To Think - Hot One

Missiles to bloodstream

For the past year, I've been inexplicably haunted by Jawbreaker.

It's inevitable that musically inclined people of a certain age and sensibility feel very, very strongly about Jawbreaker; I, by contrast, have always felt a certain ambivalence towards the band. Still, every barbeque this year had a secret but familiar soundtrack, a trip to my favorite bar on what is usually metal night yielded all of Dear You, multiple friends' Facebook statuses have all urged me that "it sounded good, I felt ashamed, I knew every drum fill."

The moment anyone has stopped to be nostalgic about anything, the word "Jawbreaker" is uttered.

For my part, I've never been afraid to embrace the next thing, and when the next thing after Jawbreaker was Jets To Brazil, I suddenly got it. If the next year of my life is filled with thinly veiled references to Orange Rhyming Dictionary, I'm all for it; until then, I'll just take comfort in knowing that these songs have aged as well as I have.

Jets To Brazil - Resistance Is Futile

Hearing the cuckoos cry

Some pairings are odd, and some are odd, but just make sense. Case in point - the Captain Howdy, a collaboration between Kramer (longstanding acid pop experimentalist and facilitator; no, not the Seinfeld dude) and Penn Jillette (yes, the guy with Teller). I believe both are under-appreciated. And I think this song finds their their strengths in perfect harmony — brain-massaging psych track backing a monologue charming told. There's some useful truth in it too. Even on Songblague, I long for Songblague.

The Captain Howdy - I Long For Kyoto

Dancin' woozy in the space age

Been a couple of weighty days, musically speaking. I think it's time for something light and playful. Like a little cat. But I have cat allergies. How about a song instead? A song to be played for a drunkard dancing with a lampshade.

Oranj Symphonette were some jazzers who got together to do fun romps through the Henry Mancini songbook. They expanded the palette to other like-minded guys on their second album. This tune was written by Burt Bacharach for a movie of the same name, which apparently flopped. It was sung by Peter Sellers, which is always a plus. No vox here, but the plunger mute has character to spare.

Oranj Symphonette - After The Fox

The secret life of Arabia

It's hot out. Like brain-paralyzing hot. No way around it. Unless you get to spend your day in air conditioning, which would be great if it wasn't one of those days where your job puts your brain in another kind of pain.

The crazy summer heat makes me hallucinate. So here's a good track to accompany that—a desert fantasia undercut by some incongruous guitars and a nicely broke-ass tabla drum machine.

Secret Chiefs 3 - Renunciation

Evoking ancient things

Sometimes I look at my record collection and think I should spend more time getting into people like Gustavo Santaolalla. With a long career as a musician, producer, and field recordist, there's a lot to dig into. And considering that he's one of those artists who had to flee his country when some murderous thug became dictator, I'd say he deserves at least as much attention as any week's blog sensation. These days, he's a big-time film composer. And he's good at it; he made The Motorcycle Diaries almost bearable.

This one comes from Santaolalla's flat-out beautiful solo album Ronroco. And though it has nothing to do with movies, it just begs for some visual accompaniment. Since I lamely have never been to South America, I fear all of my cinematic imaginings are the tritest of the trite. Still, listening to this track, I can almost feel the dust caked in my palms as the afternoon glare begins to burn holes in my eyes.

Gustavo Santaolalla - Gaucho