Home bound

Well, pardon me please. I dip my head under water, and a month and a half of blague-lessness goes by. I would've thought that rapid change in multiple areas of my life would've inspired songworthy postings. The music in my head never stopped, but somehow I haven't felt compelled to push any of it out into the common air. Until...now (cue ominous rumblings, panning left to right ). Maybe moments of transition just speak for themselves, and things have to settle into place a bit before a day's song makes its wishes known. At any rate, here's a lilting little ditty that goes swimmingly with wandering around a new home and getting to know its character. 

The Ladybug Transistor — Brighton Bound

Know by Heart

I wish The American Analog Set got more props for the cover art for their Know By Heart album. Indie rock conventions are easily mocked (just like those of pop stars), but I have a soft spot for exuding all the sentimental mushiness without the vocal trills and musical swells. That blank-faced, stare-at-the-ground veneer barely covers the pounding heart behind it, which gives even the laziest-sounding moments a real tension. And a quiet poignancy to this cover art that still gets me. Enough to warrant a 2-fer Tuesday from that modest-seeming album.

The American Analog Set — Million Young

The American Analog Set — Aaron And Maria

Slide mountain

Some instruments are just blessed/cursed with being tied to physical places. Pedal steel guitar, for instance. Almost impossible to not evoke dusty sunsets and big open vistas, etc. Bruce Kaphan made a go of taking it into sad bastard indie rock territory, but even he had to go put on his metaphorical cowboy hat when it came time to make a solo record. Which is fine by me. I'm happy to enjoy and settle into a thousand yard stare.

Bruce Kaphan - Big Brain Small Brain

Staring off

Feeling the autumn winds starting to blow, and I'm happy to welcome the season's hearty smells in the air, if not the allergies that come with them. Then there's the thousand yard stare I'm liable to fall into, and luckily, I get several grand avenues in which to indulge it. Here's a song to accompany all of that.

Prefuse 73 - Five Minutes Away

Sound dust

I didn't want to dwell on 9/11. But much like those days held onto me in various psychological ways, I'm compelled to dig up a tune from from the aftermath. I realize this is a pretty minor one in the Stereolab canon. And yet, it served as an especially soft audio blanket pretty deep into that October, albeit one you wrestle with through restless nights, never really comforting you.

Stereolab - Baby Lulu

Skylines

I avoided 9/11 memories for most of the weekend, instead focusing on happier personal anniversaries. But then, big consciousness shifters have a way of bringing a dimension of themselves back to the forefront. Lots of images settle back on calamity, collapse, smoke, and diving bodies. But after that burns itself out, I go back to our untouched skyline and earlier feelings of its vertiginous enormity and my eager search for a place in it. Music like this almost puts it into frame.

Mouse On Mars - Paradical

Jaunty

Ever imagine life suddenly bursting into a montage sequence? Maybe it's after deciding to go to cooking school, and after a beat, we cut to a too-cute parade of hijinx with your culinary buddies, playing with the steaming pasta, almost cutting off fingers while julienning vegetables, and finally almost dropping the serving plates in front of the the instructor's grim eyes. It's a testament to B&S's pop chops that this is just one of the movies my mind flies off into, even in the face of their usual lyrical bum-outs.

Belle & Sebastian - Jonathan David

Norway all the way

I know, when you think rockin' down the open road, you think...Norway. This excellently named band apparently started out as a proggy metal outfit and moved into more psych territory. This one sounds like none of those things, but does feel big enough to support free roaming and good times.

Motorpsycho - For Free

Under a young moon

Maybe I should worry. I went to a show the other night, and yet again, I felt like I was among kids. Not simpering hipstery ones this time, but rather fresh-faced Midwestern types, happily bouncing along to a band that I enjoy like guiltless candy. The performance was a bit of let down. Some bands bring to the stage like college kids who don't really know how to command it. That's OK. I was in good company. Walking out, I looked at the moon, and thought of this boyish-voiced track.

The Microphones - The Moon

Living his grays through a plastic face

Some songs have anthemic choruses about anthemic subjects, like growing up or escaping to the mythic highway (and sitting in mythic traffic). And some are about laying on the couch, being sick and watching Dutch TV. Which in Songblague's opinion, does not diminish the effect one bit. Not to be cynical. It's just the sound itself that's of first importance.

Special Two'fer Tuesday — an outro with an awesome synth line and tip of the hat to Prince.

Super Furry Animals - Edam Anchorman
Super Furry Animals - All The Shit U Do

Conn man

Stretch out for this one, people. If you're up for a multi-sectioned tour through the wasted American mindscape strung out on fables of wealth and success, Bobby Conn will happily take you there. Don't settle too deep into the spooky cabaret intro or gentle guitar picking that follows because some serious glam histrionics await on the other side of the 3:30 mark. Conceptually incoherent, but in a fine way.

People complain that Bobby Conn is bombastic and goes for easy sociopolitical sarcasm when a bunch less self-righteousness would serve him better. They're mostly right, but there's something I like about the downers who were all strident about the decay of American culture even in the pre-9/11 triumphalist salad days. At least he went for theatrical excess when his peers were busy doing the stand and stare. Also, the stuff is a weird no-man's land between note-perfect '70s excess and an earnest desire to write protest songs. It's a rare pair of sunglasses that can accommodate both these ambitions.

Bobby Conn - You've Come A Long Way

I want out

Fugazi took some guff for going out on a slightly more accessible note. Or because they got a little fancy with the music. Or was it for cracking an occasional smile and admitting they don't live in a monastery? At any rate, I'd like to counter any sour grapes with this track from their swan song. It's got some nice stingray guitars and a good daily helping of Guy's wailing and flailing. But then, wait, they go all "ooh ooh" across the chorus and rock an arena-sized buildup and release. And then some well-focused harshness suddenly arrives to usher them out with their sneer intact.

Fugazi - Full Disclosure

Rock n' roll funhouse

The only thing cooler than putting a song together is taking it apart. Or more specifically, creating something that sounds taken apart and then reassembled with a total disregard for traditional ideas of shape. Such was the stock in trade of U.S. Maple, one of the most interesting indie bands of the late '90s/early '00s. If the guitars sound all Beefheart-y, it's because they were on the same wavelength. Which I guess would be a bunch of wavelengths at once, a very specific order masquerading as chaos. As for those raspy vox, sure, they're a little creepy, but wasn't rock n' roll supposed to be disturbing once too? You can even waltz to parts of this.

U.S. Maple - Ma, Digital

Theme Week - Dream in sound (2/5)

Seeing Of Montreal put on their massive, elaborate stage show a couple weeks ago, I had to marvel at how far the band has come. Who'd have thought from from those ultra-twee, ultra-dense/kaleidoscopic early albums that Kevin Barnes would come to inhabit the sci-fi space-glam, emotionally-wrenched character he now takes from town to town. The songs are a little simpler now, but conceptually just as ambitious and sometimes just as inscrutable. Barnes has never been short of ideas or ambition; that's for sure. He could probably write an album in his sleep, and then record it the next morning. Makes me feel positively lazy. Anyway, here's a good one from those bright splashy color days.

Of Montreal - Penelope

I look for moves and I search for breaths

They dress up in masks, and then singer goes and masks her voice in digital disguise. The lyrics are oblique, suggesting dark and unsettled things. The music can be cold and distant. But they make songs that grip you like a Scandanavian bear hug. Here's an early one, before all the accolades. Good ears can hear something special among the deceptively familiar elements.

The Knife - Lasagna

I hate to be the one I say I told you so

As previously noted, our dear Ely is currently on tour, serenading the children by day and enticing their parents into ramshackle debauchery by night. Therefore I've taken it upon myself to throw a couple of Friday posts your way to keep things lively!

Today, I thought I'd throw one last winter jam on the pile before fully succumbing to blissful seasonality. The Ass Ponys existed in a strange niche somewhere between the Flaming Lips and the Chainsaw Kittens, but (to the best of my knowledge) never achieved any sort of cult status and are only remembered in time by myself and the music editor of the L Magazine. Of all their songs, "Last Night It Snowed" is probably the least weird and most likeable, and it's a fine way to say goodbye to the feeling of icy slush soaking through your shoes on your morning commute.

Ass Ponys - Last Night It Snowed

Your tongue can get sharp

Sometimes it seems like there are two kinds of people in the world: people who really, really love Clem Snide, and people who've never heard Clem Snide. There's something about the intersection of Eef Barzelay's wordplay and the band's amiable bit-of-country-pluck sound that seems pretty difficult not to be into. In what I've decided will be my fashion, I wanted to make this post about the new album out today, The Meat of Life, which I have heard and quite definitely approve of. However, the internet didn't want to surrender a track to me, so here's a Clem Snide classic from the ol' spinART days.

Most will say that The Ghost of Fashion is Barzelay at his best. It's a rare brand of songwriter who can take all of the worst parts of human relationships and tongue-twist them into something that sounds quite pleasant, and that he can do it so consistently never ceases to amaze me.

There's a full stream of The Meat of Life on the 429 Records site so you can hear it for yourself, and then you can think about how I was right, and then you can thank me.

Clem Snide - Don't Be Afraid of Your Anger

You won't get much older

I get a bad feeling about this song. Same way I do with Jim O'Rourke's entire Insignificance album, right down to the cover. Which isn't to say I don't enjoy it immensely. Just the opposite. It's all succulent a.m.-inspired pop, with enough twists and distortions to give it a weird perspective on its '70s roots. This track embodies that triumph. It kicks off like some cousin to Edie Brickell's "What I Am" and has the sort of texture and warmth you want to burrow into for the winter.

But O'Rourke's never one to let you have it easy. He's brilliant, but he doesn't give the sense that there's any pleasure in his art. And so music that seems like it should be enjoyed without guile begins to feel like a stalking horse, like he's trying to commit murder via sugar overdose. I've heard enough of his harsh, avant stuff to make me think that something really malevolent is going on underneath these cozy sounds. And that's before you even start to get into the nihilism in the lyrics. I hope he's gotten a little less full of contempt. Or at least I hope at least he's quit smoking by now.

Jim O'Rourke - Get a Room

Anthem of the moonshot

Serendipity! The 40th anniversary of the moon landing happens on the day that I decide to post a song from the Anthem of the Moon album. A coincidence on one level, but I think this song is actually a rather earthbound affair. No one's gonna question Oneida's brain-frying, psychedelic bona fides, but this is less the sound of moonwalking and more like pulsing lunar prayer chants from deep in our terrestrial home. I love them steadily with each ambitious release, but this one has taken on the patina of a genuine classic.

Oneida - Rose and Licorice

Giant steps

Going on 10 years, the Walkmen are a pillar of their community — critically-approved, steady draw, good work ethic. They deserve it; their body of work is reliably interesting. But it used to shock. Approaching the end of the 'aughts, I think it's worth high-fiving some of the music that defined its landscape.

These guys know atmosphere, tension, and of course, the rawk too. This may be the finest statement of the case, brimming with confidence and newness. It's 2001, but who needs paranoid computers in space! The ingredients are traditional, but it's one of those reminders that rock can always sound fresh when fresh minds are around.

And that guitar strike at 3.43! It's one of my favorite rock n' roll moments. Seriously. Like a shiny screwdriver in your ear; you never saw it coming.

The Walkmen - Wake Up