Burmese bang

Well, what's not to like about an ace modern music ensemble supercharged with spitfire percussion in a giddy cross-cultural musical meeting. In straight-up Western music, this would be spastic and nervous, but here feels much more elegant. I like how the manic, almost Zappa-like antics alternate with a folksy lilt. Leaves me feeling peaceful and amped up all at once. 

Bang On A Can All-Stars with Kyaw Kyaw Naing— Sein Chit Tee A Mhat Ta Ya

Sunbake day men

Jesu Christo, the heat! My body is becoming much less ambiguous in its rejection of these conditions. I only wish I could translate sweat to speech. Meanwhile, here's one from a tropical land of amphibious creatures shaped like math equations. 

90 Day Men — When Your Luck Runs Out

Disappearing

Deerhoof is so damn charming, it hurts. Experimental and bubblygummy and always effervescent. Album after album, the more they expand their sound, the more I'm pleased by how well they do it. And I love how well their fractured, lanky virtuosity translates to the stage. Here's a tune that gets into some droning Can territory with drummer Greg Saunier pushing relentlessly ahead, equal parts Tony Allen and Jaki Liebezeit, which is fine company to sit beside.

Deerhoof - Desapareceré

Tort reform

I praised Tortoise's groundbreaking early work a while back, but have been fairly dismissive of their last few efforts. True, they've spent the last decade and a half basically refining their aesthetic and running in place. But sometimes you have to stand back and appreciate that refinement. Which is what happened when I gave a listen to It's All Around You recently. 

It's probably a case of ears suddenly becoming more attuned to subtlety, not looking to be surprised, but happy to find pretty things in small places. Suddenly, I like the shift toward melody, away from stone-faced austerity, being less stingy with color. Now I want to see the imaginary movie they're soundtracking. Of course, it helps that the vibes are still around. Without those, these guys would be truly lost.

Tortoise - Stretch (You Are All Right)

Saturday for Monday

In previous years, a twee-ish piece of curatorial, '60-reconstructing pop might have been all wrong for a post-Super Bowl morning. But since the ritual watching of the game is pretty much all we have left to unify us a nation and with pro football marketers savvy enough to bring the ladies into the jersey-wearing, wing-chomping fold, we find ourselves in a different world. Which is to say, at least some pallid indie rock boys and girls will enjoy the transition from gridiron heroics to these precious 3 minutes.

Pitchfork actually got its head out its ass and hit the nail on that head with these guys. My view on nostalgia for other people's pasts—constructed entirely out of memorabilia consumed out of order and from second-hand sources—is still evolving, but I'm always happy to hear a well-executed tune. And these parts of the '60s are always welcome around here.

Saturday Looks Good To Me - Since You Stole My Heart

The snipers by the falls'll be delivering their calls

Yay for wild Canadians. It seems that Frog Eyes's Carey Mercer aims to be some kind of bookish take on Nick Cave's '80s danger, and I think that despite the think-lipped manners, he is in many ways equally unhinged. But it's the fantastical theatricality that makes him unique. Breathlessness, piano pounding, and shaky drums...all things that get my head a'bobbing.

Frog Eyes - The Oscillator's Hum

Women made the electric light

Electrelane. Such a fun band name to say out loud. It reminds me of when James Brown sang "man made the electric light!" and it sounded like "electrolyte". It may be a man's world, but it wouldn't be nothin' without the ladies of Electrelane. Or so I might say by way of clumsy segue. At any rate, here's a peppy little groover.

Electrelane - On Parade

Buried in Christmas

I have a shelf at home full of burned CDs. I almost never flip through them. Middle child problem. I sometimes stare at the towers of discs I bought/acquired over the years, with the patterns of spines that radiate a homey familiarity. But more often than not, I submit to digital ease and play something off the computer. Mostly stuff I never intend to transfer to a 1-cent piece of plastic. Which is fine. Like with most people, that's the neighborhood I've been building up the last few years. I'm trying to visit the burns from the just-pre-iPod era more often. Happily there's almost always a reward. Like this beautiful song. A fitting close to a week that began with looking at clouds.

Iron And Wine - Sodom, South Georgia

Achy body grooves

Been spending the week fighting off a cold — the nasty kind that sneaks up, disarms you, and holds your whole body hostage before pointlessly surrendering without even demanding ransom. In the midst of zincing and lozenging, I've rediscovered an age-old principle that the fighting spirit of white blood cells is greatly enhanced by warm, shimmering dance music. Like this fine specimen. If you recognize the sample melody, it's probably because you were constantly subjected to this in 1988.

Mylo - In My Arms

More songs about buildings and snow

Yesterday, I found myself looking out my 9th floor work window, completely lost in the patterns of falling snow against the suddenly beautiful Lego-like building across the street. My mind discreetly checked into a room soundtracked by today's song, which belongs in the "sorta-but-not-quite-classical/swear-you-heard-it-in-a-film" files. Or in a planetarium. Or in a celestial waiting room.

Max Richter - Iconography

That's us, before we got there

With rare exceptions, Songblague usually chooses not to hang with love songs. It's not out of coldness. They just tend to bore me. Well, here is one of those rare exceptions, and yet again, it comes courtesy of Arthur Russell. Beyond the avant-disco innovations, he's just got a knack for expressing genuine tenderness with a childlike guilenessness that disarms you of cynicism. Here, it's a warm keyboard against brisk percussion that rushes ahead but still seems unhurried. And of course, that Kermit the Frog voice gently cooing the sweetest obliqueness you might ever hear.

Arthur Russell - Wild Combination

Watcher of the skies

You may have noticed the amazing sunset Wednesday evening. It was the kind that should've been in the weather forecast, so that people could've planned for the event. The kind that makes you appreciate your smallness.

I got home just in time to climb to my rooftop and observe its last acts. Now I tend to bend my activities to the clock's routine, but this really should be a habit whenever possible. You can't help but slow down, de-mechanize, and pay better attention to things. You know, like breathing. Here's a song to accompany that.

Mystic Chords of Memory - Sure, Bert

Big guitars, big hearts

Bless the jumpy, earnest hearts of emoting indie rockers. These kids probably had a lot of bad times with thick-necked men and no shortage of angst-ridden teenage years, which they've transmuted into a well-caffeinated variation on Pixies-style rock damage. There are a bunch of genre cliches going on here, and, though cringing a bit, I still have it my heart to enjoy every one of them.

Pidgeon - Ain't Nothing Can't

Out on the town, armed with tambourines

I guess one Concrete band deserves another. This song gets it just right, with a visceral urgency that makes the title seem a little ironic. It may be the best thing to have on repeat as you get ready to go out—the music is all brilliant lights filling your eyes, lyrics sharpened to a deadly point. It could run you over if you stand in its way.

The Concretes - You Can't Hurry Love

Taking leave

There's music that reminds me how inadequate words are. Or at least irrelevant. Or at least fail thoroughly in my exhausted, totally-vacation-ready state of mind and nervous system.

This song is just beyond. Beyond the words I can find and the material conditions of my overextended time. I'm digging it because it perfectly suits the visions of a desert I'll soon be cruising through. And because its construction seems so magical that I can't feel any association with its components, and so it is a true escape.

Fennesz is good like that. All Music Guide talks about haunting melodies and washes of granular noise, and I guess that's a pretty good approximation. But there are always colors without names, and numbers hiding between numbers, and sounds that will not be organized into language.

Peace out, friends. Songblague will be back on 11/9.

Fennesz - Rivers of Sand

Aww man, I can't leave things all heavy and serious. Life is a dream. Here's the first thing that comes up when you type "vacation" into Google images. Alright!

The new originals

Remember the scene in Spinal Tap where the band recalls naming themselves the Originals and then explaining that they had to change it to the New Originals because there was already a band called the Originals? I think of it every time someone slags a group off because they sound like other bands or mimics some predecessor. Except for cases of total break-the-mold originality, there's always an Originals out there.

The Legends take this to the point where they're pretty much a genre tribute band. Which wouldn't be interesting if they didn't write such great songs in the idioms they adopt. Having since traversed Cure/Joy Division postpunk, bright British '80s synthpop, and Jesus & Mary Chain-ish white noise garage pop, I still think their debut puts their best foot forward. I'd go through the influences, but one listen through today's track makes it all very obvious. Shake that tambourine, kids!

The Legends - There And Back Again

Man in the funhouse mirror

I suppose it doesn't flatter Frank Black's solo career to say that his best album is the one where he radically revisits his old Pixies classics. Sorry, but that's Songblague's position on the matter. Be honest all you Black Francis lovers, don't you think the weird Pixies magic just seemed to abandon him when he turned his name around? He's been prolific alright, but there's just something very workaday, lunch pail about it.

 

That's what's so nice about the Frank Black Francis record, and I don't know why everyone didn't adore it when it came out. Think about the risks involved in re-imagining songs that are gospel to your dedicated multitudes. I think he pulls it off beautifully, with a surrealism that's totally different from the madcap variety of his youth. If it's 'mature,' then it's a pleasingly warped adult we're dealing with.

"Monkey Gone to Heaven" was the first Pixies song I ever heard, which puts it on the Top 5 list by default. This version sounds like a psychedelic funeral, all twisted sadness and garbled warnings.

Frank Black Francis - Monkey Gone To Heaven

Cowboys in space

Now here's a band that's owed some love. Especially since they were kinda sidestepped in the '00s rock boom. It's the old you-know — too eclectic and inventive for casual ears, too straight and rockish for the full-on experimental set. At their best, this is the band Wilco was threatening to become. Traditional elements, but with the roots knotted and turned weird.

I used to think of this as wintertime, beard-growing music. But a walk in the park with their album has made me hear the sunshine in it, albeit a sun that makes known its intent to slowly and steadily escape the sky. This track is a soaring winner in any season.

Inouk - Elected

Ghost in the machine

Ariel Pink's aesthetic has been well-characterized. My variation - hook-laden neon lite rock recorded in a laundry machine by a pack of feral orphans. In another dimension. The graffiti haunts effortlessly.

I saw him play last night and found myself fixated on how slight a figure he cuts. It started as he was preening for groupies in the will-call line. But on stage, it was full-on ridiculous. He's like a man in miniature, scrawny with long, thin, greasy hair and a budding beer gut. Seemingly smaller than the instruments on stage. Fashion-wise, he looked like he'd be more at home nervously pacing around an off-track betting joint.

The weirdest thing about the show was how normal it sounded. Backed up by a very rehearsed 4-piece rock outfit, he traversed all his spooky musical corridors. It sounded amazing and epic, but having such a pro-sounding band kinda undermined the original appeal - the disorienting confluence of bygone hookiness and nightmarish 4-track hiss oblivion. Whatever. I was happy to be rocked in this particular way. Here's how it sounds when committed to tape. And yes, I think we're talking actual tape.

Ariel Pink - Gray Sunset