Fragmented

I'm a sucker for fragmented compositions. They're an easy way to invoke the landscape of dreams. Or nightmares, depending on your state of mind. Takeo Toyama has some big-scale ambition in terms of the elements he brings together. I'm not sure the result really adds up, but I like the world it begins to construct. Title-wise, I don't really see where porno comes into the picture, but hey, that's dreams for ya.

Takeo Toyama - Hello Porno

Thumb piano dreamtime

Wouldn't you know it...a week of work stress segues right into a weekend of sore-throated body fatigue, flirting with a full-on cold. I'm always amazed how the body—ever loyal to external obligations—keeps it together just long enough to collapse when free time comes around. 

Anyway, bring on the over-the-counter feelgood agents. And throw in some semi-hallucinogenic African thumb piano grooves. This one would be a dreamy head-bobber if the dude's voice didn't detour into a terrifying place at 2:32 and 3:22. An apt segue back to the workweek.

Francis Bebey - Bissau

Smooth(ish) operator

German synthy songstress Barbara Morgenstern is one of those musicians who hits the balance between catchy and inventive so frequently that you forget how hard that feat is. Sorta like the perennial All-Star who only attracts attention when the knees start to go. I'm lost in her world right about now, and quite happy about it.  

"The Operator" was her hit from a few years ago. Here's a version that sets the song's lurching/spooky notes stomping around the creaky floor, and then brings them slowly down the stairs in sparkly evening dress.

Barbara Morgenstern — The Operator (piano version)

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?

Yeah-oh

I love a song that puts the big dumb goofy smile on my face. It's important to be in touch with your simpering inner self lest you get lost in the brave faces of adulthood. Here's one that calls to mind those parties where someone brings in the ether tank and everyone's like "oh, yeah? Oh..yeah!"

Jan Hammer - Oh, Yeah?

Space journey in black and white

Nothing like a business trip to make you appreciate the virtues of home. Some people are invigorated by the suitcase-dragging life and savor the constant sense of newness each hotel brings. I am not one of these people. When I'm traveling on the clock, slapstick disaster is always just a moment away. Logistics won't behave, and keeping the caravan of personal affects together is like herding a pack of restless dogs. It's no vacation, to be sure. Which makes me appreciate the astral flights of Sun Ra even more. Especially when they feel like the soundtrack to a very cheap '50s sci-fi film.

Sun Ra and the Myth Science Arkestra - Eve

The mouth of the sun

Think about the kind of music you'd make if you lived under a military dictatorship. Would it reflect your turmoil and repression and come out all frantic and violent? Would it sound like giving up? Or would it groove and soar? I can't help but have affection for Brazilian musicians — Tropicalia and otherwise — who responded to the ugly realities of power by making music that was beautiful and full of sunlit spark. Soul of the sol, so to speak. Enjoy this one for a while. The 'blague will be laying low the rest of the week.

Arthur Verocai - Na Boca Do Sol

Sweet feet

Gotta give it up for this unlikely assemblage of talent. Patrice Rushen, Freddie Hubbard, Ian Underwood, Airto Moreira, and others join very smiley trombonist Raul de Souza to bust out the Latin fusion disco jams. There's not much to say about a groove like this. Just tuck your shirt in and keep your sweat in check as you throw yourself around the room. (Oh also, join me in a little raised glass for Songblague's 4th anniversary.)

Raul de Souza - Sweet Lucy

Murderously catchy

I think I've fully expressed my affection for C86 pop. But it's been a while since I got smacked upside the head with such a jangling gob of the stuff. So when it happens, I have to go all bobble-headed, and not utter the slightest complaint about how much like a singsong (albeit childishly vindictive) Morrissey the singer is trying to posture himself. It's important to get past these things.

Another Sunny Day - You Should All Be Murdered

Sunrise sunset

It's said that sunrises and sunsets are often indistinguishable. I guess that depends on the kind of schedule you keep. When I do see the sun come up, it's either a grumpy early call or I've had a night that doesn't lend itself to a serene melting away. Which make this one a curious title. I can absolutely put my mind in a place where the sunset feels like a blissful passage. But almost never does the morning arrive with such calm. Maybe I need to work on that. As for the hint of moaning at 4:07, well, hey, to each his own. Meanwhile, hope this helps put a mellowness in your day.

Software - Island Sunrise

The world is far

I often wonder how possible it is to truly live off the grid. And what parts of common culture you would allow yourself to bring along. The skinny on Eden Ahbez (born George Alexander Aberle, Brooklyn 1908) is that he was a proto-hippie LA denizen and songwriter who wore robes, slept outside, and lived on almost no money. Apparently, he wrote Nat King Cole's hit "Nature Boy" while living under the Hollywood sign, and found a way to be pretty productive craftsman over the years. 

Which makes me wonder how much that kind of Venn diagram of worlds one could pull off today. Can you write pop tunes and be cut off from the culture that laps up pop tunes? At a certain point, would you start to see your own detachment as a form of novelty or publicity?

This exotica-tinged tune sheds no light on any of this and generally smacks of beatnik bullshit, but I am fully loving the atmosphere it perpetrates. 

Eden Ahbez - The Wanderer

A snaky groove

I'm not a big fan of spotlighting standards, but then this one came on the stereo on a recent cold evening while I was quietly reading at home, and suddenly, it was blammo! Living room dance party featuring myself and my wife, who is more than forgiving/amused about my spontaneous dance moves. Isn't that what jazz is all about, after all?

Lee Morgan - The Sidewinder

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

On the town

You close out the workweek, head home, put on your velour shirt with the giant collar, comb your hair in front of the mirror, and commence to hit the town with your buddies. Who would've guessed that mere hours later you'd be passed out in the back of an El Camino with a slowly deflating inflatable date and wearing nothing but a pair of platform shoes and Gene Simmons makeup? Shouldn't have gotten yourself warmed up to the sound of this tune.

Olli Heikkila Orchestra - Aila/Valamo/Tammerkosken Sillalla

Air attention

My desire to remain in the rarefied air of the Cocteau Twins' lushness continues unabated. I'm not sure what it says about me that they come calling just about any time I put my headphones on these days. But speaking of air, a co-worker once told me that they were his go-to soundtrack for drifting out of consciousness on flights. My recent jaunt to San Francisco allowed me to put this to the test. The result — a distinct lack of zoning out. Which I interpret to mean that my ears are so keyed in to those guitar textures and alien vocal vibrations that true rest is not possible. It's not a tense kind of attention they command. Instead, I want to curl myself around their songs and rock back and forth. I doubt I'm alone there.

Cocteau Twins - Aikea-Guinea

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

Blanched

Just when I think Vermont has little to offer the musical world but jam bands on skis, it turns out Brattleboro has a happening little freakout scene. I've been digging into the wild cartoon soundworld of Blanche Blanche Blanche, and I suspect my mind will be the weirder for it. With 10 or so albums blasted out in the last couple years, I truly admire their work ethic, nearly as much as I do the zigzag logic of the songs themselves. Ariel Pink is a natural touchstone for these guys, but the aforementioned rustic homeland lends them a friendly, non-menacing air. Here are a couple snapshots of the landscapes they inhabit.

Blanche Blanche Blanche - Mercantile Rugs

Blanche Blanche Blanche - She's Adopted

Postgame

Watching the Super Bowl gives me a weirder and weirder sense of the state of life in America. As always, I'm entertained. And as always, I vacillate between being eventually numbed and wanting more violence of all possible kinds (also, wanting more actual ideas and less celebrity distractions in the ads). And since I rarely care who wins, I'm free to imagine what my own personal victory music might sound like. Probably something like this, at least, for the few seconds of my touchdown dance.

Space Art - Juares

Ladies and pheasants

When Dungen burst onto the scene (in the US at least), frontman Gustav Ejstes seemed a man out of time. Or at least one so devoted to the range of vintage psychedelic practices that one would think he had spent his whole life in a very particular academy. Since we pretty much live an environment of neighboring nostalgia bubbles, there's no point anymore in picking at people for lack of originality. Given that, I was totally sold on the songwriting and presentation, which was as faithful to Ejstes's notion of the ideal late '60s as it is a reminder that the music was never as tight as he imagines it. I'm glad his imagination keeps going, album after album. The work is a real comfort to me, especially now as I struggle with what seems like trench warfare against this cold that is brutalizing my nose and throat.

Dungen - Mina Damer Och Fasaner

Pianollucinations

I guess it was inevitable that my constitution would fail in the end. I was starting to feel like Superman (or a ghost) watching everyone get sick around me, the landscape littered with sniffles and whooping coughs. In retrospect, I should've gotten that flu shot. On the plus side, the day spent at home battling through it made me dig out the Köln Concert and recall how unfailingly awesome it is. And it's hard to break it into pieces, so complete is its spell. Especially the weird groans Jarrett lets out (maybe it's the afro talking). Having said that, here's a section that was especially enthralling as I was in the soft arms of the Nyquil evening. Ahh...

Keith Jarrett - The Koln Concert (Part II C)

Cruisin'

Feeling the atmospheric pop puts you on a short path to the likes of Julee Cruise. I know it's a bit cliche, but the textured space-out via skewed '50s romance was and still remains a clear winner. Appreciation of David Lynch is not even necessary to enjoy.

Julee Cruise - Floating

You can't deny

It's Monday, so why not a song about shedding the past and bounding toward inevitable mortality. All the better when driven by a such bouncy beat and an angelic vocals. Viva la workweek!

Sweet Trip - Pretending

Inward

There comes a time when mysterious, near-ominous ambient is all you'll tolerate. Not quite a desire for silence, but something that could become silence without too much of a change. You don't want a lot, but you don't want nothing either. A little bit to nudge the environment into a slightly curious space. Atmospheric uber-dude Robert Rich has built a career on that aesthetic (or at least the stuff I've heard). If there's a sound for bringing your body close to its center to preserve precious warmth, this may be it. Today, at least.

Robert Rich - Glint In Her Eyes

Old tears

Having gone down a Cocteau Twins rabbithole, I guess it was inevitable that I'd find my way to the heart of the old 4AD cosmos (or at least the musical output of label boss Ivo Watt-Russell). This may be the end of line when it comes to maudlin teen angst. But then I've found a disturbing ability to stare too long into the most embarrassing of my high school memories and come away with a charmed laugh. Also, I do still dig the bass part in this one. Old sap, I am.

This Mortal Coil - A Single Wish