Kablammo!

It might be spring break, but the inch of snow and slush on the ground really doesn’t make it feel like springtime. So in stead of doing anything productive, and also in stead of writing anything meaningful here, and to placate those few of you who have been telling me to update, I will now proceed to regale you with fanciful tales of the music I’ve been listening to recently.

• «Hot on the Heels of Love» — Throbbing Gristle
  Techno at its simplest, most minimalistic, earliest, and best. It revels in its pounding monotony, and you should too, since this song is far catchier than it has any right to be.
• «Down to the Waterline» — Dire Straits
  There’s a certain magical quality to the guitar work on Dire Straits’s long-playing self-titled debut album, as Rich’s fascination with «Sultans of Swing» attests. The interplay between the rhythm and lead parts is downright magical, and nowhere moreso than in «Down to the Waterline», the initial track. The album opens with a bit of noodling by the lead guitar, when suddenly the drums kick in, the lead part sounds like it has found a purpose in life, and the immaculately flanged rhythm guitar enters the right channel. Magic is made.
• «a passing feeling» — the thermals
  Allow me to quote:

  memory wise
  memory flies
  memory rarely satisfies
  the past tense
  tense and bleeding

  They sure fucking said it. And it helps that the words go along with a great song, too. In any other context, or done by most any other band, this would be a frantic and fast-paced song, but coming as it does near the end of the irrepressibly intense more parts per million EP, it feels almost gentle and soothing compared to balls-out rockers like «goddamn the light» and «i know the pattern». (The key word, of course, is ‘almost’.)

• «Sing It Again» — Beck
  This song has been earmarked for a reserved space on the ultimate “So You Just Survived a Global Thermonuclear War” mix CD. If it can’t help you cope with being one of the last inhabitants of an uninhabitable Wasteland, then nothing can. It also goes quite handily with that last drink you take at 5 in the morning.
• «What Is the Light?» — The Flaming Lips
  Combined with the two tracks immediately following it, «The Observer» and «Waitin’ for a Superman», this song forms one of the best sequences of consecutive songs on any album in recent history. The song, the sequence, and the album (the phenomenal The Soft Bulletin) all contain carefully balanced measures of crushing sadness, plaintive hopefulness, and guarded exuberance. It’s a beautiful effect, and it makes for beautiful songs, like this one for example. Wayne Coyne sings his poor little heart out, and you can’t help but be moved.
• «Metsik Häda» — Kuldne Trio
  Europop meets «Hava Nagila» and everyone’s a winner! Why should the Jews be the only ones to enjoy this song?
• «The Late Great Libido» — Menomena
  I am incapable of saying enough good things about this song, so I won’t even really put forth more than a token effort. I wouldn’t know where or how to begin, really. Please just trust me when I say it’s a fine piece of work, and worth listening to repeatedly.

Song of the Moment: «Fall in a River» — Badly Drawn Boy

2 Comments

• Hille says:

  March 18, 2004 at 15:17

  you are officially in charge of the Larger-than-Life Drinking Glass Committee of SPITESTO 2004.

  Reply
• Punamütsike says:

  March 18, 2004 at 23:49

  ah, kuldne trio. fun stuff.

  ah, menomena. i wouldn’t know; haven’t listened.

  Reply