Music on my mind (I)
In our modern digital era, we find ourselves with more music a hand’s grab away than ever before which makes it daunting to choose what to listen to.
There’s more new music being produced right now than during any other point in history, and due to the internet and the advent of streaming services we have easy access to it all. Whether a song was recorded in rural Kenya, a top-of-the-line production studio, or even someone’s basement, it’s all available for listening. There’s an overwhelming amount, too much for any single person to process.
While many media outlets provide coverage of newer releases, the bigger unanswered question is how to approach the musical back catalog of the last sixty years. You end up having to rely on top album lists and things like Spotify’s Discovery Queue, which are fantastic tools but come with their own sets of flaws. The lists tend to be based more on fame and popularity than on critical consensus, whereas recommendation algorithms like the Discovery Queue can leave you caught in a feedback loop were you end up stuck in one genre, listening solely to similar sounding music.
A lot of the best music comes from a trusted friend’s recommendation because they’re genuinely excited about it and keep badgering you to take a listen. I may not be your friend, but I have a ton of music I’d like to share with you.
Here’s a quick look at what I’ve been listening to recently.
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever are a Melbourne-based rock band who might just end up being the big new thing. Their sound hearkens back to the cheery pop of the Go-Betweens, a famous fellow Aussie band, but the Rolling Blackouts C.F. have a grittier punk edge to them as well. Same jingle, harsher jangle.
Their debut EP, Talk Tight, is secretly a concept album about Australia. It accomplishes this charmingly, the conjunct adjective here being “bright”, whether referring to the lyrics or the guitars. “Tender Is the Neck” is my standout pick. In it, the narrator is “thinking ‘bout Kerouac” and “jumping every fence to get to you”, painting a picture of youthful love kept apart by distance. “Wide Eyes” has a similar subject matter so clearly a topic close to the heart. And no wonder, Australia is a deceptively big country. The drive from Melbourne to Brisbane takes about as long as the one from Seattle to Denver. Sweet and full of yearning but too smart for any naivety to creep in, the whole album is a treat.
The band has since released a follow-up album, The French Press, which while faster is also less clever. Nonetheless the track “Sick Bug” is worth listening to even as a standalone. “I want you, I want you, I want you” are some of the more honest pop lyrics I’ve heard sung in a while.
Having brought up the Go-Betweens leads me to their 2000 album, The Friends of Rachel Worth. I haven’t had the chance to listen to it myself since it’s not on Spotify, though it’s near the top of my to-listen list. A comeback album following a ten year breakup, it released to critical success, aided no doubt by the fact that the members of Sleater-Kinney were involved in the recording. In a strange parallel, the renowned female trio would go on to breakup in 2005 only to return ten years later with No Cities to Love, to even greater success.
Sleater-Kinney recently put out a new single, “Here We Come”, an outtake from No Cities in benefit of Planned Parenthood. It’s fantastic, but clearly an outtake. In the band’s own words, “The song is written in the voice of a thoughtless, power-hungry aggressor”. A voice brought vividly to life by Corin Tucker’s powerful warble. As is often the case, the highlight ends up being Brownstein’s guitar.
It just made me think of how dearly I’d like for them to come out with a new album offering their take on the current political and social climate. They’ve never been ones to shy away from the like, and “Combat Rock” is one of the cleverer, more level-minded protest songs; I’d very much like to see something similar regarding our current administration.
Sticking with Sleater-Kinney a while longer, I’ve found myself listening to their classic album Dig Me Out pretty much on repeat. It rocks harder than most albums, it’s just so confident and exuberant in its own mastery.
The album was recorded on the back of the breakup of Tucker and Brownstein and was the first Sleater-Kinney album to feature mainstay drummer Janet Weiss. As one might imagine, heartbreak and romance take central roles in the albums themes, but in an unflinching, persevering way. Not everyone could jump into the recording studio with their ex and sing, “Oh, you’ve got the darkest eyes” while urging them to “not say another word about the other girl”, like Tucker does on “One More Hour”. It’s incredible that the album got released at all and that it manages to sound so triumphant.
Weiss’s drumming went on to garner widespread acclaim and I think part of the reason is that it provides a solid backboard for Tucker’s and Brownstein’s dueling guitars and vocals. Nowhere is that more explosively displayed than on “It’s Enough”, my personal favorite track from the album.
It’s pure listening pleasure throughout and so much more than just “girl power”, and the fact that anyone could mistake it for that is mind- boggling. The album transcends the Riot Grrrl scene in part because it actually embodies and supercharges its feminist ideals instead of merely stating them.
Another artist with a classic album from the 90's that’s recently come out with new material is Tricky, the British DJ known for his work with Massive Attack. Maybe it’s my own biased perception, but for being the critical darling that it is, I feel I hear very little about Maxinquaye. Groovy and sensuous, the end product can only be described as momentous. It’s cool in a way lots of modern rock and hip-hop can only ape after. The dark decrepit London it describes is no place to live, but you end up jealous, longing for it anyway.
Tricky’s newest album ununiform tries hard to recapture its success with features by Martina Topley-Bird, who provided many of the vocals on Maxinquaye, and the track “The Only Way” which tries to be the second part of “Hell Is Round The Corner”. Maybe someone wiser than I will declare that it succeeds in doing so, but I have my doubts.
Even though it doesn’t compare, I’d still call the album a minor success. Tricky’s biggest since Blowback at the very least. I heard someone compare it to The xx’s Coexist and there is a certain likeness, especially in tracks such as “Wait For Signal” and “Blood of My Blood”, but where Coexist is content to languish in its sparsity, ununiform eventually has a more driving, desperate beat emerge. I was particularly drawn to the tracks “Same As It Ever Was” and “Armor”. And there’s something to be said about “Bang Boogie” as well - the beats more so than the lyrics. Maybe I need to delve into Russian rap.
Onto a classic that really gets its due: Entertainment! by the Gang of Four. This album still sounds so sharp and alive it’s no wonder many modern bands started out wanting to emulate the album’s sound. Nirvana, R.E.M., and Sleater-Kinney have all cited the band (this album in particular) as a major influence. The Red Hot Chili Peppers were such fans that they got Andy Gill, the Gang’s guitarist, to produce their debut album.
Early punk all the way to early post-punk is a genre that’s fallen out of favor among my peers. You’ll get a grudging nod towards the Sex Pistols, the occasional Clash fan, but more often than not you’ll have someone say that never really got the deal behind it all. Early punk music is rough which makes for rough listening to the uninitiated. With its sharp guitar and often funky bass, Entertainment! sounds contemporary to this day.
It’s so sonically rousing, that the strong socialist themes often fall to the wayside. Even the hit tracks like “Natural’s Not In It” and “Damaged Goods” are fiercely critical of capitalism in a politicized manner. Some critics claim that the album ended up influencing a lot of rap rock with its subject manner and maybe even musically. For groups like The Coup and Death Grips, that argument may hold a grain of salt.
Another of the countless bands doubtlessly inspired by punk titans Gang of Four is Gogol Bordello. Everyone’s favorite gypsy punk rock band just released their latest album, Seekers and Finders, earlier this fall. As they made two of the best albums of the 2000s, expectations were high and while fun as always, this new one doesn’t recapture the same highs. It’s still good, so any sort of criticism will come across as quibbles rather than complaints. “Break into Your Higher Self” would be my choice pick here, for best embodying what’s been Eugene Hutz’s philosophy these past fifteen years. This album just misses some of the insight that Super Taranta! or Underdog World Strike had. As he roars out on “Ultimate”:
There were never any good old days / They are today, they are tomorrow / It’s a stupid thing we say / cursing tomorrow with sorrow
That remains a piece of wisdom you’d expect to find in loftier places than a punk rock album. While tracks like “Saboteur Blues” still rock as hard as earlier stuff, there’s just less meaning behind it all. No person’s an endless font of energy as is shown here, but it’s far too early to count out Hutz just yet.
Craving something more in line with the earlier Gogol Bordello albums, I recently listened to some Balkan Beat Box, cofounded by former Bordello saxophonist Ori Kaplan. I think they’d best be described as Israeli Gypsy Hip Hop. The music is as eclectic as the genre.
The album that stands out is their 2008 one, Nu Med. While you may have heard parts of “Hermetico” sampled, I personally think the diptych of “BBBeat” and “Digital Monkey” really stands out as a brave and eccentric fusion of genres and sounds you’d never have expected.
While on the world music trend, I’ll end things with one final album: Specialist in All Styles by Orchestra Baobab. The album is exactly what the name implies, a Malian ensemble showing their mastery of the Afro-Cuban music popularized by the Buena Vista Social club. The cover of “El son te llama” is magical and if you’re a fan of Afro-Cuban you should absolutely give this album a listen.
Here’s a handy Spotify playlist containing many of the songs mentioned above. I hope you enjoyed the read and, more importantly, the music.
