Here is the song "Old Shit/New Shit" from the sixth studio album by Eels called Blinking Lights and Other Revelations (2005). The album (which had 33 songs) was pretty amazing but this song seems particularly appropriate today. The main architect of Eels is, of course, E (real name: Mark Oliver Everett). The lyrics to this song here. In case you want to know more about Eels, see here and here. They've had a pretty long career, now over 20 years and 11 albums, and are based out of Los Angeles.
"I'm tired of the old shit Let the new shit begin."
This is a song ("Black Window") from a cassette-only release by Auscultation. The album, L'etreinte Imaginaire ('imaginary embrace") can be purchased here in cassette form (obviously) or as digital files. Auscultation is an Oregon-based musician named Joe Shanahan. An earlier release, cleverly titled S/T, came out in 2014. Reviews of L'etreinte imaginairehere.
This is John Beltran's "Soft Summer" from the album Ten Days of Blue (1996). The track was also featured on the compilation Lush Life Electronica (2001).
This was the standout track from Massive Attack's album Heligoland (2010). I've been a fan of them for a long time and I think I saw them live in New York... in 2006, I think. Critics tend to favor their early stuff but I loved their two mid-period albums Mezzanine (1998) and 100th Window (2003). Both have the triphop vibe but feel a bit more swampy and dank. Definitely worth checking out. Here is "Paradise Circus" which has an X-rated video online somewhere (easy to find). But I'm just posting the basic track which has Mazzy Star's Hope Sandoval on vocals.
More death (it is 2016 after all): Alan Vega of the band Suicide died on July 16. Apparently he was 78 -- I thought he'd be more like 58 but what do I know. In any case, lots of stuff written about Sucide since his death, the best stuff being here and here and here. Even Bruce Springsteen had something to say about it.
I first heard of the band, I think, in 1987, when I saw R.E.M. on their Document tour. During the encore, the band, unexpectedly, did a bunch of covers: They covered "Strange" (Wire), "See No Evil" (Television), and "What We All Want" (Gang of Four). Then, lead singer Michael Stipe also mentioned another band, Suicide...which, he admonished us, we should be listening to. So being incredibly impressionable, I went out and searched out their stuff, all of it. To say Suicide was the weirdest of the lot (and that's saying a lot, when you think about how weird Wire was in the late 1970s) was not an understatement. I was completely blown away by all this music but Suicide was really an outlier, like music made by aliens. You could break down the constituent parts (50s rock'n'roll iconography, punk rock attitude, electronic music straight from krautrock via Kraftwerk) but the outcome was like an alternative soundtrack to a nihilistic version of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
The first self-titled album (1977), people, will tell you, is brilliant. And another thing people will tell you: it still sounds ahead of its time. There are a few albums like that, that still sound completely OUT OF TIME, not rooted in any time period or decade or idiom. The first Suicide album is like that. I give you two songs by them:
This is "Ghost Rider," the opening track on the debut. Look at the intensity of Vega's face. His stage antics were legendary. Taking a page out of the Iggy Pop rulebook, Vega would threaten the audience, confront them, fuck with them, and totally subvert any semblance of the normal accepted conventions between performer and audience. If you were in the audience, you were likely to be kicked in the face. Here, in "Ghost Rider" he kicks you in the face.. in spirit, just by standing almost in one spot, his eyes boring through your skull.
And here is their magnum opus, "Frankie Teardrop." Ten-and-a-half-minutes of aural violence, laying the foundation for Throbbing Gristle and everything after.
I hate the word "singular" when music critics use it, but really, Suicide deserves that descriptor. They were, to use another cliche, one-of-a-kind.
Been listening to music by La Femme, a French electronic surf pop band whose album Psycho Tropical Berlin (2013) is hard to get out of your mind, once you've heard it. Various websites say that the band is a krautrock band, but I honestly don't see it. They have a strong surf rock vibe (that twangy echo-y guitar) but with a artsy post-punk-ish pretensions.
It's basically high-energy electronic pop music with melodies designed for maximum indelible impact on your brain.
The first time I heard them was this song, "Sur La Planche" which was featured in an ad for a Renault automobile. And really, most of their songs should soundtrack auto advertisements. They're perfect for that. Since that album, they have released a couple of standalone singles ("Sphynx" and "Ou va le monde?") but if you like the following song, get the album. It's a total cheer-upper in these dark and disturbing times.
This is three minutes and nineteen seconds of paranoia, virtually a rave track circa 1991 in its structure; a stattering, pounding teleprinter-paced bassline worthy of Timbaland as the tension builds, then a moment of chaos and crisis, an alarm-bell of a book recalling the 'panic/excitement' lines so prevalent in early 90s hardcore.
Pot-au-feu is a French beef stew but that's not really relevant.
