I originally misread this suggestion from Lauren as Ice Cream Castles, which naturally spurred my curiosity. No Morris Day here, as it turns out, but a batch of glitchy electronic ballads that could have come up through some kind of Ghostly farm league. They’re actually on a net label based in Austin where, interestingly enough, the musicians appear to “workshop” their songs with listeners through the label site’s comments area. Who knows, you might get a song named after you if you’re helpful enough…
Machine Drum
2001. Machine Drum and Prefuse 73 both drop debut albums. Both serve cut up, stuttering, hip-hop that’ll get you jerking back and forth. No doubt, these two are cut from similar cloth — yet many still haven’t heard Machine Drum. What gives? Maybe it’s Prefuse’s A-list collaborators. But what Machine Drum lacks in “friends” he makes up for in deft drops and solid jazz and funk samples.
The Makers
Sometimes you just gotta rock. What is it they say… you can take the glam rock out of the garage, but you can’t take the garage out of the glam rock?
Carla Bozulich
After recent events left me feeling a little, shall we say, agitated, I went searching for some cynical sounds to get me through Wednesday. What I found gave meaning to my gritted teeth: the singularly powerful Carla Bozulich careening through a nine-minute version of one of the greatest protest songs ever written — not to mention one of Dylan’s best songs, period. When Wednesday gave way to a cold, rainy Thursday, “Lonesome Roads” and the fabulous Willie Nelson cover “Blue Eyes Cryin’ in the Rain” were just the nudge of strained melancholy I needed. Now that Friday’s here, the woman who channels Patsy Cline, Janis Joplin, Tom Waits (there’s even a Waits cover here) and something nobody had heard until she wailed for herself, should help you make it through a long, lonely weekend. I know she’ll help me.
(P.S. There’s plenty more on her website from her many side projects — if you have the bandwidth, it’s worth your time.)
The Futureheads
Full disclosure: The first record I bought was an XTC 7-inch of “Helicopter,” with the B-side “Ten Feet Tall.” That’s back in the day when radio was really, really cool. I heard “Helicopter” on Mighty Six Ninety, an early AM alternative station out of San Diego. Bought the record the next day at Music Market, and played it over and over again on my parent’s hi-fi that was as big as a coffin. There should be no wonder then as to why I’ve taken a fancy to The Futureheads…
Should
Today is a good day to share a beautiful song. Yes, “Breathe Salt” may be old, from 1995 when Should were known as ShiFt. But when it’s this wonderful, who cares?
Desaparecidos
Taken from young Conor Oberst’s rockin’ thesis on everything wrong with modern-day U.S.A., this is my last attempt to get out the vote. Here’s to a brighter future, so Conor can go back to singing about failed relationships with movie stars…
Les Savy Fav
While searching high and low, door to door, looking for a tasty Halloween treat to share, I hit the jackpot. Like going trick-or-treating in the rich kids’ neighborhood where every other house passes out full-size candy bars, Les Savy Fav and their labels are generous enough to fill our plastic pumpkins with music. Discordant, danceable, and definitely worth a good pogo. Les Savy Fav are making their way down the West Coast in a week. Hold on to some of those sweets, you’ll need the sugar fix to keep up with these fellows.
The Natural History
The Tepper brothers are the driving force behind The Natural History. With their comrades, they push out a pop-rock (or should that be rock-pop?) that entices and enthralls, like so many things from Brooklyn. The second album is still in process; these tracks from their debut should help shorten the wait.
Landing
Landing’s music-as-ripples-in-a-pond swirls in and out of focus around a riffless guitar and the spaciest of keyboard calls. It’s horribly out of vogue in these times of ballsy beats, retro-rock posturing, and other fashionable music movements. But Marshall McLuhan dubbed the persistence of fashion “The Bore War,” and I’m guessing that if he were around today he wouldn’t be bored at all by these sweet ambient sounds.