Things I’ve Been Listening To This Week
These are just some songs that I’ve been enjoying this week. Kind of all over the place.
Aloe Blacc – “I Need A Dollar”
With all of the fuss about Cee Lo Green’s “Fuck You” and the album The Lady Killer on which it can be found, you’d think that it was the best soul release of the year. However if that’s what you thought, you’d be dead wrong. That honor should go to Stones Throw artist Aloe Blacc whose absolutely stunning sophomore album Good Things has been in nearly constant rotation at my apartment, on my laptop, on my iPod, everywhere that I’ve gone in the two weeks since I first heard it! While his first release hinted at his potential this one realizes it and then some. Above is the video for first track, and first single, “I Need A Dollar”. If you like this one, you’ll be happy to know that Good Things very successfully continues in this vein, reminding one of great mid-70’s soul without ever seeming like a rote nostalgia trip. Also, includes a nifty cover of The Velvet Underground’s “Femme Fatale”. Highly recommended!
Young Prisms – “Sugar”
Existing somewhere on the noisier, rougher around the edges side of the neo-shoegaze scene that just keeps turning out great bands is SF’s Young Prisms. Their debut full-length Friends For Now will be out in January 2011 and they already have a solid self-titled EP to their names (and a few singles, I think?). With the ever greater number of great shoegaze bands popping up in the States, it is sometimes hard to believe that this sort of music in the 90’s came almost exclusively from the UK and drew the frequent ire of US fans of underground music. Here’s hoping that Young Prisms and similar acts don’t go out of fashion again anytime soon! (FWIW, I saw them live this week with Weekend and while Weekend killed, Young Prisms were only okay).
Bill Fox – “You Can Tell Me All Night Long”
Are you a fan of The Tallest Man On Earth or Bob Dylan, who the young Swede so reverently harks back to? Then you very well might enjoy this track “You Can Tell Me All Night Long” (which can be found on the 1998 album Shelter From The Smoke), and others from Cleveland’s Bill Fox, as it’s cut from the same cloth. For more Fox track down his albums with his 80’s group The Mice or his short-lived mid-90’s band The Radio Flyers.
Hounds of Hate – “Head Anthem”
This is “Head Anthem” from London, England trio Hounds of Hate. I’m not huge into electronic music, but this 5 minute, crawling, dubsteppy, lo-fi track, the first on their new self-titled EP, sits just fine with me. What even made me listen to it in the first place is the obvious tip of the cap to Kate Bush’s classic song “Hounds of Love”. And if you pay attention to this track, you can definitely recognize a Bush influence here in addition to those sounds that I already mentioned.
Leatherface – “Little White God”
Leatherface’s The Stormy Petrel is one of my two favorite albums of the entire year (along with the mini-LP A Balloon Called Moaning from Welsh trio The Joy Formidable). For 20 years now, they’ve been keeping the torch burning for meaningful, original, elevated punk rock (i.e. not the stuff that passes for punk rock with the Warped Tour attending, Hot Topic shopping, mallrat set). While many would argue that their 1992 album Mush is their crowning achievement, I’d personally give the nod to this year’s release. But that’s really not much of an issue, as everything that Frankie N. W. Stubbs and his mates do is pretty much golden. This is a live clip of them doing their rousing, anthemic opening cut, “Little White God” from the 2001 release The Last. Enjoy!
Tears Run Rings – “Divided”
Tears Run Rings – Divided from Tears Run Rings on Vimeo.
Here’s “Divided”, the first single off of Tears Run Rings’ sophomore album Distance, which was released in August by Clairecords. This is a dense slab of gauzy shoegazey pop, complete with entrancingly repetitive keys.
Weekend – “Coma Summer”
SF’s Weekend are as solid a new band as I’ve heard all year long, featuring a blend of shambling pop, shoegaze, and 1st LP Jesus & Mary Chain type noise, they’re checking all of the right boxes to entangle me in their web. Here’s “Coma Summer”, one of many winners from their ace debut Sports out now on Slumberland Records. Also, I saw them live this week and they are not to be missed . . . seriously, don’t miss them.
The Fizzbombs – “Sign On the Line”
The Fizzbombs were a short-lived Scottish band of the C86/shambling era. This is one of just a few songs that they ever released.
Grant Green – “Idle Moments”
As the weather chills, my jazz intake usually ramps up quite a bit. This week, I couldn’t get enough of Grant Green and particularly, of the song “Idle Moments” the first track on the brilliant 1965 album of the same name!
The Columbus Blue Jackets
Not music-related, I know. But, I’m a huge fan of the Blue Jackets (had season tickets for the last 4 years before I moved to Chicago, now just watching every game on NHL Center Ice) and, well, we’re finally playing like an NHL team and I needed to spout off about it somewhere. Go Jackets!
