Gary Numan with Six Fingers

Gary Numan was an early pioneer of dark electronic music, so his later descent into dark wave and industrial is of little surprise to me.  The style seems to fit him well though.  This two-disc set, called Hybrid,  is a mixture of the always interesting idea of re-recording past tunes (as recently described in my post about Gord's Gold Vol. II) and new Numan.  These re-recordings fair much better than Gordon Lightfoot's if for no other reason because at the very least they weren't recorded in the 80's.  We see new versions of past songs such as Cars (in a very interesting almost ambient rendition) and Down in the Park, here represented twice.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing since "Down in the Park" I feel is one of his better early songs.


Six Finger Satellite seems pulls as much from Fugazi and Gang of Four as from early Sonic Youth and Butthole Surfers.  They also seem to be constantly walking a thin line between what constitutes music versus noise.  They general do a good job of it, being very abrasive and amelodic while at the same time conjuring up truly interesting and listenable grooves.  By the last track though, they have completely fallen into the abyss of noise, creating a swirling ocean of feedback and drone.  Overall I would say it's a very fascinating listen, but I do prefer their later albums, which are no less compromising but a little easier to swallow than this cryptically titled The Pigeon Is The Most Popular Bird.

Jittery Funk

I started the day with The Books' Lost and Safe.  Is there a such thing as a rustic electronica album?  If it were possible, then The Books would fit the bill.  Recording live acoustic instrumentation with cellos, violas and the like, they then take what was put to tape and cobble it together with finger snaps, hand claps, odd little stuttery beats and scratches along with samples of dialogue from various far-reaching sources.  I had actually heard an earlier album of theirs, Thought For Food, which while exhibiting some of the same traits, did not have near as prominent vocals as this album.  The vocals have an almost deadpan quality to them that allows them to blend in with the surrounding warmth of the music.  


Lyrics Born is part of the Quannum Projects collective that is also home to such excellent hip-hop artists as Blackalicious (whose Gift of Gab makes an appearance on this album) as well as Lateef the Truthspeaker (also on here).  Lyrics Born, while a good if not great lyricist, really shows his skills as a producer on this album.  The backing tracks are full of exuberant, funk and soul infused music that matches his relaxed and down to earth vocal style, which has a certain dexterity to it as well.  The only thing I can fault this album with is the comparatively large number of skits and jokey tracks thrown in the mix.

A Jammy Neil and an Aging Balladeer

I began the day listening to Sister Euclid's Run Neil Run.  Essentially it sounds as if a very relaxed Robert Randolph wandered into a Tortoise recording session and then began to play Neil Younf songs.  It really works more often than not such as on the always amazing "Helpless" and the rocking "Ohio".  I think that song may have been made to be played on the lap steel guitar.  The fusion of "Southern Man" and "Dixieland" was interesting as well.  The rest almost melded into the background and left me with little impression one way or another.



The day ended on a more folky note with the ever-Canadian Gordon Lightfoot and his second volume of dynamite numbers, Gord's Gold Vol. II.  The unfortunate part of this compilation is that it holds the dubious honor of being comprised of re-recorded versions of some of Lightfoot's light and airy tunes of whatever random stories Gordon happens to be conjuring up from the depths of his muddled and slightly odd mind.  Doubly unfortunate is the fact that these re-recordings occurred in the 80's, a time when the music industry's production values weren't at their best, resulting in a slick, empty sound as if it were recorded in the bathroom of a swanky night club during a coke party.  Nevertheless, a few highlights arise out of the dross.  80's production can't destroy the imminently tuneful and catch lament of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" and "The Ghosts of Cape Horn" was one of the the fortunate few to avoid the dread re-recording process and exists on the record in a much more understated production.  The song itself is an amusingly bizarre number that careens wildly from nutty yet catchy sea chanty to syrupy and mournful ballad and back again.  It's sad that I bought this CD for only two songs, but at iTunes going rate, it was still reasonable since I only paid $2 for it.

First One!

So I read an article today that stated writing blogs is good for your health in all sorts of ridiculous ways that I was completely unaware of.  I had been planning to pick up one of these for a while anyway; the article just gave me a reason to start today.  So what is it about?  Music.  I'm creating this more for myself as a day-to-day chronicle of the music I listen to as a sort of way of retaining first impressions of the things I hear.

So I began the day with Clutch's Jam Room.  It's an aptly titled album from a band that has grown and gotten considerably better since it was released.  It lacks the propulsive energy of Pure Rock Fury or the tight grooves of Blast Tyrant.  What it does have it lots of the weird lyrics Clutch is known for that careens wildly from bizarre insanity to mindless gibberish as well as an even more noodly temperament than usual.  Their obnoxiously atonal guitar solos are already in place for this album but at least all the elements of what they became have become established to an extent.

I also listened to the album Sisters of the Red Death by Vendetta Red.  I actually enjoyed this album quite a bit.  It much improved over their first album with a dose of that "maturity" that the media always brings up in relation to sophmore efforts.  Many of the usual loud-quiet-loud dynamics and dual scream/sing vocals are present but are constructed in a very polished and well-concieved manner.  An additional observation I made was the lyrical content of this album and how significantly darker it is than most within this genre.  They are less like the lyrics of a screamo band and more the lyrics of a grindcore band.  Some seriously disturbing stuff revolving around some weird concept involving a medusa comprise the majority of the thematic continuity of the album.

I don't know how frequently I will be updating this, but it could be daily depending on how bored I get.