Part 1 –
Jimbo Mathus & Andrew Bird, “These 13” –
https://open.spotify.com/album/5e7me68eSPsVkbQoGdpEkh
Cedric Burnside, “I Be Trying” –
https://cedricburnside.bandcamp.com/album/i-be-trying
Til Willis, “Promise of Wishful Thinking” –
https://tilwillis.bandcamp.com/track/promise-of-wishful-thinking-2
In randomized order, here is the best music Howie heard in 2021.
Abul Mogard, “In Immobile Air” – The varieties of ambient music continue to surprise me. Mogard (a pen name, almost certainly) combines simple pitches and noise like sculpture, crafting installations I seem to approach, wander around, and gently walk away from.
Nala Sinephro, “Space 1.8” – Sax and synth sound like they were made for each other in Sinephro’s cosmic, jazz-inspired explorations.
Nao, “And Then Life Was Beautiful” – Nao’s singular unification of vintage and modern R&B styles. Taking her debut EPs together she’s one record away from acing the Five Album Test, and I don’t doubt she’ll get there.
(more…)Picking up from my last post, here’s my live-blog of listening to Crash after 13+ years of not listening to it.
So Much To Say – Been a minute. This feels good. Cool riff, love the horn lines.
Two Step – Classic. I’m realizing for the first time how different the production is from UTTAD. The hard-panned guitars are gone, the layers of morphing pads and sustaining violin and whatnot are gone. This sounds more like a big, clean, natural-sounding 70s record, but hi-fi. It’s probably a better sound for the band, though the immersive murkiness of UTTAD works in places. Fade out is a bummer, write an
ending you fools!
Crash Into Me – Unfortunately, this has not aged well. The song and recording are fine, but it’s not escaping its own overplayed-ness to my ears. My poor mom had to overhear me play this so many times :( :(
Too Much – Wow, and we’re jamming again, “Crash” really killed the energy.
41 – Dual electric guitars! Cool new atmosphere. That sax ostinato does it for me. It’s wild how much of this I hear in V for Voice, from the writing to the playing to the mix, which was not on my radar at all. Just that formative, I suppose. I was completely chasing this album in the V for Voice production and had zero idea that’s what I was doing.
Say Goodbye – Dave is such a cheeseball here but it’s a little charming. A little.
(more…)This, from the recent Pitchfork review of “Crash,” hit hard:
Crash helped give a generation of upstarts permission to do whatever they wanted with their own music. That sort of broad philosophical inspiration was altogether different than what Nirvana, Pavement, or most every other rock act cooler than the Dave Matthews Band supplied at the same time.
I sent the review to Cory, who said:
I still listen to that and “Under the Table…” from time to time! Especially if I want some thoughtful serenity. “Under the Table” makes me feel straight-up better and think-ier and more hopeful which is why I like it better. “Crash” makes me feel kind of the same but also weirder? They were definitely the easiest band to clown on in the ’90s. SUPER successful hippies in a band who wrote radio-friendly songs that were seemingly un-scandalous but often pretty horny! But those records are great and unlike anything else I can think of.
Do you still listen to those guys from time to time? I’m going to put “Crash” on now and hike my skirt up!
I had not listened to either album since importing them to iTunes in 2008, so I started to, and I live-blogged my reactions, now posted below.
The Best Of What’s Around – Oh my god there is so much going on in this mix! Like a moderate number of parts, but they’re all busy AF, and the hard-panned acoustic guitars doing fairly different things is wild.
What Would You Say – This still sounds pretty good. Funky & poppy, like Toad The Wet Sprocket but also Prince could sound cool covering it?
(more…)