(Un)Focused Definition Ep. 56: Italian Prelude

In a few days I’m leaving on a jet plane, heading with my extended family to Italy for an extended vacation, which means Consuming The Tangible is going to take a bit of break until I return. It’s my first time to Europe and I want to try and experience it as openly as I can and not worry having content here. So the plan is to front load the next few playlists (I might get one more review in for Monday) and back to our regularly scheduled programming in a few weeks. No themes, but maybe I’ll throw some Italian bands in here and there…

ChrisJune 28, 2025Leave a comment

Vinyl

Slayer: Show No Mercy (1983)

A lot more new music purchases to get to, but I needed a bit of a breather. So I go back to the time of my childhood, but I’ll be honest: I definitely wasn’t listening to Slayer at 10 years old, cool as that would be. I remember the burnouts in high school with the logo emblazoned on their jackets, but my black Members Only jacket had a small Stryper logo at the time (I would eventually upgrade to acid washed denim with a Halloween back patch). It took another few years and the band’s incredible live album before I became a fan, and a few decades after that before I dug into Show No Mercy, their 1983 debut. Fast and loose and gleefully evil in a way their followups would veer sharply from, it’s a bubbly blast that shows hints of the beast they would become.

ChrisJune 27, 2025Leave a comment

The Moody Blues: Days Of Future Passed (1967)

Let’s continue the trend with incredible album covers. I must have stared into David Anstey’s gorgeous collage of colors for hours as a child; Days of Future Passed was one of the few albums in my parent’s collection that was my mothers (the other was eponymous debut from Christopher Cross). But despite owning it I never actively played the music of The Moody Blues. I must have heard “Knights In White Satin” as a kid, probably on television and eschewed it for tunes that rocked harder. Once again proving you’re never too old, my fascination with progressive rock began leading me down peripheral branches, and that led to the particular chamber pop of the group, so here we are. Long story short: it was worth the rambling sojourn.

ChrisJune 26, 2025Leave a comment

Cargo: Cargo (1972)

Another fast review of a “lost” band, this time the Dutch progressive rock band Cargo, forming in 1970 under the name September, releasing a few singles, changing personnel and name, recording a single album and breaking up shortly thereafter. I’m sure that’s a trajectory hundreds if not thousands of bands fell victim to during the same period, and truth be told Cargo the eponymous album doesn’t sound like progressive rock to my ears. Sure, it’s only four tracks with two going over the 10-minute mark, but musically this falls into a Wishbone Ash classic hard rock vein to my ears, so if that’s more your thing than twisty time changes and copious keyboards Cargo might fit the bill as a lost gem.

ChrisJune 25, 2025Leave a comment

PSI: Horizonte (1977)

One look at that cover art and I know I was going to pick this title up. Horizonte is the sole album from German fusion band PSI, released in the heyday of the explosion of jazz rock in Germany in the mid to late 70s. Tight, complex rhythms with a lead focus on keyboards and guitars, the album hits a broad, sunny tone throughout most of its seven tracks, never getting overly dark or serious. That’s not to say the music isn’t serious: this is fusion, after all, and everyone takes their job seriously. But like the Web Web I reviewed the other day, for my ears it’s effervescent, clean and clean and leaving soon after arriving.

ChrisJune 24, 2025Leave a comment

Web Web: Plexus Plexus (2025)

We’re going to slip back for a bit into shorter reviews, particularly when it comes to bands like the German improvisational collective Web Web. I had no idea what I was in for, but based on the single line description for their latest album Plexus Plexus on LaserCD (a lot of my blind purchases stem from perusing the New Arrivals and Restocks section and just seeing what catches my eye), I had to check it out. “More psychedelic, sometimes more krauty”, you say? Responding to this singular duck call I grabbed it, and the result is a fine, groovy set of tunes, taking inspiration from a number of different sources and stirring them into a sauce that’s tasty if not exactly essential. But like a good sauce you can pretty much pair it with anything.

ChrisJune 23, 2025June 22, 20251 Comment

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Month: June 2025