Last night was the first night I wasn’t overwhelmed, wasn’t wracked with grief or anxiety (well at least any anxiety I wasn’t already used to) and could slip into some semblance of normalcy. Normalcy of course thinking about work, thinking about my son, thinking about the insanity of our country and the world, so once again I was back up at 5:30am on a week. But I woke up with a smile – an exasperated smile, to be sure – and was almost eager to slip downstairs, brew a cup of coffee (currently drinking a wonderful light roast from Driftaway Coffee) and get to listening. This is some of the music that got me to that point, where I could wake, and recover.
- Moon Letters – “Silver Dream”
- Turnstile – “DULL/SUNSHOWER”
- Radiohead – “Planet Telex”
No Name was hands down one of the best rock records of last year, and I’ll get around to covering it and more Jack White eventually, but for now that video is just lots of “wow” for my ears and eyes…Moon Eyes was a brand new discovery, and after hearing their kaleidoscopic brand of prog I was immediately hooked…I’m as shocked as you, but since writing about the latest album from hardcore/pop hybrid Turnstile I like it even more, and the two songs here represent my current faves from Never Enough…I haven’t played Radiohead in forever, and I need to correct that. For now I wanted to revel in my favorite song off The Bends, which hasn’t had nearly enough listens here, so of course I’ll probably review something like Hail To The Thief first…
- Lou Reed – “Intro/Sweet Jane (Live)”
- Lars Fredrik Frøislie – “Medusas Flåte”
- Wayne Shorter – “Mahjong”
- In Flames – “The Jester Race”
- Caligula’s Horse – “The World Breathes With Me”
- Minor Threat – “Minor Threat”
This happens a lot: I get new vinyl and then for the playlist I play something else. What Velvet Underground I had was relegated to CD, so I picked up The Velvet Underground & Nico and The Velvet Underground this week and instead you get the opening track from Lou Reed’s solo album. Good thing it’s fantastic…The vinyl release for the latest from Lars Fredrik Frøislie was delayed by over a month, but I haven’t stopped spinning it. Incredible vintage prog…Jazz hasn’t been at the forefront of my mind in a while, but the gift of Wayne Shorter changed that, and I remembered there’s a few recent acquisitions in that genre I want to get to here…
Finally, a trio of heavier music: I originally had “Bullet Ride” here from Clayman to represent me finally getting a copy of that album on vinyl, but it was on the playlist literally a two weeks ago, so we went with another classic from the first In Flames records I ever heard or bought. The djenty riffing of Caligula’s Horse was something I resisted for a while, but it finally pulled me in and I’m enjoying the latest album a lot. Finally some Minor Threat because it’s been too long and you can never have enough of Minor Threat.
Be safe, be good to each other. See you next week.
Consuming the Tangible 