Sirocco by The Icicle Works
Album: Nirvana (7″ single)
The Icicle Works belong to a category I call ‘October Music’. It’s autumnal and pagan. You can see the smoke hang over the village. All of 1984, I listened to their first album, and enjoyed the world it created, as the best albums always do.

This song predates the first album. I think this single on Troll Records might be quite rare.

My Old School by Steely Dan
Album: Remastered: The Best of Steely Dan Then and Now
I’ve always loved Steely Dan for their jazz-tinged close harmonies, even as a kid. I’m not as familiar with their early catalogue though. I don’t think it had the smoothness and sophistication of their later work, like Aja or Gaucho. It’s interesting, though, to listen to stuff from just before I was born. I don’t usually go there. I will say this: it’s so much better than pre-disco, like Al Stewart or Leo Sayer, even if I’m not very interested in it all the time.

Sor: Rondo by Andrés Segovia
Album: Andrés Segovia
Quote from Fernando Sor, His Life and His Music

The guitar used be called a tavern instrument; one that could not meet the demands of classical music. In the early nineteenth century, Fernando Sor set in motion the quest that continues today, to raise the guitar to the greatest musical level possible. Sor was one of the most prolific composers for, and promoters of, the guitar as a “concert” instrument, in the last two hundred years. He, and others like him paved the way for Andrés Segovia to emerge and bring the guitar to the immense popularity, and respect it enjoys today.

Easter by The Choristers of St. Paul’s Cathedral
Album: An Elizabethan Chorus
This track is presented as part of an Easter church service, complete with lector. I confess that I now have mixed feelings about having religious music in my collection. On the one hand, I’d hate to get rid of it all. Mozart’s Requiem? Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater? Vivaldi’s Gloria? Bach’s oratorios? Great stuff — we’ll never see music like that again, and I’d be poorer without it.

On the other hand, now that I no longer have a certain set of religious assumptions, I find it unexpectedly irksome to be confronted by a style of music, the overt purpose of which was to promote adherence to a set of absurd dogmas. And it irritates me that generations of musical geniuses chose to promote such systems with their wonderful music — or that they were conscripted to promote same. I still sing it, because it sounds wonderful and it’s something we’ve inherited from the past. So I suppose I shall have to adjust and not worry about it too much.

New Orleans Instrumental No. 1 by R.E.M.
Album: Automatic for the People
A moody and contemplative piece, especially poignant for what’s happened to New Orleans since the recording. Watery electric organ with somewhat off-kilter timing from the other instruments give this track a feeling of a rough draft from a sketchbook.

Praise You by Fatboy Slim
Album: You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby
Just think, all the time Norman Cook was playing bass in the Housemartins, Fatboy Slim was lurking in his head. And the first time I heard ‘Rockafeller Skank’, I couldn’t decide whether it was the worst thing I’d ever heard or the best. A listen to the whole disc didn’t help. It was a badly-scratched library copy, and it kept skipping and repeating. Took me five minutes to figure it out.
However, you can’t help but enjoy the funky bass line, the bongos, and the oddly manipulated vocal on this track. Not to mention that the video features some of the best public dorky dancing ever committed to film. Who could dislike such an offering? The elderly and humourless, that’s who. Tell them I said that.

Pretty Good Year by Tori Amos
Album: Under the Pink
I first saw Tori Amos on Letterman doing “Crucify”. I thought, “Hmm, a new wave of Kate Bush’s musical heirs.” I’m not a huge fan of Tori’s bombastic keyboarding. Do I find such passion offputting?

Under the Cap by The Golden Palominos
Album: The Golden Palominos
Jeff got me into this one. I think his dad walked into Mirage Records in Spokane with no idea which record to get him for a present, and Brent Beever the Record Store Guy suggested this one. And what a fantastic choice. This is the first Golden Palominos record, pre-Michael Stipe. The personnel list reads like a Who’s Who of the Celluloid label. Arto Lindsay, Anton Fier, Bill Laswell, John Zorn; they’re all here, and they’re doing amazing and strange things with bird calls, proto-drum and bass, and improvised lyrics and howls. Find this and listen. You’ll be annoyed or inspired, but it says more about you than about the record.

Okinawa Song – Chin nuku Juishi by Ryuichi Sakamoto
Album: Neo Geo
A song (possibly a folk song) that combines unison female vocals with industrial noises and heavy rhythm. I don’t know why, but when I hear it, I immediately think of this still from “Red Detachment of Women“.

Getting Away with It (Raindance Mix) by Electronic
Album: Art of Mix Volume 4
So there I was doing homework one night in 1990, and this song was on MTV. “Dang,” I thought, because I wasn’t in a swearing stage, “this song sounds like the Pet Shop Boys.” Only to look up and find Neil Tennant’s face floating across the screen. Aha, I’d found the new supergroup. Johnny Marr from the Smiths, Bernard Sumner from New Order, and Neil from PSB. And wonderful string arrangements from Anne Dudley of the Art of Noise. Could this be the perfect band?

Disappointingly, no. My original theory was that it was too much Bernard and not enough Johnny, but then the later New Order albums sounded a lot better than any of Marr’s post-Smiths output. I honestly don’t know why the disc didn’t work. But this song does. A perfect slice of sophisticated pop. And this version from Art of Mix adds in clips from New Order songs, and the ‘beat’ vocal from PSB’s “Heart”. I respect it when a remixer drops in historically relevant samples.

Any concerns I might have had about my collection being too mainstream have been dashed with this Random Five. It’s so chockfull of obscure goodies, you’ll think you wandered into some grotty little record store in Seattle’s U District or something. Also there’s a Segovia theme.

It’s About Time by Lemonheads
Album: The Adventure Club Sessions
This song is credited to the Lemonheads, but I think it’s actually just Evan Dando on acoustic guitar. There’s a radio station in Texas called ‘The Edge’ that used to have these great artists in (like XTC, Blur, the Lilac Time) for acoustic sessions, and this disc is a bunch of the best.

So this song is about Juliana Hatfield (and it’s in her style), for those of you who were in the precise time/space coordinates during that brief period of her celebrity. Best line: ‘Patience is like bread I say / I ran out of that yesterday.’

Hannes by Sigur Rós
Album: Hlemmur OST
I haven’t seen this movie yet. Hlemmur is a bus station in Rekjavik, and this film tracks the lives of the homeless men who live there. I find this album a little easier to listen to that the sprawling crashing epics of (). There’s a dreamy and slow-moving quality about this track, with spare piano and cello. You can almost see the dust sparkling in the empty space.

So and Slow It Grows (The Orb in Atlas Remix) by Wir
Album: So and Slow It Grows (Single)
Wir is three-quarters of Wire, a band that I enjoy but find a bit hard to take. Maybe it was the horrible breakup I was going through when I first got into Wire. Don’t do that, by the way. If you know you’re going to be unhappy, don’t start any new music. Just be unhappy in silence until you no longer feel horrible. Or maybe it’s just Wire. They seem grey and obtuse.

This remix is dancy, with Indian touches. I think I like the album version slightly more, though I can’t find it — I just remember it from radio.

Segovia: Remembranza by Wolfgang Lendle
Album: Spanish Guitar Music
I think that as a genre, Spanish guitar music might be the best music in the world to work to. It’s right on the line between unobtrusive and interesting, plus it confers an unbelievable amount of coolness to your workspace.

Andres by L7
Album: Triple J Hottest 100, Volume 2
L7 was a great idea for a band, if not a great band, just like ‘Let’s Pretend We’re Dead’ was a great idea for a song without actually being a fully-formed song. But I like ‘Andres’. Scratchy vocals.

Bonus sixth: Segovia himself comes out for an encore, since he heard us talking about him.

Tansman: Scherzino by Andrés Segovia
Album: Andrés Segovia
This was evidently recorded during the great Spanish Cholera Epidemic of ’58, judging from the tubercular sounds of the audience. It’s unbelievable how much coughing there is — it’s Segovia, people! Take a Luden. I recommend cherry.

I’m enjoying the latest iTunes, even though it’s a memory hog and its DRM is still evil. Two reasons: it goes out and finds album artwork for you, which would normally be a tedious chore, and it displays your covers as seen in the screen grab. It’s like taking all your booklets out and cleverly arranging them on an extremely shiny black surface.

Altar Natives by Bill Nelson’s Orchestra Arcana Album:Iconography
Sometimes I think my collection is bland and full of commercially prepared pap branded as ‘alternative’ even though anyone in the world could get it at Target. Then I feel like an elitist for thinking that’s a bad thing. But I do sometimes wish I had some weird or different things in there. Then I find some Bill Nelson, the most interesting artist to labour in obscurity since Stephen Duffy. If I have Bill, how mainstream could I be? Only marginally, that’s to what extent. Every Bill Nelson fan thinks they’re the only Bill Nelson fan. Maybe they’re right.

Anyhow, this one comes from a time when Bill Nelson recorded as ‘Orchestra Arcana’ to avoid some messy contract legalities. His deviousness is our gain. On this track he uses one of his favourite song templates: a long flowing chord, overlaid with rhythmic loops of speech, found speeches on esoteric Christian mysticism, and guitar improvisations.

The Forest (from the film ‘The Snow Queen’) by Jukka Linkola, conductor Album:Northern Lights Vol. 2
The fame of Good Reason‘s earliest and most stalwart blog patron snowqueen has been celebrated in song and celluloid. A soothing and magical orchestral piece that chronicles her ‘blue period’ and all those concerts.

Last Dance by Sarah McLachlan Album:Surfacing
Do you like Sarah MacLachlan? Me neither. I sure do have a lot of her songs though. Maybe I have a subliminal ‘liking SML’ thing.

On the other hand, how many songs do I have that feature old piano, cello, and saw? I’m serious; someone’s playing a saw with a violin bow, like in the movie Delicatessen. All right, Sarah; you’re not Kate, but you’re okay. You might even be Tori. Or that one woman from the Dresden Dolls. On second thought, be sort of glad you’re not.

Let the Right One Slip In by Morrissey Album:Tomorrow (Single)
Okay, single entendre title aside, I think this song must have been written to be used in the title sequence for an 80’s teen movie. The hero wakes up, grabs his skateboard, sails down a hill (long distance shot with opening credits), and runs to the double glass doors of the high school where other students are entering. There’s a ‘getting to class’ montage with a hallway of lockers. You can picture it, can’t you?

Tour de France Etape 1 – Chrono – Tour de France Etape 2 by Kraftwerk Album:Minimum-Maximum
More live Kraftwerk this week. Good.

I always thought this piece was ambitious on the studio album. They haven’t put out new material in close to 20 years, so already they’re deciding to risk their god-like status by putting out a new album. And the first song is this 15-minute epic cycling soundtrack, like Autobahn on two wheels. And yet it works. Their fine sense of melody combines with absorbing rhythm and effects. This 10-minute live version is just right.

This week I find myself listening to a lot of Karma County, a very good Australian band whose sound is earthy and heartfelt, and maybe just a little strung out. You don’t know if these are guys you’d want to play poker with, but the music they make is very soulful.

Their song ‘Postcard’ is well worth a listen. The ‘ba ba ba’ chorus stays on the same notes, even while the chord structure drops lower and lower down the scale. Very artful. Have a listen and you’ll see what I mean. Click this link, go to ‘Music’, and hit the ‘Album Preview’ button for the album that matches the picture you see here. It’s track four.

The lyrics remind me of Jeff:

God speed my friend,
be sure to think of me
when you touch down,
cast out on a different sea.

Just a postcard,
every now and then,
just to let me know
that you’re okay.

On to the random.

Music Non Stop by Kraftwerk Album: Minimum-Maximum
You know what I like about this album? Not that it’s live — Kraftwerk has never been known as radical improvisationalists. No, I just like that it exists. Kraftwerk touring? This is amazing, and I’ll tell you why.

The guys from Kraftwerk are not tremendously accessible people. The story is told of how Florian (or is it Ralf?) didn’t want to have a phone with a ringer on it in the studio. There was a procedure if you wanted to call them. You had to call at just a few seconds to noon. At precisely noon every day, Ralf (or Florian) would lift the phone to see if anyone wanted to talk. And that’s how you could phone them. So shy of the limelight were they that they found innovative ways to avoid performing, especially using robot surrogates (which suited their electronic style very well).

The other reason they never toured was because they couldn’t. It would have required inconveniently large rooms full of computer equipment to perform live. But now that computers have shrunk, they can do the whole thing on laptops. They were so far into the future that they had to wait for technology to catch up with them. And that’s the other reason I love that this album exists.

‘Music Non Stop’ was a little dull on the 1986 album Electric Café, but it’s been fine-tuned into a funky beast for the live shows.

Handel: Music for the Royal Fireworks – V Menuet I & II (Andante) by Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Bernard Haitink, conductor Album: Water Music & Music for the Royal Fireworks
Handel wrote some magnificent music. I like imagining this being played on a boat, floating up the Thames. As indeed it was, for King George I — hence the name.

Here’s the history:

On Wednesday 17 July 1717, in the evening, there occurred in London a royal event of great splendour. King George I and a large gathering of the English nobility boarded open barges on the river Thames at Whitehall and sailed up river to Chelsea, where they took supper. Such was the success of the evening that the party did not leave until three o’clock in the morning, the King arriving back at St James’s Palace at about half-past four. One of the river barges (according to a report in the Daily Courant of 19 July) ‘was employ’d for the Musick, wherein were 50 instruments of all sorts who play’d… the finest Symphonies, compos’d express for this Occasion, by Mr Hendel: which his Majesty liked so well, that he caus’d it to be plaid over three times in going and returning’.

Orchestra on a boat, Handel conducting. Now that was the way to ride.

Cigarettes Will Kill You by Ben Lee Album: Triple J Hottest 100, Volume 6
Always good to go back to this song. It’s not about cigarettes though — it’s more a metaphorical exploration of how we cook and eat the ones we love. Hmm.

Mayfly by Belle & Sebastian Album: If You’re Feeling Sinister
I have to say, this song would be less effective without the cheesy organ solo. Do you ever get the feeling that we just don’t deserve bands like Belle and Sebastian? They seem too sweet and pleasant to exist.

All in the Golden Afternoon by Alphaville Album: Prostitute
An album a lot of people missed, which is too bad because there are a lot of good moments on it. This is actually a setting of the Lewis Carroll poem where he describes a boat ride with the three Liddell girls who would serve as the model for Alice. It’s a lovely setting for the poem — almost more of a painting, really.

I’m listening to the new Beck album a lot lately. The thing about this album is that the cover is graph paper, and there are stickers that you apply yourself. It’s ‘make your own album cover’. I haven’t done it yet, and I don’t really want to. Also I don’t want to examine what that might mean. Putting the stickers on is committing, and what if I get the back of the stickers all gummy with fingerprints and it doesn’t stick properly? And then it’s ruined! I think I’m just a big believer in non-destructive editing, but maybe I was one of those kids that was afraid of getting dirty. What would it mean for me to try?

In All the Wrong Places by Ulrich Schnauss Album: A Strangely Isolated Place
This is a gorgeous work of semi-ambient electronica. I say ‘semi-‘ — it’s got beats, but it’s mostly instrumental, and the production has a soft focus quality to it. A certain muffly swoosh, even though some of the details are quite crisp. You can tell it’s hard to describe. The layers of sound build into an enormous sugary wedding cake that dissolves when you touch it. It doesn’t just groove, it wobbles in that Boards of Canada way where someone’s doing something to the analogue tape.

Memories by Elvis Presley Album: Elvis 2nd to None
That’s funny. Spanish guitar usually makes things sound better. But the string arrangement goes so Mantovani on this poor sappy melody that not even Elvis’ voice can save it. There’s a fruit and veg place near my house that plays Elvis, so now when I hear Elvis, I think fruit. Or Dean Martin, which they also play. I don’t know if there’s a video to this, but I don’t want to see it. I think it would look like the stock footage from every karaoke place I’ve every been to. Even the head of Elvis is coming out to see what’s gone wrong. The severed head of Elvis, and it’s been sectioned right down the middle, right across the left eye. Ouch! What was the graphic designer thinking? Where’s the lei? It was such a motif in Elvis’ original album covers, and now it’s gone. Banished! It’s all black and bloodless, not like a real head if you hacked it in half. And then stuck a numeral 2 right in the Broca’s area.

Useless by Depeche Mode Album: Ultra
This is more like it. Ultra was a very good, somewhat overlooked album. Depeche Mode seemed deepened by their woes (rehab and lineup changes), and came out of it with a set of songs that becomes more interesting with closer listens. Listen to that guitar riff on Useless. That is a gritty riff. And the bass line slides up and down the octave in a head-nodding way. Good groove.

Crossroads by Davol Album: Mystic Waters
I wonder what Russ is doing right now. He’s the one who got me into Davol. Gave me a tape with two albums, back in the days of cassettes. And I played them over and over and then went out and bought both albums. I wonder if I’ve listened to the discs more than the tapes. I think Russ always wanted to record songs like this. He was into computers and MIDI. Funny how a song can remind you of someone. Especially a song as thoughtful as this one, like watching a river, or staring into a fire.

Hello by The Cat Empire Album: Triple J Hottest 100, Volume 11
Well, jelo, jelo. If you haven’t heard the Cat Empire’s unique brand of hyphenated Cuban ska salsa, it would probably be a good idea. You’d think you were doing something interesting, like being at a party or a concert, instead of sitting at home on the Net getting spam from someone named Tanzania Safari, like I just did. My life would be a lot more interesting with that name. Oh, Tanz, you don’t even exist, and your life is probably much more interesting than mine. Anyhow. The Cat Empire were the hot ticket a couple of years ago, though I haven’t heard anything recently. They’re probably having so much fun that I’m not even in the same universe as them. Maybe after the thesis is over, I’ll put on the dancing shoes and go find them. I’ll have to find one of those little hats first. You know the kind?