01. editions of you – roxy music
02. tu turu turu tara tara – naheed akhtar
03. spear core – kaoru abe, motuharu yoshizawa, toshinori kondo, derek bailey
04. maus mobil – mouse on mars
05. no words / no thoughts – swans
06. el fandanguito – antonio garcía de león
07. fantastic freaks at the dixie – fantastic freaks
08. radiogig in torino/italy – the jist
09. clothed in the skin of the dead – colin stetson
10. the street and babe shadow – t. rex
the songs that took my attention in may of 2014, listen, won’t you?
unhelpful notes
i didn’t get into roxy music until after i saw velvet goldmine by todd haynes. i had heard of them, and knew of their relation to eno and bowie and glam, etc. but it wasn’t until after i saw that movie that i investigated. and when i did, i was hooked. the first five albums are all solid, but my favorites are their first three i think. this is off their second and final with eno. after their fifth album they went on hiatus for the second half of the seventies. when they reformed, for my money, they were worthless. for the ultimate expression of editions of you, look up roxy music’s appearance on musiklaaden. oh, my. the fabulocity cannot be contained.
mouse on mars blew my mind when i heard them sometime in 1995 or 1996, i can’t remember which. it was on a cheesy techno comp called trance europe express. but i was into cheesy acidy trance at the time. the sounds were new to me and i was intrigued and fascinated. this song was easily the standout. there was something about the soundworld that these guys created. that sort of liquidy, bubbly action that is present through out. the dubby bass and drum sections. the mellowness of it. it’s a beautiful song. also – andi and jan (mouse on mars) are one of the most adorable live acts i’ve ever seen. the way they kind of climb all over each other while they stand in front of their machines and computers, twisting knobs, sliding faders, etc. they seemed so genuinely into what they were making. heads bobbing in time, smiling and looking at each other like – yeah, yeah, that’s awesome!
swans. massive. i didn’t like them when i first heard their earlier stuff back when i was in college and living with room mates. it gave me the same feeling as when i listened to big black. i just didn’t feel it. and i felt a little frustrated that i didn’t like it considering how much i had read about them and other bands that i liked liking them. sonic youth especially praised swans, so i thought well of course i’ll like them. but i didn’t. but then in the past year or so i listened to their newish post angels of light, let’s get the band back together stuff and i love it! it’s so good. droning massiveness. it’s like i needed them to age and mature and figure out their current sound so that i could get into them and then work my way backwards to understand a bit more what they were doing in the past.
hi. did you know i went to mexico one time. for five months. i did. while i was there i got into a lot of rock ish music from monterrey. but my favorite two purchases were a compilation of sones veracruzanos and an album by a group called son de madera of other sones veracruzanos. guadalajara – where i was living – is the birth place of mariachi, which i’m not a huge fan of. although i’m more into it when it’s one person and a guitar. it was ubiquitous though. even on the bus – individual musicians would get on and perform a song or two, busking, before getting off. on the radio at home however, i heard this music that caught my attention. the chords and the singing, the guitars, the instrumentation. the sound was beautiful and sad and joyful. kind of all at the same time. it mesmerized me. i investigated and learned that the music was a folk music from veracruz. and sadly for me at the time, veracruz is a long way from guadalajara.
that’s the jist, check them out!