25/13 - The Last Moment Ever On Dry Land

Let's get strange. Let's find solace in the odd corners of the world where resistance grows against the streamlining new economy. Let's bin the polished turds and dig for pearls buried deep in fertile dirt.

The Knife - Stay Out Here

How about that growing drone for an introduction? Yes, this week's list will rely on prolonged weirdness. Stay with it, it's quite gorgeous and, dare I say, well-composed. As is this epic, euphorically dystopic track.

Most things we love are open ended 

Stay out here, it will get more frightening 

Lose your way

Earth - Crooked Axis For String Quartet

Let's refuse moving fast. Let's refuse making money. We were not meant to suffer from anxiety or stress. We were meant to roam. Let's hide. Let's not seek. That will teach them. The greedy scumbags.

Soulfly - Karmageddon

Drums. Sometimes all you need is drums. Heavy drums. Visions of big campfires. Savannas. Animals like us.

Ulver - Dressed In Black

Ulver is not like other metal-bands. Ulver sets whole William Blake-eppossen to music. Ulver makes ambient electronic soundtracks. Ulver subverts cliché emo-tropes into questions:

Eternal?

Like hell  

we are 

all dressed in black

Jimi Hendrix - 1983...(A Merman I Should Turn To Be)

To finish off, a soundeffect-laden plan to become aquatic, in order to escape the manmade apocalypse, from one of the most unimpeachable music-albums ever made. If all psychedelia sounded like this I would become a hippie. Amongst many favourite details, Jimi's (Noel did not play on this one) dripping and plopping bass-lines in the second half, the mechanical seagulls and of course the glorious way the melody is brought back into focus at 11.20

As a companion to that finale, watch this disconcerting but gorgeous performance:





...and finally, the best, strangest comics I've seen for a long time. (click image for more bizarre visual jokes)

24/13 - Very Brief In The Night

'My mother is a fish.' is the full content of an extremely short chapter in William Faulkner's stunning novel As I Lay Dying. A wonderful interpunctuation of an unfolding rumination on death. Like a rock song on a boring Tuesday, or a drumfill in a desperate lovesong.

Harry Nilsson - Jump Into the Fire

4 minutes in comes one of the best breaks/outros I've ever heard. The over-enthusiastic drums would've been good enough on their own, but when the bass subsequently rolls down into a cellar of low frequencies I am right there; on the brink of jumping into the fire. Harry, you mad genius.

David Lindley - Mercury Blues

Speaking of energetic drumfills – it was actually all I thought I liked about this track when I first heard it in one of my many downloaded episodes of Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour. After all, cheesy macho-rock about cars is one of few genres I advocate a healthy skepticism towards. But then, after repeated listens I can't deny that there's something cheeky and infatuating about the whole song. And after looking up David Lindley's CV I'm growing a real respect for the guy; not only has he played on a majority of Jackson Browne's and Warren Zevon's recordings – he's also one of the uncredited musicians on one of my favourite albums of all time: Songs of Leonard Cohen. Guilty pleasure grown considerably less guilty.

Grandaddy - Chartsengrafs

Here is where today's list veers off into slight sadness. One of the catchiest, yet most unashamedly depressed songs off that masterpiece of contemporary ennui; the Sophtware Slump.

Yeah, I traded laughs, in for chartsengrafs.
But all of that is only fun, until evening comes.
Your guess is as good as mine, as to just what kind
Of trouble I might find, tonight out of my mind.

The National - Pink Rabbits

This whole song is like one big gentle heave of the sea. It starts out low, desperately low. Then comes that subtle lift – I was solid gold – that builds into a fleeting beautiful crest. And then it just sinks back again. In the middle of it, one of the best lines this year:

I was a television version of a person with a broken heart

Stina Nordenstam - I See You Again

It is high time that I introduce Stina to this blog. One of my big idols she is. It's a slightly misleading cliché to present her as Sweden's equivalent to Björk or Kate Bush, but she does belong to that calibre of solitary, independent and unique boundary-pushing artists. While her vocals may come off as quaint,  even cutesy, at first listen, it takes only a little scratching on the surface to reveal a vast, complex and dark body of work. She started out as a jazz-singer, but stopped performing live in 1991. Since then she has shied away from media attention, rarely gives interviews or appears uncamouphlaged in photographs, and has released only six albums, each one vastly different. Her songs has dealt with everything from child-murderers and race-crimes to the invention of airplanes. This is from her second album; it's the first I've ever heard from her, and I remember the moment exactly. It's been 9 years since her last (and arguably finest) album. Here's hoping there's a new one in the works!

If not Stina, then at least Julia Holter is offering a new release soon, and I'm having high hopes for it after this pre-taste:

23/13 - I Start To Climb

Oh man, this week was one of those when I had a bunch of songs saved for my top 5, and when listening through them the transitions were just perfect straight away. Strange bedfellows they are, but listen to how they segue...

Queens of the Stone Age - If I Had A Tail

They're sounding poppier than ever. As I'm a fan of their heavier jams (like the majestic Song for the Dead), I thought I'd be disappointed, but... it's actually quite good. Lovin how the chorus just comes tumbling over the strutting verses like a rock bouncing down a hillside.

David Bowie - 5 Years

Definitely in my top 5 of Bowie-songs. I guess I have an apocalyptic mindset, because this song really gets to me every time. Somewhere there's this genuine fear that I will live to see the day this song foretells. Not because of some alien annihilation-scheme of course. Just the actual collapse of our society, and the ensuing knowledge that there's only a short time left to enjoy the gifts of the earth.

Never thought I'd need so many people...

Tindersticks - A Sweet Sweet Man

Tindersticks go a bit free-jazz for this full length version of their classic debut-album-suite. Such a simple, almost lullaby-like song, with such a vast emotional range.

Scott Walker - Montague Terrace (In Blue)

Speaking of range. The man's a genius. Voice and arrangements almost threaten to overshadow some of his finest scene-setting lyrics:

Your eyes ignite like cold blue fire The scent of secrets everywhere A fist filled with illusions Clutches all our cares

Slick Rick - Children's Story

So many old hip hop-albums I need to discover. Roc Marciano led me to this one. Effortlessly spellbinding.

22/13 - Can't Buy A Thrill

Late list this week. I've been out and about and then I've been moody.

Fever Ray - Seven

The other night, just before I went to sleep, I felt like I really 'got' this song. I don't remember the feeling now, but it's still one of the best tracks from one of the best albums of recent years.

R. Dean Taylor - Gotta See Jane

Daryn posted this on Facebook and it's magnificent.

Her love for me I pushed aside Walked out alone to face a world turned cold Although I tried I could not survive The frantic pace, the constant chase To win the race, it's not a part of me I've gotta find what I left behind Oh, I gotta see jane

Tom Waits - Poor Edward

A really sad beautiful song about a man with an extra face on the back of his head. Only in the world of Tom Waits.

Joni Mitchell - The Boho Dance

When summer comes along with a force like the past week, The Hissing of Summer Lawns is the only Joni Mitchell-album to listen to.

Bob Dylan - It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry

Because it's such an awesome song, with such an awesome sound, and such an awesome title.

Bonus: Doug Stanhope - End The Hate

I'm sure there's a lesson to learn here.
Do you think the douchebags will do it?!



Run The Jewels is the release I'm looking most forward to right now I think: