34/13 - As We Grow Out of Our Bruises

These are the sounds of a week of pure leisure. Rarely do I feel this relaxed and guiltless over my relaxation. Tunes from a hammock:

Hanne Hukkelberg - Searching

Norwegian jazz-singer turned experimental pop-troubadour. A headphones-album, perfect for bustrips home from the day's swimming excursions.

Lambchop - The New Cobweb Summer

One of my all-time favourite lazy summer albums. It feels like this can only be properly listened to in a garden full of sun-drowsy insects.

Taken By Trees - Anna

When in Sweden, listen to swedes, recorded in Pakistan.

Yusef Lateef - Love Theme From Spartacus

So elegant it melts in your ears like a mango-sorbet on your tongue.

Fela Kuti - Zombie

I watched Music Is The Weapon and spent the whole next day blasting Fela in the garden.
This tune is awesome for so many musical reasons (Fela's saxophone-workouts spring to mind), but there's also not very many single tracks which have had such an immense political and personal impact. From Allmusic:

Since the groove was so absolutely contagious, it took the nation by storm: People in the street would put on a blank stare and walk with hands affront proclaiming "Zombie!" whenever they would see soldiers. If "Zombie" caught the attention of the populous it also caught the attention of the authority figures – this would cause devastating personal and professional effects as the Nigerian government came down on him with absolute brute force not long after the release of this record.

The brute force referred to is the 1000-man-strong military storming of his compound during which his studio, instruments and tapes were burnt, his head was fractured, and his 82-year-old activist mother was thrown out a first-storey window – later dying from her injuries.
How something so horrible can come from something so groovy is hard to understand, but if a single one of your songs indirectly leads to your mother's death, your own exile from your mothercountry, and the formation of a new political party, and you still go on recording even more politically charged music, well... you are pretty fucking serious about music.

33/13 - Breakin' Rocks In The Hot Sun

Some energy-boosting rock, bookended by some lovely floating-away-music.

Yo La Tengo - Wizard's Sleeve

A tune to celebrate the holiday. I have two weeks in Sweden ahead of me, and they're gonna be just as dreamy and laidback as this melody.

Savages - Strife

But before I left Glasgow, up til the very last minute, I was crazy busy, casting concrete again. With this, very loud, in my headphones. The sweat pouring, gloves and facemask on, hammer in hand. You feel strong then.

They wonder how we do it

The Clash - I Fought the Law

Just a reminder in case anyone forgot that the Clash were one of the best bands ever to walk the planet.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Funky Monks

As always when I'm back in the parental home, it's time for a little teenage-revival. This is the only RHCP-album worth a beginning-to-end listen. Better songs than the earlier stuff, rawer and funkier than their later foray into radiopop-land. The outro is splendid Flea-Frusciante workout.

David Bowie - Warszawa

...again, back to the present. The sun is beaming down over Partille. Fran has just arrived and is having a nap, while I'm looking up exhibitions we might go see later today, if we don't take the canoe out for a coffee on an island. A choir of 110 David Bowies are buzzing like summerbees.


This week I also liked this (of course):

32/13 - I Didn't Want To Be The One To Forget

Mondays are supposed to be the days when I make these lists, so to catch up and get in phase again, I've put together a little best of leftovers. It's a pretty bouncy collection.

Modeselektor - Panaria in Bukarest 2000

The baaaaassssssssssssssss!

Ladytron - Discotraxxx

Classic tune. Always lovely to hear. And how about that bulgarian announcement eh? Pretty catchy, yes.

Prez gorite, prez poliata
Pod zvezdite, nad zhitata

Daft Punk ft. Julian Casablancas - Instant Crush

Pop. Pure pop.

Beck - Nicotine & Gravy

 I'll leave graffiti where you've never been kissed

Les Amazones de Guinée - Samba

This just grooves so bad. Can. Not. Resist. And just look how fuckin cool they are:

Second tune to surface from new Arctic Monkeys turns out to be awesome as well:

31/13 - The Future Is Certain (Give Us Time To Work It Out)

Yeah so this list should have been up Monday, but I had an exhibition on, and I actually hung the last piece like 5 minutes before the opening. So here it is now, in the calm after the storm.

Animal Collective - Amanita 

As many others I find Centipede Hz more than a little dense to take in as a whole, but picked apart there are some nuggets. This chimes especially well with the work I put in my show.

I'm gonna bring back some stories

Junip - The Ghost of Tom Joad 

One of the best songs ever, based on one of the best novels ever. And of course the original is in its way unsurpassable. Likewise RATM's version is an absolute showstopper. But this week it was Junip's slow crescendo of a cover that blew me away for the hundredth time. I can think of few other songs that would be as perfect for this band to cover.
And just by the way, this is not the only song inspired by The Grapes of Wrath; Woody Guthrie's take is a 6 and a half minute retelling of the entire plot, meant as a way to spread the socialist essence of the book to the masses who didn't/couldn't read it.

Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. If Casy knowed, why, I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad an’—I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry n’ they know supper’s ready. An’ when our folks eat the stuff they raise an’ live in the houses they build—why, I’ll be there.

Savages - She Will

I'm gonna go buy more black clothes. I'm gonna be righteously angry. I'm gonna be like Savages in every way I can, because they're the coolest and best there is.

Talking Heads - Road To Nowhere

An artist anthem. What genius to put it to marching drums.

TV on the Radio - Killer Crane

As their new album is soon to drop I revisit their latest one and fall in love with another of their ballads. The break into the chorus is so bloody gorgeous.