32/15 - Split Your Lungs With Blood And Thunder When You See The White Whale

Five ferocious numbers.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Dull Life

The most paradoxical song title. How can life be dull when you listen to this brilliant riff?

Nina Simone - Mississippi Goddam

One of the all-time fiercest political songs. On an album full of humorous sociopolitical ditties, Nina bluffs with some upbeat piano, and the audience initally laughs along with her joking interludes. But by the time she starts singing about school children sitting jail, you realise with a shiver that she really does mean every word of it. And after owning up to her bluff – "made you thought I was kidding, didn't I?" – the thinly veild anger trembles under every word. And by the time she brushes aside any reformation tactic – "doing things gradually, will bring more tragedy" – the righteous rage is absolutely tangible. And yet racial discrimination is still rampant in the states... Fuck it. Stand up and be counted with all the rest!

Mastodon - Blood and Thunder

Continuing my metal-autumn in the studio. Don't know why, but I feel a real urge for some bone crunching guitars and screams about one monomaniacal man's vendetta with a white whale... And that pounding at 3:27 - best possible way to end this track.

Peaches ft. Kim Gordon - Close Up

I'd almost forgotten about Peaches, and to be honest I wasn't much of a fan back when she surfaced. But this bass is amazing, and Kim Gordon is as untouchably cool as ever.

Elvis Costello - I Want You

I actually first became familiar with this tune through Fiona Apple's performance of it, and I still feel like it was more or less written for her to sing. But even in its original form, the desperate, obsessive indulgence of it is frickin amazing. And I love the little reference to that quintessential traditional cold hearted lady, Barbara Allen.

This week I'm also fascinated with the video for this slippery new tune from Chairlift:

31/15 - Between Thunder And Lightning There Is A Gap

It's been a while. School start and so on. Not gonna apologise (to whom?) just gonna post an uncompromising studio top 5. If you don't listen to this loud on decent speakers, you might as well not bother at all.

Antipop Consortium - Conspiracy of Myth

The things that seemed most important aren't.

Battles - Tricentennial

An album to loose track of time with.

dEUS - Pocket Revolution

The anger at the neoliberalisation of higher education is bubbling.

Can you heal it?
It's gonna take a revolution now
To get through to you
You don't know what you're destroying

TV On the Radio - Poppy

This is a beautifully stupid song with backing vocals that will be on repeat in the back of your head for the rest of the day..

We are not some rutting pair of wild boars
We're just psyched so psyched
So psyched so fucking psyched
That's what the geese are all roaring about
That's what their hearts were all open about

Deafheaven - Luna

Who would've thought one of the most beautiful albums of the year was going to be a metal epos?