Uzeda : Surrounded

Uzeda is a heavy proggish rock band, along the lines of Helmet, Dazzling Killmen or Jesus Lizard.  Some call it 'math rock' which is probably appropriate, as it's concerned with rhythms, particularly non-standard ones.  Some call it 'post rock' which totally doesn't make sense, because that implies that they aren't rock, which implies that they don't rock, which makes no sense at all, because they totally fucking rock.  So, yeah, that's stupid.

Formed in 1987, Uzeda hails from Sicily (yes, in Italy).  The band is fronted by a nondescript Italian woman, Giovanna Cacciola, who screams the lyrics in slightly broken English.  Their music is loud, coarse, angular, with a great sense of dynamics and a mastery of tension and release.  It's nearly atonal, but it still completely rocks.

They released a Steve Albini-produced EP in 1995 on the excellent Touch & Go label that is four songs and ten short minutes of awesome.  I almost chose a song called "Sleep Deeper", mostly because with Giovanna's accent, it sounds like she's shouting about a "Sleepy Bird", but I went instead with the lead song, "Surrounded".  The song starts with a stutter, introducing its circular riff interlaced with open vocals.  Then the band goes at it in earnest, hammering away on the riff until it can barely take the weight anymore.  Listen for the break where they drop to a completely different, far thinner guitar sound for a few measures of respite, before launching back into the full-fledge frontal assault.  It's a vicious pounding of a song. Play it loud.

"Surrounded" comes from Uzeda's 1995 EP, 4.  I also have Stella, their most recent release (2006) after
a lengthy hiatus, but it's not nearly as good.  There are a couple of good songs, but they tend to drag on (none of the songs on 4 are over three minutes), and they lose their impetus and forget to rock.  I haven't heard any of their other stuff.

[You can listen to Uzeda's "Surrounded" by navigating to the post "Song065" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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Scott Johnson : John Somebody, part 1

"You know who's in New York?  Remember that guy... J- John somebody?"  Ahhh, a sentence that is, quite literally thanks to Scott Johnson, music to my ears.  I first ran across this record in the hallowed halls of WRUW-FM Cleveland where I did an electro-acoustic and experimental radio show for seven years or so.  John Somebody, on Nonesuch Records I think, was a staple of that show.  I actually own the LP.

The entire piece is based around speech samples.  Scott takes a tiny bit of speech, or maybe a laugh or an "uh", and loops and splices it.  Then he builds a piece from the natural rhythms and tonal qualities occurring in the speech, and plays counterpoint against it, primarily with electric guitar, but there's some horns on the record as well.

It's an impressive piece of work, really well done.  But the other thing to remember was that this was created in 1982, well before the introduction of the sampler into the common musical vernacular.  That means this entire piece was done with tape.  Yeah, that means he sat there in the recording studio with a razor blade, a reel-to-reel and bits of scotch tape and built this entire thing by repeatedly bouncing the samples from tape to tape, cutting and splicing at exactly the right place, and overdubbing like a madman.

Today, we'd use a sampler, and it'd still be an awesome piece.  But to pull this off back then was beyond astounding, into the realm of the unthinkable.  The sheer amount of dedication and work to bring it about is just unfathomable.

The greatest thing about it is, the average person can enjoy to it.  It's not some extreme, wacked out, cold, classical-based electro-acoustic piece.  It's very jazzy, a little funky, almost poppy, and extraordinarily listenable.  If he had thrown some drums under it and managed to put a video together for MTV, I bet he would have had a top 40 hit, it's that accessible.  Well, I listen to some fucked up things, so maybe I'm not a great barometer for what's accessible, but I'm telling you, you could play this for your mom and she'd probably dig it.

The full piece, which is really more a suite of studies than one continuous piece, is nearly 30 minutes long.  I'm only giving you 'Part 1', which is how it's tracked on the CD.  The original John Somebody LP was released in 1982, but in 2004, Tzadik released a new remastered version on CD which includes two other pieces that are just as great.  Enjoy!

[You can listen to Scott Johnson's "John Somebody, pt. 1" by navigating to the post "Song064" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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Calin with Fantastic Plastic Machine : Samba de Minha Namoradinha

Fantastic Plastic Machine is the stage name for Tomoyuki Tanaka, a Japanese musician and DJ, who put together a series of critically acclaimed albums in the late 90's and early 2000's. He is one of the progenitors of the Shibuya-kei movement, which is sort of an electronic take on easy listening.

I believe Calin is the singer, but I could find nothing about her.

The tune kicks off with a scat on a jumpy little melody. It sounds very circular, but it's very groovy, and it reappears a few times throughout the song, which is good, because it's fun. There follows an organ-based jam over a samba beat percolating under some pretty, poppy Japanese lyrics. It's a light, fun little record, and is great to play in the car on a sunny day with your windows rolled down.

In the background you can hear a guy popping in with a quick, familiar-sounding 'mahna mahna'. That's a nod to a tune called 'Samba Mah Nà' from Piero Umiliani's soundtrack to Svezia, Inferno e Paradiso, which is itself a variation on Piero's classic, "Mah Nà Mah Nà". In case you were wondering.

This particular song comes from a compilation Shibuya-kei music, the awkwardly named Sushi 3003 from 1996.  It's full of other groovy, electropop gems and is a solid buy if you like this sort of thing.

[You can listen to Calin with Fantastic Plastic Machine's "Samba de Minha Namoradinha" by navigating to the post "Song063" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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D'Angelo : Untitled (How Does It Feel)

This song made a small dent in the pop charts in 2000. I can't remember if I ever even heard it on the radio though, as the version I have clocks in at a hefty seven minutes plus. Maybe I heard it on MTV, cuz I think he had that video where he's naked from the waist up, and his pants are very, very low. He might have even had to shave. If you know what I mean.

But, regardless of Michael's predilections for public exhibitionism, it doesn't change the fact that this is the best Prince song Prince never recorded. It's a slow burn of a soul song, dripping with raw emotion, a little funk and plain old sex. The vocals are sublime, expertly building pent-up desire into pure screaming animal lust. The lyrics start off simple, like a love song, but verge into Prince-style nastiness by the end of the song.

Another interesting item of note is the dead-stop right at the climax of the song. Maybe they realized it just couldn't get any better and they didn't want to spoil the built-up tension by offering any sort of denouement, or maybe it's meant to be symbolic of ... something.
In any case, it's a superb song, worthy of any late night make out session. I'd throw it in right after Barry White and right before "Between the Sheets" by the Isleys or maybe even "When Doves Cry". Yeah...

You can find D'Angelo's "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" on his 2000 release, Voodoo.

[You can listen to D'Angelo's "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" by navigating to the post "Song062" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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Los Campesinos! : Don't Tell Me to Do the Math(s)

I'm trying to decide if 2008 was a really great year for music, or if I was just paying more attention.  It's hard to say.  Regardless, here's another great band with a great release in 2008.

Los Campesinos! is a band from Wales that I think the hip kids would call 'indie'.  They remind of a more pop-oriented Mae Shi.  I know that doesn't mean much to you, as you've probably never heard of the Mae Shi (although if you'd been paying attention since January, you'd have read a little about them).  What I mean by this is, they're very noisy and have an overdriven sound, much like the Mae Shi, but they have a strong pop sensibility and aren't as interested as much in deconstructing the pop sound as celebrating it.

"Don't Tell Me to Do the Math(s)" is a joyous, rambunctious pop song with a great hook, driving guitars, a little violin, and goofy, overly literary lyrics that still manage to sound endearing rather than pretentious.  It's got a nice sense of dynamics and flow and is quite danceable, if you're a little adventurous.  Also, it doesn't rhyme, though I don't think you'd notice right away.

This song comes from their first official release, 2008's Hold On Now, Youngster....  The rest of the album is just as good, verging into more progressive and/or singer-songwriter territory, but staying true to their ensemble sound.

[You can listen to Los Campesinos! "Don't Tell Me to Do the Math(s)" by navigating to the post "Song061" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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Sparks : Here in Heaven

Sparks is a bizarre band, influenced by both Gilbert and Sullivan style operetta and the glam rock of Gary Glitter and Cheap Trick. The music is varied, expressive and soaring, while remaining firmly grounded in the rock oeuvre, and their wordplay is second-to-none, clever and ironic, with a terrific sense of rhythm.

"Here in Heaven" is a bombastic rocker with a sense of humor.  The song takes the form of a letter, or perhaps a monologue, from a jilted Romeo up in heaven to his Juliet, wondering what happened to her and why she's still down on Earth.  In the first verse, he describes heaven somewhat like one would describe a car dealership waiting room, where "there are lots of things to do" and "it's really very clean".  In the second, he straight up questions Juliet's intentions, wondering if she's had second thoughts and if he's "that sucker in the sky".  It's a great premise, and the lyrical execution is wry perfection, with the band providing the crunching power chords and heavy drums doing their best to anchor brother Russell's trademark soaring falsetto.

"Here in Heaven" is from Sparks' 1974 release, Kimono My House, which is 10 tracks (12 if you get the bonus tracks) of musical brilliance.  My old roommate played this record for me once, and I totally didn't get it.  Then, like pretty much everything else he played for me and I passed on, I later grew to love it.

[You can listen to Sparks' "Here in Heaven" by navigating to the post "Song060" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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Ben Folds Five : Mess

Back in 2000, I had been married for a few years, had four kids, was working for a stupid-ass contractor at an insurance company, and I just couldn't get it. The stress was high, my job sucked, my marriage was rocky and I was going through a bit of an early mid-life crisis. Worse, from the outside, it looked like everything was going right. It really wasn't that bad. Nobody died, no floods, fires or earthquakes. But it still felt crappy, and that brought extra confusion, guilt and stress. The stress of being stressed and depressed when you really have so much to be happy about.

I'm much better now. I understand my goals, I know who I am and know my direction. My marriage is fantastic, my kids are great, and I'm at a place where I'm truly comfortable with myself. You really can't ask for much more.

But back then, I felt like a bit of a mess.

There aren't many artists who really grab my heart strings. A lot of people expound the lyrical virtues of Springsteen and Dylan, but for me, the guy who grasps the middle-class white boy angst I was growing old with, the guy who ever came the closest to 'speaking to me' through music, was Ben Folds. Some how, he managed to grasp nail the turmoil I was going through at the time. There are a handful of songs of his, both with the "Five" and solo, that just open my heart and let the tears of joy and pain flow out.

I know that's pretty emo or whatever, but that's how it is.  What can you do?

"Mess" is a fantastic song, ostensibly about taking stock and accepting the mistakes you've made. But it's really about the hopelessness and futility of wallowing in your 'mess'. A mess is a point of view, a state of mind. Where you see a mess, I might see an opportunity, something that needs a little work.  But in the song the protagonist is not fixing the mess he's created.  He's not even considering that there might be something to fix.  He's decided somewhere along the way that it's a lost cause, and he's just learned to live with it.  Or so he pretends.  And that's just terrible.

I think the reason this song hit me so hard was that I felt like my mess was hopeless as well, that it was the inevitable result of the decisions I'd made and things that were out of my control.  I felt trapped in the mess I had made, and I used to turn it up and cry and cry on the way home from work.
 
Like I said, emo.  I'm much better now and while it doesn't strike me so close to home any longer, it's still a great song.

The song itself has a quiet urgency, mimicking the inescapable progress of time and fate that the singer is caught up in.  And Ben's calmly plaintive vocals carry just the right amount of despair and resignation, without being sappy or overbearing. You can hear the weariness in his voice especially clearly when it breaks while singing the lone word "again".

I've always thought "Mess" would be a great bluegrass song. They sing that sweet close harmony in the chorus and all that busy piano work could easily be picked up by banjo. And that "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town" shuffle beat could drop into a country two-step. It'd be great. Seriously.  Somebody do that.

You can find "Mess" on Ben Folds Five's 1999 release, The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner. There's a funny story about Reinhold Messner, but I'll let you read it on Wikipedia rather than retelling it here. The album is great, probably the best of the bunch from those guys, and I love them all.

[You can listen to Ben Folds Five's "Mess" by navigating to the post "Song059" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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Melvins : A History of Bad Men

I love the Melvins. They are one of my favorite bands, and, unlike many of my other favorite bands, they've managed to both stay together and release good quality material consistently for over twenty years.


While their older stuff is classic, the stuff from their newest phase, starting with 2002's Hostile Ambient Takeover on Ipecac, is just as awesome. Somewhere along the way, (2006, if Wikipedia is to be believed) they lost yet another bass player, but this time they drafted an entire band to replace him, pulling in the power sludge duo Big Business. This gave them the bass player they needed, but also gave them an extra drummer, for super-heaviness.

Having two drummers is awesome. If you've never seen a band with two drummers (I saw the Boredoms with two drummers once), you're missing out. There's this naturally occurring choreography between them that occurs automatically (since they're playing the same rhythms) that is just amazing to watch. Plus, the Melvins' second drummer is left-handed, so Dale and he can pull off a mirror image thing as well. They've even melded part of their kits. So sweet!

There are several great songs off this album, but I chose "A History of Bad Men" for a couple of reasons. First, they do speed-punk quite nicely, but I wanted something that showcased the slow churning heaviness that the Melvins are known for. Second, you can really hear the two drummers on the track. Third, you can really hear the Big Business influence, which is funny in a way, considering you can really hear the Melvins influence in Big Business. But the vocals, while clearly following the Melvins grunge lineage, draw from BB's soaring, metal-based style.

As usual, I can't make heads or tails of what Buzzo is singing. In an interview with him once, I asked him whether the lyrics they printed for "Hooch" in the Houdini booklet were a joke, and he said, no, they were the actual lyrics. He doesn't really write lyrics, per se, he just writes sounds. I think this has changed a little, as you can actually hear him say "I got a head start running away" and "Not dead, just sleeping" in the song. But it's still anyone's guess as to what he's talking about.

You can hear "A History of Bad Men" on the Melvins' 2006 release, their first with the Big Business boys, A Senile Animal. The album is excellent (as is their most recent, Nude with Boots) and straddles the full range of the band, completely delivering exactly what you expect from them, yet somehow continuing to progress their sound. Excellent.

[You can listen to the Melvins' "A History of Bad Men" by navigating to the post "Song058" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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Lassigue Bendthaus : Superbad (Soul Substitute)

Lassigue Bendthaus is one of the many many nom de plume's for Uwe Schmidt (also know as Atom Heart and Señor Coconut), a German musician who dabbles primarily in electronic music. In the mid-90's he developed his own software that performs "vocal simulation based on vocal resynthesis generated from original vocal raw material". So, what I take from that is, the software samples his vocals, chops them up, then reconstructs them, which introduces all sorts of interesting digital artifacts. It's along the lines of "glitch" music, where the digital edges and errors of electronics and samples, rather than being fixed or smoothed over, are embraced and used as the very source material for the piece. The vocals are chopped into tiny phonemes which are repeated and stretched providing a very robotic sound.

"Super Bad" is an early James Brown original, and as such is an extremely analog piece of hard funk. One of the cool things about Uwe's version is that, even though the song is completely reliant on digital technology, constructed completely in the realm of the electronic, from the programmed drums to the android vocals to the synthesized horns, he's managed to keep the organic funk of the original. Even with all the bleeps and bloops, it rocks, and though it doesn't have the sheer sweat-soaked fury of the original, it could easily wind up a dance floor.

The album, Pop Artificielle, consists of ten covers of a wide variety of musicians, from Donovan to Prince to ABC (which I almost posted instead), all done in this very digital vein. It's an excellent album and a fun listen.

[You can listen to Lassigue Bendthaus' "Superbad (Soul Substitute)" by navigating to the post "Song057" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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Funk Factory : Rien Ne Va Plus

I was first introduced to the Funk Factory via the Beastie Boys' "Car Thief" (from their 1989 opus Paul's Boutique) which was built almost entirely on top of samples from this jazz-funk masterpiece.

"Rien Ne Va Plus" is a slow burn of a funk song, scored with delicious analog synths, bass, chicken scratch guitar and rock drums.  The synthesizers bubble and flutter throughout the song, wrapping it in deep 70's shag, very P-Funk in it's sound.  The song is super-funky, nearly polyrhythmic, in that there are often multiple bass lines running at once.  The ensemble vocals draw a lot from the psychedelic soul bands, like Rotary Connection and the vocal lines are very jazzy, slightly angular, with almost progressive melodies.  But the real clincher is the excellent extended scat sections.  The first, sampled almost in its entirety by the Beasties, is performed by a heavily modified, almost vocodered voice and the second nearly verges on ecstatic screaming.

At first I thought "Rien ne va plus" was just some French thrown in for, you know, pretentious continental flair.  And, I guess it is, but it does have meaning within the song.  "Rien ne va plus" is what they say at a French (or more likely Moroccan) roulette table for "no more bets" (it literally translates as, I think, "Nothing goes anymore.").  The song is all about riding the lucky roulette wheel of love.  Or something.  It all ties together. Trust me.

"Rien Ne Va Plus" can be found on Funk Factory's 1975 self-titled sizzler.  It can also be found on the very nice four disc What It Is! Rhino funk sampler, which is pretty good.

[You can listen to Funk Factory's "Rien Ne Va Plus" by navigating to the post "Song056" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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