Category: track of the day

Pinback – Tripoli

Tripoli was the second single off Pinback’s self-titled Pinback, which was also released with the equally descriptive title This Is A Pinback CD. The one thing that you do glean from the alternative title is that this indie tune came out at a time when “a CD” was the primary unit of commercially released music: 1999. It was released on Ace Fu Records, who put out a number of indie releases in mid- and early-aughts. Though Ace Fu is probably better known for releasing material by Man Man and Annuals, for me they’ll be remembered for putting out a CD called What The Hell Do I know?, which I bought on a whim at Indy CD and Vinyl in Indianapolis and proceeded to wear out throughout my adolescence. Anyway, enough with the personal revelations.

Pinback is primarily a collaboration between San Diego multi-instrumentalists Armistead Burwell Smith IV and Rob Crow, who have collaborated with many different artists since their debut in 1999. Both have also had a number of side projects over the years, and while I’m sure that Mr. Smith’s projects are good, he could learn a thing or too from Rob Crow in terms of titles. Crow preforms as Lord Phallus with a metal band called Goblin Cock, has a grindcore project called Anal Trump, and released an album of indie rock material more in the vein of Pinback called You’re Doomed. Be Nice under the name Rob Crow’s Gloomy Place. Leave some names for the rest of us, buddy! Though both men have moved on to other projects, Temporary Residence LTD is re-issuing some material from EPs that Pinback released around 2003 under the name Some Offcell Voices. In addition to the vinyl and CD releases from the label, it is also available on Bandcamp.

Electrelane – Oh Sombra!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqzzWxmQW3g

You might not guess it from the humble design, but this blog is but a small corner of a massive data accumulation and analysis system. A dedicated team of scientists, programmers, and physicists are hard at work using mountains of data to answer the most pressing question in music: what is the best year for music in the 21st century? After months of data cleaning and analysis, our team is pleased to announce our answer: 2004. This result is especially surprising because the team’s research was in no way influenced by the fact that this blog’s hyper-successful founder was a teen in 2004. Here’s a sampling of the releases from that year in no particular order:

  • Modest Mouse – Good News for People Who Love Bad News
  • Scissor Sisters – Scissor Sisters
  • Kanye West – College Dropout
  • Animal Collective – Sung Tongs
  • The Killers – Hot Fuss (come fight me about this)
  • Iron & Wine – Our Endless Numbered Days (I’ll fight about this too)
  • Arcade Fire – Funeral
  • Usher – Confessions
  • Petey Pablo – Freek a Leek
  • Ruben Studdard – Sorry 2004

I didn’t know about Electrelane until recently, but when I looked up when The Power Out was released I was not surprised to learn of yet another good album from 2004. The Power Out was the group’s second full length release, and was produced with help from producer Steve Albini. While their first album was primarily instrumental, The Power Out introduced vocals in three different languages, making use of a 16th century Spanish sonnet for the lyrics to Oh Sombra!. The group released two more albums, also on Too Pure, before going on permanent hiatus in 2007.

Tracks of the Day Playlist

In case people like the music but don’t want to comb through all the pages, I’ve made a Spotify playlist with all the Tracks of the Day I’ve done so far. I’ll add more as I go, and there were some things that weren’t available on Spotify yet. If time allows I’ll make a YouTube playlist as well because I know not everybody uses Spotify. If that happens I’ll add it to this post as well. Enjoy!

Sandro Perri – Wolfman

When I think about what I was listening to in 2011 instead of this album by Sandro Perri, it’s hard not to shudder a little bit. I may be late to the party, but I’ll be damned if I be quiet about it now that I’ve found it. Wolfman comes courtesy of Toronto multi-instrumentalist Sandro Perri, who had been a local favorite for years. In notes which accompanied the release over at Constellation, music curator Ronen Givony sums up the feeling and Perri’s unique sonic palette:

Sandro is the true best exemplar of that unique intersection that characterizes the city’s omnivorous musical scene: partly improvised, partly composed, and roughly equal parts acoustic, electronic, melodic, noisy, rock, jazz, folk, classical, psychedelic, and experimental.

Wolfman comes off 2011’s Impossible Spaces, which is the last release I could track down for Perri, not including a few singles comprising remixes done by other artists. Before he had released anything of his own, he played lap steel in Great Lake Swimmers. In addition to his own work, he’s racked up quite a few production credits on the technical side of things. Though it’s unclear when another Sandro Perri record will be released, he is a member of a group called Off World that released an album last year, also on Constellation. Another fun bit of trivia: the cellist on Wolfman, Mike Olsen, also appears on Arcade Fire’s breakout album Funerals.

Butterfly Bones – ur hott

Following the demise of a certain beacon of hope, freedom, and all other things good in this world private torrent tracker I decided to reactivate my Spotify account. In much the same way one unearths a time capsule, I found a number of playlists that had been synced to an old computer and unearthed this gem. Released in 2009, this is one of those songs that seems like it should have been way bigger given how popular this sort of synth-heavy dance music was at the time. It comes off an EP called Pretty Feelings, the only release I could find for the group. Their Twitter account has been dormant since 2010, but it seems they opened for STRFKR and were DJing mostly around the Bay Area before slipping into the internet ether. Songs like this remind me of how much stuff I’d probably really love is just sitting out there waiting for me to put it in my earholes. I made a playlist of other songs that I discovered excavating those old playlists that I’ve linked to below.

The Free Design – Kites Are Fun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPaAb3F_d6M

Though this sounds like it was commissioned by an advertising agency on behalf of Big Kite, it is actually the title track from the debut of a 1960s family band. The work of the Dedrick siblings went largely unnoticed until it found a cult following decades later thanks to attention from artists like Cornelius and Pizzicato Five and others in Japan’s Shibuya-kei scene. The Free Design released eight albums with Project 3 before disbanding in 1972, with Kites Are Fun remaining their only appearance on pop charts. In the mid-70s they formed the core of the Star-Scape Singers, a vocal ensemble assembled by New Age Renaissance man Kenneth G. Mills. Mills is a fascinating character at the heart of the New Age movements of the mid-20th century. After a transcendental experience that convinced him he had a duty to speak “the Word” again, he agreed to speak to his inner experiences and spiritual feelings but only if others sought him out to do so. He described his speaking as

an impromptu performance under the impelling of divine ideas. It is a projection from another dimension or plane of consciousness, causing those prepared to hear to awaken to the higher or greater possibilities of living beyond the limits of three dimensions and translating what seems to be the ordinary into another level of consideration

You can hear/see the Star-Scape singers perform one of Mills’ original compositions here, which he composed in the hopes of being a song that the whole world could sing together to unify all people. Kites Are Fun was reissued by Corenlius’ label Trattoria in 1994 and then by Light in the Attic.

If this doesn’t appear in a Wes Anderson movie at some point I’ll be shocked.

Kikagaku Moyo – Old Snow, White Sun

Kikagaku Moyo formed in 2011 as a psychedelic free music project by Go Kurosawa and Tomo Katsurada in Tokyo, and while their emphasis on improvisation means performances can shift from night to night, I’d bet they get to some serious zones. They just released their fourth album House in the Tall Grass on their label Gurguru Brain. They launched the label both as an outlet for their own music and as a way to spotlight Asian underground music. A compilation called Guruguru Brain Wash gives a sampling of their label’s output and it is solid as well. To keep up with their hijinks, follow them on Facebook and Tumblr. The group just finished a US tour on election day and then headed back to Japan, escaping just in the nick of time. This feels like a riff on some of the new age material coming out of Germany in the mid 80s, specifically Popol Vuh’s Spirit of Peace. In these tense and uncertain times, it’s hard not to envy somebody with a sitar.

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Image credit: Facebook

Scuba Z – The Vanishing American Family

This song may sound familiar to anybody who has watched Adam Curtis’ latest film HyperNormalisation, and its hardly the only great tune in the soundtrack. You can find a playlist of the full soundtrack on Youtube and Spotify. The Vanishing American Family is the title track from Scuba Z’s only full length release from 2001, though they put out a number of singles and EPs around the turn of the millennium on Odd Records, their own imprint. Though I couldn’t find much information about these guys, it seems they were based out of the UK, which would fit it nicely within the storied British tradition of breakbeat music, right up there with colonial counter-insurgency, bad teeth, and cultural chauvinism. I suppose compared with many of the fashion trends of the time they deserve some credit because this holds up a lot better than the fashion of the period does.

The 28th Annual American Music Awards
Truly timeless

Jeremy Harris – Double Fidelity

Ages is the latest in the Echomancy II series from Gnome Life Records. The term echomancy is defined as “divination through music,” and even if I can’t be sure what spell Harris is conjuring here I certainly know that it has worked on me. As far as I can tell this is the first release from Harris, hopefully the first of many to come. This track was constructed using a multi-synth setup and field recordings fed through a series of delays and tape loops, though the sparse technical set up really belies the magic in this release. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact it combines was recordings done during both the vernal and autumnal equinox. Even though I had not tracked Gnome Life before coming across this release, I shouldn’t be surprised that they put out a top notch release like this considering they’ve re-issued a number of Robbie Basho records in the last couple years. As they mention in the write-up for this record, New Age can be thought of as a form of American folk music, even if it doesn’t sound anything like Pete Seeger or Leadbelly or even Robbie Basho. It’s hard for me to put my finger on how, but this type of music seems to amplify an American tradition of transcendental thought in a world consumed by cold electricity and Big Data detachment. Using complicated technical setups to achieve a sound that is so warm and inviting is no small task, and when executed this well it is difficult not to be caught dreaming of an electric City on a Hill.

Lukas Read – My Red Dog

My Red Dog appears on Lukas Read’s debut self-released record Ramble Man, Ramble, which he put out in late 2013. After releasing one more EP on his own, Read just put out another record Neo Age with the German label Dying for Bad Music. Though his latest release is all instrumental fingerstyle guitar and experimentation with effects, his first record is a nice blend of instrumental guitar and original singer-songwriter material. You can check out a video for the title track of Neo Age here. I knew that I was going to like this album as soon as I saw there was a tribute medley to John Fahey’s Poor Boys Long Way From Home, which is one of my favorite Fahey tunes. You can find his EP over at Bandcamp and purchase a limited edition CD from Dying for Bad Music here.