Peace until voice

That moment when you realize you're staring off into the distance and have been for some time, but you've become so definitively at peace that you don't want to remember the before or consider the after. That is until about 5:10, when those evil voices slowly intrude and start melting your face.

Michael Hoenig — Voices Of Where

Lou-sing it

Seems there's no sunny day that Lou Reed can't cloudy up. The original avatar of rock n' roll damage has been historically hit-or-miss in his post-Velvets work, but oftentimes, his misses are the most entertaining. I'm not sure which category this tune falls in, coming as it does from the self-loathing/alcoholism-fueled phase of his career. Which makes it doubly entertaining.

Lou Reed - I Wanna Be Black (live)

Moving and not moving

More instrumental evocativeness. Conrad Schnitzler had his hand in a bunch of krautrock cookie jars, though was never a luminary in his own right. (In a just world, he'd be a tycoon of a pretzel company.)

I love this piece, but it seems mistitled. Far from static, it sounds like anticipatory preparations for some Big Event. Good for tightening ties and setting headbands. Or both, preferably.

Conrad Schnitzler - Ballet Statique

The language of cop shows

Moving from fantastical realms to the real world of tight pants and hot pavement, we look to some guys who clearly had their fingers on the pulse of their day. But then, a listener of yesterday's post now has me wondering if it's really so easy to distinguish between the escape and reality (strokes imaginary beard). At least, ridiculous taste in album cover art is common to both worlds.

Rhythm Heritage - Language Of Love

I need excitement, oh I need it bad

John Peel famously said that "Teenage Kicks" was his favorite song of all time. Can't argue with the tastes of a legend. And it's right up there for me too. When your aim is this true, it's hard to call it anything but perfection. Pure rock n' roll, topped off with a rare consciousness that these kicks desperately being craved are the special domain of the teenage animal.

The Undertones - Teenage Kicks

Also, a great song sounds great in any language. Including broken English.

Nouvelle Vague - Teenage Kicks

Pouring magma in the collection plate

If all you know about Magma is their sci-fi concept multi-albums about the end of the world (and an alien planet, natch) sung in an invented language (Kobaian) that mixes bombastic choral styles with knee-slappingly excessive symphonic prog rock and jazz fusion, well then you know too much about Magma. And if none of that is news to you, you may enjoy their bizarre foray into gospel sounds, which happily does not jettison the Kobaian lingo.

Also, yes, that cover art grotesquerie is the work of HR Giger, who knows a little something about nightmare aliens.

Magma - Spiritual

Bad touching

Listening to The Cars' debut album is like flipping through a photo album of a genetically engineered family. Pop-wise, everything is aligned for perfection. Except this black sheep. Maybe it was a bone thrown to the art schoolers in their audience. I can't help but hear the chorus as a warning.

The Cars - I'm In Touch With Your World

Sleazy does it

From the sublime to...the Stranglers! These guys were so underrated, especially their humor. This track is actually more weird than sleazy. Punk feel with Boston-sized organ break. It also features what is now one of my favorite synth solos. The kind that reminds you how much the instrument is just asking to be used for nastier purposes.

The Stranglers - Nice n' Sleazy

Agriturismo bound

Yikes, trying to get everything in order pre-vacation = a short week and not much of a segue. OK, well, here's another band with numbers in its name. That's all I got. Actually, this one suits the mindstate I'm aiming for. Something far from these frantic, nervy days. Typical of 10cc, the lyrics are far less vacation-y than the music would suggest (don't want to think of telephone lines as lifelines). That said, I'm off to rural Italia! The plan is to be back on decks on 6/14. See you then.

10cc - Lifeline

Sometimes I forget that we're supposed to be in love

I like Magazine because they're one of those bands where you can really hear the transition from punk to postpunk. Howard Devoto split from the Buzzcocks for the usual reasons having to do with ambition and outgrowing forms that limit. He started Magazine because bleak music has exciting possibilities, and also because synthesizers are fun. I know certain bands tend to suck the air out of the discussion, and though Magazine is rightfully not as celebrated as the Joy Divisions of the world, their debut Real Life is still pretty dynamite.

This is one the least rock n' roll-ish numbers on it, and it nails the artful chilliness of that whole aesthetic. The lyrics especially show an impressive leap from songs like "Ever Fallen In Love" that are hard to sing into your 30s. Rainy day saxophones, meanwhile, never get old.

Magazine - Parade

Angel of death

Uh, not at all. In fact, in the midst of Passover, I think some completely secular Israeli pop is in order. Apparently, this tune (and all of Gazoz's stuff) is lyrical nonsense. Smart decision when you've a sweet little groove like this. This would easily go on my mixtape for washing dishes at my imaginary kibbutz.

Gazoz - Tsipi Primo

Soft waves for Japan

Jesus, can beleaguered Japan please get a break! Seriously, I'm talking to you, Jesus. A 7.1 aftershock, really? Surely some other nation can step and take their share of the misery. The world sure is cruel, and that's even before people get involved. Songblague's humble response is to send out some mellow musical waves that will hopefully make their way eastward.

Yoshiaki Masuo - Sailing Wonder

Double exposure

OK, here's one that's so nice, I'm gonna give it to you twice. Sorta. So Gabriel and Fripp played on each other's solo albums around the same time and decided to each take a turn at this song. If you can really call it a song. It's more like a riff and an attitude. Or an attempt at attitude. Which is maybe why I like it so much—2 overeducated English prog vets trying to be all 1978 New York dance-gritty. It's an awkward fit and its success and failure are equally endearing.

Of course, there's also the dork appeal. All the instruments are playing in different times. Hear it? Drums in straight 4/4, bass in a slinky 5/4, rhythm guitar in 3/4 but with self-effacement worthy of James Brown. And how about that bass. Tony Levin sounds like he's trying to rip the strings clean off. And of course, those heavenly Frippertronics fluttering around.

I like Gabriel's decision to make it lumber, with the bass all big and a slight delay in the snare as it whaps across the stereo field. And it's cool to hear him all out of his comfort zone with the speak-singing. Then he builds up to a shrieking that captures a depravity he's rarely equaled.

Peter Gabriel - Exposure

Interesting to hear how Fripp plays it. In a sense it's none too surprising—an academic exercise in letting Eno speak slowly while his guru gets some prime audio real estate with a sentiment that seems way less profound than it was meant to. Luckily, he's got that howling lady to steal the spotlight. With the rhythm section set deeper back, the tension rises. You get the sense of a bunch of elements that don't really fit together and seem to anxiously co-inhabit space. Maybe this was the 1978 feel they were looking for.

Robert Fripp - Exposure

H2O2

Hydrogen peroxide? Or day 2 of Hall & Oates's Songblague domination? Well, this is some bleachy soul. But soul nonetheless. Forgive the double dose. 2 reasons why it's gotta be this way - I'm listening to nothing else right now and, having logged 72 work hours last week plus an intense day yesterday, I'm too fried to go too far from the audio comfort zone of the moment.

No apologies are needed really. This jam's got it going on. It comes from just before they set up camp in the Top 10. For those who doubt Hall's vocal prowess, just listen to those flourishes. And for those who harbor suspicions about unspoken amorousness within the H&O camp, I'd say the vocal/guitar call and response at the end will surely fan those flames. Good on Oates for the tasty guitarness. It probably gave someone a nasty infection.

Hall & Oates - Have I Been Away Too Long

Days

More music for reflection. This one always seemed to make more sense in the summer haze, but it's also appropriate for stepping back and taking a good look at yourself. How your days are filled or not filled or should be filled. They pile up, and getting older, you're faced with the tyranny of habit. Watching your accumulated patterns play out, the days in front threaten to run their course without even rocking the boat.

Television - Days

Saturday night captains

I went to see a screening of the Yacht Rock web series at the Bell House on Saturday. I am not ashamed to admit that I remain oddly and totally into the stuff that gets collected under that inspired moniker (misleading as it often is). So it was cool that Ambrosia was also on the bill, celebrating their 40th anniversary, though a quick look at their discography suggests that they've been laying low for about the last 25 of them. Hipsters were out in abundance, dressed in floral Caribbean shirts and captain hats. But about 2 songs into Ambrosia's set, it was clear that this was to be no festival of Loggins/Messina beardiness.

They're the kind of band that no one really remembers (myself included), but whose music will have gotten into the ears of anyone who's spent quality time in waiting rooms. Old farts or not, they brought the goods—progging it up and then smoothing it out with heavenly harmonies that sounded like a chorus of Michael McDonalds hiding backstage. They knew their audience's game but were jaunty enough to elide the "so uncool it's cool" paradigm that the venue suggested. They just worked it like smiling pros. Shit was tight, and joyous love was everywhere. I think I got some of it on me.

Here's a jam that inches a little onto Steely Dan's turf. Which is no crime in Songblague's legal code.

Ambrosia - If Heaven Could Find Me

This is not a new year

Alright 2010. The year we make contact. Start of the 'tweens. No looking back. Not even to grab the fedora from under the rapidly closing vertical door. The boulder is coming. What to do?

Onward! Lydon and the boys didn't have too much time for nostalgia either, even if early PIL sounded a lot like the Sex Pistols, but with a better bass player. I'm not suggesting that this should be the year of sneering cynicism. But sneering is OK, as long as it garnishes constructive acts. Like the man said, you have to incorporate if you want ownership over yourself. I sorta prefer discorporating, but that's just me.

Public Image Ltd - Public Image

Let me jump and shout, alright!

Brilliant power pop doesn't need much by way of commentary. Which is good, because my synapses are quite fried. And not even from drugs. These guys sound pretty hopped up though. They're practically tearing through the tape. OK, enough out of me.

20/20 - Giving It All

The plane slowly crashing

This track comes from the Yesterday's Future files. Vivid images come to mind. The long arc of an airplane soaring and crashing. Robots in the cockpit. The geometry of the runway about to be ruined. You can debate what kind of future would be soundtracked by coldly seductive electro-rock with equally icy German women on vox, but I think we can all agree that it'd be a world worth spending some time in. Like 4 and a half minutes or so. Which is just what we've got here.

Gina X Performance - Nice Mover

Don't leave home without it

I take a long time getting ready before leaving the house. It's usually a frantic, non-linear process of small tasks that overlap in ways that facilitate strange injuries. But it's not the running around that draws things out. It's finding the right music to soundtrack it. More than a few times, I've baffled friends by searching for the perfect shoe-tying song. Is it really so strange? Isn't it worth taking a minute to get yourself in the right headspace before subjecting yourself to the whims of the world? Why waste an opportunity to set the tone?

Here's a killer cut that'll have you bounding out the door like a man looking for some hot trouble.

Zebra Crossing - We're Going Places