It’s been a while again but welcome back, my friends, to the show that stumble and mumbles along in fits and starts.
After a couple of weeks without being able to really access music of my choosing or new music this month I’ve spent the last week or so making up for lost time, positively abusing my ears like a conservative politician abuses the truth.
Here’s a few choice picks from what’s been penetrating my aural orifices since I hit land:
Bleach Lab – Nothing Left To Lose
Sitting in the ‘good new shit’ playlist is the latest from Bleach Lab (not to be confused with Beach House) – a band I’ve been enjoying each new tune from lately to the point that I anticipate a strong album from them shortly. Plenty of obvious touch points in the music but not to the point of being derivative – if Hole had gone shoe-gaze and chime instead of angst and bitch perhaps.
De Le Soul – Eye Know
3 Feet High and Rising was one of those albums that had become almost mythical and hard to get your mitts on until this year thanks to its uncleared samples causing legal headaches. Having it in the wild now is great as it means that – after we saw Seth Rogen’s ‘TMNT: Mutant Mayhem’ (absolutely brilliant, btw) last week – I can dial up ‘Eye Know’ on Spotify along with Tribe Called Quest and other tracks featured on its soundtrack for the cub to get into too.
The Big Moon – Wide Eyes
Another from the ‘new’ file.. well, it’s from last year’s Here Is Everything that I saw all over the year in ‘best album’ playlists but somehow failed to pay attention to until I started hearing this track on the radio recently.
The Replacements – Left of the Dial (Ed Stasium Mix)
I’ll be swinging back (like a swinging party) to the subject of The Replacements’ revisionist packages soon on this blog but this one has been getting a lot of ear time lately. While The Replacements were often their own biggest hurdle on the road to success, their choice of produce was probably just as big a factor and it seems that they’re out to fix some of the damage.
Their major label debut Tim contains some of their best songs but the production was shite. Originally recorded by Thomas Erdelyi. Unfortunately, Thomas’ ears were shot – no surprise really when you consider he’s usually known as Tommy Ramone, the original drummer for The Ramones. So he listened back to everything and mixed it using headphones which can really only result in album that sounds like it was mixed on headphones. The new Tim: The Let It Bleed Version features, along with the requisite dump of unreleased stuff, a new mix of the album by Ed Stasium. Given how much stronger ‘Left of the Dial’ sounds I’m looking forward to this one.
Hüsker Dü – Don’t Want To Know If You Are Lonely
Another of those bands I’d heard of but never really tuned in for – and a fitting tune to follow The Replacements – this one sits in the midst of side one on a compilation album I was recently given and provided just the nudge I needed to delve deeper into this Minnesota band’s back catalogue.