The Lacking Permanence

The three-piece punchy pop formula should be familiar to everyone by now, but the sounds of Bad Bad Hats are an elegant proof of their own.

Like pre-teens throwing every liquid into the kitchen blender and daring each other to drink the results, Woody and Jeremy fuse all manner of sounds legitimate and profane into some murky concoction that tastes surprisingly good.

If The Wedding Present were the traditional sort, they would be bringing coral to the festivities. This one is from earlier in their career, closer to the wood years, but the Velvet Underground never goes out of style. This is from another good VU tribute album, Heaven and Hell from 1991 or so.

Get ready for some uncomfortable oversharing, set to the tune of early grunge, with an occasional jazz or doo-wop idiom thrown in… it’s a bit of uneasy listening but it gets its hooks into you.

In this sterile brushed steel and gleaming plastic environment, underneath the tangles of tubing and wires and chirping electronic devices operating at their own rhythms, below the readouts and blinking lights, beats a mighty analog heart.

On background listening, it’s a charming bedroom pop masterpiece filled with enticing musical details and catchy melodies. If you pay attention though, you’ll notice the lyrics transcend sarcasm and irony and go straight to sardonic, a rare treat.

I am convinced that today’s Canada is much better at this jangly indie pop thing than the US ever was at the height of alternative music. This Toronto outfit will pull you out of your deep American misery faster than any prescription medication.

For a quarter century, Deerhoof have been a benchmark for the contrasting dynamics of sweet and sour, spiked and pillowy, and all manner of sounds that should not get along but quite obviously do.

The best dub music happens when the flow and repetition, the interlocking arrangements, and the roots-heavy vocals all work together to make the time dimension an immeasurable elastic abstraction.