Oh Sees :: Protean Threat
The name of this band may change every few years, but the implacable drone is unmistakable, like a heavy, doomed Ramones with a penchant for occasional celestial excursions.
The name of this band may change every few years, but the implacable drone is unmistakable, like a heavy, doomed Ramones with a penchant for occasional celestial excursions.
If you got The Nude Party to perform at your next get-together, it would be the kind of shindig that produces two marriages, three break-ups, and gossip for years to come.
When Rob Crow gets to anthologize the songs he wants to cover into an album, the results are disparate, insightful, and educational, ranging from King Crimson to the Melvins to the Beach Boys.
There is something familiar yet quite subversive in the way Sneaks assembles their synthetic layers and stream-of-consciousness vocalizations into a collage of desperate modern living.
The Shilin Night Market had seemed to grow even more chaotic in the intervening years, yet the vendors and customers still retained their preternatural calm, as if the events happening all around them were due to forces completely out of their control. As the skeptic checked the status lights on the Stinky Tofu Containment Device for the seventh time that mission, the inspector pinged the jetpacks they had secured under a table of bejeweled phone cases to make sure they were primed for a quick getaway. Their progress came to a sudden halt as they considered the sign before them: “Small Sausage In Large Sausage - $120”
A new collection of covers from Yo La Tengo is not unusual, but their frequency does allow for some measurement of the band’s current mood, and the songs are always trailheads for musical exploration.
There are many two-genre combos that will fit on Blitzen Trapper like a tailored suit, but my current favorite is “country psychedelia”.
Spooky and unhinged, this single plods along with the menacing tone you might expect from the title. The flip side is more interesting, with call-and-response vocals, a bad attitude, and a woozy organ.
Kurt Vile’s surgical lyrics and out-there guitar playing overshadow the fact that he is a bona-fide troubadour, a distinctive voice and presence that hangs out in your head and strums out their weird tunes from an armchair in the corner.
Posthumous releases are always a tricky proposition, but Sharon Jones was a talent literally larger than life, and the combination of her of deep rich voice slathered over the funky Dap Kings has yet to fail.