The Lacking Permanence

Electronic music seems to trend towards extremes of ambience, rhythm, or noise, but there is a place of balance where textures and beats combine aggressively into what can only be called a rock barrage.

I am generally skeptical and disrespectful of band names with special capitalization, but IDLES look and sound like they mean business.

It’s difficult to explain why this sort of aggressive guitar-forward post-punk sound feels so much more anthemic when it comes from the UK, but the effect is certainly there.

I don’t know why I want to call this sound “California country”, when it’s not from California nor is it truly country, but its twangy aroma and psychedelic coloring are probably a big reason why.

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.

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.

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.

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.