Mixtape 221 • Top Brass
Is there anything Matt Berry can’t do and do well?
Is there anything Matt Berry can’t do and do well?
There’s a whole new album from Wreckless Eric, a whole album, but tonight’s selection resonates for the simple fact that this is the third reference to the radium girls I’ve heard this week, all from very different sources. As we say around these parts, it’s a real plate ‘o shrimp. Also worth noting tonight is n-th track from the Bug Club’s Rare Birds album, which has so many good songs on it you’ll be hearing from them for months to come, and that’s even with not playing the ones with bad words.
It’s been a while since something has made me sit down and listen like the North Americans’ steel-string ambient flow.
I haven’t decided if Bully is a great name or a terrible name, but it certainly fits their melodic bludgeoning.
“You missed the white crocodile,” the chipa vendor told them. The mycologist and the munitions expert gave the expected sounds of disappointment, the same as any tourist drawn to Paraguay’s Ojo de Mar would. One of them spread a blanket by the lake side while the other one got busy with entering the passcodes and unlatching the efficient-looking metal case they had extracted from the moped. Opening it once the blanket was ready, they began taking out the 3D-printed pieces from the foam molding with quick, efficient movements as the Easy Star All-Stars blared out a David Bowie song from the vendor’s portable radio.
I always admired The Hold Steady’s narrative approach to songwriting, but I didn’t imagine it could be applied to this particular Western Colorado town, and tonight’s opening track clearly shows my lack of imagination. Elsewhere tonight, I’m happy to bring you new music from The No Ones, featuring the unmistakable holler of one Scott McCaughey of the Young Fresh Fellows, R.E.M., The Baseball Project, and so much more.
The new album from Jen Cloher is magnificent, and when her Twitter account favorited the playlist entry for the lead track tonight, I near swooned. I recommend you listen to I Am The River, The River Is Me from start to finish, and enjoy something you’ll be doing for years to come for the first time. In other news, our recently adopted cat Princess Otoboke Beaver (aka Pris) gave birth to four healthy kittens on St. Patrick’s day — Ziggy, Stardust, Spider, and Mars.