Tag: Thomas Function

It’s time to take perspective on our hyper-technologized society, through the audio lens of song.

DJ Shadow, master of spin and finesse of fader, hits hard and in the nick of time.

Let’s face it, we’re going to be hearing tracks from The Bug Club for a couple months, since I keep finding gems strewn loosely about their most recent album. Lots of listeners checked in for this show, my apologies to those that checked out during the elevator hellride at the beginning of the show. Technical issues, we’re working on them.

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.

Sure, we’ve all heard of the Eiffel Tower, but what do we know about the architect whose name it bears? April March breaks it all down on this version of the Pixies’ song. Also in this show, a special-delivery track from Planets in the Ocean, a new project from one of my favorite vocalists, Robb Benson.

Deep-fried riffs, some well-placed cowbell, and guitars up front in the spotlight make for a heaping slab of that delicious Southern Boogie. There’s not a whole lot of new going on here, but it sure is ready to party.

This is MACHINE SHOP, a special one-hour mixtape from yours truly featuring songs about all the weird devices we humans have imagined and constructed out of musical parts. I’m closing it out with the Smugglers’ “She’s A Machine,” which inspired me to put this together when a search for it revealed all sorts of inexplicable gadgetry lurking in my library.

It must be heartbreaking to be a slapdash concoction of musical genius… in Alabama. The Sex Clark Five were done and gone by the time the world really took notice, but we can still enjoy the limited artifacts they left behind.

It’s a hard turn to the left from Mexican funk pop to electronic soundscapes, but Sara Valenzuela has made the transition well.