Sorry for the slow posting this week, but work has been a bit intense, and I’ve also had some
family matters to take care of, which have left me with very little blogging time. Hopefully things will
be a bit less insane next week. In the meantime, here’s a random bunch of weird music I’ve been listening to.
- The Mars Volta, “This Apparatus Must Be Unearthed”: the Mars Volta is a neo-progressive band I recently discovered. They’re on the dark and noisy side. The best description I can give is that they sound sort of like what you’d get if you mixed King Crimson and Dream Theater, and then fed them too much caffeine.
- Spock’s Beard, “Onomatapea”: a track from the first SB album after the original bandleader left. The album as a whole is kind of hit-or-miss; this song is one of the really good ones.
- John Corigliano, “Pianissimo Scherzo” from the Red Violin Concerto, performed by Joshua Bell: if you like semi-atonal modern classical music – which I do – this is simply spectacular; one of the finest new compositions I’ve heard in years, performed with elegance by one of the most amazing violinists in the world.
- Lunasa, “Mi Na Samhna”: a beautiful Uillean pipe-led traditional Irish lament.
- The Redneck Manifesto, “Who Knows?”: great post-rock in the same stylistic vein as Mogwai.
- Sonic Youth, “Titanium Expose”: Old Sonic Youth. Noisy, strange tonality, crazy guitar playing. Brilliant.
- Elizabeth and the Catapult, “Waiting for the Kill”: a song by a NYC band. I’m not sure how
to classify; jazzy folk-rock maybe? They’re a great band. - Rush, “Malignant Narcissism”: great instrumental track by Rush.
- Porcupine Tree, “Fear of a Blank Planet”: the title track from Porcupine Tree’s brilliant latest album. If you like neo-progressive rock at all, this album is a must-have.
- A Silver Mt. Zion, “Goodbye Desolate Railyard”: a track off of another Silver Mt. Zion album that I just got. The album is “This is our punk-rock, thee rusted satellites gather+sing”. It’s my favorite of the ASMZ albums that I’ve heard, which is saying a lot. This isn’t my favorite track, mostly
because I don’t care for the voice of the lead-singer. But a mediocre track by ASMZ would be a
spectacular one by almost anyone else.
Hi Mark, some interesting tracks there. You might like to join the BayProg mailing list and visit the site at http://www.till.com/BayProg/ – there are some interesting local bands, CDs and concerts going on. My favorites are Fractal, Headshear, Mirthkon and Hazerfan.
Talking about weird bands, this week I discovered “Sigur Ros”, their website:
http://www.sigur-ros.co.uk/
(they’re from iceland, if that’s not weird enough)
cheers
Hi Mark, some interesting tracks there. You might like to join the BayProg mailing list and visit the site at http://www.till.com/BayProg/ – there are some interesting local bands, CDs and concerts going on.
Hm, is MarkCC in the bay area? I thought he said once that he lived in New York.
From what you like I can highly recommend 65daysofstatic 🙂