Wilsonville, AL 7
1.Comets on Fire
MB often fills me in when a WIRE darling falls through my filters without me knowing, Comets on Fire being a perfect example. CoF update the adolescent barrage of the MC5 with much welcome synthetic effects to the point that something that always sounded flat to my ears finally sounds round. Their show at the Earl last year was one of the highlights of my summer.
2.David Daniell Coastal
One third of Atlanta's essential classic rock instrumental free music improv act San Agustin, much of Daniell's recent output sounds more like Stockhausen than Skynyrd. His first solo record, Sem, was an on-first-glance quiet, muted collection of pops and crinkles reminscent of Bernard Gunter. Coastal may be bombastic in comparison but even amidst the lush, Daniell maintains the same restaint as that found in Sem, coupling it with a fullness that provides a nice companion record.
3.Howlin Rain
One of the main guys from Comets on Fire trades in his MC5 records for some San Francisco circa 1965 boogie rock. Imagine John Forgerty trying solely to write jams, veering away from instant commercial jingles, but keeping the melody, and adding distortion and effects. Take this one up to Ellijay and just drive for awhile.
4.Jay Z Kingdom Come
OK, we get it. You're the Michael Jordan of hip hop. The Steve Jobs of hip hop. The Bono of hip hop. The Kofi Annan of hip hop. Now just make a record. I'm glad I didn't actually pay money for this trash.
5.Atelia Formal Sleep
Follow-up to 2003 debut Swimming Against the Moments, this second record sounds whole, whereas SAtM sounded like a collection of "singles" for laptop junkies. Comparisons to Kevin Shields have already popped up, some fair, some unfair. I'm guessing Sofia Coppola wouldn't mind using this stuff for Lost in Translation II.
6.Nas Illmatic 10th Anniversary Edition
How I missed this one up to this point, I'm not sure. A good bit of the production reminds me of that first Wu Tang album, sparse in its own way, incisive without being abrasive, simple and simultaneously enchanting. Aside from that, Nas is not such a bad MC, to say the least. Looking very much forward to his new one in December.
7.Pavement Wowee Zowee Sordid Sentinels Edition
This record has pretty much always been my favorite Pavement record, and one of my two or three favorite records of all time. Sprawling is an OK adjective to attach to it, in terms of volume as well as style, spanning the gamut from mellow country tunes to puncturing and focused punk blitzes, all tied together with the bent guitars and too cool to be bothered vocals the band had become infamous for by that point. As usual, the art direction is amazing and amazingly faithful to the original packaging (right down to the use of arial font). The wealth of unreleased tracks, while readily available on the internet in the past, is nice to have in such high fidelity. If you bought it early you got a free download of an El Rey show from the band's 1994-1997 live heyday.
MB often fills me in when a WIRE darling falls through my filters without me knowing, Comets on Fire being a perfect example. CoF update the adolescent barrage of the MC5 with much welcome synthetic effects to the point that something that always sounded flat to my ears finally sounds round. Their show at the Earl last year was one of the highlights of my summer.
2.David Daniell Coastal
One third of Atlanta's essential classic rock instrumental free music improv act San Agustin, much of Daniell's recent output sounds more like Stockhausen than Skynyrd. His first solo record, Sem, was an on-first-glance quiet, muted collection of pops and crinkles reminscent of Bernard Gunter. Coastal may be bombastic in comparison but even amidst the lush, Daniell maintains the same restaint as that found in Sem, coupling it with a fullness that provides a nice companion record.
3.Howlin Rain
One of the main guys from Comets on Fire trades in his MC5 records for some San Francisco circa 1965 boogie rock. Imagine John Forgerty trying solely to write jams, veering away from instant commercial jingles, but keeping the melody, and adding distortion and effects. Take this one up to Ellijay and just drive for awhile.
4.Jay Z Kingdom Come
OK, we get it. You're the Michael Jordan of hip hop. The Steve Jobs of hip hop. The Bono of hip hop. The Kofi Annan of hip hop. Now just make a record. I'm glad I didn't actually pay money for this trash.
5.Atelia Formal Sleep
Follow-up to 2003 debut Swimming Against the Moments, this second record sounds whole, whereas SAtM sounded like a collection of "singles" for laptop junkies. Comparisons to Kevin Shields have already popped up, some fair, some unfair. I'm guessing Sofia Coppola wouldn't mind using this stuff for Lost in Translation II.
6.Nas Illmatic 10th Anniversary Edition
How I missed this one up to this point, I'm not sure. A good bit of the production reminds me of that first Wu Tang album, sparse in its own way, incisive without being abrasive, simple and simultaneously enchanting. Aside from that, Nas is not such a bad MC, to say the least. Looking very much forward to his new one in December.
7.Pavement Wowee Zowee Sordid Sentinels Edition
This record has pretty much always been my favorite Pavement record, and one of my two or three favorite records of all time. Sprawling is an OK adjective to attach to it, in terms of volume as well as style, spanning the gamut from mellow country tunes to puncturing and focused punk blitzes, all tied together with the bent guitars and too cool to be bothered vocals the band had become infamous for by that point. As usual, the art direction is amazing and amazingly faithful to the original packaging (right down to the use of arial font). The wealth of unreleased tracks, while readily available on the internet in the past, is nice to have in such high fidelity. If you bought it early you got a free download of an El Rey show from the band's 1994-1997 live heyday.
posted by mcsquared at
8:30 AM
3 Comments:
unfortunately whatever fucker stole my stereo [the second time] took disc 2 of the wowee zowee reissue with it (like 2 days after it arrived on pre-order). jk, could you burn me a copy?
i don't know comets on fire at all, i'll have to look into it.
I talked to the guy who stole the CD player. Turns out he just wanted the CD, but couldn't get it out so he stole the whole thing. True story.
comets slay. i have a bunch of live stuff if you guys are interested. I also have this rare disc that sub pop made 300 of right after their first SP record came out - has like 6 unreleased jams.
you gotta see them live...your face drips from the skull - mind slayers...
email me or comment over at mez if you want some of the stuff!
later
dj
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