Let's hope we do better today!
The Clash, "Julie's Been Working for the Drug Squad"
This is a repeat from, geez, a year and a half ago.
Bruce Cockburn, "If A Tree Falls"
Well, it's been a good, long time, but we've got a completely unknown song here popping up. There were a handful of songs pre-loaded on some device of mine in the misty, distant past, and some automated scan swept them up into my library. I didn't catch them, and now they're sprinkled in among the songs I actually want to keep, and I haven't been able to root them out. And now you have to deal with them too!
400 Blows, "Thinking Of You"
That's more like it! I've talked often here of my fondness for duos, as it's interesting to hear what bands can do with the simple interplay of two instruments. 400 Blows are operating in that same space, with a guitarist, drummer, and singer. There's nowhere to hide with an arrangement like this, and 400 Blows makes it work with the precision of their attack.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor, "Motherfucker=Redeemer (Part Two)"
This is how Yanqui U.X.O. closes, with the ominous buzz of strings sounding like a swarm of insects, and their trademark slow build. However, the song doesn't have the dramatic arc that I look for from them, and it doesn't particularly go anywhere.
Yo La Tengo, "Point and Shoot"
There's something kind of fractured about this song. It kind of sounds like Ira and Georgia are singing a different song from what they're playing. And that little high pitched accent in the background. It's nice, I like it a lot, but it does sound pretty strange.
Clouds, "Horrification"
Huh, another song that I don't know I've heard before. But this DOES sound like something I would have looked for. Every now and again, I buy enough albums in a short period of time that I forget about one of them, and it just slips through the cracks.
Oh, looking at it, it's on Hydra Head, so it's probably a record I got in a grab bag from the label when they were shutting down. There were something like 20 albums that showed up at once, and I know I didn't get to everything.