Introduction
Five Songs, 10/12/2020
Five Songs

Five Songs, 10/12/2020

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Jan Jelinek, "John Cage, I've Been Told To Ask You The Following Question: Where Are You Going?"

Jan Jelinek, expiremental sampling wizard, is best known for creating glitchy, minimal electronic work. Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records is a masterpiece, one of my favorite electronic albums. This, however, comes from a much later album, Zwischen, distinguished by being more avant garde, with more vocal samples. Also, the song names are something else. This is not remotely the longest song title.

Consolidated, "This Is A Collective"

Consolidated tried to marry industrial dance with hip-hop, bolting onto it a robust anti-capitalist message. At their best, there was a little bit of a Bomb Squad vibe to their beats, the rhymes were at least a little clever, and the whole thing didn't come off as terminally stiff. Alas, they seldom hit that best, and the awkwardness of their delivery and the polemics were just a lot to take. The beats have not aged particularly well either.

Ex Hex, "Cosmic Cave"

Ex Hex is Mary Timony's (Helium, Wild Flag) latest band, playing pretty straight-ahead power pop. But there's nothing wrong with just playing power pop, and Timony is fantastic, so both Ex Hex albums are lots of fun.

The Hold Steady, "The Sweet Part of the City"

Well, speaking of another band playing a staple style of 70s rock radio. While Ex Hex are more like the Cars, The Hold Steady are more towards the bar band end of things. They sort of sound like a half-dozen rock bands from the classic rock era at the same time, which is fun in its own way. There are flashes of Cheap Trick, Burce Springsteen, and plenty of others through their catalog. This is from their fifth record, which is past their prime as far as I'm concerned.

Deerhoof, "This Magnificent Bird Shall Rise"

Deerhoof is a spastic sort of noise band, with a bunch of pop sensibilities. Noise pop, I guess. They're unafraid to go all over the place, and this song is as good an example as any. There are only three songs that go over three minutes on Reveille, but this might as well be a few songs bolted together.

Joshua Buergel
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