Introduction
Five Songs, 4/27/2018
Five Songs

Five Songs, 4/27/2018

Today!

The Beautiful South, "Song For Whoever"

Finally, we get some peak Beautiful South! This is the first song from their debut album, and my god, it's such a good song. Paul Heaton's sardonic lyrics are delivered so perfectly, the piano is gorgeous, I just adore it. This was a regular part of my high school rotation, and it just made perfect sense to play this right after the Dead Kennedys.

Panopticon, "Watching You"

Panopticon are a black metal band that is actually just the product of one man, Austin Lunn. He put out a couple of fairly conventional (if good) albums before releasing Kentucky, an album that merged the folk sounds of Appalachia with his blistering metal. This song is the closer for his debut album, On The Subject Of Mortality, which was later reissued after Panopticon became more famous. If you're new to black metal (and loyal Five Songs reader/listeners shouldn't be at this point!), Panopticon is a solid entry point.

Slapstick, "Good Times Gone"

Operation Ivy spawned plenty of imitators, and a lot of them really sucked. Slapstick was one of the good ones, though. Keeping to the same frenetic mix of hardcore and ska, they nailed the most important part of the formula: keeping the energy super high. While they didn't quite match the mighty OpIvy, it's still nice to have another band in roughly the same genre.

Negativland, "The Way Of It"

I can still pretty much quote the entirety of Escape From Noise. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned that it's the most musical of Negativland's albums before, but now I'm mentioning it again.

(NB: the song starts at 37:35 in the linked video.)

Squarepusher, "Splask"

This comes from Budakhan Mindphone, an EP released shortly after Music Is Rotted One Note, and mining the same kind of fusion area. Overall, there's a reason why this material didn't make it onto that album, but if you loved One Note and wanted more in that vein, this is a good spot to go to.

Joshua Buergel
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