Mudhoney, "Beneath The Valley Of The Underdog"
A little bit of a slow burn, psychedelic number from Mudhoney here. This comes from Tomorrow Hit Today as well as appearing on the compilation March To Fuzz, which I believe I've sung the praises of before. I'm not going to check, as professionalism isn't something we really go in for here at Five Songs. Which, you know, explains our love for Mudhoney.
Los Rudiments, "2-Face (Baby)"
There's something fascinating about a band that never actually puts out a proper album. Los Rudiments, as far as I can tell, only really produced a comp, a collection of tracks appearing elsewhere. I ended up with it because I ended up with a non-trivial percentage of bands associated with the third wave of ska. The manic pace of this is pretty fun, actually. This would have been fun live.
They Might Be Giants, "Nightgown of the Sullen Moon"
A b-side on the "They'll Need A Crane" single (which is where I first encountered it), this song also appears on the excellent Miscellaneous T compilation, which is a grab bag of b-sides and other ephemera from early in TMBG's career. This is a pretty spare track, but John Linnell's lead vocal here is great.
Nine Inch Nails, "A Warm Place"
So nice to get a wholesome, pleasant track around here for once. Just a nice piece of inspirational music from the (checks cue card) "I wanna fuck you like an animal" guy.
9th Wonder, "Encore"
We've observed the phenomenon of Black Album remixes before with Kno, but here's 9th Wonder taking a whack at it. I think I like Kno's album better, but this is still good. We've acutally had 9th Wonder before with Little Brother. What makes this album unusual is that 9th Wonder actually appeared on the Black Album proper, producing "Threat".
(NB: this song was blocked by YouTube, because of course it was.)
XETAS, "The Break"
Post-punk out of Austin, the Xetas sound a lot like ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead at times. This was a Bandcamp discovery, and you know I'm in for a tarot themed album. And it turned out to be quite good!
(NB: This song starts at 15:37 in the linked video.)