竹村延和 (Takemura Nobukazu), "Meteor"
This is from his 2000 release, Sign, and is the outro piece after the 35-minute "Souvenir in Chicago". A thing I really like about this is the texture of the sounds, a lot of them are stretched, torn, distorted, and otherwise manipulated in surprising little ways. A track that rewards a close listen.
Slayer, "War Ensemble"
After slowing down a bit from Reign in Blood to South of Heaven, Slayer came back roaring with Seasons in the Abyss. This is yet another classic thrash record, the final Slayer record featuring Dave Lombardo during the initial run, so it was kind of the capstone for that era of the band. While I think I still like Reign in Blood a bit more, this record is a very close second from them, and is absolutely one of the critical texts of thrash and all of metal.
The Avalanches, "Oh the Sunn!"
Yes, that's Perry Ferrell. Just a sweet little disco groove here, fun stuff. This is from the third Avalanches record, We Will Always Love You, and while I generally think they got diminishing returns over time, this is still perfectly pleasant stuff.
Devin the Dude, "Almighty Dollar"
Around here at Five Songs, we tease Devin a bit around the subject matter of his songs, that all of his songs are about weed and women. It's a little unfair, as you can hear in a song like this, focused around economic concerns. In which women and weed only make peripheral appearances.
Yautja, "The Spectacle"
A frequent comparison around here is that we like music that sounds like malfunctioning machinery. Pistons grinding, arbitrary but knowable rhythms, scraping, grinding, squealing, a sound that lets you know that immanent disaster is in your future. The main riff in this song is a fine example. Somebody should look at that.