Fluxblog is the very first MP3 Blog. It was founded by me, Matthew Perpetua, in 2002. You can subscribe to the RSS feed here, and peruse the FluxBlogRoll here.
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Busdriver "Kill Your Employer" - Busdriver raps as if he is imagining his voice as a lead melodic line rather than a parallel rhythm, and the zippy zig zag of his verses lends itself to cartoonish changes in his timbre and absurd lyrical density, as though his primary artistic influence was the super fast enunciation of fine print in radio advertisements. His approach is at home in this busy quasi-electro arrangement, drawing him closer to the likes of the Dungeon Family than what would normally be expected of this sort of aggressively nerdy and political hip hop. The catchy (but slightly off-kilter) chorus certainly doesn't hurt, though I kinda wish that the title was spelled "Cill Your Employer." (Click here to buy it from Underground Hip Hop)
The Victorian English Gentlemen's Club "Dead Anyway" - Playfully morbid, cheerfully bleak, gallows rock. McLusky with ladies, sludge with jaunt, chords like grinding metal and broken gears. Soft to loud for drama and dynamics, not out of habit. The highs feel like standing on the edge of a tall building, the lows are like the hollow feeling in the gut that goes along with imagining hitting the ground from such a great height. (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)
Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site and features mp3s from Mixel Pixel, Brush, and In Flagranti.
Also Elsewhere: My review of Jesus Camp is up on The Movie Binge.
Beck "Strange Apparition" - It's hard for me to tell whether Beck is intentionally exploring the middle ground of his stylistic range after playing up his extremes on Midnite Vultures (his masterwork) and Sea Change (his nadir), or if he's simply settled into writing "Beck songs" without any masterplan. He could be playing it safe, or he might just lack the feeling to fully commit to a joyous, hilarious critique of sexuality in the context of late capitalism or an album of nonstop sadsackery given the relentlessly charmed nature of his life over the past ten years or so. His new LP The Information leans heavily on rapped verses, but lingers in a haze of emotional neutrality that can be quite appealing when the tunes are strong and it suits the subtext (this is most especially true of "Think I'm In Love"), but also emphasizes the weaknesses of the lesser tracks on an album that is at least four songs too long. The latter category lend themselves well to a parlor game you can play with casual fans -- Mediocre Beck Song or Exceptional Eels Tune?
The muted tone of the album works in the favor of "Strange Apparition," a Stones-ish rambler with an appealing, tumbling piano progression and lyrics about a man with a comfortable life and a decaying spirit. It's difficult to tell where Beck is coming from on this song -- Is he judging the guy? Relating to him? Pitying him? -- but it's one of the best tunes that he's written since the turn of the decade, and also one of the best recorded, at least in terms of the engineering and mixing of the piano and percussion tracks. (Click here to buy it from Insound.)
The Vandelles "Lovely Weather" - I was thoroughly zoned out when I saw the Vandelles play a Beg Yr Pardon show at the Delancey on Tuesday night, but that may have been the ideal state of mind for their extremely loud but exceptionally tuneful set of arty nihilistic surf rock. They played without any stage lighting; illuminated only by diagonally projected loops of surf films and computerized psychedelic swirls of color that lent their performance both a touch of ironic humor and a bit of menace. Their demeanor fell along the same fine line, alternating between bouts of giggling and joking banter from the girls in the rhythm section, and the unforced intensity of the guitarists, one of whom often had a vaguely unsettling expression of remoteness on his face as he murmured his vocals into his microphone. (Click here for the Vandelles' MySpace page.)
Ponies in the Surf "Slow Down Sugar" - "Slow Down Sugar" is a wonderfully appropriate name for this song, but an even more accurate title would have been "Slowed Down, Sugared." Camille McGregor's voice is almost cartoonishly sweet and angelic, but it's never so gorgeous as when it's extended into an ethereal drone that merges with a lightly humming organ. Following a brief, gently clanging middle section, the song drifts to a halt for over a minute. It seems even slower than it actually is, but it's absolutely mesmerizing and almost seems to set the entire world in slow motion. (Click here to buy it from Asaurus.)
These Are Powers "The South Angel" - The opening of the track sounds like a stream of clipped inanities set to a backdrop of motionless, muddied but still shrill noise, as though you're somehow being forced to listen to a loop of a few seconds of an overheard conversation outside a rock club. However, the tension escalates and the tone takes a turn toward outright panic, and it seems to retroactively transform the opening bit into something that now sounds more like pleading and less like a girl excitedly trying to tell her friend about some new whatever. (Click here for the These Are Powers MySpace page.)
Planningtorock "Think That Thought (Stringed Up Version)" - I'm not usually a person who privileges acoustic instruments over synthesizers (it's often the other way around), but this new string-based arrangement can't help but to make the album version sound like a home demo. The album recording compensates for its thin fakey string sound with a pleasing backing vocal that answers and counters the lead, but it's just nowhere near as elegant. Whereas the song had been a bit lost in a track that called attention to its artifice, the string arrangement doesn't burden it with nearly as much context. In addition to the removal of the second vocal and its attendent responsive lyrics, there's a shift in pronouns in the first verse that completely changes the meaning of the song. In the first version, she sings about trying to dig beyond her conscious mind to uncover what is truly motivating her, and recognizing the resulting echo chamber in her brain: "When I think about that thought, that thought thinks about me." In this take, the lyric shifts ever so slightly outside of herself, as she attempts to predict and understand the thoughts of someone else while unable to shake off the tainted filter of her own perceptions. The song becomes much sweeter, and the low key pizzicato and breezy melodies echo that sentiment while also mimicing the fluid tangle of notions and motivations within a mind.
Another great thing about this arrangement is that in cutting out some clutter, it highlights what an amazing Led Zeppelin song this would have been. Seriously, just listen to this and think about how it would have sounded if performed by Houses of the Holy-era Led Zep. She comes a bit close to Robert Plant vocalization already, but the instrumental parts definitely seem like something Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones would have written around that time. (Click here to buy it from iTunes.)
Jumbling Towers "Beggars" - Since there are some obvious and well-known touchstones in this track -- Matthew Friedberger's playful yet seasick jauntiness; Walter Martin's late night urban romanticism; Jack White's most over-the-top faux-old timey vocals -- there is some temptation to simply list off its components and leave it at that, but it all comes together to form something rather special and unique. There's a wonderful economy of tone in this arrangement as it rations out its limited set of textures in a highly deliberate and effective manner, with the song passing through distinct sections as though they were rooms in the same house. It's catchy in a fairly traditional sort of way, but it's ultimately a mood piece focused more on the specific sound of its instruments, most especially the crisp, cool tone of the Rhodes keyboard. (Click here for the Jumbling Towers MySpace page.)
Chicks On Speed Records' new Girlmonster compilation is a treasure trove of high quality, foward-thinking music by female artists new and old, and if you've been enjoying a fair chunk of what's been on offer here over the past five years, there's a good chance that you'll quite like it given that I wish that I could write up a majority of its 60 tracks. A number of the artists featured have been on this site in the past -- Le Tigre, Barbara Morgenstern, Rhythm King and Her Pals, Kevin Blechdom, Ana da Silva, Sir Alice, Chicks On Speed, Cobra Killer, Vivien Goldman, Client, Peaches, Boyskout, Erase Errata, The Slits, Delta 5, Planningtorock, Bjork, Gustav, LiliPUT -- and it's probable that many others will pop up here before too long.
Cobra Killer "Mr. Chang" - Apparently sung from the perspective of an airline representative informing a businessman that his luggage has been lost in transit, Cobra Killer turn out what may be their most charming and catchy tune to date. They affect the sing-song tone of a disconnected person cheerfully delivering bad news, but somehow it's hard not to be on their side or feel too badly for "Mr. Chang" or "Mr. Scarface."
Michaela Melián "Manifesto" - The title sort of gives away the tone of the lyrics, but only so much. This song is not particularly strident, but it is strong, serious, and patient, and plays out over a subtly arranged track that is extremely calm and collected without stifling the warmth and humanity under its mostly cool textures and Melián's thick German accent. (I am sort of ridiculous because I did not realize that this is a Roxy Music cover, most likely because I just never really liked Roxy Music very much.)(Click here to buy it via Chicks On Speed Records' Girlmonster site.)
Boyskout "You're Not Around (Demo)" - "Kinky" is a highly relative word that gets thrown around quite a bit and as such can be something of a devalued linguistic currency, but there's something in the drowsy, kittenish, matter of fact sound of Boyskout singer/guitarist Leslie Satterfield's voice that makes me suspect that she's not overstating anything in this song, especially when she qualifies it as something that would happen with her (pretty fantastic, judging by the lyrics of this song) lover long before any clothing was removed. It's a song full of sweaty thoughts, and the sound of the music is perfectly matched to the lyric, falling somewhere between moody Pixies-ish surf punk and the slow sultry tone of Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game." (Click here for the official Boyskout site.)
Elsewhere: My review of the (totally, totally awful) Zach Braff/Paul Haggis team-up The Last Kiss is up on The Movie Binge.
Also Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site, and features mp3s from The Blood Brothers, Pony Up, and Georgia Anne Muldrow.
The Howling Hex "Hammer and Bluebird" - Neil Hagerty achieves a focused yet thoroughly zoned-out Zen sort of rock on Nightclub Version of the Eternal, and by that I don't mean just on this song or a portion of the selections -- I'm talking about the entire seven track, 52 minute duration. The album, which is essentially a collection of lengthy grooves, zonked chants, and lateral jams, sounds as though it was recorded in a fugue state. On one hand, it's one of the more self-indulgent records of Hagerty's career, but it's also one of the most natural and free, with its zombie vocals and matter-of-fact noodling seeming like the product of a man who has plugged his unconscious mind directly into the soundboard. (Click here to buy it from Drag City.)
Excepter "The 'Rock' Stepper" - If you can imagine a version of Girls Against Boys (oh yes, remember when you could say "GVSB" in indie circles and not mean Gorilla Vs. Bear?) that had never flamed out with that really lame faux-industrial album that they recorded for Geffen, and kept going with the creepy druggy sex vibe of House of GVSB , it would probably sound a hell of a lot like this, especially if none of the band's members slept at any point between 1998 and right now. This isn't the most representative track in the Excepter catalog, but part of the beauty of it, and especially this year's Alternation LP, is that there doesn't really seem to be one in spite of their fairly distinct aesthetic overall. (Click here to buy it from Insound.)
Marit Larsen "The Sinking Game" - On a record that overflows with heart and grace, "The Sinking Game" sneaks in toward the end and steals the show. It's not tremendously obvious, but amidst ten other songs with hooks that put to shame virtually everyone else in pop music in 2006, this is the number that sticks in my head through the day and the one that I find playing in my head some mornings, whether I had heard it recently or not. It's not a song about passively falling in love so much as actively jumping down into it, and it sounds just as terrifying and exhilirating as it ought to be, especially as the start to every chorus feels like an emotional swan dive. It's not for nothing that the instrumental bridge evokes the sensation of gliding on moonlit air! (Click here to buy it via the official Marit Larsen site.)
Scritti Politti "After Six" - Scritti Politti's Green Gartside is British pop's switcheroo king, a songwriter who seems to derive endless pleasure from subverting the expectations of his audience with extremely meta tunes that smuggle ironic reversals and sharp critical theory into what would otherwise come across as some of the most innocuous music available anywhere. The man is fascinated by black music -- mainly gospel, soul, and rap -- but he can't help but sound like one of the whitest men on the planet, especially when his sweet cooing voice and crisp production aesthetic sounds like the perfect aural expression of freshly laundered hotel bed sheets spread out on an infinite horizon. "After Six" is a variation on one of Gartside's favorite tricks -- the atheistic gospel tune -- but there's something more to this one, even if in comparison to its predecessors it is rather simple and brief. As in the past, he finds great beauty and pleasure in the expression of faith, but just can't find it within himself, and so he haggles with no one in particular over what he can and can't get behind. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)
In Flagranti "Genital Blue Room" - Following a brief intro tune, In Flagranti begin their brilliant debut LP with a track that immediately asserts control over your central nervous system, and obstensibly casts the listener as an object of desire caught between the first-person demands of the lead vocal and a third party's voyeuristic urging for total submission. All of In Flagranti's exotic neo-disco tracks are fetishistic in content as well as in form, resulting in a 17 track blur of signifiers that are meant to be more exciting than what is being signified. The seduction informs the act, and the implication of the sound is crucial to its physical function. (Click here to buy it via Codek's In Flagranti site.)
Holiday On Strings "Touch The Tiger" - The singer's voice has the weary "how could this night possibly get any worse" tone of Lou Barlow, but the stark, atmospheric track is distinctly un-Sebadoh. True, he sounds like he's lost and confused in an environment of creepy decadence, and there's a sense of impending doom that never lets up, not even in the lingering acoustic outro, but it doesn't sound as though he's in for a bad time. In fact, it seems like this definitely could be the most exciting and romantic (in any sense of the word) night of his life, even if it turns out to be something that he regrets. (Click here to buy it via the Holiday For Strings official site.)
Elsewhere: Eric Harvey has a few things to say about music blogs.
Scissor Sisters "Paul McCartney" - Scissor Sisters fans hoping for more "Comfortably Numb" and "Filthy/Gorgeous"-style full-on disco numbers will very likely be let down by Ta-Dah, an album largely focused on 70s-style radio pop in the vein of "Laura" and "Take Your Mama." (My taste errs toward the latter, so I'm in luck. Lots and lots of luck.) "Paul McCartney" sits in the middle of the record, and splits the difference between the two sides of the SS aesthetic by marrying its blue-eyed soul tune to a bouncey groove that sounds like the audio equivalent of the color chartreuse. Much like CSS's "Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex," it's a song about loving music that closely replicates the thrills of the sort of songs that it celebrates, as well as the excited rush of fandom. Whereas CSS's Lovefoxxx attempts to verbalize the ineffable and ends up with a strange translation that somehow gets it exactly right, Jake Shears is more analytical, asking questions he knows can't be answered, and expressing a profound love that is simultaneously returned and unrequited. (Click here to pre-order it from Amazon.)
Elsewhere:Troubled Diva has a great song-by-song review of Ta Dah.
Excerpt from WFMU's Aircheck - Morrissey fans on KROQ circa 1990 - This recording is taken from the most recent episode of WFMU's radio anthology series Aircheck, and was apparently also released as an EP bonus track back in the early '90s. As part of some sort of promotion, the famed Los Angeles radio station KROQ had Morrissey fans call in to record messages that would be sent along to the man himself. This eight minute clip is only a small sampling, but it is fascinating to hear whether you're a fan of Morrissey or not if just because the passion and gratitude that comes through in these messages is just so overwhelming, beautiful, and a little bit funny. My favorites are definitely the fast-talking, super-enthusiastic girls who sound as though they may burst into tears at any moment, but there's also a certain charm to the guys who spout off trivia as an awkward display of their love and dedication. (Click here to buy it as a bonus track on the Live At KROQ ep from Amazon.)
