New(er) Music Monday

11 new unsolicited opinions about music for you here.  I’ll try to be brief.

Justice - † (2007): it’s the funkiest parts of Discovery with more of a glitchy chopped-up edge and some sick slap bass work (“Let There Be Light”). Great black-light party music.

Boards of Canada – Music Has the Right to Children (1998): other end of the spectrum from †. Ambient grooves that would serve as the soundtrack of the most laid-back hacker movie ever (“Telephasic Workshop”).

LIGHTS – Siberia (2011): super-sweet synth-pop from an irresistibly cute Canadian, with a few nasty dubstep beats (“Flux and Flow”) and technical surprises thrown in to keep things from getting annoying.

Phantogram – Eyelid Movies (2011): I think this is what Low would sound like if they went full electronic and listened to more hip-hop (“Futuristic Casket”).  Catchy and interesting electro-rock with a dark edge.

Mastodon - The Hunter (2011): brutal Remission-style riffs with hip-hop-polish production (producer Mike Elizondo co-wrote “In Da Club” for crying out loud) and three-part vocal harmonies? A Moog-driven song about the Creature from the Black Lagoon? Scorchers like “Blasteroid” and “Spectrelight” are as heavy as anything they’ve ever done but you can still sing along. I hope these guys never stop making music.

Drive Like Jehu - Yank Crime (1994): furious, frenetic post-hardcore filled with emotion as raw as its music. By the time you get to the last crashing strains of “Sinews” you’ll be exhausted, but that’s kind of the point.  It’s cathartic.

Don Caballero – Singles Breaking Up, Vol. 1 (1999): low-fat Don Cab (see my previous review) that just cuts to the chase (no songs over 5.5 minutes) with ragers like “Puddin’ in My Eye” and “ANDAND…”

High On Fire – Death Is This Communion (2007): Matt Pike has always had a gravelly voice, but I think this is the album where he really started sounding like a candidate for throat surgery. There are some interesting Middle-Eastern influences on this one (“Khanrad’s Wall”) as well as the prerequisite thundering heaviness (“Turk”).

Genius/GZA – Liquid Swords (1995): rap got a lot less interesting once DJs stopped sampling kung-fu movies. RZA lays down solid, hypnotic beats (“Living in the World Today”) and the Genius flexes his lyrical muscle on one of the best hip-hop albums I’ve ever heard.

Feelies – Crazy Rhythms (1980): solid guitar-pop with some angular fretwork that sounds way more recent than 1980, if you ask me. There are punk elements in here a la Mission of Burma that give it more bite than the album cover would lead you to believe (“The Boy With the Perpetual Nervousness”).

Stevie Wonder – Songs In the Key Of Life (1976): commentary, musical expansion, sample-ready material (“Pastime Paradise,” of course, was used first by Coolio and then Weird Al) and a few surprises (the bass on “I Wish” must be the father of every Primus riff). There aren’t a lot of double-albums that can hold my interest, but this one is an absolute winner.

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