five

33-40


And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead - World’s Apart (Interscope) 2005

I appear to be in the minority here, but I think this is their best work. It may scare some folks with it's 70s rock appropriations and its concept album over-arch in theme and response... but I still say it's the best album that Styx never got around to recording. The only thing is I mean that as a compliment, not an insult. That and the fact that the title track is their best song ever too... aaarrrgh.
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Laurie Anderson - Big Science (Warner) 1982


Laurie Anderson - Mister Heartbreak (Warner) 1984


Laurie Anderson - Home of the Brave (Warner) 1986

Now she's Mrs. Lou Reed... but back when Lou was floundering a little with albums like Blue Mask and New Sensations, Laurie was breaking new ground with avant garde live shows and recordings using a tickle trunk's worth of invented instruments. Perhaps the weirdest aspect of all is how these albums came out on Warner... the same company for whom Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was "too experimental" in 2002. In 1982, however the track "O Superman"... a single pulsing sampled "ah" with Laurie's vocorder-treated voice reciting the lyrics on top... became a hit. The follow up in 1984 had production by Peter Gabriel and Bill Laswell and the vocal "talents" of William Burroughs. Home of the Brave is the CD version of her live show replete with her tape head violin (a violin with a tape head where the pickup should be, and a bow strung with 1/4 tape recordings), Adrian Belew's rubber guitar and more Burroughs. So when you say 80s music sucked... there are a few bright spots.
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Angel’in Heavy Syrup - IV (Monotremata) 1999

When I started doing the radio show I would go through magazine's and web pages and follow links out to labels who might send me stuff to play. Monotremata was a Texas based label with a small roster of releases including this one licensed from British label Alchemy records. The group is a trio of Japanese women who play folk-infused progressive rock that is reminiscent of early Uriah Heep or Deep Purple... only with the hard turned down and the psyche turned up. Not as freaky as some Japanese psychedelia, but pleasant enough to drink red wine along to.
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Angels of Light - How I Loved You (Young God) 2001

Michael Gira is one of those iconic veterans of left-field music who manages to surprise and even, occasionally, make music you could play for your mum. Having been the leader of long running tribal noise outfit Swans, Gira smoothed down the teeth on the buzzsaws and eventually a more tranced-out version of the group were around to close the doors. He started the Young God label and Angels of Light nearly simultaneously, and this outing is a large ensemble mostly acoustic affair that expertly does that sound pretty/say ugly thing. Good music if you are serving a meal to those you suspect have said mean things behind your back... especially if you're planning to move on to an evening of Bunuel films.
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Animal Collective - Feels (Fat Cat) 2005

I review music for Exclaim! magazine... a Toronto based national free monthly music magazine. Because I'm am geographically removed from the center of the known Canadian universe what is commonly known/thought of as "the good stuff" fails to fall into my hands... actually I should be clearer... I do get piles and piles of excellent experimental stuff, especially since asst. editors now handle the mail-outs. But as for pop stuff, if anything is either "hot" or "cool" or some other desirable temperature some in-house reviewer usually grabs it. But... back before Animal Collective became "cool" they released an album under two of their individual pseudonymns: Avey Tare and Panda Bear: Spirit They've Gone, Spirit They've Vanished. I was smitten, and though along the way these woodland creatures have made some rackety racket of the near-unlistenable variety, albums like Feels more than renew their status in the good books. Following a song-then-almost-song format they resemble early Flaming Lips in mid-drug confusion and jazz/folk overflow. Yum.
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Anniversary - Your Majesty (Vagrant) 2001

Around this time in music history pop punk was beginning is long, slow deterioration into goth locker poster oblivian... but some of the savvier kids started toying around with the notion of "maturity" which mostly meant using more keyboards. Bands like Get Up Kids retained the bounce of their more retarded bretheren, but with sensitive piano passages and songs rather than chanted chorus strung between nonsense bridges. Of course this also gave rise to the tear-swept boys of emo, but the blame for that can be spread around. Anniversary were a band that answered the question of what would happen if the lounge content was pushed up juuuust a little in the mix and broken hearts and cheap martinis collided.