Friday Random Ten

Sorry for the slow posting this week, but work has been a bit intense, and I’ve also had some
family matters to take care of, which have left me with very little blogging time. Hopefully things will
be a bit less insane next week. In the meantime, here’s a random bunch of weird music I’ve been listening to.

  1. The Mars Volta, “This Apparatus Must Be Unearthed”: the Mars Volta is a neo-progressive band I recently discovered. They’re on the dark and noisy side. The best description I can give is that they sound sort of like what you’d get if you mixed King Crimson and Dream Theater, and then fed them too much caffeine.
  2. Spock’s Beard, “Onomatapea”: a track from the first SB album after the original bandleader left. The album as a whole is kind of hit-or-miss; this song is one of the really good ones.
  3. John Corigliano, “Pianissimo Scherzo” from the Red Violin Concerto, performed by Joshua Bell: if you like semi-atonal modern classical music – which I do – this is simply spectacular; one of the finest new compositions I’ve heard in years, performed with elegance by one of the most amazing violinists in the world.
  4. Lunasa, “Mi Na Samhna”: a beautiful Uillean pipe-led traditional Irish lament.
  5. The Redneck Manifesto, “Who Knows?”: great post-rock in the same stylistic vein as Mogwai.
  6. Sonic Youth, “Titanium Expose”: Old Sonic Youth. Noisy, strange tonality, crazy guitar playing. Brilliant.
  7. Elizabeth and the Catapult, “Waiting for the Kill”: a song by a NYC band. I’m not sure how
    to classify; jazzy folk-rock maybe? They’re a great band.
  8. Rush, “Malignant Narcissism”: great instrumental track by Rush.
  9. Porcupine Tree, “Fear of a Blank Planet”: the title track from Porcupine Tree’s brilliant latest album. If you like neo-progressive rock at all, this album is a must-have.
  10. A Silver Mt. Zion, “Goodbye Desolate Railyard”: a track off of another Silver Mt. Zion album that I just got. The album is “This is our punk-rock, thee rusted satellites gather+sing”. It’s my favorite of the ASMZ albums that I’ve heard, which is saying a lot. This isn’t my favorite track, mostly
    because I don’t care for the voice of the lead-singer. But a mediocre track by ASMZ would be a
    spectacular one by almost anyone else.

0 thoughts on “Friday Random Ten

  1. Coin

    Hi Mark, some interesting tracks there. You might like to join the BayProg mailing list and visit the site at http://www.till.com/BayProg/ – there are some interesting local bands, CDs and concerts going on.
    Hm, is MarkCC in the bay area? I thought he said once that he lived in New York.

    Reply

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