Music

This Week’s Heavy Rotation #28

Everything’s all right

Note: Each week I take a look back at my playlists and share songs that were either played the most, got stuck in my head, or just stood out. Many are new to me, but there are old faves mixed in as well.

Below is my Top 5 of the last 7 days:

Thomas Dolby- Europa and the Pirate Twins

For a song turning 40 in a couple of months, this sure holds up well. This appeared on Dolby’s The Golden Age of Wireless record.

Multiple configurations were released with songs added/removed along the way. One was called “She Blinded Me With Science.”

Maybe you’ve heard of it? Great track, but it’s addition takes away from other gems like this.

LCD Soundsystem- Get Innocuous!

This band has become almost a comfort food for me lately, and I find their songs sprinkled more and more throughout my playlists.

I used a live clip here because the energy is just…amazing. Live versions don’t always blow the doors off the original, but this proves that there’s always an exception.

You can normalize Don’t it make you feel alive? You can normalize Don’t it make you feel alive? You can normalize Don’t it make you feel alive?

Yes, yes it does.

Talk Talk- Life’s What You Make It

I’ve mentioned Jake Rudh’s Transmission show before, but it’s worth again noting just how good it is. He runs it on Twitch, but if you don’t have an account there, no problem; you can click through via Twitter.

Sleep is a rare enough commodity for me as it is, but his work makes it worth it. This tweet sums it up as well as anything.

Spoiler alert: Waiting for a bad track as an excuse to go to bed is a strategy guaranteed to fail.

Alaskalaska- Moon

I tried and tried to describe this song. It’s a delicious gumbo of different sounds all blending into one, and all compelling you to move your body.

You can only hit Backspace so many times before looking for help. Here it is.

From Pitchfork:

Bandleader Lucinda Duarte-Holman’s crisp voice cuts through the tangle of keys and woodwinds like an Exacto blade dividing tinsel. Over time, the record’s precise composition and production details start to peek out. Opening suite of songs “The Dots,” “Bees,” and “Moon,” are ripe with sonic curios: Whether it’s a buried baritone harmony, a gooey bass riff that Thundercat would co-sign, or a skronking sax phrase that flaps overhead like a passing seagull, each element feels simultaneously effortless and deliberate.

Psychic TV- Godstar

This is a story, a very special story. It’s about Brian Jones, one of the Rolling Stones.

I suppose one could take the opening line from this song and change it to “It’s about Genesis P. Orridge of Psychic TV.”

I think I first came across this band in Flipside or similar magazine in the late 80s/early 90's. I didn’t give them a whole lot of thought — actually, I mixed them and Television up for years — but he (and the band) slowly grew on me. This is one of my favorites.

6th man: Country Joe McDonald- Balancing On The Edge Of Time

A gift from Steven Hale and his Songs For Insomniacs series. This is the 84th installment. I listened to this in a very empty house on a very quiet Saturday morning.

One kid at camp, one at a friend’s house, and the dog we’d been watching for the week had gone home. I sat in my chair and just watched the morning unfold out my back door.

A 180 from McDonald’s “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die,” and my normal routine both.

It was perfect.

Here I sit all by myself I put all my books back on the shelf I got no thoughts to trouble my mind Balancing on the edge of time. Then suddenly the light shines through And I know just what to do

What are you listening to this week? Let me know in the comments! As always, thank you to everyone here. We’re building something fantastic, and it’s only getting better.

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Last week’s list: