Random Rules

Like a lot of people, I listen to my iPod (please don't rob me, it was a gift) in shuffle mode a good bit of the time, particularly on the long dogwalks I that take in these lean months of unemployment. It's a decent way to hear stuff in my library that I wouldn't normally hear willingly (and maybe even wonder why the hell it's in there at all). Sometimes fate or soulless technology comes up with a sweet mixtape for you; sometimes, not so much.

Here's the shit that my iPod thought i should hear this morning as I lay in bed debating the merits of getting up...

1. Witchcraft "I Want You to Know" from s/t
One of the lesser tracks from this Swedish band's much-loved (by me) debut, I suppose, and surely one of the only tracks that could qualify as hopeful in their doom-laden discography. It's about the search for happiness and freedom, dude, over a pretty dumdum riff. I'm not mad at it.

2. Comets on Fire " Rimbaud Blues" frm s/t
I somehow never realized that this little 41-second track had it's own title and everything. I just assumed that it was the coda to "Got a Feelin.'" Live and learn.

3. Black Devil Disco Club "Constantly No Respect" fron 28 After
This is one of the few tracks from this album I might be able to deal with, helped especially by the lack of vocals. I have a hard enough time with disco-dancin' music to begin with and the terrible lyrics and cheeseball vocals of the average old-school disco track usually send my fingers racing for the fwd button. I guess there is singing on this track, but it's a wordless melody-line sung through a vocoder over bongos and farty synths. Perhaps that's the way to go. When I hear this album, I have visions of an Eastern European nightclub filled with scary porno people. Or figure-skating. Safe to say, I don't listen to this very often.

4. Siloah "She Is On My Mind" from Sukram Gurk
Siloah were a buncha 70's German hippies (the best kind, really). This song is like a power ballad performed by the first, grubbier Amon Duul, with a tale of secret, forbidden love among damn dirty freaks. It's oddly touching if you can get past the goofy singing ("We've got to hide our love avayyy") and the whiff of sweat and patchouli. Plenty of clavichord!

5. Siloah "Krishna's Magic Dope Shop" from Saureadler
Whoa, double-shot of Siloah. So, just by reading the song's title, you know that this song has a lot going for it. Sounds a bit like the Fugs musically and the lyrics are all about "searching for another land/ where dope shops are in Krishna's hand," which the Fugs might have sung, but certainly wouldn't have been this earnest about it. Who among us hasn't asked aloud "where are these shops/ where i can find/ all of the dopes I want?"

6. Tim Hecker "Springheeled Jack Flies Tonight" from Harmony in Ultraviolet
Nice drone/electronics/guitar piece. Shoegaze recorded on a boombox. Sometimes you need a little Fennesz, sometimes you need a lot.

7. Soft Circle "Whirl" from Full Bloom
I kinda wish Hisham Bharoocha was still in Black Dice. They're still good, but they've lost a little something without his tom-and-cymbal heavy attack. Fans of Beaches and Canyons will find a lot to like on Soft Circle's debut. This track starts out with processed wordless vocalizing until the aforementioned tribal pounding begins and beats us out of our New Age reverie. Reminds me a lot of Boredoms offshoot Psycho-Baba's tabla 'n' electronics ragas.

8. Caetano Veloso "Triste Bahia" from Transa
Sweet early-70's track from what has probably become my favorite Caetano record. Most of the record's in English (not sure if he was still in exile in England for this one), this one's in Portuguese. Plenty of bongos and assorted percussion.

9. Guided by Voices "Indian Was an Angel" from King Shit and the Golden Boys
GBV from that classic early-to-mid-90's window when they could do very little wrong. Certified lo-fi production, acoustic strummin', Pollard's lyrical cut-ups, it's all here. Seems like so long ago that I was obsessed with these guys. From the odds and sods disc of the box set that traced their evolution from REM wannabes to Beatles wannabes (but stops before they became Who wannabes).

10. PsyEyE "PsychEyE" from Shock City Shockers compilation
Shock City Shockers is filled with a buncha Boredoms-related bands that may have only existed for the duration of their contribution to the compilation, interspersed with slightly more established units like OOIOO, ROVO and Psycho-Baba. PsyEyE is one of the former and I'll venture a guess that the captain of the mothership himself, EyE, is the prime mover. Basically some blown-out electronic noises over a slinky dance beat. Like Wolf Eyes if they wanted to get funky. Maybe someday Vice Records will decide to put this abum into the hands of American consumers. Seems like a pretty key relic of the Boredoms' astonishing psychedelic era.

11. Boards of Canada "Open the Light" from Music Has the Right to Children
Boards in twinkly Eno mode. Soothing.

12. Los Kikes "Skull/Violence" from s/t
A more inappropriate follow-up to Boards of Canada there may never be, Los Kikes (calm down, they're from Israel) comes explodin' outta the phones like a punch to the fuckin' neck. Sludgy garage rock, like Don't Like You-era Cheater Slicks with a Black Metal throat-shredder or something. Extra points for that title. I'd love to hear the rest of this record, but not many stores in middle Georgia stock Israeli punk rock (and there are no record stores in middle Georgia anyhow). Try www.sshakingrecordss.com for some more MP3's.

13. Excepter "Apt. Living" from Alternation
Ny-Quil-paced electro crawl from this esteemed Brooklyn crew. Plenty of space. Surprised that Alternation seemed to fly pretty low on the critical radar, especially with the jump to Kill Rock Stars. Me, I thought it was excellent.

14. Cluster "Caramel" from Zuckerzeit
Following the BOC/Los Kikes segue debacle, this track follows so completely logically from the Excepter one that you'll smack yourself in the head. Peppy drum machine motorik with 70's analog synth action that, all in all, is a confection as sweet as the song's gooey namesake. I wrote that last part to be a douche. Zuckerzeit is fiiled with all manner of mellow synth jams and someone should really get to work on a reissue, hey?

15. No-Neck Blues Band "Lugnagall" from Qvaris
A song that's become my favorite from Qvaris and not a million miles from the vibe of "Caramel," though with more of a strange Appalachian Mountain-via-Krishna's Golden Dope Shop slant. I can't even figure out what instruments are actually being played. Banjo? Organ through a wah-wah pedal? Chord organ? Does it matter? A nice 11 minutes, fer sure.

Then I got up.