For an album from 1987, Opal’s Happy Nightmare Baby does not have a typical album cover. The sparse black-and-white look harkens more to Blue Note‘s glory days, or even to abstract covers from the ’50s. In fact, the sound of the record itself is more akin to the sounds of that era as well, with [...]
Wire – Chairs Missing
21 March 2011 by Leave a Comment
Strangely odd. Weirdly uncommon. Abnormally alien. There are a million ways to say it: this album is bizarre. Not bizarre in a ‘Weird Al’ kind of way, though. Nor is it strange in the way Captain Beefheart is. No, this kind of strange that embodies Wire’s Chairs Missing is something like a hybrid between claustrophobia [...]
Wu-Tang Clan – (36 Chambers)
14 March 2011 by Leave a Comment
For most groups, the next number after ‘six’ is ‘orchestra’. Often times, bands that surpass the average number of members also claim the inalienable need for three bassists or five vocalists or a member who only plays an enormous drum and a tambourine. But of course there are exceptions to this superfluousness – particularly large [...]
Yo La Tengo – Painful
7 March 2011 by Leave a Comment
I used to take photographs like that. As a teenager, I inherited my father’s old Canon AE-1 and hauled it around for a good few years. Clunky and clanky, the camera was a totem of a past nearly erased by the ease and meager costs of digital point-and-shoots. But as a fiery-souled teen, it was [...]
Ride - Nowhere
N.W.A. - Straight Outta Compton
Opal - Happy Nightmare Baby
Mazzy Star - So Tonight That I...