Day 11: Water

Post-Christmas seems to be just this general stretch of irresponsible milling about. I do quite enjoy it, although its done quite the number to my sleep schedule. However, its given me oodles of time to just dig through my playlist. I started things off with Jethro Tull and his famous Aqualung. In some ways he seems like a rougher cousin to Sufjan Stevens. He manages to work these ornate flute trills and melodic passages in a similar fashion. There's a certain ornateness and subtle complexity to the chord structures. Its like Jethro Tull comes at the music making process starting with a heavier rock sound, and then incorporating this lightness into it, whereas Sufjan goes the other way, always having to work harder to add weight and punch. And of course the lead singer for Jethro Tull can muster far more menace than the Detroit musico-cartographer. But after their twisted little Aqualung, I get this:

Yes, that would be Aqua's Barbie Girl from the album Aquarium. Don't ask.

Post-hanky-panky I got to visit Me First and the Gimme Gimmes and Are a Drag. Its quite the amusing number as they cover various show tunes. I had no idea that they were strictly a cover band until I went to their wikipedia page to read about them. Strangely, they provided the beginning of a wiki-walk that lasted forty-five minutes and led me through topics such as business-efficiency models and Finnish swearing. Perkele! 


Then Fugazi, Wishbone Ash, and Squeeze all made an appearance. Nothing particularly phenomenal jumped out at me this time, but I'll be interested in seeing when they pop up next. I was kind of amused by Squeeze's absurdly upbeat rock organ which hid in the background songs like Farfisa Beat.

Army of Me came next. It was a compilation of remixes and covers of the song by various artists, so it felt strange just saying Björk was next. Some of the covers got pretty intense, which I wasn't expecting. Hemp made a nice contribution, switching the relentless, churning, electric ostinato over to guitar. However, what I really dug was the remix done by Dr. Syntax'N'CB v. Rivethead. I couldn't find a video for it, so here's the track as best I can manage.

It starts out with natural sounds and light percussion that breaks down into this hot, glitchy pulse. Of course, the song gets funky in its orchestration, but you'll have to find that out for yourself.

Music left: 166.32gb 

Cheers,

Bodhisvaha