Thursday Random Eight (12/18/2008)

Alec Empire - XXV3: I'll give most releases by the ex-Atari Teenage Riot front man an opportunity, and this song from the Futurist album is a loud, forceful track similar to the ATR days.

Underwater Culprit and the House of Assassins - Dead Bird: Here we go; Jason the Underwater Culprit hosts a weekly radio show on wrct.org on Thursday from 11:00 - 3:00. This is where I ultimately started hearing songs from his band. These are wild mixes of roots-sounding rock and noise that are very well produced and exceptionally fun to listen to. Explore them more on their myspace page.

The Ponys - Discoteca: The Celebration Castle CD that contains this song has a rough Buzzcocks type feel. A small wave of British (or British-sounding, which occurs sometimes) older punk bands are kinda fun in the music land today.

Neil Young - Why Does Thou Hide Thyself, Clouds: Not your typical Neil Young title, but this is from the Dead Man soundtrack in which Young played haunting guitar sounds behind a dismal, tense story. This is a fairly ambient soundtrack to listen to on its own and flows very well with the film.

Mission of Burma - Progress: I've rattled praise about MoB over the past few weeks and won't stop here. Sometimes I think this is the band that really deserved a lot of the indie praise and success that bands like R.E.M. found, but then MoB's quality of music has withstood the test of time much better than their peers, so perhaps things worked out well for everyone.

Chainsaw Kittens - Justine Find Heaven: Likewise, I've rattled praise about the Chainsaw Kittens a lot over the months of doing this random music listing. The Pop Heiress album was early in the evolution of the band, still mixing a uniqueness with strong-pop power chord-driven music.

Grant Hart - All of My Senses: Relatively fresh from the Husker Du breakup, this record has some great songs with some very peculiar arrangements. All of My Senses sounds like a 50's roller-rink song, enhanced by a track on the release called "Roller-Rink" which sounds just how you might expect it to.

Carter USM - Mid Day Crisis: I dumped all my Carter CDs on the iPod a couple weeks ago, having not given them a proper listen for a few years. They are so British, which you can just take that as positively as you can imagine when it comes to music. I always thought Carter was just Robyn Hitchcock on speed, which probably wouldn't be a bad thing either.