Another update

Dear blog I never write in,

I’m writing in you today (tonight) because I have stumbled into Sonny J’s Disastro, which is such an amazing album that I cant figure out why it doesnt show up on hardly anyone’s radar. 

This is the album I have been looking for in all the wrong places these past couple years. I keep thinking DJ Shadow or Diplo or RJD2 or Boom Bip might have something new and decent- but all i’m left with is some lobster and scrimp mix or an AEIOU, which while good, are far from satisfying.

Disastro is his debut album that was let out going on a month ago. I cant figure out why this isnt taking off like a rocket full of potential. I feel its goofy and cutesy in the way of The Go! Team and upbeat in the way of the Jackson 5. Its an electronic album that isnt afraid to get acoustic and heartfelt like if Holly GoLightly contributed to a more sober version of the last Cut Copy release and the whole thing was dipped in a glaze of pop, thrown in the oven for awhile and served up ironically cold to an internet public that appears to be largely ignoring them.

Better yet- it picks up where The Avalanches Since I Left You left off. As I write this now, its not showing up on pitchfork, metacritic, its listed but not reviewed on allmusic.

And I havnt even finished listening to it yet and I feel this way. 

All a quick google search turned up was one mediocre review on Drowned in Sound. 

If this album doesnt generate some buzz soon, this is going to be my number one under rated album for 2008. I feel the same way about this album as I did The Chromatics‘ IV when that first hit, even though it did eventually come to fruition as Night Drive. 

I thought I had really lucked out because Girl Talk’s Feed the Animals turned out to be better than I have expected. Right as I was starting to figure out the major flaw with Feed the Animals, that while it appears that Girl Talk is coming from a place of abundance on this album (it felt like he was stretching at times on the last one) the formula change from the last album has left this one low on the repeat value. 

Disastro clearly takes its place of the top party album in my itunes for this coming work week. 

It in conjunction with Lindstrom’s Reinterpretations (i’m a little late on this one) are taking over my electronic listening time. Reinterpretations is another great front to back electronic album that I fell into after listening to Prins Thomas’ Prins Thomas Presents Cosmo Galactic Prism and reading that the two were frequent nordic collaborators. 

Speaking of Nords and predictable intro phrases on a paragraph- I went to go see the At The Gates renion tour last night at the Worcester Palladium. I wanted to make it over there again tonight for the P-funk show, but last nights Swedish metal has left my ears still ringing. I suspected that they may have altered the sound of the guys mic to give his voice the quality that it use to have a dozen years ago. 

I dont know why I started going to metal shows again. There is something about metal culture that comes across as living in its own backward bubble, and of being far more superficially ignorant than other genres. I feel like metal music is just no longer relevant in the world and pockets of it like that of Worcester come across as almost time lapses of long hair, a fixation with evil (whatever that is), and tattoos that are meaningless. Maybe i’m getting old. 

I was pissed because the bartender kept passing me by for about 15 minutes until he finally served my friend who bought my beer with his. Why he was obviously ignoring me I had no idea. And I was pissed because we showed up a little late and only saw the very end of Municipal Waste, who happen to have a sound more to my old fashion speed metal taste.

I came across a band called The Gaslight Anthem and picked up The ‘59 Sound recently. I cant tell if they have a lot of promise or if i’ve been brained washed due to my own peculiar life experience of having parents to subjected me to some much Bruce Springsteen at an early age that, combined with coming of age with a childhood girlfriend who shared in Gin Blossoms in the background car drives, and when I went to go see the Murphy’s on St. Patricks day 2000 right after Sing Loud Sing Proud hit but before we all realized it was the first album of a slippery slope to sell-outdom, and my college days of pounding beers while listening to The Replacements a decade after their last major album. 

I read that they are on joining up on the Warp Tour. This information alone makes me want to never read or hear another thing about who they are personally. I’ve had too many bands that i’ve stumbled into with high hopes only to find out the band members are tools by which point I can never listen to their music again due to the negative mental associations. 

Other notable picks up are Yusef Lateef’s The Blue, a great jazzy bluesy album roughly in the manner of the Cowboy Bebop Soundtrack (how bad is it that I have such a low comprehension of jazz music that this best comparison I can come up with). 

The Yusef Lateef fits well with my current Bert Jansch phase. I have had his self titled apparently famous folk album from 1965 for a couple weeks. I had never heard of him until scanning some forums. It was a well worthy find, he at times reminds me of Gary Higgens or at least makes me sentimental for his Red Hash album.

Sorry for the lack of images on this post, I have some photos of at the gates in my cell phone, maybe i’ll stop being lazy eventually.