hey! some random junk!

Hey. Yes. Yes, you’re absolutely right, there’s been some inter­esting new stuff coming down the wires. A new album from vaguely-girlpants-related band Home (a con­cept album! about fucking!). A new Scott Walker release (I’ve never actu­ally heard any Scott Walker but I gather I ought to be excited). And, of course, a new Moun­tain Goats EP that we’ll all doubtlessly be scram­bling to be the first to post about (suck it! I’m first!). That said, I’m not up to writing about any of those yet, so here are a couple songs I’ve been lis­tening to lately: Sway — “This is My Demo” (buy) This is the lead-off (and tit­ular) song of Sway’s very non-demo quality freshman album. Sway is a rapper from the UK. He says he’s less street than, say, Dizzee Rascal (who he toured with). He claims that Kriss Kross’s Totally Krossed Out is what got him into hiphop. He doesn’t claim to be part of the grime scene; doesn’t really claim all­ie­gance to any scene. His album is self-produced and self-released, fol­lowing on tens of thou­sands of street-sold demos. This song is good, and even if the whole album isn’t the hottest thing I’ve ever heard it shows serious promise. [myspace] [web­site] [label] Wolves in the Throne Room — “Queen of the Bor­rowed Light” (buy) Like hip-hop, black metal is a genre I’m, well, “less knowl­edge­able” in. I can’t tell black metal from death metal. I can prob­ably figure out what’s goth metal and what’s sym­phonic metal but that’s just because I have func­tioning ears and some kind of cul­tural aware­ness. My ex-girlfriend Nicole did her best to get me into bands like Bork­nagar, Dimmu Borgir, Satyricon, and other fear­some Scan­di­na­vian face­painters, but for the most part I’ve got to say they all washed over me. Of course, I’ve got a few metal bands I dearly love: Mastodon’s southern-fried riffing, Opeth’s the­atri­cality and love of big string sec­tions, Isis and Pelican’s instru­mental dirges. I’ve dab­bled in harder, scarier bands like Emperor, Enslaved, and Nile. Wolves in the Throne Room are (like many of those I just listed as favorites) an Amer­ican metal band–an Amer­ican black metal band, an oddity. It’s com­monly under­stood that America lacks the mythology and the barren winter hellscapes that birthed black metal in the first place, and there­fore it should leave all that occult shit to the occultists. But hey, I sup­pose the pacific north­west, where these guys come from, is the closest thing we’ve got. I mean, look at Twin Peaks. Anyhow, this is an absolutely blis­tering song if you’ve got the patience (the four songs on this album average 15 min­utes apiece) and strong enough ears. [myspace] [web­site] [label]