Blues Du Jour

Reminds me of the Shags. These folks don't give much credence to ideas like "notes" and "tempo," but their music is certainly not boring. Actually, it's weird, weird, weird. There are some drums, a lot of tuneless brass, some woodwinds or maybe just keyboards, guitars, and a pop-tenor style male singer and a very timid female singer, both of whose accents are pretty strong. All of this adds up to sounding sort of lounge-lizardy and sort of folky, with occasional forays elsewhere noted below. No FCC's, not that you could understand them if there were. Try it, you might like it.

1: Opening with trumpet-y organ. mellow. Smooth lounge feeling. Good lyrics: "And it's going back into its place / and it' s going to blast forth." (1:54)
2: "Open field / There's no time" over and over. Same synthesizer-y vaguely trumpetish sound. Weak barely vocalized female vocals. (1:23)
3: More complicated lyrics about geological/astronomical disturbances. Folky. (0:54)
4: Sousa-ish xylophone, brass and woodwinds. Instrumental. (1:11)
5: Weird lyrics, weird tempo changes, weird recorder again. When guitars are present there is a sort of standard pop sound. (2:07)
6: Are we trying to compromise between a western and a non-western scale, or are we just out of tune? Traditional Japanese inflected instrumental. Quivery guitars and bass. Some kind of woodwind. (2.02)
7: Vegas lounge-lizardy again. Weak female vocals trying to sound like Astrud Gilberto. Trumpet. Awful bossa nova smooth jazz feel. Chimes. Weird indecipherable lyrics. (1:47)
8: Country folky guitars, weird percussion, more tuneful male vocals than usual. The female backup singer sounds as if someone has torn one of her limbs off but she is too shy and weak from blood loss to do much about it. French horn solo. (1:58)
9: Same breathy weak female vocals, which may or may not be in english. Poppy backup with nice guitar solo overlay. (0:50)
10: Ringing phone against surfer guitar intro. Beatles-esque happy "good morning" ending with windchimes. ~15 sec of silence at end of track. (1:44)
11: Slappy percussion, sleigh bells, french horn. Instrumental (0:24)
12: Organ or accordian with crickety sounding interludes. (0:48)
13: Acoustic guitar, mellow soothing male vocals, awesome lyrics about the prophet elijah. Tuneful. (3:19)
14: Swingy low brass sounds, pitchy mousy female backup vocals, "eeee" repeated over as chorus. Music sounds like harder beach boys. Tuneless "harmonizing" between backup and main vocals. Too long. (2:21)
15: Lugubrious brass, female vocals, beatless drums, flutes got left outside in the cold. Complaining male vocals come in and totally change sound of song. (2:06)
16: Country & western sound (or maybe like the theme to a 70's tv show). Guitars, lugubrious brass. (1:26)
17: Clicky percussion, low brass, soft cymbals. Gronk! (0:46)
18: Folky murky guitars, squeaky toy. Gets upbeat and boppy, then peters out. (1:17)
19: Vocals in Japanese, timid tuneless guitar picking, prominent bass, something squeaky and very soft. (1:40)
20: Belligerent jazz hall piano, sickly high brass, soft ambient background sounds, jungle animals? (0:38)
21: Tuneless squeaky recorder, happy tambourine, sickly low brass. Instrumental. (0:49)
22: Oboe-ish keyboard. Mellow lounge feel, until the trombone comes in and ruins everything. Guitars. Instrumental. (0:55)
23: Like something the guest kids would play on Sesame Street as the theme music for the Count. With several takes. Creepy, slow, pitchy. Instrumental. (0:53)
24: Horns. Very short. Instrumental. (0:05)
25: Driving piano. Lugubrious brass. Instrumental. (0:15)
26: Taiko drums. Simple oboe-ish theme. Instrumental. (0:22)
27: Muted surfer guitars. Intruiging hard-to-parse vocals. Something about a highway, and signposts, and sheep. Periods of odd distortion. (1:57)
28: Circus-y with balloon and farm animal sounds. Instrumental. (0:20)
29: Bright piano with male and female vocals. "No sheep." Hmmm.(0:25)
30: Soothing slow murky oboe-ish melody. Feints toward grandeur at the end with piano and cymbals. Instrumental. (0:55)
31: Frenetic recorder and drums. Instrumental. (0:19)
32: Distorty piano, uptempo, snare drum, lyrics say something about being too old and amen. (0:10)
33: Lugubrious low brass, bass drums and mousy female vocals. (0:55)
34: Recorders, piano and drums, slow, grand, lots of cymbal. Instrumental. (1:21)
35: Recorder and piano. Simple and rustic. Instrumental. (0:15)
36: Is the syncopation in the piano intentional? I guess we'll never know. Boogies down, in the slowest possible way. Ends with electronic chimes. (0:52)
37: Brass melody sounds like "Foxy Lady." Creepy bass line. Spoken female vocals in Japanese. Some shy singing towards the end. (4:16)
38: Upbeat Vegas lounge with veeerrry slow scratching. Instrumental (0:55)
39: Slow pipes, brass and taiko drums. Lugubrious or elegiac, depending on how charitable you're feeling. (0:30)
40: Brit-poppy keyboards, playing out of phase. Random percussion. Ends with chimey sounds. (0:28)
41: Relatively tuneful. Duck-like woodwinds, I think, and some drums. Sort of a muted disco sound. Pretty nice. (0:30)
-Kathryn