Listen to an album you've never heard by an artist you never listen to and then tell us about it!

i guess i didn't think that thread was always things that people hadn't heard before. and i wanted this thread to be a little more deliberate. or pre-meditated. choosing something to listen to that might not be the thing you ordinarily listen to as well maybe. and hopefully being surprised by something. people have really written some great stuff on here! kudos to all.

i love tom t. hall by the way! one of my fave songwriters.

if anyone here hasn't heard a 70s mickey newbury album, you should give one a try. they are very unique. i am always floored by his songs. I Came To Hear The Music/Lovers are two mid-70s records that don't get a lot of ink anymore probably but are so cool.

also: if you have never listened to him, David Ackles. i love him to bits. i can't believe that nobody has done a David Ackles jukebox musical but maybe he's just a little too off-center.

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you are welcome! i will give dumptruck a try. i never really listened to them! i always think of big dipper when i think of dumptruck. probably just saw them in the D section together a lot in the 80s.

the 80s band that i became a BIG fan of late in life/21st century was Love Tractor. I had no idea! nobody told me how awesome those early records were. sometimes they almost reminded me of an american durutti column or something. or something that should have been on Factory anyway. i think i just assumed they were twangy or like the Dbs.

i mean i love Dbs and Pylon and REM and Lets Active obviously but i missed that band all throughout the 80s and 90s. better late than never.

if anyone here hasn't heard a 70s mickey newbury album, you should give one a try. they are very unique. i am always floored by his songs. I Came To Hear The Music/Lovers are two mid-70s records that don't get a lot of ink anymore probably but are so cool.

Agreed (and I too love your posts to this thread scott) but also people ought not sleep on later newbury stuff. Kind of amazes me that A Long Road Home is from 2002.

Tim, are you a David Ackles fan?

he only had four albums. broadway/cabaret-style songs. with an old-fashioned sensibility that might seem maudlin or overly sentimental but his lyrics are sneaky and can be pretty dark. he reminds me of sherwood anderson a little bit. or early john o'hara. he isn't bitter though.

this song breaks my heart every time. i'm such a sap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlKBfMxHA7E

Big Dipper was also from Boston and I think that they may have shared a band member or two.

Probably a toss up for me between For The Country and Big Plans for Everybody...

Thanks to man alive I listened to the two Larry Sparks albums they recommended, thank you man alive. I listened to and played a lot of bluegrass fiddle as a kid and enjoyed them, interesting not-Nashville production (or maybe it was? and just of its time, but the production was oddball in an appealing way). Title track of John Deer Tractor set me up for a consistently slant approach to the genre but it was not so, excellent standard bluegrass music and I look forward to listening again and hearing more. Larry is a fabulous guitarist/mandolinist

I have a huge blind spot that I need help with: Teenage Fanclub.

I only know a few songs from my college radio days "Everything Flows" (awesome/great), "The Concept" & "Star Song" (very listenable/good) and then "What You Do To Me" which I get is like a Big Star homage but never really clicked with me.

OK so Everything Flows is off their 1st album A Catholic Education which is OK but kinda patchy

The other 3 songs you mention are from Bandwagonesque which is their 2nd album and usually thought of as their most "classic" album, so maybe go for that one first

After that I would recommend Grand Prix as their other "classic" album

scott please listen to mellon collie in full

i listened to let it bleed a few weeks ago for the first time and i was a bit surprised just how bluesy and rootsy it is (i'm really unfamiliar with the stones). really not my thing at all past "gimme shelter" and "you can't always get what you want"

Re: Teenage Fanclub, Songs from Northern Britain and Man-Made are just as good, they have a lot of great albums!

2nd time this morning I have seen mention of Larry Sparks, who I had never heard of before today

I've heard of him via Soulseek when I was downloading Sparks albums :) Ditto for Beachwood Sparks

I decided to listen to a Taylor Swift album for the first time, so I picked her first one. I thought it was good! I didn't think it was anything particularly special compared to my other favorite country albums in the last couple decades, but it's a good listen. The only other Taylor Swift I've really heard were a few of the inescapable singles, when I've had a chance to listen to anything escapable I escaped.

(also i don't think Radiohead had any cred at the time of CR,CR... unless you think "Creep" was influential lol)

Oh yeah, I meant this in an anachronistic sense, like it coincidentally reminded me of later Radiohead for a few bars.

Are you familiar with CAN? Please listen to Ege Bamyasi and I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Thanks for the TFC recs everyone, I'll jam some later this afternoon.

You know Can has never clicked for me, even though I should love it on paper + I love Neu and other krautrock + I love Jaki and recently got super into his late period percussion ensemble Drums Off Chaos (highly recommended!). I had Ege Bamyasi on cd but honestly haven't heard it for, uh, over 15 years. I put Tago Mago on sometime in the last year but wasn't in the right headspace to really take it in. So I'll listen to both today.

Post-Damo Suzuki CAN doesn't get quite as much love, but I think it's just as worthwhile to check out, these albums are a bit more song focused and funky as opposed to the loose psychedelic jam vibes of the Damo years. I highly recommend Soon Over Babaluma, Landed, and Saw Delight.

Can - Ege Bamyasi

Ok Jaki sounds amazing on this so far. The sparseness of the kick drum in the busy funk on Pinch, the tightness and the jazz touch on the ride cymbal crashes on Sing Swan Song, so good.

Love the interlocking bass/keyboard groove in 7 on One More Night, and the knife scrapes. I know this isn't a fresh take, but I like the reverse of the usual focus, how the vocals act as a sort of textural element to add some variation to the music.

Vitamin C, of course I know this from samples.

Soup is funky, some crazy left hand snare business. Not as into the jam/freak out section but the tones are pretty insane for 1972.

I'm So Green is almost a little too normal? Although that kinda highlights the weirdness even more. There's the thinnest line separating this from terrible hippie jam nonsense (a little dissonance, a little danger, and Jaki?).

Spoon is a nice simmer, maybe the closest it gets to motorik? Cool beat. Seems like it could go on for another 7 minutes.

i kinda love all can. landed and saw delight are so amazing.

"scott please listen to mellon collie in full"

oh man i would have to be in a good mood. maybe though. ned won't see what i write, right? isn't he a big pumpkin guy? my youngest kid was telling me how he was enjoying a SP song and played it for me and it was luckily one of the earlier ones that was less histrionic. then we were at a used record store and he asked me if i would buy him a SP best-of cd and i said no. no i wouldn't. for an 18 year old he has amazing taste thanks to spotify. such a wide range of stuff that he likes.

ege bamyasi is really easy to love! its so cool. its one of a kind for sure.

Ok I'm moving on to those post-Damo records before going back to Tago Mago.

when i left home as a kid i moved to Philly and got a job at a Saladalley restaurant at the Bourse across from the Liberty Bell. it was a local 80s chain with a big salad bar. i didn't have much money or even a real place to live - this was 1988 - and i would go to 3rd Street Jazz once a week and buy one Can album until i had most of them. it was a better education than college would have been. they had nice new German Spoon reissues on vinyl back then.

when all is said and done, Tago Mago might be my fave Can album. but its hard to pick. i just don't pick usually. its easier that way.

'Soon Over Babaluma' is cool, it sounds amazing. Everything has a nicely restrained dynamic to it, and the grooves and drumming are less traditional (no snares, hardly a backbeat to be found), but some of the tracks have a more conventional 'jamming' arc that I don't love?

Listening to 'Saw Delight' now and I wasn't expecting the reggae/ska/almost highlife vibes on some tracks. Interesting how conventional the drumming is compared to those other records. 'Animal Waves' would be a good one for the weirdo dj night.

maybe it's too obvious as it was actually a hit but I Want More is my favourite post-Damo Can song, but I'm not that keen on Flow Motion as an album so maybe that's why nobody is mentioning it

then we were at a used record store and he asked me if i would buy him a SP best-of cd and i said no. no i wouldn't.

I would like to nominate scott for father of the year. You can make a difference people - start with your own kids!

xp Flow Motion is as good as the other post-Damo records mentioned above.

cosign on Flow Motion, I really like it

Soon Over Babaluma is imho the best Can album-as-album

I only first heard the later Can records thirty years after I heard the 1968 to 1974 run, and I guess my low expectations had been built up so long that I was surprised at how pleasant Flow Motion and Saw Delight were. If I had been a Can fan when they came out, my reactions might have been more critical.

I want more is my fav top of the pops performance ever

I won't go deep on Tago Mago, since it's so long and shaggy (all those cut-up jams). After my day of Can-listening the most inspiring have been Ege Bamyasi and Soon Over Babaluma (which I almost certainly hadn't heard before).

to revisit TM just jam "Halleluwah" real loud

and listen to "full moon on the highway" on Landed for a glimpse of an alternate universe where pop music was future music. or something like that.

one great thing about Can is that yes, they have their peak and their later records aren't as great, but at least those records aren't failed attempts to capture the past or adventures in pop that don't work, they're mostly just fun and groovy, to a fault even. like Saw Delight is a really enjoyable record for a band that's past its prime.

Morton Subotnick - Ascent Into Air/A Fluttering Of Wings

A Fluttering Of Wings as played by the Juilliard String Quartet and an ELECTRONIC GHOST SCORE is brittle and metallic and becomes sickly over time. Grandmother is not well. Ascent Into Air as played by Cal Arts Twentieth Century Players and written for 10 instruments and COMPUTER GENERATED SOUND is more approachable and shows the possibilities of combining computer sound with acoustic instruments. Get this: the possibilities are endless. There is a lot of tension here. And anxiety. Like too much coffee. Like a deadline approaching. But also the space and calm in between those moments of speedy aimlessness when you are trying to do three things at once. Then, finally, the Ambien kicks in. It is quite a ride.

These two pieces are from THE DOUBLE LIFE OF AMPHIBIANS. A staged tone poem with three parts. Amphibians, Beasts, and Angels. All from 1981. This recording is from 1984. On Nonesuch.

Okay, now i'm going to listen to some Motown 45s for an hour or two. Sheesh.

lol

Side 2 of "Soon Over Babaluma" is the best music in the world.

jamming Saw Delight now and yeah its super fun, probably would be considered a classic if by most other bands. but I gotta say what's with Can going from having state-of-the-art production even when we know their equipment wasn't all that advanced to sounding like they were recording in a shoebox

I mean check out the bass/drum interplay in Animal Waves - Holger would never play like that so Jaki almost never plays as frenzied as he does here

Anyone want to recommend me something? Genres I know next-to-nothing about and am intrigued by: country, krautrock, drum and bass, yacht rock

xp pretty sure “Animal Waves” became my go to when I want to a long Can track. Wonderful genre-jumping exercise.

I can recommend plenty of drum & bass but not sure which *album* to start with, you'd be much better off with tracks or mixes

A.R. & Machines - Die Grüne Reise is the krautrock record that got me rolling

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb4ERB8SRmM

I would start with the canonical artists - Can, Neu!, Faust, maybe Amon Duul II, for a more rock approach. Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Cluster for the electronic end of things.

Krautrock is such a useless term though, especially these days.

Anyone want to recommend me something? Genres I know next-to-nothing about and am intrigued by: country, krautrock, drum and bass, yacht rock

― a hoy hoy

For Country: Dillard & Clark, Waylon Jennings and Tony Joe White