Tuesday, February 22, 2022

• Pan American, The Patience Fader
• Cecil Taylor, Love For Sale
• The Dead C, Palisades 7″
• The Dead C, Stealth/The Factory 7″
• The Dead C, Metalheart 7″
• The Dead C, The Dead C vs. Sebadoh 7″
• The Dead C, Trapdoor Fucking Exit
• The Dead C, Eusa Kills
• The Dead C, Helen Said This
• The Dead C, Perform DR503b
• Sparks, Big Beat
• Sparks, Balls

Balls (2000) is the last proper Sparks album (not a collaboration or soundtrack) that I hadn’t heard yet and it’s... a little better than I expected, as if some of the creativity that would burst forth a few years later on Lil’ Beethoven was already building within them. For one thing, it’s the best sounding album of their 1984-2000 period, like they finally more or less caught up with the dance-pop present instead of endlessly chasing after it. But it was too late.

No particular song is a total knockout, but one I like is “The Calm Before the Storm”:

The dogs are letting postmen come and go
The muscle cars are driving way too slow
And everybody’s walking on tip-toe
For every yes, a hundred nos
The kind of day when nothing hits the fan
The kind of day when nothing’s in demand
The kind of day when music means Chopin
And love is shown by holding hands...