LWA Blog — music

This last weekend of October, the Randomizer (I feel like this word should be capitalized) gives us Inventions' Continuous Portrait, which was released in 2020. This band, Inventions, is a collaboration between a couple people; Eluvium's Matthew Cooper and Explosions in the Sky's Mark T. Smith. They are (were?) label-mates (Temporary Residence Limited) and I think Eluvium and EITS toured together early on. Continuous Portrait is their third album. I feel the Eluvium vibes in the record, they are easier to pick up since that's just one person. EITS is essentially a rock band of which Smith is 25% of, and...

My weekend got thrown out of whack, but here I am blessing your feed with vinyl goodness. This week, the randomizer gives us Peter Gabriel's massive 1986 LP, So. This album has been with me from the start, but this particular copy I'm playing was purchased nearly 10 years ago. Half-speed remaster 180g reissue blah blah blah. This thing was everywhere. Sledgehammer. Big Time. Red Rain. Mercy Street. In Your Eyes. Kate Bush makes an appearance for the gorgeous duet, Don't Give Up, and Laurie Anderson turns up as well (This is the Picture (Excellent Birds)).  I still love this...

Welcome back to LWA ROTW. This week, the Discogs Randomizer gives us Talking Heads' 77. The first time I'd ever heard Talking Heads was when Take Me to the River (from their second album, More Songs About Building and Food) was played on Casey Kasem's American Top 40 millions of years ago. I remember thinking it was cool that they took an old soul song and twisted it to fit their sound. And that's kinda what Talking Heads do, take their influences and combine them into something different. That said, my first Talking Heads album was Speaking in Tongues (1983)....

I first learned of Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings in 2007 when 100 Days, 100 Nights was released. Instantly hooked, I went to the internet to see if they were touring. Turned out the answer was yes, they were coming to my town (and on my birthday of all days), but it was sold out. I kept at it and eventually scored a ticket. I went alone on my birthday and it was completely worth it. I totally kept up would see them a couple more times. This week, the Discogs randomizer gives us Soul of a Woman, the final Sharon...

Welcome to October! Inspired by that scene in High Fidelity, I started making this mix a few years ago, put a handful of tracks together and kinda forgot about it. I was looking for inspiration for this month's mix and decided to revisit this. I expanded it to a lot more than a handful. It's all the greatest album-opening tracks of all time! Jokes, it's just stuff I like, so your mileage may vary (like all of my other mixes). But hopefully you like it. Or someone likes it. Or not....whatever works!