Friday Random Ten, July 7

It's friday again, so it's time for a random ten. So out comes my iPod, and the results are:

1. **Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, "Latitude"**: mediocre tune off of the latest Flecktones album. This album was a 3-CD set. Unfortunately, it really should have been a single CD; they just didn't bother to separate the good stuff from the not-so-good stuff. Very disappointing - they're an amazing group of guys (well, except for Jeff...), and this just isn't up to the quality they should be able to produce.
2. **Marillion, "Man of a Thousand Faces"**: a really fantastic Marillion tune. It ends with a very Yes-like layering buildup.
3. **Tony Trischka Band, "Sky is Sleeping"**: a track off of the TTBs first album. Tony doesn't disappoint: brilliant playing, great chemistry between the band members. Features some truly amazing back-and-forth between banjo and sax.
4. **Sonic Youth, "Helen Lundeberg"**: something from Sonic Youth's latest. I love this album.
5. **Peter Hammill, "Our Oyster"**: live Hammill, wonderful, strange, dark, depressing. It's a tune about Tianamen Square.
6. **Flower Kings, "Fast Lane"**: typical FK - aka amazing neo-progrock.
7. **Broadside Electric, "Sheath and Knife"**: a modern rendition of a very gruesome old medieval ballad about incest.
8. **Stuart Duncan, "Thai Clips"**: a nice little bluegrass tune by one of the best bluegrass fiddlers around. Don't ask why it's called "Thai Clips", nothing about it sounds remotely Thai.
9. **Dirty Three, "Ember"**: how many times do I need to rave about how much I love the Dirty Three?
10. **Lunasa, "Spoil the Dance"**: nice flute-heavy traditional Irish by Lunasa. For once, it's not played so insanely fast. I'd guess around 130bpm, rather than the usual 170 to 180 of Lunasa. Lunasa's a great band, and I love all their recordings; but Irish music like this is supposed to be *dance* music; you can't dance at 180bpm.

Tags

More like this

1. **Porcupine Tree, "Prepare Yourself"**. Porcupine Tree is a strange bad, which started out as an elaborate joke. This is off of their most progressive album, "The Sky Moves Sideways". It's a brilliant piece of work. 2. **Dream Thater, "Blind Faith"** 3. **Dirty Three, "Dream Evie"**. Ah, Dirty…
Metaphor, "Call Me Old and Uninspired or Maybe Even Lazy and Tired but Thirteen Bodies in my Backyard Say You're Wrong": Very cool (if silly) track from one of the best neo-progressive bands I found via Bitmunk. I love Bitmunk. The Beatles, "Mean Mr. Mustard" The Flower Kings, "The Devil's…
Baka Beyond, "Baka Play Baka": This is what happens when you take a bunch of great trad Irish musicians, and lock them into a room with a bunch of great African musicians from the Baka tribe in Cameroon. I don't know quite how to describe this. It really doesn't sound like anything else. You can…
1. **Trout Fishing in America, "I Get Ideas"**. Trout is a great band; they do both children's music and adult music. This is one of their children's songs, but I love it anyway. What's not to like about a song that features shampooing with peanut butter? 2. **Gordian Knot, "The Brook The…