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Well, with a few caveats (there's always caveats: a) I don't use iTunes, but AmaroK. Same difference. b) most of my music isn't on the hard drive yet) here's the most played tracks on my computer:
1) "Demons in the rising sun" - Pharaoh Overlord. Is this really the most played thing here? I don't think I've actually listened to it in ages, good as it is. A track from the fourth record by the stoner rock offshoot of New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal behemoths Circle, it's just the sort of thing the genre should be: grinding riffs, growling repeated vocals about demons, wibbly electronics and rhythms dense enough to cut with a ritual knife. I want to see them play live, a lot. This track probably says that I am much more of a sad old cod-metalhead than I would like to imagine.
2) "Happy Rolling Cowboy" - The Holy Modal Rounders. If I did actually listen to everything as MP3s, and could somehow go back for the last decade or more and count up how many times I've listened to a band, the HMR would most likely be at the top. Ever since poring over a half-mangled dubious cassette copy of The Moray Eels Eat The Holy Modal Rounders, having heard their marvellous "Birdsong" (which opens Easy Rider, though I'm not sure I'd seen the film at this point) as a teenager in remote parts of Wales, I have loved this outfit.
This song is not from either of those places, but from one of their seminal collections of covers and idiosyncratic reworkings of folk, pop and parlour songs of the old America before the mechanical reproduction of music. It's a totally upbeat expression of the joys of being a cowboy, rolling along on a beatiful bit of banjo and strummed guitar. Music it is impossible to be sad to, and is the best for singing along to late into the night when the whisk(e)y is plentiful. Witnessing Morning Bride perform a specially-worked out cover of this for my daughter's fifth birthday cowgirl party was a highlight of the day, and possibly the year. I don't wear checked shirts by the way. Not any more.
3) "Soliliquy for lilith 7" - Nurse With Wound. Ah, spooky, unsettling ambience. Much as I like this track and album, I actually only listen to it occasionally. This got bumped by the decision-making process for the incidental atmospheric sounds for a dinner party séance last weekend. It seemed to be rather good for that purpose, alongside another NWW piece (Echo Poeme: Sequence No.2 for what it's worth) and sundry schlocky creaks, werewolf howls and shrieks. Getting roped in for last-minute soundscaping and FX in Dalston was fun, as it turned out. |
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