Song of the Week
The content of my blog has become quite unbalanced over the past few months: lots of posts about politics, occasional posts about the family, and not much else. So I’m introducing a new feature: the Song of the Week (the link is on your right). I’ll post songs you’ve probably never heard before, and I’ll try to keep a good mix of genres. But most of what I’ll post will be at least a few years old, as I’ve fallen out of touch with the music scene that used to absorb a lot of my time (I even DJed back in the day). I’m hoping that my posts might spark some suggestions for new music I should check out.
The inaugural song is “Chaiste” by Steroid Maximus, from the album Ectopia. Some Steroid Maximus songs sound like Looney Tunes scores, others like Big Band numbers, some make you think of noir detective films, and others make you feel like you’re watching a 50s sci-fi/horror flick. Some even make you think of all those things at once. One reviewer described Ecotopia as “the perfect soundtrack to a Terry Gilliam film that has never been made.” That just about nails it.
“Chaiste” is probably not the best song on the album - it’s the 11th of 12 tracks, and it’s not as complex as some of the other songs - but it’s the one I happen to be enjoying right now. It has a driving rhythm that’s unlike anything else on the album.
I’m not entirely sure how the Steroid Maximus tracks are constructed, but I think they’re a mixture of original recordings and samples from other sources. On Saturday Kai and I were watching Godzilla vs. Monster Zero, and while Godzilla was stomping on Tokyo, the soundtrack contained a horn section that I recognized from one of the songs on Ectopia. There is an undeniable coolness factor in sampling from a Godzilla movie. It also cast the song in an entirely new light for me….
Steroid Maximus is a one-man band, and is one of many projects by J. G. Thirlwell. Here’s a brief bio, and a long interview. I prefer Steroid Maximus to most of his other incarnations mainly because Steroid Maximus songs never have any singing. Thirlwell creates these unreal soundscapes, and putting a vocal track over them brings them back to reality in a way that is, for me, unsatisfying. I prefer to just listen to the instruments, and then let my imagination construct its own narrative.
November 17th, 2004 at 7:32 pm
I saw Foetus play back in 94 in the old 9:30 club. J.Thirwell is probably one of the scariest human beings I have ever seen on stage. Some of the middle stuff in the catalog of the Foetus stuff (like Foetus Interuptus) is pretty interesting because the lyrics are almost like stream of consciousness poetry and not really singing.
Of course you beat to this. I’ve been working on a little flash player to let me do a song of the week too. Well you are much better about updates anyway.