#gussilber

[noondaytune]

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She Will - Savages.

Given the scientifically proven ability of music to soothe savage beasts, it is not too surprising that a band should choose to call themselves Savages and make music to soothe savage beasts by.

"Husbands", the standout track from their just-released debut album featured here a few months ago, hath charms of the dark and delirious variety, propelled by a snaking bassline and quavering vocals that give way to gasps and yelps as the guitars and the drums collide.

It will remind you, if you are fond of the era, of the gloomily rhythmic Post-Punk bands of the 80s, such as Bauhaus and Gang of Four, proving too that music is a beast that feeds on itself, and that it sounds just as good the second time around. Bon Appetit.

"She Will" is the first single taken from "Silence Yourself". 

Contributed by @gussilber.

[noondaytune]

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Psycho Killer  - Talking Heads.

Next year marks the 30th anniversary of everything that happened in 1984. One such thing was the release of the greatest rock concert movie ever made, "Stop Making Sense", directed by Jonathan Demme and starring Talking Heads.

If you haven't yet seen this movie yet, I envy you, because it is so full of vitality and fun, so life-affirming, so cool and hip and delirious, that you will want to watch it again and again.

It opens with David Byrne strolling onto the stage, on his lonesome, carrying a tape-deck and a guitar. He puts the deck down, and says, "Hi, got a tape I want to play". Yes, that would be a cassette tape.

And then he plays it, and taps his white-sneakered feet, and strums his guitar, and bobs his head, like some crazy, wide-eyed bird. Here, see for yourself.

This song, and this movie, are two of the reasons why I love Talking Heads, and why 1984, despite what George Orwell said, was actually one of the better years in the history of the human race. Enjoy.

Contributed by @gussilber.

[noondaytune]

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Salt of the Earth - The Rolling Stones.

My Noonday colleague and associate, Chris Roper, recently tweeted that the primary impulse of popular music is sexual, rather than political, or words to that effect.

This was in reference to an article that postulated the thesis that the Rolling Stones continue to cast a giant shadow over the landscape of pop, even half a century after the Baby Boomer generation first started making music to make babies by.

Mr Roper is, of course, right and wrong. Rock 'n Roll, so-called because of its innate ability to make people rock 'n roll, is as much a force for political commentary as for the expression of unbridled lust.

As evidence, I give you this lesser-known Rolling Stones ballad, in which we are entreated to spare a thought and say a prayer for the disadvantaged and the disenfranchised among us. It's always been one of my favourite Stones songs, hewn from the political side of the band, the side that also gave us "Street Fighting Man" and "Sympathy for the Devil".

"Salt of the Earth" is a tender and heartfelt song, an anthem of empathy that even features a full Gospel choir on the chorus, and while one suspects that Jagger may have his tongue in his cheek in places, it still works as a song that appeals to the better angels of our nature, and I find that I can never listen to it just once.

Thank you, Mr Roper, for inadvertently putting it back on my playlist.

Contributed by @gussilber.

[noondaytune]

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1977 - Ana Tijoux.

"Breaking Bad" is the tale of Walter White, a mild-mannered chemistry teacher who discovers, through a series of chance events, that he is pretty damn good at cooking crystal meth.

He teams up with a junkie named Jesse, and together they...well, let me not spoil it for you. Suffice to say that this is the finest television series since "The Sopranos", and I'm willing to bet it'll turn you into a Breaking Baddict too.

One of the things I love most about the show is that way it uses music as point and counterpoint, and every episode sends me rushing to the Google to find just who sang just which amazing song.

Here's an excellent example from Season 4, as used during a tense sequence in which Jesse goes for a long ride in a Cadillac with a very silent henchman. The song is a stunning fusion of jazz, hip-hop, Latin rhythms and rapid-fire Spanish rap, by a Chilean singer named Ana Tijoux. Enjoy, yo.

Contributed by @gussilber.

[noondaytune]

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Somewhere - Jimi Hendrix.

Jimi Hendrix didn’t play the guitar. He played the universe: planets spinning in the palms of his hands, nebulae swirling in the haze, comets blazing trails of lava across the blood-red sky.

His voodoo music was as nuclear as the sun, and as delicate as a butterfly on the wing.

He was a gift to this earth from who knows where, and even today, his songs sound as fresh and alive as fire.

This is a track from his new album, "People, Hell, And Angels", a collection of remasters that disprove the epitaph Jimi wrote for himself during his brief burst of glory at the tail-end of the Sixties. He does live today.

Contributed by @gussilber.

[noondaytune]

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Scar - Missy Higgins.

I discovered Missy Higgins, no relation to Missy Elliott, on a YouTube video in a blog post I had landed on after following a link in a magazine article I had been sent to by Twitter.

Such is the provenance of serendipity, which is one of the best ways I know of finding interesting new music amidst the clutter. (Another way is this little tumblr called Noonday Tune. You should check it out sometime.)

I like this song for its unassuming, insinuating nature, the way it sneaks up on you and drifts around in your head like a curlicue.

I like it for its loping, slightly awkward rhythm, the way it sounds like it is on the verge of falling over, before it regains its balance and carries on with grace.

And I like it because you can hear, every now and again, that Missy Higgins has an Aussie accent and she doesn't mind if you know it. Good on ya, Missy, and thank you for the music.

Contributed by @gussilber.

[noondaytune]

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Stalin Wasn't Stallin' - Robert Wyatt.

Robert Wyatt was the drummer and vocalist for the great English Psychedelic-Progressive-Jazz-Rock outfit, Soft Machine, in the 1970s. Then one night, at a party, he fell from a fourth-floor window, and he has been confined to a wheelchair ever since.

But his spirit has soared, and his signature falsetto, quavering and plaintive, is one of the quirkiest and most sublime sounds in modern music.

Here he lends it to an old wartime spiritual about Stalin vs Hitler, not just once but in multi-tracked four-part harmonies that make him sound like a one-man barbershop quartet. That's him on the brushes too.

I leave you now with a gentle entreaty to immerse yourself in the rest of Mr Wyatt's warm, weird, and wonderful oeuvre, not just as a solo artist, but as an essential cog in the Soft Machine, whose finest work, Third, you can hear in its entirety here.

Contributed by @gussilber.

[noondaytune]

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Tallulah - Allo Darlin'

Allo Darlin'. Here's a lovely little ditty for you, by a darling little combo from London, who tiptoe across the tightrope between charming and twee, without ever losing their grip and plunging with a scream into the chasm.

They craft terrific pop that lilts and flits and riffs around your head, so that you wake up in the morning with the song replaying itself like a pleasant dream, or a pleasant sequence from a movie by Wes Anderson, starring Zooey Deschanel.

I have chosen this daydreamy song for you, because it is a little atypical of their sparky, energetic music, and yet it is one of my favourites from from their two albums, Allo Darlin', and Europe. And also because it is sung to the sound of a ukulele playing four chords, over and over again.

Listen, rinse, repeat, okay? Thank you, Darlin'.

Contributed by @gussilber.