Music Library: For Carnation, Foster & Lloyd, Fountains of Wayne, Four Tet, Frames, Frank Black, Frank Sinatra

The For Carnation - Promised Works (1997) and The For Carnation (2000). From the ashes of Slint and Squirrel Bait, sharing a number of members with Tortoise, The For Carnation is the only post-punk, slowcore, post-rock band worth mentioning. Or at all. Some reviews compare The For Carnation with Gastr del Sol, although this is a lazy comparison. See, The For Carnation is led by Brian McMahan, who played guitar in Squirrel Bait alongside David Grubbs, who was one-half of Gastr del Sol. But GdS is a different animal, far more experimental in nature than The For Carnation, which is fundamentally about songs, textural though they might be. Both are quite excellent bands and both of these albums are also excellent. The former collects two EPs and the latter is a full album.

Foster & Lloyd - Foster & Lloyd (1987). As in Nashville stalwarts Radney Foster & Bill Lloyd, who toed a line between power-pop and country. Good, well-crafted songs.

Fountains of Wayne - "Little Red Light." Poppy!

Four Tet - Rounds (2003). Lovely electronica.

The Frames - "Star Star." This is not a cover of the Stones song (which is really named "Starfucker," natch), but a completely different - and lesser - song. This is a live version, from whence I know not, but I don't like it much.

Frank Black - "Bad, Wicked World" and "If Your Poison Gets You." Decent songs from Mr. Black. I've owned copies of his albums in the past, but have no whole albums of his at present. The latter song has him singing in a lower register, and I wouldn't know it was him just by hearing it.

Frank Sinatra - Songs For Young Lovers/Swing Easy! (1954), In The Wee Small Hours (1955), Songs for Swingin' Lovers (1956), "You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To," Come Fly With Me (1958), Sings For Only The Lonely (1958), "Dancing In The Dark," "That Old Black Magic," "Blue Moon," The September Of My Years (1965), The Capital Collectors Series (1989), and My Way: The Best of Frank Sinatra (1997). That's a lot of Chairman of the Board! I wish I had something remotely intelligent to say about him! But I don't, swingin' babies. Perhaps you're wondering which Sinatra to pick up: I say In The Wee Small Hours and Sings For Only The Lonely, melancholy babies. But the rest is pretty goshdarn fun stuff, too.