Music Library: Dadamah, Damned, Danger Mouse, Miles Davis, Dan Deacon, Dead C, Dean and Britta, Death, Decemberists, Deerhoof

Dadamah - This Is Not A Dream (1994). Noisy, droney, lovely New Zealand band.



The Damned - Machine Gun Etiquette (1979). The band's third and finest album. As great as Damned Damned Damned is, this one has the Damned reaching out and trying different sounds, coming up with something almost psychedelic. The bonus track cover of "Ballroom Blitz" is delightful, too.



Danger Mouse - Rome (2011). Danger Mouse's take on Ennio Morricone's kaleidoscopic spaghetti western music. Quite enjoyable.

Miles Davis - Bitches Brew Live (1970), Live at the Shaboo Inn, Willimantic Connecticut, January 26, 1974, Avery Fisher Hall, New York (1975), Live at Troubadour Club, Los Angeles, January 17-19, 1975. The Bitches Brew Live set features the same quintet as It's About That Time and is similarly mindblowing. The other three are bootlegs of the sizzling Pete Cosey band. The only downside is that the Troubadour bootleg has less-than-stellar quality.

Dan Deacon - Bromst (2009). I fall in love with this guy's albums for a month and then forget about them, but I shouldn't. He approaches pop electronica with a composer's ear, and this album is chock-full of great ideas beautifully executed.

The Dead C - DR503 (1987). First album by a long-lived and quite droney New Zealand band.

Dean and Britta - L'Avventura (2003), Words You Used To Say (2006), Back Numbers (2007), Variations (2008), and 13 Most Beautiful: Songs for Andy Warhol's Screen Tests (2010). These are all pleasant, if not great, albums by rock music's coolest middle-aged couple (a mantle recently taken from Kim and Thurston).

Death - Spiritual Mental Physical (1974) and ...For The Whole World To See (1975). Ridiculously great African-American protopunk from Detroit that was shelved for 30-odd years.



The Decemberists - Hazards of Love (2009) and The King Is Dead (2011). I do not much care for the former, but the latter is okay. There's always some tension when an artist begins to experiment with their sound. The Decemberists added a healthy dose of prog in Hazards of Love, and I do not care for that. It's fair to say that there had always been some prog to this band (such as on The Tain), but the real problem here is that the Decemberists do not rock. They are an arty folk-rock band, but there's no abandon in their music. Everything is carefully controlled, and when they try to rock, they sound silly.

Deerhoof - The Man, The King, The Girl (1997), Deerhoof Vs. Evil (2011), 99% Upset Feeling EP (2011), and Breakup Song (2012). Deerhoof's first album and their last two, along with a web-only live release. No one else does quite what they do. The first album is pretty spotty, but the recent albums are fantastic. The tropicalia influence that has been growing in their music since roughly Green Cosmos is now in full flower and bless them for that.