Hello Amsterdam

So, last night, I couldn't sleep, and I really wanted to hear the album "San Francisco" from the American Music Club. I knew it was in a pile of CDs I've neglected for awhile. They're mostly my music-to-fall-asleep-by pile. Not that it's bad music. It's stuff like Sigur Ros and Pan Sonic and Jah Wobble and Godflesh. Ambient or light pop, mostly. While shuffling through the four or five one-foot stacks of CDs, I finally found the AMC album, but I found some more things, too. Some albums I forgot about.

Holy crap, if you like Stereolab, you absolutely need...no, wait, you abso-fucking-lutely have to check out the album "Happyness" from The Aluminum Group. I forgot how good it is.

I also re-discovered the album "Nilsson Schmilsson" from Harry Nilsson. This one is a little weird. Whether you know it or not, you've heard at least three songs from this album. I know you have. I have no doubts. First of all, you've heard "Without You," possibly unwillingly, but you've heard it because Air Supply, Badfinger, Mariah Carey, Shirley Bassey, Petula Clark, Ray Conniff, Percy Faith, Heart, Henry Mancini, Johnny Mathis, Wayne Newton, Donny Osmond, and Andy Williams have ALL recorded a version of the song. Up until Mariah Carey had a long-running number one single with it, Nilsson's version was the most well-known, but not the original. You also know the Nilsson song "Coconut." I know you know it: "you put the lime in the coconut..." and it was in the movie "Reservoir Dogs." You also know "Jump Into the Fire" and "Let the Good Times Roll." Both were big hits in the '70s.

Also re-discovered was "Motorlab 3" from Pan Sonic and Barry Adamson. Pan Sonic are known for their abstract minimalist electronic stuff. They're Finnish. Barry Adamson was once in the band Magazine (Howard Devoto's post-Buzzcocks band), Crime and the City Solution, and he currently still is in the Bad Seeds, as in Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. This album is basically one track, "The Hymn of the 7th Illusion," along with a Hafler Trio remix of the first track. There's a choir mixed with electronic ambience. Dark ambience. This shit is heavy. The remix isn't too bad, but the original version is better.

"You'd Prefer an Astronaut" from Hum has to be one of the best things to come out of bands-trying-to-sound-a-little-like the Smashing Pumpkins. Okay, so not quite. There are a lot more things going on here dynamically, and I can't be so simple in explaining the sound. I'm sure you've heard the song "Stars."

There was one other album that I found that doesn't fit into the music-to-fall-asleep-by category. I'm not even sure why it was buried in those piles. It's "Manic Compression" from Quicksand. I fucking love this band. If anyone out there has a good, clean-sounding copy of the Gorilla Biscuits stuff with Walter singing, let me know, I'd love to get a copy of that. Thanks.