4 Aces - The Texas Tornados

I did not plan on writing about 4 Aces today, but this song has been on such a loop through my head ALL DAMN DAY that I needed to infect all of you as well.

Enjoy the propulsive texmexejano stylings of The Texas Tornados on this warm London evening (or you know- wherever you are). And be prepared for accordions to stamp through your dreams like demon slinkys.

Default - Django Django

I like songs that kick your brain a bit.

Django Django have been making waves with their self titled debut album released earlier this year. It's like listening to a disco ball smashing in slow motion against a stack of computers before the whole thing melts into technicolour paint. There's a vast mixture of influences and styles from song to song. As can happen when you throw EVERYTHING at the wall, some of the tracks can be a bit patchier in their success than others. But when they get it right- such as in today's Best Song Ever- hot damn.

'Default' was one of a pair of singles announcing Django Django before the album itself hit store shelves. It's got an insanely infectious chorus built out of chopped and glitched vocal samples imploring you to "click default" atop warhammer drums and crunching powerstrums. This is before the tiny electronic hums and warbles begin to dig their way through the sound like tiny digital caterpillars gorging themselves on thick layers of thumping drum'n'guitar. Then the disarmingly haunting layers of voices crying out in harmony roundhouse you in the ear drums and you fall out of your chair because Hot. Damn.

Dia - Jumbo

FEEDBACK BABY COMO QUIERA SE VA!

Jumbo are not a retro sixties underground band, though they are from Mexico. Their sound however is undeniably retro. Kind of like poppier Doors mixed with surf punk. This can be seen at it's most bombastic and holy-cow-gotta-dance-now best in today's Best Song Ever, Dia.

Jumbo were part of the avanzada regia music scene which poured out of Monterrey in the mid nineties. They started out as a humble classic rock covers band called Blueswagen, however cooler heads persevered and the band renamed themselves after an overweight baby named Jumbo. Of course.

Enjoy the pounding beats of Dia with it's wonderful Mariscal-meets-anime video by Mexican animator Vinnie Veritas.

Satisfaction - Los Apsons

Los Apsons have been cited by Carlos Santana as one of the best bands of the sixties. The group were founded by Arturo and Francisco Durazo, brothers who grew up in Agua Prieta a town in far northern Sonora which stands on the border between Mexico and the United States. As a result the brothers were constantly bombarded by a mixture of American and Mexican media cultures, with a particular emphasis on the new Rock and Roll music drifting down from the States. Their embracing of the sound, alongside several contemporary bands, started what became known as the Northern Invasion.

The band travelled and picked up members, and had particular early success (as many sixties bands did) with covers of currently popular songs. This can be seen in today's Best Song Ever: Los Apsons rendition of the Stones classic Satisfaction.

The song is a fairly straight cover, though the recording has a wonderfully woozy quality to it. The drums have low slung machine echoes rippling off of each snare smack while the guitars spindle and twang through the murk. However I feel particular love should be paid to the vocals: simultaneously aping Jagger while feeling far more run down. I believe Los Apsons can't get no satifaction more than I believe Mick Jagger can't get no satisfaction.

Pie IX - Suuns

Picking one song from Montreal based Suuns debut album Zeroes QC is an incredibly difficult task. The album is coated with black rubber liquid sounds which bubble and burst against the grain of MASSIVE guitar riffs while spare clockwork drums klick and clack the time. 

At times it feels like they've taken a well known song or style and turned it inside out. From the Zep ready riffs of opener Armed for Peace to the burbling synths of Arena, there's an endless supply of potential Best Song Evers.

But it wouldn't be That Song Blog if we didn't go with the mildly unnerving difficult song. So! Pie IX.

The bass of Pie IX feels like it's oozing through the walls of a club as you stand in a back alley, listening to wet drum footsteps clack ever closer till they're right on top of you. Guitar wires twist and twine your tension higher and higher while alien baby talk coos from the shadows. There's something disarmingly cool and overwhelmingly rotten about the entire experience.

The aural equivalent of being molested by aliens.

Big River - The Secret Sisters ft. Jack White

The Secret Sisters are about to slug Johnny Cash in the mouth while blowing kisses.

Real life sisters Laura and Lydia Rogers cut this cover of Cash's Big River at Jack White's Third Man Studios, with White pulling double duty as producer and guitarist. 

The track is absolutely torrential. You can feel a dam slowly cracking with each whack of a snare before the water roars forth in the form of dueling guitar solos that gently give way to the Rogers winking harmonies.

Your left with the distinct impression the Sisters would love you up before drowning you deep down on the banks below. And you'll love every minute of it.

From the Corner to the Block - Galactic ft. Juvenile and The Soul Rebels Brass Band

New Orleans jazz/rock/funk (or, as I am now officially calling it, jonk) fusion meets hip-hop meets brass band. It will blow your mind while blowing it's horns.

From the Corner to the Block is the title track from New Orleans based fusion group Galalctic's (originally named Galactic Prophylactic) fifth album. The track features fellow New Orleans natives Juvenile and The Soul Rebels Brass Band- though it's the latter presence that really elevates it to such heights. It's a funked up car crash of time lines, genres, and a sousaphone.

More of this please.

Better Go Home Now - Dirty Three

A few years ago I saw viking metal band Turisas open for DragonForce at what was once the Astoria. Midway through a set filled with nordic costumes, battle cries and uncomfortable amounts of sweatgrease, their electric violin player stepped up to the microphone. He assessed the audience carefully, eyes tight behind costumepaint and spot lights. Slowly he leaned forward into the mic and screamed, 'FUCK THE GUITAR.' He pulled a screeching note on his violin, allowing the tension to build. He leaned in again, a wolfish grin dancing on his face, 'FUCK. THE. GUITAR.' Another wild scream from the violin. Then raising his arms out to all of us in the pit, he cried with the strength of all of our voices: 'FUCK THE GUITAR!' Then he raised his violin high and ripped out a histrionic solo that sounded... just like a guitar.

It was an oddly deflating moment. Sure maybe the sound was a little more fluid, but there was no denying how little there was to differentiate the sound of a speed metal guitar solo and speed metal violin solo. It resolutely refused to take advantage of the sound of the instrument, pushing it as hard as it could to be what it wasn't. While the rest of the set has faded from memory, I still remember how completely gypped I felt- both for myself and for the instrument. That was the violin's moment to rock out, and instead it got to play karaoke to Power Metal's Greatest Hits.

So it was with enormous pleasure that I stumbled across Dirty Three some years later.

Dirty Three are (as the name suggests) a three piece band consisting of Mick Turner on guitar, Jim White on drums, and Warren Ellis on violin. The band create an instrumental wall of sound akin to folk music falling out of a 50th floor window. It's by turns howling and spitting to achingly gentle and sombre- and pushed right out front of the sound is the violin.

This. This is what the violin should have sounded like that night with Turisas. With Ellis hammering the strings the instrument sounds entirely unhinged, flitting between bluesy reels to industrial squalls. It manages to hit the same raging and muscular postures of an electric guitar whilst maintaining an identity and sound entirely it's own.

Today's Best Song Ever is 'Better Go Home Now,' taken from Dirty Three's self-titled second album. The song is a pounding summoning of the muse, White's leaden snares thudding and chugging with Turner's thick rhythm. Screeching through the dense underbelly like a hot wire through brick are Ellis' violin solos- a waltzing, roaring, disintegrating sound equally human and chillingly alien. Here, finally, is a song that can truly live up to Turisas' challenging refrain: Fuck the Guitar.

Paralyzed - The Legendary Stardust Cowboy

The Legendary Stardust Cowboy (real name Norman Carl Odam) is a sonic force to be reckoned with. He's created a form of rock and roll which boils down the genre to it's bare components. No where can this be seen better than on his debut single Paralyzed.

The Cowboy sings in a style that is all rage, energy, attitude and tongues. He slurs and mangles words till they're barely recognizable, and then howls like a coyote. It's some of the most abrasive and gripping stuff you'll have ever heard.

A chance meeting with T. Bone Burnett (musician and producer of albums such as the soundtrack to O Brother Where Art Thou) lead to the creation of the song. Burnett got behind a drum kit, even going so far as to take a pretty thunderous solo, while the Cowboy begins to manically strut his stuff. He plays a dobro in the same style one might destroy a dobro and skronks on a bugle, all while screaming and spitting before barely uttering the songs refrain, title and effect on the listener: Paralyzed.