Quick Hits, Vol.136 (Mutual Admiration Society, Saba, The Claypool Lennon Delirium, Kaleo)

Mutual Admiration Society - Mutual Admiration Society.  This album brings together two loves of mine, one from back in the high school days of pining for girls' attention and another from more recently when enjoying one of my favorite bands of all time.  This band is made up of the lead singer from Toad the Wet Sprocket and the band from Nickel Creek.  So for all the times I harmonized along to "Walk on the Ocean" or added "All I Want" to mix tapes back in the day, I can now imagine doing the same while the orgasmic instrumentation of Chris Thile and friends cranks along in the background.  Beauty.  I'd be remiss if I did not note that most of this album just disappears into the ether without leaving much of a mark, I want for there to be massive mandolin breakdowns in order to keep this real.  And the fact is, no one is listening to this album.  It was released in 2004, and none of the songs even crack 20,000 (most can't crack 10k).  So, I'll give you the most popular one anyway at 19k, called "Windmills."

It is seriously a little bit hard to understand how something this nice, with relatively famous people behind the music, could be this entirely ignored.  Really beautiful track.  Interesting that they did this album right in the midst of Nickel Creek's fame - 2004 would have been right in between This Side and Why Should the Fire Die, but the A&R people must have just been asleep on the disc.  I'm going to keep this album around just because I think my wife will enjoy it.

Saba - Bucket List Project.  Chicago rapper who adds a handful of semi-famous people on here mentioning what is on their bucket list, which appears to usually have to do with sex. He's apparently been on a Chance song or two, and he features fellow Chicago hot rapper Noname on this album. The tunes are pretty pleasing, kind of that thoughtful, introspective type rap that Chicago seems to produce more often than the coasts.  I liked the one with Noname, called "Church/ Liquor Store," which talks about the usual order of businesses in their area and the bummer of what their neighborhood looks like after the locals go to prison and gentrification rolls through.  Solid raps and interesting, odd beat. Meanwhile, "Westside Bound 3" has a more traditional beat and message.  "The Billy Williams Story" sounds like a Kevin Gates track.  But the most listened-to track on the album is the closer (kind of a rare phenomenon these days, when album bloat makes the final track a throwaway and dilettantes checking out albums never make it all the way to the end), called "World in my Hands," with 1.5 million streams.

Pretty good.  Beat reminds me of that Drake song that is on the radio a lot right now, I don't know the name (very purposefully), that one that says they show him fake love to his face and look up to him. Well, now I'm curious, who made this first?  The web seems to show that Saba's came out April 20, 2016 (4/20 bro!) with production from Saba himself and people named "Dae Dae and Phoelix." "Fake Love" was released on October 29, 2016 and was produced by someone called Vinylz and someone else called Frank Dukes.  Those last two guys have some 'splaining to do.  The rest of this album is fine, but nothing special.

The Claypool Lennon Delirium - Monolith of Phobos.  Primus ruled back in the day.  I don't know if they are still making anything good now, but their ringleader and bass slapper extraordinaire, Les Claypool, continues to make fearsome funk for freaking out in loads of different ways and places. And this is pairing up with Sean Lennon, the oddball son of John and Yoko, so you know from the get go that you're going to be in a weird space and then fire off in all directions.  So it goes weird. And it just never gets as funky as I want it to - the reason that Primus was so amazing was that it backed up the gonzo oddities with some of the funkiest rocking stuff around.  Sailing the Seas of Cheese and Suck on This are still classic.  But only Les Claypool could make an 8 minute long psych rock jamout the hit from this album, so I give you "Cricket & the Genie" (movements I and II), which combine for about 800k streams.

Complete with flute in the breakdown in the middle, this one pulls no punches in sliding right into the fuzzed out psych jam world.  The album was interesting enough, but I'll toss it back into the sea.

Kaleo - A/B.  Funny album.  It starts off sounding very much like a more traditional rock/blues album, including the second song, the large hit called "Way Down We Go."

91.8 million streams for that one - damn large for a rock band these days, I think.  But as the album chugs along, you hear stuff like "Hot Blood," that turns that rocking bluesy sound into a fast-paced pop dance tune.  And then "All the Pretty Girls" is a little acoustic, falsetto strummer aiming for the ladies that kicks in a bit more at the end.  Strangely enough, the band is from Iceland, a fact that I don't think would be apparent until the eighth song on the album, called "Vor i Valgaskogi," which translates to "I bet you didn't know Hozier wasn't American either, eh?"  Just kidding, it means "Spring in Vaglaskogur," which is apparently a forest in Iceland.  The song sounds beautiful, even if you have no clue what they are saying. Well, maybe you do, because you sprekenzie Ice, but I do not, so it just sounds like very pretty throat clearing to me.  Wikipedia claims that they moved to Austin, which is cool. Maybe we'll see them at ACL?  I like this album and would keep listening.