This Week's Soundtrack

Neko Case, Middle Cyclone
Peter Bjorn and John, Living Thing
Vashti Bunyan, Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind
Os Mutantes, s/t
Squirrel Bait, s/t (2) and Skag Heaven (2)
Big Black, Pig Pile and Lungs
Meat Puppets, Meat Puppets II
The Replacements, Hootenanny
Naked Raygun, Basement Screams
Scratch Acid, s/t (3)
Dinosaur Jr., s/t
Akron/Family, Set 'em Wild, Set 'em Free
The For Carnation, Fight Songs, Marshmallows, and s/t
Papa M, Hole of Burning Alms
Slint, Spiderland

I'll have something more official to say shortly, but suffice it to say, perhaps now you understand why it's been fairly quiet around these parts lately. And is it strange to say that, of all things, I'm quite relieved to start being once again transparent about my weekly soundtrack posts? I've been refraining from illustrating the amount I've been listening to certain albums, if anything because I think you all would have been worried at just how much I've been listening to Squirrel Bait and Skag Heaven in the last couple months. Seriously, you'd be alarmed.

Meanwhile, (somewhat) unrelated, I've been on a Jesus Lizard kick lately, if you haven't noticed. And last week I re-acquired the debut EP by David Yow's original group, Scratch Acid. As much as I like a lot of Jesus Lizard, I can't say my favorite albums by them are as consistently good as this. A number of individual Jesus Lizard songs are better than the stuff here, but this album is pretty wondeful all the way through—the drums on "Owner's Lament" being the absolute highlight.