A Three-Course Listening Menu
It's dinner time.
This evening, I’m channeling my inner JustSomeMustard as I prepare for you a short but satisfying musical meal.
In between new music music Fridays, I’ve been taking more time to sit with less immediate records, old and new. There are infinite options to choose from, but after extensive consultation and constant reminders to myself that quality is more important than quantity, I find that curating a small listening menu works best.
This particular menu is prix fixe, and no substitutions will be accepted. But I’ll take your dietary restrictions and other suggestions under advisement for future meals.
< Appetizer ~ Hank >
alt/shoegaze
We’ll be starting off your evening with a light but impactful snack. Hank’s debut EP is dreamy and dark, grungy and ethereal. It’s a quintessentially English flavor: imagine a blend of Bush with Ride or Slowdive, perhaps. Contributors include Sorry’s Asha Lorenz and Warmduscher’s Ben Romans-Hopcraft.
If this EP appeals, come back for the follow-up, Spiralic. The two EPs together are a mini-album, after all.
< Entree ~ Ffa Coffi Pawb >
grunge/power-pop fusion
Keep your appetite for grunge but relax into something less mournful. Our main course is a 19921 Welsh vintage. Ffa Coffi Pawb (which means “Coffee Beans for Everybody,” but phonetically sounds like “Fuck Off, Everybody”) never managed to break out as a Welsh-language band. Hei Vidal! is their final album, and generally considered their best. I’m pleased to be able to serve it to you today, as it’s a seamless mix of sunny power-pop with the far more jagged edges of both shoegaze and grunge. You’ll even taste some krautrock influences.
Keen observers will notice that the Bandcamp link below points to Gruff Rhys’ site. That’s because Ffa Coffi Pawb was the band that several eventual Super Furry Animals formed when they were still teenagers.
< Dessert ~ jan Usawi >
electropop
I know you were in the mood for chocolate cake, but will something with a bit more Peaches do? I’m not much for heavy desserts, myself, so you’ll be having this tangy electropop treat. That way you’ll still have some energy to burn before bed. Notes of Khaela Maricich and Tegan & Sara permeate the sound as well.
If you’re not convinced, there’s some fascinating lore to jan Usawi that may grab you even if the music isn’t for you.
Toki Pona is a fully developed language system that you can learn for yourself, if you’ve still got energy to burn after your meal.
You can also listen to jan Usawi’s most recent full album below (though I could unfortunately only find it on Spotify).
Bon appetit!
And don’t be shy — tell me what 3-course album menu you would put together.
Old music, I know! I hope, at least, that it’s new to you.
You enter La Maison du Vin and, after some horse trading, during which you sign a legally binding agreement to name your firstborn son Jean-Paul, are seated at an acceptable table. An insufferable French waiter affects world-weary disdain as he forces you to read your ‘choices’ from the set menu. You order a round of bananaramas. They arrive in a pair of flamboyant, over-sized star-shaped glasses, looking, for all the world, like the end result of an interface between 1970s Elton John and a drinks blender.
“Ah, fruit-based cocktails, the hallmark of the sophisticated drinker,” says the sommelier as he lights the twin sparklers with one arm behind his back.
Eventually some fucking food arrives.
“Sir, Madame, I present to you a ‘Journey to the Centre of Cat Butt,’ says the waiter, laying down two mismatched platters of crudely-chopped, barely-assembled ingredients. “It is what all music will sound like after the collapse of civilisation.”
A man whose job entails walking around the restaurant with a comically large pepper mill asks if you would like some heroin on your starter. You politely decline.
“No heroin for me either,” says your partner brightly. “I’ve got an update meeting on the progress of the Alan Parsons Project first thing in the morning.”
Gamely, you raise a spoonful of food to your lips. A revolt of rudimentary textures and flavours jostle against one another in your reluctant mouth like reject jigsaw puzzle pieces. As all sense of nuance departs and your brain returns to its Cro-Magnon factory settings, you fight the urge to restore higher cognitive functions by beating your head against the table. Across from you, your partner is pushing the raw elements of her starter around on the plate.
“What’s wrong dear?” your inquire. “You’ve barely touched your deconstructed cat butt.”
The main course is heralded by an exhalation of complex aromas from the kitchen door as it swings open. A long rectangular dish of Red Red Meat is laid down across the centre of the table.
“Bunny Gets Paid,” says the waiter as he scoops some of the meat into a pair of plastic doll's heads that have been forced inside large wine glasses.
“Is there rabbit in it?” queries your partner.
“Oui,” says the waiter. “Also a Buttered Carpet of Horses and some Oxtail, all smoked over Rosewood, Stax, Volts and Glitter and filtered through Gauze.”
Spikes of flavour at first unwind, then rise and fall from the gastronomic doldrums where the meat is on an uneasy footing with the taste buds. When you are finished, you lay the glass on its side, closing the vacant blue eyes of the doll’s head.
“Kin,” remarks the waiter, as he places two small metal bowls of a glacial frozen desert before each of you. “It is a specialty of the iamamiwhoami region on Sweden.”
“I think Derek and Tina went there on their winter cruise,” says your partner.
A subdued Scandinavian chill, incorporating sweet and sour notes, reverberates in the dim recesses of your skull like a distant toothache.
On the section of the bill reserved for a tip, you write: ‘You probably only need one Counting Crows album.’
Was a huge SFA fan back in the day so I will have to check Ffa Coffi Pawb out.