Pure Nostalgia: August 2021
By Christian Ortmann
Hello there! Another month in rear-view and another hour of music earnestly thrown together by yours truly. Who has two thumbs and was asked to return to his old job this month? This guy! How do I feel about it, you ask? Well it’s abstract and I won’t get into it here.
This month’s soundtrack was kept in balance by two prog rock classics. A live version of “Paperhouse” by CAN found its way into my YouTube recommendations one night and I was instantly entranced by hypnotizing swells and repetitive passages. “Let’s Save Tony Orlando’s House'' by Yo La Tengo came on some indie mix and it stuck with me ever since. The titular Tony Orlando is a musician whose hit song “Knock Three Times” is probably one of the first songs I ever remember hearing in my house; a deeply obscured feeling from a memory over twenty years old. Go listen to that song too.
Another stand out I want to mention by name is “Mountain Game” by Animal Collective. The group was still hot off the heels of their critically acclaimed experimental pop album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, when they went and recorded this song for Red Dead Redemption, a video game set in… the western American frontier in 1911? It never got used naturally, the game had built an immersive world so rock solid that a single bleep or bloop would go against everything Red Dead had sought to tediously craft. So instead Animal Collective humbly shared this track in 2016 and I have held this strange appreciation for it ever since. Finally I must acknowledge “Death Row East” by Nas. This track is recalls the height of the east coast vs. west coast era of 90’s rap that was punctuated by the murder of 2Pac Shakur. Nas takes this track to address rumors surrounding the murder that have since lived in myth since 1996. Not sure why he waited this long but it’s a fantastic track.
I’ll see everybody next month. I’m looking forward to the weather cooling down and other stuff. What releases are you looking forward to for the rest of the year? Let me know.