Day 0575 - EVOL

Sonic Youth "EVOL" (1986)

Sonic Youth are a band that I'd hear & bits and pieces from, but they'd never really inspired me to dip deeper into their work.  I really quite enjoyed this album and ended up listening to it 3 times in a row.  Love the mix of hypnotic but noisy drones, pared-back riffing, and dalliances with musique concrete.

This is a sonically exciting and experimental album, that still has a solid base in 'song' writing, with melody and structure being employed where appropriate.  For me, the album's epic penultimate track "Expressway to Yr Skull" is the album's high point.

I like that it's not a straight instrumental album, but that the vocals are used sparingly, and often as more of an 'instrument' than as a way of communicating a message.

Day 0553 - Fear and Whiskey

The Mekons "Fear and Whiskey" (1985)

I am in unfamiliar territory here, having not heard of this band, or the one in the previous entry.  In addition to that, the 80s are not really the decade of music I'm most familiar with.

This was another goodie though, so again, it's been quite cool to be introduced to new bands/albums through this 'quest'.

This album is credited as being one of the first alt-country albums, and certainly I can hear the genesis of bands in that genre I enjoy, such as the Nudie Suits, or Dieselhed.   The album is mostly raucous, occasionally trippy and always sonically exploratory.  Genres as diverse as folk, country and post-punk collide, overlaid with slide guitars, fiddles, harmonicas and other country-synonymous sounds.