What song are you listening to right now?

[Snarky]

Mercury Rev - "Downs Are Feminine Balloons"

I'm more familiar with their earlier stuff when the singer used a higher pitch.

Oh, this is their even earlier stuff. It's from Boces (1993), their second album – and last one with the band's original lead singer, David Baker. The high-pitched vocals on the albums that followed were after Jonathan Donahue took over the role.

Though Donahue contributed vocals on the first two as well. I'm not sure, but I'm guessing it's him on this track from their debut, Yerself Is Steam?

Mercury Rev - "Sweet Oddysee of a Cancer Cell t' th' Center of Yer Heart"

I've always had a soft spot for the original lineup, which (as you can hear) was more psychedelic shoegaze than the more famous later incarnation of the band.

[Creamy]

Oh, this is their even earlier stuff. It's from Boces (1993), their second album – and last one with the band's original lead singer, David Baker. The high-pitched vocals on the albums that followed were after Jonathan Donahue took over the role.

My mistake. I mostly remember All is Dream (2001) which was very different.

Mercury Rev - "Sweet Oddysee of a Cancer Cell t' th' Center of Yer Heart"

Not bad at all.

[LimpingFish]

Didn't expect to hear him here.

It's all thanks to TV5 (or TV5Monde, as it's now known), which my mother was a big fan of (the music and arts programs, anyway). She was a fan of french artists in general; Jaques Brel, Charles Aznavour, lot's of French jazz, etc. But watching French TV, and lots of music programs (particularly those nostalgia-heavy ones hosted by Patrick Sébastien), meant we were exposed to dozens of unfamiliar singers and musicians; huge artists in their home country, of course, but not so well known in, for instance, Ireland.

[Galen]

Ichiko Aoba - Windswept Adan (2020)

Not even sure how I ended up on it, but the album has immaculate dreamy vibes.

[RootBound]

Had a long car drive and brought an electic mix of CDs with me.

Anais Mitchell really is a genius at lyrics. This album gets better each time I listen.

Same with this album. Whenever Kings of Convenience feature Feist, it's an amazing song:

And this was a bit of a wild card. I hadn't listened to this album in probably twelve years or more, and actually couldn't remember what it sounded like. It didn't disappoint though, and reminded me why I got it in the first place:

And of course, there's a reasons the classics are classics:

[LimpingFish]

Nice!

I grew up with this music. I mean, wait, some history needs explaining. Halas and Bachelor, a British animation company, made a short animation using Kraftwerk's Autobahn as inspiration... Christ, it's burned into my memory! You have no idea how much it influenced both my taste in music and...well, just watch it! Anyhoo, it was a staple on Irish TV station RTE during the '80s, usually shown as part of what they called "Cartoon Time", a five to ten minute fill-in broadcast between programs. In fact, it was either Autobahn or...

...this! Ronnie James Dio singing Love is All from Roger Glover's (ex Deep Purple) concept album The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast. I can't even begin to guess at how many times this was broadcast in Ireland!

Both tracks are indelibly scored into my brain. So much so, that I often forget just how many years have passed since I first heard them!

In fact, if a music video contained animation it was likely that it would stick in my mind. Like this...

...Rondò Veneziano's La Serenissima which, if memory serves, was broadcast once or twice at the time it as released, and, up until the dawn of Youtube and such, haunted me; I mean, look at it! Imagine seeing it at age eight or nine and not knowing who or what it was, faceless androids, spaceships and all!

[Creamy]

Stéphane Picq, probably the most famous composer at Cryo Interactive, died earlier this month.
He created some fantastic ambient soundtracks and world music that I often enjoyed more than the games themselves.

[Snarky]

It's a crying shame; he was only 59. Cancer, reportedly.

He spent years in a kind of early semi-retirement from the games and music industries in Madagascar (I think he worked with gems or something), and then when the rights to the Dune soundtrack finally reverted to him last year he began remixing, rerecording and re-releasing his old music and even started composing again. He talked about putting out an album of new music, his first in decades.

[Ponch]

Currently re-watching Mr. Robot.

Not the sort of song I usually listen to, but damn this thing has hooks for days. It really got stuck in my head (the same thing happened the first time I watched the show, too as I recall).

[TheFrighter]

Some tunes from the Festival of Sanremo 2025:

Sorry Adele but italians do it better:

_

[Daymond]

[Ponch]

"Back to a website"

It's Homestar Runner's 25th anniversary and the song in the middle of this anniversary video has been stuck in my head since this morning.