It’s 1980. Shoot the piano player.

More on Tay­lor’s Unit Struc­tures, the new Rudy Van Gelder edi­tion of Con­quis­ta­dor!, and Stu­dent Stud­ies to come.

[Freak­out bop pianist apoc­rypha in brief: Alone in a hotel room, some­where in New York, jour­nal­ist inter­view­ing Thelo­nius Monk asks “Why don’t you play more like Bud?” Monk spazzes on piano in the room, room hush­es and Monk turns to jour­nal­ist and says “Now don’t tell any­body what you just saw me do.”]

Wood­stock Jazz Fes­ti­val, 1966.

Son­ic Youth w/ Be Your Own Pet @ Starlight Ball­room, 8 p.m. Tonight!

Son­ic Youth’s lat­est, Rather Ripped, does­n’t exact­ly rehash their last two albums, but it’s in the same vein: a mix of the pure­ly poet­ic and the pos­si­bly polit­i­cal. Case in point: “Do You Believe in Rap­ture?” reminds me of how lib­er­als find cre­ative ways to pick up horny con­ser­v­a­tives — just when you thought that scene was all sarged out.

What Rather Ripped does bet­ter than their last two albums is com­bine the grunge-inflec­tions that made them “famous” [see above] with the breezy and gor­geous melodies they redis­cov­ered on Mur­ray Street and Son­ic Nurse. Brood­ing and por­ten­tous, “Pink Steam” anchors the record with patient vio­lence. It’s a great sum­mer storm album, cloud­ed with ambiva­lence and sweaty with unre­quit­ed love.

[Else­where: Peanut But­ter Words vs. A Grand Illu­sion in: Mutu­al Admi­ra­tion Soci­ety!]

Snort more tour sup­port and then have a drink…

It goes with­out say­ing that The Streets’ appeal can be summed up in Mike Skin­ner’s lacon­ic deliv­ery, recount­ing with stul­ti­fy­ing clar­i­ty the banal details of his life as an ascen­dant celebri­ty. Unlike Beck­’s primed-for-prime-time demeanor thin­ly dis­guised by his care­less what-me-wor­ry veneer, Skin­ner engages in auto-cri­tique to decon­struct his unhap­py con­scious­ness with a meta-con­cept album.

Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Dun­gen’s third Amer­i­can tour sup­port­ing Ta Det Lugnt did­n’t go off with­out a hitch. Thanks to an equip­ment fail­ure, we were treat­ed to a beau­ti­ful, stripped down ver­sion of “Du är för fin för mig” with Gus­tav play­ing keys solo. The need for new mate­r­i­al becomes clear­er as Dun­gen con­tin­ue to flesh out the nascent Deep Pur­ple, Procul Harum and Gen­tle Giant strains in their long­form, impro­vised material.

Unlike their last vis­it, which was lush, com­plex and fea­tured well-rehearsed, new arrange­ments, Dun­gen’s per­for­mance seemed a lit­tle uncer­tain and ten­ta­tive at times. The near sell­out crowd was nev­er­the­less enthu­si­as­tic for “Pan­da”, “Ta Det Lugnt” and “Fes­ti­val”, but the cool recep­tion to a new pop-psych song high­light­ed the del­i­cate bal­ance between those gen­res and sen­si­bil­i­ties that set Ta Det Lugnt apart from more eso­teric psy­ch­folk, yet locat­ed them with­in that scene. It’s inter­est­ing that their last two Philadel­phia shows had them min­ing pro­to-met­al mate­r­i­al: in fact, the last time they played they hint­ed at Deep Pur­ple’s “Hush”. If Est­jes choos­es to fea­ture more flute and keys, they could begin to incor­po­rate heav­ier ele­ments and appro­pri­ate Jethro Tul­l’s sound too.

But com­mer­cial pres­sures, com­bined with Gus­tav Est­jes’ inter­est in mak­ing more com­pli­cat­ed, mul­ti-lay­ered melodies, may make Dun­gen’s next move unpredictable…and hope­ful­ly more interesting.