This Track Is Fire!

As I have noted before, I listen to a lot of music, and honestly, I can't always keep up with every band that I listen to, so imagine my surprise when I found out that a band that I was obsessed with a few years ago have released at least two albums that I wasn't even aware of, one of which came out this year. Oops! So just this last week I was doing some catching up and after a first listen, I really like what I am hearing from MISSIO's latest, Love & Heartbreak , so it would probably make sense for me to post one of their new songs. But that's not how my brain works sometimes. Their new album sent me down a musical rabbithole and I was tearing my way through their back catalog when I stopped several times to say, "oh man, this song is great" and then did that about four or five more times. Like I said, their new album is good, but I need to live with it a little bit longer (so don't be surprised when I post about it later), but my ADHD has taken be b...

I've already selected two EDM tracks this week, and though there's the contrarian part of me that thinks that maybe I should include something more guitar-based, as I was listening to various electronic artists this week I was reminded of how absolutely incredible Gesaffelstein was and is. So, fuck it, I am keeping with the vibe this week and highlighting one of my absolute favorites from his album Aleph (which is a great album from start to finish). Besides, while this is definitely not guitar-based, it is darker and heavier than the other tracks I shared this week, and since when is launching into the weekend with aggression a bad thing?  But also, DAMN! Do you hear that? This piece is the very definition of a track being FIRE! Have a great weekend! Enjoy!

What is Bandcamp Friday, you may ask? All you need to know is right  here . It's always good to support independent artists and independent music, especially when Bandcamp is foregoing their cut for 24 hours. Here's what I bought back in February ! Buy something cool!

I know I posted another EBM tune on Monday , but sometimes that's just my mood (when I'm not obsessing over Joey Valence and Brae , that is). What do I know about the artist "i'm loam?" Nothing, other than this short track is a banger that I keep listening to and wiggling/dancing in my chair as I do so. A coworker/friend sent it along a few weeks ago, and yeah, I love it, it's fire. That's it. It makes you want to dance and it's really fucking good. I'll definitely be grabbing this during Bandcamp Friday this week. 'Nuff said! Enjoy! I'm loam - stay here don't go by CLUBR

What is Bandcamp Friday, you may ask? All you need to know is right  here . It's always good to support independent artists and independent music, especially when Bandcamp is foregoing their cut for 24 hours. Buy something cool!

I discovered Ninajirasha sometime last year and was immediately blown away at the new-yet-old-school-sounding techno she was dropping. Porter Robinson, if you're not familiar, is a bit of an icon in the EDM world (and also, my stepson's favorite artists), so seeing the established working with the up-and-coming is always fun. This is especially true when their collaboration brings forth a track as good as this, but I may be biased by my love for both artists. It's Monday, start your week strong! Enjoy! WannaCry by Ninajirachi & Porter Robinson

Am I late to the party?  Absolutely. Will these rappers make you think of The Beastie Boys? Most likely. But is it really fucking good? Definitely! My friend Ringo sent this (and more) over to me the other day and warned me of the aforementioned comparisons, but as he told me, once you get past that you quickly see how talented this duo is. Now, I'm a middle-aged guy, so I apologize for being - checks date - four years late on this, but when I hear good music I call it out. I've been listening to this on repeat all morning and have been smiling the whole time. And now you can too. Happy Friday! Enjoy!

Note: In honor of one full year of This Track Is Fire I thought I would highlight the top 10 posts over the last year, but there's a tie in the seventh position, and a three-way tie in the tenth position, so instead you're getting the Top 12 Posts over the past year. When I had originally posted about this track last year it did not have an official name nor a release, so I referred to it as the "Nine Inch Nails 'Closer' (B Stage Remix w/Boys Noize)" but since then NIN/Boys Noize have released their collaboration album and now it's officially known as "Closer (Nine Inch Noize Version." Listen, regardless of however it's called, this, in my humble opinion, is the proper way to refurbish a classic track that is 30+ years old, keeping everything that made it great while also give it a new polish so that it sounds fresh again. Sure, there are its detractors, but for me this song, heck, this entire album and tour, reinvigorated my deep love of N...

I find new (or new to me music) all over the place, and while I do discover a fair amount of it on my own, a good chunk of it comes from friends and family that share tracks with me that they think I will like. Whether it's one of my friends, like Jeff sending me Chalk, Peter sending me Ecca Vandal, or Sean introducing me to The Jellyfish, The xx, The National (and many, many more), sometimes they come from within my own house. My daughter came up to me over a week ago and said, "I have a song to share with you." I immediately perked up because usually I love what she sends along. Adéla "KGB" is no exception. Is it synthpop? Dance music? Just straight up pop? Honestly, it checks lots of boxes, but in the end, it doesn't matter, because it's just fucking good. All I know is that I'm playing it louder than I should and doing some chair dancing. Check it and enjoy!

Note: In honor of one full year of This Track Is Fire I thought I would highlight the top 10 posts over the last year, but there's a tie in the seventh position, and a three-way tie in the tenth position, so instead you're getting the Top 12 Posts over the past year. As I said back in October , I did not even really know this track before I saw Elbow live for the first time last year, but as I said then, it was a live standout. Nine months later it's still in heavy rotation for me, which, of course it is, I love Elbow, but I love that a band that sells out stadiums in the UK but has a far more limited fanbase in the US is sitting safely at the number two spot in my list of most popular posts. I mean, they should be, but I am glad so many of you agree. Check it out !

Last week while I was writing about the Killing Joke-minus-Jaz-Coleman-adding-Chris-Connelly band of Murder, Inc. I took a small trip down memory lane as I thought about Killing Joke. I think it would be easy, almost expected of me, to highlight their song "Eighties," which is fantastic, no question, but I admit that I did not discover that song until much later in my life. My first real exposure to Killing Joke was via Murder, Inc. and thereafter, when they released the album  Pandemonium.   A friend of mine had grabbed it on CD, and before I knew it "Mathematics of Chaos" was on near-constant repeat. Of course I went back and checked out their earlier works, but there's something very nostalgic about this track that takes me back in time and melts my face off. Also, it just fucking rocks. Enjoy!

Note: this week, in honor of the legendary Steve Albini's birthday, I am highlighting his impressive audio engineering work (he refused to be called a "producer"). These five posts are a small example of his musical prowess, selected by me, just a fan with a blog. And here we are folks, the final post in this series. I intentionally did not lead with this track at the beginning of the week as it's too obvious. In fact, I struggled with including it at all, because of that very fact, but at the end of the day this song was mind-blowing to when it came out during my sophomore year of college and listening again today, or any day, I am reminded of how colossally talented Kurt, Krist, Dave, and yes, Steve were. Certainly this could be argued to be Albini's most high-profile work, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Yes, Albini worked with artists large, small, and absolutely massive (like Nirvana), but as I said at the beginning of this week, he was f...

Note: this week, in honor of the legendary Steve Albini's birthday, I am highlighting his impressive audio engineering work (he refused to be called a "producer"). These five posts are a small example of his musical prowess, selected by me, just a fan with a blog. This was a tough one for me, picking out the best Pixies song that they worked with Steve Albini on, because, honestly, I could have picked just about any song on Surfer Rosa  and it would have fit the bill. At the end of the day, I had to go with "Where is My Mind?" predominantly due to its distinct opening riff. If you're around my age and you hear Black Francis/Frank Black wail and say "Stop!" you immediately know what song it is. That's iconic, just as the Pixies are, just as Steve Albini was. Then you hear those first few guitar lines followed by drums crashing around you like the surf. God damn, this song is good. So many bands try to capture lightning in a bottle and so many f...

Note: this week, in honor of the legendary Steve Albini's birthday, I am highlighting his impressive audio engineering work (he refused to be called a "producer"). These five posts are a small example of his musical prowess, selected by me, just a fan with a blog. And here it is, Steve Albini's birthday. He would have been 64 today. I know he was a member of a few different bands, and maybe one could argue that Big Black was culturally and musically more important, but I tend to lean towards things that hit me more viscerally. It's why I prefer Beethoven to Mozart. And this song, I get it. Do I ever actually want to see someone die because they had the audacity to be with someone I once cared about? No. But I get the feeling  of this song, that urge to kill that one (hopefully) never actually acts on. Not that the narrator of this song is contemplating murder, he just wants to see the other guy die, and painfully. Perhaps those are things that people shouldn'...

Note: this week, in honor of the legendary Steve Albini's birthday, I am highlighting his impressive audio engineering work (he refused to be called a "producer"). These five posts are a small example of his musical prowess, selected by me, just a fan with a blog. I have heard more than a few times, and repeated it often myself, that the music you fall in love with as an adolescent stays with you for the rest of your life, and honestly, at least for me, that fits. The 90s were a glorious time for a Gen Xer like me who had fallen in love with bands like Depeche Mode, but wanted something just a tinge darker yet, bands like Nine Inch Nails, KMFDM, Ministry, and one of the few industrial metal supergroups, Murder, Inc. Basically,  - and I am overly simplifying things - Murder, Inc. is the Killing Joke but with Chris Connelly (the aforementioned Ministry, The Revolting Cocks) on vocals, but wow, does this track rock. Working with Albini, the band created a song that feels li...

Note: this week, in honor of the legendary  Steve Albini's  birthday, I am highlighting his impressive audio engineering work (he refused to be called a "producer"). These five posts are a small example of his musical prowess, selected by me, just a fan with a blog. Certainly I was aware of who Albini was and his importance in the state of music prior to this album, but I am starting with this one because of how surprised I was to see his name in the credits. Dogs  was released on a very small label, Socialist Records, but the version that I became aware of due to NPR playing it was the re-issue from Touch and Go Records in 2004. That was the first time I had heard of Nina Nastasia. The fact that it was such a small label shows what's great about Steve Albini: he didn't care about how big of an artist you were or how big your label was, if you produced good music, he wanted to work with you. I love that! He was well-know to have a sliding scale for his services. A...

I like to tease my partner, Shalee, that she has a thing for scruffy, kinda-dirty-looking male singer/songwriters, like Hozier, Ray LaMontagne, and today's selection: Damien Rice. Some of us have a type, even musically, and for Shalee, that's hers. (To be clear, I say this in jest; I have nothing but respect for these artists, I am just joking about the aesthetic; apparently my preference is for female lead singers with "squeaky" voices, as Shalee tells me, but again, this is not meant to be disparaging.) I try to keep this blog very "stream of conciousness" as to what I am listening to that I think is great, and while enjoying some downtime the other night this came on and I was reminded of just how fucking good this track, and this artist, is. I consider myself lucky that we got to see him live years back. Perhaps a poignant and powerful song about romantic betrayal isn't the way you want to start your weekend, nor is it mine, but there's something...

  Note: In honor of one full year of This Track Is Fire I thought I would highlight the top 10 posts over the last year, but there's a tie in the seventh position, and a three-way tie in the tenth position, so instead you're getting the Top 12 Posts over the past year. Fun fact: Boys Noize came in at #3 this past year and I thought I had just discovered them a year or so previously, even before I had heard that they would be the opening act for this NIN tour, but nope! You see, I have lot of music. Long story short, I had actually been a fan of Boys Noize's earlier work, having bought another track almost 10 years prior. I knew the name sounded familiar! Anyway, if you like your techno mixed with pounding, industrial rhythyms, this is for you. Check out the original post here .

Last week my brother and I went to see Stabbing Westward in concert at a local venue (more on that here ). Unfortunately, by the time we got to the venue we had missed Acumen Nation, the first opening act, but came in just as Priest was performing. I knew nothing about them before the show other than a few song snippets I had listened to briefly earlier that week, but as they were performing my brother pulled up that the performers were previously members of the metal band Ghost. However, instead of theatrical metal, Priest are solidly a synth band. Like I said, they were pretty much new to me, but my brother and I thought they were a blast, and here, five days later, I have been listening to them consistently and admit that I may  be a touch obsessed. Their level of showmanship was unbridled, even in a small club with a capacity of only around 400 people. They could have been playing before 10 people or 10,000 and I believe they would put on a heck of a show regardless. Again, we ...

Note: In honor of one full year of This Track Is Fire I thought I would highlight the top 10 posts over the last year, but there's a tie in the seventh position, and a three-way tie in the tenth position, so instead you're getting the Top 12 Posts over the past year. Coming in at the #4 spot is my favorite Depeche Mode song of all time, the song that grabbed my attention when I was 16 years old and 32 years later has not let go. I could go on and on about why I love this track, and Depeche Mode, so very much, but I've done that several times , not only on this blog, but my other blog as well . Please check out the original post here .