Pearl Jam—“Quick Escape”

Pearl Jam--Gigaton

The release of Pearl Jam’s Gigaton is right around the corner (March 27, 2020), and they have now dropped a third track, “Quick Escape.”

On the verses of “Quick Escape,” the band leans deep into Jeff Ament’s pulsing bass groove and guitars punctate, alternately, with low-string riffing and angular chord stabs of the same family as those Mike McCready drops in on “Dance of the Clairoyants” (Gigaton’s first single).

At 3:36, McCready howls an outro solo on a Strat through an octave fuzz and wah, as Ament’s distorted bass climbs and falls and drummer Matt Cameron goes Keith Moon. It’s easy to imagine McCready and co. getting unhinged on this one when they bring it to the stage.

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Los Bitchos’s “instrumental psychedelic sunshine Cumbia”

The London-based instrumental quintet Los Bitchos–the name sounds like mangled Spanglish, and subtracting one letter turns it into a decidedly masculine bit of Spanish slang– is too much fun to be quiet about. Los Bitchos describes their sound as “instrumental psychedelic sunshine Cumbia,” which is an admirably way-out-the-mainstream way of saying they want you lose yourself dancing but you’ll have to make up your own words if you want to sing along.

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Russian Circles, Blood Year (2019)–Preview Review

Are you lost on a howling, desolate, icy tundra, not knowing where you are, or even if you’re near anywhere, knowing only that you’re about to face an implacable enemy in high-tech, mortal combat? No? Good. Maybe you’re on space craft, and something’s gone wrong, and you’re hurtling in slow-mo toward some kind of seething, black-hole abyss. No, not that, either? Good.

Good, because Blood Year, the new album by the devastatingly heavy instrumental trio Russian Circles, won’t be fully released until August 2. If you’re planning any of the above adventures—or, maybe, making a score for a movie or video-game that dramatizes such scenarios—wait until early August, because, if the pre-release tracks from Blood Year are any indication, Blood Year is the soundtrack you need. It is such a buzzkill when your dark, cinematic adventures have the wrong music.

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Joni Mitchell and Pat Metheny, “Furry Sings the Blues,” from Shadows and Light (1980)–Part 2

Joni Mitchell and Pat Metheny

Pat Metheny’s presence in Joni Mitchell’s touring band is one among his rare appearances as a sideman to an artist from outside the jazz world. Well before his 1979 gig as Mitchell’s lead guitarist, Pat Metheny had in place a sound and style very much his own. Throughout much of the show, he presses his well-known tone—via a Gibson ES-175 into a pair of clean Acoustic combos, gently enhanced with asymmetrical delay settings—into the service of songs distant from his own.

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