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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