Monolink – The Beauty Of It All

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Most of the music I listen to is electronic in nature – created from a combination of samples from other songs plus and beeps and boops created on a synth or computer and often backed by a steady but frenetic percussive rhythm. Like the run-on sentence I just used to describe it, this is not a style for everybody.

Andrew refers to most of the musical choices as “Stressno” – or “Stressful Techno”. The songs I put on at the shop frequently agitate him and make it difficult for him to think straight. I take pride in my musical selections annoying Andrew, though that is just a fun byproduct. For me, they put me in my happy place, calm me down, and put me in a groove.

Electronic music cannot be pigeon-hold into one style or type. There are sub-genres that even I find to be solely hyperactive noise. There are also styles that lean so far into pure, airy ambience that I have difficulty finding the point to them. Monolink straddles the fence between these sub-genres and a few others, making tracks that feel both organic and melodic while still providing the backing beat that many expect from techno and trance music.

Soulwax – Nite Versions

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This album gives me great joy. Others may simply share their musical tastes; trying to find people that will be made happy by their choices. That is not enough for me, however. I prefer to inflict my musical preferences and perversions on others. Just ask my co-workers. Or my wife and kids.

So, what kind of sonic abuse have I chosen for us in this post?

Father John Misty – Mahashmashana

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Father John Misty is a persona played by, or perhaps inhabited by, one Joshua Tillman. Tillman has been releasing music since early in the millennium, and even spent time as the drummer for the band Fleet Foxes. His first release as Father John Misty came out in 2012.

I am just in the process of being baptized into Father John Misty’s flock – I just discovered him last week and am now greedily taking in his sermons. Lucky for me, I have at least six albums of content to discover, and I am excited for it.

I am sure some of you have served much longer as part of his congregation. This is not my typical fare. Case in point: My 10-year-old son, Griffin, was shocked at how not heavy and drum beat-driven or full on electronic the music was when I was playing this album in the car. He asked who I was, and what I had done with his father.

Tool – Lateralus

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Have I written about this album before? I don’t think I have, but I am experiencing a mild form of déjà vu as I type this, so maybe that is the case. I have record of 20 album picks on this website so far if my hand counting is correct, with this one being the 21st. Perhaps I missed one from a year or more back? Who knows? Everything is cyclical. Or, perhaps everything is a spiral.

Many of my friends and other people my age seemed to get into Tool in their teenage years, with their albums Undertow (released in 1993) or Aenima (following in 1995). I was too busy listening to Nine Inch Nails, Underworld, and the Chemical Brothers, among other bands, to notice at the time I guess. It wasn’t until I hit A&B Sound one day after work and picked up Lateralus in the spring of 2001 that I had my first full dive into Tool’s heavy and hypnotic sound.

Underworld – Second Toughest In The Infants

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I believe everybody has one band that really hit them in their teenage years. I have a few, myself. Nine Inch Nails. Front Line Assembly. The Headstones. The Chemical Brothers. Fluke. Underworld. I am probably missing a few there. Perhaps I am fortunate that the groups I list here are all still releasing new music. Some, like Nine Inch Nails, I appreciate for every new song and album, finding enjoyment in how their music and style evolves. Others, like the Chemical Brothers and Underworld, I find myself more hoping they will eventually release something that resonates with me as much as their music from two or three decades ago still does.

This is hardly fair, but we all have those experiences and feelings in our pasts that we desperately hope to repeat and recreate. It happens with that great bottle of wine you had at a restaurant ages ago. You spend time chasing down that same bottle or something similar, in the hope that it will be as impressive as it was that first time.

We might as well wish for lighting to strike the same exact spot, in the very same manner, once more. These experiences get enveloped in hyperbole and retrospection; mummified by nostalgia and the gauze of time to a point where they deified. Nothing can ever hope to live up to something we have placed on such a pedestal.

Underworld’s Second Toughest in the Infants is very much the album version of this for me. Underworld still puts out new music, and I eagerly listen to everything they release in the vain hope that the new stuff will mark me just as much as this fourth album released back in 1996 has.

This is one of my Desert Island albums. I would happily be driven mad by only having it to listen to for the rest of my days. This is an album that just flows from one great song to another from beginning to end. The layered detail of the music created by Rick Smith and Darren Emerson are downright beautiful. The spoken word and nonsensical meanderings of Karl Hyde have an impact that should be impossible.

LCD Soundsystem – 45:33

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This was first posted in a newsletter back in 2025

It is the beginning of September, which means it is back to school! Our youngest is now in grade one, meaning all three of our kids are in school full-time for the first time. He loves it so far. Our middle son is starting grade f and now gets to be the responsible elder brother; making sure they both get to school and back home each day Mom or Dad aren’t there to pick them up. Our eldest is now in sixth grade and going to a new school for the first time since she was in kindergarten. She is taking a school bus regularly for the first time. Frustratingly, her bus stop is two or three neighbourhoods away and across Deerfoot Trail, meaning we have to drive, dropping her off and picking her up from the stop each time. It almost makes the concept of bussing to school pointless, except she seems to enjoy the independence it gives her.

Compounding this wild logistical nightmare is the start of Hockey and Ringette tryouts. That means Mom and Dad are chauffeuring the kids and equipment to the rinks – often two or more rinks – at the same time in one day between the three of them. During this, we are also attempting to get those all-important volunteer hours done for the leagues and teams. Occasionally, the stars align, and we get to sit and watch one of our kids as they skate and stick handle through required drills for a few minutes here and there. But not often, and definitely not together as a family.

Don’t let me leave you with the impression that I am staying atop of all of this chaos of crashing waves and deep, churning ocean like a nimble and competent surfer. I would be washed up by the tide and all covered in seaweed and sand if it wasn’t for my wife. Thanks to her, our family manages to mostly stay afloat.

We aren’t the only family in the midst of this madness-inducing schedule. The other parents we see at the bus dropoff and the rinks can attest to that. Maybe the teachers will strike or be locked out sometime soon, and then we could just jog through our lives at a steady pace for a while. Right?

To mix metaphors and to clumsily stumble into a segue: It is difficult to tell if life is a sprint or a marathon sometimes.

But enough ranting. How about some music?

Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid

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There are two versions of this Album: The regular version, which was released in 2008, and the live version which was recorded at Abbey Road Studios and includes the BBC Orchestra. That was released the following year. Both are excellent and well worth a listen.

Elbow has been around since 1990, when they formed in Manchester. I wasn’t aware of them until this album came out. The first single from the album, called Grounds For Divorce, was talked about and linked to on some long-gone blog I read at the time. The song hits hard after the quieter build finishes. It feels every bit like a dingy neighbourhood pub song as the music video for it portrays, from the thump of the rhythm to the story the lyrics tell to the vocal chant of the band.

I was hooked immediately by this one song, and quickly found out that the entire album is great. The first four songs, especially, are strong, showing singer and lyricist Guy Garvey’s range and storytelling ability. At the same time, the rest of the band is more than talented enough to produce remarkable compositions, ensuring Garvey’s singing doesn’t have to do all the heavy lifting alone.

Daft Punk – Homework

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I am definitely not breaking new ground by picking an album from this French duo, but I don’t care. Every so often, you just want to eschew easy listening and nuanced lyrics, and just absorb some thumping tunes.

Daft Punk is now, for the most part, retired. Wikipedia’s page on the group lists its active years as being from 1993 to 2021. For much of those years, Daft Punk was one of the hottest and most popular electronic acts in the world thanks to its infectiously simple but catchy and pop-driven musical stylings; oftentimes, combining their beats with vocals provided by popular singers as well.

Hailing from France, the duo that made up Daft Punk are Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manual de Homom-Christo, though they typically went incognito behind cyberpunk robot-looking masks for their live performances. The pair had previously gone to the same high school in Paris and also been in an indie rock band together before going the electronic route.

Fink – Hard Believer

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First posted in a newsletter in 2025

The Calgary International Blues Festival is happening this weekend, at the Confluence/ Fort Calgary Grounds. I am heading there, with my parents, and with my kids, for at least some of it. My wife is flying out of town to avoid it altogether (mostly kidding – she has some rodeos to go to instead).

I have only been to the Blues fest once, back in 2004. It was called the Blues and Roots festival and held at McMahon Stadium that year, and included David Byrne and Cake in the lineup of performances. Both were fantastic.

I am sure this festival will be a lot different, as we are both 2 decades on from that point and in different places in our lives. I am excited to be taking my three kids with me (11, 9, and 6) for one of their first music festival experiences. When I was their age, my parents would drag my brother and I to the Edmonton and Calgary Folk Festivals. While I cannot say they had a massive effect on my musical taste, those festivals did open me up to a plethora of different genres and to an appreciation of live music in general.

Whether my own kids find the Blues Festival gives them new artists to listen to or leaves them bored and wanting to go home remains to be seen. I hope they manage to get something out of the experience, though. Time will tell!

Stoner/Desert Rock group Queens Of The Stone Age released a new single last week, titled Easy Street. It comes off as lighter fare from Josh Homme and co, evoking the style of a tired and tweaked out David Byrne.

I have long planned to write about a QOTSA album for a while. Now seems as good a time as any!

Queens Of The Stone Age – Era Vulgaris

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I was a late comer to the music of Queens Of The Stone Age. The first song I recall hearing of theirs was a remix of No One Knows made by UNKLE. It was featured on a great snowboarding game I had on the Sony PS2 called SSX3. It was also on a James Lavelle Global Underground Mix CD. That remix still kills the original, which itself is a fun song. I only really got into them around 2005, when I saw them at the Saddledome opening for Nine Inch Nails.

QOTSA’s biggest album to date – Songs For The Deaf – came out a few years before that in 2002. I dove into that album head-first after seeing QOTSA play live. Their follow-up to that album – Lullabies To Paralyze – was just released in the summer of 2005. The big hit on Lullabies is called Little Sister, which features enough cowbell to make the likes of Christopher Walken content. Yet, it didn’t do as much for me.

Then Era Vulgaris came out in June 2007, and I was hooked from the first track. This was the band’s fifth proper album, and it was properly hard, grinding, gritty and weird.