»Total Fucking Godhead

This weblog trucks in repeats, but "total fucking godhead" really is the necessary phrase. This is the mid-nineties, and I am still enraptured by its music. Luna's sublime "Bewitched" (with its guitar melodies like liquid valium -- who wrote that?); The Magick Heads' very very pretty "Before We Go Under" with none of the twee attendant Belle and Sebastian et al.; the Tindersticks heartbreaking 1995 album, with its lush orchestration and sonorous vocals. Gastr del Sol's "Mirror Repair" EP — which for me holds the images of Jean Cocteau's movie rather than the quotidian computer-monitor problems which actually inspired the title, and the records is mine to deconstruct — ; and Tortoise.

The mid-Nineties brought stunning indie-pop albums, too, with Pavement's concept album about their California and The Magnetic Fields' concept albums about the road and travel. I suspect those had a lot to do with my itch to move to the West Coast, or at least to get moving, although Tindersticks' "Travelling Light" (and the flip-side, "I've Been Loving You Too Long") figured in there heavily. June of '44 and Rex rocked the math, Rachel's did something that transformed how hipsters listened to instruments, and bringing together the frenzy of the rhythm section, the inventiveness of instruments, and a captivating stage presence, Tortoise.

Although Elvis Costello's GIRLS +£÷ GIRLS =$& GIRLS covers music from another decade entirely, I include it for completeness. It presaged math rock. And Tortoise.