Obscurity in art has died. There’s always this dude sitting in front of his computer under a glacier in Quebec who has some messed-up death metal / hip-hop version of that Lynyrd Skynyrd B-side track. I used to pride myself in flipping through the back catalogues of Landmark’s music section, hoping to find an Entombed album or that John Frusciante solo album. Hell, I even thought that merely purchasing Marilyn Manson’s Last Day On Earth entitled me to some sort of a cool status.
Obscurity has died with the dawn of bittorrents and peer-to-peer technology. No longer are underground musicians shrouded in mystery with their albums falling prey to cobwebs and dirty fingers of ignorant cassette storeowners. They are available for your listening pleasure on mp3 blogs, torrent softwares, YouTube and such. And now inaccessibility to rare music exists in theory and it is more attributed to the laziness of people unwilling to scourge through music review websites and find reasons to persist with YouTube until they get what they are looking for. I have been obsessing about discovering new music ever since I read Mark Pytlik review of LCD Soundsystem’s Sound Of Silver on Pitchforkmedia and then promptly downloaded the blisteringly hip “North American Scum” on through the Hypem blog search engine.
Much like LCD Soundsystem, Soul Coughing is another one of those brilliant rock bands that MTV never bothered to promote during its heyday. Led by folk savant Mike Doughty, Soul Coughing whipped up a frenzy of sound that borrowed as much from improvisational jazz as it did from razor-sharp alternative rock music. With Mark De Gli Antoni on samplers, Sebastian Steinberg on bass, and Yuval Gabay on percussion and drums, they even experimented with hip-hop and folk psychedelia. I first heard of these guys on the Spawn’s soundtrack album but it just didn’t cut the mustard for me. The song “A Plane Scraped Its Belly on a Sooty Yellow Moon” (in collaboration with Drum n Bass artist Roni Size) paled in comparison to the awesome tracks by Slayer, Atari Teenage Riot, Crystal Method, Filter and gasp, Silverchair. Soul Coughing’s debut studio album – Ruby Vroom – was an entire beast altogether. It was a maniacal collection of infectious grooves sprinkled with acoustic harmonies and sample-based loops of erstwhile legends such as Toots and the Maytals, Howlin’ Wolf and even the father of freestyle jazz – Thelonious Monk.
“Screenwriter’s Blues” is probably the finest of the lot, with it’s spoken word stream of consciousness against a groovy horn section. As Doughty recites what seems to be an ode to the decay, decadence and dystopia of Los Angeles.
I am going to Los Angeles to build a screenplay about lovers who murder each other / I am going to Los Angeles to see my own name on a screen / Five feet long and luminous / The radioman says it is 5 am and the sun has charred the other side of the world and come back to us / And painted the smoke over our heads an imperial violet
Despite bearing close resemblance to one of Jack Kerouac’s LSD flashbacks through lurid suburban streets, the spectacular wall of funk sets the song apart from a horde of beatnik-inspired music. I have also included a remix of one of the songs of their last studio album – El Oso. “Circles” is a truckload of fun; the Propellerheads remix is even better. “I don’t need to walk around in circles, walk around in circles,” mumbles the singer as the post-Big Beat electronic duo weaves together a sea of sweet-sounding turntable jams all around it. It’s the kind of summer funk that Sugar Ray has been desperately trying to conjure up without sounding like absolute morons.
Wikipedia starts off its description of Soul Coughing as a band that “found only modest mainstream success, but had a devoted following and largely positive responses from critics…” I guess that is pretty much a fair description of most of the Indie bands out there experimenting their brains out, hoping that enough people will take notice. Too bad, not many out there pay attention to what the lack of fuss all about. Twisted irony, considering that finest works of art often end up escaping the mainstream radar of roving eyes and heavy wallets.
So today, I sit here, a victim of wanderlust and indulging in frivolity such as searching for the keywords “rare music” on YouTube and seeing what turns up. I almost feel as though I have formed a Faustian pact with bands such as Soul Coughing.
I feel a bit uneasy quoting Elton John but hmmm maybe “that’s why they all it the blues.”
Download
Soul Coughing – Screenwriter’s Blues
Soul Coughing – Circles (Propellerheads remix)
Buy
