Music Monday

Well, this weekend was awesome.  A win for the Chippewas over MSU, and lots of quality time with my lady.  Back to business however!

Lately my music tastes have been pretty eclectic, ranging from the African music I featured last week to one of this week's features: Mastodon.

Mastodon is a prog metal band from Atlanta, Georgia. Their style has been described as sludge metal, prog, and art rock, but I think they're an artful blend of all three.  I've been listening to their latest release, Crack the Skye, on repeat for a couple days, and it's an interesting album, on top of being very musically complex.

It follows a quadriplegic who has learned astral travel, but flies too close to the sun and severs the umbilical cord tying him to his body.  His spirit is then summoned by Rasputin, and he correctly predicts the Russian mystic's assassination, after which Rasputin guides him back to his body.  It incorporates a lot of astral travel, Stephen Hawking's theories and the spiritual realm.  A fascinating album, really.  They've got three other great releases too.  I'm partial to Blood Mountain, but they all have their merits (mostly good!).

Our other spot today is a talented mashup artist from the web, DJ Earworm.  A friend sent me a link to a mashup of Kanye West's "Heartless" (covered by The Fray, which I prefer) with The Police's "Message in a Bottle", Black Eyed Peas's "Boom Boom Pow", 2Pac's "Dear Mama", and the sample that Kanye based "Heartless" on, "Ammonia Avenue" by The Alan Parsons Project.  This mashup is SPECTACULAR.  I'm really not a fan of hip hop, as most of you know, and I think Kanye is a colossal douche, but this mix is ridiculously catchy, and the Fray make "Heartless" bearable (even likeable!)  This guy's done a bunch more mashups, and not a dud in the bunch. Be sure to check him out!