They Might Be Giants - Apollo 18 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

They Might Be Giants treat the entire history of popular music as a trampoline rather than a rulebook. Like two pinballs pinging off of each other through musical murals stretching into a giddy ether, TMBG moves by ricochet. On their album The World Is to Dig, the multi- Grammy- winning duo continue bouncing through the pop multiverse, digging into whatever they find with playful zeal. John Linnell and John Flansburgh continue to fire ideas off one another like particles in a perpetual motion experiment, each collision producing a new angle, a new melodic left turn, resulting in tracks packed with esoteric references, mischievous details, and left- field detours. Untethered from trends, immune to nostalgia, and equally ready to draw from Tin Pan Alley theatrics and contemporary pop culture references, The World Is to Dig is the sound of a band very much in motion; not chasing relevance, but generating it on their own terms. Album Tracks 1. Back in Los Angeles 2. Wu-Tang 3. Sleep's Older Sister 4. Je N'en Ai Pas 5. Outside Brain 6. Let's Fall in Lava 7. Telescope 8. Garbage in 9. Get Down 10. New Wave Will Never Die 11. Overnight Sensation (Hit Record) 12. Character Flaw 13. Hit the Ground 14. What You Get 15. Slow 16. In the Dead Mall 17. What the Cat Dragged in 18. They Might Be Feral

It's 33 and a third years since the seminal Giant Sand and it's country cousin The Band Of... Blacky Ranchette entered the studio to lay down their second albums. Yes. Both bands had recorded their second albums each. Two sides of the multi-faceted hyper-productive Howe Gelb. InchI was turning 28,Inch he recalls, Inchand had been wanting to make and albums since my early 20s, but only recently had figured out how. It was time to make up for lost time.Inch Time was of the essence. That thin line between then and now has seen journeymen Giant Sand 27-ish albums, their latest, 'Recounting The Ballad Of The Thin Line Men' turning the clock back to 1986's 'Ballad Of A Thin Line Man', picking over the bones and making a whole new soup. All these years on, the latest incarnation of Giant Sand Howe Gelb (guitars, piano) Tommy Larkins (drums) and Thøger Lund (bass), have dusted off the old vinyl and re-imagined those heady days - they've polished these buried gems, reignited some truculent tirades and rekindled an ageless angst. The revamp re-orders the tracks, drops a couple and adds 'Reptillian', a previously lost song hailing from their album's 25th anniversary re-issue, a tune that opens proceedings and basks in all it's crinkly glory. There's also two takes of 'Tantamount'. The unique thing about Giant Sand' is they make it all their own, they sound like no-one else. The songs remain the same, but somehow completely different.1 Reptillian2 Hard Man To Get To Know3 Desperate Man4 You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory5 Tantamount6 Who Am I7 Body Of Water8 Graveyard9 The Chill Outside10 Thin Line Man11 Tantamount Blast (Bonus Track)

Gentle Giant's last album 'Civilian', was originally released in the spring of 1980, a little over a decade after the band's formation, and like all their alums defied categorization.'Civilian' was the final stage in Giant's move toward a more concise and direct approach while still maintaining it's musical integrity. It was unique among their albums in that the material was written and recorded in North America.The band recruited Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick to man the console at Sound City and Bijou Studios in Hollywood to record this final album. What emerged from these sessions was a comparatively straightforward high-energy rock album, with hook laden songs and clever choruses. Undoubtedly a musical vindication of Giant's decision to move further towards the 'progressive rock mainstream', and the logical conclusion of the work begun on 1976's 'Interview'. Despite having paired down earlier characteristic elements, Gentle Giant retained their quintessential brilliant musicianship moving forward into the new decade.As a bonus on this, the newly mastered reissue of 'Civilian', and therefore it's first official outing on CD, a rare previously unissued track is included. 'Heroes No More' was recorded during the 'Civilian' sessions but failed to appear only because of the need to keep running times down on the old vinyl . Remastered it is a fantastic addition to the album.'Civilian' was the last in a line of strikingly original albums, each with it's own character, but each recorded with the same care and attention to detail. Gentle Giant were a unique proposition, five talented musicians with the ability to blend widely differing musical traditions into a coherent whole.Decades after the initial of InchCivilian' fans of the band old and new have come to realize what an incredibly strong and superbly written and produced album Civilian really was. It is with this