I get in trouble, sometimes, for straying from my comfort zone on this blog.  Frankly, I find this a little bit baffling.  I know we all like to know what we are getting when we do things and so on and so forth, but I would have thought that breaking up the constant stream of similar music on a site like this would be a good thing.

Anyhow, Wolf Eyes is sufficiently different that I am not really going to be able to review it, just to say that it is there and that I actually think I rather like it.  When I played some on the Fresh Air Radio show Ruth genuinely didn’t believe that I would sit and listen to this, and in a sense she is right.

This is quite harsh noise music (by the standards of this website), so I do not, for example, pour a nice glass of wine, open a book and play this record.  In fact, I am not really entirely sure how to relate to it, because I don’t really listen to music like this very much at all, so I have next to no context for understanding it properly.  They get involved in art shows and stuff like that as well, so it seems like I am listening to one element of a broader work, in isolation, which may not be how the band would ideally like the music to be approached.

Nevertheless, there is something about this I find myself really enjoying – or at the very least, something I find myself fascinated by.  Apparently Wolf Eyes get a little criticism for not being a real noise band, and they are easy enough on the ear to have been released on Sub Pop at times in the past, and it is quite possible that they are therefore a little closer to mainstream or conventional pop than a lot of the purists of their genre, but I don’t really know enough about it to say.

All I can say is that in amongst all the weird noises on this record there is something which I seem to find really rather good, but being such a different kind of music for me, I could no more tell you what that is than I could fly to the moon.

Wolf Eyes – Track 01

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Ruth and I are back on Fresh Air in a couple of hours, so it is naturally time for much rejoicing on the airwaves of the interwebs. In fact, I am sure the internet could barely be more excited about the prospect than it clearly is already.  Can’t you see it trembling with anticipation?

While we’re indulging in hyperbole, incidentally, last week the unbelievable happened: Ruth was genuinely impressed with one of my music choices.  I think it was Do It Every Time by Ringo Deathstarr, but the shock when she raised her eyebrows and said ‘this is really good’ rather than just rolling her eyes and letting out a weary sigh almost knocked me clean out of my chair.

On air from 8pm UK time – click here to listen live.

As per usual, if you have any trouble with the audio stuttering (a problem which seems to be solved now) just pause and un-pause the player, or find us in the ‘College Radio’ section on iTunes.

The playlist will appear below, as we play it, so feel free to stop by and heckle.

1. TuneYards – Bizness
2. Joni Mitchell – Little Green
3. The Honey Pies – Get it Right
4. Dr. Dog – Breeze
5. The Leg – Twitching Stick
6. Zed Penguin – This Town
7. Dusty Springfield – I Thing it’s Gonna Rain
8. Leonard Cohen – Hey, That’s No way to Say Goodbye
9. Seefeel – Dead Guitars
10. David Byrne & Dirty Projectors – Knotty Pine
11. Wolf Eyes – Track 1
12. Active Child – Body Heat (So Far Away)
13. Virgin of the Birds – Love Among the Cannibals