Spooky Action = Spooky Good: The “Cred Reduction Agent” Spotify Playlist: Featuring Jason Loewenstein

The “Cred Reduction Agent” Spotify Playlist

Every week I put out a new curated playlist for your listening enjoyment.

I love writing about television and ethics, but my true love is music. This blog started as a music blog and evolved slowly into a television blog (but my heart is still in sharing new music).

You can "Just Hit Play" or check out more about the featured artists below. Throughout the week, there will be new entries about the bands and songs on the playlist.

Jason Loewenstein, “Light The Room” (Spooky Action, 2017, Joyful Noise Recordings)

As you probably know by now, I have some particular, if unintentionally consistent tastes.

If you do a “genre” search for the vast majority of most of the music that I recommend, you are likely to come up with one of the following results:

Punk

Post-Punk

Underground Hip-Hop

Lo-Fi

Preverb

Garage

Anti-Folk

So, it should come as little surprise that one of the new albums I featured on this playlist was the second solo effort from Sebadoh guitarist, and lo-fi pioneer, Jason Loewenstein. As much as I love Lou Barlow, my favorite Sebadoh album (1993’s Bubble and Scrape) came after Lowenstein joined the band in 1989.

Here is an example of how well the addition of Loewenstein created some truly beautiful Sebadoh music (what an amazing exhibition of a relationship disintegrating):

Anyway, I really love “Spooky Action” too. It has a bit of everything that I love, especially an odd but awesome little pinch of rockabilly and country in among the usual Loewenstein touchstones.

I talk about this all of the time but I look at genres more as ingredients in a recipe and less as dividers, walls, or fences. You can see a recipe (or a menu) and make informed choices about if a meal will satisfy your palate but it is the combinations of influences that often make meals special.

There is a reason that my blog is named for and based on the music of The Clash, it is because they were a punk band but also a ska band and even at a time a hip-hop "band." I prefer music that challenges my ear by taking forms that I am naturally comfortable with and mixes in lots of other unique spices.

I particularly like the foregrounding of the discordant piano in “Light The Room” which provides a counterpoint to the notion that seeing the object of the song walk in and  “Light The Room” is a particularly pleasant experience for Loewenstein.

The obvious darkness and frustration in the song let you know this is from the perspective of someone who is bitter about losing someone spectacular (over unresolvable differences in opinion).

Anyway, great song, great album. You should check it out!

Closing Time

Okay, enjoy the playlist, I will do a deep-dive into one of the other bands on the playlist tomorrow. Let me know what you think! To hear more of my playlists check out the slider below! I call my site "On Pirate Satellite" because of the song "This is Radio Clash" by The Clash. The crazy names of the playlists were inspired by Captain Beefheart.

Explore, Enjoy, and Share Music!