Kurt Pankau Dot Com

Kurt is going through his favorite records. Read the  explainer  or view  the master list . Artist:  OutKast Title:   Stankonia Released:  2000 Genre:  southern hip-hop Born out of the Dungeon Family collective in the early 90s, OutKast was the group that broke the "Dirty South" sound into the mainstream. They paved the way for acts like Ludacris and T.I. and emerged at a time when the rap community was focused on a rivalry between the East and West coasts. The duo's sound was a blend of Antwan "Big Boi" Patton's more traditional MC style and André "André 3000" Benjamin's observational lyrics and funk-rock instrumentation. Stankonia  marked a stylistic change for the duo. It's more up-tempo and driving than previous records. The lead single B.O.B.  (embedded above) is a six-minute anthem that runs at a break-neck pace with touches of techno, funk, and even a church choir. The album spawned additional singles in So Fresh, So Clea

Kurt is going through his favorite records. Read the  explainer  or view  the master list . Artist:  Laura Veirs Title:   Warp And Weft Released:  2013 Genre:  singer/songwriter alt-folk This album came onto my radar by way of the Next Music podcast, which is where I discover a lot of new music, frankly. I'd heard of Veirs before--she'd been recommended by Vienna Teng on social media--but hadn't gotten around to actually listening. When I heard That Alice  (embedded above), I knew I needed to hear more. That Alice , it should be noted, is not particularly representative of the record. It's an up-tempo rock number in the middle of a very low-key album. The opener, Sun Song , does a better job of setting the right tone. Veirs' work here feels very restrained. Her vocal melodies are bright but she never belts. The guitars always feel very controlled, whether it's the gentle arpeggios of Ten Bridges  or the electric thrum of America . She describes her

Kurt is going through his favorite records. Read the  explainer  or view  the master list . Artist:  Various Title:   Gone In 60 Seconds  original motion picture soundtrack Released:  2000 Genre:  tunes for cruisin' Summer 2000 saw the release of the Nic Cage vehicle (ahem) Gone In 60 Seconds , a goofy, okay-enough-I-guess action flick about professional car thieves that featured what we used to think of as impressive stunt driving before The Fast And The Furious  came out a year later. I remember enjoying it well enough for a vapid summer blockbuster, and I remember that the biggest takeaway I had leaving the theater was that I very much wanted to own the accompanying soundtrack, and that is a decision I have never regretted. It was a blend of rock, EDM, and rap that was the perfect album to listen to in the car. Who knew? The lead track and only single is The Cult's Painted On My Heart , a slow rock 90s power ballad in the vein of Our Lady Peace or Fuel. It's

Kurt is going through his favorite records. Read the  explainer  or view  the master list . Artist:  Violent Femmes Title:   Violent Femmes Released:  1983 Genre:  alternative acoustic teen angst Violent Femmes' debut album was written by lead singer Gordon Gano while he was still in high school. The songs are goofy and sometimes childish, but they have a heart-on-sleeve earnestness that I find compelling. It didn't chart at all when it came out, but eventually went platinum in 1991 when several of its tracks found their way into radio rotation in the growing alternative movement. Gano's high, whiny voice and the stripped down arrangements--most of the songs are entirely played on acoustic guitar, acoustic bass, and a snare drum with brushes--give it a distinctive and instantly-recognizable aesthetic. It has all of the Femmes' most popular songs, including the iconic Blister In The Sun . The intro to that song is one of the first four or five things a guitar

Kurt is going through his favorite records. Read the  explainer  or view  the master list . Artist:  A Perfect Circle Title:   Thirteenth Step Released:  2003 Genre:  alt-metal During a hiatus from Tool, singer Maynard James Keenan got involved with a side project being orchestrated by his roommate, guitar-tech Billy Howerdel. Howerdel's instrumental demo tape was richly textured (what would you expect from an album composed by a guitar tech) but still missing something, so Keenan and some other friends--including drummers Josh Freese and Tim Alexander, bassist Paz Lenchantin, and guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen--to put together an album. The result was 2000's  Mer De Noms , a radio-friendlier version of the kind of art-metal Keenan was otherwise associated with. It spawned a few successful singles, but when Tool released their masterpiece Lateralus  in 2001, we assumed that APC had been a one-off. But we were wrong. In 2003, APC put out a follow-up that felt less like a s

Kurt is going through his favorite records. Read the  explainer  or view  the master list . Artist:  Moxy Früvous Title:   Bargainville Released:  1993 Genre:  folk-pop It's the kind of project that can only be created by bored college kids: a not-quite-a-cappella satirical band who sing about progressive politics, ecology, Spiderman, running a video store, and everything in between. The band formed in 1989 in Toronto and named themselves with a nonsense phrase that was difficult to remember, impossible to spell, and adorned with a heavy-metal umlaut.  Bargainville  is a charming goofball of a record in the vein of They Might Be Giants--although a bit more straightforward than TMBG. The highlight is definitely King Of Spain  in which a prince-and-pauper story ends up with the literal king of Spain becoming a pizza chef in Canada. The Drinking Song  was the lullaby I sang to my kids for years and is one of my absolute favorite songs ever. River Valley  is an excellent op

Kurt is going through his favorite records. Read the  explainer  or view  the master list . Artist:  Porcupine Tree Title:   In Absentia Released:  2002 Genre:  prog-rock Once upon a time, a friend handed me a burned copy of this CD, saying "You like Tool, right? Check this out." That was my introduction to British prog-rockers Porcupine Tree. While the comparisons to Tool are fair, PT is a little poppier and a great deal more mellow. I went with Trains  for the embed because it captures a little bit of both worlds of what I like about this album. It's got a little of the precision math-rock chicanery, but a little of that smooth atmospheric low-key vibe as well, despite its brisk tempo. The hardest-rockers are this album are probably the single Strip The Soul  and the mid-album instrumental Wedding Nails , and they're also my least favorite songs (not bad songs, but my least favorite). The best songs are Trains , Collapse The Light Into Earth , Blackest E

Kurt is going through his favorite records. Read the  explainer  or view  the master list . Artist:  The Dresden Dolls Title:   Yes, Virginia... Released:  2006 Genre:  Brechtian punk cabaret Before Amanda Palmer was Amanda-Fuckin'-Palmer, she was the pianist and frontwoman for a bizarre dark cabaret duo who wore white grease paint and bowler hats on stage and gained momentum in the early aughts. They put on energetic shows (I've seen them three times, and they're just incredible live) and sing about back-alley abortions, transitioning, evolution, domestic abuse, alcoholism, and even Holocaust deniers. Their music was dark and yet hopeful, bright and poppy despite the oftentimes cynical subject matter. Yes, Virginia...  is the quintessential The Dresden Dolls record. It has seat-of-your-pants rockers like Necessary Evil , jarring stagger-stop piano in Sex Changes , heartbreaking pathos in Delilah , and unrelenting optimism in Sing . Although, optimism in a very

Hey everybody! DreamForge Magazine have purchased my story Autoimmune  for an upcoming issue. They are a print and online magazine, and it's likely the story will be paywalled to anyone without a subscription. This is one of my favorite of my own stories, as well as being the second-longest one I've sold, so I'm very excited to be able to make this announcement. I don't know when it's going to be running, but expect me to post more details when they are available. Because I'm nothing if not a ferocious braggart! In other news about things I don't know, I also don't know when Carpools & Coworkers  is going to run at Daily Science Fiction , other than "soonish." However, A Punk Rock Future  (with my story Wailsong ) has been sent out to Kickstarter backers, so a number of people (myself included) already have their copies. Print and ebook copies are available for pre-order on Amazon and should be out in early October. ]{p

Kurt is going through his favorite records. Read the  explainer  or view  the master list . Artist:  Ben Folds Title:   Rockin' The Suburbs Released:  2001 Genre:  piano-driven alternative jazz-rock with jokes Ben Folds is one of my favorite artists. I've seen him in concert I want to say six times now and will be seeing him again in February. Every show is a little bit different--I've seen him do a 5-piece rock production, a stripped down 3-piece, an 8-piece jazz ensemble, once accompanied by an orchestra, and twice solo with a piano--the most recent of those shows without even a complete set-list. The last half of that show was requests delivered via paper airplane . He's a brilliant musician and unapologetically silly. After his band Ben Folds Five split in 2000, he started work on a solo project that would become Rockin' The Suburbs . It's a weird hodgepodge of a record, although all of it sounds unquestionably like it was written by Ben Folds. The