Bruce Cockburn - "Going To The Country"

The subject of this song is something I know nothing about. Driving (I can?t) to the country (which, I believe, is full of bugs), having grown tired of urbanity (I have no real conception of anything outside of the urban setting).

Bruce Cockburn is still a Hippie, and whatever you think of his politics, this has a negative effect on his music (or, at least, his music is bad). ?Going To The Country?, however, was recorded when it was O.K. to be a hippie and that makes all the difference.

Everything is clear as glass. The guitar playing is complex, yet confident and sturdy, and with its melody, the singing faultlessly, unassumingly harmonizes.

Cockburn almost makes the country sound like a place I might want to visit. [Buy]

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Os Mutantes - "Panis Et Circenses (Bread and Circuses)"

Portuguese sounds kind of Slavic, doesn?t it? Any linguists want to explainee?

?Bread And Circuses? sounds like the arrival of a King (the King of Psychedelia?), a peasant?s soliloquy as reaction to that event, and a Michelangelo Antonioni dance party. It ends like My Dinner With Andre accompanied by Doctor Who incidental music. And I don?t feel any better about that description than you do, so don?t get mad.

Os Mutantes were nearly as technically innovative as they were musically creative; inventing their own instruments and pedals. Their production, the work of Manoel Barenbein (I dare you to be named something better than that), is clear and intimate.

Full of stops and starts and self-conscious experimentation, ?Bread And Circuses? builds momentum and finds a spaced-out regal beauty. [Buy]