It’s Monday, which means it’s time for another edition of our regular start-of-the-week stream-a-thon, wherein we scour the Internet for worthy and/or noteworthy albums that are streaming this week at absolutely no cost. Today we attempt to blow our speakers with the new A Place to Bury Strangers record, then give the subwoofers a good going over with a heap of old classic tracks from Detroit techno founding father Kevin Saunderson. There’s also Joe Jackson (and, erm, Iggy Pop) doing a tribute album to Duke Ellington, along with new/old They Might Be Giants and a tribute album to the late Giant Sand guitarist Rainer Ptacek. It’s all awaiting you after the jump. (Edit, Tuesday 26 June — as is the new Dead Can Dance album!)
Edit, Tuesday 26 June: If you’re just reading this now, you’re in luck, because here’s something way more exciting than anything that popped up yesterday… The new Dead Can Dance album! Stream it right now at the band’s website.
A Place to Bury Strangers — Worship
Lock up your stereos — A Place to Bury Strangers have a new album! In fairness, though, this record is a whole lot less ear-bleeding and generally aurally offensive than their previous work — there’s still plenty of wind-tunnel guitar sounds, but there’s also a distinctly groovy aspect to the basslines (perhaps due to the addition of new bassist Dion Lunadon) and a better sense of dynamics. The latter is never something that’s been missing from their live show, but this is certainly the band’s best attempt yet at capturing their live sound on record. Hear it via Spinner.
Kevin Saunderson — KMS 25th Anniversary Classics
Detroit techno lovers, rejoice — genre idol and co-progenitor Kevin Saunderson has a new four-disc, 49-track retrospective out today, and NPR, bless them, are streaming a big chunk of it via their First Listen site right now. The tracks you can hear start with Saunderson’s very first single, “Triangle of Love,” and trace his career right through to latter-day remixes of his work as Inner City. Listen to it all right here.
Joe Jackson — The Duke
The idea of Joe Jackson doing a Duke Ellington tribute album might seem strange at first — Jackson’s a fine pianist, sure, but his strength has always ultimately been in his songwriting rather than his chops. He certainly makes a decent fist of the job here, though, with a series of minimalistic and stripped-back versions of a series of Ellington classics, including a rather strange duet with none other than Iggy Pop on “I’m Beginning to See the Light.” Whatever next? Listen here.
They Might Be Giants — No! (deluxe edition)
This writer has recently visited Istanbul, not Constantinople, which rather called to mind They Might Be Giants — so it seems an auspicious time to be streaming a deluxe reissue of their record No! This is a children’s record (although, in fairness, you could argue that about virtually every They Might Be Giants release since the dawn of time), and was originally released in 2002 — but this deluxe reissue has a bunch of extra tracks that will no doubt be of interest to TMBG completists. Anyway, if you need some wordy, hyper-geeky silliness to cheer up your Monday, well, look no further: it’s all right here.
Various Artists — The Inner Flame
And finally, a fascinating tribute album to the late and highly under-appreciated Tucson, Arizona, songwriter and guitarist Rainer Ptacek. Ptacek was a founding member of Giant Sand and died at only 46 of a brain tumor in 1997. This compilation features interpretations of his songs by a pretty eclectic variety of artists, including Jonathan Richman, Evan Dando, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, Grandaddy and the present-day incarnation of Giant Sand. Listen here.