Love is Overtaking Me, Arthur Russell. For the last week, nothing but this, over and over. The handsome gay Iowan made some of the most intoxicating pop music of the late 20th cent., mostly while living in obscurity in the East Village in the 1970s and 1980s. His melodies are half Shaggs-like unschooled non-repetitive meandering and half Brill Building, a truly "wild combination," which is the name of the nicely shot and structured documentary on his life and times. Arthur somehow alchemized in his home-brew all the shifting flavors of his era: folk-rock, early punk, confessional songwriter, disco, ambient, techno-pop. It tells you that the 1970s, the last solid decade of rock monoculture, were as musically topsy-turvy as the 1960s, even if not as brisk-tempoed or as cladogenetically momentous. It reminds you that no matter how much you learn about the kinds of music you're interested in, there's always one more (thanks, Justin Roberts and Gerald Dowd). And it reproaches you for not paying better attention to your immediate surroundings -- hey, I lived not too far uptown from this guy during some of his most productive years, but was just too preoccupied with things British and folkie to notice. My loss. So, poke around the clubs and art-holes in the city where you live, because there could be something amazing and about-to-die happening.

Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle, Bill Callahan. Not so far from the Arthur Russell spirit -- muted, melody-rich, and full of arresting observations that don't line up neatly with the empirically known world. The world created here evokes the Marlboro man in the early stages of lung cancer, trotting alone along the beach toward sunset. Unlike most of the popular music about which people say goofy things like that, this is subtly and intelligently orchestrated, with string arrangements and rhythm-section parts that are totally unegoistic, always conscious of the whole performance and of the thrust of the lyric. 

"Flowers," Billy Yates. This was shaking up Music Row when I was working there, and I forgot about it until the other day. It's probably the saddest song (even country song!) ever written, and hard to sing or listen to without crying. The groundwork for the chorus is laid masterfully, and because it's a "single effect" song with the chorus packing the punch, you can't really repeat any of the sections, chorus included (and Billy doesn't in his recorded arrangement, only tagging with the chorus's closing lines after a four-bar instrumental), which is such a rare thing that I can't think of a second example.

Guitars, McCoy Tyner. "Momentum," a friend observed, is a primary value in the incredible piano style of McCoy Tyner, whose handwriting probably slopes hard rightward. Though I have a particular personal fondness for the playing of Bill Frisell, I can't honestly say that John Scofield, Marc Ribot, or Derek Trucks make any less of a sterling impression, all rocking like hell. Don't know how Bela Fleck and his banjo got involved.

Bitte Orca, Dirty Projectors. I don't quite understand how this kind of music comes to be conceived, written, or performed, but it achieves a neat balance between arty fragmentation and pretty order, and my kids hate it.