In which I continue to have excellent taste in music.

Actually you know what: you want to read a review of Plastic Beach, go read the Midnight Insomniac's. I'll just say that, where Demon Days is an acoustic nighttime junkyard, Plastic Beach is a glitzy casino resort. Also that the music video for Stylo is awesome, and Superfast Jellyfish is a much, much better song than you think it is.

What I really should talk about is Steven Wilson's Insurgentes, which I've been putting off because, frankly, this is a daunting album to review. But here goes anyway:

Steven Wilson is of course the creative genius behind Porcupine Tree, a more-or-less contemporary prog rock band, whose musical trajectory is an interesting one: initially drugged-out psychedelia, it evolved into a more alt-metal sound, with I think mixed success. Check out On the Sunday of Life... for the early sound, Deadwing and In Absentia for the later sound. There's a lot in the middle there too, but I haven't really listened to it. But anyway, the point is that Insurgentes is a very different sound from any of that. It's a very introverted sound, a sort of musical omphaloskepsis, fading between beautiful melodic reveries and heavy dissonant pounding. It's an intensely beautiful industrial dreamscape. The first track, Harmony Korine - look, there's no way I can do it any kind of justice. Just go listen to it, now. Okay? Now listen to it again. I try to be frugal with superlatives, but that is the most beautiful song I have ever heard, Allegri's "Miserere", Gravenhurst's "Black Holes in the Sand", and everything Simon & Garfunkel wrote notwithstanding. (I've talked about Gravenhurst, yeah? Can't do it here, I already used up my superlatives for this post.) Abandoner is next, with a hollow drum loop overlaid with high wavering melodic lines, leading into immense monolithic guitar chords toward the end. Salvaging rides hard, with air support via guitar and synthesizer, which melts into a constantly modulating orchestral melody, before crashing back into what sounds something like hitting a piano with the sostenuto pedal down - intensely dissonant, and very enjoyable. Veneno Para Las Hadas starts with a monotone bassline under the same three distant chords, and Wilson's quiet vocals and a subtle, excellent use of piano - and though it builds a little from there, it's content to do basically that for the song. And that's excellent. No Twilight Within the Courts of the Sun is an eight-and-a-half-minute virtuosic display - a very complex piece reminiscent of King Crimson, with excellent performances on drums, guitar, and piano. And here I have to resist the impulse to go through every single track on the album, because all of them are worth discussion. So I will just say that Insurgentes is a complex, layered work which far surpasses in depth, consistency, and beauty, Steven Wilson's earlier work. And while the album, on first listen, may well seem monochromatic - quiet melodic piano alternating with heavy dissonant chords - repeated listens will reveal a meticulously crafted, intellectual, gorgeous piece of work.