[Ed. - Julian Smith is my longtime roommate and dear friend. Born in Cambridge, he came to Canada in his early teens. Now he's a fine writer who moonlights as a musical thug with the Ceremonial Guard. This fall he will be joining me on my European jaunt. Volapuk is a great band, and "Cry, Want" is highly recommended.]

Such is the force of Sean's enthusiasm for music that, after having lived with him for three years, my tastes in pop music have become almost identical to his own. My favourite songs tend to be his also, so when he asked me to guestblog I didn't know what I could say that wouldn't sound redundant or amateurish. In the end I decided to stick to what I know best and write about songs featuring my own instrument: the clarinet.

The Jimmy Giuffre 3 - "Cry, Want". This tune is haunting. If I were a ghost, I'd play this music as I drifted through the steerage of a rotting ship. You can hear the swelling of waves in the piano, the creaking of timbers from the bass. It's lonely here. There's emptiness and lots of space. This is jazz come loose of its moorings. The piece is from an album called Fusion from 1961 (re-released along with Thesis as the double-album 1961). The clarinetist is Jimmy Giuffre, a much-overlooked free-jazz pioneer who got his start playing for the army (like me). On piano is Paul Bley, a Montrealer by birth, who would later give the first ever live performance on a synthesizer. On bass is Steve Swallow, who became one of the top electric bassists in jazz and was once sampled by A Tribe Called Quest. [buy]

Volapuk - "Technova". This is joyful, mischievous music. It'll trick you into dancing and then change time signatures so you fall on your bum. Then it'll prance around laughing with a twinkle in its eye. It's got clarinets, a cello and a piano, a pulsing electronic beat and European folk melodies. There's lots of banging and hitting of things and there's a strange whipping noise near the beginning, suggesting a sadistic streak to the track. But it's a kind of amoral sadism that's ultimately a lot of fun, like Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream. This track is from Polyglot, the third album from this quirky, playful French trio. [buy]