Back in September, I wrote a column about food music, briefly touching upon the song “Artichoke” from New York City band Cibo Matto’s 1996 album, Viva! La Woman. In fact, a food motif is present throughout the album’s nonsensical songs. What results is a very successful album, teetering between silliness and seriousness, and trip hop and indie rock.

“Apple” – “Apple” begins with a clattering rhythm and whispered chant. The song squeaks and chugs like a machine, almost enough to be danceable — but then wordless moans creep in and out slowly enough to capture your full attention.

“Beef Jerky” – In the beginning, “Beef Jerky” sounds like a 1950s sitcom — an apron-clad housewife is sweeping joyously, when a grizzly bear rips through the door and eats the pie that’s cooling on the windowsill. Then it gets sassy with vocalist Miho Hatori squealing, “Who cares? I don’t care!” and “A horse’s ass is better than yours!”

“Sugar Water” – Michel Gondry (The Science of Sleep) directed a really stunning video for “Sugar Water” featuring a split screen with the same footage — one playing forward, the other backward. In the video, both members of Cibo Matto end up accidentally colliding.

“White Pepper Ice Cream” – The members of Cibo Matto wonder what white pepper ice cream would taste like, eventually determining that they do not care. Jazzy brass blasts in and out in the background as Hatori’s signature whispy vocals float over a sparse beat.

“Birthday Cake” – In this spunky track, Hatori drops the Miss Nice-Lady routine and screams at the top of her lungs, busting mad, strangely pronounced rhymes. Mainly, Hatori informs listeners that she put pot in the cake so they should just shut up and eat it.

“Theme” – Although not obviously titled after a foodstuff, “Theme” is about a sensual meeting with a man drinking a cappuccino in Milan. “The accidental meeting made my blood red like Chianti,” the song goes, referencing an Italian red wine.

“The Candy Man” – Reminiscent of Willy Wonka’s creepy but magical boat ride, the song’s chorus is a modern take on the chipper “Candy Man” song in 1971’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Still, it seems they’re not just singing about the man’s candy…

“Le Pain Perdu” (“The Lost Bread”) – Using some trumpets and dance beat, Cibo Matto compares everyday life to stale bread and a dull relationship to overly sweet and mushy maple syrup.

It’s hard to find a band with a sound quite like Growing. The group’s music is at once challenging, unique, and simple. Often grouped as drone/ambient music, a typical Growing track is a 10-minute plus instrumental wash, without much obvious variation. No melody. No beat. But, stay with me now —though the songs may lack variation, they’re not boring.

Growing is Kevin Doria on bass guitar and Joe Denardo on electric guitar, although you could hardly guess the instrumentation just by listening to most tracks. It’s more accurate to say that each musician plays a series of effects through pedals and amplifiers, rather than guitars. After experimenting for years, Doria and Denardo seem to have found the exact sounds they wanted to make, and they continue to break new ground.

Growing formed in 2001 in Olympia, Wash. as a three-piece group, releasing several cassettes and a video before its first LP, The Sky’s Run Into the Sea (2003). On The Sky’s Run, the new sounds weren’t there yet; the band seemed impatient, with a stadium rock guitar solo on almost every track. Following the LP, the third member left, allowing the band the creative flexibility that it needed.

Growing’s next album, The Soul of the Rainbow and the Harmony of Light, represents a distinct shift. On Soul, the band seems calmer — there is no rush to do something artificially interesting. Thus, Doria and Denardo are able to use more subtle variations as they move away from the guitar sounds to create a serene and enveloping effect. The good thing about this kind of ambient music is that it doesn’t have to be the focus of the listener. It’s just as good with the volume low, for somebody sitting on the porch reading, as it is when it’s filling the room completely.

Skip ahead to Color Wheel, the fourth LP. Color Wheel makes you forget that the world exists, allowing the mind to wander. Here, the duo has really figured out how to make the sounds they want, capable of completely overwhelming the listener without brute force. The album has a much more dynamic feel, while maintaining the patience of Soul. The opener is brilliant, starting out with a soaring overlay of delayed guitar sounding like a choir of horns, and a strong rumbling drone that trades focus with what can only be described as an incandescent glow — probably orange. Eventually the drone fades, and an explosion that’s not quite a tone comes in at unpredictable intervals, followed by a harsh rhythmic sound. The beauty isn’t gone though, as the “guitarist” overlays a more continuous stream of bright reflections and huge angelic flourishes at just the right times.

Following in Color Wheel’s tracks, this year’s Vision Swim is amazing as well.

Andrew Carnegie, forefather of our university and lover of plaid, instilled our institution with a strange tie to his homeland, Scotland. I present five songs by Scottish groups.

Boards of Canada, “Turquoise Hexagon Sun” “Turquoise Hexagon Sun” is the second track on Boards of Canada’s Hi Scores: a five-minute masterpiece that has aged incredibly well. I know that it’s made with machines, but BOC fools me, fusing organic fuzz of real space, murmuring of a crowd and emotion with a space-age melody. “Turquoise” is a BOC classic, displaying the band’s uncanny ability to toe the line between ambient, psychedelic, and even disco.

Mogwai, “Stanley Kubrick” Glasgow post-rockers Mogwai released EP in 1999, having already garnered significant attention for their music. “Stanley Kubrick” is the foundation for EP, starting off with the slow patter of drums and murmurs, then arching into the band’s signature rich bass and guitar twang. Well-balanced distortion, drones, vocals and epic cymbal crashes elevate “Stanley Kubrick” to be one of Mogwai’s finest tracks.

The Twilight Sad, “Cold Days from the Birdhouse” With a powerful voice and thick Scottish accent, vocalist James Graham is what really sets The Twilight Sad and their album Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters apart from other bands in the same vein (think The Arcade Fire crossed with My Bloody Valentine). “Cold Days from the Birdhouse” opens their album with intensity, as Graham shouts “Where are your manners?” to the end, and “Cold Days” is among many awesome songs on a surprising debut album.

Belle and Sebastian, “Wrapped Up in Books” If you’ve seen John Cusack in High Fidelity, you’ve heard long-time indie darlings Belle and Sebastian. Their signature sound is understated indie pop, complete with rock organ and twee vocals. What I like most about Belle and Sebastian is their ability to tell serious emotional stories without melodrama. You feel like you’re listening to an upbeat song, while the lyrics are something else entirely. “Wrapped Up in Books” is a little ditty about fantasy relationships and the unwillingness to change course and follow your real desires.

Franz Ferdinand, “Cheating On You” As tired as they sound now, I have a fondness for Franz Ferdinand — the soundtrack to a lot of reckless driving senior year of high school. It wasn’t “Take Me Out” which got me hooked; it was “Cheating On You,” a song by all accounts much less musically interesting. But there was something exhilarating about shouting “I’m cheating on you!” out car windows, as relationships became strained and the angst of high school came to a head.