One of the leading architects of soul music, Solomon Burke was a huge influence over both rock and soul performers and The Rolling Stones covered several of his songs. This is the most comprehensive collection of his earliest recordings ever released and includes the A and B sides of two rare singles, ‘You Don’t Send Me Anymore‘ & ‘Honk Honk Honk‘ which were released under the name of Little Vincent. Also featured are his early Apollo recordings which until now have only been available on budget LPs in America plus his first hit ‘Just out of Reach’. While Solomon Burke never made a major impact upon the pop audience – he never, in fact, had a Top 20 hit – he was an important early soul pioneer. On his ’60s singles for Atlantic, he brought a country influence…
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The first thing about Amateur Best that hits is his voice; it’s down, but not beaten. It’s the kind of voice that popstars used to have in the days before AutoTune, perma-grins, and mandatory teeth whitening. Warmly scratchy, it tickles the subconscious as he searches for words, and frays charmingly as he reaches for the big notes. It’s a voice that wears its heart on its sleeve; emotions etched in sky-high letters with every breath. While he can’t hide the heavy sense of disillusionment that imbues his every note, equally present is an almost child-like stubbornness; a playfully shirty refusal to be engulfed by misery.
London’s Joe Flory, the man behind Amateur Best, has been here before. He played the popstar game at major label level as previous incarnation,…
5 CD set features his first five albums Harvest; Joy of a Toy, Shooting at the moon, Whatevershebringswesing, Bananamour and The confessions of Dr Dream along with bonus tracks.
The Soft Machine, not long after recording their first album and touring America, began breaking up – just the first in a long series of personnel changes and subsequent new directions that formed one of art rock’s winding sagas of the ’70s. Kevin Ayers was the first to leave, mostly because of that American tour, and he soon became one of the first acts to release music on Harvest, a new progressive label from EMI that promised to offer the best and brightest in the new vanguard of British rock. Ayers recorded and released five albums over the next five years…
An excellent new album by a young band from Zimbabwe, a country that was a powerhouse of African music back in the 1980s. Mokoomba are from Victoria Falls in the north, and they blend local Tonga and global influences in their varied, self-written songs. Rising Tide starts out with the furious Njoka, including funk and rap elements, and is helped along by excellent guitar work from Trustworth Samende. Lead singer Mathias Muzaza demonstrates his powerful vocals in soulful songs that echo the country’s greatest musical hero, Oliver Mtukudzi, before switching direction to bring in West African and Latin sounds, plus a dash of reggae. The impressive production is by Manou Gallo from the Ivory Coast, who once played bass…
Following the departure of long-time lead guitarist Alec O’Hanley, Charlottetown, PEI beach bums Two Hours Traffic return with Foolish Blood, an 11- song set of heartfelt indie rock that showcases the band’s new rhythm-heavy line-up. Inspired by the transcendent chime of early Motown, the P.E.I. natives perform their best Beach Boys impression to date, delivering orchestral walls of sound on album openers “Magic” and “Audrey,” as well as George Harrison-inspired jangle on “Faster 4 U” and album closer “O My Love.” Infused with the limber fretwork of North Lakes frontman and newly minted bassist Nathan Gill, the group unleash a collection of propulsive power-pop, with percussionist Derek Ellis’s rampant kick drum driving the band away…
On top of Dirty Beaches‘ steady stream of dark- pop releases, the man born Alex Zhang Hungtai has also managed to helm a handful of film scores in recent times. One of which was for Edmonton- based filmmaker Evan Prosofsky’s Water Park.
7 track mini album release runs over 27 minutes, and explores the neutral element of sound in a massive indoor water park located in west Edmonton Mall, in the province of Alberta. The instrumentation of oscillators, heavily reverberated strings, mellotron/chamberlain, and experimental electric guitar sets the mood for this bizarre plastic tropical paradise thats within a shopping mall.
Water Park is released through Brian Jonestown Massacre leader Anton Newcombe’s A Recordings Ltd. imprint on 10-inch vinyl.
Raised in August Town, Jamaica, and schooled in Florida, the duality of Etana’s upbringing is reflected in her soul-and-gospel-meets-conscious -reggae music. Her third album for VP Records is her first with one producer (Shane Brown of Jukeboxx productions) taking the lion’s share of work. As a result, there is a singularity of purpose that previous efforts lacked.
Not that Better Tomorrow is monogamous in sound. Queen is scorching soulful roots, which fuses Bob Marley with India.Arie. All I Need is danceable early reggae with a doo-wop structure that pays homage to Jimmy Cliff; Whole New World pairs one drop with slap-bass funk.
The power-ballad pledge to Etana’s baby daughter, Til You Get Old, samples an actual birth – an open..
Steeped in the same breed of dark American pictorial songwriting that made up Van Dyke Parks’ travelogue pop journals and the more tragic moments in the careers of both Wilsons Dennis and Brian, California-based multi-instrumentalist Frank Maston offers up a collection of pleasantly backwards-looking pop on his proper debut full- length, Shadows. From the slapback delay and miscellaneous percussion of instrumental album opener “Strange Rituals,” you know what you’re getting into with this album. Nods to Pet Sounds in production, instrumentation, and even melodies are blatant and unabashed, with the compressed beauty of that album being a clear starting point for much of Shadows. While songs like “Young Hearts” and “Night” are deeply indebted to all eras..
Leon Thomas became a star on the back of his original cut of The Creator Had A Master Plan recorded with Pharaoh Sanders. This success was consolidated with 4 studio albums and several live sessions recorded for Flying Dutchman. A year as a member of Santana brought him to the attention of an even wider audience. His yodelling style allied with deep blues roots has influenced several generations of jazz singers; Thomas’ music mixed spiritualism with African influences and became important to the acid jazz scene, where he was sampled by Galliano, while his records became sought after collector’s items. In recent years the soul crowd has pushed up the value of his 45s Love Each Other and Just In Time to See the Sun.
The Creator… pieces together the very best…
As one of the most thoughtful singer-songwriters around, Josh Ritter isn’t one to write angry, over- the-top, knee-jerk breakup songs — even though his new album, The Beast in Its Tracks, was written entirely in response to his own recent divorce. Gentility and empathy are wired into Josh’s songwriting, so his idea of a breakup anthem is the gorgeous and glorious “Joy to You Baby,” in which he closes the book on a relationship by wishing everyone well, himself included.
But before Ritter can get to that point — it’s no coincidence that “Joy to You Baby,” one of the best songs of his career, is tucked right near the end of The Beast in Its Tracks — he does detour through a few less magnanimous stages of grief, including an occasional dose of passive-aggressiveness…
The story of Orpheus and Eurydice has been told and retold in various mediums and manners throughout the ages. Claudio Monteverdi used opera as his means of transmitting the tale, alt-rocker Nick Cave tackled it head-on in song and author Neil Gaiman revisited the story in comic book format, but the list doesn’t stop there; any decent rundown of Orpheus remakes has to include Brazil’s two most famous contributions: the play Orfeu da Conceição and its subsequent film offspring, Black Orpheus (Dispat Films, 1959).
These works set the story during the time of Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro and feature some of the finest Brazilian compositions to come out of the mid-twentieth century. Antonio Carlos Jobim…
The Lovely Bad Things‘ debut album The Late Great Whatever is a 12-song blast of energy that draws power from the Pixies, Star Wars, Redd Kross, hanging out all day with your besties, and making a ton of noise. Meeting on the hallowed ground where the fierce energy and clatter of punk hook up with the choruses and singalong cheerfulness of pop, the songs are delivered with a breezy sense of humor and fun, but also with a lo-fi power that never lets up. The band switches instruments, trades vocals, and generally comes across as kids having a total blast. Sometimes that leads to indulgent, messy albums but The Late Great Whatever is fairly tight-sounding and its…
1. Phosphorescent – Song For Zula
2. John Fullbright – Jericho
3. Low – Platic Cup
4. Hiss Golden Messenger – I’ve Got A Name…
5. Jim James – I Didn’t Know Til Now
6. Edwyn Collins – In The Now
7. Mount Moriah – White Sands
8. Billy Bragg – No One Knows Nothing Anymore
9. Harper Simon – Bonnie Brae
10. Christopher Owens – A Broken Heart
11. Cody Candy & The Departed – Cold Hard Fact
12. Anders Parker – Falling Snow
13. The Holydrug Couple – Counting Sailboats
14. Thali Zedek Band – Walk Away
15. Ethan Johns – Don’t Reach Too Far
16. Camper Van Beethoven – Northern California…
As Little Wings, Kyle Field has made a practice out of hiding out from the world while continuing to try and understand it. He’s kicked around in M Ward’s backing band, he played with Devendra Banhart for awhile. Mostly, he became known as a staple of the wide-eyed post Beat Happening K Records scene– appearing on a few Microphones records while also collaborating with Calvin Johnson. What he shares with that scene is a reverent approach to nature and an appealingly amateur vocal style.
Musically, he isn’t going so much for innovation as he is for a constant exploration of themes across an entire discography: loneliness, growing older, singing about his own music as a means of self- discovery in an infinite feedback loop that creates an entire world. Because of that, it’s difficult to…
The Seattle septet Hey Marseilles integrates symphonic cello, drumbourine, accordion and viola into a standard lineup of guitar, bass and drums for a warm, distinctive sound.
Nick Ward and Matt Bishop formed Hey Marseilles while students at the University of Washington, and independently released their first album, To Travels & Trunks, at the end of 2008. The band has since given the album a nationwide reissue and performed at festivals like SXSW and Bumbershoot.
Hey Marseilles’ new album, Lines We Trace is a gorgeous set of chamber folk-pop with a lush, acoustic-oriented sound combining cello, viola, trumpet, clarinet, accordion, piano, guitars and drums with Matt Bishop’s plaintive tenor and…
Having honed her chops with Antony & the Johnsons and Rasputina, Vancouver-born (and New York-based) cellist Julia Kent is striking out on her own with her third solo full-length. Entitled Character, it’s due out March 4 through Leaf.
It seems appropriate that this album Julia Kent was recorded completely alone. Even the title itself suggests a reflective, introverted longing to consider how you might set a life to music.
And it’s not something that she enters into lightly or frivolously. From the outset the tone is markedly serious, occasionally oppressively so, and completely devoid of humour. There are times when the walls close in and the grimness becomes quite intoxicating. But at least it is intoxicating.
The delicate influence of minimalists like Michael…
River Giant takes that 70’s revival rock sound that so many have been flirting with lately under the bleachers and goes straight to makeout mode with it. The album fully makes its intentions known from the opening track, “Out Here, Outside”, which draws the obvious Neil Young comparisons. Produced by friend Chris Early (Gold Leaves, Grand Hallway, Band of Horses) and augmented by the smooth mastering of Ed Brooks (Fleet Foxes, Thousands, The Head and the Heart), this band certainly fits the Seattle band look nowadays: three dudes, facial hair, harmony-rich folk rock tunes coming out of their ears. Not to mention there’s no mistaking the sonic influences–frontman Kyle Jacobson wails in a lofty tone like a certain foxy gentleman and the group works a few bluesy…
If Shannon Whitworth’s first two albums were cross-country treks, High Tide is a trans-Atlantic voyage. Leaving all preconceptions of the banjo-wielding songstress behind, Whitworth’s new adventure steers into waters both familiar and refreshingly new, Gibson SG in hand.
On the heels of a year spent touring with Chris Isaak and the Tedeschi-Trucks Band and recording as the singing voice of Belk department stores’ latest campaign, High Tide finds Whitworth collaborating with Bill Reynolds (Band of Horses) and producer Seth Kauffman, while continuing to hit the road with her core quartet.
From the first rolling rhythms, it’s evident that this album charts new waters. Just as her music stems..
There’s a line tucked into “Coast to Coast,” from Waxahatchee‘s new album Cerulean Salt, that makes for a great introduction to Katie Crutchfield.
After perhaps the most anthemic moment of the record — an exasperated reference to a talk show that keeps truckers and touring musicians awake at the wheel — she slips in what at first appears as an afterthought, but becomes a raison d’être the more you listen: “I’ll try to embrace the lows.”
The lows in this case represent a variety of young- adult albatrosses: loneliness, fickle feelings, anxi- ety, self-doubt. We all encounter these emotions at various points in our lives, but most of us tend to quarantine them, lest anyone realizes how truly messed-up we feel inside. Crutchfield — or, more accurately, her songwriting — thrives on those…
Pianist Ehud Asherie and tenor saxophonist Harry Allen are established musical partners with a shared fondness for a time when songwriting giants like Irving Berlin and Richard Rodgers were at their creative zeniths. Lower East Side is the pair’s second duo outing, following on from Upper West Side (Posi-Tone, 2012), and once again the two demonstrate how this fondness for a bygone era can still produce fresh and joyous music.
The journey from Upper West Side to Lower East Side is geographically short—just a few miles. Musically, Esherie and Allen’s journey is as brief as can be. Both albums feature the same mix of standards—some famous, some undeservedly less so—and the same stylish combination of tenor sax and piano. Why mess up a good thing, as they say.
In 2011 with the release of his debut, self titled album, The Haxan Cloak, solo project of multi instrumentalist, Bobby Krlic, appeared seemingly out of nowhere with an impressively fully formed sound that blew away most anyone who heard it.
Recorded over the space of 3 years Haxan Cloak was a wildly ambitious fusion of malevolent strings, junkyard found-sounds and primitive percussion, Krlic’s grand ambitions transcending the fact that it was all recorded in a shed at the bottom of Krlic’s parent’s home in Wakefield, Yorkshire. In the two years since the release of his debut, Krlic relocated to London and began working on it’s epic follow up, and Tri Angle Records debut; Excavation.
Bolstered by the concept he was developing for his follow up and a desire to challenge himself into…
When David Bowie chose to break a decade’s silence by releasing a single, Where Are We Now?, on his 66th birthday, dissenting voices were hard to find amid the clamour made by people eager to welcome him back. Some argued that the clamour was part of the problem: it drowned out the music, which perhaps wasn’t worthy of the noisy excitement it had caused. The reason people were so thrilled Bowie was back, they suggested, was founded in the music he made in the 1970s, a decade when almost every new album he released was an astonishingly sure-footed leap forward into uncharted territory. But Where Are We Now? was no Heroes or Sound and Vision. Rather, it was a charming, fragile ballad. Indeed, it was not unlike the stuff he had been knocking out immediately…
Universally recognized as one of the front-running pioneers of electronic music, Klaus Schulze appeared in the early days of analog synthesizers as one of the first to master their electronic pulses, waves, and gurgles. Through his groundbreaking (and prolific) solo recordings as well as work with other artists, Schulze dedicated decades to the development and definition of his genre.
Shadowlands joins his lengthy solo discography, with five new extensive studio recordings experimenting with both long-form ambient synth explorations and processed human vocals.
Schulze’s first solo studio album since Kontinuum (2007), Shadowlands is released on February 22 in two editions, with the limited edition (limited to…
People, Hell & Angels is a collection of quality studio tracks recorded (mostly) in 1968-1969 as the Experience was coming to an end and Jimi was renewing his friendships with Billy Cox and Buddy Miles, who appear here as sidemen on most of these tracks. The surprising thing about this set is not the sound quality (which is exceptional) or that these all sound like finished tracks, but the fact that even avid Hendrix bootleg collectors are unlikely to have heard most of this material.
A great version of “Earth Blues” kicks things off with just Jimi, Billy, and Buddy (whose drums were replaced by Mitch Mitchell on the Rainbow Bridge/ First Rays version). It’s a more forceful take than the other version and also has some different lyrics. “Somewhere” is also a different take than…
Gareth Liddiard has never been one to shy away from expressing the way things are and he again goes straight for the jugular on his band’s latest album, I Sea Seaweed. In the past, the Drones-eye-view has been entrenched in the surrounding landscape and its people. So while there’s something quintessentially Australian about The Drones, with their passionate local fans lapping up their visceral live shows, it’s hard to imagine their music translating and making much of an impact overseas. The strong sense of place is retained here, but they also branch out and move to more universal themes. Most importantly, this is a confident jump up in quality after 2008’s variable Havilah. The band play to their strengths, marking a triumphant return to bloody, bruised rock epics.
