A breakup record that’s based on experience, observation, and imagination Nashville-based, Texas-born K Phillips released his latest full-length, Dirty Wonder. Produced by Band of Heathens‘ Gordy Quist, the ten-track collection is replete with detailed, literate stories, clever allusions, and well-drawn characters that are further distinguished by pedal steel, fuzzy guitars, and juke-joint keys that lend an overall bluesy feel to the project.
Dirty Wonder begins with “Had Enough” is a bittersweet tune accented by a gentle piano and female harmonies that pinpoints the moment when you realize you’re with someone who might not be what you need and resolve to move on, “Everyone’s got demons/I must slay my own/I never thought…
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The late Kenneth Gaburo was a noted academic, writer, jazz pianist, electronic music innovator and more. In the 1980s, he headed the Experimental Music Studio at the University of Iowa where he taught that the individual is free to create their own language in terms of their approach to music composition. Gaburo is the inspiration for trumpeter Nate Wooley‘s latest experimental collection, The Complete Syllables Music.
This ambitious four-disc collection adds to Wooley’s revolutionary solo repertoire, which includes Trumpet/Amplifier (2010) and The Almond (2011) and the Peter Evans duo project Polychoral (2017). This box set includes reissues of two out-of-print works, 8 Syllables (2013) and 9 Syllables (2014) and two discs of new material specifically…
Avifaunal is the latest album from UK based duo Pausal, the audio and visual art project of Alex Smalley and Simon Bainton. It follows previous releases on labels such as Barge Recordings, Students of Decay, Own Records and Infraction. Individually, Alex has released numerous works under his Olan Mill alias and Simon has released on Hibernate Records.
Their music has been described as “billowing, vaporous, and cloud-like”, “a shimmering haze of humid ambience and sparkling field recordings”, “a colourful, yet ghostly, world of slow-moving, rejuvenating sound”.
In 2015 the band were asked by Martin Boulton of Touched Music to perform in Pembrokeshire, Wales and set about generating new material for…
On their third full-length album, Atlanta-based O’Brother embrace a heavy, spacey sound that, by now, has become their signature. Described by frontman Tanner Merritt as “apocalyptic space-pop,” it’s the soundtrack to either a dark dream or an oddly pleasant nightmare.
With the help of co-producers Andy Hull and Robert McDowell of Manchester Orchestra, Endless Light softening the band’s edges further, another step in a direction they’ve been slowly moving in over the years. They’re more Tool than Torche this time around, and a lot more Muse than ever. (Merritt’s bold tenor and admirable falsetto are worth comparing to the English band’s Matt Bellamy.)
O’Brother maintain their tendency for plodding stretches that would be sleepy were they not…
The 2016 release of this album commemorated George Butterworth‘s death in the Battle of the Somme one hundred years earlier. He was one of the million young men to die there, and heavy indeed is the irony of his setting of A.E. Housman’s The lads in their hundreds. That song cycle, as well as the Suite for String Quartette, are orchestrated here by the present conductor, Kriss Russman, the idea apparently being to enlarge the rather slender corpus of orchestral music by Butterworth. But it’s hard to argue that either work is added to by being orchestrated. The Six Songs from ‘A Shropshire Lad’ tend to emphasize a certain over-literal quality in Butterworth’s settings. There is also a completion by Russman of an Orchestral Fantasia left unfinished by Butterworth and seemingly pointing…
Rock’s love of jazz was driven underground by prog rock’s overenthusiasm: keyboard flourishes with more notes than a bank vault; drum solos that went on for days. But in a counter-reaction to the antiseptic digital age, it is no longer the love that dare not speak its name.
Fever finds Tom Barman, frontman with veteran Belgian indie band Deus and one-half of dance duo Magnus, unleashing his inner jazzbo with new project TaxiWars. Tracks have the structure and vocal style of the typical rock song, albeit the opaque variety favoured by Deus. But they are propelled by a jazz engine. Drummer Antoine Pierre’s time-keeping is subtle and multi-layered, while Robin Verheyen does agile work on the saxophone, from the cool solos blowing through…
Incredible, idiosyncratic and obscure early ’80s French futurist DIY project led by Jean-Luc Aime (Univers Zero) this feature-length album of elusive recordings marks the bonafide axis point where Zeuhl School meets synth pop, dark ambient and early electro culled from rare vinyl and disparate cassette co-op releases for this first ever LP release.
A lost art-efact from a micro genre where ZED, Eskaton and Heldon share outernational tape space with Vox Populi! The Normal, Colin Potter and Luc Marianni this record occupies a unique place on the shelves of fans of early DIY electro and post punk while ticking the boxes of 80s VHS OST enthusiasts and the growing interest in European cassette zine projects. These melodic macabre tape experiments fuse multi-track cassette experiments with…
Spare, beguiling, and as luminous and golden as the Magic Hour at the end of the day, Tara Jane O’Neil‘s self-titled 2017 release is the sort of lovely and inscrutable work one would expect from the indie folk lifer. Recorded by Edith Frost collaborator Mark Greenberg at Wilco’s studio the Loft in Chicago, Tara Jane O’Neil may have its roots in the Midwest, but the music, at once radiant and whisper quiet, projects more of an otherworldly vibe in the most charming and pleasurable manner. In its way, O’Neil’s music suggests a kinship with legendary singer/songwriter Judee Sill in its musical singularity, its occasional nods to the ’70s Laurel Canyon sound, and its eager embrace of life’s mysteries. But one of the greatest compliments you can pay to O’Neil is that she doesn’t…
…28-track set includes a re-mastered and re-sequenced “PLUMP Chapter One” which also includes the additions of “When It Rains It Pours” and “Five” (Radio Edit).
The four-piece jam band from Vermont known as Twiddle has now released the second half to their long-winded double album experiment, PLUMP. Spanning the course of two years and multiple recording sessions with a huge number of guests on all sorts of string, horn and choral arrangements and the band’s first experience with a producer, Claude Villani, PLUMP: Chapter Two closes the experimental book of firsts and presents the band’s hard work to the masses.
Recording the double-disc album PLUMP was not necessarily as quick and easy as the band…
Portugal’s avant-jazz scene continues to surprise and delight. Recorded in the loft space at SMUP, a pioneering arts venue in the Lisbon satellite of Paredes, The Attic brings together three of the country’s finest improvising musicians: bassist Gonçalo Almeida, tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado, and drummer Marco Franco. Amado’s star is on the rise, following 2015’s excellent This Is Our Language with Joe McPhee, Kent Kessler and Chris Corsano, and last year’s superb offering from his own Motion Trio. He’s a generous collaborator, and The Attic is as much Almeida and Franco’s show, with the bassist’s elegant and powerful playing often setting the scene.
‘Shadow’ opens with a beautiful bowed solo. Playing in the instrument’s higher register,…
Argentinian musician Federico Durand returns with his second full length album on 12k following 2016’s A Través Del Espejo. Taking his already minimalist composition style Federico challenged himself by using only one synthesizer for this beautiful album of sparse, hypnotic dustiness. His talent for creating works of so much emotion out of so little attest to his concentration when working and his passion for the craft. La Niña Junco is a handwoven gem. Music with a humble origin and a deep resonating soul. Famed Argentinian artist Lola Goldstein graciously illustrated the album cover, caputuring the idea of memory and object that is so infused with Federico’s work.
“Immersed in the beauty of the very moment, the songs for La Niña Junco were recorded in one…
This is pure Chicago blues as you would expect from these two traditionalists. John Primer is the reigning Blues Music Award winner for Traditional Male Blues Artist and Bob Corritore has racked up six BMA nominations and won an award as well. The two paired on 2013’s Knockin’ Around These Blues, so, in one sense, this is an encore. One of the most rewarding aspects of this album is the two piano players featured. The late Barrelhouse Chuck appears on seven tracks with Howlin’ Wolf’s pianist, 91 year old Henry Gray, on the remaining three cuts. Corritore’s usual rhythm section of drummer Brian Fahey and bassist Patrick Rynn anchor here as they did on the 2013 release where Barrelhouse Chuck was also the pianist.
Exhibiting an ambition that has become typical of his work, Jonathan Coulton delivers not only a new concept album, but one that is paired with a new graphic novel of the same name written by Matt Fraction and drawn by Albert Monteys.
On his first proper LP since 2011’s Artificial Heart, Coulton’s tale is based in a sci-fi future city beset by a God-like artificial intelligence and follows the story of two men whose stories become linked.
While his futuristic fable is deftly conceived and executed, it’s Coulton’s acumen as a pop tunesmith that really shines here. Between lushly harmonic narratives like “Wake Up” and “All to Myself, Pt. 1,” he delivers a variety of neatly crafted pop hybrids from the electro sparkle of lead single “All This Time” to the languid, pedal steel-adorned…
The members of Austin’s Hard Proof keep their hands busy. When they’re not together, they play with Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears, The Calm Blue Sea, Cougar, Ocote Soul Sounds, and The Echocentrics, and the group’s horn section has collectively backed Broken Social Scene, The Walkmen, Spoon, Antibalas, and more. By the light of that miniature cosmology, the ten-piece have forged a sound of their own, one that mixes the selective defiance of Fela Kuti and the soft flutter of Ethiopian jazz with hard Congolese drumming and showy Western rock and roll.
It’s a polyglot combination that, quite honestly, shouldn’t really work — years of free festivals have proven the hard-rockin’ funk band to be neither sufficiently hard-rockin’ nor funky, and despite…
…Originally from Edinburgh, singer/songwriter Fraser Anderson’s music has yet to find a wide audience in the U.K. despite releasing 3 albums that have earned him progressively increased coverage and acclaim. After his debut album, And the Girl with the Strawberry, was released, the warmth and depth of his music encouraged comparisons with John Martyn, Nick Drake and many others.
His relocation with his young family to rural France in 2004, though, while allowing the realisation of a pastoral idyll, meant his musical earnings had to be supplemented by more traditional hard graft. Live performance remained an important part of his life and in 2007 he was able to record a second, again acclaimed, album – Coming Up for Air. Bob Harris and Danny Thomson became fascinated…
Rick Wakeman spent much of the ’80s and ’90s recording instrumental albums that veered toward either classical or ambient, so 2003’s Out There comes as a bit of a shock: it’s an honest to goodness revival of the full-throttle prog rock Wakeman pursued on his solo albums in the ’70s.
A large part of this is due to his decision to form a full-fledged supporting rock band. Called the New English Rock Ensemble, they’re a quintet led by Wakeman and featuring Damian Wilson on vocals, Ant Glynne on guitar, Lee Pomeroy on bass, and Tony Fernandez on drums and percussion.
They’re a powerful and skilled outfit, able to follow Wakeman’s shifting tempos and moods with dexterity without ever losing sight of their forceful rhythmic core, which keeps this rock, not new age.
The sophomore studio LP from the Nashville-based singer/songwriter, Cadillac Sky mandolin player, and man behind country hits by the likes of Tim McGraw, Blake Shelton, and Jason Aldean, Modern Plagues sees Bryan Simpson assuming a more playful, acerbic, and pop-centric persona.
Less overtly faith-based, but no less spiritual than the Whistles & the Bells‘ transformative 2015 debut, at times the 11-track set feels like the product of a more sanguine, Fun-loving Father John Misty. Like Josh Tillman, Simpson’s lyrics are steeped in wry social commentary (“robots are gonna put us in the people zoo”), but his affable delivery and innate country charm render each aside largely devoid of snark. Alternately goofy and profound, standouts like “Good Drugs,”…
Back in 2012, Soul Music expanded and reissued the first 4 of the 5 albums Teena Marie released on Epic: Robbery (1983), the pop breakthrough Starchild (1984), Emerald City (1986), and Naked to the World (1988). The label continued their support of Lady T’s post-Gordy, pre-independent output with this two-disc overview covering the entirety of her Epic run, including tracks from the Ivory (1990) era. Over half of the selections are versions and mixes that originated on 12″ releases (several of which are among the bonus cuts on the 2012 reissues), yet the package is still more satisfying than previous Epic-phase compilations such as Greatest Hits, Lovergirl: The Teena Marie Story, and Playlist: The Very Best of Teena Marie. Each charting single is represented, often in 12″/extended…
Following on from Earth’s definitive collection of Jansch’s 1990s works Living in the Shadows Part Two: On the Edge of a Dream picks up from where it left off, bringing together Bert Jansch’s final recordings, made between 2000 and 2006. This remarkable anthology documents some of Jansch’s finest work, and a man at the top of his game, some forty years(!) after his first release.
From the brooding resonance of ‘Crimson Moon’ (where Jansch is joined by Johnny Marr, Bernard Butler and Johnny “Guitar” Hodge, as well as son Adam Jansch and Bert’s wife Loren Jansch) to the intimacy of ‘Edge of a Dream’ (Bernard Butler, Hope Sandoval, Dave Swarbrick, Ralph McTell, Johnny “Guitar” Hodge, Paul Wassif, Adam and Loren Jansch) to the wondrous new folk / trad folk…
Luxembourgian pianist Francesco Tristano knows how to upend expectations. He made his recorded debut in 2004, performing Bach’s complete keyboard concertos. Three years later, he caused a stir in the classical and electronic worlds with his stately covers of Autechre’s “Overand,” Jeff Mills’s “The Bells,” and most strikingly, a piano rendition of Derrick May’s epochal “Strings of Life.” Since then, he’s kept a presence in both worlds, recording classical albums for Deutsche Grammophon while also getting remixed by Moritz Von Oswald, Apparat and Lawrence.
Surface Tension is a striking album for a number of reasons, the least being that it sees release on Derrick May’s own Transmat label. May features on half of the album’s tracks, his singular touch…