In 1999, Jason Molina had fallen in love with the woman who would later become his wife, and the relationship would inform a set of songs he recorded in Glasgow, Scotland with Aiden Moffat and David Gow of Arab Strap serving as producers. But the joy of new love didn’t communicate in his music as strongly as the baggage that came with it — waves of doubt, crippling uncertainty, and the terrible awareness that you’ve set yourself up for the possibility of crushing heartbreak. At the same time, Molina was a man who struggled to be strong enough to rise to the responsibilities of a long-term relationship, and to be what his love needed him to be. The album that came out of this period, 2000’s The Lioness, was as spare and unnervingly personal as anything he would ever record,…
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In the mid-’80s, David Byrne was enjoying his heyday as America’s favorite multimedia eccentric when he persuaded Warner Bros. to bankroll a feature film he would write and direct. The result was 1986’s True Stories, a quirky but generous study of the denizens of a small town in Texas. In the movie, several of the characters sang songs written for the project by Byrne, but to help promote the movie, the producers insisted that Byrne and his band Talking Heads record an album that offered their interpretations of the True Stories songs. The Talking Heads album was a chart success, but while an album of other pieces Byrne penned for the movie, Sounds from True Stories: Music for Activities Freaks, appeared in 1986, the performances from the film’s cast went unreleased.
This compilation is, in the parlance of our times, wild as hell. No artist you’ll find here was a superstar, and none of these tracks, Belgian disco from the height of the style’s worldwide popularity in the mid-’70s until after it ceded the airwaves to synth-pop in the mid-’80s, were iconic. Yet there’s so much joy to be found here, so much unrestrained goofiness, that just a spin through these 30 tracks can remind you of how freeing it can be to be on a dancefloor (even when you’re not, in the words of Sister Sledge, the “greatest dancer”). Carl Watson’s “King Kong” opens with a ZZ Top-esque riff and features a totally slimy jazz flute, and Watson just makes ape noises, and it’s super fun. The handclaps and horn riffs in Love Dream’s “Sexy” could even get the most…
Another day, another war-ravaged dystopian future. Scottish duo Clouds have proven to be able chroniclers of this sort of urban fantasy for a while now, and the concept for Heavy the Eclipse is no exception, exploring the ruins anew (this time a war-torn Glasgow after a German takeover) while evoking the usual dread, chaos and destruction — and the raves held therein.
Their sound remains as uncompromising as ever, splicing together the ragged fringes of techno’s DNA into the kind of stomping behemoth you might indeed expect to see prowling the streets of a dystopian cityscape: a potent mix of hardcore, industrial and roiling noise — with the odd drum & bass loop here, or IDM excursion there.
It’s a rewarding but definitely challenging…
Cornet is about the only constant in Kirk Knuffke’s catalog since he traded trumpet for the larger, rounder-toned instrument on record and devoted his energies to it whole cloth. Even prior to that inspired alteration in axes, eclecticism and melodicism were cornerstones of his musical toolbox. Witness announces another shift, one that may require acclimatized listeners to engage in a leap of faith while attracting neophyte admirers because of the stylistic risks involved.
Prequel investigations of sung song forms litter several of Knuffke’s past projects both in the presence of singers and sans the same. This is the first to involve a vocalist throughout the session and in predictable fashion one not exactly known for orbiting the same creative music…
In 2015, Laibach became the first Western rock group to play a concert in North Korea. They performed two shows in Pyongyang that August, organized to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the end of Japanese colonial rule in Korea. The events subsequently became the subject of the 2016 documentary film Liberation Day. During the concerts, the Slovenian collective performed several selections from the beloved American musical The Sound of Music, as it is commonly used to teach English to schoolchildren in Korea.
In 2018, the group released The Sound of Music, a studio album mainly consisting of typically Laibach-ized takes on several of the familiar Rodgers & Hammerstein-penned tunes from the musical. At once, the songs are faithfully performed…
All About Money, the (presumably) first and only release by New Jersey duo Spontaneous Overthrow, is catnip for collectors of obscure private-press recordings. Self-issued in 1984, the album contains 7 tracks of warped lo-fi soul made with cheap drum machines and Casio keyboards. No information accompanied the original release, which sank without a trace. It wasn’t until the 2000s, when filesharing and MP3 blogs made discovering obscure music a piece of cake, that All About Money finally began to develop a cult audience. The album’s title track was included on Personal Space, Chocolate Industries’ groundbreaking 2012 compilation of homegrown electronic R&B from the ’70s and ’80s, and a Numero Group pressing of All About Money finally appeared in 2018.
After releasing a fine debut album that mixed the peppy melodies and buzzing guitar noise of dream pop bands like Lush and more recent groups like Dum Dum Girls, the mixed German/British foursome Chorusgirl change things up on their second album. Released in 2018, Shimmer and Spin dials back the tempos and noise levels in search of something more intimate and reflective of the few years of tumult the group experienced. Lineup changes, their label folding, Brexit, and main songwriter Silvi Wersing’s struggles with anxiety led to a more introspective and measured approach that’s clear on the first song, “In Dreams.” Here, and on much of the album, Chorusgirl show a great deal of restraint, leave their distortion pedals in their gig bags, and save lots of…
For a record to remain interesting 20 years after its release is one thing. For that record to be predominately an instrumental work, from a band entering a ‘real’ studio for the first time, and for it to still take up space in people’s hearts is quite another. But that’s Calexico for you: inspiring devotion whenever they play. Some bands just encourage acolytes – you know the type, fans who insist their band is the best. Calexico inspire such devotion because of the tender and loving care they put into recording albums.
The Black Light, first released in 1998 on Quarterstick Records, was the Arizona-based post-rockers second album, and one that captured hearts and minds immediately. Its wide open spaces and thrift store orchestra sound revealed…
With a rumbling combination of fuzzy organ, twanging guitar, half-spoken/half-sung vocals, and vintage analog production, French duo the Limiñanas capture the cool sound of classic French pop of the ’60s, then send it shooting off in new directions informed by Italian soundtrack music, psychedelia, Suicide, and country blues.
Following the release of their critically acclaimed album Shadow People (produced by Anton Newcombe), French psych rock band The Limiñanas come back with I’ve Got Trouble In Mind Vol. 2: 7″ And Rare Stuff 2015/2018, the second volume of their I’ve Got Trouble In Mind series.
This new release, the first double vinyl released by the band, compiles 17 B-sides, rarities and other unheard tracks recorded from…
A chuckle or a grimace of memento, a shiver of rage or the same, but due to a steamy game and, most of all, a urge. Let the whole world in, and turn it out into an exploration, a clash of fire with this crooked, wooden, coppery, galvanized sort of dragon. You cannot help but tailoring a path, especially if necessary to ultimately represent yourself, so you can either choose a so called neutral recording studio, in order to dry up and focus every shift, or seize live connections with people, a not-so-aware public capable of supporting the crystallization of that once-in-a-lifetime show.
To build Asylum up I’ve gone for the 3rd option: me (and my instrument) and Renato Fiorito along with his 10 mics, aiming to portray 1000 m…
Originally self-released on February 2nd of this year, Northern Spy is now proud to present this fantastic album on CD for the first time, with four never-before-heard bonus tracks. This is Ghost Box (Expanded).
What would it sound like if ambient pioneer Brian Eno had produced the Western film scores of Ennio Morricone? We’ll never know, but we’re now a step closer thanks to Ghost Box, the debut album by SUSS, a quintet whose members have worked in various capacities with Lydia Lunch, the B-52s, k.d. Lang, David Bowie, John Cale, Ed Sheeran, Wilco, Norah Jones, The War On Drugs, Burt Bacharach, the Nickelodeon network, The New Yorker, and countless others. More than a literal reconstruction of an imagined collaboration between Eno…
Mesophase is a term used in physics describing a state of matter that is neither liquid nor solid, sharing properties of both while defining a state unique unto itself. By extension, the concept can also apply to a reconciliation of emotional polarities or conflicting ideas.
Zack Clarke leverages the idea of a mesophase as a vehicle for musical expression through the synthesis of disparate musical forces. His album “Mesophase” unites the natural and the human-made, bringing together acoustic and electronic elements in profound and unusual ways. The result is a music that is not defined by genre, taking essential elements from improvisation, electronic music and through-composed writing. With this combination of approaches, the pianist…
The American singer and actor Francis Albert Sinatra (1915-1998) was one of the most successful pop artists of the 20th century. Even as a teenager he was an ambitious singer and after hearing Bing Crosby, he knew what his dream job would be. As early as 1939, the popular swing trumpeter Harry James brought him to his newly founded big band.
The first records found only few buyers, but his move to the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra began the meteoric rise of 25-year-old Sinatra in the Forties. “Polka Dots and Moon Beams” was his first hit in April 1940. Once he was able to get out of an extremely unfavorable contract with Dorsey, he finally established himself as a solo artist in 1943. Sinatra’s repertoire consisted of songs that…
Umphrey’s McGee has already been busy releasing a steady stream of new albums this year in celebration of their 20th anniversary, but it seems they’re still not done: The band has once again surprise with release in the middle of the night.
Following in the wake of their traditionally hyped January LP, it’s not us; its remix EP, it’s not them; and it’s not us‘s unexpected companion piece, it’s you, released quietly late in the evening on May 17th; the band has shared yet another new 2018 album, BeSides. As Umphrey’s McGee explains in their unveiling of BeSides, with so much ground already covered in celebration of the band’s milestone birthday, “it seemed only appropriate to us that we would deliver one final chapter in the it’s not us, it’s you story to tie 2018 up with…
Here is an example of a specially well succeeded co-operation between a notorious representative of the Norwegian scene (Klaus Ellerhusen Holm) and two of the Portuguese one (Hernâni Faustino and Nuno Morão), combining the recordings of live presentations in a couple of spaces dedicated to creative music in Portugal, Salão Brazil (Coimbra) and SMUP (Parede).
If you’re a Clean Feed fan you already listened other titles documented in both venues, by the likes of Steve Lehman, Ken Vandermark’s and Adam Lane’s Four Corners, Fredrik Nordstrom Quintet, Daniel Levin Quartet, Zanussi 5, Angles, Harris Heisenstadt’s Canada Day and others. “Yesterday is Here” has the same relevance, and it equals what you know of Holm from the bands…
Even though, after 12 years of existence and four critically acclaimed albums, Minnesota-based collaboration Atlantis Quartet has nothing further to prove, the formation presents itself more invigorated than ever. Hello Human showcases a versatile and energetic quartet, presenting 10 originals which span from humble post-bop exercises to punk-infused riff workouts, all the while enveloped by a coherent overall sound.
Just recently guitarist Zacc Harris exposed his appealingly warm guitar tone on trio recording American Reverie (2017), giving his jazz guitar background a gentle folksy touch. While the title track of the object of this review incorporates said character in composition and sound, the opening “Ligaments” testifies to the wilder…
He may not be the hardest working musician in Nashville, but singer/songwriter/businessman Trent Dabbs is involved with so many projects, it’s a wonder he has time to compose, record and release his own albums.
When it came to writing the material for Positano, Dabbs’ 11th release, he didn’t. Well, not really. These nine tracks can be considered orphans, songs written over the course of a few years, perhaps meant for other artists, but were too personal to give away. Somewhat surprisingly, the set holds together as a cohesive album despite its patchwork origin.
Overall it’s an emotional, not maudlin, stroll down Dabbs’ introspective byways. “One day down and a life to go,” he sings on the lush…
For Félicia Atkinson, sound is pretty much sentient. She calls it a “live presence” that “can get inside people, get in and out as it pleases.” Her music works under a central assumption: We merely share the world with all the sonic phenomena swirling all around us. It’s this reverence for the spiritual side of sound, as well as its omnipresence, that has made the French experimental musician’s catalog so fascinating. She deploys a bevy of tools and techniques — voice, assorted synths, field recordings, and numerous passages of unknown origin — to achieve uncanny effects. Her songs can generate strange, psychoacoustic sensations; the buzz and static of her compositions can in ring your ears like insects trapped in your skull.
The New York ambient musician…
Asnakech Worku is nothing short of an Ethiopian icon; documentarian Rachael Samuel, who made a film about Worku’s life which came out in 2013, two years after her death, called her “Ethiopia’s Edith Piaf.” She was the East African country’s very first actress — up until her appearance at the City Hall Theatre in 1952, men played women’s parts. She was a dancer. She was a master of the krar, a small pentatonic lute regional to the area. She had a beautiful singing voice, nimble and strong and clear. She was thoroughly modern, thoroughly boundary-breaking, thoroughly multi-talented.
This album, recorded in 1975, is a session Worku did with another titan of Ethiopian music, Hailu Mergia; the tracks include both traditional folk music and Worku’s own compositions.
