The musician Stew makes his first foray into theater and delivers a winning rock/ballad/funk/punk/electronic/afro-baroque/avant-garde/cabaret musical.
All the thrumming tunefulness and enigmatic lyricism returns (the lyrics filled with even more foreboding and dread now), with some new twists.
Meg Baird of Espers has made a solo acoustic album in the vein of the traditional English folk that has been such a major ingredient in the sound of her band.
With Book of Bad Breaks the group has its third winner in as many albums.
This year the films included many that I was interested in seeing, those daily-life considerations made me end up seeing just 8 films.
The band that almost makes Boredoms sound mellow by comparison returns with another aural assault, their first album of new material in four years – now with added theremin!
If you want a true San Francisco treat then put down the Rice-A-Roni and pick up this stellar album instead.
The rough, gritty and realistic feel could make one believe that it was in fact a documentary.
If Henry Fool sounds far-fetched, it’s absolutely nothing compared to its sequel.
I would highly recommend seeing this film if you’re a fan of NIRVANA or KURT COBAIN.
Jazz/world music clarinetist/saxophonist TONY SCOTT died on March 28, and as so often happens, that prompted me to see what of his I had to listen to. It turned out that I had very little of his early recorded output, so I bought two recent compilations of his ‘50s material to do some belated catching up.
Not only is this some of the best funk of the period, and historically important as the root source of what in a few years would become the Washington D.C. Go-Go scene, it includes one of the most heavily sampled breakbeats around, from the instrumental “Ashley’s Roachclip.”
It took 36 years for this to be officially released; it’s worth the wait.
Guitar Romantic doesn’t have a shred of ironic, detached cool; instead it’s about some kids being completely and totally in love with rock and roll.
Hissing Fauna is the artistic representation of a breakdown. Importantly, though, the sound of the album is not the stereotypical doom-and-gloom.
What Sharp did was take Monkish attributes and emphasize them even further.
This is an odd but fascinating compilation of three very disparate items. The title piece, for ten electric guitars and drums, is previously unreleased; a 31-minute Glenn Branca work from 1981 finally appearing is enough reason in itself to acquire this disc.
This is an engrossing set of spacey free improvisation, as much psychedelia as jazz, as African as it is Philadelphian.
If you’re holiday shopping for a box set to give to a jazz fan, consider this exemplary new compilation. Weather Report was one of the most influential electric jazz bands, setting fusion trends and then moving beyond them to set new ones.
“You can thank old time record collectors for the music that is left because the record companies didn’t give a damn about any of that stuff. They threw all the stampers out.”
The London shows (the same 17 songs on successive nights) find them in their most helter-skelter, confrontational punk vein as they play their first and second gigs as a quartet. In NYC the following year, most of the set comes from Chairs Missing.
The cracked majesty of her singing, sounding so raw and vulnerable yet actually imbued with subtle craft, recalls BILLIE HOLIDAY in her final years. An acquired taste for some, but for many there’s an immediate attraction.
What we have are some truly special releases…this new one as much as the others, or possibly even more so.
When the album was originally released, Smith was only allowed to sing on two tracks. Now we get to hear his vocal demos of all 10 original tracks and an additional four songs, plus two instrumentals.
Quite simply, they played one of the best, most jaw-dropping shows I’ve ever seen in my life!
The beauty of this compilation has been its role in introducing me to so much new and cutting edge music—spare synths that suck you in, electric guitars that slice and aurally eviscerate—this is a record that begs to be listened to alone, in the dark.
25 years after the Slits’ previous recording, original members ARI UP and TESSA POLLIT re-team for a three-song EP.
Low guitarist delivers a collection of dark, frightening landscapes turned to sound, pushing listeners to really focus on the emotional, physical quality of timbre and the way it can create a sense of space – or, on occasion, a claustrophobic lack of space.
On Suite XVI you hear something of its own identity. It’s safe to say Hugh Cornwell’s ghost has finally been put to rest.
This footage depicts a downtown Manhattan far removed from the expensive, trendy place it is today. Instead, it was dirty, carefree and cheap, attracting many artists, including many who are still active today.
Buckner’s words are evocative yet enigmatic; he describes situations so specifically, at such a fine level of detail, that paradoxically their definable meaning cannot be pinned down—and yet, the mood is communicated perfectly through his world-weary singing.
This souvenir from 17 years ago catches Dr. John in action at a beloved New Orleans nightclub. The ten-song program’s a nice mix of Rebennack-penned classics, New Orleans standards, and blues/R&B warhorses infused with Nawlins goodness.
This year, Heartbeat Records is marking “50 years of Jamaican music” by spiffing up its catalog of Clement S. Dodd’s many Studio One recordings with remastering, bonus tracks, and new compilations.
While JAY-Z’s 40/40 Club is not my usual haunt, I decided to go there after being invited to the “Suiting Up” fundraiser, for the good cause (and the free booze).
The Fruit of the Loom parody “Blue” is so dead-on that it reveals the utterly formulaic nature of the style, capturing especially well the necessity for a high, plaintive, angst-ridden, frankly wimpy vocal.
The Gold Record is golden and ranks as one of the best records I’ve heard this year.
While Corvette made a successful return to the spotlight in 2001, she has only recently released her first new material in decades on the LP Back to Detroit. Now playing as NIKKI CORVETTE AND THE STINGRAYS, she and her band floored me on the Brooklyn stop of their recent promotional tour.
This is SONIC YOUTH’s third consecutive excellent album. They haven’t had a run that good since Evol/Sister/Daydream Nation.
The shoegaze revival continues with this Brooklyn band’s sophomore release. If I’d been told that Asobi Seksu translated as “we love instrumental codas,” I’d’ve believed it.
It’s one of the least straightforward albums Keene has made, and is easily the most straightforward, bordering-on-conventional, album that Pollard has ever made. It’s this balancing act that has led to a certain type of magic—not groundbreaking, but truly satisfying.
There’s an exceptional amount of style-hopping, from track to track and within pieces as well, and Charlie Hunter shifts his sound so often he sounds like three or four different guitarists.
This 78-minute, 27-track compilation opens aptly with the classic “Joe Hill,” proclaiming that the Industrial Workers of the World leader’s spirit lives on, despite his execution.
You don’t put a 100-voice choir on your album, its members singing to the heights of their voices, if all you’re trying to do is express anger.
Mostly this sticks to the older, and musicologically primary, definition of ballad: a narrative song. These include some of the most famous American folk songs, and American characters: “Casey Jones,” “Staggerlee,” “Frankie and Johnny.”
They set up their equipment on the floor, so the only people who could see them were those who stood right near them.
It’s always a welcome event when JAMES “BLOOD” ULMER’s genre-twisting harmolodic trio reunites for a rare recording session.
Much is the same on Ringleader of the Tormentors as in MORRISSEY’s past work: an obsession with love, death, hope, and anguish. But much is different—and in general, this is for the better.
This can’t really be called a “Best Of” without including any of LOU RAWLS’s hits, nor can all of the tracks here be termed either jazz or blues. None of this matters, though, because there are three things that matter more…
With that many films shown across 13 days, who could see enough to summarize the festival? All I can give is a summary of what my Philadelphia film festival was like.
