Various Artists – Big Apple Rappin’ (Soul Jazz)
Subtitled “The Early Days of Hip-Hop in New York City 1979-1982,” this two-CD (or four-LP) set captures as much as possible the birth of the genre. These were the days when the music was taken straight from disco and funk hits, while the rhymes are largely fresh and bright, innocent fun rather than dark commentary or confrontational aggression. The better-known artists here are Spoonie Gee, Xanadu (the influential “Sure Shot”), and Cold Crush Brothers, but as usual with Soul Jazz compilations, what makes this great is its depth, with a wealth of more obscure tracks.
Lanterna – Desert Ocean (Jemez Mountain/Badman)
The twangiest indie-rock instrumental band out there has made another mellow masterpiece. The darkly melodious music of guitarist/leader Henry Frayne (ex-Moon Seven Times, ex-Area), augmented by the restrained drumming of Eric Gebow, conveys a sense of travelling along lonely Midwestern highways, though the venue seems more like outer space on the closing “Messina” thanks to some Pink Floyd-like bass and lead guitar. If you like your chillout music more organic than electronic, this one’s for you.
Centro-Matic – Fort Recovery (Misra)
Will Johnson’s band celebrates a decade with a superb new album mixing bittersweet down-home ballads that’ll put a tear in your beer (even if you can’t quite figure out the surreal lyrics) with crunching electric rockers Crazy Horse would be proud of. The rock extremism of the past has been mixed with the feeling of Johnson’s other project, South San Gabriel, for a more varied program that will appeal to Uncle Tupelo/Wilco fans.
Film School – Film School (Beggars Banquet)
Still firmly entrenched among my favorite albums of the moment, this wonderfully textured music takes me back to the early 1990s, when (mostly English) bands such as Swervedriver, Slowdive, and Kitchens of Distinction erected brooding, monumental mid-tempo song-sculptures built from multi-layered, effects-drenched guitars chiming, droning, spattering, and most of all soaring. And, in fact, when I play this disc at Sound Fix, customers often assume the band’s English.
Treepeople – “Big Mouth Strikes Again”
This version of a Smiths song, found on a 1991 EP compiled on the 1992 CD Something Vicious for Tomorrow/Time Whore (C/Z), remains one of my favorite covers of all time. It has the spirit of some of Dinosaur Jr.’s covers, but with a bit less irreverence – it’s fun to hear the guys rock out, but you can tell they take it seriously.
Penelope Houston – The Pale Green Girl (DBK)
Former frontwoman of the late-’70s San Francisco punk band the Avengers (be sure to check out their live album released in 2003, American in Me), Houston has long purveyed a cool Cali folk-rock sound during her solo career. This, her eighth album, is posited as the soundtrack to an imaginary late-’60s art film and has an attractive retro sheen to it thanks to collaborator Pat Johnson’s multi-instrumental talents, which often lean towards swirling organ and jangly guitar atop which Houston floats her detached vocals, reminiscent of Nico and Suzanne Vega. The abundance of catchy tunes and riffs means that even a serious downer lyric such as “Hole,” about the holes in people’s lives that lead them into self-destructive behavior, sounds irresistibly attractive.
Lou Reed – Live in Italy (RCA)
We just got the two-LP version of this release in at Sound Fix. For some reason, RCA has never seemed to value this collection of September 1983 concert recordings with Reed’s tautest band, never officially releasing it in the U.S. although it’s been a favorite import during its intermittent periods of availability. Reed’s own snaky guitar playing mixes with the angular style of one of the great guitar heroes of the cogniscenti, the late Robert Quine, with the supple bass playing of Fernando Saunders and the slightly skewed drumming of Fred Maher provide a more interesting foundation than on Reed’s other albums. Mix that with an assortment of his best material from his hard-hitting, Quine-fueled early ‘80s comeback, a few Velvet Underground classics, and the glorious products of his eccentric ‘70s work, and you’ve got the best single-CD overview of a great career. This goes straight for the jugular and rattles the backbone as well.
Neil Young – Tonight’s the Night (Reprise)
This harrowing depiction of drugged-out inertia went unreleased for two years despite Young’s star status—it was just too bleak and unorthodox even for ‘70s radio to go near. Recorded in 1973 on a perpetual bender of booze and blow in the wake of the drug overdoses of Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten and others in Young’s circle, it leaves in all the cracked or outright missed notes and sloppy ensemble, and epitomizes the phrase “glorious mess.”
Miles Davis – The Complete Birth of the Cool (Capitol Jazz)
I was surprised when one of Sound Fix’s regular customers, a musician, said he didn’t own this. Of course, I set him up right away. Though the components of the original version of this album barely sold when they came out, these 1949-50 recordings gave birth to the highly influential “cool jazz” style and were legendary within a decade. The lush nonet arrangements of Davis, Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan, John Lewis, and Johnny Carisi were a reaction to the hot improvisations of bebop, emphasizing instead the interplay of instrumental colors in carefully sculpted settings—and providing a context in which Davis’s fragile trumpet tone was beautifully displayed. Pick up this version of the album, which adds fine “live” versions.
Bukka White – The Complete Bukka White (Columbia Legacy)
Booker T. Washington “Bukka” White (1909-1977) had a massive hit in 1937 on Vocalion with “Shake ‘em on Down.” Then he served two years on the notorious Parchman Farm for shooting a man who ambushed him. When White returned in 1940, he cut 12 sides reputedly written in two days, all but two with a very different flavor than his hit, which had been a party dance number. “When Can I Change My Clothes” (about his Parchman time), “Strange Place Blues” (his thoughts on standing at his mother’s grave), and “Fixin’ to Die Blues” (covered on Bob Dylan’s first LP) are stark and dark. White was one of the stars of the 1960s folk blues circuit, but the sound on these records (his complete Vocalion records, but not his complete output by a long shot) is vivid enough that stereo and such don’t matter. His National Steel has a penetrating tone whether he’s picking or using slide, and his strong voice can pierce you to your core.
