Staff Picks for August 2016
August 31, 2016
The first West Coast punk band to cut a record, Crime were gloriously weird, playing crude, rumbling no-frills rock with blues-inspired call-and-response guitars while the musicians wore police uniforms or S&M garb. Crime never made an album in their 1976-1980 lifespan, but Murder By Guitar collects their three singles and a wealth of studio outtakes, and is a splendid testament to their twisted fury.
August 30, 2016
At her best, Kesha is deliriously trashy: she ropes Iggy Pop in for a duet on the filthy "Dirty Love," "C'Mon" surges on the intoxication of a one-night stand, "Only Wanna Dance with You" is a riotous piss-take on the Strokes that pushes them toward the bubblegum where they belong, and on the deluxe edition, she writes the greatest Joan Jett song ever in "Gold Trans Am."
August 29, 2016
No one in American songwriting uses the device of the Unreliable Narrator better than Randy Newman, and he never created a set of more unreliable characters than on 1974's Good Old Boys. A set of character studies from the Deep South, Newman makes his people real and fully rounded, whether they're cheerful dullards or utterly despicable racists, and the music is gorgeous in its New Orleans-inspired stride.
August 28, 2016
There are plenty of Yellowman compilations available, and while it's hard to call Greensleeves' Most Wanted the flat-out best, it's top shelf and necessary for the serious fan thanks to all of the 12" mixes it features. Important numbers like "Mr Chin," "Zungguzungguguzungguzeng," "Nobody Move Nobody Get Hurt," and the DJ's cover of "Blueberry Hill" are all in attendance, making this an all killer, no filler collection.
August 27, 2016
Given trumpeter Chris Botti's profile as a lyrical, deeply romantic crossover jazz star, it's fascinating to hear him jam with guitarist David Torn and former King Crimson bandmates drummer Bill Bruford and bassist Tony Levin in Upper Extremities. At turns menacing and dreamlike, this late '90s live album showcases the quartet's dynamic, intuitive approach to crafting highly improvisational, textural jazz-rock soundscapes.
August 26, 2016
Employing a dizzyingly lush 20-piece string section, stiletto-sharp bursts of brass, and electric piano melodies that twinkle like stars, Verocai's heady productions draw on folk, jazz, and pop traditions from both sides of the equator to make music that is both immediately familiar and quite unlike anything else you've ever experienced.
August 25, 2016
Television were well-served in the studio, especially on their masterful 1977 debut Marquee Moon, but their albums didn't always capture the fire of the guitar interplay between Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd. For that, you need The Blow Up, recorded at a gig in New Jersey in 1978; the audio is merely adequate, but the performances are bursting with energy and inspiration, and the extended workouts on "Marquee Moon" and "Little Johnny Jewel" are brilliant.
August 24, 2016
This is a striking example of the essential Milton Nascimento that has made him a beloved figure in Brazil -- a lush, eloquent, unified concept album that cries for universal happiness and personal fulfillment, lashes out briefly at hypocrisy, and haunts the memory with its often stirring tunes.
August 23, 2016
With the promise of new songs to premiere on a fall tour, and a new album in the pipeline, now's a good time for the uninitiated to catch up on the winsome and wacky output of this singer/songwriter. The Swede's 2004 debut is a great place to start, and -- quite likely -- the only place to find a bossa nova/supernova/Jehovahs/pull-overs/Casanovas rhyme.
August 22, 2016
Although technically his sophomore album, Alex Sipiagin's debut for Criss Cross, 1998's Steppin' Zone, is the album that announced the Russian-born trumpeter's arrival on the NYC-jazz scene. Joined by an equally adept ensemble featuring saxophonist Chris Potter pianist David Kikoski, bassist Scott Colley and drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts, Sipiagin commands attention throughout laying down line after line of aggressive, harmonically rich, acoustic post-bop.
August 21, 2016
Freedy Johnston's 1990 debut The Trouble Tree presented him as an engaging and eccentric talent, but his follow up, 1992's Can You Fly, was something else altogether. Can You Fly is one of the very best singer-songwriter albums of the '90s, a set of witty, poignant, evocative stories of small but extraordinary lives, and Johnston's craggy but emphatic vocals bring them to life with the skill of an expert storyteller. An underappreciated masterpiece.
August 20, 2016
This remarkable 2015 collection of acoustic guitar duets from an English-born Chicagoan and Louisville-based folklorist is bolder, craftier, and far more captivating than most of the year's rock releases. It was a feather in the cap of North Carolina label Paradise of Bachelors who had a banner year in terms of quality output and Ambsace was right at the top.
August 19, 2016
David Sylvian's long-awaited follow-up to 1987's Secrets of the Beehive, 1999's Dead Bees on Cake found him once again collaborating with Japan's Ryuichi Sakamoto; along with contributions from Bill Frisell, Marc Ribot, Kenny Wheeler, and others. Occupying a similar if even more enigmatic place in the pop spectrum as Bryan Ferry, the album is a slowburn dream, imbued with as much soulful, mutative jazz, classical and avant-garde atmosphere as its predecessor.
August 18, 2016
King Crimson opened 1970 scarcely in existence as a band, having lost two key members (Ian McDonald and Michael Giles), with a third (Greg Lake) about to leave. Their second album -- largely composed of Robert Fripp's songwriting and material salvaged from their stage repertory-- is actually better produced than their first. It doesn't tread enough new ground to rival In the Court of the Crimson King, but Fripp, made an impressive show of transmuting material that worked on stage into viable studio creations.
August 17, 2016
The 2013 release Sempiternal saw the English decibel pushers more or less obliterating their deathcore past with a soaring set of aggro-alt-rock anthems that were as darkly lush as they were emotionally punishing. That's the Spirit, the band's fifth studio long-player, completes that sea change by incorporating more electronic elements into the mix and moving even closer to the mainstream.
August 16, 2016
Heartbreak and hope bookend this underrated 2014 release, the only album of theirs not supported by a tour (fans will relish the inclusion of some songs on their current stadium trek setlist). Released in the wake of that big tabloid divorce, it's actually one of the strongest in their discography, brimming with earnest emotion and comforting atmosphere. Aside from the jarring Avicii collaboration, it's a perfect choice for a quiet night with your feelings.
August 15, 2016
This split release features three compositions performed by Sun City Girls' Alan Bishop, and then again by New England post-rock/psych-folk ensemble Cerberus Shoal. The show-stopping highlight is CS' "The Real Ding," an epic 18-minute masterpiece of freely flowing verse, typewriter clacks, and heartbreaking choral vocals. It's the type of song that takes multiple listens to fully decipher, as there's so many layers to it, but it's truly wonderful and rewarding
August 14, 2016
This recording was assembled as an homage to composer Gil Evans, whom the great British guitarist had played with in the 1980s. It draws on their sessions together and offers new tunes that feature Evans's son, Miles, on trumpet, and Russell's daughter, Amy Baldwin, on bass. Its eleven tracks are firmly in the jazz-funk/fusion tradition, with nods to the ground broken on Miles Davis early electric records and Russell's own Columbia albums from 1969 and 1971.
August 13, 2016
This album showcased the group at its least pretentious and most musicianly, and shows the beginnings of a dark, savage, imposingly gothic edge that had scarcely been seen before in so-called "art rock," mostly courtesy of Emerson's larger-than-life organ and synthesizer attacks.
August 12, 2016
Recuperating a bit from The Black Album's uneven impact while still aiming to try whatever they want in studio, the Damned came up with their strongest album since Machine Gun Etiquette. By turns sprightly and cheerful, dark and dramatic, energetic and snarling, or all that and more at once, Strawberries defies usual expectations to be yet another good rock album from the band, resisting easy attempts to categorize it
August 11, 2016
In light of Bon Scott's passing, it's hard not to see Highway to Hell as a last testament of sorts, being that it was his last work and all, and if Scott was going to go out in a blaze of glory, this certainly was the way to do it. This is a veritable rogue's gallery of deviance, from cheerfully clumsy sex talk and drinking anthems to general outlandish behavior.
August 10, 2016
X&Y may have vaulted Coldplay into the big leagues, yet it's their most bloated and oft-detracted release (think Be Here Now or Pop). Intergalactic in scope, it gifted "Fix You" upon the universe and includes some of their best songs ("White Shadows," "The Hardest Part," "Speed Of Sound"), but it's the stripped-back acoustic heartbreak of the Johnny Cash ballad "Til Kingdom Come" that packs the biggest wallop without any of the space-age bombast.
August 9, 2016
It takes a visionary artist like Björk to release a remix collection that plays like an entirely new album. These reworkings of tracks from her 1995 Post LP, are varied, unique, and often radically altered from their source material. The Brodsky Quartet's arrangement of "Hyper-Ballad," for instance, is an elegant and possibly superior sibling to its original version.
August 8, 2016
This group exists largely to pay homage to the old Swedish death metal greats (such as Entombed and Dismember), but it is also clearly a way for these musicians (members of Opeth, Katatonia and others) to have some fun and blow off some steam from their more serious "day jobs." What immediately stands out about this album is just how serious these guys are about playing this music, and how intense and heavy these performances are.
August 7, 2016
After Green Day's success with Dookie, The Muffs' sophomore record for Reprise was probably given a little more polish and attention than it would have otherwise. Produced by future super-rich-person Rob Cavallo and vocals by future ex-Pixie Kim Shattuck, the new 3 piece version of the band honed in on the short, snarling, punchy pop-punk songs they're so great at.
August 6, 2016
Joshua Redman's sophomore album is a lithe, acoustic post-bop session featuring a mix of fellow Ornette Coleman alumni with guitarist Pat Metheny, bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Billy Higgins. More than a simple showcase for a young lion, Wish finds Redman pushing himself to match the maverick sensibilities of his quartet. However, rather than crafting an avant-garde or fusion album as his line-up might suggest, Redman and his group delve into a set of standards, pop covers and inventive originals that are as lyrical and swinging as they are adventurous.
August 5, 2016
Listeners who were charmed by 2014's A Trip to the Coast will find much of the same here, as the mercurial English singer/songwriter continues to mine both Tin Pan Alley and Swinging London for the purest pop nuggets he can dig up. Another unassuming treasure, Mother Town Hall is a Victorian jangle pop horn of plenty, spilling over with wit, warmth, and timeless melodies.
August 4, 2016
Eluvium's 2003 debut was one of the most astounding ambient albums of the decade. Matthew Cooper distilled indie rock guitar melodies to their essence and looped them into warm, comforting blankets of sound. The exception was the bewildering 15-minute fuzzscape "Zerthis Was a Shivering Human Image." The seventh proper Eluvium album is coming soon, and given his track record, it will undoubtedly be brilliant.
August 3, 2016
The third and final of the Walker Brothers' 1970's reunion albums, Nite Flights set the table Scott Walker's haunting, avant garde late period solo work. His four contributions, all front-loaded at the top of the otherwise unremarkable album, are some of the finest of his entire career -- especially "The Electrician" -- and marked a glorious creative comeback for the foremost Walker Brother.
August 2, 2016
With Beady Eye now a half-forgotten memory, it seems that the older Gallagher brother has won the post-Oasis rivalry. On Chasing Yesterday, everything sounds easygoing, from the simple but pleasing vocal melodies to the guitar work, which is never busy. The singles were all quite solid, but it's worth paying attention to quirky deep cuts like "While the Song Remains the Same" and "The Mexican," while bonus track "Freaky Teeth," a leftover from the first album, is grand and stunning.
August 1, 2016
The Edinburgh natives' 2012 debut introduced their strange, rhythmic art rock which fell somewhere between a more melodic Devo and a new wave drum corps with an unlikely bonus helping of Spaghetti Western guitar. The supremely catchy "Default" and "Hail Bop" lead the charge on this enticing debut.