Staff Picks for February 2013
February 28, 2013
Ron Miles' first album with his drummerless trio is a beautifully understated avant garde work that mixes melodic, often folksong style pieces with adventurous, free-flowing group interplay.
February 27, 2013
Marc Bolan & co. were early and frequent guests at the BBC studios, beginning in 1967 when John Peel invited them to his Top Gear show. Here are more than 32 examples of art rock at its best, from late-'60s psych to mid-'70s glam.
![Fleetwood Mac [1975]](https://fastly-s3.allmusic.com/release/mr0003890608/front/400/OW1kJj-T9nnLvVoz4Lrvc4Af7E_1E-2MlBBPmPAXRBU=.jpg)
February 25, 2013
Speaking of perfect pop, the hullabaloo surrounding the Rumours reissue sent me back to Fleetwood Mac, the first album the group recorded with Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. It's nearly as unimpeachable as Rumours and the duo provides plenty of peerless pop, but the song I keep spinning is "Blue Letter," a song written by the Curtis Brothers, who have never gotten their due and whose album has yet to see digital reissue, just like the Buckingham/Nicks LP.
February 24, 2013
This 1961 collection of a capella "booze jams" from folk legend A.L. Lloyd and an unnamed gang of Dickensian thugs will put hair on your chest and an unexpected spring in your step that will send you tumbling into a ravine.
February 23, 2013
Israeli mixing/mastering wiz Udi Koomran suggested that quirky avant-prog artists Cédric Vuille in Switzerland and Elaine di Falco and Dave Willey in the U.S. might blend their talents in a transatlantic collaboration. A great suggestion, as the trio’s engaging first album proves.
February 22, 2013
A surefire way to make a slammin’ club jam in 1990 was to lay down a bumping groove, add some synth hits in the mix, and get a sultry soul singer to belt it out. Then add a “huuuh” (“I don’t Know Anybody Else”), a “yeeeah” (“Strike it Up”), or an “ow” (“Everybody Everybody”) and you have a winner.
February 21, 2013
This weird and wonderful record features some great MC battles from the golden age of rap, along narration from the legendary DJ Red Alert. It's a history lesson, not a mixtape, but Red's a natural born storyteller, so the interludes are as rich as the music. Now, where's Vol. 2?
February 20, 2013
Along with the two albums he released with the trio Spacek, Space Shift -- released in 2005 -- is among the finer, more curvaceous alternative R&B albums of the last decade. J Dilla beams up Billy Paul. Leon Ware co-writes a song that features CSI's Warrick on bass.
February 19, 2013
Beak>'s 2012 album >> won so many accolades that it's worth revisiting the band's self-titled debut album. Murky and strangely haunting, Geoff Barrow and company lay the foundations of their hypnotic sound here, blending elements of krautrock, dub, garage rock and early electronic music into slow-building songs that are as eerie as they are oddly familiar.
February 18, 2013
Sparse and brittle, yet containing a surprising amount of depth and texture, James Blake's self-titled debut is not only a haunting and beautiful piece of electronic headphone candy, but it's one of the few album with auto-tune that doesn't make me hate the state of modern music.
February 17, 2013
The 1968 debut from this obscure British psych-pop group is a lost gem. Bandleader George Alexander's tuneful songs fell somewhere between the Left Banke's baroque leanings, the Zombie's melancholia and Paul McCartney's most melodic Beatles compositions.
February 16, 2013
Expansive, funky, beautiful and hypnotic, trumpeter Don Cherry's 1975 album Brown Rice is a world fusion landmark that combines post Bitches Brew-style jazz-funk with a layered mix of rhythms and melodies that have Indian, African, and Arabic influences.
February 15, 2013
Ira and Charlie's first long player, released on Capitol in 1956, presented 12 three-minute cataclysms, including three of their best all-time songs in "Knoxville Girl," "Alabama," and "In the Pines."
February 14, 2013
Remember the heady days of disco-punk, when it seemed like every time you turned around there was a "Dance to the Underground" or "House of Jealous Lovers" to get your feet moving in an crazy whirl of sweaty, aggressive fun? !!! unleashed the funkiest, groovingest of all the punk-disco jams on the A-side of this single. It's nine-plus minutes of ambition realized and a sound defined...and you can boogie to it!
February 13, 2013
Late-breaking news that Colin Blunstone and Rod Argent will be giving an interview at this year's SXSW sent me back to this, Blunstone's first album after leaving the Zombies. Perhaps it's not as exquisite as Odessey and Oracle, but it's an absolutely gorgeous album in its own right, highlighted by "She Loves The Way They Love Her," which is about as perfect a pop song as you can imagine.
![Tribalistas [2002]](https://fastly-s3.allmusic.com/release/mr0001447980/front/400/1MUD4F-4fRrGSWdD9kZ3wT6KsMttLlyBmmVTZ6_CLs0=.jpg)
February 12, 2013
Vintage sounding MPB with a contemporary twist, the eponymous debut from Brazil's Tribalistas (Marisa Monte, Carlinhos Brown, and Arnaldo Antunes) is the audio equivalent of an afternoon spent knocking back caipirinhas.
February 11, 2013
Recorded four years before a brain aneurysm would temporarily take away his playing ability, guitarist Pat Martino's brilliant 1976 album finds the usually rapid fire improviser easing into a dreamy, atmospheric mode. Balancing his deftly executed, crystalline harmonic lines with an introspective romanticism, the album is an often overlooked gem.
February 10, 2013
Various Artists
Buyaka: The Ultimate Dancehall Collection With two massive cuts acting as book ends, this set does sound rather "ultimate" but I'd like to call attention to the mighty Pan Head who was senselessly gunned downed 20 years ago. Check his great "Punny Printer" and get familiar with the man who inspired Buju Banton's hit "Murderer".
February 8, 2013
Yatsura whipped up a noise-pop frenzy that combined tangled riffs a la Sonic Youth and melodies any Britpop outfit would have loved to call its own. "Phasers on Stun" has as much fizz and fuzz now as it did back in the '90s.
February 7, 2013
This excellent compilation from the princess of Britpop includes all her '60s pinnacles as well as her hit cover of the Smiths' "Hand in Glove" (recorded with most of the band). An extra special treat is hearing her Morrissey-influencing 1969 single "Heaven Knows I'm Missing Him Now."
February 6, 2013
Spirited, ramshackle and oddly affecting, the Pogues' last studio album may be Shane-less and a bit murky in the production department, but it's hardly the feeble middle finger that many purport it to be.
February 5, 2013
On Aranis’ fifth album, the (you guessed it) Belgian instrumental acoustic chamber ensemble connects the dots between the minimalism of Wim Mertens and the avant-prog of Daniel Denis and Roger Trigaux with unflagging energy and stunning precision
February 4, 2013
Various Artists
A collection of early blues sides by black blind musicians is an odd way to approach a blues anthology, but it works very well here, illustrating how the early blues was a truly commercial music, a way of using the blues to ease the blues, both emotionally and financially.
February 3, 2013
Before Billy Childish was THEE BILLY CHILDISH, he was the co-leader (with Mickey Hampshire) of this excellent combo who stuck a little closer to the Beat group template, but still made quite the gloriously nasty racket.
February 1, 2013
This is proof that as they matured, Madrugada got better. A balance of powerful brooding, spacious, rockers and emotionally rich, near cinematic ballads. This is perhaps their finest moment in the studio.