Staff Picks for February 2024
February 29, 2024
Celebrate leap day with this unexpected runaway hit album of frog calls from legendary label Smithsonian Folkways. The album features nearly 100 froggy chirps, croaks, and re-deeps, all accompanied by a warm description spoken by the world's most (only?) celebrity herpetologist Charles M. Bogart. The record label is beloved for its historical recordings of legendary folk and blues musicians like Lead belly, Woody Guthrie, Lightin' Hopkins, and Pete Seeger, but this educational record, originally released in 1958, has been one of their top-selling titles.
February 28, 2024
The Lime Spiders were obsessed with the late '60s but also seemed to draw inspiration from punk. This collection of 26 cuts on a single disc offers the best of the best of Mick Blood and company's Australian garage madness on the greatest of Australian labels and one of the best reissue labels in the biz -- Raven
February 27, 2024
Longtime pianist for Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, Johnny Costa's warm jazz stylings helped define the show's smart but always welcoming tone.
February 26, 2024
The musician/innovator gets points for shrugging off formula on a sophomore album that traverses the manically infectious, trombone-injected "Hyperactive," the lush and spacy "Screen Kiss," new wave funk entry "Dissidents," quasi-environmental track "Mulu the Rain Forest," and a cover of 1967's "I Scare Myself" that brings balmy cocktail jazz into the chat.
February 25, 2024
Frank, feminist pop-rock written and sung by then-high schooler Lydia Night, the Regrettes’ first album covers every up and down of teenage girlhood from first love to unbridled rage at the world. It’s the lighter, catchier side of riot grrrl defiance, with retro surf rock guitar solos and Night’s vocals sometimes biting, sometimes jubilant. It’s interesting to look at the band’s garage punk roots in comparison to the poppier sound of their latest album, Further Joy.
February 24, 2024
Boogie Down, released 50 years ago today, is Kendricks' fifth solo album and shows that he had attained a mature and tasteful musical niche independent of his former group, The Temptations. Despite the title, Boogie Down is an equal mix of dance and ballad material. Following the lead of Kendricks' number one single, "Keep on Trucking," producers Frank Wilson and Leonard Caston again found more like-minded tracks for Kendricks to do his trademark solo era perfunctory dance steps to.
February 23, 2024
One of the cornerstone albums of alternative rap's second wave, Things Fall Apart (released 25 years ago today) was the point where the Roots' tremendous potential finally coalesced into a structured album that maintained its focus from top to bottom. If the group sacrifices a little of the unpredictability of its jam sessions, the resulting consistency more than makes up for it, since the record flows from track to track so effortlessly.
February 22, 2024
The last of six recordings between jazz drum legend Steve Reid and Fourtet's Kieran Hebden also features Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafson performing fiery, hypnotic versions of tunes from the former pair's recordings as well as a new group improvisation.
February 21, 2024
This undervalued songwriter/singer wrote the material that became Marvin Gaye's I Want You. Gaye wanted these songs for the follow-up, but Ware kept them and recorded another one of 1976's finest and silkiest soul albums, featuring "Body Heat" -- originally recorded for Quincy Jones' similarly-titled 1974 album.
February 20, 2024
While shorter songs might indicate a tendency toward pop conventions, that's not the case with Pretzel Logic, released 50 years ago today. Instead of relying on easy hooks, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen assembled their most complex and cynical set of songs to date. Dense with harmonics, countermelodies, and bop phrasing, Pretzel Logic is vibrant with unpredictable musical juxtapositions and snide, but very funny, wordplay.
February 19, 2024
Blind Willie McTell recorded these 17 tracks for RCA Victor between 1927 and 1932. This revelatory material, especially "Dark Night Blues," and "Stole Rider Blues," is recommended to anyone not familiar with the prewar blues master of the 12-string guitar.
February 18, 2024
Kiss' 1974 self-titled debut, released 50 years ago today, is one of hard rock's all-time classic studio recordings. Kiss is chock full of their best and most renowned compositions, containing elements of Rolling Stones/New York Dolls party-hearty rock & roll, Beatles tunefulness, and Sabbath/Zep heavy metal, and wisely recorded primal and raw by producers Richie Wise and Kenny Kerner (of Gladys Knight fame).
February 17, 2024
A singles collection covering the first few years of New Zealand's pre-eminent alternative pop groups, Juvenilia includes tracks from the very beginnings of the band (Dunedin Double EP), plus noisily tuneful early-'80s singles such as "Death and the Maiden" and "Doomsday."
February 16, 2024
The Gay Parade, released 25 years ago today, is indie pop's very own Sgt. Pepper's, a richly detailed, grandly ambitious concept record which forgoes the ponderous pretensions the phrase implies to instead exult in the simple joys of everyday life. Kevin Barnes' songs radiate a childlike wonder and boundless enthusiasm, discovering beauty in the most unlikely of places; lyrics suggest psychedelic nursery rhymes, populated by absurdist characters sketched in Crayola across a series of majestic melodies and ornate arrangements which belie the record's surface naïveté.
February 15, 2024
Hancock's first of three albums with his Mwandishi band is a must-own for any fan of adventurous jazz. It's led by the 13-minute 15/8 groove "Ostinato," where snaking basslines from Bennie Maupin (on bass clarinet) and Buster Williams (on bass guitar) propel Hancock's Echoplexed Rhodes and Eddie Henderson's vaulting trumpet.
February 14, 2024
Songs for Swingin' Lovers almost feels like a greatest hits album, with each song perfectly executed at the height of Sinatra's ring-a-ding-ding popularity. Nelson Riddle's orchestration matches Sinatra's bravado note for note, and while his previous masterpiece, In the Wee Small Hours, was downbeat and wonderfully melancholy, this album soars off the runway into the blue skies, perfect for a romantic evening of cocktails and hijinks.
February 13, 2024
Dark, moody and melodious, this eleven track collection of bluesy, moor-bound, British folk-rock from West Sussex schoolmates Jessica Davies and Katherine Blamire, sounds like it fell out of the back of a Harvest Records truck in the early 1970s.
February 12, 2024
On his 1974 debut for ECM, the renowned Oregon guitarist enlists Jan Garbarek, Eberhard Weber and Jon Christensen in a program of pure expressionistic folk-inspired jazz. The album lifted not only his own profile, but the label's as well.
February 11, 2024
While Lee Ritenour's uber slick jazz-rock guitar lines were ostensibly the focus of his 1981's Rit, Vol.1, it was vocalist and moustache-aficionado Eric Tagg who stole the spotlight on this yacht-rock masterpiece. Tagg's soulful, resonant croon and knack for penning hooky cuts like the Steely Dan-esque "Mr. Briefcase" and the hip-sway inducing "Is It You?" helped bridge Ritenour from his existing, jazzy fanbase into the burgeoning adult-contemporary radio format.
February 10, 2024
With a catalog as bottomless as producer and reggae god Lee "Scratch" Perry's, there are no shortage of would-be essential compilations and best of collections. Three disc retrospective Arkology is probably as close as one can get to a definitive picture of what made Perry's sound so unique, with a well-curated selection of his strangest, boldest, and most innovative dubs and vocal cuts.
February 9, 2024
Taking a break from Dire Straits, Mark Knopfler formed this one-off folk and blues combo whose sole 1990 album is a laid back delight.
February 8, 2024
Eno's solo debut, released 50 years ago today, is a spirited, experimental collection of unabashed pop songs on which Eno mostly reprises his Roxy Music role as "sound manipulator," taking the lead vocals but leaving much of the instrumental work to various studio cohorts. Avant-garde yet very accessible, Here Come the Warm Jets still sounds exciting, forward-looking, and densely detailed, revealing more intricacies with every play.
February 7, 2024
Pitchshifter's blend of industrial music and metal reached full power of Desensitized, their third LP overall and second for the mighty Earache label. Everything before had rough edges, and everything after was too clean, and yet here they're the right mix of Napalm Death and Nine Inch Nails, with paranoid and political lyrics ripping the status quo.
February 6, 2024
Largely lacking co-leader Chris Bell, Big Star's second album, released 50 years ago this month, also lacked something of the pop sweetness (especially the harmonies) of #1 Record. What it possessed was Alex Chilton's urgency (sometimes desperation) on songs that made his case as a genuine rock & roll eccentric. If #1 Record had a certain pop perfection that brought everything together, Radio City was the sound of everything falling apart, which proved at least as compelling.
February 5, 2024
One of boogaloo legend Willie Bobo's most well-circulated releases Spanish Grease (along with the equally funky Uno, Dos, Tres 1-2-3) offer a mix of gritty Latin grooves and soulful interpretations of contemporary '60s tunes. The whole thing feels like a slow slinking and languorous summer night in some overheated city. If you can find it, Spanish Grease and Uno Dos Tres 1-2-3 are available together from Verve on two-fer CD reissue.
February 4, 2024
Under-the-radar Belgian electric guitarist Pierre Vervloesem has chops to burn but his avant rock and jazz projects have had a strongly collaborative bent rather than serving as mere axe-strutting vehicles. He doesn't even play guitar in this hot-wired instrumental outfit, instead pumping out solid bass joined by his bandmates on sax, keys, and drums. The music files for this ironically titled, adventurous yet tuneful 2014 set were mysteriously deleted, necessitating a re-recording; thankfully, the quartet's high energy and spirits were sustained the second time around.
February 3, 2024
Making a huge leap in production value and hardening their focus after a scrappy, raucous debut, this Brazilian art-pop troupe dug deep into the angular post-punk, melodic rock, and electroclash edge of the times, delivering something more akin to the Ting Tings and the Sounds. Blast "Give Up," "Rat Is Dead," and "Left Behind" to start and float away with the Cure-esque "Beautiful Song."
February 2, 2024
Perhaps realizing that their time on a major label was likely limited, Built to Spill made a gutsy choice for Keep It Like a Secret, their second album for Warner Brothers which was released 25 years ago today. They embraced the sounds of a big studio and focused their sound without sacrificing their fractured indie rock aesthetic.
February 1, 2024
The debut from the Rubinoos would be the envy of any power pop act. Blasting out of the gates with their cover of "I Think We're Alone Now," the tone is set for the entire album. Music trivia/copyright infringement nerds will recall that the chorus of their "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" surfaced again in Avril Lavigne's hit song "Girlfriend."