Staff Picks for July 2018
July 31, 2018
This is the North Mississippi Allstars' masterpiece, each track a fascinating blend of old and new, a seamless, chugging look at Mississippi country-folk-boogie, with Luther Dickinson's jagged, commanding guitar riffs and haunting slide runs sewing everything together, while Cody Dickenson's powerful, thundering drums march everything across the landscape.
July 30, 2018
The late great's third album is known for its Top 30 Dionne Warwick duet, as well its quiet-storm classic finale. Beyond those highlights, it's close to flawless, from the gleaming jam "For the Sweetness of Your Love" to the phenomenal ballad "Make Me a Believer." Neither song has appeared on a Vandross anthology.
July 29, 2018
Critics unfairly labeled Enuff Z'nuff just another Poison knockoff when they released their debut in 1989, but overlooking the big hair, makeup, and tight leather, the group actually had some exciting and damn catchy powerpop hooks on their first singles "Fly High Michelle" and "New Thing."
July 28, 2018
Recorded as Pete Townshend was turning 30, The Who By Numbers found the group's leader experiencing something like a midlife crisis, pondering his drinking ("However Much I Booze"), his isolation ("How Many Friends"), and his age ("They Are All In Love") in deeply introspective terms. But the navel gazing is balanced by the contentment of "Blue, Red and Grey," the swagger of "Slip Kid," and John Entwistle's hilarious "Success Story."
July 27, 2018
The ghoulish gang's latest release is the most rousing and beautiful concept album about the Black Plague in recent memory. Channeling Judas Priest and Metallica with chugging riffs and Yes and Rush with prog rock bombast, Ghost delivered their tightest set yet. Soaring singalongs "See The Light," "Dance Macabre," and "Pro Memoria" balance riff fests "Rats" and "Faith," but -- without ruining the surprise toward the end of the song -- it's instrumental powerhouse "Miasma" that warrants full attention.
July 26, 2018
Producer Creed Taylor pushed the great conguero to meld his deep love of jazz with his Latin roots. He recruited drummer Steve Gadd, pianist Charlie Palmieri, percussionist Tito Puente, guitarist John Tropea, and saxophonist Joe Farrell. Taylor's production is slick, but left the performers plenty of room to blow, whether it's on Stevie Wonder's "Pastime Paradise, Mussorgsky's "The Old Castle," or the artists own "Doloroso."
July 25, 2018
Old and New Dreams was a boundary-pushing ensemble rife with bluesy lyricism, atonal harmonics, and frenetic swing. This was heady free jazz, but with an earthy '70s soulfulness. Much the same could be said of Redman's group here, as each of the players in his quartet, including trumpeter Ron Miles, bassist Scott Colley, and drummer Brian Blade, has a similarly kinetic, almost preternatural sense for group interplay. Here, they play a mix of newly penned originals plus two covers, inspired by Coleman's band but in their own thoughtfully mutative style.
July 24, 2018
In 2010, with a four-track recorder in hand, the prolific songwriters took some time together at Swift's home to record a set of covers songs. John Denver, Kraftwerk, and Chubby Checker are among the nine varied artists who receive affectionate, dreamy makeovers here, replete with balmy reverb. First issued as free downloads, the collection received a multi-format release by Secretly Canadian in 2016.
July 23, 2018
With Pram's first new music in a decade on the horizon, it's time to revisit the band's eerie whimsy. Their 2008 album is one of their finest, bringing their filmic vividness into sharp focus on tracks that reinvent exotica, electronic novelty pop, spaghetti Western soundtracks and and noir-ish jazz. Spooky yet sophisticated, The Moving Frontier is just as vivid, and even more accessible, than any of their earlier work.
July 22, 2018
Their first proper album features the band at its eccentric best. Its completely noncommercial art rock is filled with ambitious arrangements and slightly disturbing themes courtesy of the Phil Judd and Tim Finn songwriting partnership. Finn's bittersweet crooning perfectly complements Judd's madman persona on tracks like "Walking Down the Road" and "Stranger Than Fiction."
July 21, 2018
Bette Midler has enjoyed a long and successful career as an all-purpose entertainer, but in 1972, she was a singer first and foremost, and her debut album revealed she was one of the great talents of her generation. At once brassy and perceptive, The Divine Miss M finds her tackling the Andrews Sisters ("Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy"), the Shangri-Las ("Leader of the Pack"), and John Prine ("Hello In There") and finding something fine and unexpected in all of them.
July 20, 2018
Considered by many to be this band's pinnacle release, it would mark the end of its premier lineup. As a group effort it showcased all the ethereal brilliance Caravan created on their previous outings. Their blend of jazz and folk instrumentation and improvisational styles explored by Traffic and Family, yet they markedly with the aggressive sounds employed by other Canterbury groups. There seem to be pastoral qualities and motifs on display throughout. Highlights include "Winter Wine," "Nine Feet Underground," It's Likely to Have a Name Next Week" and "Group Girl."
July 19, 2018
As wonderful as The Impossible Thrill was, Stargazing surpasses it in almost every respect; the album's perfectly dreamy, organic, and lush songs make for a a bold, gorgeous return to the heart of atmospheric trip-hop. If they previously sounded like they were channeling Massive Attack and Portishead, here they expand on influences ranging from Nick Drake, Lee Hazlewood, the Association, and John Barry.
July 18, 2018
Alexander "Skip" Spence, fresh out of Moby Grape and a stay in a psychiatric hospital, spent six days in a Nashville studio in late 1968 and and created a beautifully damaged masterpiece for the ages. Oar doesn't rock like Spence's best work with Moby Grape, but his spectral melodies and rough but emphatic vocals are stellar, and this album is freak folk that's sometimes harrowing but frequently sublime; it's all but tragic that he never made another.
July 17, 2018
This was the third album the Isleys recorded with their 3 + 3 lineup, which really perfected its attractive soul/rock sound with the the sweaty funk classic "Fight the Power," the sexy slow jam "For the Love of You," and caressing ballads "Make Me Say It Again Girl" and "Sensuality." Superb from start to finish, The Heat Is On is among the Isleys' most essential albums.
July 16, 2018
Both dismissed and praised with easy Smiths comparisons, Gene's debut unveiled a much more nuanced self-portrait. Showcasing the emotive warmth of singer Martin Rossiter, whose lyrics evinced the doomed romanticism of Rimbaud, Olympian introduced the band's finely attenuated guitar-based anthems, rife with jazzy harmonics, baroque asides, and bit of grunge muscularity. A rare album back-loaded with the best songs -- "Sleep Well Tonight" and "Olympian" are bookend perfect -- it remains a maliciously overlooked classic of the Brit-pop era.
July 15, 2018
Ambitious, outrageously creative, and aesthetically restless, this is a spiritual jazz classic from the violinist, and one of the finest outings on the Impulse! label. Beginning with an unusual ensemble that included classical guitarist Bob King, bassist Cecil McBee, percussionist Kenneth Nash, Prince Lasha on woodwinds, and pianist Ed Kelly -- along with vocalist Stanley Nash and some unidentified others -- the set walks the line between improvisation and groove-based playing.
July 14, 2018
To celebrate the album's twentieth birthday, Garbage issued a remastered "version" bundled with ten b-sides from the era. While their post-millennial output has remained consistent and enjoyable, Version 2.0 is a peak in their pop-friendly, electronic-rock hybrid sound, holding up after two decades upon the strength of singles "Push It," "I Think I'm Paranoid," and "Special," as well as deep cuts "The Trick Is To Keep Breathing" and "You Look So Fine."
July 13, 2018
Their third album is a remarkable leap forward for Cornershop, the place where the group blends all of their diverse influences into a seamless whole. Cornershop uses Indian music as a foundation, finding its droning repetition similar to the trancier elements of electronica, the cut-and-paste collages of hip-hop, and the skeletal melodicism of indie pop.
July 12, 2018
After several obscenity arrests, Lenny Bruce's career was starting to go off the rails when he performed an epic-length show at San Francisco's Curran Theater in November 1961. Despite a small audience, Bruce's imagination was firing on all cylinders, and though time has not been kind to all the material on this set, as a deep dive into the mind of one of the most influential comic minds of his generation, this album is invaluable.
July 11, 2018
Basement Jaxx built on the success of their brilliant debut by blowing up their music. Along with different flavors of their time-tested house, the duo brings in touches of funk, psychedelic soul, filter disco, crate-digging samples and pop that should've topped the charts. It all makes for vibrant classic that set the tone for the kaleidoscopic albums that followed.
July 10, 2018
Various Artists
The first properly distributed Chicago footwork compilation, Bangs & Works Vol. 1 features many classic tracks of the genre, as well as some of its most abstract material. Planet Mu has always favored the weirder side of the genre, so this might not be the most accessible (or representative) introduction to the Chicago scene, but it's still essential listening for anyone interested in how the genre sounded as it began to spread throughout the world.
July 9, 2018
While hardly hippie and not quite psychedelic California Nights stands as something of an underrated period piece, anchored by the gorgeous, cinematic productions of Bob Crewe and enlivened by the savvier Quincy Jones, who is responsible for the snappy rock & roll of "Off & Running" and the liquid pulse of "Cry Like a Baby," which effectively splits the difference between uptown soul and hip Hollywood flair.
July 8, 2018
Experiences in Nas' personal life (his bout with Jay-Z and the death of his mother) challenged the self-reappointed King of New York, attacking both his street status and his heart, and he in turn looked within, embracing both his craft and his spirit. Brazenly declaring himself God's Son, Nas emerged from his experiences wiser, stronger, and holier than ever, less engaged by the material world than the inner one.
July 7, 2018
Prior to making a sudden and somewhat mysterious exit from music and public life in 1972, Scottish folk-rock singer/songwriter Shelagh McDonald, recorded a pair of deeply enchanting albums, including this 1970 debut for U.K. label, B&C, which recalls elements of Fairport Convention, Joni Mitchell, Judee Sill, and Pentangle.
July 6, 2018
The third album in Matana Roberts' ongoing Coin Coin project is a dense, bracing electro-acoustic soundscape consisting of countless layers of poetry, field recordings, saxophones, and ambient noise. Inspired by the author's journey through the American South, the album is an intense, fascinating narrative which questions notions of genre as well as what is commonly perceived to be American history.
![You Were Never Really Here [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]](https://fastly-gce.allmusic.com/images/no_image/album_300x300.png)
July 5, 2018
Where the rumbling, discordant bass of There Will Be Blood and the majestic, sweeping strings of Phantom Thread make up the lavish soundscapes of some of Greenwood's catalog, You Were Never Really Here is undeniably a stark thorn plunged into that aural canvas. Matching the unsettling atmosphere depicted onscreen, the album is a plethora of different kinds of organized chaos.
July 4, 2018
As Slayer continues its ongoing farewell tour, get back to the band's nasty, primitive roots with its full-length debut, Show No Mercy, featuring the enduring thrash metal classics "Black Magic" and "Die By the Sword."
July 3, 2018
Entire albums spent exploring the depths of the various nasty things surrounding romantic relationships were nothing new by the mid-'90s, but the vaguely cinematic and slightly conceptual Split is something more. Through breezy pop ("Lit Up"), brief shards of electrocuting dread ("Invisible Man"), and tales of obsessive voyeurism ("Starlust"), Split touches on most forms of emotional turbulence.
July 2, 2018
A new age/classical crossover that could also double as a straight-up demo for the Yamaha DX7 synthesizer, Ray Lynch's low-budget 1984 release emerged as a sleeper hit in the late-80's and early-90's thanks to two different reissues that eventually helped it go platinum. A certified yuppie-era soundtrack heard mellowly burbling out of countless Volvo tape decks, Deep Breakfast has been cited as an early influence of the chillwave movement.
July 1, 2018
Tycho's fourth studio album, which garnered its first Grammy nomination, is darker and moodier than past efforts, but it still maintains the instrumental group's familiar, pleasant sound. The album wastes no time diving into the types of warm, nostalgic melodies Tycho fans are used to, marked by U2-esque ringing guitars and lush, rippling synthesizers.