Staff Picks for June 2017
June 30, 2017
While technically not a concept album, Glow and Fade is imbued with enough celestial-cum-spiritual themes to earn the term. With its cover art, a painting by lauded Dune artist Bruce Pennington portraying a Saturnian planet ringed by floating skulls, and the duo's knack for crafting textured, electronic-tinged space rock, Glow and Fade brings to mind a bevy of musical and cinematic touchstones. The leadoff title track alone evokes both the '70s gatefold aesthetic of Pink Floyd and director Andrei Tarkovsky's obsessively eerie 1972 sci-fi masterpiece, Solaris.
June 29, 2017
Brian Bell doesn't get to do much songwriting in Weezer, but he has the Relationship as a pressure release valve for his creativity. The band's second album is an incredibly smart and catchy collection of 10 airtight power-pop tunes that flash by in just half an hour.
June 28, 2017
Over the course of an hour, Thomas creates a world of metered, mesmerizing galactic electronics. Taking from various genres and schools of production in perfect increments, Vol. 3 is another specimen of classic synth-based brilliance from Thomas' long catalog of strong and seemingly effortless work
June 27, 2017
A macabre and deeply disturbing pastiche of blown-out tape loops, heavily-treated vocal samples, and wobbling distorted rhythms, Aaron Dilloway's 2012 LP is a masterwork of contemporary avant garde music.
June 26, 2017
Twenty-one years after delivering Freedom and Rain, a bona fide British folk classic, these artists reteam to deliver another mix of traditional obscurities and unique covers of pop/rock songs. Backed by Al Scott's strident production this set is a much bolder and more expansive affair than its predecessor. They even manage to make such overdone nuggets as "Love Will Tear Us Apart," and "Dark End Of The Street," sound bracing, vulnerable and fresh.
June 25, 2017
Nearly perfect noise pop with roots in C86, the Brill Building and the early days of punk, with brilliant lo-fi production and songs that will get stuck in your head after one listen and never find their way out.
June 24, 2017
There are no cold, calculated keyboard vistas, programmed beats, or freakishly out of place fretless bass solos to be found here, only a small army of talented men and women sitting down for a traditional Irish music session in a pub that happens to have a sound booth, expensive microphones, and a mixing board as opposed to a collection of fine spirits and ales.
June 23, 2017
Known as a studio and touring bassist for the likes of Andrew Bird, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Sufjan Stevens, just to name a few, Hampton has also become recurring sideman for public radio's A Prairie Home Companion under new host Chris Thile. A singer and songwriter in his own right, his solo debut revealed an elegant, harmonically rich chamber folk informed by jazz, classical, and pop. And his voice and lyrics are lovely to boot.
June 22, 2017
Age has taken no toll on the mighty Cannibal Corpse, as evidenced by the absolute savagery of 2009's Evisceration Plague. Featuring zero filler, maximum frenzy and crisp production from Erik Rutan, death metal's defining band continued its 21st century hot streak.
June 21, 2017
The Kinks followed The Village Green Preservation Society with another masterpiece, arguably the best of Ray Davies' many concept albums. 1969's Arthur chronicles the decay of post-war British life as it examines one common man trying to make sense of his nation, and his son, a young man who has decided to leave for Australia. The Kinks rarely delivered a better set of songs, and collectively this song cycle is funny, bitterly insightful, and deeply moving.
June 20, 2017
Playing like the brilliant missing link between mod and psychedelic rock, Rolled Gold is experimental without being silly or twee and emotionally mature without being pompous and boring. It is the type of album that reveals its brilliance within seconds of hearing the first track and builds momentum from there.
June 19, 2017
The debut album from soul diva Joi fell through the proverbial music industry cracks upon its release, largely because it was not easily categorizable by the standards of the time -- not pure enough for mainstream urban radio, too funky and eccentric for the rock charts. It is a lamentable fate, since it has a whole lot to offer listeners across a wide spectrum of pop music.
June 18, 2017
Theo Parrish's collaborations have made for some of the brightest moments of the house producer's deep catalog. That goes for this album, featuring an ensemble of over 12 musicians. Several cuts are as organic as house music gets, full of life and spontaneity, yet some are out-and-out spooky, seemingly sheathed in a thick haze, giving off the sense that you're not truly in the moment. The LP nonetheless connects directly to the soul, hips, and brain.
June 17, 2017
The duo behind the band, Paul Chastain and Ric Menck, drastically revamp their trademark power pop style on this 2002 album, stripping back the wall of electric guitars to reveal a softer, more adult heart. There is still the occasional chiming guitar, like on the most Velvet Crush-sounding track, "Don't Take Me Down," but most of the songs are based around piano or acoustic guitar.
June 16, 2017
Arguably Coil's best album, Musick to Play in the Dark is a singular listening experience which demands to be taken at face value -- this is moon musick, by the light of the moon, and you must play by the rules and listen alone at night. Over haunting yet warm and oddly comforting currents of digital glitch, John Balance offers sage words of advice (eat your greens, especially brocolli) and ruminates on death, dreams, and disinformation. There's also "Red Birds Will Fly Out Of The East And Destroy Paris In A Night," which is essentially a tribute to Rubycon-era Tangerine Dream, but sounds even more rich and hallucinatory. Who knows if this masterpiece will ever be commercially available again, but it deserves to be heard.
June 15, 2017
X's debut album, Los Angeles, confirmed they were the best and most intelligent band to emerge from the LA punk underground. The follow up, 1981's Wild Gift, was even better, suggesting they were among the very best American bands of the '80s. Featuring 13 perceptive songs about love and rancor among the California demimonde, Wild Gift's fusion of rockabilly and Ramones-style punk was bracing and muscular, and the harmonies of John Doe and Exene Cervenka were sweet and spicy like Rooster Sauce.
June 13, 2017
One of Isaacs' most popular and enjoyable releases, 1982's Night Nurse sports the kind of slicked-up roots sound that emerged in the early days of dancehall-era reggae, but also features the crooner effortlessly delivering the same smooth, "lonely lover" vocals that graced his many successful sides from the '70s.
June 12, 2017
Eschewing the orchestrated sound that dominated much of his 1970s output, the Across 110th Street soundtrack being the definitive example, here the singer and songwriter stays in that slick vein, but this time does so with a soft jazz feel that only someone of his soulful grace could pull off.
June 10, 2017
If her work with 'Til Tuesday made her a for-real alt-pop star, Aimee Mann's solo debut, 1993's Whatever, was where her skills in songwriting and record making caught up with her cult following. A superlative exercise in smart pop full of exceptional hooks, walls of guitar, and bittersweet meditations on her professional and private lives, Whatever was a remarkable first salvo in what became one of the more interesting careers of the '90s and onward.
June 9, 2017
A mysterious musical world unto itself, Elisabeth Esselink's 1998 debut sounds as unique and endearing as ever. Esselink's collages of samples from vintage albums found in her record store are surreal and surprising, reconfiguring old sounds into new forms that range from cartoonish exuberance to dreamy introspection, all of which still bear little resemblance to other music.
June 8, 2017
Upon release, this sophomore set found the UK singer at the top of her game. A near-perfect collection of mature, comforting pop, Rent combines Dido's folksy and dancey sides, resulting in gems like "White Flag," "Stoned," and the blissful "Sand in My Shoes." Elsewhere, the sultry "Who Makes You Feel" and throwback trip-hoppy "Do You Have a Little Time" satisfyingly recall her debut and time with Faithless. A worthwhile journey down early '00s memory lane.
June 7, 2017
Deltron 3030's self-titled debut is exactly what you might expect from such a teaming of left-field hip hop whiz Dan the Automator, likeminded MC Del tha Funkee Homosapien and turntablist Kid Koala: a wildly imaginative, unabashedly geeky concept album about interplanetary rap warriors battling to restore humanity's hip-hop supremacy in a corporate-dominated dystopia (or something like that).
June 6, 2017
Ten years after its release, this collaboration between Mouse on Mars and the Fall's Mark E. Smith remains as gleefully disconnected from indie and dance expectations -- and true to the artists' spirits -- as it was then. Even when they borrow from LCD Soundsystem ("Fledermaus Can't Get Enough") or glam and disco ("The Rhinohead"), the men of Von Südenfed can't help but be themselves, and the ways their fractured beats, melodies and words come together and fall apart are exhilarating.
June 5, 2017
Wolfgang Voigt's only full-length as Love Inc. was significantly more mellow than his prior work as Mike Ink (among many other names), and helped point towards the hazy, pastoral ambient bliss of his most celebrated venture, Gas. This release contains several perky techno tracks as well as two takes on T. Rex's "Hot Love," but the album's most beloved cut remains its sublime title track, a 15-minute spiral of rippling, overlapping samples of Roxy Music and (again) T. Rex.
June 4, 2017
This high-school classmate of Ira Gershwin deserves to be considered one of the greats for The Wizard of Oz and "Lydia the Tattooed Lady" alone, but his lyrics also appear in classics such as "April in Paris," "It's Only a Paper Moon," and "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" On this collection of demos and concert appearances, the wordsmith sings his own lyrics with almost as much charm as his writing.
June 3, 2017
Often overshadowed by their breakthrough triplet, this 2004 LP is one of the band's best, pushing the boundaries of taste with a trademark wink and pummeling riff. Songs about cannibals ("Mein Teil"), plane crashes ("Dalai Lama"), and globalization ("Amerika") mingle with highlights like the manic "Moskau," the machine-gun blasting "Keine Lust," and the rousing title track. There are even some love ballads. Two albums later and they've yet to return to this level of creativity.
June 2, 2017
The 2012 Mercury Prize winners begin their sophomore outing with the subversively titled "Intro," a four-and-a-half-minute highlight reel of what's to come that pairs monastic chanting with a pastiche of new age and worldbeat-blasted ambient pop that suggests Mogwai by way of Peter Gabriel's Real World studios circa 1990 -- it's both planetarium laser light show and art installation ready.
June 1, 2017
Billy Butler is well known to guitarists only, as the co-author of the early R&B funked-up standard "Honky Tonk," with organist Bill Doggett. The two albums featured in this single disc two-fer reissue -- Guitar Soul and Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, both released in 1970 -- offer a wider view of the man and his music.