Staff Picks for March 2017
March 31, 2017
Released in 1983, this was the first anthology of Armatrading's work and capitalized on her bold transformation from folky to new wave artist. The well-sequenced set benefits from condensing her peak creative years while adding a pair of exclusive Steve Lillywhite-produced cuts, making it not only a solid introduction for new fans but a great album to boot.
March 30, 2017
It was purportedly while breaking down Parker's performance on "Donna Lee" to help a student learn the infamously difficult song that saxophonist Mahanthappa came up with the concept of a different way to interpret Parker's music. Taken in small, easily digestible bites, Mahanthappa began to hear Parker's architectural bop motifs less as swinging, blues-based jazz and more as modern classical or even avant-garde music. Combining his own creative approach to jazz with Indian raga, funk, post-bop, and other eclectic stylistic elements, Mahanthappa wrote pieces loosely based on Parker's songs or parts of solos.
March 29, 2017
Widely known in indie-pop and post-punk circles, but otherwise doomed to obscurity, Dolly Mixture never quite got the break they deserved. Aside from their most well known release, Demonstration Tapes, the band released a handful of singles on various labels over the span of a few years before calling it quits. Everything and More was self-released by the band in 2010 in limited numbers and collects the Dolly Mixture's entire output as band, as well as a fairly comprehensive booklet documenting their history.
March 28, 2017
One of the defining albums of '80s hip-hop, few albums of any genre argue the notion of "less is more" better than Paid In Full. The combination of Rakim's strong, confident flow and Eric B.'s lean but commanding beats and scratching is so effective, you scarcely notice that there isn't a whole lot else to this album. And both deliver so masterfully, you don't need much else, either.
March 27, 2017
The 2016 BBE anthology Raw Movements/Rude Movements brings together all of Sunpalace's recordings, as well as some previously unreleased demos. Primarily, these are bass and drum machine-heavy jams punctuated by Collins' Nile Rodgers-esque electric guitar flourishes and O'Connell's Rhodes keyboard and Prophet 5 synth parts. Think a Stanley Clarke and George Duke project if recorded in an apartment into a home 8-track machine and you're fairly close to the sound Sunpalace achieved.
March 26, 2017
Incipit Satan is a blast of prime evil that recalls the glory days when Bathory and Mayhem were busy conspiring to turn all of Scandinavia into an outpost of Hades. Flaunting the par-for-the-course Nietzsche influences on their chain mail-clad sleeves, Gorgoroth kicks up a racket like hell on steel wheels.
March 25, 2017
The long awaited, sophomore long player from the Southeastern Michigan-based outfit, Electric Company sees Starling Electric retrofitting their Baroque-pop finery in order to make room for some newly amassed power pop muscle. There's not a note wasted, nor is there a sonic nodule left unexplored.
March 24, 2017
A set of monophonic blues-punk so raw it could give you trichinosis, the Revelators' first and finest album, 1997's We Told You Not To Cross Us, is a Dixie-fried blast of heart, soul, and bad attitude. Build around the wailing guitar of John Schooley, the unrelenting drumming of Mark Walters, and blast-furnace vocals of Jeremiah Kidwell, this is one of the rare examples of a band sounding even more dangerous than they probably intended.
March 23, 2017
Maybe one day the world will come around to Artpop, Gaga's criminally underrated third LP. Packed with her most infectious numbers, it might have been a bit too weird and artsy-fartsy for the general public. Highlights like "Venus," "G.U.Y.," "Mary Jane Holland," "Sexxx Dreams" and "Artpop" are some of her pure pop best, and "Applause" hits just as hard all these years later. Back to front, it's a thrill. Get reacquainted before Coachella.
March 22, 2017
What Converge has always done masterfully is to fuse the cyclonic, mosh-pit chaos of punk with the unrelenting precision of thrash, and blistering cuts like "Vicious Muse," "Shame in the Way," and "Sparrow's Fall" deliver that mission statement in bloody, two minute bursts that further cements the group's reputation as the Webster's definition of American hardcore.
March 21, 2017
While Ryan Adams is getting plenty of press for his new album, let's remember he wasn't the only major talent in the band Whiskeytown. Caitlin Cary proved she was more than just a fiddler on 2002's While You Were Out, a lovely set of pop-oriented alt-country that showcased her skills as a lead vocalist and songwriter. On numbers like "Please Don't Hurry Your Heart, "What Will You Do," and "Pony," Cary's work suggests she had a lot more to do with her old band's greatest than she was given credit for at the time.
March 20, 2017
Stuffed between Depeche Mode's Playing The Angel and Sounds of the Universe, frontman Dave Gahan's sophomore solo outing is a gift for fans craving the darker, harder-edged side of the Mode (indeed, "Kingdom" and "21 Days" would fit well on any of their '90s LPs). Hungry and focused, Hourglass struts and gyrates with throbbing highlights like "Use You," "Deeper and Deeper," and "Endless" that'll tide you over until the boys return this month with Spirit.
March 19, 2017
The Motorhead/Melvins-loving, Savannah, Georgia-based stoner/sludge/punk metal unit's much anticipated sophomore studio outing, Pillars of Ash is a straight-up haymaker of an album; an oil-stained middle finger rising out of the brackish water of a swamp forest.
March 18, 2017
The music on Bomber explodes on song after song, thanks to the crazed performances as well as the well-overdriven, ear-rattling production perfection of Rolling Stones producer Jimmy Miller. Bomber kicks ass, and its best moments are as superlative as any Motorhead would ever record. The band was really on fire during this point in time and could seemingly do no wrong.
March 17, 2017
The Turtles were one of the best and most idiosyncratic pop groups of the '60s. On their A-sides, they created brilliant examples of folk rock and sunshine pop, while on the B-sides, they let their absurdist sense of humor run free. This two-disc set collects all the singles they released in their lifetime, and it's great listening and a hoot for anyone who appreciates the beauty of the three minute single.
March 16, 2017
An album from back when Republicans liked Ike and Rick was still Ricky, this set features the crooning rockabilly of a 19-year-old Nelson, along with backers that included guitarist James Burton and the Jordanaires. The results are as good as the premise, delivering foot-tapping tunes by songwriters such as Baker Knight and Dorsey and Johnny Burnette, the latter of whom penned the Top Ten hit "Just a Little Too Much."
March 15, 2017
If the only good songs on Ferenc van der Sluijs' debut album were "Space Invaders Are Smoking Grass" and "I Do Because I Couldn't Care Less," it would still be one of the best electro albums of all time. Of course, the entire thing is solid. The Dutch producer took all the darkest, creepiest elements of '80s electro and Italo-disco and spiked it all with a biting sense of humor. He arguably helped kick off electroclash, but nothing associated with that scene was as good as this.
March 14, 2017
EPMD avoided the dreaded sophomore curse and kept its artistic momentum going on its second album, Unfinished Business. Once again, the duo triumphed by going against the flow -- when MCs ranging from Public Enemy to Sir Mix-A-Lot to N.W.A weren't hesitating to be abrasive and hyper, EPMD still had a sound that was decidedly relaxed by rap standards.
March 13, 2017
The last great Kraftwerk album, Computer World captured the band right at the moment when its pioneering approach fully broke through in popular music, thanks to the rise of synth pop, hip-hop, and electro. Others would take the band's advances and run with them, but with Computer World Kraftwerk -- over a decade on from their start -- demonstrated how they had stayed not merely relevant, but prescient, when nearly all their contemporaries had long since burned out.
March 12, 2017
Odessa is easily the best and most enduring of the Bee Gees' albums of the 1960s. The myriad sounds and textures made Odessa the most complex and challenging album in the group's history, and if one accepts the notion of the Bee Gees as successors to the Beatles, then Odessa was arguably their Sgt. Pepper's.
March 11, 2017
Recently reissued on vinyl after much petitioning from fans, the sole full-length by The Other People Place (aka the late James Stinson) is one of the most beloved albums associated with legendary Detroit electro duo Drexciya. Drifting away from Drexciya's usual sci-fi imagery and mythology, the album is surprisingly sentimental, reflecting on missed connections and heartache.
March 10, 2017
Of the major figures on the Greenwich Village folk scene of the '60s, Phil Ochs was one of the few who never truly embraced folk rock. When he made his big commercial move with 1967's Pleasures of the Harbor, he instead created a striking and artful exercise in baroque pop that made detours into ragtime ("Outside of a Small Circle of Friend") and experimental music ("The Crucifixion"). The results still sound distinctive and emotionally powerful in the 21st Century.
March 9, 2017
A lovingly-orchestrated delight of mid-60's bossa nova from the gentle voice who broke the genre worldwide just a few years prior. Arranged (mostly) by the great Gil Evans, Look To the Rainbow frames Gilberto's sweetly hushed delivery amid Latin jazz elegance on this Verve classic.
March 8, 2017
The debut full-length from Masta Ace, and only one with the Juice Crew (with whom he rapped on "The Symphony"), Take a Look Around is fun, high-quality rap that shows off the Brooklyn MC's easygoing flow and storytelling skills, a definite must-have for any fans of golden age hip-hop.
March 7, 2017
With John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson, and Jack DeJohnette, this group rivaled the best fusion bands of the day. Recorded in late 1969, roughly the same time as the historic Bitches Brew, and the year before Vitous began a stint with the innovative Weather Report, this was trend-setting fusion.
March 6, 2017
The Metal Blade debut from the Boston-based prog metal/art-rock trio is a heady, genre-scorning horn of plenty that's as unnervingly pop-friendly as it is endlessly knotty and impenetrable. Quiet World is a splendid and maddening confection; a mathy, sugary sweet, geek-metal buffet with all the fixins', and then some. Bring a change of clothes.
March 5, 2017
Various Artists
The first compilation co-released by Veronica Vasicka's Minimal Wave and Peanut Butter Wolf's Stones Throw is a nearly flawless introduction to the early '80s minimal synth underground. Much darker and colder than anything on the radio at the time, many of these tracks are fully realized, futuristic pop songs, while some groups such as Crash Course in Science and Esplendor Geometrico are a bit harsher and more abstract. Other artists include Linear Movement, Oppenheimer Analysis, and Das Ding.
March 4, 2017
Various Artists
Excellent collection of mostly obscure rockabilly performed by women. No Elvis, Eddie or Gene to be found, no Ronnies, Dales or Ersels either, But really, who needs the same old ducktailed hiccupping when one can thrill instead to the untamed sounds of Wanda Jackson, Janis Martin, the inimitable Sparkle Moore and a bevy of unduly obscure female cats.
March 3, 2017
When Queen took the stage at the Hammersmith on Christmas Eve 1975, they were already over 20 dates deep into their tour in support of the album. In fact, they had played the Hammersmith a few weeks previously and just returned from a four-night stint in Scotland. Audibly limber and primed for the show, Queen open the concert by ripping into a swaggering version of "Now I'm Here," and proceed to deliver a relentlessly exuberant set of songs culled fairly evenly from their discography to that point.
March 2, 2017
Not only did Testament not suffer from the infamous sophomore slump on its second album, but the band delivered its best offering ever. Taking no prisoners either musically or lyrically, the headbangers embrace morbid gothic themes on such bombastic treasures as "Trial by Fire," "Disciples of the Watch," and "Into the Pit."
March 1, 2017
Fussell's excellent William Tyler-produced debut is steeped in Southern blues and folklore, but infused with an originality all his own.