Staff Picks for March 2018
March 31, 2018
It took a mere 24 years for Tommy Stinson to make a second Bash & Pop album, but 2017's Anything Could Happen sounds like it could have been cut a year or two after their 1993 debut, matching the much loved Friday Night Is Killing Me for loose limbed, smart 'n' snarky rock & roll. This was recorded not long after the Replacements reunion fizzled out in 2015, and often sounds like the new 'Mats albums fans were hoping for.
March 30, 2018
One of Stereo Total's most outlandish -- and accessible -- albums, Les Hormones overflows with the winsome pop, raucous garage-punk and erotic kitsch that's defined the duo's music for decades. No combination of sounds is too crazy for Brezel Goring and Francoise Cactus (who produced the album), but the hooks are so catchy that these songs sound instantly familiar.
March 29, 2018
This set covers a two-year span of dream pop, shoegaze, and psych-pop brilliance from the criminally overlooked band.
March 28, 2018
This box contains the three mysterious albums by the all-acoustic trio whose members were multi-instrumentalists Collin Walcott, Don Cherry, and Naná Vasconcelos. Codona are not often spoken of for their groundbreaking approach in melding world folk traditions to improvisation and jazz, but they were at the very forefront. Silence, space, interplay, compositional and improvisational discipline, and a sense of humor and playfulness mark these recordings as indispensable parts of the ECM catalog.
March 27, 2018
Consolidating their position as satin-clad seductors, Dr. Hook gets sweet and saccharine on Pleasure & Pain, a record that opens with the one-night-stand anthem "Sharing the Night Together" and ends with the novelty boogie "You Make My Pants Want to Get Up and Dance." In between, Dr. Hook touch upon almost every other kind of quickie, celebrating infatuations, flirtations, and broken hearts, sometimes getting close enough to melancholy to register as a sadness but most of the time happy to sell heartbreak as seduction.
![Good Night & Good Luck [Original Soundtrack]](https://fastly-s3.allmusic.com/release/mr0001470572/front/400/dgkpbIdVWf0XofTQ8SMMcxyhM-OFI8zG4l-qVpXXB1I=.jpg)
March 26, 2018
Reeves leads a small jazz combo on this set of 15 beautifully rendered (mostly) standards from the film set against the downfall of McCarthyism in the '50s. Songs by the likes of Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer, Dorothy Fields and Jerome Kern, Nat King Cole and Irving Mills, and Cole Porter work least as well as a Reeves album as a soundtrack considering they're not all period tunes.
March 25, 2018
In the wake of the death of Tom Rapp on February 11, 2018, the debut album from his psych-folk ensemble Pearls Before Swine, 1967's One Nation Underground, deserves another hearing. Strikingly literate, evocative, and by turns dour and playful, the album remains a unique document from a singular songwriter, and Drag City's 2017 reissue, restoring the original mono mix, sounds splendid.
March 24, 2018
Featuring collaborations with Sa-Ra, Madlib, 9th Wonder, Karriem Riggins, James Poyser, and Ahmir Thompson, this is the most hip-hop and most out-there release from Badu thus far. Lyrically, it's grounded in stark reality, alluding to the various failures of the U.S. health, education, and prison systems, and the negative and cyclical effects they've had on Badu's people. The masterpiece is capped with a tribute to J Dilla, written the day after the ceremony of the beloved producer's death.
March 23, 2018
A decade after its release, the Breeders' fourth album sounds as fresh and eclectic as ever. Kim and Kelley Deal spend Mountain Battles making whatever kind of music they want, whether it's slow-dance Latin pop, stark country ballads, or towering psych-rock. Even if many of its songs feel open-ended and sometimes downright elusive, the album's ebb and flow remains fascinating.
March 22, 2018
The group bowed out the earliest phase of its existence with another collection of blink-and-you'll-miss-it songs about life, love, girls, losers, and, of course, food. Starting with the classic rip-and-riff of "Myage," the four-piece pureed everything it loved -- pop hooks, punk and hardcore thrash -- and came up with an unpretentious, catchy winner.
March 21, 2018
Despite her excellent singing voice, Scott proves herself more of a street poet on her first LP. An album with a story to tell, it has her describing a relationship from different angles, including an encounter with her boyfriend's ex in a super market ("Exclusively") and her warnings to that girl (or some other) to stay away ("Gettin' in the Way").
March 20, 2018
Joni Mitchell never had any problems with baring her soul in her songs, but she never made a record that feels as powerfully intimate as 1971's Blue. Featuring spare arrangements and no-frills production, Blue presents Mitchell's songs in direct and honest form, and while there are plenty of moments of joy, it's the emotional depths of "The Last Time I Saw Richard" and the title cut that resonate most strongly.
March 19, 2018
Even though "Legend Has It" only made it onto the trailer for Black Panther, it was enough to remind the public of RTJ3's lasting power (as well as a reminder that we're still waiting for RTJ4). Streamlined and focused like a laser beam, RTJ3 is futuristic, furious and hungry, with endlessly quotable lyrical zingers to spare. Start with "Call Ticketron," "Talk To Me," and "Panther Like A Panther" and "Thursday In The Danger Room."
March 18, 2018
Whitney Johnson's second album as Matchess was the best album of 2015, and unfortunately it hasn't received nearly as much attention as it deserves. Johnson melds trudging drum machines, hazy viola, and alien vocals into an haunting transmission from another galaxy.
March 17, 2018
Complete Discography compiles Minor Threat's entire body of recordings on a single compact disc. Hardcore, as a rule, wasn't particularly musically diverse, but Minor Threat were one of the genre's groundbreaking acts and their music has held up better than most of their contemporaries. As the de facto leaders of the Washington, D.C., hardcore scene, the band pioneered the straight-edge mentality by emphasizing impossibly fast tempos, brief songs, political lyrics, and a drug- and alcohol-free lifestyle. Happy St. Patrick's Day.
March 16, 2018
Supremely syrupy dance music that bends, warps, and massages the mind at will, this features the deep techno classic "Trespassers," a track Carl Craig loved enough to license for release on Planet E a full two years after the original Delsin 12" appeared. Much of the remainder has a similarly disorienting effect, ranging from apparitional ambient to muffled house grooves that possibly inspired the likes of Kassem Mosse and Actress.
March 15, 2018
A collision of post-punk, dub, and girl group pop, Anika is defined by its namesake's voice. Backed by Portishead's Geoff Barrow and the rest of BEAK>, she uses her near-robotic aloofness to brilliant effect on subversively catchy songs that make for a bold debut.
March 14, 2018
Nicolay and Phonte's second album is not just a unique and exceptional R&B album but also a soundtrack or means of communication -- when heat-of-the-moment resentment, a lump in the throat, or anxious longing get in the way -- for a real-life adult relationship. More than ever, Nicolay's mellow but moving productions have that lingering, memory-triggering effect mastered by the late J Dilla, while Phonte exudes warmth and sincerity as effectively as anyone praised for inhuman vocal range.
March 13, 2018
It was only a matter of time before black metal's most notorious band got the biopic treatment, but no one could have guessed that a Culkin would star in it. Anyhow, those who are intrigued by the forthcoming film Lords of Chaos can take a crash course in Mayhem with the primal, amateur aesthetic of the Deathcrush EP, which featured more of an early death metal sound.
March 12, 2018
While the hard edges and challenging angles of 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and Red Sails in the Sunset made Midnight Oil bona fide superstars in Australia, they were little more than a rumor in most of the rest of the world. Diesel and Dust is that rarity, a bid for the larger audience that's also an artistic success and a triumph for leftist politics.
March 11, 2018
This is the kind of album that leaves the listener breathless with amazement, not least of all because Voice of Jamaica was Buju Banton's international debut, but the artist didn't compromise a single note on this set, insuring that Voice is very much a Jamaican product. The rhythms mostly lean towards tough dancehall, but R&B, breezy reggae, and roots are all conjured up as well. It's a superb album, and deserved every accolade it received.
March 10, 2018
Chromatics shifted from art-punk to cinematic neo-disco on their third album, which was an early release on Italians Do It Better, and one which helped establish their aesthetic. The album's hazy beats, distant vocals, and measured suspense add up to an immaculately arranged audio movie, and the songs are still haunting and exquisite a decade later.
March 9, 2018
The Toronto chamber pop band's infectious third record is as colorful a celebration of gay culture as their previous two, but introduces a new level of poignancy to their missives of sexual adventure and relationships.
March 8, 2018
This unique album had its basic tracks recorded live during a residency at L.A.'s Knitting Factory and then buttressed by some immaculate studio overdubs. Filled with kaleidoscopic originality and an iconoclastic point of view, Stew remains one of the finest songwriters to come out of Los Angeles in decades, and this, his sophomore solo album, underlines the fact.
March 7, 2018
On the guitarist's fourth solo album, he and lyricist Robert Hunter come up winners with some of their most poignant collaborations. The bittersweet "Rubin and Cherise," draws upon elements of folk mythology ("Stack-O-Lee") and Shakespeare; it's among Hunter's finest achievements. "Gomorrah" recalls the similar hapless humanity depicted in the Dead's "Wharf Rat, while the title track, is an up-tempo rocker adopted by Deadheads referring to their unspoken union with the band.
March 6, 2018
When Paul Robeson took the stage at Carnegie Hall in May of 1958, it had been 11 years since he had concertized freely in the United States. Blacklisted from the entertainment industry at home, the State Department was unwilling to issue him a passport. The singing legend is in excellent voice throughout, his rich bass-baritone reveling in performances of a repertory that encompassed Bach, Mussorgsky, Schubert, Dvorák, Beethoven, traditional gospel, Russian and Chinese folk songs, "Old Man River" from Show Boat, and monologues from Shakespeare and the opera Boris Godunov.
March 5, 2018
After the thrill of experiencing his scene-stealing contribution to the excellent Black Panther soundtrack cools down, it's worth revisiting Staples' equally exciting 2017 LP. Wrapped in the Chicago footwork and classic house sounds, Theory finds Staples taking steps away from the ominous anxiety of his breakthrough Summertime '06 without sacrificing any intensity or heft. Come for "BagBak" and stay for everything else.
March 4, 2018
A masterpiece of complexity that channels the experimentation of the group's early singles into atmospheric set pieces. Songs find common ground between accepted musical forms and avant innovation. It begins with base musical materials, but gradually transforms into something mysterious, haunting, and visionary
March 3, 2018
While its showpiece is the melodically contagious single, "January," the Scottish rock band's excellent sophomore outing was a shining example of hooky, tuneful light rock and power pop.
March 2, 2018
An album whose sound and artwork suggest a carnival at midnight or a party at a haunted house, on Dark Island Pram explores dreams, disillusionment and soured love. As the band balances the whimsical and the disturbing, they suggest Ophelia backed by a freaked-out jazz combo, or an Angelo Badalamenti score played on toy instruments.
March 1, 2018
The slow burn of opening track "No One Gives a Shit" is the only respite for the next 18 minutes, as 24 relentless, amazingly-titled ("Semiconscious Godsize Dumbass," "Meteor to the Face") grindcore tunes burst forth from this Singaporean trio. Throw this on at the gym and set a new personal best on the rowing machine, if they don't kick you out first.