Staff Picks for May 2022
May 31, 2022
Various Artists
While it was never actually followed up by a Vol. 2, DGC Rarities Vol. 1 is the ultimate apex of 90s alternative label samplers. Featuring high quality tracks from Nirvana, Weezer, Hole, Beck, Sonic Youth, Teenage Fanclub, Sloan, and even Counting Crows, it shows what a true indie powerhouse DGC was, even if technically it was a major.
May 30, 2022
Somewhat overlooked in 1971, Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66's Stillness is a hypnotic and conceptual delight. Designed by Mendes to push beyond the Brazilian pop he was famous for, the album is gorgeously transitional, as he embraces a languidly atmospheric and jazzy folk sound. It was also his last with vocalist Lani Hall, who left to collaborate on her solo career with soon-to-be husband Herb Alpert. Yet, there are plenty of inspired moments here, not the least of which is the group's deeply funky, slowburn take of Stephen Stills' counter-culture anthem "For What It's Worth."
May 29, 2022
Cheryl Norton had been working since the late '70s with Michael Henderson and Luther Vandross, but she didn't take the spotlight until 1984 with help from Clarence Avant's Tabu label and producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. The debut from the lively soprano featured "I Didn't Mean to Turn You On," one of the year's most energetic hits -- months before Chaka Khan's "I Feel for You" and Teena Marie's "Lovergirl" -- covered by Robert Palmer and Mariah Carey. The peppy title song also charted, and "When You Look in My Eyes" is among the era's finest deep-cut slow jams.
May 28, 2022
A big and cinematic album from organist Jimmy Smith, who was better known for his smaller combo work up until this point. Lalo Schifrin's bold big band orchestration offsets Smith's gritty organ riffs, adding a brassy sophistication to the record.
May 27, 2022
This 2006 compilation is as good a place as any to begin exploring the vault of Sven Libaek, the famed Norwegian-Australian composer whose lush, exotic soundtracks helped influence Australian music in the mid-1960s.
May 26, 2022
An all-star cast accompanies Brazilian percussion master Airto Moreira on this percolating collection of jazz fusion pieces. Produced by drummer Billy Cobham, the album locks into a steamy groove on Stanley Clarke's "Stanley's Tune" and never lets up. The Middle Eastern flavor of some melodies, Moreira and wife Flora Purim's unique vocalizations, and the use of unusual instrumentation on several cuts help make this recording a unique highlight of the electric fusion era.
May 25, 2022
Recorded shortly after Ram, Thrillington sat on the shelf for six years before being quietly released with little press. This instrumental version of Ram blends big band, jazz, pop, and even a bit of reggae in one of McCartney's most unique releases.
May 24, 2022
The Saints' 1977 debut (I'm) Stranded was an instant classic, one of the first and fiercest salvos in Australian punk, but their second LP, 1978's Eternally Yours, was where lead singer and idea man Chris Bailey (who died in April 2022) revealed how much more they could do. Here, Bailey mixed up the tempos, added a horn section, and dipped into pop melodicism without ever easing up on the band's dazzling intensity.
May 23, 2022
Rumor has it that the upcoming Wilco album Cruel Country is a nod back to their earlier rootsier sound, making it a good time to dive back into their sprawling double album Being There. Some songs meander and some simmer until they explode, but each one helps to tell the story of what Wilco would become over the next decades.
May 22, 2022
Sparse drones, minutely plucked guitars, keys and vocals darting through the mix like elusive vapor trails; the album is a monochromatic dream sequence that fades and flickers as it soundtracks the moments in between the moments of life. The perfect record to kick off years and years of like-minded records from Kranky.
May 21, 2022
This roster of jazz musicians (Frisell, Metheny, Johnson and drummer Joey Baron) had the potential to produce a bombastic noodley explosion of an album but instead turned out a warm, summery, laid-back melodic charmer.
May 20, 2022
Recently (and miraculously) reissued on vinyl, this 2003 album of songs from the Lucha Libre-masked anti-hero from the Homestar Runner flash-animated universe captures the inspired, surreal silliness that made the website so popular in the 2000s. Brothers Matt and Mike Chapman were as good as skewering musical cliches as generating playful weirdness, and they tackle metal, hip-hop, punk, lo-fi pop, and dorm-room folk with hilarious results. Don't forget – the Cheat IS to the limit!
May 19, 2022
On their second album and Billboard 200 debut, arrangements swirl, guitars spiral to dizzying heights, and songs shift and mutate. "Kundalini Express" typifies the approach, chugging along for several verses before breaking open and ascending into the heavens. John A. Rivers (who also co-produced the band's debut) outdoes himself with the sound here, offering a huge canvas upon which the band's crystalline acoustic guitars cut through thick, distorted tones, and where the bass is an equal player to the guitars and drums.
May 18, 2022
The 1978 debut of this new wave side project from former Easybeats Vanda & Young was a spiky, charming set that played like a post-punk Buggles.
May 17, 2022
With unapologetically brash lyrics and a profusion of autotune, samples, and synths, Kesha's debut album is a bombastic firework that throws social expectations and propriety out the window. It is a liberating album that encourages listeners to let loose and unleash their inner animals, reminding us all that we don't always need to take life so seriously.
May 16, 2022
Frog Eyes' seventh long-player is more measured, but no less distinctive (and destructive) than previous outings, delivering all of the architectural twists and turns, fragmented rhythms, and surreal narratives that have come to define the group over the years. Frontman Carey Mercer delivers caustic slabs of kinetic post-punk and wily art rock with the nervy fervor of a lead-poisoned carnival barker with a poetry Ph.D.
May 15, 2022
While Linton Kwesi Johnson was celebrated for his records of politically driven dub poetry, his catalog also included two solid instrumental dub albums mixed by UK dub-master Dennis Bovell. The first volume, simply titled LKJ in Dub, is the stronger of the two, with an emphasis on horns and spacious rhythms being offset by Bovell's haphazard delay repeats. The production is decidedly cleaner and more vivid than the often grungy dub output of Bovell's Jamaican contemporaries, but the tracks are no less psychedelic and simmering for their relative clarity.
May 14, 2022
Fans that were disenchanted with Dan Bejer's 2004 foray into keyboard-driven melodrama, the eclectic and exhilarating Your Blues, will find this six-track companion piece to be the perfect elixir. Fresh off of his tour with fellow Canadian carny-barkers Frog Eyes, the Destroyer mastermind has concocted a raw, tense, and equally thrilling EP of guitar-heavy reworkings of Your Blues material with Frog Eyes as the house band.
May 13, 2022
Five months after Sweetener, Ariana Grande continued to sweeten everyone's lives with the release of her fifth LP thank u, next. With an assortment of delectable treats like "7 rings," "break up with your girlfriend, i'm bored," and its title track, thank u, next is arguably the quintessential pop album. Its lively melodies, messages of self-affirmation, and Grande's powerhouse four-octave vocals join forces to create a pop wonderland, where listeners can revel in pure musical goodness. No wonder the album, which was written in only one week, broke so many records.
May 12, 2022
Recorded in 1960, We Insist! is a passionate and sometimes harrowing reflection on the Civil Rights movement that was happening throughout the U.S. at the time. Roach was an established force in bebop drumming, but We Insist! channelled the rage, frustration, and intensity of the times surrounding it into more experimental modes. Group improvisation and cathartic screaming vocals from Abbey Lincoln surface between passages of dynamic solo percussion performances, all painting a detailed picture of a collective struggle for freedom.
May 11, 2022
This springlike collection of sample-based, loop-heavy indie pop tunes received little notice when it first appeared in 1998, but the internet seems to have rediscovered it and given it a second life. In retrospect, it's almost like a blueprint for the more recent Avalanches albums, but more laid back, less ambitious, and with a focused, singular sound. That, or a homespun, American Saint Etienne without the Euro-dance influences and glossy production. Land of the Loops and Volume All*Star mined a similar indietronica niche at the time, but this is far more psychedelic and sun-kissed.
May 10, 2022
This 1957 album captures the vocalist at her most intimate and melancholy with a song cycle exploring love and loss in uncompromisingly frank terms. Occupying the same harrowing emotional territory staked out by Frank Sinatra on the landmark In the Wee Small Hours, this is music shorn of pretense and artifice.
May 9, 2022
Released between Silverchair albums, this alt-rock/electronic gem was one of the first indicators of where Daniel Johns was headed. Alongside Paul Mac (who also tinkered with a few Silverchair tracks), this collection blends expansive atmospherics and digitized blips and bloops with Johns' cinematic and often whimsical songwriting, recalling Radiohead, the Beatles, and the Postal Service. The impeccable run of "Somewhere Down the Barrel" to "Forever and a Day" is pure bliss.
May 8, 2022
The 1975 debut from Synergy manifested electronic pioneer Larry Fast's vision of constructing a rock orchestra from polyphonic synthesizers, creating a sound that was far ahead of its time.
May 7, 2022
One of Klaus Schulze's many career highlights, this is where his arpeggio-heavy, sequencer-based signature sound took off, and its ripples are still being felt nearly half a century later, with nearly all of ambient, trance, and techno owing to the artist's innovations. Rest in space.
May 6, 2022
As the band's final album, this was quite the way to go out: a flawless collection of bright, Diorama-esque chamber-pop-rock with some digital flourish. In hindsight, there were plenty of hints as to where frontman Daniel Johns was headed in his various solo/collaborative pursuits (especially with the Dissociatives), but here it felt like a total revelation. Johns' 2022 solo LP even features the conclusion of this album's "Those Thieving Birds."
May 5, 2022
With daring melodies, commanding vocals, and powerful beats, The Fame Monster, Lady Gaga's follow-up to her sensational debut album The Fame, is an electrifying set abounding with grandeur. While the album is sonically exhilarating, its lyrics pierce this euphoria with metaphors representing the "monsters" or fears that plague Gaga, juxtaposing the epic instrumentation with grim lyrical undertones. Gaga takes listeners on a volatile, thrilling ride that leaves them breathless but wanting more.
May 4, 2022
After several albums of top-notch twee preciousness, Belle and Sebastian became positively optimistic and energized on this album. The flute and cash register notes that kick off the record lead into a "Step Into My Office, Baby," a song that could fit into the montage of a kicky '60s movie, and the rest of the album just accelerates from there. The dour clouds have lifted and the sun shines on this bright and unexpected record.
May 3, 2022
Never simply poppy nor completely arty, and definitely not just the Jesus and Mary Chain/Cocteau Twins fusion most claimed they were, A.R. Kane here feels playful, mysterious, and inventive all at once, impossible to truly pin down. The best one-two punch on the record comes from "Sulliday," with buried, measured percussion and evocative drones, and "Dizzy," featuring a mesmerizing call-and-response by Rudi with himself, veering between more gentle, direct vocals and echoed shouts, eerily foretelling much of what Tricky would similarly do years later.
May 2, 2022
During the downtime between 1982's Strawberries and 1985's Phantasmagoria, the Damned had some fun by recording a handful of their favorite garage/psych tunes of the 1960s under assumed names. Do they beat the originals? Not at all, but they sure sound like they're having a ball roaring through some treasured nuggets, and Dave Vanian's cheerfully bombastic narration on Kim Fowley's "The Trip" is worth the price of admission.
May 1, 2022
You have to admire Athan Maroulis' diversity. Those who are familiar with his Blue Dahlia project of 2000 know that he can be a suave, romantic, 1940s-like jazz/pre-rock pop crooner along the lines of early Frank Sinatra and Billy Eckstine. But it wasn't Blue Dahlia that put Maroulis on the map in the music world, he is better known as the lead vocalist of the industrial/darkwave group Spahn Ranch, which doesn't sound anything at all like Dahlia. Noisy, abrasive and forceful, Ranch provided some of the most memorable industrial grooves of the 1990s.