Staff Picks for May 2023
May 31, 2023
The presence of Sturgill Simpson as producer immediately places Purgatory within a recognizable lineage of new Americana singers. It's an album that feels lived-in, filled with songs etched from hard-earned experiences with music to match.
May 30, 2023
Not quite entirely an album or an art installation, nor fully ambient improv or rock performance, Spacemen 3's Dreamweapon breaks their sound down to just the hypnotic guitars. Recorded live at a low key arts center gig in 1988, the sounds are no less powerful in this minimal presentation than on the band's feedback-ensconced studio albums.
May 29, 2023
I only recently discovered Gogol Bordello and their newest album Solidaritine, but I can’t stop talking about it. Intensely passionate, introspective, and poignant, this album champions for solidarity, perseverance, and strength through difficult times. One of my favorite tracks is “Blue Print.” Its straight-to-the-point lyrics, Gogol Bordello’s famous energy and Hütz’s raw, urgent vocals create a fiery urgency that is difficult to ignore.
May 28, 2023
Shortly before he dove head-first into the jagged paranoia of 1974's Fear (whose mania would inform much of his next decade), John Cale recorded this lovely outlier in his catalog, a set of elegantly crafted pop songs that rank with the gentlest and most effective in his catalog. Featuring excellent accompaniment from Lowell George and Richie Hayward of Little Feat and jazz giant Wilton Felder, this is arty rock crafted with refined joy.
May 27, 2023
Crank this up: it's time to party. On the quartet's major label debut, their no-frills, straightforward rock blasts keep the energy at a peak with crushing drums, beefy riffs, shredding solos, plenty of cowbell, and raucous singalongs. "Take It Off" was the huge radio/MTV hit, but "All Messed Up," "Dirty Denim," and the badass "Too Bad About Your Girl" provide plenty of inspiration for headbanging and pogoing until the sun comes up.
May 26, 2023
A collaboration between two of the best-known names in ambient music, Cendre is a hushed delight from start to finish, containing stately, minimalist pieces such as "Aware," "Kuni," and "Amorph." Fennesz provides the weightless electronic backdrop, into which Sakamoto drops precise chords that ripple the aural surface like smooth pebbles dropped into a pool.
May 25, 2023
The sound of three guys hanging out and goofing around on songs they kinda sorta know, only those three guys are Elvis Presley (who takes control without really trying), Jerry Lee Lewis (who wants everyone to know he's the real talent here), and Carl Perkins (who is modestly excellent). This recording of a very loose jam session is a fascinating artifact revealing how three legends sounded when no one was looking.
![Love Is the Devil [Original Soundtrack]](https://fastly-s3.allmusic.com/release/mr0000734853/front/400/lsrRXAJTH3Cg-wZ-3iVOpypQg_7iAU1wjqLgK_xGXts=.jpg)
May 24, 2023
Sakamoto's unnerving soundtrack for John Marbury's portrait of British artist Francis Bacon was at least as important as the film's oft-noted cinematographic dexterity was in capturing the complex psychological landscape of the famous painter. With a palette consisting of little more than chirps, clicks, muted cries and the odd bit of disembodied piano, Sakamoto's score helped give shape to the raw chaos surrounding both Bacon's life and the figures depicted in his paintings. Hardly essential, but no less worthwhile for it.
May 23, 2023
Few artists of the 1960s had a stronger, more confident, and more knowing grasp of sophisticated pop than Dionne Warwick, and it didn't hurt that she had Burt Bacharach and Hal David in her corner as songwriters and producers. Though Warwick never stopped making fine records, the material she cut for Scepter from 1963 to 1972 remains her definitive work, and these 24 songs from that era capture a masterful vocalist at her peak.
May 22, 2023
Swaggering and punching above its weight, Transgressor is filled with fuzzed-out guitars and overdriven drums, with organ hums and top-of-the-lung-shouting vocals while still maintaining a tunefulness and sense of melody. Along the likes of Spoon, Foo Fighters and The Whigs, Quiet Company are an actual rock band that hits hard with their hearts on their sleeves, and they cranked out an underappreciated set of tunes on this 2015 record.
May 21, 2023
Bill Withers introduces us to some of his greatest hits such as "Aint No Sunshine" and "Grandma's Hands" with his 1971 debut album. The lesser known songs, however, are just as grooving, touching, and heart-wrenching. His earnest, soulful, voice illustrates a different story with every song, and each is paired with equally expressive instrumentals. The bass twangs sensually as Withers gets in touch with his sexual side in "Moanin' and Groanin'." He keeps things relatively simple in the beginning of the sorrowful "I'm Her Daddy," but the drums explode as he cries out at the realization that Lucy's daughter is also his. And the despairing "Better Off Dead" about an alcoholic who loses the woman he loves, closes out the album as he ends his life (and the song) with the resounding sound of a singular gunshot.
May 20, 2023
Celebrating its 10th anniversary today, Random Access
Memories is the kind of grand, album rock statement that listeners of
the '70s and '80s would have spent weeks or months dissecting and
absorbing -- the ambition of Steely Dan, Alan Parsons, and Pink Floyd are as vital to the album as any of the duo's collaborators. Daft Punk have never shied away from "uncool" influences or
sentimentality, and both are on full display throughout this album.
May 19, 2023
Released 25 years ago today, Rufus Wainwright's self-titled debut really felt like a breath of fresh air. Taking cues from other heartfelt singer/songwriters of the time (and subconsciously channeling the talents of his parents Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle), Rufus' operatic belting accompanied his piano-based song structures uniquely and profoundly.
May 18, 2023
Released and executive produced by Kenny "Moodymann" Dixon, the first album from this percussionist and producer, aka DJ Dez, condensed previously released output and combined it with new material. Cunningly edited, sequenced, and subtly mixed, it's a low-key Detroit house classic that is almost on the level of the best from Dixon and Theo Parrish.
May 17, 2023
Through the thick, post-grunge guitar wash of the times, it's Emerson Hart's powerful vocals that really make the album. Singalong after singalong of melodic, catchy choruses, it's a sleeper hit, for sure, one that might have gotten lost in the '90s "one hit wonder" shuffle. In addition to their enduring radio hit "If You Could Only See," the soaring "Open Up Your Eyes" and urgent "Casual Affair" make for an untouchable opening run that'll get stuck in your head.
May 16, 2023
In 2002 saxophonist Berne took a left turn from his working ensembles to release this album melding modern composition with improvisation and electronics, featuring the ARTE Quartett, Marc Ducret on acoustic guitar, and David Torn on electric guitars, loops, and sonic "nurturing" and "redistribution." Fans of Berne's fiery improvising get to hear him cut loose, but his composer's voice receives primary emphasis, and is as instantly identifiable as the piquant phrasing and tone of his alto.
May 15, 2023
Even a mediocre Tribe Called Quest record still contains some respectable beats and rhymes. Fans were a little let down after the three-peat success of the groups first three bonafide classic albums, but there is gold to be mined in the dark opening track "Phony Rappers," the jazz guitar-sampling song along "Keep it Moving," and the on point R&B crossover "1nce Again" featuring a soulful vocal from Tammy Lucas.
May 14, 2023
This 1991 offering was Washington D.C. guitar legend Danny Gatton’s first album for a major label. It did not disappoint, offering blinding speed and immaculate chops that went in a million different musical directions (jazz, country, rockabilly, blues) to a musical sensibility that made this all-instrumental album a whole lot more than just an exercise in fretboard wankery. Gatton's Telecaster delivers material ranging exotica to tTVC themes to gritty boogies with aplomb.
May 13, 2023
This set of Alan Lomax field recordings makes an in-depth introduction to the poise and balance of Bessie Jones, and to the treasure that is Georgia Sea Island folk music. The music, a mix of traditional call-and-response work songs, hymns, ring songs, rope-skipping rhymes and other cultural flotsam drawn from a blended trio of folk traditions that was part African, part Bahamian, and part southern gospel, is sparse, joyous and vital, often accompanied by just hand claps, foot stomps and the occasional cane fife. Lomax recorded Jones both solo and with her group the Georgia Sea Island Singers. A beautiful two-disc set.
May 12, 2023
His debut record for Epic carries over Haggard's familiar outlaw-meets-Bakersfield sound, but the topics are focused around the plight of the blue collar man getting older and working in the big city. Heartfelt tunes like the number one country hit "My Favorite Memory" and "Are The Good Times Really Over (I Wish a Buck Was Still Silver)" would appear in his live act for decades to follow.
May 11, 2023
Recorded live in December 1972 and released the 50 years ago today, Space Ritual is an excellent document of Hawkwind's classic lineup, underscoring the group's status as space rock pioneers. A 1973 advertisement described Space Ritual as "88 minutes of brain damage"; that characterization still holds true.
May 10, 2023
After some studio experimentations and several rigorous years of touring, the Scottish folk veterans made a strong return to form on Dancing Feet. Their patent blend of bagpipes, fiddle, flute, and guitar rarely sounded tighter or more energized.
May 9, 2023
Tinted Windows has just the right assortment of band members from different groups, walls of distorted guitars, plenty of treble, teenaged love songs (granted, written by men in their late thirties), sweetly disposable pop tunes, and hooks for a million miles. Plus, having an actual member of Cheap Trick can't hurt.
May 8, 2023
Even back in the early '50s, Columbia Records took Duke Ellington seriously enough to place this album on its prestigious Masterworks label, heretofore reserved mostly for highbrow classical music and Broadway shows (later in the decade, though, it was retitled Hi-Fi Ellington Uptown and reissued on the pop series with an additional piece, "The Controversial Suite"). Also, this LP explodes the critical line that the early '50s was a relatively fallow period for the Duke; any of these smoking, concert-length tracks will torpedo that notion.
May 7, 2023
The release of this album in late 1957 marked the beginning of a glorious new phase in Basie's career. Signed to Roulette Records, the newly formed label owned by Morris Levy, the New York recording entrepreneur, jukebox mogul, club owner, and quasi-underworld figure, it took Basie's core audience and a lot of other people by surprise, as a bold, forward-looking statement within the context of a big-band recording -- if not as daring as what Duke Ellington had done at Newport in 1956, still a reminder that there was room for fresh, even dazzling improvisation within the framework of big-band jazz.
May 6, 2023
The band’s self-financed first album is a metaphor for heavy metal’s Ark of the Covenant: By unlocking its New Wave of British Heavy Metal secrets, one will no doubt discover the power, glory, most connecting points between the genre's '70s originators and the ensuing hordes from the 1980s, ‘90s and 21st century. Masterpiece.
May 5, 2023
Following up his solo debut on this date 50 years ago, Simon delved deeper into his love of soul and R&B with songs like the gospel stomp "Loves Me Like a Rock" and the thumping "One Man's Ceiling is Another Man's Floor." Alongside these new appreciations, there are still some familiar elements of folky tenderness in the lamenting "Something So Right" and the eventual anthem "American Tune."
May 4, 2023
Released just one year after their breakout debut, Promise made good on its title and went triple platinum, topping both the U.S. and U.K. pop charts. Led by Sade Adu's effortless vocals, this record cemented the band's status as top shelf purveyors of sophisticated smooth pop.
May 3, 2023
At least impressionistically, The Houston Kid is a soundtrack to a documentary about the life of Rodney Crowell, who grew up in East Houston, a rough and tumble neighborhood lying in the shadows of downtown. It also happens to be the finest record Crowell has recorded since Diamonds & Dirt, and it's better than that one by a mile.
May 2, 2023
While Scarlett Johansson earlier album of Tom Waits recordings was not that compelling, the Pete Yornieness of this dreamy, fuzzy and sleep-addled album really helps her out a bunch, making a decent long EP of cute retro-feeling love/unlove songs. "Search Your Heart" and "Wear and Tear" are fine cuts, but "Relator" is the standout track.
May 1, 2023
The neo-glam rockers go big (yet again) on their third studio effort. Frontman Luke Spiller continues to be one of the most charismatic in the biz, and he sells everything that comes out of his mouth with the cocksure persuasion of someone that popped out of the womb three beers in and holding a mic stand.