Staff Picks for November 2013
November 30, 2013
In the late 1970s, blues rock records--especially by established artists--didn't get much love. This 1979 date from the guitar-slinging Irish bluesman was all but ignored by all but his fans. Too bad. His songs are full of intrigue—some of it sinister (check “Philby”). His playing is tight, the production clean, and the attack direct. Killer blues inspired rock.
November 29, 2013
Question: Is this the best American punk album ever? Answer: Yes.
November 28, 2013
Jamiroquai often get a bad rap. Just think of the Napoleon Dynamite dance sequence as the last nail in the hipster coffin – Jamiroquai are not cool. However, the band’s 1993 debut was an ambitious pastiche of ‘70s symphoni-funk, world-music, and acid jazz; encasing an environmentally/socially conscious message. Two decades, several major environmental disasters, and a war on terror later, it seems to resonate far beyond any ephemeral notions of cool.
November 27, 2013
"Don't trust anyone over 30" is what the hippies used to say, but what about the gangstas? On I Am the West, the over-40 Cube uses stern rhymes, fat beats, and true talk that comes with an extra helping of wisdom, inventing middle age gangster rap and setting the bar high in the process.
November 26, 2013
The largely negative hype surrounding Lana Del Rey's distant, plasticy persona found her 2012 debut album Born To Die with a lot of detractors right out of the gate, including a less than favorable review from allmusic. While there was plenty of immediate disdain, those who got their heads around the album still see it as a brilliant intersection of high gloss pop and a numb, creepy Twin Peaks vibe that created an atmosphere unlike anything else.
November 25, 2013
Recording with the 21-member Ensemble Modern, guitarist/composer Fred Frith delivered one of his strongest albums with 2000's Traffic Continues, melding scored and improvised passages and nearly summarizing all the facets of his career to date. A 35-minute suite dedicated to the late cellist and Frith collaborator Tom Cora reveals the capacity of "experimental" music to deliver heartfelt emotion and beauty.
November 24, 2013
Lean, tough rock & roll tunes, two guitars that sound like a glorious racket drenched in reverb, and a rhythm section that never lets them down. Really, how much more do you need? The Obits are one of the best American rock bands extant today, and album three shows they’re a long way from running out of steam.
November 23, 2013
The Wood Brothers are hard to pin down -- they play a sort of Americana version of jazz, or country with an edge, or folk with some rhythmic bite, or maybe secular gospel with a touch of swing. At their best, they create the best blend of vernacular American roots music since the Band folded, and while there are a lot of neo-Americana bands out there who critics keep claiming sound like the Band, well, these guys actually do. The Buddy Miller-produced The Muse is their fourth album, and while the previous three releases were pretty darn great, this one is arguably even better.
November 22, 2013
Winter is coming, and as the days get shorter and more overcast, Russian Circles' blend of icy metal and plaintive post-rock always seems to make its way to the top of my playlist. Their latest, Memorial, continues where the excellent Empros left off, drawing a hard line between light and dark as it takes listeners on a journey through its moody sonic landscapes.
November 21, 2013
Laid-back but emotive instrumental hip-hop from Terrel Wallace, a producer based in England whose origin—Detroit's east side—evidently remains close to his heart.
November 20, 2013
Various Artists
Bear Family's superb series Dim Lights, Thick Smoke & Hillbilly Music has hit the back half of the '60s, an era where country music underwent serious change. Perhaps the best is the 1969 disc, where the social upheaval of the Vietnam war hangs heavy in the air, a volume where Glen Campbell's sweet, psychedelic strings are contrasted by Merle Haggard's lean Bakersfield twang, while Buck Owens drenches "Who's Gonna Mow Your Grass?" in fuzz guitars.
November 19, 2013
An autumnal classic, Starlite Walker introduced David Berman's casually brilliant observations with a mix of goofy jams and wry confessions. Joined by his buddies Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich, Berman sketches out the funny, heartbreaking world of Silver Jews, which would only get richer on his subsequent albums.
November 18, 2013
Inside of each and every hardcore punk/speed metal musician is a frustrated pop auteur who loves XTC, and Spookey Ruben’s angular and effervescent 1995 debut was more than just a cry for help for the Canadian military brat/shredder, it was a confectionary tour de force.
November 17, 2013
Bobby Caldwell's breakthrough record is timeless. Its title track is a babymaker classic—covered by Phyllis Hyman, Roy Ayers, Victor Wooten, and sampled by countless rappers and producers including Tupac and Master P, but it's hardly the only cut here that deserves glory—but it’s a solid blue-eyed, jazzy, quiet storm soul throughout.
November 16, 2013
Listening to this album is like taking a warm bath in the middle of a sun-dappled meadow on a cool summer evening. Or something nice like that. The Czech dream pop group made other really good records, but this stands out as one of the great ambient shoegaze experiences of the '90s.
November 15, 2013
Their first album was the stuff of legend, their second one was a cult classic, and their third, this misunderstood, Jerry Harrison-produced dark gem from 1986, was the weirdest of them all, offering up a collection of thirteen twisted, folk-punk anthems delivered via a Trojan horse made of slick, radio ready FM pop.
November 14, 2013
On their sophomore album, Detroit duo Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. mix the wistful melodies of the past with the dense production of the present, creating a hybrid of classic pop and electronic music that feels uniquely hopeful and nostalgic.
November 13, 2013
The kind of album Skip Spence might have made if he'd had a bedroom eight-track, Sic Alps' third long-player indulges in dusty psychedelia as well as nods to the band's lo-fi past.
November 12, 2013
Kenny Rogers has reunited with Dolly Parton to sing "You Can't Make Old Friends" on his new album of the same name, which provides us as good an excuse as any to revisit his 1983 masterwork, Eyes That See In The Dark. Written in total by the brothers Gibb, this isn't so much a country-pop crossover as a luxurious yacht rock album delivered with ease and grace by Kenny Rogers, who never made a better LP.
November 11, 2013
While their 2013 effort, Rubber Souls, is certainly worth checking, the best entry point into Tanya Morgan's world is this debut effort. Here, the hip-hop group's unique name is explained through a series of skits, but it’s the mix of De La Soul vibes and A Tribe Called Quest smarts that really makes this album special.
November 10, 2013
Morrissey's 2009 effort came after a string of muddy and stylistically confused records, but regained some of the composure he'd been fumbling at with a set of incredibly strong, melodically rugged tunes. Much like his rockabilly-informed 1992 record "Your Arsenal", "Years of Refusal" meets classic depressive Moz lyrics with all-out sneery rock.
November 9, 2013
Long out of print on CD but available digitally, Brown's 1996 Motown debut is a lost gem, loaded with assistance from a long list of major players including Andre Harrell, DeVante Swing, Dave "Jam" Hall, and Eddie F. Four singles charted, and there's strength beyond them, including the Big Bub-produced "Trippin'."
November 8, 2013
East-meets-West stylistic mergers are nearly a cliché in the jazz fusion world, but simakDialog are unique in their meld of post-Miles electric fusion and Canterbury influences with Sundanese kendang drumming. This 2013 album finds the Indonesian band at a creative peak, angular but with the steadily percolating rhythms providing welcome understatement.
November 7, 2013
Singer-songwriter David Gates practically invented the soft-rock genre with such Bread classics as "Diary," and "Aubrey." He would have even more luck on his own with the theme song to the 1977 film, "Goodbye Girl," which he showcased on his magnificently mellow 1978 album of the same name.
November 6, 2013
A Diddy record that stretched boundaries and took chances while creating a sleek and truly interesting sound seemed unlikely in 2010, but it happened! Combining techno, electro, EDM, hip hop and quiet storm r&b like a boss, dropping lyrics that sometimes veered into introspection, and featuring two excellent vocalists to take some of the weight off Diddy's shoulders, Last Train is a late career, billionares with problems triumph.
November 5, 2013
Harry Belafonte became a star with the release of 1956's Calypso, which contained eight faux Jamaica-inspired folk tunes written by Brooklyn-born (and Juilliard trained) Irving Burgie. The songs were calypso the way that Porgy & Bess is blues, suggesting the form more than being it, but they were undeniably infectious, and the album was phenomenally successful, becoming the first album ever to sell a million copies in the U.S., and sold some 11 million copies world-wide.
November 4, 2013
Blue Note had largely eschewed the vanguard “new thing” by the late 1960s. This phenomenal set was only released because exec Francis Wolff financed it personally. Combining kinetic improvisation, blues, soul and gospel, it was almost forgotten until the 21st century when it gained its proper stature as a pioneering work in new jazz.
November 3, 2013
Ready or Not, Foreigner lead singer Lou Gramm's first solo outing, was infinitely more fun (and dumb) than his flagship band's filler heavy fifth studio album Agent Provocateur, and while it may not make a lick of sense, the impossible to hate single "Midnight Blue" was one of the last great AOR confections of the 1980's.
November 2, 2013
On his live album, Descemberists front man Colin Meloy pares down some of his songs to their bare essentials, replacing their ornate instrumentation with a simple arrangement of acoustic guitar and solo vocals to so the delicate pop leanings that live at the center of Meloy's escapist indie rock.
November 1, 2013
A whimsical tangent to Thompson's Red Krayola work, Corky's Debt to His Father riffs on folk, blues and weird rock in ways that may be more appealing to newcomers than his work with his full-time project.