Staff Picks for October 2019
October 31, 2019
Unfairly dismissed because of their unorthodox goony hairstyle choices, A Flock of Seagulls' debut is drenched in pop hooks and moody guitar work, an instrument relegated to the background by most synth bands of this time. The two well-known hits from the album still sound great, but the true highlight is the pulsing "Modern Love is Automatic."
October 30, 2019
William Fries and Chip Davis were working for an advertising agency in Omaha when they came up with a series of commercial jingles for a bakery chain that featured a laconic but fast-talking truck driver as their narrator. The ads were successful enough that Fries and Davis cut a single in which they spun musical shaggy-dog stories out of the eccentric trucker they named C.W. McCall. "Convoy" became a hit, then a movie, and Davis would go on to mastermind Mannheim Steamroller.
![Party Your Body [Lefrak-Moelis]](https://fastly-s3.allmusic.com/release/mr0001064254/front/400/5tOmbmdBSVD4EbuZ2Z5ZWT6KsMttLlyBmmVTZ6_CLs0=.jpg)
October 29, 2019
Stevie B really loves love, as the word is featured on half of the song titles on his debut. He came out hot with "Spring Love," which would go on to endure as a freestyle classic, and a good chunk of the Party Your Body tracks have carried over as part of his current set on the nostalgia circuit.
October 28, 2019
Various Artists
Ambient/House/downtempo label Kinkysweet put together an impressive collection of budget-line compilations in the mid-2000s, many focused on a specific theme. This Frequent Flyer set admirably dips its toes into elements of Indian music, incorporating tabla, sitar and swirling vocals into more contemporary thumping bass grooves.
October 27, 2019
A pivotal, early release of electronic new wave, this single oddly gained more notoriety for its B-side, "Warm Leatherette." Amidst jolting zaps, pops, and blipping skips, Daniel Miller robotically intones about the pleasures of car crash as foreplay. A brief flash that caused countless ripples, it sounds just as fresh two decades after its creation.
October 26, 2019
Tales of Creation contrasts Candlemass's traditional slow, doomy metal ("Tears," "Somewhere in Nowhere") with a searing, unapologetic thrash tune ("Into the Unfathomed Tower") that wouldn't be out of place on a Kreator record. It's a curious dichotomy, but a fun one.
October 25, 2019
Inexplicably Dutch rap-rock group Urban Dance Squad navigated a strange space in 1990 among the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Fishbones of the time, putting out a noodly and organic mix of rap-adjacent funky tracks. It's hard to imagine another time in history where this album would have been as popular as it was, but the single "Deeper Shade of Soul" hit #21 in the U.S. on Billboard's Hot 100.
October 24, 2019
Released in the height of the late '60s hippie uprising, Albert Ayler's New Grass (and to a lesser degree his harpsichord-heavy 1967 album Love Cry) saw the free jazz giant embracing flower power culture in a way that turned off many die hard fans. What was seen by many at the time as an attempt to sell out has aged into a truly bizarre document of awkward jabs at pop by a musician way too far outside of the mainstream to end up anywhere besides his own alien territory.
October 23, 2019
Angry, egomaniacal, and completely revolutionary, Kanye's dark sixth set has aged very well, ahead of its time upon release but soon eclipsed by his public antics and a messy follow-up. Continuing his descent into vulgarity, excess, and opulence, Yeezus is also a production highlight in West's catalog, presciently employing industrial, electronic, and gospel for an experience that influenced a generation of young rappers with its hybrid thrills and those damn croissants.
October 22, 2019
The seventh studio long-player from the mercurial Canadian pop/country crooner and the follow-up to 2016's excellent Mosey, Modern Pressure is a heady and earworm-heavy collection of knotty indie power pop dressed up in countrypolitan clothing.
October 21, 2019
Various Artists
If you want to learn about the side of country music Ken Burns was afraid to tell you about in his recent PBS documentary, this is a strange and wildly entertaining place to start. These 28 vintage C&W rarities are full to the brim with bad behavior of all kinds -- sex, drugs, murder, Satan, and Charles Manson are just a few of the topics covered here, made to sound just as scary and/or fun as they deserve.
October 20, 2019
On Is the Is Are, it's easy to hear DIIV's growth since the Oshin days. The band finds salvation through ambition, using grunge's cathartic power and shoegaze's impressionistic, transporting qualities to turn pain into beauty.
October 19, 2019
A collaboration between the Jayhawks' Gary Louris and the Old Ceremony's Django Haskins, this under-the-radar project debut is loaded with catchy tunes and bittersweet jangle in the tradition of Lennon-McCartney. An even better indicator of interest: The pair met when they were both playing a Big Star Third tribute concert. Power pop aficionados shouldn't miss opening track "In Every Window."
October 17, 2019
Right from the stop-start bass groove that opens "The Emperor," it's immediately clear that Ethiopian Knights is more indebted to funk -- not just funky jazz, but the straight-up James Brown/Sly Stone variety -- than any previous Donald Byrd project. And, like a true funk band, Byrd and his group work the same driving, polyrhythmic grooves over and over, making rhythm the focal point of the music.
October 16, 2019
If you had to own only one album by The Blackbyrds, Action should be it. All the elements came together for the Donald Byrd protégés on this scintillating certified gold album, which originally was issued in fall 1977. The sinewy Top 20 R&B hit "Supernatural Feeling" has bits of wisdom implanted in between its poppin' funk grooves. The enticing "Soft And Easy" slid into the R&B Top 20 with an ease that's equal to the gentle spoken seduction that is woven throughout this make out classic.
October 15, 2019
Celebrating its fifteenth birthday in 2019, this sophomore LP from the too-cool-for-school New Yorkers aimed to be bigger than their landmark debut, but will always be relegated to the second-place sibling position, no matter how tall it stands on its own. Both thrilling and heartbreaking, Antics amplified everything on TOTBL to blockbuster rockstar proportions, resulting in catalog standouts like "Take You On A Cruise" and "Narc."
October 14, 2019
After turning some heads with his debut, Billy Squier truly arrived with 1981's Don't Say No, which kicks off in spectacular fashion with the triple opening salvo of "In the Dark," "The Stroke," and "My Kinda Lover" -- all of which become staples at rock radio.
October 13, 2019
Loud, funny, astonishingly sophisticated -- and not in the least pretentious -- Battles' debut album gave free rein to the hyperkinetic style they hinted at with their early EPs. Tribal yet slick, playful yet precise, the band's labyrinthine dances of Krautrock, math rock and prog remain utterly infectious listening.
October 12, 2019
The misleadingly titled debut from the Durutti Column is an unassuming but enormously pretty album of guitar instrumentals with clear, unobtrusive production Martin Hannett. It's hard to imagine anything else sounding like this album when it came out at the beginning of the '80s, and it sounds just as distinctive and timeless now. Just listen to opening track "Sketch for Summer" and you'll be hooked for life.
October 11, 2019
The third album by this British rock outfit is their magnum opus. It solidified their reputation as a truly progressive band that could seamlessly wed hard rock and prog to folk and British blues. Their studied elegance in playing, singing, and songwriting, achieves a maturity and sophistication here that’s free of excess and artifice.
October 10, 2019
One of rap's rowdiest, craziest, noisiest, most animated records, Bazerk Bazerk Bazerk recalls everything from James Brown to Bad Brains to the Time to King Tubby to...well, a great number of things -- occasionally within the span of one track. Energizing lead single "Change the Style" gained the most attention for good reason, showcasing Son of Bazerk's commanding, Bobby Byrd-like vocals over a chaotic Bomb Squad production that mixes funk, doo wop, dub, and thrash.
October 9, 2019
1954 Off-Broadway Revival Cast
More than sixty years after it was recorded, this remains the best English-language recording of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's deliciously cynical adaptation of the famous John Gay musical about life among life's outcasts. The arrangements are bold and the performances spirited throughout. But while Lotte Lenya is predictably excellent, take a look further down the cast list and you'll find Beatrice Arthur and Charlotte Rae, decades before they became sitcom icons in the '70s.
October 8, 2019
On her first collaboration with legendary rhythm battery, Sly & Robbie, Grace Jones moved boldly beyond her disco origins into the artful blend of new wave, reggae, post-punk, and rock that would become her defining sound of the 80s.
October 7, 2019
Roy Campbell was a late bloomer when it came to recording; the New York trumpeter was 39 when, in 1991, he recorded his first Delmark session as a leader, New Kingdom. The title refers to what Campbell saw as a "new kingdom" of jazz musicians -- improvisers who have one foot in "the tradition" (meaning bop, cool, swing, Dixieland, or post-bop) and the other in the avant-garde. Campbell himself certainly fits that description; with influences ranging from Lester Bowie to Freddie Hubbard and Booker Little, he is as comfortable with outside playing as he is with "the tradition."
October 6, 2019
Most Ween fans, and certainly the band themselves, would likely agree that they made better, more accomplished albums after they released Pure Guava. For sheer entertainment value, however, nothing they did ever topped this one. I remember hearing this in college and being dumbstruck at how utterly ridiculous it is, and it still boggles my mind to this day. How on earth was this collection of sophomoric joke tunes, recorded on a four-track at home using recycled cassettes, the band's major label debut?
October 5, 2019
Third album from this Vancouver songwriting duo took a turn away from their more subtle, folky beginnings to dive headlong into '80s-inspired synthpop. Somewhere between the icy sheen of the Chromatics and Fleetwood Mac's most distant windows into pop, Lightning Dust's stark electronic productions on Fantasy were some of their more immediate and intriguing.
October 4, 2019
This recently reissued live album is a treat for fans of high energy rock in the Detroit/Australian manner. Michigan rock legend Scott Morgan and his band Powertrane were joined on stage by Deniz Tek of Radio Birdman and Ron Asheton of the Stooges for a pair of shows in 2001, and the captured results are nothing less than incendiary. As live sets go, this is nearly on par with the MC5's Kick Out the Jams.
![The Virgin Suicides [Original Soundtrack]](https://fastly-s3.allmusic.com/release/mr0000001306/front/400/V-qE9PQa233fPOCi8YTc7VWnbEN5fCjifro6xhIBuB4=.jpg)
October 3, 2019
Two years after the arrival of their debut album, the duo returned, not with a proper sophomore LP, but with a full soundtrack to the directing debut of Sofia Coppola. Here, they relied on contemplative electronic mood-music in a minor key, heavy on the analog synth and organ yet with plenty of traditional textures (guitar, brass, strings) in keeping with lounge music and space-pop of the '60s and '70s.
October 2, 2019
One of the saxophonist’s earliest records for Blue Note, this parts company with the majority of his output for the label. While concentrating chiefly on standards, his playing is invigorated, it catapults each melody forward before launching into impassioned improvisation. As is usual, his soloing playing always fits the mood of the tune, revealing a total commitment to the material throughout.
October 1, 2019
Fast, cheap, and entirely out of control, Evilive is the only official live album by the Misfits with Glenn Danzig as frontman. The audio rates barely above an audience bootleg, but paints a black picture of the horror punks tearing through classics like "All Hell Breaks Loose," "Hatebreeders," and "Horror Business." Henry Rollins shows up to contribute barfing/backing vocals on a delightfully ragged "We Are 138."