Staff Picks for October 2020
October 31, 2020
While reading Steven Hyden's book This Isn't Happening: Radiohead's 'Kid A' and the Beginning of the 21st Century, repeated deep dives into the album showcase the lyrical alienation and shimmering sonics of the band's progresion. The book talks about how the recording process was built from a cycle of simmering frustration and unexpected breakthroughs, and the finished work reveals those left turns and unexpected halellujah moments in every song.
October 30, 2020
Zero 7 all but left their downbeat roots behind with The Garden, as the synthesized aspects once so prominent now act more like the thread that sews the different squares of the quilt together and keeps them in place. The result is possibly the ultimate summer evening record: warm pop hooks, lush instrumentation, unobtrusive electronica elements, and '60s-style harmonies that all come together into superb, wonderfully descriptive songs.
October 29, 2020
Arriving just two months after his death, Big Pun's second album Yeeeah Baby displays an artist evolving beyond his previous work with remarkable ease. On the highlights "Watch Those," "Off Wit His Head," and "New York Giants," Pun proves that he should be considered in the top-ten list for late-'90s MCs -- among considerable competition. He also salutes his Latin heritage all over the album, switching from street slang to Latin lingo without batting an eye, and working a flute charanga sample on "100%."
October 28, 2020
The recent passing of Texas cosmic cowboy Jerry Jeff Walker deserves a dusting off of this "live" album from 1973. It serves as a sort of loose greatest hits collection all recorded in one night, kicked off by the lazy and meandering zen koan of "Gettin' By." Throughout Walker's career he really seemed to be "Pickin' up the pieces wherever they fall/Just letting it roll, letting the high times carry the low" and the easy effortless sound of this album presents that attitude perfectly.
October 27, 2020
The Style Council's second proper album was still quite eclectic, but it didn't seem as disorganized as their debut. Paul Weller had been able to incorporate his soul and jazz experiments into his songwriting, writing the fine "Walls Come Tumbling Down," "Come to Milton Keynes," "Boy Who Cried Wolf," and "Down in the Seine," which were some of his best songs for the Style Council.
October 26, 2020
During the late '70s, various members of the MC5, the Stooges, and other influential rock groups from the southeastern Michigan area teamed up to form a number of short-lived but legendary bands. The best known of these would be Sonic's Rendezvous, formed by MC5 guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith. Many of these songs have only been previously available on badly recorded bootlegs that don't do the songs justice, but here they come off as raw and as intense as they originally sounded when they were first delivered with the deafeningly explosive power that Sonic's Rendezvous was known for.
October 25, 2020
Nearly two decades ago, some knucklehead(s) from New Jersey scored a pre-YouTube viral hit with a cheap Flash animation starring a squirrel bouncing up and down and going "Weeeee!" a whole lot. Somehow this act recorded two entire albums of moronic ditties like this one, and I doubt it's humanly possible for any full-grown adult to listen to either one all the way through. Still, for anyone with the urge to relive a much simpler time in internet history, these songs and videos remain good for a few immature chortles.
October 24, 2020
An absolute blast of an album, this sophomore set from the British trio delivers almost a dozen dance-ready nuggets to pulse and throb the cares away. Imagine a wild blend of Human League, Confidence Man, Goldfrapp, CSS, and Icona Pop all blessed by Lady Gaga's disco stick and you'll come close to these unabashed goodies. Highlights abound, but the hilarious gem "I Stole Yer Plimsoles" (featuring Sleaford Mods' Jason Williamson) is a quirky standout.
October 23, 2020
This set resides at the crossroads of swinging post-bop, modal jazz, and structured improvisation. The cellist’s compositions are often descend in a more or less straight line from Thelonious Monk but still give her bandmates -- guitarist Mary Halvorson, drummer Tomas Fujiwara, and bassist Jason Roebke – plenty of room to move resulting in effortless, comfortable communication complete with humor, warmth, and compelling harmonic and rhythmic ideas.
October 22, 2020
The Australian art-pop singer/songwriter's debut is a subversively dark, yet musically vibrant collection where impressionistic paeans to animal rights and ecology bed down with buoyant pop melodies and influences ranging from Tuvan throat singing, desert blues, and psychedelia.
October 21, 2020
Somehow more lush and downcast than 2008's Leave It All Behind, Nicolay and Phonte's third proper album together is neither an everyday nor an every-day album, unless playing it is necessary for the sake of convalescence. Opening with an eerie intro similar to that of the Grammy-nominated "Daykeeper," Authenticity promptly gets to the black heart of the matter and frequently dips into an alluring type of despondent heartache that is improbably soothing.
October 20, 2020
A classically trained violinist since the age of four, Bird has skillfully integrated nearly everything with strings on it into his repertoire since his conversion from the Weill and Brecht-heavy days of Music of Hair, Thrills, and Oh! The Grandeur to the semi-mainstream indie pop of The Swimming Hour, but it's his seemingly limitless capacity for manipulation of the violin that dominates Noble Beast.
October 19, 2020
In a year where Nirvana could knock Michael Jackson off the top of the charts, the notion that Pere Ubu could make a charming and listenable pop album seemed every bit as unlikely. Yet 1991's Worlds in Collision found producer Gil Norton adding just enough polish to bring out their user friendly side without subsuming their spirit, and "I Hear They Smoke The Barbecue" still sounds like the hit single that should have been.
October 18, 2020
Molchat Doma's second album first appeared a year after their debut, and while it maintains a similarly bleak tone and a sound derived from 1980s post-punk and cold wave, it's easily a step up in terms of both songwriting and production, sounding significantly cleaner and having far more memorable hooks. The album's subject matter, describing loneliness, oppression, and life under communist rule, is often harrowing and unflinching, but the songs themselves are remarkably well crafted, even heartbreaking at times, and the whole thing stands up to repeated, obsessive listening.
October 17, 2020
With his warm baritone and otherworldly yodeling technique, Leon Thomas was one of a kind; an absolute original whose music straddled the line between spiritual modal jazz, hard bop, and organic, hippified soul. His 1969 debut is a transformative masterpiece, heralded by his celestial rendition of his classic Pharaoh Sanders co-write "The Creator Has a Master Plan (Peace)." Sanders appears, as do Lonnnie Liston Smith, Roy Haynes, and others. Thomas achieves equally astral projected results on Horace Silver's "Song For My Father," and his languid take on the Aaron Bell/Carla Huston ballad "Let the Rain Fall On Me."
October 16, 2020
Its reputation may rest on only one hit -- but what a hit. "Groove Is in the Heart" defined the summer of 1990 with its delicious combination of funk, modern dance sheen, and Lady Miss Kier's sharp diva ways. Add guest vocals and bass from Bootsy Collins, brass from the original Horny Horns duo of Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker, and a smooth mid-song rap from A Tribe Called Quest's Q-Tip, and it's golden. Disco is at the heart of the track list, with everything from hip-hop breaks to bubble-salsa piano -- even early Depeche Mode -- taking a bow.
October 15, 2020
If there's an undiscovered classic lurking amidst the cast-offs of the 1990s alternative rock boom, it's 1996's Ain't My Lookout, the fourth album from the Grifters. Scrubbing away the noise they didn't need allowed them to focus on the noises they loved, revealing how much fractured tunefulness and playful weirdness was visible below the surface. And the epochal closing track "Radio City Suicide" is nothing less than a masterpiece.
October 14, 2020
The fourth album from this Chicago-based high concept art rock band met almost across the board negative reviews when upon its release in 2000. Always a polarizing band, Joan of Arc was reaching a new level with their craft on The Gap, integrating what was then cutting edge digital editing technology into their abstract perspectives on acoustic-leaning indie/post rock. On its surface, The Gap is noisy and chaotic, but that noise is purposeful obfuscation of the band's most detailed and fine-tuned work up until that point.
October 13, 2020
American drum'n'bass pioneer Jordana LeSesne released three albums as 1.8.7 between 1997 and 2000, and they're all essential. Her tracks are heavy, dense, and bursting with energy, equal parts paranoia and excitement. Always busy, always moving, always rocketing at warp speed, constantly piling on new ideas. All of these tracks are named after different American cities, and it feels like a snapshot of the scene's energy at the time. It was also her last album under this name; she remains active simply as Jordana.
October 12, 2020
Because 1978's Three Miles High was uneven and inconsistent, one greeted Mass Production's next album with a bit of apprehension. But creatively, the Richmond band bounced back on this generally excellent 1979 LP, which contains the number four R&B hit "Firecracker." A funk classic that boasts a truly addictive groove, "Firecracker" became Mass Production's biggest hit and is the song that the band is best remembered for. Thankfully, the rest of the album is also quite strong.
October 11, 2020
In a dramatic shift away from both her black metal and pop roots, Danish multi-instrumentalist Amalie Brun fully embraces dark Scandanavian folk on her nyckelharpa-heavy and mostly acoustic fourth outing.
October 10, 2020
A conceptual collaborative avant-song cycle between the composer/multi-instrumentalist and Cairo Gang's guitarist and vocalist asks: How does a cybernetic organism reconcile his logic-controlled present -- with the indelible ghost traces of mercurial humanity (emotions and impressionistic shadows of consciousness) that remain within? The result is a stunning, standalone song cycle brimming with poetic, musical, and philosophical imagination, and collective discovery.
October 9, 2020
Noble Creatures holds its magnifying glass up to life in the southwest with the usual backwoods elegance, beer hall poetry, and sharp, border town nomenclature, but there is an emotional heft here that makes a keen impression from the very moment of departure. It's top-notch production could land it in some laps that the Gourds' previous recordings may have missed. It's also a fitting description of these off-center country bards, and would prove apt if they ever considered a name change.
October 8, 2020
With Rick Rubin at the helm, Electric finds the Cult stripping everything down and essentially transforming Billy Duffy into the logical successor to AC/DC's Angus Young. The end result is still a fist-punching yelp of energy that demands to be heard at maximum volume in arenas, with a brusque punch in Les Warner's drums to match Duffy's power-chord action. "Love Removal Machine" is still the album's calling card, another in the series of instantly catchy Cult singles. "Li'l Devil" is almost as worthy, while other cuts like "Wild Flower" and "King Contrary Man" would have sounded good in 1973 and sound just as good in a new century.
October 7, 2020
Jesse Colin Young had already moved into his rural hippie hideaway in Inverness, California when he began work on 1973's Song For Juli. Recorded at his home studio, the album showcased his relaxed mix of singer-songwriter folk, loungey jazz, rambling country, and soulful pop. At the center was his expansive spiritual jazz-meets-homesteader funk-rock anthem "Ridgetop," which found him celebrating the pine trees, blue jays, and hoot owls, not to mention peaceful solitude the property afforded him. The studio, still used by Young's son, narrowly escaped destruction by a forest fire in 1995.
October 6, 2020
John Cale had mastered the ability to sound utterly deranged on his albums of the 1970s. 1982's Music for a New Society was something different, no less intense yet quietly anxious and disturbing instead of a collection of angry rants. Its chilly but deeply felt sound is both haunting and heartbreaking; it's one of the best works in his solo catalog.
October 5, 2020
While he made his name as a bass player for artists spanning Sufjan Stevens and Robert Glasper before releasing this solo debut, the sophisticated, yearning melodic and harmonic sensibilities of Hampton's songwriting output reveal a mastery of the treble clef. With a Debussy-like grace, his dreamy chamber songs often seem rooted in the classical world as much as their more-tangible mix of singer/songwriter pop, jazz, and Americana. His voice shouldn't be overlooked either; its warm, reedy tone has since been featured on recordings by Esperanza Spalding, Gretchen Parlato, and others, including a recurring gig as bassist/backup singer for Andrew Bird.
October 4, 2020
An easily-missed entry in Will Oldham's massive discography, 1999's Get On Jolly finds Oldham collaborating with Dirty Three guitarist Mick Turner, adapting the poetry of Indian Nobel Prize winning author and spiritual guide Rabindranath Tagore. The six songs of Turner's drifting guitar and Oldham's hushed vocal performances are frail, soft and achingly beautiful.
October 3, 2020
The superstar producer behind Adele, Florence + the Machine, and Coldplay, Paul Epworth can also craft a mean electronic soundscape, which he did to maximum effect on this debut. Like a funked-up space mission with a crew of contemporary hip-hop and R&B's best and brightest, this set hits vibes similar to Daft Punk's Random Access Memories and Calvin Harris' Funk Wav Bounces, with some Andre 3000, Frank Ocean, and Pharrell thrown in for good measure.
October 2, 2020
One of drum'n'bass's first and best full-lengths, 4hero's second album expanded the genre's possibilities, incorporating jazz fusion and house influences while continuing to push the limits of breakbeat experimentation. Along with albums like A Guy Called Gerald's Black Secret Technology, this helped usher in a new era of intelligent, soulful dance music with its gaze firmly set on the future.
October 1, 2020
A compelling (though hardly straightforward) exercise in 21st century folk-rock with progressive, indie pop, and gospel elements threaded through its weave, Saintseneca move through their fourth full-length effort via folk, psychedelia, and indie rock into a space that's uniquely their own.