Staff Picks for September 2013

This stark and haunting album documents Buckner's heartache through darkened rooms and dusty midnight backroads. Orchestrated sparsely by acoustic instruments and unconventional arrangements, Devotion + Doubt hums and thrums through my speakers each autumn.
- Zac Johnson

Dave Roback (Rain Parade, Mazzy Star) and Kendra Smith (Dream Syndicate) only released one proper album under the Opal moniker, but the dark, bluesy, psych-pop world that Happy Nightmare Baby delivers -- which falls somewhere between The Doors, T-Rex, and Jefferson Airplane -- perfectly encapsulates the duo's cosmic appeal.
- James Christopher Monger

Cowboy Bebop remains one of anime's finest moments in part because it blends so many influences -- Westerns, film noir and slapstick comedy, to name a few -- into something unique. The same can be said for Yoko Kanno's music for the series, which blends elements of jazz, Spaghetti Western scores and rock into a one-of-a-kind sound.
- Heather Phares

After years spent not making rap albums, and one disappointing attempt at a comeback, the brilliant Mos Def returned with this off-beat, truly inspired effort that featured funky, flowing beats and sounds from Madlib, J Dilla, Georgia Anne Muldrow and Oh No. Mr. Def ups his game to match, and even though it didn't make the same impact of Black Star or Black on Both Sides, it comes close and rates as some of his best work.
- Tim Sendra

Recording as Arp, Alexis Georgopoulos' first few albums were synth-heavy avant garde affairs, but on third outing More, he connects with his inner Eno, making warped pop that touches on several of Eno's eras. Fuzzy, tuneful and softly meditative forms of atmospheric pop make this a bit of a departure for Arp, but a welcome one.
- Fred Thomas

The late great's third album is known for its Top 30 Dionne Warwick duet, as well its quiet-storm classic finale. Beyond those highlights it's close to flawless, from the gleaming jam "For the Sweetness of Your Love" to the phenomenal ballad "Make Me a Believer." Neither song has appeared on a Vandross anthology.
- Andy Kellman

Current 93’s revolving lineup had been making "apocalyptic folk music" for over a decade when this album was released. David Tibet’s beautiful, terrifying, visionary song cycle is anchored by Charles Wesley's 18th century hymn, "Idumea." Various singers -- Marc Almond, Cosi Fanni Tutti, Antony Hegarty, Bonnie Prince Billy, and Shirley Collins -- interpret it as a recurring theme. This masterpiece informs every record C93’s made since.
- Thom Jurek

For some strange reason, the pedal steel guitar never quite caught on as a jazz instrument. Maybe not enough people heard Steel Guitar Jazz. Highlighted by a chiming version of "Where or When," this bright and twangy album is a terrific intersection between smart jazz and traditional American folk music.
- Zac Johnson

On Kinoe, Yuichiro Fujimoto makes music so organically pastoral-sounding that somtimes it's hard to tell where the melodies begin and the found sounds end. Either way, these elements blend together beautifully and spontaneously, making this an album that fans of Cornelius and Shugo Tokumaru will love for its lighter-than-air melodies and gentle whimsy.
- Heather Phares

This meeting of the percussive minds is a solid 40 minute improvised piece from three legend-status drummers; Zach Hill, Pearl Jam's Matt Cameron and Sleater-Kinney alum Janet Weiss. Hardly just a drum solo, these rhythm masters play off of each other greatly, building tension and unexpected melody.
- Fred Thomas

Guy Clark's first album in four years is a wonderfully rough, tough, tender, wise, and gracefully resigned testament to a life lived, a craft followed, and regrets considered, weighed, and given due. Now 71 years old, Clark has been a world-class songwriter for decades, and as My Favorite Picture of You shows, he still is. His songs tell stories of loves found, loves lost, the deep cost of a fleeting moment of redemption, old memories that enrich and then vanish like ghosts, and under it all, there is the whiskey-worn voice of someone who knows perfectly well how to tell those stories. My Favorite Picture of You is simply a wonderful, balanced gem of an album from a masterful songwriter.
- Steve Leggett

There may not be much that's actually rare on Universal's new Rod Stewart collection Rarities—it's all shown up on other anthologies, including Reason To Believe: The Complete Mercury Recordings—but its release has reminded me of one of my favorite forgotten Stewart songs: "Jodie," a laid-back romantic rocker that showcases Rod's ragged heart as nimbly as it displays the Faces' casual virtuosity. The rest of the odds-and-sods collection is worth hearing, too.
- Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Take the ambitious British pop songwriting style of Talk Talk and The Smiths and filter it through the stylish New Wave production of electronics wiz Thomas Dolby and you have Prefab Sprout's best album, Steve McQueen, or as it was known in the States, Two Wheels Good.
- Jason Lymangrover

Though he fell out of the rap scene after his debut mixtape Earl helped to make Odd Future a phenomenon, Earl Sweatshirt makes his return with the highly anticipated Doris. Throughout the album, it becomes clear that not only has Earl grown as an artist, but that he still has the superlative talent that made him the standout rapper in an already talented crew, and with its blend of emotional depth and dazzling rhymes, Doris proves to be an album that was well worth the wait.
- Gregory Heaney

The Railway Children made a bit of a splash in England where their melodic, romantic take on post-Smiths jangle pop and blue-eyed soul drew favorable, if misguided comparisons to New Order and Spandau Ballet. Gary Newby's baritone croon and talent for writing infectious, and often melancholy songs has a charm all its own. Fans of MTV's 120 Minutes may remember the single, "In the Meantime," off the band's superb sophomore album, on regular rotation in 1988.
- Matt Collar

Able to sing it smooth and soulful or step lively if need be, Frankie Paul ("the Jamaican Stevie Wonder") has a big, rich discography, so plunder away. Great place to start is right here, with dancehall classics (“Pass the Tu-Sheng-Peng”) sitting next to passionate lovers rock ("Sara").
- David Jeffries

It's hard to know without doing the math but you've got figure that France has the most totally bonkers musicians per-capita. Phillipe Katerine fits in that category as snugly as his tighty whiteys are gripping him on the album's cover. Once you tear your eyes from that and start listening, the robotic beats, slashing synths and the man's vocal interjections are enough to satisfy anyone looking for music that makes no sense but sounds good anyway.
- Tim Sendra

The eighth album from the shape-shifting composer/guitarist offers up thirteen highly cinematic slabs of surprisingly moving, melodic weirdness, six of which appeared in Gary Larson's discomforting 1994 animated TV special Tales from the Far Side.
- James Monger

All compilations put together by Norman Jay MBE are worth checking, but here's one of the best, which characteristically spans decades and genres with choice selections from the likes of Labi Siffre, Mark Murphy, Inner Life, the Ethiopians, and Ashford & Simpson.
- Andy Kellman

I 've always known who Russ Ballard is—not only was he was the lead vocalist of Argent, singing the hit "Hold Your Head Up" and writing "God Gave Rock & Roll To You," he produced two of my favorite albums by America (1982's View From The Ground and its '83 sequel Your Move)—but I've never spent time with his solo albums until the release of this three-fer from BGO. Only one of these songs will be known to most listeners—"Since You Been Gone," which Rainbow later turned into the hit it deserved to be—but the sound of these three will be familiar as they crystallize the AOR sound of the mid-'70s, ranging from gossamer soft rock to crunching arena rock.
- Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Some people think you can survive with only a few tracks by the Troggs ready to cue up at a moment's notice -- say, "Wild Thing" and "A Girl Like You." That notion is incorrect, however, and all it takes to disprove it is a listen to a really thorough collection like this one and its early landmarks of snotty garage-punk: "Lost Girl," "I Want You," and "I Can't Control Myself."
- John Bush

Propped up by three A-sides contributed by departed core member Rod Temperton -- the genius songwriter pulled away by success with Michael Jackson, Rufus, the Brothers Johnson, and George Benson -- Heatwave's fourth album also contains the phenomenal "Turn Around," co-written by lead singer Johnnie Wilder Jr.
- Andy Kellman

Twelve years later, there's little question that the soundtrack to the underrated 2001 big-screen adaptation of Josie & The Pussycats is one of the great power-pop albums of the new millennium. Kay Hanley plays the part of Josie and she sings songs written by her, Adam Duritz, Jason Falkner, Jane Wiedlin, Anna Waronker and Adam Schlesinger. Each song is a piece exuberant candy-coated pop but the opening pair of "3 Small Words" and "Pretend to Be Nice" are so good that it can be hard to not just play them on repeat over and over and over. (It also contains two dead-on parodies of boy band pop, but that's just a bonus.)
- Stephen Thomas Erlewine

The Mighty Diamonds are Jamaica's longest-running vocal group, and the trio, Donald "Tabby" Shaw, Fitzroy "Bunny" Simpson, and Lloyd "Judge" Ferguson, has gone some forty years now with the original membership intact, in itself an achievement in the rapidly shifting and changing world of pop music. It comes as a bit of a surprise, then, that this three-disc set (two CDs and a DVD) from VP Records is the first real career-spanning anthology of the trio's key tracks to hit the 21st century digital world. Covering the Diamonds' peak years from 1975 to 1986, and featuring productions done over those years by the likes of Gussie Clarke, Joseph Hoo-Kim, Donovan Germain, Tappa Zukie, Ossie Hibbert, Errol Thompson, Junior Booth, and Joe Gibbs, among others, this woefully overdue compilation simply underscores what fans of vintage reggae roots music have always known, that these guys are simply one of the best vocal groups the island ever produced.
- Steve Leggett

Critics unfairly labeled Enuff Z'nuff just another Poison knockoff when they released their debut in 1989, but overlooking the big hair, makeup, and tight leather, the group actually had some exciting and damn catchy powerpop hooks on their first singles "Fly High Michelle" and "New Thing."
- Jason Lymangrover

Cobbled together from demo recordings, The Devil's Blood go out on a high note with their third album, III: Tabula Rasa or Death and the Seven Pillars. Despite being built from home recordings, the album doesn't feel the slightest bit underdone, and it's rawer production gives it the feeling of an obsucre dollar bin treasure that's been rediscovered by an audience ready to comprehend it's metal glory.
- Gregory Heaney

This Bill Jennings compilation showcases some of his most wild and rocking jump blues cuts from the 1950's. A swinging player with knack for bluesy, groove-oriented improvisation, Jennings was a proto-rock and roller with jazz roots, who prefigured the success of artists like Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. The title-track alone is a tour de force of party time rocking blues that swings so hard it conjures images of crazed, loose-limbed dancers, possible knife fights, and late-night make out sessions.
- Matt Collar

They started as a martial industrial band but the Sheffield, England duo In the Nursery evolved into something much more heady and elegant. Their 1990 effort L'Esprit is a lush example of their soundtrack-like work, perfect for rainy days that require something stately and somewhat Goth.
- David Jeffries

She shoulda been the female R. Kelly instead of getting the cold shoulder by the industry. "Freak Like Me" is an anthem, a total jam that should have launched her into stardom, but Howard got played by the system and basically vanished after this album. It's a good one too, full of steamed up ballads and hot grinders that still sound good almost 20 years later
- Tim Sendra