Staff Picks for September 2019
September 30, 2019
Natasha Khan's first album introduced the delicate, and frequently magical, balancing act between everyday emotions and the power of fantasy she performs as Bat for Lashes. As she flits from spare British chamber folk to lavish shades of rock, pop, and dance, the emotional power of her songwriting remains.
September 29, 2019
On what would prove to be their final outing, the smart Melbourne four-piece deftly wove the disparate joys, sorrows, and desires of human connection into intimate missives of pop transcendence.
September 28, 2019
As America struggled with the bitter malaise of the end of the '60s, Simon & Garfunkel's sixth (and final) studio album became a smash as listeners found succor in the compassion of the title cut. But "The Boxer," "El Condor Pasa," and "The Only Living Boy In New York" in their way just as accurately reflected the chaotic time in which they were created, and the superb studio craft only brought the messages into clearer focus.
September 27, 2019
With The Albemarle Sound, the group finally achieved the pop grandeur their earlier records promised -- from its lush arrangements and rich melodies right down to the perfectly retro cover art. It sounded brilliant at the time and 20 years of time has done nothing to lessen its baroque delights.
September 26, 2019
Relaxed, timeless-sounding songs mixing elements of rock, country, and folk, the songs on the late singer/songwriter's first album as a leader strongly evoke Jackson Browne and the Eagles' Southern California country-rock, along with the harder edge of Neil Young as well as Young's folk side.
September 25, 2019
This live concert, recorded at the Newport festival in 2018, finds Carter ably combining gypsy and organ jazz (two seemingly disparate styles of music) with genre-bending élan. Joining him are his longtime organ trio bandmates Hammond B-3 specialist Gerard Gibbs and drummer Alex White. Reinhardt's songs work as both lyrical statements and avenues for extended soloing. Subsequently, as with the songs of the American Popular Canon, these compositions work well in a variety of settings. Primarily, Carter bends them to his will, infusing Reinhardt's Parisian melodicism with his own earthy groove.
September 24, 2019
Sixth album from California's doomed starlet Lana Del Rey is her most subdued and mature work, delivering on the promise of earlier albums with more mature and risky songwriting. Insular, personal and strangely classic rock tinged, the flow of the album moves through languid summertime desolation and hope for a burning world.
September 23, 2019
If you were a dedicated lifelong musician who ended up in the hospital after a stroke and were told you'd probably never play again, what would you do? If you were Scott McCaughey, you'd start writing a new album. 2019's Stroke Manor manages to be both playful and harrowing as McCaughey presents a batch of fine, idiosyncratic pop tunes penned while he was struggling to teach himself to communicate again.
September 22, 2019
The Italian goth metal band's 2016 effort was their most melodic and polished to date, which might have proved divisive for longtime fans. Yet the vocal harmony between Cristina Scabbia and Andrea Ferro elevate songs such as "Blood, Tears, Dust" and "Delirium" to soaring heights with an undeniable power and catchiness. Their ninth set lands in October.
September 21, 2019
One of Detroit techno's second-wave classics was actually created by a producer from Ohio. Dan Curtin's debut album is a lush, spirited masterpiece which has hardly aged since it was first released 25 years ago. Last year this was reissued on vinyl, so don't sleep on it while it's still easy to find.
September 20, 2019
Call the songs lackadaisical hypno-grooves, if you will, or use the band's label of "whisper-electro" to define the sound, but essentially it's calming, polite electro-pop that invokes '60s lounge, '70s Krautrock, and '80s synth pop while staying relevant to more modern sounds popularized by Hot Chip, Ladytron, and Air. Meanwhile, verses give props to Hans Christian Anderson, Lena Zavaroni, and Dietrich Knickerbocker. If that's not fun, what is?
September 19, 2019
Enrico Rava's debut for ECM, 1975's The Pilgrim and the Stars, is a stellar progressive jazz effort from the Italian trumpeter who was then just coming into his own. Previously, Rava had spent his formative years working with such artists as saxophonist Steve Lacy, trombonist Roswell Rudd, and pianist Carla Bley, and obviously took much to heart when approaching his own music. This is cerebral, atmospheric, often groove-oriented music that rests nicely in between such touchstones as late-'60s Miles Davis and Brown Rice-era Don Cherry with some obvious nods to the melodic jazz of ex-pat Chet Baker.
September 18, 2019
This wintry, nuanced, and bold collection of songs integrates the sweeping theatricality of Arcade Fire-era indie rock without the insularity. There has always been a sort of rough-hewn sepia-tone unity to British Sea Power, and that odd, inclusive wartime fervor permeates each track, from the rousing immigration anthem "Waving Flags" to the rallying, Blur-inspired "No Lucifer"
September 17, 2019
This is Pylon at their purest, mixing the spartan angularity of Gang of Four with a playfulness missing from similar U.K. bands like the Au Pairs or the early Mekons (or indeed from Gang of Four themselves) as well as the irresistible danceability of Athens compatriots the B-52's. Yet Pylon never quite sounded like anyone except Pylon. Their naive instrumental style and inimitable vocals are so idiosyncratic that they probably couldn't sound like anyone else any more than another band could tackle a Pylon song.
September 16, 2019
A concept album about boxing, failed relationships, and drug addiction sounds like something most people wouldn't listen to without being forced, but in Aimee Mann's hands, it became the basis of one of her best albums. 2005's The Forgotten Arm is a story full of flawed but memorable characters and canny insights on the struggle to be honest, and with its rich arrangements and coolly eloquent vocals, Mann's performance is as good as her writing.
September 15, 2019
The final chapter of the Pixies' initial late '80s/early '90s run was more or less a Frank Black solo album in the guise of a new set of songs from the rapidly dissolving band. In a class outside of the airy atmospheres of Bossa Nova or the tight edgy pop of Doolittle, Trompe Le Monde was more melodic, more streamlined and more lonely, setting the tone for Black's solo output for the next several years.
September 14, 2019
After years spent knocking around Washington, D.C. circuit, this local guitar legend got the chance to cut his first album for a major label and made the most of it. His spot-welding blinding speed and immaculate chops and deep emotions move in a million different directions (jazz, country, rockabilly, blues, etc.), creating a singular musical sensibility that makes for an instrumental album that’s far more than just fretboard pyrotechnics.
September 13, 2019
A jarring stylistic switch -- and very much out of place in 1999, as we noted in the original review -- the NIN-offshoot's sophomore set has aged quite well. Leaving behind the early sounds that tied him to the NIN brand, Richard Patrick expanded his creative boundaries and dialed up the melody, including horns, tribal drums, beat loops, and a Top 20 hit. "Welcome To The Fold" remains one of their best and everything else is just as solid.
September 12, 2019
The London rapper hit a career high on her bold third LP, delivering personal and social truths with honesty and sophistication to a spare, organic backdrop.
September 11, 2019
Justin Berkovi's second full-length for Force Inc is a delicious slice of down-tempo techno and electro. After the Night is an excellent album of late-night techno to file alongside music-to-drive-by masterpieces like Carl Craig's Landcruising or Morgan Geist's The Driving Memoirs.
September 10, 2019
Existing in some fuzzy world where hip hop, R&B, and indie rock meet, Michael Ivey's debut album as Basehead remains a striking, sneakily witty listen. Sounding lazy but tightly focused, Ivey generates compelling laid-back grooves as he ponders race, sex, relationships, and drinking beer. Drinking a LOT of beer, actually. An overlooked masterpiece, Play With Toys recently got a shout-out from, of all people, John Waters in his book Mr. Know It All.
September 9, 2019
When American urban-contemporary radio was bombarding its listeners with one Guy clone after another in the late '80s and early '90s, British neo-soulsters like Soul II Soul offered highly creative and gutsy alternatives. With influences ranging from Chic to hip-hop to African music, Soul II Soul's debut album (titled Keep on Movin' in the U.S.) was among the most rewarding R&B releases of 1989. Leader/producer/composer Jazzie B takes one risk after another -- all of which pay off.
September 8, 2019
On her debut album, Charli XCX made the most of her flair for combining really-real feelings and unashamedly artificial sounds into fresh yet familiar pop. Set to innovative productions, True Romance's sketches of tough girls falling in and out of love hinted Charli would become an artist who shaped the sound of pop music for the rest of the 2010s.
September 7, 2019
Jazz guitarist Joel Harrison investigates the music of George Harrison with a stellar band including saxist David Liebman, pianist Uri Caine and drummer Dan Weiss. He has crafted an album that celebrates the former Beatle's superb songcraft and sense of musical exploration via British folk, gospel, psychedelic rock and Indian classical music. The jazzman embraces that eclecticism in an inspired, engaging and superbly executed tribute.
September 6, 2019
Debuting Midge Ure as lead vocalist, the band's fourth album recasts the band as a melodramatic synth pop chamber ensemble with most of the group doubling on traditional string quartet instruments and synthesizers. The simple and instantly recognizable drumbeat of the title track proved infectious, taking the single to the top of the charts in the U.K. and making an impression in a briefly pre-MTV, new wave-apprehensive America.
September 5, 2019
Ten months after the release of their debut, the New York Dolls were already showing signs of wear on 1974's Too Much, Too Soon, and the tone of "It's Too Late" and "Babylon" suggested their decadence was no longer so playful. But the glorious snarl of Johnny Thunders' guitar and the swagger of David Johansen's voice was still a magic combination, and "Human Being" was the greatest statement of purpose they would ever create.
September 4, 2019
Somewhere between Travis or Keane's yearning pop sentimentality and Radiohead's quieter guitar-based explorations, Holy Holy have crafted an intimate and pleading collection of songs that somehow manage not to be maudlin or overbearing. At times sounding like a '70s Laurel Canyon campfire bliss-out, then turning around and sounding like a lost b-side from The Unforgettable Fire, When the Storms Would Come is a very worthwhile debut.
September 3, 2019
Besides being heavier -- guitarists Marten Hagstrom and Fredrik Thordendal used eight-string guitars to give extra growl to their off-kilter, occasionally dissonant chording -- the appropriately titled Nothing expands on its predecessors by boasting more spacious arrangements, the jarring tempo and time shifts colliding with each other until the songs collapse on themselves like black holes.
September 2, 2019
On Headnod Suite, Detroit's Karriem Riggins has crafted a scattershot and fascinating series of beats and hip-hop vignettes, many of which last less than 90 seconds. Some feel like fully thought-out tracks but most are wonderful sketches of loops, found sounds and scratched melodies, perfect for further manipulation or freestyling over.
September 1, 2019
With the band showing some signs of life after nearly 20 years away, it's a fun time to dig back into the carefully-controlled chaos of Mike Patton's pre-, during, and post-Faith No More outfit. The upcoming live shows are focusing on the band's Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny EP, but the band's subsequent full-length works featured no shortage of jarring, genre-hopping madness.