The eMusic Dozen: Overlooked Albums of 2007

September Collective is a supergroup of sorts; while member Paul Wirkus remains relatively obscure, Barbara Morgenstern and To Rococo Rot's Stefan Schneider have proven plenty successful in the indie/electronic world. That alone makes this album's radar-ducking obscurity curious. Swimming in warm analog glow, this is bath-and-candles music, rich with chest-caressing sub-bass, easygoing piano improvisations and a delicate froth of classical samples. But if the album is pellucid enough for the Body Shop set, it's also rigorous enough to reward the demands of close listening. Wirkus' stuttering sample work creates a complicated rhythmic interplay against Schneider's dub-inspired basslines and Morgenstern's drifting melodies, and even on the most lyrical cuts, brushed percussion and oblique accidentals lend an appealing sense of hesitation. Rich, unexpected, flat-out gorgeous -- you could live inside this record. -- Philip Sherburne

Drones a-modaling, vocals that spin and centrifuge, tempos that move forward with a ponderosa stomp of inevitability, heavy on amp overload and the turbo whine of feedback -- these are the things that draw me deep within the psychic implosion that is the Warlocks of Los Angeles. On this, their sixth album, the ever-changing aggregation led by Bobby Hecksher embark upon a textural unfolding that moves each track from light to dark in a howl of all-encompassing maelstrom. The touchstones are Jesus and Mary Chain, the Spacemen Three, Flying Saucer Attack, along with others who put the psych in -delia; but the bracing wall of Warlocks' noise creates its own inner sanctum -- or is that sanitarium? The whirling dervision of "Zombie Like Lover," the perversely majestic "So Paranoid," the up-the-down-staircase of "Interlude in Reverse," the Fugs fugue of "Death, I Hear You Walking" -- all of these keys to the Warlocks. -- Lenny Kaye

I love it when Jazz guys step over into new age territory. They usually either create eccentric masterpieces like Yusef Lateef's, Little Symphonies or cross over into new age forever and never look back, like the Pauls, Winter and Horn. Jack De Johnette is somewhere in between. In addition to being an amazing drummer and a fine piano player, hr has an earnest dedication to the art of sound healing. Here, De Johnette colors the tonal canvas with flights of flute, soft hand drumming and the gently percolating chime of cymbal play, moving the piece along a river of meditative delight. Subdued layers of overtone singing and the distant drones of sitars waft in and out like comforting and familiar spirit guides that manifest themselves in sound. -- Robert Phoenix

Stephen Coates, aka The Real Tuesday Weld (and aka The Clerkenwell Kid -- how many alter egos does one guy need?), does not make records. He makes a kind of musical descendant of the mid-20th century radio play. His albums create a scene (usually London), set a mood (perhaps a rainy night in London), and sketch a story (what, you need everything spelled out?). No hit single up front followed by filler -- Coates' tales seem to get better as you get into them. In this lyrical, gently whimsical gem, his songs sound like Noel Coward and Cole Porter wandering out of the London fog into a studio full of laptops. Old-fashioned acoustic instruments and clever arrangements mask some very modern, almost trippy production. The actual story is somewhat elusive, and yes, it's all very English, despite the jazzy touches. But it also rocks, subtly. And in case you don't get it, the Puppini Sisters sing the last song to drive the point home. -- John Schaefer

Honey Owens (aka Valet) waited some time to make her first solo album -- a decade at the heart of Portland, OR's vibrant avant-rock community in the groups World, Nudge and Jackie-O Motherfucker. Blood is Clean is a lovely debut, a real slow burner. It takes at least a few listens to get into it, but Valet really delivers, with fiercely original (and kind of spooky) music in the spirit of Royal Trux, Eluvium and Yoko Ono. These meditative, melted-sounding jams are layered and intricate, though simple melodic and percussive elements are at the core of each. The true standout, the title track, is a sleepy half-rocker with a motorik beat that springs to life halfway through. From the flood of whispered vocals on "Tame all the Lions" to the puddle of stretched-out sounds that accumulate all over "Sade 4 Bri," Owens' world of echo is as weird as it is pretty. -- Mike McGonigal

Boston's oddball reeds/guitar/piano trio Blueprint Project write pieces with clear, well-defined rhythmic contours, albeit knotty ones. (Monk's quirky timing is back there someplace.) They also have a distinctive way of weaving around each other, avoiding duplication of parts, making the most of skeletal instrumentation. That said, on record they often team up with guest rhythm players. For People I Like they add Dutch super-drummer and anarchist Han Bennink; their naming one tune "Herbie Nichols" (for the great 50s pianist and Dutch/Bennink favorite) is like putting out the welcome mat for him (Jared Sims's raucous clarinet and the track's sliding-downhill momentum make it a triple treat.) Han thrives in such rhythmically-charged environments, apt to reinforce a groove (the samba-lypso "Captain Salvy Sets Sail"), come up with a new one (hear the polyrhythmic churn midway through "The Holly Stomp"), or energize more open material, like "Nu Moon at Yoshi's." -- Kevin Whitehead

In an age of blues bombast, Seth Walker's approach is so low-key he's easy to overlook. But once you let his music settle in, you'll likely find the guy's got staying power, and lots of it. His singing is unaffected and deeply felt on songs such as "Kick It Around," while his guitar is more authoritative on the likes of "By the Water" precisely because he doesn't say any more with it than he has to. Walker's no slave to purism -- several songs are blues only in feeling -- and much as he does like working out on a straight-up blues like "It's a Sin," he's just as effective on his solo piano reading of Tom Waits' "Picture in a Frame." He could probably use an uptempo song or two without breaking the mood, but that's about the only problem with this 'un. -- John Morthland

The sudden provincialism of New York hip-hop makes scaled-down glories like Sean Price's second album possible. Price, who first emerged in the mid-1990s as one-half of Boot Camp Clik possession guys Heltah Skeltah, raps for no reason other than habit, bullying and joking his way through soaring, wintry, yesteryear beats. "I ain't had a hit since '96," he confesses on "Mess You Made," as one of his old anthems wafts from the radio. By the end of Jesus Price Superstar's lean, frills-free forty-five minutes, Price's lament that "this rap sh-t don't pay enough" proves meaningless. Price's daily operation isn't about large dollars: it's about getting by and admiring his own absurdly outsized brags, figuring out how many P-words you can fit into three minutes ("P Body"), recalling old glories ("Da God" featuring Sadat X and Buckshot) and riffing off that Spirit of Truth guy. He's just glad to be back. -- Hua Hsu

With a name that references psychedelic philosopher Terence McKenna's experiences with the otherworldly entheogen DMT, bassist Mark Rivard's Club d'Elf delivers nearly as much alien rapture as that moniker would imply. This live album is a simmering scorcher, a dance party for giggling pixies and darker spirits. Guest elves include keyboardist John Medeski, DJ Mister Rourke, guitarist Duke Levine and slide guitarist Dave Tronzo. The players embellish the bejeezus out of Gumbylike grooves, etched deeply by Rivard and original Club d'Elf drummer Erik Kerr, drawing from both electric Miles and acoustic Morocco. Halfway through Perhapsody's 141 minutes, during "That Is My Voice," the band arrives at a rich, slow and sinuous plateau. It's there they abide through the end of the album, perfect masters of one enchanted evening. -- Richard Gehr

"I can't decide if this is a romantic song or a holy song," Judee Sill says, introducing "The Kiss." Her work hovers between those two poles -- religious and erotic ecstasy -- and at its best, it encompasses both of them at once. The Californian songwriter, who died in 1979, didn't leave behind much recorded evidence of her gifts: two completed albums, the posthumously finished Dreams Come True, and now Live in London, a collection of three BBC sessions from 1972 and 1973 (with some song overlap). Instead of the delicate West-Coast-folkie orchestrations of her studio albums, she's accompanied only by her own guitar and piano -- she picked up her gospel licks in reform school, she explains. Even more than most, her songs seem stripped bare this way, but their spiritual radiance flatters them: when "The Donor" breaks into a cry of "kyrie eleison," or she sighs the high notes of "The Kiss" in the 1973 session, it's shiveringly lovely. -- Douglas Wolk